Category: tv

Items related to broadcast media with pictures and sound.

As predicted, "Clubhouse" isn’t as good as the real baseball playoffs

The “Clubhouse” episode that was promoted last week, in which Doc Brown is uncomfortable with modern technology, was not shown this week. Instead, it was an episode in which there are trade rumors swirling around Dean Cain’s character (who is named “Conrad Dean”; get it?). I forgot to “stay tuned for scenes from next week’s ‘Clubhouse,'” so I don’t know if they showed the same promo from last week.

At any rate, because of disappointing ratings, CBS is soon going to move “Clubhouse” to Saturdays to make room for “The Amazing Race,” which is a better show but is (usually) less baseball-related.

On another note, I’m listening to the Cardinals-Astros game on ESPN Radio. Boy, are these commercials annoying!

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads

I hope nobody was watching yesterday afternoon’s emergency collection of “King of the Hill” reruns on Fox 11 in Los Angeles with their fancy new plasma TV, since the “RAINOUT” graphic that was continuously in the upper right-hand corner would have been burned in forever.

When I had the world’s most informal internship at independent station WTMV in Tampa in the summer of 1992 (they’ve since changed their call letters twice and started using Popeye’s parrot as a mascot), they carried games from three of the teams that then had spring training in the Tampa Bay area: the Cardinals, the Reds, and the Blue Jays. The agreed-upon broadcasting technique for a rain delay/rainout is that the announcers will fill exactly 10 minutes at the scheduled start time before returning control to the affiliates. WTMV’s second- and third-hand equipment was horrible enough that it would be problematic and awkward for them to backtime a half-hour show and join it in progress at the 10-minute mark, so instead, they had a 20-minute tape of baseball-related music videos that they probably got free from Major League Baseball to carry them to the next half-hour. Then they could start filling time with whatever sitcoms were lying around the control room, which usually meant reruns of “The Munsters Today.”

Original comments…

thatbob: Huh, so that’s how the sausage gets made.

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.

Still watching "Clubhouse" so you don’t have to

What I learned from “Clubhouse” this week: the New York Empires’ scheduling is such that they would play a night game Friday, and then what was referred to several times as a “morning game” on Saturday. (This was presented as the justification for the batboys having a sleepover in the stadium.) Also, while baseball players may enjoy dancing with Brazilian swimsuit models, they enjoy even more talking about Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” with the model’s translator, who turns out to be her mother (who for some reason never bothered to teach her daughter English, despite she herself knowing enough English to read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions”).

On next week’s episode, equipment manager Doc Brown gets a computer put on his desk, but he doesn’t know how to work it. However, batboy Pete, our hero, is a 16-year-old boy and therefore a computer expert. I guess Doc Brown isn’t comfortable with any technology within the range 1985-2015 (i.e., anything that comes after the DeLorean and before the Mr. Fusion).

Jose Lima bean

A thought on Saturday night’s Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn’t it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who’s been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?

No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn’t have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson’s “Smile” on my iPod instead.

Original comments…

Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports’ “Beyond the Glory” special on Kirk Gibson’s WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. …Was a great piece.

The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully’s call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck’s a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck’s call of that homer. It was very interesting.

You’re so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?

Toby: Whoops – Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn’t change–just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.

Jim: They did an entire “Beyond the Glory” on Kirk Gibson’s home run? Wow. I’ve closed-captioned a couple of those, and they’re pretty good, but I’ve never watched one at home.

In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully’s call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.

By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully’s calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley’s grand slam to clinch the division was something like:

“Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs.” (35 seconds of crowd noise)

Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?

Toby: NO! He’d be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.

maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy’s grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.

thatbob: fucking yanx

Chili today, hot tamale

First of all, after Kevin Millar made a good defensive play in the bottom of the first inning of the Sox-Angels game, ESPN color commentator Rick Sutcliffe asked the director for a close-up of Kevin Millar’s face to make sure it wasn’t Doug Mientkewicz in a Kevin Millar uniform. Someone’s been reading baseballrelated.com!

Second, and more important, I commiserated with the Rocketship by making chili con carne to eat during the game, and this is the recipe I used.

2 pounds lean ground beef (I guess any ground meat would be okay)
2 medium onions
2 bell peppers (I used one green and one red)
2 garlic cloves
1 28-ounce can ready-cut (“Recipe Ready”) tomatoes (because cutting up the onions, peppers, and garlic is plenty without having to cut up tomatoes, too)
1 15-ounce can kidney beans
1 15-ounce can pinto beans
2 cups water
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Dash of salt
Shredded cheese

Chop the onions and bell peppers into small pieces. Chop the garlic into very, very small pieces.

Brown the meat and drain.

In a big pot, stir together everything but the beans and cheese. Cook, covered, over low-to-medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Drain the beans and stir them into the chili. Continue cooking, still covered, for another 30 minutes.

Serve in bowls and put shredded cheese on top. As listed above, the recipe makes about 8 servings of chili, which is good in my case because although it’s good right after it’s made, it’s even better as a leftover. It should be fairly easy to halve, although you’ll probably have to make a choice between kidney beans and pinto beans instead of having both. (Why am I not having people over to my place? Fewer baseball fans among my southern California friends, worse start times in terms of people being able to drop by for the game after work, and the fact that my bathroom is a mess because the apartment complex maintenance staff is working on the ceiling.)

Here’s what it looks like before the cheese is put on top (and, no, you don’t use the whole bag on one bowl unless you like cheese more than you like chili)…

Goes great with $7.00 beer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar…

And it tastes even better when Johnny Damon is on TV…

Incidentally, the advantage to having a local team in the playoffs while you’re trying to TiVo their game, airing on ESPN, is that the coverage is duplicated on a local channel. In this case, the game bounced from ESPN2 to ESPN once the Twins-Yankees game finally ended, but L.A.’s UPN 13 carried it straight through, with a minimum of scrolling messages informing all 10 or 11 potential viewers of the UPN show “Kevin Hill” that tonight’s episode would be airing on Saturday.

Original comments…

Levi: One thing you might try in the future, Jim: Fritos. I think the only reason they’re on the earth is to be put in chili just before you put in the cheese.

We didn’t see much baseball last night, just a bit in a hotel bar while waiting for Stacey’s aunt and uncle to show up from the airport. So we saw the Yankees leeding 5-3 in the 8th, Rivera coming in. “Oh, we don’t need to watch–we can go sit in the lobby. We saw Rivera blow a lead in 2001, so we won’t see that again for another few years.”

Checking in a few minutes later, finding it 5-5, we decided to leave a note at the desk telling Auntie where to find us.

But then, at dinner, it all went bad. Stacey and I were occasionally our heads in the bar–where the bartendress was a Minneapolis transplant and where there was also one Yankee fan who, when I said to the bartendress, “Everybody hates the Yankees!”, said, “Not everybody!”. Stacey saw that the Twins had gone ahead in the 12th. Next thing I knew, I saw from across the restaurant a crowd of bouncing Yankees. And they didn’t look like they were bouncing the bounce of despair.

Oh, well. There’s always game 3.

Jim: “Bartendress”?

By the way, Rogue Dead Guy Ale was a $7.00 beer in Pittsburgh, and it’s still a $7.00 beer in L.A….but in this case, it’s $7.00 for a 6-pack at BevMo in Van Nuys. Actually, $6.99 plus “CRV” (deposit).

Dan: SMG, still hot? I lost track a few years back.

Jim: She’s no Alyson Hannigan, that’s for sure (although Alyson is admittedly more “intensely cute” than “hot”).

Levi: I’m so with Jim on the Alyson Hannigan thing, although I do tend to think SMG is hotter than, say, most blondes. But that’s mainly because she kills vampires, who are not hot.

The first games

I’m still busy busy busy at work, but I couldn’t let the first games pass with no comment, so here’s a quick post with no links, mainly designed to get other people’s impressions of yesterday’s games.

1) I know one game does not a series make, but I very much enjoyed the dazed look that Odalis Perez wore when he left the mound in yesterday’s Cards/Dodgers game. The last time a team hit five home runs in a game in a division series–wait–no team had ever done that before. It was a good start.

2) I was a bit bothered by the curtain calls at Busch Stadium yesterday, though. Curtain calls seem to me to be a bit disrespectful. I know players feel like the crowd is compelling them to come out, and they have to do it to shut up the crowd, but like a band after playing a perfunctory encore, they should just ignore the noise. Eventually it’ll go away. No matter how hard I stomped my feet at his show, Nick Lowe wasn’t going to come back out and play “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

3) The Red Sox did as expected. I expect they’ll do more of the same in games 2 and 3. And Johnny Damon’s hair seems to be even longer than before: it’s down past his shoulders.

4) I finally saw Scooter the Talking Baseball last night. Acting as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, Joe Buck said, “And now, to tell us some more about the change-up, here’s Scooter.” And there he was, unsettlingly flesh-colored, with a weird stitching mouth and backwards ball cap. Until that moment, I was still trying to make myself believe that he was a figment of Jim’s imagination. But no: Fox really does think kids are this stupid.

5) After the umpires took back the Sierra home run last night, deciding that it was foul after all, I decided that the only thing better than a Yankee making an out is a Yankee thinking he’s hit a home run, then making an out. I decided that every time a Yankee hits a foul ball–even just a grounder–the umpires should wave their fingers for a home run, make the hitter run the bases, then confer and send him back to the plate. Now that would be fun.

Original comments…

Levi: Oh, and how could I have forgotten the way the radar gun reading bursts into flames any time a pitch gets above about 92 mph? What a wealth of new excitement that brought to my enjoyment of the game! Thank you, Fox! Thank you!

maura: that near-hr was ruben sierra’s, actually. he promptly struck out.

Levi: Thanks, Mo. I fixed it.

Jason: When is Fox going to bring out the blue dot to follow where the ball goes? And when will we see Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?!?!?

stacey: i was DEEPLY disappointed that sierra was not required to run the bases in reverse.

I watch baseball-related TV so you don’t have to

I just watched my TiVo recording of the new CBS drama “Clubhouse,” which premiered last night. In this show, we are led to believe that there is a baseball team in New York called the New York Empires, the reigning world champions of a baseball league called the ABA, in which there is also a Boston team that wears red-and-black road uniforms. The Empires play in a stadium in Brooklyn, or perhaps Queens (somewhere along the route of the F train), that looks a lot like Dodger Stadium with the seat colors changed, some of the details missing (e.g., the right field scoreboard and the roofs over the bleachers), and apartment buildings in the background instead of palm trees. Also, the team equipment manager is Doc Brown from “Back to the Future.” And judging by the promos for the second episode, the Empires are going to be changing their uniforms within the first couple weeks of the season. (The truth: the Yankees complained about the pinstriped uniforms used in the pilot. There was talk the producers were going to digitally remove the pinstripes, but the pinstripes were there in the broadcast.)

The pilot involved steroids, and the second episode involves corked bats. I’m not sure if they can come up with 22 episodes’ worth of baseball-related issues, so surely some of the later episodes in the season are going to deal primarily with the home life of the central character, batboy Pete Young, and his sister Betsy, who is clearly named after my aunt Betsy, who in the mid-1960s, was an impostor on “To Tell the Truth” for a Baltimore Orioles ball girl. But the Betsy on “Clubhouse” seems like she cares more about sneaking out of the house to meet her boyfriend than she does about baseball.

Oh, and among the producers are Aaron Spelling and Mel Gibson. In fact, the show was created by a writer for one of Aaron Spelling’s other shows, “Charmed,” so I’m hoping for a crossover episode, perhaps involving a demon attacking during a game between the Empires and the San Francisco Cable Car Dodgers, or whatever they’re going to decide the ABA’s San Francisco team is called.

In conclusion, there will probably be more drama in the baseball playoffs starting next week than there is in “Clubhouse,” but I’ll watch the second episode on Tuesday before deciding whether or not to take it out of my TiVo Season Pass list.

Original comments…

Dan: This was on in a bar I was in last night, but the sound was down and closed captioning off. Sounds like I missed just what I thought I missed.

What about Hustle? Anyone see that on ESPN? I keep meaning to set the TiVo, but wonder if its worth my time.

Jim: “Clubhouse” was being shown in a bar? Was it a lazy bar where they hadn’t changed the channel away from CBS after the football games, or was it a bar where a lot of Kirsten Storms fans hang out?

thatbob: Episodes later in the season might deal with Doc Brown’s comic attempts to rectify problems in time-space caused by bookies with access to his Delorean.

Dan: It more in a bar by default. No cable and the person who really cared (the football games were over) flipped around and left it on that because there was good reception.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

The time of the Cardinals-Pirates game on Saturday, August 28, being changed from 7:05 to 1:20? What force could possibly make that happen?

Thanks to Maura’s co-worker Allison for giving us the heads-up, via Maura passing the information along to us. Levi and I consulted via phone, and we’ll still be able to make all the games on the schedule, but now we won’t be able to spend the night with my aunt and uncle in beautiful Yardley, Pennsylvania (actually, they live in Lower Makefield Township but have a Yardley mailing address). We’ll still see them at the Phillies game, though, of course. Instead, we’ll be spending the night in Harrisburg, and Maura has promised us breakfast at Waffle House.

P.S. to Levi: Yes, I’ll be arriving on Thursday.

Parenting, revisited

Sunday night, we were watching the baseball highlights. During the highlights of the Twins’ 18-inning loss to Oakland, Stacey made me pause the TiVo. The Twins had just pulled to within one run on a two-run homer by Justin Morneau in the bottom of the 18th, and the camera panned across the crowd. In the foreground of the shot, a boy with a ball glove and a Twins cap was leaping up and down in front of his seat, pumping his arms in the air and screaming.

What had caught Stacey’s eye, though, wasn’t the cheering boy, but his mom, visible over his shoulder. She was leaning forward, chin resting on a hand, gazing a bit bleary-eyed at the field. The full weight of 18 innings of baseball and nearly five hours of stale Metrodome air was clearly visible.

But tired or not, she was there. And so was her son. She was the heroic opposite of that mom I saw at Comiskey in July. I bet if the Twins had tied the game, she would have sighed, ordered a beer, and smiled indulgently as impish little Dakota continued to scream his lungs out. I bet she wouldn’t even use her cell phone to tell her husband how long to microwave the tuna casserole, since she’d be having dinner–and maybe breakfast–at the ballpark. Or if she felt she had to call in, she’d do it discreetly, between innings.

Given that my own mother is out of the running, because that wouldn’t be fair, I hereby nominate that mom for mom of the year.

Original comments…

thatbob: Maybe you ought to write letters to the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Catholic Spirit, Prensa Minnesota, and several other area papers. Some recognition is probably just what she needs.