Category: tv

Items related to broadcast media with pictures and sound.

Kitty loves baseball

I was planning on giving Levi the first word on the first game of the season, but I think he’ll agree that it was vitally important that I post this picture of my cat Chessie (who jumped off the TV shelf once the Yankees started winning)…

And I assume this commercial was met with great joy and delight in Rocketship-land…

Original comments…

Levi: Damn you, TiVo! I missed that ad completely!

Jim: That’s why I haven’t enabled the semi-secret “30-second skip” option — I want to see what I’m fast-forwarding through, just in case.

I guess now you’ll have to watch the commercials on every single baseball game until you see this Johnny Damon one!

In the form of a question

“Jeopardy!” is currently in the midst of a gigantic, 3-month-long tournament in which they’ve invited scads of former champions from throughout the 21-year run of the show back to see who gets to play in a special 3-day-long match against Ken Jennings. So on tonight’s show, a 5-time champion from 1989, a 5-time champion from 1995, and the College Tournament champion from 1993 were faced with this Final Jeopardy! clue, in the category Major League Baseball:

“The team names of these 2 expansion clubs start with the same 3 letters; one might catch the other.”

Only the 1989 champion got it correct. (The college champion got one of the two.)

Original comments…

thatbob: Which makes me wonder, when does an “expansion club” just start being thought of as a club? I thought the Mariners were around when I was (broadly) a kid.

Levi: Depends on how broad you were in 1977.

thatbob: For almost all of 1977, I was 2 years broad.

Jim: Given baseball’s love of history, as long as there are people who still remember when the Angels didn’t exist, they’re still an expansion club. (They were the first expansion team in modern baseball, in 1961, along with the team that’s now the Texas Rangers, but then was the Washington Senators, replacing the other Washington Senators, who had moved to Minnesota and become the Twins.)

Fortunately, "pitch" has several different meanings

While I was fast-forwarding the TiVo through the commercial breaks during Fox’s Sunday night lineup, I noticed a bunch of commercials for the forthcoming film “Fever Pitch.” This prompted me to, tonight, watch the original version of “Fever Pitch,” starring Colin Firth, which I had recorded off the Independent Film Channel a couple of months ago. First of all, it’s nothing like the DVD cover that’s pictured on its IMDB page — yikes.

I haven’t read the book (although I assume Levi has), but since the screenplay for the original movie was also written by Nick Hornby, I assume it stays fairly true to the book. Therefore, I can already tell that the new “Fever Pitch” is much more loosely based on the book, even aside from the fact that it involves a fan of the Boston Red Sox and not a fan of the Arsenal Football Club. They’ve changed the character names, which can’t be a good sign. Also, we know they filmed scenes with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore at Busch Stadium in St. Louis during Game 4 of the World Series last year; in the original “Fever Pitch,” Arsenal’s final match was on the road, but Colin Firth’s character didn’t go to Liverpool to see it, he was watching on TV in his apartment near Arsenal’s home stadium. (Maybe the editors have changed history by digitally transforming Busch Stadium into Fenway Park!)

I’m pretty sure I’ll end up seeing the new “Fever Pitch,” if only so I can make another post here about differences between the two films.

On a non-baseball-related note: in “Fever Pitch,” it’s mentioned that Arsenal had to beat Liverpool by the specific score of 2-0 to win the championship. Anyone know enough about British football to explain that to me? (Or is it explained in the book, Levi?) I assume there’s some kind of point system involved, but is the point system bizarre enough that they would have lost if they had won 3-0?

Original comments…

Jim: I should have made mention in the one glimmer of hope visible in the IMDB cast list for the new “Fever Pitch”: Johnny Damon as himself.

Luke, hanger-on: It’s been awhile since I read “Fever Pitch” and I don’t know as much about European soccer as I should, but a team competes for something like 37 championships and cups in a given year. I don’t remember what was at stake between Arsenal and Liverpool, but it was probably one of the “home and away” championships, in which one game is hosted by each team and the goals are totaled. In this case, Liverpool must have won the first game by one goal. (I don’t know what happens in the event of a tie.) Or it could just be the regular-season “derby,” like Sox vs. Cubs, intraseason rivalries that mean a lot more to soccer fans than they would to baseball fans. (Then again, European fans take everything much more seriously than American fans, God bless them.)

