As I sat staring vacantly at the TV in the ninth inning of last night's Kansas City-Minnesota game, I had another of my brief, increasingly pathetic revelations. My God, I said to my dog, This really is my life.
Which is something I find myself saying to my dog with alarming frequency of late.
I'd been sitting there for almost three hours. The sound on the television was muted and I was listening to some mournful Armenian blowing narcotic tendrils of fog through an instrument called a duduk. I'd eaten entirely too much candy, almost all of it the sort of novelty garbage that is created expressly for abject convenience store consumers like myself --DOTS Elements, for instance (Fire/Cinnamon, Water/Green Tea, Earth/Pomegranate, Air/Wintergreen). Or Twizzlers Rainbow Twists. Or Life Savers Fruit Splosions Gummies ("Made with real fruit juice"). Good stuff, all of it, but probably best savored in moderation.
There was really no good reason for me to still be sitting on the couch as the game went into the ninth inning. The Royals had an 8-3 lead and seemed well on their way to ending a nine-game losing streak. It had been a pretty miserable game all around, and somebody who had anything whatsoever else to do with their evening would have turned off the television (or at the very least turned the channel) after Delmon Young made two errors and the Royals scored three runs in the bottom of the fourth. Livan Hernandez was getting rocked, and would leave after the sixth, having surrendered thirteen hits and eight runs (six of them earned).
I can't even pretend that I was still watching with anything approaching hope or expectation. No, the sad truth is that I was simply (or not so simply) unable to move. I think it's safe to say that I was in a sugar-induced stupor, and I was aware that I could no longer feel my right arm and that I was chanting --as I so often chant when I am watching a baseball game in a sort of empirical blackout-- "Hey batta, batta, batta. Hey, batta, batta."
On some level, then, I was also apparently aware that the Twins were batting in the ninth inning, and so I watched with zero enthusiasm or even real interest as Michael Cuddyer went down swinging for the first out against KC reliever Ramon Ramirez. I watched as Jason Kubel singled and the beleaguered Delmon Young whiffed for the second out.
What in the world would I do with the rest of my night? I wondered.
Kubel made his way to second on a wild pitch, and Mike Lamb singled, scoring Kubel. It was still 8-4, Royals, but at least, I thought, the Twins were going to go down swinging. Bully for them.
Brendon Harris singled, moving Lamb to second, and then Carlos Gomez chopped one through the infeld, scoring Lamb. 8-5, Royals. Nice little two-out rally, I thought.
Joel Peralta was brought in to relieve Ramirez. Ron Gardenhire countered by sending up Craig Monroe to pinch hit for Alexi Casilla. Monroe took three balls and then managed to work the count full. And then he somehow managed to turn on a pitch and hit it over the left field fence to tie the game.
And then Denys Reyes and Jesse Crain somehow managed to get through the bottom of the ninth without allowing a run.
And then Justin Morneau somehow managed to hit Peralta's first pitch of the tenth for another homer, and the Twins were somehow, suddenly, up 9-8.
And then Joe Nathan, fresh off his first blown save of the season, somehow managed to retire the Royals in order in the bottom of the inning and the Twins had another win.
And then I'll be damned if I didn't eat some more candy and immediately wonder, What in the world will I do with the rest of my night?
And then it occurred to me (baseball and sleeplessness having once again conspired to kindle my spiritual lunacy), Perhaps I might finally get around to baptizing my dog.
I watched the first 3 innings before the Celtics and Pistons. And I flipped back and forth a lot. Like you I didn't find much to watch for until all the sudden I flipped back and the score was 8-5 Royals. And then the entertaining part of the game took place.
So could Carl Crawford be right about Delmon Young when he warned us that sooner or later the "Real" Delmon Young would show up and wear out his welcome.
First, yes, he made the wrong play the other night for diving for the ball. But Gardy made the wrong call in taking out Blackburn. That game was his to win or lose in my opinion. And Nathan being upset at Young for diving is just the kettle calling the pot black. Nathan left an 87 mph fast ball over the plate and the dude could have hit it with his eyes closed. That ball could had have easily have been a conventional home run.
But in last night's game Young once again played a few poorly. His hitting isn't so good and I'm not sure where he ranks in attitude within the club house.
And now that he's gone from the Rays, they seem to be doing a lot better without him in their club house.
At this point, I'm not against bringing Span up to spell Young for a bit.
Very good points on Delmon Young Mr. Zellar. I really haven't heard anything as far as Delmon's attitude being a distraction in the clubhouse. I do think that Delmon Young has star potential. I mean real star potential. It would be a mistake to burn him at the stake this early in his career.
Yes, Cuddy has been a disappointment thus far. He did have a brief injury though so I gotta give him a bit of leeway. But last year and this year, he has held the #5 spot in the line up, a prime spot to drive in a lot of runs with Mauer and Morneau ahead of him, and yet he in fact has failed to produce what he should be producing and is capable of producing. But in the last few games he has stepped up his game a bit.
Do you think that having Alexi in the line up too has helped the entire line up in the past few games? Bert tonight said that it did seem like you kinda have 2 lead off hitters. What happens when Punto comes back? Anyway, nice stuff Mr. Zellar!
KC fans don't have it so bad. Their team may stink, and their manager doesn't really manage in any meaningful sense of the word, but at least they have a heck of an organist down there at Kauffman.
The KSTP production crew, especially on the road, has a particular knack for picking up ambient noise at the ballpark and blaring it right over the top of Gordo and Dazzle. [It makes me imagine they're hauling around some kind of giant parabolic microphone, of the sort they used to use on the sidelines during NFL games. "Here, guys. Just sorta talk into this big lucite dish." Having seen some of the Hubbard family's broken down and obsolete gear, I find this scenario more plausible than comic.]
Usually the off-mic stuff consists of hecklers, which can be highly amusing. But last night the most memorable bleed-through was from that no-doubt-lonely old soul up in the rafters with his Wurlitzer. I hope for his sake he's not a Royals fan. He sounds melancholy enough as it is.
So did you baptize him? And give him a saint's name?
Bernard, maybe, for the name of the saint, although I don't recommend switching a dog's name after he/she already has one he/she is familiar with. Dogs do not need further confusion, as their on-going observances of our conventional behaviors no doubt provide in 10-fold over the limit what they themselves think they need already. To what religion is your dog anticipating become a full-fledged member, Brad? And could you review some of the basics of its dogma?
It seems like one of the sports of this blogging/comment business is to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to recognizing incompetence. To that end I will abandon my cliched displeasure with Young and Cuddyer and aim my squirt gun filled with piss at Brandon Harris. He may indeed look more comfortable at short than at second, as has been reported, but so would an old man sitting in a rocking chair. I mean, if comfort is how we're going to measure defense, that would be true comfort. And the geezer would have better range. Last night Harris dived after, by unofficial count, at least three singles that appeared to be standardly hit balls a normal-to-good shortstop would have stopped with relative ease.