Author: Jim Ellwanger

Black water, keep on rolling

I’m not sure if I’m going to have room on my iPod for any additional Johnny Cash songs beyond the handful I have (“Ring of Fire,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and a couple others). This purveyor of radio station jingles has a special this month: a “grab bag” of nine random CDs for $99, which was a deal I couldn’t pass up, since those CDs are normally priced at $39(!). It won’t be such a good deal if I end up with duplicates of CDs of theirs that I already own, but still…

Anyway, the comments should be functioning properly now, thanks to some remote troubleshooting by Sandy. We lost one comment in the process, unfortunately, so perhaps the person who posted said comment would like to repost her words of wisdom.

Original comments…

Dan: If you don’t want Cash overload, yet still want to appease Levi, just bring along the Waco Brothers’ fine cover of Big River — it’s on Cowboy in Flames, which you should own, anyway.

Go Mets!

-Dan

Jim: Yeah, there’s a lot of music I should own but don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to drink that much Pepsi between now and April 30th.

Petco from the get-go

While you slept, Levi, you missed the game I watched on TV tonight, in which David Wells had to run from first to third (but, alas, didn’t end up making it to home).

Oh, yeah, Jay Payton climbed the wall in the 5th to prevent Barry Bonds from going down in history as the first person to hit a home run in Petco Park, and the Padres came back to tie in the 9th and then came back to win in the 10th, both times on Sean Burroughs singles.

Also, in the top of the 1st, the Giants announcers were making fun of the scoreboard that was listing the count as 5 strikes and 3 balls. Then they realized it was the pitch count scoreboard. I would obviously have rather watched the game with the Padres announcers, and DirecTV usually goes with the home team version of the games in their Extra Innings package…but only when the home team is on a regional sports network that DirecTV carries. The Padres are on a cable-only network.

The real reason the blog moved

Suddenly, this blog has become a 2-way communication, much like an argument between a manager and an umpire. You, the readers, now have the ability to make comments on any or all of the posts. However, you do not have the ability to kick dirt on us.

Edited later to add: Hmm, something’s not quite right, since there’s been at least one comment added to this entry, but it still shows “0 comments.” But I swear, the comments are there.

Original comments…

maura: break up the tigers!

Check the math

A correction from today’s L.A. Times: “The box score from Monday’s Chicago White Sox-Kansas City Royal baseball game in Sports on Tuesday incorrectly gave the pitching line for Chicago pitcher Damaso Marte as 1 inning pitched, 0 hits, 3 runs, 3 earned runs, 3 walks, 0 strikeouts, 0 pitches, 17.00 earned-run average. The correct line is 0 innings pitched, 3 hits, 3 runs, 3 earned runs, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts, 17 pitches, earned-run average of infinity.”

We have a blog (in a new location)

Much like the Washington Senators moving to Minnesota, or perhaps Texas…we have now indeed moved to baseballrelated.com. We’re no longer beholden to any sponsors, so there are no longer ads taking up space at the top of the page.

The time stamps on the posts are now Central time, which seems to make slightly more sense.

And for those of you who know what this means and what to do about it: we have a site feed.

No wonder they won five Pulitzers

Levi, you may be pleased to note that Johnny Damon made the L.A. Times sports section’s daily “Quotebook” feature at the upper left of page D2, complete with photo. To quote the quote: “‘[General Manager] Theo [Epstein] told me I can keep it. I don’t think we want to compare ourselves to the Yankees. We’ll do everything the opposite of what they do.’ — Johnny Damon, Boston Red Sox outfielder, on his long hair and beard, which is not allowed by Yankee management”

In other news, the location of this blog will be moving soon. More details later.

Notes from Opening Day

  • The best thing I saw was the Royals getting two home runs in the bottom of the 9th to win.

  • The worst thing I saw was Joe Buck sucking up to George W. Bush in a pre-game on-field interview, although as it turns out, during the game, he’s a lot more tolerable when teamed up with Al Hrabosky than when teamed up with Tim McCarver.

  • The Padres’ road uniforms are sand-colored. Hey, the name of the city isn’t Sand Diego!

  • Wow, the Dodgers looked even more mediocre than I thought they’d be, if such a thing is possible. How can you get only 2 runs out of 15 hits?

  • The Steak ‘n’ Shake commercials during the Cardinals game were more mouth-watering than the Gold Star Chili and Frisch’s Big Boy commercials during the Reds game.

  • DirecTV had two MLB Extra Innings promos that they were playing during every “local” commercial break, one with Albert Pujols and one with Johnny Damon. The Pujols one was running a lot more often, I assume because the other one doesn’t reflect Damon’s current facial hair configuration.

  • Incessantly promoted by the various Fox Sports Nets: the Yankees vs. Red Sox on Fox, the broadcast network, on Friday night, April 16th. I do enjoy the concept of national baseball telecasts (although it helps when they don’t involve the Yankees), but this can only mean that certain executives at Fox have thrown up their hands when it comes to attempting to schedule programming on Friday night. This is what America gets for not immediately embracing “Wonderfalls.”

  • Kosher-for-Passover Coke has a weird aftertaste if, like me, you’re used to regular made-with-corn-syrup Coke.

  • Hooray, Tigers! Hooray, Pirates!

Turns out six hours of watching baseball on TV, much of which includes trying to follow several games at once, is a little too much for me.