KS
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Aug 30, 2021
the premise: what if when I moved to Toronto exactly twenty years ago it was not to go to grad school but instead to run the Toronto Blue Jays and, crucially, be friends with Carlos Delgado
Baseball Mogul 2001 transaction notes: the Blue Jays have acquired Tony Fernandez from the Brewers from Chris Latham, & Vladimir Guerrero (père) from the Montréal Expos for pitching prospects David Purcey, Casey Janssen, Jesse Carlson, Coco Pasquel, & cash considerations ($4.5m)
Aug 31, 2021
Raul Mondesi, whose contract makes him literally untradeable in this game ("People complain about the Yankees," J.P. Ricciardi was like when NY actually took on Mondesi, "but what would you do without them?") has been converted to 3B
hey: he's got the arm for it
Aug 31, 2021
I am determined to keep Baseball Mogul Raul Mondesi, unlike IRL Raul Mondesi, out of prison
Aug 31, 2021
"After baseball, Mondesí began a career in politics [. . .]. In 2010, he became mayor of San Cristóbal in the Dominican Republic, serving a six-year term. In 2017, Mondesí was sentenced to eight years in prison on corruption charges based from his time in office as mayor.[1]"
Aug 31, 2021
waaaaaaait a minute, why aren't we calling Vladimir Guerrero Sr. "Dadimir Guerrero" or have we been doing this and I just missed it? either way, who is with me
Sep 4, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: Mondesi hit well enough that Boston was willing to have him; traded Shannon Stewart to the Mariners for Brett Tomko and Arthur Rhodes but 2001 Rhodes, improbably, pitched horribly, & has since moved on; miracle season from Ravelo Manzanillo. I am like .500.
Sep 5, 2021
2001 Baseball Mogul update: traded for 42yo Rickey Henderson, who went 1-2 w/ 3BB in his second game (he's still got it!); Darrin Fletcher leads the AL with a 1.016 OPS (.332/.395/.621); Joey Votto has been drafted. I am like .500.
Sep 9, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the 2001 Blue Jays finish 87-75; 35yo Darrin Fletcher hits .317/.384/.567 to lead the AL in both OPS (.951) and WAR (6.8 [tied with Pedro Martinez]); Halladay wins 18; David Wells gets brutally owned by the headline generator; 9/11 seemingly does not occur
Sep 14, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: congratulations to the 2001 WS Champion Oakland Athletics
also I have realized to truly prove what a friend I am to Carlos Delgado I must, at potentially ruinous expense, reunite him with his dear friend Shawn Green
then we will all be friends together
Sep 17, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the 2002 Baseball Mogul Blue Jays are in the thick of the Wild Card with about fifteen games to go much as the 2021 Primary World of Our Experience Blue Jays so I am getting basically no break from worry and care
Sep 18, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the 87-win 2002 Blue Jays are eliminated from WC contention with a 10th-inning October 2nd loss to Cleveland, bases loaded groundout Frank Menechino (not upset at Frank, he had some huge hits down the stretch); Roy Halladay missed months with a broken leg
Sep 18, 2021
gonna make a real push to break the 90-win barrier and also prove to Carlos Delgado that I am not jealous of his bond with Shawn Green but instead support their friendship and mb we could all go to Kensington Market for empanadas next weekend there's a great place there
Sep 24, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: massive turnover, tiny payroll, but the Carlos Delgado-led '03 Blue Jays are in first place in August by a half-game & our friendship is thriving; Shawn Green had to be traded but Carlos is a professional, he gets it, he is here to win, and to be my friend.
Sep 24, 2021
I was thinking about how if you got there early enough to watch the Blue Jays warm up in '03 you would see Carlos Delgado and Orlando Hudson having the loveliest long toss, like the nicest game of catch you would ever hope to see.