And, no, Arsenal wouldn’t have lost if they had won 3-0, unless they had conspired with bookies and had bet against themselves to cover the spread.

(Soccer gambling, by the way, is far out, and I wish I had tried it when I was there. For each game there are dozens of possible wagers, much in the same way there are for our Super Bowl — who will win the coin flip, who will have more third-down running plays, etc. — but it’s state-sanctioned and there are betting parlors on every other block.)

Levi: I can’t even think about the movie without getting annoyed at the way that Bud Selig sold out the World Series to a damn movie by letting the film crew on the field right after Game Four. It’s the crowning moment of a couple of thousand games over a six month season, the most important moment in the entire business of baseball, and Bud decided that it was okay to more or less sell it for the sake of a few dollars to a movie that no one will remember in a year.

That man somehow manages to regularly be cheaper and nastier than his suits look. And that’s an achievement.

Jason: I’d say less than a year – 2, 3 months tops.

Becky: This question hits me where I live.

In English football, the main thing to win is “the league” now known as the Premiership. The league involves each team playing each other once home, once away, over the course of the season. Three points for a win, one for a draw (tie). The winner is the team with the most points at the end. THERE ARE NO PLAYOFFS. If there is a tie for total number of points, they go to “goal difference” which is like net goals: goals scored minus goals conceded. So Arsenal had to win by at least two goals- they needed the three points to take them up to a tie on total points and they needed to score two more goals than their opponents to win on goal difference. 3-0 or 3-1 would have done the trick too. It was just a coincidence that the 2 teams still in contention played each other on the last day of the season, adding to the excitement. All clear now?

Levi: Man, Becky. That’s more complex than I thought. Turn Bud Selig loose on that and you’d have ten rounds of playoffs and everyone would have a chance!

Luke, hanger-on: Thanks for the clarification, Becky.

Speaking of soccer’s elegant complexity, this seems as good a spot as any to reiterate my call for relegation in Major League Baseball.

I don’t pretend it could ever happen — fans would love it but owners and players would get assed out, and it would wreck the current system of farm clubs and minor/major affilitations — but neither do I pretend that it wouldn’t be really, really cool if at the end of each season the four worst teams were sent down to AAA and the four best minor league teams were called up. Say good-bye to perennial losers like the Expos^^^^^Nationals, Royals and the Devil Rays — who exist for no other reason then … wait, why do they exist? — and say hello to the Bisons, Clippers and Rivercats!

Jim: Not totally without precedent, since back in the olden days (before 1969), it was common to hear comments like “the Senators are mired in the second division again,” meaning they were down near the bottom of the American League standings. Actually, you occasionally still hear it today, but since the leagues are in their geographical divisions, talk of a “second division” in MLB just confuses everyone.

thatbob: Also in the American version, the Fever Pitch is something that is thrown, while in the British version the Fever Pitch is the surface you play upon. Right?

Becky: Yup, play on the pitch on the UK.

And yeah, relegation and promotion add to the excitement (and potential devastation) of any season.

Terry: Sorry to interrupt. Just want to make 2 points:

1) Although Becky is completely right concerning points and goal difference, Arsenal actually won the league title in 1989 on scoring more goals than Liverpool. If clubs finish tied for points and goal difference, then goals scored become the tiebreaker. Arsenal finished tied with Liverpool on 76 points and goal difference of +37, but had scored 73 goals while Liverpool only managed 65.

2) The movie Fever Pitch (with Colin Firth) is only based loosely on the book. The book is autobiographical series of essays relating Nick Hornby’s life from 1968 to 1992. The movie is, however, a fictional story, but contains with flashbacks that taken from the book.

Terry: The last sentence should have read: “The movie is a fictional story, but contains flashbacks taken from the book.”

