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.

Grand Ole Babe Ruth

I’m back after a pause of several months.  As I explained in my last comment, I was curtailing the blogging activities in favor or regaining some kind of time/impulse management for my life.  A lot has gone on in the past few months and many have written emails to me ask why I’m not commenting and what do I think of this and/or that?  I’ll try and cover the basics and also try to post at least 3 things per week, so those who got out of the habit of coming here, may want to swing by now and again.

The Tommy Show: Going strong and now in its 4th sold out month.  Tommy is getting bigger and smiling and laughing and grabbing things.  He looks around.  He likes to do the “assisted sit up” and he makes faces.  We love him.  He’ll be rolling over any day now.  And, he still has the long arms.

The Babe Ruth Statue: (This is one big reason I’m no longer posting) is sold.  I have a tentative agreement at this point to complete and deliver The Babe to the Gaylord National on the Potomac, Hotel in Washington DC by Jan 1.  This is the reason that I spend every night at my “second job” and get full of sawdust until midnight or 1am, if things are going well.

The photo above is from last Feb, about the time that I had halted work on him to coach 8U baseball with my nephew (and write this blog–but since the blog is apparently how the folks at the Gaylord found me, my lack of impulse control paid off in this case).   My point is, the statue is well beyond this point and per our discussions, I have concentrated on the head so that I can get that finished and send some photos down to the buyer so they know better what they are acquiring.   To that end, the head is 80% finished and it looks like a disembodied Babe Ruth head–a ringer.  And a bit unnerving due to the realism.  Already, it has freaked out Mrs. Pinetar and grandma.  Tommy doesn’t seem to register it yet.  In a week or two, I should have some shots of it fully painted and looking like The Babe.  I should also have some better progress shots up soon.  Stay tuned.  We’re excited and the further into this I get, the more convinced I become that The Gaylord Hotel folks are going to be floored by the finished Babe.  This thing will be turning heads for a long time.

A word about the Gaylord properties.  Click here to launch their site in a new window 

I had not heard of them prior to their contacting me.  Their original property is the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, or, Opryland.  This is a major, signature property in Americana.  Now I know that most of my readers are NorthEasterners who know nothing of country music, but trust me, this is baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and American music all rolled up into one.  They also have top shelf, first cabin properties in Dallas and Kissimmee, FL.  The newest property is the DC property and the hotel has 5 or 6 restaurants, one of which, is the sports bar in which The Babe will reside.  I’m excited to see it.  I’m also excited about the Nationals opening their brand new ballpark next April.

Which brings me to the next topic.  The Mets.  Most thought I was despondent when they lost in spectacular fashion.  Truth?  I was not bothered at all.  The older I get, the more I watch baseball for individual and team stories.  I do not just root for one team.  That worked great up until 1986 and then as I got older and realized the business side of it and what was really happening, it became less and less important to me that the Mets “win”.

I’m also annoyed at how the team is run.  I don’t feel any connection to the Mets of my youth.  When I go to the game at Shea with my 8 year old nephew, I am afraid of where they are going to park me (mostly a riddle inside a puzzle), annoyed at the $14 parking charge.  Then, when I get into my seats, the PA system literally deafens me.  I can’t even speak to my nephew in the seat next to me because the jackass marketing wizards at Los Mets think that I paid $75.00 to hear 25 year old Bachman Turner Overdrive music blared at pain-threshold levels.  After that, the Mets usually put on some type of Spanish-themed dance or musical act (also ear-splittingly loud), to the point where, I feel like I might be in Puerto Rico or the Caribbean.  Now I have many Hispanic friends, and I’m not prejudiced at all, but going to Shea now makes me feel like I’m in a foreign country.

And the players now dance, seemingly after every base hit.  I don’t want my little Tommy thinking that celebrating after every play is ok: It isn’t.  It’s unprofessional and it shows up the other team.  It is insecure.  It says to the world, “I’m so insecure, that I have to try and remind you that I just succeeded”.  To me, there is nothing cooler than just doing the bit on the field and letting the crowd cheer.  To do anything else is to be an a**.  But Los Mets would rather dance, at times, it seems, than play.  And don’t think the other teams and especially the umps, see this.  Think you saw the Mets get a lot of close calls down the stretch?  Hmm?  I saw them get jobbed.  I don’t blame the umps.

