The New York Times put together this game that’s making the rounds in which you “try to be an umpire,” meaning you see an animation of a pitch coming and you have to say if it’s a ball or a strike. I haven’t yet seen it made fun of, and it needs to be made fun of, because it’s dumb, so here we are.
It’s a nice idea. But instead of having some camera view from behind home plate, it’s a docile graphic that shows you the strike zone with clear borders before the pitch is “thrown.” This, in addition to not having a catcher in front of you, not having thousands of people watching you in person, not having thousands and sometimes millions of dollars of other people’s money on the line…it’s dumb. It’s a nice idea, but in classic New York Times fashion, it’s presented as the end-all-be-all of umpiring, contributing to the incorrect conception that anyone can do this because they made the game really easy.
You know who had a good umpiring game? The Iowa Sports Hall of Fame, or whatever that place is/was called, back in the 2000s. That one was hard. That one replicated being an umpire. That one made me walk away feeling very impressed by umps as a child.
Kyle Schwarber stole a base last night, and that means he stole America a free taco, and most importantly that means that we’re going to get the clip of Kyle Schwarber stealing a base throughout next postseason when the promotion comes up again. This puts Schwarber on a list beside Ozzie Albies, Mookie Betts, Jacoby Ellsbury, Trea Turner, Mookie Betts another time, and other like-abilitied basestealers, and I don’t see why there’s anything funny about this. Kyle Schwarber has wheels, haters. Power and speed.
It was a wonderful game of baseball, Game 1 was. A little heart-stopping at the end when David Robertson completely lost control and then Aledmys Díaz said, “Well I can’t hit, so I’m going to try to get hit,” and looked like he pulled it off twice somehow but then also locked Robertson back in and made the last out; but a wonderful game of baseball. It was one of those losses that would crush a non-psychopathic team. Blowing a 5-0 lead? Immensely frustrating. But thankfully for the Astros, I guess, there is no conscience there. There is no capacity for embarrassment. The Phillies are dealing with a monster, not a thing with emotions. Like the protagonist in one of those zombie video games, the Phillies have to just keep firing. Godspeed, you beautiful Schwarberites.
BURNLEY!
We’ll catch up on everything else, I swear (I swear! Also Josh Norris’s shoulder is badly hurt, this sucks.), but we’re just talking Burnley today, because they play the earliest. When we left you to go do our other jobs for a minute (those were lame, now we’re back), Burnley was on the verge of breaking through and seizing total control of the Championship, which yes, that’s better than the Champions League, it’s so good that they don’t even show it to just anybody, they make it very difficult to watch. Since then? They’ve done it! The Championship is theirs.
It isn’t all over yet. There is a lot of footie to be played, as the king says. But Burnley won a thriller against Sunderland last Saturday morning (U.S. time) and then wiggled past Norwich on Tuesday and now the lads are two points clear of Queens Park and Blackburn with nobody holding matches in hand against anybody (out of those three—there are others holding matches in hand, but they’re safety matches and those others don’t have the box so really we’re still alright). The Burnleys have won four of five, they haven’t lost in two and a half months, the vibes are the best they’ve been in my Burnley lifetime, or at least since they were unexpectedly good enough that one year to threaten European play and to provoke shadowy powers to release the novel coronavirus in an effort to stop them.
Today, they play Reading, and before you ask, no, this is neither the Reading in Pennsylvania nor the Reading with its own railroad (those are the same Reading, by the way). This is the Reading in England. Which makes a whole lot of sense. No Birmingham situation here. Two Readings, one’s in America, one’s in England.
The Reading in England isn’t supposed to have a good soccer team, but those Biscuitmen (that’s their “historic” nickname, I wonder if it’s a slur for something and that’s why they had to make it historic) are having a solid year. They’re in the top half of the table. They’re no slouches. And that makes it even more noteworthy that Burnley’s a pretty big favorite in betting markets. Sure, it’s at Turf Moor, but the Burnleys are good! Now let’s all go knock on a lot of wood.
In old friend news, Sean Dyche has been rumored to be the next Leeds manager and that rumor has been shot down, though Jesse Marsch is still the coach at the moment. I don’t know about other Burnley fans, but I have bad vibes towards Leeds, so while I want Dyche to resurface and resume being the man publicly (I’m sure he’s being the man privately, but I don’t get to enjoy that, because of the private part), here’s hoping they just keep Marsch. That said, it would be funny for Cocaine Leeds to turn into Swamp Monster Leeds. What a stylistic shift. They’ve been chaotic since even the Bielsa days! The whole of my Burnley lifetime.
Game’s at 10:00 AM Eastern, it isn’t on American television, don’t let that stop you from using it to kick off a beautiful day of ACC and then Big Ten West football followed by a beautiful evening of whispering, “KILL HIM,” to Kyle Schwarber as the baseball approaches home plate.
See you, I don’t know, hopefully tomorrow.
