My friend bryduck is a Reds fan. The Reds have never done much for me, but I always like liking the teams that my friends like, except when I have friends who like the Yankees. It’s a motto to live by. You should probably write it down.

Actually liking the Yankees could be a deal breaker for me now, but when I went to college, there were too many people from the New York area who liked the Yankees to discriminate on that level.

I’m boring in that I like the teams that are from places I’ve lived (or nearby). So I like the Braves and the Angels best in baseball, but can stomach Orioles and even like thinking about how much more I would have liked living in D.C. had the Nats been there then. I also like UCLA basketball and if you’re going to make me pick a NFL team, I’ll pick the Falcons. I’ve lived in Atlanta, D.C. and L.A. See? Boring.

But the Reds? Not so much. But then this year I “invested” in a fantasy baseball league and I now have a new favorite pitcher. And he’s a Red. I’m following him with a passion. I drafted him for 10 cents. So far he’s won both games he’s started and has a 1.98 ERA. He also has hit two home runs including one today out of Wrigley onto Waveland Avenue. He had never hit a home run in his major league career before these two games. And he has a lot of hair and a funky guy goatee and this fantastic straight high leg kick. And a great name: Bronson Arroyo. It sounds both geeky and geological.

Now, I’m sure that there are people in the world to whom Bronson Arroyo matters not at all. And I’m sure there are dedicated fans. He put out a CD. Check out Amazon if you want.

Truth be told, I don’t really care about all of that. The thing is that for the last ten days, Mr. Arroyo has made me happy twice.

And, that’s what’s great about baseball. To paraphrase what Doris Kearns Goodwin said in her lovely way, what’s great about baseball is that it’s there when you need it. I really like that this year in addition to watching the Angels and Braves when I can, I can enjoy a guy I never thought about before. Because sometimes I really need a little piece of nice that’s not complicated by anything else.

BSG=Battlestar Galactica
WBC=World Baseball Classic
Me=sporkywhatever

Friday night I set up our Tifaux to tape the season finale of BSG. SciFi had changed the time of the 90 minute finale and lo, I had 30 minutes of Stargate: Atlantis and 60 of BSG. I’m not going to even pre-apologize about this: that mixture is wrong. It’s like Fear Factor and Amazing Race. One is good, the other is really not. Sigh. I saw the big-headed aliens as I was fast-forwarding. Sandra informed me last night that the big-headed aliens are actually the Norse pantheon in mythology. Thor=big-headed alien. Whatever.

So I watch the first 2/3 of BSG and then have to come into our home office and spend two dollars to buy it from itunes. The rerun on Monday conflicted with Medium, which wasn’t gonna work, and the damn thing cut off right after Balthar had won the election and Roslin had conceded that stealing it was not a good idea. Mary McDonell’s performance in the finale was a thing of wonder. And I love the twist. Vichy France, modern America. It’s all wrapped up in the current and future season. Fandamntastic. And anyone who know any Emmy voters: my girl MM deserves the Emmy.

Today honey and I went to see round two of the World Baseball Classic at Angel Stadium (nee Angel Stadium of Anaheim nee Edison Field of Anaheim nee the Big A). It’s a rainy cold day in SoCal and we had tickets to what was supposed to be the “B” game. Because Japan and the US lamed it up in the first round, we had the “A” game instead. (Mexico v Korea is tonight). We were in the right field pavilion which is not my favorite venue at the stadium. I really like the left field pavilion which is just above the bullpens and down low. The right field pavilion is higher and full of rowdiness. I don’t mind rowdiness really, but WBC brought out patriotic stupid rowdiness.

Some of the rapier wit:

“Yo, Griffey. This is better than Cincinnati!”

“Yo Griffey. Where’s Barry and his steroids?”

Question: “I wonder why England isn’t playing?”

Answer: “They’re probably playing cricket or watching soccer. Put another shrimp on the barbie.”

(I resisted the temptation to turn around and point out the shrimp on the barbie thing refer to Australia and they did have a team in the WBC).

A lot of bile was spit out against Japan, the woman announcing the Japanese team in Japanese, women, gay men, Yankees (that was ok), and Giants.

Most often the subject of ridicule were the two center fielders. The Japanese center fielder, Kosuke Fukudome got a lot of “fuck you dome” lobbed at him.

We left early, which was good in the end. I didn’t want to root for the U.S. given the way my fellow Americans were behaving. And the game turned on a bad call which went against the Japanese followed by an RBI by Alex Rodriguez. No thanks.

Fukudome, in case you’re wondering, plays for the Chunichi Dragons and is a career .300 hitter.

