The Chantastic Blog

There was a targeted ad on my Facebook page for this thing called “MLB Dugout Heroes”. Having never heard of it - but being intrigued by the name and ad - I clicked on it, which led to this video and an immediate signup and software download.

I’ve really outdone myself this year - last year is nothing compared to this. There’s still a week before exams, yet I’ve already identified and committed to a method of procrastination that can occur at any time, and take hours out of my day.

The best part about this game is that I basically don’t know how to play the game because I don’t know how to do anything beyond the basics, but my love of baseball overrides all. So I was playing online against this guy, and he told me how to get “bonus points” in the game, with the first step being to hit Alt-F4 to create a special dialog box.

Of course, I just overlooked the fact that Alt-F4 closes the program you’re using and did it. Naturally, the game shut down, giving me an automatic loss.

It took me about two seconds to realize that I probably just got outsmarted by a 14 year old kid.

I watched the end of the extra-inning one-game playoff between the Tigers and Twins, which ended at 9:45. My first thought after the end of the game?

“Perfect. Great game, and now I can catch The Hills at 10 PM. I wouldn’t know which to choose - it’s like choosing between two of my children.”

Ironically, I had the same situation unfold this year during the first game of the regular season, and now it’s happening for the last game. That’s great symmetry.

I can’t describe how ridiculously rewarding it feels to see this. I’m well aware that it’s just a game and no human being should be as invested in this as much as I am. But still, it feels glorious.

On Canada Day, I went to watch the Jays game with my friends Cobra, Catalina, Stephe, and Jimbo. And yes, those are aliases because some of them demanded to know why they weren’t getting a shout-out in the blog. Anyway, since it was Canada Day, the Jays scheduled fireworks after the game as a promotion for the game.

As you may know, City of Toronto garbagemen are on strike, which means that nobody is picking up garbage from homes or the street, which is a problem since people have to come up with ways to get rid of their garbage. This happened a few years ago and led to awful smelling streets after a couple of weeks.

This segways into my idea for a Jays promotion: Bring Your Garbage Day. Each ticket allows a person to bring one bag of garbage to the game and the Jays will get rid of it for them. It’s not like the Jays would be the first to capitalize on the strike.

I’ve talked a few times about how I can’t stand the Jays announcers because of the nonsensical statements they make. But tonight’s game takes the cake because they were spewing blatant lies.

Tonight, the Jays announcing crew was Rod Black and Pat Tabler. Because the game was on TSN - not the usual network for games - Black was called in since he works for TSN, and the fact that he doesn’t follow baseball regularly became blatantly obvious. Midway into the Rays/Jays game, Black started talking about how the Rays’ run to the World Series last year had sparked a huge increase in attendance for Tampa Bay, that they’ve got that “building rockin’”, and that this was further proof winning leads to increased attendance.

That’s a nice theory, but I’m pretty sure that being 26th in attendance would disprove everything he said. Average crowds of 23,000 a game thus far does not a rockin’ building make. And that huge spike in attendance from the World Series that Black was implying? An additional 800 fans per game isn’t exactly the dramatic change he made it out to be. In fact, Tampa Bay’s president called the team’s attendance this season “bewildering” last week, which would, you know, completely contradict what Black was saying.

The best part about the whole thing was that Tabler said nothing as Black kept going on and on about the Jays attendance, and didn’t even acknowledge Black’s monologue after he was done, which was a sign to me that Tabler knew Black was wrong. But instead of trying to change the topic quickly or correcting Black, Tabler let him go on and on.

I swear I get dumber every time I watch a Jays broadcast.

A tremendous job by the ESPN graphics staff and Dave Dameshek on this new sign that he wants to put outside Pittsburgh’s city limits.

I don’t know who Mitch Stetter is, but he’s put up some great numbers in middle relief thus far. And he hasn’t walked anyone in June, which is a good sign since walks were his biggest problem. If your league counts holds, there’s nothing better than a situational lefty who puts up great numbers, racks up the holds, and gets the occasional vulture win.