A Further Disturbance in the Force

Thrilled to put on MLB.TV this afternoon for the first game of the Mets-Phillies doubleheader. Then devastated to hear the voices of the Phillies’ broadcast team.

O sadness and despair!

That “clunk” you heard was the sound of my heart sinking and hitting the floor. It’s nothing personal, Phillie guys, but I much prefer the Mets team of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez. Gosh, such a let-down. It was like tuning into the DP Show and hearing Doug Gottlieb’s voice.

The 6-5 win made me feel better, however.

Scoop writes in Let’s Go, Keith Mets!:

Isn’t Keith Hernandez the guy who thinks women belong in the kitchen, not in the dugout? I’d love to hear Keith go mano a mano with him!

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

A very disappointing thing to hear that sexist comment from one of my favorite Mets. SNY reprimanded him; his non-apology apology was weak. Still, I’m glad they didn’t fire him. I just don’t feel people should be fired for saying one stupid thing.

A Quest for Keith rallies to troops to get KH (as opposed to KO — we need to keep our Keiths straight here) into the baseball Hall of Fame. Funny stuff!

A Disturbance in the Force

The Mets game was rained out.

Dang. Tonight was the night we were supposed to get back at Adam Wainwright for throwing that wicked curve and breaking our hearts last fall. Oh, well. This is what I get for playing Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs right before the game started.

Judie gets the home run bell for rescuing me in Add Homonym?:

This is the story they talked about http://www.nypost.com/seven/06242007/sports/mets/serby_s_sunday_qa_with___rick_peterson_mets_.htm
Go Mets!

Based on what Gary, Keith, and Ron had said I googled “rick peterson”+ gandhi + plato, but came up empty. Because Peterson wants to have dinner with Socrates, not Plato.

I always get those Greek philosophers mixed up ….

Karl wrote:

Peterson’s been a space cadet since before his days with the A’s but no question he’s a great coach. He’d be a great interview but would leave DP behind with his talk about arm slots and physics. Him with KO and Gammons would be a baseball brains summit. Throw in Mazzone, too.

Yeah, but he’s a space cadet in a good way.

Peterson’s done a very nice job with the Mets’ pitching staff, except for that l’affaire Zambrano. (And how was he to know that Victor was going to have a total physical breakdown?) I think I die a little bit every time I hear the name “Scott Kazmir.” After the Mets clinched the NL East last season Peterson was interviewed in the clubhouse and asked about his coaching methods. The first thing he said was “Coaching is all about relationships.” His responses to the questions were all very thoughtful, none of the typical Coach Speak or Jock Speak. I was impressed. Beyond being a pitching coach, Peterson sounds like an intelligent, intense, and spiritual person. I like his choice of dinner guests. The answer to the dinner guests question can be revealing.

I would definitely put the Dalai Lama on my list. The real Dalai Lama, not Peter Gammons. (Although Gammons would be a cool guest.) I don’t know a lot about Tibetan Buddhism and lean more towards Theravada rather than Mahayana Buddhism. But I heard the Dalai Lama speak at the UW 27 or so years ago and it was a terrific experience. I’ve always wanted to meet him.

Abraham Lincoln would be on the list. And Gandhi, too. I’ll have Gandhi over some time — after he has dinner with Rick Peterson.

Add Homonym?

Scoop writes, in part, in A Fine White Whine:

Appreciate the comments on the Cleveland situation. That’s why it pains me a bit to fix your French. The phrase is not “je ne c’est quoi” but “je ne sais quoi,” as in “I don’t know what” (i.e., “that certain something I can’t put my finger on”). Funny, I saw this reproduced recently in a book (and not a self-published one, either) as “je n’ai c’est quoi,” and thought “Oh dear.”

It would all sound a lot the same, though, if it made any sense. Which French oftentimes doesn’t seem to do.

Would you believe that was Ralph Kinerized français?

Mon mal! (That’s il mio male in French.)

It pains YOU? The tête of my high school French teacher, Mlle. Lee, must have exploded when I typed out “je ne c’est quoi.” Ditto the marvelous French prof I had at the UW, Lionel Friedman.

Allez chiens!

(That’s “Go Dawgs!” for you unFrenchiefied non-UDubbers.)

