Stuff other people said

A few quotes from other places on the interwebs before I head out for the evening...

• "It’s like hiring your divorce lawyer to become the marriage counselor for the entire country. And apparently his confirmation has come down to two departing Republican senators saying, ‘Look... we’re fine with most of the corruption. We just need this one piece of corruption to go away in writing.’"

  —John Fugelsang, on the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General being advanced out of committee in the Senate when Thom Tillis and John Cornyn accepted a meaningless written statement from Blanche saying there was no "slush find" for Felon47 to pay people off with.

• "The two senators are likely to puff out their chests and claim that they extracted a material concession. They held out, they made the White House sweat, they got it in writing. It is a tidy story, and every part of it that matters is wrong. They got nothing. Blanche gave up nothing. And the fund they think they killed is no less alive today than it was the day before Blanche put his name to that order."

  —Harry Litman, on the same subject.

• "It’s just one more thing that the next Democratic president’s Secretary of Un-Fucking All That Shit is going to have to deal with."

  —Jeff Tiedrich, on something that completely escaped my notice before today: Felon47’s further destruction of White House grounds to build a helipad, and then ordering the work to be redone because he didn't like the look of it, in another absurd waste of taxpayer money on a vanity project.

• "There are days when it genuinely feels almost masochistic to keep exposing ourselves to the relentless barrage of terrible news. At the same time, if we are members of a functioning society, we have to remain connected to what’s happening because that’s the only way we can respond in meaningful ways."

  —Mary Trump, articulating why I and others continue to follow the news when it's so goddamn maddening and depressing.

• "The fascinating question isn’t just who the Republican nominee might be. It’s whether Donald will ever acknowledge that anyone else deserves to lead. I don’t believe he can. His identity depends entirely on convincing himself that he’s indispensable."

  —Mary Trump again, responding to a question about whether Felon47 will support someone else running for the Republican nomination in 2028.

• "It reminds me of an old Star Trek episode. A historian attempts to stabilize a troubled planet by modeling it after Nazi Germany. Eventually he realizes what he’s created is monstrous and wants to stop it, but the people around him drug him, prop him up behind a microphone, and simply replay old recordings while pretending he’s still leading. As absurd as that sounds, I can imagine something similar happening with Donald. Whether it’s a fake Oval Office, carefully staged appearances, or simply limiting his public exposure, the people around him have every incentive to preserve the illusion for as long as possible because their own power depends on maintaining it."

  —Mary Trump one more time, scratching the nerd itch while talking politics, responding to the idea that Felon47 is becoming a mere figurehead as his dementia worsens.

• "The American League Central is like its own pocket universe. You’ve got five flawed teams bouncing around like lottery balls in that glass ball."

  —Joe Posnanski, writing about the just-passed Major League Baseball trade deadline and how that division is anyone's to win. Same could be said for the AL West, BTW, though there it's three underachieving teams instead of five.

• "I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack."

  —Felon47, the alleged President of the United States, after being shown voluminous evidence that there has been a cyberattack across the infrastructure of multiple states by Iran. Rest easy, America.

• "They’re Bizarro-world spidermen, whose great power confers no responsibility."

  —Cory Doctorow, on Google and credit card giants that enable fraud and, in Google's case, aid and abet fraudsters by purposely enshittifying their search algorithms.

• Finally, I give you the entirety of Andy Borowitz's latest bit of satire:

  FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY (The Borowitz Report)—Calling the situation “unacceptable to the people of my state,” on Tuesday Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear demanded to know whether or not Senator Rand Paul was brain-dead.

  “I have viewed disturbing video taken last week in the US Senate in which Senator Paul appears to be brain-dead,” Beshear told reporters. “As governor, I demand that he inform Kentuckians about his status—if, in fact, he is capable of human speech.”

  Beshear said he became “alarmed” when he viewed the video, in which Paul exhibited “brain activity consistent with that of a coma patient or Tommy Tuberville.”

  The governor’s announcement was only the latest controversy to embroil Paul, just days after shocking evidence emerged that he may have been created in a lab leak.

All for now. Gotta run.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Posted on August 5, 2026 at 5:28PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Bits and pieces

All-Star Game AQI: Very Unhealthy

So, there've been a few things I've been meaning to post about, but time and energy haven't been forthcoming for it. So a disjointed one today and hopefully back to real posts over the weekend(?).

• ITEM: The MLB All-Star Game was a dud for the 7th consecutive year. I don't know exactly what to suggest for de-dudifying the All-Star Game, other than doing away with the unconscionable home-run derby tiebreaker that marred last year's ASG (some of the best ASGs have been extra-inning affairs, which can never happen again so long as that stupid rule exists). But it would be in baseball's interest to tweak some things. As a friend of mine put it last night, in a way it's amazing anyone gets any hits at all in these games, since every pitcher is elite and they're only in the game very briefly. And this time around, the National League team barely had any, with Juan Soto notching a base hit in the 4th and nothing else until PCA got a hit in the 8th and Otto Lopez lined one in the 9th. One walk in the first, one in the seventh. Zippo otherwise in a year when the NL is far and away the superior league in terms of team strength (of course, the ASG is all about individuals, where there's more parity). Meanwhile, the American League team plated three in the first inning and that was effectively it for the game, after that just a solo homer from Miguel Vargas in the 8th that went by in a blink. We were wondering if this game would set a record for most strikeouts, but no; that happened a few years back in another dud.

  Other than changing the selection process to better choose the participants, I don't know how to fix this, or even if it needs to be fixed, but there are a couple of things I'd like to see beyond obliterating the HR Derby tiebreaker. One, mandate that the starting pitcher pitch at least two innings unless he gets hurt or unless he gets lit up. Then it's actually a bigger deal to be named starter than to just be an opener in a bullpen game. Two, no more mid-game interruptions—in Bud Selig's day we'd get mid-game delays to make a speech or something, these days it's a delay for some sort of stunt or performance like it's a miniature football halftime show. This year it was a video of a bunch of kids riding their bikes to a ballgame followed by real kids riding bikes onto the field, I think as some sort of homage to the film The Sandlot. Also midgame fireworks that flooded the ballpark with particulates and haze. Do that shit before the game or don't do it at all.

  Maybe the biggest problem, though, isn't the game itself but the broadcast of the game. It's hard to follow the game as it's being presented to us. Fox Sports has taken to interviewing players—including, this time, both the pitcher and catcher at the same time—while they are actively playing the game, which, OK, can be entertaining in spots but generally is pointless and has to be distracting for the players, in addition to being a sideshow from the game itself. The commentators have interviewed players after they come out of the game forever, that's fine (so long as we can still see what's happening on the field) and less intrusive. But I'd do away with players taking earpieces with them out to the field to chat with Joe Davis and John Smoltz, or whomever takes over play-by-play duty in the future. Not unrelatedly, the Fox crew doesn't reliably let us know when players come into the game, and there are a ton of substitutions going on after the third inning of an ASG (elected starters have to play three frames); many fans are wanting to see "their guy" play, and sometimes we don't know until a ball is hit to his position and we see the guy make a play. "Hey, my guy is in! Wonder how long he's been out there. Could've been two or three innings for all we know." The broadcasters are too into doing their goofy/inane Q&A with players as they're trying to play to really pay attention to much else. We also should get more in the way of graphics and info on the All-Star players; you get some with the starters as the lineups are announced, but a lot of these guys are unfamiliar to the audience outside of their home markets, it'd be nice for the casual fan to see why, say, rookie Tristian Peters made the squad instead of just wondering amongst themselves as we did, "hey who's that White Sox guy, what's his deal?" Do a little graphical info dump when new players enter the game. And John Smoltz is his own category of problem, he's just terrible as a commentator whether it's the ASG or a playoff game or anything else.

