Welcome to Chase: 2009 World Series Game 2 Preview

--Sure, the grit and surgical control displayed by Cliff Lee translated to one of the finest World Series complete games in modern baseball memory. Fans marveled at Cliff's nonchalance in fielding hot shots back to the box, in a fashion altogether resembling a Subway employee scooping tuna fish into a bread tube. Best of all, though, was Lee's assassin-like calm at the post-game mic, recycling the word "ironic" when a reporter asked him to write her lede for her about his string of New York successes.

--CC could still have won the game, but he ran into the Lee buzzsaw. Chase Utley apparently sees his backspin like none other, or has employed guess hitting to its utmost effect. Some batters can assimilate a scouting report to a superior degree, regardless of the elite status of the pitcher. We appear to have one of those cases here.

--The postseason lens again humbles the best umpires in the world. Nonetheless, the confusion about the line-drive double play was largely the Yankees' fault, although first-base ump Jeff Nelson failed to notice that Ryan Howard had kept his toe on the bag to haul in Jimmy Rollins' throw.

--Rollins disrupts Phil Hughes on his way to stealing second, and the Yankee pen falls apart for the Philly offensive flood.

--So A-Rod whiffed not once, not twice, but thrice against Lee. That's no choke. Lee would have struck out every member of Murderer's Row I, the way he was rumbling. The Babe never saw movement like that at 91 MPH.

GAME 2 PREDICTION: A lot of doubt has been hung around the neck of A.J. Burnett, but he will locate well and try to pound Howard away (this is when Howard's spray power might come to the forefront). Despite no Don Zimmer to throw around like a rag doll, Pedro Martinez will befuddle and confuse the NYY order until the sixth, when he'll have to put the game in the hands of the pen. Yankee magic in the final at-bat may well earn them the split. NEW YORK 4, PHILADELPHIA 3. Read More!

Serious Business: The 2009 Fall Classic Preview

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES: Despite showers in tonight's Bronx forecast, Ryan Howard likely savors the opportunity to explore Yankee Stadium's right-field porch. He remains more likely, though, to explore the opposite field more often. Jimmy Rollins has again partially atoned for a middling regular season with a laudable postseason effort, and he must find a way to reach base in the late innings, because the Phils' chance to defend will partly rest on the clutch hitting of the bottom of their order. Carlos Ruiz comes to mind; Joe Girardi will have no qualms about pitching around more established RBI men to face Ruiz in a critical spot. Cliff Lee should pitch well enough to win at least one of his battle royales with CC Sabathia; this is not to say he'll take a W in either Game 1 or Game 4. Charlie Manuel cannot afford to under-manage.

NEW YORK YANKEES: By the same token, Girardi cannot afford to over-manage, especially against either Chase Utley or Raul Ibanez. In the AL playoffs, against a self-destructive Angels club, Girardi's insistence on turning real life into a video game - wherein every sim pitcher will always be rested, healthy, and warmed up - turned out in the Yanks' favor. I've heard these nasty rumors about NYY's true plan of a "four-man rotation" featuring CC, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettite and Mariano Rivera. In a video game, that sounds awesome. In October and possibly November, not so much. But always save an arm, Mastah Chief Girardi, for the inevitable showdown with Matt Stairs, who in a past life would be a shoo-in pick to DH every AL game of this Series.

WHAT MCCARVER & BUCK WOULDN'T SEE COMING: A defensive gem by Pedro Feliz turning a game around; a defensive miscue by Robinson Cano affording an opportunity for Derek Jeter to look good on a subsequent play in the same inning; Alex Rodriguez cracking under the pressure of the Philly rowdies who, from the front rows, will use their words to insult Kate Hudson until A-Rod thinks she looks like Ruth Buzzi.

GAME 1 PREDICTION: Lee bends but does not break, leaving the Phillies with a chance to win. CC gives up at least one bomb but overall outshines him, and Rivera resoundingly shuts the door at the end. NEW YORK 4, PHILADELPHIA 2. Read More!