Scoop adds:

You said “I’m not interested when DP falls back on easy stories” like:

Make fun of Cleveland
Drool over the Babe-of-the-Day (e.g., Jessica Alba in studio; was rather surprised that DP did not cover the Amanda Beard story — I think he was too busy making fun of Cleveland that week)
Discuss the Maxim or FHM or other “gentleman’s” magazine list of Hot Chicks
Once the NFL season starts I’m sure he’ll be back on the Terrell Owens beat, complaining about the mercurial receiver’s antics all the while covering said antics.

… One other thing that gets old about Dan’s show, as much as I love Dan, and as much as I know he probably wouldn’t have a show if there weren’t a certain degree of this: the jocks, especially the old ones, who come on ostensibly to discuss their careers and their view of their sports, but are really there to serve as paid shills for a pharmaceutical company.

Stellar observation.

With DP out on vacation (maybe he needed to recover from Father’s Day?) and with so-so subs filling in for him my mind has been wandering and I have been wondering about his guest list. The Usual Suspects/DP’s Supporting Cast — KO, Wilbon, Reilly, the Greatest Three-Point Shooter in NBA History, Mark Jackson, the Dalai Lama — are all great. Michael Irvin was OK, but I think it would be a terrific upgrade if they got Sterling Sharpe — who was bumped from Sunday Night Football so NBC could push another one of its commodities, Tiki Barber. But as far as DP’s guests he pretty much gets the Usual Jock. Which isn’t always stale. Daniel “Boobie” Gibson gave a nice interview last week. I was pleasantly surprised with how interesting and articulate Brian Urlacher was a few months back. (Articulate White Man alert!) Justin Verlander was good when he chatted with DP after tossing his no-hitter. But still. They give pretty much the Standard Jock Interview.

During the past couple of Mets games, the tv broadcasters have mentioned a newspaper article on Rick Peterson, the Mets pitching coach. My interest piqued, I did the Google thing to find the article. I’m not sure I found the one they were talking about, but I found a few, all of which revealed a very unusual person. A completely Non-Standard Jock.

Par exemple (as Mlle. Lee would say in French class):

Peterson, on his coaching method:
This isn’t a psychoanalytical model, this is a cognitive behavior approach, a way to untap a player’s fullest potential at the major-league level. When people perform at the peak of their abilities, you might say they’re in the zone. What you’re really doing is performing outside your conscious mind. You’re using the right hemisphere of the brain. If you ask a pitcher to use the left side of his brain, and he’s in the middle of the game, with Bonds at the plate, and he’s thinking about the bend of his knee, he’s going to have serious problems.
    — From Baseball Prospectus Q&A: Rick Peterson

It was the late 1970’s and Peterson was in San Diego, scrubbing his soul with a daily blend of yoga, oil painting and intense meditation — purifying his body with the occasional seven-day fast and digesting the works of Eastern philosophers and piecing together selected ideals from Taoism and Buddhism.
    — From Peterson a different brand of pitching coach

Peterson’s many enthusiasms are sometimes New Age or quirky enough that not everyone immediately jumps on board. San Francisco pitcher Barry Zito says that when he and Peterson worked together in Oakland, “Some guys would complain he’s soft-spoken, he’s not macho enough. But Rick doesn’t buy into that old-school, masculinity BS. He’s very right-brained. A sort of Renaissance guy.”
    — From With Peterson, Mets have an ace

Now here’s someone I would love to hear on The Big Show. Peterson on with DP and KO and even Peter Gammons, if they did it on a Thursday. Even if I wasn’t a Mets fan I think it would be great.

DP’s show is definitely my favorite sports radio show, but he does stick to his formula. It’s a good formula, but I think it could be better. As Mark Jackson sometimes says, “Come on, Dan. You’re better than that.”

You Can’t Tell the Players without a Scorecard

Who?

Some Guy is in for DP. I didn’t quite catch the name.

At least it’s not Gottlieb.

This is a good tactic. Don’t go back-to-back with sub-par subs. It’s like if your relief pitcher balks twice in an inning and then loses the game by serving up a gopher ball. You don’t have him pitch the next game. In fact, you might want to trade him.

On Let’s Go, Keith Mets!:

Karl: KO at Shea – he was looking for a good team to watch. The Yankees continue their slide. Knew Clemens would not save them.

I hope KO saw the incredible play that started the Mets’ 1st on Sunday: Jose Reyes doinked a double to right, took third on a bad throw, and scored when no one backed up the play. A very unusual, once-in-a-lifetime play.

