Your Portland Beavers 5, Reno 1
Inning One: When It Rains, It Cistullis
We’ve got a saying where I come from. It goes: “Once a Cistulli, always a Cistulli.”
We’ve got a couple other sayings, too, like: “You can tell a Cistulli, but you can’t tell him much.” And also: “One if by land, two if by Cistulli.”
I’m not sure I understand what any of those mean; like a lot of accepted wisdom, the above sentiments are not necessarily concerned with “making sense.” I do know one thing, however: I am so ready to get this Ecstatic Truth party started.
Mount up, regulators.
Inning Two: A Man Named Tracy
Tracy Morgan, in case you didn’t know, is the funniest. “Funniest what?” maybe you’re asking. “Doesn’t matter,” I say back, real hard-like. Animal, plant, mineral: name a genus or phylum, and Tracy Morgan is the funniest of it.
In terms of QED-ing this claim, allow me to direct your attention to this appearance by Morgan on the Letterman show, during which he (i.e. Morgan) says – in re his “ex-girlfriend” Oprah Winfrey – he says, “I got her open, she open to me like a research monkey.”
Apropos that comment, I think we can all agree that it’s both a) highlarious and b) suggestive as a mother. I mean, were I feeling industrious and decided to count them, I bet I could find like seven entendres in there. Still, it’s not disgusting in any obvious way – like, in a way that would get Morgan or Letterman fined by the FCC.
Inning Three: And Why I Bring That Up Is…
A couple weeks ago, while neglecting my duties as a productive member of society, I sat in the left field bleachers of PGE Park with my friends Ross and Dan (with whom I co-author The New Enthusiast), watched Portland play Memphis, and vigorously neglected to write word one about any of it.
Among the many inappropriate we said and/or thought during our three sun-drenched hours, one of them was how sporting broadcast announcers sometimes have disgusting ways of describing totally innocuous acts. Among them are:
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Any number of times when a baseball play-by-play guy talks about a ball being “fisted” into right field, by which he means that it’s been hit off the handle of the bat, or
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NCAA basketabll announcer Jim Nantz, when he says that one player performs a “reach around” on another when, in fact, he (i.e. Nantz) means that the one player is attempting to steal the ball from the other player, or
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NBA colorman Hubie Brown’s penchant for describing a player’s time on the bench as getting a blow, as in “Shaq is gonna go get a blow here,” or
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Brown, again, describing the need for a team to involve their star player by saying, for example, “Philadelphia has to get Allen Iverson off here.”
I’m not good with opposites, so I won’t say this phenomenon – that is, describing the innocuous in a dirty way – is necessarily the opposite of what Tracy Morgan is doing with the Oprah/research monkey comment, but it’s definitely different and also funny in a different way.
Inning Four: HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Baseball is difficult. Hitting a baseball is difficult. Throwing it in such a way as to prevent others from hitting it is difficult. Fielding it after it’s been hit is difficult. Actual major leaguers, men who’ve presumably trained to play the sport for the bulk of their lives, find it difficult – sometimes borderline impossible.
All of which is why I find today’s starting time of 11 am noteworthy. Consider: last night’s game, against these same Aces of Reno ended at 10:05 pm last night. So what that means is, after spending three hours of playing baseball – plus however many hours of warmup or BP or whatever go with that – in addition to that, the Reno and Portland teams came out today, did warmup and BP or whatever, and played again at 11 am, thirteen hours after having finished the night previous.
First off, I find it odd that any human is asked to work at his highest level at 10 pm. Sure, there are certain industries where one is expected to, uh, perform at all hours, but, from what very little I know of the sleep sciences, my sense is that 10 pm is not necessarily go-time so far as the body and/or brain are concerned.
Nextly, to be required to perform at that same high level before noon the next day – especially when so many games are in the evening – seems more like a hilarious prank than anything else. Of course, I understand that there are scheduling and travel constraints and all that; I’m just wondering if these players, the ones in today’s game, were playing at maximum capacity.*
Just for fun, I thought I might consider some of the things that I, Carson Cistulli, am unable to do at 10 pm one night and then 11 am the next morning. The list includes:
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Be awake
Actually, that’s kinda a trump card.
