Day: October 6, 2004

Two more things

1) I really like watching Johan Santana, even when he isn’t completely on his game, like last night. The patented Fox Extreme Nosehair Closeups showed me a man who is terminally worried, kind of like John Tudor used to look. Midway through the game I decided what the look on Santana’s face is: it’s the look of a man who can see the future, but is powerless to change it! Like, “Oh, no, no, no. I’m going to throw a hanger and he’s going to belt it out of the park. Why must that be my destiny?” Tragic. But if that’s his look when he’s pitching like Bob Gibson, imagine how tortured he’d look if he ever looked into the future and saw himself giving up a run!

2) Jim sent a packet of baseball articles and such last week, and two elements of it found their way to our mantelpiece last night. For October, we try to replace the usual items on our mantel with baseball-related items, one for every team in the playoffs. The only thing I couldn’t find last night was a picture of William T. Sherman to represent the impending downfall of the Braves. From Jim I got a big photo of Don Zimmer, which might, if we’re lucky, curse the Yankees for letting him go, and as a general backdrop, the chart Jim used to figure out the logistics of our trip. So thanks, Jim!

Original comments…

Jim: You actually have my father to thank for the Don Zimmer picture. He gave it to me when I was visiting him in May. I think he had used it to test his color printer, or something like that.

Jason: Is it framed?

stacey: it’s framed with our hatred of the yankees (which is crocheted with care out of my love for the cardinals, johnny damon, eric gagne, baseball playoffs, and beer).

The first games

I’m still busy busy busy at work, but I couldn’t let the first games pass with no comment, so here’s a quick post with no links, mainly designed to get other people’s impressions of yesterday’s games.

1) I know one game does not a series make, but I very much enjoyed the dazed look that Odalis Perez wore when he left the mound in yesterday’s Cards/Dodgers game. The last time a team hit five home runs in a game in a division series–wait–no team had ever done that before. It was a good start.

2) I was a bit bothered by the curtain calls at Busch Stadium yesterday, though. Curtain calls seem to me to be a bit disrespectful. I know players feel like the crowd is compelling them to come out, and they have to do it to shut up the crowd, but like a band after playing a perfunctory encore, they should just ignore the noise. Eventually it’ll go away. No matter how hard I stomped my feet at his show, Nick Lowe wasn’t going to come back out and play “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

3) The Red Sox did as expected. I expect they’ll do more of the same in games 2 and 3. And Johnny Damon’s hair seems to be even longer than before: it’s down past his shoulders.

4) I finally saw Scooter the Talking Baseball last night. Acting as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, Joe Buck said, “And now, to tell us some more about the change-up, here’s Scooter.” And there he was, unsettlingly flesh-colored, with a weird stitching mouth and backwards ball cap. Until that moment, I was still trying to make myself believe that he was a figment of Jim’s imagination. But no: Fox really does think kids are this stupid.

5) After the umpires took back the Sierra home run last night, deciding that it was foul after all, I decided that the only thing better than a Yankee making an out is a Yankee thinking he’s hit a home run, then making an out. I decided that every time a Yankee hits a foul ball–even just a grounder–the umpires should wave their fingers for a home run, make the hitter run the bases, then confer and send him back to the plate. Now that would be fun.

Original comments…

Levi: Oh, and how could I have forgotten the way the radar gun reading bursts into flames any time a pitch gets above about 92 mph? What a wealth of new excitement that brought to my enjoyment of the game! Thank you, Fox! Thank you!

maura: that near-hr was ruben sierra’s, actually. he promptly struck out.

Levi: Thanks, Mo. I fixed it.

Jason: When is Fox going to bring out the blue dot to follow where the ball goes? And when will we see Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?!?!?

stacey: i was DEEPLY disappointed that sierra was not required to run the bases in reverse.