I know you were wondering what the key to winning tonight's game 5 would be for the Cardinals and the Red Sox. Tim "a half step above Joe Morgan" McCarver is here to enlighten you: it's to go back to Boston up 3-2. You're welcome.
ESPN Classic was showing game 6 of the 1993 World Series (the Joe Carter game) earlier today. Our main man Timmy was in the booth. Now, when I first recognized that velvety tone, I thought to myself "Maybe he wasn't so stupid back then. This could even be enjoyable." Turns out... not so much. A couple choice pieces of dumbfuckery he managed to spew in the hour I watched:
Most people think "PM" is an abbreviation for "prime minister." But Paul Molitor (who had just hit a home run) is changing that, at least here in Canada.
1. A brief Google search reveals Molitor's nickname was "the Ignitor."
2. You can't just say that when someone does something cool, their initials replace a pre-existing abbreviation that is part of common knowledge.
3. Thanks for specifying that Americans probably don't think "prime minister" when they hear "PM."
During the climactic bottom of the 9th, after Rickey Henderson leads off the inning with a walk:
It is said that television is a visual medium. But that's not the case tonight in Philadelphia, because no one is watching.
Did he mean that no one was watching because they were covering their eyes, or because they had turned off their TVs? Either way, what a fucking dunce. This guy is still paid (presumably) huge sums of money to announce baseball games- and he was saying this kind of shit back in the early 90s. Imagine how much worse his brain works now as compared to then.
The sports media world is obviously not a meritocracy.
And in doing so, I picked up the following eight pieces of garbage which Tim McCarver's mouth littered out of my TV set. (Despite my lack of DVR, all are printed here verbatim or very close.) Chris W and I had a discussion about Timmy- we agree that unlike, say, Joseph Q. McBrainless Morgansheffield, McCarver actually has a pretty decent head/brain on his shoulders. His problem is that the connection between said head/brain and his mouth is tenuous at best. He's got a lot to contribute... but he's unable to do so because he's inarticulate. He's like a less excitable version of Shannon Sharpe.
So why is this a big deal? Isn't it a little nitpicky to go after him when his crime (usually) is not stupidity, but rather struggling to put his thoughts into words? Well, I'm glad you asked. My stance is this: due to the fact that he's employed as a television broadcaster, i.e., he is paid to talk into a microphone and explain things to viewers, we're holding him to a perfectly reasonable standard by criticizing each and every dumb thing he says. So let's get to the head-scratchers.
1. During the pregame scouting report (that term being used loosely here, thanks, FOX) about Andy Sonnanstine:
[He]... might be the best thing a teammate could say about him... is that he's just a winner.
First of all, that sentence is either missing several words or is simply poorly spoken. Second, Sonnanstine's career regular season record: 19-19. Record in last night's game: 0-1. This "He's just a winner!" bullshit is the kind of half-hearted attempt at praise broadcasters give to players who don't actually have much talent, but play for successful teams. See: Young, Vince.
2. After Jimmy Rollins leads off the game with a double and moves to third on a Jayson Werth flyout:
The Phillies once again with a chance to score a cheap run here early.
I don't disagree with Tim that there are such things as "cheap" runs. However, I strongly disagree that a guy who leads off with a double and then comes around on two sac flies/groundouts scored "cheaply." A cheap run is like a HBP, a failed pickoff attempt that goes up the 1st base line and lets the runner get to third, and an error that allows the guy to score. Runs that score because of extra base hits are almost always very, very expensive.
3. Referring to Philadelphia's poor performance in the series thus far in terms of getting hits when runners are on base:
It's almost as if the Phillies can't score a run unless they drive in themselves! With a teammate... uh... (trails off)
Good point in the first sentence there. In the first three games of the series, they'd hit six solo home runs and only scored ten runs total. However, Tim, once you've made that point, maybe it's time to quit while you're ahead, shut up, and let Joe Buck fill up the airwaves with more of his smarmy drivel.
4. After Jimmy Rollins reaches on an Akinora Iwamura error to open the bottom of the 4th-
When Rollins gets on, he prevents the Phillies from becoming a station-to-station team.
Could you possibly do a worse job of phrasing that idea? It would be tough. I might go with "When Rollins gets on, the Phillies can't not be a team that doesn't go station-to-station." But I'm not sure that stacks up to what Tim said. Also: Rollins ended up scoring when Ryan Howard hit the proverbial three-run homer everyone except the Angels seems to be waiting around for these days.
5. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Iwamura snares a Carlos Ruiz ground ball but doesn't have a play on any of the runners. Tim gets excited.
Think about the wisdom of that play! With 2 outs and a runner on second, infielders are taught to dive for a ball even if they don't have a play!
Whereas, if there isn't a runner on second who could potentially score if the ball gets to the outfield, most infielders will just kind of watch a grounder trickle past them and shrug their shoulders. Also- I'm pretty sure the use of "wisdom" there is a little heavy-handed.
