All posts filed under: Baseball

Baseball on the Radio

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I love driving in a car and listening to baseball on the radio.  That’s a good thing.  Because I’m looking forward to tonight’s Game 6 of the ALCS between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays AND as the father of teenagers who don’t drive, the weekend means that I run a taxi service.  I expect I’ll listen to as much of tonight’s game on the car radio as I watch on television. ESPN radio carries all the baseball post-season games, with the wonderful Jon Miller doing the play-by-play.  Miller is even better on the radio than he is on the Sunday night TV games.  He’s thoughtful, entertaining, smart enough to know when to stop talking, and he’s not Tim McCarver. It speaks volumes about what’s been wrong with the Baltimore Orioles under the ownership of Peter Angelos that Miller – only a Hall-of-Famer-to-be announcer – was fired by Angelos as the voice of the Orioles.  So in anticipation of hearing Miller tonight, I’ll repeat a quote of Miller’s from Paul Dickson’s Baseball’s Greatest Quotations: There’s just …

Free Baseball

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I love October baseball.  Friday’s games – the first between the Phillies and Dodgers followed by the Red Sox vs. the Rays – were both terrific.  And tonight, the Sox and Rays just went into extra innings – or what Skip Carey use to call “Free Baseball.”   And as I was typing those words, lo and behold, Ernie Johnson, Jr., whose dad was Carey’s longtime broadcast partner with the Braves, just used that term.  Skip lives! Yesterday, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia was rocking – and I was reminded of my visit there just two short weeks ago when I saw the Phillies take a win that may have been the pivotal one towards the division championship.  The view (see photo at right) was very similar. More to come… DJB

Searching the Internet and Finding…October Belongs to Baseball

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This is another one of my “I was searching the Internet and found something I had to share” posts.  On the InterSportsWire (motto:  “Because there aren’t enough sports blogs”) there’s this beautiful post entitled October Belongs to Baseball which has a “great sports folk song about the mystical aura of baseball.”  The song is by Sam Baker.  Click on the link to October Belongs to Baseball to see this video and give yourself a treat. More to come… DJB

Time for the Playoffs

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Forget March Madness.  Even though last evening’s Twins/White Sox game had the feel of a NCAA basketball tournament play-in game (i.e., two teams who weren’t expected to be in the playoffs, win or go home), it was baseball at its best.  Crisply played (how often can you say that about an American League game), great pitching by both teams (John Danks throws a 2-hitter in a pressure game), and two great plays. The old bulls came through.  Ken Griffey, Jr. – who will now get another shot at a World Series – threw a strike from center field to nail the Twins’ only scoring chance at home plate, thanks to a strong tag by A.J. Pierzynski.  Jim Thome hit a home run a mile long for the only run in a 1-0 win.  So, the White Sox are in to play Tampa Bay, keeping hope alive for the first all-Chicago World Series since 1906.  Ozzie and Lou – now that would be fun!  Great start to the playoffs. More to come… DJB

Thank God for the Mariners

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Well, last evening our hapless Washington Nationals lost their 100th game of the season…an easy-to-understand measure of futility in a 162-game season.  While the Phillies and Brewers are hoping to finish off the Mets and snare the last two spots in the NL playoffs, and the Twins and White Sox battle down to the wire in the AL Central, our Nats are fighting with the Seattle Mariners for worst record in baseball.  Going into the last two games, the Mariners have lost 101 and the Nationals 100.  That rainout for the Nats on Thursday evening, which won’t be replayed, may keep us out of the cellar! Wait ’til next year. DJB

Bang-Bang Plays

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With two bang-bang plays at the plate, I may have been an eyewitness to the week when we see the crowning of the Philadelphia Phillies as repeat NL East Champions amidst another historic Mets breakdown. Friends will know that a couple of years ago I started on a quest to visit every Major League ballpark.  And in the last week of the 2008 season, I was lucky enough to squeeze in my fourth new stadium visit of the year. Don and Nancy, friends and great preservationists from Philadelphia, read of my goal on More to Come.  Don called a week ago and said “I have three tickets – two for Nancy and me and one for you if you can make it.”  That was all I needed to hear, and I was on I-95 for the short two-hour drive to Philly yesterday afternoon. Citizens Bank Park is a beautiful stadium, opened a couple of years ago.  After a short walk around the park and picking up my free “Fightin’ Phils” rally towel, I joined Don and …

Tough Time to Be a Nats Fan

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Last night’s game between the Nationals and Padres was tough.  It is bad enough when two of the three teams with the worst records in baseball are playing.  But when the Nationals enter the game needing to win 5 out of the remaining 8 games to avoid losing 100 games for the season, there’s extra pressure. The pressure won. Routine grounders that should extend a shutout pitching performance turn into 3 unearned runs.  Balls lost in the lights turn into triples.  And the explanation for the latter shows just what we’re facing.  In this morning’s Washington Post, Nats left fielder Willie Harris provides the following explanation for his adventure in lights: “They’re among the brightest (lights) in the league, he said.  Sure, they’re a problem for opposing outfields, too, ‘but, I mean, we haven’t been hitting many balls in the lights.  They’ve been hitting the balls in the lights.’” Say no more, Willie.  It is a tough time to be a Nats fan.  But hey, let’s go win 5 out of 7.  And remember, the …

Nats vs. Mets – On Any Given Night

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One of the great things about baseball is that on any given night, the worst team in the league has a decent chance at beating the best teams in the league.  You may believe that’s true in any sport, but think about how often you see a lousy NBA team give a top-notch NBA team a close game.  I can’t think of many times.  However, with baseball you see it virtually every night. And tonight’s no exception.  I’ve been doing chores and keeping my eye on the televised game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Metropolitans .  The last time I checked, the Nats were battling the Mariners and the Padres for the worst record in baseball.  The Mets, on the other hand, had the third best record in the National League and were leading the East. So the Mets jump off to a 2-0 lead and you think to yourself, “Uh-oh, it is going to be a long night.”  Well, that’s true, but not for the reason you think.  Everytime the Mets pull …

PNC in 2013

Monday night thoughts – about baseball

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“It breaks your heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.  You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. “The Green Fields of the Mind” by A. Bartlett Giamatti While channel surfing past the opening telecast of Monday Night Football, my thoughts naturally turn to the winding down of the baseball season. This year I picked up a new book by Garrett Park, Maryland author Paul Dickson entitled Baseball’s Greatest Quotations . Here are some samples to whet the appetite: Choo-Choo Coleman would…give you the sign and then look down to see what it was. – Roger Craig quoted in “Bad Beyond Belief” Blind people come …

Baseball and Bluegrass

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Oh my!  Major League Baseball has finally caught up with the key themes of More to Come…(a blog for family and friends about acoustic music, baseball, places that matter, and other random topics) with the post on MLB.com entitled Bound by Baseball and Bluegrass.  This is an article on the new Gibson Brothers CD Iron and Diamonds.  Who knew we were so cutting edge here at More to Come… DJB