I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

—Bob Dylan

I burned a hole in my remote control tonight. I juggled three programs: the Angels-A’s game, the Giants-Padres game, and Martin Scorsese’s new documentary on Bob Dylan.

The Giants and A’s were living parallel lives. They both finished one game out last year. They both started four-game series tonight, trailing their opponents in the standings by four games. They both pretty much needed a sweep to avoid elimination. They both need a miracle.

*Click*. Eric Chavez homers. The A’s enter the ninth inning trailing 4-3.

*Click*. Bob Dylan explains how he studied other musicians, trying to figure out what made them so good, what they all have in common. He says there’s something in their eyes, something that says, “I know something that you don’t.”

*Click*. The top of the ninth is taking forever in Oakland. A walk, a hit, and a pitching change drags things out. Huston Street gets Juan Rivera to pop out to shortstop, to keep it a one-run game.

*Click*. Flip to the Giants game. The Giants also trail by a run entering the ninth. Trevor Hoffman is in. He gets two outs, runner on first. One out to go.

Then the Giants get their miracle. Randy Winn hits a ball to deep center. It lands in Brian Giles’ glove, but when Giles hits the wall, the ball jars loose. Winn ends up on third base. After Omar Vizquel walks, J.T. Snow singles to right, and the Giants lead, 3-2.

*Click*. Will the parallel lives continue? Can the A’s get a miracle too?

No such luck. The A’s and Giants paths suddenly diverge. K-Rod sets down the A’s, 1-2-3.

*Click*. Armando Benitez needs one more out. Ramon Hernandez grounds out to Vizquel.

The Giants’ hopes are still alive. The A’s are hanging on by the slimmest of threads.

I’ve been considering going to Tuesday’s game. But now that the A’s have lost, do I really want to witness the Angels clinch the division? And on the A’s home turf? Why set myself up for that kind of pain?

*Click*. Dylan is explaining why he was so prolific in those days. He felt he was exploring something new, something he had never done, nor anyone else.

I will not go down under the ground
‘Cause somebody tells me that death’s comin’ ’round
An’ I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be high,
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

—Bob Dylan

Indeed. See you at the Coliseum.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

Last night’s game report (mouse over the image):

• it was breast cancer awareness day. they released doves to symbolize hope.
• rod barajas was initially called out on a foul tip. the umpires discussed it and ruled the ball hit the ground.
• one pitch after the reversed call, barajas hit a three-run homer.
• rich harden pitched an inning. a nice sight, but probably too little too late.
• mark kotsay stranded the bases loaded twice. a’s lose 6-2.

Angels, tonight. 2005 season, four games.

They’re partying in Sydney, like it’s Boston 2004.

The Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League broke a 72-year championship drought yesterday, defeating the West Coast Eagles 58-54 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. They say it was one of the best Grand Finals ever.

In 1999, I went to an Australian rules football game at the MCG, as they call their sport’s most hallowed ground. It was awesome, a really entertaining sport. Here’s a “footy” primer, if you’re not familiar with the rules.

Footy fans are intense. The match I went to was just an ordinary weeknight regular season game, and there were almost 30,000 people in the stands. Each team has a fight song the fans all sing, and they wave flags and banners all through the match. Here’s a picture from my visit:

Saturday, the Swans had to hang on tooth and nail for their long-awaited victory. They were leading by just five with a minute left. (If you kick the ball between the middle goal posts, you get six points, so the Eagles trailed by only one score.)

The Eagles almost scored a game-winning goal, twice. Once, they got a one-pointer (which you get if the ball goes between the pair of posts on the side). And then…well, just watch the last minute of the final here.

Wow, that was an exciting finish! That’s what the Red Sox victory should have been like last year. That four-game sweep was so anti-climactic. The Red Sox should have had to fight with everything they had to defeat their ghosts.

That’s the proper way to break a curse! Although, hearing the Notre Dame fight song as they celebrated was kinda weird. Still, that’s way better than watching Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore running around on the field.

I suppose, though, that beggars can’t be choosers. If the price for breaking Cal’s 66-year Rose Bowl drought were having to watch Adam Duritz run around naked on the field, I’d probably pay it.

And I wonder, what’s the price for winning an ALDS series?

I just updated the Periodic Table of Blogs. In that spirit, here’s some bonus blog browsing:

• Faster than light: If you’re going to write about baseball, there’d better be some poetry in it.
   
