TORONTO WINS THE PENNANT!!!

 The loveable, laudable Blue Jays beat the still-somewhat-cursed Seattle ballclub in game 7 of the AL Championship Series last night.

OCTOBER 20, 2025

A day to be long remembered.

Last time the Jays were in the World Series might've been the absolute peak of my baseball-loving life.

And now my son gets to watch his/our favorite team take on the goliath of the senior circuit: those perennially dislikeable Dodgers of Los Angeles, where his favorite player happens to hit cleanup.

Teoscar and Vladdy reunite on the biggest stage – this time as opponents – and hopefully still best buds.

Somehow, despite mlb's best efforts, Baseball is likeable again.

(All we need to do now is create a sister site: FireTheFoxCommentators!)

Go J's.

Chets

 R.I.P. 

Chet Lemon

(5-08-2025)

At the same time my mother was giving birth to me in hospital, our dog Molly gave birth to golden retriever + whatever puppies. Only one of the litter was kept there at my grandparents' (who were babysitting our pregnant dog); his name was Chet.

My uncle raised the dog while living under their roof for several years before the freedom of a college escape meant the dog, Chet, would be lonely. Soon thereafter, Chet developed stomach cancer and would be dead before spring training.

But how did Chet get his name? Who named him? While the story has always been that my uncle named the dog on a whim, it turns out he more than likely named the dog after the Denver Bears star of a few years prior. In 1975, Denver was the AAA farm club of the Chicago White Sox. Chet Lemon played 70 games for Denver that year and triple-slashed .307 /.373 /.508 while playing 3B and a bit of OF.

He barely tasted his cup of coffee in the bigs later that year as the season was pretty much already over. 

The following fifteen years saw Chet rack up 55.7 WAR, leading the majors in HBP four times, and in doubles once (1979), ending up a three-time all-star. 

 

Chet Lemon lived to be 70 years old.

Chet, the dog, lived to be 12 in golden retriever years (ca.77 human years)

Born on the same day as the dog, I'm still alive at 44.

Roki Shohei Shota

 hALF-HEARTeDLy HoPEfUL BaSEbALL HAiKUs

Roki Sasaki 

might be joining the Blue Jays

if not the Padres...

Could be nice to see

the great Shohei Ohtani

outduel'd by a friend.

Shota Imanaga–

The Throwing Philosopher–

notwithstanding.

Dearly departed in 2023

Several MLB greats died in 2023 

(along with one of our dearest friends - A.D.)

Here is a commemorative lineup. 

 

Starting Pitcher: Vida Blue

Reliever: Tim Wakefield

Closer: Willie Hernandez

 

 

 

C- Tim McCarver

1B- Nate Colbert

2B- Eddie Bressoud

3B- Brooks Robinson

SS- Dick Groat

OF- Alex Cole

OF- Frank (Joseph) Thomas

OF- Frank Howard

DH- Sal Bando 

PH: Vic Davalillo

R.I.P.

Achiever memories

2020 DM Finals

 

Gleaning meaning from the gleaming autumn light

 "That final upflare of stubborn and dying summer upon which autumn, the dawning of halfdeath, had come unawares" 

- Faulkner, Light in August

Breathe through your eyelids and take it all in. Those melancholic moods triggered by an ever-paling midday sunlight struggling to shine through gathering grey clouds as thin and wispy as the yellowing leaves of birch trees auguring another halfdeath, another decline. 

A reminder of what the fall used to feel like back home, full of brisk bright crispy air ripe for running with the ball, back to school, new classes, new friends, new teachers to tease, new tunes to play on a tape deck in need of repair, sleeping in on weekends, free from the summer job, dwelling on getting that girlfriend, getting laid, breaking free while still broke, learning to toke, dance, and party. Having fun. 

Forget about baseball. The dog days of August long gone, college football's pageantry and the patriotic pull of the NFL now take precedence on weekends. 

