I don’t like to post these on a regular basis because I don’t want to screw up future results…but yesterday someone found this page by searching for “baseball related things that start with the letter Q.”
Jim: Hooray for whoever searched for “baseball related things that start with Levi and Jim.”
I’m going to order tickets for game 2 of our trip tomorrow, once I know whether my brother is joining us. That’s the game in St. Louis on August 22nd versus the Pirates.
So it’s your last chance, potential hangers-on. We’ve got a group of 9 so far (Me, Jim, Stacey, Luke, my parents, Tony, Geoff Goldman and his fiancee). Want to join us?
Luke: Is our group big enough to get a group rate and get welcomed on the DiamondVision? Maybe the nine of us can be waiting out on the field when the Cu^^Cardinals come out to start the game!
Luke: Oh, and I sure hope Matt Morris is pitching that day and does as well as he is doing today. Hee-hee!
Luke: Umm, nevermind. I expect that by the time of our trip I’ll be rooting for the Cards to keep the Pirates out of the wild-card race.
I’m only here at the office half a day today, so all I’ve got today is a few quick notes from last night’s game:
1) Wendell Kim has failed to master any of the three elements of a third-base coach’s job. As I see it, those elements are knowing the speed of the runners on your team, knowing the quality of the throwing arm of the opposing outfielders, and knowing, at the very least, how many outs have been made already in an inning. Breaking down last night’s Wavin’ Wendell moment, we see that Kim sent a slightly hobbled runner, Aramis Ramirez (Element 1), against the great arm of Reggie Sanders (Element 2) when there were no outs in the inning (Element 3). Hilarity ensued.
Kim was apologetic after the game.
2) In the 4th inning, after Jim Edmonds deposited a ball onto Sheffield, he admired his shot too long for Carlos Zambrano’s taste. Now, my seatmate, Michelle, and I didn’t notice anything, and even as we watched the slow-motion replay on the TV hanging above our heads, we didn’t think Edmonds had been out of line. Zambrano thought differently, so he yelled at him, almost precipitated a brawl, and then in the 8th, after giving up another home run, this one to Rolen, he hit Edmonds. I agree with Phil Rogers today (Wow. That’s the first time that’s happened that I know of. And I thought it was weird when I found myself agreeing with something Pat Buchanan said recently. These are strange days indeed.) in the Tribune: if you’re pitching for a team whose superstar does a wiggly little hop every time he homers, you should probably keep quiet about demonstrations by your opponents.
3) Zambrano was ejected immediately after hitting Edmonds–who, to his credit took his base in manly, “I’m above this shit–and we’re about to have a 9-game lead” fashion, singlehandedly preventing a brawl–which led Michelle and me to consider the rules. Zambrano knew he would be ejected for hitting Edmonds, as both benches had been warned earlier. Because there was no one getting ready in the bullpen, Mike Remlinger, when called upon, was given all the time he needed to get warmed up.
Michelle and I agreed that that’s an understandable policy. After all, it’s not in anyone’s interest to have pitchers getting injured because they only got eight warm-up tosses. But we also agreed that such a policy could lead to abuse by managers: in this case, Zambrano had just given up the lead. He wasn’t going to be lifted from the game, but it’s easy to imagine a circumstance in which the manager, his pitcher suddenly falling apart on the mound, has him get ejected from the game in order to avoid having to keep him out there for another batter or two while the reliever gets ready.
But I came up with a solution to this problem. The reliever who enters following an ejection gets all the time he needs to warm up . . . but the opposing manager gets to pick who that reliever is. Jeff Fassero, are you hiding down there behind the tarp? Come on down! Mel Rojas, are you in the clubhouse wrapped in a towel? Tony LaRussa would like to see you!
Next time I harangue the Commish in a dream, I’ll suggest that change in the rules.
4) And a quick note on selectivity and patience at the plate. I was tracking pitches while keeping score last night. Cubs leadoff man Mark Grudzielanek saw only eight pitches while making four outs. Meanwhile, Cardinals leadoff man Tony Womack, in the course of going 0-3 with two walks, used up 21 pitches. That lack of patience has dogged nearly all the Cubs all year long, and it goes a long way towards explaining how Chris Carpenter was able to get through eight innings last night on only 97 pitches and four earned runs despite giving up 12 hits. Well, that and point #1 above.
