24 hours late, my reaction to the white sox game:

the worst part about this whole thing is that major league baseball trotted out the umpires post-game. david stern, the best commissioner in the history of professional sports, won't even let his referees ever talk to the media. when those women officials came into the league, they couldn't speak even for the purpose of stupid "overcoming odds" human interest stories.

and here, a half-hour after a clearly blown call, bud selig and his deputies force these guys to go talk to an angry and critical media throng. and how did they look? defensive. sort of like people defending their completely-public mega-error a half-hour after it happened. that's just dumb.

the next-worst part is that doug eddings, of course, used the punch-out motion. where i'm from, that means that the batter is out. but credit pierzynski for (hesitating then) running to first base, and blame josh paul for being a complete idiot. like tony grafanino, he's still on the white sox payroll.

the least-worst part, in actuality, is the misjudgment on the catch. that'll happen. but the other problems screwed it up.

and give some credit to ozuna and joe crede ("I'll take Joe Crede over anybody right now... A-Rod, Rolen, anybody") for making the mistakes memorable.

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i missed the game because we needed to get swept in softball. two blowouts, two slaughters, i believe. moved back into the top spot, i found myself with a 4-for-5 day. i misplayed a few balls in the outfield early in the process, and dropped a deep flyball (but recovered to start a bad-baserunning double play), but i also handled a few shallow popups and called off our centerfielder on a near crosby-sheffield collision a few steps in front of the warning track, and retore up my right shin on a sliding grab down the line. i was wearing pants for the first time (classic harry caray, although only my dad knows it...check here) and some gauze and things like that, but still ripped it up pretty fierce-like.

we played this completely ridiculous team in the second game. ultra-competitive. apparently, their outfielders cheated (playing too shallow). on two separate occasions, they attempted to take ridiculous extra bases while holding large leads. one of them came on a wild throw to first, a ball deflecting off of our first baseman's glove...despite the ball trickling no more than five feet away, the guy sprinted to second. the other, worse one, came earlier. double into right-center. safe on a fairly close play. on the throw to the pitcher, the batter darts for third. we make the play, but the ump rules that "time was called." sigh.

we had the same to ringers as we had on monday. we played 7 and 9. they played 6 and 8. they only played the first game, because we recruited other ringers - ringers we knew - for the second game. but one of the ringers stuck around.

when finishing our respective pitchers post-game two, i asked why she'd want to stick around. "because i hate that team, and wanted to see them lose." i had to apologize.

apparently, our game two opponent isn't the only thing developing a reputation.

"word's getting around that your pitcher's pretty bad." sigh.

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robert pollard's from a compound eye has a release date, and a label. merge records. january 24th. should be exciting. file sharers say it rules, and pitchfork gave the leadoff track a strong review when it first leaked last january. (it's here.)

i recently re-downloaded soulseek to recoup the cd's stolen in a 1206 west henderson break-in of halloween 2003. (i was dressed as joe borowski when it happened.) i had already acquired, through my fantastic sister, gurs, and em-dub, several of the cd's. i've since downloaded the following:
beulah - yoko
gram parsons - gp
gram parsons - grievous angel
the wrens - the meadowlands

i haven't obtained:
the joggers - solid guild
r.e.m. - eponymous

i've also entered the realm of using it to get music not-otherwise-attainable, a list that includes, at this point:
editors - the back room

it's import-only, and allmusicguide featured them, and i've only been through once.

i think i'll avoid the pollard release until it's official, however. more fun that way.

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as a whole, this post wasn't boring. however, the last half certainly sucked.