• Boo!
   
• Greg Perry Son Rivers has a poem and a painting about Fenway Park.
   
• A hole in the radio: some wonderful baseball haiku.
   
• “Pitchers are obviously not human. They have the ghosts of dead people in them.”: Jack Spicer. (Via Octopus Magazine.)

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

Bryan Smith has a nice run through some top prospects who pitched last night over at Baseball Analysts. Here’s what he says about Francisco Liriano, whom the A’s beat last night:

Simply put, Liriano was just too hittable yesterday. It did not look like the Francisco I saw at the Futures Game, the point in time in which his tear really took off. Still, there was a smell of dominance in the air, as despite struggles in his 3.2 innings of work, Liriano managed to strike out six hitters. Few pitchers have no-hit stuff (3 good pitches, none under 85 mph) as consistently as Liriano, who even amidst a bad performance showed why he is top dog in a loaded Minnesota minor league system.

Liriano’s “stuff” was indeed impressive. But except for one at-bat against Mark Kotsay, he never really had the A’s fooled: when he got them out, he simply overpowered them. It didn’t look like he had mastered the art of deception yet.

Still, if I were a Twins fan, I’d be excited about him. A pitcher can’t learn to overpower, but he can learn to deceive.

He’s very reminicient of Rich Harden when he first came up. Harden at first relied primarily on overpowering people, and was very inconsistent as a result. If his control was off, he’d struggle, walking people or throwing fastballs down the middle. That’s what happened to Liriano last night.

Harden spent about a year in the majors before he learned to combine his electric stuff with deception. When that clicked for him, Harden become one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he could win even without pinpoint control.

Until he started pulling muscles, that is, but that’s another story.

With pitchers like Harden and Liriano, this seems to be a natural process. You overpower people all the way up to the majors, where the hitters make you make an adjustment. It probably takes pitchers like that a year or two to figure it out.

Unless you’re Felix Hernandez, of course. He might be an exception, although he did get roughed up a bit in his last outing. Still, from what I’ve seen of him, he showed up in the major leagues with both electric stuff and ace-like deception at the age of nineteen. Remarkable.

The Twins have had a rough year, but when Liriano figures it out, and pairs up with Johan Santana, the Twins will be competitive again, I’m sure, just from those two guys alone.

Today, the A’s go for a sweep. I’ll be at the ballpark. Pictures later…

the Oakland Athletics’ deficit in the AL West at the time of this posting.

One-and-a-half is a self-referential Google query. One-and-a-half is waiting for Googlebot to become recursive.

One-and-a-half is a confusing artifact that is difficult to recognise.

One-and-a-half is in the archive just now. One-and-a-half is from The Chronicles of Narnia. One-and-a-half is the oldest document in the National Archives of Scotland and is one of our treasures.

One-and-a-half is wounded. One-and-a-half is always sick and going to the doctor.

One-and-a-half is putting a good face on it, since (if I remember right) the “one” had obviously undergone major modifications and less-than-successful repairs before it was lost for 500 years.

One-and-a-half is now considered too high for all breeds, and one-and-a-quarter is the current requirement for most breeds.

One-and-a-half is the standard spoken-English way of expressing this number, and it is written as “1 1/2”.

1 1/2 is half of three. 1 1/2 is calculated by dividing 3 by 2. 1 1/2 is almost a two. 1 1/2 is the raw, irrational version of “two”.

1 1/2 is not equal or better. 1 1/2 is sometimes meant as a precise measurement or count and sometimes as a vague approximation or rhetorical exaggeration.

1 1/2 is available as a byproduct of energy metabolism.

1 1/2 is a torrent of activity – really a happy kid with a drooly face and big round brown eyes full of mischief. 1 1/2 is not allowed on the new carpet.

1 1/2 is the same as one point five.

One point five is one of those cinematic offerings that is filled with people who are neither angels or devils, and consequently feel all the more genuinely human for being so. One point five is actually the same movie as X-Men with more features on dvd.

One point five is spread over two discs. One point five is Wim Wenders, number two is Fassbinder.

One point five is a ménage-a-trois, and half a sock is “Don’t open the door! Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me!”

One point five is a big deal, right?

One point five is an insignificant event save for the inclusion of a spell checker by default maybe, but it is also a fine-tuned release of a great email client.

