On Dots, Baseball and the Depravity of my Mind

CONFESSION TIME: I spend a lot of time watching baseball games on the internet. Now I know what you may be thinking, “Why does this warrant a confession, Tom? I watch stuff on the internet all the time. In fact, I just watched an episode of Parks and Rec on Hulu. Boy, that Leslie Knope sure is hilarious!”

The thing is, friend, that I don’t watch actual games on the internet. I watch a two dimensional Java application that updates the game action through use of various colored dots. I do this because A) I’m a really exciting person, and B) I have fantasy baseball players to keep track of, and most of Jaime Garcia’s starts are not nationally televised affairs.

Here’s a picture of what I’m dealing with, just to give you a better idea:

So if the pitcher throws a strike, one of those little red dots appears, and if he throws a ball, a little green dot pops up, and if the batter makes contact with the ball, a little blue dot pops up and then you are told via textual updates what the outcome of said contact was (groundout, flyout, single etc.). Cute, isn’t it?

Actually, it’s not cute at all, because those little dots are going to fucking drive me insane. I’ve come to realize that the dots are not here to pass along information to me about the game, they are here to mock me and my inability to not obsess over the outcomes of ultimately meaningless baseball games.

Watching a live baseball game (either in person or on TV) comes with a certain kind of rhythm that prevents you from having to think too much. The pitcher throws the ball, the batter steps out of the box to fidget with his testicles, the ball is returned to the pitcher, the pitcher wipes some sweat from his brow, resets and throws again. That’s basically 90% of the action during a game, and it’s really quite comforting in its monotony.

The Dots (I capitalize here, so as to fully portray their menace), on the other hand, take everything that is comforting about this monotony and replaces it with anxiety and self-loathing.

There is no rhythm or flow associated with the cold, faceless dots. You simply stare at the screen until a dot appears (Red dot! Strike, woohoo!), and then you wait…and you wait…and you wait…until eventually another dot appears (Blue dot! Ball, fuck me!). The entire time you are waiting for the next dot to appear, your mind is racing and slipping deeper and deeper into madness, because there is no brow wiping or nut adjusting to comfort you, there is only the rattling of your own brain.

An example:

“Okay, 1-2 count, gotta strike him out here. Throw the slider in the dirt, Jaime. C’mon throw it. Jesus Christ where is the next dot? Why is this taking so long? Did something happen to him? Oh God what if he hurt his elbow on the last pitch and there are taking him out of the game and that’s why this is taking so long? SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS THE NEXT DOT?!”

Blue dot—Homerun.

“GAHHHHH!”

None of this has been exaggerated. It is pathetic and disgusting and I do it every day.

That's right, it's always a party

at Tom's apartment!

And I haven’t even mentioned the comments section at the bottom of the page, which usually consists of people with screen names like GOSAWX691!!1 typing things like, “Phil Hughes throws like a FAIRY!” And yet sometimes I find myself actually reading through some of these comments, as there often people out there who are bigger losers than me who like to watch the game on TV and on the computer at the same time; and these cretins will often alert you when something big happens long before The Dots have time to update.

The worst part of all of this is that while you are sitting there watching this bullshit, you are perfectly aware of how ridiculous and inane the whole thing is.

Another example:

“God, I can’t believe that I’m sitting here watching baseball on a fucking computer screen. It’s 70 degrees outside right now. What the hell am I doing with myself? This isn’t healthy; I really need to re-evaluate my--Red dot! Yes!”

It makes you feel like a heroin addict who knows that he’s destroying his life, and yet he just can’t stop chasing that dragon. Only in this case, I just can’t stop chasing that red dot.

The Dots aren’t digital representations of simple information. No, they are in fact mirrors of a sort, mirrors that reveal to all those who look into them the true nature of the human mind. A mind that at its core is obsessive, neurotic and ultimately masochistic.

So, if you plan on watching a baseball game on the internet, be careful. You might not like what you see.

Feel free to contact the author of this post at leyt345 at gmail dot com.

Thinking About Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds is currently on trial for perjury stemming from allegations that he lied about taking steroids while under oath.

This is something that I could not give less of a shit about.