One of the beauties of baseball is that anytime you watch a game, there’s a chance you will see something you have never seen before.

From a great piece by Dave Anderson. Full text of article below.

Barb: Was KO in the booth?

No, KO was not in the booth with Gary and Ron. (That would have been swell.) Gary must have seen him
during the pre-game.

rrgirl: so is Billo a real Mets fan, or a “faux news” Mets fan? (yeah, I went for a Zappa reference there, but the rhythm is all wrong and I know it…)

Wow, your Obscure Cultural Reference eludes me. Zappa? As in Frank? Could you please enlighten me?

Both the Mets and the Yankees have an impressive list of celebrity fans. Tom Cruise is listed as a Yankee fan. I wonder if he and KO ever get together at the stadium and chat over a hot dog and brewski. Hillary Clinton is also listed as a Yankee fan, but I’m sure she only declared fandom for a New York team because she wanted that Senate seat. Politicians are such low-lifes when they trawl for votes.

I don’t care for celeb faux fans who only show up for playoff games or to pimp for their tv shows (just about everybody who appears on a Fox show is guilty of this). Those aren’t real fans. A real fan is someone like Spike Lee or Jack Nicholson, who will go into enemy territory to cheer on his team.

 

 

In Baseball, Believing Is Seeing
By Dave Anderson
Published: June 25, 2007

One of the beauties of baseball is that anytime you watch a game, there’s a chance you will see something you have never seen before. Early in the Mets’ 10-2 victory over the Oakland Athletics yesterday at Shea Stadium, José Reyes provided the 50,143 in attendance with something that probably none of them had seen before — not an inside-the-park home run, but definitely an inside-the-park run home.

Leading off the bottom of the first inning, Reyes, the Mets’ swift shortstop, blooped a fly ball down the right-field line with enough hang time that, even though Oakland right fielder Jack Cust fielded it cleanly, Reyes was sprinting for a double. As he slid into second, Cust’s throw went high and wide of shortstop Bobby Crosby and bounded across the outfield grass, then across the left-field foul line.

Realizing that left fielder Shannon Stewart still had quite a way to go in chasing down the ball near the rolled-up blue tarpaulin in front of the box seats, Reyes scrambled to his feet and took off for third base, where the Mets coach Sandy Alomar Sr. waved him home. The Mets’ next batter, catcher Paul Lo Duca, signaled for Reyes to slide; Stewart’s throw was late, and Reyes scored standing up.

•

Maybe you or somebody else has seen that exact play — a double and a two-base throwing error — but in more than 60 years of watching big league baseball, I never had. Neither had any of the Mets’ elder statesmen.

“Probably not,” said Mets Manager Willie Randolph, who was a second baseman for six teams over 18 seasons, including 13 with the Yankees, before spending 11 seasons as a Yankee coach. “It’s probably happened somewhere, but I don’t remember ever seeing it. That’s what speed does for you. Especially José’s speed. He always sets the tone for us.”

Alomar, who never hesitated in waving Reyes around third base, is in his 47th season in professional baseball; he was a major league infielder for 15 seasons, a major league coach and minor league manager. He has seen somebody circle the bases and score in a somewhat similar situation, “but not exactly like that,” he said.

“José’s the type, he’s very exciting; he changes the face of the game,” Alomar said. “If he learns to be patient, he’ll be even better. When he gets on base, he can’t run on the first pitch. He has to learn to know the catchers and the pitchers’ moves. But that play, no, I never saw it before. Not exactly like that.”

Howard Johnson, the first-base coach who hit 38 home runs for the Mets in 1991, didn’t have to tell Reyes to try for a double. Asked about Reyes’s inside-the-park run home, he laughed.

“I never saw that outside of a Little League game,” Johnson said. “But a Little Leaguer wouldn’t slide into second, then get up and score; a Little Leaguer would just keep running. But what José did wasn’t unexpected. He’s so instinctual, he’s in a class of his own.

“I’ve seen great base runners — Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman — but I’ve never seen a guy with the instincts to take the extra base like José, a guy who’s always looking for the extra base.”

Tom Glavine, the 41-year-old left-hander who has won 296 games in 21 seasons with the Braves and the Mets, agreed that he had never seen anyone score the way Reyes did.

