Borderline Fantastic Sports

In this week’s Tip of the Cap/Wag of the Finger on The Colbert Report he wagged his finger at a British reporter who claimed that baseball originated in Britain after finding the term used in a Jane Austen novel. Stephen explains why this is not possible and explains what Jane Austen’s version of baseball would be like.

The baseball part starts at 1:42, but the rest of it is great as well.

I didn’t think it would ever happen. I definitely didn’t think the Phillies would do it first. After the rain and the suspended game I thought the curse was going to continue until we tore down all the skyscrapers. Now one of my teams has won a championship and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with myself.

Last night looked like the Phillies team that I watched all year. The previous World Series games didn’t have that feel. I was nervous about our prospects going into last night. As the day went on I got more and more excited and talked myself into thinking we were absolutely going to win. After Jenkins scored that 1st run I knew it wasn’t going to be enough but I knew we could score off anyone last night. Madson quickly gave up the HR to Baldelli. Still, I had hope. I knew we could get another run. Burrell came up huge. If it was any warmer that ball would have gone out and everyone would have gone even more insane. I couldn’t have picked two better guys than Jenkins and Burrell to hit those doubles. Jenkins didn’t perform how he wanted all year and was disappointed he didn’t get more playing time. He was the ultimate team player in the playoffs. He was the first guy to congratulate a guy returning to the dugout. As for Burrell, after all the ups and downs of his career I’ve been a huge fan of his since the stretch run last year. That is when you could see something click. Not always in his on field performance, which continued to be hot and cold. It was in the way he handled himself. You could tell he cared and he wanted to win for himself and the fans. Besides Jamie Moyer, I don’t think anyone was more emotional than Burrell after the win. Then there is Lidge … How do these big games end in strikeouts? Lidge had flirted with disaster on occasion but you knew he wasn’t going to let us down last night. I don’t know how you keep your cool in that situation.

I was upset along with everyone else about how baseball handled the rain on Monday. First I was angry at the rain. I wanted the win to come on my birthday. Technically it may be recorded as a win on Monday. The fans showed up for the completion of the game, the people that were there more than made up for the 1,000 or so that didn’t come back to see the end. After it got going, you really didn’t noticed that the first 6 innings had been played 2 days before. It was also perfect for the fans everywhere. The game ended before 10. The 2 and a half hour post game show ended at 12:30am.

Will this give me the thirst for more or will I not be as stressed by every move the Phillies make? I won’t know the answer to that until next year. My teams have never won anything. I think next year I’ll still be yelling at Howard for striking out or a dumb move by Manual. Then I’ll remember last night and today. This high will eventually wear off if it takes another 28 years. Hopefully some of the other teams can pick up the slack.

After the game Cholly was asked about his mom being gone and so many people had stories about a parent or family member passing away in the past few years and how they wished they were here to see this win. Sunday marked 10 years since my grandfather died. I remember the date because it was the day before my 16th birthday. You can either become a fan of Philly sports or you are born with a gene that makes you a fan, no matter what happens, no matter how terrible things get. I got that gene from my grandfather. Pop Pop would have been so happy that the bums finally won the World Series again.

Now it’s time to start shopping for championship gear. First on the list is the SI package. I’ve waited my entire life to order the SI Championship package. I need a hat and some shirts. I’ll need the DVDs of the games. A World Series Program. And about 50 other items.

I’ve been angry since last night about the disaster that was Game 5 and how baseball dropped the ball completely. Sadly, no one was surprised. After thinking through it all, I think there is one question that needs to be addressed this offseason about the entire postseason …

What role should weather play?

Just like the regular season
If it’s not raining, start the game. If it starts raining and conditions get too bad, rain delay. If the game gets called, its official, and a team is leading, they win. It’s how things work for the other 2,430 regular season games. Everyone is familiar with it.

Sure that isn’t any way to end a World Series, but shouldn’t the rules be followed? It would not be ideal for the players or the fans. When the game is called, would the players run back on the field and jump around?

I would not have been at all shocked if the Phillies got through the 6th inning leading 2-1, the game was called, and the Phillies given the win and the World Series. It was why I was so angry at Rollins that he didn’t make a play on Upton’s groundball, which would have been a routine play for him in decent weather. Just look at how things turned out. There is no predicting what they are going to do. They make their decisions first then come up with their reasoning, rather than the logical way of thinking about the problem.

