That was a good time...now what the hell do I do?
So my summer as a baseball broadcaster has wrapped up. I would love to tell you what the team name was and what league it was in and all that other stuff, but well I don't know who will ever end up reading this all and if I say some means things about some people (not what I'd consider mean, but others might) I want to have full plausible deniability. No specific names mentioned I have that right? I mean any conclusions you make based upon my inferences are your conclusions and not mine so there can be no blame laid upon me, correct? I would like to think so and since this is my space in which to think then that which I think to be correct is correct as it is thought in the space for the things that I think.
Did that make sense? I hope it did, or maybe I hope it didn't. Anyway I plan on throwing some stuff down in the next day or two in regards to how the season went and some of the more interesting things I encountered, the highs and the lows, you know fun stuff. But if you'll excuse me I'm going to work backwards and tell you about something that happened recently, in fact it happened today.
So to move on in the playoffs in the league, you have to finish in the top four in your respective division, of which there are two. Well, it just so happened the team I called games for finished in a three way tie for the fourth and final spot, so yeah that was a bit of an issue. If it were 1995 it would be perfectly acceptable to say "Houston, we have a problem." but it's like a decade and change later and it isn't us that has the problem, it's Houston as they are one of the fattest cities in all the US of A but I digress. So yeah three teams and one slot in which to put them all, I twadn't a math major (but I was a journalism major, not doing myself so proud the with the twadn't there) but I know that doesn't work.
So what goes on in the event of a three way tie you ask, well it looks something like this. There is a semi round robin type mini-tournament for the final spot. The team with the best combined head to head record (we'll call them team A) sits out the first game that is played between the other two teams (B and C). The winner of that game moves on to play team A and the winner of that game gets the 4th and final spot in the playoffs. It was what my fellow broadcasters doing the first game called "the playoff game to get to the playoff game to get to the playoffs" Sounds simple, right? Well I've learned in life things that are simple never turn out to be so simple. In fact we'll be breaking this next part down into segments to tell you how this became complicated.
Where are we playing? - This is kind of a crucial one. Baseball can essentially be played anywhere there are wide open spaces, but usually a field with dugouts, marked base paths, a fence surrounding the field of play, a press box (more so for me and others like me) and maybe even a scoreboard is the preferred playing area. Well believe it or not, all three teams involved had such places to play, now we just had to figure out where. How might you be wondering was the winning location selected? Well it be the scientific method of drawing a name out of a hat. Yup, this is a credible (it's supposed to be anyway) baseball league and that's how they pick the place to play. Not based on which team could do the best job housing and putting on the event or which team would draw the most fans or even who has the best field of the bunch. Yup, close your eyes and pick one. Now lets make this analogy to try and make things make sense. Suppose you have a choice between three similar candy bars. We'll use in this case a 5th Avenue, a Butterfinger and a Clark Bar and rank them in that order (sorry, I really like 5th Ave bars). If each team's field were tied to bar, we ended up at the Clark bar field. It would get the job done, but when it was all over you really wish you hadn't picked it.
Who is the home team? - Yup, we couldn't figure out who the home team would be. Apparently winning the season series awarded you nothing except sitting out the first game and after that it was useless. Before each game t here was a coin toss to decide who would be the home team for the contest. Now this isn't totally ridiculous, but really, you can't give even that little something to a team for winning the season series, really?
When was all of this decided? - In my brief time on this earth I've learned one of the more important things to do is plan ahead. It's much easier to make a contingency plan and it call it off at the last minute then it is to scramble and try and slap something together at the last minute. Apparently the people that run this league do not share in this revelation, if you can even call it a revelation, in fact it is more common sense. Going into the last day of the season, if team A (the team I called games for) had won and team B had lost then it was team A in the playoffs and vice versa. However if both teams lost they would fall into the three way tie for the last spot with team C. Now this wasn't the most foreseeable of events, but it was certainly plausible and what did you have to lose by taking care of things in advance just in case. The answer there in case you're wondering is nothing, but apparently some people don't even like to lose nothing. You see, team A and B both lost their final game and thus the menage-a-trois of a tie was born. Now the reasonable thing to have done here would to have had the plan in place. Everyone would know where the games would be played and when they would start, but that didn't happen.