You tried to fight it once, fight the oncoming fall. Clutching on to the summer pastime long past its prime, your oldest friend going along with your hardball glee agreeing to play catch in the park downtown after sharing in some shrooms. Having a catch in the waning daylight, menacing clouds started to swirl in the distance and along comes a father and son to play with the pigskin on your grounds, on their terms; it is their season. You sense this. Yet, you resist the transition from baseball's gentle summer ease to the tough and rough rituals of a toxic masculinity, refusing to give ground to the brutish game and its aggressive acolytes. Flinging flyballs to my friend, chasing down the return throw and flicking the glove out at the last second to feel it plummet right into the pocket. A playful grace, effortless; short sprints and soft hands...long, bounding strides belie a stylish elegance and perfect timing. Side-arm throws. Grounders. Backhand stabs. The shoestring catch. Shagging flies with a crow's hop thrown in for good measure. 

We're staying right here and we're playing baseball. The father and son and football encroach further upon our sacred ground. Menacing looks are exchanged.

The ominous clouds overhead portended confrontation, conflict, disaster. 

But then the magic of the mushrooms sends us peacefully on our way, to a Jamaican jerk party, where we bestowed an entire case of Hercules IPA upon the party guests, much to their delight.

Random, Remarkable Stats: more SB than SO in a single season

Only 74 times in history!

*since 1947 (minimum 502 PA)

1949: Jackie Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers)

PA: 704

SB: 37

SO: 27

 

1951: Nellie Fox (NYY)

PA: 706

SB: 16

SO: 12

1970: Matty Alou (PIT)

PA: 718

SB: 19

SO: 18

1984: Tony Gwynn (SD)

PA: 675

SB: 33

SO: 23

 

1986: Tony Gwynn (SD)

PA: 701

SB: 37

SO: 35

1987: Tony Gwynn (SD)

PA: 680

SB: 56

SO: 35

1989: Tony Gwynn (SD)

PA: 679

SB: 40

SO: 30

1995: Tony Gwynn (SD)

PA: 577

SB: 17

SO: 15

1980: Rickey Henderson (OAK)

PA: 722

SB: 100

SO: 54

1982: Rickey Henderson (OAK)

PA: 656

SB: 130

SO: 94

1983: Rickey Henderson (OAK)

PA: 622

SB: 108

SO: 80

 

1985: Rickey Henderson (NYY)

PA: 654

SB: 80

SO: 65

 

1986: Rickey Henderson (NYY)

PA: 608

SB: 87

SO: 81

1988: Rickey Henderson (NYY)

PA: 647

SB: 93

SO: 54

1989: Rickey Henderson (NYY/OAK)

PA: 674

SB: 77

SO: 68

1990: Rickey Henderson (OAK)

PA: 594

SB: 65

SO: 60

1974: Lou Brock (STL)

PA: 702

SB: 118

SO: 88

1986: Vince Coleman (STL)

PA: 670

SB: 107

SO: 98

1960: Maury Wills (LAD)

PA: 559

SB: 50

SO: 47

1962: Maury Wills (LAD)

PA: 759

SB: 104

SO: 57

1965: Maury Wills (LAD)

PA: 711

SB: 94

SO: 64

1983: Tim Raines (MTL)

PA: 720

SB: 90

SO: 70

1984: Tim Raines (MTL)

PA: 718

SB: 75

SO: 69

1985: Tim Raines (MTL)

PA: 665

SB: 70

SO: 60

1986: Tim Raines (MTL)

PA: 664

SB: 70

SO: 60

1990: Tim Raines (MTL)

PA: 538

SB: 49

SO: 43

1980: Dave Collins (CIN)

PA: 613

SB: 79

SO: 68

1983: Rudy Law (CHW)

PA: 551

SB: 77

SO: 36

1992: Kenny Lofton (CLE)

PA: 651

SB: 66

SO: 54

1994: Kenny Lofton (CLE)

PA: 523

SB: 60

SO: 56

1995: Kenny Lofton (CLE)

PA: 529

SB: 54

SO: 49

1999: Tony Womack (ARI)

PA: 684

SB: 72

SO: 68

1975: Mickey Rivers (CAL)

PA: 672

SB: 70

SO: 42

1983: Alan Wiggins (SD)

PA: 585

SB: 66

SO: 43

1984: Alan Wiggins (SD)

PA: 692

SB: 70

SO: 57

2001: Juan Pierre (COL)

PA: 683 

SB: 46

SO: 29

2003: Juan Pierre (FLA)

PA: 747

SB: 65

SO: 35

 

2004: Juan Pierre (FLA)

PA: 748

SB: 45

SO: 35

2005: Juan Pierre (FLA)

PA: 719

SB: 57

SO: 45

2006: Juan Pierre (CHC)

PA: 750

SB: 58

SO: 38

 

2007: Juan Pierre (LAD)

PA: 729

SB: 64

SO: 37

 

2010: Juan Pierre (CHW)

PA: 734

SB: 68

SO: 47

1972: Joe Morgan (CIN)

PA: 680

SB: 58

SO: 44

1973: Joe Morgan (CIN)

PA: 698

SB: 67

SO: 61

 

1975: Joe Morgan (CIN)

PA: 639

SB: 67

SO: 52

1976: Joe Morgain (CIN)

PA: 599

SB: 60

SO: 41

1976: César Cedeño (HOU)

PA: 635

SB: 58

SO: 51

1977: César Cedeño (HOU)

PA: 598

SB: 61

SO: 50

1980: Miguel Diloné (CLE)

PA: 566

SB: 61

SO: 45

1987: Harold Reynolds (SEA)

PA: 584

SB: 60

SO: 34

1959: Luis Aparicio (CHW)

1960: Luis Aparicio (CHW)

1961: Luis Aparicio (CHW)

1963: Luis Aparicio (BAL)

1964: Luis Aparicio (BAL)

1980: Ozzie Smith (SD)

1985: Ozzie Smith (STL)

1986: Ozzie Smith (STL)

1987: Ozzie Smith (STL)

1988: Ozzie Smith (STL)

1992: Ozzie Smith (STL)

1988: Barry Larkin (CIN)

1995: Barry Larkin (CIN)

1992: Lance Johnson (CHW)

1993: Lance Johnson (CHW)

1995: Lance Johnson (CHW)

1996: Lance Johnson (NYM)

2014: Jose Altuve (HOU)

2001: Ichiro Suzuki (SEA)

1993: Luis Polonia (CAL)

1985: Brett Butler (CLE)

1982: Damaso Garcia (TOR)

1996: Eric Young Sr. (COL)

Random, Remarkable Stats: Dave Cash, 1976

 Dave Cash - 2B

                                                                            1969-1980

 PIT/PHI/MTL/SD

 

1976  Phillies

PA: 727

SO: 13

3B: 12

SB: 10

CS: 12

2B: 14

GIDP: 16

Henry "Hammerin' Hank" Aaron

 

R.I.P.

R.I.P. in 2020

Tony Fernandez - SS

Damaso Garcia - 2B

Lou Brock - CF

Bob Gibson - P

Tom Seaver - P

Don Larsen - P

Al Kaline - RF

Angel Echevarria - OF

Oscar Brown - OF

Biff Porcoroba - C

Dick Allen - 1B/3B/OF

Fondest Baseball Memory of 2019...

 After Howie Kendrick 

Crushed a game-winning GRAND SLAM

(deadcenterfield!)

against the dreaded Dodgers,

in L.A.

in extra innings

in Game 5

sending the Nats to the promised land!

!!the hollywood showboats'll

have to stay home!!

and Howie gets hounded

by mic'd up suits

asking questions contrived

by tv

by monoform

buy monoform

but wait!

Howie has something real to say, 

not to sell,

so go to Hell

if you're not gonna listen.

And I'm gonna paraphrase:

Baseball, like life,

is a game of failure.

And you gotta learn from failing

Effort and error --

Just look at tonight.

 

Colorado Mojo from 2018

Let us listen to the purple row and not forget the magical season of 2018 for Colorado's professional baseball team...

