Tag: Cardinals

It could still happen

Don’t worry, Levi; my co-worker Joe and I spent our lunch break on Tuesday coming up with horrible “curse” scenarios that would cause the Red Sox to lose in spectacular fashion. Among them: Curt Schilling has a perfect game going, until his legs fall off. Also, Tim Wakefield gets hit by a truck.

Original comments…

Jason: Other curse scenarios:

Johnny Damon gets lost during a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

David Ortiz loses his shirt at one of the local riverboat casinos, so he has to serve as a greeter for the rest of the series until his debt is paid off.

Bill Mueller gets married to Bill Buckner’s daughter, and decides to take her last name.

Manny Ramirez gets stuck atop the Gateway Arch.

Terry Francona turns into Terry Francenstein.

sandor: Of the three post-game Red Sox interviews I’ve seen in this series, all three players spent their first moments behind the mic profusely crediting God for all of their good fortune.

So it wouldn’t seem totally unreasonable to me, if in fact God is responsible for the Sox players’ success, for Him to suddenly… change his mind. Who better to put on a curse than the cursemeister Himself?

Levi: Or, if Satan is responsible for their good fortune, I could see him getting really pissed and pulling the plug.

We’ll know that tonight when Jason Marquis, with a freshly-grown goatee, hits three home runs and throws a two-hit shutout.

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.

Celebrations

Some people, when their team wins the pennant, pour champagne on their heads.

Me, I paint the second eye on my Daruma doll, four years after painting the first eye and wishing for a Cardinals World Series.

Such a ritual has the benefit of requiring much less clean-up than one involving the bubbly.

Original comments…

stacey: under the category of “bad wife” – i’ve carved a johnny damon pumpkin to celebrate the red sox:

http://www.therocketship.com/baseball/images/johhny.jpg

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.

Color the Series red

One final accomplishment from the trip in August: we saw both World Series teams, twice each.

I think we’re going to have a schism among the proprietors of this blog now, since I’m going to be rooting for the Sox.

Original comments…

Levi: I figured during our trip there was a slim chance that we’d see two of the teams that we saw twice end up in the World Series. And I didn’t figure those teams would be the White Sox or Dodgers.

Jim: You thought the Brewers and the Tigers were going to be in the Series?!

Jeff Kent

Why, oh, why could Jeff Kent not have looked out at his truck yesterday morning and decided it needed a quick wash?

Original comments…

Steve: Hello friends, I haven’t checked in for a while but are any of you Damon lovers troubled by the fact that he’s gone from hero to zero in about 10 seconds? His .009 batting average is not going to help the Red Sox dispatch the Yankees and it will also make it difficult for him to get that Pert plus endorsement even though Piazza is kind of washed up. In no way am I trying to say “I told you so” because I never did and am frankly upset at his poor performance but I would say at least 75% of the Red Sox problems start with Mr. Lovelylocks. What say you who have been lining up to get his autograph on your boobs all season? And I don’t just mean Stacey!

ps Levi is excused from replying because he has bigger fish to fry right now. I bet his sinker is almost ready and he’s warming up to take on Beltran.

Levi: You’re right about Damon, sad to say, but he did score the winning run last night.

Oh, and I owe you whatever it is I owe you, as Mr. Bonds did not hit .400. Aargh.

thatbob: My adulation of Damon has almost nothing to do with him being a baseball player, so likewise has almost nothing to do with his slump. I mean, I feel bad for him professionally, and if we were on speaking terms I might even suggest a shave and a haircut to, you know, try and change his luck. But I would still want him to grow it all out again in the post-season.

Has any writing on this blog suggested that (we) like him because he’s any good?

stacey: yeah, i’d have to say i’m with bob on this one. my all-cute team has absolutely nothing to do with baseball talent. although johnny’s slump is really heart-rending.

Toby: Darn! I knew there was something I forgot the last time I saw Levi. I meant to get his autograph on my boobs.

thatbob: sure hope this link works:

http://www.boston.com/ae/events/halloween/pumpkin_photos?pg=7

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, K Millar, B Mueller and O Cabrera scored.

How ’bout them apples?!?

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, O Cabrera scored.

And them apples!

I’m never cutting my hair again.

thatbob: Luke (and everyone not watching from the Rocketship) sorry you missed the discussion we had (initiated by Matthew or Ross?) about JD hitting for the SuperCycle. You know: a 4 run homer, a 3 run homer, a 2 run homer, and a solo shot. It looked like he was working towards it with 2 men on for a couple of at-bats, but alas. Well, maybe we’ll get to see it in The Series.

Why would Levi be jealous of me?

I’m over 6 feet tall, I have a full head of hair, I have a cat who doesn’t get up on the kitchen counter, and also…

Jason and Todd got tickets through a contact at their job, so there we were in the top deck of Dodger Stadium for Game 4 of the National League Division Series, the Dodgers needing a win against the Cardinals to stay alive.

Jason invited me, and Todd invited his wife Jenn, of course. So here she is eating pizza…

This was the first time I had sat in the top deck at Dodger Stadium. It was not bad. I’m pretty sure I was closer to the field than when I had sat in the upper deck in San Diego in May, and I was definitely closer to the field than I was in the upper deck in Philadelphia in August. And these seats are only $6.00 general admission during the regular season. (They were jacked up to $12.00 reserved for this first round of the playoffs.)