“Not that same way,” he said. “Something similar, yes, but not the same way that José did it. Usually there’s another error somewhere in the mix.”

•

Julio Franco, the Mets’ 48-year-old pinch-hitter who played in Japan, Korea and Mexico in between all his seasons with the Phillies, the Indians, the Rangers, the White Sox, the Indians again, the Brewers and the Braves, shook his head when asked if he had ever seen that exact play.

“I never saw it quite like that,” he said.

Not in Japan, Korea or Mexico?

“No,” he said with a smile. “No.”

Reyes’s slide into second made what he did so different, if not unique. When a hitter circles the bases in an inside-the-park situation, he doesn’t usually stop at first, second or third. But Reyes slid into second, then had to get up and hurry to third. And he had the speed to keep going and score.

“When I saw the ball on the left-field line, I knew I had to go home,” he said, “but I was out of gas at third base, and when I scored, I was real tired. I was never that tired before. Lo Duca was saying, ‘Down, down,’ but I make it standing up.”

On a drive to deep center field late last season against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Reyes raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, but he said he was “more tired” yesterday, from this inside-the-park run home that maybe nobody ever saw before, at least not in the same exact way.

And if you watch baseball, you will often see something you have never seen before. And may not ever see again.

A Fine White Whine

Or “Hello, Mr. Gottlieb.”

Barb wrote yesterday in The Dan Patrick McEnroe Show:

Gottleib in for DP today…Click.

Oy.

I tried to hang in there — gave it the ol’ college try and all — but was forced to flee in horror. Right off the top he criticized Seattle fans for cheering for Ken Griffey, Jr. on his first trip back since leaving the Mariners. Doug, that’s called “class.” Yes, Junior left the Mariners but he gave them a lot of good years; he played his heart out. (Check out those defensive plays in that Mariners.com link. Holy smokes!) Real fans don’t forget stuff like that. After whining about it, Gottlieb had John Kruk on to talk baseball. He asked the Krukster what he thought about the welcome Junior got in Seattle and Kruk said he thought it was a good thing: Junior has always been a professional, his popularity did a lot to save baseball in the Pacific northwest, some people feel they never would have gotten a new stadium without him, he played the game the right way, etc., etc., etc. To which Gottlieb replied “Thanks, John. ‘Bye.” He didn’t even have the balls to argue his position with Kruk! OK, so maybe he was running out of time in the segment. Still. What a wuss. I listened off-and-on to the show — mostly off — and finally had to bail out before the final hour began.

Bring back Patrick McEnroe!

Oh. He’s in England covering Wimbledon.

Dang.

I’ve always been the sentimental type, and perhaps this is a reason I like baseball so much. Baseball appreciates its history more than football and basketball. Perhaps this is because it’s a slow game and there’s time between pitches, between batters, between innings to tell stories and talk about the past. And the season is very long — 162 games compared to the NFL’s 16 and the NBA’s 82 — there’s a lot of time to talk about stuff. One of my favorite features during Mets’ home games is when Ralph Kiner joins the guys in the television broadcast booth. I love listening to Gary, Ron, and Keith and learn a lot from them. But Ralph brings a certain je ne c’est quoi, an extra oomph that puts those broadcasts in the realm of the sublime. It’s like listening to your father or grandfather talk about the game.

If Dad or Grandpa was a Hall-of-Famer ….

Pedro Martinez got a nice ovation at Fenway Park when he pitched there last season for the Mets:

(Man, the fans were going nuts even in the pre-game.)

He didn’t pitch well; maybe the emotion got to him. Julio Franco always gets a nice ovation when the Mets play in Atlanta; hey, what’s not to like about the Methuselah of the MLB? Dave Roberts was greeted warmly at Fenway when the Giants played the Red Sox a couple of weeks ago; Roberts’ stolen base in the ALCS against the Yankees in 2004 kept Boston alive, and they went on to beat the Yanks and win the World Series. Johnny Damon got a rude welcome at Fenway when he returned after signing with the Yankees. Yes, he went over to the Dark Side, but he still helped Boston win the ‘04 Series. In this case I believe the proper etiquette is to cheer the first time he comes to the plate, then boo like hell afterwards.

Players in all sports get traded or sign with new teams all the time. But you never forget the guys who were on your team, especially when you’re a kid. Even players who were no more than journeymen: if they played for your childhood team they were your heroes.

