Image from Wikipedia commons. Sorry, but no game shots.

Alright there, sports fans.  I bet a lot of you are wondering what the World Series Schedule for 2009 is, and we’re going to give it to you.  This year’s Series is poised to be a contest of epic proportions.  We have last year’s winners, the reigning World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, facing off against the Yankees, who are looking for a return to the Fall Classic for the first time since the year 2000.

Here it is

Game 1 – Wednesday, October 28th – @New York

Game 2 – Thursday, October 29th – @ NY

Game 3 – Saturday, October 31st – @ Philadelphia

Game 4 – Sunday, November 1st – @ PHI

Game 5, if necessary, will be played on Monday, November 2nd in Philadelphia.  Games 6 and 7, if necessary, will be in New York.  The World Series this year is being broadcast by FOX, and games 2 and 3 will start at 7:57 pm, Eastern Standard Time, game 4 (this upcoming Sunday) will start at 8:20 pm, EST.  Games 5-7, if necessary, will also begin at 7:57 EST. Check your local listing for the channel.

Game 1 is already over – and guess who lost in their fancy new digs?

That’s right, for those of you who missed it.  The New York Yankees LOST in the first World Series game they played in their big fancy new stadium, that reportedly cost over a billion dollars.  That was a pretty big cash advance for a team that started seeing home runs fly over the walls (that they didn’t hit – including a 22-4 slaughtering by the Cleveland Indians) and Wednesday night was no exception.

Utley and Lee combine to Burn the Bronx Again

Two Philadelphia Phillies had outstanding nights.  Second basemen Chase Utley and pitcher Cliff Lee both produced outstanding performances, with Utley hitting a home run in the 3rd and 6th innings, followed by two runs in the 8th and 9th innings by Raul Ibanez (two RBI in the 8th) and two RBI hits from Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard.

Cliff Lee pitched a complete game – which is amazing for a World Series game. Not only that, he pitched the first complete Game 1 defeat of the Yanks since the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax.  In the first five, there were only 3 hits and 7 strikeouts.  By the 9th, it was shutout, but a little luck went the way of the Yankees.  The Bronx Bombers managed an unearned run off a throwing error during an attempted double play.  In the end, it hardly mattered – as soon as that happened, Lee struck out Alex Rodriguez (who has had a BA of over .400 this postseason) and Posada with impunity, as if these legit threats at the backstop were a couple of impudent Little Leaguers that he was giving a lesson in humiliation.  I bet the Indians regret that trade now!

Cue Gloating

This will be brief – but I’d like to take this moment to gloat over the Yankees loss, and remind everyone of the spanking the Evil Empire received last night.  That will be all.

Gloating Over

The Yankees are not about to take this lying down.  C.C. Sabathia is going to be looking for revenge, and so will everyone else.  A-Rod was struck out three times, and he isn’t likely to be happy about it.  They just lost the first World Series game on home turf – they will be out for blood tonight.  Luckily, on TV it’s free – but attending in person would be well worth some instant cash loans.

Baseball should still reflect what is great about America, but they don't. Girl throws baseball back, a precious moment is created. What's so hard to understand, MLB? (Photo: flickr.com)

By now, you’ve probably heard about the “girl throws baseball back” video that made the viral rounds of the Web and television. If not, here’s the only place that’s sure to have the clip available now: MLB.com. In short, a family is sitting in the stands at a Philadelphia Phillies game. The batter, Phillies outfielder Jayson Werth, fouls off a fastball in the direction of Steve Monforto, who catches the ball. After a moment of celebration over his new rare souvenir, Monforto’s three-year-old daughter Emily asks daddy for the ball. And the rest, as they say, is history. The girl throws the baseball back onto the field. No payday lender could have put a value on that priceless moment.

Monforto was shocked at first, but he quickly realized that Emily did what she thought was right. They shared a happy hug. It was a classic father-and-child moment at the ball yard, and the video quickly went viral, spreading like wildfire. Video of the television broadcast and fan-made videos gave Major League Baseball a golden opportunity to enjoy some positive advertising.

With steroids and game pace alienating ADD Americans, the game needed it

But what did they decide to do? Major League Baseball has gone to great pains to pull down most if not all of the instances of the video. Legally yes, they have every right to do that; you’ve heard the “without the express written consent of the commissioner” jargon, I’m sure. It’s intended to protect what Major League Baseball considers to be their property. But let’s step away from the law for a moment and think about what baseball could have done for itself here, aside from lowering ticket prices so that the average fan wouldn’t have to go to a payday lender in order to be able to afford to attend.

