We're in Central Cali & over 65. They'd been telling us for weeks that local vaccine availability was only 9% or something so we didn't bother even signing up til last Thursday, and got our first (moderna) shots on Tues. Surprising, really. as was the shoulder pain *old man whimper*
We are actually setting up a more dedicated outside space at our house in reaction to spending so much time inside during the pandemic… And one of the things I am most looking forward to out there is baseball on the radio.
I suppose like so many other things, it is generational, which makes me wonder if it’ll be gone before I know it. Until then, I’ll be tuning in.
While it's understandable that you don't want to use the Cleveland team's name, it may be tougher than you think. In fact, you used it in the Parlay Patz item - just one section above your vow now to use it.
Yeah, that was a dumb autopilot copying-from-something-I-was-reading error. Which, FWIW, I wrote before the other bit and then stupidly didn't go back and check.
You do conspicuously (that’s the point, right?) avoid it earlier in the newsletter. That’s what made it stand out when you did use it. Again, I applaud this (and avoiding the Atlanta team’s name).
I really don't have a baseball-on-radio memory. I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and dad was a Bruins not Sox guy. He would watch hockey with the sound off and the radio on, somehow not bothered by the lack of synchronicity.
I do remember fragments of Hawk Harrelson and Dick Stockton calling games (Channel 38 perhaps?) in the mid to late 1970's. Funny how images like Hawk's cowboy hat stick with you.
One of the reason I like baseball is that you CAN experience it on radio. Because of the structure of the game, it can be described in near real time with the listener filling in the action...even that of a center fielder robbing a batter of a home run...in their own head. Try that with football, basketball, or god help you, hockey. I once switched from TV, to pitch by pitch online, to radio in the space of a single game, and still came away with a full picture of what happened.
During the season, a lot of my baseball-on-the-radio time has me in the kitchen (working on dinner, or on the laptop, or grading) but with the game on TV in the next room. If something particularly cool and exciting happens, the time lag is just enough that I can get up and go check it out.
While the idea of a packed stadium is just madness right now, maybe there could be a silver lining. Perhaps the Rangers could link up with the state and devote some space in or around the ballpark to a vaccination spot for the one-shot J&J shot. Presumably it’ll be available for most adults by then and the Rangers could claim that was part of the effort all along. Throw a bunch of videos of players recommending getting the shot and maybe there’d be some good to come of it.
New park + Opening Day + pent-up-year-without-public-events + "F-you, liberals, we're gonna do what we want" sentiment = what I suspect will be an Opening Day sellout.
Yes, but you don't these people having any chance of infecting the rest of us. And even with every precaution, every vaccine, there is a chance so long as they are not taking care.
The problem, as mentioned before, is that states like Texas are both heavily gerrymandered and heavily voter suppressed (by many metrics Texas is the worst in both), and the burden of the lack of masking disproportionately impacts and kills people of color, especially African-Americans and Native Americans.
I am past the point of caring about dumb white people making dumb choices and getting sick. I am not past the point of caring about them doing so in a way that disproportionately results in the death of our most oppressed population groups.
Plus, the longer this goes on the more variants will hit and the less and less effective the vaccines we are getting will be.
I have never been more turned off to the idea of freedom than I am now. I can even see the point when the Chinese government argues that what we have here clearly doesn't work.
I missed that info about Puig. Thanks for sharing. Guess my old Dodgers shirsey is going in the trash today.
Also, I miss the days when the US government actually took care of people but I guess if you look at it from the perspective of Brown or Black folks, those days never existed and the nostalgia is just my privilege speaking. I’ll die made at GWB about Katrina though.
I'm gonna try to avoid it too. May be harder given that there is no end-date on it. Generally speaking, I am going to do my best to steer away from Native American names and iconography if at all possible.
And while this was not the intention - though the intention had a fair degree of racism - leaving a city that is ever more progressive for the white conservative suburbs means that no local politician is going to try to strong-arm the team into changing the name.
