Here in the tiny burgh of New York, we’d been forced to endure the massive indignity of attending baseball games in old, “charming” ballparks. We subsisted on hot dogs and beer, rather than on prime rib au jus or fresh crab cakes delivered via helicopter precisely 40 minutes before the first pitch. We sat in unforgiving plastic seats that weren’t oriented toward home plate. We had to wait patiently when entering and leaving the joint, because the narrow corridors couldn’t accommodate the rush-hour traffic. That’s right—NARROW CORRIDORS.

That all changed in April, when both the Mets and the Yankees cut the novelty oversized ceremonial ribbons that heralded the debut of their new joints. We already did a Nü Yankee Stadium walkabout, so last night it was time to give the pesky younger sibling’s new home its turn in the spotlight. Fast assessment? Citi Field is a nicer, more carefully thought-out, more accommodating stadium in every way that matters and a few that don’t. Here’s our pictorial report.

Teens with clarinets = harbinger of an off-the-hook stadium experience. Screw the Van Halen, gimme some Benny Goodman.


I reported his parents to the child-welfare authorities. Green? Plaid? That’s both cruel and unusual.

A sorta-panoramic shot of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which greets visitors as soon as they enter the ballpark. It’s beautifully appointed and obviously he’s deserving of every honor we can accord him… but, uh, the guy never played for the Mets or anything.

 

 

But can the Pirates, Tigers or any other team with a shiny newfangled ballpark lay claim to a scenic vista like this?

 

In the who-has-the-biggest-dick contest that is stadium scoreboard sizing, the Mets’ Jumbotron pales besides the Yankees’. But the Mets make up for it with trivia…


…and disturbing text-message displays. I’d have answered this one with “J.J. Putz on the hill in a tie game.”

The Mets have hired attractive young women to wield the t-shirt cannon, as opposed to grunty old hags or some unshaven dude who’s 90 percent gut. Damn, they sure know how to make that thing explode, ifyaknowwhutimean.



The sales guy who convinced the producers of a Broadway musical to spring for a huge ad at a ballpark—where most visitors consider Seinfeld the epitome of western culture—deserves a raise.

 

Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez engages in yet another of the arrogant, aggressively jubilant post-victory celebrations that have earned him the wrath of his peers. Take it down a notch, guy.

We’ve long supported a proposed constitutional amendment that mandates jail time for any hardhead who stalls a baseball game by running onto the field, and believe the following video evidence makes our case more eloquently than any buttoned-up testimony could. Nonetheless, we feel obligated to point out what the fence-hoppers are doing right and what they’re doing wrong.

 

Mind your blind side. Just as the nine fielders must remain cognizant of their location vis-à-vis their teammates, so too should the field-rusher be wary of thick-torso’d security goons approaching from his far left flank. The fans roared louder at the shoulder-meets-moron contact than they did when the Sox won.

 

 

Pick your spot. The final game at Yankee Stadium, which was policed by roughly 9,200 of the NYPD’s finest, is not the time to unveil your field-invading skills to the world. Police brutality never seemed so just.

 

Don’t forget your second wind. Nobody at the Tigers game—the players, the security staff, the organist—really seems to care about this trespasser until he turns the jets back on for a second dash. Then they get pissed. Bonus points here for the on-point fan commentary (“Beat him with a club!”).

 

Don’t fight it. One way or another, they’re going to get the handcuffs on your squirmy ass. Just relax and minimize your chances of separating a shoulder or prompting Mr. Happy to give his baton a workout.

 

 

Don’t doll yourself up. Hug-seeking hussies find themselves treated as brusquely as beery brutes. Plus, they’ll have a lot more to worry about in the sub-stadium holding cell.

 

 

Leave ‘em wanting more. A spirited, twisty sprint around the field will earn you an ovation from the same Philly fans who couldn’t bring themselves to cheer for Mike Schmidt.