And now I hear that the Mets are looking at getting  A-Rod.  Nothing more needs to be said.  I’m not surprised.  He has no class and the Mets are long devoid of class.  He’s probably taking the dancing lessons from Reyes right now.

The Mets are also spending 120 million.  That’s the most in the NL, kiddies.  I don’t want to root for dopey Fred and Jeff Wilpon’s real estate wallet.  Face it, most of what people think of as pro sports is rooting for a non-sporting, rich (nothing wrong with being rich) guy’s wallet.  Kids might-as-well be on the playground taunting each other, “…my owner’s got more assets than YOUR owner…” Because that’s what it comes down to.  That’s why I like to see new stories each year.  Stories like the Rockies and Tulo and Braun and Fausto.  Great stuff.  And Cleveland.  Haven’t won since 1948 when they had the last, good, player manager in Lou Boudreau.  That’s exciting.  That’s fun.  Not the Yankees spending 220 million every year and pummeling everyone.  That’s pro wrestling.  That’s the Harlem Globetrotters. 

I’m this close to being a Washington Nationals fan.  Long live Joel Hanrahan!

Many asked me about Torre.  He turned down a LOT of money.  I never understood why the Yankees overpay for the manager.  The job is unique in all the world.  Geez, take a micro economics course.  The people who do that job are fetted by kings and emporers.  Why would you OVER pay a guy to hang out with McCartney and Rudi and get a table at LeCirque just for walking in the door?  All the endorsements and perks?  My goodness.  Why do they pay Joe Torre 7 million when the next highest paid guy is 2.5 or 3 million?  Collossal stupidity.  Joe should pay THEM to have that job.

And get this straight.  I don’t think Joe Torre is all that.  Look kids, he wasn’t Miller Huggins with the Mets and Braves.  Repeat after me Yankee fans: He managed the largest payroll in MLB EVERY SINGLE YEAR HE WAS THERE, with the exception of 1997, when Baltimore edged the Yanks by like a million or so.  I think 72 million to 71.  He ALWAYS had the highest payroll in the industry.  Winning with the 1996 Yanks doesn’t make you Houdini.  You SHOULD win with all that talent.  His biggest skill, for my money, was having the thick skin to take all of George’s insults and degradations over the years.  But George was stupid enough to pay him f***-you money and eventually, he had enough money to be the first guy to tell Big Stein, “Shove it”.

And that’s the beauty of Joe Torre (and old New York baseball Giants fan btw).  He was the only guy to tell George, “I’m not your boy…” and for that we love him.  And now that he has taken Mattingly out of moneystripes, I mean, pinstripes, and put him in the NL, in Dodger Blue, I love him even more.  Go Joe!  Win it all!  Ethier, Kemp, Loney, Broxton, Saito, Martin, Penny…win it all and laugh all the way to the bank that George has missed the playoffs without you! hoo hooo.

Last point that has been driving me buggy.  During the world series, when I was carving the Babe Ruth head hour after hour.  I kept seeing this advertisement on TV about how people wanted their cars to be more “green”.  They said that they wanted to “plug their car in” and have the car’s fuel “grown”.

Because the media is being completely slanted politically on this, people are being misinformed.  And now the car companies and oil companies are reinforcing the myths surrounding the hybrids and “green” fuels.  And folks like Al Gore are either too stupid (I know, a guy who invented the internet?) or just too calculating to set the record straight, so people continue to be misled.

While it’s admirable to drive a smaller car and look to curtail personal fossil fuel consumption, one glaring thing is missing.  Many folks think that is something is electrical, it is somehow non-polluting.  That’s nonsense.  It doesn’t pollute locally, where the machine is being run, but somewhere, to be sure, there is a coal or oil, or gas-fired generating plant that BURNS FOSSIL FUELS and converts the chemical energy stored in the fossil fuels to mechanical energy that turns dynamos to generate electricity.  ANYtime you are using electricity that didn’t come from a solar cell or a hydro plant, you are burning fossil fuels, genius!  The actual carbon emissions might be in Oshkosh, but they are there.

And we’re not done yet.  Anytime that you convert energy from one source to another form, you LOSE in the conversion.  Add to that they electrical engines are less efficient than gas, and what you have is that the “green” person is actually burning MORE fossil fuels than if he had a traditional, gasoline engine.  Now that doesn’t figure in the disparity between the huge SUV and the little hybrid and I get that, but how many people really understand, or are being told, what lays behind the phrase, “plug my car in”? 

