The News Blimp

                              The News Blimp 2010

Baseball 2010 has arrived!

A few days ago The Blimp Crew caught this terrific description of the game by Oklahoma City Journal writer Ted Streuli and thought we’d share some of it with you.

It’s my favorite week of the year. Despite that, I am not going to bore you with a single baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-life story. You will not get from me a single rambling descriptive passage about the smell of newly mown grass, the taste of a Polish sausage doused in mustard and sauerkraut or hope, which springs eternal.

Baseball is a beautiful sport, athleticism for the world’s ponderers. It is graceful lines and power, the minutiae of guessing the next fastball’s placement and the grandeur of a carousel as four runners cross the plate. It is an opportunity for friends to solve the ills of Western Civilization interrupted by an occasional crack, cheer, groan or curse. It is a chance to get tan without a beach and to forget, as the game has, that any clock is ticking anywhere in the universe, one-fourth of which is in fair territory.

Nice.

Now if we could just do something about the pajama style baseball pants being worn by what seems like 95% of the players.

Sloppy.

Most of these guys look like they should be kicking back in a barcalounger with a Sunday morning newspaper…rather than digging in against the likes of Tim Lincecum.

Really. 

For the sake of what you guys think is on-the-field fashionable for the 21st century game…you could be missing out on one of the few advantages you may have as hitters.

In the excellent James Hirsch Willie Mays biography…Hirsch describes the rookie’s early hitting struggles after being called up to the New York Giants in 1951.

Like many rooks early in their careers, Willie was getting busted by umps in the strike zone. But his manager, Leo Durocher, believed Mays could counter some of the strikes being called on him with one simple adjustment…raising his uniform pants.

Durocher told Willie if the pants cuffs were worn too low, hitters got hurt on the low strike. Leo was convinced that if not enough of the stirrups were displayed…it was too hard to tell where a hitter’s knees were.

But that was back in the days when uniforms weren’t tailored and the pants legs were really loose.

No reason for that today.

Pull up those pants.

Show some sock.

Who knows?

In raising your pants…you might also hike up your on base percentage.

Play ball!

                                The News Blimp 2010

As we close in on the 2010 Major League baseball season…the game’s bumbling lead Napoleon…one Bud Selig… stammers on and on as usual about the evils of performance enhancers…then refuses to believe there’s a real man’s test for the use of human growth hormone.

So fans…we take you back in song to the “drug free” good ol’ hazy, crazy, major league days of yesteryear….circa 1970. When only a mirror ball full of cocaine and random LSD use was found in the pristine clubhouses at various major league ball parks in America.

Former KSAN-FM program director in San Francisco, Bonnie Simmons…reminded us of Todd Snider’s mesmerizing little acoustic ode to former Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Dock Ellis…who once tossed a no-hitter while sky high out-of-his-mind on LSD.

America’s Favorite Pastime is one of the greatest sports songs of all time.

Play Ball!

Writing in the San Francisco Examiner, Art Spander offers the most relevant contemporary analysis of U.S. Justice Department attempts to convict and incarcerate Barry Bonds, his “crime” relative to current events…and Bonds’ role as a high profile scapegoat for The Steroid Era.

A few Spander home runs from “Time For Government To Forfeit Case Against Bonds’:

“Does America care more that Barry Bonds seemingly cheated in baseball than a lot of guys at banks and loan agencies cheated people out of their homes?”

“Barry didn’t sell people sub-prime mortgages. Barry didn’t run off with anyone’s 401 (k). Barry didn’t tell the world Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”

“The government essentially is wasting millions of our dollars trying to make a mark against a guy who has made his mark, 762 career home runs. What if he were just a singles hitter with a .238 lifetime average?”

Outta the park…baby…outta the park.

                             The News Blimp 2009

The words Katie Couric couldn’t force out of his mouth on 60 Minutes a year ago, A-Rod spoke yesterday…

…“I did take a banned substance and for that I’m very sorry. I’m deeply regretful. I’m sorry for that time. I’m sorry to my fans. I was young, I was stupid, I was naive.”

Basically…“I cheated, I lied.”

But hey, it’s all OK now.

Can we now finally agree that many players during the Steroid Era were compelled to use the substances because they felt it was the only way they could continue to compete…that the playing fields for them would be uneven if they did not?

Because there are a select few guys…about 700…who are talented enough in any given season to be called Major League ballplayers. The price one pays to be among such a select few is very high. The fans place them on pedestals…they set them apart.

