I am no different from my nerdly colleagues in that I love the physics reading. I hang out day and night with other physicists, people who don’t stare dumbly at me when I note that all scores on a problem must be quantized in integer units. However, most of these same colleagues don’t quite feel my pain when I note glumly all the major sporting events that I didn’t get to watch because of the reading. Mid-June seems to be the antithesis of February on the Sports Calendar. While concentrating on physics, I missed:
* The US Open golf tournament at which Tiger Woods’ leg fell off
* England going undefeated at EURO 2008[1]
* The College World Series, which consisted of a nightly thunderstorm delay
* The Triumph of good over evil that was the NBA finals[2]
* Lots and lots of professional baseball
I’m back home in Virginia now, where I am free to watch the big screen to my heart’s content. And so, I saw Fresno State’s unlikely victory in the College World Series, the Nationals’ unlikely victory over the Angels, and ESPN’s soccer studio people trying to fill air time while we DIDN’T see Turkey’s unlikely near-comeback against Germany.
Huh?
In what is being dubbed international soccer’s “Heidi” game,[3] severe thunderstorms knocked out most networks’ satellite feeds from the UEFA broadcast center in Vienna for the last 20 minutes of the game. The Germany-Turkey game was rendered unavailable except via Swiss television and Al Jazeera. While I was disappointed not to be able to see the game’s exciting climax, I have no visceral rooting interest. Yet, my heart bleeds for those who did care deeply. Not only couldn’t we *see* the game, we couldn’t even hear an audio broadcast – the ESPN studio tried to keep us up to date, but without any real success.
In the aftermath, various sports blogs attempted to sort through the blame for this televised sports debacle. In one sense, the thunderstorm in Vienna was an Act of Bob, and no one was to blame. After all, ESPN had three different video feeds, and all three went out; what were they supposed to do? But, as far as the Nachoman is concerned, some blame might attach to UEFA (the European soccer organization who sponsors the event); and ESPN bears significant responsibility for a failure even before the event.
UEFA mandated that all television feeds be centralized in Vienna. Now, I don’t know the exact details of the arrangement, but the implication from several sites is that UEFA forced this media center on stations as a condition of broadcast, even though stations would have preferred to make their own arrangements. Now, this is speculation and inference on my part – I welcome corrections from anyone who has the facts. I’m only sayin’, an organization who is collecting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide for television rights ought to be a bit more prepared for a thunderstorm.
As for ESPN, they seemingly did the best they could when the video went out. A spokesman for the company said all three of their redundant feeds went out simultaneously. SI.com’s Grand Wahl made a clever suggestion… while the power was out, ESPN showed video of a town square in Switzerland where fans had gathered to watch on a big screen. Why not adjust the camera to show said big screen? Unfortunately, that would probably have been unworkable, as the camera in the square had the feel of an unmanned fixed shot from a high building.
So what did ESPN do wrong? As they did for the World Cup in 2002, they had their commentators call the game from the studio in Bristol rather than from the game site itself. Though I would argue that the broadcast was slightly weaker because the commentators had their vision limited by the available camera angles, for the most part off-site announcing worked just fine. Until the Heidi game, the only truly noticeable effect was when the stadium audio went out briefly, and we heard studio commentary alone, which sounded extremely awkward. But so what…
So what, indeed. I’ve seen plenty of ballgames at which the video feed disappeared, only to be replaced by audio play-by-play until the video could be restored. I mean, if nothing else, an on-site announcer could call Bristol via cell phone and send an audio feed. But, of course, ESPN hadn’t sent anyone to the game! Worldwide Leader, indeed… freakin’ *Al Jazeera* provided better coverage of a major sporting event than did the folks from Bristol. Shame.
An actual unique point of view from ESPN The Magazine
Okay, by now all vigilant Nacho readers have heard of the Willie Randolph firing. At 12:15 AM PDT he was met in his hotel room, KGB-style, by team representatives and summarily fired. “How horrible!” was the cry of the New York and national media. How could someone be so classless as to fire a man on the road, so late at night, in his hotel room, after a game?
The Nachoman’s view on the subject was a bit more reasoned, but still critical. Why fire Mr. Randolph for the current poor performance of several prominent players? Do the Mets really think they’re going to find someone better? And, if the Mets really wanted to fire Mr. Randolph, why wait so long after initial rumors surfaced? Pull the trigger, be done with him, and start the new era sooner rather than later. Nothing could possibly be gained by fanning a month’s worth of buzz about whether or not the manager would keep his job. Either fire the man, or don’t. Rumors abounded that Omar Minaya, Mets GM, had been undermining Mr. Randolph’s authority with his players. Why? The GM is (almost) all-powerful. There’s no point, other than petty personal politics, to initiate a game of silly buggers within the organization.
