The Cubs have beat the Astros three in a row now, which is highly exciting here in the Plaidder household. This baseball thing is really enhancing my summer. First of all, Liza is like the cutest sports fan ever. Second, listening to the games on the radio gives me something to do while driving or doing yard work so I don't get bored out of my gourd. Third, Pat and Ron are hilarious as commentators. The thing I like about them, well one of the things I like about them, is that there is absolutely no pretence of objectivity. They appreciate a good play no matter which side it's on, but as far as they're concerned, either the Cubs win, or it's a crime and a shame. It's kind of like Fox News, only it's endearing instead of making you want to kill people.
Since most of the games are not televised on broadcast TV (and remember, we don't have cable) most of the time the game has to be constructed out of language and sound effects, and for me probably this makes it more entertaining. Neither Pat (Hughes) nor Ron (Santo) is Shakespeare, but they both have interesting verbal quirks and since I'm new to the whole baseball fan thing I'm still entertained by ordinary baseball customs and idioms. Even the commercial promotions are kind of funny. They have done their best to tie in their sponsors to different aspects of the game, something that apparently happens everywhere. In Chicago, for instance, Triple A Insurance will donate a certain amount of money to some Cubs charity every time the Cubs get an "insurance run" (a run that increases their lead), and every time there's a pitching change, Pat says, "For a quick oil change, go to Jiffy Lube!" The fifth inning is also the "Fifth Third Bank fifth inning." I think they should have the third inning be the Fifth Third Bank inning. Well, really I think the Fifth Third Bank has the dumbest and most meaningless bank name ever and they should change it, but nobody asked me.
Liza and I have come up with some other possible promotions that we think the Cubs are really missing out on. Well, I come up with them and Liza laughs at them, that's how this works:
"And the batter reaches base on a passed ball...and when YOU need to pass something, call the good people at the Urology Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital!"
"Three and two now, the count is full. And the payoff pitch...and remember, when you need to pay someone off, call Frankie's Loan Sharks!"
In terms of the common language of baseball, my favorite verbal thing is one of the terms for a double play: "the twin killing." It's just so absurdly melodramatic, and yet at the same time poetic. I have also heard them refer to it as "the pitcher's best friend," which it undoubtedly is. In terms of Pat and Ron's idiosyncracies, Ron is one of these guys who, while he does know a lot about baseball and clearly knows what he's doing, is also prone to repeating semi-meaningless or entirely meaningless catchphrases when he's too excited to think of something else. For some reason the way they discuss pitching is more highly stylized than anything else, and their favorite word in that context is "stuff." "Stuff" apparently refers to what a pitcher "has," or in some cases, doesn't have. For instance, as the first inning gets underway, Pat unfailingly says, "Ronnie, tell us about the stuff of
," and then Ronnie starts talking about all the different pitches he throws and how good they are. If a pitcher is *really* good, paradoxically, his "stuff" is "nasty." Then, if some pitcher they were lauding to the skies gets up there and does a lousy job, they will say, "Doesn't look like has his best stuff tonight." Which leaves you to wonder: where does their best stuff go? Did they leave it behind in the locker room? Isn't that kind of absentminded of them? Then, whenever a pitcher gets in trouble and desperately needs a strikeout, Ronnie will always say at some point, "This is a time when you've really gotta bear down, reach back and get a little more on that fastball." We're still trying to figure out what that means.
There's a lot of this stuff where we can only partially translate it--we know what it means, but we don't know why. For instance, we still really can't identify the different pitches visually and have only the vaguest idea of what distinguishes them. Fast balls are fast. Curve balls curve. Change ups...change up? What? Then there are two-seam fastballs and split-finger fastballs and four-seam fastballs and knuckleballs and God alone knows what else, and then of course the mysterious "breaking ball," which seems to be anything that isn't a fastball. (It is a joke in our household that Lythril would be a great pitcher because she must have a good breaking ball because she's such a ballbreaker. Ha ha.) And what the hell is an "off-speed" pitch? But we do know a few things. For instance, you don't ever want to hang a curve ball. Every time someone hits a home run they watch the replay and say, "Yeah, that was a hanging curve ball..."
Possibly the funniest thing about Pat and Ron is the whole banter deal, which reminds me of Click and Clack on Car Talk, except that it's a little more asymmetrical because Pat is sort of quicker on his feet than Ronnie is. Pat is also good at doing deadpan, and saying completely ridiculous things in his announcer voice and making them sound almost plausible. Every game they play the "Cub Foods Attendance Game," in which Pat and Ron each guess what the total attendance is. One of the listeners sends in a postcard ahead of time picking either Pat or Ron to be the winner, and if the listener is right they get free Cubs tickets. Anyway, the funny thing about this particular promotion is that Ron is obsessed with winning. They clearly play this up to make it more entertaining, but you can also tell that he really is one of these people who is just competitive about EVERYTHING. Which I guess is handy if you're a baseball player, but it's funny to see him get himself totally bent out of shape about a stupid guessing game and complain about his losing streak.
Anyway, that's what I'm doing with my summer: listening to baseball on the radio. It cheers me up and calms me down and it's one of the few American(TM) things I can still enjoy. Yee ha.
Play ball,
The Plaid Adder
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