(Jeff Kent, #42, pictured, couldn’t win over LA fans with a HR and a triple tonight.)
My first MLB game of the season turned out to be the Bucs getting blown out 11-2 by the Dodgers on Jackie Robinson night, when every player in baseball wore #42. The Dodgers’ Hong-Chih Kuo loaded the bases and walked in the ‘Rats first run in the 1st and lasted all of four go-rounds before taking the walk of shame. In the 5th, LA opened it up with 5 runs and never looked back. I don’t wanna get controversial on JR’s big night, but why did they honor him on tax day? That seems like some giant Jesse Helms joke in the sky, like making February, the shortest month of the year, Black History Month.
Highlights of the game for me were multiple celeb spots of Larry King wandering the field level walkways, blowing his nose; Jeff Kent, despite a HR and stand-up triple, heckled with “you lazy fat ass! Run it out for once you fat ass fuck!”; to seeing the new Davey Lopes column-size painting added to the loge level. Also, if anyone can tell me why Blake DeWitt enters to Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” I’d love to hear theories. If you’re thinking it’s the “hammer of the gods” reference, you’ll have to explain away his current 8-ball in the lineup and his .261 results. Oh, and then there was the trivia stat on the Jumbotron, that Pittsburgh’s Xavier Nady is the only player in major league history to have a name that begins or ends with a X who hit a home run. My guess was “Dave Fxxxxxg Kingman,” but I wasn’t thinking when I said it.
Juan Pierslap was benched on Jackie Robinson night? Conspiracy or did somebody wake up Joe Torre.