You’re Killing Me

I don’t know which is worse, watching the Red Sox lose the first two games of the series to the Yankees or watching it on Fox.

Their announcing crew is hurting my ears. Somebody named Joe or Jack Buck sounds like the most intelligent of the three, but he doesn’t have to go far. Tim McCarver doesn’t seem to be watching the same game as I am, he consistently gets names of the players wrong and is out of step with the action. And Al Leiter is so quiet that the only time you know he is there is when they show him on camera explaining how to throw a certain pitch and for a former pitcher he does that badly. They talk when they sound be quiet and when they should be talking there is silence. We see every pitch four times, first when it happens and three replays including one from a camera buried in the dirt near home plate. Please an important pitch in an important situation, but not every single one. The direction is herky-jerky. It is all over the place and makes MTV jump cuts seem sedate. Whenever they switch to the camera down the first base line the sound jumps 10 decibels louder too. They have a very annoying animated baseball that is used once a game to explain some facet of the game, I think, I turn the sound off. Fox is inserting an extra bit of promoing in between innings, we get back to the game just in time to see the pitcher release his first pitch of the inning. No lead in at all, if a pinch hitter is in or a new pitcher, you don’t know until after the action (if they tell you.)

I know this might not be Fox’s fault (although it probably is) but what is up with the ameriquest blimp? We get some nice aerial shots of the stadium and then they flash a little box telling us that it is coming from the ameriquest blimp with a nice illustration of a red, white & blue blimp. We never see the blimp. I’m betting if it is not a helicopter, and in fact a real blimp, it is not painted that way, but something in plain white hired for the occasion from the ACME Blimp Co. in Lakehurst, NJ.

The Forecast Calls For 4 to 7 Days of Anguish Ahead

I used to have a team I followed closely in each major sport. Almost all were centered in Boston.

The Bruins lost my love when the Hartford Whalers joined the NHL a lot closer to my home, but now the Whalers are gone from there. Moved to somewhere in North Carolina, possibly Charlotte (ironically closer to my now home), but hockey lost its appeal in it’s ever growing expansion into the southern states in search of the dollar. Plus how can you follow a team you can’t see on TV? The Celtics fell on hard times after Larry Bird left, but I hung in for a few more years. The game has changed from one of finesse to one of in-your-face one upmanship and it lost its appeal to me. Same thing with football where self-congratulations of grandiose proportions now occurs after the routine play. I was a LA Rams fan for some reason, not the Patriots as expected and followed them until they moved to St. Louis.

Maybe it was summer evenings listening to the games on the radio while growing up that has made my affection for baseball last. Well, the real baseball playoffs start in just a few minutes. Red Sox – Yankees and I’ll be glued to the tube hoping that this is the year.

How Fast Ya Goin’? *

On the way to Atlanta on Sunday Donna and I were in the middle of the pack, with us, the lead car and the caboose all having CBs. After clearing the Augusta area and getting into the part of the Interstate where there are 10 miles between exits, John in the lead car calls out, “How fast are you going? I’m showing 72 MPH.” To which I replied, “Seventy-five.” Rudy from the back said he was showing 72 as well. John said he would bump the cruise up to 75. After settling in at that speed (the limit is posted as 70) he asked for another check. Once again Rudy was right in line with John at an indicated 75 MPH. My speedo read 80. Why the difference? I’m riding on the same size wheels and have the exact same tire model as John, while Rudy has 17″ wheels & tires. Was my speedometer calibrated differently because my car came from the factory with 16″ wheels while John’s 99 came with 15″ wheels and Rudy’s did come with the 17 inchers?

Yesterday I asked Russ to bring in his GPS so we could take a lunchtime run and see how far off my speedometer is. Back towards the end of last year when Russ first got his GPS he brought it along on a lunch trip to Hardee’s while I drove. He showed me one of its neat tricks was that it could calculate your speed when moving. Over a portion of road that is marked at 55 and my speedometer was reading 60, his GPS said I was going 57 MPH. Today’s drive produced some interesting results. Just like last year on the stock tires when the speedometer read 60, the GPS said 57. We then got on the Interstate from our secondary road. At 70 indicated the GPS told us I was actually traveling at 66 MPH. And just like Saturday, 80 MPH on the speedo translated into 75 MPH. To get an actual 80 MPH ground speed the speedometer was reading 85. While we where going that fast I put the pedal to the floor just to see what it would do. Unfortunately it was up a slight grade to our fast approaching exit, so the GPS reported a max speed of 96.2 MPH. At that level the speedometer was one tick over 100 or 102.5 indicated.

Using today’s figures I show that my speedometer is reading about 6.5% low. If I use the Miata.net Tire Size Calculator, going from 205/45 x 16 (tire diameter of 23.3in) to a 195/50 x 15 (tire diameter of 22.7in) results in a 2.5% low reading. Was the GPS accurate? Are my 195/50 x 15 tires actually 22.7 in diameter? Did Mazda calibrate the speedometer differently for different wheel sizes? What is their tolerance on the speedometer readings from the factory? Does anybody really know what time it is?

*An unprofessional driver on an open course. Don’t try this at home!

The Storm

For all you crazy Red Sox fans who wanted to play the Yankees to get to the World Series, you got your wish. NY won tonight beating the Twins 3 games to 1 setting up a rematch of last years American League Championship Series.

Game 1 BOS @ NYY Tue. Oct. 12 8:00 p.m. FOX
Game 2 BOS @ NYY Wed. Oct. 13 8:00 p.m. FOX
Game 3 NYY @ BOS Fri. Oct. 15 8:00 p.m. FOX
Game 4 NYY @ BOS Sat. Oct. 16 7:30 p.m. FOX
Game 5* NYY @ BOS Sun. Oct. 17 4:00 p.m. FOX
Game 6* BOS @ NYY Tue. Oct. 19 8:00 p.m. FOX
Game 7* BOS @ NYY Wed. Oct. 20 8:00 p.m. FOX
* If Necessary

Well, I say be careful what you wish for. The Sox won the season series, but in the last 2 weekends of the season they played a home and home set of three games. Each team won 2 of 3 at their home parks. If that holds true, game seven of this series will be in New York and we will have to hope for a win in the Bronx.

New Shoes

Had the Toyo’s mounted this morning and what a difference. Smoother and grippier. Russ’s old Michelins were pretty hard as well as worn out. We are going to call this a mod for now, mainly because I forced the issue. Next time I replace the tires, in about 18 months, it will fall under service.

My wife will be happy to know that I’m almost finished modifying the car, there are just two things left to do. 1) Tint the windows. That’ll wait until next spring. And 2) the Mazda OEM small side sills. Those will have to wait until she figures I have suffered enough for this recent rash of purchases, probably sometime next summer…

The car got washed this morning. It really wasn’t dirty, as much as it was dusty, from sitting a couple days in a body shop’s garage while the spoiler was mounted and drying.

Der Komet Wird Angebracht

Which if Babel Fish’s translation is correct, is German for “The Comet Is Installed.”

Picked up the car at lunch today and it was definitely worth the wait:

Cripes! Can’t You Make It Easy On Me?

Winning 6 to 1 in the 7th and cruising. No, that was not exciting enough, you give up 5 runs to let the Angels tie the game. And then you put me through a couple of innings of struggling relief pitching, before winning it in the bottom of the 10th. I don’t think I can take this for the next 2 weeks…

Please, Chris Berman and any other announcer, don’t ever give me that, “They are only X outs away from winning the series,” shit. Keep your mouth zipped, that phrase is historically the kiss of death for the Red Sox. (As it almost was tonight.)