The Angels have spent lots of money over the past few seasons, but their bullpen looks really shaky still. By Amin Eshaiker, via Wikimedia Commons

In this episode, Luke, Andy, and Owen talked about the dumpster fire that has been the Angels’ bullpen, whether Yasiel Puig has been judged unfairly, and how exciting it is to have the best college baseball team on the West Coast right here in San Luis Obispo.

Freshman Slater Lee showed Cal Poly fans why Larry Lee inserted him as the Saturday starter in the opening series. By Owen Main

Coming into his first collegiate appearance, I wondered how good Slater Lee really was. As a true freshman, could he really step-in and be a number-two starter on a team that has aspirations larger than the regional they made it to last year?

In his debut, Lee didn’t disappoint.

If there is an aspect of the team that is a big question-mark for Cal Poly this year, it is the reliability of the Friday and Saturday starters. On Saturday, Lee struck-out seven and allowed just one run in 6 1/3 innings, giving up only two hits.

The one Kansas State run got off Lee was the result of a double-play ball that went off his foot followed by a swinging bunt. The Wildcats only managed to get one ball out of the infield on Lee all night long.

Mustang true freshman Slater Lee leaves the game in the 7th leading 3-1…6 1/3 IP 1R 2H 7K 1W. Only one ball to the outfield. Nice job!

— 'C.J.' Silas (@cjsilas) February 16, 2014

The season is a long one, but on Saturday, Cal Poly fans saw why Larry Lee put a freshman as his number-two starter.

Assistant coach Teddy Warrecker was especially pleased with Lee’s performance, calling it “special” on Twitter.

Slater Lee was special tonight in his first college start #gamer

— Teddy Warrecker (@teedubb25) February 16, 2014

With the win, Cal Poly clinches the series against Kansas State for the second straight year. They’ll go for the sweep Monday at 1:00.

[See image gallery at www.fansmanship.com]

These are the true dog days.

June has wound itself down. July is upon us. Temperatures are up over 100 degrees and night games have become a fan’s best friend. People will try to talk NFL already but, for now at least, baseball has its turn.

It’s my favorite time of the year.

Baseball is a game that goes with the rhythm of the working man. Where football is a popular weekend distraction, forcing fan anxiety throughout any week, baseball’s rhythm is that of the 9-5 toiler. Each and every day, through the heat of the summer, baseball players and fans get to the ballpark, go through their routine, eat their hot dogs, drink their beer, and obey the most American of rituals around a game that so few non-Americans understand.

Yesterday, I heard a college football coach being interviewed on a sports radio show. It was July 1. As soon as the NBA was over, the largest sports network in the country who would love to have more of a stake in baseball started to bash it and talk football. It was a mistake.

Baseball is truly the most patriotic of American sports. By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class David McKee, via Wikimedia Commons

July is for baseball. In August, we will start to talk about football, but let’s sit back and enjoy baseball for a few months here. Let’s get excited over the nuance. Go through our daily fan routine. Be pumped when we haven’t payed attention for a few days and look up and our team is making a surge.

Don’t even get me started about spending time at games. Being at a baseball game, getting the true dimensionality of the field, and the sights, smells, and sounds is a sensory treat that is anticipated before and yearned for after. Visiting a game is like a choose your own adventure fan experience. A fan can choose to visit with friends if he/she wants to just casually watch the game. Fans can also choose to keep score, paying attention to every intricate detail for 2-3 hours. In no other sport to fans keep score.

In other sports, there are constant fouls, penalties, and other rules infractions that result in punishment. While there are some of these still, America’s pastime is generally devoid of that kind of regular public punishment. Other sports are timed. It’s cliche, but baseball is timeless. In fact, the sport itself is a wonderful cliche of opportunistic players from this country and immigrants making their mark and experiencing the true American Dream.

“Owen, this is too corny,” you might say.

Yep. I know. I don’t care.

“You are just excited because the Dodgers are making up ground in the National League West.”

I won’t lie, that probably has a lot to do with it. The Dodgers, after all, have gone from 12 games under .500 to just 3 1/2 games back of first place, led by a player from a communist country who has turned into the spark they needed.

