Tuesday, August 5, 2008

A Team in Decline

[WCBS radio broadcast of Yankees @ Rangers, 8/5/08]

8:06 Suzyn Waldman is relaying the news about Joba's shoulder: he had an MRI today, and he's flying down to Alabama to see Dr. James Andrews tomorrow. Hmm... that's a bit like following up "Officer, what are the results of my breathalyzer test?" with "Sir, please put your hands behind your back."

8:10 Suzyn- "You'd love to shuffle around the rotation so we don't have two kids pitching back-to-back..." Good luck with that one. Next you can solve the Königsberg Bridge problem.

8:15 Sterling's already stammering away. He topped himself over the weekend with "It's an I.B.R. for Aybar!"

8:16 Give 'im credit-- he did call the Yankee loss last night immediately after Marte walked the leadoff guy. John's good like that.

8:20 Jeez, Hamilton just blasted one. Can somebody please test this guy's urine? Or can someone at least slip something illegal into it?

8:30 I love how Suzye's always saying, "Well, it's just like how so-and-so was telling me the other day..." where so-and-so is some major league player or coach. Isn't that part of her job? Does she have to make it sound like she just happened to be chatting with these guys?

8:33 Sterling- "You know Sexson... terrible numbers, a million strikeouts."

8:42 You can't really blame Cano for booting that one-- apparently the ball "serpentined" at him.

8:52 How many double plays can we possibly hit into tonight?

9:05 I guess we can hit into a few more...

9:14 Pettitte's thrown about 400 pitches already.

9:15 You know, listening to Sterling is almost like being at the game... if you have crappy right field upper deck seats. Every ball that's hit hard in the air might be a home run, and you can't tell until it's either caught or already gone.

9:18 Funny, when you listen to games you tend to picture the guys sucking even worse then they really are. A groundout to short becomes Cano lazily loping down to first base; a popup becomes A-Rod wildly lunging at the ball. Actually, these aren't so farfetched at all.

9:21 We just had the brilliant idea of taking sleeping pills and redecorating the living room. Hallelujah!

9:24 Not having a giant television in your living room allows for a frightening amount of creativity. It's like your 4th grade art teacher saying, "Draw a self portrait, but don't draw your head in between your shoulders."

9:28 The NYC Board of Ed budget cuts are really getting scary. Teachers just found out that their annual personal supply allowances have been cut nearly in half. The UFT presented this as a huge victory, like "coulda been a lot worse!" This is, of course, on top of the massive cuts to schools' budgets as a whole. Hopefully the effort to make all schoolwork electronic will take shape quickly, as schools will be unable to afford books, paper, pens, and possibly teachers.

9:38 Classic Sterling-- "It is high, it is far, it is... caught, no it's dropped!"

9:51 Wow, Ambien really makes you think you can move giant dressers all by yourself, or that your arm can actually reach 7 feet under the bed to switch plugs in a pesky outlet. If bursts of adrenaline give people in terrible disasters a burst of physical strength powerful enough to lift a truck off a child's crushed leg, then tabs of Ambien merely give you the belief that you can lift a bookshelf all by yourself, without any of the incredible strength necessary to do it. It's like decorating your home during a high profile mine disaster rescue effort-- hopefully my CD player won't disappear down a dark shaft in a cloudy explosion.

10:09 Amazing how Mizz M can see exactly what looks right in the room. She walks around, moves a few lamps, arranges a couple of knickknacks, and the room looks a lot better than it did an hour ago. Pieces have new functions, places have clear reasons, and some stupid crap of mine is politely shown the door. All in good taste.

10:23 Something's working here... I just reconnected the stereo in a new spot, and the new speaker positions are right on. "3000" from Dr. Octagon proved that point quite nicely.

10:27 Whoa! The Mizz is going out for a PinkBerry run! That leaves me alone to (1) take over decorating duties & ideas (2) keep fingers available for the report (3) keep an eye on LJ (4) Yankee game... Yankee Game!!!! I gotta get it together here!

10:33 OK, bases loaded with one out, down 3 runs. DOUBLE PLAY! Nothing's changed at all! I should go back to hanging pictures in the hallway.

10:40 If you really want to feel at ease, drop in on your child while he/she is fast asleep for the night. The mere sight makes every one of your problems that seem so complicated and crazy look as simple as pie. Nothing to it.

10:50 Whoa, just got sidetracked playing Scramble. I was collecting words at about one-third my normal speed, which is a very low speed.