ESPN The Magazine's take was the most reasoned of all. They asked the New York Times' self-described "Ethicist" to find out whether the firing was carried out appropriately. The Ethicist's answer: all actions by Mets management for which we have facts were completely ethical. He noted that if some of these rumors about undermining authority were in fact true, then that would be a breach of ethics; however, he refused to speculate on rumor.
The Ethicist's two most damning statements were powerful barbs, one aimed at Mets critics, and one at the Mets administration itself. The first, for all those crazy New Yorkers spouting indignance at the treatment of their beloved Willie:
"If you're fired from a job, what you're really mad about is the fact that you got the axe [not at the circumstances of the firing]."
The second statement seemed to be talking directly to the Mets owner, or perhaps to Mr. Minaya:
"If you are a very senior person in an organization and if you realize that you lack the skills to do your job well, then you have a duty to resign."
But ah, the public outrage.
It is always worthwhile for notable figures to pay attention to the modern equivalent of the jungle drums, lest the said notable figure find himself at the mercy of a ululating mob. But literal jungle drums can’t be heard in New York City over the roar of traffic. What is the modern urban mechanism for the spread of public outrage?
Twenty years ago, sports talk radio filled this important role. Spittle-emitting citizens would call the station while they were supposed to be working. The callers, egged on by the slimeball host, would spout most outlandish points of view until the city was seething with rage over relief pitching, goal line defense, or even less substantive topics. Sure, no sane sports team owner would actually take the advice of the fans who proposed to sack the manager, coaches, and the bat boy. Yet, it would be unwise for the owner to thumb his or her nose at the angry masses. At least sports talk radio provided a safe outlet for the mob to be heard, and didn’t result in tar and feathers. And, it always amazed me how quickly the mob changed its tune once the team began winning again.
Today, internet message boards and blogs fill much of the role of the jungle drums. No, not the respectable blogs… I’m talking about the blogs much despised by Buss Bissinger, the ones that give voice to the talk radio callers without even the somewhat moderating influence of a host.
Thing is, I won’t stoop to reading those. I get my sense of the jungle drums second hand, from mildly respectable blogs, websites, and studio commentators who mention what “They” say, whoever "They" is. But I also keep an ear to the ground via Wikipedia.
As you probably are aware, a page on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. While open access usually promotes accuracy, it is unfortunately easy for idiot vandals to, say, replace Barry Bonds’ page in its entirety with “Cheater” in 50-point font.
Twenty years ago, sports talk radio filled this important role. Spittle-emitting citizens would call the station while they were supposed to be working. The callers, egged on by the slimeball host, would spout most outlandish points of view until the city was seething with rage over relief pitching, goal line defense, or even less substantive topics. Sure, no sane sports team owner would actually take the advice of the fans who proposed to sack the manager, coaches, and the bat boy. Yet, it would be unwise for the owner to thumb his or her nose at the angry masses. At least sports talk radio provided a safe outlet for the mob to be heard, and didn’t result in tar and feathers. And, it always amazed me how quickly the mob changed its tune once the team began winning again.
Today, internet message boards and blogs fill much of the role of the jungle drums. No, not the respectable blogs… I’m talking about the blogs much despised by Buss Bissinger, the ones that give voice to the talk radio callers without even the somewhat moderating influence of a host.
Thing is, I won’t stoop to reading those. I get my sense of the jungle drums second hand, from mildly respectable blogs, websites, and studio commentators who mention what “They” say, whoever "They" is. But I also keep an ear to the ground via Wikipedia.
As you probably are aware, a page on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. While open access usually promotes accuracy, it is unfortunately easy for idiot vandals to, say, replace Barry Bonds’ page in its entirety with “Cheater” in 50-point font.
However, a record of all changes to every Wikipedia page can be accessed on the page’s “history” tab. The way I like to listen to the jungle drums is to take a look at some of the reverted vandalism on a page. I took a look at the history of Omar Minaya’s page, and scrolled back around the date of the Randolph firing. Here’s what I found:
“On June 17, 2008, Omar Minaya made the most idiotic, greedy, inhumane, stupid, selfish, low life scum of the earth move by firing Willie Randolph. Please do not delete this sentence because whoever is reading this knows in his/her heart and soul that this is true.”
