Sunday, April 27, 2025

Rain

 And no internet.

Someone tell Spectrum that the Internet is out, and my critical messages to the Yankees are endangered. If I cannot get through, if you hear nothing from me, tell Boone to implement Fried Option B. 

Lives depend upon it. 

Meanwhile… rain.

38 comments:

  1. Is it raining in Toronto or New York or Syracuse? Or all three?

    When you're on the other side of the pond, questions abound.

    Boone is an idiot, but Bill Maher is an asshole.

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  2. What was with the Master yesterday? He not only skipped right over Weaver as a possible closer (I would say the only logical one we have), but he talked about what a great job Boone did last year, getting the Yankees to the Series with "a lot of holes in the lineup." He thinks Boone deserved manager of the year but didn't get it because, you know, Yankees bias.

    Has he lost it? He's definitely old, even though his voice still sounds great, but is a horrible form of dementia creeping in? We should have run away with the AL East in a big way, and arguably have won the Series, but Boone's continuing idiocy puts too many games in the L column, and his inaction and dumb decisions cost us a ring last year.

    I don't get it. Is it because Boone is so "likable"?

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    Replies
    1. Dementia waits for no Man.

      Water, it falls from the Sky.

      Soft or Hard, Food still needs to be chewed.

      Aaron Boone is, Aaron Boone.

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    2. Age comes to us all…and that’s if we’re lucky

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    3. John Sterling never ever bad mouths anybody, ever. He must be a really swell guy. Better than us. Better than me. So I'm not even remotely surprised that he praised Boone. BUT Sterling did say that "if the Yankees had done the normal things, just the normal things, they would've gone to L.A. with a 3 games to 2 lead in the World Series". What's that mean? I took it to mean that the Yankees suck at fundamentals. And a few of the other "normal" things that they failed to do were directly as a result of Boone's shenanigans. So it's a roundabout dig at Boone, in a way. That's the way I took it.

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  3. Bright, bright sunshine-y day here in New York City, though it is supposed to cloud over.

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  4. Read somewhere recently that Boone's persistence in the Yankee organization owes to the fact that he fessed up in the winter of 2003-04 after he blew out his knee playing basketball, a prohibited off season activity. Telling the truth cost him multiple millions of dollars when the Yanks voided his contract and bought him out for a pittance. Hal and Cash appreciated that.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, I've no doubt about that. HAL greatly appreciated when Cashman traded Montgomery for Harrison Bader, which saved about 15 grand or so. So if HAL has an orgasm saving 15 grand, what does it do when he saves millions? That's why A-Rod retired and saved the Yankees some serious dough, but so far, they haven't rewarded him.

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  5. Yesterday, in NYC, there was a bit of rain around 1:30 PM. Then it held off until around 7:30 PM. So there was plenty of time to get the game in. They could've played through the sprinkles at 1:30, which didn't last long, and was but a drizzle. Or they could've started the game at 2:00 PM and got it in long before the big thunderstorm at 7:30. But what do I know? The geniuses love to rain out games when there is no rain.

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    Replies
    1. Apparently, analytics has even befouled the weather forecast

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  6. Yankees have confirmed there is no timetable for Stroman’s return, effectively relieving us of any obligation to him beyond this season.

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    Replies
    1. Another dude who should've been traded during the winter.

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  7. Another Cabrera error. Hey, that rhymes!

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  8. It was great to tune in to the John Sterling show yesterday. I tuned in about ten minutes late but was able to listen to the rest of the show. It was just about as I imagined it would be. A lot of Sterling fans calling in to reminisce about the glory days of sports talk radio, which for me were the '80s through the '90s. Maybe next week I'll call in and tell The Master about this website. If I do, I'll call in as Hammer and I'll say a shout out to all the guys on the It is High, It is Far, It is Caught at the Wall blog! I don't know if I'll be able to get through though. Some of these talk shows, it's impossible to get through or you wait almost an hour. The whole show is only an hour. Wish it was a two hour show, at least.

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  9. There were some really funny highlights when they were reminiscing. One guy mentioned Michael Kay freaking out when the Yankee plane hit turbulence. Everyone thought the plane was going down, the oxygen masks came down, and a bunch of Yankee players started chanting "WE ARE HIGH, WE ARE FAR, WE ARE GONE". And Sterling was just sitting in his seat like Buddha, reading a book. Sterling has ice water in his veins.

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  10. Another cool story I heard was that, after the 1996 Orioles playoff game when Bernie hit the 11th inning walk off homer, Sterling did that great call. It took forever for him to finish the post game show. And when he got to the parking lot, he tuned in to WFAN, and Mike and the Mad Dog were still on the air and they played the Bernie home run call like twenty times. And Sterling was stoked!

