Also in attendance

At tonight’s Cubs game, though I didn’t notice it, both Stacey and our friend Becky assured me that the message board between innings at one point read:

The Chicago Cubs welcome Smellosaurus Rex

I don’t think he

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was in our section.

The olden days

Phil Rizzuto’s death today comes just a couple of days after I (finally) listened to a Christmas present from my father: a 2-CD set containing the radio broadcast of the Yankees and Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1949 World Series (the deciding game). At one point during the game, Mel Allen points out that if you saw Scooter walking with the rest of the team, because of his small size, you might think he was the batboy.

It was a game with a lot of action (16 total runs), but I found the radio broadcast more interesting for things other than the game itself. Red Barber and Mel Allen were the announcers, with each responsible for the team they announced for during the regular season — Mel was at the mike by himself in the half-innings when the Yankees were batting, with Red while the Dodgers were up. Occasionally, they would talk to each other between innings, mostly to do live commercials for Gillette (all of the commercials were for Gillette — this was a “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports” broadcast).

At one point, Red Barber mentions that Jerry Coleman was moving Jackie Robinson’s glove out of the way — fielders used to leave their gloves at their position. And Mel Allen refers to the fact that the American League umpires were wearing their chest protectors on the outside, and the National League umpires were wearing them on the inside.

There’s also a mention that this Sunday game started an hour late (2:00 instead of 1:00) due to “New York state law” and couldn’t go past 7:00 for the same reason. Because of all the action, the game goes fairly long, and the umpires confer with commissioner Happy Chandler in the stands, with the results being that the lights are turned on for the first time during a World Series game.

And for a broadcasting geek like me — I didn’t realize the phrase “let’s pause 10 seconds for station identification” was that old, but there it was, followed by a station identification for “WOR and WOR-FM, New York” and a suggestion to watch the game on WOR-TV, Channel 9. Yes, I did know WOR-FM and WOR-TV were that old.

Meeting the Mets

When I saw in hanger-on Dan’s photos of the Mets’ opening day that Shea Stadium’s replacement was already under construction, I decided I’d better hurry up and see a game there. Fortunately, a cousin had a wedding in the Philadelphia area on a Friday of a weekend when the Mets were in town, which made it relatively easy for me to get across New Jersey for a Sunday afternoon game. Better yet, hanger-on Maura and non-hanger-on Maggie were able to join me for the game, as you can see below (Maura left, me center, Maggie right)…

Shea Stadium as seen from the Willets Point-Shea Stadium elevated station platform. That’s the city parks department logo on the right. A boy behind me said, “The Mets are playing the Leaves today!”

Yes, the new Citi Field is further along than it was three months ago.

As it turned out after I’d taken the seat cushion all the way back to Philadelphia with me, it wouldn’t fit in the luggage I was carrying back to L.A. with me, so it now belongs to my cousin. (No, not the one who just got married, although that would have been a great wedding gift. Especially since he’s a Yankees fan.)

The view from our seats in the mezzanine level. Under cover, which was good, because it was raining off and on before the game, and then started raining again in the third inning.

The skyline atop the scoreboard, which either needs some light bulbs replaced, or they’ve got a nice effect going there.

Between innings, they showed my employer’s stock price on a scoreboard, and everybody laughed.

Ramon Castro hit a home run. Maura said she’s seen that apple-in-a-hat up close, and there’s a very thick layer of dust on it.

With the Mets ahead 5-0 in the bottom of the 5th, and the rain intensifying, it was time for the swarm of the guys in blue shirts.

The guys in blue shirts all worked in unison to roll out the tarp, and to avoid running over any straggling Nationals.

You’d think the Mets would have a blue tarp, but it’s white. Maybe the blue tarps are all (still) in the New Orleans area.

Maura, Maggie, and I walked around the stadium for a bit. They made a couple of announcements that the forecast was that the rain would continue for at least a couple more hours, but didn’t announce anything specific.

