A couple of links while I put together posts on the Farmers Only service, this new hair curler bucket, my burgeoning tennis career and Miguel Cabrera.
— Albert Pujols at-bats used to be events. If you were a baseball fan, you would basically build your entire game-watching experience around it. I know that’s how I felt watching the guy hit. Now? I watched Pujols Sunday. The overpowering feeling was nothingness.
— Doc Emrick isn’t only a joy as a hockey announcer. He has a pretty great story.
Wow. Posnanski’s writing has really turned into utter garbage very quickly. This is truly a Nate Colbert-style decline, in terms of rapidity.
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I can be critical of Poz, at times, but I don’t see what you don’t like about thse two offerings.
Thanks for the link to Doc Emrick. His story sounds familiar — in that I too fell in love with hockey at my first live game. [Lived 45 min,. north of Pittsburgh at the time — so the comments about Geneva College / Beaver County Times / Bowling Green (yes I know that they have a team in the CCHA) resonated with me deeply.] Covered the college hockey team for the school paper, ended up with a journalism degree, and took a job at a small daily in southern Minnesota because they were one of two states profiled in Sports Illustrated as being hockey hotbeds. It was too early in the era for me, a female, to get a job as SD for a hockey team, so I switched careers. But I still follow hockey, particularly college, devoutly. [Also a Pgh. Pirates fan — that, also, never leaves you.]
I find it kind of odd that there is no mention of Gene Hart in the Mike Emrick story.
(and by odd I mean annoying.)
Great story on Doc Emrick. I was lucky to grow up in Las Vegas, close enough to the LA market to get The Vin, plus Dr. Enberg on the Angels and Rams, Chick with the Lakers, and Bob Miller with the Kings. In NYC in grad school I got to hear Marv Albert do the Rangers and marveled that he could actually stay ahead of the action AND find time to insult Sal Messina. But I have to say, Messrs. Costas and Michaels belie their own statements. Emrick is the best hockey announcer today, bar none. Whenever you hear Costas and Michaels, you know who is the greatest sportscaster around, because both of them are clearly pups out of that guy in his 64th year with the Dodgers.
I fell asleep listening to Vinnie every night from 1966 until I left for college. It was awesome. The amazing thing was that he start in the mid 50s and is still at it. I heard him recently, and I think, finally has lost a step. But he’s still Vin. There will never be another like him. I mean, who else talks in poetry?
On the Pujols story, Albert probably didn’t realize that Angel fans don’t care that much (unlike Cardinal fans). (I was a season ticket holder, who did care (there weren’t many of us), for many years when I lived in CA, so I get to say this). Basically they come to see the pretty girls, drink a few beers, and hit the parking lot early to avoid traffic. Also, Albert didn’t realize that the ocean air comes in during the late afternoon into the evening. Once that happens, the air is thick and the ball tends to die when hit high. It’s not good for the ego. The warning track is a place of death for high fly balls. I saw Pujols early on hit one, give his little indications that the ball was going out…. and it was caught about 7-8 ft in front of the fence. He was like, what the heck? Not too many guys really hit a lot of HRs in Anaheim (outside of the steroid era). It’s tough on the bat and the mind.
Good article on Doc Emrick. I don’t even like Hockey!