Hey Now, I’m an All-Star!

If you watched the Home Run Derby and didn’t get a little choked up at the whole living 500 Home Run Club thing, well, you just don’t appreciate baseball enough. That was a great ceremony, only surpassed by the Mastercard All-Century team promotion from a few years back. That being said I have a few thoughts on the event itself. First of all, it’s entirely too long. Not only is fatigue a factor for the participants, but as a viewer I was losing interest in it as well. Maybe giving the participants less outs in one of the rounds or have fewer participants could be a solution. For the most part, it’s a great event but there is no way to estimate how long it will take. ESPN had it listed for one hour; that’s laughable.

Secondly, I don’t recall Sam Ryan being that bad while she did hockey coverage for ABC/ESPN during the playoffs this past spring. She was absolutely TERRIBLE, stumbling over her words. The interview with Lance Berkman was especially bad; she used his first name twice in the same sentence. On the flip side, I thought Barry Bonds did a fantastic job when after his first round he sat down with Chris Berman and Joe Morgan. He probably won’t do it (most of the all-time greats don’t) but he could be a really good color analyst if he put his mind to it.

And lastly, right-handed batters should be ashamed of themselves for that short porch at Minute Maid Field. Righties should have a handicap or something at that park for a HR Derby! I guess it all evens out as the All-Star Game moves to Detroit’s Comerica Park next year. Even after some of the fences have moved in it’s still cavernous.

As for the game, I really feel bad for Roger Clemons getting his chesticles ripped off in the first inning! All the hype surrounding him, being in his hometown, pitching for the hometown team which is hosting the game, being the oldest starting pitcher in all-star history, I guess he just deserved better.

It’s too bad that Jack Wilson’s line drive didn’t carry a bit farther. It would have been nice for the Pirates lone all-star rep to homer.

I have a too long complaint for the game as well. I know Houston is in the Central Time Zone, but Fox would have had the game on in primetime regardless. The pre-game should have started at 7 with first pitch somewhere around 7:35, give or take a few minutes.

Boy, is small ball dead or what? Fox ran a screen that showed some unlikely lead leaders in certain statistical categories. Carl Crawford of Tampa Bay leads the MLB in stolen bases with the grand total of 13 at the break! 13! So he’s on pace to lead MLB in October with 26! Gone are the days of a speedster getting 80 to 100 (or more) SBs. Heck, even Willie “Mays” Hays bought 100 batting gloves, one for each base he would steal, in the movie Major League and that was in the late 80s! Seriously, it goes to show just how much the game has changed. That Nike ad from a few years ago really rings true, “Chicks Dig the Long Ball”! I guess that’s why you don’t see a skills competition around all-star break where they time the fastest guy around the bases!

Omar Moreno had 96 stolen bases in 1980. Tony Womack had 60 and 58 in ’97 and ’98 respectively, not to mention 72 with Arizona in ’99. Last year Kenny Lofton and Reggie Sanders, ringers for all intents and purposes, had 18 and 15 SBs respectively. For the record, Florida’s Juan Pierre led all of MLB with 65.

I thought American Idol winner Fantasia’s rendition of the National Anthem was among the worst I’ve heard of recent. Actually, I am so sick of pop stars taking liberty with the Star Spangled Banner. There is no room for showmanship in performing your country’s National Anthem. That stuff might win you brownie points with those no talent judges but there is no place for it when singing the National Anthem. I think of Simon Cowell and I think of Denis Lemieux’s line in the classic film Slap Shot: “just some stupid English pig with no brains”.

Conversely, Ruben got it right with his God Bless America. I hear his voice and I think of Luther Vandross. Truthfully, I think this past American Idol was the worst of the three thus far. You had Kelly and Justin in the first one; Ruben and Clay in the second. No one really stood out in the third version. Well, that is unless you count William Hung although his 15 minutes appear to be up.

Keeping with music, I have some CD reviews. “The Diary of Alicia Keys” and Anthony Hamilton’s “Comin’ From Where I’m From” are both very solid R&B albums and worth a listen. The Strokes’ “Is This It” is a better than average rock album, but I like Jet and Dashboard Confessional’s a little bit better.

I really can’t stop listening to “To the 5 Boroughs”, it has reached legendary status in my CD collection as one of those view albums that I can listen to all the tracks straight through with no skipping around. It really is good stuff; if you haven’t bought it yet, get with the program! I even got the vinyl LP as I plan on getting a turntable to hook up to my stereo. That way, I can keep the CD in my car’s 6-disc changer permanently!

I had an interesting double feature at my brother-in-law’s house over the weekend. It was hockey themed as we watched Miracle and Slap Shot. As far as Miracle goes, it is a very good film; I would encourage you to watch it even if you’re not a hockey fan. Kurt Russell really captured Herb Brooks’ personality in the movie. I still don’t think people really appreciate how huge that upset of the Soviet Union really was. CCCP had dominated Olympic hockey for 15 years prior to Lake Placid (not mention 12 more years after ’80), they had the greatest goaltender in the history of the game in his prime (sorry Grant Fuhr fans, he’s a close second on my list!) and probably the most skilled forwards until the Edmonton Oilers started their dominance in the early to mid 80s.

As for Slap Shot, we did it a bit different as my bro-in-law has the 25th anniversary edition with the commentary by the Hanson Brothers. It was really interesting to listen to them talk about certain things in the movie, places in Johnstown, etc.

So this cat on Jeopardy is now a 30-day champ and his winnings are over $1 million. I know they’re re-thinking that no limit champion rule!
I don’t know what was more shocking to me, the fact that Isabel Sanford died, or that she was 86. I just didn’t think she was that old. It starts making you feel old when actors on sitcoms you watched while growing up are starting to pass on. Rest in peace to a woman who so brilliantly portrayed one of the great characters in TV history. The Jeffersons was a groundbreaking series, the first to portray a wealthy black family (long before the modest but well off Huxtables on the Cosby Show), the first to prominently show an interracial married couple, etc. Sanford was also the first black woman to win an Emmy. I can only hope that TV Land or Nick at Nite will do a marathon like they did for Three’s Company following Jon Ritter’s passing.

Here’s hoping Weezie has moved on up the greatest of all deluxe apartments in the sky!