Thursday, May 6, 2010

Cleaning

Every night I sit down to watch the game thinking, "I'd better get to those dust bunnies before Vivi starts crawling and gets to them first." 

Cleaning, along with cooking wholesome dinners, exercising, and other not-as-virtuous activities, are a thing of the past. I'm a baseball watcher now, but couldn't I at least tackle the TV room?

I keep my eyes on the tube and dust the trim with a burp cloth. It's the second inning, no outs, and J.D. Drew singles. I scrape something sticky off the ground with the edge of a pacifier. Adrian Beltre is up next, and he gets on base too. 

I decide what I really need is a broom and some bleach. Plus some rubber gloves to get at what is either uneaten baby sweet potato or baby...

I round up my cleaning materials and rush back to the TV. What happened? It's the third inning, the Angels are at bat, and the score is still 0-4.

I boot up the laptop (cleaning abandoned at this point) and bring up the Boston Globe Extra Bases blog, which describes each inning. Here's how it describes the third: "Sox are an LOB-machine tonight.... Four LOBs over two frames."

Um, what? A quick google search reveals that LOB stands for "left on base" and is an official statistic indicating the number of batters stranded on base at the end of an inning. I guess LOB-machine is not a rockin' label to be assigned.

"Over two frames" is a little harder to discern. There is quite the selection of bat and ball picture frames - just google "baseball" and "frame" if you would like to purchase one.  There are also instructions on how to frame a baseball, which seemed like a weird thing to do. Luckily, it turns out that framing the baseball means convincing the umpire that a pitch is in the strike zone.

Still not the frame I'm looking for. Dave's at the game so I can't even ask him. I'm starting to think that a frame is an inning. That would mean that four LOBs over two frames would be four runners left on base in the first and second innings. Can anyone confirm?

Now that I solved that (possibly) I'm going to focus on the game again. It's 11-6 in the sixth, and this is an exciting game. The cleaning can wait until later.

Or October.

3 comments:

  1. Here's your confirmation: "frame" slang is slang for "inning" in baseball or "period" in hockey. You hear it less often in basketball and football, but all the time in bowling when it's not slang, but the proper term!

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  2. Will, Spencerport NYMay 6, 2010 at 11:01 PM

    did you see Jery and Don get awfully silly in the booth about their hair brushes tonight? I think they got a little bored with the game. Nice to see the Red Sox get a four game sweep. Home cooking for sure.

    Have Dave buy you a robot vacuum so you can focus on the games ;-)

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  3. Thanks for the confirmation mountainsheep... baseball should be considered a second language.

    I kept wondering if I was hearing Remy and Orsillo correctly- until they pulled out their hairbrushes. I have a lot more hair than them and my brush is not as big. And I definitely don't carry it around with me (or use it with any frequency these days for the same reasons I don't clean anymore.

    And thanks Will... I definitely deserve a Roomba for Mother's Day. A massage and some jewelry would be appreciated too, Dave!

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