  We enjoyed mocking the thing here, though.

• ITEM (related): Another quote from Craig. From the "this date in baseball history" section of Craig Calcaterra's newsletter today: "1909 — Ed Summers of the Detroit Tigers allows only seven hits and pitches all 18 innings of a 0-0 tie—the game was called due to darkness—with the Washington Senators. It's the longest scoreless game in AL history. Yet, somehow, it was still far more compelling than the 2026 All-Star Game."
• ITEM: People are dumb, and people with fireworks are super dumb. My umpiring shifts for Capitol Hill games have been/are being moved elsewhere because some idiot set off fireworks on the Cap Hill field's synthetic infield and damaged it to the point of unplayability. That whole set of athletic fields is in need of resurfacing, yes, but until a week-and-a-half ago it was still plenty usable. This happened to a lesser extent last year at the Ballard fields where the Spuds play and we had to navigate our play around a hole between first and second base. Can we just be done with fireworks? They're pretty, but the particulates, the smoke, the noise, the fire hazard, is it really worth it? Drone shows are less damaging.
• ITEM: Spuds done for ’26: Speaking of the Spuddies, we played our playoff game yesterday and it did not go well. Full post on that coming later on, but we were trounced.
• ITEM: The health care system in this country is a joke, part 2,352,091. I had my annual checkup today, and I had to go to a new doctor for it. My prior doc doesn't take the insurance I have now, which I switched to because Republicans made the premiums on the insurance I had the last couple of years unaffordable. So I had to go through the rigamarole of again finding a new primary care doc, which I did a couple months ago and today was the next available appointment I could comfortably swing. So I find my way to the new place, go to check in, and am told this doctor isn't taking new patients, but we can do my annual check. "Wait, what?" This didn't compute with me. "If she isn't taking new patients, why am I here? Why did this appointment even get accepted in the first place?" The reply was gobbledygook that made no sense to me, but I was already there and my Rx is going to run out in a couple weeks, so I said fine, we'll do this and then I'll go through the whole process yet again next time I need to see someone. The nurse/med tech guy was sympathetic when he was getting my vitals and such, and after he left the exam room I heard him explain to the doctor in detail about the scheduling fuckup, and in the end the doc agreed to take me on anyway. It may or may not work out well, I don't really have a sense of her as someone I can relate to. The prior doctor was a good fit, I wish I could've kept seeing her, but we live in the US of A, where everything medical is dictated by what insurance you can afford, because people are stupid and keep electing Republicans.
• ITEM: Felon47 went on TV with his tin-foil hat. The alleged President of the United States, a convicted felon and perpetrator of several frauds that were settled out of court as well as many that have yet to be charged, the most grandiose and prolific liar on Earth, made a "speech" about made-up election conspiracies tonight. He distorted intelligence that we already knew about to make it sound (to him, anyway) like there were rampant issues with foreign operatives that are not the actual issues with foreign operatives which benefit him, he made already-debunked claims of mass-voting by non-citizens. He whined and grievanced his way through a pathetic spectacle intended to do two things: Create support for his pet voter-suppression bill that as it stands has no chance of passing either house of Congress, because he wants to be able to cheat in elections with impunity; and take the news media's focus off of the Iran debacle, gas prices, oncoming economic calamity, the outrageous things said by his unqualified criminal lackey nominees in confirmation hearings going on this week, his Air Force One fuckups, the reflecting pool bullshit, ICE murdering people and getting away with it, RFK Jr.'s direct responsibility for both screwworm and parasites in our lettuce (and the need for me to have gotten a measles vaccination today), deaths in DHS custody, the embarrassing NATO summit, his petulant refusal to sign a bipartisan housing bill that became law anyway (which he may not know), his staff getting caught using inside info to make Kalshi bets, his flip-flopping Strait of Hormuz "policies", a judge slapping him down hard on his "settlement" with the IRS, the Republican push for an unconscionable increase in military funding, his and Pete Hegseth's various war crimes, his illegal harassment of journalists, and the evergreen scandal of the Epstein Files. We can't wait for this maniac's term to run out, we need to elect as may Democrats to Congress as possible, by margins too big for him to cheat against, and remove him ASAP.

Tagged Baseball, MLB, Umping, Softball, Politics, Republicans, President VonClownstick, Health, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on July 16, 2026 at 8:51PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

All-Star rituals

In advance of Major League Baseball announcing the rosters for the MLB All-Star Game, to be played two Tuesdays from now, I engaged in one of my longtime traditions—selecting the rosters myself then seeing where the fans, players, and Commissioner's office differed/made mistakes.

It's a meaningless exercise, but I still somehow enjoy doing it. Not as much as I used to; 20, 30, even 40 years ago(!) it seemed to have more heft, maybe because the All-Star Game itself was fun then. These days it's kind of a joke, almost never an interesting game and treated as a circus sideshow that no one, not even the players involved, cares who wins. The most interesting part is really who makes the team and who doesn't, which is a sad indictment of what Manfred (and Selig before him) has done to turn the Midsummer Classic into a sort of clown show.

I admit that this year I haven't paid as much attention to the Majors generally beyond the hometown Mariners. I mean, still some, of course, but I had to dig into the stats and research to even have an idea about who to pick for a few positions. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, yes, my bias may be showing more than is typical with this year's rosters.

Anyway, here's what I came up with vs. what reality gave us....

See full post: "All-Star rituals"...

Tagged Baseball, Posted on July 5, 2026 at 3:15AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Pride and prejudice

June is, of course, Pride Month, when our LGBTQ compatriots celebrate being here and being queer, and Major League Baseball teams all have Pride Night on their June promotional calendars. Well, most do. For some reason, the San Diego Padres held theirs in May. And for a quite different reason, the Texas Rangers don't have one at all. (The Rangers also have a commemorative statue of a pro-lynching segregationist at their ballpark, so they've got a particular vibe to them.)

As I understand it, the whole concept of Pride Month and, by extension, Pride Night—aside from the usual crass commercial reason of selling tickets—is a form of celebratory protest. The gay community has been historically marginalized, to put it mildly, and pride parades and the like have been a way to both enjoy a party amongst themselves and to prominently remind the rest of us that they exist, they're not going away, there are a lot of them, and they're really not so scary so why all the fuss? As time has gone on and social acceptance improved, the emphasis has shifted toward the celebration side of things and been less focused on the protest angle, but here in the first third of 21st Century there's sadly still a need for both.

Anyway, the point is that while most(?) of us enjoy things like Pride Nights for what they're intended to be, celebratory events akin to similar promotions like Native American Heritage Night or Gonzaga University Alumni Night or even Little League Day, where a subset of the crowd is recognized for their community within the greater community, some don't.

Two recent Pride Nights highlight the disparity: June 15 in Chicago and June 12 in San Francisco. The crowd at Wrigley Field was into it, as evidenced by this presumably straight guy enjoying a truly great night from center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, #4, who hit for the cycle (in reverse order, no less—homer-triple-double-single) in the Cubs' win:

The Cubs also rainbowified their light structures, had the Rainbow Dads family throw out the ceremonial first pitch, had the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus on field for a number, and promoted local LGBT-owned businesses. Near as I can tell, the players were enjoying or at the very least not bothered by the whole deal.

On the other hand, the San Francisco Giants' Pride Night was marred by a number of Giants players protesting against it. And by extension—no, check that, not by extension, directly—protesting against the people in the stands, in the city, watching on television, anywhere on Earth, basically, who didn't share their homophobic bigotry.

Pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Henges, and Ryan Walker, each of whom appeared in the game, either eschewed wearing the team's rainbow-logo Pride caps or defaced them with a bible verse (Genesis 9:12-16) they see as "reclaiming" the symbol of the rainbow from the gay community and for Christianity. "The verse says the rainbow is a symbol of God's covenant to us and us as believers stand firm in that,” Roupp said, not knowing his grammar was as flawed as his selective reading of the verse in question. Henges was more straightforward, if you'll pardon the unfortunate pun. "I don't morally support it," he said.

Manager Tony Vitello said nothing, allowed the pitchers to express their contempt for their fellow human beings with no consequence, but the Commissioner's Office—under pressure from media backlash, not out of any sense of justice—issued a warning to those players in a weak attempt to stop future offenses. I say it was only under pressure from bad PR because this exact thing has happened before and they did nothing. Last year it was Dodger pitcher and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw protesting with the same bible verse. Fellow Dodgers Blake Treinen and Alex Call refused to wear the rainbow caps, no consequence. A few years back, several Tampa Bay Rays tore the rainbow patch the team wore on their Pride Night off their uniforms and all Rays manager Kevin Cash had to say was "we want to support our players that choose to wear [the patch] or choose not to wear [it]."

Aside from Henges, who seems quite willing to be upfront about his bigotry, all of the players involved in these protestations offered up nice-sounding verbiage to excuse their behavior as being about love and faith and Jesus, either obtuse to the fact that they were full of shit or knowing it full well.

The Genesis verse these people cite concludes with this, as the Word of God: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind." They seem to be conflating that "covenant" with a hateful behavior never evidenced or referred to by this Jesus fellow they claim to revere and giving no thought to the "all living creatures" aspect of it.

As for the Giants, the team issued a statement that fell flat. "We understand the choice by individual players has caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that." OK. What are you going to do about that? Anything other than this non-apology apology?

Measures of inclusion like Pride Nights, symbols of progress and recognition of wrongs done in the past, these sorts of small things aid in making our society more enlightened, more civil, and bring us closer to that "more perfect union" we like to tout every July 4th. They hurt no one, they damage nothing. Roupp, Henges, and company, by making a stink about it, hurt their fanbase and their team's reputation, alienate people they work with, and gin up hatred among others to perpetuate the problem. Giants broadcaster (and former pitcher) Mike Krukow summed it up thusly: "What makes San Francisco so great is the acceptance of others—ethnicities, opinions, cultures—and that extends to the gay community. I would just hope [the players] would understand the demographic of San Francisco and respect people for who they are. What you do to your uniform, that has weight to it. You can offend people. And why would you do that?"

So, what do you say, America? Let's be more like the Cubs and the Wrigley dude with the sign, and less like the Giants' pitching staff. Can we do that?

Tagged Baseball, Society, Posted on June 17, 2026 at 5:20PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Game of oddities

One of the outs that wasn't

Last night my friend Dave and I attended the game at TMP, as Dave's hometown Chicago White Sox are in town for a series against Your Seattle Mariners. It was a good time all around, but it was also one of the weirder games I've been privileged to see in person—not one, not two, but three things I'd never before seen in a baseball game happened last night.

First, in the opening frame a White Sox baserunner—Sam Antonacci, who had singled—tried to go first-to-third on a walk. As soon as "ball four" was announced on batter Munetaka Murakami, Antonacci sprinted to second base and just kept going, trying to steal third before the Mariners realized what was going on. It did not work, as pitcher Bryan Woo casually tossed the ball to third baseman Colt Emerson who easily tagged Antonacci out.

I get the thinking. I mean, on a walk the defensive team is usually just waiting for the batter to take off his elbow guard or whatever and make his way to first base, so if you're the runner at first it may seem like a cunning strategy to take them unawares. But dude, you're not that fast. Woo threw you out by 15 feet. Fun moment, though.

Then the real weirdness occurred in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Seattle catcher Jhonny Pereda was aboard at first base after being hit by a pitch. With one out, Julio Rodríguez then lined a laser beam to second baseman Antonacci, who appeared to allow the ball to hit the inside of his glove and fall to the ground, thus allowing him to attempt a double play. It seemed to work, the relay throw from the shortstop to first baseman was in plenty of time to double up the jogging Rodríguez; the inning was over and the White Sox began moving toward their dugout. But second-base umpire Mike Muchlinski waved his arms and pointed to second base and disallowed the double play, returning Pereda to first base and ruling Rodríguez's liner as caught, apparently retroactively.

Now, there is nothing illegal about deliberately allowing a would-be catch to bounce out of your glove; Antonacci, from what we could see anyway, was being a dick but not breaking the rules. Thus, my interpretation is that Muchlinski must have signaled catch/out prematurely, causing Rodríguez to give up his run to first base, and realizing his mistake was making a corrective ruling. His premature out call prevented Julio from running out the ball and thus the double play was unfair. I might be wrong in that assessment, perhaps Muchlinski saw the catch as a legitimate catch that Antonacci then dropped to fool the runners, but it seemed to us that it happened much too fast for that to be the case. And, as a softball umpire that has a bad habit of making calls a split second too soon, I empathize with the idea of having to correct a mistake.

But that was never-seen-it thing number two, never seen a double play disallowed before.

Then on the very next play, Randy Arozarena hit a drive into the left-field corner. As Pereda was rounding second base, he collided with shortstop Colson Montgomery, who was watching the ball with his back to the infield. This is what umpires refer to as "type-2 obstruction." Unlike with type-2 diabetes, you don't do anything to mitigate a type-2 obstruction, you just note it with a call/gesture and let the play continue, then when the play is over determine whether or not the obstruction actually made a difference in the result of the play. It is entirely up to the umpire's judgment whether or not to impose a penalty for the obstruction, which would be allowing the runner to achieve a base he didn't achieve during the play as it happened. Anyway, Pereda was delayed for perhaps half a second by the collision, continued around third base, and was thrown out by the left fielder by maybe 20 feet. It was not close, Pareda is not fast, and sending him past third was a mistake on the part of the Mariners' third-base coach. Nevertheless, after a lengthy conference between the four umpires, Pareda was awarded home due to the obstruction.

Because the conference took so long, Dave and I suspect there was disagreement between them and eventually the crew chief's opinion prevailed. Both of us thought that the delay was inconsequential. That half-second was not enough time for Pareda to have made up the 20 feet or so between him and the catcher when the catcher received the ball from left field. Thus, while Pareda being returned to first base on the previous play we adjudicated as proper given the interpretation of remedying an ump's mistake, we deemed awarding the run to the Mariners here as unreasonable.

Regardless, I had never seen an obstruction call play out like that before, let alone one called, in my opinion, erroneously.

Fortunately, that run didn't matter in the end. Josh Naylor lined out to end the frame in the next at-bat, and the M's had put up another run by the time Chicago had scored even once (on a solo homer in the 7th). The M's capped the scoring in the bottom of the 8th when 20-year-old rookie Colt Emerson barely cleared the right-field wall with his first big-league hit, a three-run homer over the head of White Sox RF Jarred Kelenic, who himself was a highly-regarded Mariner rookie whose first hit was a home run a few years back. Kelenic ended up being a flop (though I suppose he could still redeem himself somewhat). Emerson will have to wait and see, it was only his second game.

So, good game to have chosen, fun was had, and even though Dave was disappointed in the outcome, his team is still over .500 while the M's are still under. Go figure.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Umping, Posted on May 19, 2026 at 5:03PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Diamond notes

I haven't had a lot to report about my umpiring of late, which you can usually take to mean things have been fine. No drama, no troubles, nothing weird going on.