With one month to go until the trip officially starts with me flying to Chicago, I thought I’d show you all the items I got from AAA…
Not all of these items will make the trip, because their weight adds up. Most likely to be left at home are the Tourbooks for Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri/Oklahoma and Iowa/Minnesota/Nebraska/North Dakota/South Dakota, since in both cases, we’ll be in one of the included states for no more than a few hours.
Levi: I guess I’ll make the reservation for a trailer rental now.
Saturday at Wrigley Field, I saw Greg Maddux throw a shutout in 2:05, which I think is the shortest game I’ve ever seen. If the Cubs hadn’t scored some runs in the 8th and thereby forced a pictching change, it would have been around 1:45.
If all the games we see on our trip move that quickly, Jim and I might have to find some nearby minor-league games, just to keep busy. How does 21 games in 11 cities in 10 days sound, Jim?
Jon Solomon: I went to a Yankees game on opening day in the late 1980s. Yanks won 2-0. Game was over in +/- 1:50. Rafael Santana hit into an around-the-horn triple play to end the 8th.
Jim: It could be 21 games in 21 cities with the minor-league games added. Now, some are close — the Clearwater Phillies and Tampa Yankees aren’t too far from St. Petersburg, home of the Devil Rays; and I think you know about the locations of the minor-league teams in the Chicago area — but as far as I know, the Brooklyn Cyclones and Staten Island Yankees are the only minor-league teams to be in the same city limits as a major-league team.
Jon Solomon: I am proud to report that there are FOURTEEN minor league teams within 2.5 hours of my home in Lawrenceville, NJ. Trenton. Camden. Lakewood. Montclair. Reading. Wilkes-Barre. Harrisburg. Wilmington. Atlantic City. Somerset. Newark. Augusta. Brooklyn. Staten Island. Woo!
Baseballrelated.com was represented today at the 2004 induction into the Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals, a.k.a. the parallel universe version of the Hall of Fame. The best part is that I didn’t have to go all the way to Cooperstown for the inductions; instead, I took public transportation to Pasadena.
Where else are you going to hear Lester Rodney, the 93-year-old former sports editor of the Daily Worker, tell Jackie Robinson stories? Probably nowhere. The story about Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie never fails to move me.
Later, Dick Allen waxed eloquent about having to play Roberto Clemente and the rest of the “Lumber Yard”: “They’d keep us on defense for 35, 40 minutes, and then we’d only be in the dugout for 7 minutes.”
After I got home, I watched my TiVo recording of (what turned out to be) a 10-4 Cardinals victory over the Reds. DirecTV has had another free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package for the few days following the All-Star break, hoping to sell a few people on ordering it for the second half of the season (for only one-third less than what it cost at the beginning of the year). I figured I should watch the Cardinals so Levi and I will have something to talk about all those days in the car. That Scott Rolen certainly is a good player! Also, the Reds held my interest by bringing in a member of my All-Name team, Todd Van Poppel. (Among the other members of my All-Name team: Quinton McCracken and Delino DeShields.)
Since it was a home game for the Reds, it was the feed from Fox Sports Net Ohio, and something strange was going on every time announcer George Grande would do a “Reds baseball on Fox Sports Net is brought to you by…” announcement; he’d read the plugs, and then would shut up for 15 or 20 seconds until the music bed ended. (And 15 to 20 seconds of a baseball announcer being silent seems like an eternity!) My semi-educated guess is that local cable systems put in their own sponsorship announcements there, but if anyone knows differently, please use the comments below. Actually, since I don’t watch much baseball on TV, for all I know, all the Fox Sports Net affiliates are doing that now.
Jim: Two things I forgot to mention…the induction ceremony was being interpreted for the benefit of the “Dummy” Hoy contingent, and because I was seeing it over and over, I now know the sign language for “baseball”: bring your fists together in front of your chest, elbows out, as if you’re in a batting stance.
Also, the first person to leap to his feet to give Lester Rodney a standing ovation was a man wearing a Dennis Kucinich T-shirt.
Levi: No, the pause is the new system where you, the viewer, supply the ad copy. Then you send Fox money.
Toby: What a Smart Alec Levi is. Yes, Jim, that slot might be for local inserts or it could be for a local station identification.
And I certainly hope Montreal’s Terrmel Sledge makes your All-Name list.
