A day with Cakes and the Nasty Boy

The Washington Nationals play the Baltimore Orioles today at 1:35. This game would have absolutely zero relevance except for the fact that MASN (the local station the broadcast Os and Nats games) has made the executive decision to combine the television crews of both teams in the booths. This means the two worst color commentators of all time will be on the air at the same time. Combine this with the fact that the weather is terrible outside and Ms. Bones promised I could watch one Os game in its entirety this weekend and we have the birth of a running commentary. Before delving directly into the ridiculous comments sprayed by these former hurlers let me give each a proper introduction.

Jim Palmer aka "Cakes": In the prime of his life Jim Palmer was a dominant started pitcher for a then proud Baltimore franchise as well as a heartthrob. In his hall of fame career he won 268 times, pitched 212 complete games and helped Baltimore win two World Series. While Bones hates to admonish an Orioles legend his announcing career would land him in whatever the opposite of the hall of fame is. The only thing more painful than the Orioles play is listening to Palmer tell stories about himself the entire game. He has the awful habits of starting long stories with 2 outs, telling long stories during huge rallies or pivotal moments in games and mentioning his career whenever possible. A former player recalling his career when relevant to prove a point is fine in moderation. Palmer mentioning on a 2-1 count in the first inning that he once gave up a home run to George Brett on a 2-1 count 20 years ago is not fine. Anytime the bases are loaded he tells a story, runners on the corners a story, pitcher gets out of a jam, story. Last year when it was announced Adam Jones made the all-start team he said, "Congratulations to Adam, I pitched against Willie Mays in an All-Star game." That was it. Just wanted to get that out there.

Rob Dibble aka "nasty boy": Dibble was a lights out relief pitcher for four of his brief seven year major league career. He gained the name Nasty Boy by constantly throwing at (pitching inside in his words) batters. His most annoying characteristic is an announcer is he acts like an overzealous parent at his son's little league game. Only he has apparently fathered 25 children who all play for the Nats. Every hit the other team gets is lucky, every loss has something to do with the umps and if a hard hit ball by the Nats is caught it is an absolute crime to humanity. The only time Dibble is critical of his boys is when a pitcher either refuses to throw inside or throws something besides a fastball. He makes comments like if you brush Pujols off the plate he is simply not going to be effective or why did Livan Hernandez (tops out at 84) throw the curve there is no way Soriano could catch up to his fastball. The combination of he and Palmer should lead to a few magical moments and every listener knowing a little less about baseball then they did at the start of the broadcast.

Bottom 1st: Another classic Palmer characteristic is not answering the question asked. When he is asked why Orioles starter Kevin Milwood has given up so many home runs this season he responds, "You know nine of them have been at home and the one on the road was to Tampa Bay they have some hitters. Pena, Longoria, Burrell, Blaylock" and then he is mercifully cut off. Also in the top of the first Dibble states that Nats starter John Lannen needs to throw at the front shoulder, come inside, back him off the plate and then apparently threatens him saying he needs to pitch better because, "this is his livelyhood." Bones believes it would be great if Dibble was GM. He imagines the nasty boy assembling a pitching staff of 13 Armando Benitez's.

Bottom 3rd: Wow after an uneventful first 3 innings Palmer drops the first true bomb on the day. Bones is glad to see he may have witnessed Palmer's last broadcast. Cakes and Nasty were going back and forth with mundane, unfunny jokes about each others wordrobes. The nasty boy stated, "I know you didn't like my suit yesterday so I wore my special tie for you." The show the tie and it is a little feminine. Palmer responds by saying, "I like that outfit and that tie will play well on your next trip to San Francisco." Did he really just say that? In the oversensitive society we live in there has to be some repercussions. But do enough people watch these two hanus teams for their to be an outcry. This is the same guy who two years ago said of Kevin Millar, "
"If you can't run, and the plays in front of you, you just can't get gay." All of the sudden Bones is a huge gay rights activist. Off with his head! Boycott MASN unless he is fired! Whose with me?

Bottom 5th: While discussing when Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg will debut for the Nationals Dibble is making up reasons he is not up yet (real reason is the Nats can keep him longer for less money if he stays in the minors until June 4th). He is asked what he feels about Curt Shilling saying he will be the best pitcher ever. Nasty boy gets nasty, "Curt Shilling needs to shut up. We are supposed to think he is some kind of rocket scientist know that he's done with baseball?" No Rob that third grade response proved you are in fact the rocket scientist.