The Japanese team was a real joy to watch, with three spectacular plays. First baseman Michihiro Ogasawara robbed an American player with a diving stop and flip to the pitcher. Ogasawara plays for the Japanese team with the best name: The Nippon Ham Fighters. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura of the Yakult Swallows had a nice play. The best one was by shortstop Munenori Kawasaki who plays for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks with a over-the shoulder catch in shallow left.

On the American side, A-Rod and Jeter were typically Yankee weak. Chipper had a beautiful homerun and Scot Shields acquitted himself well as the only Angel in Angel Stadium today.

Still and all, it was one of those experiences that makes me wish people didn’t have to be so vocal in their stupidity. I guess that’s what makes America great, though. We can be loud and stupid. And I guess I shouldn’t be so pessimistic about the whole thing. The Japanese fans at the end of our row laughed at the what the hecklers said several times. Plus, I don’t have to live on BSG’s New Caprica, which looks like Vancouver winter in tents all the time. (Probably because they filmed it in Vancouver in winter in tents). It’s better than Cincinnati, right Griffey?

So I had these baseball tickets for the World Baseball Classic at Angel stadium next week. I bought a strip (as they say in the biz). I had tickets for Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Honey and I are going Sunday and I had sold (face value, no service charge) the Tuesday tickets to a wacky woman who works in the Dean’s office. I was going to go on Thursday, but IHE business takes me to our nation’s capital next week. I asked around to see if anyone wanted them at work. No takers.

I then thought I’d just give them away on craigslist. I like the free section and I don’t want to sell tickets to a stranger. Weird thing.

So I post them on craigslist. I described them and asked people to send me their name and address. I said the first e-mail with an address that made it to my mailbox would get them. I check an hour later and found 21 e-mails.

A lot of people asked me to e-mail them back. Some left their phone numbers. Others left pleas about how their dad loved baseball. One sent a picture of a child and no other information.

One said that he had been she had been trying to get tickets to the WBC “since forever.” I resisted the temptation to e-mail her back with the www.mlb.com link. There are tickets available for $12 each in the same section as mine (I just checked). And forever could only be since, say, last fall when the WBC was announced. I had always thought of it as longer.

It’s sort of the angels dancing on the head of a pin. If the answer is one, I’ll be as dissapointed as I am now knowing that forever is less than six months.

One person replied to the follow-up where I said the tickets were gone asking if they were still available. Um, no.

A couple of people wanted to make sure they were “contacting the right guy” before they gave their address. Now, I understand hesitating about givine one’s address out on one level. On the other hand, I offered the things for free.

I got some phone numbers and an offer to come pick them up.

Several people thanked me for offering them.

The “winner” (she was the third to get her e-mail in, but the first to include her address) wanted to take her six year old kid. I hope they have a great time (and that she’s telling the truth). And to the people who tried, sorry I couldn’t help you all and thanks to those who were kind.

I may give something away again soon. I liked it.

I miss Kirby Puckett already. Happy baseball season.

Ok, I promise not to keep doing this, but I had a couple more thoughts on the ‘lyms.

First, I’m sorry I was snotty about luge. When I saw that luger sliding down the track unconscious under her sled, I thought better of my “sausage” comments.

Second, I think it’s hilarious that the gold medal winner in women’s halfpipe listened to her ipod during her gold medal run.

Third, Joey Cheek rocks for talking about Sudanese genocide, for donating his money to refugees, for retiring after the lyms, for being rejected by Harvard and telling everybody about it, and for being so pudding cute you could eat him with a spork, even if “hims” aren’t your thing. Plus which his bio at offthepodium.com is hilarious, describing him as being listed in “The Cheek Family Chronicles” as one of the “nine most notable ‘Cheeks’ of all time.” And emphasizing his tendency to puke during practice.

Fourth, the Canada/Sweden curling match this morning was really exciting (for curling). The skip of the Canadian team, a fellow named Brad Gushue (pronounced GOOSHOO) screwed up three times, first the the tenth end (don’t I sound knowledgeable?) allowing Sweden to tie and then again in the eleventh (extra) end. Now, I’m delighted with his name. I gather (from LA Times of all sources) that he’s seen as a bit of a maverick in Cananda, where the vast majority of the world’s curlers reside. I also love the curling commentator for NBC. He’s SOOOO Canadian. Plus is name, Don Dugid, is pronounced “Do good.” GOOSHOO and DOGOOD.

Fifth, I like the beaver named Dodger Lodge on the cbc.ca Olympic site. So very not American.

