I love the home run derby. Always have, always will. A friend once asked me why I like it so much and I just put my fists in the air and yelled “hit it further, monkey!”. Nothing is more ‘Merican that dudes just mashing the ball over the fence.
People can piss and moan about steroids and blah blah blah. Look, I don’t care if these guys want to break out juiced up softball bats for this thing. Just hit. The ball. Further. Monkey.
All that being said, I did have a few problems with the game last night (as I’m sure most people did):
1. Taking pitches - As the announcers on ESPN Radio pointed out, we all have Sammy Sosa to thank for this phenomenon. Just another reason to hate him like I do. Pujols was doing some sort of promotion thing at the beginning to try and win some fat guy from Philly a car and took like 10 pitches. My buddy that was over watching it with me just turned to me and said, “This is boring”. Exactly.
2. Joe and Joe Blow - Joe Morgan and Joe Buck announcing at the same time. Give me cancer now, God. Favorite Joe Morgan line of the night: “He definitely has to make a move soon…I think.” Riveting.
3. Ball Tracker – Oh, Fox. Still trying to get the concept behind the glowing puck to work, just for a different sport. What a terrible idea. Maybe if they had just used it on replays it could have worked, but running it live made it looke like the ball was struggling to be the first to impregnate the stand.
4. Poor allotment of time – Listen, this is the TiVo era. Many people, like myself, are going to record this program and start watching it at their leisure. Especially out here on the West Coast, when the derby started at 5, when most of us weren’t home from work yet. So just say it’s going to be three hours or so. I missed the entire second round because the alloted time for my TiVo to record only got me through the first round (and subsequent swing off. By the time I was watcing live TV, we were to the finals. Cmon, ESPN, cut one hour of Sportcenter so we can watch the entire derby.
That’s all. And despite my little list of complaints here, I’ll be back next year to watch dudes try to mash. Actually, I’m hoping to score tickets to the event at Anaheim Stadium. A child’s dream come true!