Month: April 2004

Unbelievable

Here’s Barry Bonds so far this year.

I said to Stacey last night, “Maybe this will be the year he hits .400, just to show that he can.”

Stacey said, “Maybe this will be the year he hits .500.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say that if he hits .500, he’ll win another MVP.

Of course, he’s going to have to get past Dontrelle Willis to do that. Dontrelle Willis as a hitter, I mean.

Original comments…

Steve: So is he using a new more glamorous steroid or just trying that much harder? I like those projections but what about the non-breakable record no one talks about 190 RBI?

Good ol’ baseball

“Peanuts” began on October 2, 1950, unfortunately at a time of year when it would be incongruous to draw kids playing baseball. But the first mention of it was less than a month after the debut, on October 27, with Shermy showing Charlie Brown a globe:

Shermy: So you see this proves that our Earth is round like a ball…
Charlie Brown: Like a baseball?
Shermy: Sure, like a baseball.
Charlie Brown: Like a basketball?
Shermy: Sure, just like a basketball.
Charlie Brown: I don’t believe it!
Shermy: Why?
Charlie Brown: No stitches!

Then after the long, cold winter, the first appearance of baseball equipment was March 1, 1951, when Shermy and Charlie Brown are wearing baseball gloves for a non-baseball joke. So what I would call the first “Peanuts” baseball strip is March 6, 1951, in which Charlie Brown is wearing a catcher’s mitt and a backwards baseball cap, and Shermy appears in the last panel with regular glove and cap in normal orientation…

Charlie Brown: Pitch to me, boy! Throw it right in here! He can’t hit it!! Just pitch to me, boy! Pitch to me! O.K., I’m all warmed up…let’s start the game!

(Yes, as you may have gathered, this arrived in my mailbox today. Perhaps I should have posted this under the heading “whetting Levi’s appetite,” since it looks like they’re shipping the pre-orders via Media Mail from Seattle, so he probably doesn’t have his copy yet.)

Original comments…

Levi: I’m still waiting for mine. In fact, I’ve taken to sticking my head in my mailbox every afternoon and shouting, “Hello in there!”

Last night, I was speculating with Stacey and Bob that Jean Schulz, in a final tribute to her late husband, had decided not to send the books after all, and to cancel the series, keeping alive the feelings of sadness, despair, and shattered hopes that Charlie Brown was so familiar with.

But Bob pointed out that the better idea would be for them to send books to all those who ordered except one person, leaving that person to wait and wait and wait while his friends talked about the book and posted to their weblogs about it.

Jim: Sometimes you call Fantagraphics: “Thanks for the copy of ‘Complete Peanuts’ you sent me.” They respond, “We didn’t send you any copy of ‘Complete Peanuts.'” Then you say, “Don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it?”

If it makes you feel any better, you have historically had better luck with women than I have. Of course, I can now use the pickup line, “Hey, want to come back to my place and see my copy of ‘Complete Peanuts’?”

No matter what the question is, the answer’s always "Jeopardy!"

I tried out for “Jeopardy!” today for the third time in three years, and passed the test for the third time, which means you get to play a brief mock version of the game and be grilled by the contestant coordinators. I mentioned this trip, and was asked what city/stadium I was looking forward to the most; I said Boston and Fenway, because I thought it would take too long to explain that I’m looking forward to all the stops for different and varied reasons. Then, when asked what I’d do with the money, I said maybe I’d do an “all 30” trip…but it’s probably a little too early to start planning that one, since they didn’t call me for the 2002-03 season, and they didn’t call me for the 2003-04 season. Perhaps the problem is that they calculate everyone’s expected winnings based on how well they do at the tryout, and I would blow the show’s budget.

Really, what I’d first do with my game show winnings is move to a place big enough to hold a pinball machine without it taking up half the space in the living room. And then I’d get a pinball machine.

Good grief, more baseball!

I saw “The Punisher” today, which was filmed in, and takes place in, Tampa. I don’t think I’m giving anything away here, since it was mentioned in several reviews I’ve read, but there’s a torture scene involving someone’s facial piercings and a pair of pliers. Perhaps it would have been more effective if the torture had instead involved attendance at a Devil Rays game.

I say that with love, of course, since the stars have aligned such that I will be in my hometown a mere three weekends from now, and I will be seeing the Devil Rays play the Rangers at Tropicana Field on Tuesday, May 11th. I guess technically, this counts as a new stadium for me, although I’ve seen both NHL hockey games and college basketball games there in its previous incarnations as the Florida Suncoast Dome and as the Thunderdome.

The answer you’ve been waiting for

Here’s the answer they gave on “Car Talk.” (Had to wait for it to be posted to the web site, since the show airs in L.A. while I’m at work on Saturday.) Levi is correct in the comments on the question (back on April 13) that this is a hard situation to plan for, and Luke is correct that they’d mention his pick-off move to first. If only we’d sent in the answer, perhaps we could have won a gift certificate for “Car Talk” merchandise.

