And the Royal's pity player is.....
 

Gil Meche selected to All-Star game.

he's the best we have? That is sad. I wish we had more players that were household names. Beltran, dye, damon, oh well

He's as good a choice as any. Go Gil.... hope you get in the game.

Yeah, it's not like he's top 10 in the AL in innings and ERA.

And he pitches next Sunday. Managers generally don't use pitchers who pitch the Sunday before.

... or Royals.

The whole Royals sorry organization deserves pity....

i liked john buck until he started striking out and hitting meaningless home runs

how dare he... heh.

they ought to put gordon in as well cuz he's our best player.

I can't believe Ross Gload didn't make it. What a joke.

Meche really isn't a pity pick. I guess some people don't actually pay attention.

gordon is our hope for the future

what is gil like 3-6. That has the be the worst record of any starting pitcher to get in the all star game. They should stop having the rule that everyone gets one person in.

check his ERA

I'm no expert but he might have picked up a few losses due to our offense being about as effective as a plunger that's missing the handle.

Gil Mesh should do the right thing and just give his all star position to someone else. For the sake of the game it's not really fair to have someone be off the team for a pity pick.

Does MLB still have that rule where they MUST pick at least one player from each team? Is this why its a pity pick??

every team gets at least one player, its not taking someone's spot. NTM, he deserves to be there. aside from the record, and he can't help a lack of offense, his numbers are among league leaders. so before you go saying who deserves to get in, take a look at the numbers, not just the name on the front of the jersey.

He's 5-6. With multiple losses in games where he's pitched into the 7th and allowed 1-2 earned runs. With his ERA and innnings pitched, which are, again, top 10 in the league, on virtually any team that scores runs, he probably has at least 10 wins by now.

He belongs. Go bitch about something else.

I still dont like the rule. This only adds to so many players getting snubbed every year. Managers are forced to choose guys haveing inferior years on inferior teams such as the Royals.

Remember a few years back when Ken Harvey made the team?? What a joke.

Exactly.

What a bunch of dumbasses.

Gil (Ga) Meche does not have more quality starts than any Royal pitcher from the entire 2006 season. Nor are there only 4 pitchers in the AL with more quality starts than him right now. He's 5-6 and simply sucks.

Joakim Soria also would have been totally undeserving.

He does not have a 2.41 ERA. Opponents are not batting .192 against him. He is simply a 1-2 pitcher who also sucks.

Baseball is a team sport, and the Royals have a losing record; ergo all of the Royals suck.

Most reeruned post evaaaaaahhhhh.

These guys are just trying to rile people up. Anyone who's actually watched the Royals or baseball at all knows Gil has performed at an All-Star level. The Royals have had some lame All-Star reps but this is definitely not one of them.

Agreed!

Gil definetly deserved it, if we could score some runs he'd easily be above .500.

Yeah its not like last year where Redman was 5+ in ERA. Meche also has good K's numbers as well comparing to most in the american league. He has been very solid for us, probably the best pitcher we've had in a long time. The times that he has lost we havent gave him any run support. There were a few times I can recall where he pitched like shit, but other than that he's been very good.

Top 10 in ERA, IP, and almost top 10 in K's. I'll take that any day from a starting pitcher.

What's this ? No Mike Sweenney ? :rolleyes:

Gil is more deserving that any All Star the Royals have had in recent memory!

If Meche pitched for the Yankees, he'd have a 9-2 record and they'd be 1 game out of first place.

Meche is the only true All-Star on the roster at this point.

Good take by Jayson Stark
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=2910803

Gil has easilyh been our #1, if he had a decent run support he'd have 6-9 wins easy

I heard Mike (overpaid) Sweeney was voted to the All-Star DL list yesterday...

Anyone else think it's funny both teams takes 11 pitchers to the All-Star game? Baseball's All-Star game is a joke. Every team sends a player? Come on, that's bush league. What are they going to have no-cut teams next? Any one with a fragile ego can play?

What the hell are you babbling about?

