The Science of Baseball by Dennis Eckersley
While watching tonight’s Mets/Red Sox game on Boston’s NESN, color commentator Dennis Eckersley (after letting an expletive fly during last night’s game) bestowed the following piece of baseball wisdom on the viewers during the seventh inning with Ramon Martinez at the plate and runners on first and third:
You gotta get this guy out…you gotta punch this guy out, is what you gotta do…
[after Beckett goes ahead 0-1] See how he throws without trying to punch him out…I mean punch out, pop up you can’t punch anyone out on the first pitch obviously…so…you gotta wait til you got two strikes on somebody to try and punch him out…
Eckersley goes on to say the phrase “punch out” about seven more times before Martinez eventually does strike out.
If I were a Boston fan I would be embarassed that NESN chose Eckersley to replace Jerry Remy in the broadcast booth. What a joke.
