3GamesToLove

Which?

Benetti and Stone on TV and Kasper on radio today. Amazing to think we are spoiled for choice after so many years of bad broadcasts.

Hard to imagine a time when the anthem wasn't ubiquitous.

Posnanski's piece on Allen (from last year), as usual, is the definitive read: https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/whats-in-a-name

Anyone made the joke that there is something hilarious about Kasper moving from a TV network that many people in the Chicago area don't have to a radio station that many people in the wider Chicago area can't tune into? With the move to WMVP I already figured that I would be back to picking up MLB audio next season; this clinches it.

PSA: with no other games on right now, Benetti and co. are calling the entire game. That alone is worth the $6/mo.

Only slightly off-topic: for the Benetti fans out there, he is doing Statcast broadcasts on ESPN+ (separate subscription; $6/mo but really a ton of great content especially if you are a soccer fan) this week: https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2020/09/espn-to-exclusively-televise-seven-of-eight-mlb-wild-card-series-starting-september-29/

Fun fact, other than division winner there are no banners until you win the pennant. In fact, I think some parks *do* have banners for wild card appearances too...

Boy, I hope you don't pay for full mlb.tv just for Sox radio? You can get access to all radio broadcasts for $20/season.

Boo. I join the chorus of westerners complaining about signal. I guess I'll have to buy the MLB Audio package.

Because those people are all disingenuous and willfully obtuse morons?

Holy shit; I don't know if I've ever seen someone be this openly and unabashedly racist on a sports forum before.

I joined the online queue as soon as the Blacklist presale started yesterday, and wound up pleased with what I got. Sec 526, row 5, on the (outer) aisle. $60 apiece after fees; not bad for Opening Day.

Boy, I sure thought this had something to do with prioritizing saving for a home vs an engagement ring.

I don't think anyone needs to be particularly concerned with the order of these players in Posnanski's project--the number isn't important; he's just finding a reason to write cool and thoughtful pieces about 100 of the best players ever. This was great--I thought some of it sounded familiar from a piece on Posnanski's blog from around the time Frank retired, and the end of the piece confirmed that. He's very very good at writing baseball.

It is exclusive events that are NOT on linear TV. They have about one MLB game a day, I believe, and a lot of college sports. It's really a no-brainer for soccer fans--all FA Cup and League Cup matches, all Chicago Fire matches AND all out-of-market MLS matches, all Serie A matches, Dutch Eredivisie matches, from next season Bundesliga as well. It also hosts the overflow court coverage for the tennis majors as well, I think.

Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley's performances are the absolute best part of this trilogy. I think they're the strongest performances of the entire "saga." He's a good villain because he's unlike those villains. And lol, people actually thought Voldemort was a good villain? I always considered him to be more effective as a legendary big bad than as an actual character on the page/screen. Oh come on, this is Star Wars tradition. They hand out generalships like candy. Except TLJ is the most actually creative and original movie of the three? I'll grant you that the Canto Bight and Poe/Holdo plotlines don't quite land for me, but the Rey/Kylo/Luke stuff in that is incredible; shame it was all negated by this one. They killed off Snoke in the last one to set up Kylo Ren, an actual character with depth and an interesting arc, as the "ultimate villain." Apparently JJ just really needed a fucking space wizard back and so went with the least imaginative solution possible. lolol, Revenge of the Sith is, in many ways, nearly as bad as Clones, and maybe even worse. Oh hey look, finally the prequel events that we actually all wanted to see for twenty years. Guess what!? All of those important things we hinted at in the original movies? Those all happened on the same day! Sorry we didn't have more time for them!

I liked some things but for the most part I found it enormously frustrating. Complete repudiation of the best things about TLJ that lent fresh life to the franchise. Blah.

Yes. Easy peasy.

I enjoy the current era of serialized TV, but the old episodic model had its positives as well. Not every show needs to be the same, and it makes sense if they're going for some standalone stories here.

This is silly. One plays a premium defensive position incredibly well coming off some of his best seasons, the other is a terrible defensive player at the least valuable position and is clearly in decline.

Castellanos doesn't have a position.

I doubt it. But I also think he probably occupies a similar place in Sox history as Ventura (as a player), who obviously wasn't quite the hitter but played great defense at a valuable position. Ventura's number wasn't retired--though I hadn't realized nobody has worn it since he left as a manager. Interesting...

Thank God we have an Abreu thread now.

This time a decade ago the Sox were wearing the black tops for well over half of all games. I then got the impression that someone noticed and said something, because they then went back to using it as an ALTERNATE rather sparingly. Last year or two it's been all black all the time again. I just don't understand why you'd wear them more than once or twice a week when our whites and grays are both so good.