I was linked to this post in the Washington City Paper’s blog The Sexist and it included what I can only assume to be old-timey baseball speak, describing the 1909 Harvard-Yale baseball game.
Yet it was a good game — rattling good. Classy? Rather! Pep? Plenty of it! Ginger? the real old Jamake.
But it also included what I can only assume to be a prehistoric version of “California Girls.”
I’m assuming the New York girl wins, because there weren’t many, if any, California Girls at Vassar or Radcliffe in 1909.
In what is becoming an annual tradition, the staff at Wrigley Field let Brewers announcer Bob Uecker lead the crowd in the traditional singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch.
“If they boo, I’m going to sing louder, and louder and louder… They boo because I sing, instead of singing, ‘root for the Cubs,’ I sing ‘root for the Brewers.’ Root for the Cubs? I mean, come on. What do they expect me to do”
So then he sings, and it goes a little something like this:
“… root, root, root for the Brewers… (pause for chorus of boos and “–uuuB-ies!” from the crowd) … You’ll do the same for the Cubs, for it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the ol’ ball game!”
The Cubs fans actually cheered after the song, which is a rare show of class. Perhaps they’re paying penance for all their awful shenanigans at Miller Park every year. When Uecker got back to the booth, Cory Provus said he owed him an apology.
“Yeah, you and that walking fungo bat, that’s our engineer. Yesterday, these two compadres… they were both in agreement that I would get booed.
I like it when they scream and holler so loud. They know what I’m going to do, and they scream ‘Cubs’ so loud. It’s beautiful.”
In honor of the Fourth of July, and the recent excitement about the U.S. men’s team, here’s my other favorite version of the song.
And now they’re chanting “Let’s go, Brewers!” in the ninth at Wrigley.
Let’s get out there and vote for our favorite CF, and star of the week’s best highlight, Mike Cameron, for the National League All-Stars. Here’s another angle.
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Shortly after Manny Ramírez was suspended, Posh Tosh hustled up some tickets to the July 10 game at Miller Park against the Dodgers. I’ve been saying our conversation about whether Manny would be back by then is a perfect example of the average fan’s attitude toward steroids.
Me: He’s suspended for 50 games… so that’s like, July 3.
Posh: So he’ll be back?
Me: Do you hear what I’m saying? He was suspended for 50 games. For maybe cheating. For using a female fertility drug to maybe mask steroid use.
Posh: I don’t care. I want to see him play. Maybe we’ll get to see Manny vs. Manny.
And I didn’t either. That’s the rub, folks. When we heard about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, it was disappoint, because yes, 1998 was thrilling. But they play for rival clubs and are kind of pompous anyway, so I don’t mind their legacy tarnished. I never liked A-Rod, especially during his spray tan, blonde-tip phase, so it’s fun to see him lie to Katie Couric.
But I like Manny Ramírez. So I don’t care. I hate Barry Bonds for breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record, so I won’t roll out the “he had Hall-of-Fame numbers before he cheated” argument for him. But I would for Manny. Leave Manny alone!
The other item in this conversation is Posh bringing up the possibility of seeing Manny (Parra) vs. Manny (Ramírez). Even if Parra had lived up to his “considerable potential” this year, it would be fearsome to watch him face one of The Best Hitters in Baseball.
But if we get to see it now, with Big League wins and losses on the line, it will have already happened, in an alternate reality just east of Mannywood. With one Manny coming back from suspension and the other trying to get his game back together, they met in the minors. Here it is, a brief recap of Manny vs. Manny, and while the story doesn’t focus much on the Parra part, you can see it in the announcer-less video — that’s Parra, all right, in the Nashville Sounds uniform, getting the slugger to strike out and ground out.
Adding to the surrealism of the situation was the fact Ramírez was playing for theAlbuquerque Isotopes, which is, yes, takes its name from a 2001 episode of “The Simpsons.”
It’s also the episode the brought “meh” into the lexicon, meaning extreme indifference. It wasn’t the first appearance of the word, but at the beginning of the episode, the Simpsons children spell it out for the viewing public, giving a spelling that could be repeated ad infinitum in chat rooms and text messages.
Homer: Kids, how would you like to go to ... Blockoland! Bart & Lisa: Meh. Homer: But the TV gave me the impression that — Bart: We said, “Meh!” Lisa: M-e-h, meh.
Whether Manny took performance enhancers, whether Manny ever gets his pitching game together — it’s clear, and we’re reminded — it’s all entertainment. It’s all part of the show.
That’s all, folks.