Interestingly, only the second sentence was initially deleted. The first sentence stood for a while.
From the worst GM to the worst play-by-play announcer
Although the Nachoman cringed to see Mike “So What’s Brittany Up To These Days” Patrick calling the College World Series finals, the opening shot of his hairpiece made up for some of my distress. I can’t find a picture online, though I showed El Molé evidence on my Tivo in case anyone were to disbelieve my testimony. The greasy-looking dark brown wig somehow failed to cover the gray strips of partially shaven hair alongside his ears. If anyone DOES find a picture of this hilarious hairpiece, please send it along. And, please, if anyone hears me seriously discussing the acquisition of substitute hair, please do something.
What does it take to sell out a Pirates game?
The Yankees.
The entire three game Yanks-Bucs series was sold out at New Three Rivers Stadium. Even the Pittsburgh pregame show admitted that the only possible way to generate buzz about baseball in Pittsburgh was to bring in the Yankees, their fans, and the Pirates fans old enough to remember the Mazeroski home run in 1960. Forty-eight years ago.
By the way, I counted SIX replays of said home run during Tuesday’s game on FSN Pittsburgh. I’ll bet that YES network showed somewhat fewer.
So who are these Pirates fans?
I think I’ve seen three different slimeball personal injury lawfirms advertising on FSN Pittsburgh. What kind of greedy lowlife types do they expect to be watching Pirates games?
More about the Yankees, even though I swear I’m not writing for ESPN
The primary purpose of my purchase of an XM radio was to listen to baseball. On interstates 81 and 64 last Sunday, I got to listen to the New York broadcast of the Reds-Yankees game from the Stadium. I thoroughly enjoyed John Sterling’s call, New York accent and all. He was descriptive and knowledgeable. I wasn’t quite as thrilled with Suzyn Waldman’s color commentary… but that might not be a fair judgment. Every time I hear her voice I can think of nothing but her ridiculous broadcast of Roger Clemens’ return to the Yankees in 2007, in which she sounded like a parody of every overly enthusiastic New Jersey Soccer Mom I’ve ever known.[5]
As for the game… bad weather was predicted from the start, but didn’t manifest itself until the 6th inning. On radio, of course, the audience doesn’t have the benefit of watching the clouds roll in and the wind pick up. It was up to Mr. Sterling to set the scene, and he did so masterfully. He described the darkness, the approaching clouds, the crazy wind that even made Andy Pettite’s trousers flap so much that he had to step off the mound.[6] Mr. Sterling noted that the flags in center field seemed to be blowing straight up. His best comment: “If you want to know how the wind is near the field, well, the hot dog wrappers are blowing right-to-left.”
This was the last game of the series, the only time the Reds were scheduled to visit the Yankees. Sterling and Waldman repeatedly noted the heavy imperative to get this game played; specifically, they reminded us that the umpires would wait a long, long time once the rain came, precisely because a future doubleheader would be unworkable. But their comments didn’t necessarily make sense in this case: the game was in the sixth inning, with the Yankees winning 1-0. Thus, if rain set in, the game would be official if called. No makeup would have been necessary.
Now, the only exception would have been had the Reds tied or taken the lead in the 6th before the rain. In that case, the game would be resumed from the point of suspension, either the same day or some other day. THAT’S the case in which the umpires would wait as long as humanly possible in order to get the game played.
So, with that background and rain imminent, the Reds put runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Paul Janish came to bat. The rain was going to start ANY SECOND. What happened?
Dusty Baker asked Mr. Janish to bunt, of course.
AARRGH! Bad enough that Mr. Janish would be asked to bunt in any case – Bill James and his disciples have repeatedly and conclusively made the case that in all but the crazy exceptional case[7] a sacrifice bunt is a stupid idea. A team is far more likely to win by allowing a hitter to hit, possibly extending the inning, than to give up a precious out for a 90 foot advance. But in this case, the bunt was unforgivably ridiculous. The Reds needed a hit RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. Had the rain come during Mr. Janish’s at bat, the game might have been over with the Yankees winning. A sacrifice might have moved the runners, but then rain would STILL have ended the game on a sad note. Why not take the extra chance to score the run that might extend the game?
