Around The Old Ballpark

Well, I don't really write all that much about sports, mostly because I'm not really in to that many of them and that sport blogs are pretty boring. They are either guys whining about how their team was robbed (see any Yankee fan about the "bug game" in Cleveland) or in your face dumbasses always going on about their team being the greatest ever (see any Yankee fan).

But I am a big baseball fan and this is my favorite time of the year. So a few thoughts...

The Yankees not making the playoff at all would have been my first choice, but them being knocked out in the first round by a team I really like is pretty sweet too.

Speaking of the Evil Empire, they are responsible for my favorite part of the post-season so far. In the 6th inning last night, Derek "most overrated player since Dave Kingman" Jeter comes to the plate with runners on first and third, a run already scored in the inning. A classic Yankee rally in the making. The crowd is going nuts and the TBS cameras cut away to fans holding signs that say "El Capitan" and "Captain Clutch" (Jeter is the Yankees' captain).

He then promptly hit in to a rally killing, inning ending double play.

I'm not sure which part of it was sweeter, Mr. Yankee choking or hearing the sound of 50k plus Yankee fans reacting like they got hit in the gut. From loudmouth obnoxiousness to stunned silence was such a sweet thing to hear. I almost fell off the couch laughing.

Like many other times during the night I immediately called Joe, who grew up close to Cleveland and was watching the game up at his place in Harlem. We laughed and laughed at Captain Clutch. Good times.

I'm no fan of the wild card format, and this year they've made it worse by stretching out the playoff games even more. If the World Series goes to a game seven it will be on November 1st.

The other thing I hate a out it is how the reward has been diminished for a team. This series with the Indians and Yankees was a complete gut-wrenching battle. It used to be that once you got through beating a really good team you got to play in the World Series. Now the reward is having to take on an even better team.

I really don't understand the celebrating with champagne showers after winning the first round. I mean, you win your division and you celebrate. You win the League Championship Series to make you the champ of either the American League or the Senior Circuit (what baseball geeks love to call the National League), you celebrate. Makes sense. You get to hang a pennant up in your park on the next opening day for doing either of those things. But winning a first round series? What exactly are you celebrating? Nobody puts a pennant up on opening day that says "First round of the playoff winners."

There's a reason that the sports that have had multiple round (weak-ass) playoff systems for a long time don't celebrate after each win. Can you imagine it? "Woo-Hoo, pop the cork! We just beat an eighth-seeded team with a .500 record!"

I gotta tell ya, even with some weak announcers, I like the playoffs being on TBS better than FOX so far. They don't overload the game with sound effects and graphics to the point of annoyance. Yet.

Chip Carey is by no means a perfect announcer, but there is one example of why I love him. At one point during the game when there was a hit that bounced in the outfield and went over the wall, Carey called it a "rule book double." I find that most announcers call that a "ground rule double" even though that's not right. A ball that bounces over the outfield wall is a double in any baseball park. A "ground rule" means something specific to that park, such as when the ball gets stuck in the ivy at Wrigley Field or hits a beam in one of the awful domed stadiums. Knowing the difference means you've got an announcer who knows the game.

I dread having to listen to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver calling the ALCS on FOX. McCarver has got to be the most annoying baseball announcer ever. I wish he would insult a cripple or a minority like Steve Lyons did so he would get fired too.

I wish like crazy that the Indians would change both the name of the team and that disgusting Chief Wahoo logo. I love this team a lot and would feel better about rooting for them if their name wasn't so damn racist. It would be really easy to use the old name of the original Cleveland Major League team, the Spiders. I hope the next owner is more PC and lives in the 21st century instead of the 18th.

Whoever this Frank guy is that is getting his own late night comedy show on TBS, I wish someone would beat him to death with the bat he's carrying in the ads that have been playing during the games. The last thing this country needs more of, besides Christians, is Nicholson/De Niro/Bush impersonators.

My lame-ass predictions: Indians over Red Sox in 7 brutal, hard fought ALCS games. Rockies over Diamondbacks in 5 for the NLCS And in the World Series, the Indians overpowering the Rockies in 5 to take their first championship since 1948.