7:09 Pedroia singles. There goes the perfect game for Sir Sidney.
7:12 Of all the little things that grounds crews have been accused of over the years of doing to favor the home team, I’ve never heard anyone being accused of timing the ads that appear on the wall behind home plate so that ads that are white, which makes the ball hard to see for fielders, show up when the home team is batting. Probably because they don’t do it. But it’d be a good idea.
7:14 Youkilis strikes out. Not that they did it for him in Yankee Stadium, but Youkilis batting reminds me how sick I am of fans who make a big deal out of guys whose names have a sound that rhymes with “boo”, like “Youk”. I think fans think they’re being really ironic when they yell these names. “Yooooouuuukk! Get it! It sounds like we’re booing, but we’re not! If you don’t know that, you’re not a real fan! Yooouuukk!” It’s the same with two guys named “Moose”: Mooooose (Mussina) and Mooooose (Daryl Johnston of the mid-90s Cowboys), among others. The only time I thought this was okay was when I didn’t know any better because I was 7 and Bills fans chanted “Bruuuuuuuce” for Bruce Smith. It only took the maturation level, however, of being 8 or possibly 9 at the oldest when I realized that this is dumb.
7:17 Sidney has allowed two in two thirds of an inning. Sounds about right.
7:18 Steve and Dave are talking about how today’s games are the last ones in MLB without replay, as replay begins tomorrow. I repeat: you cannot change rules in the middle of a season! Wait until next year!
7:20 Steve just said that Jon Lester “has become the ace” of the Red Sox staff. Not true. Josh Beckett and Dice-K have fallen so ungracefully that Lester has had no choice but to assume the “ace” role, if he even has.
7:21 Great assist to Pudge by Abreu to end the inning. We’ll miss his occasionally accurate arm next season.
7:26 Warren Spahn strikes out Damon with a pitch on the corne-...Sorry, I mean Paul Byrd’s windup strikes out Damon with a pitch on the corner. Bonus: Spahn was born in Buffalo.
7:28 Arkansas Megan is blogging the game as well. I have a sick feeling hers is going to be more entertaining than mine.
7:30 They just showed Mark Kotsay in the Boston dugout, as they just traded for him. Kotsay, of course, was at one time a brilliant acquisition by brilliant Money Ball manager Billy Beane, who has brilliantly managed his way to zero World Series appearances.
7:31 A-Rod scores Abreu from first. Suddenly the fans love him again. Hmm. 9 more years of this.
7:36 Every time I announce that I need more shaving cream, Arkansas Megan asks if I’m going to get the new kind whose commercial has hundreds of microscopic girls in tight jumpsuits and jet packs flying into the guy’s nose. Do women think that this is a popular male fantasy?
7:39 I would be more hesitant to take a shot of this garlic sauce that came with our pizza than I would be of taking a shot of the rattiest moonshine in West Virginia.
7:40 Sir Sidney fooled Ellsbury with two nice curveballs. Ellsbury has leveled out statistically to become a satisfyingly average player with above average speed.
7:47 The Phillies are currently beating Johan Santana 2-1. The Mets absolutely positively need to win that game. Just ask Matt J. If you want his head to spin around like the Exorcist girl’s. Especially now that O’Brien is reliving the Mets’ finish to last season. I happen to know that Matt J is not watching this broadcast; it’s probably for the best.
7:55 Steve Phillips proclaims to Peter Gammons that the most important player in the history of the Boston Red Sox is…Jason Varitek. I’m not even sure what to say.
7:57 Gammons is trying to clean up Phillips’ mess. It’s been roughly 10 minutes since anyone mentioned anything about what’s happening on the field.
8:02 There’s a reason Peter Gammons is a famous writer: because he’s a lousy TV announcer. Get him out of the booth.
8:04 Now they’re talking about Curt Schilling, who, I don’t have to remind you, has not thrown a single inning this season. He’s not even there. Is he even on the team? Let’s talk about Ruben Sierra!
8:11 The Most Important Player in Red Sox History flew out to center. Unrelated: I think Steve Phillips is drunk. Or he has a huge crush on Gammons who is STILL IN THE BOOTH. The game has become a sideshow. I would take Michael Kay, Al Leiter, and John Flaherty over these goobers any day. And I don’t think Dave O’Brien is that horrible!