By the way, I counted SIX replays of said home run during Tuesday’s game on FSN Pittsburgh. I’ll bet that YES network showed somewhat fewer.
So who are these Pirates fans?
I think I’ve seen three different slimeball personal injury lawfirms advertising on FSN Pittsburgh. What kind of greedy lowlife types do they expect to be watching Pirates games?
More about the Yankees, even though I swear I’m not writing for ESPN
The primary purpose of my purchase of an XM radio was to listen to baseball. On interstates 81 and 64 last Sunday, I got to listen to the New York broadcast of the Reds-Yankees game from the Stadium. I thoroughly enjoyed John Sterling’s call, New York accent and all. He was descriptive and knowledgeable. I wasn’t quite as thrilled with Suzyn Waldman’s color commentary… but that might not be a fair judgment. Every time I hear her voice I can think of nothing but her ridiculous broadcast of Roger Clemens’ return to the Yankees in 2007, in which she sounded like a parody of every overly enthusiastic New Jersey Soccer Mom I’ve ever known.[5]
As for the game… bad weather was predicted from the start, but didn’t manifest itself until the 6th inning. On radio, of course, the audience doesn’t have the benefit of watching the clouds roll in and the wind pick up. It was up to Mr. Sterling to set the scene, and he did so masterfully. He described the darkness, the approaching clouds, the crazy wind that even made Andy Pettite’s trousers flap so much that he had to step off the mound.[6] Mr. Sterling noted that the flags in center field seemed to be blowing straight up. His best comment: “If you want to know how the wind is near the field, well, the hot dog wrappers are blowing right-to-left.”
This was the last game of the series, the only time the Reds were scheduled to visit the Yankees. Sterling and Waldman repeatedly noted the heavy imperative to get this game played; specifically, they reminded us that the umpires would wait a long, long time once the rain came, precisely because a future doubleheader would be unworkable. But their comments didn’t necessarily make sense in this case: the game was in the sixth inning, with the Yankees winning 1-0. Thus, if rain set in, the game would be official if called. No makeup would have been necessary.
Now, the only exception would have been had the Reds tied or taken the lead in the 6th before the rain. In that case, the game would be resumed from the point of suspension, either the same day or some other day. THAT’S the case in which the umpires would wait as long as humanly possible in order to get the game played.
So, with that background and rain imminent, the Reds put runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Paul Janish came to bat. The rain was going to start ANY SECOND. What happened?
Dusty Baker asked Mr. Janish to bunt, of course.
AARRGH! Bad enough that Mr. Janish would be asked to bunt in any case – Bill James and his disciples have repeatedly and conclusively made the case that in all but the crazy exceptional case[7] a sacrifice bunt is a stupid idea. A team is far more likely to win by allowing a hitter to hit, possibly extending the inning, than to give up a precious out for a 90 foot advance. But in this case, the bunt was unforgivably ridiculous. The Reds needed a hit RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. Had the rain come during Mr. Janish’s at bat, the game might have been over with the Yankees winning. A sacrifice might have moved the runners, but then rain would STILL have ended the game on a sad note. Why not take the extra chance to score the run that might extend the game?
As it happened, Mr. Janish's sacrifice attempt failed, Brandon Phillips made an out to end the inning, and the rain came pouring down before the defense could even reach the dugout.
Joe Chat
Although I have never myself noticed, apparently ESPN’s Joe Morgan conducts a live internet chat once a week. How do I know? I read the excellent website firejoemorgan.com, where virtually every week the authors break down Mr. Morgan’s questions and answers, taking Joe to task for his numerous idiocies. FJM’s principal complaints are:
· Joe’s responses often fail to answer or even to address the questions asked.
· Joe’s answer to most questions is that a player or team must be more “consistent,” which is a meaningless statement without specific context.
· Joe doesn’t usually refer to any players by name except for Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, or a few other of the absolutely most-famous stars. One might suspect Mr. Morgan of not knowing the names of most players on most teams.
· Joe ignorantly rejects the validity of most uses of statistics
· Despite the fact that Mr. Morgan is the leading sports network’s leading baseball commentator, his answers often betray abominable ignorance. For example, in May one chatter asked him a general question about the Dodgers. Joe’s response boiled down to, “I haven’t seen any of their games, so I don’t know.” Okay, fine… but surely someone who is paid a hundred times my salary to be a baseball expert can take the time to watch a Dodgers game. Or could at LEAST have enough knowledge of the team and its players to cobble together some sort of qualified response.