One point five is written 1.50, one and one-quarter is written 1.25.

1.50 is a dialectical approach. 1.50 is utilised for teaching, lecturing and tutorials. 1.50 is the same arbitrary scaling factor currently applied to the base risk weights, to give the granularity scaling factor (“GSF”) actually used for the calculation (Basel, 2001, paragraph 457).

1.50 is more in the ball park. 1.50 is not such a bad place to be.

1.50 is a haven for nature lovers, for families who want to get away from it all and for the lovers of history who enjoy exploring the fascinating wartime defences.

1.50 is based at Grimsby. 1.50 is technically in Holm, and the Italian Chapel, the relic of the builders of those marvels, though within the parish, is more associated with its own small island, Lamb Holm (pronounced holm).

1.50 is again evidenced per the purchase price of a second bride.

1.50 is not called and half, it is called half of three.

Half of three is what I call it.

Half of three is probably right. Half of three is VERY new. Half of three is not bad. Half of three is fine. Half of three is acceptable also.

Half of three is fine and dandy for the drivers, but it can be hell for members of the media who are trying to cover the action, or lack thereof.

Half of three is a good-sized dose for me. Half of three is a little bit too much. Half of three is certainly too much — but does not seem way out of line.

Half of three is still ahead of us. Half of three is the end.

Half of three is still too much.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

The Oakland Athletics are the winners of the Heavyweight Of The Year title for the 2005 regular season.

The Heavyweight of the Year goes to the team that wins the most title bouts throughout the regular season. The A’s have won 27 bouts, seven more than Toronto, their closest competitor.

The competition treats baseball like boxing, where if you beat the champion, you become the new champion.

Seattle and Toronto, the two last teams with a chance to catch the A’s, were eliminated yesterday when the Mariners lost to Texas. Toronto will have no more title bouts, while Seattle can have at most six, not enough to catch the A’s.

Another prize goes to the winner of the crown after the last day of the regular season. Six teams were eliminated from that competition yesterday, as a result of Seattle’s loss: the Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Royals, Tigers, and Twins. All National League teams were eliminated earlier this summer.

For current standings, and possible bouts remaining in the season, look at the sidebar.

Congratulations to the A’s!

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

This was a Double Up round. Wagers were made here.

Update: Derek Smart was the only person to get the correct question: What are pitchers? He bet 100, so he won 200 points.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

I witnessed something truly sublime yesterday.

sublime. adjective.

• Of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth.
• Impressive; Inspiring awe, usually because of elevated quality or transcendent excellence
• Not to be excelled; supreme.

I am not a particularly religious person. I’m a confirmed Lutheran, but I don’t attend church anymore. I don’t believe the universe operates on willpower. Like Jon Carroll, I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason.

And yet I experience moments that feel religious. These moments usually involve something sublime, something heavenly, when you know that this is as good as it gets.

It’s a weird paradox. One part of my brain rejects the conventional idea of God, yet another part knows God. Perhaps this will be explained one day by neurotheology or maybe neurogastroenterotheology. Until that happens, I’ll just have to live with the mystery.

* * *

A couple weeks ago, I saw a vanity license plate that read “VOGON.” Oh no! Is it an omen? Is the Destructor Fleet on its way? Are we about to be subject to some really bad poetry? I started to panic.

Don’t Panic!

There’s an art to vanity plates. There are good ones and bad ones, and usually we can tell the difference. What makes a good vanity plate? I’m not sure. What makes any artwork great? The very best vanity plates are clever and funny and say something about both the owner and the vehicle. I remember thinking that VOGON was a pretty good, but not great. VOGON belongs on a Hummer or a monster truck or something. But this one was on a luxury SUV. It ruined the effect. The owner was no Vogon.

* * *

Alas, my sublime experience yesterday did not happen during the A’s-Red Sox game. The A’s suffered their second straight late-inning loss; the Angels got their second straight late-inning victory, and the A’s fell 2 games out.

Two games out is OK. With four games left against Anaheim, a 3-1 series victory gets them tied. Until they fall three games out…

Don’t Panic!

These two losses didn’t really bother me. They were two well-played games, where the balls just didn’t bounce the A’s way.

Danny the Rabbit pitched a good game, but suffered the Wrath of Manny, who drove in the winning run for the second straight day.