Scoop comments in The Road to SuckVille:

I have to disagree with rrrgirl, Reills and you about the Cavs being like N’Sync. In fact, one of the most disappointing things about the finals was that they not only played down to the general public’s expectations of them, they even surpassed those expectations in terms of suckiness. (That is, Conventional Wisdom said their only good player was LeBron, and then, as it turned out, even LeBron didn’t play well.) That was not the way this team looked before the finals. It was the way people indeed thought they were, but it wasn’t how they really were before they got there.

The smarmy Cleveland jokes are indeed stale, however. It has been my experience that the vast majority of people making Cleveland jokes have never actually visited the city; they know it only by its (bad) reputation. So for them to put it down constitutes really lazy thinking. I was glad, however, that Dan seemed to set his criticisms aside for the week he was present. At least he enjoyed the Rock Hall and Pickwick & Frolic.

In order to fully understand the kind of pressure someone like LeBron James is under, though, or to understand how much The Road to Suckville truly sucks for a Cavs fan, what you have to understand is what it is like for Clevelanders in general to bear the burden of living in America’s Losingest Sports City. Other fans in other cities like to claim they have it worse, but the real truth is, they don’t. As long as Cubbies fans have been suffering without a World Series win, they cannot claim that Chicago as a city has not had any champions in anything during that entire interim (and the same thing could be said of White Sox fans even before they got their moment in the sun in 2005). Red Sox fans moaned and cried about how said their lot was, and then came 2004 at last…but even then, they could not say that they could not recall in their lifetimes what it was like for a Boston team to win something, anything.

When you look at the American cities with major sports teams, and look at how long it’s been since any of them have won anything, you have to give Cleveland the crown as losingest major league city. It doesn’t have an NHL team, the Cavs have never won, the last time the Browns won a title was before there was a Super Bowl so it doesn’t really “count” the way a Super Bowl would, and the Indians, despite coming close twice, have been dry since 1948.

Even worse is the litany–not only recalled all too well by the fans but repeated by sports journalists both inside and outside the city (like Dan) to remind everyone of all the painful moments by which Cleveland has lost titles in the past. Everyone knows them by heart–Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, Joe Table…and now, The Sweep. Just add it to the list.

It would be nice to believe that this was just a warmup and that the Cavs just got their feet wet for may chances to come, and that LeBron will get some help to take them there. But it’s not like the Cavs have draft picks to help that happen, and LeBron only has so many years on his contract. After that, he can go where he pleases–and with the pressure on him as a major superstar to move on to a major market, he’s going to have to carefully weigh his options. Does he stay loyal to his home base and the city and the franchise that incubated him during his growing years? Or does he succumb to the siren song of more money and better teammates offered him by some other club in some bigger city that desperately needs him?

If he succumbs to the siren song, chances are it’ll be a good move for him. He’ll get way more money (and not just from the team he signs with, but from all his endorsement contracts); he’ll have an even higher profile than he does now; and chances are he’ll have the kind of help he needs to send him on the road to winning those championship rings that it is only fair and right for someone of his talents to win. For some other city and its fans, of course.

But if it happens, Cleveland and Clevelanders will be left with the oh-so-familiar feeling of their team having served as the farm club from which a major talent graduated to the big leagues. The guy who was once their hero will become, in a way, their enemy. And for their teams, the losing will go on. And as it does, that burden Clevelanders carry around with them–the one that tells them that if their sports teams lose, THEY are losers–will just get heavier and heavier.

I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s hard not to see it all coming, and not in the too-far-off distance either.

I think Reilly was saying that Justin Timberlake and LeBron James are the superstars surrounded by a bunch of average guys. Reills may have been poking fun at the other guys, but I respect them. Not everyone is a star. It’s no sin to be role-player.

Being the sentimentalist, I hope LeBron stays in Cleveland. It’s not just his first team, the team that drafted him, but it’s practically his hometown team. Money-wise, I think he’s already set for life, but the chance for a championship may lead him elsewhere. So few athletes stay with one team their entire careers anymore. The open market gives players more opportunity. And their careers are so short you can’t blame players for trying to get what they feel they are worth. I always liked Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett for staying with one team, but you can’t hold it against someone for seeking greener (as in moolah) pastures.