Firejoemorgan.com has a pretty significant audience, to the extent that they are frequently mentioned in mainstream media. The site’s audience is so large and active, as a matter of fact, that they seem to have influenced the actual course of Mr. Morgan’s live internet chats with “JoeBait.”
The FJM authors have regularly and carefully parsed Joe’s answers over the weeks and years, such that anyone who reads FJM knows about Joe’s idiosyncrasies. So recently, many of the questions posed to Mr. Morgan seemed designed to elicit one of Joe’s classic dumb responses: “What can Ryan Howard do to improve his consistency?” “How much will Sheffield’s return help the Tigers?” “The Angels are 14 games over .500 but have scored only one more run than they’ve allowed…” FJM refers to such questions as “JoeBait.” Take a look at the June 23 post to see just how much JoeBait is out there: “We literally have to leave the country to find a person who sincerely wants to chat with this man.”
And now comes this JoeQuote…
From Bleedingcubbieblue via Awful Announcing: Many readers may be familiar with the basket around Wrigley Field’s outfield fence. It was installed in 1970 to keep the bleacher bums in, well, the bleachers. The basket’s presence means the effective minimum home run distance is about five feet shorter that it would otherwise be. Sunday night, Joe Morgan told the story about the basket adding “many” home runs to Ernie Banks’ total.
Um.
Problem is, the basket wasn’t installed until the end of Mr. Banks’ career. A number of Cubs fans have made the trip to retrosheet[8] to find out that Mr. Banks only hit 8 of his 512 career home runs post-basket at Wrigley. And we have evidence that at least two of those eight did not land in the basket.
Pirate pitching stinks
In just a few batters, I can tell what’s wrong with Ian Snell, whose had 2 NQS in his first 12 starts this year. He pitched from behind on virtually every hitter in the first inning of June 4th’s game:
2-1, eventual called strike three
3-1, eventual strikeout on a pitch outside when the batter couldn’t check in time.
3-1, double on the 3-2 pitch
4-pitch walk
1-0, 2-2, ground ball single
With the bases loaded, HE GOT AHEAD OF SOMEONE! 0-2, 1-2, strikeout.
Mr. Snell was playing with fire. On a lot of those 3-1 pitches, the batter just barely missed a big hit. And through 4 innings, Snell had thrown 97 pitches, while the competent Brandon Webb had thrown merely 46.
Then on Tuesday, Tom Gorzelanny, he of the 6.59 ERA and nearly more walks than innings pitched, walked the Yankees leadoff batter on five pitches, coaxed a double play on the second hitter on a 2-0 count, walked Bobby Abreu… but then fanned ARod. Lucky man. Maybe if he actually threw more strikes than balls, he might be effective.
Postscript: He walked Darrell Rasner, the Yankees pitcher who was 0-7 at the plate in his career, to lead off the 3rd inning. He walked the next guy on four pitches. He went 2-0 on both of the next two hitters.
In the 4th inning, he walked the same pitcher again – on five pitches – with two on and two out.
Tom Gorzelanny, you are the second pitcher this year to earn the Nachoman’s Stinky Cheese award. Get off the mound and out of the major leagues.
The Nachoman’s SECOND mention of an 80s rapper this season[9]
Ready for a revelation?
I’ve always respected Stanley Burrell, a.k.a. MC Hammer, whom some consider responsible for bringing rap into mainstream culture. Though I didn’t exactly listen to his music, one could hardly avoid his songs and videos during my high school years… and, unlike so many others whose performances I couldn’t avoid, Hammer didn’t suck. He was catchy, he was a good dancer, and he wore those silly Hammer Pants.
But, until this week I never knew Mr. Burrell’s baseball history. Wow. I was missing something important. Take a look at this Palm Beach Post article by Joe Capozzi for the details. I checked a couple of other sources, too, and the story seems to check out.
In the early 1970s, Stanley Burrell was a 12 year old shoe shiner at the Oakland Coliseum. Charley Finley, maverick owner, decided he liked the mature-beyond-his-years and occasionally hilarious youngster. So, Mr. Finley made Hammer (so called because he looked like Hammerin’ Hank Aaron) his vice president.
No, he wasn’t REALLY the A’s vice president, you say. Well, I don’t know what the corporate annual report said. But, Mr. Finley used the colorful, honest, unbeholden 12 year old as his on-site eyes and ears. Finley worked out of Chicago, and he needed to know what was happening with his team on the west coast. So Mr. Hammer would commandeer a press box phone during the game, and give Mr. Finley a private broadcast, complete with color commentary.
