Andy Rooney is crazy

Andy Rooney isn’t just that senile old guy on 60 Minutes. He writes columns too.

He wrote an entire column about baseball, yet decided to have this in the beginning (emphasis mine):

My disinterest in baseball as a kid has lasted all my life. I’m still not interested in the game. I don’t watch it on television or follow it in the newspaper. I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me.

OK, so you don’t like baseball, but you’re going to write a whole story about it. That makes sense. And today’s stars are all guys named Rodriguez … are you kidding me? Is that supposed to be funny? Rooney continues with several thoughts that should’ve never seen the light of day.

… the player who starts the game as pitcher should have to play all nine innings without a substitution. A pitcher hardly ever plays more than a few innings and then the manager replaces him with someone who isn’t as good.

Umm … so when a pitcher like Kei Igawa is replaced by Mariano Rivera (or Tim Wakefield by Jonathan Papelbon, or Jorge Sosa by Billy Wagner, or Brett Tomko by Takashi Saito, etc.), he’s being replaced by someone who isn’t as good? Really?

There are 30 major league baseball teams, but sometimes it seems as though the New York Yankees are the only team that ever wins the World Series.

Six different teams have won the World Series since the Yankees last won one.

Five teams have never won a World Series. What in the world keeps baseball fans in those cities coming to games?

I’ve been an Angel fan since the early 1990s, and when I started rooting for them, they had never won a World Series. I guess I just should’ve stopped following them before 2002 then. And as for the five teams — there’s actually eight of them (D-Rays, Mariners, Rangers, Padres, Brewers, Astros, Nationals, Rockies). But the sport Rooney later claims to like, football, has 15 NFL franchises that have yet to win a Super Bowl (Falcons, Bills, Lions, Vikings, Eagles, Chargers, Saints, Bengals, Browns, Texans, Seahawks, Cardinals, Panthers, Jaguars, Titans). I got the data for the last two sentences from comment #36 on this excellent thread at Baseball Think Factory.

I ended up as the backstroker on the swimming team. I was a good swimmer but hated doing laps for practice. The water was always cold and after half an hour in the chlorinated pool my eyes were red and my skin wrinkled. It took the fun out of swimming.

Thank you Andy, for enlightening us. Not about baseball, but about how senile you are.

(Hat-tip to the previously mentioned Baseball Think Factory and Fire Joe Morgan)

Links of the Day

This guy had the Orioles pitching staff on his fantasy baseball team yesterday. Yes, the same staff that gave up 30 runs in one game. Ouch. That has to be the worst fantasy baseball mistake of all-time. (The Conglomerate)

This is why you don’t propose at sporting events. (Houston Chronicle) 

A 59-year old is playing NCAA Football. For real. (The Big Picture)

A bedtime story about Brandon Webb. (Babes Love Baseball)

Dice-K lost his third game to the Devil Rays this year. Gotta love baseball. (AOL Fanhouse) 

30 runs!

I’ve seen little league baseball, high school baseball, college baseball, minor league baseball and major league baseball, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team score 30 runs. Until last night, anyway.

Baseball teams aren’t supposed to score 30 runs in a game, but the Texas Rangers did. Not only that, they were down 3-0 after the third inning and only up 5-3 after the fifth. This offensive explosion all came at once. This was the most runs ever scored by a team since 1900.

Yikes.

Since it was the first game of a doubleheader, Orioles’ manager Dave Trembley didn’t exactly have a quick hook with his relief pitchers. And I’m actually surprised he didn’t use a position player to pitch by the end. There was this line in the box score:

Bell pitched to 7 batters in the 8th.

You usually don’t see an explainer for a partial inning with no outs reach 7 batters.

Paul Shuey got the last six outs of the game, but also allowed nine runs in the process. He actually struck out five of them! So it’s not like the Rangers’ hitters were hitting everything. Just almost everything.

And strangely, because the strange wording of MLB’s save rule, Rangers pitcher Wes Littleton was credited with a save, because he pitched the final three innings for Texas. I mean, it was only 14-3 when he came into the game. That was a close lead Littleton had to protect.

Reaction from around the blogosphere:

Can We Contract the O’s? (Awful Announcing)
Wes Littleton Gets Credited with Easiest. Save. Ever. (Fan IQ Blog)
O’s Give Up 30 (Thirty!) Runs (Mister Irrelevant)
30 Runs! 30! (AOL Fanhouse)
An Excellent Illustration of Why Certain Stats Are Overrated (Fire Joe Morgan)

Thursday sports preview — all day long

There’s good sports to follow all day long, so I’ll just go in order instead of my Game of the Day format.

EARLY MORNING:

If you happen to be reading this at 1 a.m. PT, you can watch U.S. soccer against Tunisia in the Under-17 World Cup. The game is nationally televised on ESPN2 and takes place in South Korea. Today’s game against Tunisia is USA’s second match in group stage. The U.S. lost its first game 4-3 to Tajikistan. I’d bet 99% of you can’t find Tajikistan on a map.

AFTERNOON:

Cleveland at Detroit, 10 a.m. The Indians won 11-8 on Wednesday, to move 1.5 games ahead of the Tigers for first place.

LA Dodgers at Philadelphia, 10 a.m. The Dodgers aren’t calling up a prospect from AA to replace Brett Tomko in the rotation, as had been rumored. But they really should find someone to replace him. Where’s Hideo Nomo these days?

Chicago Cubs at San Francisco, 12:30 p.m, nationally televised on WGN. Carlos Zambrano vs. hard luck Matt Cain (5-13, ERA of 3.78) goes for the Giants.

Little League World Series Semifinals, 9 a.m. and Noon on ESPN. Venezuela vs. Curacao followed by Texas vs. Oregon.

EVENING:

San Diego at NY Mets, 4 p.m. The Mets really are filled with former Marlins.

NFL Preseason: Jacksonville at Green Bay. Nationally televised at 5 p.m. on FOX.

Little League World Series Semifinals, 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on ESPN. Japan vs. Chinese-Taipei and Georgia vs. Arizona.

NIGHT:

MLS, LA Galaxy vs. Chivas USA. Nationally televised on ESPN2. David Beckham is supposed to play, but you never know.

Toronto at Angels, 7 p.m. The Halos couldn’t finish off the sweep of the Yankees, but I’ll take 2 of 3 against them.

USA Basketball Olympic Qualifying, USA vs. U.S. Virgin Islands. Nationally televised on ESPN Classic, 8 p.m. Either way, the Americans win! Team USA thrashed Venezuela in its first game, winning 112-69. Let’s see them keep this up.