 

 

Practice your moves in advance. Jailbreak! Check out the way miscreant #2 dekes the security dude at the 40-second mark. It’s reminiscent of Reggie Bush in his USC days, minus the stacks of illegally procured $50 bills fluttering from his pockets.

 

 

Think outside the box. You can make an event of yourself without getting mauled by pissy rejected mall cops, as this clever Brewers fan proves. He’s in and he’s out before anybody—except the taper—is the wiser.

 

 

Know when you’re done. Even as an onlooker chimes in with “what the hell? What are these, Detroit fans?,” this Cleveland denizen performs a passable slide into second base. He then awaits his fate stoically, like a death-row inmate falsely convicted. We should all have such pride.

 

 

Play to the crowd. Feel free to wave the team colors over your head tornado-style as you make your break. Worry not about the haters who critique your hard work ever so insensitively (“the problem is somebody like that can’t afford to get himself out of jail”).

After my chat with

Peter Gammons a few weeks back, more than a few friends got in touch, less to comment on the piece than to say, “Talking with him must’ve been awesome! Was it awesome? Was he awesome? Could you quantify his awesomeness on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “a little awesome” and 10 being “supremely, sublimely awesome”? [For the record, he’s at least a 9.]

Their comments confirmed what I’d long suspected: that Gammons is one of the few people in and around baseball who everybody loves: casual fans, harder-core fans, media critics, GMs, players, you name it. This got me to thinkin’: Are there others? Maybe! The following seven personalities head the list of candidates.

Trevor Hoffman, Milwaukee Brewers: He’s inherited the role of Ol’ Man Bullpen from Goose Gossage, Dennis Eckersley and the other long-timers who used to hold it. His decency and sense of accountability might have something to do with this: even after his don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you forcible exile from the Padres last winter, Hoffman still managed to stave off Favreian expressions of bitterness and regret.

How he could mess it up: By changing his tune and publicly besmirching the fine fans of San Diego (“350 days per year of 75-and-sunny weather, and they had the temerity to boo me for blowing a save? A hex on their manicured lawns!”)

Torii Hunter, Los Angeles Angels: He’s one of the few A-list players who speaks his mind passionately and articulately, whether about performance-enhancing substances or his belief that today’s black players have a responsibility to promote the game to the next generation of black athletes. Hunter’s fearless play in centerfield (his face has eaten many a wall and warning track) and his back story (his substance-addicted father stole much of his initial signing bonus along with his first car) make it even more impossible not to root for him.

How he could mess it up: By adopting the eek-a-wall! defensive approach of teammate Bobby Abreu, or maybe just by hitting the mute button. We’ve become accustomed to hearing from him, so it’d be puzzling if he stopped embracing his role as a leader and spokesman.


Jim Leyland, Detroit Tigers: Most skippers either talk a good game or manage one; Leyland does both, combining salty bluster with strategic mastery. You come for the savvy tactics, you stay for the post-game sound bites (like “I’ve got medical people telling me it’s suicidal to play him in the outfield right now, basically,” uttered in reference to Gary Sheffield being pissed off about something or other).

How he could mess it up: By leaving Detroit the way he left Colorado 10-odd years ago: in a huff of burnout and recriminations. Alternately, he could accidentally torch a ballpark during one of his infamous mid-inning cigarette breaks.



David Ortiz, Boston Red Sox: I’m a Yankee fan and I love this guy. I do. Sorry. Unlike so many other superstars, he never makes the game feel like a chore, not even when he’s slumping. I still wish the Yanks would’ve considered brushing him back once or twice during the last half-decade, though. They let him lean over the plate with impunity, which might explain the damage he inflicted. 

How he could mess it up: By having his name pop up in a non-scurrilous published report that includes the words “anabolic,” “Deca Durabolin” or “elevated estrogen levels in his bloodstream.”

