I scream for baseball

(Listening to: Guns N' Roses, GN'R Lies)

So here I am. Been a while. If you didn't already know, the next episode of That's When I Reach For My Revolver, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing," has been finished and uploaded. Go ahead and read it, if you'd like.

I don't really want to go in depth regarding the Astros game tonight. I'm so frickin' irritated I could scream. Instead, a few random general queries that popped into my head during Game 2:

1. Is the stunning epidemic of asinine calls from umpires this postseason actually a result of a wave of mass stupidity on the part of the umps, or merely a result of advanced video technology and Fox's fourteen thousand cameras in the stadium (and their willingness to replay each and every play as seen from all of them)? In other words, are these umpires just having a bad month, or have they always been this stupid and science is now allowing us to see it for the first time?

2. Along that train of thought: how many of these bullshit calls have to go in favor of the Chicago White Sox before it's no longer crazy to infer a conspiracy on the part of Major League Baseball? Six? Ten? Fourteen thousand?

3. Is Scott Podsednik's last name pronounced "Pod-sed-nik" or "Poe-sed-nik"? I always thought that first D was silent -- and, indeed, Milo and Ashby pronounce it that way, and I seem to recall hearing someone tell a story about Podsednik's family writing a letter or something to the Milwaukee broadcasters (when he still played there) about saying his name properly. But the Fox guys have been saying "Pod-sed-nik" all throughout the playoffs, and while I've been extremely vocal about my irritation at this (much to the dismay of everyone around me), I'm starting to doubt myself. Maybe I'm wrong? ...Nah.

4. Every time someone hits a dramatic home run in one of these playoff games --like Podsednik, or Konerko -- they always get the same question from the on-the-field reporter during the postgame show: "Were you thinking 'home run' up there?" And the player always gives a variation on the same answer: "Not really, I was just hoping to get something to hit, just to get some wood on the ball and drive it somewhere." You know what I'd like to hear, just once? "Yes. All the way. It was raining, it was late, and it was fucking cold. I wanted to go home." Manny Ramirez might say that. But not white-bread Scott Podsednik.

5. Baseball in high definition is absolutely awesome. Really, it's incredible. But you know what needs to go, Fox? You can keep your fourteen thousand cameras (even the dumb ant's-eye-view looking up at the pitcher), but lose the stupid microphones in the bases. Seriously, what the fuck? Not only are they pointless, we occasionally get a nice, robust BOOM BOOM BOOM when someone spikes their cleats on the bag.

6. At one point, Fox displayed the temperature at the stadium, which was somewhere in the mid-40s. But they also felt it necessary to display the current temperature in Houston. Um, what? Who cares? (And before you think that it's designed to illustrate the differences between playing in Chicago and Houston, I'll remind you that the Houston games will be played indoors. The outside temperature is irrelevant.)

That's it for baseball. I'm gonna talk about Lost, Serenity, Vampire, and some other stuff tomorrow.