I mean, aside from the usual Capitol Hill weirdness during my shifts there, one of which I had the other night. Games were all good, but there were some people hanging out in left field that not only refused to move out of the way, but were highly offended that we were in their way. Their right to sit wherever they want in a park, permits and field reservations and fees be damned. They were giving outfielders so much grief that I felt it necessary to intervene and explain that we had exclusive use of the field for the night, and if they chose not to move then they were choosing to be in the way of batted balls and running fielders and risking injury to all involved. Sadly, they kept yelling at me while I was trying to say all that, so I made do with pointing to our sign that says, essentially, we paid for use of this field and be in the way at your own risk. They didn't continue to yell at fielders after that, but they didn't move either. Cap Hill, baby.

Yesterday, though, I was at Green Lake. Not Capitol Hill, nor my typical Sunday posting at Northacres Ballfeld. I like Green Lake as a place to spend the day, but the fields are kinda lousy and, more to the point, historically the teams that sign up to play there have tended to be more...let's say, overly competitive, and thus more annoying. Still, even if I drew some hotheads, it's nothing I couldn't handle; the real issue for me was I had been assigned all of the day's games on that field and my colleague Ben had been assigned the whole day's slate on the opposite diamond. That's five games, or almost eight hours of umping, plus 15-20 minutes on either side setting up and then taking down things like outfield cones, out-of-play markers, bases, promotional banners, etc. Also, by unwritten rule, whichever of the two umps arrives first gets to choose which field to work, which is clearly going to be field #1 because starting around 1:30 or 2:00 the home plate area of that one is in the shade. Parking sucked yesterday, and Ben got there first.

Thus, from about 11:45am to about 8:10pm, I was out there in the 80-plus degree sun, on my feet the whole time, the only break coming way early when the noon game only lasted about 59 minutes instead of its allotted 85. I downed eight 12 oz. bottles of Gatorade (six brought from home, two thoughtfully given by players) and still had a bad headache when I finally headed back to my car (parked a few blocks away). When I got home I showered off the day's dirt, sweat, and sunscreen, put my feet up and watched the afternoon's Mariner game (ugh), and then uncharacteristically went to bed before midnight. The headache kept me awake/woke me up a few times, but I ended up sleeping about 12 hours. For someone who grew up in the Arizona desert and thought nothing of outdoor activities in 100+ degree heat, I sure have become vulnerable to too much sun; I feel like Bizarro Superman or something.

It's a damn good thing there weren't any troublemakers in my games. In fact, though I missed out calling a game for The Leftovers (they were on Ben's field), I did get a doubleheader's worth of a team called the Power Pink Ponies (don't ask, I don't know), which includes two old faves in Frankie and Stacy that I only rarely see these days since they tend to be at Green Lake and I don't. I called Frankie "Frankie Raye" at one point, which was a reference she didn't get nor did I expect her to, but she's a redhead with attitude, so why not be compared to a herald of Galactus?

Meanwhile, I attended a real baseball game on Saturday, witnessing Your Seattle Mariners play the visiting Kansas City Royals after a lengthy pregame ceremony belatedly honoring one of the team's greatest heroes. Randy Johnson developed into one of the game's most dominant pitchers after being traded to the Mariners as a rookie in 1989; in 1998 the M's decided he was both injury-prone and too expensive to keep, so he was traded away. I went to Saturday's game with Erik, someone with whom I had seen many a Randy Johnson game in the Kingdome back in the day, and he commented that trading for Johnson in ’89 was the best trade the Mariners ever made and trading him away in ’98 was the worst the M's ever made. I don't know if I agree, there are a lot of contenders for Worst Mariner Trade, after all, but his logic is sound—even though the M's got some nice players in return (Freddy Garcia, John Halama, Carlos Guillén), Johnson went on to win four more Cy Young Awards and pitch until he was 45. Plug Johnson's 2000 record of 19-7, 2.64 ERA, and 249 innings in place of Garcia's 9-5, 3.91, 124 IP and suddenly the 2000 M's aren't merely Wild Card entrants bounced out in the ALCS, but 100-plus game winners that host the ALCS and maybe get their first pennant. It's hard to imagine the 2001 M's losing two Randy Johnson starts in that year's ALCS.

Of course, that's all unprovable speculation and not trading Johnson would unleash a whole slew of domino effects. Who knows how things would have played out, but consider:

• 1999-2004 Randy Johnson WAR: 48.0.
• 1999-2004 Garcia+Halama+Guillén WAR: 39.7.

True, RJ got paid about $50M more than the three other guys in that span, and in those days you'd be talking about that difference being 20% of your team payroll; the team probably doesn't get Aaron Sele or John Olerud and has to make do with cheaper alternatives. Who knows. Fun to think about, though.

You can read Erik's account of the RJ festivities here.

Meantime, the Mariners lost the game in true 1990s Randy Johnson fashion: starting pitcher is great, strikes out 14, walks none, leaves with a lead, and the bullpen blows it. Perhaps there has never been a more fitting tribute.

Also, and not just regarding the Mariners but all of Major League Baseball, it seems, I am somewhat perplexed by the change in conventional wisdom regarding lineups.

In my youth, the logic was this in constructing your lineup:

Leading off you have a high-on-base percentage guy (e.g. Wade Boggs), a great stolen base threat (Vince Coleman), or ideally a guy who has both qualities (Brett Butler); in the two hole you have a contact hitter, a good bat-handler with a decent OBP and enough speed to go first-to-third on a base hit to right-center (Roberto Alomar, Ryne Sandberg); batting third is your best overall hitter, someone solidly in the .300+ range of batting average that can drive in runs (George Brett, Tony Gwynn; fourth is the "cleanup" position, where you put your best home-run hitter, ideally to hit one out and "clean up" the bases that have hopefully been occupied by at least one of the first three guys; fifth is your understudy for the three-hole; then six through eight you stagger lefties/righties while the nine spot is the easiest out for the opposition. (Occasionally you might haver a manager who prefers his best hitter at leadoff rather than third because the leadoff man is guaranteed more at-bats in a typical game than lower-in-the-order guys just by nature of the lineup turning over.)

That made sense to me and still does.

Today, managers are putting their big homer guys in the second spot. I don't like it. Yeah, the two-hitter is more likely to get another AB than the four-hitter, so another shot at him hitting a longball, but putting the power-hitter there means he's also more likely to whiff than anyone else (save maybe the ninth-place guy). I heard one broadcaster calling the two-three-four spots the "heart of the order" the other day. To me, the heart of the order is the middle of the order, conventionally—or, formerly conventionally—thought of as three-through-six. That's where your slug will come from. I guess the game has become so homer-centric and so strikeout-laden that managers don't think like they used to; everyone is going to rack up the Ks, so putting a high-strikeout guy at or near the top doesn't matter. A team has four or five guys that hit 25+ homers a season, so the four-slot isn't special that way.

Eh, I fell like Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character thinking about this. In my day, teams were more balanced; in my day strikeouts were thought of as worse than other outs; in my day you'd never see Rob Deer batting second.

Alas.

Speaking of, I'm going to go watch the M's try to break their losing streak now.

Tagged Umping, Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Posted on May 4, 2026 at 8:26PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Once in a while, even I have to look up a rule

Thursday night I had a three-game umpiring shift at Cap Hill. All three games were blowouts and all involved teams I generally like to draw on my schedule. Nevertheless, by the time we got into the third game I wasn't in the mood to be there anymore for whatever reason. It wasn't especially cold, wasn't raining, I hadn't skipped lunch, I wasn't on short sleep, nothing like that, it was just one of those things. Might have had something to do with getting some lip from a few different players about ball/strike calls. Or it might not. I don't know.