The Phillie Pharm

When I first looked at the eight post-season teams entering the 2009 Major League Baseball playoffs, I found it hard to root for any one of them. As an Oakland A's fan with professional ties to both the Cubs and Padres, I was pretty much out of luck. A quick look at my options left me as uninspired as I could ever remember entering October.

The Evil Empire was out, as were the Angels, (see: die-hard Oakland A's fan). The Red Sox had lost all of their pre-2004 appeal as an underdog, spending nearly as much money in payroll as the Yankees. Sure the Twins' frantic scamper to make the playoffs was entertaining, but anything short of a sweep in the first round at the hands of the Bronx Bombers seemed unlikely.

When I first looked at the National League, I didn't fare much better in finding a surrogate rooting interest. The Dodgers were out, given the Manny scandal coupled with my continued belief that Joe Torre is the most overrated manager in baseball and, well, Kirk Gibson. No, it hasn't been long enough. The Cardinals were somewhat interesting as a choice, but with my Cubs ties and a lingering feeling that the redbirds never really deserved 2006, St. Louis was out. The Rockies were intriguing, as the true underdog, with a shot at another Rocktober, but much like the A's post-Jason Giambi, it just never felt the same without Matt Holliday. That left only the Phillies, the defending champs who had already tasted glory in 2008.

I almost considered just scrapping the whole thing (gasp!) and waiting for next year. Nevertheless, I found myself rooting (albeit mildly) for Philadelphia. Maybe it was the presence of Jimmy Rollins, I pondered, the Alameda native who gave me a a hometown hero to root for. But I knew it was more than that. I just didn't realize why.

It wasn't until the day after Philadelphia's thrilling Game Four victory that it hit me. I was watching an interview with Ryan Howard from the night before. He was asked about Carlos Ruiz, the catcher who was almost an afterthought on this roster, who came scampering around all the way from first base on Rollins' game-winning, two-run double to propel the Phillies to a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. Howard laughed, saying "I haven't seen him run that fast since Clearwater."

My mind flashed back to a conversation I had a couple of weeks prior. I was in New Orleans, attending the Minor League Baseball Promotional Seminar when i ran into an executive at an open bar event during the first night of what turned out to be four steady days of drinking. We chatted for a minute about the upcoming NFL weekend (the Jets were in town to play the Saints... remember when that was the Super Bowl preview? Yeah, me neither) before the talk turned to baseball.

We discussed the farm systems of the teams for which we both worked, and compared similarities and differences. He told me about how his organization had made sure that they brought their young talent up together, level by level. They had essentially grown up together, some guys even being held back longer than the normal progression to form the real core of a team. He gushed when he talked about how great the group of guys had become, maturing into responsible, professional men of the game. As someone who downplays the importance of chemistry and readily dismisses ideas like "mystique" and "aura" in favor of hard, statistical evidence, I was nevertheless impressed by the organization's commitment to fostering a sense of community and raising their athletes as brothers.

After a nice chat, the executive and I shook hands and traded business cards. It turned out he was the Assistant General Manager of the Philadelphia Phillies Florida LLC. He worked for the Spring Training operation, as well as the team's Florida State League affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers.

He had seen Howard and Ruiz play together in A-Ball, along with Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson in 2003. It was hard to imagine a Yankees' minor league employee relating a story of any of their current roster playing together in the minors.

After all, in this day and age, there are no real hometown teams. Players are drafted from all over the country- and signed from all over the world- by each organization. Sure, the occasional attempt is made by a franchise to take talent closer to home, to create that sense of civic or regional pride (see: the Atlanta Braves and the first round of the MLB Draft). But really, the sense of community within a team is gone after college, and arguably past high school. The only way to build that same sense is to create it again from within.

The Phillies' commitment to that sense of team and community is something I can get behind. Guys like Howard, Utley, Rollins, Ruiz, Hamels and Happ are the core of that team. Sure they have had help from veterans and free agents, but everything starts with them. It reminds me of those 2000-2001 Oakland A's- guys like Tejada, Chavez, Giambi, Hernandez, Hudson, Mulder, Zito- who came up through the system together and built something special as a unit.

Of course, that team never won a championship. They were forced to go through the Yankees both years that the team was still in tact, losing in the deciding game both times.

Here's to hoping the Phillies can do better. Read More!

