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If I remember right, Uecker also had "vocal issues" during his heart surgery season. I'm not speculating, just merely stating what I think might have been fact. It also may have no correlation, too.

134 pitches. Yikes! Congrats, though. He looked tough.

If the St. Louis Cardinals baseball organization played a game against the ISIS National Team, I don't know who I'd cheer for. [Please don't make this political. It was just a random thought.]

This is been a really slow game. And Peterson can't catch a ball.

Scooter Gennett's game promo on the radio makes me laugh every time I hear it. It's great! So many players sound so wooden when talking but he definitely has personality.

Yep, well said. I never grew to like A-Ram as a Brewer. I think too many bad memories of him being a Cub prevented me from getting past it. But I did appreciate that he did come here and played hard. I kind of thought he signed with the Brewers to ride off into the sunset but he kept playing pretty darn good baseball for the first couple of years. Now that he's gone, though, he's back to what he was pre-Brewers for me. Fiers will always be looked at for his terrible 2013 season and cause many to say "meh" but the personal issues with his mother's health I'm sure was the key cog to why that season was what it was. If you throw that out, he has been a very decent to above average pitcher overall. I'd have liked to have kept him but I certainly understand that putting him in the deal netted the Brewers an even better prospect. And I know Go-Go bugged some people to no end on how he played the game. He might not be everybody's cup of tea. But as Mark DeRosa said this morning on MLB Central, "Players like Carlos Gomez don't just grow on trees." He was his own player and played by his own rules. That may infuriate one fan while simultaneously making another fan pee their pants with glee. I'll definitely miss him and I routinely had to change my shorts. Baseball doesn't infuriate me much anymore because I love the sport too much to make it affect my life that drastically. I'll be devastated if baseball disappears but I'm not going to let some caught stealing in the 9th inning on the road down by 2 runs ruin my night. Especially when we're 20 games out. Now, something like this happening in the playoffs would be a different story, of course. But I'd eventually get over it. Heck, I barely remembered that the Packers were thisclose to the Super Bowl last year until I started looking at fantasy football stuff. So, yes, hear-hear! To Mr. Ramirez, Fiers, and Gomez and best wishes from this Brewer fan.

I'm no expert, but I thought an "interstate highway" had to go into at least 2 states to get that classification. Otherwise, wouldn't it be an "intrastate highway?"

Batting practice is used balls that are taken out of play by the catcher after pitches in the dirt, etc. I believe that I read once upon a time that there are something like 20 dozen balls available for every game with another 10 dozen "on standby" at every ballpark. This was several years ago, though, so I have no idea how accurate this is anymore.

Kind of was discouraged getting into my classroom to do a bit of prep work for next week's first week of school and seeing my standing board showing the Brewers at 12 games under .500 when I left school before Memorial Day and they've made up only one game since then. But, hey! It's a winning record!

As much as I'd like a high draft pick, it also would be fun to do a mirror image of 2014. (Great start, blah middle, ugly end vs. ugly start, blah middle, great end) Would be neat to see them go 24-8 in Sept./Oct. after getting to .500 sometime late in August.

I enjoyed the new format. MUCH better than the old way. They could still tweak it, though. How about if you use your timeout, your opponent has to come in and hit? I would also change the distances for the bonus time. Round one, fine it can 425 ft. Round two, though, you gotta hit one 450 ft. to get the bonus time. And in the finals, 470 ft. It was way more entertaining this year, though, that's for sure. Of course, some of that was because the home town hero won the thing. Will MLB see this and then make a "Wild Card" entrant from the host team every year to make sure they get that kind of energy in the park? Really, the rest of the derby didn't seem to have all that much energy in the park. It worked for watching it on television, but it sure sounded like the crowd was bored off their gourds when Frazier wasn't hitting (or they weren't cheering for non-home runs from his opponent.)

If it IS back, that would be awesome! (Please read that in your best Chris Farley "Tommy Boy" voice.)

Why is that? Time to let the sour grapes go, he did his time, we all need to move on... It's more of the fact the rest of MLB has sour grapes(most notably NL Central foes). If we had to be represented by a single player I'd prefer a guy who won't be booed the whole week and talked about negatively. Just not how I would want the organization to be represented. Really just a minor thing and in the end I couldn't care less. Let Braun in the game. And put Arod in, too. Problem solved. All attention will be on Arod and Braun will be a footnote in the booing.

The last line of the article hit me a bit: "How OTL eventually got a hold of the notebook isn’t made explicitly clear in the story." Separate from the whole Rose thing, this makes ESPN look even more sinister than we already knew they were. I wonder if we'll ever find this out, how they got the notebook.

This right here. You play to win the game. Anyone who has a problem with what he did should go back and make sure the second base was touched every time the Nats turned a double play. Once again, this all falls on the umpire. He's the one that didn't enforce the rule. I'm sure you didn't mean this game, but, case you did, um, it was a perfect game. There were NO double play attempts as there were no base runners.

