Saturday, January 29, 2011

Shedding Light on the Subject


A spousal illness on Friday meant the Defensive Specialist had to switch into his role as Superhusband / father and was unable to attend Game 2 of the Blue Sox / Heat series. Fortunately it played out just as the Defensive Specialist predicted – a dominant sweep by the Heat on the road……….

Yeah ok, so perhaps the Defensive Specialist screwed the pooch on that call but it’s not like the predictions offered here at Deep in the Hole have been close to accurate all year anyway. One call your old pal did get right was the Adelaide Bite / Melbourne Aces result which was kind of a no brainer anyway.

The Heat roll straight into the Grand Final to be held at their home ballpark (which may or may not be a good thing when you consider their .500 record at the Barbagallo Ballpark) with their offense humming and some resilient efforts on the mound from the pitching staff. The Sydney team have to have a case of the tight sphincter now, knowing that they’ll play host to the hard hitting Bite who have won 7 of their last 8 games. The Blue Sox will be buoyed by the fact they pulled the Bite’s pants down the last time they played in Sydney, sweeping the series 4-0. Two big problems facing the Sydney team are:

1) Chris Oxpsring is now a reliever, which means that team is now down an ace

And

2) The Blue Sox offense is even more exposed now that playoffs are here and the pitching is above average. On the upside, Mitch Dening seems to have found his stroke in the 2 games against Perth clearly leading the way offensively in a losing effort.

Adelaide welcomed Quincy Latimore and James McOwen back into the fold after both took some time off due to injury which makes the Bite line up all the more potent. Mark Brackman took the ball in game 1 of the semi finals and was solid and although Brandon Maurer didn’t appear to have his best stuff in game 2, he did manage to punch out 8 in 6 innings of work. The Defensive Specialist will have more detailed thoughts on the next round of playoffs later in the week.

As many ABL fans know, Foxtel will be showing the grand finals series, which is a coup for the sport and an exciting development. Many will be scratching their head at the 4.30pm start times for the games and wonder why on earth the schedule has been changed. Well let your old pal tell you why. Apparently the quality of lighting in the ballparks is not conducive to the broadcast being in high definition, hence the need to play the games in daylight to avoid this technical issue. So that means on the east coast we’ll be watching games at 7.30 pm due to Western Australia’s backwater mentality of not having day light savings. No word yet on who’ll be commentating but lets just hope and pray that its someone with half an idea.

The Defensive Specialist isn’t really too worried about the broadcast anyway since he fully expects MLB / ABL to bankroll Australia’s preeminent baseball blogger’s trip to the Grand Final series anyway…….

7 comments:

  1. Hmmm - a Blue Sooks supporter complaining about something (broadcast times) ... that makes a change :)

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  2. huh?? It is 4.30pm WST which will mean it is 7.30pm in the East!

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  3. Calling the DS a Sydney fan is a little off the mark, I think with a little research you will find that the DS is in fact a former WA claxton shield representative. Be informed before you mouth off.

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  4. Anonymous, he may be former WA player but you seem to forget that he's also a Blue Sox member. Regardless of his actual allegiance(s) simply being a member of the Sydney ABL club allows somebody to be labelled as one of the "Blue Sooks" as the Sydney supporters are now unaffectionately being called. It's nothing personal :) As a "journalist" he maintains complete neutrality for integrity purposes, and I'm sure his Sydney membership was purely for reporting purposes. ;)

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  5. Mr Defensive Specialist, thank you for a helpful insight regarding why the ABL Grand Final games will begin late afternoon. I am pleased that Foxtel is covering the series; what a great coup for baseball!

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  6. I never forgot that he is a Blue Sox member, but what would you expect? Do you want him to turn up and pay the gate price at every game? If YOU moved to another city I'm sure you would buy season tickets too so you could watch decent baseball at a reasonable price, why pay more thanm you have to?

    Just be real about it people, if you want to hate on Sydney because of their success then say so, don't dick arpound with it, And if you want to call them chokers because they can't win forever then say so but don't attack the messenger or say the fans are all bad.

    There are some sections of the Sydney crowd that are an embarrasment (sox draw I'm talking to you) for the way the treat opposition teams but for the most part the Sydney crowd that I have seen has been very respectful and I have attended at least a dozen games at BOP.

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  7. ".... hate on Sydney because of their success..." He he - yeah, I'm really jealous of their third place, and being unable to win a playoff series at home :) At least my team is playing in the Championship series :)

    No, I'm a Sydney hater because out of all of the teams I saw play this year (which was all bar one), they were the only ones that I considered to be poor sportsmen. As a baseball follower, I was quite excited at seeing many of the Aussie players in action, and thought that it would be great to see the Sydney talent. I was sorely disappointed in their physically aggressive and petulant behaviour they showed in the several games I saw. And no, not against my team - I was a neutral observer. Maybe it was just the couple of games I saw, who knows? Brisbane players, I would have to say, seemed to have the best "class" if you wanted to call it that. Sydney the worst and a bit of a jumble of the other 3 teams I saw. Add to that experience that yes there were a few too many drunken abusive Sox fans around me in the games I was at, and no, they're not exactly top of my Christmas Card list. Hopefully there are a few attitudinal readjustments in the Sydney camp over the off-season, as their games were the only lowlight for me throughout the season.

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