Backstreet Boys? Menudo? Oh, Celtic through on PKs

Who says the Premiership isn’t strong? Pot #1 contains: 2 Italian, 3 Spanish and 4 EPL teams. Any questions? All 4 EPL teams are in the top pot. Wouldn’t it be weird if Liverpool was in a group with Celtic and Rangers? I’ll take Porto, Bucharest and Fenerbache…but it won’t happen that way. Watch.

(And how far has the Bundesliga fallen?  No Bundesliga teams until Werder Bremen in pot 2 and 2 in pot 3.  And France with only Lyon and Marseille)

***

Seedings for UEFA Champions League draw:

Pot 1
AC Milan – Ita
Barcelona – Spa
Liverpool – Eng
Inter Milan – Ita
Arsenal – Eng
Real Madrid – Spa
Chelsea – Eng
Manchester United – Eng

Pot 2
Valencia – Spa
Lyon – Fra
Porto – Por
Sevilla – *Spa
PSV Eindhoven – Hol
Roma – Ita
Benfica – Por
Werder Bremen – Ger

Pot 3
Celtic – Sco
Schalke – Ger
Stuttgart – Ger
Steaua Bucharest – Rom
CSKA Moscow – Rus
Sporting Lisbon – Por
Lazio – Ita
Marseille – Fra

Pot 4
Rangers – Sco
Shakhtar Donetsk – Ukr
Besiktas – Tur
Olympiakos – Gre
Dynamo Kiev – Ukr
Fenerbahce – Tur
AEK Athens – *Gre
Slavia Prague – Cze
Rosenborg – Nor

Beatles on Tonight Show, Johnny Carson, Joe Garagiola

There was a post recently and someone asked about the Beatles Lennon/McCartney appearance on The Tonight Show while Joe Garagiola was the guest host. I have never seen the bit and would guess that it doesn’t exist or it would have turned up somehow, somewhere. I seem to recall that much of the early Carson 1960′s era shows were not saved. That stuff always amazed me but I guess it was considered too expensive. You can buy every show Jack Benny ever did from 1938 to 1960 on ebay for about 10 dollars. Go figure.

But this had come up and I wrote the original post from memory and the memory was reading a book by Craig Tennis called “Johnny Tonight”, published in 1980. I was at my parent’s house last night and I found the book in a desk and opened it right to the Beatles page. Weird. So since I was photographing old family photo albums to digitize the shots, I took shots of the story from Tennis’ book. His words:

 

 

They Can’t ALL Be Tommy Lee

Most rockers are knuckleheads.  You know, the guys who were out smoking when the rest of us were in class.  And some of them hit the rock “lottery” and become wildly rich and usually, they destroy their lives with it (See: Behind the Music). 

But occasionally there are bright bulbs who would have made it in any endeavor that they pursued.  You get the impression that Brian May of the old band Queen, was one of them.  Have a look: Click here to read about May’s doctoral thesis 

Thanks Ed, for the tip.  –fog

Ants Will Not Cross A Chalk Line

Mrs. Pinetar hates bugs. Any bugs. Now I’m not thinking I want them in my house, but I realize that we share the world with these things and you will end up seeing them from time to time. So recently, we have ants coming in the house. Big carpenter ants. One here or there, nothing big really. But Mrs. Pinetar can’t stand them.

So she puts a chalk line down on the doorjams. Because apparently, “Ants will not cross a chalk line”. Period. They are incapable. No one knows why! Could be a good PHD thesis in there somewhere. Why don’t these little industrious ba*tards cross chalk?

I was just walking through the chalk at first and then I got yelled at. I didn’t notice it. But the ants did. Apparently, they are polite and actually use the door areas to enter the dwelling and that’s right where Mrs. Pinetar has the chalk down. So I keep hearing the “Ants will not cross…” line and I finally I google and wikipedia the daylights out of it and it’s a widely held belief! Also, it is pretty well held that ants can’t stand the smell of Peppermint and they are killed outright by baking soda. Another entry said that you can kill a fire ant nest by pouring 3 gallons of boiling water on it. Think of that. What geniuses! The scale there says that ants can’t stand a boiling lake of liquid raining down their hole. Could you? Could Bin Laden?

