Sunday, February 20, 2005 |
Pickoff Moves
Robb Nen Retires
Former Giants closer Robb Nen has retired. Nen was pitching injured in 2002 in Game 6 of the World Series when Troy Glaus hit the game-winning double off him.Though the Giants kept it under wraps at the time, he suffered a 30 percent tear of his rotator cuff in 2002 and said he was told there was a 50-50 chance he could do career-ending damage.Nen is the Giants' all-time leader in saves.In consultation with Conte - Nen had the final decision - the pitcher finished his final season more on guile than on power. But it was enough. In nine playoff innings in 2002, he allowed one run, struck out eight and walked three.
The Giants took unusual measures to conceal Nen's injury. During home games that postseason, the stadium's scoreboard radar gun not-so-mysteriously stopped working when Nen took the mound. It was a transparent ploy to prevent opponents from seeing how much the pitcher's fastball had faded.
OT: Live From New York... It's Thirty Years Of SNL!
I remember being about 13, and the show was in its second season. Maybe the first half hour was bust-your-gut funny, the last 30 minutes dragged with material you didn't get. The ads were always worth waiting for. Friends insisted the whole thing was way cool, and as a result, Saturday Night Live spawned an entire list of peer pressure jokes: sketches that weren't really funny, but all your friends thought were, so you had to, too.I guess I'm smarter than that now, because I actually only remember to laugh at stuff I think is actually funny.
Anyway: that SNL was unique, groundbreaking, and scathingly funny when it first aired in 1975 shouldn't be received as a surprise, but what is surprising is the characterization of the early seasons of the show as "sweet" in this Times story about "Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live", a retrospective due to air tonight at 9 pm on NBC.
The Bees, the Nerds, the Wild and Crazy Guys, Gilda Radner's brilliant "Judy Miller Show," even John Belushi's Samurai, all have that quality.The discovery that SNL wasn't all that funny was a big one for me; but then, what it really amounted to was discovering that I had my own tastes.And it all seems funnier than it did, say, 10 years ago.
Urbina's Mom Back
Ugueth Urbina's mother, kidnapped last year, has been returned. That is one unwell country.
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