What actually spawned the PBP article was the connection between Mr. Hammer and Jack McKeon. Mr. McKeon in the 1970s managed Finley’s As. On a night when one of his pitching changes backfired, Mr. Hammer was overheard on the press box phone second guessing the manager straight to Charlie Finley. Soon thereafter, McKeon was fired… and reassigned to watch games from the press box with Hammer.
The Post’s article includes several more awesome stories. So far, Mr. Capozzi is in the lead for the Nachoman’s annual “Tortilla Chip” award for outstanding sports journalism. Why? Not because the article is anything truly special in terms of its writing or research, but because Mr. Capozzi told me a great story that was out there, but had simply never come to my attention.
Joe Chat
Although I have never myself noticed, apparently ESPN’s Joe Morgan conducts a live internet chat once a week. How do I know? I read the excellent website firejoemorgan.com, where virtually every week the authors break down Mr. Morgan’s questions and answers, taking Joe to task for his numerous idiocies. FJM’s principal complaints are:
· Joe’s responses often fail to answer or even to address the questions asked.
· Joe’s answer to most questions is that a player or team must be more “consistent,” which is a meaningless statement without specific context.
· Joe doesn’t usually refer to any players by name except for Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, or a few other of the absolutely most-famous stars. One might suspect Mr. Morgan of not knowing the names of most players on most teams.
· Joe ignorantly rejects the validity of most uses of statistics
· Despite the fact that Mr. Morgan is the leading sports network’s leading baseball commentator, his answers often betray abominable ignorance. For example, in May one chatter asked him a general question about the Dodgers. Joe’s response boiled down to, “I haven’t seen any of their games, so I don’t know.” Okay, fine… but surely someone who is paid a hundred times my salary to be a baseball expert can take the time to watch a Dodgers game. Or could at LEAST have enough knowledge of the team and its players to cobble together some sort of qualified response.
Firejoemorgan.com has a pretty significant audience, to the extent that they are frequently mentioned in mainstream media. The site’s audience is so large and active, as a matter of fact, that they seem to have influenced the actual course of Mr. Morgan’s live internet chats with “JoeBait.”
The FJM authors have regularly and carefully parsed Joe’s answers over the weeks and years, such that anyone who reads FJM knows about Joe’s idiosyncrasies. So recently, many of the questions posed to Mr. Morgan seemed designed to elicit one of Joe’s classic dumb responses: “What can Ryan Howard do to improve his consistency?” “How much will Sheffield’s return help the Tigers?” “The Angels are 14 games over .500 but have scored only one more run than they’ve allowed…” FJM refers to such questions as “JoeBait.” Take a look at the June 23 post to see just how much JoeBait is out there: “We literally have to leave the country to find a person who sincerely wants to chat with this man.”
And now comes this JoeQuote…
From Bleedingcubbieblue via Awful Announcing: Many readers may be familiar with the basket around Wrigley Field’s outfield fence. It was installed in 1970 to keep the bleacher bums in, well, the bleachers. The basket’s presence means the effective minimum home run distance is about five feet shorter that it would otherwise be. Sunday night, Joe Morgan told the story about the basket adding “many” home runs to Ernie Banks’ total.
Um.
Problem is, the basket wasn’t installed until the end of Mr. Banks’ career. A number of Cubs fans have made the trip to retrosheet[8] to find out that Mr. Banks only hit 8 of his 512 career home runs post-basket at Wrigley. And we have evidence that at least two of those eight did not land in the basket.
Pirate pitching stinks
In just a few batters, I can tell what’s wrong with Ian Snell, whose had 2 NQS in his first 12 starts this year. He pitched from behind on virtually every hitter in the first inning of June 4th’s game:
2-1, eventual called strike three
3-1, eventual strikeout on a pitch outside when the batter couldn’t check in time.
3-1, double on the 3-2 pitch
4-pitch walk
1-0, 2-2, ground ball single
With the bases loaded, HE GOT AHEAD OF SOMEONE! 0-2, 1-2, strikeout.
Mr. Snell was playing with fire. On a lot of those 3-1 pitches, the batter just barely missed a big hit. And through 4 innings, Snell had thrown 97 pitches, while the competent Brandon Webb had thrown merely 46.
