Human element, my foot

I’m really sick of hearing the words “human element” used to excuse really crappy calls in baseball, and I’m sure that now Armando Galarraga is, too. Poor guy.

Take it out on the opposition

It sounds like Mets closer K-Rod nearly got into a fight with bullpen coach Randy Niemann on Sunday night. That would be the same Sunday where K-Rod came in and struggled, and then struck out A-Rod on a 3 – 2 count to end the game. On deck was Robinson Cano, who has turned into an alarmingly (if you’re not a Yankees fan, anyway) awesome baseball player lately, although he’s not putting up the numbers he did in April and the Mets were able to shut him down this weekend. He’d slumped so much during the series that if he had come up, I’m sure he would have wanted to redeem himself by putting his team ahead. Anyways, I suggest that K-Rod spend less time getting into heated arguments with old guys and more time actually doing his damn job. Sure, K-Rod and Niemann made up later, but K-Rod has to learn control. A lot of control.

You’re out!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist making a bad pun about the totally awesome news that MLB finally fired some not-so-great umpires. Of course, I’m sure that more went into this decision than their penchant for blowing calls, or else C. B. Bucknor and Angel Hernandez (who somehow wasn’t even mentioned in this article) would have been gone a long time ago. Still, I hope this makes umpires think twice and consult with one another before they start guessing at calls. It’s hard enough to defend baseball to those who think it’s a boring game that goes on for too long, without having to add a disclaimer that umpire errors are expected in baseball. At least, the commissioner thinks so.

Blah blah blah…Ginger

I hadn’t heard anybody gossiping like fishwives lately, so I turned on Sunday Night Baseball. I enjoy the broadcasts because Joe Morgan and Jon Miller are totally in love with one another, and there’s nothing more satisfying than watching a couple’s love deepen. The addition of Steve Phillips ups the hotness factor by infinity, and the more he talks, the less we have to hear Joe. Their tangents are usually irrelevant and not interesting besides, but every now and then they reveal something so intensely personal about a player, coach, or other baseball staffer that you wonder why anybody still talks to them.

That probably wasn’t the point

So I was reading Doug Glanville’s latest column for the New York Times today. He was discussing the revelation that Alex Rodriguez, baseball god, Madonna-lover, and all around hot stuff had admitted that recent allegations that he’d taken steroids were true. And holy crap, the best player in baseball admitted that he’d taken performance-enhancing drugs. True, he wasn’t the one who broke the story; ESPN did. But Rodriguez confirmed quite quickly, which seems admirable when compared with the Clemenses and McGwires of the world. So I thought that Glanville’s article was interesting and well-written, and it’s a shame that the thing that really caught my attention was this: there is such a thing as a curveball machine.

Amazing! I’d love to have one. What will they think of next?