14 Apr 2009, by Eric
Last week, the Indians and Rangers opened a series on a Monday, took Tuesday off, and resumed Wednesday.
This week, the Dodgers and Giants are doing the same thing. So are the Mets and Padres.
Can somebody please explain this? Am I way late in noticing the pattern/complaining about it? Seriously. Existentially threatening questions like this are why I blog.
Update:
Scott explains in comments:
It has to do with the sanctity of Opening Day as an event. Having a day off after a home opener gives the opportunity to push things back a day for weather reasons, and that is a big deal with all of the special events and ticket holders. Why they would bother doing that in LA or other non cold weather cities, though, is quite odd.
That makes sense --Opening Day ticketholders don't want to miss out on the festivities in case of bad weather in badweather locations. But it doesn't tell me why the Padres would have a game scheduled the day after their home opener, but not the Dodgers. Then again, it's pretty clear that I'm no expert on the schedule making process. There are a lot of numbers to align and it's obviously an imperfect process by nature; maybe this is just a little blemish they thought they could hide behind the curtain of tradition.
Also goes to show that on matters of rain delays, people who grew up in Southern California are not to be trusted.
14 Apr 2009, by Eric
This poem by BH Fairchild is not about broadcasters explicitly. But with the passing of Harry Kalas yesterday, it's nice to read in the context of the radio and the voice coming out of it and how much that voice can mean to a child, a man, a community:
In the bleak, bleacherless corner
of my rightfield American youth,
I killed time with bubble gum
and baseball cards and read the stats
and saw a sign: your birthday was mine.
And so I dreamed: to rise far
from Kansas skies and fenceless outfields
where flies vanished in the summer sun.
To wake up black in Brooklyn,
to be a Bum and have folks call me Junior
and almost errorless hit .280 every year
and on the field, like you, dance double plays,
make flawless moves, amaze the baseball masses.
You would turn, take the toss from Reese,
lean back and, leaping past the runner's cleats,
wing the ball along a line reeled out
from home and suddenly drawn taut
with a soft pop in Hodges' crablike glove.
And we went wild in Kansas living rooms.
The inning's over. You're in the shadows now.
But summers past you taught us how to play
the pivot (or how to dream of it).
And when one day they put me in at second,
I dropped four easy ones behind your ghost,
who plays a perfect game.
14 Apr 2009, by Eric
Who knew that the 1990s also-rans with the baseball themed name were still running? I'm pretty sure the red ball on the album cover representst he way their career has whizzed in and out of the public consciousness...like a projectile thrown at high velocity or something. New album out the 14th --that's today basically.
I haven't heard any of the new songs, so can't recommend the record, but I do still kind of dig The Way (warning: video not nearly as cool as you might remember it), and may toss them on the mixtape sometime just because of the name.
13 Apr 2009, by Eric
(yet another thing to love about KH)
Keith Hernandez espouses on his arrival in New York (in New York Mag) and on meeting Placido Domingo:
And you’d be a fool to live here and not take advantage of the cultural stuff. So I would go to Broadway plays and even some operas. I met Plácido Domingo backstage once. The guy is a huge baseball fan, and he said “Sorry, I have a cold, I sang like a .230 hitter. Next time, I promise I’ll be a .300 singer for you.”
No word on whether Keith asked Plácido to help him move afterward.
10 Apr 2009, by Eric
There is little I can add regarding the death of Nick Adenhart. The sadness and shock are self-evident; his was a fate that nobody deserves. But the tragedy has gotten me thinking about the nature of death in sports, the way react to grim circumstances like this as not just human beings, but sports fans.
There’s this tendency to write longingly about how sports is supposed to be an escape, how sad it is when events like this one bust open our perfect, insulated, sub-universe. We want the world of baseball to be one where losing is as bad as things get, where steroids and egos are man’s greatest vices. We lament: what a great shame when the American Elysium is marred by the horrible realities of American Society.
As a sports fan, it’s hard not to see things that way. It’s hard not to think about how sad it is that Nick Adenhart won’t get the chance to fulfill his most ambitious big league dreams, and that the Angels have lost a teammate, and that for a moment our escapist paradise is cloudy.
But that kind of thinking -- I’m guilty too -- is short-sighted. The real tragedy is not that Nick Adenhart won’t get to pitch, but that Nick Adenhart won’t get to fall in love, enjoy another night out with his buddies, sleep until noon, travel the world, fall out of love, grow old. The real tragedy is simply human. Nick Adenhart loved and played baseball, but if he didn’t, if instead he loved painting or web design, or politics, his death would be just as distressing. So from now on, when I remember Nick Adenhart, or Darryl Kile, or Thurman Munson, I’m going to try to remember them as not just ballplayers, but men.
I think they deserve that.