Which is odd, because when I think about how I felt about Bonds just a few years ago, this is a trial that I should be absolutely invested in. Yet here I am, merrily enjoying baseball’s opening weekend without giving a single thought to the Bonds trial. I haven’t read one article, blog post or news report on the trial--and I don’t think I’m alone.

The utter apathy with which people are treating the Bonds trial is a little startling when you consider just how violently the tide of public opinion was bearing down on him just a few short years ago. Everyone hated Barry, and everyone wanted to see Barry pay for tarnishing the game with each record setting, HGH fueled swing that he took.

I heard that every time Barry Bonds winks, Jesus Christ is

brought back to life and then immediately killed in a fire.

I was one of these people who wanted to see swift justice brought against the criminal that was Barry Bonds. To me Bonds went against everything that sports were supposed to give us. He wasn't an incredible athlete amazing us with displays of what the human body can accomplish. No, to me he was a cheater who was brazenly rising to the pinnacle of his sport. He was artifice where there should have been art.

I remember being a dip shit teenager and shouting incredibly dip shitty things at the TV as I watched Bonds inch closer to what seemed like every record that ever existed. “Guuhhhhh Barry I hate you! I hope you get sucked up into your own butthole and DIE, YOU CHEATER!”

So why is my former hatred only matched in its breadth by my current apathy? Why am I not ecstatic that the man who I blamed for ruining baseball and marring the record books is now facing serious jail time?

I’d like to think that I feel this way now because I have become so desensitized to the “Steriod Era” by the cavalcade of superstars that have been revealed as users over the last ten years. This explanation would make sense after all, it would be very easy for me to say, “Oh well now that I know that everyone was doing steroids back then, I guess Barry Bonds isn’t quite so evil.”

But that explanation is bullshit, really. Even as a kid I was nowhere near naïve enough to believe that Bonds was the only one taking steroids, and that hulking monsters like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz were clean. Deep down I knew that that entire era was riddled with players who were on steroids. How could I not know?

The truth is that I fostered my hatred for Barry Bonds simply because he was perfectly suited to play the role of the villain in the baseball narrative that I so desperately wanted to conceive.

“Barry Bonds is a surly, cocky bastard who wears an earring and is mean to reporters and his teammates! Of course he would cheat. Not any of those other guys though, because they are just really solid dudes and solid dudes don't cheat, you know?”

Yeah, no way this guy did steroids.

I wanted so desperately to believe that this notion was true, so I made it true, and all the tumblers of my baseball fantasy world clicked elegantly into place. The nasty motherfucker who I never liked anyway was an evil cheater and all the other guys who I liked weren’t. It was so simple and clean, and I know a lot of other people performed these same mental gymnastics. It wasn’t until the truth about the ubiquity of steroids was shoved into our faces that we were able to let go of the “Barry Bonds as the Devil” image.

I think it’s important to consider our treatment of Bonds because he stands as a perfect example of our ability as sports fans to completely delude ourselves in the name of our own prejudices and biases. We jump at every chance we get to mark one guy as a villain and crown another as a hero, even when logic compels us to do the opposite. This tendency is incredibly fucking dumb and needs to stop.

So the next time you want to turn someone into the Attila the Hun of whatever sport it is that you follow, take a minute to think about whether or not you are doing so because you are being reasonable and nuanced, or just because you think the guy is kind of a dicknose.

E-mail the author of this post at leyt345 at gmail dot com.

You Want to Talk About Bobby Cox? Let's Talk About Bobby Cox

One of the things that I was looking forward to most this coming baseball season was the fact that Bobby Cox had finally managed to shuffle his way out of the league after managing the Atlanta braves for what seemed like an eternity.

Last year, during his “farewell season,” every uber-sentimental sportswriter, broadcaster, and pundit spent the season rhapsodizing about Cox's impact on the game, his managerial genius, his place in history, and all that other bullshit. Unsuprisingly, the endless fellating added a level of insufferability to the season.

I had assumed that this season would be free of all Cox worship (hehe!), since you know, he’s retired now, and there is better shit to talk about.

