Saturday Baseball

"System on blast, cops just pass
Just seen a big ol' a$$, it's Saturday
Sticky, icky, icky, icky"
--Saturday, Ludacris

Just thought I'd attempt to capture for posterity what I hope will be a pretty typical Saturday of watching baseball, eating and getting paid (I got an increase of about eight dollars an hour from last year--not too shabby). Here we go...

8:45 AM - Arriving and sitting down with my blueberry muffin and blueberry bagel. Checking my terrible fantasy baseball team (I've resorted to picking up Padres to replace my injured guys--Thome went down, pick up Phil Nevin; Javy Lopez breaks his hand, say hello, Ramon Hernandez.

8:49 AM - Just read a story about Rick Helling (former Texas Ranger) getting a bat impaled in his arm at a Triple-A game last night. That might have hurt a bit.

8:55 AM - George is preparing his pre-game notes and doesn't know any of the starting pitchers' first names. It's a funny quirk about our most knowledgeable baseball guy, but I lend him a hand. "Stauffer for the Padres?" "Tim." "Penn for the Orioles?" "Hayden." "Willis for the Marlins?" "Come on, man."

9:07 AM - Two new loggers in the house, don't really know what they're doing. Michael should be here. Reno better be good.

9:32 AM - The start of our morning meeting, where we're updated about all of today's games. Looking for big things from Derrek Lee (facing BK Kim) and the White Sox (facing Chan Ho-mer Park). The afternoon games include My Padres (I'm representing with the orange t-shirt today), looking to improve their 1.5-game lead in the NL West.

10:20 AM - Um yeah, here's the first from Derrek Lee. Homer number 15 gives the Cubs a 1-0 lead. Without him, seriously, they have zero offense. They're bad anyways, but without him? Ouch.

11:25 AM - Wow, another D-Lee homer. Two in two straight games, giving him 16 and 45 RBIs on the season.

11:32 AM - BK is done after giving up another bomb, this time to Aramis Ramirez. Poor guy never recovered from the 2001 World Series. A better recovery than Mitch Williams (and Donnie Moore, God rest his soul), but still rough.

11:41 AM - Just got back from fetching my free lunch, which today consists of two grilled chicken sandwiches, a little salad and a nectarine. Free food doesn't suck.

12:05 PM - The USA-England game just started on ESPN. Trying to keep an eye on it while monitoring these games.

12:09 PM - The US is already losing, one-nil. There is an extremely wide gap between us and the best in Europe. This is basically England's second-string (no Beckham, Ferdinand, Scholes, etc.) and they'll still destroy us.

12:22 PM - I've been putting off the bad Yankees update, but this is too rough to avoid mentioning. Trot Nixon's three-run shot followed Edgar Renteria's grand slam (both in the 5th inning, both off the new owner of a 20-plus ERA, Paul Quantrill), and it's 12-0, Red Sox.

12:40 PM - I've been here for four hours and we finally aired something I've done--a beautiful compilation of the two D-Lee jacks. Really hard to come up with a highlight when stuff like that happens, you know. It's a rough job, this baseball watching.

12:46 PM - Landon Donovan just missed a goal by inches. We're definitely not scoring in this game.

12:49 PM - My new fantasy catcher, Ramon Hernandez, is warming up in Frisco, along with our rookie starter Tim Stauffer. Go Pads.

12:50 PM - Yeah, England just scored again. Number two for Kieran Richardson. Dude can't even get off the bench at Manchester United, so they loan him out, and now he's starting and scoring two goals against the U.S. A club team in England has bench players who dominate our national team. Way to go, boys.

12:54 PM - Another Red Sox home run. 14-0. Thanks, Jay Payton. Nice that it's a 162-game season, and this game means the same thing in the standings that a 1-0, 25-inning win would mean. Wake up tomorrow and start it over.

12:58 PM - Rehearsal of the late pre-game show, including two of my highlights (the easy Cubs D-Lee stuff and the boring Braves-Phillies).

12:59 PM - Ronan Tynan on hand to sing "God Bless America" at Yankee Stadium for the fifteen millionth time. I wonder what else that guy does.

1:08 PM - We had to change the Phillies highlight and I just made my call about what it should include (a Jason Michaels diving catch and three-run homer). He said it should be something else, then changed his mind after a few minutes and agreed with me. I should be doing his job sometime soon.

1:21 PM - Red Sox have the bases loaded again. Not a good day for Yankee pitching.

1:27 PM - First game is off the air, after a semi-chaotic post-game show. What's great about live television is that all the action is happening off camera (and thankfully, out of this room, for the most part), so we get to listen to the director, associate director and executive producer go crazy while the talent remains calm on air. Crisis averted.

1:29 PM - Padres down, 1-0. Come on now.

1:36 PM - I've never heard of Julie Donaldson before, but I think I like her. She's the host of Softball 360, which is on Comcast following that Cubs game, and she can stay. She's in the same class as Erin Andrews and Colleen Dominguez as far as on-air personalities go. Oh yeah, and Carolyn Hughes, too. Much hotter in person than on TV.

