Tag: bud selig

Ghost of Jack Norworth, please feel free to haunt Bud Selig

On November 15 of last year, this blog reported on a Major League Baseball press release detailing plans for a 100th-anniversary celebration of the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during 2008.

I saw no actual evidence of any special 100th-anniversary festivities this past season. Most notably, contrary to that press release, the All-Star Game’s televised 7th-inning stretch featured Josh Groban singing “God Bless America”, not a contest winner leading the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ball

Game.”

Not that it should necessarily be a priority for the next President, but surely he can do something about this fairly easily.

We hold these truths to be self-evident

When Jim and I started this blog more than four years ago, we shared a couple of fundamental principles. To wit:

1 The Devil Rays suck and will forever suck.

2 Bud Selig is evil, or at least incompetent.

Good to know at least one of those truths still shines.

Congratulations, Rays, on your first pennant of many. Congratulations, Phillies, on your World Championship, and congratulations to longtime Baseball Related Program Activities favorites Matt Stairs, Geoff Jenkins, Jamie Moyer, and So Taguchi. I’m glad Ryan Howard buck-bucking onto the dogpile didn’t kill Brad Lidge.

What, no Cracker Jack sponsorship?

Since it’s the 100th anniversary of the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” next year, there’s

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going to be some hoopla, including a performance of it during the seventh-inning stretch of the All-Star Game — as far as I know, the first time that’s happened since 2001. No word on its use during the World Series. I’ve got my fingers crossed, but I assume Bud Selig has other ideas.

Opening Day 2007: Hour 3

12:00 — Salsa, chips, and cheese — lunch of champions!
12:07 — Say what you will about TBS, I enjoy their “scorecard” graphics.

12:09 — On WGN, they’re interviewing Cubs general manager Jim Hendry, who at one point refers to baseball as “the industry,” which is just a horrible way to refer to baseball, although I’m sure it feels like it from his perspective.
12:16 — Hey, Ken Griffey Jr. is in right field for the Reds! He’s still around?
12:17 — The Reds catcher still has the old Mr. Redlegs design on his mask (well, the old new Mr. Redlegs design, without a mustache, which has now been replaced by the new old Mr. Redlegs design).

12:20 — Ah, the Midwest!

12:25 — Mrs. Owner of the Dodgers is being interviewed at hipster hangout named Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood, where I’ve been once. Various Dodgers people went to various establishments today to watch the game with the fans. Given the game action on the TVs in the background, I can tell that this interview is not airing live.

12:32 — A woman with a loud and high-pitched voice is sitting very close to a microphone that TBS is using to capture crowd noise, and she’s cheering for Tom Gordon: “Come on, Flash!”
12:41 — At this moment, both the Braves-Phillies and Blue Jays-Tigers games are tied at 3 with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th.
12:44 — At this moment, a cat has jumped onto my lap to watch her beloved Tigers.
12:49 — Tigers and Blue Jays go into extra innings. The Braves-Phillies game already went into extra innings, while I wasn’t paying attention.
12:54 — Bud Selig is in the booth at the White Sox-Indians game. Hawk Harrelson tells him he’s the best commissioner since 1959, with the late Bowie Kuhn second. Uh-huh.
12:57 — W.B. Mason has helpfully added “Office Supplies” to their outfield wall advertising this year. Now we can assume that things there are just like they are at Dunder Mifflin, as seen on TV’s “The Office.”

Next thing you know, I’ll start voting for those guys with the (R) next to their name!

A mere week after I actually offered a toast* at a dinner party to Bud Selig, in appreciation of that nasty, nasty man’s surprise brokering of an amicable new baseball labor deal, I find that I again have to credit him: surprisingly enough, he made a truthful statement!

“Tony La Russa is not a shrinking violet. He can be very confrontational,” says Selig in Murray Chass’s column in the New York Times today on Kenny Rogers’s dirty, dirty hand.

Should I worry that my world is turning upside down?

*Stacey refused to join the toast.

Get ’em while they’re hot!

It looks like the Florida Marlins are beginning yet another fire sale.

This will be their second such sale in their twelve years of existence. Are they determined to make the Devil Rays look good?

Anyway, if you want a speedy center fielder for your beer-league team, you might call them up. Sounds like they’d consider an offer of a bag of batting practice balls.

Just keep repeating to yourself: Bud Selig has been good for baseball. Saddam Hussein was a threat. Bud Selig has been good for baseball.

Longer than there’ve been fishes in the oceans

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

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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.

WWBD?

That’s What Would Bud Do? Thursday afternoon game that’s the home season finale. Unlikely to be well-attended, even though this year’s Brewers team has been a lot of fun to watch.

I’m guessing Bud would do . . . nothing. Adjust his hairpiece, maybe fire off a fax to the Wisconsin state legislature about how maybe the state should pay for the Brewers to have weekday games.

New Brewers ownership, however, is smarter. They’ve announced that tickets to that game will be free. Absolutely free. And they’ve already distributed 23,000.

If you’re going to be in Milwaukee September 29th, call the Brewers ticket office.
If you’re not going to be in Milwaukee September 29th . . . why not? What have you got to do that day that’s better than free baseball?

Guest post by Luke, links by me

Says Hanger-on Luke, referring to yesterday’s Cubs/Dodgers game:

If I had a baseball blog I’d write about the fan I sat in front oftoday. He was a real piece of work, a young man clearly mentally disabled but both in love with and enraged by his Cubs, sort of a Rain Man with amean streak and Cubby-blue blood.

When I got to my seat he was already ranting–to nobody in particular–about Corey Patterson and how he’s not a lead-off batter. Then he was going off on how Aramis Ramirez should be starting: “Dusty, you are nota doctor! Aramis is not hurt!” Once the umps took the field, he started yelling at them, reciting from memory the rule book’s description ofthe strike zone.

