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Showing posts with the label baseball

True Story© Play Ball!

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     My city has a minor league baseball team… Wait, hold that whole thought. Y’all know I fucking hate baseball, right? Nevermind, I have spent enough time on my relationship with America’s former pastime.      Anyway, my city has a AA (or maybe AAA, IDK) baseball team.   As much as I dislike baseball as a sport – as in the television entertainment value is lacking HARD – my daughter enjoys going to the games, even though she needs me to explain the goings-on in the games.   She enjoys the atmosphere, the fact that there is a playground and that my employer comps me tickets to games and I invariably pick the Fireworks Fridays games.   Toss a couple of beers into the mix and I can make my way through nine innings.      One time last summer, though, this shit got SUPER lit. Another thing my city has a lot of is young “gang” members ( Phlip note : quotations for ridicule, not for emphasis...

The Asian "Crush" in American Sports

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Urban Dictionary defines "Yellow Fever" as... Yeah, someone will surely view this as clearly one of the most racist blogs I have ever written, but… The major American sports all seem to have developed a form of Yellow fever in which EVERY player to come through their organization of Asian descent, they’re lifted and treated like the crown savior of that sport. Don’t believe me? Hideo Nomo came in with the baffling stretch-and-twist delivery that was soon caught onto by batters in MLB and despite the "ZOMG, HE'S ASIAN!!!" hype machine that carried him, he was traded once and released 4 or 5 times within his first 5 years. 12 MLB seasons, TWO post-season appearances, both losses, $35ish million earned on the strength of being Asian, it seems. Tiger Woods you know what? I can't be all the way mad at this one, he was by far the most successful on this list, speaking purely in terms of accomplishing what was ahead of him to do as his job. I can fully understand...

(4) Play Ball!!!

In roughly 12 hours here, Major League Baseball will shove off on a mercilessly and inexplicably long season. Being the asshole that I am, I am only here this morning to talk down on it, simply because I don't like baseball much as a spectator sport. Back in August of 2009, I offered up some suggestions on how to "fix" baseball, and they were mostly good ideas, to speed game play along and make for something to get fans involved in something more than drinking beer, fighting off sleep and singing "take me out to the ballgame" after the 5th inning. [ Phlip note - ... and heat stroke] I mean, I understand why play the game when it is played if you're not going to play it exclusively in indoor stadiums. One must first make sure that the players are comfortable in an environment most like what they're used to. In such, I must see to it that it feels the most like Cuba and The Dominican Republic if I intend to have anything made of this. Okay, that was mean...

Baseball is boring!

Someone PLEASE get me some basketball back in my life! Look, I am not saying that baseball is uneventful or wholly uninteresting. What I AM saying is that there is far too long between interesting shit taking place, and 3.5+ hours for a fucking game is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be like this, really it doesn't. I have already explained that I wouldn't mind steroids being allowed in baseball as a means of adding some cartoonish superheroism to the whole thing, but that still does nothing to speed the game up. First, there should be some enforced penalties for taking too long to get shit done. 10 seconds! That's right, you got 10 seconds to handle your business. When the ump gives the catcher the ball and he throws it to the pitcher, the clock is on. If the pitcher has not thrown the ball within the allotted 10 seconds, then he is assessed a ball. The batter is not removed from responsibility. He needs to have his ass in the batters box and ready to swing within that ...