6. Noting that Sonnanstine was not exactly pounding the strike zone:
I wouldn't say the layoff (14 days had passed since his last start) has affected his effectiveness, but it has affected his control.
Sonnanstine's fastball tops out at about 89 mph, and one of his biggest strengths is limiting walks (63 in 324 career innings). I'm pretty sure effectiveness and control are one and the same for him. His biggest problem last night was not doing a good enough job controlling his control.
7. Comparing Tropicana Field to Citizens Bank Park:
The dimensions are not as big here.
Again, we have a problematic disconnect between a thought (good, relevant) and a sentence (sounds like it was orinigally written in Japanese, translated to English, then translated back and forth a couple more times).
8. After a Joe Blanton solo shot makes it 6-2 Phils in the bottom of the 5th:
Normally they only score in one or two big innings. They do not have an offense with those tack on runs, but they do tonight.
Re: the first sentence- Wrong. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Re: the second sentence- What? What, what, and what?
Given the way Cole Hamels has been pitching this month, there may be but a scant one game left in the 2008 MLB season. Gosh, seems like just yesterday I was waking up at 5:30 in the morning to watch the A's and Red Sox square off in Tokyo. Good thing the NBA is about to start up! And I mean that non-sarcastically. Check the comments section for Chris W's obligatory complaints thereof.
Despite what it says below, I'm not so torn up inside that I can't point out how ridiculous FOX's "Keys to the Game" were tonight. (As read by Tim "The Voice of Reason" McCarver)
Red Sox:
Try to wrap up lopsided series
Rockies:
Desperate times; just try to win tonight
Soooooo... the key for the Red Sox was to try to win. Whereas the Rockies were trying to win. I guess that explains the outcome!
On that note here's my "Keys to the Game" for the 2008 presidential election:
Republicans:
Try to hold on to office
Democrats:
Try to get more electoral votes than other guys
Just a couple weird things, just in the first inning....I'll be adding them as I see fit. That's right folks, I'm LIVEBLOGGING. Because it's live, all quotes are not exact, but close!
1) McCarver: They've been saying Grady Sizemore is Superman. It looks like Superman has lost his cape!
Ooh.....sorry Tim. The obligatory reference we were looking for was "Kryptonite".
2) McCarver: When you get 2 strikes on the batter, the advantage definitely swings to the pitcher
Thanks!
Update: This is lame. 5th inning, Boston winning, McCarver not ridiculous. These things need to change.
***7th inning***
3) McCarver: And as you can see, Lofton was held up, because Skinner, the 3rd base coach, and as you can see this is a fair ball.
Quite the sentence, eh?
4) Tim McCarver just argued that Joel Skinner made the wrong move in holding Kenny Lofton because a) a double play followed and b) Franklin Gutierrez would still be on 2nd if Lofton was out.
The correctness of the decision to send a runner home is apparently independent of whether or not he is likely to be safe or out.
***End of 7th***
5) I'd like it if someone checked me on this, but it sounded like Joe Buck just said that Skinner, the 3rd base coach, was responsible for Lofton being thrown out (assuming he wasn't actually safe) earlier in the game.
Also, a serious question....with the Red Sox rookies playing very well in this game, can we still expect to see articles about the Indians' lack of postseason experience costing them if they don't wind up winning?
***8th inning***
The Red Sox fans are chanting "M-V-P" for Mike Lowell. That's a joke, right?
No less than three minutes ago, Tim McCarver said one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard from Tim McCarver. And that's saying a lot.
Situation: Red Sox/Indians, Bottom of the 5th. The Indians have scored six in the frame. The inning began with a Casey Blake solo home run. Tim, take it away (not verbatim because I don't have DVR, but I didn't fudge anything or omit anything important).
"You'd think a leadoff walk would lead to more multi-run innings than a leadoff home run. We did some research and ran the numbers... turns out that's not the case. A leadoff home run actually creates more multi-run innings. Go figure!"
Oh... so you mean... wow. Who'd have known? Just goes to show you, you can't always trust conventional wisdom. I mean, if I were a manager and were looking for a big inning, I for one would much rather have a guy on first with no runs in than no one on and one run in already. But as the saying goes, "That's why they play the games!"
That's applicable here, right?
I have a bunch of small things I want to go over, so why not throw them all into one post?
First- Check out our newest link, eTrueSports. As the description in the sidebar reads, it's a whole lot like Sports Pickle or The Onion's sports section. Very well done, and good for a light hearted laugh for whenever you don't want to read our overanalytical diatribes here at FireJay.
Second- Almost two weeks after it was originally published, this Gregg Easterbrook explanation for New England's dominance this season still infuriates me:
What is [Patriots offensive line coach Dante] Scarnecchia's secret? It's so, so simple, yet few NFL teams understand it: New England offensive linemen never stand doing nothing, watching the play. On a shocking number of NFL plays, there is at least one gentleman simply standing there doing nothing at all, and often that gentleman is an offensive lineman. New England's offensive linemen never stand around doing nothing. More than anything else, never standing around doing nothing is what separates the Patriots from the rest of the league, and this approach pays the most dividends on the offensive line.