All this from Aisle 534.

He kept a tally of questionable balls and strikes. With each one –more than 20 of them — he’d explode: “This is ridiculous! We’re going toreplace you with a computer! With QuesTec, Fox Box AND! OR! a fifthumpire in the booth AND! OR! instant replay! And we’re sending you to the eyedoctor! And we’re sending you back to umpiring school. AND WE’RE GOING TO CALL THE COMMISSIONER! 1414! 225! 3900!”

Every. Single. Time. After the fifth time the entire section could mouth along with him, as not a single word — nor his intense volume — would deviate over the course of the game.

He also was very displeased that the Commissioner was not there asscheduled for Greg Maddux Day, as he had a few things he needed to tell Bud. He expressed dismay that Jim Hendry never wants to talk to him.

Another screed: “Dusty is the stupidest manager ever. Why doesn’t he want to win? I have an IQ of 120 — I am smarter than Dusty! We will always hate you, Dusty! WE WILL ALWAYS HATE YOU!”

And you should have seen him go nuts when Farnsworth came in and proceeded to implode.

Since he wasn’t swearing or threatening fans, there wasn’t really anything security could do, other than try to get him to calm down. He would not.

It gets better: When he wasn’t yelling at the umps or Dusty, he was calling up ESPN radio and other sports media on his cell phone and leaving long messages calmly describing Dusty’s many felonies — occasionally pausing to scream toward the field. It seemed, however, that every time he did this, the Cubs would proceed to do something good. Thus, Monday morning some schlub at ESPN is going to have to listen to all these messages, and as he listens to this fan moan about Corey Patterson, he will hear in the background Corey Patterson rapping a single to center. As he listens to a rant about the bullpen, he will hear in the backgroundKent Mercker getting a strikeout to end the inning.

It was nothing short of amazing. I think I was the only one in my section who appreciated him, even though he was yelling right into my ear. I had to concede he was one of the best-informed fans in the stadium. Much better him than some drunk frat boy yelling “You suck, Pujols!”

IT WAS RIDICULOUS!

Original comments…

Jim: Much better than the guy Matt Bailey and I encountered on L.A.’s Red Line on Sunday who heard us comparing the L.A. subway system with the Chicago ‘L’, the D.C. Metro, and Atlanta’s MARTA, and proceeded to semi-coherently mumble something about taking the subway to other countries. He was speaking quietly, though, and ended up getting off the train at Vermont & Sunset.

Later, a friend of Matt’s who was in Chicago called him, and told a tale of woe about his companions who bought tickets to the Cubs game from a scalper for $80…and soon discovered the tickets to be counterfeit.

Levi: According to a couple of reverse directories online, the phone number the guy was shouting doesn’t exist. Or if it does, it doesn’t turn up a listing.

I suppose I could test by calling it, but Bud Selig might answer the phone, and I wouldn’t like to have to be responsible for my behavior in that situation.

Luke, hanger-on: Whoops, I misremembered the phone number, which is remarkable considering how many times it was bellowed into my ear: It’s in fact (414) 225-8900.

Steve: Quien es mas retarded? The guy described in the above post or the dudes who bought $80 counterfit tickets?

Levi: Mas retarded? Kyle Farnsworth. Hands down.

Or is that mas estoned?

Eeeeeewwwwww. Yicky yicky yicky.

Warning: Don’t click through this link if you think your hatred of the Commissioner of Baseball is sufficient unto the day, or if you like to avoid anonymous, gossipy allegations, or if you’re easily grossed out by images of this guy, well, doing stuff. Again, let me say: this is alleged behavior. Please, Mr. Commissioner, don’t contract BRPA 2004.

Now that you’ve been warned, click through. Thanks (I guess?) to Luke for passing this tidbit along. I don’t know that it’s raised the level of discourse on this site, but, well, a little yickiness never hurt a workday.

Original comments…

Charlie Comiskey: Bud Selig talking dirty? I find that kinda hot.

stacey: why, luke? why!?

Jim: I am shocked, SHOCKED to hear that an old man would talk about sex. Next we’ll find out that Bud got drunk, put $5 in the jukebox, and played “Hang On Sloopy” over and over because he found the lyrics hilarious.

Levi: My objection isn’t so much to the image it conjures up of Selig’s mouth moving and things coming out of it as it is to his apparent belief that a 20% tip is sufficiently above the norm as to entitle him to make explicit his desire that the waitress be quiet. A classy nasty rich guy would leave a C-note to speak for itself.

thatbob: Yeah, “The Chairman” would have “duked” her – on top of the 20%, which is merely standard. What an alleged jerk!

Luke, hanger-on: I believe his exact words were, “I’d sure like to have baseball relations with that woman!”

Or perhaps, “Once we’re done screwing baseball, let’s do the same to her! Awoogah! E-uh! E-uh! E-uh!”

Levi: My coworker Jim, upon hearing my complaint about this story, says, “Yeah, but no one over fifty tips adequately.”

Discuss.

Luke, hanger-on: It’s true. I often have to swing back into a restaurant to cover for my beloved father, a shade on the dark side of 50, who when in doubt will round down, usually to around 10 percent.

He’s not a lech like Selig but he does have his off-color side, and I often also have to pay the “Dad Tax,” which is a few extra dollars for a waitress who’s been subjected to his corny jokes. On his latest trip to town his favorite was to hold up two fingers in a “V” and ask, “What’s this?” (Answer: A Roman soldier’s high five.) No cab driver, valet parker or waitress was spared. It was an expensive visit for the Dad Tax.

Levi: What you need is a hanger-on to whom you can call, “Duke ‘im!” every time your dad makes the joke. The assistant would then peel off a crisp hundred and lay it on the waiter.