*Which is not to be confused with the 1996 Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Maximum Risk or 2002 Velerio Mastandrea vehicle Velocità Massima.
Inning Five: Kyle Blanks Watch!
Kyle Blanks is ridikulas.
His line entering today’s game was: 266/383/473 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 11 HR, 35 BB, and 61 K in 248 PA.*
He (gasp!) didn’t play today
There were a lot of rumors as to why Blanks wasn’t in the lineup today for the Beavers, all of them (that is, the rumors) started by me, and all of them involving hand-to-hand combat.
*For whatever reason, Fangraphs seems to be a day behind these days. Baseball Reference isn’t, so.
Inning Six: Basic Questions
I experimented with this last Report, and the crowd went wild.
Vincent Sinisi (Portland): Portland right fielder or Cosa Nostra higher-up?
Defintely the former. As for the latter, I couldn’t say. By which I mean I’m not allowed to say.
Besides having that sweet name, is there anything else to think about him?
Well, for starters, he’s a different person than Val Pascucci, which is who I’ve been mistaking him for ever since he (i.e. Sinisi) was reinstated from the DL about a month ago. I mean, literally up till the fifth inning of today’s game, when I started looking this stuff up, I thought Sinisi was Pascucci.
Who the flip is Val Pascucci?
He’s Valentino Pascucci, a thirty-year-old currently playing for the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, the Isotopes of Albuquerque. He used to be, as I remember him, a power-hitting, twenty-five-year-old prospect.
What’s so special about him?
How about, number one, he’s awesome. His last four years in Triple-A look a lot like this:
| YEAR | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2008 |
481 |
280 |
403 |
508 |
|
2007 |
529 |
284 |
389 |
577 |
|
2004 |
471 |
298 |
414 |
575 |
|
2003 |
572 |
281 |
419 |
447 |
You’ll notice in the above chart-y looking thing that 2005 and 2006 are omitted. This is due either to the fact that a) Pascucci played in Japan for both those years or b) those two years have been omitted from our collective memories like in Total Recall or something.
What’s Sinisi, chopped liver?
Eh. He’s not bad. He’s just very minor league-y in that he does enough good stuff – makes occasional contact, picks up after himself – to keep him around, but not so much that you (and by “you,” I mean you, the San Diego Padres) want to make him your right fielder.
Is it racist that you mixed up Sinisi and Pascucci, just because they’re both Italian?
Hey, vaffanculo, you judgemental judger.
Inning Seven: Stretch
Among the many things I’ve neglected to do – like washing the dishes and also myself – one of them is make space in the Report for Rob “Rocket” Morse, the Portland Beavers’ crack Media Relations Intern. Rocket, as you will remember, is the author of some of the the most ecstatic fantasy team names you’ll ever want to see. A couple recent interations for team names include:
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Ehre’s Jhonny (after Cleveland shortstop Jhonny Peralta), and
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Crap, I forget the second one he told me.
Well, at least that first one’s real funny.
Inning Eight: Basic Questions, The Remix
Hey, where was your new BFF Ruben Gotay today?
He pinch-hit for Reno pitcher Jose Marte in the fifth inning today.
Did that bum you out a little?
What are you, a psychologist?
Inning Nine: Bill James’s Greatest Hits
A lot like a local radio station, the Ecstatic Truth Baseball Report promises to play the best from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. By which I mean to say that, much as I did last Report, I have no problem typing up and publishing here selections from Bill James’s The Baseball Book 1991.
One of the ones I want to show you is this one, about Carl Nichols, then (in 1991) of the Houston Astros
Who is he?
Third-string catcher, came up with Baltimore seveal years ago. Couldn’t hit a baby in the butt with a fly-swatter.
I don’t know what sort of people go around trying to hit babies on the butts with fly swatters, but it appears as though – in James’s opinion, anyway – this Carl Nichols fellow wouldn’t have been particularly successful at it.