10:52 I guess the Rangers scored a few runs while I was trying to spell "GNEIST" and "QUARZA" (not only was I trying to score these words, I was also desperately trying to spell them correctly.). It's now 8-2.

10:59 The MLB Gameday is actually pretty cool. I just watched a vector-driven rendering of A-Rod getting beaned by the Ranger picher. Kinda fun. If you use the 360 degree controls for the batters's box (which I always do), you can create some cool, although confusing, alternative views of the game. Or you can just listen to John and Suzyn.

11:05 My wife just got back with the goods! Delicious PinkBerry Yogurt with all sorts of toppings, like-- wait, Sexson just smashed a grand slam!!! We're only down by 2! Yep, still tastes real good.

11:36 Four double plays and three moved tables later, the Yankees finally lost. They're looking like a team that can't keep up with teams they're slightly better than, also known as a team in decline.

I'm glad it's not my job to fix all the shit that's wrong right now. It's enough of a job just to talk about it.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Angels with dirty faces

Wow, the Yanks are in the middle of a pretty sweet comeback. Good thing, 'cause our friends have lost 5 of their last 7 games.

John Sterling missed the perfect chance to debut a home run call for Xavier Nady in the seventh. He never prepared a zinger ahead of time? I thought of several before Nady even rounded the bases:

"X marks the spot!!!"
"Rated X for nudity and sexual situations!!!"
"Terminator X-- yellin' with his hands!!!"
"The X-Man demonstrates his special, freakish power!!!"

They gotta do something about Giambi. He's absolutely awful at first base-- he screws up a lot more than the boxscore will tell you. Missed scoops, bad throws, no range... always dangerous. Throw in the fact that he's batting .200 in his last 20 games, and it's time for a break.

Whoops!! Grand slam by Teixeira. There goes that amazing comeback.

Well, looks like Farnsworth is up to his old tricks in Detroit. Tampa Bay scores three in the 8th with two dongs off Kyle.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

PavanoWatch

All eyes were on Phil Hughes at "The Joe" in Charleston, S.C. last night. Phil delivered the goods, pitching three scoreless innings and earning the win for the RiverDogs. Only the hardcore fans noticed the kid pitching before the Yankee phenom. Only the astute noticed two dominant innings of shutout baseball with four strikeouts and only one hit allowed. Only the devoted noticed a pitcher named Carl Pavano.

That's right, the only pitcher in pinstripes to have an MRI tube named after him is back in action. I imagine we'll see Carl hurl a few innings in the dog days of August. Anyone care to make any predictions?

Monday, July 28, 2008

Man on Wire

Mizz Mazz and I snuck out on Lee Jr. tonight to see the fantastic film Man on Wire. For those of you that live in a cave, it's a documentary on Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope performance across the World Trade Center towers. I couldn't help thinking of Andy Pettitte's recent early-inning tightrope performance against the Red Sox, but anyway...

The movie's great. I remember when this happened way back-- I was disappointed that the guy didn't look like a superhero. Turns out he did look like one, and I was just too stupid to get it.

I won't spoil anything, but the couple minutes of footage of Petit doing his lope-on-a-rope (to the tune of Erik Satie) was one of the more intense film experiences I've had in a while (I saw 300 on cable, so let's not count that). It's absolutely unbelievable stuff.

The guy's an artist in every sense. It's easy to understand that Petit risked his neck because he had to, just like I imagine Pete Townshend had to make Psychoderelict (equally as terrifying and dangerous to innocent bystanders). The film-sequence was so emotional for me that I could almost feel a communal energy swell amongst the entire New York City art-house audience. That is, until I realized that the mumbling woman next to me was crawling around on the floor picking up random scraps of garbage.

Go see Man on Wire.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Eat Shit Please, Network!

It's 8:52 pm and I'm still waiting for the damn Yankees-Red Sox game to start. They've officially announced a 9 pm first pitch. "They" being ESPN, of course.
How much more of this do we have to take? ESPN is slowly killing the idea of Sunday afternoon baseball, one game at a time. I stopped buying Sunday tickets years ago, after learning lessons the hard way. The time printed on your purchased ticket doesn't mean a whole lot (ESPecially if it says "tba"), since ESPN can swoop in at any moment and change your plans so your entire night's spoken for. They've caused thousands of well-meaning baseball fans to face their jobs on Mondays with hideous hangovers. It's just not fair.