I nominate this thread for the Uninformed All-Star game.

IMO, Gil is making Dayton Moore look really smart right now. He's exceeded the value of his contract (relatively speaking) so far.

You don't think 11 pitchers is a bit much for one team in a single game? It seems like maybe the number of pitchers is a bit high -- neither the NL All-Stars, nor the AL All-Stars will go through all 11, which makes the high number of pitchers stupid.

You don't think it's lame that every team gets to send a player, regardless of merit? I think that alone makes the All-Star game a feel-good joke.

I take it you have not watch baseball's all-star game setup lately???

The all-star game decides homefield for the World Series.. There was an incident a few years ago where both sides exhausted all of the pitchers in the game and it ended in a tie.. This is why there is a ton of pitchers in case there is another extra innings incident...

They ended the All-Star game in a tie????? You are telling me this to convince me that the All-Star game is NOT lame? I mean, I thought each team getting to send a player was pathetic, but jeez... a tie?

It's because MLB has a joke of a commisioner.

No its why there are so many pitchers selected.. MOre then likely also not all of them will get to play also...

It's becoming a joke of a sport.

That said, hooray for Gil Meche. This may well be the first time in ten years the words "Royals" and "signing" weren't associated with the word "disaster."

That's a pretty good turn around. Go from complaining about too many pitchers being taken, to complaining that it's terrible to end a game in a tie because both teams were out of pitchers. That works.

Meche kicks all your ass.

Baseball is as popular as ever and growing in popularity, despite the steroids era. If you don't like it that's fine. I'd suggest posting elsewhere where you might know a little about what you're talking about.

There.... you have no longer killed this thread.

http://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=165362

Sorry, i just dont see it??


Baseball will always be popular but its not "America's Pastime" anymore. That title belongs to the NFL now.

Popular as ever? When was the last time you drove around and saw kids playing an impromptu game of baseball? I see kids playing basketball, football, even soccer at the park. Not baseball. When dads play catch with their sons, they grab a football, not a ball and glove.

As far as posting elsewhere, perhaps I should find a good baseball forum to go talk football on.

I would agree with that pretty much. Attendence is up over the last few years at major league ballparks though... which is pretty much what I was talking about.

Kids don't seem to play it as much as they used to though... although my daughter told me the other day she was going to play softball next summer... already has a team. Baseball/softball is big around here.

The fact that an exhibition game decides something as important as home field advantage is a joke. It was a desperate act by a desperate sport. They sensed that fans and the players were showing less interest in the game so they let a stupid exhibition have such importance? Dumb. How 'bout this, let's do this in every sport. Let's have the the wining conference of the pro bowl get spotted 7 points in the next years super bowl.

Ha! Rep.

Baseball sucks.

The All-Star game thing is reeruned. The commissioner is a dumbass. The game is still great though... in it's pure form.

In it's "pure form"???? What the hell does that mean? Does that mean that if you take away the players, the owners, the commissioner, the rules, and the fans, it's a great game?

Come on, in it's "pure form" is embarrassingly dull and boring.

As for your attendance argument, the increase over the past seven years can be accounted for by increases in New York, Chicago, and LA. Almost every other stadium's attendance has been either stagnant or in decline. http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/2...attendance.htm

Yea, im not sure why Baseball doesnt seem as "important: as it once was?? Many reasons im sure, but its probably mostly a reflection of our short attention span world we live in. People just dont seem to have the patience or time to sit and watch a 3 or 4 hour leisurely paced sport. I remember as a kid back in the 70's and 80's MLB used to be HUGE and a big deal. Heck, people dont even seemed to get hyped about the World Series like they used to.

I don't think it's an attention-span problem. We've been presented with more entertainment options and have discovered that baseball isn't very entertaining.

Before cable television, I would watch the Tonight Show before going to sleep. I thought it was funny and didn't have much choice. Now, I have 354 channels, many of which tell me that there are shows that are quite a bit funnier than the Tonight Show.

