Wilson Valdez Channels Babe Ruth, Danys Baez Has The Night Of His Career As Phillies Win 19-Inning Marathon

I hope you were able to stay up and watch the Phillies and the Reds play an instant classic that had Danys Baez do something he had not done in nine years and then some and Wilson Valdez do something that has not been done since Babe Ruth. Danys Baez pitched five scoreless innings. Seriously. Wilson Valdez became the first person to start the game in the field and pick up the win as a pitcher since Babe Ruth on October 1, 1921. The Phillies beat the Reds 5-4 in 19 innings. The game lasted 6 hours and 11 minutes. Wilson Valdez started the game at second base. He ended as pitcher. Carlos Ruiz started the game as catcher. He ended the game as 3rd baseman. Much less remarkably, Placido Polanco started the game at 3rd base and finished the game at 2nd.

I am sure there will be some trivia tomorrow, but for now, here are a bunch of videos. Warning: T-Mac and and Wheels are present in most of the following videos.

Jay Bruce makes it 4-3 Reds in the 10th

Ryan Howard makes it 4-4 in the 10th

Danys Baez pitches five innings of scoreless relief

Wilson Valdez pitches a scoreless inning of relief

Ibanez 19th inning walk-off sac fly. (T-Mac and Wheels)

Ibanez 19th inning walk-off sac fly (T-hom)

Valdez takes a pie in the face; Sarge takes the same pie on the mic.

Introducing The Phillies Radio Booth For The NLCS!

The Phillies always find a way to complicate what really should be a simple matter.
For those that do not know, the Phillies like shuffling announcers in the middle of the game. For instance, when Harry Kalas (may he Rest In Peace) was doing games on TV, he would call the 1st-3rd innings and 7th-9th innings with Chris Wheeler while Tom McCarthy and Gary "Sarge" Matthews did the middle innings. When Harry the K tragically passed, McCarthy did full time PbP while Wheeler and Sarge carried the same workload. That's just how it is in Philly, and frankly, I'm not a fan of it because I feel like it disrupts the rhythm of the broadcast, especially when you have a complete overhaul between innings. Last year, the World Series and NLCS was done on radio with Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson calling the 1st-3rd and 8th-9th innings and Harry Kalas and Chris Wheeler doing the 4th-7th innings, with the exception of Game 5 where Harry and Wheels obviously also did the 9th inning.

So you would think that with the tragic passing of Harry the K that the roster would be smaller and that just Franzke and Anderson would be doing the radio for NLCS and potential World Series, right? Wrong. That playoff radio booth has actually grown from last year's playoffs. Here's your line-up and it consists of every Phillies broadcaster both on TV and radio:

Tom McCarthy, Scott Franzke, Chris Wheeler, Gary Matthews, and Larry Anderson.

Ugh. That's way too much. Awful or really great, I am not a fan of switching announcers during the broadcast and probably never will be, but holy hell, how on earth is this going to work? The answer: I have no earthly idea. Franzke/Anderson get the beginning and the end and T-Mac/Wheels and/or Sarge get the middle? That's my only guess.

Actually, I might be missing the biggest story of this. SARGE IS COMING TO PLAYOFF RADIO!!!!!

Who Knew Tom McCarthy Could Be So Chatty?

Great find by Awful Announcing in today's Wall Street Journal. Apparently some writher thought that it would be a good idea to watch listen to the PbP announcer of every MLB team and count the number of words he spoke. That number would then get divided into a words per minute and voila, you have yourself a scientific study. Here's the list from the most talkative PbP guy at the top to the guy you just want to strangle and tell him to "SAY SOMETHING FOR GOODNESS SAKES! Come on, you're better than Kevin Reilly!" Oh, and just where does the Phillies own Tom McCarthy fit into all this? Here's the list courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