Top 20 Rockies Games of 2018

Criminally Undervalued Free-Agent Roster for 2019

In an effort to defy the de-humanizing trends of the mighty mlb empire -- in this case the owners siphoning all the excitement and anticipation out of a fast-approaching Spring Training by colluding to keep veteran wizards unemployed -- I'm obliged to construct a roster of remaining free-agents entering the 2019 season.

If some of us place an aesthetic appreciation of the beautiful game of baseball (as a player, fan, dreamer, etc.) and, in particular, an aesthetic appreciation of all those highly skilled mlb players who make it look so easy as the primary source of our enjoyment (even above winning), such an opinion would no doubt be lambasted by the fiscally anal mob of trolls on the web just as much as the number-crunching poindexters pontificating the virtues of wOBA on their insular little forums.

So be it.

Before I introduce the new team, conceived as an expansion team formed in protest against the collusion of mlb owners, based in .... say .... Montreal (and still going by the name of Expos), let me be frank in addressing the key to my team's success: stylized defense, unorthodox lineups, intelligent hitting approach, and the inherently unquantifiable qualities of spirit, style, and aggressiveness hiding therein.


25-man roster

C: Martin Maldonado (R)
1B: Hanley Ramirez (R)
2B: Brandon Phillips (R)
3B: Yangervis Solarte (S)
SS: Jose Iglesias (R)
LF: Marwin Gonzalez (S)
CF: Adam Jones (R)
RF: Carlos Gonzalez (L)
DH: Evan Gattis (R)

UTIL: Josh Harrison (R)

Bench:
OF - Cameron Maybin (R)
OF - Gerardo Parra (L)
IF - Danny Valencia (R)

Starting Rotation:
1. Gio Gonzalez (LHP)
2. Bartolo Colon (RHP)
3. Ervin Santana (RHP)
4. Brett Anderson (LHP)
5. Edwin Jackson (RHP)
6. Doug Fister (RHP)

Long relief:
1. Jorge De La Rosa (LHP)
2. Jake Diekman (LHP)

Late relief / Closers:
1. AJ Ramos (RHP)
2. Drew Storen (RHP)
3. Santiago Casilla (RHP)
4. Sergio Romo (RHP)


BATTING ORDER:

1. Gonzalez, Marwin - LF
2. Gonzalez, Carlos - RF
3. Hanley Ramirez - 1B
4. Gattis, Evan - DH
5. Solarte, Yangervis - 3B
6. Jones, Adam - CF
7. Phillips, Brandon - 2B
8. Maldonado, Martin - C
9. Iglesias, Jose - SS


Bring it on.

The Old Man and the Seed

Inverting Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea and turning it into a baseball allegory

Baseball already plays a prominent role in the book:

• Santiago admires and idolizes Joe DiMaggio
• Manolin, the boy, shows a similar reverence for Jolten' Joe and the Jankees
• Santiago teaches Manolin about "the baseball" just as he teaches him about fishing
• Manolin's eagerness to learn the art of fishing from the old man could be transposed as an eagerness to learn the art of playing baseball...

The Seed --

• sunflower seeds
• top seed / bottom seed
• the ball when hit hard and fast, with little or no arc (on the ground, line drive)
• the ball when pitched at high velocity
• the ball when thrown across the diamond
• sowing the seed of "a love for baseball" in the mind of the youth
• symbol of youth itself, a seed compared to the old hickory

The technical language surrounding fishing, boating, sailing, etc. will instead describe baseball equipment, tactics, fielding/hitting/throwing techniques, etc.

The Icarus/Daedalus archetype could also still apply, perhaps in the form of a hitter going the distance to break DiMaggio's hit streak record of 56 consecutive games and destroying himself (or his record) in the process.

Nature as presented in the typically modern/masculine/christian-european way, in the form of Man imposing his will upon the sea (discussed as being both feminine la Mar and masculine el Mar) and the battle of Man vs. Nature (with the multitudinous force of Nature getting the best of the heroic masculine individual) is now deconstructed and re-presented as human nature (i.e. errors) and the nature of the game (i.e. failure) and overcoming the odds through solidarity, cooperation, teamwork, ingenuity, imagination, experimentation, and guile.

