And remember pitchers -- run base to base. No first to thirds, please.

Oh Gosh, Chien-Ming...

Happy Friday, all! 2nd full day of summer and there's a Yanks-Cubs matinee.
Praise be to Mo.

Man, I love New York. But Chicago is right there when it comes to hot dogs. Mmmmmm....mmmm!

The musicians in the house got to check this out. My uncle emailed it to me today. Supposedly Little Richard as a young boy killing the piano in a movie. Confirmation?

http://www.wimp.com/oldschool/

[5] Caldonia!!! Louis Jordan, is my *favorite* entertainer of all-time!

stride piano is hard. yeah, that kid was playing. great stuff!

today's game is apparently on both yes & mlb network, neither of which i get. i figured it would be on wgn, but...nope. ah, is alright - i have too much to do, anyway.

perhaps tomorrow fox will air it in my part of the country and i can catch some before my gig. if not, i hope to watch some sunday night...

GO YANKS!!!

Hm.
Can we start this game over? I feel like the first two batters weren't ready.

[7] I'm watching on mlb.tv.

The Wrigley faithful booed A-Rod when he came to bat. Just to provide you with some atmosphere.

Our old friend Glenallen Hill hit a homer onto one of those roofs acrsoss the street. Man!

Yeah, you didn't miss much that inning, anyway. Half inning.

Go Freddy!

Oh, come on, Fred.
I hope this isn't going to be One of Those Games.

Passa Mike Quade.

Yep, One of Those Games.

Curtis fucking butchered that one.

Oh wait, this is an afternoon game? Rats.

Watching Nunez make terrible plays each day make Jeter's D seem a little better.

Freddy's thinking, "Oh, okay, like that, huh?"

um, this isn't a good start. guess i'm glad i can't see the game...

RI - was it you that said Kim looked good in purple yesterday? lohud has a pic and...yes - she most certainly does! then again, she looks good in anything! : )

and that was funny about where i was AT. ugh. i was administering technique and reading finals to my college students - snare drum and drumkit.

Yeah, I'm back to not liking Freddy Garcia.

An ivy catch. Nice. Now score some runs.

The Constant Gardner strikes again! Ivy League, baby.

(Brett reeled in a scary-looking drive right at the ivy-covered wall, thelarmis.)

[19] I know, I half expected you to chime in right away that she looks good in anything.

Do you object in general to stranded prepositions, or is it just that dialectical "where you at?" that particularly gets you?

Where are you going to?
Also terrible.

[24] What about this?

That's not something I'm familiar with.

Aha, I've figured out a little more why Kay's game call bugs me. In addition to using "driven" far too often, he always employs the passive voice: that one is punched to short, that is driven to center, that is looped to left, that is served to right, etc. Lazy, boring cadence.

[23] i imagine she also looks good OUT of anything! ; )

[23][24] yeah, that's bad, to too.

it's mainly the "at" thing that gets me. as a kid, i didn't know of the saying "where it's at" meaning "cool", as it was outdated in my youth. that's almost acceptable in a vacuum, but the asking of questions with "at" at the end, is just brutal. it really makes my skin crawl.

it's not AT anywhere. it's simply: "where is it?" period, the fucking end.

[26] I don't agree, but I believe we have discussed this before (though not in connection with Kay particularly).

This might be a day when it's better to banter about syntax than about baseball, huh?

[26] We discussed the passive voice (the passive voice was discussed)? I don't remember (it is not remembered).

[29] Sigh. That was for [28].

C'mon Freedy!

[29] Indeed. There was some disagreement over whether "there is" sentences are in the passive voice. (The verdict: technically no, but they share the feature that bothers some people about the passive voice.)

Aha, so THAT's what Frankie Cervelli is good at: teaching the other catchers how to throw the ball into centerfield.

[32] Right, I remember. That was when Girardi was describing how "there was a situation in the press" or some such, conveniently obscuring his own agency in driving some or other controversy!

