I couldn’t help myself. This is just too precious of a picture to let slip by. Opening day of the 2006 baseball season, Barry Bonds has his “adoring fans” show him how much he’s appreciated.
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but look at the guy over the years. He got huge really fast. Something happened at some point to have that happen.
He’s got a long road ahead of him to show us he’s innocent.
We were planning our night tonight all around the Canucks and Kings game tonight. Deciding what we wanted to get for dinner, when we’d make it, and so on. And then we got home. While loooking to set a reminder on the digital cable box, I figure out that the game is not on Rogers Sportsnet or TSN. It’s another pay per view game.
Yes, the coverage of the PPV games is outstanding. Yes, John Shorthouse does the play by play. Yes, it is all Canucks for nearly three hours with hardly any commercial interruption. I’m not disputing that it’s great for anyone who calls themselves a Canucks fan.
What I don’t care for is that there are so many of them in the playoff stretch. I think that next season, they could knock the number of PPV games to fewer. Of course, I say this because we are a newly married couple with not a lot of cash to spend while enjoying a nice pint and dinner at good place to catch the game. I might be singing a different tune this time next year when I’m able to have a job, but it kinda sucks.
If you want to see the game on TV, you gotta pay about $12, after taxes and everything. See it at a pub, that’s about $20-$60, depending on food and beverages enjoyed. And if you want to see the game at GM Place, that’s at least $100, give or take $30-$150, depending on who the game is against, and how desperate you are for tickets.
Excuse me if it seems like I’m bitching, but I just wanted to see some hockey tonight. That’s all I’m saying.
For some reason, even I had a little bit of opening day jitters going on. I was nervous for the sake of being excited. It’s here. Baseball is on. To me, this means that summer has officially begun.
Actually, the opening day really kicked off last yesterday. The White Sox, fitting enough, had those duties at home. They’ve bulked up their team during the off season, so we’ll see if they can hold their title. I still don’t like watching their games on TV if it’s Hawk making the calls. It’s just painful to me.
The Cubs start out in Cincinatti today, home opening at Wrigley coming up this Friday against the Cards. I’ll be heading into the interior with my wife. Will have to catch up with the scores later, or you can always check out the Cubscast. It’s not timely, but they’ll let you know who is doing what and where.
It might seem strange for me to be a hockey fan and a baseball fan. They are completely different sports, and you will never hear me trying to compare the two. Baseball is meant to be enjoyed slowly. These are the lazy days of summer. Lazy being the key word.
Edit: Cubs win! 16-7! Good game to start the season, but it was a strange one.
I don’t think anyone could have imagined that the World Baseball Classic would have been as successful as it was. There was that small part of me that wanted Cuba to win it all, but I found myself cheering for Japan a lot more.
If it weren’t for the Yokohama Bay Stars game that I went to while in Japan, I probably would have never rediscovered a passion for baseball. And the classic was some really good stuff. Now I’m ready for opening day.
I’m not so new to Vancouver to know that the word about CKNW losing the contract for broadcasting Canucks games to Team 1040 is big news. To me, it’s huge. I’ve interviewed for jobs at both of those stations in the short time that I’ve been here. They both have very respectable operations going on with really great facilities.
David, chief engineer for CHUM Radio Vancouver, had a lot of projects on his list that he told me about during the few hours that we met. The combining of a couple transmitter sites was of peak interest to me, but that’s the broadcast engineer in me talking. It wasn’t until tonight that I recalled something else that I noted.
There was one studio that was in the process of being vacated that David took me through. I was excited when he told me that he would be completely gutting the room and rebuilding it so Rogers Sportsnet could simulcast programs from there. Of course, I was excited because there was a possibility that this guy could be hiring me and I’d get to help. It was for the I.T. position, but I could tell that David saw my RF experience being handy for situations such as these. Sadly, my work status in Canada prevented me from partaking in said fun, but they did check my references.
Team 1040 put themselves into better position to win the broadcast rights from the Canucks. CHUM looked like a good investment to the Canucks with the investments that CHUM made into itself. Corus, who owns CKNW, loses a long time legacy, but I don’t believe that their programming was hurting so much as to not get the contract renewed. The competition just presented a better, overall product.
