JSngry

Pole dancers, enforced clapping on 1 & 3, Negro Sex Frenzy shots, do I see Bechet in there at all, hell what's not to love?

Thanks for that background, Brad. Not knowing it, I was "ok" with the slide (and I say "ok" in that that kind of stuff used to be expected, but it's a different day now, just...not completely), and barely ok with the replay decision (I mean, it appeared "clear" that Tejada didn't quite hit the bag, but the explanation of why that did not count as a neighborhood play seemed a bit oh REALLY? to me), but look, here's where I really want, need, to hear that this was not interpretational - ok, Utley goes all Ty Cobb and shit, got it, but in so doing he sacrificed the normal baseball logic of a baserunner at least pretending to get to the base and that's a choice with consequences, and how the hell do you not allow for a reckoning of that consequence? You're allowing for every OTHER g.d. consequence of that play to be reckoned, why the fuck not THAT one? If they got a written rule that they followed, ok. So be it. But if this is just some "judgement" call, then I'm calling bullshit, calling it collect, and not hanging up until Pedro Martinez says so. Torre's gotten all presenatational about accuracy and integrity and all that, we're very pleased to have the great Joe Torre from the comissioner's office with us today, hey Joe, tel us about blahblahblahblahblah, so there had damn well better be a precise written rule here, or else, hey, pooch screwed, JT.

I need for somebody from Mr. Torre's office to explain whether or not the disallowal of a Mets' appeal at 2nd be/c Utley did not ever touch the base was in accordance with a written rule or whether it was just somebody being interpretational. Otherwise, Go Mets.

Yep. http://www.ispot.tv/ad/AVks/2016-lincoln-mkx-arrival-featuring-matthew-mcconaughey

Here's that Al Hibbler record he was talking about:

"...when I first came to New York, ya know, I got a lot of boos because I didn't play like Coleman Hawkins? I used to do a lot of teardrops behind that..."

Not for $9,250,000, I can't.

Thanks. That's a new name to me, but most are, actually.

Cricket Taylor Cecil Taylor CCR

That cool, man! For real, I like yard work, I stuff like chalking foul lines and batter's boxes (did it once as a teen-summerjob for the local LL) and you're at the ball bark, like every day pretty much. Come early, stay late. Don't think that it's a"career", full-time job, more like seasonal employment, maybe, but hey, dragging the dirt every few innings,watering the mound, pulling out the tarp in a bigass hurry, sounds like fun to me. And I like how you can be part of a team's "secret weapon" strategy, so to speak, that's one more reason why imo turf sucks, it's very non-interpretational. Dudes can interpret the living shit outta some dirt and some grass!

Which one of the Ames Bothers is Gil Evans?

Who was that playing Hoagy Carmichael?

Miss Manners Mannish Boy Peter Pan

I think I can look at this as some weird kind of jazz fan fiction and be entertained. Who was that playing Gil?

Dr. Leah Snare Tapper John, MD Dr. Phillip Kattchee, DDS

do you know any groundskeepers? I'm thinking that might be a dream job for retirement, if I ever get to do that.

I wondered about that too, but, you know, who am I to interrogate a professional scout in the middle of a game? I uncritically took it to mean either that this crew had been off all week, or that maybe "all week" in the context of where this guy had been over the last few weeks, maybe he had seen this one guy more than once lately and it was becoming a recurrent thing with him. You're right, though, taken at 100% face value, that's a weird thing to say. But he said it, and he said in such a way as I had no doubt that something was being noticed and reported. There's so many wheels turning at so many levels in any pro sports organization, people and things that us fans seldom, if ever, hear about, advance scouting being one of them. The Rangers org started pimping theirs when the team started playing well and getting hitters out who had been thorns in there side, for, like, forever. all of a sudden we're getting these guys out and we start hearing "you can thank than the scouting department for that folks, they're out there blahblahbla and it's paying off!" I had just really considered "scouts" in simple terms, as people who beat the bushes looking for raw talent, but it's only logical that you want to have people out there watching everybody play as much as possible, especially you upcoming opponents for the next 2-3 series. Now, speaking of gigs you don't really think about...how about groundskeepers? Part of me thinks that that might be one of the coolest gigs ever. Working on the yard and free baseball all summer long AND getting paid. Those are three things I very much like.