Part of the reason kids don’t flock to the game is the lack of exposure

By this, I mean during hours when they’re awake and able to take in a game, particularly during the postseason. Games air at night (typically beginning around 6 or 7 p.m.). If you’re talking the Pacific Time zone, that means it airs on the east coast at 9 or 10 p.m. Young children who would otherwise have the chance to grow up with an appreciation for “America’s pastime” are left out of the equation because advertisers want to put their ads in television programs that air during prime time. The grab for money decreases the overall fan base, and I’m not even touching on player salaries. They have little need of a payday lender, that’s for sure.

The image of father and daughter was precious

It was Norman Rockwell-esque, the way baseball used to be. As Mashable describes it, it was a “touching baseball moment.” It was funny and heart-warming – and it promoted Major League Baseball in a way that those who are responsible for marketing the sport have lost touch with. Some would say that the dwindling, video-gaming, Twittering attention span of the public has been largely responsible for the decline in attention paid to baseball, but I’d call that a cop-out. People rise to the level of expectations. I believe that parents and educators can start the shift back toward rebuilding attention spans. It all starts with rejecting some of the over-stimulating flow of information and technical gadgets. Use tools to improve life, not to replace healthy human communication with fragmented, illiterate avatars that appear to be human (I’m no longer sure, myself). Is that texting meat sack of a person actually a person once they’ve lost all ability to sensibly communicate or interact socially? I ask that question from a philosophical point of view, of course.

Baseball is “hosting” the video in its stranglehold grip

And they’re forcing people to come to MLB.com in order to partake, but they are not allowing viewers to embed or share the video. This would be good brand control if not for the isolationist attitude held by baseball. You have to be able to reach out in order to grow your fan base, and people enjoy viral videos. Giving up some control can be beneficial in the long run.

The Monforto family has taken control of their moment of fame, at least. They’re going to appear on the Today Show, and it has been reported that they will receive a surprise gift.

We live in a viral age

Which makes MLB’s decision to pull all videos and force people to come to them to see it (but not allow them to share via online social media) backward. Wake up and smell the 21^st century, baseball marketing team. If you need a payday lender to help you buy some sense of how people find entertainment, click the green button to apply now for a payday loan.

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Lenny Dykstra was one of my favorite baseball players. He combined speed, hustle, plate discipline and a near-fanatical desire to destroy his opponents on the baseball field. They called him “Nails” for a reason.

Like numerous other athletes, however, Dykstra took the unfortunate slide into financial ruin after his days on the field came to a close. For many, this happens because they never learned how to handle their money and their spending habits begin to outpace their income. Lenny Dykstra was successful in business for a time, but similar bad habits and (according to a recent HBO feature) aggressive disregard for reality and financial obligations. Now he’s living in a fantasy world where everyone else is at fault.

Don’t be like Lenny Dykstra, people. Pay your debts. If you need a little help to keep from going into debt due to a small situation that could cause big trouble if left unchecked, consider a cash advance or online payday loan.

(Not) workin’ at the car wash

Mark Kram reports for the Philadelphia Daily News that a new episode of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” will feature an update on a story they ran back in March of 2008 on former Philadelphia Phillies star Lenny Dykstra. As correspondent Bernard Goldberg will remind us, the outfielder-turned-businessman has been the target of 20 lawsuits that have come as a direct result of his apparent dirty dealings and deadbeat ways.

Dykstra has lived the high life on the promise that “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Skipping out on checks, not paying for services employed and leading people astray in the stock market have become his pathetic modus operandi. Now the past has caught up with Lenny Dykstra, and he’s broke. To show just what kind of guy the chaw-gnashing, ex-car wash baron is, Goldberg will have a group of people appear during the segment who have been stiffed by Dykstra. According to Kram, one of these is a  flight attendant who claims “Nails” pounded her credit card for $10,700 to reserve a private plane. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Things have been on the rocks for Dykstra (perhaps literally, if you listen to him speak), and he has a divorce from his wife of 23 years and upcoming foreclosure on his $18.5 million estate to show for it.

A crazy scene

“Lenny? Anybody home? Hello? Mr. Dykstra?”

