During the 2010 season Burnett’s pitching was quite disastrous, as he went 10-15, 5.26 ERA. 2011 hasn’t been any better for the right-hander, as his record is 11-11 with a 5.15 ERA. The Yankees skipper, Joe Giradi, had removed the erratic Burnett from the post season rotation, but was forced to re-insert him for Game 4 after Game 1 was suspended for rain. Burnett was quoted as saying:

“Believe it or not, I have pretty good confidence every start. I always go out believing I can throw a no-hitter, even last year when I couldn’t get out of the first inning. I had good games and bad games this season, but my confidence has never been a problem.”

Although Burnett is confident in himself, his coach doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment. Giradi told ESPN that Burnett will likely have a very short leash. Die hard Yankees fans have flocked to Twitter to share their thoughts and their predictions on what will happen when Burnett takes the mound tonight… most of them are pure doom and gloom though:

How do you think AJ Burnett will do tonight? Let us know your thoughts.

In a way, it adds more excitement to the game. Would you want a robot calling balls and strikes? I sure wouldn’t.

The latest sporting controversy involves a call by a home plate umpire in last night’s marathon MLB game between the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The game ended in the 19th inning with a much disputed “safe” call at the plate on a runner that appears to be out by at least 3 or 4 steps. Many on the internet are calling this the “worst call in the history of sports.”

Here’s the situation: Game tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the 19th inning. Men on 2nd and 3rd with one out for the Braves. Chopper to third base, the runner goes. The throw to home clearly beats Julio Lugo by a mile. The sweeping tag appears to get Lugo’s leg, but to everyone’s shock the umpire calls him safe.

The Pirates appear perplexed, quite understandably.

Here’s the video from the final play of the game –

What do you think? Did the tag get Lugo, making this a comically horrible call? Or did Lugo escape the tag, making this one of the better calls I’ve ever seen?

Lugo said he didn’t feel the tag in the postgame interviews. “He made the right call, I got in there,” he said.

Either way, the Twitterverse is decidedly holding the belief that home plate umpire Jerry Meals made the wrong call and an incredible trending hashtag has emerged: #jerrymealssaysitssafe.

Here are some of the best tweets –

And the winner for both most timely and most insensitive goes to –

The game last night, despite the controversial ending, made history. Clocking in at 6 hours and 39 minutes, it was the longest ever for both the Braves and the Pirates.

Do you think it’s safe for Jim Joyce to come out now?

Today, the judge presiding over his perjury trial declared a mistrial, based on rookie mistakes by the prosecution team.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton stopped the prosecution right in the middle of a video that they were showing the jury. That video, of Clemens’ 2008 testimony before congress, contained the mention of a piece of evidence that Walton had previous ruled inadmissible.

Friend and former NY Yankee teammate Andy Pettitte went on record and said that Clemens told him about his steroid use back in 1999. Although Clemens denied that claim, Pettitte says that he told his wife, Laura, about the admission.

Judge Walton previously disallowed prosecutors the chance to bring Laura Pettitte in to testify in the current trial, saying that he didn’t want her to testify because she hadn’t actually spoken with Clemens herself.

That video that the Judge stopped today of Clemen’s 2008 congressional hearing included a mention of Laura Pettitte’s statements by Representative Elijah Cummings.

This did not fly with Judge Walton. He said that didn’t know how to “un-ring the bell.”

“I think that a first-year law student would know that you can’t bolster the credibility of one witness with clearly inadmissible evidence,” Walton said.

Ouch.

The Judge went on to say that he “can’t in good faith leave this case where a man’s liberty is at risk.”

The interwebs are not as concerned with procedure. Although I don’t see the vitriolic response associated with another recent trial outcome, it’s still disgruntled. Here’s some Twitter response -

The hearing to decide on whether a new trial will be held will occur on September 2nd

If you need more recent examples, I present to you the genius of Kenny Britt and the 9/11 – Osama Bin Laden fueled rants of Rashard Mendenhall.

In an effort to control what is broadcast by their players, the NFL has implemented a tweet-free environment when it comes to actual league events. The NBA later followed suit. Last week, the NBA further restricted Twitter during the lockout, suggesting that contact between players and teams on the social media platform could result in a million dollar fine.

But Major League Baseball is taking steps to further integrate social media with its players and is not only allowing Facebook and Twitter updates during this year’s All-Star festivities, but encouraging it.

A select group of players will be live-tweeting the Home Run Derby tonight. These players include both participants and spectating players. Here’s the list from MLB.com –

[David] Ortiz (@davidortiz), [Jose] Bautista (@JoeyBats19) and [Matt] Kemp (@TheRealMattKemp) will be tweeting on their accounts during the course of the event as participants, and so will other gathered All-Stars including Heath Bell (@HeathBell21), Gio Gonzalez (@GioGonzalez47), Hunter Pence (@HunterPence9), Brandon Phillips (@DatDudeBP), Gaby Sanchez (@GabySanchez215), Justin Upton (@RealJustinUpton), C.J. Wilson (@str8edgeracer), Howie Kendrick (@HKendrick47) and Joel Hanrahan (@hanrahan4457).

