Baseball Toaster: Catfish Stew : Opening Day Game Chat, Red Sox vs. Athletics in Tokyo

Opening Day Game Chat, Red Sox vs. Athletics in Tokyo

2008-03-25 02:00

by Ken Arneson

For any night owls out there...

Comments (63)

Show/Hide Comments 1-50

2008-03-25 02:55:14

1. Mark T.R. Donohue

I am very clearly insane, as I set my cell phone alarm for 3:30 in the morning and woke up for this thing. Who's with me? Who's with me, I say?

2008-03-25 02:58:49

2. trainwreck

Thank God there is someone else on this thread. I was prepared to talk to myself.

2008-03-25 03:01:34

3. coachjpark

Is this game televised? For some reason ESPN2 is blacked out...

2008-03-25 03:03:35

4. trainwreck

3
Yeah. You must live where you get a local feed of the game.

2008-03-25 03:05:03

5. Ken Arneson

I'm awake.

I'm getting ESPN2 just fine. Oh, boy, Steve Phillips. Yay.

2008-03-25 03:09:07

6. Mark T.R. Donohue

Park factor for the Tokyo Dome is 950, according to BP. Yay, baseball! Boo, my girlfriend for having issues with the 3:30 a.m. thing!

2008-03-25 03:11:06

7. trainwreck

5
At the very least, you will get a lot of Bobby Crosby commentary with Phillips in the booth.

2008-03-25 03:14:09

8. Mark T.R. Donohue

How long is Chavez out for, A's fans?

2008-03-25 03:18:50

9. Ken Arneson

8 Probably another month.

2008-03-25 03:20:01

10. trainwreck

Mark Ellis still has that last year power!

2008-03-25 03:20:26

11. Ken Arneson

Ellis! That's my guy!

2008-03-25 03:23:11

12. trainwreck

Barton showing the great eye as usual. He is my starting first baseman at the moment for my fantasy team.

2008-03-25 03:26:06

13. Mark T.R. Donohue

It feels really nice to be watching baseball again. Although the between-innings music they are piping into the T-Dome sounds unspeakably dreadful even in tiny servings.

2008-03-25 03:34:26

14. trainwreck

Good first inning for the A's.

2008-03-25 03:34:51

15. Mark T.R. Donohue

The little logo behind home plate reminds me of the Thunder Stix I received at an A's game in 2002 that say "JAPAN SERIES."

2008-03-25 03:35:47

16. Josh Wilker

11 : Even before the homer, the Red Sox radio announcers were identifying him as one of the most underrated players in the league, and I wondered if they'd been reading Catfish Stew.

Man, I'm tired.

2008-03-25 03:40:17

17. trainwreck

Blanton looking good so far, but I miss Haren. He lived in Walnut Creek just like me. I used to see him around town.

2008-03-25 03:44:13

18. trainwreck

I thought Sweeney got all of that for a second.

2008-03-25 03:46:35

19. chris in illinois

Some of us are up in the Midwest as well...

2008-03-25 03:46:37

20. Mark T.R. Donohue

16 I feel like one of the little people in "The Sims." You can get them out of bed when their energy bar is at zero, but they ain't gonna like it. I particularly felt this way when drinking my first cup of coffee, I could imagine the little green arrows zipping my energy bar slightly towards full... for a second.

The bottom of the first inning demonstrated to me why the A's shouldn't crater this year: they're not likely to waste many at-bats this season on guys with no plate value whatsoever.

2008-03-25 03:48:03

21. Ken Arneson

That's Buck's hole: up the ladder.

2008-03-25 03:48:23

22. trainwreck

Billy Beane talking to Steve Phillips tomorrow. I cannot wait.

2008-03-25 03:55:56

23. chris in illinois

Hey A's fans: did Joey Devine make the team??

2008-03-25 04:00:00

24. trainwreck

23
No.

That looked like a ball to me.

2008-03-25 04:12:34

25. chris in illinois

24 I wasn't happy to see him go....here's hoping that Kotsay will do his part and put up a 220/310/330 through April so we can get Jordan Shafer up by mid May.

2008-03-25 04:22:21

26. Ken Arneson

Why is there a sign behind home plate that says "1 kg CO2"? Who the heck advertises carbon dioxide?

2008-03-25 04:52:41

27. Ken Arneson

Uh-oh. Blanton's running out of gas.

2008-03-25 05:06:57

28. trainwreck

Rick Reed has one tight strike zone.

2008-03-25 05:13:32

29. Ken Arneson

Woohoo! Hannahan!

2008-03-25 05:16:10

30. Mark T.R. Donohue

Ganbate, Hannahan!

2008-03-25 05:18:00

31. trainwreck

Good to see that Snyder still sucks.

2008-03-25 05:20:06

32. Ken Arneson

Hmm...I just realized that maybe 27 answers my question in 26

2008-03-25 05:32:11

33. Ken Arneson

Keith Foulke? Oh no! He's been awful so far.