With regards to Kay's use of the passive when calling the game, it bothers me more inasmuch as his play-by-play is very repetitive and tedious. X is Yed. Over and over. The lack of agency is another consideration. How much more striking would be "A-Rod rips that pitch deep to left," rather than the 986th straight "That one is ripped..."

Is it my imagination, or does Brett Gardner get a lot of high strikes called against him?

[34] Sounds right, about the context. Okay, if it's repetition that's the issue, I'm on board with that.

"This is the sixth spot in the order that he has batted in."

Yikes! Stranded preposition!

Definitely a strike on Gameday, not close.

[37] Passive and impersonal constructions tend to encourage stranded prepositions. Use the active voice, people!!

That was a strike, Swish.

la bronx banter grammar policia

The Score Truck is driven by no one. Wrigley Park is not a stadium the Score Truck is in.

Freddy Garcia is not a pitcher that I like looking at.

Garcia sucks!

Where are all the Yankees pitching prospects that I keep hearing about?

[43] Good, strong, active voice sentence. Short and punchy, and accurate too. Well said, sir!

Well if I had to miss watching a game, this looks like the one to miss.

The bullpen should be called to.

[47] Punchy, to the point, passive voice, stranded preposition!

Well, That could have been worse™.

[37] there are a handful of songs that have a lyric similar to:

"in this life in which we live in"

oy.

[48] you should start a band with your sons:

RI Yank and the Dangling Participles

[50] Yes! "Live and Let Die". What else? (I always tried to hear that as "... in which we're livin'...", but no, it's not.)

[51] I believe that you meant to write:

A band should be started that is called RI Yank and the Dangling Participles.

Or better:

A band should be started that is called RI Yank with the Participles Dangling.

[52] exactly. Live and Let Die is the main culprit. then, i heard pretty much the same exact thing in 2 or 3 other tunes. can't remember which ones. i believe one was a metal tune (maybe Flotsam and Jetsam)...

[51] I do have one son with an active voice, too. But we need a female lead for our big number, "In the [subjunctive] mood".

[54] Yeah, it's right up there with my "favorite" song lyric pet peeve: rhyming a word with itself.

is there a "no-hitter" going on?

[53] Ahem, but those are not dangling participles. I think you meant,

Called "The Dangling Participles", RIYank started a new band with his sons.

The RIYank kids get proper grammatical instruction.

[55] ah, instrumental music is always the way to go. you can quote Glenn Miller and get the point across. make sure you compose a classical piece and use lots of parallel fifths. if you need someone to chart out the material with TONS of syntax errors, i have the guy for you.

the cat that writes the charts for my chart reading class at a fucking music college has NO idea what the fuck he's doing. they're a complete mess. essentially, his musical sentences look something like this:

Garcia at leadoff walk, toffin my goster host; stolen base in balk at! Verf?!"

[57] good work!!!

not anymore, haha! : )

This game is painful

[56] melf. telf. crelf. omstinelf.

you said to rhyme words with "itself", right?!

at.

[61] yes, but the game thread is FUN!

[58] yes, i know. but i was still thinking of Kim in (and out) of purple; hence, dangling participle.

i secretly, have always thought "dangling participle" would be a good band name. especially since "vowel movement" is already taken!

I have a genuine question of song syntax (so we don't have to think about this steenkin' game), which is fortunately baseball-related. I don't know the answer. In our National Anthem, what is the object of 'watched'? To remind you:

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

What did we watch?

is does make sense that a guy who's name is "fuck you, dome" plays (most of) his home games outdoors in the daytime...

66) I always thought of it as "fuck you, do me". Some kind of crazy love hate relationship encapsulated right there

65) the broad striped flag is what we're watching, peaking over the ramparts to see it?

OK, we're going to get a couple of runs this inning.

[67] I always thought of it the way thelarmis does, but yours is better. I mean, way better.

