Batboys and batgirls are on notice, ESPN and Apple give us what we don't want, a Mad Dogshit take, a documentary for my people, rich people and Ohio suck and coffee rules
Would you rather have good teams playing in the games people can't watch?
I suspect Apple is required to show every team and they want to get the weak ones out of the way in the first half so they can show the better teams in the second half. But by the second half, the best teams already have a playoff berth all but assured, so they might just be playing out the string while waiting for October.
I was just glad to see the Yankees are only listed twice this year. I will not be ponying up $7 a month just so I don't miss two games, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩.
My wife usually gets seven hours of sleep on work days. And still needs coffee. So it's not entirely not enough sleep. But maybe just not the right hours since her natural pattern is 2 am to 10 am, and she hates to get up for work.
My mom and her third husband researched bats in Mexico, so I'm sure they have some bat-catching stories. Probably the fastest they moved, though, was when a 9" bug on 4" legs came trotting toward them. They smoked it out of the crevice it hid in, put it in a bottle and took it back to Berkley where it was not identified.
Pro tip: If you have a permit to transport vampire bats across the Mexican border, you can put as much XXX Beer underneath the bat cages as you want because those customs guys are not going anywhere near your Travel-All.
I wasn’t much of a hitter in youth baseball, but as a lefty I worked really hard on drag bunting, and I pulled off a squeeze bunt with 2 outs in the last inning of a tied game that won us a playoff game the year I was 9. The coaches put me on their shoulders and stuff; I thought I was real hot shit. lol
As an aside, did everyone suddenly forget what a drag bunt means? Now you might see any bunt for a hit referred to as a drag bunt, even by baseball people. Sometimes even from right-handed hitters.
Oh yeah, beaned is another one that annoys me. Fanned I guess I never thought about, but you're right.
And my biggest one, non-baseball. "Literally" can mean figuratively now. Which leads me to ask "Then what word am I supposed to use for what 'literally' used to mean?"
I don't get enough sleep as it is (at least according to medical science) and those palpitations were scary. So I will continue to say no to caffeine. Of course, I also get up super early most days without the need of an alarm clock, let alone caffeine, so I am also an outlier. (Besides, I prefer tea, though I like a good iced decaf.)
I hear there is good stuff on Apple+, so maybe they figure you'll come for the baseball and stay for Snoopy. Or the other way round.
Chris Russo's expiration date was, I think, 2000. Why is he even on ESPN?
I have one great moment in personal sports success. I was in a softball league at work for one year. (The league we were in was not very good and we couldn't find a better one, and I think the new director who came on board the next year was not supportive of such things anyway.) For the first time in my life - I was about 40, IIRC - someone took the time to teach me how to do anything with a bat or a glove. I was still not very good. But in one game, I actually managed a walk and came around to score. But in that same game, I was "catching" - in the sense that someone needed to get the ball back to the pitcher and to stop it from going to the backstop. A batter fouled off a pitch. And I somehow managed to get my glove in the right place to get the out. My WBC moment, folks.
My greatest athletic achievement was sophomore year in college, when I had like 20 saves in a championship game shutout as the goalie for my coed intramural field hockey team. My ankles and shins were bruised and sore for weeks - but flags fly forever. (That was the same year our intramural football team named the Nads - “Go Nads!” - also won the title but I was mostly a decoy receiver so that was more reflected glory.)
PS How many of those extra coffee steps are trips to the bathroom? At least half, right?
PPS Speaking of bad takes, I had to laugh at this Insider piece in the New York Times yesterday about people moving to Duluth as a climate haven… The reporter visited in January, and the article is basically “it is cold and very snowy in Duluth in the winter and people from the Sun Belt aren’t used to it“. Rolling my (wall)eyes.
The part that would worry me the most about Duluth would be something along the lines of the Joba Chamberlain Midge Swarm that rolled in from Lake Erie in Cleveland. Is that a Cleveland-only thing or is that a Great Lakes thing in general?