 

 

Joe Posnanski, scribe: The Ohio-bred, Kansas City-based writer pumps out somewhere in the neighborhood of 47,500 words per week for The Kansas City Star, Sports Illustrated and his blog on a range of baseball and pop-culture topics. I can’t think of a single reason why you should be reading this instead of something written by Posnanski. (Actually, I can: There are more boobies in these here parts.)

How he could mess it up: By becoming bestest pals with shouty cretin Jay Mariotti, then abandoning his typewriter for one of those low-rent cable shows where sportswriters in ill-fitting suit jackets talk on top of one another.


Dontrelle Willis, Detroit Tigers: He grabbed us a few years ago with his wicked-stretchy mound mechanics and the big smile that perpetually creased his face. There’s an almost palpable joyousness in the way he bounds off the mound after a strikeout and in his interactions with teammates. He’s the bizarro-world Kevin Brown.

How he could mess it up: By failing to relocate the strike zone. We all loved Steve Avery and Jim Abbott, too, until their performance plummeted and their mood cratered alongside it.

Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays: He does everything right, and not just on the field. He says the right things—he might not give good quote, but he sticks around to answer every query—and, at age 23, carries himself with the confidence of a veteran. Also, he hits the living crap out of the ball.

How he could mess it up: By either signing with or forcing a trade to the Yankees. Duh.

If you’re anything like me—and I realize that on a night stuffed fat with Lakers/Magic and Red Wings/Penguins, you might’ve had something better to do—you tuned into the MLB Player Draft on Tuesday expecting baseball-wonk nirvana. You hoped to be enlightened about the next generation of Sizemores, even if their big-league ETA might be 2012. You hoped against hope that Bob Costas would show up and commandeer the proceedings, cackling with the relish of a Bond villain as he stuffed the other hosts in a linen closet.

Instead, you got a rote recitation of the drafted players, complete with odd-angle clips and endless prattle about “tools.” It was the professional sports draft as envisioned by some producer whose sports-as-entertainment education ended when “Wide World of Sports” went off the air. It wasn’t boring so much as directionless.

After the opening Strasburgasm and the inevitable 18 minutes of “this guy pitches better than Chopin composes études” hype, the draft telecast descended into please-God-let-the-next-pick-come-soon-because-we’ve-got-nothing-left-to-talk-about banter. I realize this isn’t the fault of the broadcasting entity, as most casual fans have no idea who the draftees are. After all, unlike potential NFL and NBA draftees, they haven’t invaded households across the country on Saturday afternoon or during a three-week stretch in March, and are thus inherently less interesting than your average “American Idol” flameout.

But really: we’re restocking organizational cupboards here. There’s gotta be a way to make this more palatable to, say, baseball fans. How, you ask? By doing the following four things.

1. Tell me why I should care: I’m not asking for softly focused in-depth profiles of those draftees with interesting back stories—the kid whose dad died in a tragic balance-beam mishap, the one who skipped from homeless shelter to homeless shelter because mommy was on the pipe, etc. No, I want to know what each of the picks means for the organization that made it.

The Pirates were beaten up by the pundits for snaring a catcher, Tony Sanchez, with the fourth pick overall. They argued that Sanchez should’ve gone 10-12 picks later, which is their right, but didn’t bother to explain what the Pirates may have been thinking. Maybe the organization is low on major-league ready backstops, so a polished college product was an ideal fit for them. Maybe he promised to sign for $125 and a truckload of taffy. Who knows? We sure as hell don’t.

2. Give me translations: OK, so the Mariners drafted first baseman Dustin Ackley, who has hit .400 or higher for three straight seasons at North Carolina. Wonderful. But who’d he do it against? How high was the caliber of play in the ACC during his time there? How does what he did compare with what similar super-duper-prospects did at other colleges, or in high school?

Last night, we got nary an iota of context, so all we had to go on were the “this kid can hit with a capital ‘H’!” raves from salivating prospect stalkers (prospecteers?). Baseball is way good with numbers nowadays, so somebody out there should place the garish stats in their proper context.