Then on Tuesday, Tom Gorzelanny, he of the 6.59 ERA and nearly more walks than innings pitched, walked the Yankees leadoff batter on five pitches, coaxed a double play on the second hitter on a 2-0 count, walked Bobby Abreu… but then fanned ARod. Lucky man. Maybe if he actually threw more strikes than balls, he might be effective.
Postscript: He walked Darrell Rasner, the Yankees pitcher who was 0-7 at the plate in his career, to lead off the 3rd inning. He walked the next guy on four pitches. He went 2-0 on both of the next two hitters.
In the 4th inning, he walked the same pitcher again – on five pitches – with two on and two out.Tom Gorzelanny, you are the second pitcher this year to earn the Nachoman’s Stinky Cheese award. Get off the mound and out of the major leagues.
The Nachoman’s SECOND mention of an 80s rapper this season[9]
Ready for a revelation?
I’ve always respected Stanley Burrell, a.k.a. MC Hammer, whom some consider responsible for bringing rap into mainstream culture. Though I didn’t exactly listen to his music, one could hardly avoid his songs and videos during my high school years… and, unlike so many others whose performances I couldn’t avoid, Hammer didn’t suck. He was catchy, he was a good dancer, and he wore those silly Hammer Pants.
But, until this week I never knew Mr. Burrell’s baseball history. Wow. I was missing something important. Take a look at this Palm Beach Post article by Joe Capozzi for the details. I checked a couple of other sources, too, and the story seems to check out.
In the early 1970s, Stanley Burrell was a 12 year old shoe shiner at the Oakland Coliseum. Charley Finley, maverick owner, decided he liked the mature-beyond-his-years and occasionally hilarious youngster. So, Mr. Finley made Hammer (so called because he looked like Hammerin’ Hank Aaron) his vice president.
No, he wasn’t REALLY the A’s vice president, you say. Well, I don’t know what the corporate annual report said. But, Mr. Finley used the colorful, honest, unbeholden 12 year old as his on-site eyes and ears. Finley worked out of Chicago, and he needed to know what was happening with his team on the west coast. So Mr. Hammer would commandeer a press box phone during the game, and give Mr. Finley a private broadcast, complete with color commentary.
What actually spawned the PBP article was the connection between Mr. Hammer and Jack McKeon. Mr. McKeon in the 1970s managed Finley’s As. On a night when one of his pitching changes backfired, Mr. Hammer was overheard on the press box phone second guessing the manager straight to Charlie Finley. Soon thereafter, McKeon was fired… and reassigned to watch games from the press box with Hammer.
The Post’s article includes several more awesome stories. So far, Mr. Capozzi is in the lead for the Nachoman’s annual “Tortilla Chip” award for outstanding sports journalism. Why? Not because the article is anything truly special in terms of its writing or research, but because Mr. Capozzi told me a great story that was out there, but had simply never come to my attention.
These folks didn’t strike out while swinging for the fences
Wednesday’s Angels-Gnats game was reasonably well pitched, especially by Washington’s Tim Redding… but it was the Gnats hitting that made the difference. Of their 9 hits on the night, five went to the opposite field, including several rally-starters with two strikes, including a mid-game two-strike RBI… and including Jesus Flores’ walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth. When’s the last time you saw major leaguers consistently following their little league coach’s advice to cut down a swing with two strikes to ensure contact?
Next Week...
The Nachoman actually offers that Miller High Life truck driver fourteen dollars to be a macadamia nut.
[2] You may notice that most of my knowledge of what happened in the NBA finals came from reading Bill Simmons
[3] Look here if you don’t understand the “Heidi” reference, but I’ll bet most of my readers know that one
[4] I’m not saying that the Vandals aren’t necessarily accurate, just that they’re antisocial idiots.
[5] “Roger Clemens is in George’s box, and Roger Clemens is comin’ back. Oh my goodness gracious. Of all the dramatic things I’ve eva’ seen, Roger Clemens standing right in George’s box.” If you click on the link, it’s TOTALLY worth waiting through the 15-second ad to hear Ms. Waldman lose control of herself.
[6] Not just step off the rubber, step off the MOUND.
[7] …that being a poor hitter followed by a good hitter in a late inning when only one run is required to win
[8] Retrosheet is the internet repository for play-by-play of every game in the history of baseball, or at least as much data as they can get their hands on.
[9] And since, as far as the Nachoman knows, only two 80s rappers existed, this will likely be the LAST mention of an 80s rapper this season.
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