Is Jacoby Ellsbury Jewish?

No, he is not Jewish. He was raised a Mormon, by his mother, who was taught by Mormon missionaries on her reservation.

Yes, he has a girlfriend. Kelsey Hawkins.

He chanced his number from 46 to 2 when a bench coach who had the #2 previously left the team. Ellsbury's number in highschool was 2 and he always wanted to have that. (If his batting and stealing numbers aren't very good, he may well go back to 46! Who knows?)

Jacoby is half Navajo, half caucasian. His mother is a school teacher, his father is a forestry agent. He has two brothers.

And that's all you need to know.

Now that I've sucked yoiu in to visiting my blog (I notice that a lot of people do a search on "Is Jacoby Ellsbury Jewish" followed by "Is Jacoby Ellsbury married"
and "Is Jacoby Ellsbury engaged" - stick around, Ladies ; ) and play MLB Survivor and Beat the Streak.

At least, you sign up for free at MLB.com, then come here for advice on what players to play and what teams to choose.

My Darn Browser! or The Games ARE on!

BEAT THE STREAK
It appears that the Beat the Streak game actually is available now. I had looked at it earlier today and it wasn't active...but I have just checked it on my laptop and it is.

What that means is I've got an old version of IE on my desktop computer, and they think they can force me to upgrade by disabling the features that used to work on this computer.

Well, I shall show them! I shall simply play the game on my laptop, and leave this browser the way it is.

So, I've missed two days to date for the MLB Beat the Streak.

This early in the season, it's really hard to pick the players... who's going to be on fire, who will be nervous and slump immediately, etc.

So, I"m going to go with Ichiro to start out with, and see how many hits he can get for me.

MLB SURVIVOR
This game I will start tomorrow as well. (If you don't know where these fantasy games are, go to MLB.com, then click on the Fantasy tab. They have several games there, in which winners can win a fair amount of money.)

Yanks vs Red Sox tomorrow are too close to call, so I'm going to go with the Mariners over Athletics.

On April 7, the Phillies will beat the Nationals.

And in the Support this blog department:

MLB Survivor Game 2010 Season

Well, today's opening day for a lot of teams, and the MLB survivor game hasn't been started up yet. Doesn't matter to me, as I would have picked Jacoby Ellsbury for last night, and he went 0-fer.

I'll keep an eye on the game, and when it's open for business I'll let y'all know.

Meantime, as I type, Dan Dailey is starring as Dizzy Dean in The Pride of St. Louis, which was made in 1952.

Next on TCM is It Happens Every Spring, starring Ray Milland, perhaps the first movie in which a baseball player cheats and people are supposed to root for him. (It's a comedy, he's a professor who has a secret formula that repels wood, which he rubs on the baseballs.)

Ryan Ludwick for Saturday

I've decided to go wth Ludwick. St. Louis is playing a later game than I like - 2 pm, but no one in the earlier games looks promising.

Derek Jeter and the Yankees are playing at about the same time as St. Louis, and Jeter has the same success against the pitcher he's facing as Ludwick has against his...but Ludwick is soooo hot right now.

On the other hand, those "fans" that commentate on the players at CBSsportsline was saying that LaRussa will probably sit Ludwick for the weekend. I don't believe that can be possible, Ludwick hits too well against this pitcher...but again I'm nervous.

But he's having games with multiple hits, and Derek Jeter is having games with single hits, so I'm thinking Ludwick.

Meantime, Bonifacio fans have reason to be extremely annoyed today. He'd been given yesterday off, which means that the hundreds of peope who had probably selected him, because he's also been hot this early, were breathing sighs of relief, because as long as he's not playing, they don't lose their streak. But then, he was put in as a pinch-hitter late in the game, and struck out. And since he appeared once, had one measly at-bat, their streak has ended.

That's kind of what I'm afraid of with Ludwick. He's sooo hot, what if a pitcher whom he does well against decides to walk him four times in a row, or gives him 1 at bat and walks him the next 3 times.

Meantime, Jeter wouldn't command that kind of fear...he's just a singles hitter now, for all that he hit a homerun last night...

Well, let's h ave positive vibes that Ludwick will indeed start, and that he'll get a hit in his first at bat.

Thanks Mr. Ludwick!