As a reminder to those of you who are patriotic Americans — neither orange or black are American colors. Don’t forget it.

Dave Grant primarily calls men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, women’s basketball, and softball for Cal Poly on gopoly.com

Most Cal Poly fans can recognize the voice of Tom Barket, who is the play-by-play announcer for football, men’s basketball, and baseball. He is, fairly clearly, the voice of the Mustangs. But, in the words of Yoda, there is another.

Less than one year ago, Dave Grant was brought on to announce play-by-play for Cal Poly Athletics. The first game he called was a men’s soccer game vs. UCSB. After Cal Poly won the match on a late dramatic goal, he was reminded that “not every game is going to be this exciting.”

While that is true, you might not know it talking to Grant. He is all-energy and you can tell he really has a passion for calling live sports.

I first heard Dave’s voice when Joe Callero’s men’s basketball squad won a low-scoring victory over USC in the Galen Center last season. To keep anyone listening during such an offensively bereft game was certainly a challenge, but Grant painted a solid picture of the game.

We’ll try to catch up with him more as the Fall season progresses. Hope you enjoy.

The popular belief of the casual tends to lean towards some sort of let-down during this current season within the season of Major League Baseball.  But do the wins and losses accumulated now count any more or less towards the eventual outcome when September rolls around? Of course not.

Most seem to dread a marathon as its mass, as the long monotonous trek that it is, rather than esteem the bare-bones assembly of its stock. Each step could be better or worse than the last one. Steps that keep improving result in a greater outcome, regardless of the length of the journey, right?

But is it as simple as that? Is this basic ideology the mindset that wins in baseball? Yes and No. Yes in the sense that true professionals always strive to improve every single day. And equally, no in the sense that always taking a step forward every single day in the tour that is the baseball season is an unrealistic premise.

The beauty of the game of baseball lies in its ying-yang balance as well as in its measured patience.  You can kick two ground balls today and always come back tomorrow and hit two home runs.  The worst day of your career could be followed by the best day of your career, without even a well-trained eye looking at it as any kind of relevant deviation.  The “every day is a new day,” clean-slate mindset is what drives a bat, a glove or an arm to get that next big hit, make that next diving catch or execute that next clutch pitch.

Detractors contend that there are too many games.  I hear it all the time.  “I mean, comon’, man. 162 of ’em?”  To appreciate baseball is to revel in those 162 contests.  The enjoyment and passion within the day-to-day struggle is the very essence that made baseball a trademark pastime.

Baseball was at its peak when Americans were striving overachievers.  They were grinding.  They were on the rise.  The fact that today’s society scoffs at the monotony of our great game only speaks to the lack of effort we, as Americans, are putting forth towards our common cause as an encompassing gross, a gross that has seemingly lost the gravity of the overall net result.

A valid taste for the game comes with a simple understanding.  To acknowledge great players and great teams is not to bandwagon on simply the home run they hit on a particular time at bat, but it is to admire the adversity they had to overcome over many attempts to get back to that place.

Baseball is inherently a game of failure.  Success lies in an unwavering consistency, the ability to bounce back, the aptitude to respond within the cycle after weathering the omnipresent struggle.

I marvel at the clubs that break the mold of popular belief. They are the ones who refuse to make excuses simply because on-lookers have a built-in evasion to describe mid-season failure.

A baseball valley does not live on an entire page of a calendar.  Both the peaks and the valleys live in the next game, the next inning, the next at-bat, the next pitch.

“The Dog Days of Summer?”  That’s the creed of so-called contending franchises who won’t ever see October.  Well, unless they happen to tune in on TV, wishing they were there, while hopelessly debating the baffle of why they aren’t.

Once while pitching a no-hitter in the sixth grade my pants ripped through the crotch revealing the graying pickled nose of my sweaty cup. I was determined to battle through, as if my twelve year old league held a form of valor similar to that of an ancient warriors, but to no avail.  The likes of frozen nut syndrome, and the admittance of a heart crush on a certain girl staring at me with eyes of embarrassment, wide as a horse surfaced my jitters and combusted my moment of greatness into a final inning disaster: four hits (including to the eighth hitter in the lineup), three runs, plenty of walks, and a head hung low–an oversized one to say the least.