It’s an easy schtick to make fun of Cleveland. I’m not interested when DP falls back on easy stories like:

• Make fun of Cleveland
• Drool over the Babe-of-the-Day (e.g., Jessica Alba in studio; was rather surprised that DP did not cover the Amanda Beard story — I think he was too busy making fun of Cleveland that week)
• Discuss the Maxim or FHM or other “gentleman’s” magazine list of Hot Chicks
• Once the NFL season starts I’m sure he’ll be back on the Terrell Owens beat, complaining about the mercurial receiver’s antics all the while covering said antics.

OK, so it’s a three-hour show and he has a lot of air-time to fill ….

Let’s Go, Keith Mets!

Nice of Keith to drop by Shea Stadium today to take in that other Big Apple baseball team. In spite of the recent ulcer-inducing slide, they’re a good team. Sweeping the A’s in the weekend series, I hope they are back on track.

Gary Cohen mentioned that KO was in the house. I can’t remember what inning it was, but I think it was after the 6th, after Ralph Kiner’s visit to the booth. Gary and Ron were talking about the old Kiner’s Korner show and broadcasting when Gary mentioned an idea. CBS has been looking for a show to replace Imus in the Morning and he said “The Keith and Keith Show” would be perfect: Keith Olbermann and Keith Hernandez (the former Mets’ first baseman, for you non-baseball fans). Ron commented “They won’t agree on anything!” and Gary said that’s why it would be perfect.

Yes, I can hear it now. Like Point-Counterpoint on the old Saturday Night Live:

Keith, you ignorant slut.

I wonder if KO ran into Bill O’Reilly at the game. O’Reilly is a Mets fan. This gives me heartburn; I try to not think about it. It seems appropriate that KO and his nemesis cheer for different teams. But Jon Stewart, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon are also Mets fans.

Baseball makes strange bedfellows.

The Dan Patrick McEnroe Show

A new voice subbed for DP the past two days. I thought Patrick McEnroe did an OK job. He wasn’t the relaxed conversationalist that I’ve come to expect from DP, but perhaps he was a bit nervous. Although he did his homework on a variety of topics he did not sound sure of himself. Or perhaps it was because I am used to hearing him talk about tennis, not baseball and basketball. At least he wasn’t a typical SCREAMING SPORTS GUY, nor did he lecture condescendingly (as Doug Gottlieb is wont to do, especially on basketball). I wish he had spent more time talking tennis with his brother John, and perhaps gotten some other tennis people on like Mary Carillo, who is an outstanding analyst. But talking tennis on ESPN is probably a good way to kill your ratings. The theme songs in honor of PacMan Jones “making it rain” got old, but props to Ric Bucher for citing Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs:

I mentioned in previous post that I thought KO would be on when Michael Kay subbed for DP, as Kay is one of the New York Yankee broadcasters and that would be a hook to get Keith to make an appearance even though DP was absent. But I watched the Mets-Yankees broadcast on MLB.TV last week Friday and was completely unimpressed with Kay. At one point, after Al Leiter (former major league pitcher for the Yanks and the Mets) commented on how Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson kept a detailed pitching chart on each pitcher’s performance, Kay chimed in with a loud, nasally “WHY DOES HE DO THAT? WHY DOES HE DO THAT?” I felt like yelling back “Well, what do you think, Brain Trust?” Like, Peterson gets paid to coach the pitchers. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for him to take a few notes? Sheesh! And looking back, it wasn’t the first time that Kay questioned observations made by Leiter, or the other YES Network analyst Ken Singleton (also a former MLB player, who knows a thing or two about the game). A couple of times during the game I thought about how good Leiter and Singleton were and that they really didn’t need Kay in the booth. So now I think I know why Keith wasn’t on the radio when Kay subbed for DP. KO doesn’t seem to be someone who will suffer fools gladly, and while I haven’t listened to Kay enough to say that he is a fool he certainly doesn’t strike me as a Baseball Guy. He’s certainly no Gary Cohen, who does the Mets broadcasts.

I wonder if KO would appear if Cohen were subbing for DP. Earlier this season Cohen mentioned how he had to catch the midnight rebroadcast of “Countdown” after getting home following a very long Mets game. So while Keith might not be a Cohen fan, we know that Gary’s a KO fan.