Was Buck O’Neal at this gathering you attended?
A week or two ago, watching Houston fall to the Padres, I finally saw Trevor Hoffman’s grand entrance. As you all probably know, when Hoffman enters a game, the stadium PA plays AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” At the Padres’ new ballpark, the song is accompanied by devilish flames licking Hoffman’s name on the big screen in left field.
And I have to admit that it was pretty cool. Sure, it’s overblown, and AC/DC is so . . . obvious? Cliched? But the crowd was into it, and as Hoffman walked through the outfield, he did seem tougher.
This got me to thinking about the music that’s played when hitters come to the plate at most ballparks these days. I used to agree with Luke (and probably most of the readers of this blog, who tend, it seems, towards traditionalism) that such displays had no place in the ballpark.
Then Magglio Ordonez happened. When Magglio–one of the best hitters ever to play in semi-obscurity–comes to the plate, the PA runs the marching chant of the Wicked Witch of the West’s palace guards, the Winkies: “Oh-Ee-Oh.” The crowd finishes the line, “Magg-lio.” It’s a low, rumbling sound, it makes wonderfully creative use of Magglio’s name, and if I were a pitcher, I’d be getting ready to back up third. At the Sox game a couple of weeks ago, the scoreboard announced that Ordonez had that morning been activated from the Disabled List, and the PA–with Magglio nowhere in sight–played his music. The crowd went wild.
So my coworker, Peter, and I started having a silly discussion about what we might have played when we came to bat, were we major league players. Peter hit upon what I think is the best possible idea: Dr. Octagon’s “I’m Destructive!” I kept dithering between the intro to Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and the intro to Cornershop’s “Sleep on the Left Side.” Or the horn intro to Gloria Jones’s “Tainted Love,” or Tom Wait’s “Black Wings,” or the Beastie Boys doing “Johnny Ryall.”
I also thought about a part of a live version of “Cypress Avenue” where Van Morrison shouts”Baby!” forty-five times in a row. If that won’t wear a pitcher out, I’ve got no hope. But I suppose if I were to be honest about my abilities, I’d probably play another Stevie Wonder song, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.”
And what for you?
Steve: The Magglio chant is pretty cool if a little overblown but it brings up an interesting issue. My boss, and no slouch in the trivia department, insists that the chant actually has words and they are… “All we owe…we owe…her.”
I keep telling him to put up or shutup with an internet link or Wizard of Oz fan site. So far he “has better things to do.” Still, if he’s right it ads an interesting dimension.
Steve: Shit. I forgot my song to enter the game. ZZ Top, “Just got Paid” if I was a batter and if a reliever, Willie Nelson’s “Time of the Preacher”
Jim: “Jimmy Mack,” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, despite the fact that I don’t go by Jimmy and my last name doesn’t start with Mc or Mac. Actually, if I were making the major-league minimum, I might go with They Might Be Giants’ “Minimum Wage.”
Jim: Better yet: Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” (Lyrics not linked because, after a quick search, I can’t find a page that doesn’t open a million pop-up ads and has the correct “its” instead of “it’s” in the first two lines of the song.)
Becky: I’m tempted by Psycho Killer by Talking Heads for batting (because I’d be a big slugger). For relieving I’d go for Right Now by Van Halen, and There She Goes by the La’s when I get pulled three pitches later (do we get to pick the music for when we get pulled?).
Toby: For Levi (who I’ve always called Leviticus), how about The Theme from Exodus or anything by Genesis.
If I was coming to the plate, I think “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” (with the crowd changing the chant to “Bad, Bad Toby Brown” would be cool. But, since I would only want to play for my favorite team, the Pirates, there’s probably little chance of any crowd participation (unless we traveled back in time to about 1979).
Levi: Hell, Toby, if we’re making ourselves into big-league ballplayers, we might as well throw some time travel in, too.
I’m going back to October 1985 and rescuing Vince Coleman from that tarp-rolling machine.
Jason: Batting music: Opening intro to “Money” by Pink Floyd
Pitching Relief music: “Funeral Pyre” by The Jam
Dan: Walking in from bullpen: The intro track off Dr. Dre’s The Chronic (the one with Snoop talking over the sample vamp — “If that bitch can’t swim, she’s bound to driz-zown.”)
