My Mealticket: MLB.tv
Hello faithful readers of the 38th most successful Fire(Blank)(Blank) blog with a blogspot address! The big man upstairs, Larry B, thought this blog could use some fresh thoughts so he offered me a spot in the lineup. This was before Eriz came back with a vengeance today, so now it’s like you’re getting two new bloggers in one! It should be noted that LarryB and I go way back (hence my eagerness to make fun of his articles)-- he’s not just picking up riff-raff off the street to write here. I earned this spot through years of half-heartedly participating in his fantasy leagues and complaining about local sports teams with him. For those of you who follow the blog regularly, I’m also known as Chris Hart. Yes, I still hate this blog as much as I used to, but now I get to combine it with the rest of my self-hatred, so it works out.
I don’t consider myself to be a “stat” guy at all, probably just barely above the average fan’s knowledge of the game. So the things that jump out at me are usually going to be particularly annoying/egregious/lazy on the part of the journalist. Luckily for me, I have a job that allows me to listen to mlb.tv while working. It lets me listen in on April afternoon games between the Yankees and Royals, and catch a whiff of this type of thing: from Royals color man Paul Splittorff when the subject of A-Rod’s postseason struggles comes up--
“That goes back to his days with the Seattle Mariners.”
Ugh, come on man. You’re paid to pay attention to baseball. A-Fraud’s stats in three postseason series with the Mariners:
’97 ALDS: .313/.313/.563
’00 ALDS: .308/.308/.308
’00 ALCS: .409/.480/.773
As someone who watches about 10 total AL games a season (Bill Simmons League Bias Alert!) I even knew about Fillet-Rod’s success in Seattle and NY pre Game 4 ’04 ALCS. You’ve been the Royals color commentator since 1987 (according to wikipedia), you should know better than this.
I hope my posts don't become a running string of horrible announcing from local broadcast teams, but the first week of the season hasn't led me to think otherwise.