I think my favorite DP sub is Bob Valvano. He’s informed, relaxed, and while he’ll get worked up and emotional on certain topics he never descends into SCREAMING SPORTS GUY Mode, nor does he get into LECTURING Mode. Lecturing Mode is where the Omniscient Sportscaster tells us, the Humble Listeners, what we’re supposed to think. Gottlieb has become more of a Lecturer since leaving the tag-team environment of Sports Night and getting his own show, The Pulse. He’s still good, but for me has dropped from B+ to B. I still sort of like John Kincade, but he achieved a Lecturing Mode low when he criticized KO and Peter Gammons a ways back. I believe it was on a Saturday ESPN Radio show; he ridiculed them and others who continue to be concerned with the steroids/performance-enhancing drugs issue in baseball. For Kincade, it’s water under the bridge and people like Olbermann and Gammons need to get past it, “get a life,” or “get a girlfriend.” (Not sure how Gammons’ wife, Gloria, feels about that last suggestion.) Hey, I’m a baseball fan and I care about the game. If you don’t care about it, fine. Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to think.

Erik Kuselias was the classic SCREAMING SPORTS GUY we loved to hate, but since he left The Sports Bash he seems to have toned down his act. He doesn’t sub for DP much anymore. He was on subbing for Greeny yesterday on Mike and Mike and sounded like a normal person. Colin Cowherd has never, to my knowledge, subbed for DP. Although he comes up with some perceptive insights at times, I have to say he’s a biathlonic combo of SCREAMING SPORTS GUY and LECTURING SPORTS GUY. Not a pretty thing. I still put his show on in the morning, but more often than not I will turn it off when he goes into a rant. It just gets to be a bit much and a real distraction when I’m trying to get work done. And his complaint about KO being on Sunday Night Football was just plain dumb. But props to him for standing up to the numerous listeners who email and call in to declare that that dog fighting is no big deal and to get off Michael Vick’s back. (Cowherd has put dog fighting one step above pederasty in regards to heinousness.) And he really does come up with some interesting points. I’ll cut him slack, too, because he and his wife are divorcing and I think this has given his on-air demeanor a bitter edge lately.

Other DP subs:

• Josh Elliott and Scott van Pelt — They were on only once or twice, but I thought they were pretty good.
• Jeff Rickard — He hasn’t subbed for DP in quite some time, but when he did KO came on the show with him. They seemed to hit it off.
• Max Kellerman — OK, but nothing to write home about.

I wonder if KO could sub for DP. I guess his contract wouldn’t allow it (he’s a hot commodity at NBC these days, hence the High Muckety-Mucks using him for the football show this coming season) and I don’t know if his relationship with ESPN is good enough for them to allow him a three-hour slot. But I think he’d be able to fill three hours and do a good job of it. It might be all on baseball, but I don’t have a problem with that. I’d love for Michael Wilbon, Peter Gammons, or Rick Reilly to get a three-hour gig subbing for DP. But like KO, these guys are all A-listers and their main jobs might not allow them to get away for three hours. Maybe they could have an all-star line up with Wilbon for the first hour, KO and the Dalai Lama on for The Big Baseball Show in the second hour, and Reills on for the third.

En fuego!

New Math by the Bundle

On Thanks, Dad!:

rrgirl writes:

lovely stuff.
this weekend I saw a picture of my dad that was taken in England during the war. it documented a successful bombing mission but he wasn’t celebrating. he looked so small, young and scared in his uniform. there was something in his eyes I never saw in him in my lifetime. he clearly was still a boy in that picture. funny how it ages me now to think of him that way.

my favorite image of him is just a memory from the last year he was healthy. he’d raised an enormous vegetable garden and I watched him hop barefoot through the squash vines picking stuff for a picnic dinner. the sun was low and golden, and he was just giddy having a houseful of kids and grandkids.

a grandaughter he knew only as small child plans to marry a soldier soon. she was probably up in the garden with him that day. I can’t help wondering what he would say to her.

And CP adds:

The New Math! Word problems! Algebra! These bring back BAD childhood memories!

But one good one to add. My dad taught me how to change a flat tire.

Thanks for sharing your Dad Memories.

My family didn’t take enough photos back in the day, but my head is stuffed with memories — in living color, with sounds and even smells — that bring the past to life. Dad didn’t teach me how to change a flat, but he and Mom raised me to be able to figure out how to do it. The first time I changed a flat the car was on a hill and it was snowing.