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  11. And Sterling also talked about how he started at some 5,000 watt radio station in upstate New York in 1960, making $60 a week at the age of 21. So that's 65 years in radio. Wow!

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  12. And even before that, Sterling was a kid when he was listening to the radio. And he heard some announcer going something like "Live from L.A., it's the Brandon Birdsong show". (I paraphrase, I don't remember the name of the show.) Sterling said he didn't want to be the host of the show, Brandon Birdsong, he wanted to be the guy who announced "Live from L.A....." So he worked on his voice and his announcing skills, listened to many different DJ's, etc, etc, etc.

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  13. I remember SportsCenter after the Bernie walk off in 1996 ALCS (Bernie from the right side was simply beautiful)...cold open with video and Sterling sync'd. Ball flies high andvtrue toward the narrow left field upper deck, "It is high, it is far, it is (screen goes black as ball disappears into crowd)...SportsCenter!"

    Was very cool, back when ESPN gave a shit about baseball.

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  14. These talks shows tend to be unintentionally hilarious. I remember listening to the Art Rust, Junior Sportstalk Show in the '80s on WABC. People would call in, and the host would say "Art Rust, Junior, you're on the air". And at least half the time, there would be dead silence or some dude would say "Hello? ... Hello? ... Am I on?" And Rust would say "YES, YOU'RE ON THE AIR, GO AHEAD!" The other half the time, Rust would have to shout "turn off your radio" because there was some huge echo. A lot of times, the producer would end up cutting off the call. Yeah, the glory days of sports talk radio in NYC.

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  15. I wish the Yankees had stayed on 770 WABC radio. I thought they had a stronger, cleaner signal. Not only that, since the Yankees were the only team on WABC, they never cut out to a football game or anything else. Don't you hate when 660 WFAN suddenly cuts out the Yankee game? All of sudden, they tell you to tune in to 101.9 FM and it's the Giants or something else on 660. WTF?

    Even when the Yankees were on 880 WCBS, they had a cleaner signal and no competition with any other sports broadcasts. WFAN 660 has too much stuff going on. A team's flagship station should broadcast all of that team's games, all the time, from beginning to end. None of this bullshit with suddenly having to tune in to another station to listen to the rest of the game.

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  16. Hate to be continually picking on Cabrera, but thar was an awful read on the hit by Judge. Could’ve cost us a run, but Belli picked him up.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, it was an inexcusably dumb base running play, but that's from inexperience. Keep playing him. Hopefully, he rounds out. The infield coaching could be better too. His throws a bit rushed lately. He's got a great arm. Should take a moment to get a good grip on the ball before making the throw.

      I would say Cabrera has been one of the better players. When you have a bunch of guys hitting well under .200, at least Cabrera hits and gets on base. Defense was very solid, until lately with the throws.

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  17. Sterling still has a great baritone voice. Robust, booming voice. Practically made for FM radio. Very easy on the ears. Easy to understand. He enunciates, never mumbles. Great style.... But I'm preaching to the choir.

    The new guy Dave Sims doesn't really have a good voice. It's better than Michael Kay's voice. But a lot of mumbling. Swallowing words. Running words together. Perhaps the production values are lacking. Maybe they mix in too much crowd noise. Sometimes you can't even tell what the hell is going on. You just know something is happening because of Sims shouting. Yeah, I know sometimes you couldn't tell what the hell was going on with John Sterling calling the game, but for entirely different reasons. I still much prefer Sterling.

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  18. Austin Wells with a ringing double! Still only 6-1, though, plenty enough time to blow this one.

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  19. BTW, thanks Duque, for letting everyone know about the John Sterling Show on WABC. I had no idea he had a new show until I saw your post.

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  20. Was that a Volpe home run? And a double by Wells?

    I must be delirious..

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  21. And I second Hammer. Thanks for the tip, Duque.. He's even on early enough that I can catch him in Deutschland. Although I'm horribly homesick already. Maybe that will improve once we actually live in our own apartment and our stuff gets here. Thinking of when I can get back for a decent visit.

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  22. IPTV and the VPN are a godsend, that's for sure.

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  23. Great game so far. Who else thinks the Yankees will now lose game 2 by 2-1?

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  24. Shame on me but....I like this team ....fuck

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  25. Great stuff, Hammer! But after all that, no one's going to say....THUH YANKEES WIN! THHHHHUUUUUUUHHHHHH YANKEES WIN!...

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  26. Oh, yeah. And...THUH YANKEES WIN! THHHHHHHHUUUUUHHHHH YANKEES WIN!
    (again.)

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  27. The Yankees DIDN'T LOSE! THEY DIDN'T LUUUUUUUUUUUZZ!

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