Sep 24, 2021
also I love it when the mad-libs seems of Baseball Mogul show a lil bit
Sep 26, 2021
Baseball Mogul update
Sep 26, 2021
tfw you contribute significantly to a squeaker
Sep 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the 2003 Toronto Blue Jays (93-69) secure their first AL East title in a decade with a win in Fenway Park on the last day of the season (the Red Sox finish 92-70, good for the WC)
Sep 27, 2021
upon our return to "T-Dot" (it is not yet "the six") Carlos Delgado and I discuss the contours of the season, and of our deepening friendship, at one of the Queen West sushi places that are nicer than the Bloor West sushi places & yet not so nice that they are not still low-key
Sep 27, 2021
it occurs to me that if the year is 2003, Shigeru Fukuyama aka Chef Shige has not yet moved to Halifax and is still of Toronto when not in Japan; Carlos and I will seek him out, and then there will be three of us
Sep 27, 2021
your 2003 AL East Champion Toronto Blue Jays
mybeautifulboys.jpg
Sep 27, 2021
tfw yr three-for-four with a double, a walk, two runs scored, and two RBIs takes yr Blue Jays one step closer to the ALCS
Sep 27, 2021
a disturbing scouting report on Jason Frasor, who has been a valued arm out of <<l'enclos des releveurs>> all season long
Sep 28, 2021
Baseball Mogul: on the strength of Carlos Delgado's .636/.667/.818 (that's a 1.485 OPS) and Shawn Marcum's Game 4 five-hitter we are thru to the ALCS; Carlos and I are getting memberships at the Bloor because one of our favourite hobbies is watching old movies together
Sep 28, 2021
Mama Rosa? The fellow with the suspenders? The guy who looked like Alan Alda? They are all so happy to see Carlos Delgado at their wonderful old theatre, among the last of its kind. Even by 2003 it felt like it wouldn't be much longer.
Oct 1, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the 93-win '03 Blue Jays go up 3-1 in the ALCS but lose to the Red Sox in the the tenth inning of game seven; had bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth but nothing, Carlos Delgado (my friend) stood powerless at second base
Oct 1, 2021
20yo Joey Votto is called up to start the 2004 season and suggests to Carlos and me that if we really like old movies, we should check out Reg Hartt's Cineforum; we do, and are alarmed to see it is just Reg Hartt's living room in an old house on Bathurst; Votto grins knowingly
Oct 7, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: following their 93-win, ALCS Game Seven 7 2003 season, the 2004 Blue Jays see all of our high-priced talent play poorly or get hurt (not Carlos, he's still cool)) in the first half and so a Yung Lionz movement takes shape (not Carlos, he's still cool)
Oct 7, 2021
the highlight of our 85-win 2004 season for almost no money is yung Joey Votto's AL ROTY award (his OBP was like .400); we celebrate at XO Karaoke Box on Bloor at Euclid
Oct 7, 2021
a couple hours in, Carlos Delgado and I hit the bakery across the street to grab some 호두과자 hodu-gwaja for tha boiz but come back with twice as many walnut cakes as we planned on getting cuz that's just how crazy things get when we're together
Oct 8, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: thirty-six games (25W-11L) into our "all-in" 2005 season, Carlos Delgado and I turn down the Cardinals offer of Alex Rodriguez for not very much cuz we are getting better production at SS out of an Oscar Robles/Placido Polanco platoon also we don't like him
Oct 12, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: the Cardinals, weighed down by the A-Rod deal and in utter disarray, offer Young Pueto Rican King Yadier Molina for not that much (yes plz); Carlos Delgado's little mood-meter thing in the top right corner of his player profile looks like this (mine too!)
Oct 13, 2021
Baseball Mogul update: unlike the 2005 Toronto Blue Jays of the primary world of our experience, a Delgado-less squad of but 80 wins, the 2005 Carlos-is-My-Pal Baseball Mogul Blue Jays win a franchise-best 100 games; 18yo rookie Hyun-Jin Ryu helps us order at Ka Chi (delicious)
Oct 13, 2021
Baseball Mogul: after sweeping the O's, the 2005 Carlos-is-My-Pal Blue Jays fall in the ALCS to the 100-win Angels, fresh off their acquisition of . . . Alex Rodriguez. Carlos and I stand by our refusal of him all the same, & are happy to have played in October once more. Onward!
Oct 13, 2021
Baseball Mogul: we had the AL Cy Young (Ted Lilly), the AL MVP (Andy Barkett! lol I love it!), won a hundred games, and yet my shit, much like Billy Beane's famously before mine, does not work in the playoffs. Such is "the game"; who is next to play; (me and Carlos actually).