Being from Atlanta, I am a little sensitive about the criticism leveled at my fair city about having a badly organized Olympics. Atlantans I talk to will say everything went fine. One thing that’s hard to defend from the Atlanta games is the mascot, “Izzy.” It was not cute, not clearly defined and made fun of. Ok, Izzy=very weak. But I challenge anyone to say that the Torino mascots are anything but very very weak. Describing them is hard. Disturbing is the word that comes to mind. And there’s a whole mess of them: Gliz and Neve are the main ones, but they have friends Gelindo Calvo, Viva Kapendo, Jo Care (the most disturbing to me), Koji Kojito, and Jose Bueno. Plus there’s their friend the snowflake. Named Aster. (Could be after Asta the Nick and Nora Charles dog from the Thin Man movies, I dunno). (The snowflake thing doesn’t bother me.) Go look them up. Tell me what you think. But be prepared to be disturbed. Not SAW II disturbed. Worse.

Tomorrow: Not the Olympics.

My Honey and I call the Olympics (sorry the “Olympic Winter Games”) the “lyms.” We have one of those couple-y things with a secret language. It’s not a creepy secret language like those piercing non-English ones I imagine certain twins raised by wolves have. Maybe it is, but at least I can say that it’s a version of English.

Anyway, we’ve been watching the lyms for the past couple of days. As a sports fan, I look forward to them, but I get tense about Tivo (really Tifaux) capacity. I’ve stressed how vigilant we must be, but as a curling fan (really–it’s cool to watch, I promise), I’m putting our hard drive at risk with overnight tapings of the USA feed. It’s a risk I’m going to have to live with because I’m not getting up at 5am to watch curling. Hell, I can’t even get up at 6:45 to work out. Which I should.

I’ve decided that luge is weak. I mean it’s fast, but the best luger EVER is known as the flying sausage. You can’t even tell how fast they’re going. Honey and I were watching the downhill after the luge and they’re going 20 miles an hour slower and look like they could die at any second. Plus there’s the whole business of the lugers needing to be “relaxed” as the announcer kept saying.

I had a weak moment while watching the luge where I hoped out loud that the American would not medal. I get so irritated with the “homer” tone of NBC’s broadcasts that sometimes I don’t want Americans to win. Honey pointed out (rightly so) that she’s an American and if she were ever an Olympian I could and should root for her. The dudeness of the snowboarders suggests, she said, that they may be Democrats. So they’re probably ok. I conceded her point, by which time the American luger’s 4th place position was assured in much the same way that when you start talking about whether somebody is dead or not they die right away after. I feel somewhat responsible in that vein for the deaths of Herve Villechaize and Fay Wray.

A few more random lym thoughts:

The skating guys with flames coming from their heads DID NOT suggest passion to me, no matter what Costas says. Neither did the people in tree outfits or the disembodied legs.

Short track speed skating makes me really nervous. And Apolo Anton Ohno needs an extra “l” in his name.

My honey is right that for a guy who “hates the media” the Bode Miller is more present on my tv than he should be.

I can’t put a finger on why I like how much the Italians like their athletes and why I hate the pro-American NBC coverage. It may be related to Laura Bush. I’m not sure.

One non-Olympic thought:
If Dick Cheney shoot his FRIEND in the face, how can we trust him around bigger guns?

For those of you who aren’t watching the minutiae in the news today, you may have missed this item. Disney/ABC traded Al Michaels, the sportscaster, to NBC (which owns Universal) in exchange for the rights to Oswald the Rabbit.

Yes indeed. A guy was traded for a cartoon character. For those of you who don’t follow the Disney “world,” Oswald was an early creation of Walt Disney and a precursor to Mickey Mouse. Disney created him while working for Universal and they’ve retained the rights all these years, media corporate mergers notwithstanding.

Michaels was planning to do Monday Night Football for ESPN, but for lots of complicated (and boring) reasons, he wants out of his contract with ABC, thus the trade.

Here’s how it went down:

NBC guy: We want Al.

ABC guy: You can’t have him.

NBC: What do you want for him?

ABC: Um, one of Leno’s cars.

NBC: No can do. How about a gross of peacock cups?

ABC: (sigh) Ok, let’s see, how about a successful sitcom. Maybe My Name is Earl?

NBC: Are you kidding? You can have the rights to the unaired episodes of Book of Daniel. Watch out though, the scary Christians will hate you.

ABC: Nah. OK, let’s see how about we give you Chris Berman, the most annoying sportscaster ever?

NBC: You want to give us Berman so that we take Michaels. No way. See we got Keith Olberman already and he’s pretty funny even if he is difficult. Plus he keeps punking O’Reilly, which is pretty nice. Berman would just pun his name. Plus he never shuts up and every senesible person in the world hates him.