We eventually left, and found out via text message (from Dan at MLB.com) that the game had indeed been called. Mets 5, Nationals 0, in four and a half innings. It’s a complete game, so it counts, and I’ve now seen games at 18 of the 30 current MLB stadiums. Anyway, we ended up at a bar Maura knows in Manhattan. Actually, that’s redundant, because Maura knows every bar in Manhattan, or so it seems.

(P.S.: These Mr. Met exit signs are awesome.)

The greatest of all time

Oh, this is good. Not only has Rickey Henderson been hired as the new Mets hitting coach, but the guy at 100% Injury Rate has compiled his twenty-five favorite Rickey stories. #13 almost

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made me pass out. How long until all the Mets have .400 on-base percentages? Since we’re talking about Rickey, I figure it’s worth listing his career numbers; because of all the goofiness surrounding him, I think it’s easy to forget just how good he was. .279/.401/.419

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in 3081 games. 2190 walks. 1406 stolen bases. 2295 runs. As Bill James use to say, you could cut Rickey in half and you’d have two hall of famers. Oh, and one last thing for your Saturday: George Brett has discovered–and is raving about–baseball-reference.com. Congratulations to Sean Forman, the site’s founder and proprietor.

Sorry, Devil Rays

This site, called Cool Standings, shows the major league baseball

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If you click on each team’s name, you get more stats, including

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Baseball-related notes from today’s L.A. Times

1. An article/column about Retrosheet.org and

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2. Someone has finally answered the challenge thrown down by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Long Beach Armada of the Golden Baseball League are now officially known as The Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America Including Barrow, Alaska.

For reading while listening to ballgames on the radio

I’ve been a bit remiss lately about passing along good online baseball reading, so today I’ll catch up a bit.

First, if you’re not reading Cardboard Gods regularly, you really should add it to your google reader. You’ll thank me. It’s ostensibly a blog about the author’s baseball collection, taken one card at a time–and I know: few things sound more boring than that. But the cards are really only a jumping-off point for author Josh Wilker’s stories of . . . well, everything. This post is particularly good, drawing on an oral history of a little-known–because imaginary–punk band.

Another good one to add to your reader is Joe Posnanski’s Soul of Baseball blog. Posnanski is a sportswriter for the Kansas City Star, and somehow he hasn’t allowed covering the Royals to beat him down. He’s taken to blogging far better than most professional writers. He brings to his blog all the enthusiasm and interest in the sport that the best amateur sites have–and that a lot of professional sportswriters seem to have lost along the way.

King Kaufman, who regular readers know is one of my favorite sportswriters, today has some notes he made while listening to Ernie Harwell sit in on a Tigers

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broadcast the other day. It’s all worth reading, but my favorite factoid is this:

The first night game in Detroit didn’t start until about 9:30 p.m. “They thought in those days they had to wait until it got dark,” Harwell said. “So everybody was waiting around.”

It sounds crazy, but you can imagine the thought process that would lead you to wait until dark if you’d never tried this crazy night baseball stuff before.

Finally, a story that I can’t believe Jim didn’t pick up: baseball teams visiting Tampa don’t like to stay in the Vinoy Hotel . . . because it’s haunted:

Frank Velasquez, the strength coordinator for the Pittsburgh Pirates, says he’ll never forget his experience early one June morning in 2003 after the team checked in following an evening flight from Toronto.

“It was pretty realistic,” he began when I asked about it last week. “It was one of those 4 a.m. arrivals. I was so tired I didn’t even call for my bags. I went to sleep. And I remember just waking up for no particular reason, and I see a man standing at the end of my bed near the desk.

“I remember vividly. He had on khakis and a white long-sleeve shirt, but his attire wasn’t Calvin Klein. It was from another era. And his look, the way his hair was combed, was an older look, but he was a young man. It was maybe 7 in the morning because there was light behind him. He was just standing there looking at me. I didn’t feel threatened by him. I kind of looked at him and I closed my eyes. I look back and he’s still there. I was so tired I just went back to bed.”

The next day, Velasquez shared his encounter with one of the players during lunch. The player told Velasquez his story sounded like an experience pitcher Scott Williamson had a few days earlier when the Cincinnati Reds stayed at the Vinoy.

It’s probably good that something is scaring the Devil Rays’ opponents.