Friday, March 20, 2009
You guys. You guys. YOU GUYS. This is a big one. World Baseball Classic semifinal! The winner goes on to the final! The loser has to live with crushing shame for the next four years!! THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND! Titans clashing, baseball cultures warring, etc.
USA/JAPAN! Sunday March 22, 8pm, ESPN! Plan your evening accordingly.
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--David Wright, heroically injured in the toe
--how dare you take a walk with a man in scoring position, how DARE you
--Ryan Garko Fed-Ex'd his own 1B glove to Mark DeRosa because DeRosa did not have one
--Brian Roberts =/= Dave Roberts, Joel Hanrahan =/= Jim Hanrahan, no matter what Jon Miller may tell us
--Munenori Kawasaki turned himself into a left-handed hitter because he was an Ichiro fanboy
--JOHN GRABOW
--Panama Hat Man was shown chatting with Tommy Lasorda and Sadaharu Oh, too amazing to be truth, and yet it is truth
--Rule 34
--Derek Jeter is the ultimate Fail for America
Many thanks to Tony, Snuppy the Hound, ivantopumpyouup, and 2632 for excoriating the everliving hell out of Derek Jeter here with me tonight.Labels: Japan, liveblog, USA, World Baseball Classic
10:48 PM
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Two liveblogs in one day, what is this madness? This is Blue Cats and Red Sox! THIS IS THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC!
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--"Weglarz"
--Russell Martin loves his mother
--the 13th inning starts with men on base, the 16th inning is decided by curling, the 21st inning is the start of 'naked time'
--Canadian stereotypes
--Team USA brings all the Jews to the yard
--Jimmy Rollins and David Wright are in the delicate beginning stages of a truly beautiful relationship
--The People want more Curtis Granderson
--French insults for French Canadians
--Adam Dunn is adorably excited by the WBC and we kind of love him
Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup, Snuppy the Hound, Tom Clifton, stillawkward, ashmark, and Siani for joining me to become way too stressed out over non-regular-season baseball. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!Labels: Canada, liveblog, USA, World Baseball Classic
8:19 AM
Monday, March 13, 2006
Well that kinda stunk.
The US won on Sunday, barely, and it was terribly exciting and all, but the whole thing was TAINTED for several reasons:
1. A-Rod hit the final ball to win the game and thus all my excitement at the whole bases loaded thing and the whole Ken Griffey Jr. will he get a hit will he make an out will his arms break off and turn to powdered cornstarch on the ground scene leading up to it was for naught. I got all worked up and then the final run came across and YAY WE WON WHAT A GAME but wait. WAIT. Whose purpled lips are stretched wide in a rictus grin of victory? A-Rod? Nevermind. To the vomitorium I go.
2. Joe Nathan peed himself on the mound. There was wee dribbling down his legs and Japanese men giggling at the plate. It was embarassing to watch, like Johnny Damon struggling to form a coherent sentence back when we were all still trying to not be annoyed by Johnny Damon, and I wanted it to stop. The boxscore said there was only one hit and one walk against him but he looked so bad I refuse to believe it.
3. We shouldn't have won. The Japanese had the bases loaded, 1 out, and there was a relatively shallow pop fly, so the guy on third bolted for home. He came across and Buck Martinez came barrelling out of the US dugout to tell the umps that the guy had left third early, even though the second base ump had already called him safe at home. There was much discussion and eventually it was overturned and Sadaharu Oh was quietly disgusted. Replays seemed to indicate that the guy did not leave early BUT.
But. OK. Even if this was football and the umpires had the benefit of on-field instant replay, THIS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN OVERTURNED. The original call had been made pretty much without hesitation, albeit by the wrong ump (so what was the third base ump doing at the time, picking his toe jam?), and the replay did not show a conclusive difference one way or the other. ED HOCHULI WOULD NOT OVERTURN THIS. But Ed Hochuli has good eyes and good biceps and an understanding of letting the team that actually scored the points keep those points and also he is not a minor league referee so this would not have been a problem.
So the Japanese got their run taken off the board AND two outs on the play, taking them out of the inning. For a long while they refused to take the field because they didn't think the inning should be over and THEY WERE CORRECT. Sadaharu Oh did not throw a hissy fit not because he had no case but because it would not have helped and he is a GENTLEMAN in other words quite unlike Tony LaRussa, who is a man with old school pine tar in his soul not scruples.