The A’s don’t have a Manny, or a Papi, or an ARod, or a Vlad. Having a player like that is like a tennis player having a big serve. Every now and then, they get you some free points. The A’s have to get all their points the hard way.

* * *

After the game, I loaded up the kids in the car, and we headed out to dinner at a local restaurant. As I signed my credit card receipt, I had a strange urge to write a note on the napkin, and leave it for the waitress. I wrote this:

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

* * *

As we got in the car to drive home, I noticed a Volkswagen Rabbit convertible had parked in the space opposite mine. It had a vanity plate.

WASCALY

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the perfection of an art form. The ultimate license plate. It doesn’t get any better than that. Sublime.

A baseball owner visits an executive, and says, “We’re a small-market baseball team, and we’d like you to be our new GM.”

The executive says, “Sorry, I don’t do small markets. I’d just be swimming upstream.”

The owner says, “But our ballpark is really a gem.”

The executive says, “Okay, then, sing to me: how’s your team?”

The owner says:

Oh budded bellbottoms,
Thy pitchertations are to me
As gobbled gubiczotchlets
On a lowery buck
That runelvysly goeth hocking hocking hocking
Hocking out its long brown hubers
Into a rancid howell chip!
Now thou must suck the stemlid guiel
Slurping sweenely up the greinkeloogies
And dip living gotays
Down thy snotted sisco stairs
While certain lima leoslime
Beneath the bayless brett berroan
Gloop doth dare make ewing not teahendrones.
Go camp and carrascolate under my snyde,
Amborixing my dougals
With slimy slimy blancowoodles,
Or else I shall slide thy gobblewarts over my burgoscruncheon
See if I don’t.

The owner looks at the executive and says, “That’s what we’ve got. Aren’t you enthralled?”

The executive sits silently, then finally says, “That’s quite a team. What are you called?”

The owner says, “The Royals!”

This recent article entitled The Ten Stupidest Utopias! brought back memories. If the author had read the final paper I wrote in my Utopian Fiction class at UC Berkeley back in 1987, I’m sure my utopia would have easily cracked the top 10.

The final exam for the class was to write our own utopian (or dystopian) short story. Mine involved a global thermonuclear war breaking out during a Super Bowl. The only human survivors of the war were 80,000 football fans watching the game inside a concrete domed stadium.

The civilization that emerged from this catastrophe used the NFL as its cultural foundation and economic model. Everybody lived in domed cities (to keep the radiation out), cities were organized into divisions, and divisions were assigned industries in which they would compete economically. Only the NFC East cities would make, say, beer, while only the AFC West cities would make, for example, clothing.

Any profits the cities earned were invested in the football team. The more efficient your economy, the better your football team. What better economic incentive is there than that?

Now, that’s clearly a stupider utopia than Plato’s Republic, or William Gibson’s Neuromancer, wouldn’t you say?

I thought about using baseball as a model instead, but the sex and violence of football just makes for a better story.

I dug around in my old papers, and tried to find the story. I found my first draft, but not my final paper. Dang. Where did I put it? I gotta do some cleaning up around here. My house is dystopianly disorganized.

We won’t call it a “Daily Double”, because it isn’t really daily. But it’s time to double up (or more!), if you can.

Here’s how it works:

• The category is “Literary Baseball for 500”.
• Everybody who is on the board is eligible to bet any amount they have, or up to 500 points, whichever is greater.
• Place your bets in the comments below. I will close betting at 11pm PT tonight. If you don’t bet, I’ll assume your bet is zero.
• Shaun P will choose the time and day that I will post the answer. It can be any time of his choice, Saturday through Monday, subject to negotiation if I have a schedule conflict.
• At the exact time Shaun P chooses, I will post the answer, with comments closed. You then have ten minutes to email me your question, at scorebard AT yahoo Dot com.
• The first correct email I receive will win double their bet. Any subsequent correct emails will win their exact bet. Otherwise, you lose your exact bet.

A’s win; Angels lose; the AL West is all square.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is this quote from Macha in the SF Chronicle about bringing in Huston Street with a four-run lead (emphasis mine):

“He had two days off and I’m not playing a statistical game right now,” Macha said. “There’s only one statistic and that’s to win the game. You’ve got to go with your best guy, and for me, tonight, that’s a save situation.”

I wasn’t so much bothered by bringing in Street; if a runner gets on, he’s gonna have to get up in the pen anyway. What bothers me is that I was right about Macha yesterday when I said this:

Macha is choking. He’s changing his managing style, just because it’s September. Perhaps we should call him Maucha.