In all seriousness, why should they? The name is the equivalent of "Samurai" or "Knights". It's not the name itself that's a problem; it's some of the imagery associated with it. The "Tomahawk Chop" needs to go, for example. But the name and logo? I'm not really seeing the problem there. Would we consider it offensive to Japanese Americans if the Cleveland team decided to become the "Cleveland Samurai" and use a katana in their logo?
I have this nagging feeling in the back of my brain that if we erase all the Native American names from everything, there won't be any representation of them AT ALL in popular culture. I'm trying to think of any Native American characters on TV shows, and I have to go back to John Redcorn from "King of the Hill" to find one - and that series wrapped up in 2010.....
Just like the HOF, stadium naming rights, and the LCS--you are welcome to ignore their names and call them whatever you want since you aren't being paid. Call them the Cleveland Forest Citys, and the Atlanta Hammers. As long as you state it a few times in the newsletter, it isn't like your audience isn't going to know who you are talking about.
- The Rangers are simply following the lead of Governor Irresponsible. And while I think it's too soon to say we are rounding the corner - over half of recent cases in NYC are caused by not one but two more contagious (if vaccine-susceptible) variants - it remains clear that cautious behavior of the sort Texas seems to hate works a lot better than being morons.
- When I was in PR, we used to look askance at a lot of the startup media outlets. Oh, if we got covered by them, it was still coverage. But we knew something was funny about them. Especially in the days when HuffPost was running tons of articles where the writers weren't paid, as apparently having exposure was payment enough. They stopped doing that, but there was never a sense that they were going to be major and trusted media outlets, as opposed to the smaller, more professional outlets we dealt with and enjoyed dealing with.
- I love, love, love baseball on the radio. (Well, unless it's John Sterling.) I was blessed with Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne, and still have Howie Rose. I don't like that Mets games are on an all news station here - meaning that once or twice a game, I get dragged back into the real world for between innings headlines - but I still love hearing "put it in the books." And you have made me decide to renew my subscription to MLB Radio.
This whole paragraph is gospel. I'll just sub in Joe Castiglione doing Sawx games, long may he reign. "- I love, love, love baseball on the radio. (Well, unless it's John Sterling.) I was blessed with Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne, and still have Howie Rose. I don't like that Mets games are on an all news station here - meaning that once or twice a game, I get dragged back into the real world for between innings headlines - but I still love hearing "put it in the books." And you have made me decide to renew my subscription to MLB Radio." This baseball season with the Sawx (my favorite team) and the Rockies (the hometown team where I live) looking to stink, I'll probably be more into fantasy and might dip my toe into the minor leagues a bit. MiLB audio is apparently free, dunno how well the stream works (or how good the announcers are), but I'm gonna try it out.
Like you, and so many of us here, I *love* baseball on the radio. I think Craig said something a few weeks back about how it becomes kind of a soundtrack for your life? Baseball on the radio, under the covers late at night. Baseball on the radio, hanging out in the backyard at DMCj's place. Baseball on the radio, in your pickup in the middle of nowhere. Baseball on the radio, working in the garden, cooking dinner, going into labor (okay, maybe that's just me), drinking beer on a hot day, holding your breath in the top of the 9th. Kruk and Kiep and Jon Miller and Dave Fleming ... my guys... even my dog knows their voices and settles down into hanging out mode when I turn that radio dial.
Growing up a Tigers fan, Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey were the voices of my summers. My parents were too cheap to pay for cable and we lived too far from Detroit to get an over-the-air broadcast, I think it was channel 50. But WJR came in clear.
I learned about baseball from Ernie and Paul. We were in Flint and got WDIV-4, which is where George Kell and Al Kaline called televised games in the late 70s-early 80s. Though I think they only did like 50 a year maybe. For me it was radio every night.
I grew up in Lansing, and I think we were just far enough away that the Detroit stations wouldn't come in. Even now as a displaced Michigander, I'd rather pay 20 bucks to MLB and listen to Dan Dickerson on my phone than $120 to watch the game and listen the fox sports detroit broadcast crew.
In the days of yore, there was a game called on the radio by Ernie Harwell and Al Kaline. At some point Al was inspired to reference someone he had played with years before (wish I could recall who, but CRS is a bitch), and mused "...haven't heard from him in a while; wonder what he's up to?" After a pause so pregnant it was nearing full term, Ernie deadpans "The man's dead, Al". Wish I coulda seen the look on Al's face...
