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Blogging the Home Run Derby

Written by Jeff Hatline

Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Live from San Francisco, the mid-summer classic before the mid-summer classic, as it's being described on ESPN, is upon us. Expect more than the usual amount of ESPY commercials starring LeBron James and Jimmy Kimmel and ads for ESPN's new movie (or is it a mini-series) "The Bronx is Burning." The usual announce crew of Joe Morgan and Chris Berman will be giving us our annual swing-by-swing commentary with plenty of extra excitement every time a home run splashes into McCovey Cove and that the ball is headed to (insert local suburb of San Francisco). For those of you that really want to enjoy the action, I suggest you grab your drink of choice and check out the 2007 Home Run Derby drinking game.

8:00pm - After watching an entire hour of "pre-game" we're finally treated to the musical styling of... Counting Crows? Accidentally in Love? What does this have to do with baseball, San Francisco or the current music scene?

8:05 - Player intros by Chris Berman, who is SOOOO excited because he gets to "Bermanize" the names of the participants... yawn. Albert "Winne the" Pujols... I would have gone with the more popular "stick it in your" nickname. Pujols should kick Berman's ass for that one.

8:09 - Berman plays to the local crowd by throwing on a Giants hat before introducing Wille McCovey, the namesake of the water outside of right field where every one in attendance hopes the every HR ball is hit tonight. Willie hands out bats to the participants like they're receiving high school diplomas.

8:11 - Commentators Joe Morgan and Dusty Baker are introduced along with the "wacky" Kenny Mayne, complete with a helmet cam, who will be commentating from a kayak in the cove. He appears to be manning an official ESPN kayak. ESPN sure has put a lot into the hope that some balls splash down out there. It will be hilarious if there are no balls hit into the water tonight.

8:15 - The inevitable "Who do you think is going to win?" question is presented for the 1,000th time since 7:00. Dusty takes Prince Fielder, Joe takes "last year's champ" Ryan Howard and Berman picks, you guessed it, his man crush Pujols, because "he's due."

8:18 - Finally someone is stepping up to the plate. Justin Morneau is first at bat.

8:19 - Morneau is on the board with one to right center, which is being called "Barry Bonds territory." I guess we won't really know where Bonds territory is since he's not participating in tonight's contest.

8:20 - Morneau hits one onto the water.. foul. Everyone still goes nuts though, since they have no idea where it came from. They are literally nearly drowning each other to get to it first... they have no idea it was a foul ball.

8:22 - Morneau hits 2 "gold" balls out to finish up with a whopping 4 total home runs. Amazing.

8:28 - Matt Holliday, whom we're repeatedly told that he's not even supposed to be here today. Holliday goes 2-for-2 with his first swings and keeps cranking them, 5 now with 4 outs.

8:33 - But then goes cold and can't get another out. However, he's your new leader at 5. Next up Magglio Ordonez.

8:34 - Sideline interview with Barry Bonds while Maggs hits. The paraphrased conversation with Bonds - I really want to do it, but I'm too old and I don't want to embarrass myself if I don't win or hurt myself and jeopardize my potential record. Then something about changing baseballs and a thinly veiled reference to a conspiracy against him.

8:36 - Barry continues to babble on to Peter Gammons about Bud Selig and Hank Aaron not planning to attend games when he's close to the record and another thinly veiled reference to a conspiracy. Maggs is going 1-for-2.

8:39 - Ordonez has a tough run, finishing 2-for-10 after swinging at nearly every single pitch. Ah well, see ya tomorrow Magglio. The love of Berman's life is next.

8:46 - Chris Berman is now visibly excited because Alex Rodriguez is joining them for commentary while Pujols bats. Berman can barley control himself with so much talent surrounding him.

8:48 - It looks like the ESPN producers can't control themselves either since A-Rod is getting more screen time than the guy actually competing in the contest. Berman tells A-Rod that he "cleans up nice."

8:50 - Pujols finally goes 4-for-10 to tie for second as A-Rod drones on during the entire at bat although I have no idea what he said other than something about going to dinner later. A-Rod is so vanilla that his voice actually fades away when the crowd cheers. I beginning to think that Berman and A-Rod are actually dating, but Berman doesn't want Pujols to find out.

8:53 - Alex Rios is next as the representative from the Blue Jays. First one goes out, but it looks like there was some help from the fan in the first row, the official count it anyway.

8:55 - Are these the players kids in the outfield? They sure don't seem to be hustling too hard to shag the fly balls. They watch just about every one drop right in font of them with absolutely no effort to make a catch.

8:58 - Rios goes 5-for-10 to tie for first. It looks like it's not going to take much to get into the second round this year. Commercials, then the 2nd half of the first round and we've already gone an hour. ESPN needs to speed this thing up or they're going to be starting that Yankees movie late.

9:03- And we're back for the 2nd half of the first round with Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard and Vlad Guerrero due up.