Not pace of play, but tv presentation is the big problem with pro baseball losing viewers

Why oh why do they cry about time...? These old crusty whitemen wielding some awful spell over the graceful game of baseball...

They speak of how slow our pastime seems to new consumers. These young viewers catching an inning or two on their sleek screened phones. Very important segment of the market.

Don't forget the middle-aged men and old women at home watching the game as it withers away inside the idiot box.

They say they think baseball is boring. But does anyone care to critique the monoform? Or the lousy way games are broadcast on lousy telecasts? The monoform of batter vs. pitcher in one image, with millions of cut-aways to the pitcher wiping sweat from his brow, the batter undoing and redoing his batting gloves, repeat: it is a sad spectacle indeed.

In these days of defensive shifts and web gems, we should be getting more than just an occasional glimpse of the entire fielding corps; once every at bat and probably every pitch would be appropriate.

It's not about the inherently glacial pace of play. It's about grabbing audience attention in some silly way. Alter their expectations, keep them engaged, play with memory -- both collective/shared and personal).

So, you wanna grab people's attention? Ditch the monoform, first of all.

Just show us a split screen, or an alternative shot in a small box laid over the primary image, or a double-imposed image where the foreground image (pitcher vs. batter) is bigger, yet softer; and the brighter image (the entire defense spread out over the infield and outfield) is in the background, always moving ever-so-slightly.


So, mlb, please discontinue insulting viewer intelligence.

R.I.P. Oscar Gamble

A day of rest to depress

Today is an eerie precursor to that dreadful, sinking feeling we all get once the Fall Classic concludes and we are faced with only one cold fact: no more baseball.

Yesterday, all thirty teams played their final regular season game of the year at roughly the same minute -- ostensibly to prevent gamblers from persuading players to perform dishonestly or something like that -- which enabled me to watch four games simultaneously on a single computer screen, while tracking my fantasy team unexpectedly capture the championship trophy for the second time in three years. We even had baseball practice in the cold wetness of Copenhagen's grass fields. It was a good day.

But today it pissed down all day and killed my poor cannabis plants. It was too windy and wet to bother trying to save them -- covering them up would only hasten their demise, as the mold grows too fast to fight here at sea-level -- so I watched that new Grateful Dead documentary instead: Long Strange Trip.

And therein lies the concept linking both the interminable quality of a baseball season and the bizarre fascination with fantasy baseball (a hallucination) which often seems more real than the "on-field product" sold and distributed by mlb (and dutifully performed by its christian-player-products).

A bunch of other horrible stuff is going on in the world at the moment to add to today's depression: mass shootings, mass ethnic deportations, a president continuing to exacerbate institutionalized racism, climate catastrophes caused by humans who reject their own involvement, and so on.

Baseball is a distraction from all that. As is the Grateful Dead. They both share many qualities, the Dead and baseball, such as a wistful longing for simpler lifestyles based on play and fun, the sense of a community supporting a group both adored and akin to themselves (I could play second base for the A's! Jerry seems like a kindred spirit!), the promise of an alternative reality of belonging, and that strange amalgamation of the sacred and profane, of becoming a religion, but one that has a healthy sense of humor.

The road to the fantasy baseball trophy is also a long strange trip. You gotta be dedicated and zealous and shrewd or you might end up a half-game back of the standings and miss out on the playoffs; all because you had to attend some damn wedding or birthday or funeral and forgot to set your lineup. Persistence pays off, just like the Grateful Dead will tell ya.

But today is shomer-fucking-shabbas. A day of rest. And in that Grateful Dead documentary, Jerry Garcia's daughter laments about her father: "I just wish he would've fucking rested"

Rest up, dear readers: the Rockies play post-season baseball tomorrow night!

Super Moon, Open Mind

                       Midnight: Largest Supermoon Since 1948

Leonard Cohen died this morning.

Last month he said “I’m ready to die.”

Today the sun shined for a change.

Blue across the sky,

Clouds low and wispy.

