Agreeing with Mr. Littlejeans
Observations from the Baseball Playoffs
By Matt Stroup
10/16/03
Towards the end of the film Rushmore, after Max Fischer has just put on the hit play "Heaven and Hell" in front of a shocked audience in his school's gymnasium, Rushmore's gym teacher turns to the school custodian, a diminutive man by the name of Mr. Littlejeans, who has barely uttered a word the entire movie, and asks: "What did you think, Mr. Littlejeans?"
Mr. Littlejeans' response, in a heavy accent: "Best play ever, man."
If you've seen this movie about 4,000 times like I have and are as big of a nerd as I am when it comes to picking out obscure lines from films, you'll recognize that this is one of the unheralded great lines in a movie that is laden with them.
Now, if Mr. Littlejeans were a baseball fan (and who am I to say that he isn't?), and you were to ask him what he thought of this year's postseason, you'd have to guess that his reply would be, "Best playoffs ever, man."
I've seen some great postseasons, but I'd have to say I agree with Mr. Littlejeans here. Think about it. From the very start, these playoffs have been incredible. The first round of the playoffs, which infuriates me more than anything (mostly because the series is only five games, which is a ridiculously small sample to decide a team's fate after playing a 162 game season) was awesome this year, except for the fact that a certain hometown team of mine was eliminated prematurely once again.
The first round saw the Braves-Cubs series and the Red Sox-A's series go to a climactic 5 games, none ending in a more exciting fashion than Sox starting pitcher Derek Lowe momentarily returning to his closer role of years past and wiping out the A's with two tailing fastballs that screamed Greg Maddux in his prime.
Since that first round, the storylines have continued to grow. Stars have been born (the Marlins' 20 year-old Miguel Cabrera looked awesome at both the plate and in the field against the Cubs) and, more importantly, stars have been re-born: Ivan Rodriguez and Moises Alou, after having hit a lull, or even a decline in their respective careers during the past few seasons, were the two best position players on the field in the NLCS.
Now, the Red Sox and Yankees gear up for a Game 7 in the ALCS tonight, five days after the surreal events of Game 3, which saw, among other things, a 72-year old man get thrown to the ground. Tonight's pitching match-up, the same as in Game 3: Pedro Martinez vs. Roger Clemens. It doesn't get much better than that.
Best playoffs ever, indeed.
Some other observations from the first two rounds of the playoffs:
--Has anyone else noticed that FOX is employing cameramen who seem to think that they're filming skeet shooting rather than baseball? I mean, seriously, every time a reasonably deep fly ball is hit, the cameraman jerks the camera way up into the sky, giving the visual effect that the ball is long gone, when it quite often is not. You can just picture the director screaming "Pull!" every time a fly ball is hit. There's nothing more infuriating than watching a game and not knowing where a deep fly ball is headed when it comes off the bat. A perfect example of this was in Game 4 of the Braves-Cubs series, when Sammy Sosa, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, hit a shot to deep center. The cameraman panned way up, and it looked like the ball was long gone for a game-tying home run. If we could have seen Braves center fielder Andruw Jones on that play, however, we would have known that he was tracking the hit the whole way, and it settled into his glove at the front of the warning track.
In another instance during the NLCS, the FOX cameraman completely lost an Aramis Ramirez grand slam as he was seemingly too preoccupied with soaring through the clouds to be bothered with finding the baseball. Honestly, from the moment the ball left the bat to the time it landed in the stands, the FOX cameraman did not have sight of it for a second. It was only on a replay from a different angle that they were able to show where the ball landed.
Seeing this happen time and again begs the question, "What is FOX doing?" A friend of mine recently posited the theory that they're trying to create excitement by making it seem like balls hit deep to the outfield are going to get out of the park, and this notion seems to make sense. FOX has never been averse to resorting to gimmicks, and, if you watch the games closely, it's not that the cameramen are panning way up on every fly ball; it's only ones that look like they could be going out.
Whatever the case may be, there's such a thing as trying to get too fancy, and this is a clear case of it. The games are exciting enough without cheap and disorienting gimmicks.
--Speaking of which, FOX has also decided to have current players whose seasons have already ended join their regular commentators in the booth for the duration of the NLCS and ALCS. This, in theory, is a good idea. Having current players around, if they're articulate, can provide a level of insight that you simply can't get from someone who didn't play the game.
Mets' pitcher Al Leiter, helping out FOX broadcasters Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons during the NLCS, has been a perfect example of this. Leiter is energetic, enthusiastic, knows when to pick his spots and has improved with each game. His segments during which he demonstrated pitching grips and what arm action to use for throwing certain pitches added a lot to the series. As a little side bonus, there was the amusing fact that, while doing these segments on camera, he was looking at the TV monitor so intently that it was almost frightening.
If you were reading carefully two paragraphs ago, you'll recall that I wrote "Having current players around, if they're articulate, can provide a level of insight that you simply can't get from someone who didn't play the game." Note the conditional clause there: if they're articulate, because Mariners' second baseman Bret Boone, "helping out" FOX commentators Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, is anything but articulate. Unlike Leiter, Boone does not have much interesting to add to the game, does not know when to talk (he mostly just keeps quiet) and essentially doesn't seem to add anything. You could basically go a whole inning without realizing he's even there.
In Boone's defense, calling a game is not easy. I know from personal experience working in a three-man booth during a live broadcast that it is often difficult to balance talking too much or not talking enough. Surely, working with FOX's team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, both of whom have a lot to say, would make it even more difficult to distinguish one's self.
With all of this in mind, you really can't fault Boone for struggling. You just have to wonder why he's there in the first place...
--Has it crossed anyone else's mind that Grady Little is eerily reminiscent of the assistant coach in The Waterboy, the one who wears overalls, has nipple piercings and speaks in complete and total gibberish masked with a deep, gutteral southern drawl? Do you know the guy I'm talking about? In the climactic scene of the "film," this fellow is so overcome with excitement that he pulls down his overalls (underneath which he is apparently wearing nothing) and starts playing with his nipple rings in excitement.
Is Grady Little going to do this if the Red Sox win the World Series?
If so, I'm not sure if I'm pulling for the Red Sox anymore. Do I want to see this? Are we the people of the free world ready to see this?
--Lastly, could we maybe stop showing the guy who caught the foul ball at the Cubs' game on TV? Don't you think this guy is feeling bad enough about the fact that the Cubbies went on to collapse in Game 6 after he interfered with the play in question? Isn't he feeling sufficiently crummy that they then lost Game 7 that he doesn't need his name and likeness plastered all over every TV network, newspaper and website?
This is actually scary stuff -- Cubs' fans are completely crazy, perhaps blinded by insanity in the face of the incredible possibility of winning a World Series for the first time in 95 years. This guy, whose name will not appear on this website, had to have security at his house to protect him from crazed maniacs who could potentially be trying to hurt him, which might not be a problem if WE WEREN'T BROADCASTING HIS NAME EVERYWHERE!!! Honestly, this is crazy. I love good journalism, but this is not it. Can you just let the man have his privacy? He was just going after a foul ball, and was one of many people doing so, as FOX pointed out during last night's game in an effort to clear his name. The security staff at Wrigley Field had the right idea. They escorted him out of the park with a bag over his head so people wouldn't see his face and record it to memory. Now why did we take that proverbial bag off, essentially strip the guy naked, throw delousing powder on him and feed him to the wolves a la Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption?
And you wonder why people say the media is evil...
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