The best episode of "Clubhouse" ever

Hanger-on Sandy passed along this story. It seems that Kris Benson’s wife Anna has already thought through what she’s going to do if he cheats on her. I can’t speak for the married half of baseballrelated.com, but as far as the single half is concerned, this is the first time being a Mets batboy has ever seemed like a good idea.

This is Anna Benson. (Don’t worry, the picture is reasonably safe for work.)

Now, what about Mrs. Jose Lima?

Original comments…

Dan: I should have passed this story along earlier.. The Stern interview was about two weeks ago. She’s insane, and now with Pedro on board, his little friend is fair game. Among other people, I believe, who shall remain nameless.

I’ve already wanted to float the Mets clubhouse reality show — between her, Pedro and accompanying midget, Mike Piazza and his debated sexuality… I WANT Sammy here, not even to play but to add to the comedy.

Levi: Hmm. The timing on this story does make me wonder about Pedro’s motives for becoming a Met.

maura: i’d probably steer clear of mrs. lima for now…

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3212570

Jim: Not to mention steering clear of the entire Dominican Republic!

Dominican Republic: That’s not fair, Jim. We don’t all have herpes.

Haiti: Well, don’t try to blame us!

We have a blog

Three years ago, friends of ours named Luke and Sandy went on a baseball road trip and kept a joint blog about it. So I figured we should either rip them off, or pay homage to them, depending on whether or not Luke and Sandy are going to be reading this.

This is actually the replacement for some “manual” blogging I had been doing about this trip on my own web site, so I’ve copied all those entries over to here. The advantages are that Levi can easily make entries here as well, and we can both make entries from anywhere…including while we’re on the trip, if we can beg, borrow, or steal a computer capable of connecting to the Internet at some point.

It has also been rumored that Luke may be joining us for the first portion of our road trip. I hope he can make it, even if I disagree in part with his opinions on National Anthem etiquette. While I will happily sing along to an instrumental version (especially if it’s being played live by an organist), I will remain silent if someone is out on the field performing, because I actually want to listen to their performance. But I do agree that the cheering shouldn’t start until the end of the song, no matter how good the singer is at hitting the high note.

Therefore, in case they do instrumental versions of “O Canada” in Toronto and/or Montreal, I want to be sure I have the lyrics down.

On another note, my mother tells me that my cousin is getting married in Connecticut in July. Depending on the exact wedding plans (and the exact wedding location), I may attempt to come up with a scheme to visit New York for a day, a city which is a noticeable gap on the road trip itinerary. The Yankees will be in town that weekend, right before the All-Star break, playing my hometown Devil Rays.

Two to go!

I feel bad that, at the best time of the year for baseball, I’ve been incommunicado. Work has just been too busy. But I couldn’t put off at least posting a few post-season thoughts.

1) I’ve always liked Jorge Posada, but I like him even more now that I learn (from Luke) that he buried Fox Sports’ absurd new “Diamond Cam” a few nights ago. The Diamond Cam answers a question that fans have been wishing they could see since before the invention of television: What would a hitter standing in the box look like if you were a zombie just about to dig his way out of his grave right by home plate? Bob deserves the credit for realizing that it was a zombie’s point of view that Fox was representing. He also deserves credit for groaning, zombie-style, every time the Zombie cam appears.

2) Last night, we had a nice little crowd at the Rocketship. Sarah brought her knitting and some fine, fine cobbler. Sandy brought his computer and some silicon chips, and Bob brought his appetite and his fine, fine zombie impression. Stacey fell asleep on the couch, but woke up for the good parts. And a couple of audience members had the confidence in our boys in red to go home before the end.

3) One point that I’m sure King Kaufmann is going to touch on in his Salon column today: one part of the three-headed cliche monster that Fox has saddled us with in this series said late in last night’s game, “One problem for the Astros is that they haven’t been able to get Brad Lidge, their best reliever, in the game.” Which, of course, is not true. The Astros have chosen not to get their best reliever in the game, because their manager, Phil “Scrap Iron” Garner, has not wanted to use Lidge except in a save situation. Only, if you bring in someone else to pitch to Pujols and Rolen in the 8th inning of a tie game, you’re not ever going to have a save situation. And suddenly you’re in a 2 games to none hole.

4) What can be said about the Red Sox? Sad, sad, sad. Here’s hoping that losing to the Yankees won’t make Johnny Damon reconsider his grooming habits.