America has stopped loving baseball because we've seen better ways to spend our time.

Very good point.

It is funny to listen to all of the fans that don't even watch/listen to the Royals anymore, (more places than just here), that have no problems piping in to make a negative remark based on ignorance.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching?league=al

Maybe where you live or with your kids, but baseball is alive and well in may places. I coach 2 leagues with Liberty Parks and Rec, and between the 5&6 year old T-ball and the 7 and 8's baseball/softball, there are over 690 kids playing this season. That is 690 kids playing for Liberty Parks and Rec, (there are other leagues), in a town with a population of 30,000.

Which is the only point you have to make.

Baseball does not suck just because you think it does. I saw 2 pickup baseball games last weekend. One was in pretty bad weather, but those kids were still out there playing. Not an adult anywhere. Don't try and make a blanket statement saying nobody plays anymore. I also pitched to my young cousin for about 2 hours on Sunday too. He's 8 and wants nothing more than to play baseball forever.

Baseball will never be as popular as Football. I do think that it will rival Basketball as the number two sport.

There is much more anticipation for an upcoming Football game mainly in my estimation because there are so few games. When you only get to see 16 games a year unless you make the play-offs every game is an event. In baseball if you miss a game, well there are 5 more this week. The same can be said about the NBA though on a lesser scale.

The only real accurate statement you can make is that you don't like baseball so it sucks to you. Many, many people love it.

I could say Van Halen sucks too. Doesn't mean it's true just because it might not be my kind of music. If that were the case I certainly wouldn't waste my time preaching it to a bunch of Van Halen fans. What is the point of that? Only to make waves.

Baseball isn't your kind of sport. That's fine. Some of us don't live in the same ADD world as you.

Well, much the way you've preached the Glory of Baseball in this thread, I've tried to preach the Evils of Baseball. You like baseball, I don't. Internet forums are all about the exchange of ideas.

If you are concerned about discussing baseball in a criticism-free environment, I might suggest you found a Royalsplanet.com website. Until then, I will continue to have less than pleasant things to say about the sport while reading and posting on this football forum.

For the record, I don't like the band Van Halen. It's a name I have been stuck with by cruel fate.

Nobody said you had to like it, but if a person in 1986 were to say "Van Halen sucks and nobody listens to them anymore. You see kids listening to Ratt and Poison, but never Van Halen", that would be a false statement based on their bias against Van Halen.

As for the football forum comment...
1. Only 6 of the first 25 most recent threads are football related, (including the two on sticky and the thread about Fatlock on Rome)
2. Of your last 25 posts, 8 were on baseball related threads.
3. I highly doubt that any webpage called RoyalsPlanet would be criticsm free.

This thread is like saying I use Yahoo search instead of Google, so Google must not be popular.

Baseball's doing just fine. I don't agree with everything Selig does, but attendance is up. There is probably more parity than there's been in 15 years... there's been 7 different champions the last seven years, teams like the Brewers and Tigers have come out of the doldrums. The Yankees aren't anything close to dominant, they haven't been in years. While in football the big story will be Pats vs. Colts for about the 7th or 8th straight year. Sometimes I feel like the people making these arguments are stuck in 1998.

So what your saying is: The Royals just suck...no small market excuses anymore? Ive been saying this for years.

They are improving, it takes time to get a contender going and i belive they ar headed the right direction.

Attendance isn't up -- the overall increased attendance is accounted for by increases in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The rest of the teams are mostly either stagnant or in decline. (You'll have to check a previous post in this thread for the source.)

Baseball is still broken. Without a real salary cap and real revenue sharing, the game will be broken. Smaller market teams can have a run, but will continue to be forced to get rid of their superstars when the big contracts come in.

Correct me if I'm wrong on the above...

I thought the same thing in 91, 94, 96, 97, 01, 02, 03 and 04, its the same old song and dance...