Oct 15, 2021
Baseball Mogul: it is the spring of 2006 and I am wed; Carlos Delgado's gift is tasteful and modest, his embrace warm and generous; we have traded for Pedro Martinez and are the best team in baseball.
Oct 16, 2021
Baseball Mogul: it is the early summer of 2006; Torii Hunter & B.J. Ryan have been added at considerable prospect-expense (note: prospects are a fake idea) as we go close to all-in; Shawn Marcum has three weeks to figure it out or he will be flipped for Jake Arietta
Oct 16, 2021
Baseball Mogul: listen Shawn Marcum I respect you as a fellow human just trying to be happy but I have traded both Roy Halladay & Chris Carpenter & if you think I will not trade you for Jake Arietta just ask Carlos Delgado who has been by my side thru it all
Oct 18, 2021
Baseball Mogul. 2006. Joey Votto tells us about a show he heard about from an old high school friend from Etobicoke. It is at Clinton's on Bloor West, an improbable venue for anything notable in any way, but Joey insists his old friend would know because "he's an interesting guy"
Oct 18, 2021
Carlos and I arrive at Clinton's to join a sparse crowd of people who will, once it is invented in a year's time, be on Tumblr; but they are in a profound sense "of" Tumblr already; they are Tumblrists <<avant la lettre>>; it is stunning; they are stunning.
Oct 18, 2021
This is how Carlos Delgado & I improbably attend the first Crystal Castles show together. After two songs, he leans in with a broad smile. "This is pretty crazy. But you can dance to it!" He offers no other comment until the very end: "I don't think that girl's ok."
Oct 18, 2021
Joey Votto never shows.
Oct 20, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2006 Blue Jays produce another Cy Young winner (Ricky Romero) and MVP (Brandon Moss) but lose game 163; on 6/23/06 Carlos and I attend the final Kung Fu Friday (Crippled Avengers) at the Royal Cinema; we feel the city slipping away from us, piece by piece.
Oct 23, 2021
Baseball Mogul: an injury-plagued '07 sees eight pitchers on the IL at the same time (eight!) as the Blue Jays plummet to 75 wins; Carlos Delgado, following the model set forth in the Nicomachean Ethics, derives pleasure from the philosophical contemplation of this misfortune
Oct 26, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the '08 Blue Jays survive a rash of pitching injuries and a complete re-install (backup your .mog files everybody!) and ride a 13-game winning streak to serious contention; C.C. Sabathia suffers a "fractured eye bone" but will miss but a month (what a gamer)
Oct 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the comment "His age won't hinder him yet" is added to the auto-generated scouting report/player card of 36-year-old-All-Star (DH) Carlos Delgado, whose triple slash line is 289/348/460, but whose true triple slash line is That/Doom/Abides (so say we all)
Oct 30, 2021
Baseball Mogul: as Carlos Delgado (3.9 WAR in his age-36 season) enters the October of his career, so to do the 96-win '08 Blue Jays enter the October of, like, the Gregorian calendar: a three-game sweep of the Yankees; a crushing, seventh-game, one-run loss to the White Sox.
Oct 30, 2021
Baseball Mogul CORRECTION: I went back and checked and Carlos Delgado in fact posted a 4.5-win season in '08; that I regret the error is too obvious to even bear mentioning
Nov 3, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the '09 Blue Jays have gotten younger and faster; by contrast each new utterance of the scouting report generator has become a memento mori
Nov 3, 2021
Baseball Mogul: '09 Carlos Delgado has broken his foot and is out for forty days (a number of biblical significances); '09 Jacob DeGrom, for whom I have traded, will miss the next four-hundred with a rotator cuff problem; this may not be "our year"
Nov 5, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays are a third-place, 84-win team, which falls below Carlos Delgado's expectations, but he is so adult about it that you would never even guess.
Nov 5, 2021
Baseball Mogul: It is April 5, 2010. In the first game played in Minnesota's beautiful new ballpark, thirty-seven-year-old Carlos Delgado, entering his eighteenth major-league season, hits a home run to the yet-to-be-dismantled pines. Blue Jays 5, Twins 1.
