Craptacular thoughts to start the MLB season

Written by Xach on April 04, 2005

Xach: Good morning Roto Land!

Screaming kids: GOOD MORNING XACH!!!!!!!

It's April 4, and the Xachmeister is doing his best to level out his frazzled brain so he can bring you the daily goods. We wouldn't want to miss the first morning article of the new baseball season, would we? Meh, don't answer that question.

The Alex Sanchez steroid thing
It seems every media outlet is reporting this as surprising. Why is this surprising? Why? Someone tell me. Because he doesn't hit home runs? Neither do Ben Johnson or Marion Jones. If sprinters, bicyclists and swimmers take steroids, why not a leadoff hitter? At least as an idea, it makes perfect sense to me. If it's true, color me not at all surprised.

Observations from opening day
As everyone knows, the Sox and Yankees opened up a new can of worms and went fishing in the rain yesterday. Thoughts? I got some:

• As predicted by Yours Truly, David Wells was about as likely to win this contest as -- well, he wasn't at all likely to win it. I was surprised to see him show a general lack of composure though. After being told what great control the guy has, two hit batsmen (both Giambi) and a balk were not to be expected.


• Hideki Matsui wasted no time at all in reminding me that he is one of the most under appreciated players in the game. Sure, he didn't shine quite as brightly upon arrival as he had in Japan, but I think we're about to see the man go ballistic. He was MVP back home, and while people like to point out the difference in competition levels between Japan and MLB, the bottom line is this guy was the best player in the same league that brought us Ichiro. And if I'm not mistaken, Ichiro's arguably the defining contact hitter of the decade. Respect Godzilla.


• Speaking of Godzilla, someone in the television industry needs to steal this idea: An MLB highlights show spoken in very wordy Japanese and then overdubbed with terse English so that the anchormen's mouths move too much when they speak for the simple things they're saying. Then, when the highlights are shown, fast forward them so they play at double speed. After every highlight, no matter what the play -- it could as easily be a blooper as a bloody brawl or serious injury -- the anchormen should laugh in their original non-overdubbed voices for about 3 seconds before moving on to the next clip. Add scrolling score bar to the bottom of the screen. Repeat as necessary.


• After watching some of the game on TV, I listened to the end of the game on the radio. Is there anything at once more humorous and infuriating as terrible color commentary on the radio? It's one thing on television. But on the radio? There aren't even pictures. Note to radio producers: We only care about what the people are saying! I feel bad shouting her out like this since she seemed to know the Yanks like the back of her hand and conducted one of the better post game interviews I've heard in a long time, but, Suzyn Waldman (NYC, 880 AM) called the worst game I have ever heard in my life. First off, she tripped over at least one word in every sentence. But in the end, that's ok with me. The real kicker was her sheer inability to think of things to say on the fly. At one point near the end of the game she served up 5 straight one-word answers: "Yep ... yep ... yep ... nope ... nope." Then she says, "The closer comes in in the ninth inning. That's how you do it." Thanks for sharing. I'm all for the fact that it's about frickin time a woman was relied upon to call a decent baseball game (Waldman is the first in American history, as of yesterday), but it'd be nice if they found the right fucking woman.

A thought about television in general
Is it really that difficult to tell when someone you've hired simply isn't talented? This kills me. You turn on a given late night show and the host never says anything funny. Not one thing. Or you're watching a made for TV movie and none of the actors can act -- at all. Are there so few aspiring actors in the world that producers are thankful just to settle for anyone? I dunno. I'll never get it. Don't mind me.

NCAA Womens Final 4
I was in a sports bar last night. I'm pretty sure there were upwards of 30 televisions. Not one of them had the game. There may be a tournament on, but no one in New York City cares. I don't care either. But I thought someone would care.

OK kids. That's all I got for today. I'm gonna go practice not thinking about anything.

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-- Written by Xach on April 04, 2005