Old Man Baseball Rant

Beautiful park with scoreboard issues

So we went to the Cubs/Rangers game Sunday, the third and final game in the series that was the opener of the 2024 season.

This was our first visit to the Rangers' new ballpark, Globe Life Field or some such. It is the third, mind you, stadium that the Rangers have called home and that I've attended since I've lived here which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. Stadiums in some cities are becoming disposable playthings for owners probably because they make the city residents pay for it and they have less skin in the game, but that's a rant for another time.

No, what I'm here to complain about is the scoreboard situation in Globe Life Park (or Field? Can't keep it straight.)

There is no permanent scoreboard at *all*.

Now, I'm not expecting a huge thing like in Wrigley where each and every game is updated (by hand). That's not necessary. Nice, but not necessary.

However, some things should always be visible 100% of the time you're at the park.

Such things as the inning, the time, the ball/strike count, at a *minimum* should always be there to see. Now, Globe Life Field (GLF from hereon) has a plethora of "scoreboards": two huge screens in landscape mode in the outfield, a largish screen in thin portrait mode near center, a ring of data that can be lit up that circumnavigates the entire circumference of the field betwixt levels, etc.

They're bright, they're flashy, they have cutting edge graphics that allow you to watch the dot race around the fifth or six inning brought to you by Chick-fil-A (or maybe that's Golden Chick, who can keep up.)

The smiling faces of players still full of optimism and hope at season's beginning along with stats like OPS and moon phases are prominently displayed every minute or so, but if you just want to know what time it is, good luck. No clock anywhere.

If you're between innings and try to determine exactly WHAT inning you're between, you're out of luck. You know how it is... around the fifth or sixth inning one begins to lose track what with the leisurely pace of the game. Can I just look at some scoreboard to figure out if I really need to get some more nachos, or if indeed I have time?

Nope. Unless the Scoreboard Keeper decides to put that graphic up, you will have no idea. You're at their mercy. Instead, while sitting waiting between the fourth (or is this the fifth?) inning, you'll have to watch a Remax commercial or Golden Chick (I'm sure it's Golden Chick.)

And when the game finally gets going again, and they put the box score up on the Big Board for a fleeting second and you see that actually it's only the THIRD inning, and you see Cody Bellinger is at bat again, and if you begin to wonder what he's done so far this game bat-wise: TOUGH.

Instead you'll see what he hit against lefties on the road in 2023, and that for the season he's batting a measly .125 but the season is still young and so maybe that $80 million wasn't a waste let's try to be patient for just a minute, but what did he do last at bat? Who knows.

It took me 7 innings to find where the GD pitch count was for crissakes.

Say what you will about the old Arlington stadium: Sure, you might get second degree burns on your thighs from the aluminum bench seating in the outfield and suffer minor heat stroke, but at least you GD knew what time it was.

Ah, Me

Found at FiveThirtyEight.com:

So I've spent the past couple of days at meetings of various kinds in New York, and there was certainly a sense of impeding doom among many Democrats here. The cute analogy that I've come up with are that Democrats are like Cubs fans -- they assume that something will go wrong until proven otherwise.

See Cindy? See? Is it any wonder I'm the way I am? I have two strikes against me. ;-)

The Cub Fan

My daughter hates this pic because she thinks she looks like a boy. She got the Cub outfit for her first birthday, 17 years ago this week. Now, in a blink of an eye, she's going to be 18. How did that happen? And what's more, how in the hell have the Cubs still not made it to the World Series? A year before this pic was taken the Cubs played their first night game ever at Wrigley. We were told this would make them competitive, since they could sleep in longer on game days and not have to play in the heat of summer at 1pm.

I'm still waiting.

So in the 2006 elections my daughter can vote. This is kind of hard to believe. I told her I'd get her a voter registration card for her birthday, but only if she voted Democrat. HAHAHAHA.

Anyway, a couple of months after this pic was taken the Cub outfit was stolen, STOLEN mind you, from our apartment's laundry room. It should have been an omen for the Cubs demise later that year in the playoffs.

Maybe it was a curse. Yeah. Maybe the Cubs will not win until that person or persons returns the stolen toddler Cub outfit.

That's the ticket.

Hey Sports Fans

Did I ever tell you that Sidd Finch (NY Times, requires registration) was my 7th Grade Art teacher? Well it's true. I can't believe that he still gets recognized for this 20 years later, even in England.

A quick excerpt:

It still happens on the Wrigley Field concession lines. It happens as he walks down Michigan Avenue. It even happened, in all places, while sipping a lager in an Oxford pub.

"Sidd Finch! You're Sidd Finch! Hey Sidd, can I get your autograph?"

After 20 years, for Joe Berton, the line remains a little blurred. Ninety-nine percent of his waking moments are spent as Joe Berton, mild-mannered junior high school art teacher in Oak Park, Ill. But that other 1 percent, he is still Sidd Finch, baseball's greatest pitching prospect.

It was 20 years ago this week that Sports Illustrated ran one of its most celebrated articles, "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" - in which George Plimpton crafted a 14-page exposé on a bizarre, out-of-nowhere Mets phenom who fired baseballs at a stupefying 168 miles an hour.

Hehehe. This happened after my junior high days, but I remember my grandmother calling me up and asking me if I remembered him. It's kind of hard to forget someone obsessed with fantasy statuettes who gave you free reign in art.

The Woes Of Being A Cub Fan

Greg Couch in in the Chicago Sun-Times:

So if Prior is OK or if this is the beginning of the end, the lesson is for the Cubs, who had something with this incredible starting rotation. You can't believe in tomorrow. It's such a waste to think about the future in baseball, to count on it.

How dare the Cubs go into this season -- again -- without a closer. Without one, they were throwing away Prior and Wood, anyway. Exactly what are the Cubs waiting for? Matt Clement is gone, Greg Maddux is getting old.

When this type of rotation comes around, you jump, even if it means overspending. The Cubs brag about their huge payroll, but that's just their magical accounting department again. More than 10 percent of it goes to Sammy Sosa in Baltimore.

If this rotation goes by without one World Series, with all those revenues and record crowds, then that won't be bad luck, and it will be more than incompetence from Cubs ownership. It will be viciousness to the most loyal fans in the world. Remember, they passed on Jim Thome and Pudge Rodriguez two years ago before finishing a game short of the Series.

Ouch. And Yes. And "sigh".

It Always Comes Down To The Cubs

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

The longer perspective shows you where this race has been heading. CNN/Gallup shows that Bush-Cheney have lost six points since this time a month ago. Kerry-Edwards have gained nine points. That's a huge shift. So Zogby now shows a dead heat with Kerry nominally ahead by three points. WAPO shows a Bush lead - but only back to where he was a week ago and all within the margin of error. Bottom line: the race is dead-even. A month ago, it wasn't close. And the undecideds are leaning Kerry. Of course this is exactly the kind of moment that Kerry, like the Cubs, tends to screw up.

Unfortunately, he's right. Oh, the scourge that is my life, being both a Cubs fan and a Democrat living in these post-Reagan-Christian-Right-hijacked country, residing in Texas to boot...

Leather

In case you can't read that scrawl, it's "Ryne Sandburg, '84 NLMVP"