One thing I associate with New Math is bundles of branches. The number 11 wasn’t the number 11, but a bundle of ten branches plus one loose branch:

35 was three bundles plus five loose branches:

I guess this was supposed to make math less abstract and more concrete. I don’t know. It made me equate math with forestry.

The Golden Rule

In Irony Comes Home to Roost:

Barb writes: The problem is that people don’t follow the Golden Rule unless it directly affects them. ‘I’ll be nice to you so you have to be nice to me.’ It’s less the Golden Rule than ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.’ That’s not the way it works.

And rrgirl adds: my take on the golden rule is that it’s a guide for how to act, not a negotiating tactic. what you get in return isn’t ever part of the equation, other than your own peace of mind at having done the best you could. a nice elaboration I’ve seen on refrigerator magnets and graduation cards is “be the improvement you want to see in the world.” I’m not sure who’s quoted, but I like how it takes quid pro quo out of play.

Although I’m very good at tuning out ads, I came across one in a recent New Yorker that was titled “Is It Good To Be Good?” which led me to two Web sites:

• Why Good Things Happen
  It turns out that giving — far more than receiving — is a surprisingly potent force whose impact reverberates across an entire lifetime, nourishing health and happiness in astonishing ways. That’s the message of Why Good Things Happen to Good People, which weaves new science with profoundly moving real-life stories. Dr. Stephen Post’s institute has funded over fifty studies — from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Chicago — to support scientific research on the life-enhancing benefits of caring.
• John Templeton Foundation: Interview with Dr. Stephen Post:
  We just love and we let everything else take care of itself. In other words, we are not worried about reciprocal calculations. We are beyond that and also we are not interested in reputational gain, but instead this kind of love has its own reward.
  

I’m a pretty scientific-minded person. I like to weigh the evidence before deciding on an issue. But I don’t need proof to know that being good is good. I’m not opposed to taking a few things on faith. It’s OK with me if research supports the Golden Rule, but having data on the table isn’t going to convince me that it’s worthwhile to try to be a better person. I already know that. I know it in my heart.

Choosing to do the right thing because you expect something good to come back to you is human nature. One expects, in the grand cosmic balance, quid pro quo. The concept of karma is related this. But to me, the purest form of goodness is when one does the right thing reflexively. It’s not a choice. You don’t stop to think “I’d better do A instead of B” or “What’s in it for me?” You just do it. KO’s Moral Force gone wild.

I think this “pure form of goodness” deal is another reason why I am uneasy with grand charitable endeavors. Charity is great, but nowadays some of the campaigns are ostentatious. Crass, even. Celebrity-fueled with the requisite attractive logo, well-dissected by Scoop here. It’s not enough to care, but you also have to wear the t-shirt, or the pin, or the colored bracelet as an insignia of your Goodness.

Am I too critical? If a cause is good and organizers have an effective way to raise money, then why not? Perhaps I am being nitpicky. If I had a good cause and needed your dollars maybe I’d do the same thing. But the celebrities and logos and theme songs and whatever to tease a dollar away from a donor? It’s just so P.T. Barnum. I’m too much of a purist. If it doesn’t come from the heart, then it really doesn’t count.

That’s the thing, though. They don’t want your heart. They want your money.

Thanks, Dad!

For my father, who:

• taught me how to hit a baseball (“Don’t chop wood!” he’d exclaim; my tendency was to pound the ball down into the ground. I am reminded of baseball lessons with Dad every time Keith Hernandez remarks on a hitter’s “nice level swing” during Mets broadcasts),
• couldn’t teach me how to catch fly balls (I’d always run in too far and the dang thing would sail over my head; I did turn out to be a pretty decent second baseman, though),
• taught me how to shoot a layup (wish he had forced me to learn how to use my left hand),
• taught me how to shoot free throws (better than Shaq!),
• taught me how to punt, pass, and kick a football,
• slaved over helping me learn New Math,
• taught me algebra (“Where did the numbers go? What are those letters doing in the problems?”),
• taught me how to do word problems (The trick is to draw a picture to illustrate the problem. And if it says “of” you’re supposed to multiply. I’m not sure why, but that’s what Dad said to do and it always worked!),
• along with Mom, taught me how to drive,
• never won us any cool prizes at the carnival, but it didn’t matter because he did the stuff that really counted.

I like the cross-cultural-ness of these two videos. The parent-child relationship knows no border.

Lyrics: Peter Gabriel’s The Book of Love and Father, Son.