6-12-21
Saturday night and there’s a race on. Unfortunately, it’s not NASCAR. They’ve been on the
back of a milk carton for the last couple of months on FOX. This was the debut of
the SRX Racing series on CBS.
It’s sort of like the old IROC
series, where a bunch of past champions from various series raced against each
other in identical cars. This series is
planning on running on short tracks for the next six weeks.
There was a full house for the inaugural race featuring
champs such as Helio Castroneves, Tony Stewart, Tony Kanaan, and Bill Elliot. Greg
Biffle and Marco Andretti were
there, along with some other drivers I didn’t know or remember when I started
writing this. If these guys were giving
autographs, I can easily see a bunch of people showing up for the race.
The broadcast crew seemed to mostly be ESPN’s old crew. (CBS
is rumored to be going after NASCAR coverage at some point.) Alan
Bestwick called the race. He looked
damn happy to be back in front of a microphone.
Lindsey Czarniak, looking
very hot, was the host. The pit
reporters were familiar (and I’ve forgotten who they were, wait, Brad Daughtery was one). Danica
Patrick was the effusive color commentator.
We were all asking the same question: Why wasn’t she racing?
Admittedly, I don’t have much to say about the race. I was flipping back-and-forth with FOX’s MLB game, and I was listening to the Chihuahuas on the radio. There was an interesting play at the plate
during that game. The throw bounced in
the dirt and hit the umpire on the nose.
He had to get treated and have the blood cleaned up before the game
could continue.
Back at the race, Danica told a story about having to race
at the Eldora dirt track, which is
coming up on the schedule. She felt she
had to do it because her boss, Tony Stewart, owns the track and invited
her. She didn’t want to since she’d
never been on dirt before. She admitted
that she didn’t practice beforehand just to have an excuse for doing badly,
which was what happened.
The winner of the race was the local ringer. They’d left a spot in the grid just for a
local. He got out of his car afterward
and fell on his rear. The guy said he
was okay with looking like a dummy if he could promote the track. I’d have to think this would be a great
career accomplishment for him given the field.
I’ll keep tuning in when I can for this series.
6-15-21
I’ve been under limited Internet access at work this
work. It’s really sucked. I could still listen to Chihuahuas games. I found
Tim’s commentary a bit more compelling than the game. He mentioned a score from Las Vegas from the previous night. They scored 11 runs in one inning . . . and
still lost the game 21-16 to Reno.
And here I thought that Chihuahuas loss on the fifth was terrible to sit
through. It could have been worse.
The OKC Dodgers
won tonight’s game, but the pups at least split with the series with them. Tim noted a Dodgers reliever was playing
catch with some kids above the bullpen.
That’s sweet. Their starter
breezed through one inning in four pitches.
Tim was aghast. He didn’t even
have time to finish his commentary on MLB’s
new rule against pitchers using foreign substances. We go straight back to the future as the
“spitball” (or “spider-tack” ball) is once again illegal. Tim said it had been up to opposing managers
to police this, but no one wanted their own pitchers busted for calling it
out.
Meanwhile on TV, the
Giants were playing the D-Backs. I’d caught the first inning when Arizona went
out to a 4-run lead. I’d had to skip out
at that point to work, but left the game on and kept checking in. The lead increased to 7-0, before the Giants
started making a comeback.
It was 8-5 when I wandered in in the bottom of the eighth
and stopped to watch. The Giants were up
with two outs and the bases loaded. Mike Yastrzemski battled at the plate
until he got a down and in pitch right in his left-handed sweet spot. The ball started hooking. I immediately began to move down an imaginary
first base line trying to wave it fair with my arms flailing. It just cleared the pole and splashed into
the drink of McCovey Cove. Yaz was amazingly composed and barely cracked
a smile as he crossed home plate. The
Giants won 9-8.
6-18-21
After a two week road trip, the Chihuahuas returned
home. The crowd there sounded big and
enthusiastic over the radio.
Unfortunately, they lost a lead late to Sugar Land and lost the game.
Tim was amazed by one play in the game that he’d never seen before. There was a dropped third strike on a Skeeters batter. He thought it was a ball and stood
there. The El Paso catcher was injured on
the play. The pitcher actually got the
ball and tagged the batter for the out.
The parent club, the Padres,
came home after losing three in a row to the Rockies. (The Rockies?) There were two free games today online which
I watched (Cubs/Mets and Tigers/Angels), but I kept an eye on the
Padres’ game with the Reds
tonight. They took a two-run lead into
the ninth. The Reds came back with four
runs. I turned on Statcast for the
bottom just after Eric Hosmer hit a
two-run homer to tie it and kept watching as Victor Caratini hit another two-run homer to win it. The sweet part is that their stadium was
finally at full capacity tonight. The
highlights looked like a World Series
game with the fans going crazy.
6-19-21
Finally. The Chihuahuas beat the Sugar Land Skeeters. They it well, too, 15-2. They’re now 1-7
against them. A co-worker and her dad
went to the game. I’m sure she brought
them the good luck they needed. She’d
been thrilled seeing a grand slam home run during the game.
6-20-21
I thought the highlight of tonight’s game between the Chihuahuas and the Skeeters was going to be Tim
Hagerty’s in-booth guest. For
Father’s Day, Tim had brought on his little son. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten that he
usually brought on a kid guest for Sunday home games. This lead to this exchange. Tim: “You’re four years old.” “I’m five.”
“You’re five? When did that
happen?”
As it turned out, a full inning of Sonny/Daddy time was
not the most noteworthy event of the game.
The Skeeters started off the game scoring four runs before their first
out. This included two home runs. Coincidentally, there was a ferocious gusting
wind kicking up ahead of a . . . weather occurrence that resulted in no
rain. (We’ve been a little dry out here
in the Southwest this year.) It seemed
like it was going to be one of those games where the pitchers run and hide.
I’ll cut more-or-less to the chase. Sugar Land was up at one point 10-4. In the bottom of the sixth, with the crowd
all into it, the Chihuahuas closed it to one run, 13-12. Unfortunately in the seventh, El Paso went
through two pitchers as the Skeeters scored three more runs. Position player, Matt Batten, came in to pitch.
A groan went through the crowd, including myself.
Tim had to explain.
The Padres parent club had
just called up a called up a couple of pitchers. They’d sent a couple down, but they weren’t
in town yet. El Paso was out of available
pitchers. Batten has had quite a bit of
experience pitching, unfortunately. He
induced a double play on an eephus pitch to end the inning and got a roar out
of the crowd. Events did not go well for
his next two innings though. The final
was 24-15. Yeah, forget all about yesterday’s blow out
win.
This was the most runs given up, the highest total score, and longest 9-inning game for the Chihuahuas ever (four+ hours). I never got a final count on the number of home runs for the game. (I think it was 11.) It was after 10:15pm and Tim mentioned that there were kids out running the bases, as per the usual Sunday promotion.
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