(photo courtesy Jay Jaffe when he was still "The Futility Infielder")
Nov 12, 2021
Baseball Mogul: thirty-eight-year-old Carlos Delgado, in a reduced <<rôle>>, nevertheless contributes 1.2WAR to the 93-win, 2010 AL East Champion Toronto Blue Jays, whose rotation is so profoundly injured heading in the postseason that we are all resigned to what lies ahead
Nov 12, 2021
Baseball Mogul: this is me, playing baseball mogul
Nov 13, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the year is 2011. Thirty-eight-year-old Carlos Delgado plays his way out of a reduced <<rôle>> (pinch hitter, Joey Votto's backup) & back into the everyday lineup with a 1.000+ OPS. He is nearly as old now as I have grown in the primary world of our experience
Nov 19, 2021
Baseball Mogul: "About all Delgado can give you now," the automatically generated scouting report argues, "is fond memories." And while we share many, Carlos and I, through our now decade+ of friendship, let us also consider 2011's 1.4 WAR in fewer than 300 plate appearances.
Nov 19, 2021
Baseball Mogul: with far fewer playing days ahead of him than behind, thirty-eight-year-old Carlos Delgado's asks if might again don the catcher's gear for an inning or two, just for old time's sake. This turns into 81 innings worth 0.2 DWAR. And he threw a guy out!
Nov 19, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 90-win 2011 Toronto Blue Jays would have glided into the second AL Wild Card spot, were it to have existed; alas that it will not come to be until another season has passed. Happily, thirty-nine-year-old Carlos Delgado has signed on for another summer.
Nov 19, 2021
Baseball Mogul: I invite you to behold the utter madness of thirty-eight-year-old Carlos Delgado's defensive 2011; please note that the innings at SS, 2B, and CF are the result of pinch-hitting/substitution mishaps for which Carlos is blameless and yet look look look
Nov 22, 2021
Baseball Mogul: May 24, 2012. Pinch-hitter/back-up catcher (that's right) Carlos Delgado hits a two-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 14th against Baltimore. I proceed to the next day without first saving that result; the program crashes; lost in time/tears in the rain.
Nov 29, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 84-win 2012 Blue Jays finish in a three-way tie for the newly-minted 2nd AL Wild Card spot but do not get a chance to play a game-163 because like OOTP, Baseball Mogul does not handle three-way ties in accordance with MLB practices; Carlos Delgado smiles wryly
Nov 29, 2021
Baseball Mogul: a useful left-handed bat off the bench and a "plus" defender at catcher (!!!), 39yo Carlos Delgado produces significant value as measured both in dWAR (defensive Wins Above Replacement) and dWAReltC (dignified Wisdom Above Replacement, everybody listen to Carlos)
Dec 3, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays are 51-30 at the exact halfway point of their season; they proceed to lose their next five straight. Forty-one-year-old Carlos Delgado, who has seen it all, abides.
Dec 7, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 86-win 2013 Blue Jays miss the 2nd WC on the last day of the season; 41-year-old Carlos Delgado remains a "plus" defender off the bench (236 innings at C, 56 innings at 1B); he takes a keen interest in young Teoscar José Hernández (CF), whomst he shall guide.
Dec 7, 2021
Baseball Mogul: entering the final year of his contract, Carlos Delgado is offered, and graciously accepts, a five-year extension that will see him remain a Blue Jay through his age-forty-six season in 2019. He stands at 81.6 career WAR (this is more than, say, Rod Carew).
Dec 7, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2014 Blue Jays sign SS/Utility Infielder 川﨑 宗則 Kawasaki Munenori to a two-year contract and apologize to Kawasaki and indeed to all people of the earth for not having done so sooner.
Dec 8, 2021
Baseball Mogul: in his first ten games with the 2014 Blue Jays, shortstop 川﨑 宗則 Kawasaki Munenori hits .376/.676/1.054 with 4HR. "And the thing about him," Carlos Delgado tells all who will listen, "is he's a character."