Now with the game tied, the suspended game is actually following the rule. However the conditions were not any worse in the Top of the 6th vs the Bottom of the 6th. So the Rays had the advantage of the pitcher and fielders being severely handicapped. The Phillies now will play their half of the 6th on a dry field instead of getting the same advantages the Rays had in the top of the inning.

Special Rules for the Postseason
The thought would be that the games should be played in the best weather possible. If the forecast shows terrible weather, the game should be canceled in advance. The players should be put in a position to perform at their best so the champion can be decided. You also cannot risk a team losing a starting pitcher in a called game. In the postseason, the series are only a maximum 5 or 7 games long. During the regular season you can put up with these situations because they will even themselves out throughout the year.

The weather reports showed that things were not looking good going into the game. Baseball could have made a few simple decisions that might have helped things. The start time could have been moved up. Given enough time, moving the game up to 7 would have been logical. The fans would be alright with that, given a few hours notice. The people watching at home would have loved it, getting to bed before midnight would be a possibility. At the very least the MLB should have told Fox that first pitch was going to be at 8pm. It would be a simple conversation, ‘Fox, we’ve seen you’re pregame show. You wonder why your ratings are so bad? People tune in, see 10 seconds of your pregame show and are disgusted by how terrible it is and change the channel. So let’s just start the game when your coverage begins.’ (I can’t stress enough how terrible the Fox Pregame show is.) On top of that, make the commercial breaks regular length, not these extended breaks which are so long that I forget who is coming to bat. That would have likely gotten the game 2 innings further, at least. Still not finished, but it would make much more sense to suspend a game when the teams are already moving through their bullpens rather than changing the complexion of a game by taking the starting pitchers out of a game before they have finished their work for the night.

Having indefinite rain delays was introduced to the public yesterday after the game was stopped by Selig. These would go against the written rule, that games should only be suspended in the event of a tie. This, of course, would be for the good of the game. Apparently this was discussed beforehand, only very few people were told. My issue with this is that if it was already discussed, why did the game continue as long as it did? I can see pushing through the horrendous weather for a little while to get to an official game. However, if it has already been decided that, no matter what, the game will be picked up wherever it stops on a night when the weather clears up, then there is no problem at all stopping at the hint of the weather effecting the game. When did that happen? On the missed fly ball by Rollins. That was in the Top of the 5th. Now to make it official they could have pushed through to the end of that half inning. Then picked up with the Bottom of the 5th tomorrow.

My only guess as to why the 6th inning started was that Selig was not confident in his indefinite rain delay plan. He was praying for a tie so that people wouldn’t get upset about him making up rules. This is why he is a terrible commissioner, he has no power because he doesn’t command any. He is in charge. If he would have laid out his thought process with confidence and clear explanation, the support would vastly outweigh the opposition.

This entire thing was handled terribly by everyone involved. To me, there is no comparison between this and the All-Star Game tie. I had no problem with a tie in the All-Star Game. It’s an event to honor the players and entertain the fans. Who cares who wins? Where Selig screwed up there was that he overreacted and created his own problem. Then he made up rules to fix his make believe problem which took a lot of the fun out of the All-Star Game and gave home field advantage in the World Series based on something meaningless. I still say that homefield should go to the league that wins more interleague games. Last night, Selig blew it both before the game (by not calling it) and during the game (by waiting too long, even though he already decided that the game would continue in a few days, even if one team was leading in an offical game). It’s long past time for him to step down.

Many find it hard to believe that in my sports world, Penn State does not come first, the Phillies do. And it’s not even all that close. I think people feel that way because 1) many of them are Penn Staters themselves, we don’t agree on other sports, especially if they came from Pittsburgh, 2) the baseball regular season is 162 games long, if there were only 12 baseball games each season, there would be a lot more excitement for each game, and 3) they didn’t know me before Penn State, even before high school, when nothing came before baseball.

I’ve been a Phillies fan much longer than Penn State. I’m pretty sure a Phillies game was the first professional sporting event I ever went to. I was probably around six, but I no idea for sure. There weren’t a lot of moments in those days to really remember to pinpoint a specific time. The first big, memorable event was when they made the World Series in 1993 and then we had our hearts broken. I already loved them, but heartbreak like that tends to attach you to a team even more. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true. Prior to 1993, the last postseason appearance was in 1983. I don’t remember much of that series, since I hadn’t yet turned 1. Our next playoff appearance would not come until 2007 and we would not get to another World Series until right now, in 2008.