The questioned strike calls I actually have some sympathy for because they came on pitches that I absolutely hate to face myself as a batter. Both pitchers in the third game were partial to very high arc pitches, ones that scrape 12 feet off the ground before dropping back down. I hate these. They always, always look like they're going to be high. And sometimes they drop right into the strike zone.

After doing the ump thing for several years, I've gotten better at ignoring the high arc when calling the pitch. It's hard, though. You've got to focus as much as your attention as you can on watching just the strike zone and see if the ball crosses it or not, but you can't totally ignore what happens before that because an arc can be too high (or too low) to be legal and you've got to call that too.

As a batter I've gotten a number of strikes called on me from such pitches that I (internally) groused about, but mostly because I just hate them. I mean, yeah, in my playing league we sometimes get Seattle Parks & Rec's answer to C.B. Bucknor as our umpire and I'm less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when I'm grousing it's not about the call so much as the super-high-arc pitch being legal. But it is, so you live with it.

Anyway, I called two batters out on strikes on such pitches. One, someone I see a lot of in this league, was cool about it even though she disagreed. We had a nice conversation about it when she came back out to catch the next inning and agreed that high-arc pitches suck. The other one was not cool about it and tried to start an argument. "How can that be a strike?!" I stopped short of being snarky and replying with, "well, you see, there's this thing called the 'strike zone,' and when the pitch crosses it..." and instead just said, in what I hope was a subdued manner, "really?" And she was ready to get into it until her teammates corralled her back to the dugout. (It's usually dudes that get in my face if anyone does, but hey, feminism.)

But those weren't the odd thing about that shift. The oddity came when, in a bases-loaded, two-out situation, the runner going from first to second base was hit by a batted ball; weird in and of itself because it was a high bouncer that took a few seconds to reach the basepaths, but she was still hit in the foot. By the time she was, though, the runner from third had already scored with time to spare. So, the runner is out for being hit, it's the third out so the inning is over, but does the run count? I did not know and just decided on the spot that it would. (It was a blowout, the run wasn't going to matter, and I had to decide, so...) But should it have?

I had to look it up later. And what I found in the rules was not helpful. Rule 5.09(b)(7): A runner is out when "touched by a fair [batted] ball in fair territory before the ball has gone by an infielder (other than the pitcher) and no other infielder has a chance to make a play on the ball. The ball is dead and no runner may score, nor runners advance, except runners forced to advance." (Italics mine)

The bases were loaded, so on a bouncer all runners were forced to try to advance. However, the runner from first was the one out when hit by the batted ball. In other circumstances, that runner being out (the third out) before reaching second base negates anything accomplished by other runners, but in runner-hit-by-fair-ball cases the batter is awarded a base hit rather than reaching on a fielder's choice, meaning s/he didn't hit into a force play. How does that come into play, if at all? Also, the rule says no runners may score except those forced to advance, and if we're using the any-other-circumstances force theory then in any case of a runner being hit by a batted ball there could never be a runner forced to advance. So why would the rule include that exception? Is it a convoluted way to say, well, if there are runners at first and second and the runner from second is hit by the batted ball, then obviously the runner from first gets second base because the batter gets a base hit and you can't have two runners at first? I guess that technically tracks, but it still isn't clear to me that "forced to advance" doesn't refer to where runners are at the start of the play, and the fact that the batter is not recorded as hitting into any kind of forceout but credited with a hit further screws it up.

If it happens again, I think I will rule differently—that such a run does not count and if not the third out then the runner must go back to third base (and runner going from second to third back to second) because the force would have been removed when the runner from first was declared out and therefore the runner from third isn't forced to advance.

But I still don't know if that's right or not.

Then there was something in tonight's game between Your Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Angels of Orange County Which Isn't Technically Los Angeles. Angel right fielder Jo Adell—who had already, by the way, robbed the M's of two homers—leaped into the right field seats to catch a fly ball that would otherwise be a home run. Adell went over the fence, tumbling into the first few rows of seats but did catch the ball. Still, he's off the field by that time. Is it a catch? I knew that it would be once Adell returned to the field never having lost or surrendered control of the ball, but since he took his sweet time doing so, and since there was a second or two that he was out of view of all cameras, it was questionable enough that the Mariners challenged the ruling of fair catch. In a search of the rules I didn't find any mention of catches by a fielder leaving the playing field other than as pertains to the dugouts, but I know from past occurrences that a fielder that makes a catch while one or both feet are on or directly above the field of play and falls into the seating area or a bullpen or whatnot has to maintain control of the ball and return to the field before the out is official, and since Adell stood there reveling in his catch for a bit before jumping back into right field it was a little murky. Or maybe the M's challenged on the chance that Adell only caught the ball after his whole body was past the field boundary?

In any case, the catch was ruled legal and thus Adell had accomplished the rare feat of catching three would-be home runs in one game. Incredible.

Tagged Baseball, Umping, Posted on April 4, 2026 at 10:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

First game of the year

Last night I attended my first in-person game of the year at the ballpark by Elliott Bay, a crisply-played 2-1 victory by Your Seattle Mariners over the New York Yankees, won in the bottom of the 9th when Cal Raleigh stopped swinging for the fences and chopped a base hit over the first baseman to drive in Leo Rivas from third base. 

I took Cal's base hit as a good sign, as in his previous AB Cal struck out with a runner at third and only one out, the very thing that had been the Mariners' bugaboo for years before Dan Wilson took over as manager and the kind of thing that, if I were in charge, would result in a sizeable kangaroo court fine. I may be grasping at straws looking for good signs, though. The M's again broke double digits with 11 strikeouts—against such vaunted pitchers as Ryan Weathers and Brent Headrick—matching their per game average so far. Last year they struck out an average of nine times per game, so it's not all that different (yet) but I still see it as a red flag. In general strikeouts are too prevalent in the majors, have been for quite some time now, and I would like the baseball culture to Make Strikeouts Embarrassing Again, if I may coin a phrase. Put it in play, my dudes.

There are some minor changes to be found at the ballpark this year. One, of course, is the new 2025 Division Champions banner:

Cool, cool, cool. Also, as is the case every year, concessions are more expensive. I got through the evening without partaking but only out of frugality. Anything I wanted to buy in the upper deck would have been at least $20. (Next time maybe I'll be early enough to detour to the lower level before the game and see if the vegan hot dogs are still available and still under $10.) Also, there's a large new Amazon ad under the main scoreboard, which I find distasteful:

I dislike the ever-expanding presence of advertising in our lives generally, not just at ballparks, and I loathe Amazon as an entity more than most other companies, so it's a bit of a double-whammy. On the other hand, thus far the Mariners have refrained from doing what many other teams have done and sold ad space on the field itself; a lot of parks now have ads on the grass in foul territory, a holdover from the COVID year of no fans in the stands and one of Rob Manfred's proudest accomplishments, I'm sure. Manfred would sell ad space or sponsorships on every surface and for every lame excuse for an event imaginable if he could, so despite my disapproval for the new under-the-scoreboard ad I am grateful the grass remains untainted.

Also notable on the scoreboard, at least to someone like me, is a new typeface on the graphics. It's narrower and slightly shorter, allowing for a new column alongside runs, hits, and errors for "ABS"—the number of automated-ball-strike challenges available for each team—and info on the batter/pitcher within the lineup columns without bumping anything from the main screen area or the allocated ad space.

Now, if they would just leave the game info up and not replace it with stupid "MAKE NOISE" garbage every ten seconds that would be great.

