Take Me Out of the Ballgame

How MLB makes it harder and harder to be a fan...

It’s Saturday night and the Royals are playing the Cardinals and they’re holding a reunion of the 2015 World Series Champion Royals and while I don’t get too excited about anything on TV ever since they took The Andy Griffith Show off the air, I’m looking forward to this game. So I order pizza, pick it up, drive back home and time it so I’m sitting in front of my TV for the first pitch.

It’s one of those rare moments where everything’s perfect which happens way more often if you have low standards and mine couldn’t be much lower: on a Saturday night, which used to involve alcohol, strange women and the occasional police encounter, I’m now happy with a slice of pizza, a soft drink and a ballgame, so I turn on my TV, but…

The FanDuel channel or app or network or whatever the hell you call it (and I’ve called it a lot of things involving profanity since Opening Day) doesn’t recognize my “device” and says I need to sign in.

Which is the third time it’s happened this season and I highly suspect there’s going to be a fourth time (there was, the very next day) and signing in involves going downstairs, getting my laptop, bringing up the FanDuel website and copying the top secret code which appears to be the third line down on an eyechart and once again convincing my TV I am who I say am.

But I’ve got a hot slice of pizza on my actual laptop so I say “fuck that” and start watching the Nationals and Orioles broadcast instead.

OK, then.

So now I’ve finished my pizza and still want to watch the Cards and Royals, so I log in, but I’ve missed the first pitch and the FanDuel sports channel doesn’t allow you to record a game or go back to the beginning, unlike everything else on television, possibly because the degenerate gamblers running FanDuel weren’t paying attention in the community college “Broadcasting for Beginners” night class they took over the winter.

Just to be clear, the people at the game are fine: announcers Ryan Lefebvre and Rex Hudler—even though as far as I know Rex continues to believe the moon is a planet—and all the people behind the cameras are doing the same solid job they’ve always done, it’s the people who are getting what those people produce at Kauffman Stadium to my TV set that appear to be the problem.

Because I have to sign in all over again, I also miss the “ceremonial first pitch” of the Royals game which is delivered by Wade Davis and caught by Drew Butera and, as I find out later, they recreated the last pitch of the 2015 World Series when Drew runs to the mound and jumps in Wade’s arms.

BTW (and we’re going to have a few of these): if you saw that last pitch of the 2015 World Series you might not have noticed Drew Butera turn and say something to the umpire before he ran to the mound and jumped in Wade’s arms.

When I asked Drew about that moment he said he was thanking the umpire for calling a good game, a gesture his dad (former Big League catcher, Sal Butera) insisted Drew perform and I always thought it was a graceful moment of politeness (way too few of those available these days) to take time to thank an umpire when what Drew really wanted to do was race to the mound and join the dogpile of celebrating teammates.

It’s the kind of moment that helps you love baseball.

Next Up; the FanDuel Time Warp

So now I’ve got the Cards/Royals game on, but the broadcast starts repeating itself every few seconds, as in: “Now batting, Salvador Perez…Now batting, Salvador Perez…Now batting Salvador Perez” and at first I decide to wait this out because clearly somebody somewhere is leaning on the wrong button, but it just keeps going and going and time has apparently stood still and we’re going to repeat the same three seconds endlessly until Jesus comes back and says:

“How the fuck did Major League Baseball wind up having their games broadcast by a bunch of incompetent amateurs?”

And, yes, I’m also stunned by Jesus using profanity, but let’s not forget this is the guy who got pissed off and whipped the money-changers as he chased them out of the First Baptist Church. (You may want to double-check some of my “facts,” but I’m 100% sure my rough outline is right, so just be aware, if you’re a big enough jerk, you can piss off Jesus.)

Not having a time-warp solution that actually makes sense, I decide to try “re-booting” which is Geek-Speak for “turning it off and turning it on again” which is totally illogical, but often works.

Think about it: if your toaster is broken and you unplug and plug it back in again, you still have a broken toaster, but rebooting often works with computers and TVs and marriages which helps explain why Stan Laurel married the same woman three times and you don’t need to look that up because I just did.

OK, that solution works temporarily, but the time warp keeps happening so now I’m rebooting at least once every half-inning and missing parts of the game because I can’t rewind or record, but I do see Cardinals first baseman Willson Contreras do a “spikes up” slide into the Royals second baseman Jonathan India’s knee.

A Brief History of Hard Slides

“Spikes up” means sliding with your spikes pointed at the infielder instead of the base and infielders tend to get pissed off about those slides because the metal spikes can cut them and if you slide “spikes up” you’re asking for trouble because a grumpy infielder might start swinging.

Rex Hudler – who played Big League Baseball during the Harding Administration – immediately called it “bush league” and it was, but Contreras starts acting apologetic like, “Oops, I slid spikes up, hyperextended your knee and endangered your career” which is bullshit because Contreras has been in the league 10 years and should know not to do that.

I’ve been in the league no years and know not to do that.

India doesn’t retaliate, just limps off the field, but when he gets to the dugout, throws his glove and appears to say the same kind of thing I often say about FanDuel.

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served At 100 MPH

TV announcer Jake Eisenberg (never met him) says wouldn’t it be great if India gets revenge by hitting a home run, which is the kind of thing you say if you watched The Natural too many times.

(BTW: In Bernard Malamud’s book, Roy Hobbs strikes out to end the game which is definitely a plot spoiler, but the book came out in 1952 and you’ve had 73 years to read it, so that one’s on you.)

