Recorded Friday August 1, 2014
On Lester and Gomes to the A’s for Cespedes, why the price was so low for Price, and the moves that should’ve been made but weren’t.
Recorded Monday July 28, 2014
On why Big Papi thinks he’s bigger than than the game, the best rivalry in baseball, and why MLB should consider pushing the trade deadline back a couple of weeks.
Ladies and gentleman, we have a new best rivalry in sports and it is…the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox! What makes it the best if that there is genuine disdain between these two clubs which has already resulted in several bench clearing incidents this year and it’s just barely June.
Jonny Gomes would like to have a conversation with Yunel Escobar
But before we talk about the now, I would like to take you on a journey back to the dawning of the rivalry ‘tween these two clubs we now see blossoming right before our very eyes. I remember it very well because I watched the game.
It was August 29, 2000. The 15-4 Pedro Martinez (who would win the Cy Young that year) took the mound for the 2nd-place Boston Red Sox against some guy named Dave Eiland who was just helping the team then known as the Devil Rays kill time until the end of another dismal 60-92 season. This would be the 3rd of 10 consecutive losing seasons the Rays began their baseball existence with.
Boston was in Tampa. Gerald Williams was the Rays’ leadoff hitter. The count is 1-2 when this happened:
This was memorable for 2 reasons:
The 1st is, Gerald Williams gets a great shot in on Pedro. I’d always wanted to see Pedro get punched in the face and now I had. It was a bonus that Williams was a former Yankee whom I always liked because he played hard.
YES!
The 2nd is because Pedro took a no-hitter into the 9th which would have been a perfect game had he not plunked Williams and, of course, that was all the announcers could talk about. It made for great debate, the possibility of Pedro tossing a no-no but his stupidity costing him a shot at perfection. I remember sitting there wanting to see it happen. The Yankees were in 1st and 2004 was four years away so I didn’t care if they won the game because I thought it’d be hysterical to watch the Red Sox player I despised the most throw the most disappointing no-hitter in MLB history.
In the bottom of the 9th Martinez was facing the 8-9-1 spots in the Rays’ lineup which meant that light-hitting catcher John Flaherty was leading off. He singles. No-no gone. It was depressing. I felt as if Pedro knew that if he completed the no-hitter that the story would forever be the perfect game that wasn’t instead of the no-hitter that was, and decided he did not want that to be part of his legacy. I honestly felt as if Pedro had willingly given up a no-hitter just to not talk about the imperfect game.
So that is how it began and here are some of the more notable incidents through the years.
Last year John Lackey and Matt Joyce got unfriendly.
This year we have all this Papi-David Price stuff going on.
A few weeks ago Price hits Ortiz and Mike Carp, tempers flare.
Then Ortiz proclaims “war” (douche bag) on Price.
Here Price perfectly refutes Ortiz’s moronic war comment and more.
As i said earlier, in case you didn’t know, Tampa Bay-Boston is the best current rivalry in all of sports because there is genuine disdain and vehemence between these two teams who have to play each other 19 times a year.
So if i were you, I’d mark my calender for Friday July 25th which is the next time these two teams will meet again because there is sure to be some lingering issues these team will need to discuss by throwing baseballs at each other. An extra helping of July fireworks if you will.
Recorded Tuesday June 3, 2014
On Rob’s picks for his ultimate concert, our no-brainer $15 NBA starting lineups, Price vs. Papi, and the Stanley Cup Final.
Part-Timers Sports Podcast 