Comments on: Playoff thoughts …

By: Ike

Ike — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:24:35 +0000

“One of the scenes shows a woman slowing down so she doesnâ€™t run over a dog. Really? Have we fallen this far in society that now not hitting a dog with your car qualifies as extra credit on the great responsibility exam. What next? How about they show a scene where a man is in his car, and heâ€™s looking at his handgun, pondering killing someone, and then he shakes his head and put the gun under the seat. Put some music behind that Liberty Mutual.”

hahahah i was wondering if anyone else out there thought this exact same thing! bravo. i actually searched the net to see if someone else got that not running over a dog is NOT a good deed.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:44:39 +0000

Joe,

I thought you’d get a kick out of this from a Jim Callis chat @ ESPN. He’s talking about a recent conversation with Tim McCarver:

‘I was shocked, just shocked last night when Tim McCarver explained to me that a leadoff homer leads to more big innings that an leadoff walk. Really? Never would have guessed that. That’s quality analysis. ‘

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:49:35 +0000

Joe-

Just discovered your new blog. Happy to see it.

I like your Indians’ chances.

-Ryan Dolan

By: antoniomo

antoniomo — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:24:28 +0000

I’ve never understood why people liked McCarver as an announcer. I’ve always felt he took himself too seriously and didn’t have much insight to add to the game.

Especially compared to Jim Palmer. I thought he was always interesting to listen to and had some insightful things to say.

And I’ve got to agree with the “Ouch” comment. That was one of the best, most painful put-downs I’ve ever read anywhere. A classic. I’ll be quoting it tomorrow to my friend who is a Red Sox fan.

By: Dusty

Dusty — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:47:39 +0000

I actually tivo’d the game and the one Youk atbat in particular took 15 minutes and 2 seconds. No trips to the mound in the middle, just foul off after foul off. During the glory days of Greg Maddux he could go through the 4th-6th innings in about 12 minutes and change and 1 atbat in the ALCS takes 15:02! Incidentally, my favorite stat of all time is that Maddux in 1995 allowed 2 earned runs in 84 1/3 innings in the 4th, 5th and 6th. That’s a 0.21 ERA to all those who think Maddux was never quite as dominant as Pedro or Rocket.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:12:19 +0000

Great post, particularly the riff on the Liberty Mutual ad and the McCarver Hypothesis (I just trademarked that, so don’t even try it). I think it’s apt as I was a big Joe Morgan fan for about 5 years before I turned against him. Of course, I was 17 when I turned against him…

Re. Gagne. I went to bed when he came in. And I’m a Sox fan.

By: Randy

Randy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:01:12 +0000

I partial;ly agree about McCarver. I loved him when he was broadcasting for the Mets about 150 years ago. But he has really become a self-parody. Tim, it’s OK to shut up once in a while.

As for Arizona being the worst team ever to make the LCS, the 1973 Mets might disagree with that assessment.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:14:17 +0000

The big problem with McCarver, though, is that he gets things wrong–and majorly, category-mistake-type wrong. Last night, he pointed out, interestingly enough, that when Ortiz grounded out, Cabrera was playing him on the infield on not the outfield grass (which is more typical with the overshift) and was still able to make the play. OK as far as it goes. I think it was the next inning that Sizemore grounded out to second, and McCarver tries to resurrect the point he had made (perhaps sensing it was the only semi-interesting thing he had said in several years) by stressing that Cabrera was once again making a play from the infield. Ah, but don’t count Tim out–he corrected himself when he realized it was Pedroia making the play, which, good, since if Cabrera fields his own batted ball, he’s out anyway, as far as I understand the rules. But what McCarver in no wise acknowledges or even realizes is that he has no point, even though he presses it again. Yes, Azdrubel Cabrera is not the batter. Sizemore is. What’s more, neither Sizemore nor Cabrera, fun as they are, is David Ortiz! In no way similar. But McCarver presses it again, making a point that doesn’t exist, in a language no one speaks, about a game that hasn’t been invented yet.

I’m used to some poor calling. I’m a Yankees fan without cable and have to listen to John Sterling get convinced that every lazy fly ball to right center is on its way out of the park. But it was like McCarver was watching the game through some kind of temporal vortex or was looking at a cubist painting of a football game between the Patriots and the Browns.

Then again, if we, as a society, have reached a point where we let Fox handle something as important as the baseball playoffs, I guess we deserve whatever we get.

By: AK

AK — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:09:11 +0000

Wait a minute, wait a minute…you mean you didn’t know that Madden was Captain Obvious until Frank Caliendo pointed it out? Really?? I feel like that has been a running joke for years, am I wrong? I mean, even just listening to a Madden video game will confirm that: “The key to winning games, see, is you want to score more points than the other team.”

By: robustyoungsoul

robustyoungsoul — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:09:14 +0000

Well, at least the Rockies won and I’ll get a reprieve from their evangelizing for a couple of days.