What about the Champagne region of France? The soil is notoriously chalky. Do they have no ants there because the ants just can’t get around? The White Cliffs of Dover are chalk, no? Ants? Guess not. It may work because I actually haven’t seen a single ant since the “Edict of Chalk”. And if you have an ant farm, do those guys actually grow anything?

***

Chris Carpenter throwing BP the other day and more recently threw his curve for the first time. Unsure if it was off of “flat ground”. Pavano swears by the flat ground. Carps was my second overall pick in fantasy in a big bet on starting pitching. Oswalt was number one. Oswalt’s WHIP is nearly a buck forty. League average is 1.37 so any day now, I’m expecting to hear of “stiffness” in Oswalt’s bulldozing-driving shoulder. If was the Yankees, I’d just BUY Johan Santana and Carlos Zambrano and be off.

Incidentally Yankee fans, how’s that cash plan working? The one where you spend way north of 200 million dollars? A game under .500 as we speak?! Oof!

And Ozzie Guillen, as I predicted in this space, preseason, is on the bubble and may get “done” any day now. If Ozzie goes, you can almost HEAR the ground under Torre get softer…hoohohohohoooo…

*** As promised, I will outline my plan to make XM sat radio’s traffic actually something I can use. Guys, Phoenix has it’s own traffic channel! What for? I’ll do the traffic for Phoenix for the next 10 years: I-10 is jammed. Done. That’s it!

New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Long Island have 1 lousy, raggety-a** channel! That’s about 50 Phoenix areas in headcount and roads and pi**ed off guys who pay money to hear a dedicated traffic channel on XM in New York and end up flipping on the free stuff: 88AM on the eights and 1010 WINS on the 1′s. Even Bloomberg on the 5′s. They have better traffic. You s**k XM.

Here’s what you need to do. Make 4 channels for the NY-Metro area. Lose Phoenix and the Spanish Language soap opera channel and a few of the dopey hip-hop channels. There ain’t enough Zeppelin anyway. What are there? 3 Classic rock stations?

That’s right, 4 NY channels.

(1) Manhattan and River Crossings

(2) Westchester and Connecticut

(3) Long Island

(4) New Jersey

There you go, geniuses. And realize that if someone is in Westchester, they need to know about the Tappan Zee Bridge (the forgotten bridge of NY traffic) the GWB, the Tri-Boro, the White Stone and the Throgs Neck. Did I miss any? And the Cross Bronx should be mentioned, good or bad, every minute and a half!

And don’t put ADS on the f****ng traffic channel. I don’t want to sit in my car and wait out the f****n Zocor spots while waiting to take the Tappan Zee or risk the XBronx to George Washington. I need it NOW. Don’t make me wait. And don’t introduce it. I know WTF I’m listening to and swearing at. Just info. Info. Info. Don’t sell me anything.

And instead of telling me every minute who the traffic is brought to me by, try UPDATING IT! When I’m blowing down the Cross Bronx doing and unheard-of 55mph, don’t be telling me about the jam that’s obviously not there anymore! 

And lose the goofy color scheme, would you?  I’ve never ever heard it green, ok?  When it’s red, I don’t care about red, I just want to know where the tractor-trailer, chemical spill is before I’m driving into the jam!  It’s always yellow.  97% of the time it’s f****n yellow.  The jam alert in NY, is yellow.  Oh f***n boy.  That’s too much information.  Slow down, I can’t process it fast enough.

You could easily cut 1 minute and a half out of the loop and lose no information whatsoever.  Maybe then, I could use it and wouldn’t have to listen to WINS or CBS.  At CBS, Dan Rather can type up and xerox the jams 20 times before XM has anything on it.

