The Right Voice

Once again I am forced to rail against Bud Selig. By allowing TBS to have a monopoly on the Division series, he once again, shut out the East Coast to baseball. How do you expect to gain new fans when playoff games start at 10 PM? I could only stay up until the 4th inning. How can I keep up? Would have been cool to see the Cubs/Dodgers game 1 and see Maddux come in as a closer. Too bad that happened at 3AM Eastern Time. Bud Selig is the absolute worst thing to ever happen to baseball, and he should be fired. I will take a decade to undo the damage he has brought to the sport.

Now that that is out of the way, lets focus in the playoffs. I am shocked that the Cubs are down 0-2 and are on the brink of elimination. They were the strongest team in the NL this year. I had them at least to the NLCS, if not the whole thing. I am also surprised by the Angels poor performance. Scosia has a solid club with offense, defense, and great pitching. I had them going to the World Series.

How about them Rays? They are an incredible story that is an example of everything right in baseball. I also hate the White Sox. I could care less about the Phillies and Brewers.

From the Files of You Can’ Make this Stuff Up:

Here is a picture I took on the Metro coming home one day

If you can’t see it, it is a can of sardines.

Todd

Ah, August baseball. the time of the year when the Braves have already wrapped up the division and have put the scrubs in to get a taste of the show. Wait a minute, something is not right here. Let’s see where the mistakes are. Let’s see…August? Check. Scrubs in the game? Check. Ah yes I see it now. The Braves have not wrapped up the division. In fact, the Braves are 19 games below .500 and 17 Games Behind the Mets with only 25 left to play. Well, I went to the game today to see if they could avoid being swept by the worst team in the majors.

Thanks to generosity from former coworkers friends, I was able to watch the game from awesome seats. The weather was perfect, if not a little hot, but that was taken care of by the third inning, or so. I took advantage of Twitter and “tweeted” live commentary during the game. The scrubs were out in full force today. No Chipper, No McCann, no, ah, ah, I guess those are our only stars. This guy played though. This guy pitched. He also hit, but thankfully, he does not get paid to hit. The free Nationals program featured a cover story on Pat Corrales. That was kind of cool. It was also nice to see old friends like Langerhans (I always liked him) and Don Sutton.

The Braves scored 1 in the first. I started to get excited because we scored early and Jurrjens was on the hill, so we were in good hands. Ishould not have been so foolish. The Nats came back for 2 in the bottom of the inning. I tweeted cautiously:

nats get 2. not looking good for the non-hitting braves

That was the score until 4th inning when Escobar hit a three run shot to make the score 4-3. the Nats refused to quit though and came back with one in the bottom of the inning to make it 4-3. Jurrjens settled down after that. He seemed to be going strong. No sooner than I said this:

Jurrjens has retired 7 in a row

I said this:

  Jurrjens being lifted for a pinch hitter. I don”t agree with Cox on this move

Sadly, I was proven right.

Boyer was brought in to pitch the 7th. He shut the Nats down in order. Then Elmer Dessens came out to pitch the 8th. I astutely tweeted this

no idea why Boyer was taken out with the pitcher’s spot due up third in the 9th

Elmer Dessens did not last long. He gave up 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning capped by a three run homer by Aaron Boone. This happened about 4 batters too late. The Braves lost 8-4 and got swept by the Nats. The Nats are playing well right now, but come on.

One last thing before I sign off. I am really impressed with Josh Anderson I think he is going to be a solid player for us (or wherever he ends up). At the Nats games they have the President Race and Teddy Roosevelt has never won. Today was no exception. There’s always next year.

Todd

I am known for very few things. One of those things, however, is talking about how great I am at softball. I even devoted a few pages of my Web site to my highlights on the softball field. I am always a welcome addition to any team I am on, and this new team is no different.

However, tonight was different. The last game I played, I batted 5th and played left field. Tonight, I batted last (11th) and played Right Field. I also sat on the bench every other inning. I had a great night at the plate though. I was 3-4 with a grand slam, a triple, with 5 RBIs, and 3 runs scored.

Let me be clear though. I never have a problem with sitting on the bench, hitting last, or only hitting once. I just love being out there. I just thought people might enjoy seeing me taken down a few pegs
For those keeping score at home YOUR Capitalist Tools beat the Running Dogs of the CATO Institute 18-17 in a thrilling come from behind win in near darkness in playoff play for the DC Think Tank League.