Dec 14, 2021
Baseball Mogul: it is summer 2014 and what was once "T-dot" is now truly "The Six": no less than half the roster selects Drake for walk-up music. But Carlos Delgado, a man of both his land and of the old ways, sticks with Daddy Yankee's "Rompe" (2005).
Dec 14, 2021
Baseball Mogul: also "The Six"? The number of starting pitchers I have on the injured list! That's so many of them!
Dec 22, 2021
Baseball Mogul: on the 2nd-last day of a largely lost 2014 season, 42yo-part-time catcher (1.0WAR!) Carlos Delgado knocks in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th on what turns out to be a broken tibia to end his 22nd big league season. "See you next summer," he winks.
Dec 22, 2021
Baseball Mogul: at the behest of his countryman Carlos Delgado, the Blue Jays move heaven & earth (& Gerrit Cole) to acquire 6'5" 275lbs switch-hitting 1B/DH Kennys Vargas. "He's a big kid," Carlos says. "And he can hit." Vargas goes .368/.500/.645 (6HR) in April. We are 15-6.
Dec 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: June 21st. Forty-three-year-old backup-catcher Carlos Delgado hits a first-pitch fastball for a sac fly to bring home Carlos Moncrief & walk off the Orioles 5-4 in the 10th. "A few years ago, that one might have left the yard," Carlos smiles. "I'll still take it."
Dec 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: Joey Votto is out three weeks with a shoulder separation. His replacement, 島袋涼平 Ryohei Shimabukuro, hits for such power that he can't just go back to the bench once Votto returns. "Let's make him a catcher," Carlos Delgado offers. "I can help him." It works.
Dec 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2015 Blue Jays season stands at an MLB-best 73-33 in August; from here, things can end only in either mild relief at a year unblown or in bitter disappointment. Oh to be a .500 team four games back of the 2nd Wild Card . . .
Dec 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: that Carlos Delgado's 0.2WAR has been integral to this half-season-plus of nearly .700 baseball is self-evident but think too of his crucial rôle in the development of young lions Kennys Vargas (4.4WAR) and 島袋涼平 Ryohei Shimabukuro (2.4WAR). Think too. Of it.
Dec 27, 2021
Baseball Mogul: These truly are some Top Stories (79W-33L, .705)
Dec 28, 2021
Baseball Mogul: 9/4/2015. 16C, wind 14KPH (out to left). A Friday-night crowd of 47,118 watches third-string catcher Carlos Delgado drive a first-pitch fastball into the right-field corner to plate two and tie Cleveland six-all in the 10th. Votto homers in the 11th. 92W-41L.
Dec 29, 2021
Baseball Mogul: a team-record 14-game winning streak gives the 2015 Blue Jays a 23-4 September, a 112-50 season, and the AL East by a ludicrous margin. Carlos Delgado enters his fifth postseason, & knows well it could be his last. "His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain."
Dec 30, 2021
BBMogul: in neither the primary world of our experience nor the secondary realms of subcreation do I have the constitution to truly enjoy Blue Jays playoff baseball; the weight of it, emotionally, is too much for me to bear; I do not seek it so much as endure it when it happens
Dec 30, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2015 Blue Jays defeat the 93-win Red Sox in five games; Carlos Delgado catches the first innings of Game One and the final inning of Game Five whilst, in between, ALDS MVP/Carlos-protégé 島袋涼平 Shimabukuro Ryōhei (C) hits .474 with 3HR.
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: the 2015 Blue Jays hold the great Mike Trout to a single, a lone walk, a triple, & an empty late-inning solo HR in a five-game ALCS win over the 98-win Angels. Forty-three year-old backup-catcher Carlos Delgado approaches his first World Series as a man of focus.
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: To "keep things lose" as the Blue Jays prepare for the 2015 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Joey Votto unearths a Toronto Star article from March 15, 1992: "Young catcher Carlos Delgado a star in Blue Jays’ future."
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: "Delgado is 19 years old," Joey Votto reads aloud, "a sweet-faced giant who is heralded as the Toronto catcher of the future. While he hits for power, the talent scouts are salivating over his throwing arm."