Well you know who doesn’t think there is better shit to talk about? Jayson fucking Stark, who decided to skeet this shit all over the internet on Monday. There is nothing especially new or remarkable written in this article. It’s a standard “changing of the guard” puff piece about Fredi Gonzalez following in Cox’s footsteps, which Stark uses as a convenient excuse to slobber all over Cox (ha!) one last time. but I was struck by one moment in which Stark decided to write about Cox and his wife:

“It was the first time in 50 years in baseball, Cox said, that he'd ever sat in the stands and watched a game with his wife. Which, when you come to think of it, was as good a bit of news for the local umpiring crew as it was for the lovely Pam Cox. Then again, there have been a lot of firsts this spring for Bobby and Pam Cox. Breakfast together. Nearly every morning. That's been new. And trips to the mall. Lots of trips to the mall. Never had time to do the mall thing before, Bobby Cox reported.”

Daaaaawwwwwwwwww, isn’t that just precious? Sweet old Bobby is just a regular schmoe like the rest of us now, taking his wife to the mall and watching ball games with her on sunny afternoons.

HEY! You know what else is adorable? The time that Bobby Cox grabbed Pam by the hair, called her a bitch, and punched her in the face. Oh, you don’t remember that? Well let me refresh your memory.

From the May, 1995 issue of Sports Illustrated:

"According to the police report, the Coxes had been entertaining friends when Bobby spilled a drink on the carpet of their northwest Atlanta house and Pamela made a comment about it. The report said that after the guests left, Bobby, 53, "hit her in the face with his fist," pulled her hair and called her "a bitch." When they reached the house, the police reported, they heard arguing inside, where they found Bobby drunk and Pamela with the left side of her face swollen."

I’ve always been intrigued by how this little nugget of information gets conveniently forgotten anytime people write about Bobby Cox, who lest we forget, has been ejected from more baseball games for going ape shit on umpires than any other manager in history.

If it wasn’t for people like Jayson Stark, you might be inclined to think that Bobby Cox is a fucking asshole who has rage issues. Lucky for us, Jayson Stark is here to remind us that Bobby doesn’t have any anger management issues, he’s just “old school,” and maybe a little “salty.” His rage is meant to be endearing.

Endearing enough, in fact, that Stark thought it would be a good idea to mention Cox’s propensity for losing control on the baseball field in the same breath that he attempts to peddle “aw shucks” schmaltz about Cox’s relationship with the woman that he once grabbed by the hair, called a bitch, and punched in the face. You may have missed it if you weren’t paying attention, so go ahead and re-read that first block quote.

This column is more than just an example of Jayson Stark being lazy and a little bit irresponsible, however. It is a perfect representation of the hypocrisy that persists in the way that the media chooses to cover certain people.

Baseball in particular is littered with fallen heroes who are saddled with the media’s indelible mark of scorn. For instance, can you imagine someone writing a puff piece like this about Barry Bonds or Pete Rose without there being any mention of their scandalous pasts?

We will never be allowed to forget the ways in which Rose and Bonds marred the face of baseball, and yet we are all but encouraged to forget the ways in which Bobby Cox marred his wife’s face.

Slap a mustache and some diabetes on Cox, and you've got

this fella on the right here.

Cox manages to get a pass from the media simply because he fits ever so snugly into the Great American Baseball Narrative. He is the ideal rendering of the old, wise, gruff, hard-nosed coach that gets cast in every baseball movie ever. People like Stark fucking eat that shit up, and they will do whatever they can to keep people like Cox placed squarely in the archetype that has been molded for him.

Witness Stark getting lost in Shoeless Joe’s corn field as he attempts to characterize Cox’s relationship with new Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez:

“So the new manager makes it a point to constantly seek out the former manager, because that's The Way It Ought to Be.”

That’s right, he just went breathy capital letters on your bitch ass.

Stark is intent on reminding us that even in retirement Cox remains a paragon of tradition and basebally-ness, and is here to make sure that The Game is still being played and managed the right way.

The truth about Bobby Cox is that he is a man who happened to coach and win a lot of baseball games, who lost control of his temper during a lot of those baseball games, and who on at least one occasion grabbed his wife by the hair, called her a bitch, and punched her in the face. In our eyes he shouldn’t be anything more or less than that, and that’s The Way It Ought to Be.