He got his hit (and mine) in fine style today, belting a homerun with 2 on to put the St. Louis Cardinals in the lead over the Cubs.

To Karma or Not to Karma

I've decided to stick with Ryan Ludwick today, although I have a bad feeling about it. For one thing, he hits cleanup, so he'll get probably only 4 rather 5 chances to get a hit. (But then, Kemp bat 8th...)

More agitating is that he's a "Silver Slugger" award winner last year, and yet LaRussa is platooning him this year. And once even took him out to have a pinch hitter hit, despite the fact that the guy is batting well over .300!

So, he is 3/4 against Zambrano, so one assumed LaRussa will have him starting, but his head may be so messed up that he doesn't give his all, or may try too hard, just to show LaRussa what an idiot he is.

So since I have this bad feeling, I probably shouldn't go with him at all, despite his excellent hitting to date.

Problem is, the Yankees are the early game, and in a sense I'd rather go with Jeter, who's bat seems to be picking up. But he's never faced the pitcher Reyes at all. And although Reyes would seem to have an ERA of 6.00, people's batting average against him is only .145 or something, a statistic I don't understand at all. In the message boards discussing him, some say he's really good, others say he's nothing more than a journeyman. (He's little more than a rookie.)

So, with the choice of early games being St. Louis or New York... I guess I'm going to go with St. Louis. But if LaRussa screws me over here, I'll be very annoyed!

Kemp came through!

and he did it on his first at bat! Yay.

So, tomorrow my streak will be at 10. Almost 1/5th of the way to my goal.

I must say I was nervous. Kemp bats 8th, which means he would be lucky to get 3 bats a game! Normally it's best to use a lead off player as your choice.

How can you abandon a 10-game hitting streak?

As soon as the games start for the day, and everyone's choices are locked, you can go in and see who each person picked for that particular day. And I think it's kind of fun to go in and see who everyone else has chosen.

So, today, I'm looking to see how many people chose Matt Kemp, and not as many as I would have expected did. This is probably because his game doesn't get started til 10 pm, and who wants to wait that long?

However, as I'm paging through the pages (there's 397 people with active streaks of 10 games right now, and over 700 with active streaks of 9 games), I've come across at least 10 players so far who had 10-game streaks who just didn't make a choice for today. Now, a 10-game streak is nothing to sneeze at! Why let it go???

On a side note, I had given serious thought to choosing Bonifacio of the Marlins today. He's been red hot, and the game started at noon.... but fortunately I did not change my mind, because he's had his last at bat and he's 0-5.

But, because of that, although I had initially chosen him for tomorrow's game, now I'm going to go with Ryan Ludwick of St. Louis instead. He's 3-4 against Zambrano in his career, and he's batting over .400 at the moment.

Apparenlty there's some controversy, manager LaRussa has sat him in 3 games out of the 10 this season, even though he's hitting so well, so that does have me a bit nervous...but for now, he's my choice.

Thank you Placido!

Placido came through for me in his 2nd at bat, hitting a 2-run double.

Tomorrow, Thursday April 16, is a difficult decision. Derek Jeter is going up against a pitcher that he is .400 against, but overall on the season he isn't batting .300 yet... so I'm nervous.

On the other hand, in a 10 pm game, Matt Kemp, who is hitting .520 against Barry Zito and .357 on the year, is going up Zito who really got roughed up in his last outing and is not the pitcher he was.

So it would seem to be a slam dunk, so much so that the BTS "pundits" have also chosen him (there's a little Burger King face next to his name.)

So, although I hate being in suspense that long, from all I can see he's defintely the best bet.

The only danger of course is that since he does hit Zito so well, Zito will end up walking him 4 times out of 5, giving him only one chance to hit!

Still, I'll think positive.

I'm going to play it safe tomorrow,a nd stay with Matt Kemp.

Bobby Abreu makes it 8

In his 2nd at bat against Carlos Silva and the Mariners, Abreu hit a double.

Thanks!

Tomorrow, April 15, I've chosen Placido Polanco of the Detroit Tigers.

Anyone who chose a player of the Detroit Tigers or White Sox for this afternoon game will note that it was rained out. In such cases, your streak isn't broken, so make sure you choose a player for tomorrow - Polanco will do!

Just hope that game isn't rained out as well!