i have met tim corbin in real life, and in person he is just as great a guy as he seems like on teevee. very geniune, solid, good guy. a gentleman.

we used to watch a lot of baseball, a lot of braves games. then they went on strike in like '94? '95? and we never really got back into it. we're watching a bit of the ncaa college world series this week because the 'dores are in the mix and besides the freaking aluminum bats, it's different from when when we used to watch professionals in the early 90s. back in the day, there was no tivo. if you wanted a recording, it involved an elaborate setup with a video taping machine and the resulting tape would not tolerate a bunch of running it up and back. no skipping commercials. no remote controlled jumps through time.


hey, battah-battah-battah! hey, battah-battah-battah! swing!

watching anything on tivo changes the experience but it's especially true with baseball because baseball is a strategic sport with a lot of downtime for the average spectator. if you're a really involved observer, i'm sure there's a lot to see all the time, but to the rest of us, it's a sport of burst and pause. there are gaps between pitches and bigger gaps between batters, gaps when you change pitchers and huge gaps at mid-innings and between innings. when you go to the ballpark, you could bring a book. it's like dial-up internet access and you're waiting for your email to download while in the background there are a couple goofballs yabbering about stats. tivo changes all that, collapses the pauses into a blur of throwhitruncatch that belies the nature of the sport.

hey, battah-battah-battah! hey, battah-battah-battah! swing!


it's peaceful. it's old school. it's calm. it's boring? eh, maybe. but most of the time the burst and pause builds into a rhythm that rocks like a chair on a front porch, lazy saturday afternoon, watching the cars go by. pluswise, my old man was a baseball player, glory days and all that, and i could listen to him explain the infield fly rule all night long.