Baseballhead:
Rumble in the Bungle

Michael Cox

Buenos dias, and a happy Cinco de Mayo to y'all from Baseballhead, the column who has been entirely too hard on the Pepsi people these days, so I thought I'd compliment them on their Pepsi One spots, in which career maniac Tom Green is funny enough to almost make you forget the stuff is just reformulated Diet Pepsi.

Monday night wrestling appeared simultaneously on three networks Monday night, including Fox Sports Net, where an otherwise routine Oriole drubbing was punctuated by Cuban umpire Cesar Valdez, who not only intercepted and tackled an anti-Castro demonstrator who ran on the field, but slammed the guy to the turf with authority and had to be pulled off him.

That moment and the gleeful home run sprint after Andy Morales put the final nail in the Birds' coffin will be the lingering images of the second Orioles-Cuba contest, which ended up being no contest.

The game began after a rain delay, but while it was still raining -- I could imagine Peter Angelos, like a stereotypical Hollywood movie mogul, shouting, "Dammit! I said play!! Playyyy!!!" After all, it wasn't the game in Havana that Angelos really wanted, it was the one on U.S. soil, and he leveraged every contact, called in every favor he could to get the game made, and even a Bal'mer hurricane wasn't going to rain this one out.

It's almost too bad the game wasn't rained out, in retrospect. By the midpoint of the game, fans were booing the Birds with a Philadelphia-like lust, and by the seventh, acres of vacant seats were visible, punctuated by the still-chock-full sections of invited Cubans.

And speaking of those sections, I guess it was okay if groups sat together, waved banners and flags, and even used verboten-in-America bullhorns and whistles...as long as they were Cuban fans. Angelos's got yer freedom of speech right here, buddy.

One other thing: Am I the only one who's finding the new "Fox Box" utterly illegible? The baserunner markers in particular are useless from anything greater than two feet from a 25" screen, and the count at the bottom looks badly spaced and amateurish. After the great box last year, you'd think any changes would be backed up by customer research, but it looks like the only reason they changed it was so they could flash "3-Run Home Run" when a dinger is hit.

ESPN hasn't felt the need to mess with their corner box, because it works, and because unlike the 'Net, where the new gew-gaws are often the attraction, nobody tunes into a TV game to see the new developments in score box technology.

Item: Speaking of the Network With Initials Meaning Nothing, Major League Baseball, incensed over being tossed to the ESPN2 ghetto in favor of ESPN's big NFL deal, want out of their agreement. Knowing that Fox Sports Net is waiting and salivating in the wings, the boys in Bristol aren't planning on going quietly, filing injunctions against anything they could think of in a federal court.

I haven't read the whole contract between our warring factions, but from what I understand, the deal allows ESPN to move games for "events of significant interest." This could be translated as "special events," and although I'm not a labor lawyer, I can say with some degree of certainty that when Bud Selig signed the deal, the one specific thing he intended the clause not to mean was "regularly-scheduled, regular-season NFL games."

That they sought to unceremoniously yank baseball on a regular basis in favor of MLB's sworn enemy was disingenuous on ESPN's part at the very least, and if they didn't think it would result in trouble, they likely didn't hire Ray Knight by accident, either.

Item: Wrigley Field might crack down on alcohol sales after repeated incidents of pelting the field with random debris. The issue became a big deal after an umpire's blown call (go figure) resulted in all manner of garbage, including not only the usual souvenir baseballs, bottles, and coins (recommended by two out of three Yankee fans, and the third one just got beaten up by the other two) but also full cups of beer -- what the hell are you people thinking? That's like throwing gold bricks on the field!

I'm sure our own Hayes Bowman would like to take credit for the outburst, but there's a long and storied history of the Bleacher Bums tossing everything that isn't nailed down (and a few that formerly were) into left-center. It's just that they're doing it a tad often these days. Learn some restraint -- less is more, people! Plus, when I get to Wrigley again I wanna be able to drink a goddamn beer, so don't mess it up, okay?

Perhaps the Cubs should take a page out of the book written while their South Side brothers called the original Comiskey Park home, and seemingly gave the Bears' defensive line summer jobs as ushers.

Item: The cash-strapped Pirates loosen up the padlock on the piggybank and bash out a three-year deal for...Pat Meares? How do you follow that one up -- lure Tony Womack back with a seven- year, $80M deal?

One final note before I resume packing for my Southwest jaunt -- I never thought my piece on umpires would strike such a raw nerve. It has generated the most mail of anything I've done in the past year, and even more than a couple of entire months. Don't hesitate to keep writing, to me or any of the nutcases here. We love it, we read it, and we try to answer it all.

about the author

Michael Cox is preparing his Randy Johnson wig for his trip to the BOB. Help him locate D-Backs pants big enough to conceal the stilts.