Sickness continues to infest the NFH homestead, and as a result I got to watch almost all of two baseball games!
Random thoughts to follow...
I was interested in what the ESPN announcers would say about Alex Rios during the Puerto Rico / Venezuela game. Like a lot of people, I think that he will be a major component of the success of the Jays if he can put it all together this year. Before being lifted for a pinch-hitter, Rios had two at-bats. During the first one, the announcers chatted about something unrelated to Alex Rios, but at least kept track of the balls and strikes. During the second at-bat, they didn't say who he was when he came up, and then proceeded to talk about the following:
- how many great catchers have come from Puerto Rico
- how many Puerto Rican catchers are playing in the major leagues today
- how Carlos Delgado should help the Mets, oh, and did you know he broke in as a catcher? (They didn't mention with what team or the relationship-by-former-team to Rios, who was still batting)
- the weather
The next time they mentioned Rios, it was to say that he was out.
I'm not really complaining -- the Jays are an under-the-radar team in America, and Rios is an under-the-radar player on an under-the-radar team. I was just disappointed not to hear some analysis of his play from someone without any kind of emotional investment in him or deep prior knowledge of him.
I was surprised to see Venezuela take the game so definitively, since the Puerto Rican team had been stomping the competition so far and I was figuring on a Puerto Rico vs. Korea finale.
I was happy to see Chacin make it into the game for Venezuela, and the announcers seemed prepared to talk about him... but then he was lifted after one batter.
Javy Lopez -- he can play first base!
The game ended, and then Sportsnet cut to the USA - Korea match that was in the fourth inning, with Korea ahead 3-1. I thought that could be interesting, so I stuck a disc in the recorder and went to bed. Theo and I had a great time watching it this morning.
My strongest impression of that game was the Korean caps -- they're really quite silly to look at on first glance -- baby blue, mesh-backed, with a very plain white capital K on the front, a lot like a generic little league cap -- but the USA caps were just horrendously overdone by comparison. Those two have inspired me, and I intend to have a comparitive review ready by the end of the week, declaring winners and losers of all of the caps in the WBC. Perhaps I will even buy the winner for myself, since on sunny days I need a cap down there in the camera bay, and wearing an MLB team cap is poor form.
How are you guys enjoying the Classic so far?
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20060314132905422