When I first moved to North Carolina in 1980, on clear summer nights, if I fiddled with my radio dial just right, I could pick up WJR and listen to Ernie. In his honor I shall refer to the Cleveland team as he often did -- "The Clevelanders"
I started with Vin Scully, Ross Porter and Jerry Dogget in LA and Al wisk in Anaheim. Barely had TV games. Even when I lost interest in baseball from ages 16-31, I would pop on the Dodger's games in my record store (to be a dick) and in the only apartment I ever lived in alone (for relaxation). I was drawn back into baseball by Bill King on A's radio in the 2000s when I moved to SF.
I can't imagine learning baseball from TV. Like Craig says, it demands attention. It takes you out of your day. Radio Baseball is very forgiving in that way, it fits neatly into your pocket as you clean, shop, putter.
I am still mostly radio. I also love listening to non A's radio crews for random games through the season. (2020 i only listened to the home broadcast)
Baseball is best in person, but radio is the way to consume it otherwise.
Baseball on the radio is THE BEST. I love that fangraphs essay, it does sum up the flaws in the three ways a fan can experience a game, but for my money, listening to play by play AT THE BALLPARK is sort of as perfect as you can get. My Brewers have Bob Uecker, full stop. And the Twins now have some excellent radio talent, since Cory Provus came to work for them. I love Tom Hamilton in Cleveland, love Jon Miller in SF, and one or two others that I'm forgetting. (I won't say I "love" Sterling and Waldman, but... it's a trip sometimes).
Come on guys! We have a new stadium to pay for! It’s all about the money and idiot people who run the government. It will be interesting to see if it’s full on opening day.
I am diving into baseball this year. The other day I watched a whole spring training game, unheard of in my lifetime but you can do that if your retired. The next day I decided to listen to a game and use Game Day feature to supplement the radio.
Unfortunately the Game Day reporting is faster than the radio. I won’t be doing that anymore.
But you learn so much on radio! Ha. I learned the other day The Star Spangled Banner has four stanzas.
Josh Marshall at TPM knows whereof he speaks. He's run Talking Points Memo, and converted it to a three tier site (some free content, pay one sum for premium but still with ads, pay another sum with no ads) for a couple years now.
He's also been good about actually committing journalism. TPM was actually ahead of any major news org regarding the Bush Attorney General scandal (drum up voting lawsuits or lose your positions). When he says that Huffpost likely had no choice, I trust his word.
That Huffpost ownership handled the layoffs abysmally (even a fraternity declining a pledge shows more tact than they did) has obscured that. Josh noted how atrociously it was handled, but has the experience (as a journalist and a publisher) to go a level deeper and explain that complaining about there being layoffs at all was probably unfounded.
It’s a good thing your reference to the Cleveland baseball team’s nickname came in the story just before the story where you say you won’t mention it instead of the story just after. But, seriously, I applaud this. Other writers aren’t doing this and I think it’s important.
A DWI-ku:
Johnny Damon stopped...
His defense for driving drunk?
"I'm a Trump guy *hic*"
Because cops arrest you for supporting Trump.
my anecdotal experience as a public defender, a very large portion of those arrested are conservatives.
And how do you get to 0.30? That's a lot of drinking.
BSOHL
We're in Central Cali & over 65. They'd been telling us for weeks that local vaccine availability was only 9% or something so we didn't bother even signing up til last Thursday, and got our first (moderna) shots on Tues. Surprising, really. as was the shoulder pain *old man whimper*
Instead of a virtual swear jar, how about plugging a Clay Travis video after you use the Cleveland Baseball Team’s “other” name?
How about just using your own nickname for Cleveland, like they did in 1890? No-one can sue you.
And to avoid confusion, how about going with the Clevies? Hey, it works in Philadelphia...
We are actually setting up a more dedicated outside space at our house in reaction to spending so much time inside during the pandemic… And one of the things I am most looking forward to out there is baseball on the radio.