9:04 - Fielder grounds the first and drills the second to center 1-for-2. Prince is obviously gunning for the water as the next 2 go that direction, getting one of them out. He's swinging like a beer league softball player now.

9:08 - Another foul hits the water and the crowd goes nuts. They've got to be disappointed out there with the almost non-existent activity. I'm sure Bud Light is sponsoring a few of their kayaks though.

9:09 - Prince ends with 3 runs and a lot of disappointed Brewer fans... there will be no peeing of the pants in Milwaukee tonight.

9:12 - Guerrero is up now. After 3 outs and no runs, Big Papi Ortiz comes up to the plate and takes Vlad's bat away. Ortiz opens a wooden box and presents a new bat to Guerrero... Kenny Mayne is gonna be pissed that he didn't think of this first.

9:19 - The new helps as Vlad manages to knock 5 balls out to tie for first, including the longest of the day 463. I don't know if the bat is made from Dominican wood or not, but they better check it for cork. Somewhere Sammy Sosa is not pleased.

9:25 - Last year's champ, Ryan Howard, steps into the box. He's not swinging well and almost takes out Justin Verlander with his seventh out. Finally he gets one out of center field.

9:28 - There goes his second run... now on to the gold ball for one more another, but it's not enough. The defending champ finishes with 3.

9:31- As if this isn't going long enough, we now have a 5 pitch swingoff between Morneau and Pujols to see who goes onto the second round.

9:34 - Morneau drops one right onto the scaffolding with all the ESPN cameras for his only home run. Pujols only needs 2 to advance to the next round. Berman continues to drop as many Pujols stats as possible to the viewing audience.

9:35 - "THAT ONE'S ALL THE WAY TO SAUSALITO!" says Berman, for the first such reference of the night, I think. The next one is "GOING ALL THE WAY TO ALCATRAZ!" even though the second one actually went farther to the exact same spot. Berman is ecstatic that his man is in the second round.

9:41- Kenny Mayne finally realizes that nothing is coming his way tonight, so he gives up on the water expedition and climbs into the ESPN pontoon boat.

9:43 - Dusty Baker and Joe Morgan both say the they should re-pick players they think might win, since Fielder and Howard are out. Berman immediately says "No, no, no. I'm still alive with Pujols." Even though he already technically won, he's not giving up on this bet.

9:44 - Holliday, who's still not even supposed to be here today, starts off the 2nd round with 8 home runs for a total of 13. (The totals from the first round carry over.)

9:52 - Rios goes next, popping a few out to left center in his first couple of swings. Can someone explain to me what the cartoon cars are doing on the left field wall?

9:54 - I just realized the the announcers must be getting as bored as the rest of America by now, as even Berman has quieted down.

9:59 - But the gold ball HR seems to perk them up a bit as Rios ties then passes Holliday for the lead, hitting 5 golds out in a row for a total of 17.

10:05 - ESPN has now gone officially over the 2-hour mark for the derby and it looks like this is going to go longer than an actual game. Vlad is up, but he's starting off pretty cold again.

10:16 - Once again, he starts cold and heats up later in the round. Vlad hits 9 to eliminate Holliday and put himself in the final with only Pujols left to hit.

10:22- I hope Pujols cranks though these fast so we can get to the final round and get this over with. But wait! We've got more Kenny Mayne action. He's moved to the front row in center field, where the balls are actually dropping. And he's still got the life preserver on. That wacky Kenny.

10:24 - Berman has added another back to his "back back back back back," because "Winne the Pujols" has hit one out.

10:28 - The stadium DJ is absolutely cranking the Rolling Stones "Start me up." He must be trying to keep the crowd awake...

10:32 - Just 1 more homer will put us in another swingoff situation, let's hope he either hits 0 or 2... and the last ball drops just in front of the fence... thank Selig. Our final is going to be Vlad vs. Rios

10:40 - The final round is underway, we erase the totals.

10:42 - Now welcome the ESPN Deportes announcer for some back and forth in Spanish between the waiting Guerrero and the announcer. The announcer is asking questions en Espanol, Guerrero is answering in Spanish and the announcer translating back to English, even though the both can speak English. Awesome. Just what the American viewing audience needs and I no longer need the SAP button on my remote.

10:45 - Rios doesn't have anything left, hitting only 2 home runs in the final round. But we do get a "No no no no no!" from the Spanish announce team. Es fantastico!

10:51 - Vlad gets one on the first swing, he only needs 2 more to win.

10:53- He gets another. Only one more swing away from completing the longest HR derby ever.

10:55 - Finally we have a champion. Vlad Guerrero wins with a HUGE 3 home run total. Adios from San Francisco.

As much as I like the Home Run Derby, it gets boring, real quick. MLB needs to tweak the format, ensure more star-power participants and please for the love of god eliminate all the dead time filler interviews and just speed up the overall process. You're killing us Selig.

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