The Daily Procrastinator

It's a beautiful day for a new era in baseball.

Fans, rejoice!  Donald Fehr, head of the MLBPA, is resigning.  As the head of the union, Fehr has done his best to drag the sport through the mud with his campaigning against tougher drug policies in the sport.  And we all know how well that worked out, right A-Rod and Manny?

Now, if we can just get Bud Selig to join him, maybe there will be some hope for saving the sport for future generations.

Recently, I went for my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Say what you will about the excess of the Yankees, but it’s really quite a lovely stadium. It’s the kind of stadium that you would build if you wanted to remain true to the old structure, but with modern amenities and an endless budget.

And yet, there’s something about seeing the old Yankee Stadium, a hollow shell of its former self, that leaves me saddened for the parks of the past. These new “classic” parks are nice, but they can’t hold a candle to Fenway or my beloved Wrigley Field for sheer atmosphere. 

No ballpark has more character than Wrigley, with its ivy-covered brick wall.

Even though the new Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia is lovely — dramatically better than the nondescript concrete donut that was The Vet – a lifetime of season tickets left me with a soft spot for its sights, smells… hell, even its Astroturf. I miss those horrible chocolate brown seats that burned the backs of my legs at every day game. I miss Cheryl selling peanuts. I miss the guy who shouted, “Everybody hits, woo-hoo!”

But what I miss, more than anything, was the accessibility of the old ballparks. Fenway and Wrigley aren’t awash in luxury boxes, seat licenses and empty premium seats like the new Yankee Stadium is. They’re parks for the fans. And no rebuilt park, with fancy concessions and corporate seating, will ever capture that feeling.

Recently, I had the good fortune to be invited to watch the Astros play in Minute Maid Park. A friend of mine had some really great second-row seats she wasn’t going to be able to use, so J-Roy and I got the nod. Whether or not the Astros won (which they didn’t, of course) is immaterial to this post. The thing that deserves my scornful eye (and yours, procrastinators) is the group of “fans” who sat in front of me at the game.

If you’ve been paying attention, you must realize that anyone who sat in front of me was in the FRONT ROW. These people were just a few feet from the grass at field level about two-thirds of the way down the right-field line. The right fielder was so close I could smell his bubble gum. Was this fantastic view of the game enough to keep my neighbors interested? Of course not! Of the four “fans” (one guy and three women, all in their early twenties), only the guy, who sat on the far right, and a girl in a purple shirt, who sat on the far left, paid any attention whatsoever. The two girls who sat in the middle, YellowShirt and TankTop, literally didn’t watch the game for a single moment.

That guy in the background is neither J-Roy nor I, but this should give you some idea of what we were trying to accomplish.

As soon as the gang sat down, YellowShirt and TankTop both busted out their cameras and began holding them at arm’s length and snapping pictures of their group. I don’t know when this practice of digital onanism began, but the girls seemed intent upon taking the perfect picture of their group at the game. They fussed with timers and flashes, balanced their cameras on the railing (which divided their seats from the FIELD OF PLAY), tried several different poses, and generally wasted about an inning and a half trying to get some nice shots for their FaceBook pages. J-Roy and I joined the fun by occasionally leaning down and making distasteful faces in the backgrounds of their pictures. We’re kind of hoping to show up on ruinedphotos.com.

Once the exercise in narcissism was complete, TankTop embraced the opportunity to complain loudly about her employment situation. Allow me to quote: “I don’t know why I can’t find a job. I have an eighty-thousand dollar degree hanging on my wall. I mean, I majored in communications and took a minor in business (imagine an eyeroll and finger-quotes as she said “business”). I should totally be able to get a job. Maybe it’s because I’m only applying in Austin, but that’s, like, the only place I want to work.” She continued in this vein at great length. As she spoke, her designer sunglasses, used not for (gasp!) blocking sunlight, but instead as a hair accessory, bobbed in time with her incompetence.

J-Roy and I immediately launched into a loud conversation about what a pain it is to be a member of an interview committee. You just have to interview so many idiots before you find a few good candidates, ya know? Of course, TankTop didn’t hear us. Or if she did, she wasn’t able to make the tremendous cognitive leap that would have lead her to understand that she was being mocked. Meanwhile, YellowShirt used her iPhone to compose a long, sappy, badly-punctuated letter to someone named Piper. We read it over her shoulder. Apparently, Piper is way behind on what’s happening in YellowShirt’s life, because it took her two full innings of pecking away at her touch-screen and nodding in response to TankTop’s incoherent babble before she could finish her manifesto.

