A hell of a full-body beatdown is administered to Phil “Scrap Iron” Garner by Tom Verducci at SI.com.
And every word of it seems right on. The manager did take several chances last night to put his team into the best position to win, then he complained about their effort afterwards.
That’s a couple of the key ingredients for longterm bad karma.
Six hours into the broadcast — reflecting Fox’s ridiculously unrealistic 3-hour time slot plus the maximum 3 hours of TiVo padding, it was the top of the 14th…
The good news is that I had caught up to the live
broadcast at 10:30, and set a manual recording for 11:00 until — well, just in case, I set it to go until, well, about the time the morning news was going to start. So I was a little disappointed that it was “only” 11:20 when the game actually ended. But I have to assume I was one of a very select few not in Houston or Chicago who actually saw the game from beginning to end, although it’s admittedly a lot easier to sit through 14 innings of baseball when you can fast-forward through the commercials…
That Chicago Sun-Times “Market Wrap” edition isn’t looking like such a silly idea now, is it, Levi? That might be the only way for Chicagoans to get the box score of this game in their newspaper tomorrow — uh, I mean today.
Hey, speaking of silly ideas, where was Aaron Neville in the middle of the 14th to sing the real song? Actually, Bud Selig probably would have insisted on a reprise of “God Bless America” for no good reason.
On a TV note: since I grew up in the Eastern time zone, I’m used to sporting events that run long being followed by the local affiliate’s 11:00 or 10:00 news in its entirety, whether it’s at 12:00, 12:30, or even later. Therefore, I was a little surprised to discover that Fox’s flagship station in Los Angeles must have their entire 10:00 news crew home, because when the coverage of the game ended, they went straight to their regularly scheduled 11:30 “Simpsons” rerun.
Clearly, if the Sox win, Stacey should be voted a full World Series
share.
In the ninth innning of Sunday’s Sox win, Scott Podsednik at the plate, Joe Buck says to Tim McCarver, “You know, Tim, a lot of people thought Garner should have put Lidge into game six of the NLCS, just to get the taste of that Pujols home run out of his mouth. What do you think?”
“Well, Joe, I don’t think that taste is there.”
But right around the time McCarver said “taste,” the ballgame was ending as Podsednik’s homer cleared the right field wall.
Maybe that taste is there after all? Tastes a bit coppery, like blood.
Shout! Factory, the imprint of the folks who used to run Rhino, has a new 4-CD box set out called “The Great American Baseball Box.” Looks like only one CD is songs; the other three seem to include play-by-play clips and whatever other audio they could dig up. I’ve got almost all the songs already, so if they sold Discs 2 through 4 separately, I might be tempted.
Also, when the White Sox revealed that their playoff anthem is Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” it didn’t take long for the record company to take advantage. This week, they released a 1981 live version as an iTunes single (maybe elsewhere as well). Actually, some of the iTunes reviewers claim the release is to promote a DVD release of the concert the song is taken from, but we know better — everything comes back to baseball.
No reason for me to pause the TiVo tonight. If there’s any good news for Levi, it’s that he can now join all right-thinking Chicagoans (and probably much of the country as well) in cheering for the White Sox.
Well, well, well.
1) That was a nice reminder that what we’re all seeing every time Pujols plays is a Hall-of-Fame career in the making. Cardinals fans are extremely lucky to have him, and we ought to appreciate it with every at-bat.
2) Even were the Cardinals to go on and get trounced tomorrow night, Pujols (and, to give credit properly, Eckstein and Edmonds, who had tough at-bats before him) at least took what had been a frustrating, disappointing series and gave us something we’ll remember for a long time.
3) My brother’s two concerns post-game? He was hoping the construction guys hadn’t started the wrecking ball back in the 7th for Busch Stadium. (Fox had, as their highlight reel of Busch over the years demonstrated.) Second, he wanted to know if Fox had reconsidered their choice of Lance Berkman as Chevrolet Player of the Game–chosen, as usual, in like the second inning.
4) In the 9th, with one out, Barbara Bush–visible all game as a little Boglin head perched just above the railing behind home–started packing up her bag. “Why,” she probably thought, “would I want to sully my beautiful mind with thoughts of Brad Lidge blowing this game?”
Well, Levi, I’m sorry the Cardinals didn’t make it to the Series this year — but White Sox vs. Astros, now there’s a couple teams you don’t see in the Series very often!
The game’s not actually over yet, but I’ve got the TiVo paused with two outs in the top of the 9th, the Astros ahead 4-2, and Fox running all the Astros history footage they can get their hands on. So it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion; I mean, the only hope the Cardinals have would be something along the lines of Brad Lidge giving up a 3-run homer to Albert Pujols, and how likely is that?
Four consecutive complete games? In the postseason? The White Sox bullpen must really suck!
On another note, since Levi has some stuffed animals that he lines up to watch Cardinals games with him, I decided to do the same on Saturday night with my stuffed animal collection…
I’m sure all the birds were rooting for
their brethren the Cardinals, and cats are always in favor of birds running around, and I told Wallace they put cheese on their toasted ravioli in St. Louis, so he was happy — but I suspect Shaun the Sheep was pulling for Mike Lamb and the Astros. I have no idea what Goofy was thinking.
Note to headline writers and creators of Fox graphics:
A word or phrase that sounds like a different word or phrase is not necessarily a pun. A pun must involve some play on both the sound and the meaning of a word or phrase.
For example, titling a graphic describing, say, David Eckstein’s postseason hitting prowess “Eck-Ray Vision” is utterly inappropriate, unless he’s managed his postseason hitting prowess with rays from his eyes or some such nonsense, which he hasn’t.
So stop it. Stop it stop it stop it.
That is all.