8:15 Steve Phillips says that in his mind Maris’ 61 homers is still the single season record. I suppose Steve Phillips also thinks that Steve Phillips is a successful major league manager, too.
8:16 Footage of Roger Maris’ 61st homer. Rounding the bases, his head was down and he wasn’t sprinting, but he wasn’t prancing either. Modern players claim to idolize guys like Maris. Why don’t they try to emulate them?
8:27 Cano brings A-Rod around on a single, tie game. Steve Phillips declares that the Yankees need “more things like that” (RBIs) in order to “turn this thing around.” Invaluable insight from the Skipper. Madden-esque.
8:28 Pudge flies out to end the inning. He has one homer and is hitting something right around the Mendoza line since joining the Yankees. In the past several years, supposedly talented veterans such as Pudge who have joined the Yankees have this look about them that says “I used to be an All-Star, but I’ve come here to falter.” Pudge has perfected this look, and he has faltered. Randy Johnson did this pretty effectively as well.
8:40 Ponson has thrown 7 straight balls, putting Youkilis at 3-0 with the bases loaded. This does not have postseason push written all over it.
8:41 Full count.
8:41 Ellsbury is walked in. Turning point of the game?
8:43 Jason Bay sac flies to right. 4-2, Boston. I can’t wait for the first Bills game.
8:43 Arkansas Megan, who has abandoned her blog for a comfy spot on the couch, notes how sad it is that the Yankees fans don’t applaud for Ponson as he leaves the game. I have to agree.
8:53 Jeter lines out. It’s ok, he’s so dreamy.
8:56 A-Rod at bat. A-Rod swings real hard. Ball soars to centerfield. Crowd gets very excited; they obviously don’t know that Coco Crisp can see where the ball is going much better than they can, as he steps under the pop fly to make the catch. Why do fans insist on ignoring the movements of the guys who are paid millions of dollars to catch the ball? They know where it’s going and watching them will help you look like not a doofus.
9:17 I really enjoy watching Pedroia play. I think he’s the Red Sox’ Jeter. He’s a great hitter who has become a leader very early in his career. He’s a relentless fielder. He’s a team guy. I’ve heard interviews with him and he seems like a good person. He beats out every hit and puts his head down when he homers. You never hear him say anything dumb (well, dumb in the sense of deconstructive to the team; all athletes are pre-programmed to say unintelligent things). He just struck out, but he did it while swinging so hard that he almost knocked himself over, which is another reason I delight in watching him. He also provides some minor unintentional comic relief because he looks like he’s about 17, then immediately ages about 25 years when he takes his helmet off.
9:25 Understandably, the announcers won’t shut up about it being the last year at Yankee Stadium. It reminds of a website, which I will not link to, that is a petition to keep the Stadium standing. Not as the home of the Yankees, mind you, but as a minor league complex, or as a museum, or even a shopping mall (I’m not kidding). This petition claims that “The Stadium is a national treasure, a part of our country’s history.” Look, there is ten tons of history there, but baseball history. Yes, ok, non-baseball events include: Louis vs. Schmeling, Zale vs. Rocky, Colts vs. Giants in “the greatest game ever played”, a few papal visits, the 1946 Army-Notre Dame (the Game of the Century), the win one for the Gipper game, and some concerts. And other things, I’m sure. But let’s not get carried away here. It is not critical to our nation’s history that the Stadium remains. Battlefields, monuments to great men, Yankee Stadium? Not so sure about that. The Polo Grounds was torn down and its legend probably looms larger than if it hadn’t been torn down. Let the Stadium go. Its legend will only grow.
9:32 Delcarmen lays down the Yanks in order to end the 7th, still 4-2 Sox.
9:37 Paraphrasing Phillips: “Bay is actually having a pretty good year. He’s actually a pretty good player but you’d never know it before now because he’s been in Pittsburgh!” Take a closer look at the hand that feeds you, Steve, for your answer.
9:46 Bases loaded, no outs. I’m not even nervous. Just waiting.
9:47 Sac fly. 6-2, Boston.
