5.27.2005
Kid Charlemagne
Three weeks since the last update, eh? Those who know me know of my general inability to follow through, to the point where I hope one day to be able to refer to it in a sentence as my "famous inability to follow through" without any fear of hyperbole. Since the fifth grade I have come up with more ideas for projects than I care to recount, projects that all would have changed the world (I am confident) had someone seen them through to completion. When I tell friends or family that I have recently embarked on Project X, I can see their eyes glaze over knowingly, in the same sad manner that Dodgers and Yankees fans probably felt whenever Steve Howe said he was quitting the blow, this time for real.
It is one thing to read your favorite site regularly without knowing Thing One about the author(s) involved, perhaps coming to wonder why the output has seemed diminished or otherwise lacking recently, and then suddenly finding out that so-and-so has been taking time off to write a book, whatshisname is shutting down his site after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and that lady with the web site (capitalized perhaps?) just decides that the thrill is gone.
In this case, a new relocation to a new job with an accompanying new schedule has dealt a body blow to the once-regular MLBeat production schedule. The past three weeks have marked my reintroduction to the 9-to-5 lifestyle -- possibly pedestrian to you, but for me it's like emigrating to a new planet. This adds difficulty to the regular production of MLBeat Game Reports, for example, since your standard East Coast game kicks off about an hour before I leave work, and about two hours before I make it home to Lappy.
(In-Person Game Reports were bound from Day One to be infrequent due to financial considerations, but I did take in a Bay Area special this past weekend, Giants def. A's 3-2. I can add very little of substance, except to say that the Giants start their nosebleed seats at $24 a pop, plus $6 in convenience fees, and are completely justified in doing so because of the spectacular panoramic view of the Bay they provide. On a clear sunny afternoon such as this one, they could probably double the price and get away with it. I was spellbound to the point of not even really noticing the game.)
So, we've come to the question that hangs over the first State of the Beat: is it worthwhile to continue this particular project, a project that attracts no readership, changes nobody's lives, and costs nothing to produce except for the occasional few hours from a man whose time has turned out not to be valuable anyway? The most appropriate lesson here comes, as it so often does, from a near-incidental subplot in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. In this case we have Hal, the father, uncovering an old ham-radio console from his college days while cleaning out the garage. Nostalgia sweeps over him, and soon he has revived his long-gone persona, Kid Charlemagne (a neat little reference), who uses his spotty broadcast signal -- and every inch of his three-block radius -- to stick it to the Man. Kid Charlemagne is of course his only listener, straining to even get his own family to notice his efforts. The inevitable joke arrives when the FCC comes calling, dressed akin to the Men in Black, to forcibly shut down Hal with a vengeance because he was "too real." We then learn that Hal's neighbor Craig had been an avid listener all along, but it's an unnecessary plot twist: it is enough to see Hal sweating from exhaust and exertion as his diatribes roll on into the night, convinced he was bringing the American heirarchy to its knees.
I could discuss baseball all day long, and until that glorious day arrives when someone offers to pay me to do so exclusively for them, I see no reason to stop doing so here. Regarding content I will continue to post what I please, when I please, but I'll cut a deal with you right here and now: the first reader to contact me with any sort of creative input whatsoever will see his or her wishes fulfilled, to the extent that those wishes are reasonable.
Not all at once, now.
It is one thing to read your favorite site regularly without knowing Thing One about the author(s) involved, perhaps coming to wonder why the output has seemed diminished or otherwise lacking recently, and then suddenly finding out that so-and-so has been taking time off to write a book, whatshisname is shutting down his site after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and that lady with the web site (capitalized perhaps?) just decides that the thrill is gone.
In this case, a new relocation to a new job with an accompanying new schedule has dealt a body blow to the once-regular MLBeat production schedule. The past three weeks have marked my reintroduction to the 9-to-5 lifestyle -- possibly pedestrian to you, but for me it's like emigrating to a new planet. This adds difficulty to the regular production of MLBeat Game Reports, for example, since your standard East Coast game kicks off about an hour before I leave work, and about two hours before I make it home to Lappy.