3. Media-train the damn kids: This one is on players’ families and representatives, rather than whoever’s staging the draft. I don’t know what would’ve happened if somebody had shoved a microphone in my face when I was 18 and asked me to respond intelligently to a series of questions (actually, I do: I’d have frozen up, then spent the rest of the afternoon self-flagellating and losing myself in a fifth of Popov Vodka, “Hoboken’s Finest”). All I know is that NFL and NBA prospects—hell, even NHL ones who have never left Saskatchewan—rarely come across as hayseed and stuttery as most of last night’s interviewees did.

4. Lacquer up Mel Kiper Jr.’s mane and get him on camera: Or not. But whoever produces the 2010 MLB Draft should search far and wide for Kiper’s baseball equivalent, somebody who knows the players and the folks doing the drafting, and can thus opine with something akin to intelligence. The obvious candidate for this role is ESPN’s Keith Law, but he may be too smart and well-rounded for the gig; he, like, reads and stuff. Maybe the Baseball Prospectus folks can nudge their prospect guru, Kevin Goldstein, camera-ward? We don’t need more personality; we need more authority.

Football coaches and players are practically required to scream themselves purple. It’s a rare day at the track when NASCAR drivers don’t engage in tussles that look like something out of Road House. And yet baseball players and managers are expected to “show some fire” but generally behave.

That ain’t fair. So we salute the following individuals for flouting convention and landing on our annual list of MLB’s worst tempers. Engage them at your own risk.

 

Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox: What he lacks in compassion, he makes up for in insensitivity. A few days after Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a drunk-driving accident, Beckett did his best to spark an international incident, throwing a pitch at Bobby Abreu’s chin after the hitter had the temerity to call for time. His the-plate-is-mine-and-I-will-guard-it-with-great-zeal ‘tude is part of what makes him a great pitcher, but it’s also part of what makes him as much of a candidate for road-rage incidents as any athlete on the planet.

 

Ozzie Guillen, Chicago White Sox: With crosstown peer Lou Piniella having mellowed somewhat with age, Guillen gets the nod as Chicago’s most out-of-sorts skipper. He’s often described as “mercurial,” which is a nicer way of saying “Ozzie loses his crap quite frequently.” Thing is, he doesn’t lose it in the conventional way; we never see him kicking dirt or tossing bases. Instead, his temper manifests itself in brutal, exacting honesty. About White Sox outfielder Carlos Lee, who slid into second as if trying to keep his pants unsoiled, Ozzie quipped, “We had a guy go into second base as if his wife was turning a double play.” About former Chicago newspaper columnist Jay Mariotti, renowned for taking his potshots from a safe distance, Ozzie said, “Why’s he so afraid to show up to the ballpark?...He’s garbage, still garbage, going to die as garbage. Period.” Yeah, we like Ozzie a whole lot, too.

 

Bobby Cox, Atlanta Braves: Cox looks like your grandfather and, most of the time, exudes the same warmth and hayseed wit. But when a call doesn’t go his way, look out. He holds baseball’s all-time record for ejections—a stunning 143, or an average of 5.3 per season over the course of his managerial career. He’s been booted from two World Series games, once for a mis-tossed batting helmet (he tried to slam it in the dugout, but it landed on the field). Players swear that he gets ejected so that they won’t, but the numbers don’t lie.

 

Carlos Zambrano, Chicago Cubs: The Sean Penn of baseball? Zambrano wears his temper on his sleeve. When he allows a big hit or doesn’t get a key call, he stalks around the mound like an undermedicated sociopath. When he strikes out, he snaps the bat over his knee and unleashes a torrent of expletives that’d make Quentin Tarantino blush. At the same time, Zambrano is the best kind of hothead, a repentant one. After his epic meltdown two weeks ago, when he reacted to a blown call by throwing pretty much every item within reach into the outfield, he was able to laugh about it afterwards. Also, he pitches better in a state of high, frazzled emotion. He’s a hell of a lot more fun than humorless lunatics like Kyle Farnsworth.

 

Milton Bradley, Chicago Cubs: He’s been relatively mellow this season in Chicago, merely brushing up against an umpire while arguing a called third strike. That said, his history suggests this relative tranquility won’t last. In the minors, he spit gum at an ump. In San Diego, he went after an umpire with such ferocity that skipper Bud Black had to restrain him (Bradley shredded an ACL in the process). Last year, while playing for the Rangers in Kansas City, he confronted TV commentator Ryan Lefebvre for having cast aspersions on his general character. Anything from the price of gum, to ending a sentence with a preposition might set him off.

 

 

Elijah Dukes, Washington Nationals: He’s such a hothead that the Nationals allegedly hired a “special assistant, player concerns” to follow him everywhere except the shower. Here’s the thing, though: as opposed to most of the guys on this list, Dukes is an athletic specimen who was an all-state linebacker in high school. That makes his long rap sheet for battery and assault even sadder. On the field, he’s mostly lazy, taking his time getting to first base after hitting a grounder or popping up. Off it? Dukes threatens to break Ty Cobb’s longstanding record for “most restraining orders incurred.” He is a terrifying human being.

 

Vicente Padilla, Texas Rangers: Either his control issues rear their ugly head at the most coincidental times, or he is simply targeting any hitter who has had success against him in the past. To wit: He has “accidentally” plunked or brushed back A.J. Pierzynski and Nick Swisher multiple times. On Tuesday night, he nailed former teammate Mark Teixeira in consecutive at-bats for having had the insolence to homer against him two times in June 2005. Bob Gibson and Roger Clemens could get away with stuff like this, because they were Bob Gibson and Roger Clemens. Who the hell is Vicente Padilla?

 

While performing household tasks of an urgent personal nature over the long holiday weekend, I listened to a whole bunch of baseball on the radio. It was total old-school immersion, with a circa-1977 transistor radio capturing the faraway signal and my uniform of plaid shorts with blue socks painting me as the paragon of style. I drank lots of lemonade and cleared my throat every two minutes.

Somehow, though, the experience wasn’t as pure as I expected. Why? Because a large percentage of baseball’s radio announcers are stuck in the 1970s for real—and they’re not alone. Despite the technological and statistical modernization of the game, purists remain bound to the conventions of the baseball of yesteryear. I’m not saying they’re old, but… well, they’re old-minded, in a way that closes their eyes to the revolutionary thinking that has pervaded the game over the last 15 years.

As such, they involuntarily produce bucketfuls of drool whenever ballplayers perform certain tasks, whether or not those tasks actually correlate to winning in the post-Moneyball era. The things that make them feel all tingly downstairs, in no particular order, include…

1. The sacrifice bunt: Was it Alfred Lord Tennyson or Alfredo Griffin who once wrote, “Tis nobler to have bunted and lost than ne’er to have bunted at all”? Outs are a precious commodity—a team gets only three per inning, as I understand it—and shouldn’t be given away unless the hitter is so profoundly inept as to practically guarantee a negative result. This is math, not speculation. Yet we’re still treated to roaring euphonies anytime Derek Jeter, who has long since secured a spot on the Mount Rushmore of selflessness, sacrifices himself in the interest of advancing a teammate homeward.

No. Just, no. As a rule, the only players who should ever bunt, regardless of game circumstance, are pitchers and Brad Ausmus. Learn it. Live it.

2. Players who “show a little fire out there”: A.k.a. players who “hustle” and players who “get their uniforms dirty.” Ask any baseball historian worth his salt and you’ll learn that the game’s great dynasties had two things in common: an inordinately high dry-cleaning bill and lots of dirt burns on their elbows. The 1927 Yankees were the first team to hire a clubhouse maid. Members of the 1975 Reds invented Neosporin. These players were as fiery as they were full of fire. They raged, raged against the dying of the light, or at least they did in the era before night games.

Scott Brosius had fire; Alex Rodriguez only has extra-base hits. Clearly, this explains why one player’s hand is weighed down by championship rings and the other’s isn’t.

3. Catchers: Catchers control the game, dontcha know. They call the pitches. They ask for—and receive—complete obedience. If they don’t, they run out to the mound and delay the game until the pitcher falls in line. All is quickly forgiven with a warm, affirming slap on the ass.

Catchers also block the plate, supposedly at great risk to life and limb even though they’re wearing Kevlar-reinforced padding and the baserunner isn’t. They are great men. No, strike that—they are great leaders of great men. They are Jason Varitek.

4. Pitchers who throw inside: Pitchers don’t do this because hitters can’t drive the ball when they’re unable to extend their arms. No, they do this because they are set on intimidation, and with intimidation comes the respect of one’s peers. It’s better to have a high ERB (earned respect bountifulness) than a low ERA, apparently.

Pitchers own the plate. It says so right there on the side. No, on the other side. If you suggest otherwise to a baseball purist, you better get comfortable, because a 47-minute monologue about Bob Gibson’s nasty streak is sure to follow.

5. Advancing the runner: This is the ultimate selfless act, the one that Joan of Arc herself would’ve performed with great and forbidding fervor had she not shredded her left knee after being drafted out of Wichita State by the Blue Jays. To move a runner from second to third at the expense of one’s own batting average? O sweet martyrdom, I await thy savage embrace!

So we were sitting around in a place of worship the other night—by “place of worship,” we mean “a bar”—and, as is our wont, got to talking about baseball. It was suggested by one member of our group that this is the best time in history to be a baseball fan, that technology has made it easier, more fun and just plain better to follow the game, even if you’re stationed on an airship off the coast of Guam.

We agreed. But to see if somebody who matters did as well, we checked in with ESPN pundit Peter Gammons, who’s the game’s Fan-in-Chief and pretty much the coolest guy on the planet. Here’s what he had to say.

On the state of the game:
The whole steroids thing, I think, has pretty much burned out. Every time Roger Clemens speaks, he’s going to be on “SportsCenter.” Every time something happens with Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez, you’ll hear about it. But I think fans are beyond that at this point.

Obviously the economy is going to cause attendance to be down this year, but that doesn’t mean there’s less interest. There’s a huge number of extraordinary young players in the game—the Joe Mauers, the David Wrights, Evan Longoria, Grady Sizemore and so forth. We’re not just riding out the big-name, mid-30s/late-30s stars, and I think that’s bringing a lot younger audience back into the game.

On other eras that captured fans’ imagination:
The early '60s, when we came out of the great decade of New York baseball. As the game stretched out, with the Dodgers and Giants becoming huge factors on the west coast, we were just realizing how great Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays and Vada Pinson were. We went from the generation of DiMaggios to another generation of great young players who were very different. We saw players totally unlike what we’d seen before.

Now we’ve got a golden era for second basemen and third basemen. In the last two years, we’ve had two guys win the MVP—Jimmy Rollins in the National League and Dustin Pedroia in the American League—neither of whom is even 5’7”, which I love.

On the players willing and able to be ambassadors for the game and sports in general:
What really strikes me as a 1960s veteran, what I find fascinating is the African-American players in the game, whether Torii Hunter or CC Sabathia or Jimmy Rollins. I find that they are so socially conscious. On the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first day in the big leagues, baseball made big deal of having everyone wear his number. But I thought what they missed was honoring what’s really Robinson’s legacy, which is the incredible social work done by some of those guys I mentioned. Sometimes around them, you almost feel like you’re dealing with people out of the '60s who were involved with the Civil Rights movement. Their passion and their fire for doing for others is really refreshing. In the last couple of years, I’ve enjoyed that more than anything else in the sport.

Look at Torii Hunter’s story: he grew up poor in Arkansas and he got about a $2 million signing bonus out of high school. He’ll tell you this—his father stole it all for crack. His father stole the first car he ever had. And he never had a bitter bone in his body, and he devoted his life to making sure other people don’t go through what he went through. I think I might’ve spent my life being bitter. That story is a great story for this country.

Not to wander all over the place, but the day after Tampa eliminated the Red Sox in the American League championship series last year, seven members of the Rays went to an Obama rally in Tampa. I said to Carl Crawford, “I’m really happy that you care.” He said, “We’ve all learned to care—not just because Obama is an African-American, but because he’s talking about things we should care about as athletes who grew up poor.” That really touched me. I thought it was cool that they weren’t there to be seen on a day when most people would’ve been partying. They were there because they believed in something.

On his daily media routine:
Most mornings I’m up by five o’clock. If you’re in my business, you’re always thinking “am I gonna miss something?” Hence the early mornings. There are so many places to go on the web, whether it’s MLBTradeRumors.com or David Pinto’s Baseball Musings. Rotoworld’s “Daily Dose” is phenomenal—there’s stuff in there that I would’ve never thought of.

On the drawbacks of the quick-information era:
The biggest drawback—and this is not saying that anybody creates stuff, that there’s any malfeasance—is that somebody floats a rumor and it becomes fact within two hours. It’s really hard to separate fact from fiction and rumor from reality. Mark Shapiro, the Indians’ general manager, said it’s gotten to point where he spends 40 percent of his time having to say “this rumor isn’t true.” It is fun, but I think we have to be a little more realistic about saying, “This is out there, but it might not be true.”

On how technology has changed the way he covers the game:
It’s so much more immediate. There have been a couple of instances where people send me text messages when I’m on the air either to correct me or to throw in another idea. Last weekend, we were doing something on our Sunday noon show about how the rate for batters being hit by pitches has gone up every decade, how it’s gone up dramatically in the last 20 years. I said I thought it had to do with aluminum bats: growing up and in college, pitchers pitch away because they can’t pitch in. So pitchers don’t know how to pitch in and hitters don’t know how to get out of the way.

In the middle of the show, [Phillies reliever] Chad Durbin text-messaged me: “Don’t forget that back in the '40s and '50s, more than half the hitters had open stances. Now everybody dives into the plate, so it’s a lot easier to get hit by a pitch.” I was able to correct myself and say, “I just heard from somebody who had a better thought than I had.”

On what’s next:
I’d love to be able to get more video. I was talking to somebody about what I’d be doing over the next five years or so. He said that within five years, 60 to 70 percent of all the information we get will come from our phones. I said, “If I want to go and break down video of [best prospect in the history of mankind] Stephen Strasburg, will I be able to do that on my phone?” He said, “The only reason you can’t do that now is that you don’t know how to get to it.” You have to remember—I worked with typewriters for 10 years (laughs).

 

Photos courtesy of ESPN

After footage of Howard Stern consort Gary Dell’Abate’s ceremonial first pitch at a recent Mets game flooded the Internet, we got to thinkin’: Was this the worst one yet? Upon doing our research, however, we realized that 72,000 people had already weighed in on this very question. In the process, most respondents abused that most forgiving of punctuation marks, the exclamation point.

This ain’t fair and it ain’t right and it ain’t fair. Mariah Carey is known for gently rhythmic songsmithery. Annika Sorenstam is known for her four-iron. Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory is known for… uh, zoning, maybe? Throwing things is not their business—unless the concert venue neglects to stock Mariah’s dressing room with 12 different brands of sparkling water, in which case the pitching of a fit is well-justified.

Then there are the corporate types. Do you think Mr. Vice President of Affiliate Marketing at an obscure Procter & Gamble subsidiary that caters to caterers wanted the responsibility that comes with throwing out the first pitch at a big-league game, a task for which his education and professional training leaves him woefully unprepared? Do you think he wants to expose himself and future generations of Vice Presidents of Affiliate Marketing to the ridicule that comes with launching a first pitch that touches down 25 feet in front of home plate? Of course not.