The Cleveland ballclub lost to the Cubs

last week in that great Game 7 everyone

suddenly

forgot all about.

The Cleveland ballclub last won it all in 1948.

But this year the city hosted

the Republican

National

Convention.

The Cleveland ballclub lost to the Cubs,

who last won it all 108 years ago.

Old Judge Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan

in that year’s presidential election.

Nighttime frosty grass crusts glittering

under a few constellations

following a glowing supermoon.

Waxing and elliptical, tilting down to the right,

The moon hatched liked an enormous egg.

Daybreak: Remembering the Deep Moonquakes of Late 2016

And the moon hatched like an enormous egg

All along we thought only about its surface. But!

‘Twas to be the center of her – the yoke – ya see!

The moonshell cracked and cracked again.

We call them lobate sharps.

You could see all these lines and fissures from here on Earth.

And the moon hatched like an enormous egg.

The moonshell broke in two,

then into three

fragments all falling away at an amusingly

extreme…..

……slo…wwwwwww

mmmmmmo’hhhhhhhhhh……

…………..pace…….

(gulp)…..

………….“O! ……….. Nooooo……oooooo…..oooooo…..oooooo…..oooooo…..ooooooo”

The moon hatched like an enormous egg.

And the moonshell fell apart.

A sudden palliative cure for our planet’s auto-immunity disorder  – a.k.a. humans – arrived in the form of an inexplicable force of energy enveloping the Earth;

initiating from what used to be called:

“the core of the Moon”

The energy evaporated into the skies, and eventually soaked into their skin and sank into their water supplies.

                  And the humans opened their minds

Yessir's a Baseball Fantasy

A crazy day in baseball...

1

Prince Fielder, only 32 years old, will no longer play baseball due to a life-threatening risk of severing his spinal cord after successive neck surgeries...

Interesting statistical note: Cecil and Prince, father and son, both end up with 319 career homers.

2

Ichiro passes Clemente with hit 3001...

3

And King Felix toes the slab against Los Tigres in a matchup with enormous fantasy implications in that lovable on-line league known as The Danish Spliffs and Denver Stiffs ...

 

4 

But it's the Pads vs. Pirates game I've got on the machine now. And some disturbingly intrusive camera surveillance on the part of the SD broadcast: Solarte was benched for dogging it up the line on a sure pop-out, or so the commentators encourage us to speculate, and the dugout camera persists in pointing its gaze upon the player from behind, over his shoulder, as if eavesdropping on his conversations with coaches and teammates. He does look a bit sheepish and bewildered, like any kid busted for something lame, so...are we meant to laugh or cry upon hearing old Dick Enberg pronounce, "it doesn't matter if you're the star or not, you gotta show some punishment and make a point...You hear about a young guy being the son of a military man and automatically say: 'Oh that's why'...'yes sir!'... and, 'oh that's why he seems to carry himself a little differently', and so on." 

 

I'm sure the players union will come to regret having ever even allowed cameramen in the dugout in the first place, there to ostensibly advertise the player's corporate brand, but also to better "promote" each player who earns attention by giving the audience a sneak peek into all the fun and fury and foibles of dugout life as a baseball man. The more screen time a player gets, the more familiar he seems to the viewers, the greater his popularity becomes, which he may argue gives him greater value to the franchise or to the sport in general. All this attention most certainly doesn't hurt the player. Or...? That is, until the camera's critical eye exposes its negative bias by lingering through uncomfortably long looks into the very souls of these young men, ultimately inverting the innocuous image of an everyday athlete into an exposé on the essence of what it means to be a man. In this case, it means a military man who busts his ass up the line on every infield pop-out, no matter how trivial, even on a last-place team in mid-August, because he is the kind of man who says, "yes sir."

Hilariously, old Dick Enberg later runs on about his disdain for the lack of honesty (integritty?) in public American pleasantries, like, "how we all go around asking each other how we're doing --  'Oh, I'm fine thank you' -- when in fact I'm doing awful. I'm cranky."

