baseball

[toasty]

Re: baseball

a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

not sure if that applies here actually.

when in rome.

uh, thanks

[Jenks]

Re: baseball

i'm optimistic usually, but the realist tells me Jim Leyland isn't letting us close out this series in STL. So, i'd take my seat tonight, over SRO tomorrow night, if you're only reasoning is to get to go to a closeout game.

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

francesca just made a great great point..... not on these teams or the games... but something older...

big mac cant even show his face, due to the absolute disgrace he is right now. the team and league agreed not to allow him to throw a first pitch (from selig himself), he hasnt been to a game yet, and the media is ignoring him....

must not be very nice not to be able to show your face in a place where you were once held as a god.

i didnt realize this at first but its true, and its a shame for the game and for him more than anything..

''i dont want to talk about the past"........

[Jenks]

Re: baseball

Yeah, everyone in this city pretty much turned their backs on McGwire. He IS a disgrace imo. Loved last year when i went to a game some fan had his McGwire jersey on, except took black electrical tape and put a big X over the back of it. lol. Nice one.

What i still don't get is how NY embraces Giambi the cheater? Wether you come clean or not, a cheater is a cheater in my book. Giambi basically got his 25million dollar contract by cheating. Palmiero, Cheater. Bonds, Cheater. Sammy, Cheater. What gets me about Barry is, he would have gone down as one of the greatest of all time without the roids. Greed. Sad isn't it?

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

yup.

i'll give you the reasons why giambi has been embraced moreso than them. you can agree or not, thats your decision. ill just give you where they are coming from.

he, once it was leaked, came out with it. he held a press conference for any media that wanted to show up and stood in front of the firing range. it affected his game a lot. to the point where cashman asked him to go down to AAA to work on it. he said no way, and fought back, all the while answering and facing the questions and giving honest answers. he also said that he gave up his union clause and said if someone wants to test him they could. he fought back , while being much less of a homer hitter, and became a pure linedrive hitter for us, and got a lot of big hits. call it pity, call it a story, but NY loves the underdog, and that is what he became. he never once fought against the allegations, but owned up, and worked hard to get back. he is a gamer for the most part as well. he never pulled the shit the others did, he came back and didnt hide. you really cant ask for more. unless you are a hater and ask him to retire.

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

and toasty, if you dont attend these games, i will hunt you down. there are a few principles to live by and taking advantage of a world series game is one of them. i dont care if you sit or stand, but you better be there. im calling you 20 minutes after first pitch and if i dont hear crowds..... IP BAN IMO>

[Jenks]

Re: baseball

yeah i get that, and would have had at least a little respect for mcgwire if he had done the same thing. cheater is still a cheater tho imo. they'll never get any of my respect.

[toasty]

Re: baseball

Alright. Went ahead and took the SRO ticket, so I'll be at the park tonight, tomorrow, and for any make-up games. I've stopped the rain dance, however, because I'm now pulling for tonight's game to get played.

Quite the whirlwind. I haven't had so much weather-related trouble since that storm knocked out power in half the city in July...

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

thank you rabbi gellman for expressing it so greatly.

Oct. 25, 2006 - The arrival of the World Series this year convinced me that God is dead (proof: the Mets are gone) and that God is not dead (proof: the Yankees are also gone). Trying to stretch beyond my own parochial rooting interests, I want to make a serious case for the proposition that baseball is the most powerful path to assimilation into American culture. Without assimilation America dies and immigrant cultures are radicalized. America is not just another country, not just another culture, not just another experiment in democracy. America stands for a single great truth, e pluribus unum, ?out of many, one.? Our self-understanding demands that we welcome and assimilate all those storm-tossed travelers who pass beneath the golden torch.

The ways this assimilation has proceeded are well known to us all. We speak English. We have no monarchy. We have no inherited ruling class. We believe in public education. We gather in public parks. We live in integrated neighborhoods. We respect all religions and establish no religion. Our humor does not insult. Most of us buy our clothes from the same stores and most all of us own blue jeans. We don?t all like the same music, but we know the same music. We can all sing ?God Bless America? and we can all say the Pledge of Allegiance. Mostly, nobody cares when your ancestors came to America or if they were here all along. We celebrate very few holidays together, but the ones we do celebrate, like July Fourth and Thanksgiving, are celebrated by all Americans. We all eat pizza and the same junk food.
Not all these paths of assimilation are working now as well as they once worked. Many immigrants don?t learn English; this hurts them and it hurts America. Many people are so rich that their children are beginning to behave like royalty; this hurts them and it hurts America. Our parks are not all as safe as they should be, and some neighborhoods remain frosty to ?others.? The status of public schools and public-school teachers is too low. The music my kids like is violent noise. But on balance, America is still able to gently seduce, not coerce, millions of immigrants into a passionate love for this place.

