More sports media crap. The last (maybe?) issue of my free Sports Illustrated subscription had a cover featuring a Brazilian soccer player. Utter, complete irrelevancy. There’s a hit piece on Trump, inferring that he’s a golf cheat, which is the worst thing you can call a golfer. Nothing on Colin Kaepernick, but they already did a editorial demanding that he be given an NFL job a couple months ago. There was a paragraph on the baseball trading deadline. At least there was a nice article on George Springer. I’ve heard an interview with him on an Astros podcast. He seems like a good kid. Bye, bye SI, if this is the end. It’s been . . . umm . . . crappy.
The Chihuahuas were supposed to play a double header versus the New Orleans Baby Cakes starting at 4:00. (Chihuahuas versus Baby Cakes. It’s the apocalypse, folks.) Unfortunately what transpired was another lengthy rain delay. Steve Kapolowitz had to come in on short notice and do some impromptu local sports talk for three hours. I felt bad for Leah Piri (not sure about the spelling), the girl who’s the baseball producer, who had to come in after just arriving back in town from vacation in Hawaii four hours before. Then she had to cool her heels for several hours before the game finally started (and then ended much, much later). Steve decided to go ahead and do a show, which included a commercial-free hour, because “There is no way I’m running ESPN Radio for three hours at this time.” I wonder he had heard yesterday’s show with that liberal woman.
In the meantime, I watched the MLB free game between the Orioles and the Tigers in Baltimore. Honestly, while the game wasn’t bad, the extra circular stuff going on during the game may have been more interesting. This was the visiting Fox Sports Detroit broadcast with one of my favorite color commentators, Rod Allen.
Justin Verlander was pitching. His parents were there and chatted with the in-game reporter. They contributed a picture of Justin as a high school pitcher. A poor guy tried to catch a foul ball going to his seat, while holding dinner. He lost the ball, and his meal, and whatever happiness he had. The guys calling the game felt bad for him and sent the in-game reporter to him with a replacement meal. The guy was still down, but he said he’d get a ball eventually. He might have felt worse later in the game. A mom sitting with her family caught a hot-shot liner into the stands for a souvenir with a round of applause from the crowd and a tip of cap from the players.
As for the game, there was some strange confusion at the bottom of the third. The Tigers got the third out, but the whole team apparently forgot how many outs there were and stayed on the field until the umps finally called them off. The Tigers had one run, and then Verlander gave up two solo homers for a 2-1 O’s score. In the eighth (and I missed it while working), Justin Upton hit a grand slam homer to give the kitties a 5-2 win.
“Are you sure you want to take this?” asked the Baby Cakes’ manager to the umpire, as he held out his lineup card as the rain began. Tim Hagerty spent a couple of innings explaining why these two seven-inning games were being played starting at 8:00 pm CST. Yesterday’s game had come so close to starting, but the rains had started first instead. If the ump had taken the lineup card, it would have caused the game to have been suspended (since it would have technically started) and resulted in a pair of nine-inning games for a double header.
The PCL waived their 12:30 am curfew for starting an inning to begin these games. The weather forecast wasn’t promising for the weekend and this “window” was deemed the best chance to get the games in. I’d say they were really only relevant for the Chihuahuas, since they’re still slightly viable for the division lead. New Orleans has been all-but eliminated from the post-season. If the games hadn’t mattered, maybe a different decision would have been made.
During player introductions, the PA called the team, “The ‘Cakes.” Tim seized on that and used that for most of the game. He did comment that this community had about the same reaction as El Paso fans had to “Chihuahuas,” but they’d come to accept it. Tim really didn’t seem comfortable with saying “Baby Cakes.” (Who could blame him?) I read an interview with him that was linked on his Twitter feed later in the night. Tim knew ahead of time that there was going to be a “mixed reaction” to the Chihuahuas’ name. I’d credit the quality of the ballpark and the team for the acceptance of the name, more than the cute logo and marketing.