I have come to really appreciate John Shorthouse doing play-by-play. He’s good. For those back in Iowa who remember Ron Gonder and the legacy he had with the Iowa Hawkeyes on the radio, Shorty is that to Canucks hockey. It’ll be weird to hear him say, “You’re listening to Vancouver Canucks hockey on Team 1040.”
I understand that people are upset with the current skid that the Canucks are on. It doesn’t make sense that we are able to come out of the Olympic break and strengthen the defense only to have this heartbreaking manner of play perpetuate. No goals in the first period for the Canucks since before the break? And it’s been the Sedin/Carter line to pull us through so far.
Still, it’s senseless that someone found themselves so disgruntled that they sent a letter to GM Place addressed to Bertuzzi with a “mysterious white powder” in it. I mean, come on. There is the fact that you have to have such a low IQ to laugh at a prank like that, but the other element to the story is that the team is on a road trip right now. Do you even think that a letter sent to GM Place would be hand delievered to Bertuzzi?
Instead, you freak out the staff who work there, fearing for their life. I have certain feelings about how the team is doing and how particular people are playing, but that’s just stupid. And if it’s about the lawsuit, you’re hurting Moore’s case more than helping it.
I haven’t caught as much of the World Baseball Classic as I’d like, but the bits I have seen were not the most entertaining, but I attribute that to the announcers for ESPN2 that were calling the game between Canada and another country I forget now. It’s really impressive to see the amount of countries putting their best foot forward though. I’m more of a die hard Cubs fan rather than an all out baseball fan myself, but it’s good to see the sport succeeding around the world.
I did catch some of the game between Cuba and Dominican Republic this afternoon. What a good game. Cuba kind of got stomped on. They also played their hearts out all the way to the end. That’s due to the push to keep your numbers up in the event of a tie in the final standings. I would have loved to be apart of the constant party going on in the stands. It was like a soccer game in terms of the atmosphere, but with baseball.
Three sports channels covering the last minute details of the NHL trade deadline. Some interesting moves so far, and the Canucks added Brown from New Jersey to their defensive line for 4th round draft pick. We woke up this morning to The Fox giving the news about Monteal sending Theodore to Colorado for Aebischer in an all out goalie swap. This is pretty exciting.
Today is a good day to be living in Canada. Rebecca made oatmeal peanut butter cookies last night. That makes today uber good. And now back to the couch to catch more.
Update: Check out Rebecca’s post from today to get the low down of how things ended for the Canucks.
Barry Bonds is a juicer. Does this really surprise anyone? The word is coming out with very hard evidence making it very difficult for Bonds to escape this one. Just listen to the guy. He wants to break that home run record. He wants to be the guy on top. He’s greedy enough to push the idea of being too old to play baseball aside to achive that one goal. To have his name in the record books. Hardly does he ever site sticking around this long with the purpose of putting the Giants into the playoffs. For him, that’s just an added bonus.
I’ve never been a fan of Bonds. His days with the Pirates put him up against the Cubs too many times that I developed a healthy disliking of anytime he set foot near the plate. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player. I respected Bonds during those days for what he could do on the field. I just never liked him.
So what’s next? He has money and fame. Being the way things work in America, the formula is set for a long dispute over the final outcome. History tells us that the odds are in his favor. I’m more concerned over the implications this has for baseball in the future. More so, I hope Barry goes down.
Last Saturday, we ate at the Olympia Restaurant on Denman Street. After a long day of hiking, Rebecca tempted me with the thought of some greek food, and I was totally down for that, especially with my empty, fully hiked stomach yelling at me for nourishment.
The food was outstanding, but the restaurant itself has become a bit of a famous landmark due to it’s name. As 2010 approaches, the Canadian Olympic Committee has hit the Olympia with an order to take down their sign as it uses the olympic rings in their logo. They have used the name and logo this way for fifteen years, but with the games coming to Vancouver, the COC has deemed that the Olympia has no right to use the sign they have been all this time.
Check out 998denman.com and see for yourself. Oddly enough, we were searching the web before heading over for dinner only to have Mosi, the guy pictured on the front page, as our server. The place was pretty packed the night we were there. As far as I’m concerned, sign the petition because the meal was pretty freaking spectacular!
