My Morning in Exile

Apologies if I seem a bit distracted today. My daughter, who will start kindergarten in the fall, begins “Safety Town” today, and it has me all nervous and anxious. Not because it means she’s growing up and ever-so-slightly leaving my control and supervision, really, but because I found a page in the printer tray in the den this morning that read “The first rule of Safety Town is that you do not talk about Safety Town. The second rule of Safety Town is that YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT SAFETY TOWN.”

Dear God, what are they doing there?!

  • Manny Acta allowed to fly to New York with the Nationals. This means that (a) the travel-by-bus cutoff is somewhere below 225 miles; and (b) that he still had a job. At least until around 3pm or so, which is when offday firings tend to take place.
  • Brian Bruney should not have apologized to K-Rod because K-Rod already said he didn’t care about this kind of stuff. Confused? You won’t be, after this episode of “Soap!”
  • Memo to Boston: push Smoltz to Friday and give Dice-K the day off. By doing so, he gets to face the Braves, which would be great fun. It may actually help from a baseball perspective too.
  • I heart Ozzie Guillen.
  • Irabu and Lima Time: one of them is pitching in Long Beach for the love of the game, the other because he thinks he’s on the comeback trail. You guess which is which.
  • Finally, baseball teams up with the IBAF to make a pitch for the 2016 games. Personally, I’m rooting for squash and rugby sevens, whatever the hell that is.
  • I am Jack’s general dissatisfaction with the quality of the National League Wild Card race.


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    J.W.
    14 years ago

    It’s kind of weird how the NBC commenters tend to demand that baseball players be less pampered, have lower wages, and have larger…err…let’s say stones.  “How dare Brian Bruney apologize?! Never back down from what you’ve said in the past! Never!”  Yeah.

    YES was running the video of the Bruney/K-Rod pre-game altercation, and it was pretty darn grand. Little Rodriguez is standing there jawing and jawing at Bruney (who is a pretty large man) and Bruney is kind placidly standing there and taking it all. Then Jose Veras, an even larger man, steps between them, and little K-Rod keeps yipping away. Turns out it’s Mike Pelfrey who finally manages to pull Rodriguez away. If K-Rod has never heard of Brian Bruney, well then he’s definitely never heard of Mike Pelfrey, so why is he letting him drag him away from a fight?

    lar
    14 years ago

    I don’t think it makes any sense to mention the NL Wild Card Race yet. Sure, it might technically be there, but it doesn’t really exist as a whole yet, does it?

    Wouldn’t that be like saying that you’re not sure your Lego Millennium Falcon looks all that great even though you only have the dorsal quad laser battery and the cockpit built? Well, maybe it’s just me…

    Craig Calcaterra
    14 years ago

    Agreed, Lar. It’s just that someone mentioned that the Giants lead the Wild Card race in the ATH thread this morning, so it was on my mind.

    Dan Whitney
    14 years ago

    They were talking about the Giants leading the wild-card race on the TBS broadcast of the Mets-Yankees game yesterday morning too. How can that even be a topic of discussion until the trade deadline?

    Rob Moore
    14 years ago

    Just so long as she doesn’t come home with two black eyes and a t-shirt that reads “you should see the other kid.”

    Rorgg
    14 years ago

    Rugby sevens is to rugby what flag football is to football.  Well, but you still run into each other.  Essentially it gets rid of the grunting-shoving line play of regular rugby and lets the guys who run instead of shove have the game to themselves.

    MooseinOhio
    14 years ago

    Craig – While I understand your desire to see Smoltz face his old team my sense is it would be much more bittersweet than you antipate and your split loyaties will be make the game less than enjoyable. 

    However imagine the enjoyment of watching a match-up of DiceK v. Jeff Francouer – who wins that battle?  The pitcher that runs up pitch counts like the national debt or the hitter who think he should swing at every pitch, even the ones headed for the dirt.  The thought of four ‘epic battles’ of opposites would be worth the price of admission (even Fenway prices).