Eleven days. Nine games. There’s not enough Milk of Magnesia in the world. But we’ve made it this far, what’s an aneurysm or two among friends? You know it’s been a wild and rocky ride when the FANS were looking forward to a much-deserved day off. I know I was.
Last night, thanks to archaic blackout rules, I couldn’t watch the Cubs game on WCIU because I don’t live within the six blocks of its transmission tower to get it over the air and DirecTV doesn’t know it exists. (They’re too busy not giving us the 70 new HD channels we were supposed to get yesterday, anyway.) The game was on ESPN, but that was blacked out in 38 states and Canada. I pay big bucks to get the MLB Extra Innings Package, but the Reds feed was the one they carried and that was blacked out.
One of the cool features of Extra Innings is a channel that has eight games on it at once in a grid. You can even highlight the game you want to hear the audio of. They don’t black those out so I could watch the Cubs game last night. On one-eighth of my TV. Guh.
Hey, it was better than nothing. Well, almost, I had to listen to the FSN Cincinnati crew of George “Hey, I was the first guy on ESPN, ever” Grande and Jeff Brantley. Jeff’s just as bad as he was on ESPN. Worse, even.
So there I was, hanging on every pitch, arguing with two people who couldn’t hear me and trying to see it all in a little square on my TV that was probably six inches high by four wide. Hey, at least the Astros-Brewers were on the screen next to it so I could keep tabs on that game, too.
I know that I could have turned down the sound and listened to Pat and Ron, but I was already dealing with a screen in need of some of Wade Wilson’s HGH, I didn’t need to deal with an audio delay, too.
From what I could see, Mini Ted Lilly was aces. Ken Griffey Jr. was shot in the eighth inning right out in there in right field. Adam Dunn trapped the ball, but it didn’t matter because either way there’d have been a run in and a guy on first–or at worst the end of the inning and a run in provided that Derrek Lee didn’t get tagged out until after Ryan Theriot scored.
In Houston, much-malinged rookie Astros starter Juan Gutierrez looked a lot like Mel Rojas. Which means he also looked quite a bit like the dad on Dinosaurs.
But Juan pitched pretty well. A helluva lot better than Woody Williams would have, so maybe the Cubs owe Cecil Cooper one? Nah.
It’s interesting to hear what another team’s announcers think about your team’s players. Well, not Al Hrabosky. Frankly, the only thing I’d like to hear Al talk about is what it feels like to be hit in the face with a leaky bag of syphilis.
The Cincinnati guys had a boner for Geovany Soto, and just a few minutes before Al Soriano gunned down Norris Hopper by about 20 feet to save the day, Grande mused that none of the Cubs’ outfielders are a threat to throw anybody out. George, you get cable, right? Hell, even on the little eighth of a screen I’d have been able to tell that Soriano has been nailing more guys than Jim Edmonds on “Fleet Week.”
He got his proof.
They didn’t notice or care that Ryan Dempster (a former Red) was sitting in the bullpen, sweating and trying to be funny during the ninth while Bob Howry did a man’s job. I didn’t care, either. Howry mowed down the Reds and the Cubs were another day and another game closer to the playoffs. Turns out Dempster had “flu like” symptoms, which normally means a guy had the shits. I’m sure that wacky cut up had a lot of hilarious diarrhea jokes for the rest of the bullpen all night.
In Houston, Ned Yost was polishing off his case for Manager of the Year by pulling off this rare hat trick:
In a one-run game he double switched Ryan Braun out of the game in the seventh inning.
In the eighth he basically handed the Astros a lead by bringing Derrick Turnbow in with guys already on base.
In the tenth he sent Matt Wise out (with his post-All Star break ERA of TEN) to finish things off.
Honestly, how are the Cubs only a game ahead of anything run by this dumbshit?
Hunter Pence drove in the winning run in the tenth, just about a half hour after he ran into the right field fence and coughed his spleen up all over the warning track.
So while the Brewers drooled the drool of regret on the airline provided pillows of remorse on their way to Atlanta last night, the Cubs went home (or to a bar to drink their body weight in Jager) to prepare for a rough day of nothing.
And it’s a day off we can all enjoy, too.
Because tomorrow it all starts up again. Honestly, should it be this hard to “watch” something?
(Excluding any movie starring Robin Williams since about 1987.)
Just keep reminding yourself that this is fun.
Reading this was fun, too.
I got to watch Craig Monroe striking out on the ESPN broadcast here is sunny California
The guy who shot Griffey in the balls is the same guy who shot me in the back of the thigh as I tried scoring the winning run in that game agains tthe Mets in ’92, I’m pretty sure.
Interesting you mention other teams announcers, and how they feel about the Cubs, Andy…
Was at the game with my wife, brother and dad last night. As my wife and I were riding home on the El, I called my brother to get an update on the Brewers game. He was listening to the Houston call on XM, so he got the retarded stylings of Milo Hamilton. He mentioned to me that he heard Milo a few a weeks ago, at the end of a game when Houston beat the Cubs, saying in effect, “Milwaukee–this one’s for you.” Nice to know Milo’s douchebaggery is as strong as ever.
Douchebaggery? Are you talking to me?
I’ll go back to sleep since it’s a recruiting period.
I’m Bruce Weber & I can’t recruit.
Cue mouthbreathing shot.
I’m adam dunne?
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/28592
I think what you are experiencing when you listen to the other announcers is actually just relief at not hearing Len and Bob. Neither is fun, but at least you don’t have to listen to those other morans every night.
im the magic number, ogdens
Bravos 3-1 over the Spew Crew.
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/28592
“Hell, even on the little eighth of a screen I’d have been able to tell that Soriano has been nailing more guys than Jim Edmonds on “Fleet Week.””
That’s gold Jerry, GOLD!
Last I checked, Soriano has only nailed 16 dudes. That’s what I call Friday night of Fleet Week, fuckyouverymuch.
Andy, did they really black out the game in 38 states and Canada? Why did they even put the game on ESPN if they didn’t do it Nationally? DirecTV really has those rules about WCIU?
I’m pretty sure Edmonds is the nailee.
for those blacked out, or just plain too cheap to subscribe to MLB TV, here is a useful link to pick up quite a few of the games. Sopcast works preety well for me, I have caught a ton of games here in Maine…
http://myp2p.eu/MLB.htm Is the Link
i am the balls
i showed the cubs game in florida
You should be able to get WCIU in Chicago on DirecTV. I do.
I got the game down in Meth-land…and how about the Fowl last night…hell, if we played them again, maybe just bring up the fellers from Peoria and have Ryno do everything
pd,
I tried on that site to watch the Cubs and I only got the audio stream of the game. Could you help me out?
Best dose in a long time. Not that others were bad, this one just ruled.