RAY: The fact that his nickname was Lefty should help. Lefties have good pick-off moves. So imagine this: It’s the top of the ninth, and the game is tied. The opponents have a guy on first base and there are two outs. Lefty’s brought in. He doesn’t throw a single pitch. Instead he picks the guy off of first base.

Inning over. Did he throw a pitch?

TOM: No.

RAY: Bottom of the ninth, one of his teammates hits a home run, end of game, Lefty wins, gets his bonus, gets his thousand bucks, and the manager gets fired anyway.

Just when you had forgotten about the hockey robots

As is my habit, I watched my recording of last night’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” during the 5:00 P.M. hour today. Joe Buck was the third guest, promoting tonight’s Fox “‘Wonderfalls’ Memorial Friday Night Broadcast” of the Red Sox-Yankees game, and at one point, the topic turned to Fox’s new innovations for their baseball coverage this year.

Their discussion of one of the innovations led me to immediately start the TiVo recording the game, mainly because I wanted to see if it really existed, or if this was a bizarre example of Joe Buck’s deadpan sarcastic humor.

The innovation in question is Scooter the animated talking baseball, and he really does exist, much like the bubonic plague really does exist. Now, upon hearing about Scooter, Conan immediately did an impression of him, saying in a high voice, “Hey, kids, a slider moves from side to side!”

Since the game had already started, my TiVo recording only captured the third inning on, and I had to fast-forward all the way to the eighth inning, stopping only to admire Johnny Damon’s hair, before Scooter showed up. Now, first of all, referring to him as “animated” is an insult to actual animators, by which I mean that Fox just has him making one certain mouth movement over and over again while he’s supposedly talking; even the cheapest 10-frame-per-second cartoons never resorted to that sort of thing (in fact, the cheapest cartoon ever, “Clutch Cargo,” superimposed actual mouths on the drawings rather than have incorrect mouth movements).

And, as you might have guessed, Conan’s impression was almost perfect; the only fault was that it wasn’t long enough. Here is my transcript of the Scooter segment I saw: “What’s up, bros? This is Scooter. When Scooter really wants to scoot, it’s time for a little heat. The pitcher just rears back and throws me as hard as he can. Whoa! A good fastball comes so fast, a hitter has no time to react. Stee-rike!”

Anyone who thinks Tom Kenny should start limiting himself to HBO sketch comedy programs and maybe “Powerpuff Girls,” raise your hand. I thought so.

Original comments…

Levi: You must be making this up. Otherwise, there’s no hope in the universe. And I refuse to believe that.

Only trust the audience on questions about movies

Later that same episode…the second contestant, going for $64,000, is faced with the question “in 1947, who became the first African-American baseball player to play in the American League?”, and the choices Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Dan Bankhead, and Jackie Robinson.

He says that he knows it’s not Jackie Robinson because the Dodgers are in the National League, but then makes the mistake of polling the audience. The poll results: 55% for Paige, 23% for Doby, 18% for Robinson, and 4% for Bankhead. Then he takes the 50/50, which leaves Paige and Doby, says “I should have trusted the audience instincts,” makes Paige his final answer, and leaves with $32,000.

If only it had been a question about Rob Dibble!

Obscure references to baseball players

On the November 28, 2000, episode of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” the four answer choices were “nib,” “tang,” “bail,” and “dibble” for the $125,000 question “what is the name of the unseen part of the knife blade that secures the blade to the handle,” and the following ensued:

Regis: Well, I drank some Tang once, if that helps. Somebody bailed me out, as a matter of fact. And I do dibble well.
Contestant: Rob Dibble — he was a pitcher with the Reds at one time.
Regis: There you go. Good reliever. (Although as Regis said it, it sounded more like “reliefer.”)

The contestant chose to quit, and left with $125,000. If only he had been able to think of Frank Tang-nana!

Original comments…

Levi: Is it the nib?

Jim: No, it’s the tang, hence my reference to Frank Ta(ng)nana, and not to, um, Nibbles.

A nib is the metal part you write with on a fountain pen; a bail is, among other things, the metal bar on a typewriter that holds the paper against the platen; and this is a dibble (used to make a big enough hole in the ground so that you can put in a bulb or a seedling).

Viral marketing

The Subservient Chicken will play baseball, if asked. But he doesn’t know how to steal home, and when asked to cork his bat, he just plays baseball.

Original comments…

Luke, hanger-on: I think the truth is that it’s actually a Subserviant Cub inside a Subserviant Chicken suit. It does not know how to “go to the World Series” or even “win,” but it does know how to “lose,” “make questionable trades” and “raise, then dash, hopes and dreams.”

Levi: Speaking of stealing home: I learned today that Jackie Robinson stole home 19 times in his career!

Why, oh why is there not more stealing home? It’s one of the greatest plays in sports. But I’ve never gotten to see it live.

Time to clone Jackie Robinson!

Jim: I saw someone steal home live in a minor-league game involving, if I recall correctly, the Lancaster Jethawks and the team that was then known as the Mudville Nine in an ill-conceived attempt to disguise the fact that they were from Stockton.

I’m sure it would have been slightly more impressive if it happened in a level higher than Class A, where the players are slightly more skilled.