The Dapper Lad

I realize how live blogging works. Someone at a site with actual traffic (Deadspin) writes about a game that people are actually watching and it is fun. In this case I’m live-blogging that no one cares about on a site with no discinerable traffic. This is a real “if a bear shits in the woods and there is no one around to smell it, does it stink?” situations.

Ichiro grounded out. Lopez got single. Suzuki (Kurt, the American one) took a foul ball off the cup, but the plastic doesn’t shatter and he’ll live to bang groupies again. The ballpark looks totally empty. Ibanez got a single and it is starting to feel like last night all over again. DiNardo threw three changeups and Beltre missed all three badly. How much are you paying him again? Nice signing. Whomever was last grounded out to 3rd. Inning over.

Bad guys 0, Good Guys 0

Who thought it was a good idea to give Carlos Silva four years and 48 million dollars? Buck grounds out. Ellis flies out to center. Ichiro took an Eric Byrnes-esque route to the ball that involved running back on a ball that was clearly in front of him. Barton ripped a ball and Ibanez sort of leaned at the ball in a way that was supposed to be a dive and comes nowhere near the ball. Barton is on second. Jack Cust is batting .132, so he does what batters hitting .132 do: he grounds out to 2nd. Yeah, he’s our DH.

End One: Mariners 0, A’s 0

Greg Norton strikes out. Jojima grounded out to 3rd. It was a slow roller. A’s fans have gotten used to Chavez at 3rd where that play is a sure thing, but with Chavez hurt it is Jack Hanahan out there and it is sort of terrifying watching him out there. His name is fun to say though and it sounds baseballey. Bloomquist walked and the stole 2nd. Kurt Suzuki didn’t look like he was playing attention and threw sort of late and it was still close. Ground out to short.

Halfway through 2: Devil Spawn 0, Urban Achievers 0

Emil Brown got out in a boring way and then your short stop made a pop up in foul territory more difficult than it needed to be by running past the ball. Sweeney the younger grounds out. The A’s look pathetic.

End 2: Rain 0, Drive-bys 0

The cameramen have managed to find an angle where it looks like there are people at this game. Yet another groundout. This one from Ichiro to first. Lopez has another hit, this one just off Ellis’ glove. He didn’t get the memo about ground outs. Neither did Ibanez. Beltre apparently learned from his last at bat, finally takes a couple of pitches. Neither were close. The Mariner’s batboy somehow broke the sign behind homeplate. If you care it is a Farmer’s ad. Now it is a Pepsi ad. Beltre walks to load the bases. Vidro singles, scoring two. Live-blogging a game that next to no one is watching on a website that no one reads is possibly the most anti-social thing we’ve (I’ve) ever done. If this were the 50s we’d have been institutionalized for being some sort of pervert. I’d describe Greg Norton as a grizzled veteran if war/sports analogies weren’t so tacky. He walks to reload the bases. The 15 fans at the game are not pleased nor am I. Jojima walks forcing in a run. DiNardo is getting pulled for Saarloos. The A’s have a cute sideline report. I don’t know the proper term is for a baseball sideline reporter, because there aren’t sidelines. Foul territory reporter? She says that DiNardo didn’t like the white background. Yeah, it was the background that kept you from throwing strikes. It wasn’t the ball boys fault. I apologizing for slandering his good name. Bloomquist beats out a double play ball and another run scores. Betancourt takes an excuse me swing and gets a single and another run scores. Ichriro grounds into a fielders choice to 2nd, but the damage is done. There are going be people with Ichiro on their fantasy team who see the M’s scoring 5 runs and figure that they’ve scored some points. They figure wrong. It doesn’t change the fact that after two and a half it is:

People who disgust me: 5, Guys who aren’t good at baseball 0

Suzuki flies outs to right. Greg Norton goes Bill Buckner all over the place and allows a ball through his legs, but Travis Buck grounds into a double play.

After 3, This game is getting ugly 5, way to phone it in guys 0

This is not as fun as we thought it would be. We’re going to do this through the 5th so we can qualify for the win. In case my use of the 1st person plural is confusing you, it is the royal we. With two outs Mark Ellis decides that bending down to pick up the ball is too much effort so Beltre is on 1st with two outs. Just because we can’t touch our toes, doesn’t mean that it is alright for pro athletes to be the same way.

3.5; m 5; a 0

Ellis single, Barton double play. Sounds about right. Oh dear god! Jack Cust didn’t strike out! He singles. The Apocalypse is upon us! Brown hits it in the gap. Ichiro dorks around with picking it up and Cust scores from first and Brown ends up at 3rd. It should be a double with an error but Ichiro is the best outfielder ever so it can’t be an error. Haha, we won’t get shut out! If this were football, it would have put the A’s in spitting distance of the 3.5 run spread and made this game at least mildly palatable. But this isn’t football, so this one is practically done.

End 4, Bad team 5, Worse team 1

Jimmy Carter doesn’t like pancreatic cancer. An ad told me so. Way to take a stand Jimmy. So far the highlights have been the American Suzuki surviving a vicious assault on his right testicle and the triple. All the Mariner’s runs were created by singles, walks, and ground outs to 2nd, not exactly compelling stuff (much like this post). The cute sideline girl is named “Jaymee Sire.” She doesn’t look whitetrash, but her mother clearly can’t spell. I give even odds that she is married to a ballplayer within 2 years. Groundout. Groundout. Groundout.

Halfway home. Road team 5, Home team 1

Is there are away of having a break, so that just the intro shows? This horribly dull post looks like it is covering most of the frontpage. In the future it would be nice to not feel like a horrible space hog and only readers who were actually interested could click on the post and the rest of the world wouldn’t be exposed to it. I’ve the Season 1 of the Wire on DVD, so I’m going to watch an episode of that. Suzuki sliced one down the line and it was foul by about 4 inches. He didn’t want to leave 2nd base. He kills the ball again, but it is right at Beltre, 2 outs. Another groundout. This is why Europeans think baseball is boring.

End of 5: Mariner’s 5, A’s 1

I’m done and so very sorry.