Interesting Tidbits: Five Things I've Learned While Watching TBS

Like many baseball fans, I have spent a good number of hours watching TBS over the past couple weeks.

TBS' coverage has been jam-packed with colorful commentary and insight from the brightest baseball minds in the world.

Given that the next game TBS will air could be their last of the season, I thought it would be nice to reflect on some of the most memorable things that I have learned.

Baseball Has Saved Detroit

It's no secret that the city of Detroit is having a rough time.

While major urban areas across the country have been hit hard by the economic crisis, Detroit has had it particularly bad.

After years of decline, the failure of American car companies has thrown the city into turmoil. The unemployment rate in Detroit is almost 30% (by comparison, only about 25% of Americans were unemployed at the Great Depression's peak).

Yet, according to TBS, all of the city's problems had melted away at the end of the season. The Tigers' success, they said, had given Detroit hope.

I certainly wouldn't argue with the assertion that a winning team raises a city's spirits. By definition, sports are entertainment, and it's a lot more fun to watch when your team comes out on top.

But TBS went further than that. The broadcasters proclaimed that the Tigers played with a blue-collar style that fans could relate to, and that their example was an enormous inspiration.

They said that the team's success had made their city completely forget about its problems—meaning that either Jim Leyland has powers of mass hypnosis or Detroit's citizens all have really short attention spans.

Even assuming that everyone in Detroit cares about baseball, does anyone really think that a person who lost his job would be more excited by a home run than a hot meal?

Perhaps it's a good thing the Tigers lost the tiebreaker—imagine the depressing allegory of the blue-collar boys getting demolished by the ultra-rich leviathan that is the New York Yankees.

Shelling the Starter is Good

Before the playoffs started, I was under the impression that, for the offense, it was a good strategy to try and let the opposing team's starting pitcher stay in the game as long as possible.

But then TBS opened my mind.

As it turns out, it can actually be beneficial to try and force the other team to go to its bullpen as early as possible. Who knew?

It made a lot of sense. First of all, most teams put their best pitchers in their starting rotation. Since you won't face a team's closer before the eighth inning, if you knock the starter out of the game early, the replacement will almost assuredly be worse. The worse the pitcher, the easier to score runs. It seems like sound logic to me.

Second, the more relief pitchers the other team uses, the more pressure they will be under for the rest of the series. If you can get them to go deep into their bullpen in Game 1, the relievers will be tired for the next couple games of the series. If you can get a team to go to its bullpen early in two games in a row, than in the second game the replacement pitchers will not only be inferior to the starter, but also will be tired.

I'm a bit of a slow learner, but luckily TBS was able to cater to me. The broadcasters explained the strategy almost every game. They discussed it multiple times each time the Phillies played.

The Angels are God's Gift to Baseball

The Angels have had enough feel-good stories to fill an encyclopedia.

There's the incredible acquisition of Bobby Abreu. Vladimir Guerrero had a late-season resurgence of sorts after a miserable first half. And don't forget how incredible it is that Mike Scioscia values defense highly enough to start Jeff Mathis over Mike Napoli.

Kendry Morales (seen here basking in the glow of Heaven) has also been a popular topic of in-game discussion. The announcers can't seem to shut up about his struggle to escape Cuba and play in the MLB.

Of course, while the broadcasters continued kvelling over Morales long after each of his at-bats, I did not once hear them mention Jon Lester's struggle with cancer.

And then there's Nick Adenhart.

I in no way wish to trivialize the tragedy of Adenhart's death. But that doesn't matter, because TBS already has.

Yes, it's nice to see the Angels huddle around his picture before games and it's heartwarming to watch Jered Weaver draw "34" on the pitcher's mound. But the sentiment is lost when it's repeated ad nauseam, especially when the broadcasters say things like "In his last start, he gave up no runs over six innings."

The Dodgers are the Greatest Team Ever

Inspirational as the Angels may be, they are not the best baseball team in Southern California. The way the announcers talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers, you have to wonder why the other 29 teams are even trying.

This team is just too talented to be mentioned in the same breath with the Yankees or Red Sox. If Sandy Koufax and Jackie Robinson were on the roster today, they'd be benchwarmers at best.

After the Phillies took a 4-0 lead in the first inning of NLCS Game 3, the announcers declared that the Dodgers were not intimidated. The team has won comeback games all season long, they said, and they certainly wouldn't be intimidated by Cliff Lee.

After Lee pitched a "shutdown inning" in the top of the second (another of their favorite terms), the commentators stressed the lack of urgency this early in the game, saying that the Dodgers didn't have to come back immediately.

By the third inning, when the Phillies were up by six and the Dodgers were on their third pitcher of the night, the commentary had quieted down a bit.

To be fair, TBS is not the only media outlet who shares this viewpoint. ESPN is also on the bandwagon, and within five minutes of turning to the MLB Network you will learn that the Dodgers "win games like they were in a dramatic thriller—with action and suspense!"

George is Havin' a Party!

I'm not quite sure what George Lopez is planning, but whatever this party is, it must be exciting. Why else would surgeons and rabbis abandon their scrubs and weddings to attend it?

Lopez's commercials aren't necessarily the worst ones on during the games, but they're the most memorable. You don't see Barack Obama talking to the creepy pile of money from the Geico commercials, and the Blackberry ads don't have an angry mob (though that terrible cover of "All You Need is Love" is enough to justify vigilantism).

In case you're reading this, Mr. Lopez, I have yet to receive my invitation. Maybe it got lost in the mail?