‘We’re Entertainers and Everybody Should Be Using the Cream and Clear’*
Uncategorized July 10th. 2007, 2:52pm
[Just a guess at what was being said between the soon-to-be home run king and the future home run king.]
Sorry we didn’t use a picture of Vlad Guerrero, winner of the rather mundane home run derby. So who’s going to make the comparison of the Derby to the NBA’s Dunk contest? Anyone? Vlad beat out this guy named Alex Rios from the Toronto Blue Jays. Seriously, if Rios delivered a pizza to our apartment right now, we’d have no clue who he was. But does it really matter? The guy two homers in the final round! That’s like Nate Robinson bricking 15 dunks en route to a second place finish in the dunk contest.
After the jump, a great screen grab of ESPN’s Kenny Mayne in the water wearing the Kayak Cam. It’s mildly amusing that this great gimmick was dreamt up by a producer … and then no homers sailed into McCovey Cove.
Hey, did you know Roger Clemens paid $120 to have his hair highlighted at a salon?
Worse than Boat Trip? (Sports Hernia)
28 Responses to “‘We’re Entertainers and Everybody Should Be Using the Cream and Clear’*”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:59 PM
When the Splash Zone gimmick didn’t work (and after all the lefties were eliminated), they moved Mayne to the front row of the bleachers in centerfield, where he proceeded to blow a rape whistle.
And everyone said Woooo.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:04 PM
Clemens’ highlights cost less than a basic haircut at my salon – does that make it less emasculating for him?
July 10th, 2007 at 3:10 PM
how about putting berman’s tired ass in the kayak, and letting kenny mayne call the home run derby? if they would have done that, then i wouldn’t have this rope burn from the noose i tied around my neck last night while watching the home run derby
berman+joe morgan+dusty baker+steve phillips+john kruk’s hair = mute button…ok, i admit, i like watching kruky’s hair
July 10th, 2007 at 3:20 PM
This morning on my show I said that A-Rod is a lock to go to the Cubs because of all of the high profile guys on the team, like Carlos Zambrano, yeah you heard me, Carlos Zambrano is high profile enough to make A-Rod a cubby. Then I said that the Cubs dont report their income and hide cash. Can you beleive I still have a job? Do the producers not even listen to me?
Well goodnight diary,
Shrutebage
July 10th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
I thought the Derby itself was surprisingly quite entertaining. It was exciting after the incredibly long and boring first round. Without a doubt though, it is too long. I have a few thoughts:
1) How awful was ESPN’s coverage last night? They were often talking to someone in the booth or on the field during an at bat and were effectively ignoring the derby for a majority of the time. The camera would be stuck on the interview or a random person in the crowd and we would often miss many hits of an at bat. It was like MNF’s booth times 20. Just awful. Not to mention the camera angles were so bad and inconsistent that you could never really tell if it was a homerun until the announcers said so. I might as well have been listening to it on the radio for half of the time. What is it with networks trying to use so many camera angles when the most simple ones do the job just fine? So frustrating. That being said, the slow motion 3d thingy they would do after a guy’s at bat showing his swing was pretty badass, but it didn’t make up for the other shortcomings.
2) Holy crap this thing doesn’t need to be 3 hours long. No way does the first round need to be ten outs, much LESS the 2nd AND 3rd rounds? Are you kidding me? It didn’t used to be long enough, so they made the last round ten outs also? Absurd. Knock it down to five outs for all the rounds like LaRussa said. It’s just too long. It’d be far more dramatic and engaging if it was shorter.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:24 PM
As far as the dunk contest/home run derby is concerned, yesterday on PTI Wilbon said that in another eight years the home run derby will be thought of in the same way the dunk contest is, while LeBatard believes it’s already at that point. I think Larussa made a suggestion that they cut down the number of outs to five instead of ten. So last night’s winner, if they’re would have only been five outs, would have only had to have one home run. Now that’s thrilling.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:34 PM
I find it sad that a major sports blog such as TBL doesn’t give Alex Rios the credit he is due. I see no one here ragging on Matt Holiday who is arguably more unknown then Rios(who was also an all-star last year). Last season Rios was on pace for a massive year until just before the break he was derailed with a Staph Infection, had it not been for this Rios would have exploded. Secondly, Rios tore up the second round and had the most homers on the day( which is arguable as Vlad had 3 fewer at bats) which is no small feat considering the competition. Either way just cause a guy plays for a Canadian team doesn’t mean you guys have to have the typical American attitude towards him.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:38 PM
Brandon – Nothing against Canada. The guy’s in his fourth year in the league, he’s 26, never had a 100 RBI season, and never had a 20 homer season!
Not to mention that the Blue Jays have been relegated to third class status in the AL East since he’s been around.
Surely he has the makings of a good player, perhaps even a 30-30 guy. But to be on his stick already?
July 10th, 2007 at 3:41 PM
Fair enough, its early, the caffeine is weak and the office is bugging the hell out of me. I kind of went off on a tangent there, your right on one thing though the derby has been slowly going down the drink for years. Now if only we could have Nate Robinson shag fly balls in the outfield with all the other people his height.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:41 PM
Vlad used to take the subway when he first got to Canada
July 10th, 2007 at 3:46 PM
I was kind of hoping they would strap Berman in the kayak then flip it over. I love the derby but do you really need to quack every time there’s a homerun hit? It would be like yelling “He could…go…all..the..way” during every run play in a football game. It got old 10 years ago.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:52 PM
I enjoyed the 2nd round, that was about it. I thought it was totally hilarious that all righty’s advanced to the 2nd round without 1 (not 1!) Home Run ball making it into the Cove. Hilarious!!! You could tell Kenny was a bit embarrassed to be out there especially considering no balls were hit in his direction. I was actually a litte disappointed myself. I agree with Sean 100%, the coverage was absolutely brutal. When is ESPN gonna get rid of Berman – his “Winnie the Pujols” introduction was the worst nickname I have ever heard, then Albert had to run the whole way in from center field while everyone had this Winnie the Pooh image in their head! Berman, Dusty, and Joe Morgan were horrible – only Dusty had a few insightful thing to say. Something about getting State Farm Insurance (the sponsor of the event) for the car that got hit in the outfield was pretty good. Other than that, D for ESPN. At least the dunk contest has Kenny and Charles to entertain us.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:08 PM
“Winnie the Pujols†– wow, glad I missed that.
