Benoit for Detroit

Day 26 Notes: (Jump Link at the End)

I looked at the baseball game the other day, Game 1 of the World Series, and saw in a road Detroit jersey---the grey trimmed with navy and orange and the cursive name of the city "Detroit"---and noticed the I was looking at a pitcher named Joaquin Benoit.

And I thought: is that the first time two different words ever appeared on a shirt of any kind that both ended in "oit"?

After watching that first game, you just knew Pablo Sandoval was locked in. That first inning when Justin Verlander, the best pitcher in the game, was making the start for the Tigers, the announces were tripping over themselves to load superlatives over the airwaves. He was making his 94 and 95 mph pitches to wherever he felt like, until Pablo came up.

Verlander went up in the count 0-2. He threw one of his strikeout pitches, a high strike, 95 or 96 mph. He could have elevated it a little more, but it was not a mistake pitch; it wasn't fully unhittable, but most people wouldn't have had a chance.

Sandoval hit the shit out of it, out to just-right of straight-away center. You knew it, too, that second it left the bat. Giants up 1-0.

In the third inning the batter before Pablo, Marco Scutaro (who's the elder statesmen on the Giants and red-hot right now) drove in a run to make the score 2-0, when Pablo came up and hit a pop-up with some gas, and watched it sail over the fence in left-field. 4-0.

Next time he came up the pitcher was no longer Justin Verlander, rather it was a guy with his entire name on his jersey, a guy named Al Albuquerque. Why does he need his whole name up there? How many black guys named "Albuquerque" can there be in the big leagues? 

Pablo Sandoval hit a bad pitch out for another homer, making him 3 for 3 on the night, with three homers and 4 RBIs. His next at bat he got a single, giving him a batting average of 1.000, and a slugging percentage of 3.250.

Yesterday was game two, and the starting pitchers were named Fister and Bumgarner. Bumgarner's first name is Madison, and his nickname is naturally MadBum.

MadBum and Fister. You can't make this stuff up.

I think I have a rambling post in me about how San Francisco is the Head Capital of the world, but not 'til later.

Here's a link to a post about Two Things from The Garlic Ballads that I felt like sharing with Norm, two of the more interesting things in that angry novel.