(In-Person Game Reports were bound from Day One to be infrequent due to financial considerations, but I did take in a Bay Area special this past weekend, Giants def. A's 3-2. I can add very little of substance, except to say that the Giants start their nosebleed seats at $24 a pop, plus $6 in convenience fees, and are completely justified in doing so because of the spectacular panoramic view of the Bay they provide. On a clear sunny afternoon such as this one, they could probably double the price and get away with it. I was spellbound to the point of not even really noticing the game.)
So, we've come to the question that hangs over the first State of the Beat: is it worthwhile to continue this particular project, a project that attracts no readership, changes nobody's lives, and costs nothing to produce except for the occasional few hours from a man whose time has turned out not to be valuable anyway? The most appropriate lesson here comes, as it so often does, from a near-incidental subplot in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. In this case we have Hal, the father, uncovering an old ham-radio console from his college days while cleaning out the garage. Nostalgia sweeps over him, and soon he has revived his long-gone persona, Kid Charlemagne (a neat little reference), who uses his spotty broadcast signal -- and every inch of his three-block radius -- to stick it to the Man. Kid Charlemagne is of course his only listener, straining to even get his own family to notice his efforts. The inevitable joke arrives when the FCC comes calling, dressed akin to the Men in Black, to forcibly shut down Hal with a vengeance because he was "too real." We then learn that Hal's neighbor Craig had been an avid listener all along, but it's an unnecessary plot twist: it is enough to see Hal sweating from exhaust and exertion as his diatribes roll on into the night, convinced he was bringing the American heirarchy to its knees.
I could discuss baseball all day long, and until that glorious day arrives when someone offers to pay me to do so exclusively for them, I see no reason to stop doing so here. Regarding content I will continue to post what I please, when I please, but I'll cut a deal with you right here and now: the first reader to contact me with any sort of creative input whatsoever will see his or her wishes fulfilled, to the extent that those wishes are reasonable.
Not all at once, now.
5.06.2005
Your Typical Friday Night Marquee Matchup
Well, not quite. A West Coast resident such as yours truly ends up experiencing these matchups on something closer to Late Friday Afternoon. But it *is* Oswalt v. Smoltz, and on the same night that Lance Berkman makes his long-awaited return to the Houston Astros lineup to boot.
More disclosure: unless otherwise noted, MLBeat Game Reports come not from in-person attendance or even TV watching, but from MLB Gameday Audio's ample selection of radio feeds. Tonight: Skip Caray and Joe Simpson, Braves announcers for WGST. Judging from the commercials, WGST has its demographic pegged as the same one that tunes into TBS for their Braves fix: lawn care products, insurance of home and car, Home Depot. Noticeably absent are the swelling musical Delta pieces of yore. And whither alcohol? Have we cleaned up as a society while I wasn't looking?
Before I can even get settled in: "A 3-run jack for Johnny! Oswalt - high changeup! And for Estrada, his first home run of the year!" Immediately we learn that tonight will not live up to its billing, as Oswalt is having one of Those Nights when nothing goes right. Houston outfielders Willy Taveras and Mike Lamb -- "he's usually a third baseman, isn't he?", notes Simpson -- misplay a series of flyballs the put Atlanta up three more runs, 6-0 after two innings. Oswalt will settle down and retire seven in a row, but a misplay by Berkman at first base leads to more carnage in the fifth.
Berkman, who tore his ACL playing flag football last fall, returns to a staggering team with a jumbled lineup. Taveras and Jason Lane have both made semi-persuasive cases to be left in the outfield on a regular basis; Craig Biggio's Hall-of-Fame career, which has taken him from C to 2B to CF, has taken him back to 2B again; and the fight for 3B between Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg has spilled over into RF, with the loser the most likely to give his PT to Berkman. But complicating the matter further are Jeff Bagwell's shoulders, which apparently have to be reattached with chicken wire and putty every so often (OK, cortisone shots). When you're chronically injured like that -- terminally, vis-a-vis Bagwell's career -- how do you make the decision when and when not to play? Shudder shudder.
