When I first read the title of today's column, I thought it was going to be yet another rant about how terrible it is that playoff games start so late at night. This is a valid complaint, and I wish MLB would fix it. They are not doing their job in attracting younger fans by putting the biggest games of the season on TV at a time when said fans are supposed to be in bed. This needs to be addressed in the next network deal.
But no, that is not the purpose of today's column. Today, Dan has discovered an essential truth of life:
A) Playoff baseball is played in October.
B) In many northern cities, it tends to get kind of cold in October.
C) Therefore, playoff baseball is kind of cold.
For Dan and others who may be interested, here is a basic scientific explanation of what causes the seasons on the NOAA website, and thus, why it is cold in Detroit in October, when playoff baseball is played.
I'm betting Dan got the idea for this column when he became chilled during the brief walk from the hotel lobby to his taxi. "Gee, it's cold! I'll write a column about how cold it is." And today's effort was born.
Despite perhaps ten paragraphs of complaining, no solution to the problem of this cold, if it really is a problem, is ever proposed. Do we shorten the season? Spend billions of dollars to make all stadiums enclosed and with climate control? Learn to deal with nature as humans have been doing for thousands of years? So many options!
Congratulations on another elementary composition assignment laden with snide nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThe column is clearly a thumb-sucker because press time comes before a column about the game itself could be written.
Cold is a factor in fall World Series games in the north and it's worth talking about in both historic perspective and from the point of view of some who are participating this year or who have played in the past.
But when one has an objective and an agenda before even reading the piece in question, naive and unsophisticated analysis such as that presented on this blog today are bound to follow.
This column was probably in the can, just like yesterday's, for quite some time unless you think CHB really was startled to be so cold in a Detroit October night. What a whiner.
ReplyDeleteHere in Seattle, games start at a perfect time. Its one of the best things about being out here. FYI, today's high is 57 with a low of 43. Not very sunny but no sign of rain until tomorrow.
And you can bet that if the Twins were still alive Dan would write a column about how it was an affront to baseball fans to have to watch World Series games being played in an antiseptic dome [which, by the way, would be true].
ReplyDeleteHe blows.
OB,
ReplyDeleteCheck this. In the 10/24 column, Shank states that the Gateway Arch spans the Mississippi.
That's what it was like the last time the World Series was played in St. Louis. The Red Sox dominated the entire Series -- never trailing during their four-game sweep -- and Red Sox Nation occupied the sleepy town by the giant arch spanning the Mississippi
Dan must have filed all his 2004 WS reports from the comfort of his Newton compound. Anybody who has been to St. Louis, or for that matter knows anything about it, would realize the Arch does not span the River.
In a career of mistakes, that may be the worst of them all.
ReplyDeletePerhaps poor Dan is just too dumb to understand what "spanning" means.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the columnist meant that the sleepy little town spanned the Missisippi, which is true if you include the suburbs of Belleville and East St. Louis.
ReplyDeleteBut typical of the knee-jerk criticism on this site.
(Just trying to beat OB to the punch)
michael, is that really how you read it? Neither proper English nor any other read would bring about that "interpretation." But good luck with that.
ReplyDeleteNo no no - I just wanted to channel O.B. for a minute, and apparently failed miserably. I think it's a horrible mistake. Like I think Dan is a horrible writer.
ReplyDeleteSarcasm doesn't always come across well on the Internet. I should remember thay.
*whew*
ReplyDeleteFor a second there I thought OB had a brother.
Now he didn't say the arch spans the Mississippi, he said St. Louis does. Perhaps town-by-the-arch should have been hyphenated, but the point is clear,the Nation occupied St. Louis, not the arch. The phrase does suffer from lack of precision as the St. Lou corporate limits do not extend over or across the river, but clearly the St. Louis metro area does.
ReplyDeleteWhen you shoot at kings, you must kill them.
How about the whole idea of even calling St. Louis, one of the largest cities in the entire country, a "sleepy town". This is akin to slamming Detroit and Jacksonville during the lead-up to the last two Super Bowls.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck is "sleepy" about it?
ob: Now he didn't say the arch spans the Mississippi, he said St. Louis does
ReplyDeleteSee? I called it!
Bruce, I grew up near St. Louis and no one -- no one -- there considers East St. Louis part of St. Louis in any way, shape or form.
ReplyDeleteLike Uranus and the Earth or The CHB and Reason, they are two compeletely different worlds that just happen to inhabit the same universe.
OB,
ReplyDeleteYou are a true moron. First, to read it the way you suppose, one would have to assume that he had a misplaced modifier. To mean what you think it does, it should have read "The sleepy town spanning the Mississippi with the Arch."
Second, Shank didn't deny that he made a mistake. So you are proven objectively wrong, again.
Chief-this was you, right? Just trying to get my hackles up?
The United States Census Department defines the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area as the counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Warren and Lincoln in Missouri and Jersey, Madison, St. Clair, Monroe and Clinton counties in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteEast St. Louis is in St. Clair County, part of the St. Louis metro MSA.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Bruce, give it a break for once in your life.
ReplyDeleteYou, me, and everyone else knows that what you just said is not what CHB meant. "Shooting fish in a barrel"? How about coming off that high horse just once and admitting that it might be possible that "The reporter" was wrong about something. Your act is getting tired.
East St. Louis is a blight; just one enormous ghetto. It's no more a part of St. Louis than Bridgeport is a part of Boston.
ReplyDeleteI was going to post a response to OB's stupidity, but now I am certain 'objectivebruce' is the Chief. A Swiftian figure intended to amuse and drive traffic.
ReplyDeleteWho can forget the old vaudeville standard song, "Meet Me in the United States Census Department-defined St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, Louie"?
ReplyDeleteI'm really having a difficult time deciding who's the bigger tool, OB or CHB.
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteI would also like to point out that Bob Ryan was able to write game columns, that you know, actually had details about the game in them. Yes, for games 3 and 4, Ryan wrote columns that were not pre-written and then stuffed with a paragraph giving the score. What a subversive idea. I am sure CHB glares at Ryan for showing him up like that.
ReplyDeleteBleep you Shank and Bleep you OB
I have a serious question: How in the world is Dan going to manage to dump on Red Auerbach? That may be too much even for him. We will probably see tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteSad news.
That Jenny has no class has heretofore been a theory.
ReplyDeleteShe has now proved it.
I'll set the over/under at two days for the media to "grieve" and "put things in perspective" before the whole media lot is back to second guessing, criticising with no backing information, and generally making all of Boston sports fandom miserable.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should amend that, I'll give it until the day after Red's funeral until the media turns back to its normal self.
He won't, Jenny. What he'll do is use it as an occasion to dump on Rick Pitino, the Grousbeks, Phil Jackson and just about anyone else.
ReplyDelete