ESPN's got a few articles on the Padres today talking about how fantastic we are, but if you're a Padres fan and you don't have Insider, prepare to fork over some cash to get them to tell you that.
The whole thing reminds me of this one time I got an Asian massage and like I just needed one last little bit to feel really good, so I... Wait a second.... Focus...
In any case, I'm not going to spit the articles up here, but just know that Jayson Stark says that Hoffman is an easy first ballot Hall of Famer and that saying Rivera is better (even though Hoffman has a better save percentage over more years, few baserunners allowed, and lower opponent batting average), is just trying to compare two of the very very best. In other words, there's no reason why they both can't be among the most elite ever. (Though we all know that Hoffman is better and that Rivera benefits from pinstripes and East Coast Bias)
It's like trying to say Dimaggio was better than Ted Williams and for that reason Ted Williams shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.
Buster Olney has a nice piece about the record breaking day. DID YOU KNOW... Jim Lett was the manager who suggested that Hoffman try pitching and that Jim Tracy managed Hoffman the very next year for his first full season as a pitcher? FURTHERMORE... They're both coach and manager for the Pirates and were there to witness the event. So nice. So nice. It was really cool of Major League Baseball to send the commissioner out along with representatives to witness the whole... Oh what? They didn't send anybody?
Yeah f**k you too, Selig.
FINALLY for the conspiracy theorists...
Did Jim Tracy play us extra soft while bringing out the guns to blow up on his old uniform? That wasn't exactly a smoove transition out of smoggy Los Angeles and into the PA. You think he worked that out to ease up on the Padres?
Also, was Freddy Sanchez hoofing it so that his name would be in the record books alongside Hoffman's historic game? He seemed like he was beat by a mile. Video evidence shows that he "fell" on the way out of the box, but let's be honest... Freddy Sanchez is a world class ballroom dancer in his spare time. Three time winner of the Australian Ballroom Dance Open. If there's one person who's not going to fall coming out of the batters box, it's Freddy Sanchez....
HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.......
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