Alan Partridge is a character played by comedian Steve Coogan, who appeared in such programs as The Day Today, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, I’m Alan Partridge and his own film Alpha Papa. During his “I’m Alan Partridge” phase, we would be treated to Alan recording via a dictaphone some ideas for programs he would like to create. Such as:
- Monkey Tennis
- Inner City Car Park Sumo
- Youth Hosteling With Chaz and Dave
If you don’t know who Alan Partridge is (I’m looking at anyone born and living outside the UK), then here is an example of his work.
Whilst displaying the inner workings of my Google Notes app, I happened to show an idea for a blog post that I had noted down via my phones Voice-To-Text capability. Unfortunately the transcription ended up a little lost in translation and made no sense to me anymore.
When you look at your “Blog Post Ideas” notes and have no idea what you transcribed through Google Voice-To-Text weeks ago.
It was probably a 1m page views post. Nevermind. pic.twitter.com/YAI5lcN3TC
— Bat Flips and Nerds (@batflips_nerds) April 27, 2018
A twitter follower of Bat Flips and Nerds — Matt Clough — replied with a very simple picture. Our Alan Partridge, lying on his bed at the Linton Travel Tavern using a dictaphone to record another one of his special ideas.
— Matt Clough (@MattJClough) April 27, 2018
This gave me an idea, could we merge Alan’s ideas and baseball? No? Well I’m going to try anyway.
In the style of Partridge:
“Idea for a program…”
The Cardinals Way
The Cardinals will play a full season, utilising the tactics of ye olde baseball and nothing else. Home-runs will be shunned, relievers are forbidden, the bunt will be greeted with rapturous applause. Scouting will only consist of the “eye-test”, computer based stats (Especially hacking) are banned. Hosted by Des Lynham in the Grandstand studio, to give it that true nostalgia feel.
Wacky Bases
A simple game show, where baseball players old, current and future have to piggy back each other around the bases whilst trying to avoid Clay Buchholz who is throwing baseballs at them from the mound. The pairs can leave home plate whenever they like, but they have to switch at every base. Buchholz can only throw as they run between the bases, not on the bases.
Pete Rose and four “grid-girls” to host. There are to be no betting commercials (I’m looking at you Ray Winstone), because you know…Pete Rose and all that.
Stro-bot WARs
Marcus Stroman faces off against pitching machines to see who can pitch the most accurate strikes. Bonus points for having twitter tantrums and then rescinding them days later.
Hosted by MLB Networks Brian Kenny, who will repeatedly demand bullpenning instead of this SP madness.
Home-plate Run Derby
Players will start at their respective home ballparks and have to run around the bases until they cover the distance to Derby, Derbyshire, England. They can run in a relay and use an PEDs they can get their hands on to achieve the task. West Coast are allowed to start before the East Coast.
Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and A-Rod to triple host, whilst sampling some of the “goods”.
In the Shark’s Tank
Jeff Samardzija shares his love of long range ordnances. To be co-hosted by Mike Brewer, who scours the country for beyond repair artillery pieces for Jeff to reclaim, repair and fire.
Semien But Different
Marcus Semien tricks the residents of Oakland, appearing in a host of disguises including a beefeater, a pierrot and Khole Kardashian. The outfits must pass a strict checking process to ensure they don’t offend anyone, I repeat, ANYONE.
Germany, From A Bird’s Back
Mariners slugger, Dan Vogelbach (whose name is German for bird’s back) explores the castles of Bavaria from the spectacular setting of a Sopwith Camel. Rory Underwood to pilot the aircraft if he can get time off from Easyjet.
I think we’re done. If you would like to join mine (And John’s) brain to come up with your own ideas, please feel free to contribute here in the comments section or via twitter. “Knowing Me, Knowing Yu” is not allowed.
And if you don’t want to join in, fine, we shall never talk of this again.