Big Papi Sees The Future

Just look at how sweetly John Gress of Reuters captured Boston‘s David Ortiz planning to smack some homers in The Battle of the Laundry that starts today at 4 pm. It is from today’s NYT’s sport section which I am checking out as part of my determinations as to the best sources of baseball related information in this most critical month of my earthly existence. Any other suggestions or favorites?

Being Unhooked

It was very odd being dislocated from TV and the Internet even for four days. That in itself tells you what I loser I have become. When I think of what I was thinking over the last few days, when my concern was to ensure I had some idea of the hotels you could land at unexpectedly over the next five interstate turn-offs, there was plenty I found I did not need to care about – what a talk radio host said or what charges were laid against which politician.


“Dang – shoulda napped”

Baseball, on the other hand, becomes central as AM radio is a perfect medium for that sport and baseball is a perfect sport for that medium. Before the game – for hours before the game – there is much to consider about how a baseball game may play out. For example, knuckleball pitcher Tim Wakefield did not play well yesterday in the Red Sox loss to the Yankees but I had a sense he would not before the game as he was pitching on short rest. I don’t think you can have information about a player like that in any other sport or at least the known is not so well known. It is also complex. Much turned in the early innings on Randy Johnson’s temper. When he was facing bases loaded and his catcher went to talk with him, he was livid. His arrogant confidence and their relationship were important factors in the game. Sadly, he regained his composure and got better as the game went on. Maybe that was also due to him warming up for only seven minutes. That’s a fact. Just seven. Usually starters warm up for twenty. Now I know.

Despite the joy of driving up I-81 with a belly full of hammy turnip greens and grilled haddock listening to A Prairie Home Companion, it was interesting to watch my listening generally move from NPR or talk radio to sports radio, to replace the sort of facts I usually feed myself with sports stats. There is something utterly unimportant about sports stats which are also immersive – maybe it’s their utter unimportance. I think if I was driving along dealing with what was being dealt with and listening to news my brain would have imploded with argument and anger at the vanity, stupidity and selfishness of what is at the core of what passes for news. You can’t argue with baseball. It just has to happen. OK, you can argue that in 2003 Timlin should have gone in an inning earlier. He should have, too, but I still have a point. It also happens at its own pace. A game can be two hours or three and a half. A pitcher’s duel or a slug fest. Despite all you know, you just never know.

Boycott!!!

The exceptionally well-named Yates on the States, the tale of a family man from Manchester, England living in Minnesota, has raised this banner. It leads to an interesting consideration of the global brewing industry.

Yates’s complaint is that cask conditioned Boddington’s ale will no longer be made as the Manchester, England factory – the Strangeways Brewery – that makes it is being shut by its Belgium based parent, Interbrew. For 200 years, Boddingtons has only been made at Strangeways. From what I read, I understand what is at risk is the cask conditioned version of the brew, the real ale with live yeast in it, as opposed to the industrial kegged or canned versions with forced C02 carbonization we see on our shelves around the world. As a general rule, real ales take time to make, do not travel well and, if they do travel, they are expensive, like the six bucks Canadian I pay for a quart of Rogue. Kegged and canned beer is built for the tractor trailer ride.

If my reading on the brewing industry has taught me anything it is that mergers and consolidations have been the stock in trade for brewers for ever. I noted this as a complaint in my review of Martyn Cornell’s excellent Beer: The Story of the Pint but now I see it as simple reality, the nature of the flux in one end, the industrial end, of the industry. Consider this. I go to check the Interbrew website and the company itself has consolidated and is now called InBev, which is about as imaginative as LiqCo or HoochInc. It brews 13% of the world’s beer. It owns the Keiths I drank as a kid but which now gives me the willies when I smell it, the Rolling Rock in portland’s fridge, and the Hoegaarden and Leffe which have both been praised here. On the one hand, if it were not for the efforts of Interbrew, I would never have tried brews like Boddingtons or Leffe. In fact, the LCBO shelves are stocked with many InBev products, making the purchaser’s job an easy one. On the other hand, I would have had a chance to try other smaller brands since killed off in the churning mill that is the merger game – but only if I travelled to where those products are made. So, when brewery mergers kill off your local favorite, either an entire brand or a real ale version of it, it is an actual but local crisis; when it adds a great new style to your shop, it is a blessing but, really, only as a start to new hunting when travelling.

The conundrum of standardization and globalization. I will leave it to you to consider Yate’s call when deciding what you reach for when you reach for a beer.ill leave it to you to consider Yate’s call when deciding what you reach for when you reach for a beer.