What are you talking about? Of course it's not an excuse. I don't think anyone here who actually follows the Royals has used that as an excuse in a long time. Now people who whine and complain about it all the time, like yourself, may do that... but everybody who actually follows the sport knows you can win on a smaller budget. The Indians are leading this entire division this year with a smaller payroll than the Royals. And pretty much everyone else. It's not rocket science anymore... which is why I think there is a lot more parity in baseball, the small market teams have put their focus into player development and it's paying dividends. Even teams like the Royals, Pirates, D-Rays, they don't seem like the vast wastelands that they once were. The Royals obviously have a pretty good young core of position players and are playing pretty good baseball right now. The Pirates have a nice set of young arms... and the D-Rays are loaded with young prospects.

You are correct. I was using anecdotal evidence to suggest that kids don't go out and play baseball spontaneously for fun anymore. I have lived in two major Midwestern cities in the past ten years and I can count on one finger the number of times I've seen kids playing what appeared to be a spontaneous game for fun. Another poster pointed out that it is a different story in Liberty, MO -- where the parks are teeming with children playing baseball every waking minute.

Little league is another story. It will always be a popular suburban rite of passage. I admittedly enjoy watching the local high school baseball and softball teams, as well. Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite, I don't know.

One of my frustrations with this website (and obviously one that I can tolerate), is the lack of actual football threads. I find the baseball-related threads and the accompanying optimism annoying (compared to the incessantly gloomy Chiefs posts). I'm not a frequent poster, although I read threads daily. Recently I've felt compelled to crap on the parade of Royals threads.

But what happens when the contracts are up on that pretty good young core?

Actually I think the luxury tax has helped. I actually really like the luxury tax... I think they should make it harsher. It probably helped the Royals be able to afford someone like Gil Meche. It's not the NFL but everything doesn't have to be like the NFL. There are drawbacks to the salary cap as well, you can't always afford to retain all of your players because of it. But there is a luxury tax in place, and as we've seen, the Royals are spending money, the Brewers spent money on Jeff Suppan.

I do not think the system is perfect. But it's not as bad as it used to be. Look at Oakland, they never complain, they just keep going out and winning, and they hardly ever re-sign anybody.

Why cant the Royals be like that then?? What would you do to fix this organization if you were the owner??

Well, I think the Royals are in a better position to pay some of these guys than they used to be. But no, you can't resign everyone. As Dayton has said, even in Atlanta they couldn't re-sign everyone. Look at Andruw Jones, they might not be able to re-sign him.

That's why you either A) spend money and raise ticket prices or B) keep your pipeline of young talent going. Look at Oakland... if you'd asked someone where they'd be without Hudson/Mulder/Zito a few years ago, people would say in the gutter. But look at them now, they're all gone, and Oakland has one of the best pitching staffs in the league. Because they keep looking for talent. The same thing happens in the NFL. Look at how we had LJ to replace Priest... and how people think we haven't developed enough offensive linemen to replace the ones we had. If you keep developing talent, you'll win, no matter what sport it is.

That was an excellent post, so thank you.

I don't think it's fair that teams like Oakland have to keep reloading. If they knew they could keep that core they had, they could have focused on improving in other areas and might have actually been a legitimate contender. Remember, the A's haven't won the World Series since 1990.

The Colts defense is another great example. They hardly ever re-sign their defensive free agents. Look at all the guys they let walk, and they just try to keep developing young guys to put in there. And they just won the Super Bowl.

The Royals better win sometime in the next few years. Because if they aren't why wouldn't those young players want to play for a team that gives them a chance.

Yeah, but they've been in the playoffs several times. Everybody can't win every year. You could always find a team like the Eagles, A's, Suns. It's just one of those things, they still have a fighting chance.

But in the NFL every team has a choice -- you can develop young talent or you can sign quality free agents. The NFL salary cap forces teams to make tough choices and occasionally cut very good players. Most MLB teams don't have the option of signing very good players. The Royals, for example, got lucky on Gil Meche. I'm sure that if bigger teams had thought he would have been this successful, his price would have gone up considerably.