TPG Saturday Night Sports Roundup

**Toad** · 05-30-10, 02:01 AM

Here's the latest on the TPG sports network.

Philadelphia Phillies ace pitcher Roy Halladay proved to be almost as awesome as Cliff Lee tonight, pitching a perfect game against the Marlins. 27 batters up, 27 batters down, no hits, no walks, no nothin. Philadelphia's slumping offense scored one unearned run off of a Marlin's outfielders missed catch leading to a final score of 1-0, even though the Phillies managed to get 7 hits and a few walks.

Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay threw the 20th perfect game in major league history, delivering the marquee performance of his All-Star career in a 1-0 win over the Florida Marlins on Saturday night in Miami.

It was the second perfect game in the majors this month. The A's Dallas Braden was perfect against Tampa Bay on May 9. And Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez threw a no-hitter in April.

Halladay struck out 11, then got pinch hitter Ronny Paulino to ground out to end it, and was cheered by a crowd of 25,086 throughout much of the night.

"It's never something that you think is possible," Halladay said. "Really, once I got the two outs, I felt like I had a chance. You're always aware of it. It's not something that you expect."

While there were a couple of good plays behind him — shortstop Wilson Valdez went deep into the hole for a grounder, backup third baseman Juan Castro went to his knees for another — Halladay didn't need any great defensive work in this gem.

"I think everybody knows you have to have those kind of plays to do something like that," Halladay said.

Yes, but on this night, the 33-year-old right-hander known as Doc was a veritable one-man show.

"You've got to take your hat off to Doc," Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "That's why he is who he is. That's what they got him for."

This was the Phillies' second perfect game, with Jim Bunning having thrown one in 1964.

How sweet. Don't they look happy? He even gave Chooch (catcher Carlos Ruiz) half the credit saying he just followed his signals for most of the game. How noble, how true. Ruiz is like f'ing Dick Tracy, Columbo, and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one when it comes to getting inside a batter's head. He also turns from a 200 hitter into a super clutch badass in the playoffs.

It is widely believed that the paucity of scoring the 1-0 battle forced karmic forces to balance the universe in terms of both the feeling of elation felt in the city of Philadelphia and the amount of scoring in a sporting event by having the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-5 in a Stanley Cup Game 1 shootout of epic proportions.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playof...ott&id=5233276

No reports yet on a possible ex-Phillies ace pitcher Cliff Lee trade back to Philadelphia. I know it's a long shot, but if the Phillies were to trade BACK for Cliff Lee (sent to the Mariners last season for prospects as the Phillies picked up new staff ace Halladay) through some Ruben Amaro (Phillies genius general manager) magic, the Phillies would be an unstoppable juggernaut who could defeat both the Tampa Bay Rays AND the New York Yankees even if both teams were simultaneously on the field at all times with 6 outs an inning.

Cliff Lee, as fans will remember, is the badass who historically struck out practically every Yankee that ever played baseball, even dead ass Babe Ruth, while pitching for the Phillies in the world series last year. Unfortunately, no one else struck out any Yankees, choosing instead of repeatedly bean A-Rod and Mark Texeira. Popular belief is that the Phillies pitching staff decided on this strategy as being, and I quote "More fun than anything else we could imagine because we already won the world series last year and Cliff embarassed them so badly in game 1 that they'll have nightmares about the series victory for years to come."

A more thorough report of the action is here, although it fails to mention his ridiculously contemptuous catch for an out around the middle innings, and his awesomely unhurried behind the back fielding of a grounder to mow down another poor Yankee chump.

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/1...for-cliff-lee/

This reporter is likely the one person who would still rather have Cliff Lee on the team than Doc "I pitch complete games 25% of the time and pitched a perfect game tonight and have many awesome Cliff Lee style quantities except that I'm taller" Hallday; however I will happily settle for having them both on the team and crushing the rest of MLB under our cleats.

In other baseball news, Alex Rodriguez attempted to murder Indians' pitcher David Huff with a line drive. Naturally, his weak little girl arms barely knocked the guy over, and he claims to have never lost consciousness. Huffington post declares sympathetic jihad against Mr. Rodriguez, Phillies pitchers promise to bean the shit out of him in next intra-leauge matchup.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_594478.html

The hit can be seen here, although viewers are warned that watching A-Rod run is always vaguely traumatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eER8X...layer_embedded

To close out the night, UFC 114 - Rampage vs. Rashad played on PPV. Those who watched it report that Rampage was a slow goofball who obviously spent too much time screwing around on set with Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson and not enough time training for a multi-round fight, as in the end of round 3 Rampage was too tired to even bother running over and punching a visibly reeling Rashad in the head. The sprightly Rashad Evans will likely get a matchup with Mauricio "Shogun" Hua, who will hopefully destroy him easily so that he can continue training to beat the living daylights out of Anderson "I f around too much against grapplers" Silva. It is widely believed that a Silva vs Shogun fight would be so awesome that my tv would literally explode, which is why I will watch it at a bar.

**ATXPLEX** · 05-30-10, 06:15 AM

[QUOTE=Toad;1252849]
It is widely believed that the paucity of scoring the 1-0 battle forced karmic forces to balance the universe in terms of both the feeling of elation felt in the city of Philadelphia and the amount of scoring in a sporting event by having the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-5 in a Stanley Cup Game 1 shootout of epic proportions.

ROFL Maybe you are right. Maybe the collective randomness of the world could not allow for such ridiculous happenings, like two Philly teams winning in the same week.

Cliff Lee, as fans will remember, is the badass who historically struck out practically every Yankee that ever played baseball, even dead ass Babe Ruth, while pitching for the Phillies in the world series last year. Unfortunately, no one else struck out any Yankees, choosing instead of repeatedly bean A-Rod and Mark Texeira. Popular belief is that the Phillies pitching staff decided on this strategy as being, and I quote "More fun than anything else we could imagine because we already won the world series last year and Cliff embarassed them so badly in game 1 that they'll have nightmares about the series victory for years to come."

A more thorough report of the action is here, although it fails to mention his ridiculously contemptuous catch for an out around the middle innings, and his awesomely unhurried behind the back fielding of a grounder to mow down another poor Yankee chump.

Toad this shit is hilarious. i remember watching that game. i was having so much fun watching how nonchalantly cliff lee picked apart the yankee lineup. that play where he backhands the groundball on the mound is priceless.

In other baseball news, Alex Rodriguez attempted to murder Indians' pitcher David Huff with a line drive. Naturally, his weak little girl arms barely knocked the guy over, and he claims to have never lost consciousness. Huffington post declares sympathetic jihad against Mr. Rodriguez, Phillies pitchers promise to bean the shit out of him in next intra-leauge matchup.

Oh i love yankee bashing and especially A-rod bashing. A-rod looks so stupid and pretentious with his gelled hair and clean shave. You know who the happiest guy in the world was when a-rod admitted to roiding, barry bonds. this was because the media wanted barry bonds' home run record to be crushed by the "clean" youthful exuberance of Alex rodriguez. muahahah he roids! and they all roid, except my boy Ken griffey jr baby. ken just likes to get some shut eye in the club house. the home run record will be forever marred by PED's. "