I suppose like so many other things, it is generational, which makes me wonder if it’ll be gone before I know it. Until then, I’ll be tuning in.
While it's understandable that you don't want to use the Cleveland team's name, it may be tougher than you think. In fact, you used it in the Parlay Patz item - just one section above your vow now to use it.
Yeah, that was a dumb autopilot copying-from-something-I-was-reading error. Which, FWIW, I wrote before the other bit and then stupidly didn't go back and check.
Like I said: it's hard!
You do conspicuously (that’s the point, right?) avoid it earlier in the newsletter. That’s what made it stand out when you did use it. Again, I applaud this (and avoiding the Atlanta team’s name).
In honor of Jason Molina, I will be referring to the Cleveland team as Baseballs: Ohia for the rest of 2021
I second this motion. At least sometimes, Craig, you should call them Baseballs: Ohia, or something like that!
I really don't have a baseball-on-radio memory. I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and dad was a Bruins not Sox guy. He would watch hockey with the sound off and the radio on, somehow not bothered by the lack of synchronicity.
I do remember fragments of Hawk Harrelson and Dick Stockton calling games (Channel 38 perhaps?) in the mid to late 1970's. Funny how images like Hawk's cowboy hat stick with you.
One of the reason I like baseball is that you CAN experience it on radio. Because of the structure of the game, it can be described in near real time with the listener filling in the action...even that of a center fielder robbing a batter of a home run...in their own head. Try that with football, basketball, or god help you, hockey. I once switched from TV, to pitch by pitch online, to radio in the space of a single game, and still came away with a full picture of what happened.
If the radio is a head of the tv, its quite pleasant
During the season, a lot of my baseball-on-the-radio time has me in the kitchen (working on dinner, or on the laptop, or grading) but with the game on TV in the next room. If something particularly cool and exciting happens, the time lag is just enough that I can get up and go check it out.
While the idea of a packed stadium is just madness right now, maybe there could be a silver lining. Perhaps the Rangers could link up with the state and devote some space in or around the ballpark to a vaccination spot for the one-shot J&J shot. Presumably it’ll be available for most adults by then and the Rangers could claim that was part of the effort all along. Throw a bunch of videos of players recommending getting the shot and maybe there’d be some good to come of it.
I can’t imagine who would go. Are the Rangers that popular? Don’t even the big teams have trouble filling seats?
The stadium still has that new stadium smell, so if nothing else fans will want to see the park.
Plus you have people eager to demonstrate “freedom” and “courage”
New park + Opening Day + pent-up-year-without-public-events + "F-you, liberals, we're gonna do what we want" sentiment = what I suspect will be an Opening Day sellout.
The trouble is, not all the residents have rejected reality. Some are just victims of the majority's stupidity.
Yes, but you don't these people having any chance of infecting the rest of us. And even with every precaution, every vaccine, there is a chance so long as they are not taking care.
The problem, as mentioned before, is that states like Texas are both heavily gerrymandered and heavily voter suppressed (by many metrics Texas is the worst in both), and the burden of the lack of masking disproportionately impacts and kills people of color, especially African-Americans and Native Americans.
I am past the point of caring about dumb white people making dumb choices and getting sick. I am not past the point of caring about them doing so in a way that disproportionately results in the death of our most oppressed population groups.
Plus, the longer this goes on the more variants will hit and the less and less effective the vaccines we are getting will be.
Opening Day? They’ll be selling out pre-season games, which is just absurd
Maybe Ted Cruz tosses the first pitch?
I have never been more turned off to the idea of freedom than I am now. I can even see the point when the Chinese government argues that what we have here clearly doesn't work.
I missed that info about Puig. Thanks for sharing. Guess my old Dodgers shirsey is going in the trash today.
Also, I miss the days when the US government actually took care of people but I guess if you look at it from the perspective of Brown or Black folks, those days never existed and the nostalgia is just my privilege speaking. I’ll die made at GWB about Katrina though.
What's your position on the Atlanta baseball club's name Craig? Will you be using that?
I'm gonna try to avoid it too. May be harder given that there is no end-date on it. Generally speaking, I am going to do my best to steer away from Native American names and iconography if at all possible.