You see the people in charge of all this stuff (league officials) had set up none of this, not a single thing. Teams didn't even know what was supposed to bring the baseballs that would be used to play the game with. In fact one of the higher up league officials (if you want to figure out what his position is click this and scroll down to one of the numbers in the early 20s, you should be able to figure it out) was off celebrating his birthday in a state in which there are no teams in our league. (Side note - this wasn't a too young of a guy either he's had plenty of b-days, so what's going on there? You can't take one off for a critical and crucial night in the league you're a big part of? Honestly, what else do you need on your b-day aside from cake? I say nothing, but that's me). So there was nothing in place. Nobody knew where they would be playing or exactly when they would be playing or the manner in which they would be playing. All they knew was somewhere, somehow they would be playing a baseball game or two. Well thankfully, those wonderful folks at least got their act together enough (relatively speaking) to pick the venue where the games would be played (remember the Clark bar from earlier). That was about it. The other team that had to travel was told to prepare for an 8:30am departure, then when they were all at the bus and ready to go were told they didn't need to leave until 10:30. Better yet the team hosting the game appeared to be the last one made aware of the fact that they would be playing host to a pair of games. Really outstanding work all the way around, nice work people at the top.
Now I do not claim to be the smartest person in the world and but I like to think I have some common sense. I would also like to think had I been confronted with such a situation that I would have had something in place ready to go. Murphy's law is all too prevalent so why not take care of things just in case? Yeah it's extra work at the time, but if what you planned for arises there is no need to panic or scramble or create or cause general confusion. Seeing not so bright people in a position of power both worries and encourages me. It worries me because I wonder how they got there, but it encourages me because if some one like that can rises to something important there's a good chance that I and many just like me and much smarter than me could come to power in something important and actually do some good.
So how did everything end you ask? Well team B won the first game by a run then they did the same in game number two against my team, team A. The season be done for me now and it twas a good time to say the least. The players were good guys and the coaches were as well. It was a great experience and most of the other broadcasters I got to work with were outstanding (especially the two gentlemen with whom I share a first name). Just a shame that the powers that be did just about everything they could to futts up what could have been a really great day of baseball.
Did that make sense? I hope it did, or maybe I hope it didn't. Anyway I plan on throwing some stuff down in the next day or two in regards to how the season went and some of the more interesting things I encountered, the highs and the lows, you know fun stuff. But if you'll excuse me I'm going to work backwards and tell you about something that happened recently, in fact it happened today.
So to move on in the playoffs in the league, you have to finish in the top four in your respective division, of which there are two. Well, it just so happened the team I called games for finished in a three way tie for the fourth and final spot, so yeah that was a bit of an issue. If it were 1995 it would be perfectly acceptable to say "Houston, we have a problem." but it's like a decade and change later and it isn't us that has the problem, it's Houston as they are one of the fattest cities in all the US of A but I digress. So yeah three teams and one slot in which to put them all, I twadn't a math major (but I was a journalism major, not doing myself so proud the with the twadn't there) but I know that doesn't work.
So what goes on in the event of a three way tie you ask, well it looks something like this. There is a semi round robin type mini-tournament for the final spot. The team with the best combined head to head record (we'll call them team A) sits out the first game that is played between the other two teams (B and C). The winner of that game moves on to play team A and the winner of that game gets the 4th and final spot in the playoffs. It was what my fellow broadcasters doing the first game called "the playoff game to get to the playoff game to get to the playoffs" Sounds simple, right? Well I've learned in life things that are simple never turn out to be so simple. In fact we'll be breaking this next part down into segments to tell you how this became complicated.
