One other hilarious thing from the Pirates/Cubs game...

I've been trying to remind myself to write about this to try to keep the tone from getting too stiff.

So we were at the Pirates game last Friday. When the prime attraction is the "stadium experience," you notice the little things. Like the way the buildings in downtown have changed their facades and lights to be seen by the fans through the centerfield wall. Like the way the main scoreboard has a different graphic for the players each time through the batting order-- this year, the big addition is that on the third time through the order, each player is accompanied by a rebus spelling out his name. They're rebuses for dummies (well, and it's not like you don't know what they spell out), so the only fun is in trying to guess what they'd use before you see it. I'm pretty positive they haven't spent the money for graphics for the fifth time through the batting order, and that's money well unspent.

The best attraction, though, is the players' self-selected music for walking to the plate. There's no better juxtaposition of absurdity and arrogance than the utility infielder hitting .217 who thinks he should walk to the plate with "Start Me Up" as the wind beneath his wings.

This year, the Pirates scrambled and paid the Dodgers U.S.$75,000 for a backup catcher right before the season started. David Ross is a seemingly good pickup, and he shares a name with a great guy I used to work with. The problem is, his career average is just above .200. That doesn't rein in his music choice, though. He tells the Bucco PR dept. he wants Fitty's "Candy Shop." Keep in mind that "Candy Shop" is (1) intoxicatingly entrancing, but (2) the sort of expression of throbbing, undulating libido that really should be reserved for .300, 35 HRs, 125 RBIs and (3) even in its edited form, pretty much the dirtiest song to get wide airplay since "Tonight She Comes" by The Cars.

The Pirates' media department said, "Sure, why not."

And for the guy's first two ABs against Carlos Zambrano, it seemed to work. As he launched those two uncharacteristic home runs, it was almost as if the song had given him a newfound prowess with the bat. Late in the game, he came to the plate again with the score knotted. Buhm-banna-bah. Buhm-banna-bah. The entire crowd is seemingly transformed into a writhing clump. Buhm-banna-bah.

Wait--no. Dusty Baker has decided that Zambrano has licked his lollipop enough that night, and he starts the walk to the mound. But---but--there's only enough of Fifty to last the time it takes Ross to walk to the plate. You can't possibly play any of the vocals. And the safe instrumental part has pretty much run out before Zambrano surrenders the ball. For reasons of aesthetics, sound quality and general decency you can't just jump from "Candy Shop" to one of the usual suspects for a pitching change (e.g., The Beatles' "Help"). The music guy is stunned. So he kills the Fifty Cent and just waits. It's like anathema in the modern ballpark: total silence. 30,000 people just listening to each other.