9:49 7-2 Sox on a Crisp single. It may be bedtime.
9:56 Red Sox have batted around. Papi just did something good after some other guys did some good things since I last updated. Oh, Pedroia knocked a grand salami. 11-2, Boston. 1 out, by the way.
9:57 McCain has reportedly picked his running mate, and will make the announcement on Friday at 11 am, presumably timed to take the wind out of Obama’s sails after his speech on Thursday night. Hopefully a post on this topic will write itself tomorrow.
10:00 Youkilis hit the ball and a Yankees player caught the ball before it hit the ground. I don’t remember what that means.
10:03 From the east coast! To the west coast! This is oooouuuurrrr cooouuunnttrryy!
10:06 Mike Timlin wears one of those little ropes around his neck. I never understood that trend. I don’t understand many trends, in fact. I’m not very trendy. Don’t listen to me.
10:08 Yankees haven’t had a hit since Sunday. I mean the 5th inning. You can stick a fork in the fat lady, the party’s over. Or however that saying goes.
10:10 I enjoy Old Spice commercials. The centaur in the shower, and the Doogie Howser bits. Pretty funny. I’d link to them if I could for just a second rip my eyes away from these wet noodles parading around in pinstripes.
10:14 On to the bottom of the ninth. Time for a ten run rally. The giant plush turtle I won at an amusement park is sitting on his head in place of a rally cap.
10:17 Tonight’s game was sold out with 55,027 in attendance. Last night it was sold out with 55,058 in attendance. What do you call a sold out game that 5% of the ticket-holders don't go to?
10:18 The 42 people left in the stands watch Giambi hit a meaningless home run. The nearest fan is still running to go get the ball, because he was 17 sections away. He was the closest one to the ball.
10:19 Nady with a nice base hit to left. This is nonsense.
10:20 Matsui singles to right. Timing is everything.
10:23 Double play to end the game. This game was a microcosm of the Yankees’ season: shaky starting pitching, underachieving offense, ending on a double play. Boston will play its last ever game at the Stadium tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have a disputed, replayed home run to make it interesting. Actual meaningless, non-binding prediction: Yankees pound it out and win easily with Moooooooooose on the mound. I don’t think they lose their last game against the Red Sox at the Stadium to get swept.
The Yankees blew it last night, with A-Rod leading the way (0-5, 7 LOB, and an error). Michael Kay pointed out a dumb but oddly interesting A-Rod statistic: in recent history, he’s played much better in odd-numbered years. He won his MVPs in 2003, 2005, 2007. He hit higher in each of those years than in 2004 and 2006. He was clutchclutchclutch last year (at least during the regular season), much to the disappointment of his haters. He was fantastic with RISP, which this season is the downfall of the entire team including him. His numbers across the board this year are down, although he is hitting .312. Gotta love baseball.
One guy who remains a mystery to me is Jose Molina. His numbers are not very good: .227, 2 HRs, 14 RBIs. I say without exaggeration that it must be that I have been watching when he’s hit both home runs and at least 12 of the 14 RBIs, because if I didn’t have the numbers in front of me, and wasn’t reminded by his stats and by Michael Kay every time he came to bat, I would say he’s having a good season.
Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post wrote an interesting if not a bit scatterbrained article about loving and hating baseball.
TMQ loves to point out instances in which sports announcers claim to be able to distinguish tenths or even hundredths of a second, claiming it is absurd. I agree with him. In this week’s edition, TMQ notes that Olympian Usain Bolt reportedly broke Michael Johnson’s record in the 200-meters by one-fiftieth of a second. He writes, “Bolt is great, but declaring him one-fiftieth of a second better than the previous record-holder seems absurd. Reader Ryan Stormo of
A couple noteworthy columns from the past couple days include:
Dave Barry’s take on the DNC: “Sen. Clinton will either call on her supporters to unite behind Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress.”
Tommy Friedman had a good article on Sunday examining what makes the US Olympic team different from the China Olympic team, and why the things that make them different contributed to each team winning so many medals.
Andrew Breitbart wrote a must-read article on the absurdity of the mud-flinging campaign coming from the left.