Some things gold can stay

To distract you all from the rat and pony show going on in DC today*, here’s a bit of good news passed on by BRPA reader Becky:
Five Red Sox players (Varitek, Millar, Mirabelli, Wakefield**, and our own Johnny Damon) will soon appear on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but Johnny Damon has refused to cut his hair for the show. His reason? Because of his forthcoming book, he’s contractually obligated to keep it long! What a great idea! If anyone can get Craig Wilson to sign such a contract, please do. And while you’re at it, maybe get Matt Morris to sign something promising to shave that fungus off his chin?

*Excuse me if I can’t get worked up about publicity-hungry Congressmen feigning outrage over what Mark McGwire might have jabbed in his ass. Once our esteemed representatives can bother to get themselves worked up enough about, say, the fact that our troops were sent, ill-equipped and without a plan into a war of choice, then I’ll perk up when they want to grandstand about how baseball is harming our kids.

**Is being a knuckleballer the closest thing, in baseball terms, to being gay?

Original comments…

Jason: Were our representatives ever esteemed?

Jim: Similar sentiments were expressed on “The Daily Show” this week with regard to the steroid hearings, but I’m pretty sure Levi doesn’t watch “TDS” (it’s too hard if you don’t have a subscription for your TiVo), so this post was wholly original, not just the part about Craig Wilson.

Toby: Levi, Nice reference to the Robert Frost poem (which is also somewhat a reference to the Stevie Wonder song, “Stay Gold”) in the header. And yes, I believe being a knuckleballer is… (I laughed out loud when I read that)

thatbob: I think that now, more than ever, being gay in baseball is probably the closest thing to being gay in baseball. But being a knuckleballer might be the closest thing to being, say, a practicing Zoroastrian in baseball. (I was going to say being a practicing Zen Buddhist philosopher in baseball, but then I remembered Yogi Berra was a catcher.)

Levi: Yeah, I should clarify what I meant: clearly, the closest thing to being gay in baseball is being gay. But, since baseball is self-defined as macho–and straight–but the knuckleball is both not macho and not generally trusted, by non-knuckleballers, pitching coaches, and teammates, I think the grudging acceptance of a good knuckleballer by his teammates–i.e., “He’s on our side, so he’s okay, I guess.”–would be, I posit, kind of similar to the way a clubhouse would, after an adjustment period, deal with a teammate whom the team members learned was gay.

More from "Faithful"

Poor Stephen King, on the West Coast while the Yankees and Red Sox are playing in late July: “With no NESN, I was reduced to the coverage in the Saturday Los Angeles Times — which, due to their ridiculous infatuation with the Dodgers, was skimpy.”

I would guess that the Los Angeles Times is less infatuated with the Dodgers than the Boston Globe is with the Red Sox, if only because there are two major league baseball teams within the Times’ home delivery area, and they try to serve both constituencies. In fact, it was probably the amount of Angels coverage that kept them from putting a longer Yankees-Red Sox story in that morning’s paper. They’ve definitely had more Angels articles than Dodgers articles this offseason, because of the name change foolishness. Speaking of which, ESPN is going to be using “LAA” in the score box on any Angels games they broadcast this year, and they don’t even have the same owner as the Angels anymore!

Original comments…

Jason: Imagine that – a city newspaper writing a whole lot about their local baseball team.

Since the Angels are now “LAA”, does this mean the Dodgers will be “LAD”?

Jim: Yes, based on “NYY” and “NYM,” the Dodgers will be “LAD,” unless they try to get clever and go with LAN (for “National”).

Levi: I hope they abbreviate DC as “DC-(N)” as if they’re a politician.