And suddenly the stereotypes converge: the cranky oldwhiteguy broadcaster bitching about life and the dejected latino ballplayer who lollygagged his way up the line are one and the same in having exposed similar shades of their vulnerable, human frailties and failures in front of thousands of strangers who probably couldn't care less.

Harold Reynolds: the Antidote to Your Baseball Announcer Pains

Bucking the trends on social media and other baseball blogs, I'd like to introduce a genuine defense of baseball broadcaster Harold Reynolds. Let's cut to the chase and you can read my diatribe afterwards.

The Harold Reynolds' Quirkycool Perspective of the Day:

Oct.28, 2015

World Series -- Game 2

NY Mets @ KC Royals

Commentator Scorebook:

(Fox telecast)

Joe Buck (JB)

Harold Reynolds (HR)

Tom Verducci (TV)

Top 1st, two outs

Cueto pitching to D. Murphy

TV: Yeah, those orchestrations, the quick delivery, the shimmy shakes, the delays... They shouldn't bother the Mets lineup that much. Really, Lucas Duda is the only one with a timing mechanism -- the high leg kick. Most of these Mets hitters get set very early (Ed: not true of Granderson, who has that hitch in his giddy-up). 

JB: I think sometimes it bothers Cueto more than it does the hitter (Ed: speculative drivel)

HR: You know, I just think he's very unique. For a guy to be able to throw strikes and do that? You just don't see it. I love the creativity. I think our game can be boring at times... So I love seeing this. But I think he's very... To throw strikes: I don't know how he's able to do it. Let's just put it that way. I think it's pretty fascinating. (Ed: goddamn right!)

JB: His teammate Edinson Volquez tried it; couldn't do it (Ed: what the fuck is he referring to exactly? I don't recall Volquez ever doing a shimmy on the mound. Enough with the negative criticism of things you neither enjoy, nor appreciate, Joe!!)

*

Daniel Murphy, on the very next pitch, proceeds to strike out looking at a tailing two-seam fastball from Cueto, in the upper part of the zone, drawing back to the inside corner of th plate...on the black! Murphy, in 2015, was the most difficult player to strike out in the majors. There's no mention of this astounding and quite interesting fact, nor of Cueto's achieving the impossible by a) not allowing Murphy to homer b) striking him out while he's on fire c) catching him looking at a pitch that ended up in the strike zone, to end the first inning of Game 2, a must-win for the Mets, which set the tone early: not tonight, bitches.

*

As I wrote my brother-in-law, "not sure how can you so quickly cave into the Harold Reynolds criticism? This is only his first or second year in the booth; The insufferable Buck and MacCarver were given thirty years to destroy all of baseball's best moments, now preserved in digital archives for eternity. Cultural criminals! Back to Reynolds: the guy has a great voice, he's fantastic on the mlb network, eloquently describing the subtler movements of the game. Yeah, ok, he doesn't know shit about geopolitics, some observations come off as way too obvious (though there seems to be a more subtle sublayer to a lot of these cliches), and has a tough time shutting up. BUT, the dude's enthusiasm is contagious and so are many of his insights. Good sense of humor. Bold enough to take over the Fox booth and bust it open from the inside! Joyfully opinionated about baseball minutae (and almost always right, according to my commentator scorebook). And was one helluva replacement player, to boot (a teammate of Uncle Vic!). If only there were more announcers like him (actually, A-Rod has been surprisingly succint and articulate, if only a bit too robotic in his emotional detachment)"

*

In an older post on this blog, I'd danced somewhat psychedelically through hypothetical conversations with a similarly resented commentator, Joe Morgan. While the racist overtones of major league baseball are obvious to any of us with heightened sensitivities to conscious and subconscious forms of such institutional racism, it's more difficult to assert a collective racist consciousness on behalf of baseball fans (outside of St. Louis, at least). But the aftertaste feels undeniable here: popular sentiments about players, and in this case broadcasters, dominated as they are by white opinions, are often times tinged with a familiar-tasting poison that just so happens to be mixed in with other, more innocuous flavors. Anyone who knows me knows I'm highly susceptible to even the slightest trace of poison.