Baseball '09, Volume III: Radio Edition
Fresh off a triumph in LA, taking two of three games from the Dodgers and gaining the motivational spark of Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake mocking Brian Wilson's end-of-game crossed-arms sky point, and after coming home to the Bay and knocking in a prodigious number of runs last night against the Washington Nationals, the Giants take the field again tonight at 7:15, just in time for the radio to click on in your apartment, the steady conversational tones of the announcers filling the air against the backdrop of the soft roll of the stadium noises, the rise and fall of the crowd's vocalizations.
Matt Cain takes the mound for the Giants, and continuing a trend started this year, the Giants hitters are able to knock in runs for him, quickly building a 2-0 and then 5-1 lead.
Baseball on the radio lets you dip your attention in and out, giving you short bursts of narrative, broken into easily navigable stretches by commercial breaks, and the nature of the game lets you visualize everything while remaining at home. The perfect framework for being productive.
At the first ad break, you eat your sandwich, pour a small glass of dinner wine, catch up on news headlines.
The game progresses. The Giants seem to be playing steadily, racking up hits and runs and one by one depleting the Nationals' allotted 27 outs. You will notice, later, after the game, that what the writers at CNNSI describe as a baserunning blunder by Randy Winn in the first, getting tagged out trying to stretch a double into a triple, is praised by the Giants broadcasters as a good job not being tagged out until after Bengie Molina scored the Giants' second run. And of course, the Giants broadcasters don't comment on Pablo Sandoval's spontaneous, ill-fated battle with gravity in the base path between second and third except to hope for his good health after his face plant in the dirt.
Between innings, you retrieve your laundry from the dryer, and pitch by pitch, batter by batter, in soft lamp light you fold and put away your socks and shirts.
Then Matt Cain abruptly forgets how to pitch in the 7th inning, and two base runners and a Ryan Zimmerman home run make it a 5-4 game.
A break in play and you shake out your rug out the back door, dust to dust as you free dust particles to rejoin their brethren (or sistren?). You stack coins to be rolled and deposited; you bag up newspapers and magazines to be recycled.
Damn. The Nationals clobber Bob Howry, and jump to a 7-5 lead in the top of the 8th, and your comfortable evening descends into a contemplation of how to be mature enough to deal with your co-worker from the East Coast tomorrow who happens to be a Nationals fan. Do you delegate all mailed-in paperwork to him for processing and sabotage his chair, or do you get spiteful and petty?
You sweep the floor, deposit the dust in the garbage bag from the kitchen, consolidate the garbage from the bathroom, recycle the wine bottle, throw out the cork.
Bengie Molina smashes a home run to lead off the bottom of the 8th, sparking a flicker of acceleration in your heart. The next three Giants go down in order, and you return to a resting state.
The bottom of the ninth, and a lunch of work place Corvus ossifragus is staring you in the face, and it has a nasty looking beak that will probably scratch your throat and choke you. The first two Giants are briefly mentioned, quickly leave the stage.
Then Emmanuel Burriss, the D.C. native, comes to bat and singles. A wild pick off throw moves him on to second base. Next up is Edgar Renteria, the much-maligned Columbian shortstop--maligned for the big contract he got in the wake of a down year in Detroit, but really, who or what didn't have a down year in Detroit, other than the Red Wings and people who didn't like their mayor. Renteria walks. Pablo Sandoval is up next. Sandoval is a second-year third-baseman who always swings at the first (and second and third . . .) pitch he sees. You have seen him reach up above his shoulders to swing at an offering, as if he were swinging an axe, bringing it down to cleave a log standing on end.
Sandoval takes four pitches in a row, and the announcers don't know what to make of it. It's as if a peanut butter sandwich were to suddenly recite the Gettysburg Address.
Then with the count 2-2, Sandoval bangs the ball deep to left field, over the fence and out of the game, a walk-off home run.
That's what I call a well-structured night.
Matt Cain takes the mound for the Giants, and continuing a trend started this year, the Giants hitters are able to knock in runs for him, quickly building a 2-0 and then 5-1 lead.
Baseball on the radio lets you dip your attention in and out, giving you short bursts of narrative, broken into easily navigable stretches by commercial breaks, and the nature of the game lets you visualize everything while remaining at home. The perfect framework for being productive.
At the first ad break, you eat your sandwich, pour a small glass of dinner wine, catch up on news headlines.
The game progresses. The Giants seem to be playing steadily, racking up hits and runs and one by one depleting the Nationals' allotted 27 outs. You will notice, later, after the game, that what the writers at CNNSI describe as a baserunning blunder by Randy Winn in the first, getting tagged out trying to stretch a double into a triple, is praised by the Giants broadcasters as a good job not being tagged out until after Bengie Molina scored the Giants' second run. And of course, the Giants broadcasters don't comment on Pablo Sandoval's spontaneous, ill-fated battle with gravity in the base path between second and third except to hope for his good health after his face plant in the dirt.
Between innings, you retrieve your laundry from the dryer, and pitch by pitch, batter by batter, in soft lamp light you fold and put away your socks and shirts.
Then Matt Cain abruptly forgets how to pitch in the 7th inning, and two base runners and a Ryan Zimmerman home run make it a 5-4 game.
A break in play and you shake out your rug out the back door, dust to dust as you free dust particles to rejoin their brethren (or sistren?). You stack coins to be rolled and deposited; you bag up newspapers and magazines to be recycled.
Damn. The Nationals clobber Bob Howry, and jump to a 7-5 lead in the top of the 8th, and your comfortable evening descends into a contemplation of how to be mature enough to deal with your co-worker from the East Coast tomorrow who happens to be a Nationals fan. Do you delegate all mailed-in paperwork to him for processing and sabotage his chair, or do you get spiteful and petty?
You sweep the floor, deposit the dust in the garbage bag from the kitchen, consolidate the garbage from the bathroom, recycle the wine bottle, throw out the cork.
Bengie Molina smashes a home run to lead off the bottom of the 8th, sparking a flicker of acceleration in your heart. The next three Giants go down in order, and you return to a resting state.
The bottom of the ninth, and a lunch of work place Corvus ossifragus is staring you in the face, and it has a nasty looking beak that will probably scratch your throat and choke you. The first two Giants are briefly mentioned, quickly leave the stage.
Then Emmanuel Burriss, the D.C. native, comes to bat and singles. A wild pick off throw moves him on to second base. Next up is Edgar Renteria, the much-maligned Columbian shortstop--maligned for the big contract he got in the wake of a down year in Detroit, but really, who or what didn't have a down year in Detroit, other than the Red Wings and people who didn't like their mayor. Renteria walks. Pablo Sandoval is up next. Sandoval is a second-year third-baseman who always swings at the first (and second and third . . .) pitch he sees. You have seen him reach up above his shoulders to swing at an offering, as if he were swinging an axe, bringing it down to cleave a log standing on end.
Sandoval takes four pitches in a row, and the announcers don't know what to make of it. It's as if a peanut butter sandwich were to suddenly recite the Gettysburg Address.
Then with the count 2-2, Sandoval bangs the ball deep to left field, over the fence and out of the game, a walk-off home run.
That's what I call a well-structured night.
Labels: baseball, organization, spring cleaning
posted by Devin at 12:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home