India’s got just one home run this season, so hitting a homer on demand is a long shot and I’m thinking India hitting a home run in his next at-bat is about as likely as Donald Trump being selected pope (and I’m surprised he didn’t ask for a recount) and what would really be great is a Royals pitcher drilling Contreras in the ribs next time he comes to the plate.

How to Intentionally Hit A Batter

When a pitcher wants to intentionally hit a batter, he throws a fastball below the shoulders (you never intentionally throw at someone’s head because that’s attempted murder) and throw that fastball just behind him and the hitter will react by backing up and back up into the pitch.

Hitters are taught to turn toward the catcher when they think they’re going to get hit, so they take the pitch in the back or ass and no permanent damage is done – to prove an obscure point, I did it for a video – it just hurts and the hitter has a new bruise to remind him to quit being an asshole.

(On the other hand, I have in fact continued to be an asshole so it’s clearly not 100% effective.)

When asked about it later, the pitcher always says: “the pitch got away from me” because if he says, yeah, I did it on purpose, he’ll get fined, but everyone on both teams knows what’s up and if you slide “spikes up” there’s a price to pay.

Baseball’s Justice System

One of the many things I love about baseball is it has (or at least “had’) an internal justice system and if you did something wrong you got punished immediately and right here I’m thinking of an opposing infielder “dropping a knee” on Alex Gordon’s hand.

“Dropping a knee” used to be done to block the runner from reaching a base and if a runner slid head first, the infielder might come down on the runner’s hand which happened to Alex Gordon when Jason Kendall was catching for the Royals.

The next time that knee-dropping infielder came to the plate, Jason said, “I saw what you did to our left fielder, you’re wearing this one.” So they drill the infielder and if he didn’t like it, he could always fight the pitcher or Jason, which he declined to do and while all this might seem childish, it sends a message to the rest of the league: “Don’t drop a knee on the Royals or you’ll have to fight Kendall.”

And if you want your players to stay healthy—and all teams do—how much is that worth?

Now here’s a video from 2015 and the backstory is earlier in the series the Oakland A’s Brett Lawrie did a takeout slide on the Royals’ shortstop Alcides Escobar, which the Royals thought was dirty.

At that point, the Royals also thought the rest of the league was trying to intimidate them – Alex Gordon got hit by pitches 14 times, Mike Moustakas 13 times, Lorenzo Cain 12 times – and this was Kelvin Herrera saying enough’s enough and if you keep doing takeout slides and hitting our guys, we’re going to start hitting your guys and BTW, I throw 100 MPH:

Just in case you didn’t watch the video: Herrera threw behind Lawrie (Lawrie didn’t back up into the pitch, which was probably the plan) and then to make sure Lawrie got the message, Herrera pointed at his own head which either meant “think about it” or “next time I’ll hit you in the head.”

Either way Lawrie took exception and later Jason Kendall (funny how his name keeps coming up) told me I should ridicule Brett Lawrie for letting umpire Greg Gibson hold him back by grabbing his jersey.

As Jason pointed out, guys who really want to fight just go; guys who really don’t want to fight, yell and point and wait for somebody to hold them back.

I once asked Clint Hurdle what you do when a brawl breaks out and you’re not mad and don’t want to fight and Clint said: “Find your best friend on the other team, grab each other’s jerseys and make dinner plans.”

In the above video the TV announcers whined about Herrera throwing at Lawrie in a close ballgame, but sometimes there are larger issues and in the first month of the season Royals batters got hit 20 times, Herrera sent a message on April 19^th and next month it was 9, a month later it was 7.

Once again, what’s that worth?

BTW: The whiney TV announcers were from a national network so they show up maybe the day before and have no clue what’s going on with a team so they talk to the local reporters and if you’re a dope (and the first time it happened, I was) you talk to them because it’s flattering to be asked and then they go on TV and repeat your observations like they came up with it themselves and somehow your name never gets mentioned.

No wonder players don’t like us.

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Time Warp

So after Contreras does his “spikes up” slide I want to see if a Royals pitcher would step up and protect India in Contreras’ next at-bat, but I missed that at-bat and every other Contreras at-bat because I was rebooting every half-inning.

I check the box score next morning and Contreras never got hit by a pitch and I’ve got no idea if any Royals pitcher even brushed him back; probably not because baseball isn’t played like that anymore, even though – as the video demonstrated – they played like that just 10 years ago and those guys won a championship.

As the ever-blunt Jason Kendall once said; these days nobody wants to get hurt or fined or suspended, we’re all making too much money.

MLB got freaked out by star players getting injured (9-hole hitters’ heads could explode and it wouldn’t bother them) but star players sell tickets and make everybody money, so MLB took out breaking up double plays and collisions at home plate and frown on pitchers protecting their teammates.

It’s like the NFL decided to play flag football.

Just to once again be clear: I am not in favor of anyone getting injured, but removing exciting plays from the game for financial reasons is just another strike against baseball, like eliminating paper tickets and making every fan have a smart phone and use the MLB app to buy a ticket which means they have your phone number and email address and can constantly bug you to buy more tickets or refusing to take cash at a ballpark (they only accept credit cards) and having their games broadcast by whichever group of technically incompetent gamblers gave them the best deal.

As a Big League manager once said to me: “It must be a great game to survive everything we’ve done to it.”

The Royals play the Giants tonight and despite all the hurdles MLB has put in front of me, I’ll be watching.

Three seconds at a time.