Author: Jim Ellwanger

Three is a magic number

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn

writes today in his blog about the White Sox, their magic number, and his new concept, the “toxic number.” (Which is a concept Bill James probably already had, 25 years ago.)

I read the articles so you don’t have to

The September issue of Playboy has an article about Jose Canseco’s ex-wife Jessica, to go along with some photographs of her in which she’s wearing ballet shoes but seems to have forgotten to put on her tutu, or her leotard, or anything else a ballerina might wear. Actually, I take that back — she’s wearing leg warmers in a couple of the photos.

Anyway, the article is chock full of fascinating facts. For example, Jose met her at a Hooters in Cleveland, where she was only in her third day on the job — and the very next night, Jose made blooper-reel history with the home-run-bouncing-off-his-head incident. She says he likes his women “meaty,” so he often encouraged her to eat more. Also, she claims to have had sex with him in Fenway Park. And, yes, she reports that there was a lot of steroid-related testicular shrinkage, but since he was also taking human growth hormone, the other part of the frank-‘n’-beans combo was larger than normal. (They did have a daughter together, so everything was apparently working well enough.)

Things went badly once she realized he was cheating on her; she found such items as Jose’s private cell phone (she cracked the voice mail password and found messages from four women) and a little black book in which Jose had made copious notes about physical descriptions of various women so he could remember who was who. Her last-ditch effort to save the relationship was a menage a trois involving her, Jose, and a friend of hers, but it didn’t work.

Elsewhere in this issue of Playboy, we learn that “when you’re Hef, every day is an adventure,” as we have been learning in Playboy for over 50 years now. (I mean the royal “we,” obviously.)

Actually, there was some useful information in this Playboy, although it’s not baseball-related: I learned of the existence of this upcoming Rhino box set, although I’m a little dubious about the August 30th date, since it’s listed on neither Amazon.com nor rhino.com (although rhino.com only lists their releases for the 16th and 23rd).

Tales of baseball stupidity not involving Rafael Palmeiro

You know, I look at those nets over the stands behind home plate, and

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sometimes they don’t look like they can even hold more than one baseball at a time, much less a person.

Devil or angel, please say you’ll be mine

(This “ticket” is a printout, courtesy of a season-ticket holder who didn’t want to see this classic battle of good vs. evil represented by the Angels and the Devil Rays, although I can’t imagine why someone would turn down the chance to see the Devil Rays!)

Let’s get this anecdote out of the way first: as I was walking through the concourse of Angel Stadium on my way to the concession stand, proudly wearing my Devil Rays cap and Rocco Baldelli T-shirt, an Angels fan pointed at me and yelled, “Holy crap! They do exist!” I said nothing; unfortunately, it wasn’t until much later that I realized my comeback should have been, “There are dozens of us! Dozens!” That has the advantage of being a reference to “Arrested Development.”

Yes, at my suggestion, Jason, Rachel, Chris, and I went to Angel Stadium because my beloved Devil Rays were in town.

We were early enough to see the tail end of batting practice…

And they were showing the White Sox-Mariners game live on the giant screen…

At Angel Stadium, you can sometimes spot cameramen in their natural mountain environment…

Exchanging lineup cards; Lou Piniella looked like he was in a good mood…

Angels starting pitcher Chris Bootcheck, which I believe is also the name of a Windows XP utility…

Carl Crawford at the plate…

Devil Rays starting pitcher Mark Hendrickson, who is 6’9″, but doesn’t look quite as intimidating as Randy Johnson from way up here in the “view” level…

Why, these “view” level seats are high enough up that we can see Arrowhead Pond, home of the Los Angeles Mighty Ducks of Anaheim…

On the scoreboard, Jose Molina has to be “J.Molina,” but Bengie Molina gets to be just plain “Molina”…

Say, here’s something stupid and distracting: cell phone text messages on the scoreboard…

While we’re at it, note that the Dodgers are “LAD” on the scoreboard here in Anaheim…

The Devil Rays somehow manage to light up Bootcheck, but as evening turns to night at Angel Stadium…

…the Angels have the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th…

However, the Angels only put 3 runs across in the 6th, and so the Devil Rays are ahead 6-4 going into the bottom of the 9th with Danys Baez on the mound. After some anxious moments, Danys Baez has to call time because he’s broken his belt; he has to walk over to get a new one…

And then both the umpire and catcher Toby Hall get to watch him closely as he puts the new belt on…

The “broken belt” ploy works, and, holy crap, the Devil Rays win…

Happy Rays…

Happy Jim…

After the game, we wait in the parking lot for the traffic to clear. Rachel and Jason leaning on Jason’s car…

Chris and Jason…

Poor Angels, now tied with the A’s for the American League West lead…

Mmm, pre-game chicken

I guess I should call attention to the fact that someone from my hometown (in fact, we’re both alumni of the same high school) was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend. The Tampa Tribune was apparently giving Wade Boggs saturation coverage all last week. And his plaque mentions the Devil Rays!

Levi (or Toby): any Carmi connections to the Hall of Fame?

