HumpLinks: Hosmer Redemption as Royals go up 1-0

Eric Hosmer had himself an interesting night. Too bad that New York fans couldn't stay up to see it. After Hosmer booted an infield grounder and allowed the Mets to take a late lead, going up 4-3 in the 8th, the Royals looked doomed. But with 1 out in the 9th Alex Gordon homered and totally bailed Hosmer out, making Hosmer the happiest dude in the State of Missouri. Hosmer then took advantage of an incredibly erratic Bartolo Colon and turned himself into Game 1 Hero with a walk-off sacrifice fly. This all ended at 1:30 AM in New York, where Mets fans will be reading about the outcome in the Post today.

Have some links with those breakfast Wheaties, Mets fans:

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Angels Baseball

HeresOur Chavez: The Angels hired on Eric Chavez to take up Special Assistant to the General Manager role. Eppler is familiar with him, as Chavez comes directly from the new York Yankee front office where he was special stuff there, too. Just one more guy to put on a uni and run around the minor league system causing consternation, I suppose. I hope he comes up to speed on his reading of The Angels Way pretty quickly (LOL). Maybe he can talk somebody into drafting a power-hitting third base prospect some year soon...........

2002: Buried within this highlight reel of the final pitch from each of the past 50 World Series, at the 7:21 mark, lies our own singular moment of glory. "Erstad's says he has it..."..........

Matt Klentak: Klentak gives us the quote of the year: "I wouldn't have left Mike Trout in his prime if I didn't believe we could win here." So here is something to contemplate. Mike Trout will be hitting his prime when his current contract expires, and Mke Trout grew up a huge Phillies fan. the same Phillie that now have a GM who knows damn good and well everything I just typed..........

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Elsewhere in Baseball

Tail Wagging: It turns out that Fox took down a World Series game because they lost their broadcast truck. This, by the way, is something that only a San Francisco earthquake could do. Since MLB leverages the broadcast feed for instant replay and instant replay is now in the rule books, the game was halted so that everyone could sort out how to proceed with a game of baseball without Fox Sports television. As Fox crews scrambled to rejoin and take back over the event, the game eventually resumed without them............

Cord Cutting: However, just before Fox technology took out a World Series game, Google Fiber took out their first-ever market: Kansas-fracking-City. You read that right. Cord-cutters using Google fiber for their streaming source, among whom would be Google's charter customers, were blocked from witnessing their hometown team compete in Game 1 at home. Newbies. Whattaya gonna do?......FYI, LAT took us all on a tour of cord-cutting just yesterday...........

Caveat Emptor: Beware The Pablo Sandoval Daniel Murphy temptation............

Buck Me: Yeah, NO. If you want to show Joe Buck is not some kind of Yankee/Cardinal favoring mega-biased asshat, you might want to rethink leading off his new talk show by hosting Derek Jeter as your first guest. Bejeebus. Might as well just rub everyone's face in it...........On the other hand, I am not going to be blaming Jeter for anything. It's not his fault that the dude truly is leading one of humanity's most blessed lives............

Ok, this is fair: I get MLB for their poor understanding of the use of social media to extend their market reach at zero cost to themselves. But that does not apply to selling unlicensed merchandise outright..........

Live for Live?: This might be the kind of thing that encourages me to turn off the TV and buy a season ticket. The march of technology is cool and all (it pays MY bills, dammit!), but I have my limits. And the "promise" of tech integration into game broadcasts, being built by an obscure astrophysicist and backed by Mark Cuban, appears to be too much for my level of attention............

Bud: We have a Budweiser Patio out in right field, too. How come we don't get to watch a World Series game there?Oh, yeah, that's right............

Tidbits: Why do games start 5 minutes past the hour? The something I learned today............

Torii Hunter: Let's not get carried away. Torii Hunter was fun, but Torii Hunter is not a Hall of Fame player...........

Slow News Day: Who are these "everyone" who worry about which team would win the World Series, the '85 Royals or the '86 Mets, when you have the '05 Royals and the '05 Mets about to figure this out smack in front of everyone's nose???............Also in slow news, Kansas City Parks Department have turned all the city water fountains a sparkling blue. How do they know to be using Royal blue and not Mets blue?? And how are they going to get that dye out of the water later on??.............

Len Dick-stra: Meanwhile, it's Lenny Dykstra Being An Idiot season once again. Today we launch with a pair of stupid claims. First, Lenny wants us to believe that he ran spy missions and spent $500 grand to blackmail MLB umpires into granting him a Derek Jeter strike zone.  The other tidbit was how he hopped himself up on steroids as a way to ease aches and pains. Oh, and by the way, he got to pump himself up for a huge contract extension.............

Long Form: You young-un's don't know of the mastery that was Sandy Koufax. The view from today, mostly through the telescope of statistical comparisons, misses the meat - and heart - of the breathtaking mound dominance that was Koufax. Spend some time here and get a taste of one of the immortals............

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