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: Votto savours this part especially: "'I usually throw it right on the base,' Delgado concedes, but only when pushed to sing his own praises. 'Catching is considered a defensive position. If you can hit, that’s an extra.'" The clubhouse erupts. The vibe is perfect.
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: A reporter asks Carlos Delgado how it feels to finally be this close to a World Series ring after so many long seasons. "I've had one since '93," he answers almost brusquely. "Two games that year. Two at-bats. But they sent me a ring."
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: Game Six, SkyDome, bottom 10th. Two away. Nobody on. As 43yo third-string catcher Carlos Delgado straps on the gear to take the field for the top of the 11th, 24yo rookie Rymer Liriano drives a first-pitch fastball over the right field fence. TOR 5, PHI 4 (F/10).
Dec 31, 2021
Baseball Mogul: A reporter asks Carlos Delgado if this is it, a ring in 1993, another in 2015 to bookend his (81.8WAR) career. "Maybe," he smiles. "Maybe." Another notes that he's only five hits from 2500. The smile broadens. "Sounds like another summer."
Jan 4
Baseball Mogul: Carlos Delgado's 2500th career hit (that's just so many) comes as a pinch-hit double on my sixth wedding anniversary. We are an AL-best 57-34 at the break behind weirdly great Canadian starting pitching (Harden 14-1, 2.22ERA, Paxton 12-2, 2.74ERA). Let's. Go.
Jan 8
Baseball Mogul: the 600th double of Carlos Delgado's twenty-four-year career comes Sept 1st, 2016. The ALDS brings the 100-win Blue Jays the 94-win Texas Rangers, who, in the primary world of our experience, have lost six-straight playoff games to Toronto. Let's. Just. See.
Jan 8
Baseball Mogul: the promise of Drake's "Back to Back" (played extensively all summer just like you'd think) goes unrealized as the 2016 Blue Jays fall in the 13th-inning of ALDS Game Three. "That's baseball," is all the wizened Delgado can offer in explanation. "Just baseball."
Jan 8
Baseball Mogul: changes loom <<pendant la saison morte" as payroll has grown as you might expect to sustain back-to-back 100-win seasons in the AL East; Carlos Delgado, though, his earnings-most years behind him, is content with a couple million a summer to third-string-catch.
Jan 9
Baseball Mogul: in the primary world of our experience, Robbie Ray wins the 2021 AL Cy Young as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays; in this secondary world of subcreation, he has done so in 2016. In these as in all other realms, his pants run exquisitely tight.
Jan 12
Baseball Mogul: June 7, 2017. The Injury Bug Hits Toronto's Catcher.
Jan 12
Baseball Mogul: July 5, 2017. Yankee Stadium. In a wild 18-12 Blue Jays win, 川﨑 宗則 Kawasaki Munenori goes five-for-five with a walk, a home run, and six RBI in six plate appearances from the number nine spot. Everyone is happy, because everyone treasures him.
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Jan 14
Baseball Mogul: July 6, 2017. Taijuan Walker pitches only the second no-hitter in Blue Jays history (Dave Steib, 1990). The injured Carlos Delgado, asked if he wishes he'd been out there to catch it, laughs. "Of course, but I'm happy for [Carlos' protégé] Ryhoei [Shimabukuro]."
Jan 14
Baseball Mogul: in limited (some might say nurturing) appearances, nineteen-year-old SS/2B Bo Bichette rakes utterly against left-handed pitching. Same-sided will come in time. "These major-league sliders are no joke," he rightly observes. Vladdy Guerrero Jr. has been drafted.
Jan 14
Baseball Mogul: August 28, 2017. In front of a crowd of 49 282, Carlos Delgado singles through a drawn-in infield to give the Blue Jays their first run in a 5-1 win over the Red Sox. After a months-long chase, the Blue Jays (82-49) lead the AL East by a game (by this game).
Jan 16
Jan 22
Baseball Mogul: the 2018 Blue Jays trail the Red Sox by a game and a half at the All-Star break. Young Nick Heath has 103 SB and is poised to make a run (wordplay) at the single-season record. Forty-six-year-old backup catcher Carlos Delgado is 4th all time in games played.
Jan 22
Baseball Mogul: now that Carlos Delgado and I are older we don't see each other outside of work as much but it's okay because work is like 162 times a year.