I would have liked to have won this in a way that was not tainted but this was bad meat. The Japanese team should have been up 4-3 with one more out in the inning but instead they were left tied at 3 with no outs at all, and they were vulnerable to the slappy ways of A-Rod in the 9th.
More notes from the game:
This is the second Chipper Jones homerun I have seen in the WBC so far. WHY IS CHIPPER JONES SO FUCKING GOOD?
Derek Jeter cups his genitals very lightly before stepping into the box. Dude, if you’re gonna grope the junk, GO FOR IT. Look at Brandon Inge. Brandon Inge knows how to tweak a cup on the field. And then Jeter grounds into a double play so MY SCORN IS UNENDING.
Michael Young got a hit. Ken Griffey Jr. got a hit. Why didn’t you, Derek? Why didn’t you? Hell, A-Rod got a hit, there are two men on now and two outs. Chipper is up but he can’t do everything by himself, Derek. I’m having way too much fun taunting him for doing something that Poor Edgar did, repeatedly, for the Sox.
Ball gets by the catcher (wild pitch) and the base runners move up. Fucksocks, Chipper grounds to first. SEE, JETER?? If only you had bussed your balls like a man, we would have scored somewhere in that inning. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE MY LOGIC, READERS. It is flawless.
“In Puerto Rico you don’t become a baseball fan. You’re born a baseball fan. If you do well, they’ll let you know. Heh, if you do bad they’ll let you know too. They’re definitely gonna be loud. I’m Carlos Delgado, and I’m hella happy to be off the Marlins.” So Puerto Rican baseball fans are basically Red Sox fans, right?
Sadaharu Oh on Ichiro: “First of all, he loves the game of baseball.” So he’s NOT Zach Greinke or Keith Foulke, is that what we’re sayin’? Then again if I was Zach Greinke and was stuck on the Royals I might get sad with life too. OH WAIT EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT HE'S BARELY OLDER THAN ME AND HE'S PLAYING BASEBALL AND MAKING MORE MONEY THAN I WITH MY USELESS ART DEGREE WILL EVER MAKE. Boo fucking hoo, Mr. Greinke. Your hypothetical sob story is wasted on me.
Peavy finally settles down in the 4th. Gaslamp Ball thinks that Jake Peavy is being supplanted as the cutest Padres pitcher. Judge for yourself.
Has anyone else noticed that the underarmor-ish shirts being worn by Team USA make it look like they all have skin disease? They’re navy blue with a spattering of red dots at the elbow that look like nothing so much as a clustering of eczema. Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.
With one swing in the 6th Derrek Lee ties it up. WHY IS DERREK LEE SO FUCKING GOOD?
I just realized why Ichiro looked different in this game. HE’S WEARING HIS SOCKS UP. He never does that for Seattle, he wears his pants down and those stupid hightop looking cleat things, like he's a basketball player in his secret dreams instead of a gory actor. Huh.
Well, I also watched the Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico and Mexico/Korea games, but I didn't follow them as closely because I was busy making worksheets and color wheels so that tomorrow evening I can teach Michigan prisoners the basics of color theory. I will note that Pudge was absolutely adorable when he hit his double early in the game (he cruised into second base pumping his fist like Derek Jeter only not so much with the extreme lame), and I was disappointed in the Korean game because Sung Heon Hong wasn't playing. Although I note that they replaced the stocky thirdbaseman with a guy named Bum Ho Lee, which, hello, I am 5 years old.
Oh and the art show reception went AWESOMELY. It was GREAT. The turnout was way bigger than we expected and there was a BAND, and they were DRESSED UP AS ANIMAL HYBRIDS, and they WRESTLED WITH MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE, and people ACTUALLY SPENT TIME READING THE WORDS ON MY PIECE, and it was just generally ace in every way. You can see photos from it here if you wish to partake of the awesomeness.
If you're in the area and couldn't make it out for the reception you can still see the show, it is in the WORK gallery until March 24th. I recommend it, although it is too bad that you missed the band.Labels: baseball, gameblog, Japan, USA, World Baseball Classic
3:13 AM
Friday, March 10, 2006
I'd just like to point out that the US controls its own destiny today, as the saying goes, because Canada got absolutely blasted by Mexico yesterday. This means that if the US beats South Africa today, they go on to the second round; if they lose, they don't. Roger Clemens is supposed to be taking the mound, for whatever that's worth. I'd say a lot, but then again I wouldn't have expected Dontrelle Willis to lose to Canada.