Baseball: I can’t believe that Hardball Times doesn’t advertise this better. I also can’t believe that I immediately spent an hour on this when I found it. Wait, I absolutely can. It’s a page where you rank baseball’s ethical scenarios, from religious imagery in scoreboards to umps asking fans for their opinions to pine tar to corking bats. The idea is that once enough people do it enough times, the people doing the study will come up with a master ranking of what were the least ethical transgressions in baseball history. Fascinating.
In the mean time, the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs and Carl Pavano won a Major League Baseball game. What’s going on here? More tomorrow.
As usual, I won’t have enough time to make sure what I’m saying is coherent as I fumble out a morning post, so bear with me.
Problems with the press. This may as well just become an everyday item. Today’s problem is word choice, which as you can imagine I see as a rather big problem for the press. One issue is the word “slam”. If you go to Google News and search for “slams”, you’ll see the following hits, among others: “Man slams into stopped police patrol car”, and “Indians prospect slams three homers”. I have no problem with these. “Slam” should be a physical occurrence. Even “Thyphoon Nuri slams into
A NY Daily News piece that’s covering Mark Spitz’ claim that he could beat Michael Phelps informs the reader that Phelps “shattered” Spitz’ gold medal record by winning eight in Beijing. Spitz won seven. One medal is hardly a shattering. Let’s reserve the use for words with strong meanings for situations that are warranted so that they don’t lose their effectiveness. The English language thanks you.
One collection of words that I particularly enjoyed was a quote from Mike Bloomberg, who was sharing his vision of implanting windmills all over New York City: "It would be a thing of beauty if when Lady Liberty looks out on the horizon, she not only welcomes new immigrants to our shores but lights their way with a torch powered by an ocean wind farm.”
Matt J beat me to TMQ this week, but I will nonetheless predictably endorse your reading it. A convenient link for our extensive readership.
Also in the news in the past few days: the Patriots signed John Lynch, and fans react accordingly.
I finally got around to reading this interview with former German Chancellor Schröder that Matt J passed along to me yesterday. The Chancellor talks about the Georgia-Russia fiasco, what it means for
Major League Baseball cannot institute instant replay this season. If you start a season with the rules a certain way, you have to play the season out that way. And the fact that MLB seems more concerned with the instant replay rule than with shattering bats is a little absurd.
There’s a chance that Melky Cabrera may never re-emerge from the minors. I still like my T-shirt.
On ESPN, fans voted and elected the greatest player of all time for each team. I didn’t vote because I hate these things. Fans chose Jim Kelly for the Bills. He won very much with a mere plurality, getting only 37% of the vote, in front of Bruce Smith, O.J., Darryl Talley (!), and Thurman Thomas. I’m glad the vote was so close, but it’s obvious only a minority of the voters were over 30, otherwise O.J. would have gotten more votes. People forget how great he was. 2,003 yards in 14 games! Plus, I love Darryl Talley, but him getting more votes than Thurman Thomas is just plain wrong.
I assume Matt J will not object to the Original and the Only LT (a healthy 84%) beating out the likes of Michael Strahan, Phil Simms, Frank Gifford, and, uh…Carl Banks. No Eli! Where’s the outrage?
Obama’s pick for Veep reported to come early tomorrow. Obama’s keeping it quiet so his supporters who have signed up for this super-cool, super-neat, super-insider, clap-your-hands-because-you-get-a-text-message-from-Barack-and-can-show-your-friends-how-involved-you-are notification can find out before the media and the masses who he has chosen. My money is on Drudge getting it before any text message gets sent out.
I learned this morning that the incumbent party hosting their convention last is a tradition that has held steady since 1956, and is one that is steeped in history, a lot of which goes back to the 1864 and 1868 elections. Also, in 1868 the chairman of the Democratic convention was Horatio Seymour. There was a deadlock in the voting among other potential candidates. Suddenly, Seymour himself was being mentioned as a strong possibility to be the nominee. He got up in front of everyone and declared that they could not vote for him, and he wasn’t being humble. He really meant it: he didn't want it. They voted for him anyway, and he reluctantly went on to get crushed by Ulysses S. Grant, who remains the President with the coolest name. Anyway, can you imagine anyone in politics today saying “No, don’t vote for me”?
Bleachers. Section 55, Row V.
