For two and a half hours today, I was privy to the most boring baseball in modern history. Ok, that's an exaggeration; the game featured a few paltry hits by the opposition and an error by the pitcher, Jarrod Washburn, that allowed an extra run to score. The most exciting play came when Seattle Mariners left-fielder Endy Chavez was flipped head over heels by Yuniesky Betancourt. A lazy man's lazy man, Betancourt had a terrible day, striking out several times with runners in scoring position and failing to communicate so that he may have cost his teammate the season. It doesn't look good for Endy Chavez. He came off the field on a stretcher, writhing in pain. Tentative diagnosis: ligament damage to the knee. We will have to wait for his MRI so the magic of nuclear spin can be exploited to view his maligned joint.
As with a typical boring game, I took the opportunity to get up from my seat and make a few phone calls. No dice. Everybody was out doing something too important to rescue poor Alex from the banal spectacle before him.
As with a typical boring game, I took the opportunity to get up from my seat and make a few phone calls. No dice. Everybody was out doing something too important to rescue poor Alex from the banal spectacle before him.
One of the advantages of Safeco field is the people. It's like the crowds of Paris backed into a multilevel green and gray superstructure, but instead of dog-doo and crepes, you have peanut shells strewn everywhere and the wafting odor of garlic fries. I swear, people holding a hot-dog and those fries are like Pied Pipers and I'm the rat. I made a circuit around the 100 level. The cool thing about the 100 level is that it is open toward the field so I could see the game as I walked all the way around the stadium. I made a circuit over an inning. For the opposition, a fly out and two strikeouts. Washburn settled down and started throwing the ball in the strike-zone and not in-between the shoulder blades of the runners. Next up, the Mariners: fly out, single, single, got something going there. Then newbie Chris Woodward squelched the rally with a double play ball. It was time to retake my seat in the nosebleeds.
The game went like that until the bottom of the 8th inning. Arizona brought in a lefty to face left-handed slugger Russel Branyan. Branyan nullified the same-handed strategy by depositing a 2-2 curveball into the right-field seats faster than a government bailout deposits $80 billion in an ailing financial insurance company. Finally, the crowd woke up, but almost nobody even stood up for the 375 foot blast. It was going to take a lot more to rouse that crowd. The lefty left in disgrace, and in came the righty to protect the 3-1 lead. Not four pitches later, Adrian Beltre was on first with a seeing-eye single. A strikeout, wild-pitch, and fly out allowed Beltre to advance to third base, but he wasn't the tying run, so people were still sitting on their hands.
Then, the manager called upon Ken Griffey Jr, old Mariner hero and merely a shadow of his former self, to pinch hit. The sight of the aging "kid" roused the crowd. This year he was getting a hit once every four at-bats, so I was not convinced that anything will come of it. Nevertheless, the daunting image of a man who has hit more than 600 home runs in his career necessitated a trip to the mound by manager A.J. Hinch to discuss strategy with pitcher Tony Pena. With nobody on first or second base, they could walk Griffey and go after the rookie who ended the last rally in the 6th. Instead, they went after Griffey and Pena laid him a fat (hold the spice) meatball that he crushed into left-center field. It was a homer that everybody recognized right off the bat. The crowd jumped to its feet, fists pumped into the air, and a roar erupted from all present. After 8 innings of boredom and typical Mariner failure, the old hero, the comeback kid, hit it out, proverbially raising the retractable roof. From that point on, there was no doubt the Mariners would emerge victorious. Baseball is like that. They've blown games before after miraculous comebacks. But who cares, victory was in the air. Another two hits gave them the lead, and David (arrrrr like a pirate!) Aardsma slammed the door in the Diamondbacks faces.
That's the old game for you. Make sure you have something else to entertain you: a lively crowd, a bundle of cotton-candy, a board game, an iPhone, a copy of the New York times if the AT&T 3G network goes out of service. Wait patiently, and the agents of fate will make the spectacle on the field worth watching.
The game went like that until the bottom of the 8th inning. Arizona brought in a lefty to face left-handed slugger Russel Branyan. Branyan nullified the same-handed strategy by depositing a 2-2 curveball into the right-field seats faster than a government bailout deposits $80 billion in an ailing financial insurance company. Finally, the crowd woke up, but almost nobody even stood up for the 375 foot blast. It was going to take a lot more to rouse that crowd. The lefty left in disgrace, and in came the righty to protect the 3-1 lead. Not four pitches later, Adrian Beltre was on first with a seeing-eye single. A strikeout, wild-pitch, and fly out allowed Beltre to advance to third base, but he wasn't the tying run, so people were still sitting on their hands.
Then, the manager called upon Ken Griffey Jr, old Mariner hero and merely a shadow of his former self, to pinch hit. The sight of the aging "kid" roused the crowd. This year he was getting a hit once every four at-bats, so I was not convinced that anything will come of it. Nevertheless, the daunting image of a man who has hit more than 600 home runs in his career necessitated a trip to the mound by manager A.J. Hinch to discuss strategy with pitcher Tony Pena. With nobody on first or second base, they could walk Griffey and go after the rookie who ended the last rally in the 6th. Instead, they went after Griffey and Pena laid him a fat (hold the spice) meatball that he crushed into left-center field. It was a homer that everybody recognized right off the bat. The crowd jumped to its feet, fists pumped into the air, and a roar erupted from all present. After 8 innings of boredom and typical Mariner failure, the old hero, the comeback kid, hit it out, proverbially raising the retractable roof. From that point on, there was no doubt the Mariners would emerge victorious. Baseball is like that. They've blown games before after miraculous comebacks. But who cares, victory was in the air. Another two hits gave them the lead, and David (arrrrr like a pirate!) Aardsma slammed the door in the Diamondbacks faces.
That's the old game for you. Make sure you have something else to entertain you: a lively crowd, a bundle of cotton-candy, a board game, an iPhone, a copy of the New York times if the AT&T 3G network goes out of service. Wait patiently, and the agents of fate will make the spectacle on the field worth watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment