Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Double Dutch Bus

Can everyone please stop saying "Sports Personality A threw Sports Personality B under a bus"? How did we go from the simple term "dissing" to a description of the potentially homicidal act of picking up another person and tossing him or her in front of an oncoming multi-passenger transportation vehicle?

Or does "under the bus" just mean you're throwing them beneath a parked bus, you know, to cool 'em down for a while until they start playing harder/stop running their mouth?

Or is this from some movie that I didn't see? Whatever the reason, I think it's had it's 900 seconds. Just take one dip and end it.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 3 came out yesterday. Obtain it.

Even though I gave up on pro football years ago, I am excited about the possibility of two snow games this weekend. If there's snow, I'll watch.

Mike Francesa's wife had twins the other day. Hearing Mad Dog do the show solo yesterday, talking about how children change your life, reminded me of how funny it is to hear those guys talk about anything other than sports, because they'll talk about anything in the "sports style." Today Mike was back, and they were sharing their knowledge of pregnancy and baby-raising. It was weird to hear Mike say "..then my wife's water broke." And he was saying the weight of his babies like they were sprinter's times. "One was four-nine, the otha was five-three." I'm assuming he was talking about pounds and ounces.

They'll talk about the Academy Awards or something, and again, it might as well be a baseball game: "Mike, you wanna tell me Kirk Douglas is Best Actor, fine, but in a big spot I'd rather see Harrison Ford up there." "Dog, Kirk Douglas is a hall-of-fame actor."

Last night I went out to my folks' house, where NESN is allowed, and watched Game 2 of the '86 World Series. Since I only watched that game once, and I was eleven years old at the time, I really didn't have too many exact memories of it goin' in, unlike Game 6, which has been shown hundreds of times since then.

First of all, it was Ged-mania. Rich seemed to be the center of attention to Scully and Garragiola. They spoke of how Geddy used to bug Carlton Fisk, asking him all kinds of baseball questions. They also analyzed the famous Gedman swing. This was right after he switched to the Charlie Lau/Walt Hriniak batting method, a move which turned an all-star into an average player. And there were two voices in the crowd you could hear throughout the game, and older man and a younger woman, screaming for the Sox. When Gedman was up, I heard the male voice yelling, "Come on Richie from Worcester!"

Also, so much innocent Buckner talk. Very sad. There was a foul roller at one point toward Billy Buck, which Scully called: "Slow roller up along first..." It kicked foul. But we'd hear a nearly identical call all too soon after that. The Shea Stadium crowd gave Buckner a nice hand when he was pinch-run for late in the game. It was amazing how much that guy was hobbling around.

The people that did that stupid spinning hand motion to distract the pitchers behind the plate apparently weren't there for Game Two. Or they just didn't invent that move until Game Six. Either way, terrible job.

They played the cheesiest music at Shea between innings back then.

My mom kept commenting on Clemens' skinniness, and on how she was finding it hard to "root" for him.

Oil Can Boyd had his whole name embroidered on his jacket. I don't think anybody else had a name on theirs at all.

I was familiar with Vin and Joe's announcing from the Game of the Week when I was little, but I realized how much better they were than today's national announcers. Scully came to the park prepared, man. They definitely said some dumb things, like, "The stockings have runs in them, and a lot of hits as well." But overall, very enjoyable.

And I'll admit, Boggs had a great game, in the field, and at the plate. (But of course his post game interview with Costas was "I'm awesome!"-ed out.)

People at the game who have either taken drugs or committed lewd and/or illegal acts against women included: Strawberry, Gooden, Backman, Hernandez, Boggs, and Marv Albert.

In the game, the Sox threw the Mets under a bus, 9-3, to go up two-zip. Still can't believe we lost that series. I never should've asked my mom for that "plate of meat" before Game Six, or taunted that Mets fan at school after we were up two games to none. Damn. But now we can say how it made '04 that much sweeter. I guess.

And to make the title of this post, I, uh, know two people from Amsterdam.

Comments:
Jere, you've now stolen like, ten ideas I had for great posts.

The bus thing is a great, documented example of the type of sheep a lot of "sports" people are. It's such an arbitrary reference too- ugh. Everyone, all the time. People have no appreciation for innovation.
 

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