–fog

Al-Ban-I-aaa, Bob Murphy’s on the A-Dri-Atic

My brother suggested a post where we ask the readers the following question:  What is the farthest away from home you have ever been and still picked up WFAN in New York and heard a Mets game?  It is a 50,000 Watt station (whatever THAT means) and the signal can “skip” at night particularly.  “Skipping” is when the signal can go around the curvature of the earth by bouncing off a layer in the atmosphere and coming back down again.  I believe that the “skipping” can be multiple up-and-down cycles.  I think the sun does something chemically to the atmosphere that causes the skipping, rendering it useless during the day but when the sun does go down, the skipping can happen.  That’s how millions of Southerners and Westerners became St. Louis Cardinal fans in the 1920s to 2005.  KMOX was a powerful signal that they said could be heard clear as a bell on most nights from Las Vegas to Atalanta.  And for many, many years (1869-1957), St. Louis was the farthest WEST and SOUTH major league franchise in the USA.  So they and KMOX became the de-facto team for much of the rural country.  Mrs. Pinetar and I can totally attest to that as we went out to St. Louis 2 years ago and all around town are folks who drove hundreds of miles to see the Redbirds.  Atlanta, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, you name it.  America’s team basically.  I’m sure John Cougar Melloncamp will write an obnoxious song about it and it will be turned into not only a truck commercial but will be somehow adopted by Major League Baseball as some kind of anthem.

My “distance-Mets-moment” was in college.  In the Spring, I was driving home from Boston and somewhere in Connecticut I flipped past 66am, not expecting anything and I heard the voice of Bob Murphy wash over me doing a Spring Mets game.  It was totally unexpected and it caught me way off guard.  I loved it.  I still remember it.  I was amazed at how powerful that voice was and how good feeling just washed over me as soon as I heard The Murph.  Don’t forget, Murphy did the Mets from 1962 to 2004 or so.  I have probably heard that man say more words than anybody besides perhaps my parents.  A fixture with his ultra-square, humorless, workmanlike, unimaginative delivery, complete with that odd Oaklahoma drawl…”The Mets ween, they weeeen!”  And who can forget the 1000′s of “Ghat eeem!”‘s??  Wherever you are, Murph–Smoke up!

My brother’s Murph-moment (and the point of this post) tops all.  He was on his father-in-law’s sailboat in the Adriatic Sea (That’s between the old Yugoslavia and Italy for those of you not homeschooled).  He was playing with an AM radio (he will do that) and clear as a bell one night, Murph came in for a few minutes and then I think, he faded.  Murph across the Atlantic!  Bob Weeens, Bob Weeens…  –fog

AP picks up story from The Pinetar Rag

The Pinetar Rag has shaken the world media industry. Ok, here’s how it went: My wife’s cousin, married a guy who happens to be Japanese. They moved to Japan after living in the USA for over 10 years. My wife’s cousin works for the AP in Japan. Recently, I became fascinated by this new Pepsi Cucumber softdrink. I asked Mrs. Pinetar to ask her cousin if they had it in the stores in Japan where it is being marketed. Here is that section of my wife’s email to her couz: “[Foggy] saw Pepsi iced Cucumber soda on the internet but it is only available in Japan. He wanted to know if you ever had any and what did it taste like? Is it big there? Don’t worry if you don’t know, I just needed to ask.“

So today, she gets the reply:

Hello,

I’m glad to hear you’re feeling good. I thought you’d get a kick out of this- I was telling my co-workers about the cumber pepsi and our writing staff decided to do a small story on it. I’ve attached a copy of our picture that went with it:

 
TOKYO (AP) _ Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with “Pepsi Ice Cucumber” _ a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.
¶ The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn’t actually have any cucumber in it _ but has been artificially flavored to resemble “the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber,” said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan’s Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.
¶ “We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat,” Takemoto said. “We thought the cucumber was just perfect.”
¶ The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.
¶ Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.
¶ Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda.

 

So you can tell [Foggy] he officially led to the tip on our story. Things are good on this end. I’m gonig to bring a ton of pictures on stuff we’ve done since we’ve been here so you’ll get to see all our crazy wedding pics and some cute ones of Mimi also.

I can’t wait to see everyone

**********

We are movers and shakers here at The PineTar Rag. Cutting edge.

***

In other news, this morning in Franklin Lakes, NJ, my parents were awakened to a Bear in their garden. The bear was rooting through dad’s strawberries. He got tangled in the net and got freaked out and walked away. My dad said the bear was limping. And as always, there was obligitory: “…well, you could aways gut-shoot him, and he would go off and die somewhere else…”

***

Pool with Ciro saw my first ever “defeat” in Rotation. It’s in quotes. First of all, I was completely exhausted and my knee was killing me. But that was ok. Then, in game one, I got 60 and Ciro made the last ball and also made 60, so he won on the 2nd-guy-to-60-rule-in-Rotation. Phooey. I thought that 60 to 60 ties were rare but apparently not. Maybe I should buy lotto tickets.

