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Pull up a chair while we talk about all things Blue Jays-related.
Healthy discussion is always encouraged!
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Friday, March 28, 2014

Mulliniks’ Moustache #10 – Beer & The Blue Jays

Allow me, if you will, to paint a picture:

Imagine a sunny, warm summer afternoon. The sun is high in the sky, bathing you in brilliant sunshine. You’re watching your beloved Blue Jays, surrounded by a friendly, well-mannered and unnervingly quiet crowd. In your right hand is a hotdog, topped with your favourite condiments – ketchup, mustard, sauerkraut, onions. In your left hand is another ballpark staple – peanuts in the shell. You settle into your seat. You decided to wear short-shorts today, so your upper thighs are a tad raw due to the warm seat. That won’t dampen your spirits though!

You delicately devour your food as the first pitch is thrown – a strike on the outside corner. Enjoying the first inning, you realize your salty treats have made you thirsty. What’s the tried-and-true, time-honoured way to remedy such a situation? The third piece of the baseball food Holy Trinity – a cold, refreshing beer. You know you’re going to pay through the nose for it, but that’s just the accepted way things are done when you’re taking in the ol’ ballgame.

“HEY! Beer guy! Gimme two!” you bellow to the man doing the Lord’s work.

He saunters over.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Mulliniks’ Moustache #9 – Toronto Blue Jays 2014 Opening Day Lineup

For better or for worse, below is your Opening Day 25-man roster for the 2014 Toronto Blue Jays.

Starting Pitchers
RHP R.A. Dickey
RHP Drew Hutchison
LHP Mark Buehrle
RHP Brandon Morrow
RHP Dustin McGowan


Bullpen
RHP Casey Janssen
RHP Steve Delabar
RHP Sergio Santos
LHP Aaron Loup
LHP Brett Cecil
RHP Esmil Rogers
RHP Todd Redmond
RHP Jeremy Jeffress


Starting Players
C Dioner Navarro
1B Edwin Encarnacion
2B Ryan Goins
SS Jose Reyes
3B Brett Lawrie
LF Melky Cabrera
CF Colby Rasmus
RF Jose Bautista
DH Adam Lind

Bench
INF Maicer Izturis
OF Moises Sierra
C Josh Thole


(This was straight up stolen from torontosun.com http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/26/your-2014-blue-jays-roster)

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Mulliniks’ Moustache #8 – The Bench; The Bullpen

A baseball team’s bench and bullpen are inexplicably and intrinsically linked. Backup position players and (in essence) backup pitchers. In many people’s brains, the bench and bullpen are mere afterthoughts. In reality, though, they play a large part in the fortunes of baseball teams.

Hell, even when a manager throws in the towel and calls on a position player to pitch an inning of mop-up duty during particularly terrible blowouts, he usually calls on a bench player (Jose Canseco notwithstanding) to ply his new trade and float batting-practice-perfected knuckleballs at seasoned major league hitters.

A major league baseball team’s bench is a motley crew of three to five not-quite-everyday-players that spend most of the season seated on – you guessed it – the bench, just waiting for a slow runner to get on base late in the game, or for an everyday player to require a sporadic day off.

We’re motoring towards the end of Spring Training, so as of this point, the 2014 Blue Jays version of The Bench is looking as such:
  1. Back-up catcher (RA Dickey’s best friend Eric Kratz)
  2. Back-up infielder (the Blue Jays $3-million man Maicer Izturis)
  3. Back-up outfielder (out-of-options Moises Sierra)

Monday, March 10, 2014

Mulliniks’ Moustache #7 – Ricky Romero & The Yips

No, that’s not a band…although, it’s a pretty awesome name for one! I CALL DRUMS!!

Anyway, to the task at hand: Blue Jays’ fans sixth-favourite* left-handed pitcher – Ricky Romero. We've all had a front-row seat to watch the fall and rise and fall of Ricky Romero, from first round draft pick, to near-bust, to All-Star on the cusp of ace-dom, all the way back down to (barely) a AAA pitcher.

Personally, it’s been difficult to watch. Romero was a lefty bulldog, taking the ball every fifth day without fail. Even when he was struggling, he never made excuses. Despite reported arm and knee issues, which were/are so bad that John Lott from the National Post reported recently that Romero had stem cells inserted into his knee to help alleviate the pain. Romero simply went to the mount and pitched – poorly at times – every fifth day and was always accountable, which is refreshing from a professional athlete.

From all accounts, the root cause of Romero’s problems are all mental – a kind of/sort of mild case of The Yips (see also: Sax, Steve; Knoblauch, Chuck; and Ankiel, Rick for more dramatic examples of The Yips). For the uninitiated, TheYips is baseball nomenclature for rare situations where players simply lose the ability to perform seemingly mundane, “Baseball 101”-type tasks – like throwing a ball from second base to first, or from the mound to home. It’s not easy to watch players suffer through The Yips. Case in point: Rick Ankiel, a 20-year-old lefty phenom who, in part, led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 2000 NLDS. In his first career post season start, he literally and figuratively fell apart. He threw six wild pitches in the third inning alone and had five walks overall. Incredibly, the Cardinals won the game, despite Ankiel’s struggles. He made a couple of subsequent appearances, but for all intents and purposes. Ankiel was done as a Major League pitcher.**

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Mulliniks’ Moustache #6 – Rogers Centre Fan “Quirks”

Opening day is just around the corner, so I figured now was the optimal time to touch on a few specific instances in regard to the in-game experience at Rogers Centre.

There are three things above all else – “quirks” if you will – that confuse, confound and annoy me about Blue Jay fans at Rogers Centre. I’ve tried for years to figure these out and frankly, I’m stumped. While I have been to baseball games at a couple of other stadiums, I haven’t been to enough to gauge if this is a Toronto-only phenomenon. However, I don’t recall experiencing these phenomena elsewhere, so I feel pretty safe in assuming these are Toronto-centric issues.

In no particular order, they are: