Baseball Journal 8-24-13

Ah, a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles.  Today, the talk of all baseball, the Dodgers, are playing. . . Oh my God!  The Taliban!  How did these guys get into the country!  Where’s Homeland Security?  Oh, wait, that’s just Mike Napoli on the Red Sox with an enormous beard.

Whew, had me worried there.  Oh my God!  There’s another one!  It is the Taliban!  That’s not Jonny Gomes.

You can’t fool me, there’s a whole dugout filled with bearded men.  We’re being invaded here people!  Who’s that in the Dodger bullpen?  Brian Wilson with an even bigger beard than the last time I saw him.

The Dodgers have been infiltrated too.  Is nothing sacred?  In the end, it was dark day for America as the Taliban beat the Dodgers, 4-2.  I weep for this country.   

Who knew they played professional level baseball in Afghanistan?

While I was knocked out sick on Wednesday, all I could do was lie on my back and listen to the radio.  I sort got to hear the Rangers playing the Astros.  Sort of.  The local affiliate cut out after sundown in the 2^nd inning.  I was able to pick up the game on a fuzzy Amarillo station late in the game.  There in the 9^th with the bases loaded and the scored tied . . . static . . . Rangers win!  I think.  Thankfully I got the replay of the winning play on the post game, more or less.  Win/loss is what matters at this point in the season, not the details.

Somewhere in the middle of waiting for the Amarillo station to come in, I heard the worst sports talk show of all time, Petros and Money on FSR.  In the half-hour I listened, they discussed Kim Kardashian’s mom’s talk show, toppings on hamburgers, the guy who invented the steam engine, and Hayden Panettierre.  I should have just listened to static from Amarillo, but I was too tired to get up and change stations.

I also listened to the local sports talk show out of El Paso on KROD.  They spent an hour with the team owner (or president, whatever) of the Triple A baseball team that is coming to town next year.  They’re not ready to reveal the new name yet.  (Please God, not the El Paso Chihuahuas.  Anything but the Chihuahuas.)  They did discuss the controversy over the funding of the ballpark, which I seem to recall was announced to be a million or so over budget a week into construction.  (Forgive me for not having the exact details or a supporting link, but the comment is mostly correct.) 

The host mentioned that some people were still angry.  The attitude of the owner was that it was too late now.  “If you people want to be angry and not come, fine.  You’ll just miss out on the fun.”  He and host agreed that eventually everyone will show up to the games.  And they laughed.  At the bottom of the hour, there was the local newsbreak.  In a completely unrelated news story, the city had just decided to raise property taxes and other tax increases may be on the way.  Yeah, El Pasoans you may as well show up to games.  You paid for them, and will paying over and over again for them, whether you go or not.     

Thankfully feeling better the next day, I got to listen to a rare Dodger morning game versus the Marlins.  There was so little crowd noise, I thought the ballpark was empty, but whenever the Dodgers scored, I’d hear a feeble cheer go up from the “crowd.”  I wonder if the entire Marlin team even showed up for the game.  The only noteworthy event that happened in the game was the Dodger debut of Brian Wilson as a relief pitcher.  It was a non-save situation.  He got two strikeouts, gave up a hit, and caught another ball in his beard, which was incorrectly counted as an out, in my opinion.  (Rule 6.05 (a) specifies that a batter is out when the ball is LEGALLY caught by a fielder.  I think some aspect of Rule 7.05 should have come into play there, but there is no specific ruling on “beard catching.”)

During the broadcast I learned that the Marlins Park visitor’s bullpen is next to the Clevlander nightclub in the outfield.  Even though it was morning, the place was still rocking.  It used to be the home bullpen, but they discovered last season that the continuous noise and low bass thumping was annoying their pitchers, who had to sit next to it for the whole game, so they switched.