Love that dirty water

I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is how the Red Sox victory was portrayed by television shows taking place in Boston. I haven’t heard anything about a special “Cheers” reunion, so all we have is David E. Kelley’s “Boston Legal,” which treated it in typical David E. Kelley fashion on Sunday’s episode. Turns out William Shatner’s character Denny Crane wanted to do two things before he died: see the Red Sox win the World Series, and have sex with a one-legged woman. After the first one came true, he was driving down the street when he saw a limping woman on the sidewalk, pulled over, ended up offering her a trip to Belize, and found out she was an undercover cop with two legs. Later, Denny and his colleague Alan Shore (played by James Spader) are in the chambers of judge Bill…

Bill: You thought she had one leg.
Denny: A trip to Belize is a fair and square deal, Bill. Hell, if I had a nickel for every woman I promised to marry in exchange for sex… Actually, I do.
Bill: I’m supposed to believe this? Your father told you the best sex was to be had with amputees, you saw this woman limping, and you were simply overcome?
Alan: You’re leaving out the most important fact here, your honor.
Bill: Which is?
Alan: The Red Sox. For years, many years, they have, at one time or another, made each and every one of us insane. Last October, when they lost the seventh game to the Yankees, crime went up in this city. It’s already predicted we’ll have a flood of August babies next year from celebration-induced pregnancies. The Red Sox make us lose ourselves, and in the wake of that team giving us what our hearts have yearned for all our lives, our parents and grandparents’ lives, we have fallen victim to a delirium that makes us believe anything – anything is possible, including, but not limited to, the notion that God put a fetching one-legged woman in this man’s path to commemorate the end of a wretched, horrible curse.
Denny: You know me, Bill. I have hookers all the time. They come to my house. Why would I pull over to the side of the road?
Bill: Go. Beat it.
Alan: Thank you, sir.
Denny: Buy you a drink, counsel?
Alan: I’d love to, but I have to tend to some business with a much less reasonable judge.
Denny: Thank you, Bill. (Pause) Who’s your daddy?

Near the end of the episode, there’s a touching scene in which Alan brings a one-legged woman to Denny’s office, and they toast the Red Sox.

Original comments…

Lucas: That was a pretty good episode.

Steve: Lots of good “baseball-related” stuff from the past few days. Wonder who will be the first to weigh in….

Levi: This week is one of my busiest of the year, but I hope to get to at least a roundup on Monday. Cause you’re right: lotsa stuff happening. Like the White Sox being interested in Carlos Beltran!

Dan: I’ll repeat this, I’m sure, with the roundup. But leave it to Denny Neagle and Jose Lima to make Jason Giambi’s admission of sticking a needle in his ass seem boring. Best offseason week evah!

I don’t watch "Clubhouse" and you don’t have to

“Clubhouse” is gone, although it’s a little unclear whether CBS has just pulled it for the rest of November sweeps or it’s been canceled entirely. (Either way, they’ve shut down production, but there are still a couple of episodes unaired.)

My TiVo didn’t even get the one episode that aired in the Saturday night time slot; because of the last-minute episode change a few Tuesdays ago, TiVo thought it had already recorded that episode within the previous 28 days. But I didn’t care, because the actual baseball playoffs had enough drama for me. Also, they were less preachy.

Original comments

Levi: Only something that would get the kids to watch could save that series. Something like . . . Scooter!

Dan: http://thebrushback.com/scooter_full.htm

Dan: That above link is quite dirty, by the way.

What is it with Sox named Bill?

In Sunday’s game, Bill Mueller had the potential to become the next Bill Buckner, but a funny thing happened: the Red Sox won in spite of his errors. Well, also, it was only Game 2, so the Sox didn’t have a chance to win it all the way they did in Game 6 in 1986.

Anyway, perhaps this is a sign that Babe Ruth’s ghost has finally stopped haunting the Red Sox. Hopefully, he is now haunting Horatio Sanz for doing the worst Babe Ruth impression ever on this week’s “Saturday Night Live.” It was such a horrible impression that they had to start playing the wrong lip-sync track for poor Ashlee Simpson in order to distract the viewers from its horribleness. (The Babe Ruth impression, I mean, not necessarily Ashlee Simpson’s lip-sync track.) It also doesn’t help that Horatio Sanz is incapable of doing a comedy bit lasting longer than 90 seconds without cracking up for no good reason.

Original comments…

Jason: I didn’t know anyone still watched SNL.

Jim: But it’s so easy to TiVo through the boring parts, and occasionally there’s something that makes it all worthwhile.

