Hygiene

I don't have anything to say about baseball, but I always have an opinion about watching baseball.

The highlight of the weekend's action was watching the crack MASN camera team bring the catcher narrative to life for us. On Sunday, Ivan Rodriguez picked up one of his late, agonizing hits on the way to 3,000, and the announcers took the opportunity to talk about how maybe Pudge is being pushed to greater heights by competition from Wilson Ramos.

The view on my television immediately shifted to Mr. Ramos himself, enjoying the game while hanging over the Mo Vaughn barrier in front of the dugout. What follows is a list of Ramos' actions while the camera was on him:

1. Pick left ear with left pinkie.
2. Examine left pinkie.
3. Pick right ear with right pinkie.
4. Examine right pinkie.
5. Make a face.
6. Brush off right pinkie on Nationals sweatshirt.

I don't know a whole lot about television production; certainly not as much as the guys who told Jim Riggleman to make really awkward hand gestures while he previews bad managerial decisions in front of a green screen. But I probably would have said something like "CLOSEUP ON JAYSON WERTH! NOW!" right after #1 in that list.

I also noticed that Bob Carpenter is still doing that thing he does. You know, the thing where the Nats screw up really bad, prompting Carpenter to mention the screwup as briefly as possible and then obsessively mention a much less damaging gaffe the opponent committed.

The first time I recall this happening was back in 2009. Elijah Dukes had evaded a flyball like it was a DUI checkpoint - this was back when the Nats couldn't catch anything - and Sunny Bob steadfastly maintained that David Wright was the bad guy.

It happened again on Saturday. Jonathan Sanchez walked approximately everyone, and the Nats responded by scoring only one damn run. I wasn't paying real close attention, so my only info was coming from Carpenter. Listening to him talk, you'd think Sanchez had walked in about fourteen runs. I was honestly shocked when I looked up to see a 1 on the scoreboard.

At least Dibble would have called him on it. I think Santangelo just mumbled something about "country hardball" as we went to break and winced through that Riggleman commercial again.