By this point, J-Roy and I were sincerely hoping that they’d all have to get up and pee soon. Apparently, though, while this pair had the mental capacity of field mice, they had the bladders of grizzly bears. They didn’t leave their seats once during the whole game. Not. One. Time. Just when we thought this was a bad thing, a trivia game sponsored by a travel company came on the JumboTron. A kindly-looking woman with a microphone appeared on the screen, standing next to an excited fan. In order to win a round-trip airline ticket, all the fan had to do was listen to these three clues and then name the city they described:

• The Imperial Palace is located here.
• This city is home to the world’s largest sushi market.
• This city was formerly known as Edo.

Upon reading the clues, TankTop loudly offered this sage bit of wisdom: “Oh, that’s gotta be someplace in California.” YellowShirt responded, “Could be.” My God. Even if you don’t know that the city being described is Tokyo, you’ve GOT to know it’s in Japan. Imperial Palace!?! It took every bit of willpower I could summon not to reach down and knock their heads together. Wow. I wonder why she can’t find a job.

After the trivia debacle, the dynamic duo grew quiet. They weren’t watching the game, though. They were wiling away the oh-so-boring final hour in the front row at the ballpark by playing games on their cellphones. Remember the game where you draw a huge grid of dots and then take turns connecting two of the dots? The one where the object is to draw the line that will close in a box, then put your initial in that box, thus scoring a point? YellowShirt’s iPhone crushed her at that game. Three times in a row. I had to stop watching for fear that I’d actually burst out in hysterical laughter.

Oh, well. At least they were quiet for the last couple innings.

I learned a few new things at Minute Maid park the other day, and some things I’ve known for a while were confirmed. Let’s review them:

• The Astros cannot hit with men on base.
• The Astros’ bullpen is awful.
• Piper is, like, totally out of the loop.
• California is the only logical place for the Imperial Palace.
• iPhones are surprisingly skilled at games of wit.
• Dressing, talking, and acting like a spoiled teenager will NOT get you a job, even if you have an eighty-thousand dollar degree.

It’s been a big week for Major League Baseball.  First we heard that A-Rod has “allegedly” been using steroids since he was a teenager, and now Manny Ramirez gets a 50-game suspension for testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, which can be used to boost testosterone levels (he swears he wasn’t cheating, but it’s only real legitimate use is in boys with delayed puberty; at 36 he’s well past his awkward teen years).

A beautiful day to get juiced at the ballpark.

If you listen to the sports buzz, you’d think that this was all a startling revelation.  You’d think that the journalism that brought us the A-Rod story was risk-taking and cutting edge.  You’d think that Major League Baseball was taking a hard line against doping.

You’ll forgive me if all that I can manage is sarcastic “woohoo.” 

This is all coming two decades too late.  Impossible, you say?  My grandmother, a rabid baseball fan who knew just about everyone who passed through Veterans Stadium, was talking steroids with baseball scouts in the early 1990s.  It’s now 2009.  Are we supposed to be surprised by all of this?

I grew up with baseball.  I love baseball for what it meant to my family, my childhood, my history.  But the game that stands before me today is a shadow of its past, a sport that’s been ruined by winks and nods and silently accepted cheating (yes, MLB commissioner Bud Selig and Don Fehr, head of the MLBPA, I’m looking at both of you with my customary sneer of disgust and chronic desire to kick you both in the teeth).

I’m thrilled to death with Manny’s suspension, if for no other reason than my sincere hope that the salary withholdings significantly cut into the income of his agent, Scott Boras, known for negotiating mega-deals for his clients (like A-Rod’s ridiculous $252 million/10 year deal).  Coincidence that he also represents A-Rod?  I think not.  Let’s hope that his drug-fueled gravy train is about to derail.

For some additional reading on the subject, here are some scathing words from the Boston Herald.  

With the announcement of the death of Harry Kalas, I feel like another part of my childhood is gone.  For those of you who didn’t grow up in Philadelphia, Harry was the voice of the Phillies, the sound that I most deeply associate with summer in my baseball family.  From the AM-only radio in my grandmother’s 1978 Ford Granada, to the transistor radio that my mother listened to while doing laundry and ironing in the basement, Harry’s voice was everywhere.

Having said goodbye to my mother and grandmother — both avid fans — and the giant concrete donut that was Veterans Stadium five years ago, it’s almost as if Harry’s death severs my last tie to the most pervasive part of my childhood summers.  I’m left feeling a little bit older, a little bit sadder and a little bit more nostalgic for the past.

Goodbye, Harry.  If there’s a heaven, may it be filled with real grass, blue skies and great weather for a ballgame.

The grass has turned from brown to green, there’s baseball on TV, and high school seniors really don’t care any more. It’s spring! We here at The Daily Procrastinator have been reveling in the joy of the season, and we celebrated by posting another crop of interesting, amusing, and/or distracting articles this week. Read on to make sure you didn’t miss a thing.