* Check out Bugs Bunny’s destinations: Los Angeles, Pamplona when he wanted the Coachella Valley, the South Pole from the Coney Island Baths, Pismo Beach for the clams — “and maybe a right turn at La Jolla.” Bugs is a straight Old Hollywood player.
The Wisconsin Corn Growers Association radio ads played prominently during Brewers broadcast is starting to grate.
The industry’s efforts in an era of giant corporate farms are commendable, and it has continued its success through many innovations, which it touts in these radio ads. Farmers use techniques such things as no-till planting, satellite technology and built-in insect resistance and the strategic importance of growing our own food, according to stories from the launch of the ad campaign.
“Welcome back. We’re talking about corn and the farmers that grow it.
Cindy from Cincinati.
Cindy: Corn takes a lot of fertilizer, right?
Less than ever! Farmers produce 70 percent more corn on a pound of fertilizer than they did just 35 years ago.”
That”s certainly an accomplishment, but to someone who doesn’t know anything about growing corn, like me, it doesn’t sound very impressive at first. I mean, you’ve improved over what you were able to do 35 years ago? That was 1974.
Now that I’ve heard the ad many, many times, I’ve taken the time to visualize what a pound of fertilizer looks like, and what 70 percent more corn looks like, and it makes sense.
“Dallas from Ft. Worth.”
Obviously, they’re just making up names for this short radio call-in show style advertisement, but choosing “Dallas from Ft. Worth” is confusing. Yes, Dallas can be a man’s first name, but still… it’s like saying, “Now we go to St. Paul from Minneapolis.” Or, “Welcome, St. Petersburg from Tampa, to the show.” Anyway, this is what they have “Dallas from Ft. Worth” say:
“But I’ve heard we’re going to run out of corn!”
Wait, what? I hadn’t heard that. Here’s how the mock radio show host responds.
“Look, we’re feeding livestock, we’re making ethanol and we still export one out of every five rows of corn! Gotta go!
Discover how innovation is growing at cornfarmerscoalition.org. A message from the Wisconsin corn growers.”
This is a direct, three-point response to a ridiculous question. What really grinds my gears after hearing this ad constantly during the games is just those two phrases I bolded in that transcript. Saying “Look,” before making a point seems weak to me, rhetorically speaking. I do it, everyone does it. But it somehow seems insecure, if not insincere. I feel like I remember Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld rattling off answers like that when questioned about the war. “Look, we’ve overthrown the regime, we’re securing the country and we’re still going to find the WMDs. Gotta go!”
Again, I appreciate the hard work of our nations farmers. And the ad isn’t even that bad. But I’ve heard it over, and over, and over.
I think I would have gone for sentimental like those old High Life ads.
So yeah, at the first game of what is now a three-game sweep of the Cleveland Indians by the Milwaukee Brewers, Bob Uecker got to throw out the first pitch of game one to honor the 20th anniversary of his portrayal of Harry Doyle, the Indians announcer in the movie “Major League.”
But to me, a greater tribute to Uecker is that someone finally posted some of his old Admirals commercials on YouTube.
My new hero is choles12 for posting these. Every time I heard Jeremy Piven yell “Lloyd!!” in Entourage, it reminds me of Lloyd Petit, and the commercials he and his wife Jane made with Uecker while they owned the Admirals.
There is one more I remember from my childhood, in which Uecker drives the Zamboni.
Which, of course, reminds me of the Gear Daddies song “I Wanna Drive the Zamboni” from the Mighty Ducks 2 soundtrack, which I owned.
Hardy made strides toward reversing his slump tonight, hitting a solo homer and notching a clutch RBI. He also fills the shortstop slot on the “All-Party Team.”
Party on, J’j!
I’ve often said that the Brewers faithful should downplay the 1980s style of the throwback “mb” ball-and-glove logo in favor of the current, phantasmagoric Midnight Blue cursive.
But hot damn, those old uniforms looked sharp last night.
And according to some research, I think the Brewers hadn’t won wearing their old pinstripe home whites against the ChiSox road grays since May 4, 1993.
I confess I engaged in a bit of a creative logic as I looked at the Brewers schedule in a moment of uncertainty after the abysmally weird Florida series.
“OK, so they lost 3 of 4 to the Fish. If they sweep the Braves, they’re 4-3 on the road trip. They come home to play the Rockies, who are below .500. And the ChiSox, who are also below .500 — so they can step on the gas a little and regain the lead they’ve probably lost to the Cardinals.”
“Florida was to Americans what America had always been to the rest of the world — a fresh, free, unspoiled start.” — The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean
“I like Florida. Everything is in the 80’s. The temperatures, the ages, and the IQs.” — Brain Droppings, George Carlin
Here’s the super-condensed version of what happened, with the weird digested out:
