Radio Play

At different points in my life, I've listened to varying amounts of baseball on the radio. During the summer of 2004, I settled into a workout regiment that put me on an exercise bike right about 7:00 in the evening. It was happenstance at first, but I eventually started to enjoy listening to Charley Steiner and John Sterling so much that I would aim my time on the bike for that slot whenever the Yankees were playing.

I had an old RCA boombox situated across the room that, since it was in the basement, necessitated one of those axillary bowtie antenna in addition to the retractable one attached to the unit. The reception would fluctuate for no apparent reason and, not wanting to get off the bike and walk over to fix it, I'd strain my ears in an effort to decode what was going on. Sometimes there would be a loud sound that I would swear was crowd noise only to find out it was just more snow on the radio. On some nights, I couldn't focus and would lose track of what was going on in the game - how many guys were on base, what the score was, what inning, who as pitching for the other team - but the constant flow of voices and crowd noise was just enough white noise to let my mind wander without being too aware of itself.

Listening to a Yankees game is a different experience today. Most of the time when there's a game on and I'm in the car, I'll turn it on, but since I do so much writing about the Yanks now, I try to be in front of the TV (and my computer) when they are playing. And also because the broadcast team is just not as good. Essentially, I'll only listen to the game on the radio out of necessity now.

When Steiner was in the booth, he was obviously doing play-by-play and Sterling was the color guy. Steiner did a largely straightforward rendition of the game calling and only gave Sterling so much lattitude to do the goofy shit that so characterizes his broadcasts with Suzyn Waldman. Now you've got Sterling controlling the broadcast with his play-by-play and Waldman who -although I'm sure she is a very nice person and knowledgeable about to team - is tough to listen to and adds hardly any of the insight that I think most people are looking for from a baseball broadcast.

And to make matters worse, yesterday, MLBAM heavy-handedly cracked down on It Is High, It Is Far, It Is caught..., the only thing that made what happened in the booth even remotely amusing or tolerable.

Aside from the tragic decimation of the portfolio of winwarbles and mash ups that El Duque put together at IIH, IIF, IIC..., there was another thing that made me reflect on my radio listening days.

Ted from Pitchers and Poets (and Everyday Ichiro) wrote a fantastic, evocative piece about driving back from a camping trip and listening to the Mariners on the radio:

I didn’t literally tune out, like out of life. I kept an eye on the road and all, and at the very least I wasn’t texting and driving. But instead of zeroing in on the details of the Mariners game, on every pitch, I let my mind wander in between the phrasings, and the pure sounds of a man telling a story of a game happening somewhere distant. The radio game was the backdrop, the hazy middle distance seen from the path that my thoughts wandered, rarely settling anywhere but walking, step after step, in the directionless direction of a figurative destination, the highway emerging a few car lengths ahead and crumbling away behind me. Driving the pace of my ranging thoughts: the game itself, pitch after pitch ringing in the subconscious like a heartbeat.

The radio, humming along like time and the storyteller before the fire, sets a beat to life rather than recreating the world the way that TV does. So maybe I was wrong. I didn’t need to know anything about the Mariners that the radio couldn’t provide, because the voice in the radio doesn’t offer information as much as it does forward motion. A sense of progress, through time, through life, down the highway, on the way home.

You should read the whole thing. It'll make you miss the days when you could just listen to the radio broadcast without being annoyed to tears by the announcers, doesn't it?

Before The Music Dies

Here at Fack Youk, we take a special pride in melding music with sports. Way back before the season started, I used to label music posts as [Non-Sports] but almost immediately after April rolled around I began dropping musical YouTube clips to help express the anxiousness of waiting for meaningful baseball to be played and by the third game had come up with our signature style of previews which attempt to pair a song with a theme leading into each game. It can be a struggle sometimes, so not every combo is like peanut butter and jelly, but we do our best.

Perhaps out musical tastes don't exactly jive with yours, but one thing that you can count on (especially when Matt writes the previews) is that the song and band choices will be a little off the beaten path. Perhaps it's something old, or fairly new, or something so obscure that we couldn't even find it on YouTube, but it's almost never mainstream. By definition, that means that fewer of you are going to know the songs, but it also means that it's more likely that we are opening you up to something you've never heard before.