The Best Idea I've Heard Possibly Ever

"If Bud Selig had any balls, tomorrow would be a doubleheader." --J.E. Hutchinson Read More!

Life's Omniscient Narrators

First, a solemn reminder of the legacy of Joe Buck, courtesy of the fine fellows over at Kissing Suzy Kolber. Having had my share of brushes with broadcast royalty, I see no reason to doubt the veracity of that woeful tale, which concerns Buck's vasectomy, his awkward insurgency on a girl in a club, and other boner-legend moments. However, KSK must believe that what happens in Vegas need not stay in Vegas. Leaving Las Vegas is one of my favorite motion pictures, and if you happen to ask me about the coolest way to do oneself in, I'll suggest you watch or re-watch that film and Nicolas Cage's Oscar-winning suicide bender.

If Joe Buck was having his mid-life crisis last year, I understand. I had mine when I was 23. And it's my belief that Tim McCarver is at least partly responsible for Buck's mid-life crisis.

In a separate post, you'll note my YouTube send-up of a fairly benign (by his standards) yet mind-boggling statement uttered by McCarver on CBS during the final inning of the 1993 World Series. McCarver, who condescended to us by entitling his 1999 how-to tome Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans, holds the distinction of having commentated on a League Championship Series in every year of my life. I was born in the 1983-84 offseason, and McCarver's first LCS assignment came as a field reporter for ABC in 1984. Tim broke Curt Gowdy's record in 2003 when he called his 13th World Series on national teevee.

My earliest televised sports memories begin around 1988, when I derided my Ohioan preschool aide Cammy for wearing her Bengal slippers during the week of Super Bowl XXIII. (Yes, I do remember preschool, and quite well, actually.) Among my most prized possessions was a beige Fisher-Price cassette player/recorder with a carrying handle and a built-in microphone. At one point - it had to be early in 1989, because Hank Greenwald was working for the Yankees in 1987 and 1988 - I brought the recorder over to the RCA set in the living room and taped Hank's post-game recap on a Giants telecast, along with a Budweiser commercial whose jingle I incessantly sang for days on end at Lakeside Presbyterian Center for Children.

As Joe Buck will tell you, Bud and baseball just go together, don't they? Even when you're four years old.

It's never been a secret to anyone who knows me, or knows of me, that the ultimate mission of my existence, a mission beginning with that Fisher-Price tape recorder, a mission of which I have never lost sight, is to broadcast Major League Baseball for a living, specifically Giants baseball. As I wend my way slowly toward the top of the mountain, I have always taken note of the good, the bad and the ugly in our business. I am not writing this to throw stones; I don't live in a glass house. I am still more or less a nobody, although I do presently work the radio broadcasts for the King Kong of high school football programs on a heritage station in a major market.

One day, if we haven't yet blown ourselves to smithereens, I would like nothing more than for a young whippersnapper to take me to task on his blog for being unfunny and out of touch with my audience and my sport. If that happens, it means I made it to The Show.

Whether or not I succeed at my life mission, I am first and foremost a baseball fan. And as a baseball fan - and I speak for a great many of you out there - I am dog sick and dog tired of hearing Tim McCarver every October.

To their credit, Joe and Tim acknowledged that Saturday night's ALCS tilt at Yankee Stadium was a real cracker, albeit in such droll and distant tones as to imply irreverence bordering on mockery. ("What a game." Yawn.) Remember, Joe blithely confessed last summer to Colin Cowherd - whose crimes against sports broadcasting need not be rehashed in this space - that he barely pays attention to baseball games he isn't scheduled to cover.

Tuning out the sports nexus when you're off the clock is by no means unprecedented in our business. In an interview some years back, Kevin Harlan said that when his NBA on TNT work wraps up for the season, he and his family go on vacation for several weeks and he pays zero attention to sports of any kind. When Bill King was out of season during his heyday with the Warriors, Raiders and Athletics, he would go completely off the grid and spend most of his free time on his sailboat.

