Category: Baseball

Now What?

The trip to Virginia is over.  The trip to see Rush is over.  The Bruins first round series is over and the next round doesn’t start until tomorrow.

Now what?  What do I talk about today?

Both kids have games tonight at the same time, so it will be a late evening out for Jen, both kids, and me.  I’ve seen my step daughter play in two games, and my step son play in one.  I want to see more.

Earlier this morning I discovered a sure fire way to spot an addicted gambler.  I was at a convenience store in Tewksbury that offers KENO games.  There was a car parked in the lot with a license plate that approximated the word, “SLOTS”.  It was also 7:11am.  Yup, I think I found me a compulsive gambler!

This weekend we are going to have a mini birthday party so there will be cleaning.  I need to get the damn lawn mower running so I can cut the grass.  I want to get a bird feeder to feed my inner bird watching nerd, and there is always the dream of patio furniture.  The catch with patio furniture is mosquitoes.  There have been do it yourself mosquito trap ideas floating around Facebook lately.  Maybe if we start to picnic we’ll try one.

Busy

I’m already tired.

It has begun.  That time of year when we go from being busy to being off the wall crazy busy.  Instead of just having to get the kids to and from piano and karate, we now have to get them to and from piano, karate, baseball, and softball, and unlike piano and karate they do not play baseball and softball together.  Tomorrow, they both have a game starting 30 minutes apart.  Monday, they both have games starting at the same time.  It’s madness!  It’s also fun.  Expect many updates on the status of baseball and softball games.  Who’s winning, who’s playing which positions in the field, who’s getting hits.  All that fun stuff.

Still, I’m tired.  I think allergies might be involved.  My step son is missing his second consecutive day of school with a fever.  Obviously that’s not allergy related, but I wonder if maybe he has a little allergy action adding to the misery.  We’re all tired and stuffy.  If that’s the price one pays for not freezing their ass off when they go out of the house, then it’s worth it.  I just wish I could breath and sleep a little better.

Let’s not forget that we’re less than a week away from more of this:
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Even though we are only a week removed from this:
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The Bruins play game two of their first round series with the Leafs tomorrow.  They spanked the Leafs hard in game one.  Let us hope that continues.

The Red Sox… kinda rule.  Who knew that all they needed to do to erase the horror of last season was trade their most expensive players and fire  schmucko the clown.  They have the most wins and the highest winning percentage in all of the majors.  Please please please please please let this not be a fluke.  Last year was so painful, I can’t take a collapse this year.  I just can’t.  World Series of Bust, babie!  (says the guy who was hoping for nothing more than a .500 season)

Red Sox Domination

You have to understand Red Sox fans. We are a hyper manic depressive lot. When the Sox win a game, any game, we are on top of the world. When they lose a game, any game, we are lining up to jump off the Tobin Bridge.

When they follow up a last place finish by opening the new season at Yankee Stadium, we as a collective group spent most of March sharpening our razor blades.

But then…

The Red Sox have won the first two games of the season handily against the Evil Empire! There is dancing in the streets in Boston. There are people wandering around in a daze, randomly hugging people and screaming, “Sox rule!”

Two games down, 160 to go, and it’s a great time to be a Red Sox fan!

(Let us have this… We need it after the last two seasons’ fiascos. Just let us have this while we can)

Monday?

Did that weekend even happen?  How is it Monday already?

Saturday saw softball try outs, piano lessons, a trip to the mall, playing with the computer set up in the living room, two kids who are over 10 years old but still discovering a new (very silly) fascination with Disney Junior, the younger of the two kids finished reading the first Hunger Games book and later that night we watched the movie.  Just before the bloodbath (if you know the story, you know what I’m talking about) he came over and sat on the chair with me (his big sister has already read all three books and had already seen the movie) and later he was a little freaked out by the mutts (again, if you know the story you know of what I speak).

On Sunday I was on call.  As mentioned yesterday, I usually don’t get calls during update coverage, but the phone rang three times.  Fortunately only one required me to log in, and that was just to go in and look at something quick.  I didn’t actually have to do anything.  I feel fortunate, although each time the phone rings I die a little inside.  I’m not joking.  I panic, just a little.

Somehow the day blew past without making a blip on my radar.  There were baseball try outs, but dad had to take care of that as Jen was working and I couldn’t be away from a computer for that long.  Honestly, I was crushed by that.  I felt awful.  It was our weekend, and I was unable to be the baseball guy who showed the support for the baseball player.  I really feel terrible about that.

Now it is Monday.  My foot is starting to bother me again, but only a little so far.  I wonder if my sneakers are involved in the problem.  I have two pairs of shoes; sneakers and work shoes.  Because my feet are HUGE and oddly shaped, I have a difficult time finding shoes that fit well.  My work shoes do not fit well.  They are a touch too long, and slightly more than a touch too wide.  I also can’t seem to tie them tight enough to make them snug enough.  On the other hand, my sneakers fit perfectly.  They may be the best fitting shoes I’ve had since puberty.  Why then is it that when the foot pain starts it is always on a Monday morning, after two solid days worth of wearing the shoes that actually fit?  Next weekend I am going to try staying barefoot whenever I’m indoors.  Let’s see if that helps.

