Monday Musings
*One word sums up why I'll never be able to embrace the College World Series: PING!
As much as I want to enjoy college baseball, I turn it on and every 30 seconds or so, hear, PING! Like a wicked Ray Bourque slapshot from the point drilled off the post. The sound is as wrong on the ears as the sight of soccer on old-style AstroTurf is on the eyes.
College baseball players are absolutely some of my favorite athletes. I don't know what it is about the college baseball system, but it produces some of the most interesting people in sports -- Vanderbilt's Jeremy Sowers, Notre Dame's Tom Thornton, and Harvard's Ben Crockett were three of my 10 favorite interviews ever. All lefty pitchers, maybe that has something to do with it.
Cape Cod League baseball in the summer is something every true baseball fan should experience at least once in their lives.
But they use wood bats in the Cape League. College World Series? PING!
Of course, give me a choice between that and the NBA Finals and I'll take PING! every time.
How disinterested am I in the NBA Finals? After work last night I stumbled on the replay on ESPN, at 2:15 AM Pacific, and instead ended up surfing the channels on DirecTV and watching about 15 minutes of a Woody Allen movie dubbed into Spanish on HBO Latino instead, before I dozed off.
*Went to Safeco Field Saturday night to watch the Mariners and Mets, and managed to snag a pair of front-row seats in the center field bleachers, which at seven bucks a pop might be the best bargain in MLB.
So there he was. Pedro. I wasn't sure how to respond. Wanted to cheer. Couldn't, not with "NY" on his cap. But didn't want to see him fail, either.
His off-the-field act wore thin by the time his tenure in Boston wound to its conclusion, but you'd have to be a moron not to appreciate the thrill ride Pedro took the city of Boston on for so many years.
It was the new ownership that made all the right moves to get the team over the top and win the World Series, sure. But it was Pedro that fearlessly went at the Yankees for so many years, win or lose, the public face that helped the Sox (and the fandom) get over their inferority complex to all things Yankee.
And he's still a spectacle to behold, every time he takes the hill. His charisma remains unmatched. Watching Pedro pitch is still appointment viewing, no matter what uniform he is wearing.
*Safeco Field, quite frankly, is wasted on Seattle-ites. Your standard Seattle sports fan heads out to an event and promptly falls into a coma, only to be occasionally woken up by the scoreboard, which orders them to cheer, whereupon they make a bit of noise and lapse back into slumber.
Saturday, Mets third baseman David Wright made a spectacular diving catch into the crowd, one of the best I've ever seen live, to zero response except from the Mets fans on hand. Please transport this magnificent park to St. Louis, or Chicago, or New York, or Boston, ASAP.
And then, in the eighth inning, they had some sort of contest where a person was picked out of the crowd and given a chance to request a song by the house DJ. The person chosen picked U Can't Touch This, By Hammer. The few alert people in attendance groaned. And as soon as the song started, the camera crew found the first African-American they could find and put him on the big screen. Real subtle.
And in case you think this is just me venting about the people in the Emerald City, I've gotten a few emails backing up my thoughts, including this from Patrick in Seattle, a transplanted Bills fan:
The piece on Seattle is spot on and I had a good laugh thinking back on coming to the same conclusions when I moved here in 1998. Make sure you stay connected to the outside world to keep perspective on the world of sports or Seattle will turn your brain to goo. If ever you locate a decent sports bar in the greater Seattle metropolitan area for watching professional football be sure to post it. I have been searching for a few years now and have yet to find one to my liking.
*Remember when Mariano Rivera had his meltdown in the Bronx and blew back-to-back saves against the Red Sox in April? Remember how Sox fans then gave him a standing ovation at the home opener? Hope you didn't think you were bidding Mo farewell. Rivera hasn't blown a save since then, has converted 16 straight chances, and has allowed one earned run in his past 23 appearances.
*Dave's World Enforcer Steve Sears wants to be on the record as saying that Tully Banta-Cain is going to make the Pro Bowl this season. He gives no plausible reason for this, and I think he should stick to snapping necks and crushing skulls, but he's duly noted.
*And here's the latest in the ongoing Dave's World discussion of baseball's Rule V draft, which is apparently a closet subject of interest to more people than anyone ever imagined. This is from former sportswriter Jason Wolf in Miami:
A lot of people forget that Johan Santana was a Rule V draftee in 1999. The Twins, who then were a couple years shy of their big breakthrough after a forgettable decade, kept him on the roster all of 2000. He was 2-3 with a 6.49 era and only 64 Ks in 86 innings.
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