Players that aren’t already heavily involved in Twitter will be participating in the live-tweeting (read: talking smack) via official MLB accounts like @MLB and @MLB_PLAYERS. Participants and spectators are both being encouraged by the MLB to interact with Facebook during the competition.

If players don’t have their own mobile devices to post with during the Derby, they can use designated social media station set up on the field. These stations will have laptops, tablets and cameras. Everyone (including fans) us being asked to use the hashtag #HRDerby when discussing the event on Twitter.

Between batters, some of the live-tweets will be shown on the big screen at Chase Field as they roll in.

The Home Run Derby will air at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. It will also be broadcast as a live stream on mlb.com and espn3.com.

[Image Courtesy mlbreports]

In an email to WebProNews, a YouTube representative provided some more details in the form of bullet points.  One highlight is that "[f]ull-length, catch-up MLB games [will be] available in Japan 36 hours after they air."  Historic game footage will be offered, too, along with profiles of Japanese players.

That’s almost bound to go over well, since baseball is quite popular in Japan.

Furthermore, according to the representative, "Baseball fans in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Russia [will get] access to the full range of MLB’s highlight clips and archives on YouTube," and both organizations hope this will increase local interest in the sport.

Anyway, regardless of what occurs next or how baseball’s perceived in any particular area, this arrangement is supposed to represent "the largest partnership for premium sports content in YouTube history," making it quite significant.

Other large, sports-related deals YouTube’s managed to complete involved cricket and wrestling of the not-quite-real variety.

Yahoo Shortcuts Searchers To Enhancements

Yahoo had revealed its Major League Baseball Shortcuts recently. With the close of SES San Jose for 2007, a trio of new ones have been opened for Yahoo searchers.

The Yahoo Search blog has a preview of the latest shortcuts. We’re thrilled that they finally rolled out one for the National Football League. Let’s face facts: which one are we looking forward to seeing play in a couple of weeks, the Reds or the Bengals?

Yahoo’s other two Shortcuts focus on topics that are of significant interest to searchers. Queries for consumer electronics items like laptops bring up a Shortcut with shopping results, including links to brands, specific models, and buying guide information from the Yahoo Tech site.

Medical conditions and medications have a set of Shortcuts available now. Searching for a pharmaceutical will bring up a Shortcut with its name, generic name if available, and linked articles and communities about the drug.

Looking up a medical condition yields similar information, but includes links to other resources when available. Yahoo does not appear to be using a specific health information partner for those resources, as we have seen Ask.com do with Healthline for its medical Smart Answers debut this month.

Once in place, visitors can view video highlights like Barry Bonds’ 756th home run from MLB’s ‘Silverlight-powered page. Microsoft said its Silverlight plug-in will work on Windows XP, Vista, and Server 2003 when running IE7.

Older stuff like IE6, or Firefox 1.5 or 2, on Windows 2000 hasn’t received support yet.

Microsoft’s Silverlight plug-in works on Windows or Mac, though Linux isn’t supported as an operating system. Like Adobe, Microsoft sees a future where much of the business of content distribution will go to the company that can give the best assurances about protecting copyrighted material.

A product called Silverlight Streaming should emerge as an option from Microsoft for those content owners. Microsoft described it as an optional paid turnkey offering for supporting DRM-encoded video.

“There’s No Live Blogging In Baseball”

A Louisville Courier-Journal reporter was ejected from a University of Louisville baseball game (can’t believe I’m saying this: Go Cards! On to the College World Series after thumping Oklahoma State 20-2 – What? No mercy rule in college play?) for live-blogging the event.

Chalk this one up to ridiculously pedantic, pettifoggerous, and over-killed enforcement of NCAA guidelines. Brian Bennet, the C-J reporter furiously blogging his analysis from the press stands was asked (okay, told) to leave the game because live blogging was a violation of NCAA policies against simulcasting and live representations of the game.

The U of L staff said if they didn’t eject him, they’d lose their ability to host further NCAA baseball games – an excuse C-J executive editor Bennie Ivory called "extortion and thuggery."

Yeah. Thuggery! A word like that gives this story a decidedly Southern feel.

Ivory also said it was a First Amendment violation, which might be a more difficult case to prove than the thuggerous (heh) actions of the NCAA.
 

Users with Media Center PCs or Media Center Extenders such as the Xbox 360 video game can now receive updates on their fantasy baseball team while watching live games.

"We are excited to take fantasy baseball to the next level this season and bring the ultimate game day experience to passionate baseball fans through Yahoo! Sports for TV," said Patrick Barry, vice president, Yahoo! Digital Home.

"By extending users’ Web experiences beyond the PC to the largest screen in the house, with products like Yahoo! Sports for TV, Yahoo! is leading the way in the development of innovative and exciting applications that exceed users’ expectations."

Features of the new version include real time game data such as player stats, inning information and who’s at bat. Also there is a scoreboard feature that allows user to keep track of what’s happening around the league.

"Yahoo! Sports for TV delivers innovative custom tools, such as live updates and Scoreboard, allowing fans to track fantasy teams while enjoying MLB action," said James Pitaro, general manager, Yahoo! Sports.

"Adding Yahoo! Sports for TV to our very popular Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball ’07 will bolster our fans’ experience and create an enhanced level of competition."

Here’s mine. I’d love to see a bookmarklet for this tool. If anyone makes one please leave it in comments.

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.