Thankful Thursday

Let us give thanks.

• I am SO. THANKFUL. for a job. I'll be going in Saturday to fill out paperwork and resume working at Starbucks. No, it's not in sports, and I don't anticipate it being long-term. However as I am REALLY wanting to get into sports broadcast production but am having difficulty getting in the front door, I really needed to do something to bring in a paycheck. Plus, there's something that happens mentally when you sit at home and don't have a job, and it's not good. I had to get out of that and get busy.
• I am thankful for Men's Fraternity. MF is a weekly curriculum that focuses on helping men identify, learn about, develop, and maximize their God-given responsibilities. We started back up last week and its really been a blessing for me, and I hope that Sarah has benefitted from it too. If there is a church near you that is offering the program, I highly recommend looking into it.
• I am so thankful that the Braves were successful in returning to the playoffs after a 4-year hiatus. We didn't make it in pretty, but we're in and that's all that matters now. Obviously its a little extra sweet because of this being Bobby Cox' final year. The Braves are going to have it tough facing the Giants because both teams have great pitching and both teams struggle to score runs, but I am really hoping we can split the two games in SF to start the series. If we can do that, I like our chances of moving on.
• I am thankful for a new opportunity to serve as a "Trail Guide" in the NACofC Youth Group this year. Trail Guides is kind of like a mentoring program where I've been given 4 7th-grade young men to meet with each month and just be a positive influence in their lives. I met these young men this past Sunday and I can already tell I'll benefit from this as much, if not more than they will.
• I am thankful for our small group at church. Sarah and I were reading a humorous blogpost yesterday about small groups in general, and while we were laughing at some of the parts of the blogpost that applied directly to us, it yet again reminded us how thankful we are for ours.
• As always, I am constantly thankful for Sarah. She's really hung with me through the job issue and I know that she spends a lot of time helping me find job postings and helping me think of possible ways to get some editing training. She's the best!

Sorry I haven't been around much. Fan Friendly Fridays will return tomorrow.

"If you don't toot your own horn, who will?"

On May 28, 2010, I posted the following tweet: [@machaffin] is considering beginning a campaign to get the Marlins to dismiss Fredi Gonzalez so that he'd be available for the Braves to replace Cox.

And what happened yesterday? The Marlins fired Fredi Gonzalez. Now while I didn't have anything to do with his dismissal, it does give me hope for next year.

I have a feeling that the top two candidates to replace Braves manager Bobby Cox are going to be Gonzalez and current hitting coach Terry Pendleton.

Consider yours truly part of the Gonzalez supporters. I have nothing against TP, I've met him and I think he's a great guy and could do a good job. But while he has interviewed multiple times for a managerial position and even withdrawn his name from consideration once, and has been a coach in the Braves organization for a long time in addition to his playing career, he lacks the most important part of a resume that Gonzalez has: experience.

Gonzalez took the Marlins manager job and turned out to be the winningest manager in team history, according to MLB.com. (see linked story above) Under his leadership, the Marlins went from finishing 5th in the NL East in 2007 to 2nd in 2009, albeit with a minimal payroll.

If the Braves decide to go with Pendleton, I won't hold it against them. But if he's still available next season, I think Gonzalez would be way to go.

The Perfect Game

Anyone who has had the fortune of watching a professional pitcher throw a perfect game got to witness one of the rarest occurrences in sports. According to Baseball-Reference.com, 37,279 players have pitched in a professional baseball game dating back to 1871. Of that number, only 20 have successfully pitched nine innings and faced 27 batters without allowing one of them to reach base. To put it another way, only 1 out of 1,864 pitchers will throw a perfect game, statistically speaking.

That is what makes the fact that two pitchers have accomplished the feat within the last month, and that fact that we saw a third get taken away last night absolutely astonishing, even moreso if you agree with me that the hitters are given every advantage possible over the pitchers.

I'm a big baseball fan. I'm not the biggest baseball fan by any means, I'm not even the biggest fan I know. But I'm a big fan. I consider myself a baseball "purist." I like day games. I hate the designated hitter. I don't like Interleague play and the only times the National League and American League should play each other are the All-Star Game and the World Series. The All-Star game shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on home-field advantage in the World Series. I like the "human element" of umpires making the call on the field.

But even though I consider myself a "purist", I think Major League Baseball was victimized last night by its decision to lag behind on the use of instant replay.

I don't fault umpire Jim Joyce for blowing the call last night, and keeping Armando Galarraga from becoming the 21st pitcher to throw a perfect game. Umpires are human and they will make mistakes. Everyone involved last night knows this and acknowledged it. Galarraga, Tigers Manger Jim Leyland, and Joyce himself all handled last night's unfortunate events with utmost class and professionalism. But the whole experience could have been avoided if the tool of instant replay had been available for Joyce to utilize.

As of today, instant replay is used by MLB for home runs only - whether they are in fair or foul territory, and if the ball actually left the playing field or was interfered with.

Every ballpark in the league has the equipment in place to make instant replay a viable resource on a questionable play. Instant replay should never be involved in calling balls and strikes, and in every play, the umpire on the field should have the final say. But I think there's a good chance that if he had the option of doing so, Joyce would have welcomed the chance to make sure he got the call right on the field by checking himself with instant replay. I have to think that anyone who takes pride in their work, whatever it may be, wants to utilize every resource available to do their job the best it can be done.

Commissioner Selig, it's time to make the resource of instant replay available...REALLY available.