The A’s are where they are today because they play a statistical game. Now Macha has declared that he’s suddenly throwing statistics out the window, and he’s going to manage however the hell he feels like, logic be damned. All of a sudden, the A’s have Dusty Baker in the dugout.

Worked great in Cleveland, dude. Way to improve our odds of winning.

Are you watching, Pittsburgh? This is the real Ken Macha, giving the middle finger to sabermetrics when it counts the most. Macha must know he’s outta here. He must be figuring, this could be my last shot, so if we’re gonna lose this time, we’re gonna lose my way.

*Shudder…*

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHH! Macha has cost the A’s two games in this series with stupid stupid stupid pitching decisions. (Well, the game isn’t over yet as I write this, but I need to rant.)

Last night, he took Kirk Saarloos out too soon. Tonight, to make up for that bonehead mistake, he leaves Barry Zito in way too long.

What the **** is Macha watching? Zito had control over nothing–nothing–but his fastball. He seemed afraid to throw his changeup to the Indians power hitters. His curveball was hanging all night long.

He did well to get to the seventh with the game tied, given his lack of stuff tonight. Zito tiptoed through the heart of the Indians order all night long. He should have left after six, and let someone else face that part of the batting order. Or perhaps you let him face the first two batters, and take him out after facing the lefty Travis Hafner.

But Macha decided to keep playing with matches. He left Zito in to face switch-hitting Victor Martinez with two on and no outs. Zito got lucky: Martinez swung at ball four and struck out.

At this point there’s one out, still two runners on. It could easily have been bases loaded, no outs. Zito had thrown over 120 pitches, there was a right-handed batter (Ronnie Belliard) coming up. Anyone with eyes can see that Zito is out of gas, but Macha goes out to the mound, and somehow leaves Zito in the game!

And so Zito, of course, hangs a curveball to Belliard, who parks it over the left-field wall for a home run. 6-3 Indians.

Gggggggggahhhhhhh! I need a Ken Macha voodoo doll, pronto. I need to throw it across the room. I need to smash it onto the wall. Otherwise, I’m certain to break my remote control.

Macha is choking. He’s changing his managing style, just because it’s September. Perhaps we should call him Maucha.

* * *

If there’s any consolation to these bonehead moves, it’s that Mike Scioscia keeps matching Macha, dead brain cell for dead brain cell.

You keep on playing Steve Finley every day, Mike. You keep letting Erstad face those lefty pitchers. It’s our only hope.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

Why why why did Ken Macha take out Kirk Saarloos from Tuesday’s game? It makes no sense:

• He had only thrown 89 pitches in six innings.
• The umpire, Larry Vanover, was giving Saarloos a dream strike zone.

Saarloos is a sinker ball pitcher; he wants his pitches down. To beat him, you have to make him throw the ball up in the zone, where he is quite hittable. A low strike zone helps him a lot, a high strike zone is trouble.

Vanover was calling pitches six inches off the ground strikes. Cleveland manager Eric Wedge got himself ejected complaining about it. Rightfully so.

The umpire was giving the A’s a huge advantage. Saarloos could just keep throwing the ball right at the hitters shoetops, and they’d either swing over it, pound it in the ground, or take it for a strike.

Ken Macha took that advantage out of the game, at least one full inning before he really needed to. Witasick came in (these days, he’s starting to give me the heebie-jeebies every time I see him warm up), and the game fell apart immediately. Boom, boom, 5-2 loss.

Unless Saarloos was hurt or something, I don’t get it. At all.

* * *

I figure the wild card is pretty much out of reach now. The wild card will go to the Indians or Yankees. If the A’s somehow play well enough to pass both those teams, they’ll play well enough to pass the Angels, too. The A’s playoff hopes are all about the division title now.

Miraculously, the Angels lost again tonight. I was monitoring the game on my computer until the Angels loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the ninth, tied 1-1. At that point, I gave up and went and did something else. Somehow, though, Seattle escaped that jam, and scored in the bottom half of the inning to win the game.

Whew! The A’s are still a game out.

* * *

The AL West pennant race seems pretty exciting to me, but obviously, it lacks the quality of the AL East. We’re second-class citizens out here, so we make do with what we have.

(Link via Pearly Gates.)