Batting: Handel’s “Messiah”
stacey: it’d be pretty awesome if i were in the majors. i’d have to go with P.U.N.K Girl by Heavenly . . . i’d be such a punk hitter. also, i am a girl.
Toby: I’ve met Stacey and I think “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar would be a better choice…. Levi, you lucky S.O.B. ….
Luke: I’d do the first few measures of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, but only if the stadium had enough bass to loosen people’s fillings. It’d be such a low rumble that the crowd wouldn’t even notice that music were being played, except for the screws coming out of their seats.
thatbob: If I was a pitcher, I’d probably be some kind of knuckle ball/submarine closer. So a little Theremin music would be cool – maybe from the Bernard Herrmann score for The Day The Earth Stood Still? Batting, maybe the exuberant opening riffs from Les Paul & Mary Ford’s “Tiger Rag”? Or would I need to be a Tiger for that?
1. That was interesting having the starters enter from the stands, but instead of having them lined up in the aisle, they should all have been sitting in various places around the lower deck, and would have acted surprised when they heard their names called…you know, having to put down their hot dogs, maybe borrowing a glove from the kid next to them, whatever.
2. I am amazed to find out that there are teams in the National League other than the Cubs and the Barry Bondses. I have also heard rumors that there are teams in the American League other than the Yankees and Red Sox, but saw no solid evidence during the game broadcast to back up the gossip.
3. I know Suzuki is a very common last name in Japan, but why does Ichiro Suzuki get to rise to the level of Cher, or Pelé, and get only his first name listed in Fox’s on-screen graphics?
4. Seriously, Joe Buck is almost completely insane, and I’m certain that it’s all Tim McCarver’s fault. They need to be separated immediately before there’s an ugly incident in the press box, and by that I mean Joe Buck should stay where he is and Tim McCarver should be dropped on an iceberg somewhere in the Arctic.
5. Hey, Fox spent some money to upgrade Scooter’s animation since I last saw him! Great; that’s money that could have been spent to teach illiterate kids to read, or to increase the salary of a certain “Malcolm in the Middle” writer.
Toby: I couldn’t agree more about dropping McCarver!! And that’s a great idea about introducing the starters (kind of like a “Price is Right” intro).
Does anyone else remember when Vida Blue played and he had just “Vida” on the back of his uniform?
Levi: I’ve always liked Ichiro!’s first-name-uniform thing in part because of Vida Blue, who was before my time as a fan, but whom I’ve seen in photos.
And I agree wholeheartedly with Jim and Toby about McCarver. I used to like Joe Buck when he was just a kid doing Cardinals broadcasts. He was modest and straightforward and obviously had grown up listening to his dad and Moon Man Shannon. But a few years with McCarver and he’s completely around the bend.
And that was yesterday’s bad news: in the midst of all the good news about how baseball is doing well and ratings are up, Fox has said they may be interested in extending their contract. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
Steve: 1) How about Piazza getting his revenge by tipping pitches? “Hey Manny, here comes the fastball.”
2) I watched the game with the sound off mostly but it was quite awkward to see them give Clemens whatever award he got in the middle of the game.
3) Fantasia and Ruben both suck!
4) I know its the all star game and the AL was leading and all but talking to the manager in the dugout while the game is happening is just plain wrong.
5) I guess Taco Bell just wrote off that million dollars they gave away since that fat guy who throws as hard as Matt Morris was still able to hit a target the size of rhode island. Where’s the drama.
6) Danny Kolb!
Dan: I was hoping at the last minute there’d be a mixup forcing Muhammad Ali to sing the national anthem and giving the first pitch to Fantasia.
And I’ll say this much.. good thing Piazza wore a catchers’ mask, because I sure bet he was smiling underneath it as the AL rocked Clemens.
Jon Solomon: Comcast has taken to talking to Lary Bowa in the dugout in the middle of certain (non-exhibition) Phillies games. It just isn’t right.
Secho: A couple of weeks ago I was watching a White Sox telecast and they had an in-game interview with Ozzie Guillen, and Hawk prefaced it with something like “I hate that we have to do this in the middle of the game but I guess we do” and then handed it off to DJ who threw some softball questions at Ozzie for 2 or 3 minutes. (BTW, I hope Hawk clubs Mariotti upside the head the next time they cross paths) The whole thing just seems so forced as to counteract any possible insight you can get from the dugout mid-game.