I can handle cold weather but "The Hellstrom Chronicle"-style plagues are a dealbreaker.
Anyone referring to the "delights" of Duluth must take a back seat to Rep. J. Proctor Knott of Kentucky, whose speech to the House of Representatives on January 21, 1871 cannot be topped.
"I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth." - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Untold_Delights_of_Duluth
Team sport? Prolly catching a no-hitter and throwing out all five runners to reach base. Individual? Throwing a 171 in real bowling (candlepin) to beat a team with four guys on the WCBA tour. Not that I was the primary guy -- Jeff Atkins, holder at the time for the all-time three-string record of 514 -- rolled a 201. But I was 19 and and that turned out to be my very best season.
No trophies, just a moment I have etched in my memory. Bar league softball, I'm in RF, man on first. Batter appears to identify me as a possible weak defensive link (I am accustomed to this). Rips one towards the RF line and I do a perfect Winfield scoop-and-spin and put a one-hop throw right on the third base bag to get the baserunner. He looks back at me in disbelief and it's glove-fives all around as I jog in.
Athletic achievement? I played football, baseball and hockey until 12-15. I don’t think anyone else remembers me scoring a shorthand goal on an outdoor rink in Menominee but it was a big deal.
I golfed from 20 until my health went in my 40s. I broke 80 once and can - and will with no excuse - tell you about each hole.
As a 15 year old, I made a shot from behind the basket, under a covered porch and through a small hole in the wooden slats in my aunt and uncle’s backyard.
But the highlight is probably when I threw a no hitter in 1986. It was APBA and I was just rolling dice but man oh man was I on fire!
Just saw that Rangers radio man Eric Nadel will miss the start of the season. As per ESPN:
"I now find myself dealing with anxiety, insomnia and depression which are currently preventing me from doing the job I love," Nadel, who has long been an advocate for mental health, said in a statement released by the team. "So, I regret to say I will not be in the broadcast booth when the season starts."
I wish him well, and appreciate his willingness to tell the world.
The Rattner OP-Ed was ridiculously tone deaf. This was one of the pieces where I was actually interested in the comments on it, and yesterday morning at least, every single reader was dragging him. As well they should.
I played a number of sports at mostly a JV level when I was young. But some years ago, I worked my ass off for months to train for a triathlon. It was only a "sprint" triathlon: quarter mile swim, 15 mile bike, 5k run. But running across that finish line and finishing slightly better than half the field at age 49 felt really great. I competed in one more that year but haven't been in another since. They were hard but they were great fun.
Playing catcher and winning the LL Majors All-Stars NYS Championship when I was 12. Coincidentally, the worst moment was losing the NE regional game with the bus sitting there waiting to take the winners to Williamsport PA for the LLWS.
I was really good at BMX racing when I was 12. One summer I raced and won at the Shelby, NC track several times. I hurt my knee doing some freestyle jumping with friends later that summer and my BMX career was short lived. I switched to tennis and became a junior tennis, country club kid through high school. I won several tournaments through, the one I remember the most was in Greenwood, SC when I beat some heavy hitters on the way to the title. Re: baseball, I was pretty good at little league for two years and I still remember my one homer and one great catch in center.
PS I hit for the cycle in order in intramural softball in college
The Orioles were good last year. At least they are a team I want to peek in on.
Considering what a debacle MASN is as a regional sports network, this might be the only time you see the Orioles all year.
Would you rather have good teams playing in the games people can't watch?
I suspect Apple is required to show every team and they want to get the weak ones out of the way in the first half so they can show the better teams in the second half. But by the second half, the best teams already have a playoff berth all but assured, so they might just be playing out the string while waiting for October.
I was just glad to see the Yankees are only listed twice this year. I will not be ponying up $7 a month just so I don't miss two games, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩.
The list only goes through end of June. Just wait.
