SB Nation User Blog: GreenNGoldSooner

mlb.tv: the annual ritual

GreenNGoldSooner — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:40:38 -0000

As spring training games commenced, I bit the bullet and signed up for another season of mlb.tv (premium, naturally). As an NRAF since 1982, mlb.tv has been an incredible blessing. Instead of relying on catching them playing the local AL team or appearing on national TV, I've gotten to follow the A's, game in and game out, on internet radio and internet TV for years now. I got to experience Bill King's last years of broadcasting, which were truly a joy.

But as my fellow mlb.tv ~~customers~~ sufferers know all too well, there is only one problem with this rosy picture: mlb.tv sucks.

Even if they've finally managed to solve the many technical difficulties that often make games unwatchable (and given MLB's track record at solving major difficulties, my money is on "not"), there's still the ridiculous blackout rules.

I spent most of last season in Germany, where nothing was blacked out. Sure the games were on at ridiculous hours. But I could always, always get them...except when mlb.tv was experiencing technical difficulties of course.

Now I'm back in Oklahoma, which is understandably in Texas Rangers' territory. After all, we're three hours from Dallas. Our AAA team is in the Rangers' system. We get Ranger games on basic cable. There's at least an argument that Ranger games should be blacked out.

But somehow we're also in Royals, Cardinals, and Astros blackout territory. Why? None of these teams is remotely nearby: KC is about a five hour car ride. Houston is a six-and-a-half hour drive. St. Louis is eight hours away. And while we get some Astros games on cable, we get no Royals or Cards tilts.

But just as the folks who run baseball can't screw up the game, no matter how hard they try, mlb.tv remains an incredible lifeline despite its desperate suckitude. $110 or so later, I'm officially back for another year of laggy audio and blacked-out games!

World Series Ratings and ESPN: A Mini-Rant

GreenNGoldSooner — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 13:03:30 -0000

So I'm watching Mike & Mike on ESPN2 this morning (I know, I know...what do I deserve if I'm watching these two?). And they're having a conversation in which they're both puzzled at the low TV ratings this World Series is getting. Is it because the Cards were an 83-win team? Or that the Tigers are a wildcard? Well, the Steelers were a wildcard, and nobody minded that. And everyone loved George Mason in the NCAA hoops tournament. People like underdogs! Could it be the small market thing? Nope. St. Louis is a huge baseball town and the Cards have a regional following. Besides, the Tigers were the feel good story of the year. In short, Mike and Mike were stumped at the low ratings.

I have an idea, boys. Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that your network, which rules the roost in national sports coverage, had spent an entire season pretending that only two teams--the Yankees and the Red Sox--mattered at all?

If I were Bud Selig and I were not a complete flippin' idiot (I know, that's already an impossible wish), I'd have long since been on the horn to Bristol screaming at the network executives about this rather predictable result of the kind of coverage they gave baseball all season.

Looking Ahead: a Tigers vs. Cardinals Series?

GreenNGoldSooner — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:42:43 -0000

This is jumping the gun a bit, I know, but while I'm enjoying all of the Hot Stove League talk on AN, and also can't wait for Spring Training, there's still baseball to be played this fall...and I'm still interested.

I, for one, am excited about the possibility of a Tigers-Cardinals World Series. This feels to me like a classic match-up, two teams with rich histories, neither of whom has won a series in years.

The Tigers and Cards have met in only two Series in the past: 1934 and 1968. Both went seven games, with the Cards winning in '34 and the Tigers in '68.

I'm also interested in watching both teams: the Tigers because they're a generally likeable and talented bunch, who seem to be back in midseason form after fading badly at the end of the year (and because it will feel better to have been dominated by the eventual WS Champs); the Cards because of the LaRussa factor and, of course, the fun of watching Albert Pujols.

In fact, the only thing wrong with this potential World Series (besides, of course, the A's not being in it) is that the two teams have already met this season, which spoils some of the mystique of the matchup. But that problem is a predictable result of the idiocy that is interleague play. I still hope that we can put that genie back in the bottle if and when Bud Selig decides to leave baseball in favor of ruining something else for a while.

