Babe Ruth In The Papers

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This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

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The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

The Greatest Single Inning of Baseball

Just finished The Glory Of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. Probably my 3rd reading in 20 years or so. I’m glad I hung on to it.

Life Size Babe Ruth Statue Solid Wood

Just the facts.  He’s almost ready for delivery.  It’s down to touching up and a few hard-to-reach stripes and then deck work really.  Not much.  Maybe 20 hours.  Maybe only 10.  I have to call up some people now and get them to see it before he goes permanently to the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC.  I understand that the Washington Nationals will be having a shindig there and Babe is sure to cause a stir.  I think the new park down in DC needs a life sized Walter Johnson, of Washington Senators fame.  Or Joel Hanrahan even?  Go Nats! 

Lifesize Babe Ruth (and Mickey)

There were some discussions at Floyd’s last night on the photos found here and one point (a good one) was that you really can’t see the scale too easily from the photos.  I agree.  Photos are my bane. These great looking statues just get crushed by photography.  I have had pros (and paid plenty) shoot them and the results aren’t a whole lot better.  There is NOTHING like standing next to one.  Photos don’t tell the whole story.  But here is a scale shot.  I have to use the timer and as you can see, it isn’t great.  But now you know.

In the other big development at Floyd’s, I learned that Murray’s Cheese Shop is not really on Bleeker Street, but faces another street.  But it looks like it could be on Bleeker to anyone but a postman, who get very precise about these sort of things.

These two shots are of Mickey Mantle, also life size.  This statue was completed in 1996 and needs a sprucing up.  I plan to do some work on the face as well.   Mickey’s face was the hardest one I’ve done and the reason is that he was so good looking, that he didn’t have any stand-out feature.  Ruth and DiMaggio have cartoonish faces that are easy to nail, comparitively.  Mickey spent a few months in Mickey Mantle’s restaurant in the 1990’s as the feature thing that you saw when you walked in the door.  That’s why he needs a refit mostly, because there was no room to create a buffer and the patrons could touch him, and, of course they did.

Last point.  Yesterday, I heard that the Mets will be charging $29 to park at Citi Field?  Are they for real?  That does it.  I hereby formally renounce my Mets fandom.  They can have it back, those plumbers.  I will not go to Citi Field and I will not pay $29 dollars to park my car for 3.5 hours by the airport and the stink of the chop shops on Roosevelt Ave.  I am hereby a fan of the Washington Nationals.  Go Nats.  **** the Mets. **** Fred Wilpon.   And Omar.  And Willy.  And the black uniforms that cater to gang inspired fashions.  And the drunken violence that makes my nephew say to me, “Uncle Fog, I’m scared” while watching a game against Philly in the upper deck last year.  And the ridiculously high percentage of Spanish players and promotions that make me feel like I might be in a foriegn country when I’m at the game.  And the EAR DAMAGING music that they blare out of the speakers all game long so that you go horse trying to converse with the person next to you.  And because Steve Phillips actually worked there.  Bu-bye.

Babe Ruth Bigger Than Jack Benny?

Ok, YOU think of another Babe Ruth headline.

Here, here is Jack Benny…

Babe Ruth In Satin

Since you liked that one, here’s another. The pile of stuff between his feet is masking tape. Every single pinstripe is the result of two pieces of masking tape. You take 1″ tape and razor blade it down the middle. Then you use the good straight edge to define the outside of one stripe. Repeat for the other. Then you paint the stripe by hand, between the tape, with the Yankee blue acrylic paint. You peel the tape off, and there’s your stripe. I’ve experimented with many other methods: stamping, freehand, rolling. All of them are N/G. This is the best way. As you figured, it is slllloooooowwwww.

Also remember that any sheen on the figure will be removed by overspraying with the top secret window froster. Cloth, and skin for the most part, are flat. Not glossy. Not semi. Not satin.

The edges of the base will be hemmed in 6″ oak planks, which I have just purchased.

 

[There's the Oak on top of the pine and basswood.  You can see the airbrush compressor as well.  In the background is the life size Mickey Mantle statue, awaiting his sprucing up.  Those headphones are fantastic.  They are totally soundproof and also a great am/fm radio.] 

The deck will be coated with a thing called “Turface”. Turface is the stuff that sometimes is referred to as “diamond dry”. It is kiln fired clay that is ground up. It is very light and granular (think unground pepper kernel size) and apparently absorbs water like a son-of-a-gun, however, I don’t care about it’s water properties; only that it is the cleanest “dirt” that I can find that also looks realistic.

Holiday Cheer Everywhere. Even My Lungs.

My kid keeps breaking out of his swaddle blanket.  The kid is like Houdini~  He gets a hand out of the little swaddle blanket (which looks an awful lot like a tiny straight jacket) pretty much before you get the light out.  And he likes it.  He gets a little thrill out of it. 

Just when I thought the dust phase of the statue was over, I got a full 8 hours of it today, a vacation day, no less.  The hands are on and I’ll be posting out some photos of that this w/e.  And I do wear a mask when the dust is flying but it can be darned uncomfortable.

Tomorrow, I need to have another big day with the work on the statue but will be shoveling frozen ice off a driveway (still doing that) and taking my nephew to his hitting workout as his dad is in dialysis.  Then after hitting, we are working out the kids for tryouts for the last 2 slots and we have ringers coming in who should be good; but we have to go through the whole thing.  Then we take the boy to get measured for a custom baseball glove.  They measure his hand and build it to suit.  It is quite cheap on a deal that the coach has arranged, so I’m all over it.  He may get 3 years out of this glove.

Then it’s over to the nursing home that my dad is in now with the broken hip.  He was released from the hospital and is there for rehab.  I was a little p****d to find out that this place charges.  Where I work, if someone is on a full Medicare A stay, the first 20 days of your 100 days are free in essence, because you are collecting 100% from Med-A.  Whatever that person’s RUG score is, THAT’S what they pay the facility.  Well, at least this place is close and that money could be an incentive to get the walking in and get out.  He will most likely be there for Xmas but it still may only be for 4, 5, or 6 days.  All in all, for his age, he has come through remarkably well.

After all this stuff, I will be able to work.  Maybe get in a 6pm to 1am shift.  That’s when I get all my work done anyway.  At least there’s an Andy Griffith 4-pack on at 8pm.  2 hours of Mayberry.  I want to live in Mayberry.  There isn’t much to watch on TV when I’m trapped in the shop.  Why isn’t there more pool on TV?  I love it.  All I see is poker: Where’s the pool?  And when it is pool, it’s always 9-ball.  How about some Rotation (Chicago) or one pocket or something other than 9-ball?  And when they show you the table with the ball diagrams on there, can they show that more?  I mean longer?  So I have a chance to map out 3 or 4 shots ahead?  That’s the whole game and they rush it but boy, they make sure they have the stupid, “pocket cam”.  That is a little camera that gives the view of an ant, standing in the pocket as the ball comes AT you.  Now why in the hell would you EVER want that vantage point?  I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole match from above the table.

Also today, I bought 100 shares of YUM and now I’m hoping that those guys can sell a lot of our bad food (and lifestyle) to the Chinese.  They have some dough in their pockets now so naturally, they’re going to want jalapeno poppers, doesn’t everyone?  And I will profit like Cheney….[evil laugh]. 

Last item.  See the photo below?

This is my tax money being spent on town, curbside, leaf collection.  Yea, that’s how they do it here and you don’t have a choice.  I rake my stuff to the curb on a busy county road and the cars and wind blow it all the hell all over the place.  I re-rake it daily for a couple of weeks and then these guys come around and vaccuum them up.

Only here, this year, they can’t vaccuum up my neighbor Bill’s leaves because the da*n things are frozen~  So there were as many as 4 guys hacking away at Bill’s leaves with shovels and backing up traffic for 10 minutes.  The pile on the right?  That’s the ice from my driveway.  The leaves are behind Bill’s blow-fence.  Unsure if the blow fence is helping the leave-entropy.  They might be because Bill is the only one on the street with any leaves at all.  The mayor wants us to know that the system is working and can he please raise our taxes? Again.

Relativity

My nephew and I hit tonight with the coach and his kids at the indoor facility.  I pointed out one of the staff and said to him, “…hey, that guy’s father hit a homerun for the Yankees that won the 1976 pennant…”  And he said “really?”, and the usual discussion ensued.  He didn’t know who he was.  And that homer was BIG.  I remember it as a kid.  I was at a sleepover that night.  I hated the Yankees but it was just a big event.  Everyone was in an uproar about it.  And then the Big Red Machine blew them off the field in 4.

