the BASEBALL thread...

[4t2]

(ducks)

Yes, baseball fans can be idiots, and players worse, and don't get me started on MLB top brass.  And hockey and soccer and other sports are more fun to play and watch.  Yes I know all that.

But.

I love baseball.  And not in an apple-pie American homely sunny summer evening Little League way.  I mean the noisy, chaotic spectacle of the major leagues.

This has been one hell of a week for the beloved Blue Jays.  (And yes I know they're almost all American.  Shuddup at the back).  A messy fuss with the now-departed Hillenbrand (for non-followers, a dispute between player and management and a major case of he said no he said ended in the player going to San Francisco and still getting multiple millions in salary).  A lot of games in up and down weather in the (cough) Skydome.

Most spectacularly, today, a perfect third inning which saw THREE home runs and a total of EIGHT runs - that's every player of the batting roster bar one coming home.  Sending the Yankees back down south at the wrong end of a 13-5 defeat.  And great audiences too - over 50,000 at the (OK fine) 'Rogers Centre' yesterday, about two-thirds of whom I suspect were local.  They were treated to the sight of poor Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, one of the most expensive sportspersons on the planet ('A-Rod', but increasingly 'B-Rod' or 'Z-Rod'...) striking out four out of four appearances at bat.  And oh how he heard all about it

This brings the state of play in the AL to a very interesting position - Trannuh are very realistically in with a shot of winning the division and finally getting back into the playoffs.  

So this is the baseball thread.  Grab your peanuts and crackerjack.  Let's play ball!

[skdadl]

4t2, I am ... speechless. (Not for long, o' course.)

You're following all this from Ireland? How are you doing that?  :shock:

As you might recall, I love baseball too and used to be a huge Jays fan -- well, just a huge AL fan. At one point I knew all the players and listened to almost every game on the radio every summer -- ah, those lovely nights, drifting off to the sounds of Tom and Jerry on the radio, calling a game on the west coast ...  

I should try to reimmerse. I've just felt so alienated since the strike, but I should try.

[Caissa]

As much as I loved the beating the Blue Jays put on the Yankess this weekend (3 out of 4), I derived more pleasure from watching Canada capture the World Lacrosse Championship from the US for the first time in 28 years.

[Alix]

This was such a great weekend to watch the Blue Jays! I've been following more avidly this year than I have in a long time.

Of course, this would be the year that I have a summer job that takes up many of my evenings. I end up having to get recaps from my husband or father.

[k'in]

I guess this falls into the "what took them so long" department...

Anyhow, I've been out of the baseball loop for several years but lately, the surprising play of the Tigers is once again piquing my interest.

I spun into a Yankees broadcast last night and lo and behold, a woman is doing colour commentary.

Her name is Suzyn Waldman:

Award winning journalist, Suzyn Waldman joins John Sterling in the radio booth as the Yankees' color commentator on WCBS-AM radio in 2005, becoming the first woman to hold a full-time position as a Major League broadcaster. Waldman has spent the greater part of two decades overcoming all the obstacles that go along with being a female sports broadcaster, and has risen to the top of her profession.

full story at http://tinyurl.com/epgzq

I think she's great...another pioneer...too bad it took this long...

[John_D]

I spun into a Yankees broadcast last night and lo and behold, a woman is doing colour commentary.

Her name is Suzyn Waldman:

Award winning journalist, Suzyn Waldman joins John Sterling in the radio booth as the Yankees' color commentator on WCBS-AM radio in 2005, becoming the first woman to hold a full-time position as a Major League broadcaster. Waldman has spent the greater part of two decades overcoming all the obstacles that go along with being a female sports broadcaster, and has risen to the top of her profession.

full story at http://tinyurl.com/epgzq

I think she's great...another pioneer...too bad it took this long...

I've never heard her, but I've heard plenty of other women do great work in other areas of sports journalism. This is definitely a "why did it take so long?' thing, especially given thirty teams, all needing radio and TV broadcasters.