Tony Larussa and Kenny Williams Can Eat Shit

Over the course of the past week two of baseball’s most outspoken and identifiable crotchety bastards made some statements that can most accurately be classified as “super bitchy.”

It began when Tony Larussa, head coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, threw out all kinds of unsubstantiated accusations about how the MLB players union was hypnotizing his star player, Albert Pujols, with the allure of cash-money-hoes in an effort to get him to refuse to re-sign with the Cardinals in favor of hitting the free agent market next winter. The idea being that Pujols will make a lot more money on the open market, thus driving up player salaries as a whole.

Then White Sox GM Kenny Williams ran his mouth about how “asinine” it was that a player like Pujols could potentially make $30 million a year, adding that he would be in favor of having MLB “shut down” for a while in order to rein in player salaries.

So I like to crush brews and drive, big deal.

Normally I wouldn’t really care a whole lot about what a drunk driver who bats his pitcher 8th and a GM who seems to covet strikeouts have to say. In this case, however, I was bothered by the fact that each of these statements seem to boil down to the same basic implication:

These players are making too much fucking money.

It is the above assertion that is most likely going to take center stage when the owners and players sit down next December to re-negotiate the league’s collective bargaining agreement. The owners would love to find a way to reduce player salaries in the next CBA, possibly through the institution of a salary cap. If the owners push for a salary cap, shit is going to get very real very quickly between them and the players union, and it is very likely that we will see a lockout or a strike

The owners will be much more likely to come out on top in the event of a work stoppage if they can control the public discourse surrounding the negotiations, and whether they are aware of it or not, Larussa and Williams have just kick-started the owner’s propaganda machine, which will soon begin lurching forwards.

In the coming year you can expect to see a lot more owners, coaches, and GM’s making similar statements as they try to sway public opinion to their side. The hope being that when the lockout eventually does come, people won’t be saying logical things like, “Hey, why is it that these ultra rich owners need more money?” Instead, they will be saying things like, “Duuuurrrrrr, if those spoiled, overpaid, prima donna players would just get some gat dang sense in their heads, we could play ball!”

If the discourse does indeed head in this direction, logic and reason will be dealt a tremendous blow and Baby Jesus will cry a thousand tears of blood, because player salaries are not spiraling out of control, they are just becoming a hindrance to teams’ abilities to make a fuckload of money without actually having to spend any of that money on baseball players.

One only has to peruse these leaked financial documents, or be made aware of the fact that many “small market” teams are actually run by some of the league’s richest owners in order to understand that most major league teams are more concerned with profit margins than they are with winning.

That is why it’s so disappointing to see Larussa and Williams taking such a strong anti-players union stance, because they are directing their ire at the wrong people.

Yes, it is possible that a salary cap would make it easier for the Cardinals to hang onto Pujols and for the White Sox to field a better team, but these benefits would require the players to take a big, fat, unnecessary knee to their financial scrotums.

If Larussa is really worried about losing his star player to free agency, he should be publicly admonishing his team’s executives for their unwillingness to pay the best baseball player on the planet the money that he deserves.

Yeah, tell me how many K's Dunn
and Konerko had last year.
Yeah...that's it...don't stop...oh God!

If Williams is really upset about higher salaries making it harder for him to put together a competitive team, he should be asking his owner for more money to spend on good players. He should then look in the mirror and say, “Hey dipshit, if you want to win, you shouldn’t give $56 million dollars to Adam Dunn and $37.5 million to Paul Konerko.”

Instead, these two pricks have decided to take the easy way out and cast their lot with the owners, because after all, it’s always nice to be on the side that has all the money.

On Hi Corbett, Fernando Valenzuela, and the Human Condition

Next week the Colorado Rockies will begin Spring Training at their new state of the art facility in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (which just so happens to be the stupidest name for anything ever) in Arizona. The team will be leaving behind its former spring training facility, Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona forever.

As a diehard Rockies fan and a frequent attendee of spring training this move makes me super duper sad. Sad enough, in fact, that just thinking about it makes me want to mainline some Dilaudid and listen to “Put me in Coach” on repeat for two hours.