My wife usually gets seven hours of sleep on work days. And still needs coffee. So it's not entirely not enough sleep. But maybe just not the right hours since her natural pattern is 2 am to 10 am, and she hates to get up for work.
I’m not a coffee drinker. So I’m hoping there will be a similar report on the healthy effects of Guinness.
My mom and her third husband researched bats in Mexico, so I'm sure they have some bat-catching stories. Probably the fastest they moved, though, was when a 9" bug on 4" legs came trotting toward them. They smoked it out of the crevice it hid in, put it in a bottle and took it back to Berkley where it was not identified.
Pro tip: If you have a permit to transport vampire bats across the Mexican border, you can put as much XXX Beer underneath the bat cages as you want because those customs guys are not going anywhere near your Travel-All.
I wasn’t much of a hitter in youth baseball, but as a lefty I worked really hard on drag bunting, and I pulled off a squeeze bunt with 2 outs in the last inning of a tied game that won us a playoff game the year I was 9. The coaches put me on their shoulders and stuff; I thought I was real hot shit. lol
Drag bunting? You groomer!
It is what Bill “Swish” Nicholson was known for.
As an aside, did everyone suddenly forget what a drag bunt means? Now you might see any bunt for a hit referred to as a drag bunt, even by baseball people. Sometimes even from right-handed hitters.
Oh yeah, beaned is another one that annoys me. Fanned I guess I never thought about, but you're right.
And my biggest one, non-baseball. "Literally" can mean figuratively now. Which leads me to ask "Then what word am I supposed to use for what 'literally' used to mean?"
That one used to bother me a lot, but I literally read this and it literally lifted a weight off my shoulders. (sorry)
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/famous-writers-used-literally-figuratively
Posting Hall of Fame! Thank you!
I don't get enough sleep as it is (at least according to medical science) and those palpitations were scary. So I will continue to say no to caffeine. Of course, I also get up super early most days without the need of an alarm clock, let alone caffeine, so I am also an outlier. (Besides, I prefer tea, though I like a good iced decaf.)
I hear there is good stuff on Apple+, so maybe they figure you'll come for the baseball and stay for Snoopy. Or the other way round.
Chris Russo's expiration date was, I think, 2000. Why is he even on ESPN?
I have one great moment in personal sports success. I was in a softball league at work for one year. (The league we were in was not very good and we couldn't find a better one, and I think the new director who came on board the next year was not supportive of such things anyway.) For the first time in my life - I was about 40, IIRC - someone took the time to teach me how to do anything with a bat or a glove. I was still not very good. But in one game, I actually managed a walk and came around to score. But in that same game, I was "catching" - in the sense that someone needed to get the ball back to the pitcher and to stop it from going to the backstop. A batter fouled off a pitch. And I somehow managed to get my glove in the right place to get the out. My WBC moment, folks.
Substandard bat boy and bat girl performance is merely an extension of the principle that children are horrible.
I miss the days when the Cubs had senior citizens manning the lines.
But when they went younger it gave Harry Caray the opportunity on a chilly day to say “that’s the first time I’ve seen her without her shorts on.”
My greatest athletic achievement was sophomore year in college, when I had like 20 saves in a championship game shutout as the goalie for my coed intramural field hockey team. My ankles and shins were bruised and sore for weeks - but flags fly forever. (That was the same year our intramural football team named the Nads - “Go Nads!” - also won the title but I was mostly a decoy receiver so that was more reflected glory.)
PS How many of those extra coffee steps are trips to the bathroom? At least half, right?
PPS Speaking of bad takes, I had to laugh at this Insider piece in the New York Times yesterday about people moving to Duluth as a climate haven… The reporter visited in January, and the article is basically “it is cold and very snowy in Duluth in the winter and people from the Sun Belt aren’t used to it“. Rolling my (wall)eyes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/reader-center/in-duluth-real-estate-collides-with-climate.html
The part that would worry me the most about Duluth would be something along the lines of the Joba Chamberlain Midge Swarm that rolled in from Lake Erie in Cleveland. Is that a Cleveland-only thing or is that a Great Lakes thing in general?