Of all the ways we have tried to make one out of many, the most powerful cultural force has been baseball. Basketball is too small and too new, soccer is too European, hockey is too white. The football season is too short and the squads too few. Baseball provides America with emotionally compelling teams, and these teams allow anyone to be a fanatic?a culturally constructive fanatic. At 162 games, the baseball season is long enough to get deeply involved in your team?s fate and gives you a chance to attend a game (there are 81 home games, compared with eight in football). The teams have enough players so that, no matter what your ethnic background is, there is bound to be a professional baseball player whose grandma served him the same greasy, artery-clogging ethnic food you were forced to eat as a child. Baseball is just as good on the radio (I think it?s better), so you don?t need a television to watch it. It is filled with stupid and important statistics that kids can memorize. It also has neat packs of player cards.

I do not believe that beginning every baseball game with the national anthem is an instance of excessive patriotic zeal. I believe it to be a joyous and unifying secular hymn whose last words are always overwhelmed by fans cheering their team and their country and their freedom and their joy at being blessed to live here: ?O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave/ O?er the land of the free and the home of the brave??
In participating in these secular rituals of baseball, you make a team your team?and you make America your America. Your team divides you from the fans of other teams, but that?s strangely unifying. All the fans of all the teams love the game. Your team is different from your religion, which can be divisive and is usually grimly serious. Your team is different than being an American, which is so big a characterization that it is almost meaningless. Your team is the way you break up America into bite-sized pieces. And when you are at a game, and when your team scores, you slap hands with people you do not know. This, and not your passport, is what really makes you into an American.

[Jenks]

Re: baseball

+1

agree with this too, especially here-

Baseball is just as good on the radio (I think it?s better),

even if i watch the game on tv, i mute the sound and listen to mike shannon on 550, what used to be jack buck on 1120.

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

i wish i could do that for the yanks. but thier radio guy is the worst of all the teams......

thier TV guys i can deal with though, cuz they had jim kaat, and paul o neill and joe girardi, all of whom are wonderful.

luckily, i appreciate all good ball. so i can listen the mets guys anytime on the radio, they are up there with the best. the best guy is vin scully, followed by the former red sox announcers, and then chicago cubbies, and then the mets guys.... the st loius guy gets too over the top for my tastes, with his ''get up get up" calls for homers.... not my thing. i like the guys who go by the book and show emotion without being a shill.

[toasty]

Re: baseball

we both sat online at 9am when ticket sales went on, and tried for 30 minutes to get in to buy tix...didn't make it. been watching it from the loft. was funny, when the national anthem was over game 3, the jets flew over, and i'm watcing it on tv, and hear the jets go over on the television and in the air and then watch them shoot past my window, talk about surround sound.

We have the same deal at our place when they go over south to north rather than west to east, except we hear them before they go over the stadium. I had forgotten my ticket for a game earlier in the year and had to go back, so I was walking into my house at gametime. This fighter went directly over my house, not more than a few hundred feet in a heavily banked turn. Ubercool.

What a rush it must be to fly one of those things. I can't even imagine.

[Jenks]

Re: baseball

i wish i could do that for the yanks. but thier radio guy is the worst of all the teams......

thier TV guys i can deal with though, cuz they had jim kaat, and paul o neill and joe girardi, all of whom are wonderful.

luckily, i appreciate all good ball. so i can listen the mets guys anytime on the radio, they are up there with the best. the best guy is vin scully, followed by the former red sox announcers, and then chicago cubbies, and then the mets guys.... the st loius guy gets too over the top for my tastes, with his ''get up get up" calls for homers.... not my thing. i like the guys who go by the book and show emotion without being a shill.

if you're at home and up to it when the Cards play again, 550 KTRS streams Shannon's broadcast online. http://www.ktrs.com/

Mike Shannon rules after a budweiser or ten. He might take some getting used to for out of towners, but around here he's pretty much a legend. I was driving in from out of town last night while the game was ppd, and Mike's broadcast was still running, because they didn't know when if the game was going to start or not, so he basically told old baseball stories for a few hours. All his times with Kofax, Gibson, staying out really late on game nights getting lit...It was awesome. He gets all giggly about old time baseball. Shannon is a throwback.

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

dude, where i live.... there is an airport called republic airport here on long island, and that is where Air force one flies into for anything in NY... my house is due south and they come off the ocean to the ariport right over my house. and dude, when air force one comes in with an escort of F-16's, flying at about 300 feet above your head..... holy shit.... for the last few times, the escort fighters will fly back down to maryland but take a minute to have some low altitude fun over the bay out the back of my house... god i sit there like ''i would give up a years pay to fuck around in that thing for a few hours...""

[thesightless]

Re: baseball

as to jenks, that is why i miss phil ''scooter'' rizzuto, so much. you cant beat the stories he had... to think he played from 41 to 56 on all those great yankees teams with the likes of mantle, maris, berra, stottlymyer, and the rest.... god he was great, funny too.