Nearly half an hour later, Dykstra comes downstairs. As Goldberg puts it, they launch into “something vaguely resembling a conversation.” Denials stain the walls like tobacco juice, including one that he doesn’t owe a penny of the $280,000 a magazine venture says he does. It goes something like this, writes Kram:

DYKSTRA: Who? Tell me who I owe?

GOLDBERG: Let’s go through a few people. The printers . . .

DYKSTRA: F— the printers. The printers are criminals.

GOLDBERG: The flight attendant?

DYKSTRA: F— the flight attendant . . . They all think they can come here and steal my money.

Not even plausible deniability

Just so you know that Dykstra still thinks he’s flying high (literally?), he flashes a wad of cash, similar to the silly graphics you occasionally find on cash advance and online payday loan Web sites. Not here, mind you.

It turns out to be $75, which Goldberg points out doesn’t make him rich. But Dykstra replies “I never carry less than $1,000. But flying high? Looks like I’m still flying pretty f—— high. And by the way, I’m flying higher.”

Not according to one of the panel of victims Goldberg interviews. A former personal assistant for Lenny Dykstra claims that she was constantly “consoling” cursing people to whom Dykstra owed money. This same assistant wonders why people ever put their faith in her former employer to make stock picks with his “Nails on the Numbers” venture. They “fronted [Dykstra] with the hope that [they] could trust him,” she says

By the way, the assistant won a $7,400 small claims judgment against Dykstra. He hasn’t paid that yet, either.

And he thinks he’s the victim

True, no criminal charges have been filed against Lenny Dykstra as yet. But can that be far behind?

He probably thinks Senator George Mitchell has a vendetta against him, too. You see, the performance enhancing drug report Mitchell compiled for Major League Baseball in 2007 happens to have Lenny’s name in it. Thus, he is marked as a steroid user. But Dykstra will deny he used until his dying day.

Nails swung and missed a lot

Getting back on the horse after a failure is a good thing. But if you swing and miss continually, you should at least take a look at your bat to make sure there are no holes in it. Lenny Dykstra owned three car washes in southern California that he sold for a reported $55 million. Tax evasion charges played a role in that decision. Then came Lenny Dykstra the publisher and Lenny Dykstra the investment expert. In both cases, huckstery and dereliction followed him (remember, he’s the VICTIM, not the perpetrator). All the while, he was investing in private jets, $400,000 German cars and his now threadbare estate.

And if Dykstra’s responses to Goldberg are any indication, he has yet to learn his lesson. At one point, he flashes a picture of a dog he plans to buy for $10,000.

“That’s a world champion, that’s the only dog I’ll buy.”

Know how you get to be a world champion? Through hard word, honesty and sound decision-making. A cash advance or online payday loan won’t make you rich and won’t make you poor, but used properly, they can keep a situation from pounding nails into your financial coffin.

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Phillies Broadcaster Harry Kalas Dies at 73

Our lives are precious. We may think there will be time enough to borrow what we need, to take personal loans of life, love and fulfillment, but we should never deceive ourselves into thinking that the power to live our dreams rests in hands apart from our own.

Harry Kalas lived his dream, and he will forever have the love of sports fans to show for it.

Tracee Hamilton reports for the Washington Post that Philadelphia Phillies baseball and NFL Films broadcaster Harry Kalas passed out in the press box at Nationals Park and was later pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital. He was 73 years old.

He was preparing to broadcast a game

“Major League Baseball has lost one of the great voices of our generation,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. “Baseball announcers have a special bond with their audience, and Harry represented the best of baseball not only to the fans of the Phillies, but to fans everywhere.”

The game will go on, which is what those close to Kalas believe he would have wanted.

Kalas had missed most of 2009 spring training after having what Phillies team officials called a “minor medical procedure” performed.

You’ve heard his voice

Kalas had broadcast Phillies games in his distinctive, soothing baritone since 1971. He had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. Aside from his baseball work, he narrated for NFL Films, broadcast the annual “Puppy Bowl” for Animal Planet and lent his voice to Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials.

The Phillies won the World Series in 1980 and 2008. Nothing like going out on a high note…

From Mike Schmidt home runs to Steve Carlton sliders and Jimmy Rollins’ backhand stops in the 5.5 hole, Harry Kalas was there. I can’t express the sadness I feel at this moment… and I’m not even from Philadelphia. I love baseball, and that was what Harry lived. His signature home run call – “Outta here!” – was always pronounced with joy. Win or lose – and the Phillies have lost a lot over the years – baseball, sports and the broadcasting community have lost a legend.

Round the bases, friend.

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