Yeah, it doesn't seem like they have any intention of changing the name in Atlanta.
And while this was not the intention - though the intention had a fair degree of racism - leaving a city that is ever more progressive for the white conservative suburbs means that no local politician is going to try to strong-arm the team into changing the name.
In all seriousness, why should they? The name is the equivalent of "Samurai" or "Knights". It's not the name itself that's a problem; it's some of the imagery associated with it. The "Tomahawk Chop" needs to go, for example. But the name and logo? I'm not really seeing the problem there. Would we consider it offensive to Japanese Americans if the Cleveland team decided to become the "Cleveland Samurai" and use a katana in their logo?
I have this nagging feeling in the back of my brain that if we erase all the Native American names from everything, there won't be any representation of them AT ALL in popular culture. I'm trying to think of any Native American characters on TV shows, and I have to go back to John Redcorn from "King of the Hill" to find one - and that series wrapped up in 2010.....
Go with the DC spelling: "Barves."
I thought that was the CC spelling lol
Just like the HOF, stadium naming rights, and the LCS--you are welcome to ignore their names and call them whatever you want since you aren't being paid. Call them the Cleveland Forest Citys, and the Atlanta Hammers. As long as you state it a few times in the newsletter, it isn't like your audience isn't going to know who you are talking about.
A;s main radio guy has avoided the cleveland nickname for years. It's subtle, but kinda neat
- The Rangers are simply following the lead of Governor Irresponsible. And while I think it's too soon to say we are rounding the corner - over half of recent cases in NYC are caused by not one but two more contagious (if vaccine-susceptible) variants - it remains clear that cautious behavior of the sort Texas seems to hate works a lot better than being morons.
- When I was in PR, we used to look askance at a lot of the startup media outlets. Oh, if we got covered by them, it was still coverage. But we knew something was funny about them. Especially in the days when HuffPost was running tons of articles where the writers weren't paid, as apparently having exposure was payment enough. They stopped doing that, but there was never a sense that they were going to be major and trusted media outlets, as opposed to the smaller, more professional outlets we dealt with and enjoyed dealing with.
- I love, love, love baseball on the radio. (Well, unless it's John Sterling.) I was blessed with Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne, and still have Howie Rose. I don't like that Mets games are on an all news station here - meaning that once or twice a game, I get dragged back into the real world for between innings headlines - but I still love hearing "put it in the books." And you have made me decide to renew my subscription to MLB Radio.
This whole paragraph is gospel. I'll just sub in Joe Castiglione doing Sawx games, long may he reign. "- I love, love, love baseball on the radio. (Well, unless it's John Sterling.) I was blessed with Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne, and still have Howie Rose. I don't like that Mets games are on an all news station here - meaning that once or twice a game, I get dragged back into the real world for between innings headlines - but I still love hearing "put it in the books." And you have made me decide to renew my subscription to MLB Radio." This baseball season with the Sawx (my favorite team) and the Rockies (the hometown team where I live) looking to stink, I'll probably be more into fantasy and might dip my toe into the minor leagues a bit. MiLB audio is apparently free, dunno how well the stream works (or how good the announcers are), but I'm gonna try it out.
Like you, and so many of us here, I *love* baseball on the radio. I think Craig said something a few weeks back about how it becomes kind of a soundtrack for your life? Baseball on the radio, under the covers late at night. Baseball on the radio, hanging out in the backyard at DMCj's place. Baseball on the radio, in your pickup in the middle of nowhere. Baseball on the radio, working in the garden, cooking dinner, going into labor (okay, maybe that's just me), drinking beer on a hot day, holding your breath in the top of the 9th. Kruk and Kiep and Jon Miller and Dave Fleming ... my guys... even my dog knows their voices and settles down into hanging out mode when I turn that radio dial.
Growing up a Tigers fan, Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey were the voices of my summers. My parents were too cheap to pay for cable and we lived too far from Detroit to get an over-the-air broadcast, I think it was channel 50. But WJR came in clear.