So tonight Berkman plays first. The announcers explain this by saying that apparently Berkman's knees aren't good enough yet to put him in the outfield, but that's hooey. Will he run to second if he hits a gapper, or will it be more of a saunter? Anyway, he made one nice play at first by the announcers' count but misplayed a flip to Oswalt that allowed Chipper to reach safely. Say what you want about the Astros' lineup shuffle, but Oswalt was killed by his defense tonight all over. That this happens with an infielder in the outfield and an outfielder in the infield can't look good to anyone watching.
After Chipper makes a nice play from one knee to retire Oswalt on a grounder, you can hear Simpson trip over the old supersition: "John Smoltz has...set 'em down, 3 up 3 down for 3 innings." Caray starts addressing the elephant in the next inning, however, saying "Smoltz has been poifect through 3," "he's set down ten in a row now" and so on until Craig Biggio lines a single to left. You can hear the disappointment in Skip's voice, and he is quick with his disclaimer:"I know some of you think we shouldn't mention no-hitters, but come on folks. Even with our egos we realize that what we say up here has nothing to do with what goes on down there." Whatever. Now Lamb doubles in Biggio and everything's gone to hell: perfect game, no-hitter, shutout. Meanwhile, Brad Penny has a no-no of his own going in Cincinnati, also with three complete. Might as well get all our jinxing done now. [Sure enough, Ryan Freel broke up Penny's bid with a triple in the sixth. Genius.]
After five innings, Smoltz has cruised through on only 46 pitches, but his vague "upper respiratory problem," the second-inning description of which made it sound like Skip and Joe were prematurely making excuses for him, seems to have asserted itself, combining with a shocking 9-1 lead over Oswalt (plus a possible back injury incurred while swinging the bat) to knock Smoltz out of the game. Skip neatly took the "baseball is a funny game" angle by pointing out that Oswalt, he of the 7 ER in 4 IP, was staying in the game, while the dominating Smoltz was hitting the showers. Jorge Sosa comes into the game, a sure sign that it's already over.
We are now smack into the Blowout Phase of the game, which is the creamy filling when it comes to radio broadcasts. Brandon Duckworth's entry into the game leads to a Simpson joke about a dead duck in a vet's office, worked seamlessly into the play-by-play (Pete Orr singled to left). Later, a philosophical nugget from Caray: "Why is gambling illegal but insurance not? One's betting you're going to die, the other's betting you're not, right?" Realizing he has backed himself into an unwinnable discussion with two outs in the inning, he recuses himself as dryly as ever: "Chavez grounds out to shortstop, and the inning, thank God, is over."
Skip is a wonderful announcer, if only on the merit of his ability to mutter complaints just under his normal voice. He can slip a "they never change, these promos, do they?" right into the middle of his delivery of a promo. And later: "I'm old enough to remember when the commercials all came in between innings." His relentless mocking of the AFLAC duck's quack never fails to amuse, and while it may not cast the duck in a particularly favorable light, it helps spread name recognition a little more. Everybody wins, not least because we've all stopped paying attention to the game innings ago.
More disclosure: unless otherwise noted, MLBeat Game Reports come not from in-person attendance or even TV watching, but from MLB Gameday Audio's ample selection of radio feeds. Tonight: Skip Caray and Joe Simpson, Braves announcers for WGST. Judging from the commercials, WGST has its demographic pegged as the same one that tunes into TBS for their Braves fix: lawn care products, insurance of home and car, Home Depot. Noticeably absent are the swelling musical Delta pieces of yore. And whither alcohol? Have we cleaned up as a society while I wasn't looking?
Before I can even get settled in: "A 3-run jack for Johnny! Oswalt - high changeup! And for Estrada, his first home run of the year!" Immediately we learn that tonight will not live up to its billing, as Oswalt is having one of Those Nights when nothing goes right. Houston outfielders Willy Taveras and Mike Lamb -- "he's usually a third baseman, isn't he?", notes Simpson -- misplay a series of flyballs the put Atlanta up three more runs, 6-0 after two innings. Oswalt will settle down and retire seven in a row, but a misplay by Berkman at first base leads to more carnage in the fifth.