I can handle cold weather but "The Hellstrom Chronicle"-style plagues are a dealbreaker.
It would be mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds, and earlier in the year like May or June.
Is that a dealbreaker?
If anything, that sounds worse than the midges!
Anyone referring to the "delights" of Duluth must take a back seat to Rep. J. Proctor Knott of Kentucky, whose speech to the House of Representatives on January 21, 1871 cannot be topped.
"I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth." - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Untold_Delights_of_Duluth
Team sport? Prolly catching a no-hitter and throwing out all five runners to reach base. Individual? Throwing a 171 in real bowling (candlepin) to beat a team with four guys on the WCBA tour. Not that I was the primary guy -- Jeff Atkins, holder at the time for the all-time three-string record of 514 -- rolled a 201. But I was 19 and and that turned out to be my very best season.
No trophies, just a moment I have etched in my memory. Bar league softball, I'm in RF, man on first. Batter appears to identify me as a possible weak defensive link (I am accustomed to this). Rips one towards the RF line and I do a perfect Winfield scoop-and-spin and put a one-hop throw right on the third base bag to get the baserunner. He looks back at me in disbelief and it's glove-fives all around as I jog in.
The extra steps for coffee drinkers? Duh. It’s a diuretic.
And a laxative. Um, so I’ve heard.
I’m too much of an adult to tell you from where I’m typing this.
Athletic achievement? I played football, baseball and hockey until 12-15. I don’t think anyone else remembers me scoring a shorthand goal on an outdoor rink in Menominee but it was a big deal.
I golfed from 20 until my health went in my 40s. I broke 80 once and can - and will with no excuse - tell you about each hole.
As a 15 year old, I made a shot from behind the basket, under a covered porch and through a small hole in the wooden slats in my aunt and uncle’s backyard.
But the highlight is probably when I threw a no hitter in 1986. It was APBA and I was just rolling dice but man oh man was I on fire!
I was no-hit once in Strat-O-Matic in college. That might be the low point of my sports life.
"...and not just in Sam Alito's coffee mug." #winning
Just saw that Rangers radio man Eric Nadel will miss the start of the season. As per ESPN:
"I now find myself dealing with anxiety, insomnia and depression which are currently preventing me from doing the job I love," Nadel, who has long been an advocate for mental health, said in a statement released by the team. "So, I regret to say I will not be in the broadcast booth when the season starts."
I wish him well, and appreciate his willingness to tell the world.
The Rattner OP-Ed was ridiculously tone deaf. This was one of the pieces where I was actually interested in the comments on it, and yesterday morning at least, every single reader was dragging him. As well they should.
I played a number of sports at mostly a JV level when I was young. But some years ago, I worked my ass off for months to train for a triathlon. It was only a "sprint" triathlon: quarter mile swim, 15 mile bike, 5k run. But running across that finish line and finishing slightly better than half the field at age 49 felt really great. I competed in one more that year but haven't been in another since. They were hard but they were great fun.
Playing catcher and winning the LL Majors All-Stars NYS Championship when I was 12. Coincidentally, the worst moment was losing the NE regional game with the bus sitting there waiting to take the winners to Williamsport PA for the LLWS.
I was really good at BMX racing when I was 12. One summer I raced and won at the Shelby, NC track several times. I hurt my knee doing some freestyle jumping with friends later that summer and my BMX career was short lived. I switched to tennis and became a junior tennis, country club kid through high school. I won several tournaments through, the one I remember the most was in Greenwood, SC when I beat some heavy hitters on the way to the title. Re: baseball, I was pretty good at little league for two years and I still remember my one homer and one great catch in center.
PS I hit for the cycle in order in intramural softball in college