I'm just taken aback that we were as close as I will probably ever see anyone equal Johnny Vander Meer's record. We were literally thisclose to seeing it if Gomez's "hit" doesn't fall last Sunday.

The AT&T commercial for the first female in major league history bugs me because Bill Brown, the batter that she faces, looks like he's about 53 years old.

I may have missed it elsewhere on bf.net but I just saw on mlbtraderumors that Seattle has DFA'd Mr. Rickie Weeks.

I kind of blew off that article when I read it in ESPN the Mag and it was basically a story of how A.J. Ellis was the top catcher in all of baseball based on this "rating."

Huh, for the first time in forever, the Brewers broadcast is NOT blacked out here in Arizona. I usually have to fire up Uecker in MLB Audio or live with the DBack guys. Did they get rid of some blackout rules? Or is someone at Directv asleep at the switch? Edit (25 minutes later or so): Yep, there it goes. Option 2 was the correct answer. Here comes Uecker!

Along the same vein . . . Archie Bradley of the Diamondbacks was drilled in the face with a line drive last night. We've GOT to protect these pitchers! Starting in 2016, all pitchers will pitch with an "L" screen in front of the mound!

This entire post is me in a nutshell. Plus you could replace "Seinfeld" with "Calvin and Hobbes" and it'd still be the same.

There have been a couple occasions where Brian Kenny visits his show (or vice versa) and it is comedy gold. You've got a sabermatrician vs. an eye-ball test guy and they both VEHEMENTLY believe that they are correct. Comedy. Gold.

right after I posted I saw the outfielders breakdown. Outfielders The highest-paid outfielders, by average annual value: 1. Josh Hamilton, $25,000,000 (2013-17) … Giancarlo Stanton, $25,000,000 (2015-27) 3. Mike Trout, $24,083,333 (2015-20) 4. Hanley Ramirez, $22,000,000 (2015-18) 6. Jacoby Ellsbury, $21,857,143 (2014-20) 7. Manny Ramirez, $22,500,000 (2009-10) 8. Ryan Braun, $21,000,000 (2016-20) 9. Carl Crawford, $20,285,714 (2011-17) 10. Manny Ramirez, $20,000,000 (2001-08) . . . Matt Kemp, $20,000,000 (2012-19) 11. Shin-Soo Choo, $18,571,429 (2014-20) 12. Andruw Jones, $18,100,000 (2008-09) . . . Torii Hunter, $18,000,000 (2008-12) . . . Ichiro Suzuki, $18,000,000 (2008-12) . . . Vernon Wells, $18,000,000 (2008-13) . . . Jayson Werth, $18,000,000 (2011-17) . . . Hunter Pence, $18,000,000 (2014-18) 18. Matt Holliday, $17,142,857 (2010-16) 19. Carlos Beltran, $17,000,000 (2005-11) . . . Alfonso Soriano, $17,000,000 (2007-14) . . . Andre Ethier, $17,000,000 (2013-17) 22. Carlos Lee, $16,666,667 (2007-12) 23. Jason Bay, $16,500,000 (2010-13) 24. B.J. Upton, $15,050,000 (2013-17) 25. Magglio Ordonez, $15,000,000 (2005-09) . . . Carlos Beltran, $15,000,000 (2014-17) . . . Curtis Granderson, $15,000,000 (2014-17) 28. Ryan Braun, $14,550,000 (2011-20) 29. Adam Jones, $14,250,000 (2013-18) 30. Vladimir Guerrero, $14,000,000 (2004-08) . . . J.D. Drew, $14,000,000 (2007-11) . . . Nick Swisher, $14,000,000 (2013-16) 33. Hunter Pence, $13,800,000 (2013) 34. Albert Belle, $13,000,000 (1999-2003) . . . Johnny Damon, $13,000,000 (2006-09) . . . Hideki Matsui, $13,000,000 (2006-09) . . . Jose Bautista, $13,000,000 (2011-15) . . . Carlos Beltran, $13,000,000 (2012-13) . . . Torii Hunter, $13,000,000 (2013-14) 40. Bobby Abreu, $12,800,000 (2003-07) 41. Kosuke Fukudome, $12,000,000 (2008-11) . . . Jose Guillen, $12,000,000 (2008-10) . . . Aaron Rowand, $12,000,000 (2008-12) . . . Michael Bourn, $12,000,000 (2013-16) 45. Matt Holliday, $11,500,000 (2008-09) 46. Carlos Gonzalez, $11,428,571 (2011-17) 47. Nick Markakis, $11,016,667 (2009-14) 48. Jermaine Dye, $11,000,000 (2008-09) Why is Braun listed twice? #8 and #28

Yesterday, Brett Lawrie of the Athletics went 0-for-4. With 4 strikeouts. On 12 pitches. Hard to do, folks.