Berman’s voice instantly sounded like he had to hock up a gigantic loogie, usually it takes a little longer ’til his voice starts cracking every other word due to the sheer amazement of the derby.
And they rarely showed a close-up of just him, he must have been sweating midgets.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Bad news, my teenage sons looked at me with disdain when I started to crack on Berman. He may be producing a new generation of fans that don’t understand he is worn out, old, balding, fat farce.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:31 PM
I hope I wasn’t the only one who thought the handing out of bats by Willie McCovey was lame. Having one of the greatest Giants ever there was cool and nice to see the fans cheer him, but to turn it into a chance for some advertiser to get their name mentioned was idiotic.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:32 PM
I will tell you what drives me absolutly BONKERS about ESPN. Last night while Prince Fielder was batting, they were giving praise on how he is a young star on the rise, Yada, Yada, Yada. Then i hear someone say, “he plays in Milswaukee, so not everyone know who he is”. I’m para-phrasing, but you get the idea. So, ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, televises six thousand games a week, cant find time to put on the Brewers or the Angels or whoever in a small market ? they control baseball almost more than Bud Selig. how the F*@K can they make a comment like this ? they said the same thing about VLAD a couple weeks ago on Baseball Tonight ? You know why we dont see these guys play ? because every time i turn on the goddamn TV, i gotta see the Yankees and the RedSox. every night on Baseball tonight i gotta see 20 minutes of redsox and yankees before i can see any other team. who knows if the Royals or Rockies or mariners even exist anymore ? fuck if i dont see them on TV. I remember when the Yanks were 14 1/2 games out of first place. every goddamn night they talked about the yanks. they were in LAST PLACE. did they first show highlights of the 2nd place Blue Jays ? the 3rd place Devil Rays ? Hell no. Yanks and Sox all the fuckin time. I feel bad for the whole country aside from NY and Boston. we have to sit through an hour of Baseball Tonight to see a measley 30 seconds of highlights of my favorite team at the end of the show. but it’s all A-ROD ALL THE TIME otherwise. Sorry, i am ranting on, but this has been bugging me all this year. anyone with me on this ?
July 10th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
I put the tourney on Mute during Vlad’s semi run and watched Showtime’s Weeds. It was the best decision that I made all night. Berman was running out of Bay Area Landmarks to metaphor the ball landing on them.
ESPN needed more closeups on all the schmucks who kept dropping these home runs. The fans had worse hands than the awful little leaguers, who instead of shagging a fly ball, act like peasants at a 3rd world airport. One ball almost rocked some kid in the face in right field. Dusty Baker said something about paying attention and I was waiting for the announcers to make a comment about his kid in the World Series. NOTHING. Zippo. ESPN blows.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:03 PM
I loved how A-Rod was the only one of all the players to show up in a suit. Every other guy – in their uni, watching the festivities. Alex – suited up, looking for cameras.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
Gov’Nah I would have added a few more “fuckings” but I couldn’t have said it better.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:18 PM
Hey!! I won that awful dunk contest.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:33 PM
I just read Redhead’s blog, which I am new to, and am absolutely exhausted.
Thanks, Redhead. I’ll need a few weeks to recover/catch up.
Everyone else should grab a PowerBar before making this trip.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:35 PM
The ONLY part of Dusty Baker’s announcing that I like (because I don’t like how he talks about “clogging up the bases with runners”) is that he hates – HATES – all the other chatter. He does not mind saying, “That was a great play if you were paying attention.”
And Redhead, why do beautiful redheads need highlights?
July 10th, 2007 at 6:41 PM
Aw, thanks guys.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
I was hoping Berman would choke on his Back, Back, Back while Joe Morgan and Dusty Baker laughed. WTF was with Karl Ravetch thanking the big goof for letting them (the BBTN crew) be part of it?!
July 10th, 2007 at 7:04 PM
Wow.. great comments – I love the TBL comments section lately. Anyway – I agree with Gov Nah especially because of one point. During yesterday’s TBL interview w/ Jeff Pearlmen, one answer I found insightful (or question… depending how you look at it) was that the Mariners were the story of the first half. I had no clue they were doing so well.
As for A-Rod in the suit… he has a tarnished image, he’s just trying to fix it. Talking to Bonds for about an hour and a half didn’t help though.
Totally off subject, maybe with the pentalty to ESPN, MLB is trying to slowly seperate it’s ties with ESPN which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I think in a couple years, TBS will try and like TNT does with basketball and emerge as the premier network for Baseball coverage. Because I gotta say, I used to love baseball coverage on ESPN, the last year or so – it has become almost unwatchable.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:45 PM
I would say a reason ESPN spends more time talking about the Yankees and Red Sox than teams such as the Royals, Rockies and Devil Rays is that those outpostsly have decent sized crowds only when the Yanks or Red Sox come to town.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:09 PM
C’mon Bob, i must keep all the goddamn cussing down to a minimum with all the ladies and children reading TBL.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:29 AM
GovNah-I’m with you. By the way, I wonder if Barry and StrayRod were exchanging notes on what creme to use on their mistresses.