I’m watching the Cubs play at the Texas Rangers today.  In the top of the 6th, Soriano worked a walk, and is taking a lead from first.  Brenly mentions that Soriano has his right foot (the one closest to second base) slightly behind the right foot.  According to Brenly, this allows Soriano to get  a better jump, because his left foot (the one he takes his first step with when he tries to steal) won’t have to come all the way around the right foot.  I had never heard that before, but after thinking about it, it makes sense.

I was never able to actually hit a pitched ball, much less hit it with enough authority to get on base.  Most leagues I played in also had a “Courtesy Runner” rule, where you could substitute anyone from the bench to run for someone on base.  Being fat and slow, and having almost never gotten on base, I was always subbed out.  So it’s no surprise that I don’t know much about baserunning.

Meanwhile, I can see a drawback to Soriano’s offset leadoff.  If he has to get back to first base, then his right foot has to come further around to get the first step back.  This means he has to stay a little closer to the bag, and therefore will take longer to get to second on a steal.  Overall, I suspect this evens out with the advantage you get in a better jump to second.

There’s a third possibility, which is that the open stance allows him to get a better view of the pitcher, which could prove invaluable in getting a read on the pitcher’s move to first.  In this case, the guy on the mound is CJ Wilson, a southpaw.  So that makes a some sense.

As the inning continues, Soriano is on the run with a 3-2 count, and Nady drops a pop fly down the right field line.  Brenly and Len Kasper wonder if he’d have been better off running through to third because if the ball is caught, he’s going to be doubled off of first no matter what.  I think I agree, but this has to be a rare baserunning situation, even for the experienced guys.  He didn’t get forced out, that’s the important thing.

Soriano is subsequently out on a groundball toward the hole at short, where Michael Young makes a good play to get to the ball and flips it to third because that’s his only play.  He’s out on the force.  The next batter, Koyie Hill, knocks a dying quail into right, and Nady goes face-first into the shin guards of the cacher to score an insurance run.  I don’t know how he didn’t break his nose and separate both shoulders on that play.

This is probably the most interesting inning of baseball I’ve seen since October 2003.  But let’s not talk about that.

Gus Johnson is somewhat of a polarizing figure in NFL announcing. He gets berated by many for getting incredibly exciting at even the smallest things. His defenders claim that that’s exactly why he’s great: he announces the game like an actual fan, instead of like a wooden puppet (Joe Buck). Myself, I don’t have an opinion, because I rarely get to see him announce. Stupid NFL broadcast rules.

I got my chance to evaluate him firsthand today, as he was calling the Illinois – Michigan State game. This was a game that reasonable people would expect Michigan State to win by 10, and in fact they did. But Johnson’s exuberance shined right through from his opening statement, “A matchup between the top two teams in the Big 10!” Sure, top two teams in that their both 4-0. But Illinois has their wins over Iowa, Indiana, Penn State, and Northwestern. With the possible exception of Michigan, these are the four worst teams in the conference. Michigan State, meanwhile, has W’s over Northwestern and Iowa, but also Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Context matters, and although I understand that you want a strong lead-in for the national broadcast, I will not forgive over-indulgence without providing the context. The strength of schedule was never mentioned during the entire broadcast, and the schedule at all didn’t even come up until about 4 minutes to go in the game. That’s bad coverage.

I don’t have much more to say about Gus. He got really worked up about Raymond Greene, MSU’s first man off hte bench, and that proved prescient: Greene had a solid game. At halftime, he did note Greene’s modest stats, and mentioned that he was a bigger factor “in the cerebral game.” I think I know what he was talking about, but I’m not sure. I’m going to let that one go.

Johnson’s partner, who’s name I only caught on screen once and then I forgot, was God-awful. He continuously confused Mike Davis with Mike Tisdale. At one point, when Davis was called for a foul, he called it on Tisdale, listed Tisdale’s game stats, and went on about how pour a game Tisdale was having.

Coming out of halftime, in what was an obvious scripted segment, Gus asked him about team rebounds. He defined them as rebounds where you’re diving on the floor, going after loose balls, etc. NO! Those rebounds are attributed to a person. Team rebounds are when the shot goes off the rim, and goes out of bounds before anyone on either team can control it. I understand they were trying to talk about hustle and getting to loose balls, but the way they went about it, it seems like these guys shouldn’t be trusted to read a box score.

And finally, this dude came up with the quote of the day.

When they get down by a lot, that’s when they like to come back.

Oh, I get it. When they’re ahead, they don’t like to come back, because it’s not possible. When they’re down by a little, they don’t like to come back, because I guess that’s just too easy. It’s only when they get behind by a lot that they really like to come back. Otherwise, coming back is just overrated.

I’ve just got a quick note about Arizona – New Orleans. There was an Arizona interception in the first quarter that was called back due to a roughing the quarterback penalty. Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa (the odd sideline reporter that wanders around the field, and gets to interrupt whenever; it’s strange) got into an argument about the validity of the call. Warner was hit on the head lightly by the defensive lineman, who then caught a piece of Warner’s facemask as well.

Johnston took issue with the call because it was a light hit. Siragusa argued that the call was correct, because the rule says that no contact to the head is allowed. Then he adds that there was a facemask after that. Johnston says that they should have called it a facemask then, and Siragusa backs off a little bit.

I don’t have a problem with Johnston disagreeing with the rule, but as an announcer, he should make it clear that it’s the rule that should change, and that the refs called it correctly. I didn’t like that Siragusa backed off him about it. He had the opportunity to agree that the rule might not make a lot of sense, but stay firm that the call was correct.

None of that is particularly egregious, but i find it ironic that there was so much discussion over the call in the booth. Arizona won last week on a very similar call. Green Bay had second down and medium deep in their own territory in overtime. They converted the first down, but the play was called back for holding. However, replays show that Aaron Rodgers was hit not-so-lightly (though not that hard) in the head after the throw. The penalty was not called.

Green Bay gained a few yards on the next play, leaving them in third and long. Rodgers dropped back, was hit as he threw, and Arizona intercepted and ran it in for the game winning touchdown. Except the guy that sacked Rodgers grabbed all over his facemask, which should have negated the interception and given Green Bay a first down. There was no discussion of this at all in the announcers booth, although that was the end of the game, and there was a lot of talk all over the place during the following week.

And finally, Candice gave me a good quote today. “Until you’re a statistician, I don’t care what kind of statistics you try to tell me about.” It’s good to be skeptical, but wow, now I need to get another Bachelor’s degree before I can talk to you about statistics? For the record, this outburst came after I expressed amazement at how well Reggie Bush was playing as a running back (4 carries, 3 for first downs and the other for TD, and 70 yards in the first half), considering he hasn’t looked anything like a professional running back in the past 4 years. She demanded I back this up with a statistic, and when I began looking up the numbers, that’s when she attacked my credibility.