Your National League Champions

Oh, too excited to organize my post today. And still too busy at work. So it’s a list again.

1) I kept telling everyone all day that the Cardinals would beat Clemens. After all, he’d lost 190 games in the majors–26 of them in the post-season! No Cardinal pitcher has lost anywhere near that many (Now, I do think Jeff Fassero may have lost 190 games for the Cardinals in 2003 alone, but we shipped him off to Colorado.). We surely had the edge going in.

2) The last time the Cardinals were in the World Series, I was in the 7th grade. My history teacher, John Reker, a Cubs fan, was not very gracious when the Cardinals imploded against the Royals.

3) I will understand if some unreliable folks among you are rooting for the Bostons. I realize that no one in America outside of Cardinals fans and Yankees fans is rooting for St. Louis. But we’ve already won the title that has always mattered most to me: the National League Pennant. I’m with John McGraw on this one–who really cares what that upstart, pipsqueak beer league does? Sure, you want to win the World Series, but that’s gravy.

4) Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation (who isn’t just getting links here–the Wall Street Journal seems to mention his column a couple times a week these days) quoted Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated as describing the NLCS as “a glorified game of HORSE between Pujols and Beltran.” I guess Pujols, with his 4 homers and .500 batting average, ended up on top.

5) That catch that Jimmy Edmonds made is the biggest catch I’ve ever seen him make. Maybe not his absolute best, in a Platonic, form-of-perfect-outfield-catch kind of way, but definitely the most important great catch he’s made. I think it’s far more impressive than the Mays catch that’s always replayed: he covered a lot of ground, back to the ball, laid out full-length, and caught the ball over his shoulder while landing. It made the difference between 3-0 and 1-0, and might have singlehandedly saved the nation from a week of bad political metaphors on Fox sports.

6) And last, but not least: did someone put Scooter out of our misery? We haven’t seen him since his two appearances in game 6. I’m not complaining, mind you.

Y’all are welcome at the Rocketship on Saturday night for chili.

Original comments…

Dan: On point No. 2… You mean overwhelmed by the Twins (’87), right? Joaquin, specificaly, imploded in ’85, although I’ve heard way too many Cardinals fans blame it on the umps.

Levi: Oh, you’re right. I blame the 1985 implosion largely on Whitey Herzog. After that call, rather than calling a meeting and rallying the troops–as LaRussa would have done–he kept up the whining and basically conceded the Series.

Luke, hanger-on: I’ll have you know, Levi, that I was the Cardinals never lost a game that I watched while wearing a red shirt. I’ll also note that I wore red socks for the last two games of the ALCS.

I wouldn’t suggest either team owes me a share of their championship bonuses.

But I woudln’t say they don’t, either.

Hurrah for chili! Hurrah for the best postseason in history! Or at least this millennium!

Cushie: I’m a bit conflicted. Would love to be watching this series at the Rocketship with good chili, but I have to go with the Sox due to the whole New England thing going on. However, as I’m in Old England I am instead figuring out how nocturnal I’m about to come. If the games go six hours I’m totally screwed. You guys get worried when games go until 1am, my games start at 1am.

Levi: I spent the fall of 1996 in London, and I listened to any games that I could pick up on Armed Forces Radio, but that did mean being up at nearly 2 am for the first pitch. That made for one of the worse nights in my life as a fan, when the Cardinals gave up 10 runs in the first inning of game 7 to the Braves. Even worse, at work the next day, very few people even understood why I was having a bad day.

Levi: LaRussa’s got wa.

Jim: This year, it looks like the World Series is being carried live in the U.K. on Channel Five, and then repeating the next day during normal waking hours on a cable channel called, of course, North American Sports Network.

Cushie: Yes, Channel Five has it, and that’s regular network tv. It’s just damn late. It’s hosted by some serious meat-heads (one British, one American). The funny part is that even though this is commerical TV, they don’t show ads during all the long breaks. Instead, they kick it back to the meat heads in the studio for more dumb banter. But I shouldn’t complain- at least they’re showing it. And it’s good preparation for staying up all night next week for the election results.