I learned about baseball from Ernie and Paul. We were in Flint and got WDIV-4, which is where George Kell and Al Kaline called televised games in the late 70s-early 80s. Though I think they only did like 50 a year maybe. For me it was radio every night.
I grew up in Lansing, and I think we were just far enough away that the Detroit stations wouldn't come in. Even now as a displaced Michigander, I'd rather pay 20 bucks to MLB and listen to Dan Dickerson on my phone than $120 to watch the game and listen the fox sports detroit broadcast crew.
"It's a bright, sunshiny day here at Tiger Stadium. Looks like we might be...could be getting us in a baseball game!"
In the days of yore, there was a game called on the radio by Ernie Harwell and Al Kaline. At some point Al was inspired to reference someone he had played with years before (wish I could recall who, but CRS is a bitch), and mused "...haven't heard from him in a while; wonder what he's up to?" After a pause so pregnant it was nearing full term, Ernie deadpans "The man's dead, Al". Wish I coulda seen the look on Al's face...
When I first moved to North Carolina in 1980, on clear summer nights, if I fiddled with my radio dial just right, I could pick up WJR and listen to Ernie. In his honor I shall refer to the Cleveland team as he often did -- "The Clevelanders"
I started with Vin Scully, Ross Porter and Jerry Dogget in LA and Al wisk in Anaheim. Barely had TV games. Even when I lost interest in baseball from ages 16-31, I would pop on the Dodger's games in my record store (to be a dick) and in the only apartment I ever lived in alone (for relaxation). I was drawn back into baseball by Bill King on A's radio in the 2000s when I moved to SF.
I can't imagine learning baseball from TV. Like Craig says, it demands attention. It takes you out of your day. Radio Baseball is very forgiving in that way, it fits neatly into your pocket as you clean, shop, putter.
I am still mostly radio. I also love listening to non A's radio crews for random games through the season. (2020 i only listened to the home broadcast)
Baseball is best in person, but radio is the way to consume it otherwise.
Baseball on the radio is THE BEST. I love that fangraphs essay, it does sum up the flaws in the three ways a fan can experience a game, but for my money, listening to play by play AT THE BALLPARK is sort of as perfect as you can get. My Brewers have Bob Uecker, full stop. And the Twins now have some excellent radio talent, since Cory Provus came to work for them. I love Tom Hamilton in Cleveland, love Jon Miller in SF, and one or two others that I'm forgetting. (I won't say I "love" Sterling and Waldman, but... it's a trip sometimes).
This move by the Blue Jays just sucks.
The Blue Jays would not have done this had Jerry Howrath not retired. He was a gem
Come on guys! We have a new stadium to pay for! It’s all about the money and idiot people who run the government. It will be interesting to see if it’s full on opening day.
I am diving into baseball this year. The other day I watched a whole spring training game, unheard of in my lifetime but you can do that if your retired. The next day I decided to listen to a game and use Game Day feature to supplement the radio.
Unfortunately the Game Day reporting is faster than the radio. I won’t be doing that anymore.
But you learn so much on radio! Ha. I learned the other day The Star Spangled Banner has four stanzas.
The trick is use an actual radio instead of an online stream - then, you should never be surprised by Gameday.
Ahhhhh thanks for the tip. But can’t get any out of town radio stations.
Josh Marshall at TPM knows whereof he speaks. He's run Talking Points Memo, and converted it to a three tier site (some free content, pay one sum for premium but still with ads, pay another sum with no ads) for a couple years now.
He's also been good about actually committing journalism. TPM was actually ahead of any major news org regarding the Bush Attorney General scandal (drum up voting lawsuits or lose your positions). When he says that Huffpost likely had no choice, I trust his word.
That Huffpost ownership handled the layoffs abysmally (even a fraternity declining a pledge shows more tact than they did) has obscured that. Josh noted how atrociously it was handled, but has the experience (as a journalist and a publisher) to go a level deeper and explain that complaining about there being layoffs at all was probably unfounded.
It’s a good thing your reference to the Cleveland baseball team’s nickname came in the story just before the story where you say you won’t mention it instead of the story just after. But, seriously, I applaud this. Other writers aren’t doing this and I think it’s important.