Baseball's Befuddling Top 10

There are times when Baseball just Befuddles me.

Watching the World Series, I brought together this short list of Befuddling Bits of Baseball Banalities:

#10 Funny how baseball's foul pole is located in fair territory. Kinda like driving on a parkway and parking on a driveway.

#9 Why's it called a stolen base when the base runner never gets to take it home...or even pawn it?

#8 Have you ever seen a readying on deck batter actually stand in the on deck circle?

#7 Why do fans tolerate the heckler, who thinks that behaving like an a** is a good thing?

#6 Why do rotund baseball managers insist on wearing team uniforms that look like spray-on Halloween costumes? You never see Phil Jackson wearing his old Knicks shorts shorts on the Lakers bench, do you?

#5 Seems like players insist on poking their packages and adjusting their fellas when every fan is watching the action on their oversized high def TV.

#4 At a unit cost of 75 cents a dot, the TINY frozen Dippin' Dots you can only get at a game put a HUGE hole in your wallet.

#3 Stupid statistics. Who cares how many times lefties born in Midwestern states to blond haired mothers whose brother's uncle's neighbor's insurance salesman's sister played AAA for the Yankees in 1997 whiff during rain delayed night games in August?

#2 Why do clueless fans always stand in the 7th belting out the tune "Take Me out to the Ball Game". . . . when we all know they've been there for the previous six innings?

#1 Why call a catcher's testicular protector a cup when no sane person would EVER consider drinking from it?

Would love to hear some of your Befuddling Baseball Bits. We all know they're out there!

Straight talk. No static.

MIKE - thee American made voice on sports.

Muting the World Series

This season, I have officially muted the World Series games on television.

Whaaaat???? you wonder in wild protest. That's right, sports fans, you heard me the first time.
I have employed the ultimate power tool - that glorious device known as the Remote Control - and exercised my God-given right to officially mute World Series telecasts.

Now don't get me wrong on this. You bet I love baseball, but I loathe the litanies of insignificant facts and figures foisted upon me during TV telecasts.

You see, boring baseball statistics have always driven me bonkers.

Do I really need to listen to FOX's Tim McCarver, Master of Minutiae, tell me how many hits a Phillies batter got while hitting lefty versus righty, or how many of his total hits were to the opposite field off right hand pitchers who were born to blond haired mothers whose father’s uncle’s milkman’s neighbor’s son batted .327 for the Yankees AA Farm Team in 1968 and who is 13 times more likely to scratch his crotch area with his right hand when entering the batter’s box during rain delayed Sunday afternoon double-headers in July?

Wheuh! Stupid statistics stifle my baseball likeability!

During this Fall Classic, I'm opting to watch in silence and serenity the bountiful beauty of America's favorite past time . . . without being burdened by baseball banalities.

Straight talk. No static.

MIKE – thee American Made Voice on Sports!

The Turnpike Tussle

Never before has the New Jersey Turnpike been considered such chic conversation.

The typical chatter concerning this 100+ mile stretch of congested concrete and toll toting traffic known as Interstate 95 and connecting Gotham and the City of Brotherly Love normally evokes the ire of irritated travellers.

However, this week the two hour long slab of cement has surfaced as the sports world's salient subject - now known to Northeasterners as the Turnpike Tussle - and pitts baseball's legendary NY Yankees against the reigning world champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Expect this year's Fall Classic to be bigger than baseball bragging rights. The 2009 World Series stakes second fiddle Philadelphia against its northerly nemesis, the more ballyhooed Big Apple.

Yes, this series should settle scores more serious than any sports rivalry. At stake are decades of debates, disputes and disagreements surrounding each city's icononclastic idols like Rocky vs. Rudy, Broad Street vs. Broadway, Lady Liberty vs. the Liberty Bell and the critically important delicacies of Cheesesteak vs. Pizza.

So, whether you say, "Yo," or "How you doin?" this tussle will be well worth every Turnpike toll to a World Series game....and don't you fugghedaboutit!

Straight talk. No static.

MIKE - thee American made voice on sports!