Joe Buck, however, never intimated that he ignores baseball because he seeks refuge. He intimated that he doesn't care about baseball because not caring is cool. Very high-school of you, Joe, very Hollywood. Joe has also rationalized his lethargy as a means of avoiding the grind his late father Jack endured. But see, nobody ever questioned Jack Buck's love of baseball or football. With his son, the issue seems to come up all the time.

However, for all his dourness and disenchantment, Joe Buck doesn't bother me so much. Not compared to Timmy Ballgame.

In Saturday night's third inning, McCarver believed he would achieve his moment of zen, his golden chance to tell the nouveau school of baseball analysts to go to hell and wait. When Derek Jeter homered, FOX flashed an on-screen graphic about baseball's postseason home-run champions. Jeter is in the top five, as is Manny Ramirez. All fans are duty-bound to admire Jeter's breathtaking consistency and brilliance at the plate in postseason play. You also have to remember that Jeter has always played for the best team money can buy. Manny didn't always.

But, clutch hitter though he may be, Jeter is no prize pupil on defense. In a sane and rational world, he'd have moved to third base the instant Alex Rodriguez came to town. I'll let my brethren handle the number-crunching - I always do - but statistically, Jeter continues to rate among the worst defensive shortstops in MLB.

For the first 12 innings of ALCS Game 2, 10&5 contributors John Padua and James Hutchinson sat with me on JP's couch inside his SoMa flat, as we are wont to do at weekends, enjoying the telecast on the apartment's wall-size projector. (We dashed out the door at the end of the 12th and caught the 13th at Bloodhound, where we chanted "Daaarrrrylll" until the Dodger fan and her two pals next to me flew the coop.)

At 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989, five-year-old Scott was taking a bath in preparation for World Series Game 3, while Dad and Uncle Paul were rocking and rolling in Candlestick's upper deck, directly above McCarver, Al Michaels and Jim Palmer, who nearly fell out of the ABC booth because they were sitting on the counter with the window open to do the pre-game on-camera segment. Next door, Jack Buck saw his CBS Radio partner Johnny Bench duck and cover, and Jack quipped, "If you had moved that fast when you played, you wouldn't have hit into so many double plays."

At 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 2009, JP brought his clock radio from his bedroom and we attempted to catch Jon Miller and (gulp) Joe Morgan on ESPN Radio. But DirecTV was almost 15 seconds behind Miller's call, so we had to scrap that plan. We then decided to put the FOX audio on low, and keep the chatter among ourselves fresh and lively, the better to neutralize Buck and McCarver.

Sooner or later, one or the other was bound to say something ridiculous, and McCarver obliged when he started in about Jeter. I haven't the benefit of DVR from whence I write, but clear as crystal in my mind is McCarver's incendiary remark about Jeter's critics, who figured last year that Mr. November might be washed up.

"Most of them are silent now, hiding under a rock in a cave somewhere."

Well, guess what. We are them. You were talking to us, weren't you, Tim?

Though it's in a sketchy part of town, JP's apartment is no cave. But I'll cop to acting like a caveman in one sense and one sense only. A benefit of watching a sporting event on a projector is your ability to hurl pop tops, wadded-up napkins, ping-pong balls and other objects at the people on screen. At that moment, after McCarver referred to us as prehistoric rubes, we threw everything we had at the X-mo replay of Jeter's home run swing. (Later during an A-Rod at-bat I nailed him in the groin with a bottle cap.) Buck readily buttressed McCarver's opus with a flip comment about scouts who love Jeter in the seventh game of a World Series, or some such bollocks.

Hutchinson [as Buck]: "And here's a stock photo."
Armstrong [as McCarver, viewing the obligatory shot of the Empire State Building]: "Joe, ain't that a tall building?"

And then in the eighth inning, in a game notable for both grand defense - Johnny Damon pulling his weight, for one - and jaw-dropping errors, Jeter booted a tailor-made double-play ball.

The timbre of McCarver's voice was reduced to a whimper. McCarver did not renege on his earlier titanic statement, the one that would once and for all topple Bill James' house of cards. He meekly recapitulated Jeter's muff - "the ball comes up on Jeter" - and waited for the moment to pass. Cavemen everywhere rejoiced. Read More!

Tim McCarver Stopped Making Sense A Long Time Ago

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