Vin Scully (Dodgers)- 143.51
Dan McLaughlin (Cardinals)- 109.93
Bob Carpenter (Nationals)- 102.33
George Grande (Reds)- 102.06
Daron Sutton (Dbacks)- 100.36
Ryan Lefebvre (Royals)- 96.71
Brian Anderson (Brewers)- 96.06
Dick Bremer (Twins)- 94.81
Bill Brown (Astros)- 89.11
Dave Niehaus (Mariners)- 84.14
Tom McCarthy (Phillies)- 82.97
Don Orsillo (Red Sox)- 81.73
Tim Neverett (Pirates)- 81.55
Chip Caray (Braves)- 78.70
Drew Goodman (Rockies)- 78.51
Rich Waltz (Marlins)- 78.08
Mario Impemba (Tigers)- 75.39
Michael Kay (Yankees)- 73.40
Gary Cohen (Mets)- 73.04
Matt Underwood (Indians)- 72.02
Len Kasper (Cubs)- 71.5
Ken Harrelson (White Sox)- 70.98
Josh Lewin (Rangers)- 70.57
Dewayne Staats (Rays)- 69.69
Steve Physioc (Angels)- 68.26
Gary Thorne (Orioles)- 66.97
Glen Kuiper (Athletics)- 65.00
Jamie Campbell (Blue Jays)- 62.66
Mark Neely (Padres)- 61.64
Duane Kuiper (Giants)- 55.44

Vin Scully should not even be on this list as he flies solo in his brodcasts. Considering that, though, it's amazing that he is not farther ahead. This was study was done for the 1st scoreless inning of each team's home broadcast. So in all likelihood, Wheels was the analyst as I don't recall the Phils having a home game this year where each team got at least a run in the 1st 3 innings. Which is good as counting T-Mac's words in an inning with Sarge just would not be right. Then again, it would give Matt Biderman, the writer who watched all these half-innings, an easier job but more of a headache at the same time.

Memo to David Biderman: How does it feel to know that you will never get those precious hours of your life back?

How much does your home team MLB announcer talk? (Awful Announcing)

Song Of The Day: "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" By Sarge

Considering the Cubs tradition of having well known people occasionally sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game at Wrigley and that the Phillies are currently in town, there really is no better person to select to sing the song in the middle of the 7th than former Cub and Phillie and currently Phillies TV analyst for the 4th-6th innings, Gary "Sarge" Matthews. Ladies and gentlemen, accompanied by his grandson, here is Sarge singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" at Wrigley!



All things considered, it was not ear-piercing like I thought it would been, which illustrates more of my expectations than the actual performance by Sarge. At the same time though, I think that the kid is a much better singer than Sarge. He may have a future. As far as Sarge goes, I'd tell him not to quit his day job, but seeing as he's horrible at said job as an analyst, it really might be for the better if he decides to sing full time. Hey, you never know. After all, if Ashlee Simpson can get a song played all over the radio, anyone can do it.

Sarge Would Like To Talk To You About Jerking Off

What is it with the Phillies announcers and their pornographic analysis of things. First we had Chris Wheeler saying how he wants to "rock around the cock tonight" and now, it's 4th-6th inning TV analyst Gary "Sarge" Matthews (Phils have a weird announcing system that was even weirder when Harry Kalas was alive) would like to tell you about masturbating jerking off. I feel like a lot of what I say is how AA put it, but it's true. You know how sophomoric I can be with announcer quotes. After all, I probably come up with more stretches than anyone else when it comes to twisting announcers quotes into something sexual/pornographic. But there are times, when you really don't need to twist what the guy said in order to make it sexual/pornographic. Take for example awful Phillies analyst, Gary "Sarge" Matthews. I'm not quite sure what exactly this was in the context of, but hey, this is advice that you will take for the rest of your life comes in this 8 second clip.



"What's going to happen is you jerk off the ball. You almost here want to let this guy jam you and when it cums comes, it cums comes."

Too funny! And yet, it's so true.

Sarge Matthews would like you to know, how to "jerk off" a ball (Awful Announcing)
Audio: Sarge Matthews on jerking off the ball (Hugging Harold Reynolds)