Killing time

I have some time to kill before I play baseball at 9:30 (!) tonight. Since I live so far from work (~70 km one way), there's no point in my going home and then coming back — best case, that's an hour and a half of driving — so I'm hanging out at work. What better way to spend that time than blogging?

We'll start with 24, which Gail and I have been addicted to for the last 5 seasons. The season finale was this past Monday, and it did a pretty good job of wrapping up what was actually a rather boring season, by 24's standards. Oh sure, several main characters died (Michelle, Tony, Edgar), so that was exciting, but the whole gas cannister plot went on too long, and I didn't like the way the writers handled the traitorous President — I think it would have been better if he was a strong man acting indecisive and weak, rather than actually having him be indecisive and weak and manipulated by some bald guy (who they never explained, now that I think of it). The only thing that we know about him is that his name is Graham. (I'm just assuming that it's spelled that way, not Graeme. Call me pessimistic.) Maybe they're keeping him as next year's villain, though one thing on this show that you can never do is figure out who the real bad guy is — as soon as you think you do, they bring out another guy who's giving the first guy orders. They also kind of abandoned the whole "real-time" thing at the end, where Jack is is knocked unconscious and abducted (in LA) by the Chinese, and five minutes later wakes up in the middle of the Pacific on (quite literally) a slow boat to China.

Let's move on to baseball now. Barry Bonds hit home run number 714 in his career the other night, tying Babe Ruth for 2nd on the all-time list. Big freakin' deal. Well, I suppose it is, but I just can't get too excited about it, firstly because it's not a record anymore (Hank Aaron surpassed it over 30 years ago), and secondly because we all know that a good number of those home runs (at least all the ones hit in the last 5 years) were done while Bonds was juiced up on steroids. The evidence is painfully clear. Bonds played 14 seasons with the Pirates and Giants, and averaged 32 homers a year in that time — he hit over 45 home runs only once. He also averaged 33 steals per season. Then 2000 rolls around — the year Bonds turned 36, and for the next 5 seasons, he averages 52 homers (over 45 every year, maxing out at a major league record 73) and only 9 steals per season. His batting average over those 5 years was .339, while his career average before that was only .288. Then MLB announces that they will begin steroid testing in 2005, and lo and behold, Bonds sits out almost the entire season with an injury. But he's not on steroids. <Dr.Evil>Rrrrrrriiiiiiight.</Dr.Evil>

On an unrelated baseball note, the Jays finally demoted Josh Towers to AAA Syracuse yesterday after yet another dismal outing. He didn't lose the game because the Jays came back to tie it (and then lost it later), but he didn't even last 2 innings. It's about damn time. I have nothing against Towers — he pitched really well last year — but he's 1-and-freakin'-8. For a second-year player, that's at least 2 losses too many. It's not like he was going 7 innings and losing 3-2 games either — he was getting shelled almost every time out. His one win was very impressive though - he went 8 innings in that one, so maybe John Gibbons figured he'd found his groove or something. Obviously he hadn't, so they've sent him down to try and pick things up there. In 2001, Roy Halladay was sent down all the way to single-A ball to "re-build his delivery" — essentially learning how to pitch again. By the end of that year he was back in the majors, and look how that turned out — a Cy Young award in 2003, and he might have won another one last year if he hadn't broken his leg in July and missed the rest of the season. I don't know if single-A ball is the answer for Towers (heard someone on the radio this morning refer to him as "Fawlty" Towers), but staying in the majors isn't working for him at this point, and it's certainly not helping the Jays out either.

Well, I think that's all I have to say for now, and I still have an hour before my game. Well, since I'm at work, maybe I should, oh I don't know, do some work.

Technorati tags: 24 Baseball Barry Bonds Blue Jays Josh Towers