Musically I have beds down for three songs.  One is a Prime Meridian song from 1997, another was played by Prime Meridian but originated when Mike and I played with a drummer named Dan back in oh… 1994 or 1995, and the third goes all the way back to 1992 and is probably the one song I’ve monkeyed with the arrangement for more than any other song I’ve ever written.  It’s also the only song I’ve ever written about a Sports Illustrated swim suit calendar.  All three are ready for guitars and vocals, and one will get some sax as well.  Maybe I’ll have something to post to alonetone.com by next weekend.

If only this past weekend hadn’t come and gone in a blink, I might have gotten more done.  Where does the time go?

I’m Tired

I feel weird right now.  I’m very tired.  Sleeping doesn’t seem to help as much as it should.  How weird is that?  Jen and I both go to bed completely tired, and then wake up 6-7 hours later feeling just as tired as we did when we went to bed.

The weekend is upon us but it is probably not going to be a restful one.  There are softball try outs tomorrow along with piano class.  Some housework needs to be attended to.  Jen has work work and school work to do.

On Sunday I am on call for a major customer’s major software update.  These things normally do not require me to work, but the last time this customer went through an update I had to work quite a bit.

That’s bad, but what’s worse is that my step son has little league try outs on Sunday and I can’t be away from a computer.  I’m crushed.  I want so badly to support the kids in their baseball/softball careers.  In the last year my step son has become a fanatical baseball fan and he and I can gab about the game endlessly.  My step daughter doesn’t get nearly as wrapped up in things, but every coach she’s had has made it a point to tell me how good she is.  I know enough about the game to be able to tell that for myself, thank you, but it’s always great to hear it from coaches.  She’s good.  She’s really good.

I love baseball.  I loved playing when I was a kid even though I was always the worse kid on the team.  Just being around the game was so much fun.  I want my step kids to feel that way too, and I want to be there to encourage every little detail.  On Sunday, however, I am going to miss out on something for one of them.  I’m really disappointed in myself.  Don’t get me wrong, I know how good I have it schedule wise as far as my job is concerned.  The commute sucks, the money is low, and I get stressed out like mad at times, but I punch in at 9:00 and I punch out at 5:30 and the changes to that schedule, being on call or what not, are few and far between.  I have my weekends, and when my wife’s incredibly intense schedule comes into the equation I am able to get the kids where they need to be, or get the errands done.  It pleases me that I can do those things and I really shouldn’t bitch about the rare instance where work does get in the way of something on a weekend… but I’m still going to bitch and you just have to deal with it.

So I am tired right now.  I’ve been sleeping okay, it just hasn’t made much of a difference.  Now I’m annoyed too because I won’t be there for my step son on Sunday.  So I’m tired and annoyed.  Being annoyed makes me more tired.  Being tired makes me more annoyed.

Oh please, please let this be a quiet day at work.

RPM Day 22

Nothing new to report.  My last music post last night is still the most recent information.  I haven’t had time to do anything since then, and I probably won’t have any time for the rest of today either.  There are non-music (aka, real life) things going on that need to be taken care of.  Monday is still the sing-till-I-puke day.

What else is going on.  Well, the Bruins continued their ass kicking with another win last night.  The Red Sox had their annual start of spring training games against Boston College and Northeastern University last night.  John Lackey is starting the first real game of the spring this weekend.  Be afraid… be very afraid.

We’re supposed to get another big snow storm this weekend.  I have decided that it’s going to skip us.  Yeah, it’s just going to go around Methuen and give us a miss.  Right.  Right?

Anyway… I’ll try to get some guitar playing done this weekend, but I might be off the project until Monday.  I hope to have both RPM and FAWM finished, but there might not be enough time for both.  If I finish 10 songs then I can declare RPM complete.  I have to finish all 14 for FAWM.  We’ll see.

Tell All

I have to hurry up and finish Derek Sanderson’s book.

Terry Francona and Dan “Big Bird” Shaughnessy have written a book giving lots of behind the scenes dirt on the Boston Red Sox during Francona’s tenure as manager.  This is just the sort of thing that a psychotic Sox fan like me needs to read.  Likewise it’s the kind of thing that non obsessed sports fans would look at and think, who gives a rats ass.

Sanderson’s book has been fun.  By fun I mean fun in the way that hearing reformed alcoholics telling stories of drunken debauchery from their drinking days is fun.  In other words, the stories are often really funny, but the subtext is kind of sad.  Reading about him driving down the walkway in the middle of Comm Ave in Boston in an attempt to make it to Logan Airport on time, and then, despite being completely blitzed, getting a police escort into the airport, is one seriously funny story, but knowing what it was costing him is sort of painful.  One thing the book is doing is making me want to read the soon to be released Bobby Orr autobiography.  Sanderson gives the impression that the ’70 and ’72 Cup winning teams were more or less the result of Bobby Orr’s will alone.  Bobby wasn’t the captain, but his word was law.  He was King both on and off the ice.