Jan 26
Baseball Mogul: 2018. A 4th-straight 100-win AL East title. ALDS loss. Manuel Margot manages a below-average season (1.3WAR) despite 100SB; Nick Heath fares better (5.4WAR) on 170 SB (hey that's a record!) on 210 attempts (that too!) and 31HR. Carlos abides.
Jan 26
Baseball Mogul: Four seasons of massive revenues (league-leading! our ticket prices are not fan-friendly!) and massive payrolls (league-leading! gotta support tha boiz!) reach their end when I receive a payroll budget unconducive to this approach. It is out of my hands. And so...
Jan 26
...all but the most beloved veterans (Carlos Delgado, Joey Votto, Ryohei Shimabukuro) and most promising youngsters (Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cy Young winner Jose Fernandez [R.I.P. to him in the primary world of our experience]) are gone; a 2019 clearing of the decks.
Jan 26
Baseball Mogul: forty-six-year-old Carlos Delgado enters 2019 on the final year of what he has decided will be his final contract. I too weary of the chase. We both miss the ocean. "The lake is great," Carlos says wistfully. "But it's not the ocean." One last summer.
Jan 26
Baseball Mogul: I slash ticket prices. I reintroduce the Toronto Star Season Pass. Some argue this is akin to sanctioning murder. I say let it play out.
Jan 26
Baseball Mogul: the 2019 Toronto Blue Jays, with a payroll $10 million less than Oakland, are projected for 52 wins but I think we are an interesting young team with a rotation full of "bounce-back candidates"! For example, 34yo Tim Lincecum's 1st start is a 4-hit complete game.
Jan 28
Baseball Mogul: April 4, 2019. Young Vladimir Guerrero Jr. & Bo Bichette spark both a 9th-inning rally to steal a game in Cleveland and joy in the hearts of all who behold them. "You watch these kids play," Carlos Delgado says, "and you fall in love with baseball all over again."
Jan 28
Baseball Mogul: though younger than Bo Bichette's father, Carlos Delgado is a few years older than Vladdy's. "It's crazy," Carlos notes.
Feb 3
Baseball Mogul: by the trade deadline, the 4th-place '19 Blue Jays have the lowest payroll (by a bit)& highest-rated farm system (by a lot) in either league. All that remains of what was are hometown hero Joey Votto, & Carlos Delgado for one last summer (of baseball [he's fine]).
Feb 5
Baseball Mogul: September 23, 2019. Carlos Delgado gets the start at first base to open the final homestand of his twenty-seventh season. In the bottom of the sixth, he rips a two-RBI double to the gap. The 4th-place Blue Jays defeat the 5th-place Orioles 5-2.
Feb 5
Baseball Mogul: September 29, 2019. The 3124th game of Carlos Delgado's career is his last. Four innings at catcher, four innings at first, before he is replaced in the top of the ninth in the way you do to give the crowd a chance to applaud. They do.
Feb 5
Baseball Mogul: Both Carlos Delgado and I remain steadfast in our desire to return to our respective Atlantic coasts so that our respective children can be from them but we cheerfully agree to "stay on" as Special Assistants to my hand-picked successor, the poet Carson Cistulli.
Feb 5
Baseball Mogul: "I always said I would try to return until my body had enough. And my body could take no more. There comes a moment when you have to have the dignity and the sense to recognize that something is not functioning. You can't swim against the current."
Feb 5
Baseball Mogul: The above are Carlos Delgado's parting words in both the primary world of our experience and in the secondary world of subcreation in which we have dwelt since 8/30/21 in the former, 3/1/01 in the latter. Thank you for your attention to this matter throughout.
Feb 5
For more on Carlos Delgado, and specifically on my feelings regarding Carlos Delgado, eleven years ago I wrote a piece called "Had I mentioned previously that Carlos Delgado is my favourite baseball player?" very much on that theme.
EPILOGUE: The Poet Carson Cistulli signed Freddie Freeman and the Blue Jays won the World Series immediately, which is to say: another ring for Special Assistant to the Poet Carson Cistulli Carlos Delgado (this is what his letterhead says).
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