[k'in]

John_D wrote:

I've never heard her, but I've heard plenty of other women do great work in other areas of sports journalism. This is definitely a "why did it take so long?' thing, especially given thirty teams, all needing radio and TV broadcasters.

I was specifically taken with the fact that she is actually in the broadcast booth  John Sterling, for the #1 franchise (business wise) in baseball.

As long as I can remember, there have been women sportscasters & sideline reporters.  Although some have the "beauty queen" background (Phyllis George, former Miss America comes to mind), most of them do a great job whether judged critically or commercially (The "Fabulous Sports Babe" had a good run at the #1 slot for daily syndicated sports talk).  In general though I tend to put sportscasters in the "info-tainment" slot. Most of what they do is scripted.

Doing play by play & colour commentary on radio requires serious talent & the ability to paint a picture with words in real time. Add to that that the good ones seem to be entrenched for decades (Ernie Harwell, Bob Prince, Vin Scully, Harry Carey...heck, it seems like Jerry Howarth has been on the air forever).

I think I'm just so used to hearing two men doing radio baseball broadcasts for as long as I can remember it was so great to hear a woman's voice (which immediately make me think-hey!  why is this just happening now?)

[Tommy Shanks]

Yeah, even I must admit to tuning into Yankees (on WGR out of Buffalo) games because it is such a change for the better. Now its more like listening in to a conversation between real people and not just a broadcast.

That said, its not hard to listen to Yank games.

But baseball to me, while always being thought of as the "Summer Game" has always been much more interesting once September rolls around, and the air gets crisp and the shadows on the field get longer.

Let's face it, there are not many things more exciting then a good baseball playoff game. I can go all year without watching a game; October comes and I'm glued to the set.

And of course, there is so much more to baseball, (the great writing, the experience of being at a game, the food, the pace) them just the game.

[fern hill]

I used to like watching baseball. Still do like non-ML baseball. The incredible salaries put me off, though. I think it was in the Ken Burns' series that I heard that in the 40s and 50s, maybe into the 60s, star baseball players made about 7 times what a skilled working man would make. (Oddly, that's the same factor I heard for CEOs and their workers back in the day.) That seems so much more human-scale to me. A fan could say, 'Well, sure a star is worth seven times what I make.'

I overheard two guys discussing some recent huge salary announcement for a pitcher. Baseball fans love stats and they were working out how much that translated into per pitch. I think I've repressed the actual figure, but $10,000 sticks in my head.

[John_D]

I've never really understood why big salaries put people off pro sports to the extent that they do. With a couple of exceptions you never hear people talk about swearing off other forms of entertainment because of the pay of actors, which is pretty comparable in A list movies or network television. You certainly don't hear about it as much. Why is it more of a problem for a star shortstop to make ten million a year than it is for an actor to make ten million a year for a TV series or for one movie?

[fern hill]

Hmm. It would be interesting to know how much movie stars of the 50s made relative to regular folk, as opposed to now. But you're right, John_D. Maybe it's because so many more people play sports (rather than act, say) and maybe they were pretty good, just not quite good enough. You know, 'I coulda been a contenda'. Straight envy.

[shaolin]

With a couple of exceptions you never hear people talk about swearing off other forms of entertainment because of the pay of actors, which is pretty comparable in A list movies or network television.

For what it's worth, movie star salaries sicken me.  And the money put into making the movies...  I refuse to go to a mainstream movie theatre and I rarely rent movies - but I sure love piracy!

[Boom Boom]

There are movie stars, directors, and producers who are activists in social justice arenas, and give of their time, talent, and treasure.

[shaolin]

Yup, but they still make too much.  

[John_D]

I still don't understand "They make too much." If your boss made a serious offer to you of, say, five million dollars a year, would you turn it down? (Assuming you knew the company could afford it, which most if not all major pro sports franchises, movie studios, and TV production companies can.) How many people would honestly say, in that situation "No, I'm not worth that much, even though my peers in this industry all make that. Please pay me only a few times more than the wage of an average worker."