How about Ali throwing up the bunny ears behind A-Rod during the team photo? Good stuff.
Dan: Ali really was the perfect guy to have there, considering his long, righ ties with the game of baseball as well as the city of Houston. Nolan Ryan — you know the guy they had as the Taco Bell pitching coach? — now HE’S a guy that most certainly had no business being there at all
Jason: I didn’t watch the game. Did I miss any shots of Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?
Levi: I would think that in these worried days of FCC crackdowns, a broadcaster might think twice about interviewing Larry F’in Bowa.
Buck and McCarver interviewed Steve Kline during Saturday’s game, and it was actually kind of fun. On a couple of close plays, Kline said, “Oh, he was out, obviously out,” and Joe would say, “No he wasn’t, Steve.”
And in reference to a statement McCarver said about muscle weighing more than fat, Kline said, “Well, then that bacon I had for breakfast this morning must have had some muscle on it.” And on why he doesn’t stretch much: “I learned that you can’t tear fat. So you don’t have to stretch.”
…make it 11 games in 11 cities in 10 days. Clearly having our trip in mind, the White Sox and Phillies have scheduled a makeup interleague game for Monday, August 30th, at 1:05 P.M. at Some Sort of Cellular-Type Company Field in Chicago. If the game doesn’t run too long past 3 hours, we should be able to see it, then drive to Milwaukee afterwards and see the 7:05 P.M. Brewers-Pirates game that’s been on the schedule all along.
I’ll update the itinerary later today. (Also, this would be a great day for Chicagolanders to take off work and become official hangers-on. We should have space for three of you in the car.)
Edited late Tuesday afternoon: As promised, the itinerary is updated.
Levi: I have to admit to proposing this addition to Jim with a bit of trepidation. I really do think that ending the trip with a two-city twinbill will answer, once and for all, whether I can possibly get tired of baseball.
For those of you who will be watching the All-Star Game tonight, there’s a bit of information about tonight’s National League battery that you should know:
About four years ago, Roger Clemens hit Mike Piazza in the head with a pitch. And then later, in the World Series, Piazza broke his bat on a pitch and the head of the bat flew onto the infield, CAUSING CLEMENS TO ANGRILY TOSS IT IN PIAZZA’S GENERAL DIRECTION!!!!!!!!!!!*
I felt like I ought to pass that on, because I was worried that Joe Buck and Tim McCarver might not think to mention the incident tonight, or show the clip, or mention the incident, or show the clip, or mention the incident, or show the clip, or mention the incident. They might also not think to mention that Clemens and Piazza have put it all behind them.
*I know that using all caps on the Internet is thought to be rude, because it’s considered to be like shouting. But I used all-caps anyway, because the story was so big that I HAD TO SHOUT!!!!!
Steve: Speaking of shouting….I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT DISCO DEMOLITION NIGHT. IT WAS 25 YEARS AGO. THE SECOND GAME OF A DOUBLE HEADER WAS CANCELLED. YOU WOULD THINK IT WAS THE RAPTURE OR THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED IN THE CENTERFIELD SCOREBOARD EXCEPT NOBODY SAW HER BECAUSE OF THE SMOKE. SHEESH!
Dan: Also, mind you, Piazza was something like 5-for-12 off Clemens with four or so homers before Clemens nailed him in the head. So it wasn’t like Clemens accidentially hit him… he had no desire whatsoever to face him. Clemens remains a redneck asshole, all these years later.
I will submit, however, that perhaps my favorite Clemens memory: back in 1986, before I had genuine hatred for the guy. The Mets had just won the World Series (I’m pretty sure this was after Game 7, not 6) and they cut to Clemens in the dugout, head in hands, weeping. Good for him, that loser asshole baby.
Levi: You know what I bet they won’t show? I bet they won’t show those old Pert Plus ads that Piazza used to do when he had all that great hair.
Thinking about those commercials makes me realize even more clearly how great the ads with Piazza and Alf are: who would have thought that Madison Avenue could top the image of Piazza’s freshly-conditioned hair flowing in slow motion? Yet they did, and they did it by reviving a long-dead rubber-suited Melmackian whom no one had given a thought to in decades.
maura: i dunno, piazza was looking pretty shampoo-ad ready at the press meet and greet yesterday. i wish i could find a photo somewhere…
I’d hit it.
maura: woo!