What Matters Most to You?

GreenNGoldSooner — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:51:36 -0000

Years and years ago, during the 1988-1990 run, when the A's were making it to the World Series three years in a row, but winning only one of them, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was a die-hard Mets fan. The Mets were pretty good during those years, especially '88, but they never made it to the Series.

Both my friend and I agreed that the most important thing wasn't winning a Division, or even winning the Series, it was winning the Pennant and making it to the Series.

Not that 1988 or 1990 didn't hurt. They did. It would have been nice if those teams won the three World Series that we paid BalCo for (just kidding...I mean that we ought to have won!).

But those two seasons felt much, much more satisfying than the 2000-2003 run did.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that baseball was really unique this way. When other teams I have rooted for have made it to a championship and lost (say, OU during the 2003 and 2004 college football seasons) it was much less fulfilling, much more disappointing. Baseball's the only sport I can think of where, from an emotional level, I get the biggest kick not out of the final step, but the penultimate one.

So that's the purpose of this diary: any of you agree with my friend and me? Or does another step of the journey to a World Championship (if we can still call it by that fictional title) matter more to you? Just to clarify, we'd all, obviously, most like to win the World Series. But at which step along the way is the emotional difference between winning and losing greatest for you?

Poll

What matters most to me is...

Making the playoffs

1 votes

Winning the AL West

1 votes

Winning the ALDS

1 votes

Winning the Pennant (i.e. the ALCS)

5 votes

Winning the World Series

25 votes

33 votes | Poll has closed

The Wikipedia Baseball Article Improvement Drive

GreenNGoldSooner — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 02:43:15 -0000

For some reason I'm becoming the font of wiki-related suggestions...

Wikipedia has just announced an effort to improve all their baseball-related articles to featured article status. Information about this project can be found here.

Projects such as this involve two stages: first, each week, Wikipedians nominate and vote on a single article to focus on during the next week. Then the article that gets the most votes is the focus of the project effort for the next week. For example, the following articles are currently under consideration to be the first featured article (voting ends this Sunday): New York Yankees, Nolan Ryan, Dave Stieb, Cy Young, Steve Garvey, Players League, Catfish Hunter (I'm not providing links 'cause I'm lazy and you can just go to the project page linked to above and follow the links from there).

Since ANers are a truly impressive repository of baseball knowledge I figure some of us might be willing and able to help all stages of this project. I imagine there'd be particular interest in Catfish Hunter if the article on him becomes the focus of the Article Improvement Drive.

What City Has the Best Uniforms?

GreenNGoldSooner — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 02:02:04 -0000

Watching the Tigers-Halos game reminded me how totally awesome the Tigers' home uniforms are. For some reason this also brought to mind Detroit's other awesome sports threads, the Red Wings' home uniforms. This, in turn, got me thinking about the following question: what American city has the best uniforms? Here are the groundrules for this exploration of the truly irrelevant:

The city needs to have teams in at least three of the four traditional major pro sports.
Other sports don't count (who cares what Chivas USA's uniforms look like? and since the WNBA's uniforms are basically designed to be faint echoes of NBA uniforms, they're also hardly interesting).
All the city's major professional sports teams need to be considered.
Home and away uniforms need to be considered, including unusual variations.
Try as much as possible to put aside your feelings about the teams wearing the uniforms (e.g., I gotta admit the Yankees and Cowboys, much as I hate them both, have good uniforms).
You can choose your own criteria, including intertextual ones (i.e. Pittsburgh's cross-sport color coordination), but you should specify those criteria in your comments.

To start things off, let me suggest Chicago as a strong candidate. Both baseball teams have excellent uniforms (though in the past, the ChiSox war some truly hideous duds). The Bears' uniforms are also traditional and first-rate. What a nice set of "C"s those three teams have (very different from each other, but each distinctive). The Bulls' uniforms, while not my favorites, are fine. The tricky team here is the Blackhawks, whose sweaters are graphically outstanding, though ethnically problematic (they are a good deal less offensive than Chief Wahoo, though that's a pretty weak argument in their favor).