I didn't see the Canada/Mexico game last night... because I was watching Italy/Dominican Republic, which the DR won 8-3. Papi was 0-2, so it was all about the Tigers in this one. Tony Giarratano was 1 for 3 with a double and scored a run with a speedy jaunt all the way around from first (the announcers were suitably impressed), former Tiger Frank Catalonotto was 2 for 3 with 2 RBI, Placido Polanco going 2 for 5 and coming around to score both times (when you're hitting in front of Albert Pujols, that tends to happen), and Fernando Rodney closed out the game for the DR.
Highlights included some poor scrub on the Italian team named Saccomanno making 2 vital throwing errors, 42 year old winter league vet Luis Polonia getting cheered like he was Pujols when he came up to bat (even though he grounded out... the DR crowd loves 'em some Luis), listening to the announcers say names like "Rollandini" and "Liverziani".
Oh, and there was a Delucci in the outfield, which confused me, because I was thinking to myself, "Damn, David Dellucci got awfully heavy over the offseason." Turns out it was Dustin Delucci (one 'l'), an ageing fringe prospect bouncing around what I think is the lower end of the Padres organization.
So the US plays today at 3 pm, but I'm not going to see it until it rebroadcasts at 3 am, because it's not on TV here until then and in any event I'll be doing some scholarly crap until I head over to the WORK gallery on State St. for the show opening tonight, which everyone in the area should obviously go to. Show info here, in case you forgot.
After that I am apparently going bowling with my roommate for next year, which should be seedily interesting. So I'll probably be home just in time to see the US take on the mighty mighty bats of guys like Zaid Hendricks and Ricardo Siljeur. Nobody tell me beforehand who wins, I want to be able to watch it with full insomniatic glory.Labels: baseball, USA, World Baseball Classic
1:29 PM
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The USA got beaten by Adam Stern!
Yeah, there was some pitching involved too, but Adam Stern! It was Adam Stern who had the absurd inside-the-park homerun that had me squealing like an idiot. It was Stern who played center field all day like he was a kangaroo with rawhide magnets in his hands, diving all over the field and stealing the whoop right out of Chase Utley's run 'round the bases. Adam Stern!
Do you know how many homeruns Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon combined to hit in this game? Exactly zero. Do you know how many Adam Stern hit? That's right, one, and it was a doozy. And yes, I just said 'doozy'.
It's OK. So the US lost, and yes, I was mortified that we lost, not to the Dominican Republic or Japan or something, which would have been completely understandable, but instead to Canada, a Rich Harden-less Canada, even (and to be without Rich Harden is a terrible, terrible thing indeed). But in the end, I just could not make myself root for A-Rod. Jeter, I could stomach that (Beth discusses the phenomenon here), Damon only played in this one as a pinch hitter so I didn't have to see him much.
By the by, I didn't even know we had Gary Majewski on the team. Sheesh. I saw the hair on screen and flipped out. He looks like he should be wearing a small pointy goatee and familiarly teasing D'Artagnan about his shirtsleeves.
I was rooting for Team USA in the sense that I was rooting, as violently as possible, for Jason Varitek, especially when he came up to bat with the bases loaded, the US trailing 8-2 (I think). All the times he's come up in that situation and freaked came to mind... after all, he only got his first grand slam last season. "Just get on base, Tek," I muttered at the TV. Shut up. I know you all talk to the TV when the Sox are playing. "Don't go all out for it if it's not there, just get on base."
Jason Varitek, proving for the 5,000th time that he knows more about baseball than I do, proceeded to hit the base out of the ball and crushed it into the stands for 4 runs.
The announcers, proving for the 5,000th time that we all know more about baseball than they do, immediately said that all Sox fans must have been expecting that. Right. We know 'Tek has a sliver of the mystical Clutcherification that so dotingly follows Papi around, like a great big debatedly-extant puppy, but a grand slam? What Sox fans know is how much 'Tek struggles to hit grand slams. Bloody announcers.
But as I said, in the end, it wasn't too bad. Because it's not possible for me to root against Adam Stern, even though he is a former Cornhusker, and I think we all know how I feel about them right now. And it's pretty hard to root against someone named "Stubby Clapp" too. And the Twins fans I know here are already salivating copiously about Morneau's performance.
It's now 3:25 am, and I'm watching another inning or so of the Netherlands/Puerto Rico game before bed. Not because I particularly care, but because I'm up anyways, and it's Pudge and Little Alex Cora and a whole bunch of people I've never heard of in my life for the Netherlands and real honest to gosh baseball. And that's pretty damn good.Labels: Adam Stern, baseball, Canada, USA, World Baseball Classic
3:09 AM
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