I mean, fans in Boston tonight have been sitting there staring at a dry, tarpless field since around 8:15!!! All so ESPN can start their programming on the hour? This game will easily go until 1:30 am... this ain't Beckett and Joba pitching.
To make things even worse, they've changed the Yanks' final regular season game to an ESPN game, which means it too will start at 8:05 pm (or later!). What gives them the right? What do Jon Miller and Joe Morgan have to do with Yankee Stadium. As awful as it would be, I'd rather have Michael Kay calling this one.

Yes, I have tickets to this game. Yes, I will probably be desperately gulping bottled water at work the next day. Yes, I will probably get home after 2 am via $45 cab ride. Yes, I hope they (we) rip the Stadium to shreds. No, ESPN won't televise the events following the game-- they will have already switched to SportsCenter.

Hey! It's 10:30 and the game's still on! In fact, we're only in the top of the 5th!

They hit a new low a couple of innings ago ("they" being ESPN). A graphic came up riffing on the whole "MVP? Check! World Series? Check!" thing for Jon Lester. Except this checklist began with "Beat cancer? Check!" I was waiting for A-Rod's checklist in the next inning... "Will owe $500 million in child support? Check! October choker? Check! Fucked Madonna? Check!"

We only had the sound on for the first 10 minutes of what was supposed to be the game tonight. I was just getting around to making fun of Jon Miller when they switched over to an extreme close-up of Orel Hershiser, who looked like a giant rat with a broken nose. What happened to this guy?

What are all the Boston fans gonna do tonight when the T shuts down?,

Jeez, we got whupped tonight. Ponson might be nearing the end of his stay herewith Washburn's imminent arrival and Rasner's recent decent start. I mean, the guy got more run support than Hillary Clinton!

Yep, I turned away for 3 seconds and they're already showing SportsCenter. They steal the games and do the absolute minimum with them. Bullshit.



Saturday, July 26, 2008

Head Huntin'

That was an absolutely terrific game last night-- right??!

Things almost started to feel normai again: Yanks beat Sox in thriller, Sox players and fans complain like little kids, Yanks actually make a good trade... hell, I think I even drank three beers.

The Joba-Youkilis thing is just too funny. I did give Teddy KGB a lot of credit last night (ask my wife!) for showing considerable restraint after being tarred and feathered by Chamberlain. OK, he looked like a 2nd grader who just figured out that life just isn't fair, but K-Y sort of kept it together. I guess after seeing so many brawls in the last 2 days on ESPN, I couldn't believe things stayed civil. That's probably the difference between a 1-0 game and a 10-7 game.

Predictions for this afternoon:
A-Rod homers off Wakefield (guaranteed), Jeter or A-Rod gets plunked by whoever relieves Wakefield (nearly certain), and Kevin Youkilis explodes Scanners-style after being called out at 2nd trying to stretch out a single (it's possible!).

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Yankees 5, Twins 1

Today was Lee Jr.'s first Yankee game. If you read weather.com, you wouldn't have thought the game could possibly be played today. They were wrong.

Mizz Mazz was working today, so either I was taking the tyke myself or I needed to call for backup. Who you gonna call? Heath Bieferman. Heath was good enough to shlep up to my place, help me carry the damn stroller all over Harlem, and "lend a helping hand". Friends, he did just that. [click here for background info on Heath Bieferman: scroll down to "Art Patrons Duped..."]

Thanks to Heath (and Jon Pauley for the tix and Ms.M for, you know, letting me do it...), Lee Jr. got to see the Yankees play in The Final Season. Kinda like Final Destination 3, right? (Funny enough, some lunatic speed-walked into the Stadium in front of us while pointing at the New Yankee Stadium across the street, shouting, "There is no New Yankee Stadium because there will only ever be one Yankee Stadium!!!" Apparently the guy still thinks there's monuments in center field.)

Things went as slick as shit through a tin goose, as my friend Heath might say. LJ slept most of the trip up, and barely made a peep otherwise. We got him in the side entrance of the back gate, thanks to the kind security guard that whisked us in like the rock stars we once were. She even made sure the little guy got his "Final Season" t-shirt. I don't know why this seemed so special-- they were supposed to be for the "first 18,000 fans 14 and under", and LJ easily qualified for both criteria. This is how desperate Yankee fans have become for anything free.

I quickly whipped up a bottle of formula for Lee and fed it to him wedged between a garbage can and a steel girder. He loved it. We tried to take a picture of me holding my son against the majestic backdrop of the field, but ended up with something more like a production still from Close Encounters. This one came out a little bit better, I guess.