Hopefully, when I return to the ballpark in a couple of weeks it won't be 42 degrees out. It was chotto samui last night, I could have used gloves and a scarf.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Posted on March 31, 2026 at 5:47PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

No Kings, rainouts, and roboumps

I went to my local No Kings protest rally on Saturday. Like last time, I opted for the one just a couple of blocks from my house rather than go to the big one downtown, for good or ill. I was on my own, so it wasn't a social thing. Anyway, the turnout was pretty decent for an ancillary/satellite event and I'm glad to have participated. I threw together a quick-and-dirty (by my standard) sign and walked the length of the several blocks long designated area a few times, then across the street, then back again, for a couple of hours. Chatted with a few fellow protesters, mostly about the Mariners but also about our shared outrage at the modern Republican party, which is now basically the new American Bund.

Below are some of the signs people had at my local event.

Then yesterday I had a four-game umpiring shift that only lasted two games; the rains came and the infield became muddy and slippery, so I called the other two off and they'll be rescheduled. Hopefully for a warmer, sunnier day.

Meanwhile, baseball's opening weekend had some good games and also saw the introduction of ABS, the "automated ball-strike system," colloquially known as the "roboumps." In its present form, I actually kind of like ABS. How it works is, if the pitcher, catcher, or batter disagrees with an umpire's call of a pitch, he can tap his helmet and say "challenge." Then the technology which just recorded the pitch on camera replays it through it's computerized wizardry and notes where the pitch crossed the vertical plane matching the front of home plate. If by the system's boundaries—which are calibrated for each individual batter based on his height—it even nicks the edge of the strike zone, it is a strike, otherwise a ball, regardless of what the umpire said it was. Each team gets two failed challenges per game, after which they can't ask for any more.

The fact that it's limited to two unsuccessful challenges per team gives the system an element of strategy to it—do you challenge one early in the game? If it's an obvious miss, sure, but if it's close do you risk it? So I like that. Also, when you've been unlucky enough to draw C.B. Bucknor as your home-plate ump, at least you know you'll have an opportunity to show him he was wrong a few times. But when I really like it is when the challenges fail. That's obviously my bias as a rec league umpire, but I quite enjoyed when in Friday evening's Mariners/Guardians game, HP ump Will Little was proven right all four times he was challenged and the system was off the table for the rest of the game. Little's been one of the better umps for a while now and here's real evidence to back it up.

But I fear the current version of ABS will be short-lived. Things in the early going are trending more toward the C.B. Bucknor side of things than to the Will Little side, with the majority of challenges being successful. The great sportswriter Joe Posnanski has also opined that the day is coming soon when every pitch will be called by cameras and computer tech and the home-plate ump will be essentially just like the other base umpires, there for safe/out calls and random weirdnesses. That I won't appreciate. I like human frailties. I like having to know who your umpire is going to be so you can plan accordingly. I like that some umpires have a tight zone and some a more generous one. Ideally, they wouldn't be inconsistent with it, and that's where guys like Bucknor and Hunter Wendelstedt become frustrating.

One more positive hope I have is that with the challenge system, TV broadcasts will stop overlaying the approximate strike zone onto the camera shot for live pitches. It's become normal over the past several years, and I don't like it. I do like it on replays, but live I want to see the pitch unencumbered by overlays and distractions. On the close pitches especially.

I'll be at the game tonight live and in person, so no video overlays to worry about there. Temps in the low 40s, so I'll be layered up. Go M's.

Now, No Kings signage from Saturday:

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Umping, Posted on March 30, 2026 at 4:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Analogies to Doug Fister and Lucille Bluth

A couple of topics today, starting with last night's umpiring.

As on Monday, we were joined at the field by Alfred the amateur photographer and former Army medic. Unlike on Monday, we had no need for his medic experience, though it was a close thing. This time I was the one that went down in a heap.

About midway through our first game of the night, a batter for the team that calls themselves...I want to say Pushing Bunts, but I think that's wrong; they're a new team and their name isn't on the official documentation yet. Anyway, their batter took a cut at a fat pitch right down the middle and juuust got under it a smidge and fouled it straight back. At speed. At me. I instinctively began to turn and duck away, but I was nevertheless struck flush on the temple. I hit the turf and stayed there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, during which time half the players on both teams were rushing toward home plate. I got up with a painful impact reminder above my ear, but otherwise none the worse for wear. I was good to go after a minute or two and thankfully didn't need to prevail upon Alfred's Army expertise. But it wasn't fun, and I felt it a bit more painfully later in the night well after I'd gone home. I took a couple Tylenol caps and I could ignore it again. Today it's pretty much fine, though I can still feel a phantom sting.

In retrospect, this was not a bad thing for my ego. Because all those players were concerned and one of them—I don't know who, I was still down on the turf, but it was a guy—said, "shit, dude, you can't get hurt, you're the good ump." Anyway, the rest of the night when several of the players came to bat they checked in. "You still OK, man? Only one pitch coming in at a time, right?" I waved them off. "I'm good, no worries. Occupational hazzard." Which is true, but I may be losing a step, because even though I've taken several errant pitches or foul balls to the shins or the sternum, I'd until now always been quick enough to get out of the way of anything at my head. But I think it must have looked pretty bad from the perspective of, well, everyone else, because there seemed to be real concern that we'd have to stop the games. I was reminded of either a World Series or playoff game several years back wherein pitcher Doug Fister of the Detroit Tigers was hit on the side of his head with a line drive back through the box. Everyone was rightly worried, but Fister just waived off the training staff and his manager, or tried to anyway, and shrugged it off like it was nothing and went back to pitching. He seemed annoyed by the attention. Of course, I also thought of Billy Wagner getting similarly tagged with a hard liner to the side of the head and he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, so...yeah, there's a range of possibilities. At least (a) this is softball, where the ball isn't so dense and the speeds it travels aren't extreme; and (b) this was a foul tip with no extra velocity added to it by the swing of the bat. Really, the time a pissed off soccer player kicked a soccer ball at me was worse.

So we moved on and finished out the games without much other drama. The second game featured less experienced teams, which meant more errors, more weird plays, and, interestingly, a walkoff comeback victory by the team I figured would lose handily at the outset. I had to explain both the infield fly and obstruction rules to newbies, but nothing outlandish.

Alfred again shared some of his photos with me, so I'm including some here. Sadly, he did not get any shots of my close encounter with a foul ball.

Stephen and Colin celebrate finally throwing different options in rock-paper-scissors to determine which would be the home team. I think it took five tries?

I don't recall what this was about, but I'm probably saying something like, “yeah, it's an out, what do you want me to do?"

Here is when I and one of her teammates had to explain to the inexperienced first-basewoman why I called obstruction on her and ruled a runner who appeared to have been forced out to be safe at second base.

This and the next are actually from Monday, but I like them in sequence because this one shows my usual move of running with the batter toward first base in order to be in better position to both see a play at first and hear the pop of the ball being caught...

...and this shows my usual move when Joel is batting; I know he's not only going to be safe at first, but if there's a play to be made on him it will be at third, so I'm hurrying there instead. Typically I can get there by the time Joel's around second. He's not Barry Allen, but he is faster than most.

Onward to topic number two, our demented president.

The felonious moron occupying the White House held one of his mock Cabinet meetings today, wherein nothing of consequence was discussed. In fact, Felon47 was so uninterested in discussing substance that at one point he meandered off into one of his stupid "sir" stories. You know, a story he tells in which some other person addresses him reverently as "sir," which is a sure tell that it never happened. This one was about, I kid you not, Sharpie pens.

