Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Ballparks and recreation

For a humor columnist, this man's supply of topics seems shockingly small, doesn't it?

Big baseball weekend at our house, which isn’t too much out of the ordinary, really.

No kidding.

Leading off was a college tilt as St. Joseph’s took on Temple in a twinbill Saturday afternoon at Skip Wilson Field on the Temple Ambler campus. It was the first time I had gotten to enjoy a game at that particular field and it’s a pretty nice college ballyard.

"Ballyard"? Really? He couldn't have just said "...at that particular field, and it's a pretty nice one"?

This matchup was of particular interest because Father of Blonde Accountant and The Blonde Accountant are both St. Joe’s grads and Pop Pop pitched for the Hawks back in his day. I have no allegiance to either team, but I do enjoy watching college baseball when I get the chance. The accompanying video shows some of those sites and sounds.

Is "Pop Pop" the same person as Father of Blonde Accountant? I like his criteria for an interesting game - out of three, two people went to one of the schools, and the third person doesn't care.

St. Joe’s took both games from the Owls, although we could only stay for the first game. Son of Blonde Accountant had his regular season CYO finale back in Montgomeryville so we headed back for that. Tough day for the youngster as he took the collar and his team lost. But the rain held off until after all baseball was done for the day, so that was good.

What exactly is the theme of this paragraph? Hawks vs. Olws? Game in Montgomeryville? The weather?

On Sunday, Son of Blonde Accountant and I took in the Reading Phillies. We got to see some of the young Phillies prospects — like pitchers J.C. Ramirez and Phillippe Aumont, first baseman Matt Rizzotti and shortstop Freddy Galvis — and the rain held off long enough for the home team to secure a victory.

I must be missing all the jokes so far, by the way. Should we re-name this the "Here's What I Did Today Weblog"?

One of the many wonderful things about baseball is the terminology, of which we heard plenty over the weekend, mostly during the college game.
For example, the following phrases can usually only be heard on the ballfield:

Ah yes, the "ballfield."

— “Lotta hop!” — It means, “Stay aggressive, show a lot of enthusiasm.”
— “Right man, right now” — Refers to having the best hitter at the plate with runners in scoring position able to get a clutch hit and drive in the runs.

That was a tortured sentence.

— “Hum, baby!” — Usually what is said to a pitcher, as in “Hum that pitch in there” or “throw it hard.”
Then of course, there is the umpire bating. Umpiring at the college level in particular is challenging and one must have a thick skin. There is a lot of chirping going on from the benches. Among my favorite lines over the years tossed at umpires:

Wow. So we get three uninteresting bits of baseball jargon, and now we're being "treated" to things Borsch has heard "over the years." Now we're not even talking about the weekend anymore!

— “Hey, poke a hole in that mask!”
— “Hey ump, shake your head, your eyes are stuck!”

Boy, two whole lines, huh? And these sound like the most generic insults one can imagine.

When I played, my dad didn’t get after the umpires too much — and neither did I — because we understood that umpires don’t win or lose ballgames. But when Pop did feel the need to sound off, he was relatively nice about it.
“Wake up ump, you’re missing a good game!”

Okay, no, THAT'S the most generic insult one can imagine. And what's with all these pointless digressions? Can we please settle on a theme for this post?

One of my alternative activities over the weekend was to go shopping with The Blonde Accountant for a new kitchen faucet.

You have got to be kidding me. This is terrible. What is this supposed to be about? And how is any of it funny?

Although that still has to happen, I believe this weekend qualified as an example of another common phrase: “Can’t beat fun at the old ballpark.”

But I thought the other phrases were UNcommon, because you'd only hear them at a baseball game. We'll have to take his word that any of this was fun, though, because he did such a terrible job of describing it.

Labels: Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield, Reading Phillies, St. Joseph's, Temple Ambler

On a side note, we've passed the 150-post mark at Inta Rightfield. The majority of these have been Borsch-related, and the most frightening thing is, he's getting worse. He's still writing about the same things, using the same jokes. His choice of topics is slowly dwindling down to four: concerts he sees, things he can't do, stories he reads on the Internet, and baseball.

More disturbing is his shameless abuse of sentiment; he's hawked his so-called "tribute" to his deceased uncles several times in search of awards. There is seemingly no depth to which he will not sink.