Top 6th: Some more classic Palmer. Dibble asked him about how great the great Eddie Murray was and he states, "Eddie hit a home run in my first start. We were up 4-0. I blew the lead but didn't lose it was a no decision." Is that your final answer? With the Os down 3-1 runners on the corners and 2 outs Dibble and Palmer change stories about how nasty their sliders were. Luke Scott strikes out to end the inning but neither notices.

Top 9th: Trailing 3-1 in a terrible game (no one has scored since the first inning) the Os uncharacteristically rally and put men on second and third with one out. Now Dibble goes into full on Little League dad mode complaining about every pitch that is called a ball. After supposed franchise savior Matt Wieters grounds out to second it is up to Julio Lugo to get a hit to tie the game. And he does! Bones jumps off the couch, screams an Indian mating ritual and almost gives Ms. Bones a heart attack. He calms down just in time to hear Dibble mutter, "nothing made me madder in my career than when a little guy hit a flair." Palmer responds by mumbling a lot by say something about Cal Ripken Jr.'s heart and desire.

Bottom 10th: With the score tied 3-3 and Os closer Alfredo Simon working his second inning of relief Dibble actually makes a great point that has never crossed even the great mind of Bones. He says that one of the hardest parts of being a reliever is pitching in the divets that have been left by the other pitchers throughout the game. Palmer agrees by telling another story, "last game of my career was a loss pitching the 14th, 15th and 16 innings in some of the nastiest slop you will ever see. A pig wouldn't have wanted to roll around in that stuff and I was pitching on it." Simon promptly hurts his hamstring covering the bag on a grounder to first proving Dibble's point but not validating Palmer's story about pig slop. The Os bring in Richmonder Cla Meredith because of the injury. Bones has actually met the side armer a couple times and in addition to be a solid reliever he seems to be a nice guy. He thinks to himself that the Os have no one left in the bull pen and if they were actually in contention it would probably be better for the team to lose now as opposed to use another starter or throw out Meredith's arm. But they're nowhere near contention and he hates the Nats so he is disappointed Josh Willingham takes Meredith's 4th pitch deep making the Os record 14-31. As Willingham crosses the plate Dibble says something like, wam, bam, slam Willingham brings the hammer and this one is ovveeeer! The sad part Rob is it's not. Bones will have to listen to you and Palmer make ridiculous comments for the next four months every time he wants to watch the nation's past time.

Random Thing that bothers Bones: While listening to one of the two local "hip-hop" stations in Richmond the other day Bones realized that 80 percent of the songs played are strictly about sexual intercourse. When Bones was growing up R & B and rap songs used to mention casual sex fairly often but rarely were the messages as blatant as those in today's songs. Besides Silk's "Freak me baby" (Bones loved this song he had no idea what it meant but remembers asking his mom to take the long way around the neighborhood on the way home from church at the start of the song. As the chorus hit your loyal narrator's mother looked at him with a look of disdain he will never forget. Not until years later did he understand why) Bones struggles to think of any. But just the other day Bones heard "I bet the Neighbors know my name", "I can make your bed rock", "Lil Freak" and "Sex Therapy" in succession. However, this is really not what bothers Bones. What bothers him is that every rapper and R &B singer claims to be the most amazing love maker of all-time. Am I really supposed to believe that Twister kept a girl up all night? Or that Fat Joe is the best a girl has ever had? For some reason the rapper who bothers me most is Ludacris. In every song he has released since he started his career with "Fantasy" he has provided at least 5o orgasms. When he was young it was annoying but not creepy. But now he is a 5'4 man in his mid 30s portraying himself as Ron Jeremy. If you were talking to a 5'4 guy in his thirties at a bar and referred to his latest sexual encounter by comparing it to, all-state insurance, fireworks, rocks, cotton, rotten apples, twister, webs, blind fold, slip n slide, and horse saddles as Luda does in his new song "sex room" wouldn't you be a little disturbed. Bones would to. Is he ever going to rap about anything else? Has he ever had an off night? At 5'4 is he the tripod he claims he is in this same song? The following is what Mike Tyson thinks about after listening to Ludacris' empty boasts: "“I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.”