World Series Q's

Cafe Society
1

So, I actually watched the World Series last night and enjoyed it. It was a great game (but I did have to switch to the Cartoon Network for Home Movies, which was a fantastic episode. They just keep getting better and better! I was disappointed that there was no Water and Perry appearance, though.)

Questions about the game last night:

  1. Why was everybody banging large red dildos together? Isn’t it a really bad idea to get several thousand drunk Americans together and give them each a pair of clubs?

  2. What’s with the monkeys? There were monkeys everywhere, and I’m not talking about the hairless variety on the field. What’s with the stuffed monkey fetish? I even saw one guy who had a pair of monkeys wrapped around his dildos.

  3. What was the crap on the batting helmets? It looked like brownish-black goop. One Angels player had so much of it on his helmet that it looked partially melted.

Thanks in advance to those more in the know about major league baseball than I.

2

Hee, hee! Wonder how Disney would react to someone comparing the “thunder sticks” with giant dildos?

Anyway, I’ve never seen them in person, but I suspect they’re not hard, harmful material; they just make noise when they’re smacked together. I further suspect this is not stopping some people from smacking each other with them. :slight_smile:

[quote]
2) What’s with the monkeys? There were monkeys everywhere, and I’m not talking about the hairless variety on the field. What’s with the stuffed monkey fetish? I even saw one guy who had a pair of monkeys wrapped around his dildos. [/qote]

I’m loving this whole post! Monkeys wrapped around dildos.

Anyway, like the dild–er, the thunder sticks, the monkeys are a product of the Anaheim Angels marketing department. The Rally Monkey began sometime last year and is used to encourage the crowd to cheer loudly for their team (the Angels, not whomever they’re playing). The monkey is so called because he is brought out on the big television screen only when the Angels are trailing the game (after the sixth inning, too). There are rules. Anyway, when the situation is right, on the screen appears a clip of the Rally Monkey, jumping around, trying to incite the crowd to cheer. This has developed into such a phenomenon that stuffed-animal Rally Monkeys were sold, as well as a whole bunch of Rally Monkey paraphernalia.

Hm, drawing a blank on this one. On the helmets, you say? Not sure.

Now, on the players’ faces, there’s sometimes some kind of black goopy substance - usually on the face of the outfielders, under the eyes. This is used to reflect the sun, so when an outfielder is attempting to make a catch, he’s not completely blinded. It won’t blot out the sun, of course, but I think it makes it a little easier for them to see the ball.

3

Just to calrify the Rally Monkey thing. It wasn’t some grand marketing scheme at first. Some guys on the Angels had some footage of a a monkey jumping around. They decided to simply add the wrods “Rally Monkey” and play the clip next time the Angels were trailing and the Angles came back from two runs down late to win the game and the Rally Monkey craze was started. This was a bout two years ago

I think the brown stuff on the helmets is pine tar. It is a sticky substance generallyused on the handle of the bat for better grip. I guess some of it gets on their helmets when they adjust them and being superstitious they probably never clean them.

4

That footage of the monkey was, from what I’ve heard, from the movie Ace Ventura.

I should have thought of pine tar. That might be it.

5

Just another clarification - the World Series is a series of games, not just one. Best of 7, and last night’s was game 2.

Thanks for the explanation of the rally monkey; I was wondering how the heck that got so popular. My husband thinks it’s idiotic but to me it’s no dumber than any other team’s cheesy gimmicks.

6

Players put pine tar on their helmet so that they can just reach up and get some when they need it. It also gives them “character” and “grit”.

I think if Anaheim loses the WS, they should kill the monkey and show it on the scoreboard.

I have my own question that’s not worthy of it’s own thread:

When was the last World Series game played during the day (Eastern Time).

7

The last daytime World Series game took place in the lkate 70’s I believe.

Also, I believe the thundersticks are something that was brought over from the Japanese baseball leagues.

As for what’s on the batting helmets. it’s a combination of dirt/pine tar/jism(if you’re David Cone:p) & tobacco juice.

8

To Oblong and others: In last night’s game they showed a foul ball going into the stands; it was caught by none other than George Brett, whose pine tar-smeared bat stirred up a controversy, during the 1982 season, that resulted in a game being replayed from the point of protest (in this case, Yankee manager Billy Martin’s protest, or Brett’s).