Dude, it's a kind of scouting report, not a manifesto. The guy had a bad game, period. The umps get a review of every game, supposedly objective and honest. This guy's gonna probably hear hey, you had a bad game. And he's gonna say, "so they told me". You can believe it that this type of umpiring data is used by teams to look for trends and tendencies to work to their advantage, same as they do with players; and by the ump's employers to do the same to improve performance, same as the teams do with players. Anecdote - I bought tickets to a Rangers game one time and they ended up being right in the middle of where all the other team's advance scouts were sitting (totally accidental buy, but location was great, about 20 rows back from the plate, more or less right behind it). 2011, I think it was, and everybody was out looking to see either who they were going to be playing in September or who they might try to trade for, you know how scouts do, they scout. A bunch of guys with laptops and briefcases and such, all with team logos on them, Cards & Yanks guys looking like they were on an advance mission for Donald Trump or something, poorer teams looking like they were using freelancers, bare minimum, cats taking notes by hand, a few of them. Anyway, you would see damn near all of them move to make notes after EVERY pitch, some of them finding things to look at and notate before and after as well. I was a unique experience watching a game and at the same time watching THESE guys watch a game. I was one seat behind a scout from the twins org, really nice guy, I left him alone until about the third, finally asked between innings, don't mean to disturb you, but are you a scout? Yeah, he was, and we chatted about the niceties of watching baseball for a living, the unpleasantries of traveling, etc, between innings. As the game wore on, I noticed that the Rangers pitchers were not getting the low strike, and I don't mean borderline, I mean clearly and inch or so above the knees and catching some part of the plate. As the game wore on, it was getting kind of obvious, and at one point I asked the guy am I I seeing things or is this really happening? and the guy said, yeah, he's been doing this all week. He's hearing about it. So, hey, people notice. People should notice and people do notice, and people do spread the word. It's not about robots, it's about having the game being played as well as it can be played as best as humanly possible. A bad game is a bad game, simple as that. And if the games keep being bad, at some point, there are repercussions, at least as much as the ump's union will allow. I don't remember his name, but within the last few years, there's been at least one guy let go, and a few others who have been assigned to different crews so they don't get the "high profile" games as often as they did. And they broke up the Angel Hernandez-Joe West Show, thank god. Umps are great, except when they're not, same as the rest of us. And I would definitely recommend finding out where teh scouts sit in your home stadium and try to sit around them for a game. It was a real eye-opener for me.

Oh, like in Little League?

They plot a home plate ump's zone, you know, balls and called strikes: http://www.brooksbaseball.net/dashboard.php?dts=10/09/2015 On a good day, the greens and reds will mostly not be intermingled. A pitch or two, sure, Best called gamed from yesterday looks to be Alan Porter's, Mets vs Dodgers. But Vic Carpazza's Rangers/Jays zone was kinda...all over the place: Any one inconsistency is not a big deal, human error. It's in the cumulative where it gets troubling, and even then, if consistent, fine. But this guy had an inconsistent inconsistency, and that's the worse kind of 'em all.

The maxim that it (the strike zone) doesn't have to be right, it just needs to be consistent seems to be teetering, to put it mildly. OTOH, I've seen #16 for Team Viagra so many damn times this week, but especially today, that I'd wager a dollar of your money and two of mine that the real problem is that Viagra done made all the umps go blind.

Who is that playing Gil?

Wally Moon Neil Armstrong Andy Kaufman

Fascinating...

If you want to send a job application to Mr. Torre's office using your guts as a recommending quality, feel free. Hell, you can use me as a reference. Get thos gutless bastards in line, I say! And bring Carlos Gomez in with you while you're at it! Better, though, that you petition for them to get their strike zone shit together. Saw just the tail end of Cubs/Cardinals, but they were barking about it up there too, and apparently with good reason. Russell Martin can play on my team any time. But the Buster Posey commercials can not be beat, especially the one where the dude wants him to deliver the baby and his wife is all NO F-in way. Put that one up for a Clio.