Take off your rainbow shades

Jason and I are taking a weekend trip to Phoenix in September (actually, we’ll be staying in a motel in Tempe), and it’s going to include attendance at a Diamondbacks game…

I bought a pair of tickets on stubhub.com. Can you believe a season-ticket holder would want to see the D-Backs play the Rockies so little that they’d be selling these tickets for half-price? (Half the single-game price, that is; there’s a big season ticket discount that’s already reflected in the price printed on this ticket.)

After the baseball game, Jason and I will be heading for the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe to see the ASU Sun Devils play our beloved Northwestern Wildcats in a game that starts at 7:00, but that’s more of a topic of discussion for Football-Related Program Activities.

I don’t have a wooden heart

Don’t ask me why I specifically remember this: on July 3, 2003, Levi and I were at Wrigley Field for a Cubs-Cardinals game when somehow the talk among Levi and his season ticket buddies turned to Viagra spokesman Rafael Palmeiro, and specifically, various baseball terms that had now turned into double entendres where he was concerned. I piped up with “He really got some good wood on that one,” which was enjoyed by all. Actually, I probably remember it because it’s one of those rare times I managed a bon mot at exactly the right moment, rather than 90 seconds later and after the conversation had gone in a completely different direction.

Anyway, slightly over two years later, on July 27, 2005, Bob Costas appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and used basically the same line.

I’ve got my eye on you, Costas!

They come from Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga, too, for the sewing circle and book review

If it’s Saturday, it must be minor league baseball. Sorry, Golden Baseball League, but Jason and I drove to Rancho Cucamonga for a California League game: the Quakes versus the Lancaster Jethawks.

The Quakes’ ballpark is called The Epicenter, and it’s the home of the happy aisles…

No, seriously, here’s the view from my seat…

The Epicenter is new enough to have a fancy-schmancy scoreboard…

And another scoreboard with the team name in lights…

There’s a mall nearby — featuring JCPenney, Robinsons-May, and an Apple store — that Jason swears was not even under construction yet the last time he was here for a game…

Before the game, these folks threw junk to the crowd…

No, seriously, they hopped off the truck onto the dugout roofs and started dancing. Then there were some cheerleader types who also danced…

Later, Jason asked if I noticed that the cheerleaders seemed unusually voluptuous, albeit not with those exact words. Anyway, Tremor the mascot bothered the umpires for a while…

Then he was joined by the other mascot, Aftershock, and if I recall correctly, they did some dancing…

And then some Cub Scouts danced — no, I mean they tried to keep the flag off the ground during a solo saxophone performance of the National Anthem…

Jason alertly pointed out that you don’t often see minor-league players with their names on the backs of their uniforms. Since the Quakes are affiliated with the Angels, it’s entirely possible that they’re doing this solely to embarrass the Dodgers (“Ha ha, even our Class A team uniforms have names on the back”).

A conference on the mound about the mound…

Which led to the landscapers performing emergency mound surgery…

The final line…

And after the game it was time for fireworks…

Yes, everyone loves fireworks…

For Levi, we’ve saved the best two pictures for last. Waukegan isn’t the only place where there’s a statue of Jack Benny (although unlike in Waukegan, here in Rancho Cucamonga, the statue is not located in the public way; instead, it’s just inside the main stadium entrance gate)…

And, in fact, Rancho Cucamonga has done Waukegan one better. This is the street the stadium is located on…

So now that I’ve been to baseball games in both Anaheim and Cucamonga, Jason, does Azusa Pacific University have a baseball team?

The grass is always greener on the other side, they say

The only real comment I have about watching the Devil Rays-Blue Jays game on TV tonight is that when Levi and I saw the Jays at SkyDome last year, the artificial turf was a brilliant shade of bright green; now that the building is known as Rogers Centre, they’ve switched to the modern-day artificial turf that more closely matches the color of real grass, yet somehow manages to look much worse on TV than real grass does.

Since that wasn’t quite substantial enough for a post, I’ll also provide a baseball-related excerpt from Bennett Cerf’s 1956 collection of jokes and anecdotes “The Life of the Party”…

Two rooters at a ball game were so engrossed in the contest that neither wanted to take time out to march back to the refreshment bar for hot dogs — and there wasn’t a vendor in sight. They finally bribed a kid nearby to go for them, giving him forty-five cents and saying, “Buy a dog for yourself at the same time.”

The kid came back with thirty cents change for them, explaining, “They only had my hot dog left.”

Actually, this one is slightly more typical of a Bennett Cerf collection of jokes and anecdotes…

Milton Berle discovered Tallulah Bankhead rooted to a radio in her dressing room one day, screaming her head off for the New York Giants. “Gosh,” exclaimed Miltie, “I didn’t realize you were so interested in the national pastime.” “Darling,” snapped Tallulah, “I am the national pastime.”

Incidentally, Tallulah wanted some new recipes for her chef to try. She called her favorite bookseller and ordered two copies of Fanny Farmer’s Boston Red Sox Cookbook!