Hair Of The Dog, Friday, September 26, 2008

Where did the term “Grand Salami” come from?

There is one announcer who, on the occasion of a Grand Slam, calls the event as follows (roughly):

“Grandma, get out the mustard and mayo, it’s Grand Salami!”

Or something like that. This is very strange. The words “slam” and “salami” do have certain superficial similarities (dig the consonance in that sentence), but salami isn’t exciting (not nearly so much as “slam”), and is not nearly as evocative. Moreover, the use of Grandma in the above quote further confuses the issue as he’s clearly trying to link the words Grandma and Grand. I think the whole thing is strange. Grand slams (especially walk-off Grand Slams) are exciting enough without bringing Grandma and her sandwich fixings into the picture.

Anyway, Johnny Wholestaff (headed by the triumphant return of Yovani Gallardo) pitched a dandy and Ryan Braun’s walk off, 2-out, 2-strike Grand Slam made it stand up, as the crew kept pace with the Mets who defeated the Cubs JV squad 7-6 in the bottom of the 9th, mainly because Koyie Hill and his bionic hand don’t know how to properly block home plate. Also, we may want to be careful with Micah Haoffpaiur this weekend, as the young Cubs was 5-5 with 2 bombs in a losing effort.

The Cubs will be visiting this weekend, and the Brewers do have the good fortune of avoiding both Zambrano (although the way he’s been pitching lately…) and Harden. The matchups look like this:

Friday – Suppan v. Demptser, Volstad v. Pelfrey, Joe Blanton v. Collin Balestar Galactica

Saturday – Lily v. Bush (Note: MLB.com still has this listed as Sheets, but all reports say it will be Bush), Lannan v. The Elderly Mr. Moyer, and the Mets-Marlins matchup TBD.

Sunday, for all of the marbles – Marquis v. Sabathia, Johan Santana v. Scott Olsen, and the Phillies-Nats matchup TBD.

I fully expect Sheets to see time at some point, but probably out of the pen. Tonight is the tough one. No one has been able to make any hay against Ryan Dempster this year, and he is, in fact, starting game one of the NLDS for the Cubs. Hopefully Suppan is getting the low strike from the umps tonight, because he’s been getting shelled lately. If nothing else, it should be exciting. Go Brewers!

Griese Grimey Gopher Guts

Jon Gruden’s Magical Mystery Quarterback Carousel lands on Brian Griese this week to face the depleted Packer secondary. Fortunately for the Pack, the Bucs will likely do so without aged speedster Joey Galloway. Normally I would tell you to expect plenty of Ernest Graham and Warrick Dunn, but Griese threw 67 passes last weekend against the Bears and since the Pack will be without Al Harris or Atari Bigby, don’t be surprised by more of the same.

The Tampa defense is as talented as ever, but they can be scored on and the McCarthy conservative game plan should actually play pretty well against this team.

Quick Hitters

Jordy Nelson passes the injured James Jones on the depth chart.

The Colt Run Defense had knee surgery.

Beavers Defeat Trojans. Who feels worse, the Trojans or the Buckeyes?

The Twins roar into first. Who has more of a home field advantage than these guys?

Today’s HOTD is still brought to you by Nyquil. This cold requires that I either speak in a whisper, or sound like Barry White. Neither of these are business appropriate.