The crowd for Game One, in spite of the late start, sounded pretty large at the “Shrine on Airline” ballpark. They’d had to rename Zephyr stadium with the team name change. At the very least, they sounded quite rambunctious. The intro to the Beastie Boys “Girls” was used for bumper music a couple of times. A fan shouted out the lyrics when it ended. Tim mentioned that the earlier name of the team, before Zephyrs, was the Pelicans, the current name of their NBA team. “NOLA” was on the front of the team’s jersey, instead of Babycakes. (Austin Nola on the team, also had “Nola” on the back.)
As for the game, New Orleans went up 2-0 in the second inning off of a well-executed suicide squeeze play. In the fourth, the pups went up 4-2. I missed that inning watching the end of the Tigers’ game. The ‘Cakes answered in the fifth with a three-run homer, 6-4. Ryan Schimpf hit a solo homer in the sixth to make it 6-5. He was from the area and played ball for LSU. Schimpf had a whole cheering section of friends and family there in Chihuahuas’ gear. They picked a good day to be there. He hit two home runs in the game. 6-5 ‘Cakes would end up being the Game One final.
Game Two started less than 20 minutes later. Tim announced the local time at 10:45. “Boy, what a night,” he said in disbelief. While I had other stuff I might have wanted to watch instead, I felt almost obliged to listen for Tim’s sake. He was really working tonight. It was a much quieter crowd, but the ones that were there got individually loud on occasion. A foul ball bounced off an empty seat, which was clearly heard and caused a scramble amongst those there. A “low occupancy game” as Tim put it.
The story of most of the game was ‘Cakes pitcher, Tom Koehler, who had a no-hitter going through five innings of this seven-inning game. The first Chihuahua hit came in the sixth with the first batter. Tim noted that the TV guys went home after Game One. If this had been a no-hitter, there would have been no footage. Diego Goris attempted to score from first on a double and nearly got caught in a run-down. He just made it back to third. He had to wait until Collin Cowgill came up and hit a grand slam a couple of batters later. 4-1 Chihuahuas. The crowd left boo’d loudly.
Meanwhile, I checked my e-mail. I spoke too soon earlier. Sports Illustrated had put up a new Colin Kaepernick article. The title of the click-bait insisted that the NFL’s ratings drop last year was not because of him. It was Trump’s fault. For some reason, I didn’t bother reading it. Elsewhere, Yu Darvish made his debut with the Dodgers in New York City against the Mets. He had 10 strikeouts and gave up no runs in seven innings, and the Dodgers won 6-0. The boys in blue are starting to look truly scary (to other clubs). At the game, Tim was getting some encouraging tweets from fans during the game that he happily read. I was sorry I wasn’t signed up for Twitter.
“The crowd has dwindled down significantly,” as Tim put it. They left too early. In the bottom of the sixth, with two on and one out, an error scored a run. Worse, pitcher, Kevin Quackenbush, injured himself committing the error and had to come out. Another run came in on a fielder’s choice. And then, an error by Peter Van Gansen brought in the tying run, 4 all.
Tim asked Leah how she was doing back the studio after she did the usual seventh inning scoreboard. She was okay. Tim was getting a little punchy. It was near 1:00 am in New Orleans. At one point, he called the home team, the Zephyrs, without noticing. He mentioned he’d shown up at the stadium at noon. No one scored in the seventh. On to “extras.”
In the eighth, Tim noted that the cleaning crew was working around the stadium. The crowd had been reduced to a couple dozen people. Some of the ones there were pretty vocal. Tim actually laughed over some of their shouted comments. Peter Van Gansen would drive in two runs on a single in the top of the inning. In the bottom, Carter Capps came in and put two on with no outs, but managed to get out of it unscathed. 6-4 Chihuahuas. The game was over at 1:35 am CST. The post-game just finished before I was about to leave for the night. Tim was so happy. He wasn’t quite sure when the game was scheduled for tomorrow, but he’d figure it out.
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