Of all the many many things this pathetic excuse for a human being says and does that are horrifying and imbecilic, this rates near or at the bottom of the list, but it still sticks in my craw because what he did with this story was have a Lucille Bluth moment on camera.

Apropos of nothing, he complained that the pens presidents have generally used in signing ceremonies, the ceremonial pens that are then typically given away as souvenirs to people attending the signing, are "thousand dollar pens" and "don't write very well" and that he really prefers the Sharpies. So he found himself talking to someone at the Sharpie company (sure, Donny) and said he'd prefer to use the Sharpie for these things but couldn't possibly use a commercially branded pen in front of the press and so on (sure, Donny), so the imaginary Sharpie guy told him they could make special Sharpies just for him, ones that say "the White House" and even have his signature on them, and that he could have them free of charge. Ever magnanimous, Felon47 insisted on paying for them (I mean, it's not his money, right, it's our money, who gives a damn about our money?) and that he used his "art of the deal" skills to buy them for five dollars a pen. "Five dollars instead of a thousand dollars, and the pens are better."

OK, two things: The ceremonial pens were nice pens, probably a couple hundred bucks a pop, but not a grand per pen. That's one of the fictitious numbers he pulls out of nowhere like when he says there are 15 points in his peace plan (that has zero points because it doesn't exist). And, the retail price of a Sharpie pen, when bought in a box of 36, is sixty-four cents. Even if we factor in the custom branding of "The White House" and all that, you can buy them retail—as I'm sure some White House staffer actually did—for a little more than a dollar apiece if bought in bulk. Good deal-making skills, you idiot. It's no wonder you don't care about inflation and the affordability of goods to American consumers, you've never pumped gas or bought groceries.

Of course, the interaction never really occurred, which means that even in his made-up fantasies about his alleged great deal-making he still fucks up and doesn't know it.

Topic three: Opening Day!

I did not get tickets to this year's opening day game, but will be at the park in person to see your Seattle Mariners on Monday night. Tonight I watched on TV, and for the first time in years did it without having to resort to skirting the system. We now have a local streaming option for the M's, and it's not all that pricey given the nature of inflation and the current economy. Of course, one could argue that the current economy means you don't add new expenses no  matter how reasonable, but the difference between the MLB.TV package I'd been using for years and that plus the new Mariner streaming product is basically the cost of one in-person game. So I put my tickets for tomorrow night on StubHub and assuming they sell will pay for it with the proceeds. It's going to be cold out there tomorrow night anyway and everyone I asked to go with me either said no immediately or bailed later, so this seemed a good option.

Meantime, the M's did play tonight and lost to the Cleveland Guardians. Because the only way the Mariners could score tonight was to hit solo home runs. Jesus, guys, I thought we'd been over this already: There are other ways to score in baseball. Put runners on base and move them along. To be fair, none of the four homers hit by the M's appeared to be "on purpose," it wasn't a case of swinging for the fences, just happy accidents on well-struck liners. But they also struck out 14 times, and the combo of four solo shots and 14 Ks and nothing else (their only other hits were two-out doubles, and not in the same frame) is not a promising way to begin the season.

Well, there's time to turn it around. 161 more to go, after all.

Tagged Umping, Baseball, President VonClownstick, Politics, Softball, Posted on March 27, 2026 at 1:41AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Jingoism and the WBC

Woalter and new acquaintance in Miami

This year's World Baseball Classic is not proceeding to my liking. Mostly because what I still maintain is the best baseball team on planet Earth, Team Japan, was bounced out in the quarterfinals the other night.

It wasn't a great game—the other four Japan played were better, or at least more entertaining, not just because Japan won them but because they were more evocative of the kind of well-balanced, multifaceted baseball favored in Japan. The quarterfinal against Venezuela turned out to be more USA/Latin America style ball, i.e. home-run dependent. 13 runs scored in the game, ten of them on homers. And one of them on a mind-blowing error by Japan pitcher Atsuki Taneichi (of the Chiba Marines in his day job), which really did Japan in even though the score remained relatively close.

Anyway, Japan's exit from the tournament would, you might expect, also end my interest in it; usually, you'd be right, but there are two mitigating circumstances: One, my young friend Woalter, the softball player I took to my last regular season game of the year, is from Venezuela and is attending the Miami games of the WBC. So he was in the stands, cheering on his guys, when I texted him to say, "your guys beat my guys and I am holding you personally responsible." Woalter replied by sending me video of the final play, Shohei Ohtani popping out to shallow right-center field, he'd taken on his phone. Sigh. Well, if I have to be disappointed, at least he is getting his money's worth down there. He's clearly having a blast, as evidenced by the photos he sent.

A lone Venezuelan surrounded by a pack of Dominicans and having a blast

Meanwhile, there's mitigating circumstance number two: Team USA, who will play for the title tomorrow against either Venezuela or "Italy." The members of Team USA are acting like assholes. On purpose. You've got pitcher Paul Skenes entirely missing the point and declaring, "We’re America. We’ve got to assert our dominance over everybody else." You've got team manager Mark DeRosa enforcing a sort of Bob Gibson-esque "no fraternizing" rule among the players, leading to guys who are teammates during the season snubbing each other on the field in the WBC. Seattle Mariner Cal Raleigh has been the most visible doing this because he's a catcher and everyone who comes to bat has a chance to greet him, so we saw his Mariner teammates Randy Arozarena and Josh Naylor both offer him a warm greeting only to be given the cold shoulder out of what appeared to be misplaced macho bullshit (which is indeed what it turned out to be, just teamwide rather than Raleigh-specific). You've got right-wing military asshats being brought into the clubhouse to give motivational pep talks. You've got a team of guys behaving like jingoistic ugly Americans you'd hate to cross paths with on a foreign vacation, behavior that embarrasses themselves and offends their peers, in a sporting tournament that is designed to promote and share the game of baseball with the international community. DeRosa and Team USA appear to be taking cues from our current despotic regime in their manner and attitude, and I find myself rooting hard for Venezuela to kick their asses tomorrow evening.

Here's how our pal Craig Calcaterra explained this yesterday:

While the other countries in the World Baseball Classic are celebrating their culture, engaging happily with their opponents, and appear to be having a wonderful and even joyous time, Mark De Rosa's squad has leaned into jingoism, militarism, and redass chumpfuckery. I suppose that's inevitable given that American culture and identity has increasingly become little more than an economy backed by a military. But Jesus, guys, you could do a hell of a lot better.

As I type this, though, Venezuela is losing 2-1 to "Italy" in their semifinal game. They've got three innings to come back and win it. Otherwise, the championship game will be Team USA vs. a Team Italy that is 90% American. "Italy" even getting this far is a tremendous upset, but since there are only three Italians on the roster it would be far less satisfying for them to take on Team USA tomorrow.

Plus, it would make Woalter sad. And we don't want that.

Tagged Baseball, WBC, Umping, Politics, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on March 16, 2026 at 7:05PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Ump tales, WBC action, and a few links

I've been feeling pretty good lately—the Black Hole has been keeping its distance and there's been little to no slow-witted gauzy-brain to impede my thinking. So when I found myself making mistakes during last night's umpire shift I had nothing to blame it on; I was somehow off my game in some other way.

Nothing was seriously bad, the games were not close and no one took issue with me in any major way. But, being the perfectionist I am, I noted the mistakes even if no one else did (or no one else said anything, anyway).