2008-03-25 05:36:25

34. trainwreck

Keith Foulke is back!

2008-03-25 05:43:53

35. Ken Arneson

Well, OK then. I take it back.

2008-03-25 05:48:36

36. trainwreck

Dang!

Nice play, Jacoby.

2008-03-25 05:51:37

37. Jon Weisman

I can't believe we had 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. feedings and I couldn't get the game on. The weird thing is that most of our HBO is out too, but all the other channels seem to work.

2008-03-25 05:55:15

38. Ken Arneson

My 9-month-old woke up at 3am with me and wanted to play. I played with her for a couple innings, then she went back to sleep.

2008-03-25 05:56:32

39. Ken Arneson

Drat.

2008-03-25 05:57:11

40. trainwreck

Good God no! I cannot take extra innings.

2008-03-25 06:01:28

41. Ken Arneson

Big advantage Boston now. They still have Okajima and Papelbon to use;; the A's have burned their best relievers.

2008-03-25 06:17:45

42. bhsportsguy

Free baseball.

2008-03-25 06:25:49

43. BALCO Lab Rats

I'm in Montréal. We don't have the Expos anymore, but hey, opening day baseball on TV, in the morning, before leaving for work, when it's about -15 Celsius in the morning, with about 5 feet of snow everywhere... That's not too bad!

2008-03-25 06:28:22

44. bhsportsguy

Street should have stayed in AZ.

2008-03-25 06:29:24

45. Ken Arneson

Terrible pitch selection. No reason to throw anything but sliders in the dirt. High fastball to Manny? Nuts.

2008-03-25 06:29:52

46. Ali Nagib

That was some pretty good Man Ramming.

2008-03-25 06:31:08

47. Ken Arneson

I take 45 back. That was a hanging slider.

2008-03-25 06:45:37

48. Ken Arneson

Now THAT was terrible. Just stupid baserunning.

2008-03-25 06:50:54

49. Ken Arneson

Dumb way to lose. Bah.

2008-03-25 06:58:45

50. jmoney

God that sucked. I'm calling in sick to work.

Show/Hide Comments 51-100

2008-03-25 06:59:12

51. Bob Timmermann

I actually woke up around 5:00 I think and had the TV, but then I went back to sleep sort of and had one of those states where you're dreaming, but the stuff on the TV is incorporated into your dreams.

The A's and Red Sox were actually playing in an outdoor stadium attached to a department store.

Eventually, my cat knocked something off of my dresser and then I woke up for good in the bottom of the 10th.

2008-03-25 07:05:17

52. williemays haze

It was a pretty cool feeling to watch the A's season opener live while eating breakfast this morning. (And Barton looks awesome)

Now the feeling is not so good as the game is over and I'm stuck at work for another 6 hours with a stiff neck from not sleeping enough.

Ah baseball, the things I do for you...

2008-03-25 07:14:44

53. Bob Timmermann

At one point, I had a dream that a Sweeney was batting for a Sweeney. But that was no dream!

2008-03-25 07:25:12

54. dianagramr

I don't know which I'm more disappointed about ...

a) sleeping through the first game of the season
b) waking up to hear that the closer on one of my fantasy teams blew the save

2008-03-25 07:46:46

55. Johan

One of the closers on my fantasy team blew the save, and another one picked him up. That's what teammates do! We've got great chemistry.

2008-03-25 07:49:51

56. Johan

On the downside, I just woke up to watch the game, but my DVR blew it. I don't know what happened. I live in the Bay Area, but the Murky News doesn't list a local broadcast so I don't think ESPN2 should have been blacked out.

And the archive on MLB.tv wasn't up yet, and my best efforts to block the screen couldn't keep me from seeing the Sox won, so screw waiting. No way I can watch a recorded sporting event that I know the result to.

2008-03-25 08:02:13

57. Bluebleeder87

I feel cheated for some reason

2008-03-25 08:25:26

58. Eric Stephen

I set the alarm for 3am, and had the TV on ESPN2, but I was in and out of sleep the entire game. Pretty much only heard audio. I'll try again tomorrow since I don't have a late-ending Laker game to contend with tonight.

2008-03-25 08:51:30

59. Bob Timmermann

There's nothing scarier than having Steve Phillips inhabit your subconscious dream world.

2008-03-25 08:57:30

60. dianagramr

how about Joe Morgan inhabiting it?

2008-03-25 08:59:48

61. Bob Timmermann

I guess it's time to go into intense psychoanalysis now. I think I will have to start with 8 sessions a week.

2008-03-25 12:00:11

62. jmoney

In case anyone wants to read it, I stayed up and wrote a running diary of the game:

http://diablomag.com/D-blog/Best-Of-Editor-Picks/January-2008/Oakland-As-Opening-Day-Night-Fever-Dream-Blog/

2008-03-25 12:00:49

63. jmoney

Or how about this:

http://tinyurl.com/388hkn