So I decided to take the challenge I levied in my response to that column, and watch a bunch of football while paying specific attention to the offensive line in order to see how often any of them "[stood] there doing nothing at all." Since last weekend, I dutifully sat on my couch and absorbed between 15 and 20 hours of football. My repertoire included all or part of the following games (plus countless highlights from other games not televised where I live):
NCAA-
Florida St. at Wake Forest
Navy at Pitt
Hawaii at San Jose St.
Boston College at Notre Dame
LSU at Kentucky
Oregon St. at Cal
Colorado at Kansas St.
Missouri at Oklahoma
NFL-
Tennessee at Tampa Bay
Washington at Green Bay
Oakland at San Diego
New England at Dallas
Are you ready for my stunning results? If for some reason you're standing while reading this, sit down. I saw offensive linemen standing around doing nothing during exactly sixteen plays in hours upon hours of coverage. Only three of these sixteen happened during my viewing of NFL action (two by the Raiders, one by Green Bay). So... yeah, unless my definition of standing around doing nothing differs drastically from Gregg's... I was right. He's full of shit.
Third- In an attempt to answer my own question from the title of Thursday's post, I emailed ESPN to ask why Bill Simmons is the only Page 2 writer whose columns don't have ESPN's "Conversation" commenting feature. I'll let you know if I hear back from them. Don't hold your breath.
Fourth, and finally- I'm watching the pregame show for game 3 of the NLCS. Now I definitely don't mind Charles Barkley at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy his zany, disjointed approach to sports analysis. But I really have to ask: why, oh why, is he talking about baseball? It's kind of like some TBS exec said "Well, everyone likes Barkley. The NBA doesn't start for a few weeks. Hell, give him a plane ticket to Denver." I guess it could be worse; he could be Tim McCarver.
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to come back a few times this week. We'll be adding a new writer who likes and will probably write about hockey! (If you're into that kind of thing.)
tim mccarver, re: the all star voting process during fox's saturday broadcast of the giants vs. the yankees:
"even if major league baseball has to overhaul the entire all-star balloting program, they need to make sure bonds is the starting left fielder."
i'm not sure if he means overhaul it so that the guy with the top OPS at each position gets the starting nod, or overhaul it so that the guy tim mccarver likes the most at each position gets the starting nod. i can guess though.
cecil fielder on steroids in baseball:
"If we didn't know, we ought to really slap ourselves if we didn't think something was going on in baseball - from the commissioner's office on down," said Fielder, the manager of an independent league team. "Guys were getting too big and too strong. Little guys turned into big guys. Baseball was doing so well at the time, everybody was turning away from it and letting it go on."
i'm not at all saying this is funny because fielder was on the juice or something. this is funny because, whatever the reason (in this case probably bacon covered cheese fries), fielder is one of the most famous "big guys" in recent baseball history. i'm reading between the lines here and it seems cecil is saying "i got huge by eating a lot and occasionally lifting weights. all these guys that got big using drugs piss me off. i'm supposed to be the only ridiculously fat/strong guy around these parts." i'm also picturing him giving the quote while eating a sandwich.
lawl! lawl!
a footnote from the latest baseball notes column by foxsports.com's ken rosenthal:
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6834288
And finally, please allow me to correct a misstatement that I made on Saturday's Mets-Yankees broadcast. I said that if the Yankees wanted a new manager, perhaps they should turn to Vasco de Gama and search for the Fountain of Youth. As any young history student knows, I confused Vasco de Gama with Ponce de Leon.
The sad part is, history was one of my stronger subjects in school. I apologize to any of my former teachers that I might have disgraced and anyone else who might have been offended by my contribution to the dumbing-down of America. That's the last time I'll talk about explorers!
wow. thats a pretty tough reference to make correctly. (no sarcasm.) im only about 6 or 7 years removed from studying this kind of stuff in high school, and while i knew it wasnt de gama looking for the fountain i definitely did not remember that it was de leon. what im saying is, dont beat yourself up, ken. thats a pretty tough factoid to spit out at a moment's notice and i bet the mistake slipped by a huge chunk of viewers who heard it that night.
anyways, the funny thing here is: you never hear this kind of retraction and apology from idiots like tim mccarver. what if every time he screwed up a guy's name, team's history, or made an incredibly awkward/terrible reference, ol' timmy later apologized for it? what a strange paradox- he'd spend so much time retracting and apologizing, would he even have any left over in which to make more mistakes? but if he didnt make any more mistakes, he wouldnt have to retract or apologize for anything and would then have more time to make mistakes... wow, this is messed up. did i just figure out a way to make tim mccarver collapse inwards on himself and disappear? lets hope so. now all i need to do is write a letter to fox's mlb department about this matter.