Let’s take a minute to remember Kim Batiste. In Game 1 of the 1993 NLCS the Phillies were leading the Braves 3-2 going into the 9th. In came Mitch Williams to pitch and Kim Batiste replaced Dave Hollins for defensive purposes. What happened? Batiste made an error on a Mark Lemke ground ball, so much for the defensive replacement. Two batters later Otis Nixon, on what should have been the third out, knocked in the tying run on a ground ball.

All was not lost for Batiste. With the game still tied in the bottom of the 10th John Kruk doubled with one out and that brought Batiste to the plate. He hit one down the 3rd base line. There was no way fleet footed Terry Pendleton was going to stop that one. Kruck scored and the Phillies won Game 1.

I couldn’t find video of that game, but here is the box score and play-by-play. I took some of the finer details from that play-by-play, but I actually remembered most of it.

That game was 15 years ago. I remember watching in my room, which is odd cause I didn’t have a TV in my room. I think because the games were going to be on late my parents put a TV in my room thinking that at least I would be ‘in bed’ even if I wasn’t getting to sleep until late. There is a good lesson there, always let your kids stay up for those moments. They may not come again for quite a while. I don’t remember too much about the rest of that series. I remember when we clinched in Game 6, because I was there, only a few rows behind the Braves dugout. I really wish I had a camera back then. I can’t remember if I took a camera, even if I did, I was very short and probably wouldn’t have gotten very good shots.

Now the Phillies are back there. I can’t tell you how excited I am. I was tense the whole game when we clinched the division. I couldn’t sit still during the games against the Brewers, especially in the later innings. This is a family problem, my mom can’t even watch the games, she paces around too much. When we won that series on Sunday I did a little screaming and jumping up and down. I was very sick this weekend so my celebrating was limited.

I’m not making a prediction, I don’t have any clue what is going to happen. We could sweep or get swept. Or it could be a very painful 7 games. I’m going to watch every pitch and realize that it could be another 15 years before I see any of this again.

Crabtree - Harrell 08
Texas Tech has put together a campaign for their QB Graham Harrell and WR Michael Crabtree for award season. They are calling it Pass or Catch 2008. Crabtree’s video asks what happens if he doesn’t grab the ball out of the air? Harrell’s video asks how those balls that Crabtree catches get in the air? Right now I would vote for Harrell because of his superior slogan: ‘Footballs don’t magically fly. Its Science.’

I hope they do a few more rounds of this back and forth. The first two videos are very enjoyable. I haven’t seen anything like this before. There usually isn’t a lot of campaigning by the schools for awards. I’m pretty sure all the Joey Harrington hype was generated by Nike.

Fives: Lou Marson
On Sunday the Phillies sent out quite a lineup. Really, check the box score. I wasn’t sure if a few of those players were even on the roster. It didn’t matter much, the division was clinched on Saturday. During the game, 3rd-string catcher and Olympian Lou Marson hit his first major league home run. He received the traditional greeting in the dugout from his teammates for a first home run. The video captures the entire thing.

Yankees Batboy
I heard about a podcast called The Moth. It posts stories that are read on stage at one of their locations. One of the first ones I heard was by Matthew McGrough. He is a writer on Law & Order and wrote a book called ‘Batboy: Coming of Age with the New York Yankees.’ The story he tells on the podcast is about getting the job of batboy for the Yankees and his first day, opening day. There isn’t a page for the individual show, here is the mp3 audio. I really enjoyed it and recommend a listen to any baseball fan.

1. Mets
2. Braves
3. Marlins
4. Yankees
5. Rangers

My most hated teams usually are Division Rivals or Geographical Rivals. The Nationals don’t make the cut because they haven’t been good yet and when they were the Expos I just felt bad for them. The Pirates haven’t been good in so long, I’d like to see them win a few. They would have made this list in the early 90s when they were in the same division as the Phillies and winning the division. I think the league boundaries in baseball help the Orioles out here, I’ve always kind of liked them.

Only four teams really qualified for the hate designation. So I went through the list and the Rangers were the only team that stood out for that fifth spot. Not even sure why.