"See, you can't be kissing the bat"

vs.
Game 21: April 22, 2008 - 8:11 p.m. ET
U.S. Cellular Field, Chicago, Ill.
Play-by-Play: Michael Kay
Color: David Cone, Paul O'Neill

Top 1st: "Johnny Damon rips one, under the glove of Konerko and it trickles into foul territory down the right-field line..."

• I've been noticing this a lot lately. Kay loves to use the word "trickle." The word means "to issue or fall in drops," "to fall in a thin gentle stream," or "to dissipate slowly." It's fine for play-by-play men to take liberties with their action verbs, but that ball didn't exactly roll ever so slowly past Konerko. In fact, given that he barely deflected it, it hardly slowed down. Kay himself said it was ripped. Just because a ball gets by someone, doesn't mean it trickled past. If I didn't know Kay was a moron, I'd say he had a hard-on for Ronald Reagan.

Bot 1st: O'Neill on Paul Konerko: "World Series MVP [in 2005], right?"
Kay: "Mmm-hmmm."
[Four-second pause]
Kay: "I think Dye was the MVP."

• Could you have made it any more obvious that you were corrected in your headset?

Bot 2nd: "We go to the bottom of the second inning. It's 2-0, White Sox."

• Whoops. I guess Hideki Matsui (RBI fielder's choice) and Jason Giambi (solo home run) play for the men in black-and-white now.

Nick Swisher strikes out, his bat breaking before he even made contact.
O'Neill: "That bat exploded. That had a hairline fracture."
Kay: "There's no way that you think that that bat --"
O'Neill: "No."
Kay: "-- was intact and it just broke from the force of the swing?"

• Yes, because that sort of thing happens every other day.

YES later shows a replay of Swisher examining his bat earlier in the at-bat, ultimately deciding it was okay to use and kissing the barrel.
Kay: "See, you can't be kissing the bat. Reacted adversely."

• Makes perfect sense. Kay must get that reaction anytime he tries kissing someone. After all, does anyone really think it's an accident that he's 47 and single?

Bot 4th: O'Neill: "Coney, have you ever seen anyone who does more shows than Michael?"
Cone: "He's building quite a résumé."
O'Neill: "Got a cologne out yet?"
Kay: "Soon. I've got a smell, it's jut not in a bottle yet."

• Thanks for doing the work for us on that one.

Bot 5th: "In fact, the Cubs have the longest stretch right now of not winning the World Series -- 99 years."

• And this qualifies as news?

Top 7th: The Yankees load the bases with one out. Kay: "Chien-Ming Wang knows that if the Yankees could get two runs, he might win. And if the Yankees do get two runs, he's going to lose."

• Riiiiight....

Bot 7th: On Brian Bruney: "He's throwing more strikes than he has been. That was the one complaint against him last year."

• Something tells us Joe Torre could think of a few others.

Top 8th: "Joba Chamberlain could be that guy, to match up with the Becketts and the Sabathias and the Verlanders and therein lies the problem."

• The Yankees have someone that could match up with the elite aces in the American League? Perish the thought.

O'Neill on a Melky Cabrera pop-fly behind the plate: "Grab that, Michael. It was close enough for you."
Kay: "If I was Gumby."

• Yes, because four-inch clay figurines are known to have tremendous elasticity. Mr. Fantastic or Stretch Armstrong would have been acceptable references. Considering you're not boning any women, you could at least have enough pride to bone up on your childhood characters.

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Final score: Yankees 9, White Sox 5
I owe Juan Rivera an apology: 2. Konerko was the '05 World Series MVP, Mr. Fantastic is Gumby's love child.