Spectacular Losing Day

Yesterday - the day after Bastille Day - I witnessed two absolutely spectacular losses on the baseball diamond. I saw a minor league beatdown in person, then a major league milestone on my TV. When it comes to losing, I won yesterday.

Let's start with the afternoon game. Yesterday afternoon, my friend and Journey of Jasmine bandmate Mike and I attended the Rochester Red Wings game against the Indianapolis Indians. The Red Wings got KILLED to the tune of 16-3. Three runs were walked in, one run was plunked in, and a grand slam was hit in the top of the second inning. When the top of the third inning ended with the score 9-0 in favor of Indianapolis, home team devotion quickly turned into morbid fascination for me. That and I almost got the sign language interpreter lady to crack during the singing of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" by singing one syllable behind everybody else (Mike and I had moved up to the front row in the seventh inning, stealing vacated seats near home plate). All in all, the game was flat-out amazing...and it was Cal Ripken "jersey" night, so I got a free shirt out of it.

But that's not all! There was another team to watch! Last night's baseball game on ESPN (home of Quite Possibly The Dumbest Thing Mankind Has Ever Seen) was the St. Louis Cardinals at the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies were going for the sweep and trying to avoid a spectacular milestone in futility: They were just one loss away from 10,000 defeats as a franchise. However, this was not Philadelphia's night. Albert Pujols, fresh from shaking off his massive (for him) home run drought, crushed a pitch to the deepest part of the ballpark. He'd hit another home run later that night, but that first one was spectacular. That and the next batter went deep on the first pitch he saw after that mammoth blast from Uncle Albert. All told, the Cardinals hit six home runs as a team, won 10-2 (giving up Philadelphia's two runs in the ninth inning), and sent the Phillies into previously uncharted territory: 10,000 losses. Sure, I had to sit through a bunch of stupid tie-ins to the ESPYs during the game - for the record, the guys who made "Coming up next, The ESPYs" signs and held them up at the ballpark in Philadelphia should get the crap kicked out of them - but seeing a milestone loss like that was worth the effort. And then I turned off my TV the instant The ESPYs started.

In summary: I witnessed two big losses yesterday. It was amazing. A fun time was had by me.

UPDATE: As I was link hunting for this post, I stumbled onto this: Not only was my local-ish Really Minor League Team, the Batavia Muckdogs, no-hit yesterday, they were at the receiving end of a perfect game! Yet another spectacular loss from Spectacular Losing Day. Life doesn't get much better than this...

...or does it?