Opening Day 2005
Last Sunday marked opening day of the Major League Baseball season, and ALREADY the Yankees and Red Sox have already played each other four times, with two more games tomorrow and Thursday. I mean, I know it's the biggest rivalry in baseball, but they're really beating us over the head with it.
On the flip side, playing in near obscurity, is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. What can you really say about the D-Rays? They lost their first two games to the Toronto Blue Jays. They've made a slight comeback and are sitting at .500 (as I write this, but there's a game in progress where they've already given up a 3-1 lead), but the bad press continued for Tampa Bay's home team. First, the attendance numbers from the opening game was just over 26,000, which was a new low. The next two games were progressively worse, both registering under 10,000. Total attendance for the opening series three-game series against the Jays was just under 44,000... Meaning that of the 13 home openers last Sunday-Tuesday, seven of them drew more in one game than the D-Rays drew in three. And of the six that didn't, at least three of those couldn't (San Francisco, Cincinnati, and the Chicago White Sox) as those stadiums seat less than 44,000. I accidentally deleted my list, but the only place that didn't beat the Rays on opening day but could have were the Angels, and they were just a couple hundred short. Needless to say, the Rays aren't starting the season off on the right foot. Then, the clincher was D-Rays owner Vince Naimoli barring a Mets scout permanently from Tropicana Field for using his private restroom during a game. Naimoli has done a lot of good for the community; a side story listed how he's going to cover the tuition for the two children of a sportswriter who recently passed away and how he contributed to a fund to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van for a disabled Tropicana Field employee. But he's got to learn that it's the stupid shit like this that adds to his brutish reputation.
I did have the opportunity this weekend to catch a ballgame, but instead of the train wreck that is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays I decided to take in a game for the minor league Clearwater Threshers. It's sad that I'd rather drive an extra fifteen minutes to watch a Class A team than our local professional team. Not just that, tickets to the Threshers game were $6 while the D-Rays were selling their upper deck tickets for $5. But there's just something to be said for the game experience at a minor league game that you just don't get from the big leagues (or The Trop at least). I don't know what it is; maybe it comes from growing up in a small town that also had a Class A team (Daytona Beach; which during my lifetime has been home to the Astros, Islanders, and Admirals and is now home to the Daytona Cubs). Whatever it is, I had a great time even though I left a little early to catch a movie (more on that in a minute), and I encourage anyone with a local minor league team to check them out some time this season. I'm sure you'll have fun.
Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!
Last week was the first full week of Jerry Springer's radio show on the national Air America Network. With my Sirius Satellite Radio at my desk, I was able to listen to most of his shows and so far I've enjoyed it. In the week leading up to it, I don't know if it was sour grapes, but the staff of Air America's other radio shows including Unfiltered which it replaced were less than amped for the arrival of Springer. But, ironically, while most of Air America's shows offer politics with a heaping helping of humor it's Springer's show which is the most serious and formal. Each edition starts with him bringing up a topic and discussing it for a half-hour; the second half-hour normally includes an interview with someone knowledgable of the day's topic, while the last two hours is a typical call-in show format regarding that topic.
Jerry's usually extremely passionate about the issues at hand, and you can tell that he truly cares about each topic. He ranted for nearly an hour on the Senate GOP's determination to get the president's judicial appointments through, which may include changing the Senate's approval process and also on John Bolton's nomination as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations even though he often decries that same body. In each case, he makes an informed argument and is willing to discuss the issues with those of differing viewpoints who call into the show. While he doesn't present a balanced argument (I've never heard one of his guests arguing for the other side of a position), he does at least present the case.
All in all, I think his show is good. While I like Air America's humor more than its politics (and I'm as liberal as anyone), I think it's good that they're airing a show with more of a serious discussion. And, lets face it, adding a big name, even if it's Jerry Springer, will be good for the long-run of the Air America Network. As stated in the HBO documentary on the progressive talk show network, liberal talk is now one of the fastest growing radio formats in the U.S. And, for Jerry, it's good to see that he's back in the arena which he loves the most. Part of the draw, at least for me, to his show is just that he's so sarcastic because you can tell he doesn't really care and is totally doing it for the paycheck. I know that, in addition, he's looking at a potential run towards a Senate seat in the state of Ohio so I wish him the best of luck.
Random Thoughts
- Nothing like watching Office Space on Comedy Central Sunday night to sap any desire you have of going to work the next day. Luckily, I had some things to take care of on Monday that gave me a good excuse to take a personal day yesterday. But god, that's such a great movie!
- Movie Review: Fever Pitch (3 out of 5 Owls). This is the movie that I left the game early for, so I had a baseball filled day on Sunday. What can I say, it's just a romantic comedyin the line of all of the others. Boy meets girl, everything's going great, then there's some struggle, love overcomes all, the end. The main reason why I wanted to check it out is that I'm a huge fan of Fever Pitch author Nick Hornsby. The book is a personal memoir of his addiction to the British soccer club Arsenal (which I now follow because of him), so this adaptation as well as a previous UK film borrow fairly liberally from his story. Pretty much, the two films are romantic comedies while the book is more of a diary which skims over how his devotion to soccer affected his love life. Anyways, for a guy, the movie's pretty much something you'd take a date to unless you're a Red Sox fan who wants to relive their run to the World Series last year (that's right, I don't know if anyone has heard but the Red Sox won the World Series last year). Enough of the romantic comedy element for the ladies, enough baseball action for the guys. Drew Barrymore's cute enough to give this movie three owls by itself (especially in a scene where her and her galpal's are in a spinning class), and that's pretty much how it got this score. Nothing really much more to say, it's just the standard formula with a baseball twist.
- Girl I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy: Kimee Balmilero. I almost didn't have one for this week, but I took the day off yesterday and was flipping channels and ran across the kids' show Hi-5 on Discovery Kids and came across this little cutie. While I wasn't a big fan of the songs they sang, she was cute enough to keep me tuned into the show for the whole half-hour. So, this little Hawaiian cutie, as usual I'm way too lazy to put any effort into stalking anyone... But, if you want to stalk me, feel free to contact me through AOwL.com.
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