We finally made it up to our seats sometime near the top of the 2nd. Actually, I have no idea when it was. We might as well have been playing the Globetrotters for the attention I was paying to the game. I did notice that a jerk and his kid were sitting in our seats, which were right on the aisle. I'm standing there, dripping in sweat, holding LJ like a football in one hand and my ticket in the other, explaining to the moron that seats 5 and 6 are never on the aisle (unless you're paying five or six hundred dollars for your tickets). Seats 5 and 6 ARE THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SEATS YOU CRETIN!!!!!!

Jr. and I lasted until the middle of the third. Here's the boy's-eye view:
Yes, it was probably that blurry for him and No, that's not my head right above my blurry knee that Lee's sitting on.
I decided to take him for a stroll through the corridors of history, which consisted of six ramps, a diaper deck and a folding chair. Thank G_d for the folding chair, which was the second gracious act by a Yankee Stadium employee today. That's exactly two more gracious acts than we received the time I brought the missus when she was biggo pregnant and they wouldn't let her sit in a dry empty seat during a rain delay. Seriously.

No complaining today, however. I called Heath somewhere near the fifth inning to tell him I was taking the kid home. He seemed fine, although covered in a slimy sheen of sweat and starting to slump in his stroller (I'm talking about Lee Jr., not Heath). Yep, time to go.
Got home pretty easy: two trains (D to uptown 1) and about six or seven set of stairs. Fucking tired!!! Let's just say the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be...ain't what she used to be...ain't what she used to be...
Also got home just in time to watch some schmuck named Hawkins ruin Moose's shutout. I put Jr. in his swing, sat down on the couch and burped loudly. Lee started cracking up, and so did I. It was a good day.

Chopped Liver

How the f&$k did nobody tell me Rush was playing on Colbert??!! I just found out today!! Yeah, I realize that it already happened!! Yeah, I'm pretty pissed that I missed it!!

I'm not gonna blame my intern for this one, 'cause she's been on vacation (unpaid) for the past two weeks or so after her herculean efforts to transcribe the blog entries from MySpace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSVrWcLuu5o
Anyway, it was awesome.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Me and My Wine

I know absolutely nothing about wine. I don't really like it and almost never drink it.

Not completely sure why I made one of my summer projects the purchase and consumption of a box of wine (that's a lie-- I did it so I could modify and reuse the box for a project at work this September). My other summer project is to get rid of our cable, which I haven't done yet. I might let it ride through the Sox series this weekend...

Anyhow, I went our local liquor store to buy some wine. I'd been fantasizing about the box for days-- a virtually bottomless supply of wine-cooleresque fruity refreshment for the summer. I marched directly to the back corner of the store, and the boxes of wine were exactly where I thought they should be.

Somehow I came home with Burgundy, which is about as refreshing as chilled blood. It's the reason I don't drink wine. But dammit, I plan to drink it all. Who knows, maybe I'll develop a taste for it.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Yankees 4, Athletics 3

Mizz Mazz and I finally made it to a game together today. Our sitter (let's call her Annabel) was a tad late due to screw-ups on the 1 line, so we didn't get to our seats until the bottom of the 2nd. Fine with us-- it must've been 99 degrees until about 2:20 pm.

So great to be out and drinking beer. Can't say we drank a whole lot, but our cups had beer in'em at all times. Joba looked good, but had what I like to call a "hard luck no-decision" (it would be nice to get at least seven innings out of the kid here and there...).

We decided to bail on the game immediately after the 10th inning. We didn't bail on the Yanks-- just on the fact that we couldn't get any more beer and it was still 2000 degrees in the upper deck. We beat a hasty retreat to the Dugout.

I can't believe I've been to this joint (the Dugout) three times already. Gotta say, it's always been pretty fun. This time we took over the "VIP Room" under the leadership of Jon Pauley (who's probably still there right now). It was a lot like my living room: couches, A/C, and the game on TV. Sweet.

Before long we started behaving exactly like people that don't get to sit in the VIP room. Jon and his friend (let's call him Levon) were having some sort of farting contest, which ended (I guess) with Levon beefing directly on Jon's lap. It's probably all on video somewhere.

Made it home close to six, and got Annabel out of there at a reasonable hour. Lee Jr. was thrashing about and doing the jitterbug for about an hour and a half (especially during his bath a.k.a. "Roaring Rapids"), but he went down without much ado. I'm going to find the Maker's Mark from our vacation last week...