The first five and a half innings of game 5 of the World Series made a mockery of baseball. The Phillies and Rays play 162 games just to make the playoffs, defeat all comers, and their reward: on the most important night of the season they play in near-freezing temperatures, with atrocious officiating and a driving rain storm. It was like a reality show, but without the snarky comments of one of the judges (although McCarver tried his best).
The comedy of errors began with the scheduling of the entire postseason. Late starts, AM finishes, trying to compete with college football, allowing Fox to dictate the schedule all pointed to disaster for the ratings and baseball, as a whole. The crescendo of the postseason debacle appeared to be the Saturday night game that ended with people on the West Coast complaining about how late the games went, but oh no. In potentially the series clinching game baseball decided the getting the game in was more important than showcasing the best of the best under optimal conditions. The Commissioner’s Office made a farce of their sport playing in that weather. It’s not hard to imagine a dry Bud Selig sounding like Monty Python’s Black Knight when describing the rain, “Tis but a drizzle. I’ve seen worse.” Watching the players with their hands down their pants, guys in the dugout drinking coffee, and the grounds crew taking every opportunity to attempt to make the infield playable was laughable and painful at the same time. It seemed like baseball was about five minutes from a massive rush order of ShamWows to force the game to continue.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the home plate umpire squeezing pitcher’s in a driving rain, the most ridiculous performance by an ump since Frank Drebin was calling the balls and strikes. The cherry on the top was listening to the dulcet tones of Joe Buck, who would rather have been making a bunt cake watching Paula Dean instead of at a baseball game. He, along with his cohort Tim McCarver have been in attack mode since the Series began. Rest assured Buck won’t be as critical of the league officials when he steps back in the booth to call NFL games. Listening to Buck describe the bad calls sounds like an abusive husband who has no fear of repercussion from his battered wife. Fans should be hoping that the MLB or Fox goes Laura Burney on Buck’s baseball broadcasting responsibilities before next season.
Instead of the World Series being baseball’s showcase and the coronation of an unexpected champ, it’s been turned to a circus. Bud Selig seems more interested in ending the season at the behest of Fox than in providing a grand stage for the young stars. They bended to the whim of Fox in eliminating the team introductions and Fox’s marketing department sees fit to (brought to you by Sprint) interrupt (Drinkability) each pitch (House is grumpy) with advertisements. Major League Baseball has written off attracting young fans with the start times and is content with being a second-rate professional sports league. David Stern would never play a Finals game with an eight foot rim, Roger Godell would never play a Super Bowl with a deflated football, hell even Gery Bettman wouldn’t play the Stanley Cup Finals with melted ice, but that’s exactly what Selig did by undermining both teams by allowing game 5 to continue. The nation’s past time has become a national after thought, and baseball owners have themselves to blame.
Tuesday, October 28
The World Series: Bud Selig Strikes Again
Wednesday, October 22
The Fall Classic is Upon Us
The World Series starts tonight; here is a preview from Deadspin. Word on the street is that the Backstreet Boys will be singing the game 1 national anthem. As Bob Saget once said, "They are back, they are street, they are boys and they are men and they rock my fucking world."
Wednesday, October 8
Rays Attempt to Pull Off the Tropicana Hand Banana
In the spirit of staying fair to each league, here is Deadspin's preview of the ALCS even though Catfish already outlined what the Rays have to do.
Tuesday, October 7
Top Ten Tips for the Rays by Rays
From the start of the 2008 season the Tampa Bay Rays have been tested and now, for the first time, they have won a playoff series. The Rays started in spring training and now in the post season they have two more points teams to pass through and their accomplishments will live on infinitely. It has been a while since a Ray has captivated our collective attention, but their have been several through out the years, both positive and negative (liberal spelling). For these Rays to be successful they need to learn these Top 10 lessons taught by other Rays:
10. Billy Ray Cyrus: You don't need to be the most talented to reach the pinnacle. Listen up Dioner Navarro and Manny Aybar, you guys may have been undrafted, but that doesn't mean you can't shine. One hit (or defensive play) can turn you into a hero/trivia answer. Billy also showed all the Rays of the world that Jonathan Papelbon isn't the only one that can look like an idiot dancing on a big stage. If the Rays are successful hopefully they'll be able to avoid exploiting their offspring, but it's always an option.
9. Ray Bradbury: "Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things." In other words, don't be this guy:
No Reds and no more Griffey = Go Rays!
Tuesday, July 8
Rays, Poked With Sticks Before and During Season, Respond
The success of the
Whatever reason you point to the Rays are atop the American League East, 4 games ahead of Boston and 6 ahead in the loss column. Although we have yet to pass the All-Star break, it appears that this team is for real. With the best record in the majors, it will be a far fall if they fail to clinch a playoff spot in October. A far fall but far from unthinkable. The Red Sox and Yankees are pursuing them and will not go quietly. The Rays were looked at in spring as a feel-good story to come in 2008. The analysts thought they would be much improved, but not up to par with
The first incident occurred in Spring Training. On March 8 this year, Elliot Johnson, who is currently 7-19 with 7 strikeouts, ran headlong into Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli on his way to scoring in a 4-1 Rays win. Cervelli broke his right wrist and Girardi, a former catcher himself, stated his irritation that another team would play hard in spring.
"I think it's uncalled for," Girardi said. "Spring training, you're going to get people hurt, and that's what we got, we got Cervelli hurt. It's one thing to get hit by a pitch, it gets away, but, I don't understand it."
Johnson said he was merely trying to do his job and even offered his concern on Cervelli’s well being. But this was not good enough for Girardi and company. Four days later, Shelly Duncan who is currently batting .175, slid into second base with spikes up into the leg of Akinori Iwamuri. It did not take Jonny Gomes long to respond; Gomes came rushing at full speed into the infield and both benches were cleared afterwards.
Joe Maddon, who had refused comment after the Johnson play at home, angrily stated his contempt for what happened, "In Tampa, that play you saw at home plate was a good, hard baseball play. What you saw today was the definition of a dirty play, there's no room for that in our game. It's contemptible. It's wrong. It's borderline criminal, and I could not believe they did that."
He added later, "When we go out and play the Yankees the next time, we're going to play it hard and play it right. Period. That's how we come to the ballpark every day."
The brawl ignited the fire for the young Rays and set the tone for the season. They took on the attitude of questioning why they should simply lay down and let the Red Sox and Yankees run away with the division. If they played the right way, and gave the effort they could shut them up.
The Red Sox would stir the pot next. On June 5th, Coco Crisp charged the mound after he was plunked by Jamie Shields. A wild melee ensued and again Jonny Gomes was at the forefront, rushing to aid his pitcher. It would be Shields, however with the most pointed words of the day, saying “"I protected my own players and that's what we need to do around here. We've been getting stomped around the last 10 years and it isn't going to happen anymore. I had to let them know early and let them know right away."
Even though the Red Sox swept the series, the tone was set, the Rays were mad as hell, and they were not going to take it anymore. The Rays kept winning after the series, going 14-7 until the Sox came back to town on June 30th. This time the Rays did the sweeping in front of a full crowd at the Trop. It was the middle of their 7 game win streak in which they overtook first in the AL East that was snapped last night versus the Royals.
The biggest moment to be taken from the Rays win streak was the final game at the Trop against
The Rays open a quick two game stint with the Yankees tonight followed by four games at the Jake in