Then they are envied, cheered and booed…all for the sake of entertainment.

Can we all now please agree that baseball went through a period of time when a bunch of it’s players chose to use performance enhancing drugs to entertain fans in unbelievably exciting ways?

Can we now agree…that there have been several unique eras in baseball history…some of which included dead balls, lively balls, booze, spit, greenies…and yes, steroids. And that fans enjoyed the entertainment provided them those many years?

Will it finally dawn on us…that these talented athletes…are mere mortals? That like every other Joe carrying a brown bag lunch to work, they’re looking over their shoulders just like the rest of us…for the next guy who might take his place on the production line, in the office or…on the field? That they needed an edge?

Now we know. The best player in baseball used steroids.

So, get over it. It’s a game.

And a really great Show.

Onefer:

Celebrating the agony of defeat: The Blimp nearly flew off course after it witnessed this hilarious YouTube clip “Why I Didn’t Make The Olympics”. We saved an aisle seat for you to watch this one.

Geez…you’d think the scribes and talking heads in Beijing were reporting on the invention of fireworks or something. Lighten up guys and gals filing reports from the forbidden city…they’re playing games over there…nothing more…

…Except…Women’s beach volleyball. That is not a game. It’s the SI swimsuit edition on sand. If it was a game…the Men’s beach volleyball matches would be played by guys in Speedo thongs…rather than baggy nylon shorts and loose tank tops. Uh, er…maybe it’s the other way around…you know…the girls in baggy shorts and loose tank tops. Oh, never mind.

And Twofer:

Pass the crow: Perhaps John McCain should chow down on the big black bird for wacking Obama on the tire inflation/fuel conservation thing. Take a look at this John, from The California Integrated Waste Management Board and then, THIS posting from Chevron. See Line Item 2.

But then again, McCain’s never bothered by facts…it’s much easier…and sadly, more effective for him…to inflate his sophomoric campaign with hot, dry air.

Sorry folks…but Blimp Control DOES NOT share the enthusiasm and awe for China’s elaborate production of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing a week ago.

The evening in Beijing  reminds us a little too much of a similar opening spectacle staged by Adolf-you-know-who  in Berlin for the 1936 Olympic Games.

Ruthless authoritarian rule masks it’s evil with elaborate, emotional, public displays of extreme pageantry and precision…all the better to attempt to convince the outside world of  it’s legitimacy.

Besides, a fresh reminder of China’s ever evolving rule is present on screen each Olympic telecast…as a fuzzy, gigantic public poster of Mao Zedong hung on a temple wall outside the NBC studio peers over the left shoulder of the ever sappy Bob Costas…an image which should remind all of us that it wasn’t that long ago we all witnessed stuff from Beijing such as this…

Kim Jong Su…a North Korean competitor at the Beijing Olympics… is one of several disqualified from the Games this week after testing positive for banned substances.

Big deal? Nah. Performance enhanced cheating is so common now we tend to ho-hum the disclosures.

But for gawdsakes…Kim Jong Su is a guy with a gun! He’s a shooter! You know…as in shooting at targets. Stationary targets. Targets that you shoot at as you stand in one place without moving!

Now shooters are shootin’ up for shooting at friggin’ targets!

Evidently Jong Su didn’t believe he was quite the crack shot he needed to be before entering the Games…and thought just maybe he might need some extra pharmaceutical help before winning the silver medal in 50 meter pistol and a bronze in the 10 meter air pistol.

So, he fired off a couple of rounds into himself of Propranolol…a beta-blocker banned in precision sports such as shooting and archery.

It should be clear to everyone after what this wack job Jong Su tried to pull off in Beijing…that there’ll always be competitors…inferior or superior…who’ll feel the need for that extra shot or rub of something special for a chance to cream the opposition.

Because, to just about everyone…winning is everything.

However…in the case of Kim Jong Su…firing away at targets with what he thought was his best shot…turned out instead to be no shot at all…at least for his aim at Olympic fame.

Prior to Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima completing his 200 meter breaststroke win at the Olympic Games yesterday in Beijing…the usually articulate NBC-TV sportscaster Dan Hicks claimed Kitajima to be the “greatest breaststroker” ever…twice. Your Blimp pilot nearly dumped our big dirigible after hearing those Yogi Berra quality malaprops.