We’re here, then, to defend some of the efforts that have been labeled woeful in less sensitive corners of the web. Don’t be a hater.


GARY "BABA BOOEY" DELL'ABATE, producer/sidekick, The Howard Stern Show, May 9, 2009 at CitiField


The pitch: A fastball that sailed high and way, way outside, unless the batter was King Kong Bundy or a Golem.

Mitigating factor: It wasn’t a fastball that got away from him. No, it was a statement pitch, aimed to send a message to the corporate weasel who had the temerity to crowd home plate. Nobody leans over the plate when Baba Booey is on the hill. That plate is his.

Generous grade: B


MARK MALLORY, mayor of Cincinnati, April 2, 2007 at Great American Ballpark


The pitch: A sinker that was heavy on the sink and light on the initial flight.

Mitigating factor: He’d been up late the night before dealing with a parking-permit kerfuffle. Plus, he was throwing to Eric Davis, a Cincy athletic legend who makes grown men feel like the baseball-card-hoarding little twerps they once were.

Generous grade: B-minus


MARIAH CAREY, pop tart, May 28, 2008 at the Tokyo Dome

Mariah Carey First Pitch - Watch more Funny Videos
The pitch: A shotput of sorts, likely birthed as either a slider or an eww-get-this-away-from-me rejection!

Mitigating factor: You try throwing a baseball while wearing 13-inch heels and shorts that are nipping at your keester, mister. Also, the P.A. system was playing a Whitney Houston song.

Generous grade: B-minus


DOCILE T-REX, extinct species, August 11, 2008 at Nü Comiskey Park

The pitch: A curve that bent north/south rather than east/west.

Mitigating factor: T-Rexes have really, really short arms—why, they’re practically nonexistent. Also, if Jurassic Park has taught us anything (and clearly it has), those arms are mostly used for tearing the flesh off wayward dino-amusement-park moguls.

Generous grade: B-plus


EDDIE VEDDER, Wrigley, August 3, 2007


The pitch: High heat that reached the catcher’s mitt without making a pit-stop in the dirt.

Mitigating factor: None. His pitch might have arrived outside the strike zone, but it didn’t force the catcher to wander down the first-base line to retrieve it. The audacity!

Generous grade: F-minus… no, make that a G-plus


ANNIKA SORENSTAM, golf legend, July 22, 2008 at Shea Stadium


The pitch: An eephus pitch gone awry, as if thrown by a left-hander using her right hand.

Mitigating factor: Sorenstam is used to concentrating on the rotation of her hips and keeping her head down. Neither action figures into a pitcher’s windup, unless that pitcher is a herky-jerky, do-the-hokey-pokey mechanical train wreck like Dontrelle Willis.

Generous grade: A-minus


PATRICK SHARP, Chicago Blackhawks right winger, September 10, 2008 at Nü Comiskey Park (go to the 1:20 mark)

The pitch: Rising heat, propelled mitt-ward from the ground.

Mitigating factor: He used a hockey stick, an implement unfamiliar to a majority of Americans since NHL commish Gary Bettman made the dumbass move of shifting nationally televised games onto Versus.

Generous grade: A


DICK CHENEY, former Vice President, undisclosed secure location beneath 20 tons of plutonium-resistant concrete (OK, fine, April 11, 2006 at Nationals Park)


The pitch: [redacted]

Mitigating factor: Cheney accepted his limitations as a hurler and made his throw from about five feet in front of the hill. That’s so unlike a Bush administration official to take a shortcut.

Generous grade: B


REGIS PHILBIN, talk-show host/unrepentant pitchman, May 4, 2009 at Land Shark Stadium (or whatever they’re calling it nowadays)


The pitch: A meticulously practiced cutter, with a 45-second-long wind-up that would’ve been nirvana to would-be base stealers.

Mitigating factor: Reeg didn’t try to sell us anything or lobby for another hosting gig while throwing it.

Generous grade: B-plus