1:43 PM - There's this girl who works downstairs, and we hear her voice every week on the McCurdy (the system that allows us to communicate directly with everyone down there, and people down in the control room with the studio, and so on). I think her job entails keeping track of what's going on in all the games (kinda like I do), but she's obviosly clueless, and we hear her cluelessness all the time. "Um, how did the Cubs score their last run?" "RBI single by who?" "Wait, do the Red Sox have 13 or 14 runs?" Once or twice was funny, but now, after the same thing over and over for three seasons, I'm very much over it. She's possibly the most annoying thing about this baseball job.

1:45 PM -I'm in shock. The USA just scored. Clint Dempsey, probably my second-favorite non-Galaxy player in MLS (behind former UCLA defender Jimmy Conrad), knocked home a rebound to cut it to 2-1. Only a few minutes left though, so I think we're still toast.

1:59 PM - Nice stab by Phil Nevin on a line drive to first. They showed a stat where he went from the most errors in the majors in 2003 to the fewest in 2004, and we're hoping the prowess continues.

2:01 PM - Has anyone seen the commercials for this Dancing Superstars reality show? Is that a real show, or one of those Geico commercials? Evander Holyfield is going to learn how to waltz, and there are people out there who will actually be watching this? I'm in disbelief that this made it out of a pitch meeting, much less all the way to a network. I don't even want to know who else is involved--Evander's enough to make this too sad to even consider watching.

2:05 PM - My catcher Ramon just went yard, baby. Ties it up at 1. Beautiful. By the way, the US game went final and we did lose, 2-1. Not the worst result, but it would have been nice to get at least a draw against the England JV.

2:34 PM - Been zoning out for about the last half hour--nothing happening in either of my games (Padres still down 2-1; Twins still beating the Jays, 4-1), and there's now softball on ESPN. It must suck to be a straight softball player. Everyone already assumes you're gay, you have to hang out with girls who pretty much want to convert you all the time, and your role models are all probably gay too--not that there's anything wrong with that.

2:46 PM - Our other late game (Rangers-White Sox) has been in a rain delay for almost two hours now. If they don't call it soon, we might have to wait around an do an entire extra game, which would cause us to be here a couple hours after our normal departure time. There is some strong rooting for somebody to call that stupid game--just play a doubleheader tomorrow, fellas. Won't hurt anybody. One of the big execs is pushing for us to drop the game, which would mean we won't carry it even if they do end up playing. I like the way he's thinking.

2:51 PM - Khalil doubles down the line, so we've now got second and third with nobody out here in the top of the 7th. Here we go, boys. In the meantime, I've been reading Chad Ford's proposal to end the NBA lockout possibility. I think my favorite part of Sports Guy's columns are the subtle jab at Chad Ford and how he's ruined the NBA Draft with all his international guys, especially with his obesssion with Darko. Just think about that draft. Every one with an ounce of sanity couldn't believe that Joe Dumars passed on Carmelo and D-Wade to draft Darko, but Chad Ford said he was the future of the game. Nice one, buddy. How much of a dynasty would Detroit have with either one of those guys, or even Chris Bosh?

2:53 PM - Ramon scores on an RBI groundout. Tie game.

3:11 PM - I'm reading Sports Guy's archive. Check out this gem, from 2002:
"Wouldn't it be much more fun watching Kobe carry a team built around his offense, like Vince in Toronto, or T-Mac in Orlando? As his 56-point explosion Monday night against Memphis proved, this would be "MJ in 1988" all over again...But the fact remains that, at this point in his career, the Kobe Experience would be 10 times more interesting if he were forced to carry a .500 team. I watched some of the 56-point game -- coincidentally, the first game of Shaq's three-game suspension -- and Kobe was showing more flair and explosiveness than anyone since the young MJ. He was totally unstoppable, looking like a guy who finally had the chance to let loose."
Gosh, I wish it really had worked out like this.

3:17 PM - My new first baseman, Phil Nevin, just hit a three-run jack to give us a 5-2 lead. I love this team, and I love this game.

3:40 PM - A little bit of scrambling of late, writing up a couple analysis packages for the Padre game: bad Giants bullpen and good Tim Stauffer. If we can hang on for three more outs (we're on the verge of Trevor Time), this would mean a two-game lead heading into Arizona's game tonight. DR just got caught stealing, but Trevor's on his way in.

3:48 PM - Trevor just hit a guy, so there's two on and only one out in the ninth--Feliz is up with a chance to tie it.

3:49 PM - Big pop-out. Out to go. Trevor's third on the all-time saves list, by the way, thanks to the lovely graphics people working our game today. He needs 17 more to catch John Franco (424) and 71 more to get Lee Smith (478).

3:50 PM - Dangit. Single to center, run scores. 5-3. Let's get this done now, Trev. Winning run at the plate, Bochy comes out to chat with our mighty closer. There are three other games going on, but they have all ceased to exist in my world. It's Trevor vs. Michael Tucker, everything on the line.

3:53 PM - Pitch in the dirt, so now it's a full count. I can't handle this.

3:53:40 PM - Boom!! Changeup got him swinging. Game. Set. Match.

So now I get to watch a few minutes of highlight packages roll, throw away my notes and get on out of here. Hope you've enjoyed our experience today. And oh yeah, I just made $155, after taxes. I love this place.