It must be the playoffs, because there’s the bunting…

And a special logo painted on the field…

And a blimp…

And what seems like hundreds of umpires…

So many umpires, in fact, that they don’t display them at the bottom of the scoreboard because there’s only space for four of them (it’s not really visible in this photo, but trust me, they’d normally be at the bottom)…

And they handed out everyone’s favorite loud and annoying item, Thunderstix…

So let’s all think blue! Or think 76 or 980, if you’d rather think about numbers than colors…

Odalis Perez pitching in the top of the first…

And then some stuff happened that I didn’t take pictures of because I was trying to follow the game, but night fell with the Dodgers behind 6-2…

It was time to summon the giant floating heads of Eric Gagne…

He did pretty well against the Cardinals, but the damage had already been done…

Noted Kenny G fan Ray King got into the game and was effective against the Dodgers…

Perhaps he and Mike Metheney were humming “Songbird” during their meeting on the mound…

Since this auxiliary scoreboard wasn’t needed for its usual purpose of displaying out-of-town scores, it was instead pressed into service for additional statistic display duty…

See the taillights in the parking lot? Yep, people are leaving in the 8th inning, despite the number of come-from-behind wins the Dodgers have had this season…

It’s the bottom of the 9th, the Dodgers are down by four runs, the fans are being exhorted to show their blue (not “show they’re blue”), and this is all seeming familiar to Jason and me, as if it happened just a week and a half ago…

Speaking of which, the note about Alex Cora that was displayed as he was batting in the bottom of the 9th seemed very familiar…

But on September 28th, the Dodgers were facing the Rockies’ bullpen. The Cardinals’ bullpen, and Jason Isringhausen in particular, is a somewhat different story. So, long story short, some happy Cardinals…

The Dodgers wish them well in the NLCS, especially if they’re going to be playing the Braves…

And even though the Dodgers lost, it was a great and highly improbable season, so the stadium crew thinks it deserves a playing of “I Love L.A.”…

Oh, and by the way, this game set a new Dodger Stadium attendance record…

Go Cards.

Original comments…

Levi: Ah, that was a fun series. And I feel really good about Round 2, whomever we face. I’m rooting for tonight’s Braves/Astros game to go 22 innings.

And I loved seeing the hugs and handshakes. It made me really happy, and it seemed a better send-off for the Dodgers than just retreating to the clubhouse would have been.

Jose Lima bean

A thought on Saturday night’s Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn’t it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who’s been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?

No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn’t have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson’s “Smile” on my iPod instead.

Original comments…

Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports’ “Beyond the Glory” special on Kirk Gibson’s WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. …Was a great piece.

The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully’s call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck’s a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck’s call of that homer. It was very interesting.

You’re so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?

Toby: Whoops – Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn’t change–just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.

Jim: They did an entire “Beyond the Glory” on Kirk Gibson’s home run? Wow. I’ve closed-captioned a couple of those, and they’re pretty good, but I’ve never watched one at home.

In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully’s call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.

By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully’s calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley’s grand slam to clinch the division was something like:

“Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs.” (35 seconds of crowd noise)

Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?

Toby: NO! He’d be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.

maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy’s grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.

thatbob: fucking yanx

The first games

I’m still busy busy busy at work, but I couldn’t let the first games pass with no comment, so here’s a quick post with no links, mainly designed to get other people’s impressions of yesterday’s games.

1) I know one game does not a series make, but I very much enjoyed the dazed look that Odalis Perez wore when he left the mound in yesterday’s Cards/Dodgers game. The last time a team hit five home runs in a game in a division series–wait–no team had ever done that before. It was a good start.

2) I was a bit bothered by the curtain calls at Busch Stadium yesterday, though. Curtain calls seem to me to be a bit disrespectful. I know players feel like the crowd is compelling them to come out, and they have to do it to shut up the crowd, but like a band after playing a perfunctory encore, they should just ignore the noise. Eventually it’ll go away. No matter how hard I stomped my feet at his show, Nick Lowe wasn’t going to come back out and play “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

3) The Red Sox did as expected. I expect they’ll do more of the same in games 2 and 3. And Johnny Damon’s hair seems to be even longer than before: it’s down past his shoulders.

4) I finally saw Scooter the Talking Baseball last night. Acting as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, Joe Buck said, “And now, to tell us some more about the change-up, here’s Scooter.” And there he was, unsettlingly flesh-colored, with a weird stitching mouth and backwards ball cap. Until that moment, I was still trying to make myself believe that he was a figment of Jim’s imagination. But no: Fox really does think kids are this stupid.

5) After the umpires took back the Sierra home run last night, deciding that it was foul after all, I decided that the only thing better than a Yankee making an out is a Yankee thinking he’s hit a home run, then making an out. I decided that every time a Yankee hits a foul ball–even just a grounder–the umpires should wave their fingers for a home run, make the hitter run the bases, then confer and send him back to the plate. Now that would be fun.

Original comments…

Levi: Oh, and how could I have forgotten the way the radar gun reading bursts into flames any time a pitch gets above about 92 mph? What a wealth of new excitement that brought to my enjoyment of the game! Thank you, Fox! Thank you!

maura: that near-hr was ruben sierra’s, actually. he promptly struck out.

Levi: Thanks, Mo. I fixed it.

Jason: When is Fox going to bring out the blue dot to follow where the ball goes? And when will we see Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?!?!?

stacey: i was DEEPLY disappointed that sierra was not required to run the bases in reverse.