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Why haven’t any of the big quick serve food giants…(hello, McDonald’s…hello, Burger King) discovered this nifty French fry accessory? Cruising through YouTube the other day…we landed at this clever little video for the Spud Buddy. The simple little condiment device would sure make life easier when piloting the family truckster…and eliminate all those annoying squeezed-dry condiment packets that litter our landscape.

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Dropped by iTunes for our weekly music fix the other day…and found a new Steve Cropper/Felix Cavaliere collaboration titled Nudge It Up A Notch. Pure genius…whoever thought it’d be cool to unite the legendary Booker T guitarist with the soulful voice and smoky hot keyboardist of the Young Rascals. After 40 years of making music…these guys are still on top of their singing, writing and recording games…unlike other tired troops of the era still content to mouth and rerecord their tired hits. (Listen up CSN…it’s time to pack it in.)

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Why are we not surprised to learn that former Abramoff scandal figure Ralph Reed is helping John McCain raise funds for the GOP campaign? True to form…McCain continues to do anything, say anything and associate with any slimeball to get elected.

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Finally…a perfect analysis of the George Bush attempt to demand a resolution to the Georgia/Russia conflict by a reader:

Russia calls the attack on Georgia “pre-emptive”.  Where have we heard the term “pre-emptive” before? President Bush calls for an “immediate cease-fire and troop withdrawal.” This is the same Bush who bombed, invaded and now occupies Iraq based on his administration’s false statements. Remember the January 2008 study by the Center for Public Integrity, which actually quantified the extent of the Bush administration’s dishonesty? The study found that eight members of the Bush administration, including the president himself, made 935 false statements regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to al Qaeda.

It is a bit hypocrital now for Bush to mount his moral high horse about Russia’s pre-emptive attack. Bush has squandred his moral authority; the emperor has no clothes.

-Judi Iranyi

The 2008 Summer Olympics opened in Beijing…but world class games of other kinds continue on our little sphere regardless of contrived, peaceful athletic competition over in Asia.

Hypocrisy Games: George Bush stepped foot on Chinese soil and some of the first words out of his mouth scolded them for their human rights deficiencies. Hmmm. Has he checked the debt service owed by America to the Chinese lately? Perhaps he should have zipped his lips on that message…lest he not be able to swing more loans outta them. What a dimwit…though he realized long ago he shouldn’t rail against the Saudi Arabians for their insane treatment of Saudi women…must have something to do with oil. Uh…and by the way, George…what about human rights minority Americans lack? And don’t even get us started on habeas corpus and torture.

War Games:  Now that US military efforts are more concentrated on fronts in Afghanistan rather than Iraq…American deaths have gone over the 500 mark there. When will we begin to hear how many years our presence is required in that god forsaken place? And what the hell is the goal? Meanwhile…Russia and Georgians battle…and George Bush asks them for a cease-fire. Good ol’ George…always above the fray.

Money Games: Someone in DC please hire whoever the hell is the head of the Iraqi Budget Office and get him over here.  The guy is a friggin’ genius. He’s turned a war ravaged nation’s bankrupt treasury into a $79 billion dollar budget surplus…while Americans  spring billions of dollars for infrastructure reconstruction over there. Hey…what could a few billion do for our infrastructure? Hint: The Highway Trust Fund is headed for a $5 billion shortfall at a time when a quarter of U.S. bridges are in dire need of repair.

Mindless Sex Games/Political Division: It never ceases to amaze that high profile personalities…especially the wannabe alpha male types…are so willing and eager to unzip their slacks for wild short term monkey love with some third rate campaign bimbo/intern type. Most of us realized John Edwards wasn’t the prissy clean politico he always pretended to be…but jeezuz…he cheats on his cancer stricken wife Elizabeth while she’s gallantly hoping for remission. What a prick.

Good ‘ol John…never a hair outta place…but you can’t say the same about his little weenie.

Blimp on.

The Baseball Lords are concerned that steroid use has robbed the game.

Did you catch any of the Bosox/A’s games from Tokyo the last couple of nights? Really sad MLB is whoring it’s product…especially the Opening Series. Lame, shame games. Corporate logos on the caps and uniforms…looks like NASCAR, for gawdsake. 

Playing exhibition games overseas is one thing…but the export of regular season baseball games? No way. We don’t see Japanese sumo wrestlers opening their seasons over here, do we? Yet.

Bottom line: whether it’s money, trade, fashion, finance, manufacturing…or sports…globalization sucks. We’ve quickly become accustomed to dropping all the unique cultures of our world into a huge social blender, flipping the switch and accepting the gooey, homogenized mess it dishes out.