The other thing that trying to rush through the rest of the book is doing is making my eyes tired.  I’m basically seeing double as I try to type this.  I need a nap.

Major League Baseball Hall of Fame

The new inductees into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame were announced yesterday.  The lucky baseball heroes were…

No one.

I am fine with that.

You can make all sorts of different arguments for and against guys like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds getting into the Hall.  Go ahead.  Argue until you are blue in the face.  The one that works the best for me is saying that this is just an era in baseball history, like the dead ball era, or the color ban era, or whatever.  These are the players who were the elite for their time.  That seems like a fair argument.  I don’t agree, but I’ll give you that one.

The arguments I don’t give you are ones like, everyone did it.  Well, no everyone didn’t.  The league and the hall haven’t banned them so they should get in.  Sure, that’s true that they haven’t been banned, but last time I checked it was the baseball writers who decided who did or did not get in, not the league or the hall.  There are cheaters in the hall already.  Again, true.  Gaylord Perry is the one player most people look at.  My counter argument is that Gaylord Perry and other known cheaters should not be in the hall either.  I believe enshrining them was a mistake.  A mistake that I hope will not be made again any time soon.

There has to be some accountability here.  The league ignored the situation.  The players who weren’t cheating did nothing to stop things or expose those who were (although I always look back at that Mark McGwire interview where he stood in front of his locker with the bottle of andro clearly visible.  Did a teammate set that up?).  The fans ignored the situation too.  We shelled out our money in record amounts to watch a series of lab experiments play baseball.  It’s everyone’s fault.  These hall of fame snubs are just a way for all of us together to acknowledge our own guilt.

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, you guys are guilty.  No hall of fame for you.  Major League Baseball you are guilty, you get to spend years dealing with the negative press and PR relating to your past mistakes.  Fans, we are guilty too.  We get to deal with the fact that we allowed ourselves to be duped like a bunch of chumps and now we don’t get to see our favorite players honored the way our parents did.  There is plenty of this shame to go around.

Now, having said all of that… Let’s be real.  Most of these guys are going to get in eventually.  Unless the league or the hall itself decide to ban them, these guys who were snubbed yesterday are going to be inducted someday.  It will just take a while.  The simple fact is that it’s too soon.  The guilt everyone feels over this needs time to lessen.  Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, et all are going to be in the hall eventually.  They just need to be patient.  They just need to give us time to heal a little first.

Of course, if these people were capable of being patient and accepting reality none of this would have happened.  So… yeah.

Oh, and one more thing.  I don’t want to hear any bitching out of Craig Biggio.  You were not lumped in with the cheaters.  You were lumped in with the hundreds of players who came before you who were ignored by the majority of baseball writers on their first ballot.  I think you are a borderline hall of famer, but I am guessing you’ll get in.  You are just going to have to wait a while.  Probably not next year but eventually.  You aren’t going to lose support and fall off the ballot.  You’re there and you’ll probably get in.  The same goes for Jeff Bagwell, although the shadow of steroids is going to fall on any player who looks like a musclebound gym rat.  Mike Piazza… offensively you deserve to be there, but defensively… that could keep you out.  You always did sort of suck as a catcher, even when you were knocking the cover off the ball.  I think you get in too, but you might have a harder road.

And Jack Morris?  Next year, buddy.  Next year.

Say it Ain’t So, Youk

Oh great.  First Babe Ruth, now Kevin Youkilis.

Former Red Sox third/first baseman Kevin Youkilis has signed a one year deal with the New York Yankees for $12 million dollars.  He now joins folks like Wade Boggs and Johnny Damon and Babe Ruth as players who left the Red Sox and went to the Yankees.

This time feels a little different to me.  He didn’t leave us, he was traded.  He didn’t run off to New York, he was swapped to Chicago first.  The Yankees need a third baseman to fill in for King Douche Alex Rodriguez while he is off recovering from hip surgery.  They also need a first baseman to spell Mark Teixeira (damn, that’s tough to spell).  Youkilis is like a defensive dream come true for the Yankees.

When I project myself into next season I don’t see me booing the hell out of Youk when he comes back in pin stripes.  Maybe a little, but nothing like the wrath we visited down upon the trader Johnny Damon.  Damon’s move to New York was evil.  Youk’s move was, as mentioned, actually to Chicago.  If anything we should be furious at Schmucko the Clown (my pet name for the idiot accurately known as Bobby Valentine).  It was the conflict between Schmucko and Youk that resulted in the trade.

Good luck, Kevin Youkilis.  May you have a good year on a team that goes 0-162, and may you not take it personally when I boo your ass when you play the Red Sox.

2013 is going to suck for Red Sox Nation.

Crud.