At sixteen I opened up to a pastor regarding sexuality and he told me to put tobasco sauce on my fingertips to stop me fiddling down under. He didn’t say fiddling down under, because I am sure he thought the last thing he should do is jest, and hence arise the humorist within me. If you wonder whether I tried it, I did. It doesn’t work, just warms it up a little, and besides that rather good factoid…I was a healthy boy, one whom hid posters of Kathy Ireland splayed in string bikinis under my A-Rod posters.

Nothing can stop the activity of a healthy buck.

Once asked which man I would choose to make love too (if a gun was stuck to my head), I asserted the mulleted Full House version of John Stamos. My reasons for choosing the Italian Stallion I’m sure America is to blame for, considering every and any form of media promises a perfect life, perfect body, and a rock n’ roll existence; all of which Stamos is packaged with.

Two years ago I woke my wife in the middle of the night randomly shouting “tortilla!” Now if I have an issue with sleep speaking, which means I am a sleep muser, should I fear what forms of things I am dreaming about? Not if food continues to assert its dominance over other meaningless dreamscapes: embodying Snake Eyes, living life as a merman, and fathering pinkie size children.

Like labyrinths without an exit we all concede sanity: meanings, definitions, those manicured mathematics that theorize everything and butter our world with the blood of care bears. Sets of religioius rules and values– things like morals should never be ingested into macro environments. Macro morals foreshadow hysterical immorality, and concede an acceptance for equality and diversity.

The problem? America IS diversity and equality. We are the segway to continuity and progression; rationality and spirituality; division and equality. All that IS can be found in US, not a political invention, nor the modern motor model for human thinking. A is not to B, as B is not to C. Rather ABC are to Z as Z is to variable X.

State of mind X governs you and I, like light and darkness, food and water. We NEED our state of being like children incessantly seeking the truths to the universe: the magic of breathing in oxygen only to blow carbon dioxide out the fleshy greenhouse of the lungs, or the oxidation complex in our vein constructs, that without the immersion of water in a ninety-six hour period of time will fail and cause us cardiac arrest.

These NEEDS we cannot live without. Attempting to do so is death, and death seems to hold no regard for stature or faith. Our states of mind fill our rather skeletal longings with wonderment and hope–love, lust, passion, and desire. There is no other explanation when it comes to our definitive stance on the difference between entertainment and athletics. Once a fine line drawn in the sand has become muddied and spilled over–a loss of interpretive elements with no grid in which to define the two.

I once saw a kid strain so hard during a math quiz, that I questioned my definition of athletics. I am certain many of our interpretations are drawn from historiography: things like the Roman Olympics which safe-guarded the athlete from the philosopher with varied themes of quest, champion, and bodily strain, overrun by a will to beat-out adversity.

This in Roman days the Philosopher did not do. Though incredibly respected, the philosopher had no peril to overcome. And to today’s Roman thinker, the fork between intellectual achievements and athletic accomplishments are grounded in the same theory.

But how ridiculous! I lost my now hitter because I did not have the intellectual where-with-all to steady the body. The boy who strained during his math quiz flexed his forehead and scribbled with his pen. His intellect directed the achievement, and the achievement left him physically exhausted.

Both worked in unison.

We all have columns of W’s and L’s in our lives: some unfortunately more victorious others. This alone sets us on quest larger than the Lakers, LeBron James, or Dirk Nowitiski. Our states of mind are stuck in a never-ending dog fight ( I am not referencing Mike Vick), and we are called upon daily, hourly, and momentarily, to overcome adversity and make something of ourselves.

With time running out at work, our relationships, our health,  and our family, we grow accustomed to taking the last shots. We alone are our very own last-minute closer in the sports of our lives. Rest in peace Macho Man.