Anyway, I thought about it and the fact that he didn’t know the player.  And then I realized.  I’m old.  He was born in 1999 and this was 1976.  That would be like my uncle telling me, “hey, there’s Dolph Camili’s kid!  He was the 1941 MVP for the Dodgers…” –fog 

Chance Blown

Ice in the NorthEast has been bad.  On Saturday night, I fell on my behind after putting Tommy in the car.  A day and a half later, my dad fell in nearly the same spot and broke his hip.  He’s 81.  The last time he broke a bone, he was preparing to fight the Germans in World War II.  This is not good.  And this comes on top of my brother’s almost unbelievable series of health woes which has been ongoing but lately, has been more intense and has landed him in dialysis every other da. There is nothing routine about pinning an 81 year old’s hip so fingers crossed.  And be careful on the ice out there.  It is a serious thing.

The statue is coming due soon and I’m not sure what the next few days/weeks hold for this latest development.  I still expect to have it done for the deadline but finding the time over the next two weeks will be difficult.  All in all, it’s doable.  And did you ever notice that a while after a big project is done, you can’t recall how tired you were or hard you worked!  It just goes away, doesn’t it?  But you can recall the prize and goal more or less.  It’s a motivator anyway.  It’s time I might have squandered.  But still, there are nights I’d like to squander it with Tomicle.

On other fronts, my nephew’s team is plus 5 guys.  I was an evaluator at the tryout and that was a different deal.  Usually, I’m on the other side.  It was a little weird seeing some parents with “those” looks and knowing that we’re only looking for 5 slots and there were 10 kids.  And I was nervous about the post-mortem; you know, where the coaches have a beverage and decide who they liked.  In our case it took about 10 seconds for us to all unanimously agree on the kids.  No question.  You have to like that.

A last dopey thought.  The XM Zep channel.  Can they stop with the promos of the song beginnings?  It’s a tease.  I hear the opening notes to The Lemon Song and I’m in my car getting cut off by Vinny AyOh and I’m thinking, “…ahh, good song”, and then it flips to the opening bars of Four Sticks, etc.  And they do this ALL the time.  Guys.  XM guys.  We KNOW we are listening to the all-LZ channel.  We have long ago memorized ALL their material.  We want you to STFU and PLAY IT!  Not promo it like we never heard it before–that’s obnoxious!  But that’s the way radio has been done since Jolson was on it so that’s what they are determined to carry on doing.  You thought that they had a chance to totally reinvent the radio.  But no, chance blown.

Is it THAT bad?

Mrs. Pinetar hates the 1903 Gunner’s Coat.  Just hates it.  And I have found that it elicits strong comments both good and bad.  Not only that, but men seem to like it and women seem to mock it.  Just the other day, one of the nurse managers asked me, “…what’s up with the ZZ Top coat?”  The photo doesn’t render the color properly; it runs a lot more yellow than it looks.  But it’s a nice old-timey canvas that already looks a bit seasoned.  What’s not to like?  Help me out here.

***

McBean; I may not be going to LA and now it looks dead.  I would have needed to rope someone into going and that isn’t looking likely.  Now I find that it is more and more likely that I would go to Orlando myself in July with a kids baseball team in a tournament.  It’s not a done deal but likely.  So now, as anti-Disney as I am, I am facing up to the fact that I might be there nevertheless.

***

One last item on the steroids thing.  No one is talking of the corollary to the story and that is the owners complicity in this.  They knew and LOVED the homers flying out at softball rates.  They didn’t care if a guy’s liver exploded.  Oh, they care now, but only because they are worried about Congress and that anti-trust exemption that makes it all go.

During the roid era, they livened the ball several times.  I do not, for the life of me, understand why that is so hard to prove.  You drop the balls from a known height, say 30 feet.  And you record how high up they bounce.  This was done in 1942 by baseball to determine that the new synthetic rubber (the Japanese stopped the rubber trade to USA for war) was not as resilient as real rubber.  In 1942, the offense was down 25% and it hurt them at the gate.

They used the simple drop test on a batch of 1941 balls and the new ones and made a quick determination that led to the official livening of the ball back up to pre-war standards.  If they could do this simple thing 70 years ago, why aren’t they doing it every year?

If they did, I think they’d have “caught” MLB livening up the ball in 1987 for sure and a few times in the 1990’s to fuel the McGuire/Sosa/Bonds ridiculous homer tears.

My point is (1) The owners knew and contributed to it to enhance it and (2) we’re dopes because we could have easily busted them on the ball end of it.

–ofg