Hello and “Yeehaw” from Dallas where I’m in town to broadcast the Mariners game Sunday night on the radio against the mighty Texas Rangers who last Wednesday scored 30 runs in beating the less-mighty Baltimore Orioles 30-3. Some fun facts about that game:
Since Texas pitcher Wes Littleton entered in the 7th and remained in the game he actually got a save. (The save rule ignores the run differential if the pitcher finishes and has protected the lead for 3 innings or more.) However, Dodger pitcher Brett Tomko could easily blow a 27 run lead.
The game was held in Baltimore not the Sepulveda Blvd. Little League Field.
Just prior to the game Baltimore manager Dave Trembley was rehired as manager for next season. Good thing he didn’t say “Let my lawyer look at this contract and get back to you.”
The bottom two guys in the Rangers line-up got 14 RBI’s.
The Orioles lost the second game of the doubleheader although they held the Rangers to 21 fewer runs so they had to feel good about themselves.
When Orioles radio announcer, Joe Angel finished the 8th inning he said, "And the score is, I really don't care anymore." Later, when called the final home run in the 9th to put Texas up 30-3 he said, “I hope you took the over in this game.”
The Rangers are still in last place.
See you tomorrow night on KOMO 1000 in Seattle, the Mariners Radio Network, and MLB.COM gameday audio.
24 comments :
Is it time to bring the Little League's 10-run "mercy rule" to the bigs?
Actually the one thing that I've always appreciated about European football (soccer) leagues is how they promote and demote teams from the premier divisions.
Maybe its time to drop the Orioles back down to AAA and promote the Albequerque Isotopes up to the bigs. Then let Baltimore win their way back into the American League.
Thanks, Ken, for coming to speak at the Dallas Screenwriters Association meeting. I'm sure everyone there appreciated it.
As for the Rangers, sadly those 39 runs they scored in the doubleheader is what they usually score over about 20 games or so.
Thank goodness the Astros are playing so well.... oh, wait....
Oh yeah! Relegation! We need that in all American sports. Hell, we need relegation in many aspects of American life. I can think of a lot of people who need to be bumped down to the minors for their ineptitude. Half of them seem to work for NBC these days.
(Though in their defense, it's ABC that put Cavemen on their network.)
Ken, I'm kicking myself for missing your appearance here in Dallas. I'm not a screenwriter (anymore, at least -- I used to do that, but now write a daily topical radio humor service), but I read and enjoy your blog, and I live about five miles from KD Studios. I sat down at the computer Friday night to surf around, landed on your blog and saw you were here from 7-9...and it was 9:45! Thought of tearing over there, but figured it would all be over by then. You've got to billboard your appearances farther in advance.
BTW, some of the nasty comments on the previous post about Dallas and Texas really ticked me off. Obviously written by people who've never been here, other than for a layover at DFW. They're painting us as some backwater redneck burg, when we have great restaurants and museums, dozens of top notch theatre companies, and even a thriving gay club scene, if that floats your boat. Reading those ignorant comments reminded me of the 1970s when I had to do radio interviews with new wave bands from England, who were all excited about coming to Dallas because they hoped to meet J.R. Ewing. And Los Angelinos can slam Texans as a lot of violent, reactionary rednecks all they want, but at least we wouldn't have let Lindsay Lohan off with just 30 minutes in jail.
Ken, Ken, Ken…. You’re getting ahead of yourself. If you're post time right? If it’s 3:46 p.m. already you must be in Beijing, not Dallas. Olympic fever?
OK, willing to cut you some slack. When we first moved to Dallas, mom would call from New Haven and ask, “So what time is it there?” And I’d say, “It’s 6 o’clock, and she’d say something like, “That’s funny, because it’s only 7:58 here.”
“Uh, mom, I’m ROUNDING OFF, I’M ROUNDING OFF.
Thanks for your terrific presentation at the Dallas Screenwriters last night. And there wasn’t even a two drink minimum.
However, Dodger pitcher Brett Tomko could easily blow a 27 run lead.
Ha! Tell me about it. Although...David Wells! This should be fun to watch, at least.
Have fun with your broadcast duties. It sure seems like you enjoy that "job".
rangers in last place, exactly where their former owner intends to leave our country when he's done preznittin'.
Go Mariners!
Enjoy the Metroplex, and the Ballpark in Arlington -- an underrated facility. (Okay, so there's no skyline in Arlington, Texas...but other than that, it's a pretty nice retro-style ballpark. I went to the first-ever Rangers-Astros game there in 2001.)
I was going to crack a joke or two about Baltimore's miserable night. Then the Nationals let a 5-1 lead slip away in the ninth inning in Colorado last night (ouch!), and once again I learned humility.
Then again, there was the Yankees-Tigers game last night, which didn't begin until 11 p.m. in Detroit due to rain and went extra innings, ending at 3:30 a.m. EDT on a Carlos Guillen three-run homer. Had the game gone any longer, Mitch Williams was coming out of retirement...to pinch-hit. (Phillies fans will get the reference.)
Is the Baltimore announcer still around, I forget his name, he does the best Vin Scully imitation I've ever heard.
(Sorry about the prior deleted comment. I missed some typos, though I probably did here also.)