9

George Howard Brett… one of my favorite players.

I know that games 4 and 5 of the 1984 World Series were day games. I was at game 5 and remember watching game 4.

10

The last World Series game that started during the day was Game 6 of the 1987 World Series.

However since it was played indoors at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, no one really noticed.

11

Actually I’m pretty sure the technical name is ‘Thunder Stix.’ They’re inflatable plastic.

And, to clarify Tretiak’s clarification, the original Rally Monkey clip was put together by the guys working the Diamond Vision at the Anaheim ball park. I have no idea if it was from Ace Ventura or not, although I would guess not. I’m pretty sure it originated earlier this season, although I could be wrong, but it definitely wasn’t earlier than last season. My impression is that most of its promotion at first came on Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight on ESPN, where the Monkey seemed to get a mention on those shows almost as frequently as he made his appearance at the park, although the phenomenon exploded into popular awareness once the Halos reached the postseason.

12

In San Francisco, there’s a freshly painted sign on the side of a building visible from the freeway (80, just after you cross the bridge and close to Pac Bell Park). It reads, “There’s no monkey in baseball.”

I don’t know it’s the same footage, but both the Anaheim monkey and Ace’s pet are capuchin monkeys.

13

Correct, they are essentially thick balloons.

14

It was the Royals’ protest. Brett hit what appeared to be a game-winning homer in the ninth. Martin appealed the legality of Brett’s bat, which had pine tar further up the handle than the allowed 18 inches. The umpires measured it and called Brett out. Brett went berzerk and the Royals protested.

The league office upheld the protest because

A) There’s nothing in the rules calling for a batter to be called out in that situation,
B) Nothing about having mroe pine tar on a bat could help Brett hit a home run, and
C) It wasn’t the intent of the rule to be used that way.

15

Let me ask some questions about the Angels star pitcher, Francisco Rodriguez. The announcers keep harping on the fact that he was first called up to the majors in mid-September 2002. Isn’t there a MLB rule that in order to be eligible to play in the post-season a player has to be on the team by August 31st? If so, how did the Angels get around that rule?

16

I believe he was on the 40-man roster, which basically consists of the 25-man major-league roster and up to 15 players in the minors. If he was on that 40-man roster before Aug. 31, then even if he was in the minors between Aug. 31 and the end of the season he could be added to the postseason roster (provided someone came off the roster, of course). The rule was invented so that teams couldn’t trade for a player from another organization after Aug. 31 and use him for the playoffs.

I had also heard that the Rally Monkey was the same one that appeard on Friends.

17

You are correct. The one they have now, that is.

The Rally Monkey was born on June 6, 2000-playing against the Giants, ironically. The Angels were down 5-4. The video crew was trying to find a way to help the crowd cheer the Angels back to victory. For some reason, they decided to use a clip from Ace Ventura, Pet Detective of a monkey jumping up and down, on which they superimposed the words “RALLY MONKEY.” It worked! The fans cheered, and the Angels scored two runs to win the game!

Eventually, new clips were created with the monkey from Friends dressed in an Angels uniform. Is the Rally Monkey really that powerful? I don’t know, but the Angels have only lost one game at home in their playoff run this year. Luck, skill…or monkey?

(The monkey is the only Angel gimmick that wasn’t invented by the owners at Disney. It was purely the invention of whoever was running the JumboTron that day.)

18

This rule can be waived and in fact has been… In 1945, there were some players for the Cubs and Tigers (including Tigers star pitcher Virgl Trucks) who were still in the service after August 31, and the leagues waived the rule because it just wouldn’t be fair; and these guys had done something more important at the time…:slight_smile:
In a more isolated, if not also more poignant, example, Joe Sewell of the Cleveland Indians joined the team after Sept. 1, 1920. Sewell, who became a star with the Indians, came up from the minors to replace Ray Chapman, the Indians shortstop who had died tragically after an unfortunate beanball incident with the Yankees’ Carl Mays. (Mays hit Chapman with a pitch; the batter was knocked unconscious and was carried off the field; he never regained consciousness and died in a New York hospital the following morning.:() Dodgers’ manager Wilbert Robinson, not one to be mean about it, waived the rule and allowed Sewell to play in the Series.