In the second game, Ciro cheated. He had a shot where the 1 ball was partially eclipsed by a pocket-hanging 3 ball. I went over and stood over it and said, “…I’m reffing this one, you better hit the 1 first…”, to discourage him from doing what I knew he would do–pocket the 3 and claim that the 1 was first contact. He did exactly as I expected and 4 balls total fell on that shot. I objected, saying that he hit the 3 first (he did) and he was not going to admit to it. It wasn’t an accident. I take it as a compliment and figure if he wants to beat me that bad, then fine.

I also use these little events to galvanize my concentration and try to spank him. And it usually works great only this time, I guess I was tired and the balls were not falling, so he won. I was quiet after that shot for the rest of the night and left early so I think he “gets” it but that doesn’t stop him. All will be forgotten but I owe him one baaaad night on the table. I’m laying in the tall weeds for him. Next time. And I guess the softball game was part of it. And I guess my taunting him all night about the softball and looking out the window and saying, “…isn’t that your wife?” every couple minutes didn’t help.

***
Yankee fans are all out of breath that they wooped up on the Pirates. I think ARod and Giambi combined make more than the Pirates whole squad. Oh boy.

***
On one of my favorite blogs (deadspin? thebiglead?) they had a great story of the one year anniversary of Ben Rothilsberger’s motorcycle accident. Did you know that Steeler fans actually COOKED OUT outside the hospital when he was having his operation? My goodness, only in America. –fog

Wind Blowing Out In Center Field

This weekend was a mixed bag. The 8U team was whitewashed on Saturday while I finally had a real nice day in softball. Since I was playing Ciro, the pizza man, I really wanted to do well today so I had gone over to the cages yesterday and hit 40 balls in the 85mph baseball cage (my favorite). It wrecks your timing for modified softball but it is wonderful for tuning up the hand-eye coordination, and after last week, I felt that I needed it. Besides, I’m always standing in the box and telling myself (out loud sometimes) “wait……wait….” as the pitch is coming in. Reach for the ball, and you will pop up or just sky out or hit a weak grounder. You have to trust that you’ll be quick enough to wait for it to get into your wheelhouse. Easier said than done, especially when that big ole softball is coming in, looking like a pumpkin.

After flying out to Ciro’s kid (who is too good to be playing with us old men–he should be on a minor league complex somewhere), I realized that the goal at the plate for that day should be “don’t hit it to Ciro’s kid…”

Since we were supposed to play a double header, we sensibly agreed to play nine innings for all the marbles, what with both teams being like 2-6.

I tripled to center and cleared the bases my 2nd trip up. Then I scored on a comebacker. There’s no way Ciro’s making the putout at first and coming home with the tag. Loved it. Now by that point, Ciro was mad. Stalking around and muttering, I thought, “…this is just like pool when we’re playing Rotation…” Ciro’s mad at Blue and fighting himself and it was just great.

Ciro’s kid beat me deep in center. A clout. I had my back to the plate and was reaching out for a Willy Mays type catch that I had no prayer of getting and I went down hard on the cinder track. Strawberry on the leg. I even shattered my flavored wintergreen coconut tin that was in my pocket. It hurt and I will PAY for that all week.

The field we play on has 4 skin diamonds, all facing the center of a big rectangle. There are games at diagonal corners and for most of the game, you have the weird sensation of FACING the other center fielder by about 5 to 20 feet, depending on the cholesterol reading of the guy at bat. You’re trying like heck not to notice him or run into him. Sometimes you play way out of position just to get a good sight line to the batter. Sometimes they courtesy yell, “ball!”, when it’s coming out to you and sometimes they don’t. You’re trying to ignore their game but you are devoting some brain cells to the sound of their bat and crowd to try to judge if you should turn around to see if you are in their play (or about to get hit by a guy).

Last night, Mrs. Pinetar and I had gone to 3 Chicas for dinner and I had the black bean burrito. So I’m out in center field moving this way and that way for different hitters and trying to ignore the other game’s center fielder and I’m tooting pretty good there–pretty loud. No mistaking it, no hiding it. And then it crosses my mind, “…do I have to say ‘excuse me’ to the other game’s center fielder, or will he understand? Does he even care? What is softball/guy-protocol on this one?”