Todd

UPDATE: Official Scorebook had me at 4-4 with 7 RBIs. They were generous.

For those of you who know me (and I am assuming you do because you are reading this, but you never know) you know that I like politics and softball. Well, today (and two weeks ago) they merged. Today, our game was at the National Mall with the Washington Monument in the background. Very picturesque place to play.

Well, that’s where the picturesque-ness (not a word, I know) ends. The field was deplorable. No infield to speak of sans a few patches of dirt where there used to be an infield. The outfield grass ranged from about 1 and a half inches high to 3 inches high. Let me take this moment to talk about humidity. There is nothing good to say about it. After about 5 minutes, I was drenched in sweat and the shade provides no relief. For 7 innings, we drudged it out. We were dragging the last two. We ended up winning 22-10.

Did I have fun? Of course I did. I don’t usually toot my own horn, but toot toot. I was 2-3 with a triple, sac fly and 3 RBIs. YOUR Heritage Capitalist Tools are 8-2 and in first place in the Whig division of the Washington DC Think Tank League.

Oh yeah, I was in Austin, TX this weekend.

Todd

I would have loved to see the end of the All Star game last night. I love baseball and I love watching baseball. As a kid I looked forward to the All Star game every year and I loved it. Last night was to be no different…except now I live on the East Coast. The 835 start time was too much to overcome. Part of the blame goes to FOX and Tim McCarver, I guess, but it all goes back to the worthless slug of a commissioner known as Bud Selig.

Back before he ruined everything good and pure about baseball the All Star Game, as well as the World Series, used to be on during a time when everyone could watch it. It allowed everyone to enjoy the game, whether it was skipping work, or listening during school on transistor radios. The point is, that great memories were made from the time doing whatever you had to do to watch, or hear, the game.

With the current attitude of everything needing to be in prime time to make the maximum amount of money possible, the decision was made to put the games in Prime Time (for the East Coast). In theory, that wasn’t as big of a deal. Starts at 8, theoretically ends at 11, giving everyone plenty of time for sleep. However, that all changed when Bud Selig let FOX have a monopoly for post season and extra curricular baseball. Things went downhill in a hurry.

Sure, at the beginning, FOX was fine. They started a lot of innovative features that were copied by everyone else who broadcast baseball. However, the cool, new innovations quickly turned to really annoying features that seemed only there to glorify FOX and take away from the game they were broadcasting. They spent probably half the game showing the stars of whatever show they ended up cancelling a month later and, of course, the “celebrity” is wearing the hat of whatever the home team was (usually the Yankees so Tim McCarver can exploit his man-crush and drool at the site of Derek Jeter).

Bud Selig was at the helm when baseball became a shell of it’s former greatness. Thankfully, he can’t single handily destroy baseball, but he is doing his best. I wonder if Major League Baseball can make more money if all the games were broadcast exclusively online for a paid subscription? At least we won’t have to listen to Tim McCarver.

Todd

On Wednesday, Jun 25, I was able to take part in my first Nationals game since coming to Washington, DC. My boss had two tickets. He graciously offered them to me and I went with my friend Jeff to the game.

They were playing the hometown Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in interleague play The seats we had were great. The game was great. The food was sub-par, but it was to be expected. I mean, they did not even have Dodger dogs. The view of the capital was from the concession stand. I could not have thought of better view.

We had a special guest in about the 3rd inning or so. Three helicopters from the US Air Force that (I can only presume) were carying the president. Others around us thought the same thing, so I am pretty sure it was him.

I am upset that Nationals ended up winning (go Braves!), but it was a good game.Thanks to friends at Yahoo!, I will get to see the braves at the new stadium in August.

Todd

Well, for the high school team that I coach anyway. Our season ended last week with a tremendous win helping us to finish 4-4 in league competition good enough for second place in the Alpha League. The team was very good. They could not always put it together at the same time, but when we did, we were hard to beat. Although we finished 4-4, we could have just as easily finished 8-0 and probably should have. The games we lost in our league, we should not have.

This means, for me, that I am back to working one job and having Mondays off completely so I just might update this thing once in a while. I also do not have to be at work by 630 or 700 AM, so I get to sleep in more now. I had a great time coaching this year and I look foward to the season starting next year.