6.03.2010

So much news!

Wow...so...busy day in baseball yesterday:

Ken Griffey Jr., the man who made baseball (and wearing your hat backwards) cool for a generation of young boys has retired, right before we played the Seattle Mariners. We might be tempted to claim that Griffey acknowledges that he is no longer as cool as Joe Mauer and is now passing the torch of awesomery to Captain Sideburns, but the truth is that Ken Griffey Jr.
competes with no man in terms of coolness. He is to our generation what Willie Mays was to our parents, a reminder of our chance to experience eternal summer, joy and passion. He's a great ball player and will be missed--though I can't help but wonder if his career would have been longer if he'd just laid off the nerve tonic.

While the Kid retired, the Twins got hosed out of a win, and as much as I might like to foam at the mouth about that it beats getting hosed out of a perfect game as Armando Galarraga did in Detroit. We normally don't mind it when the Tigers are inconvenienced, but when you play well enough to get a perfect game it's a shame when human error ruins that.

To be sure, it's hard to be an umpire. I did it for little league baseball for one summer at age 13 and have not endured as much profanity since. I'm willing to give umps the benefit of the doubt, to indulge them and forgive their mistakes because hey, it's all part of the game.

Would the game be better if we could eliminate every umpire mistake? Maybe. Sure it would be nice to know that justice was always done (like in Judge Dredd), it would also be boring (like Judge Dredd).

So we urge Major League Baseball to adopt the official Peanuts from Heaven proposal of turning all umpires into super intelligent logic based cyborgs. If possible, give them laser vision. We understand that there's an inherent risk that the cyborgs will eventually run amok and take over all the world...but then we'll just unleash the power of Care Bear Attacks.

6.01.2010

Something Cool overshadowed by something not

Jet lag is a fickle thing and much as I would have loved to watch last night's victory (our fifth in a row!) I literally could not keep my head upright so I will likely miss out on this week worth of west coast games and simply remain an eager box score watcher in the mornings after (highlights too).

But without doubt the highlight of the game (or the recaps anyway) was the fact that the box score included this little beauty: Cuddyer 2b.

Michael Cuddyer played second base...or in honor of the adorableness that is our big right fielder playing a position normally manned by individuals who look much more like hobbits than he does. Anything that shows off Michael Cuddyer's coolness is normally rewarded with a glowing paean on this blog, but today that homage is tempered with a little anxiety.

You see...I, Scruffy, have come to love Orlando Hudson, against my better judgement. You see, I know that O-Dog is awesome, that he's hitting over 300, that he's setting the table for Mauer and Morneau, that he's helped stabilize the defense and may have played some role in helping Delmon Young overcome his fear of pop flies (They aren't actually exploding insects, like Delmon originally thought). But as awesome as it is that Orlando does all those things, he also talks...a lot...even when it seems like no one wants to hear what he's saying. As many of my friends will no doubt confirm, I often do the same thing.

So in short, I feel like Orlando Hudson is my brother in bombast. And as cool as it is that Nick Punto and Michael Cuddyer hatched a secret plan on the team flight to put Cuddy at 2nd Base, that coolness is tempered by the boiling tea kettle of anxiety I feel when O-dog isn't on the field, because if O-dog isn't out there, then what's to stop our team from behaving normally and thus becoming (shudder) just another baseball team.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating the gravity of this sitaution (wouldn't be the first time). But at the very least I just want to say: "Get well soon Orlando Hudson" and if you need anyone to talk to...well..you know where to find me.