Every game on attends affords an opportunity to see athletic prowess and also to people-watch. A few fellow fans always stand out. Some of these include: the Red Sox fans lobbing obscenities at Wally, the Green Monster; the Rockies fan who had to be carried out by four security guards, because he was so inebriated; Bryce who drinks Windex, who had to go show his belly in left field of a really boring Indians-White Sox game; and the drunk softball fan, who stood behind the backstop and heckled our pitcher throughout an entire coed game.

Every venue has a little different flavor, and that flavor is created by the people that are there. The fansmanship of a place is intangible and yet so apparent and real to the trained eye.

Tonight I was at a game where one guy with a loud voice dominated. I’m sure it isn’t outside the norm of youth sports these days, but the guy was really annoying. Annoying enough for me to write about it and for this fan to be one I’ll remember for some time.

I know the guy couldn’t help it. He was so excited about how well his son was playing and that he was doing so on a really good high school team. His voice echoed as he spouted random stories about how he almost fought a coach when he son was in Little League – over playing another kid in right field who was really bad.

I tried to focus on the game as he kept talking to the three or four parents around him who seemed in awe of his stories of how good his kid was at third base, and how it just happened that he was also an excellent catcher. Fine.

When his son hit a line drive over the center-fielder’s head for his third double of the game, I think a line was crossed.

“Yeah, live that pitch up. That was stupid,” the father said.

Like nails on a chalk-board. Parents and fans from the opposing team started to murmur. they turned around as if to let that guy know that his internal monologue wasn’t really internal. The man’s son had just capped off an amazing game and all he could do was say something derogatory about the opposing pitcher. It says a lot about the character of the opposing fans that some kind of riot or altercation didn’t break out. Maybe the police officer in the stands had something to do with it.

Listen, it’s easy to get caught-up in the moment, especially when a person has so much emotional investment in the individual or team on the field. But when the guy became worse at keeping his thoughts to himself than when Austin Powers came out of the unfreezing process, we have issues.

What really struck me was that this is probably a mild incident compared to many. We know pro sports aren’t the nonstop fun and games they’re purported to be: just look at Dodger Stadium or Oakland during a Raiders game. Unfortunately, youth sports can be, at times, worse.

Nothing stirs emotion like people’s kids and stories surface all the time about unruly fans at youth sporting events. The guy at the game tonight didn’t mean to be unruly. He probably believes in his heart that he’s done nothing wrong. He has no way to monitor himself in these situations

Here’s hoping we can all take a deep breath and not be that guy. And if that guy does show up, here’s hoping someone ( preferably someone who is rooting for the same team he is) tells him to sit down and shut up.

For this week’s “what-if,” I decided to turn the equation around. Lots of pro athletes think they can act. Recent revelations about Charlie Sheen have been interesting. He seems to be doing a new outlandish interview every day. The first of these interviews was with a sports personality, Dan Patrick. In that interview, Sheen talks about his love of baseball, the movie Major League, and his open pass to the UCLA batting cages. His tips to the UCLA team were humorous but didn’t spark my imagination as much as thinking of Sheen as an athlete.

So my question is this: What if Sheen was a pro athlete and not an actor?

The mention of Sheen in the entertainment world is akin to the mention of Kobe or Lebron in the sports world. It brings about such a wide variety of opinions and emotion. My wife’s eye rolls at Sheen are legendary. Everyone cares one way or another- or tries so hard not to care, that it comes off as caring.

In his Dan Patrick interview, which I posted here, Charlie came off as engaging, honest, and energetic. Someone on the show described his energy as contagious — one of the things that probably makes his show the top rated show on television. As an athlete, Sheen would probably be something between ManRam at his best, Magic Johnson, and the Red Sox version of Curt Schilling. Engaging and fun first, enjoying life, and seemingly indifferent to any negative opinions.

I said I would go back and explain why the NBA fosters guys who want to be actors so here goes. The NBA, more than any league, is star-driven. Stars make more of a difference in the daily winning and losing of a team more than any other professional team sport in this country. An NBA Coach once said that the winning team will be the one that gets the most shots for their best player.

