Home Keeping score Great game, shame about the singing: Marlins-Cubs 1 May 2009

Great game, shame about the singing: Marlins-Cubs 1 May 2009

by Matt Smith

My guide to this week’s early MLB games once again saluted the great service the Chicago Cubs (unknowingly) provide for British baseball fans.  There’s no better way to begin a weekend than sitting down on a Friday evening, possibly with friends and a beverage or two, and watching a live ballgame from Wrigley Field.  The Cubbies allow you to do just that more often than not, with MLB.TV and Gameday Audio lending a helping hand.

A Friday game from Wrigley Field never fails to produce an enjoyable encounter, as shown just two weeks ago when the Florida Marlins were visiting the north side of Chicago. 

With scorecard in hand, I watched the Cubs stage a mighty comeback to win the game by a final score of 8-6. 

Rich Harden was on the mound for the home team and his 3.2 innings were as unimpressive as his final pitching line suggests.  What you cannot see on the scorecard is that he had no life on his fastball: a scary thought considering how dominating Harden normally is thanks to a blazing heater and an unhittable change-up. 

Harden’s day got off to a mediocre start as the Marlins’ Cameron Maybin put the first run on the scoreboard in the first inning.  In doing so, the young centre fielder gave us a couple of opportunities to marvel at his ‘chicken wing’ style of running.  Maybin has an unusual affliction that makes his right arm flap around once he gets up to full speed, although it doesn’t slow him down all that much. 

Maybe the sight of Maybin winging his way around to score in the first inning simply put Harden into a spin.  Whatever the cause, the Cubs’ starter didn’t look comfortable and a run of three straight walks followed by a hit-by-pitch resulted in him trudging off the field midway through the fourth inning.

The Cubs didn’t recover until the sixth inning when they were able to take aim at the Marlins’ bullpen.  Hayden Penn struck out Geovany Soto to begin the inning, but he then walked Aaron Miles and injured himself when a Mike Fontenot single goaded him into changing direction too quickly.  As Penn nursed a sprained ankle, Burke Badenhop (great name, by the way) loaded the bases ahead of Ryan Theriot.

It was a big moment in the game.  The Cubs were down 5-2 and announcer Len Kasper was well aware that failing to score at least one run from this position could fatally deflate the home team.  A sensible approach was needed; the worst thing Theroit could do is to try and do too much.  “We don’t need to get them all back at once”, cautioned Kasper.

Thankfully for the Cubs, Theriot wasn’t thinking along those lines.  Badenhop started him with a changeup that the Cubs batter took for a strike.  ‘Damn’, Theriot may have said to himself, ‘I missed out on one there’. ‘No worries’, replied Badenhop. ‘Why don’t I throw you the exact same pitch and you can have another go’. ‘Righty-o’ said a cheerful Ryan.

The Wrigley crowd erupted as the next pitch was driven out over the left-field wall.  Grand slam.  5-2 became 6-5 in an instant and the Fish were fried.

Scorecard musings

One of the many reasons I like to keep score is that it makes you watch the game in greater detail; bringing alive some of the subtleties that are easy to miss otherwise. 

While concentrating on every plate appearance, Geovany Soto’s ploy to trick the Marlins’ batters shone through in all its cunning beauty.  When a pitch to the outside corner was the order, Soto would often stay in the middle of the plate, tap his glove on the inside corner and then swoosh to the outside in one movement.  Whether it was the sound or the feeling, the act put a thought in the batter’s head that the next pitch was coming inside when the opposite was the case.  Simple but effective.

The top of the eighth inning was another case of simplicity being the key.  Carlos Marmol completely lost the command of his fastball and he walked the first two batters as a result.  Two runners on and no outs, the Cubs’ lead was under serious threat.  So Marmol (possibly on the advice of his battery mate Soto) decided to stick with his slider instead.  Maybin went down looking, Hermida swung through a slider in the dirt and the red-hot Jorge Cantu took slider one for strike one, fouled off slider two for strike two and then took slider three for strike three.  Thank you and goodnight.

This run of simplicity didn’t quite stretch to my scorekeeping efforts.  Although there were no tricky plays to ponder, a key difference between the two MLB leagues was brought sharply into focus. National League games normally involve more work for a scorer than American League games simply because the batting pitcher requires NL managers to make more tactical substitutions.  I knew three lines were not going to be enough for the Cubs’ number nine spot when Carlos Zambrano assumed a pinch hitting role in just the fourth inning.  Thankfully I only needed one extra line in the end, although the double switches, as per usual, were less easy to note down.  My solution always is to note down all of the changes separately, in this case using the ‘Game Notes’ box

Take me out to the ballpark (and shoot me) 

If you decide to watch/listen to the Padres-Cubs game this Friday, you will be treated to the seventh-inning tradition of a ‘Take me out to the Ballpark’ singalong.  This is led by a guest at Wrigley, normally a sportsman or celebrity of some kind.  Experience has showed that they fit into three main categories: good singers, bad but enthusiastic singers and the outright terrible singers. 

The actress Denise Richards did the honours for the Marlins game and even the most charitable person would agree she belonged in the latter category.  She had the words on a bit of paper (always a bad sign) and possibly didn’t really know how the melody goes; it was hard to tell seeing as she mauled the tune so horrifically.  The guest is always interviewed by Len and Bob on the Cubs TV feed and Len did the decent thing by lying: “we thought you handled it great”.  

Tone-deaf Denise didn’t have a great deal else to say, other than talking about her reality TV show (her reason for being at the game, of course).  Maybe we’ll be luckier next time?

‘Next time’ is this Friday (first pitch 19.20 BST) and, barring any unforeseen disasters, I’ll be watching the game.  If you’re watching it too, why not ‘tweet’ along (maybe while keeping score as well).

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3 comments

Joe Cooter May 13, 2009 - 9:27 pm

To be fair, that wasn’t the worst rendition of Take Me out to the ballgame I’ve ever heard. To my the worst rendition I have ever heard happens to be Ozzy Osborne, formerly of the band Black Sabbath, who happens to be a native of Birmingham, England. At any rate, at the hight the popularity of his reality The Osbornes, the Cubs invited Ozzy and his american wife Sharon, to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Needless to say, he sounded terrible. How band was it, It was awful. here is a video of that performance :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdwOoinuJi0

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Matt Smith May 13, 2009 - 9:34 pm

Fair play Joe, you’ve beaten me there! Denise wasn’t quite as bad as that. Still, Ozzy and Sharon did have the extra task of trying not to swear, which must have taken a lot of effort for them.

Reply
Joe Cooter May 14, 2009 - 12:03 am

That’s true, the thing is Ozzy isn’t even a cubs fan. From what I have heard, and I take it with a grain of salt because I got it from Wikipedia, Ozzy’s a Yankee fan. I also found out that Omar Bravo, a midfielder for Deportivo La Coruna in La Liga is also a fan. I think Sir Paul McCartney is a fan as well.

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