[67] oh my god, that is fucking *amazing*!!! and, good lord, do i feel like a fucking moron for not EVER seeing that. i pride myself on silly word game type shit and just never ever fucking saw that. you RULE! wow, do i feel dumb. at. glaif. indeezer.

[68] That's one possibility.

One problem with it is that if you think carefully about the story, you have to conclude that (as far as I can work it out) we did not see the flag at all at that point -- viz., during the perilous fight. Then suddenly the rocket's glare and the bombs lit up the flag, and it was inspiring.

Sigh. Curtis waves like a flag...

Or not.

[69] if by "runs," you meant crap...then, yes.

[73] a single flag, like an 1/8th note. or - 2 flags, like, say, a 1/16th note rest?

[75] Ah, as in, "I got the runs on my last vacation in Mexico."

[76] Six Flags, for your amusement!

[71] It's always been "fuck you, dome" for me also, too.

[65][68] The flag is the object of all the seeing and hailing in the first verse. I think you have the song's "story" somewhat wrong.

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

Notice: the flag is visible at dawn (oh say can you by the dawns early light), but it was also visible at night because of the rockets (the rockets red glare...gave proof through the night that our flag was still there). In effect, the whole verse is about how the flag was still flying throughout the night and day despite the ongoing perilous battle.

I wish we could see the Score Truck by the dawn's early light, or by the rockets' red glare.

this is ridiculous, cousin larry.

the bats must be in the score truck, which apparently got stuck on the Major Deegan...

Did anyone not expect this kind of performance against this junk balling scumbag? Perilous is my blood pressure as this game proceeds.

[77] exactly!

[78] that would be difficult to notate.

[79] glad i'm not alone!

[83] not really. but, he's definitely not a scumbag. really good guy who's had a lot of serious health conditions (cancer, heart). certainly a junkballer, but threw a lot of innings and had a 108+ ERA for a decade...

OK, time to crack open the local brew, Radeberger Pilsner. I do love that beer in Germany is cheap and comes in 500 ml bottles.

Uh, Fred... I know they say "just throw it to the bag", but it is traditional to be sure a teammate will be at the bag.

Yep. That bunt may warrant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8vINCq_IAI

[80] On the story:
Right, it's about how the flag was still flying all night. But, I believe, part of the story is that it was flying while we could not see it. This is why it's worth mentioning that we hailed it proudly at dusk (which is what I think the second line means). We saw it and hailed it at dusk, and then we couldn't see it and it was kind of demoralizing and scary, and then the glare and the bomb-bursts lit it up and it was really awesome and morale-boosting. (I think your first question mark is extraneous, by the way -- that's the middle of a sentence.)

I think I have a syntactic argument that the object is not the flag, too, but I find this part very confusing.

My alternative hypothesis, by the way, is that "the perilous fight" is the object. (Some people think it's the ramparts, but this is semantically implausible.)

Come on Nuñez, you're supposed to let that throw sail into CF!

"quality" start. and, really, it is. he can still continue and save our pen. fred's been alright. our offense is "teh suck" today.

nice to have a catcher that can throw...

[86] Prost!

[89] Syntactic Argument

this is also an excellent band moniker for you and your boys. or, at least, the debut album!

[89] How do you explain that the rockets gave proof through the night that our flag was still there? It seems pretty clear that the flag was visible all night because of the rockets. And then it was visible (still) when the sun came up.

I think the oject has to be the flag. Take out the extraneous words and you are left with: Can you see what we hail, whose stripes are streaming? Answer: The flag!

Just not their day. : /

Yawn. Just a typical 5-6-3 ground out.

High strike to Gardner!

2 hits. 2 Modamn hits! For fuck's sake!

I'm probably in the minority here, but as much as I have grown tired of GBA at Yankee Stadium during the 7th inning stretch, I find it less annoying than asshole celebrities leading TMOTTBG at Wrigley.

[99] i'm not a fan of either.

but, beer. yes, thank you, please!