The week began with some meditations on working. First, TallGirl confessed that she’s a workaholic. How does one get to that terrifying state, you may ask. According to our Procrastinator, it’s a slippery slope. Beware! In another work-related incident, TallGirl discovered that she had more old tax forms than she felt like shredding, so she set them on fire. The resulting photograph is fantastic.

In keeping with our recently established tradition of posting an amusing animal picture with each Weekly Wrap-Up, here's a frog who's plotting world domination.

The arrival of baseball season tugged at both BigRedPoet’s and FlashCap’s heartstrings this week. First, BRP posted a reminiscence of his history with America’s pastime, ranging from his childhood fascination with the game to opening day of the 2009 campaign. Later, FlashCap paid homage to both baseball and T.S. Eliot with his tribute The Base(ball) Land.

In the world of entertainment, The Daily Procrastinator cast its net pretty wide this week. For starters, BigRedPoet posted his review of a board game called Last Night On Earth: The Zombie Game. After trying the game just a few times, he’s hooked! TallGirl threw her hat into the entertainment ring with a pop-quiz (or is it snarky social commentary?) about reality television.

Visit The Daily Procrastinator at any of the links above and sign up to receive daily email updates so you never miss an article!

The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

Just fooling around here a bit: I’m neither ambitious enough nor knowledgeable enough about the game itself to parody the entirety of Eliot’s poem.

For John Updike, a baseball poet.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Snowdrop out in Arizona, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Pennant thoughts with spring training.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with free agency rumors.
Percival surprised us, shunning Steinbrenner
For a fever of Rays; we stopped at the stadium,
And went on to Friday’s, into the Biergarten,
And drank our brews, and talked for an hour:
“How can you be a Yankees fan? You’re from Boston!”
And when we were children, watching our heroes,
My brothers, we went out to the park,
With our father. He said, Michael,
Michael, hold the ball light. Like an egg.
In the ballpark, there you feel free.
I read SI, much of the night, and watch ESPN in the winter.

What are these fans who whistle, what people show

Support for this ‘roidy rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken idols. Steroid-fueled feats,

Bonds deserves no pinch runner, Clemens no relief,

And the spot light glares on all. Only

There is shadow within this diamond

(Come in under the shadow of this diamond),

And I will show you something different from either

Your chemical fed athlete hiding behind the MLBPA,

Or your money-led mercenary driven by dollars, not team;

I will show you joy in a child’s game.

Frisch weht der Wind

Der aubenfeld

Mein fanger,

Was hast zeichen?

“Ripken gave us hyacinths first ten years ago;”

“We called him the Iron Man.”

–Yet when he retired, late in ‘01, from the O’s,

His arms weary, though his soul not spent, we could not

Speak, and our eyes wept. He was neither

Mercenary nor cheat, and we knew something,

Looking into that heart of might, the silence.

Oed’ und leer das Verband.

Where have you gone, Cal Ripken, Jr.? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Baseball needs its heroes. America needs baseball.

On Monday night, I excitedly rushed to the local Buffalo Wild Wings to get a good table in the bar. I made sure I could see the big-screen TVs, ordered a beer, and settled in for the most important game of the Spring. The only thing that put a damper on my evening was all the damn basketball fans who gathered to watch the final game of that interminable tournament. I braved hordes of them so I could get a good seat for the Astros’ season opener.

I get nostalgic just from looking at images like this...

That’s right, people. I’m excited, really excited, that baseball season has arrived. You see, my love affair with baseball stretches back literally as far as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is of watching my father play in a city-league fastpitch game when I was barely old enough to walk. I can’t remember a day when I didn’t own a baseball mitt. The neighborhood where I grew up had about 15 boys who were close enough in age to get a game of baseball going literally every day of every summer from about 1987 until 1992. I watched my home team win the World Series in 1987 and 1991. I can still name every position player from both of those fantastic Twins teams. Baseball was a central point of my childhood. It’s a game of my past.

When the players’ union decided to quibble with the management a few years back, and we all had to endure strikes and other shenanigans from the players, I bailed out on baseball. I stayed gone for a long time, too. I’m just not into celebrity millionaires who whine because they don’t get paid enough. A few years ago, though, my buddy WrongFoot (who you may recall from his St. Patrick’s Day hijinks) got me started again. All summer long, any day they had a game, he had the Astros on one of his TVs. That’s right. There were two TVs in WrongFoot’s living room, one for sports and another for more sports. This is a tradition that both WrongFoot and I have chosen to continue to this very day. It’s a game of obsession.

Once WF got me started again, I fell back into my old ways. I have rediscovered my love for America’s pastime. Nothing in the world could be more indicative of summertime than baseball on the TV or radio, a cold bottle of beer in one hand, and a spatula in the other as I stand in front of a smoky Weber grill. Baseball IS summer, and that’s all there is to it. It’s a game of sunny days and charcoal.

