Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Three games under

Anyone else catch Lanny's rant (on KDKA) last night about how everyone uses the expression "games under" incorrectly?

When someone says the Pirates are three games under .500, I take that to mean they have to win three games to get back to .500. Lanny would say the Pirates are one and a half games under .500 because if they had won one and a half games instead of losing them, then they'd be .500.

Lanny, why are you surprised that people prefer to look forward and think in terms of whole numbers? I was more irritated than amused because I had so many questions in my mind about the game. We need those guys to be our eyes. It must be hard to grind out play-by-play for game after game after game, so I don't want to sound too hard on Lanny, but sometimes he makes his job harder than it needs to be. All we want to hear is straight-up plain description of what's going on. Instead of some rant about semantics and how all the world but you is stupid, I'd so rather hear something like, "Wright adjusts his cap. Now he's scratching his balls. None of the Atlanta outfielders are moving. The fans on the left side of the upper deck are all wearing the same color t-shirt. Looks like a school group. They have the Andy Warhol picture of Jason Bay on the jumbotron now. Wright adjusts his cap some more. OK, now he's set. Here's the pitch . . . "

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