That being said, NBA players likely have egos bigger than those in other sports. They are one of 12 on a given team rather than one of 25 or one of 53. They don’t wear helmets and the NBA purports to be one of the most theatrical professional leagues. Baseball players have a few instances where they use theatrics, but nothing like the NBA. NFL players aren’t flopping trying to take charges.

To be an NBA player means you are one of the elite and have been treated differently for a long time. Charlie Sheen has always been part of the Hollywood elite. His father and brother are both famous actors, and he has never known how to be any different than he is. The problem with this, of course, is that he’s never known how to be any different than he is.

What kind of a teammate would Charlie Sheen be and could he relate to his teammates? Contrary to what a fan’s initial reaction might be, I think Sheen would probably be a really good teammate. His infectious positive attitude is one that, like ManRam did for the Dodgers or Magic to the Lakers, can soak deep into the attitudes of his teammates.

One of the things Athletes have in common with Charlie Sheen, at least on the surface, is money. But looking more closely, there are under five athletes who can hold a candle to Sheen’s money and none who can match his power as an actor – at least until his show canceled the rest of its season recently.

Not that I have any personal experience with any of it, but $3 million per week is a lot more than what any athlete makes. At $3 million per week (even if it’s hugely taxed and you’re only taking home, say, half…), you are able to do pretty much whatever it is you please. With no repercussions from his employers until the past week, Sheen has pulled in his huge income and has been able to do whatever he has wanted whenever he pleased.

When sitting around with a bunch of dudes tonight, I brought up the question and the first name that came out of people’s mouths was Tiger Woods. Unlike Woods, Sheen would probably be a great teammate. All indicators are that he is trying to make sure the crew of his show are taken care of, even while it isn’t shooting.

The money Sheen makes and the power he wields as an individual are what make Sheen and Woods Similar.  Sheen’s income has probably been closer to that of Woods than any other pro athlete. The psychology behind being a singularly popular sensation has to be similar. Like Woods, Sheen’s misdeeds have finally caught up to him. Like Woods, I can’t be sure if Sheen will ever be the same.

Unlike Woods, though, Sheen would be an excellent teammate in his chosen sport, which would almost certainly be baseball. The unwritten rules and unexplainable cosmic principles that guide baseball are to Sheen the basic fundamentals of life itself. While Sheen may not have been able to control himself while on his own, why couldn’t a team keep him in line. With talent like Sheen has, he would be a Gold Glove outfielder willing to do anything for his teammates. Having never spent any time in his presence, my best guess is that, as a pro athlete, he would be equal parts Shane Victorino, Tiger Woods, Curt Schilling, and, unfortunately, Miguel Cabrera.

I hope Sheen stays sober. The world is more interesting with him around, and I wouldn’t say that about any actor or any celebrity. His Ochocinco-like panache would make any sport more interesting.

As long as his skills stay strong in his field and as long as he takes care of himself enough to continue in the craft of acting, Sheen will be interesting. Here’s hoping he doesn’t  start declining like Ochocinco. Here’s hoping he hasn’t already blown his chance.

owen@fansmanship.com

It is news that means rather little to your life, that is, unless you believe Susan Lucci to be the greatest actress since Faye Dunaway.

According to Manny Ramirez, he and past teammate Johnny Damon, “are back.”

Back from what? Last I checked both had become irrelevant, and overpaid. Back in Beantown? Not a chance. Back together? Absolutely. Do I hear the making of a Brokeback sequel?

Today Johnny Damon knotted a one year, 5.25 million dollar contract, and Ramirez, a one year, 2 million dollar deal with the crumbling Devil Rays.  They join a solid pitching rotation, boasting the likes of David Price, and do it all third basemen in Evan Longoria.