I have acquaintances (because who could be friends with such people?) who say things like, “How can you watch baseball? It’s so BORING.” These misguided souls just don’t understand. Baseball is the easiest sport in the world to watch on TV. If you want to sit and really concentrate on the game, there are countless nuances to observe: the defensive shift against a left-handed hitter, the way a pitcher changes his pitch selection the second time through the line-up, the cat-and-mouse games a baserunner plays with the catcher, and the hitter keeping his hands back so he can slap the ball into the opposite field instead of grounding out to his strong side. It’s a game of a million details.

If you’re not in the mood to study the game, though, you can also watch baseball far more casually. I can stand at the grill and just listen to the commentators tell me about the game while I have another conversation or concentrate on my steaks. If anything truly astonishing happens–a towering home run, an acrobatic double play, or a diving catch in center field–they’ll give me a nice slow-motion replay. It’s a game of grand moments.

The Astros lost to the Cubs with flying colors, and I don’t even care. I’m just glad to see baseball on TV. Another of the beautiful parts of baseball is that the season is 162 games long. One loss doesn’t really mean anything. Hot streaks and slumps come and go. Baseball fans know–just know–that their boys will step it up tomorrow, next week, next month, and get back on the winning side of the ledger. It’s game of hope.

Sure, football is more exciting and fast-paced than baseball. One could argue that basketball, with its last-second buzzer beaters, is more intense. Certainly, ice hockey is a greater gladatorial spectacle. Baseball, though, is epic. What moment in sports is greater than watching the pitcher mop the sweat from his brow and look to the catcher for the sign that will decide the pitch he’s going to throw the opposing clean-up hitter, who’s threatening to drive in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth? What else could make thousands of people hold their breath, cross their fingers, and silently mouth the words, “Come on come on come on”? Even if you’re not usually a baseball fan, tune in to a game during this opening week and see what we fans see all summer long: It’s a game of grandeur.

A-Rod and A-Rod: a love for the ages

The picture from Details magazine says everything you need to know about this guy and his self-absorption.  Also his completely crappy judgment.  Who would allow someone to photograph them in such a ridiculous pose?

The crowds in Boston are going to have a field day with this.  That’s assuming that they let him live it down in the Bronx.

The sixth tool.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about baseball.  All apologies to Tallgirl, but to me watching a baseball game is comparable to watching paint dry.  Although there is something to be said for going to a ballpark, drinking some beer, and eating really bad food.

Regardless, my non-fan status has allowed me to enjoy seeing baseball rocked by these steroid revelations, particularly after Mark McGwire’s theft of the Roger Maris’ single season home-run record, followed shortly by Barry Bonds’ usurping of same, not to mention Bonds’ despoilment of Hank Aaron’s career home-run record.  And then, Roger Clemens (who I always kind of suspected of being a scumbag) is uncovered as a cheat and will likely face perjury charges in the near future.

And then the coup de grace:  Alex Rodriguez, baseball’s golden boy, is forced to admit that he used steroids.  But let’s take a look at his admission.  According to A-Rod (or A-Roid, or A-Fraud, etc.), he only used steroids during the 2001 – 03 seasons when he was with the Texas Rangers.   As he explained it:

“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day.”

I’m calling bullsh*t on this entire defense.  If this type of explanation passes muster, then I should be permitted to use a Ritalin/cocaine combo so that I have the focus and energy to meet my billable hours requirements during my day job.   Further, it is mighty convenient that he limits his use of steroids to his time in Texas (although it seems that using steroids was a job requirement for the Rangers players).

But personal feelings aside, let’s see if his professed “admission” should put baseball fans’ concerns at rest by taking a look at his time on his consecutive teams (as set out in a sidebar item in the February 15, 2009 edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram):

Seattle:  No steroid use here.  He was just a natural back then, when in 1998 he became only the third player to go 40-40.  Oh, who were the first two?  Jose Canseco and Barry Bonds.

Texas: Yes, A-Rod used steroids.  But it was just to help him in a very pitcher-friendly home ballpark and so he could handle the high-stakes, pressure cooker that is Arlington, Texas.  <sarcasm mode off>

New York: No, no steroids now.  Those 48- and 54-home-run seasons were just Yankee magic.  By the way, in the 85-year history of Yankee Stadium only one other righty had a 40-homer season:  Joe DiMaggio (and only ONCE).

Alex Rodriguez’s “admission” is a sham.  But from what I can tell, baseball fans are just eating this up and willing to let it all go.   Never mind that all of these records being broken come at the expense of others who preceded these frauds.

I’m just glad I’m not a baseball fan.