Matt and I are clearly both hardcore music enthusiasts and a big reason for that level of appreciation is that, at a certain point, we realized that there was more to music than MTV and the radio.

As such, we would like to extend our highest level of recommendation to the documentary below called "Before the Music Dies". It's a fascinating exploration into how the corporatization of the music business and the search for hit singles has made it almost impossible for unique new artists to come into their own through the traditional channels of record labels and radio airplay. In short, it helps to explain why radio is so redundant regardless of where you go and contemporary popular music is generally so shitty.

At the same time, it looks at the advent of the internet and file sharing and how those things have undermined the way consumers are force-fed popular music through a limited number of mediums. In the post-Napster landscape, consumers are free to explore what they like through YouTube, MySpace, BitTorrent and countless other alternatives to Clear Channel radio stations and MTV. The only problem is that the revenue streams have yet to catch up and while this is bad for the labels, it's worse for the artists.

The film features musicians and bands that we have talked about on this blog such as Les Paul, Eric Clapton, The North Mississippi All Stars, Widespread Panic, Doyle Bramhall II along with many others. If you've got an hour and a half to kill tonight or some other time when the Yanks aren't on, this is a great way to spend it. Either way, we'll be back tomorrow.

*I first saw this movie via the blog Pigeons and Planes which provides a steady stream of downloadable new music from a whole bunch of genres. Highly recommended as well.

Twins & Tigers Thrill Through Twelve

Good morning, Fackers. Did you see that game last night? If you didn't, you're probably already regretting it. It was one of the all-too-rare moments in sports in general and baseball in particular when a game with huge implications delivers huge drama. One of the few times that we can look at incredible over hyping that led up to the event after the fact and it actually seems less ridiculous. It would have been a great game had you stripped away the context of what was at stake.

With the spotlight pretty much all to themselves on a quiet Tuesday night in the world of sports, with their seasons on the line, the Twins and Tigers played like it. I hate do trot out the old boxing metaphors about "trading blows" and "having each other on the ropes" but there isn't really any other way to characterize the changes in momentum. The game even went 12 rounds innings.

We've been lucky with the last three play-in games. The Rockies and Padres came down to a play at the plate in '07, the White Sox and Twins last year turned on an 8th inning home run and ended on a great catch, but this year's version might have been the best of the trio.

Check out the WPA graph. It looks like the results of a polygraph test.

I didn't "see" the game until the bottom of the 10th inning. I was doing some painting (housework, not art) and started with the Tigers' radio broadcast on WXYT with Dan Dickerson and Jim Price. Then I flipped over to the Minnesota guys to see if I liked it any better, but that was a terrible, terrible mistake. John "Gordo" Gordon has a laughable token radio voice and constantly places the emphasis on the wrong words. I'd say he's a cut-rate Jon Miller, but that would be giving him too much credit.

I stuck with the Detroit fellows until I had to run an errand and got the ESPN Radio team for the whole 9th and top of the 10th inning. I believe it was Gary Thorne and Dave Campbell and those guys were excellent. I finally got in front of the TV for the bottom of the 10th until the end and by then I wasn't paying attention to a word Chip Caray said.

There's nothing like some mindless labor and a good baseball game on the radio. If you're with around other people or the game isn't compelling, it's easy to lose track of what's going on. But when you are alone, applying coat upon coat of latex paint to a metal door, it's easy to get entranced in a hardball battle as good as the one last night.

After striking out one batter in each of his last three starts, twenty year-old Rick Porcello matched his season high in K's with 8, all swinging. Neyer surmised yesterday that he might have been a little tired down the stretch, so maybe the fact that he hadn't pitched in a week cured what ailed him. The kid should just be starting his junior year in college but instead he was starting a game with an MLB team's playoff chances in his hands, and did a pretty damn good job.

He pitched 5 2/3, and allowed two runs, one earned. However, the unearned run scored on Porcello's error - a botched pickoff throw to first in the third inning that could have been worse had it not his Twins first base coach Jerry White. He had nearly picked off Denard Span a few throws earlier but made the rookie mistake of not realizing that you usually only get one good chance to get someone snoozing with a big lead. The earned one came in the 6th when he allowed a solo homer to Jason Kubel.

In so far as it's okay to like a Boras bonus baby from another team, I think I like Rick Porcello. One more of these and I'm sold.

The villain in this game, aside from the Metrodome, was clearly Miguel Cabrera. The (wife) slugger was booed vociferously anytime he came to the plate or touched the ball. He responded in a big way though, with a double in the gap in his first at bat and a two run homer that temporarily put the Tigers ahead 3-0 and hushed the crowed in his second.

The hero was probably another man named Cabrera... Orlando. He hit a two run homer in the 7th inning that gave the Twins a one run lead and afterwards said it was the best game he ever played in.

In the top of the 9th, the Tigers looked to be set up with runners on 1st and 3rd with no one out but Joe Nathan struck out Placido Polanco looking and then got Magglio Ordonez to line out into a double play to short.

Brandon Inge had a double and an RBI, but also a diving, game-saving catch in the 9th on a bounce that almost certainly would have scored the winning run. I just listened to the highlight on MLB.com and in typical Chip Caray fashion he declared that the play saved a run but didn't acknowledge that said run would have ended the game, since the score was tied at 4-4 and it was the bottom of the 9th. Get ready!

Ryan Rayburn was very nearly the goat after he badly misplayed a single into a triple, putting what proved to be the tying run on third with no one out. He partially redeemed himself by catching a line out by Nick Punto and gunning down Alexi Casilla at home plate to end the inning. The speedy Casilla blundered by tagging up a moment too late, and was tagged out by Gerald Laird by the slimmest of margins.

Casilla got some redemption of his own in the bottom of the 12th when he lined a one out single to right field to drive in Carlos Gomez from third and send the Twins to New York.

Get some rest, Twinkies. Don't stay up too late savoring your thrilling victory. Wouldn't want you to be all tired for the game tomorrow...

The "Yankees' Mount Olympus" And The Tragedy Of YES

I have to admit, I enjoyed Derek Jeter's record tying hit more than I expected last night. My buddy Frank and I had just settled in at my sister's place and flipped on the TV during Brett Gardner's at bat in the bottom of the 7th, with Jeter waiting in the hole.

After his line drive squirted down the right field line and Jeter took of his helmet, acknowledging the crowd while standing on first base, I said, "Wow, it would be awesome to be there right now".

And then I realized that the best thing about being at the Stadium at that moment wouldn't have been hearing the crowd noise firsthand or feeling like I was one of the people Jeter was responding to with the helmet tip or being able to say that I witnessed something special that night. No, the best part of being there would have been that the absence of a coarse voice incessantly reminding me how "special" and "historic" the moment was.

Like Cliff from Bronx Banter said his recap of last night's game, "It’s an impressive accomplishment that might have meant something to me had the YES Network not killed it to death by overhyping it beyond all reason."

For the people in attendance last night, the moment didn't get overhyped. I'm sure there were some graphics up on the scoreboard, but there was no one standing in between them and what happened on the field and the reaction in the stands. No one yelling in their ear, "LOU GEHRIG HAS COMPANY!!", like there was in mine.

When Jeter was standing on first base, Michael Kay said, "The bedrock of this franchise since 1996, the Yankee Captain now stands atop the Yankees' Mount Olympus with Lou Gehrig". And with that, the deification of Derek Jeter was complete.

As Matt demonstrated earlier, if one were to create a hypothetical "Yankees' Mount Olympus", it certainly wouldn't be based on who had the most hits for the franchise. Yet Kay had clearly crafted that phrase for that precise moment and been sitting on it for days, betrayed by the fact that he used it during the intro pieces for the two games of the double header.

Amazingly, it was the radio duo of Sterling and Waldman who were calm and collected by comparison. When Jeter rounded first and the stands started to erupt, Sterling simply said "And Jeter has now tied Lou Gehrig at two thousand, seven hundred and twenty one hits...". Suzyn described the cap tip, what the scoreboard said and the reactions of the fans while Sterling added that the Rays dugout was also applauding Jeter. They focused on the present instead of preemptively trying to declare the moment as historic.

As much as the events of last night helped congeal and quantify Jeter's presence among the greatest Yankees, it also badly exposed the most unbearable aspect of the YES Network.

The network apparently is convinced that it is vital to their success to make sure that every viewer in constantly reminded of the history of the Yankees at every possible turn. The dramatic irony is that YES turns moments that should be enjoyable to excruciating with each attempt to frame its significance, making them more memorable for the ridiculous way in which they are covered than for the moments themselves.

November 2010... FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!!!1!

If you watched last night's game from the beginning on YES, then you probably experienced the excruciating half inning sit-ins by Rich Ellerson and Charlie Weis. The head coaches of the Army and Notre Dame football teams were there to promote the meeting between the two powerhouses of modern college football in November 2010, verbally excrete as many cliches as possible and slowly lull anyone watching the broadcast to sleep before three outs were recorded.

I have mixed feelings about having football games played in the New Yankee Stadium to begin with. The reason that they played football there in the past was out of necessity, since there wasn't a football stadium in the area. However, now there most certainly is, and by the 2010 season, there's going to be a brand new one in the Meadowlands (where Notre Dame already has plans to play Navy that year). It's yet another example of Lon Trost & Co. making misguided, nostalgic attempts to celebrate the history of the Old Stadium. You can acknowledge the past with out reliving it, Lon. This is a brand new billion dollar baseball stadium, they can play football in the brand new billion dollar football stadium across the river.

These guest visits were another issue all together. It was little more than self-congratulatory back slapping for the Yankees and the YES Network and served no purpose to the fans who tuned in to, you know, watch a baseball game. Why distract from a sporting event that's actually unfolding right in front of our eyes? They did nothing but promote an event that isn't going to happen for 16 months and figures to be totally lopsided, unwatchably boring or both when it's finally played. Save the date, folks!

There was already a press conference about the football game. Isn't that enough? Let's be realistic, no one is making plans for the game yet. Yes, it raised the awareness. But we are going to be battered over the head with promotions for the next year and third and most people aren't going to decide until that day or possibly during that game if they are going to watch it.

Especially after the amount of innings spent ignoring the action on the field with visitors in the booth yesterday, you'd think that YES would have refrained from doing two more today. Instead we got to hear Ellerson talk about his team's practice schedule and Weis go on about how he always wanted to be a Yankee announcer in the most lifeless drone ever heard in a broadcast booth. I can't imagine why that didn't work out for you Charlie.

Enough with the guests. We just want to watch the game.

Yankees Broadcasts Creeping Dangerously Close To Respectability

Last night's game was fairly long (3:17), and after the Yanks jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning, the game was never in doubt. But that doesn't even begin to explain this:



No "Thuh Yankees Win... Thuuuuuuh. Yannnnnnnkkkkeeessss. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn"?!?!??

What's next? Are they going to forget to play New York, New York after they win at home?

H/T of course goes to IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR, IT IS... caught, which Sterling allegedly didn't even do on A-Rod's near grand slam that was robbed by Carlos Gomez?

Sterling's apparent jet lag/heavy medication, coupled with the fact that Michael Kay is on vacation until after the All-Star Break has made both the radio and TV broadcasts damn near tolerable. Now if they could just jettison Suzyn Waldman...

A Long, Hot, Sloppy Mess

If at any point during last night's game you were bitching about how it would never end, don't worry, you weren't the only one. At 3 hours and 49 minutes, it was the Yanks' third longest nine inning game of the season. A grand total of 11 pitchers gave up 29 hits, and 11 walks. The defenses were charged with four errors which led to a total of five earned runs.

I had the pleasure of having the majority of this odessey described to me by none other than John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman on my drive upstate. I was in traffic on the Westside Highway when the game started and I got to my destination north of Albany in time to watch Peter Moylan serve up a two run double to A-Rod in the top of the seventh. I lost reception during the 3rd & 4th innings when I was passing through some mean thunderstorms in the Catskills, but 880AM, 94.3FM & 104.5FM stuck with me for the better part of the way.

I would say the radio duo was in rare form, but Sterling saying things like "That's why you can't predict baseball" no fewer than six times and constatnly speculating what the score should be isn't that uncommon. Big John also should have been called for his epic verbal balk on Teixeira's deep foul in the top of the 2nd. "It is high! It is far! It is gooooooonneeee... Oh wait, it's foul." He then claimed the ball missed being a home run by "a foot", but having yet to see the replay, I'm skeptical.

During the bottom of the 5th(?) inning Hall of Fame President Jeff Edelson joined the broadcast and was giving a cute little pitch for visiting the HoF about how it's "only 2000 blocks north of Manhattan" or something. It was then Suzyn clumsily interjected that the Women In Baseball exhibit is one of the most visited in Cooperstown. (Hmm... why could that be?) Edelson goes "Yes, that's right Suzyn, it is quite popular". Suzyn then said "And do ya know who's face is in that exhibit? Right when ya walk in?" Apparently the answer to those questions is Suzyn Waldman. I know what that technically means, but I can't bring myself to type it out.

Still talking about the exhibit, she added "And they have the real Dottie Hinson in there. She's much prettiah than Genner Davis". Honestly, how many times do you think Suzyn has seen A League Of Their Own? Is there even the slightest chance that if you asked her right now, she wouldn't tell you it was her favorite movie? Did Bill Simmons write this paragraph for me?

It's not easy to keep track of an entire baseball game on the radio, especially one as topsy turvy as the abomination that took place in Atlanta. I'm kind of glad that I wasn't able to actually see most of what was going on, for 11-7 games typically lack aesthetic appeal.

Since we just recapped ten extra games in the past three days and I'm four pours into some Lagavulin, I'm not going to get into the box score minutiae. Let's go to the bullet points, shall we?

• A-Rod woke the fuck up with a home run, drove in four runs and scored another.
  
  
• Derek Jeter reached base six time, via four hits, a walk and an error and scored 4 runs.
  
  
• Johnny Damon drove in three on three hits while also drawing two walks
  
  
• Andy Pettitte and Derek Lowe were both chased before they could finish their respective halves of the fourth inning, but the difference was that Pettitte only gave up 6 runs (!)
  
  
• The bullpen only allowed one run in 5 1/3 innings
  

Good times. The Yanks' zany adventure through the National League East continues tonight as they return to New York and make their first trip to the Shea-k Shack. If you are going to be attending any of the games this weekend, I highly recommend you click that link.

"And On The FIRST Pitch..."

Given that it's not 1920, I'm guessing most people weren't huddled up by their radio on a lovely Friday night, listening to the Yankees game. Well fortunately for you, I have secured a (very low quality) version of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman's call of A-Rod's home run and put it behind a screenshot slideshow to preserve it in internet eternity (interity?):



Sterling: You know one thing, Suzyn? And I've seen this in tennis...

Ah yes, the classic tennis story. I've heard it a million times: Player's former coach reveals that their nickname was ____-Fraud, only to have everyone forget about those revelations when they are caught with a positive result on a steroid test, blah blah blah, everyone hates the guy, turns out he's got a torn hip labrum... then he kisses a mirror for a magazine shoot, someone writes a tell-all book about him and takes so many pot shots that people eventually start to feel bad for him... and here we are. 

My personal favorite part is where Suzyn says: 

"Well, I don't know who's in this park, but this entire park standing, orange t-shirts, blue t-shirts, they are giving this guy a standing ovation. (Crowd Boos)"

"This entire park?" Does she really expect us to believe this? So, even the people with the Styrofoam needles? If you are any Orioles fan, why would you applaud this? "Woohoo, our division rival just got their best player back and he smashed a three run homer off of us! I don't care if he took steroids... Good for him!!! But that Mark Teixeira asshole? BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Are you trying to tell me the Selena Roberts backlash polarized everyone that badly?

Anyway, could you have drawn it up any better? A-Rod took the pressure off him and the Yankees with one swing of the bat. CC turned in a gem and all of a sudden, the outlook isn't so bleak. 

Keep In Mind Kurt Suzuki Is Right Handed

This strikeout in the top of the tenth was the only out Damaso Marte recorded in yesterday's game, but it was a thing of beauty. If you participated in our Live Chat for Game 15, you have already seen this image, but for those who did not...

More embarassing: Suzuki striking out via a 360 and landing on his ass, or the empty seats behind him? Close call.

Can we see another angle?

Perfect. I think I'm going to go with the strikeout.

Other things you may have missed in the Live Chat: Hilarious stories about Freddy Sez, backed up with photographic evidence, unflattering nicknames for Damaso Marte, updates on every Yankee's marital status, how to listen to the game without buying the MLB.com radio package, and in-depth discussions of why and why not to purchase a quesadilla maker. You should really stop by next time.