I think I actually glanced over and remembered that the other guys were the team that beat the stuffing out of us last week in the 2nd game of 2. They were actually taking INFIELD between games on 100 degree day! “Naaah, *&#% them”, I thought. “Pretty boys”.

The game came down to the home 10th inning, all tied up. I knew I’d be up third. The first two guys got on. First and second, no outs. I’m up. I want to drive in the game winner, no question. I’m feeling real loose at the plate. I see Ciro in RF pretty deep and off the line. I take a few pitches waiting for one at the mid-thighs, outer half. I get it on pitch #3 and wait…and wait… and slap that baby into right field, RIGHT in front of Ciro! hahaha. He came up throwing and inexplicably, the meathead firstbaseman cut the throw and the run scored (it would have scored easy, anyway, but really, the winning run is crossing and you’re cutting it, why?).

But the point is now, I have to hear from Ciro, EVERY TIME I SEE HIM, how the guy cut the throw and he would have been out at the plate! (the table’s not level, the bumpers are stiff, the ump is jobbing him…) Still, I got him. Got him good. And the team captain asked me if I’m playing Fall ball so I couldn’t have stunk too much! I enjoyed hearing that. I don’t know if I’m ready for more soreness though. –fog

When I told the anecdote to Mrs. Pinetar, we got to thinking what my Indian name might be. You know, the names that reflect the individual? (Running Eagle, Ten Bears) We came up with: Gassy One with Large Head

Now it’s “Dr.” Sheffield?

I knew it. I predicted it. Today, as predicted, people are bending over backwards to characterize Sheffield’s remarks as anything other than what they are: racist hate speech. They are being spun and reworked on various media outlets. On XM radio, both last night and this morning, I heard these disgusting racist views being turned into a veritable doctoral dissertation on baseball economics.

Really? I didn’t know that Sheffield was that deep. I didn’t know that he cared so. Because when I read the remarks, I got the distinct impression that I was hearing the raw anger of a bigot. But now I find out that I’m wrong. Gary was misunderstood. I’m told the situation he was remarking about is “complex”.

He was commenting on the economics of baseball player development. Yea, apparently, it’s cheaper to “develop” players in the West Indies than in the American inner cities. And this pains Dr. Sheffield.  Apparently he’s just “frustrated”. This twisted, second-guess, morning after logic says that racially insensitive Major League teams would rather “develop players” (whatever that means) overseas than “develop” them here in the USA, and while that doesn’t hurt the numbers of whites in the game, it somehow hurts AOAD. Ok, sure. Got it. And with that line of reasoning, does anyone care to comment that while 13.3% of America is AOAD, the NFL and NBA are way north of 60% AOAD? I guess Professor Sheffield will be coming out strong any day now, calling that “reverse racism”?

It’s funny, because I don’t see any of these deep socio-economic thoughts in his comments.  But like a very Liberal judge “finding” things in the US Constitution that no one else can see or has ever seen, people keep “finding” these nuggets in the text while I can’t for the life of me, see them.

There’s an elephant in the room and he might just as well be wearing a white sheet and a pointy hat. But no one will go NEAR it. That’s a big problem for baseball and for America. This garbage has to stop. It’s NOT OK. This guy needs to apologize fully as well as any print or broadcast “journalist” types who are blowing smoke up our collective bippy on this item.

I don’t recall anyone bending over backwards for John Rocker or Jimmy the Greek or Al Campanis. Those situations weren’t viewed as “complex”. It was real simple. Those people were eviscerated and hounded out of jobs and careers overnight. No explanations. No second chances. They apologized, in some cases groveled. They apologized over and over and over and over, but it was NEVER enough. The Liberal media and disingenuous Liberals everywhere needed a scalp and they would stop at nothing until they got it. And you may like that brand of harsh, Old West justice. That’s great.  Good for you. But then it should work both ways, no? And it CLEARLY doesn’t work both ways. And that’s wrong.

Ask yourself this question: If you made comments of this ilk, would you still have a job today? Would you have, at least, been called down to Human Resources for “further review”? Be honest.

One last thought: Why is it so important to your politics; your world view— that some people are allowed to talk like this and others are not? What greater good flows from that exactly? –fog