Stolen game notes from boss's credenza

I’m sick of following up games with stock coverage and opinion. Here are some skewed observations from Friday night’s broadcast.

* The Brewers have a second baseman named Bill Hall. I worked three summers in a sheet metal shop with a second-shift spot welder named Bruce Hall. Like everyone else, he backed his pickup truck into his parking spot, paid union dues and was very friendly. I graduated with his daughter, Leslie.

While on the subject, a guy at the shop named Dan-something once let me borrow his homemade CD of rare Budgie songs. Does anyone remember Budgie? Theatric Brit-metal from the ‘70s. Album art, depicting birdmen with rocket packs, is pictured from their 1976 classic "If I Were Brittania I'd Waive the Rules."

* This has bothered me for weeks: What’s up with the promotional ads for hat day? One overlay says the kid "stole his hat from his boss’s credenza." What the hell is a credenza?

* I’m not sure what I think about Chase Utley’s soul patch.

* I like the new logo for Citizen’s Bank.

* Endy Chavez earned a spot in the fireworks promo. A good nickname for Endy would be L’il Endy. He'd endear himself to fans more if he had a non-threatening name like that.

* Comcast is really proud of their town-hall steroid series.

* The number of fans on cell phones, talking with friends that can see them on television, has increased 50 percent this season.

* I once e-mailed Paul Hagan because in two consecutive columns he wrote interesting factoids on Carlos Lee. In one of them, he wrote how Lee kept in shape over the winter by maintaining his farm in Puerto Rico. I told him he should invest in cows with sturdier teets because he’s a notoriously slow starter. I also asked him to check out my blog and he never responded.

* One day a study will be done among non-ESPN play-by-play announcers and it will show that Harry Kalas speaks the least, and Chris Wheeler talks the most.

* The Brewers have, or have had, Jeff Cirillo, Geoff Jenkins, David Nilsson, Lyle Overbay and Scott Podsednik, and in my mind’s eye, they all look like the same guy.

* I’m not sure what I think of Brett Myers's chin hair.

* I wouldn’t mind a J-Roll figurine.

* Wise is now pitching for Milwaukee. Former Phillie Rick Wise was hired as pitching coach of the independent Allentown Ambassadors when I covered sports for the Allentown Times. At the press conference, I asked what he was being paid for the job and he refused to say. Months later, he and manager Darrell Evans were fired, and the next season, the Ambassadors folded.

* Derrick Turnbow is shaped like a bowling pin.

* The evening ends with one of my favorite players, David Bell, smashing a walk-off three-run homer over the left-field wall. For Bell, it’s sweet redemption. For the Phils, it means 10 wins in 11 games during this homestand.

Comments

[Oisin]

A valid question. It seems like there's plenty of credenza's in 30s, 40s and 50s crime fiction. Or maybe thats just noir cinema. Sydney Greenstreet might never have been filmed sitting at one, but you know all his characters had one lurking in their rooms. As a younger reader, I wondered what the hell they were, along with houndstooth jackets.

From Wikipedia:
A credenza desk is a modern desk form usually placed next to a wall, as a secondary work surface to that of another desk, such as a pedestal desk, in a typical executive office. The credenza desk is sometimes flat, like a pedestal desk, but more often than not it has a stack of shelves, small drawers and other nooks, above its main working surface.

Sorry. I'm still giddy at the thought of a second 6 game winning streak. It's wrecking my head.

[pawnking]

I like your site a lot. More lost time at work as now I'll have to check your thoughts, too :-)
I share your ambivalence towards Bret Meyers' facial hair. It is supposed to look fierce? Maybe I'm getting old (I passed the median ballplayer's age a couple of years ago) but a lot of these guys seem like they're so young. Meyers looks like he could pass for a high school kid trying to look cool by growing a goatee.
I just listened to Howard Eskin for 15 min, and once again was disgusted by his constant negativity towards the Phils. He claimed "August and September are not the Phillies' months." True, last August the Phils fell apart, but they bounced back and flirted with the Braves in September. Howard constantly implies that hits don't matter unless they're "big hits" and presumably wins don't matter unless they're in August and September. I'll tell you what, let the Phils play .900 ball in June and July, and they will be able to play 5 games under .500 in those 2 months and still run away with the division. August and Septmeber matter, just like June, May, July and April matter.

[el123chico]

we need more recaps like that one. and does it really matter what brett myers facial hair looks like? as long as he keeps pitching like he is he can look like johnny damon.

i'm digging the lil endy nickname though.

[BlueMan]

Many moons ago I lived in a part of Jersey where you could get both Mets and Phils broadcasts.

A funny moment once when some dude hit a foul ball. Harry did his typical, "Fouled back" or something. Then for the next silent seconds you could hear Tim McCarver in the next booth (Mets) going on and on...Harry laughed, and teased his former cohort for talking so much about a lousy foul ball.

[Tom G]

Good post J. A lot of these things have been going through my head as well. I'm disappointed you stole these game notes off of your boss's credenza, but at least you didn't take them from a homeless man. As a kid, I can remember my father getting irritated with Chris Wheeler and since I was a kid, I couldn't quite understand, but now of course, "Wheels" drives me crazy. I noticed the other night, when he was doing TV with L.A., Anderson couldn't get a word in, with Wheeler basically doing both the play by play and the commentary.

[Tom W]

So, you don't like the rules? Consider them waived...