The reason I am so sad is because Hi Corbett Field has long been one of my favorite places on the planet. Walking into Hi Corbett didn’t feel like walking into a regular baseball stadium. It felt like stumbling upon a high school field that for some strange reason was being used by professional baseball players. The place fostered a unique kind of intimacy between players and fans, an intimacy that made watching a meaningless baseball game in the middle of the fucking desert become not only bearable, but somehow immensely enjoyable.

There was nothing better than getting to the field a few hours before game time and watching the players warm up and take batting practice.

You could stand three feet away from the pitchers in the bullpen, separated only by a chain link fence, taking in all the little nuances of a pitcher’s wind up and delivery, all the stuff that gets washed away in the distance and immensity of a regular stadium.

You could stand right behind home plate during batting practice, close enough to hear the players joke around with each other between cracks of the bat, or to hear Todd Helton walk up to Dexter Fowler and Chris Nelson and say, “Oh hey, are you the new black guys? You must be the new black guys.” (Now try watching this commercial without sensing some palpable racial tension.)

The stuff that dreams are made of, really.

I made a lot of great memories at Hi Corbett, and since the stadium has now joined the scrap heap of history, I figured now was as good a time as any to do my part in memorializing the place by sharing my all time favorite memory from spring training with all of you.

It was 1997 and I was sitting about 20 rows back from home plate, watching the Rockies and Padres play. Pitching for the Padres that day was none other than former legend Fernando Valenzuela, and I can’t really remember who was pitching for the Rockies. It was probably Kevin Ritz—Kevin Ritz was the shit.
The first memorable thing about this day was how un-fucking-believably hot it was. I can remember having to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so to soak my shirt in cold water in attempt to stave off heat stroke. Everyone in attendance had fallen into a kind of silent heat coma.

I don’t know if it was the heat or the relatively slow pace of the game, but in the bottom of the 2nd inning one fan who was sitting a couple of sections away from me decided it was as good a time as any to absolutely lose his mind. He opened his mouth, and screamed into the hot silence:

HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!

And then he did it again:

HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!

And again…and again…and again. Sometimes he would add in some poorly constructed insult like, “You’re washed up! Go back to the golf course!” but he always started with the same refrain.

HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!

The man sat there in the sun, shirtless, ponytailed, and burnt to a crisp, shouting at Fernando Valenzuela throughout the entire game. Not a single person in the stands did anything about it either. No one even acknowledged him, we all just sat there in a silent fever dream and listened to him lose his shit.

HEEEEYYYY ERNANDOOOOOOO!

His madness settled over us like a black pall.

Due to the small size of the stadium and the silent nature of the crowd, there is no doubt in my mind that Valenzuela could hear this guy screaming at him--clear as day. And I swear to God, the crazy man got in Fernando’s head. You could almost see the relentless chant weighing down on him as he struggled pathetically to make it through each inning.

At this point in his career poor Fernando wasn't quite what he used to be. Once one of the best pitchers in the game, he was now just a bloated shell (seriously, he was really fat at this point) of his former self, struggling to make the rotation, and now he had to deal with this bullshit.

It wasn't until many years later that the enormity of the situation really hit me. I realize now that I didn't just see a baseball game that day. I had seen the inanity of life crawl its way out from underneath one of Fernando's skin folds, revealing to us all that even those who had managed to conquer the world--who had reached the pinnacle of human achievement--come to the same sad ending that the rest of us do. They end up fat old men, standing on a mound of dirt in the hot sun, grasping at the wisps of their former glory as they get berated by an anonymous, burnt husk of a man.

And for that, I give solemn thanks to Hi Corbett Field. I'll miss you.

You can go fuck off somewhere, Salt River Pima-Mariwhateverthefuckyournameis.

Why Baseball Is Awesome

I'll never forget the first time I went to a major league baseball game. It was the summer of 2004, I was 17. I was in Massachusetts visiting my mom's side of the family in a tiny sea town called Manchester-by-the-Sea, as I usually did almost every summer. This particular summer, my uncle offered to share some of his season tickets so I could go with my dad and my brother. I thought, why not, I've never been. Sounds fun. What followed was one of the most memorable experiences of my life....