ABC: Are you mareketing to sensible people now? No wonder you’re third. Anyway, how about you give us one of your lamer cable channels? USA?

NBC: It is lame, but no. You want the footage of Costas trying to explain the symbolism of the Opening Ceremonies of the Torino Olympics? By the way isn’t “Torino” a cool way to refer to it? ‘Turin” is so pedestrian. That footage is so “right now.”*

ABC: Ok, let’s cut to it. We want the rabbit.

NBC: Rabbit?

ABC: Yeah, the Disney rabbit. All those jokes about how often rabbits procreate–they’re hilarious. Plus which, the Disney people WILL NOT shut up about the rabbit.

NBC: You want to swap the rabbit for Michaels?

ABC: Yep.

NBC: Well, ok. It’s sort of weird.

ABC: OK, throw in some peacock cups too, then if anybody asks it’ll seem less random.

NBC: You got it.

*I know the swap happened before the opening ceremonies, give me a little latitude.

There you have it, the sporkseye view of Hollywood. Come back soon when we will explore other important Hollywood topics like whether Ryan Phillippe is most jealous of wife Reese Witherspoon’s money or talent. And we’ll reveal, through the magic of Scout’s life experience, which “characters” at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood are the skankiest. My money is on Elmo. We’ll see.

My family likes baseball. We’ve flirted with football a little, basketball a little. I like soccer ok and cycling. But baseball is the main sport. This is an odd thing, actually, since none of us played it much. My brother played a year or two of little league. I played intramurals in college and go through batting cage phases. Hard hit balls=people’s heads in my weaker moments.

I like going to the ballgame with my mother. At some point she will observe (always with the same sage nod), “home team bats last.”

I grew up in Atlanta, home of a really bad baseball team for a number of years. There was one good year in the Dale Murphy/Bob Horner era. But mostly, it was Chief Knockahoma and Princess Winnalotta in the outfield. If I recall correctly Princess Winnalotta was arrested for drunk driving at some point, bringing an end to THAT particular racist mascot. Knockahoma persisted longer.

As the Braves got better, our family collective fandom of them increased. I loved Mark Lemke and Terry Pendleton and the rest of the early 90s Braves. I’ve never done the chop and never will. It’s bad, really bad. I wish they’d stop. Ok? Ok.

By adulthood, I had moved to a broader conception of baseball. I liked going to old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore where really old women with whiskey and cigarette voices talked about Billy Ripken had more heart that Cal Jr. The O’s were ok in my eyes, though the whole Ripken thing never did a lot for me. I’ve only been to Camden Yards once. It was nice, but I missed the thrill I always got when returning to my car at Memorial Stadium and discovering it was still there.

To say that my brother and I are not close would be something of an understatement. I regret that we aren’t, I try occasionally to rectify things, and usually fail.

We can talk about baseball. He likes it a lot. We both carried it away from Atlanta.

When I moved to L.A. I couldn’t root for the Dodgers. They were in the same league (and for many years, geographically counter-intuitively, the same division as the Braves). When I met my honey, I found a new baseball home. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the O.C., place of her birth, had a team all its own. An American League team. One with a compelling and tragic history like the BoSox but without the operatic hand-wringing that the older cursed teams had. Ok, so Disney owned them for a while and Jackie Autry isn’t exactly my kind of person, but the 2002 World Series was one of the great periods in my life. Honey and I even named our 2002 new cat Halo. Sometimes I wonder if I take things from my honey by liking them too. But, that’s a topic for another time.

I also developed a baseball aesthetic. I wanted to root for good guys, men of honor and character and intelligence. I read the sports pages and magazines carefully. I became something of a Blue Jays fan because of my admiration of Carlos Delgado. As the Salon sportswriter King Kaufman notes, there a complex calculus to being a fan. If you care, here’s my hierarchy in baseball:

Angels
Braves
Blue Jays Orioles

Then there’s the Yankees, but I’ll save them for another time. Hate isn’t pretty, but it is real.

So, I got an e-mail from my brother today asking if I’d like to be in the his fantasy baseball league. I was feeling really warm toward him (and said so in my return e-mail). Then I found this phrase in the e-mail: “All of you are close friends (or family members).” Nice to be in the parenthetical dichotomy, don’t you think? I told him I’d do it. But, now I gotta find some National League players who aren’t Braves, Nats, Mets, or Cubs (his league’s admitted emphasis) to buy and root for. It’s hard to work up a lot of enthusiasm for drafting Pirates, or Reds, or Rockies. I’m going to try. I guess I like the Padres ok, maybe some of them are worthwhile. And then, my brother can lose all his money to his parenthetical sister. Go team!

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