Advantages of Living in Honolulu and a New Trade Comparison

Living in Honolulu has its advantages. I spent my off day today here.

By virtue of Hawaii's lack of a professional baseball team, the powers that be have placed these islands in the Los Angeles viewing area for baseball coverage. There are worse teams to have on TV every afternoon than the Angels and Dodgers. The angels broadcast is nothing to write home about. The Dodgers, on the other hand, feature the soothing play-by-play voice of Vin Scully.

Scully has been calling Dodger baseball for so long that his was actually the voice which proclaimed to the world in 1955, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the Champions of the World!" These days, Scully works without a color man with whom to share air time. He handles play-by-play, provides stats and commentary, and fills in downtime with stories and observations. He has his quirks: He still seems surprised whenever there are multiple Asian players on the field. He occasionally begins sentences with somewhat unenlightened generalizations such as "you know those Dominicans...". But, the occasional awkward phrasing notwithstanding, Scully has a voice meant for calling baseball. He doesn't try to make clever jokes. He doesn't preach. He calls the game in such a way that the broadcast feels like a pleasant conversation between Scully and his unseen listeners.

Dodger broadcasts also provide occasional commercials featuring Joe Torre proclaiming "We are all Dodgers!" Alot of Yankee fans will die a little inside when those commercials make it to youtube.

The other surprise advantages of living in the middle of the Pacific are the occasional broadcasts on local tv of Japanese Baseball. Games usually start about 11pm here. I cannot understand a word of the play by play. The TV graphics are all in Japanese characters. The ballpark scoreboard is no help either. But, randomly enough, the players uniforms are entirely in western characters. My only hope of knowing who is batting is to get a close-up of the back of the players uniform. Or, in the case of Yokohama BayStar OF/1B Larry Bigbie, have a face thats so burned into my brain from several frustrating years in Baltimore that I couldn't possibly not recognize it. Bigbie looks like the incredible hulk in the Japanese league. I think we all learned last December how he pulled that off.

The language gap still doesn't prevent those games from being enjoyable. Baseball, well played, is always a joy to watch. When its 11pm here, its nice that there is live high-level baseball to be found on TV.


If I am going to keep score of the results of the Tejada trade, it has been brought to my attention that reports on the Orioles other big offseason swap, Bedard for 5 Mariners, would also be appropriate. I couldn't agree more.

To the Mariners

	G	IP	W	L	Sv	K	ERA	WHIP
Bedard	2	11.0	1	0	0	10	3.27	1.455

To the Orioles

	G	IP	W	L	Sv	K	ERA	WHIP
Sherrill	10	9.1	1	0	8	8	4.82	1.209
Mickolio(AA)	7	11.1	0	0	0	10	2.38	1.235
Tillman (AA)	4	16.1	1	0	0	14	3.31	1.347
Butler (A)	5	23.0	1	1	0	15	4.30	1.174

	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	OPS
Jones	74	6	20	6	0	1	8	2	.705

Bedard's numbers are low because, well, he's having his annual bout with injuries this season earlier than usual. Adam Jones hit a huge double tonight against Seattle which barely missed clearing the wall in left-center and George Sherrill pitched a scoreless 9th for yet another save. The minor league crew looks sharp. I'm looking forward to seeing the crowd at Double-A pitch once or twice this summer. If Tony Butler manages to get himself promoted to the Orioles highest A-level team in Frederick (he's currently pitching for Delmarva) I may get to see him in person in a couple of weeks.