5) Baseball Reference has the 2004 stats up. That was quick. Not that many of those links are to 2004, but you folks already know what happened in 2004.

Always with more music

Thanks to Sandy for sending me an iTunes Music Store gift certificate. The baseball songs purchased with it: “Opening Day” by the Folk Implosion, “Baseball” by Michael Franks, and two tracks by John McCutcheon, “Baseball on the Block” and “World Series ’57.” I also bought “The Ballad of John Rocker” by Tim Wilson, but there was an error while it was downloading, and the Check for Purchased Music option isn’t finding it…so let’s just say that it’s kind of embarrassing to be sending an e-mail regarding a song about John Rocker to Apple customer support.

Other than the previously discussed “Piazza New York Catcher” situation, the only other potential baseball song remaining on my list is now “Night Game” by Paul Simon. I’m thinking I may see if I can find a used copy of the album it appears on, “Still Crazy After All This Years,” as long as I’m going to be looking for “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.” It might not be a big loss if I can’t find it, since “Night Game” may be the most depressing baseball song ever.

This still leaves me with some money remaining on my iTunes account, so please use the comments function or e-mail me directly if you have any suggestions for baseball songs I haven’t already mentioned in this blog and that aren’t on either volume of Rhino Records’ “Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” which I already have. (Note: The songs on this CD are not baseball songs.)

Yes, I do know about the “Diamond Cuts” compilations, the track listings of which I have already been through to see what was available on the iTunes Music Store. Not a lot, it turns out, although a few of them duplicate content from “Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” and a few others are different artists’ renditions of songs on “BGH.”

Original comments…

Levi: There’s that Kenny Rogers song from about four years ago that he played at Wrigley Field, about a boy tossing up a ball to hit it, but missing it again and again.

Don’t buy it.

sandor: I don’t know what your threshhold is for what makes one a baseball song. If it’s pretty extremely low, you should take a listen to Steve Poltz’s “Silver Lining,” which has these pleasant little lines in it:

I used to rely on luck
to earn an honest buck.
I didn’t feel so stuck.
I didn’t limp around like John Kruk.

References to baseball and testicular cancer in one line. Pretty amazing.

Jon Solomon: “line drive to the forehead” – Blunderbuss.

There’s also a SF Seals 45 with “doc ellis” and two other baseball songs.

“my black ass” by Shellac is about shadowball.

I’m sure more will come to me.

Jon

Levi: And there’s a great Dan Bern song, “Gambling with My Love” about Pete Rose and Bart Giammatti meeting in a hotel room for a night of drinking, wherein Giammatti tries all night to get Rose to just be honest and ‘fess up.

Steve: You can’t forget Steve Goodman’s “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request“. The same album (Affordable Art) has Steve’s mandolin-y version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Jim: “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” is on “Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” volume 1, so I’ve already got it. One of the best baseball songs ever.

Jon Solomon: “Baseball Bat” by Courtney Love (the band, not the person) came to me while driving back from Philadelphia tonight.

Jon

maura: do you have the baseball songs by barbara manning? they’re not on itunes, but a friend of mine has them on mp3.

thatbob: I’m really surprised and a little disappointed that Jon Solomon can’t come up with any baseball-related Christmas songs.

Jon Solomon: This was the best I could do:
http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/traditional5.shtml

Black water, keep on rolling

I’m not sure if I’m going to have room on my iPod for any additional Johnny Cash songs beyond the handful I have (“Ring of Fire,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and a couple others). This purveyor of radio station jingles has a special this month: a “grab bag” of nine random CDs for $99, which was a deal I couldn’t pass up, since those CDs are normally priced at $39(!). It won’t be such a good deal if I end up with duplicates of CDs of theirs that I already own, but still…

Anyway, the comments should be functioning properly now, thanks to some remote troubleshooting by Sandy. We lost one comment in the process, unfortunately, so perhaps the person who posted said comment would like to repost her words of wisdom.

Original comments…

Dan: If you don’t want Cash overload, yet still want to appease Levi, just bring along the Waco Brothers’ fine cover of Big River — it’s on Cowboy in Flames, which you should own, anyway.

Go Mets!

-Dan

Jim: Yeah, there’s a lot of music I should own but don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to drink that much Pepsi between now and April 30th.