Any other off-season, signing two veterans like Ramirez and Damon would only strengthen your team. Both have won World Series’, and know what it takes to get there.  But this off-season, is not your normal off-season for the Rays. They’ve watched many of their central components go elsewhere. The biggest of these, Center fielder Carl Crawford, a rare breed of both speed, defensive prowess, and occasional power. Last year the star hit .307, with 19 homers, and 90 runs batted in, and over the last 8 years,  has averaged 50 stolen bases, making him the most sought after base stealer in the league. He was the set-up for a team in the top five in every major offensive category. Not to mention, a fan favorite, a guy who had built a name for himself in the Rays small market. Crawford’s positive locker room presence will be sorely missed for a team with a long list of young players. His nine seasons with the Rays, made him the longest tenured player on the club. Drafted in 1999, in the 2nd round, Crawford had stayed true blue to the organization that believed in him first; so losing him, is like losing your heart.

Another missing piece this season, will be first baseman Carlos Pena. Pena, who inked a one year deal with the Cubs, is best known as a defensive-minded first baseman, but also, a guy who can hit the long ball. Over the last four years, Pena has belted 144 homers, giving the Rays legitimate pop in the middle part of their lineup. He and Longoria were the pieces looked at to drive in runs, and create pitching problems for the opponents in the later innings. Now that Pena is gone, Longoria will have to pick up more of the slack–which  can lend itself to burn-out, then a few poor years, and ultimately a young player who never fully blossoms into the kind of player he could have become.

The burden is not only felt in the lineup. It is also felt on the pitching side of things. Losing Middle-reliever Juaquin Benoit to the Tigers, may not sound as serious as it is. But Benoit was the go to middle guy, who held opponents to a .147 batting average. He was the guy who kept things close if Price, Davis, Garza, or Shields had an off-night.

So let the Soap Opera begin.

Whether we want to admit it or not, Ramirez can still hit. The problem has never been getting one of the greatest hitters this league has ever seen to hit the ball out of the park, or drive in runs. It has always been his focus, his wayfarer attitude, his incessant need to spout ridiculous comments in the media; comments like “we’re back.”

Since being dealt to the Dodgers in 2008, Ramirez legacy has been severely tainted. After an incredible second half with L.A. in 2008, when the future Hall of Fame out-fielder hit .396, with 17 homers and 56 RBI, Ramirez spent a quarter of 09′ on the bench with both a league suspension, and a quandary of random injuries.  His sudden decline was not physical, rather a mental paradigm made of a growing disconnect between Manny, the man with 555 career home runs, and little “m” manny: the hippie, off-beat, Ricky Williams of Baseball.

The funniest thing about Manny Ramirez is the dude could hit the ball with one eye, high on cocaine. The last 100 games of 09′, the star hit .290, with 19 home runs, and 63 RBIs. He then came into training camp in 2010, with a bad attitude and a misery of peculiar injuries. Despite playing only 63 games with the Dodgers the first half of 2010, he hit .311. But when is enough, enough? When the Dodgers grew tired of little “m” manny, they gave him away to the Chicago Whitesox, where he played the most uninspired baseball of his life. It was like watching Bob Marley swing a bat with his dreads, then as he whiffed, do an Irish jig in a mini skirt.

Now that we are primed for 2011, to watch the high-on-self Ramirez, play his former team the Red Sox, 25-30 times, it will be an intriguing process to wait for Ramirez’s self-destruction, and his flammable comments in the media. I wonder what the small-town Rays will think of a figure like Ramirez, a man who finds little value in anything but to bother others with his naturally-lazy- ability to hit the baseball.

I hate saying it, but Ramirez is arguably the best hitter on the Rays. Yet as always, it will be a waiting game, as we determine which Manny will show. If big “M” decides to rear his mysterious head, another 40 homer, 125 RBI season, could be in the making. And sadly for a guy like the hardworking Longoria, he will probably be swallowed by the belly of a man who has always been able to steal the show from the just about everyone he comes in contact with.  But even if he does, it does not mean we will see a repeat of the 2010 Rays, a team of role guys, willing to sacrifice for every bit of their American league best 96 wins. With a pick-up like Manny, you know for every loss of a ‘w’, a willing television agency will be knocking on your door, asking to create a T.V. show based upon your life.

And sadly, in today’s sports world, money talks.

*Note that I am aware I did not talk about Johnny Damon in this article. And let me ask you, considering the brittle, overrated, thirty seven year old “has been”… do I really have to?

—Luke Johnson