Andre Ethier Is A Potty-Mouth

Last night I worked as the censor for KCAL's Dodgers broadcast. Basically, I sit in a tiny closet off of the Master Control room that has four chairs, 12 computer screens and 6 TVs and wear headphones and listen to the game. I watch a live feed of the game and the one you see at home is on a five second delay. If I hear any bad language, I press the little gray button that mutes the feed (I like to call this the Larry Bowa button). If Justin Timberlake runs into the booth and pulls out Vin Scully's boob, or if Brad Penny does a Ned Braden and does a striptease on the pitcher's mound, then I press the giant, red, "no whammies-no whammies" button that cuts the video and audio feeds. I only had to hit the mute button once: Andre Ethier was a little upset after a terrible swing at a terrible pitch struck him out.

It is decent work during baseball season. I have to listen pretty closely because Dodger fans are the same people who root for the Raiders, so the ambient crowd noise is generally pretty foul. But listening to Scully makes it OK, even when I have to watch an utterly uneventful game between a team I don't care about and one I can't stand...with an hour and fifteen minute rain delay. Just think if I had to listen to Charlie Steiner! I would have thrown myself off of the building by the second inning.

I have done this for the Lakers as well and it is awful. There is infinitely more swearing at basketball games, probably because there are more microphones closer to the players and fans. Plus I have to listen to Stu Lantz, who every year seems to be just getting the hang of English like he'd just learned it in the off-season. Plus, if I wanted to see that much whining, I wouldn't watch Kobe, I would just go home and talk to my [this joke was editing for my own well-being, I love you, honey].

Rapid fire on Wednesday's news:

-This site had way more hits in West Hollywood than anywhere else in the world. [Insert joke here] I will keep a running tally on this because I like stats and am a loser. West Hollywood, thank you. I am also 83 cents richer thank to you folks clicking the ads. Hawaii here I come!

-Elton Brand is back! Woohoo! He looked good and he fired them up when he was on the bench. Too bad this didn't happen at home, but a road win is a great thing for the Clips! Congratulations to one of the really good guys in sports! Welcome back.

-Dodger fans, enjoy Andruw Jones. Sure, he is only 2 for 10 on the season, but will improve. After all, he hit .222 in his contract year last year. And he made a few nice catches last night. He also blew a play, making Andre Ethier look like a doofus, allowed a run to score and possibly cost them the game. Oopsies!

-Screw Hung Chi Kuo for flipping his bat when he hit that home run off of John Maine last year. He should have been beaned.

-Kansas City is the best team in baseball. Detroit blows.

-MLB needs instant replay on homers, foul balls, and catches.

-The force-out is now legal in the NFL, but you can't pick a guy up and carry him out of bounds. This will make for some awesome highlight hits on sidelines. Well done NFL owners.

-Attendance at the Marlins' opener was 38,308 (105% of capacity but don't ask me how that's possible...I guess people were going piggyback or sitting on shoulders). Game 2: 15,117. Game 3: 13,720. Just move them to Portland and get it over with.

-Former Marquette men's hoops coach Tom Crean was hired by Indiana. Great for Crean! Strange by Indiana because he is neither a jerk, nor a crook.

-Considering the existence of the goal from the 1996 NCAA Tourney game between Michigan and Minnesota that is at 1:02 on this highlight reel, no hockey goal seems all that great, but Sidney Crosby's last night was pretty awesome (I can't find a link...watch SportsCenter, it will be the play of the week).

-Speaking of Canada (kinda), this is a great story about how angry Americans get when they thought their town was handed over as a Canadian territory.

-April 2 is the anniversary of the death of my dad's all-time favorite ballplayer, Gil Hodges. During last night's telecast, they came back from a break early so Vin Scully could mention the date and say, "Gil Hodges is the perfect role model of all the players I have ever met." And Scully has met a lot of players. Are you listening Cooperstown?

I'll be out of town through Sunday. Be strong without me.