What caught my attention was the complete game line for those two guys at the bottom of the Rangers lineup, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vazquez. Each of them went an identical 4 for 6, with 2 home runs, 7 RBIs, a walk and a strikeout.
Coincidence you say? C'mon, George Bush used to own the Texas Rangers (yeah, just like Dick Cheney used to work for Halliburtan).
Still not convinced? What if I told you there were a couple of guys at the Bay of Pigs named Saltalamacchia and Vazquez? I'm not saying that, but you have to admit, if that was true it would be pretty creepy. So maybe there's more to your little Pleasant Valley Sunday world than meets the eye after all.
Look, they can swear up and down that day is night and the sun comes up in the east, but one thing we know for certain is that jet fuel won't burn hotter than 1500 degrees fahrenheit. So all I'm saying is we deserve the truth, not their mind games. I don't pretend to know who was pitching for the Orioles Wednesday, but whoever they were, they sure as hell were not Major League Baseball players.
Ha! Tell me about it. Although...David Wells! This should be fun to watch, at least.
I love major league ball players who are older and fatter than I am. Sadly, David Wells doesn't happen to be either one, but at this stage he's as close as I'm gonna get.
My daughter was actually at that doubleheader, celebrating passing her driver's test. I got several cell phone calls from the game, updating me on its progress. She's a die hard Orioles fan, but got a kick out of seeing history.
I'm still trying to figure out how it could be 7:58 in New Haven and 6:00 in Dallas. Rounding or not, isn't that just a one hour time difference?
What amazed me the most about the 30 run game is that the Rangers left 18 runners on base, they probably should have scored more.
Well, ya got me H.O. Can offer only three excuses for the unforced error:
1) It really was 3:53 this morning when I got up to post, only to discover we were out of coffee;
or
2) I have it on reliable authority that half of my genes are from mom, whose golden treasury of expressed Gracie Allenaphorisms included, “Well, after all, none of us is human." When I came home from school and informed the family that the American Legion was sending me to “Boys State,” the only thing she asked was whether of not I would get to meet Father Flanigan.
or
3)Superman hadn't yet stopped that nasty habit of reversing the rotation of the earth.
I'm going with #1 and half of #2.
Now lemme see, two trains starting in the same city travel in opposite direction. One goes at an average speed of 85 mph……oh, damn, I never was any good at those either.
tb said...
Is the Baltimore announcer still around, I forget his name, he does the best Vin Scully imitation I've ever heard.
That's Jon Miller, one of the better play-by-play men around, in the class of Kalas, Harwell and Scully. But Jon isn't with Baltimore any more; 10 years ago, Oriole owner Peter Angelos let him go (he apparently wasn't enough of a "homer" for Cuban Pete), and he now does San Francisco games.
Just in case Ken doesn't get around to it: beginning at 10 p.m. Sunday (26), TVLand will run the first, last and final (?!) episodes of M*A*S*H.
The whole thing evidently ends at 2:30 a.m. But consult your local papers. Except in L.A., of course, where the Times doesn't list anything that late. Or, for that matter, TVGuide. Same reason.
My personal favorite bit was that, with the score 24-3, Texas scored six more runs in the top of the ninth, 'cause you never know when Baltimore might score 21 or more runs in an inning.
(OK, my new favorite bit is that the captcha for this post was xiyxbunt)
Welcome to Dallas, Ken! Dallas is an actors and writers' haven these days. We have 60 professional theater companies, at least 5 of which have resident playwrights premiering new work all the time. "Prison Break" and "Friday Night Lights" also shoot around here, making local actors more likely to get enough work in Dallas not to have to go to LA to do TV. Come again, y'all! And if there are any tricky plays in the game, I hope you'll post the clips.
Thanks for the heads up!! I'll be listening to you call tonight's game.
Go M's!
I'm late to the party as usual.
I was at the game. It actually was a lot more fun than a lot of the Orioles losses of late. We didn't blow a lead in the late innings, so it was fairly relaxing. A lot of us in the uppers with our kids got to share stories about the weirdest things we had seen during years of going to the ballpark.
Some of us also chanted, "Put Boller in!" referring to the backup QB for the Ravens.
I was hoping the team would run the John Belushi pep talk from Animal House before the bottom of the ninth, as they often do when they want the team to rally, but they didn't bother.
I understand that Jim Palmer mentioned the need for "rally caps" on the Orioles TV broadcast when the Birds came up in the ninth.
Pitcher Paul Shuey received a phone call from a friend who asked if he was trying.
Part of the reason this happened was that because the game was part of a doubleheader and the Orioles had no off day until Monday, manager Dave Trembley left the pitchers who were getting killed in for as long as he could stand to watch them.
My favorite oddity about the game other than the 27 run save was the fact that while Burres, Bell, and Shuey were giving up 24 runs on 20 hits in 4 innings they were also striking out 7.
The 1996 Orioles, a playoff team, lost a game to the Rangers 26-7.
Ken, Heard you on Sunday on KOMO and would love to have you announcing for the Mariners all the time. Great job! Any chance you could be more than just temporary? I'm writing a note to the radio station, too.
What I remember about that game is how many times during the highlights, I heard the announcer say Saltlamachia.
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