The most egregious thing is one I don't even know if I got wrong: for the second time in the same game, a specific player slid into a close play at third base in a forceout situation. He beat the fielder to the bag, just as he did the first time, in a comical slide, just as he did the first time. But this second instance had people objecting to my call, and since the fielder did in fact have the ball ahead of the runner making it to third, it was more than conceivable that a tag had been made at an angle I couldn't see. So, I did what you're really not supposed to do as an umpire, and polled the players that were involved and/or had a better view; no one was willing to state firmly that they were right and I was wrong, but the runner himself was so wishy washy that I took it as a tell, he knew he'd been tagged. So I overturned myself and called him out. No objections. But I have no idea what the right call would have been. He was definitely not forced, but might have been tagged, and if we'd had a second ump it might have been a sure thing. Alas.

Also, on two occasions a batter hit a ball down the left field line that skirted the third-base bag and I called them both fair. In almost immediate retrospect, I knew that they weer actually foul, but too late to change the call. In these cases, though, I do have an excuse: the turf at Bobby Morris Field has been slowly and steadily migrating north over the years, which is most notable when placing the bases in their postholes because every now and then I have to take a knife and cut the turf a bit more to extend the hole in the turf for the base peg, which no longer lines up with the hole below the turf. Those holes began as squares, but are now rectangles of around five or six inches long. This also means that the third base/left field foul line, which is supposed to overlap the edge of third base, is several inches to the outside of third base. This is wrong. But in the split-second I have to make a fair/foul call as a ball skitters past the bag, my brain noted the line and said fair when it should have noted the base and said foul. Eh, at least in those cases I can shrug it off.

There were a few ball/strike calls I messed up too, which happens here and there, but when I called ball four on one batter on a pitch that did nick the top of the strike zone, it is not unreasonable for that batter to assume that will be the call the next time she gets that pitch. In her next at-bat, the same pitch came in and I called a strike on a 3-1 count, costing her a walk. It was correct, but she was annoyed at the inconsistency (and as I had just given Todd Tichenor crap for being all over the place with his zone in the WBC game the other night I sympathized). She grounded out to end the inning.

Anyway, for the most part we all had a good time despite the frigid temps and sporadic rain and I didn't make anyone too mad. Most of the players in the three games are league vets and knew me well enough to give me a pass. Or they didn't notice or care. (Like I said, the games weren't close.)

After the shift, I got home around midnight and then stayed up all night to watch the final World Baseball Classic game from Tokyo, which saw the Czech team shut out Team Japan—for my money the most well-balanced, fundamentally-sound, top-quality team on planet Earth—for seven innings before Japan realized, hey, we're the best team on planet Earth! and opened up some whoop-ass on the poor Czech relief pitchers. A nine-spot in the 8th and a 9-0 final score. But for those first seven innings it was really something; these Czech players are pros in their home country, but mostly on the order of what we'd think of as semi-pros; the starting pitcher, who was awesome in a Jamie Moyer slow-curves and changeups kind of way, earns his living as an electrician. They take vacation time from their jobs to do these tournaments. There is one (maybe two?) player on the team that is in American minor-league ball, but generally these guys play in a low-tier European pro league that pays next to nothing and keep day jobs. Their manager is a neurosurgeon. It's impressive as hell that they shut the Japanese out for seven frames. All four of Japan's games thus far in the WBC have been tremendous: the whomping and near no-hitting of Taiwan, the tightly contested game against Korea, the pitcher's duel with Australia, and then this one against Czechia. 4-0, undefeated going into the next round in Miami.

Some observations from these four Tokyo games relevant to the coming season: White Sox fans will be happy on balance with their new slugger, Munetaka Murakami, but he's streaky. Don't be surprised if he slumps here and there. Also, if the Sox are planning to use him at first base instead of third, don't expect any gold gloves. He's fine, but I've noticed a few times he's poorly positioned for a throw and wasn't reading the ball off the bat as well. But the grand slam last night was pretty. Meanwhile, Blue Jay fans will be ecstatic at the play of their new third-sacker, Kazuma Okamoto. Okamoto has gold gloves at both first and third, showed impressive range at the hot corner, and is going to draw lots of walks. Red Sox fans will probably continue to suffer at the underuse of Masataka Yoshida, who is a lot better than the Boston people think he is.

Meanwhile, Felon47’s regime of bigotry and authoritarianism has, for the moment, cost Cincinnati Reds (and former Seattle Mariners) third baseman Eugenio Suárez his chance at being a US citizen. Geno's citizenship application was cancelled even though the processing for it had already been scheduled for later this year. Why? "Because of the Venezuela thing," Suárez said, which is a slightly more polite way to say, "because I am a Latino guy and the people running this country are racist assholes." Most ballplayers don't pay much attention to politics, they don't understand how different things are today from two years ago or why, and Major League Baseball, in the person of Commissioner Idiot, is not doing anything substantive to help the scores of foreign players in the major and minor leagues. Suárez would like to be of help to his fellow would-be immigrants and other Latino players, as a source of information if nothing else. "[It's a] good platform for us as baseball players," said Suárez, "to be able to help people know [what's going on]. We need help with that." Don't expect any help from the Commissioner. Here's what he had to say when asked about Suárez's citizenship and the legitimate fear of arrest and worse from Felon47’s DHS brownshirts: “Look, obviously I worry about anything that could be disruptive to the very best players in the world being out on the field. But the prospect of that disruption, given that our players all had visas, it’s speculation at this point.” Is it really? Let me quote our pal Craig Calcaterra on this subject: "I don't know what makes anyone think that a ballplayer, even one carrying their visa, is immune from Trumpist brutality. ... How anyone could read the news over the past two or three months and think that the brutalization of Latin Americans in this country is the stuff of 'speculation' or that if someone has their paperwork in order they're all safe [is beyond me], but that's Rob Manfred for ya."

Stepping away from the diamonds to close this post out, here are some tidbits worth a link or a note:

• Paul Waldman wrote about the current White House Cabinet as "the worst in history" and at one point refers to them as "a kind of Bizarro World 1927 Yankees," thus combining three of my nerd spheres—baseball, politics, and comics—into one statement.
• Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin takes mainstream journalists to task for failing to adequately sound the alarm about Felon47 being loony-tunes and demented when it comes to his unconscionable and incoherent war on Iran. Addressing the press at large, he asks, "Doesn’t the fact that he is bombing the hell out of a country for no particular reason, endangering the region, and destabilizing the world make it incumbent upon you to be blunt about the problem, rather than dancing around it? Isn’t it time for clarity instead of euphemism? Isn’t it time to put aside your aloofness, your concerns about appearing partisan, and your fears of offending your corporate masters? Isn’t it time to tell the whole truth, in the best interests of the country and the world?" He goes on to detail what's not being reported, then continues: "When [an] obsessive pursuit of impartiality leads them to deny or obscure the objective truth, it’s gone too far. And the objective truth is that Trump is deranged. Choosing not to make that explicit doesn’t win over new readers. It doesn’t change MAGA minds. The people who think Trump is rational get their news elsewhere. It’s bad journalism. It normalizes something that is very alarming. And it pisses off their own readers."
• Jeff Tiedrich makes the observation that Felon47 accidentally told the truth in response to a reporter's question regarding the girls' school the US hit with a Tomohawk missile and the 160+ people killed in the strike:
  
  Reporter: “You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you’re the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn’t say that, when he was asked, standing over your shoulder, on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this?"
  Felon47: “Because I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation."
  Tiedrich: “'I’m insisting something is true even though I don’t know enough about it' just might be the most honest thing Donny’s ever said, even if he’s far too demented to realize that’s what he’s saying.”

That's all for now. I'm going to fix myself some dinner and watch some TV. New episode of Paradise is out.

Tagged Umping, WBC, Baseball, Politics, Republicans, President VonClownstick, Posted on March 10, 2026 at 11:06PM   |   Permalink   |     |