Berkman, who tore his ACL playing flag football last fall, returns to a staggering team with a jumbled lineup. Taveras and Jason Lane have both made semi-persuasive cases to be left in the outfield on a regular basis; Craig Biggio's Hall-of-Fame career, which has taken him from C to 2B to CF, has taken him back to 2B again; and the fight for 3B between Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg has spilled over into RF, with the loser the most likely to give his PT to Berkman. But complicating the matter further are Jeff Bagwell's shoulders, which apparently have to be reattached with chicken wire and putty every so often (OK, cortisone shots). When you're chronically injured like that -- terminally, vis-a-vis Bagwell's career -- how do you make the decision when and when not to play? Shudder shudder.
So tonight Berkman plays first. The announcers explain this by saying that apparently Berkman's knees aren't good enough yet to put him in the outfield, but that's hooey. Will he run to second if he hits a gapper, or will it be more of a saunter? Anyway, he made one nice play at first by the announcers' count but misplayed a flip to Oswalt that allowed Chipper to reach safely. Say what you want about the Astros' lineup shuffle, but Oswalt was killed by his defense tonight all over. That this happens with an infielder in the outfield and an outfielder in the infield can't look good to anyone watching.
After Chipper makes a nice play from one knee to retire Oswalt on a grounder, you can hear Simpson trip over the old supersition: "John Smoltz has...set 'em down, 3 up 3 down for 3 innings." Caray starts addressing the elephant in the next inning, however, saying "Smoltz has been poifect through 3," "he's set down ten in a row now" and so on until Craig Biggio lines a single to left. You can hear the disappointment in Skip's voice, and he is quick with his disclaimer:"I know some of you think we shouldn't mention no-hitters, but come on folks. Even with our egos we realize that what we say up here has nothing to do with what goes on down there." Whatever. Now Lamb doubles in Biggio and everything's gone to hell: perfect game, no-hitter, shutout. Meanwhile, Brad Penny has a no-no of his own going in Cincinnati, also with three complete. Might as well get all our jinxing done now. [Sure enough, Ryan Freel broke up Penny's bid with a triple in the sixth. Genius.]
After five innings, Smoltz has cruised through on only 46 pitches, but his vague "upper respiratory problem," the second-inning description of which made it sound like Skip and Joe were prematurely making excuses for him, seems to have asserted itself, combining with a shocking 9-1 lead over Oswalt (plus a possible back injury incurred while swinging the bat) to knock Smoltz out of the game. Skip neatly took the "baseball is a funny game" angle by pointing out that Oswalt, he of the 7 ER in 4 IP, was staying in the game, while the dominating Smoltz was hitting the showers. Jorge Sosa comes into the game, a sure sign that it's already over.
We are now smack into the Blowout Phase of the game, which is the creamy filling when it comes to radio broadcasts. Brandon Duckworth's entry into the game leads to a Simpson joke about a dead duck in a vet's office, worked seamlessly into the play-by-play (Pete Orr singled to left). Later, a philosophical nugget from Caray: "Why is gambling illegal but insurance not? One's betting you're going to die, the other's betting you're not, right?" Realizing he has backed himself into an unwinnable discussion with two outs in the inning, he recuses himself as dryly as ever: "Chavez grounds out to shortstop, and the inning, thank God, is over."
Skip is a wonderful announcer, if only on the merit of his ability to mutter complaints just under his normal voice. He can slip a "they never change, these promos, do they?" right into the middle of his delivery of a promo. And later: "I'm old enough to remember when the commercials all came in between innings." His relentless mocking of the AFLAC duck's quack never fails to amuse, and while it may not cast the duck in a particularly favorable light, it helps spread name recognition a little more. Everybody wins, not least because we've all stopped paying attention to the game innings ago.