Where are we playing? - This is kind of a crucial one. Baseball can essentially be played anywhere there are wide open spaces, but usually a field with dugouts, marked base paths, a fence surrounding the field of play, a press box (more so for me and others like me) and maybe even a scoreboard is the preferred playing area. Well believe it or not, all three teams involved had such places to play, now we just had to figure out where. How might you be wondering was the winning location selected? Well it be the scientific method of drawing a name out of a hat. Yup, this is a credible (it's supposed to be anyway) baseball league and that's how they pick the place to play. Not based on which team could do the best job housing and putting on the event or which team would draw the most fans or even who has the best field of the bunch. Yup, close your eyes and pick one. Now lets make this analogy to try and make things make sense. Suppose you have a choice between three similar candy bars. We'll use in this case a 5th Avenue, a Butterfinger and a Clark Bar and rank them in that order (sorry, I really like 5th Ave bars). If each team's field were tied to bar, we ended up at the Clark bar field. It would get the job done, but when it was all over you really wish you hadn't picked it.
Who is the home team? - Yup, we couldn't figure out who the home team would be. Apparently winning the season series awarded you nothing except sitting out the first game and after that it was useless. Before each game t here was a coin toss to decide who would be the home team for the contest. Now this isn't totally ridiculous, but really, you can't give even that little something to a team for winning the season series, really?
When was all of this decided? - In my brief time on this earth I've learned one of the more important things to do is plan ahead. It's much easier to make a contingency plan and it call it off at the last minute then it is to scramble and try and slap something together at the last minute. Apparently the people that run this league do not share in this revelation, if you can even call it a revelation, in fact it is more common sense. Going into the last day of the season, if team A (the team I called games for) had won and team B had lost then it was team A in the playoffs and vice versa. However if both teams lost they would fall into the three way tie for the last spot with team C. Now this wasn't the most foreseeable of events, but it was certainly plausible and what did you have to lose by taking care of things in advance just in case. The answer there in case you're wondering is nothing, but apparently some people don't even like to lose nothing. You see, team A and B both lost their final game and thus the menage-a-trois of a tie was born. Now the reasonable thing to have done here would to have had the plan in place. Everyone would know where the games would be played and when they would start, but that didn't happen.
You see the people in charge of all this stuff (league officials) had set up none of this, not a single thing. Teams didn't even know what was supposed to bring the baseballs that would be used to play the game with. In fact one of the higher up league officials (if you want to figure out what his position is click this and scroll down to one of the numbers in the early 20s, you should be able to figure it out) was off celebrating his birthday in a state in which there are no teams in our league. (Side note - this wasn't a too young of a guy either he's had plenty of b-days, so what's going on there? You can't take one off for a critical and crucial night in the league you're a big part of? Honestly, what else do you need on your b-day aside from cake? I say nothing, but that's me). So there was nothing in place. Nobody knew where they would be playing or exactly when they would be playing or the manner in which they would be playing. All they knew was somewhere, somehow they would be playing a baseball game or two. Well thankfully, those wonderful folks at least got their act together enough (relatively speaking) to pick the venue where the games would be played (remember the Clark bar from earlier). That was about it. The other team that had to travel was told to prepare for an 8:30am departure, then when they were all at the bus and ready to go were told they didn't need to leave until 10:30. Better yet the team hosting the game appeared to be the last one made aware of the fact that they would be playing host to a pair of games. Really outstanding work all the way around, nice work people at the top.
Now I do not claim to be the smartest person in the world and but I like to think I have some common sense. I would also like to think had I been confronted with such a situation that I would have had something in place ready to go. Murphy's law is all too prevalent so why not take care of things just in case? Yeah it's extra work at the time, but if what you planned for arises there is no need to panic or scramble or create or cause general confusion. Seeing not so bright people in a position of power both worries and encourages me. It worries me because I wonder how they got there, but it encourages me because if some one like that can rises to something important there's a good chance that I and many just like me and much smarter than me could come to power in something important and actually do some good.
So how did everything end you ask? Well team B won the first game by a run then they did the same in game number two against my team, team A. The season be done for me now and it twas a good time to say the least. The players were good guys and the coaches were as well. It was a great experience and most of the other broadcasters I got to work with were outstanding (especially the two gentlemen with whom I share a first name). Just a shame that the powers that be did just about everything they could to futts up what could have been a really great day of baseball.
posted by MC at 6:16 PM
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