On Monday, the Marlins beat the Cubs 4-3. That’s about all that happened. Len, JD, and myself took Labor Day off from
commentating.
On Wednesday, the A’s beat the hell out of the Rangers
11-4. About halfway through, the game
became a blowout and with the expanded rosters, mass substitutions began. Eric and Matt said that this was turning into
a spring training game. In the 9th was
the most embarrassing part of the game, the Rangers batted out of order, likely
due to all of the subs. The A’s either
didn’t notice or didn’t care, since it was an out either way. The guys were upset that their scorecards
just got hashed.
I had never before seen out of order batting happen, but now
I’ve seen it twice this season. The
other time was the Giants-Dodgers game that I’ve mentioned before, probably the
symbolic start of the Giant’s problems this year. At least I knew what the rulebook said about
this situation. If I ever see the
three-base error for improper equipment use enforced, I will have finally seen
everything.
On Thursday, the NFL season started and baseball coverage
officially fell off the face of the earth for most sports outlets (like it was
prominent to begin with). The Orioles
are now the most hated sports franchise in Baltimore because they wouldn’t play
a day game instead of a night game, and the champion Ravens had to start play
on the road and lost. This was because
the teams share the same parking lot. I
know the Orioles probably didn’t want to give up the income from a night game
over a day game, but that does seem a bit d*ckish. Certainly it wasn’t worth the bad press. Could the Ravens have ponied up a little
money to make up the difference?
I didn’t really watch the game, but I got the impression
that Peyton Manning might have heard all those comments about Tim Tebow having
more playoff wins for the Broncos than he did.
Ah Tebow, the most hated man in the NFL by the sports media, as opposed
to actual human beings. Aaron Hernandez
has not gotten as much bad press as Tim Tebow.
On Friday, Dodger and Ranger night games were cancelled on
the radio by high school football. No
complaints. That’s perfectly
appropriate. Thankfully I got to watch a
meaningless Cubs-Brewers game on WGN in the afternoon, though there was some
stiff competition for my attention at the US Open tennis tournament. Namely, some dramatic slo-mo upskirt shots of
Flavia Pennetta, and a few provocative bend over poses.
Ahem.
Len and JD were extraordinarily loose, if not downright
giddy. Perhaps they’re counting the days
until they’ll be hitting the links. The
highlight of the commentary was their promotion of an upcoming giveaway, a Cubs
doll shirt, along with a few high-end (American Girl) dolls for the shirt. Putting a prop like that in the booth was of
course a mistake. They immediately
started playing with it on camera. Sage,
the American Girl doll, was introduced to the Sandlot Slugger game doll they
got earlier this year. Sage was then
given a microphone and a seat to start calling the game. “Come on Cubs fans. Let me hear you!”
A few former players were in attendance during the game for
a Saturday charity softball game. Former
Cubs first baseman, Derreck Lee was seated behind the on deck circle. He was looking casual and rather handsome and
dapper (as opposed to the last time I saw on field, old and broken down). Darwin Barney tossed him a foul ball during
the game. Derreck held it out and asked for
an autograph.
The Cubs radio announcer and former player, Keith Moreland,
also made it into the broadcast as his baseball card somehow ended up in the
home plate area. The ump handed it over
to a ball boy. He looked it over and
apparently didn’t recognize Moreland and put it under his seat.
There was a game. One
of the more comical incidents involved one of the Brewer players running down
the line, trying to beat out an infield hit, while simultaneously turned
around, shouting back at the ump for not granting him time. (The game was running long, who could blame
him?) I suppose I should have gotten the
player’s name, but frankly I have no idea who most the players on the Brewers
are. The only one that made an immediate
impression was Scooter Gennett. One,
there’s that name. Two, he came off the
bench and hit a pinch-hit three-run homer, that went into and out of the
basket. (And here I’d said that the
basket eliminated ambiguous home runs.)
Len and JD called him, “The best player you’ve never heard of this
season.” I hadn’t, and he might be.
With a Brewer game, Ryan Braun got a mention, somewhat
reluctantly. The guys said that he was
personally calling season ticket holders to apologize. Brewer management should consider doing the
same, along with several other teams (namely, the Angels). Actually the Brewers were taking whatever
they were saving on Braun’s suspension salary and using it to reduce concession
prices.
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