My Morning in Exile

Things to read as you wonder whether heckling the kids trying to catch the fly balls during the Derby makes you a bad person . . .

  • If you only read one butt-headed, xenophobic comment from a former MSM columnist who is unawre of geography and demographics today, make sure it’s this one.
  • A very abbreviated Home Run Derby diary. I bailed when Joe Buck showed up. Which I probably will tonight, too.
  • Owners colluding against players? That’s unpossible!
  • First there was Red Sox Nation. Now there’s Yankee Universe. Coming soon: the Atlanta Braves Multiverse! (OK, I stole that from The Common Man, who whipped that joke out in the comments. I can’t tell you how angry I am for not thinking of it first).
  • Albert Pujols is probably very, very tired. Which means he’s probably only good for 2-3 with a couple of home runs tonight.
  • Finally, should we raise the pitcher’s mound? Maybe lowering the plate would be easier? How about tilting the whole field and going for that “casually askew” look?
  • I’m gettin’ a sammich. Back shortly.


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    Vin
    14 years ago

    I agree with you about the Home Run Derby, Craig. I do not care about it, and never did. I haven’t made a point of watching the All-Star Game since I was a kid, but if I’m not doing anything, I’ll gladly watch it. I do not watch the Home Run Derby, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched it for more than thirty seconds, even when I was a baseball-obsessed ten-year-old. It always struck me as boring and gimmicky…just sayin’.

    YankeesfanLen
    14 years ago

    Can I change my handle to YankeesUniverseLen? A good take on this also came on It is High It is Far (the John Sterling mockublog).  Years ago Spencer Gifts called their corporate HQ in Little Egg Harbor NJ their “universal Headquarters”, guess lava lamps and vibrators qualified.
    As I may have said but definitely thought before, Doc will be a Yankee before the Bad Moon rises in August.

    Bill @ the daily something
    14 years ago

    I summarized the HR Derby in haiku form, which is probably as much attention as it’s ever worth (below a much longer poem):
    the-daily-something.blogspot.com/2009/07/baseball-is-poetry-vol-ii.html

    So what can the Red Sox do to top Yankees Universe? The Red Sox God? That might irk the local Catholic population…the Yankees should’ve had the decency to scale up to “planet” or at least “galaxy” first. There’s just not much you can do after “universe.”

    MooseinOhio
    14 years ago

    Me thinketh the PR folks on Yawkey Way are trying to come up with a cool design for a ‘Infinity – Plus One’ (ala And 1) upgrade to RSN.

    Jake
    14 years ago

    why did I just spend several minutes considering the park effects of a ballpark that is tilted along an axis between home plate and the mound?

    “high, looping fly to the first baseman, caught on the rise for the out …”

    Joao
    14 years ago

    Craig,

    I’m going to disagree with you slightly on the “english-speaking” thing.  Although I may object to the tone as expressed by the writer you criticize, I agree somewhat with the underlying sentiment. 

    – Although it is noy my job to run a team’s marketing department, it is obviously in a team’s best interest to help and promote among their players the desire to speak English.  They will be able to speak/appeal to a broader segment of the consuming public if they can do it in English. 

    – It is not uncommon for teams in Europe, Formula 1 teams, hockey teams, etc, to pay for English-language instructors.  Just look at Frenchman Thierry Henry, who speaks English and Spanish fluently, or dirt-poor shanty-town-born-and raised Carlos Teveza, who learned to speak a little Portuguese and English. 

    – It is in the player’s best interest as well.  They will be able to interact with the surrounding society a lot easier, and will help their own marketign opportunities as well. 

    – If, say, an American soccer player was plying his trade in the Mexican or Argentine socer leagues, we would find it rude and a bit obnoxious if he didn’t make at least a little effort to learn the local language, wouldn’t we? Same should apply going the other way, I should think.