What town's uniforms do you like...and why?

Notes on a Roadtrip to Arlington

GreenNGoldSooner — Sun, 28 May 2006 15:34:38 -0000

Last night, I drove down to Ameriquest Field at Arlington (or whatever its official title is) to catch the A's-Rangers tilt. Here, in no particular order, are some notes on the trip, the stadium, and the game...

It's a three-and-a-half hour trip each way from my home in Norman, Oklahoma, to Ameriquest. When I was in my twenties, driving three-and-a-half hours after an event concluded at 10:00 pm was no problem...in fact, it was kinda fun. In my forties...not so much.
Although there are many pleasant things about life in central Oklahoma, I very much miss the amenities of a real city (sorry, OKC), including of course MLB. That being said, the Dallas Metroplex is still our nation's best approximation of Hell on Earth.
Ameriquest is a very pleasant, if not particularly distinctive, stadium. Then again, the same could have been said of the old Arlington stadium, a converted minor league bandbox that was charming if much the worse for wear. Ameriquest still has whatever the stadium equivalent of that new car smell is. It's a very closed in and vertical stadium (I always think of old Tiger Stadium when I'm in a park like this), which I actually don't mind (especially given the none-too-scenic location). It gives even a large stadium a kind of intimacy.
Right outside the stadium is a very snazzy Little League park, complete with grandstand done in a similar architectural style to the big stadium next door. Clearly this was part of the Ameriquest Field project. Which made me wonder: how many big-league stadiums have Little League fields next to them? Yankee Stadium has long had (much more rundown) Little League fields right next door. In fact, you'd walk through them when you parked in my favorite Yankee Stadium parking lot (like seemingly everything else in NYC, there are better and worse places to park at a Yankee game, and the better places are something of a closely guarded secret among those in the know). I always liked walking through the outfield of a little league game in progress as I approached the stadium. My guess is someone on the Ameriquest design committee had a similar experience.
Rangers fans seem knowledgeable and pleasant, if not particular passionate or boisterous. There was a good crowd of over 41,000 last night. Dressed in full A's regalia (cap + Bill King AN throwback 3/4 sleeve jersey), I received my share of gentle ribbing, but it was always good natured. I spent some of the game talking baseball with a former Rangers season-ticket-holder sitting behind me (I was in the front row of a club-level box between home and first). Thanks for contributing to a positive stadium experience, Rangers fans!
I may have been the only A's fan in the entire stadium. I saw not a single other person all night wearing anything Athletics-related.
As y'all know, I picked the right game of the series to make the drive to Arlington. I bought my ticket a few days ago, figuring that I might as well see Zito. Little did I suspect that we'd be coming into the game with a losing streak, and that Z would need to step up and stop it. He pitched a terrific game. And it was nice to see the A's offense really operating, too. Having sat through Thursday's game on TV, however, I can tell you I never felt particularly comfortable with last night's lead, especially when Zito hit Teixeira and walked Blalock with two out in the sixth. In fact, it felt so dejavu-all-over-again that I was actually kind of relieved that we got out of the inning only giving up the three-run shot to Nevin. I'd half expected Zito to walk Nevin, then give up a slam to Mench! (Incidentally, wouldn't it be nice to have a bottom third of the order that's hitting over .300?).
Though it was a bit hard to tell from my angle, Street did not look like he had particularly good stuff last night. Given the other options (RiverCats!), I was delighted that Macha went to Street with one out in the eighth, and was obviously pleased by the results. But I long to see Duke return. And I'm worried that Street is still going through a pretty significant sophomore slump.
All Rangers fans refer to Mench by his nickname: "Shrek." Purely on the basis of the movies, you wouldn't necessarily bet that "Shrek" would be so a popular nickname that two major league ballplayers would simultaneously claim it.
It was a good night all around for the A's batters, but I was particularly happy about Thomas and DJ's performances. For two guys who have looked just awful and uncomfortable for much of the season, they looked confident and in control last night. I'm feeling more optimistic about both of them than I have all season.