Scouts: Netflix, faced with losing Friends and The Office went out and bought them selves a Seinfeld. Beginning in 2021, the popular streaming network will begin to host every episode of the iconic show in 4K. I was talking with some friends when the new broke, and between the very long gif battle, we mentioned that we really failed to realize just how iconic and so far ahead of it’s time that series really was. First we had I Love Lucy, then M.A.S.H, then Cheers, and then Seinfeld.
Nationals 2, Cardinals 4 – Scouts: The Nats don’t have much to play for anymore this year, but they are still in a decent position to play spoiler to all those teams that beat them out this year. Only problem is those other teams are better than they are, which is why they beat them out. Marcell Ozuna drove in all four runs for the Cards thanks to a two-run homer in the first and a ground-rule double in the 7th. Marcell Ozuna will tell you that looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don’t stare at it. It’s too risky. Ya get a sense of it and then you look away.
Reds 2, Cubs 8 – Scouts: Cole Hamels hasn’t done a particularly great job lately, pitching to the tune of a 6.90 ERA over the last 7 starts, however lucky him, he was up against Kevin Gausman, the one time promising, now current cast-off of both the Orioles and Braves. Gausman lasted just 2 innings, in which he gave up 3 runs thanks to a Kyle Schwarber homer in the first. Look Gausman, the jerk store called and they’re running out of you!
Mets 4, Rockies 9 – Scouts: I’m reviewing the Mets box score, looking for some angle on this story, and all I can think is good lord, I don’t know a single player on this roster. Like none at all. Then I look up and I realize, holy crap they are 4 games above .500! How? This team, I dunno…They’re real…and they’re spectacular!
Orioles 2, Tigers 5 – Prof: Oh, I miss reporting on the Battle of Who Sucks More! Good to see it come back so late in the season. El Tigre split the difference with the Birds of Charm City. Detroit gets the win this time around, thanks to a Jordy Mercer two run homer in the first inning. My guy, Bae ….er…. Trey Mancini, hit a big time home run but honestly, who cares at this point? Boy, these pretzels are making me thirsty!
Padres 1, Brewers 5 – Prof: Wanna know the difference between a good team and a great team? A great team will rise to the challenge, and a little guy will be the hero. The hero of the day was Cory Spangenberg, who used to play for San Diego. Spangenberg hit an RBI single and a two run triple. Travis Shaw hit a solo home run as well. They are truly masters of their domain.
White Sox 3, Twins 5 – Prof: Minnesota shows no mercy, eating away at Chicago’s soul even after a James McCann home run. Eloy Jimenez homered in the ninth but it was too late. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Marlins 5, Diamondbacks 7 – Scouts: Miami looked like they were gonna win this one with a 5 spot in the 7th, but of course they went out and immediately gave up 4 in the bottom of the frame to put themselves behind once again. Serenity Now!
Royals 6, Athletics 5 – Scouts: Jorge Soler never has to worry about shrinkage, because he’s too damn hot to get in the pool. All he does is hit bombs.
Fan Interference 
The Nats look like a team that expended all their energy on being “tHe bEsT TeAm sInCe mAy 24” (up until about September 1) and are now running on fumes, hoping that the Wild Card game gets here while they still have a place in it. As my grandmother used to say (long before Green Day ever existed) “Hope in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”
So it goes for the Nats, who are now only 1/2 game ahead of the Cubs for WC1, and 1 1/2 ahead of the Brewers for WC2, with a game in hand. Strasburg was ok enough for five innings, and Tanner Rainey and Sean Doolittle pitched well in relief, but Hunter Strickland couldn’t finish the 7th without surrendering the go-ahead runs, and here we are.
Can’t even blame this one on Davey, since he’s been gone from the team since the 6th inning on Sunday. “Didn’t feel well, went to the hospital” was the initial announcement, but yesterday we learned it was chest pains, followed by a cardiac catheter, and no word on when he might return, so Chip Hale will run the team in his absence.
Corbin tonight, Scherzer tomorrow, and oh, look, the NHL pre-season started last night, so hockey will be here soon.
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Also, to continue the theme from the recaps above:
“Dolores!”
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“Mulva”
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Can’t remember the precise timing on events, so SomeWifeInVA was either my girlfriend or fiance at the time that episode aired. We were doing a long-distance relationship at the time, and I saw the episode “live” on Thursday, and then drove to her town to see her that weekend.
She was in grad school, living with her parents still, and they had taped the episode. We sat down to watch it that Saturday afternoon, and neither she nor her mother had yet seen it, and given the times, there was no internet to spoil the episode.
Things were rather a bit awkward as my future mother-in-law struggled mightily to not laugh at the “Dolores!” line.
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The Snakes skwished the Feesh last night, 7-5, in a game that at least had as much interest as a kiddie park seesaw (if you find it interessin’ when your buddy jumps orf when you’re up in the air and you come down hard on your tailbone). Ninety eight zetzes down with twelve games to play. Who wants to bet against the Feesh schooling right past 100 splatterpoints by this weekend?
I can’t see this regime spending any real money to acquire genuine impact players this orfseason. They would ask, “why should we when the team’s not ready to contend,” but it’s a catch-22 situation. If the team suffers through another last place finish, whether they lose 100 games or 90, the crowds will get smaller, fan interest (such as there is any left) will continue to deteriorate, and reciprocally, the franchise will probably haul out the beloved David Samson’s favorite phrase, “market correction,” to justify its reluctance to invest heavily in high performance players.
What we’ll likely get are more reclamation projects and scrapheap pickups – more Grandersons, more Castros, more Walkers – more VETERAN PRESENCE. Maybe we’ll strike a good deal with a warm body, but how many of those can we field if the point is to bring up and ripen our prospects? Here’s the problem: let’s say these additional players win us ten to fifteen more games. Then we’re looking at an 80 loss season at best, right? It would be an enormous statistical improvement but it just won’t be enough to put appreciably more people in the stands. That and, as we have seen, Murphy’s Law operates throughout every level of reality, from the second law of thermodynamics to the far greater likelihood things will go wrong on the field than they’ll go right.
Another problem, and again I’m talking 2020 here: why would any free agent who could sign with a competitor want to sign with a sump (not even a basement) dweller? Sure, we’ve got pythons to play with their dogs and toxic toads to play with their children, and for single gentlemen, plenty of diversions (and clinics to treat their aftermath). Nevertheless, I would guess they’d prefer to go to Detroit or Baltimore for the same money, all things being equal, simply because those teams have histories, traditions and fans in the seats. Baltimore has averaged 16,600 per night, Detroit almost 19,000, to our 9.700. Both teams have sold well over a million tickets and we’re not going to sniff 800,000. I mean, it’s demoralizing enough for me, as a fan, to have the whole row to myself every time I go to Macondo Banana Massacre Field. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for the ballplayers to hit the field and look up at all that empty blue night after night.
If 2021 dawns bright and clear with some of our prospects finding their legs and swings, maybe then the team will loosen its purse strings. But so much damage will have been done to fan interest by that point it almost won’t matter. Let’s face it: it will take a generation of sustained success – not necessarily winning it all every year but being genuinely competitive – to build a tradition sufficient to put 20,000 bodies or more in the seats regardless of how well the team is doing. We don’t have a tradition now, except maybe one we’d rather not even consider in retrospect.
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