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:

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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.

Detail Oriented Stadium Meister

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http://www.majorleaguemodels.com/about.asp

This is something interesting I found while looking for the little plaster model of Yankee Stadium for 93-year-old-Max’s grandson. This man builds huge, tabletop scale models of old ballparks from scratch. You know, the exacto knife and the balsa wood and a thousand other things. I can relate to this man because of what I do with the wood products and all and will even admit to having built a cardboard model Shea Stadium in 1976 that was pretty darned good.

I love this kind of wacky, I’m-going-to-build-this-thing-in-my-cellar-and-sell-it-for-150k attitude. Take 5 minutes and visit the guy’s site. Look at the original wooden 1888 Polo Grounds model and see how baseball was just after the Civil War. It’s amazing work.

It also points out that I need to do better on my website. But now, we’re 7 minutes from the kickoff of Liverpool-Chelsea. The first league encounter of the year was way back in August, on the day we had our boy christened. I left for the church at half up 1-0 only to come home and find out that the ref called a silly PK and GIFTED the point to Chelsea. So strange was the call, that the next day, the ref PUBLICLY stated that he was wrong to point at the spot! I’ve never heard of such a thing but when taking points from the Reds, the refs have done some funny things. I think it’s because they all grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s when Liverpool won every darned thing and I think there is some lingering resentment. Kind of like if I worked the plate at a Yankee game.

To give you an idea of how big these things get (he does different scales), take a look at the Old Comiskey Park. Old Comiskey is my favorite of the 38 ballparks I’ve been to. It was a real timewarp to go there and the place just felt right. They say that Jimmy Foxx hit two homers completely over the roof in left between the two light towers. Double-X was the best hitter no one’s ever heard of.

If the first 10 minutes of Liverpool Chelsea are any indicator, then Chelsea will get the points. They seem a whole gear faster than Liverpool and more confident and more creative. Liverpool look slow and I think it’s only a matter of time. Chelsea’s defense is so fast and shuts everything down so tightly, that I don’t see Kuyt and Crouchy cracking it. What we need is the pace of Fernando Torres.

Well, at least ManU lost their derby to City today. No points for Alex. That’s what you get for ripping your boss, Sir. With United coming away with none…if Chelsea could be beaten…oh stop dreaming. Wake up!  And I have to say: After watching only 25 minutes: Dirk Kuyt shouldn’t be in the first team.  Really.  He looks slow and lost.  Zero confidence.  And his play on the right is atrocious.  He can’t beat his man deep and he can’t do anything on the cut inside–every posession that reaches him, goes awry.  Perhaps he can be productive in the middle, but Crouchy is there now.  Play another midfielder and let them go forward.  Kuyt should come off.  Caragher has more mojo going up the right wing than this guy.  Oy.  Rafa.  Help. (Of course Kuyt till make an a** of me and score the winner but I’ll take it and eat my words if that is so).

The Last Thing A Mouse Sees

This is McGonnigle, the cat some years ago.  I was going through the archives for prints for the new art website and came across this.  He is mostly Maine Coon but I have no papers.  The Maine Coon post I did on the rag a year ago, is getting 300 hits per day and drawing comments from all over the world–amazing legs, that post.  So here’s another one.  Gonnicle (as I call him), has a strange property.  Certain whiskers of his grow in different colors.  Sometimes white and then they cut over and turn black and the back to white again.  The largest whisker at the top left in the photo (Gonnicle’s right) exhibits this behavior.

Although he is orange all the way, there are a few black spots inside his mouth.  When he was a kitten and before his stripper mom, who lived in the apartment next door to me, abandoned him, I saw his brother who was completely silver.  I believe that a dame can have a litter of kittens from two (or more) different Toms.  So it’s possible that Gonnicle had a different father than the other cat.  Anyway, now I’m confused.  The point is, his whiskers grow in changing colors–kind of like John McCain’s “Conservatism”–it changes when it’s convienient.  Scientifically, I’m not sure what is going on but I think you would have cells coding for proteins that look white and make up the whisker, and then BAM!, they all switch over to coding for different proteins so that the whisker is then growing out black.  Later on, like McCain, they switch back to white.  Go figure.  Is there a molecular biologist in the house?  Or maybe just Roger Clemens’ lawyers?  They seem to know alot of medical stuff right from the git-go.

In an unrelated note, Curt Schilling’s blog will be renamed this year to 38stitches (I wanted to be the first to get that out there…).  Good luck Curt.  Thanks for the bloody sock and moiderin dose Yanks. 

Joe DiMaggio’s Eyes

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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 

Dr. Zauis, talk to The Swami

(I’m working on a nice tan there, eh?)

I’m reaching out to you, Zaius. The Swami (shown center) simply refuses to fly out to LA on March 29th to see the exhibition between the Red Sox and the Dodgers at the Coliseum. What gives? He’s giving me all the excuses: I’m 73, I want to be able to watch in my living room where I can get a martini or go to the bathroom unimpeded…blah, blah, blah. Perhaps you can reach him. I’m about given up. And the game is a Saturday and the Dodgers open at Chavez Ravine on Monday vs the Giants and the Pods are even home vs the Astros that same Monday. It’s a no brainer; you shoot out there on Fri night and you’re back on Tue or Wed. Sunday, maybe you drive up to San Simeon and take a tour. Kayak dot com has flights as low as $350. Is it ME?