SPORTS-(PIRATES)
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April 4- I'll admit that I spaced it. Despite rambling all over Florida and Arizona,
I actually FORGOT that baseball started this week. Which is really a sign of my
brain drying up, since I went to each locale to catch some
Spring Training games. Suddenly TV is worth owning again.
Maybe I was mesmerized by all the digital cable channels, maybe the excitement of
"ALL YOU WRESTLING ARE BELONG TO VINCE"... maybe it was the shock of Jerri's
creamy thighs being kicked out of Australia... or perhaps the
excitement of AOL's "Create your own Britney Spears Fan Fiction
Website" promo....whatever it was, I'd forgotten TV could be this
much fun. I got home tonight and I'm happier than a KKK member at a
Joe Don Baker Film Festival.
The Pirates are only ONE game out of first! Someone added an extra hour of daylight for
our enjoyment! Bob Costas' lame lament over "what kind of numbers would Mays put up, today"
is still four months away!( of course, I get home expecting to see
Denny Neagle's Rockies debut on the tube, tonight.. but it got pushed aside so
FOX could show the thrilling 1-1 Avalanche-Mighty Ducks barnburner... but I digress. Remember
that time the World Series ended in a 1-1 tie? That was friggin amazing).
To add to the mystique, Hideo Nomo has the stones to go out and throw a no-hitter in
his Red Sox' debut. Amazing. I can't recall the last time a pitcher has debutted with
a team and pitched a no-hitter right out of the gate. Well, maybe the
day before... when Mike Hampton did something almost as rare as a no-hitter: he became
the first big-money Rockies pitching free agent to avoid a bludegeoning in his
Coors Field debut. Hey, screw the voting, Nomo and Hampton are the Cy Young winners for
2001.
Probably one of the best Opening Days I can remember. The other would be that
time in 1992, when I ditched school to watch ESPN, eat a cheese log and
fall asleep on the coach. Or maybe my freshamn year at CSU... when I went to class at
8am to draw nekkid chics, then got home around 11am, locked myself in my room with
a six pack, a bag of Ruffles and can of Ranch Onion Dip. Or the subzero
cold in 1995, when I took my brother to the first game at Coors Field. I dunno...
Ruffles are tough to beat.
I won't go off on one of those ESPN/Peter Gammons/ CNNSI rants about
"this guy is ready for a breakout and will win the MVP this year" or "a good young
team with lots of potential...expect them to compete for the wildcard". This is the
one time of the year when everybody is tied with the Braves and Yankees. There's
optimism and hope in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Baltimore and even Montreal. Somewhere,
somebody is even saying "I think David Ortiz is ready to join the league's elite"..with
a STRAIGHT face! Somewhere else, grown men are talking about the possibility that
a grown man named Wiki might become San Diego's everyday catcher. Something to
apreciate. So go watch
some baseball, kids .
Seeing Eye Singles
They're wanting to CHARGE for RealAduio broadcasts on MLB.com? Not sure how I feel about that...
||...MLB's consoldating of all the team websites continues to suck. Even worse,
on Monday, the most popular and important day of the season... their entire
site collapses. Yup, if you jumped over to MLB.com to catch your favorite team on
Monday afternoon, you were greeted with a "This Page is Coming Soon" page. The old
site wasn't too pretty, but at least it WORKED (and had the Satchel Paige bio hidden in
there, to boot!). They also included the following gem of the English language:
"If you haven't got the FREE RealPlayer 8 Basic, find the download link HERE in Real's mid-page grey bar."
If you haven't got???? I dudn't get it...||... Where have all
the records, stats and stuff from the OLD
mlb.com gone to? A good replacement is the
www.baseballreference.com. Its not pretty or flashy, but
contains more statistics and recors than mlb.com ever did. I don't get off on
stats, but I do appreciate the yearly listing of award winners...
||... The Reds always get the traditional "first" game, but why
did they have that one-game series with the Braves?
After Monday, the Reds played host to the Pirates, while the Braves went home to
entertain the Mets. I'm stumped on that one, campers. Was there some significance
or special occasion that I missed? Drop me a line if you know.
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