Probably Protesting the GA Governor?

Funny though..
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2011/07/here-comes-the-bride-man-in-wedding-gown-runs-on-field-during-nationals-braves-game-63822.html

Wishing Blue Jays Major League prospect Darin Mastroianni good luck

By R.K. Barry and Michael J.W. Stickings 

RKB:

I've been a baseball fan for a long time. My first team was the New York Mets and I'm just old enough to have really enjoyed watching the Miracle Mets win the 1969 World Series. I remember it well. Having moved to Toronto many years ago, I've become a serious Blue Jays fan and recall fondly the '92 and '93 Series wins.

A special treat for me this year is that the son of a grade-school friend is competing for a spot with the Blue Jays. His name is Darin Mastroianni and, according to his bio, he's a speedy outfielder who played Double A ball last year and was called up to join the 40-man roster last fall and is now in Florida trying to make the team.

The truth is that his father, Paul, and I knew each other when we were between 5 and 10 years old, then went to different junior high schools before going to the same high school. But by then we didn't know each other anymore and never really reconnected. No matter. I remember Paul well and am very excited for him that his son has a real shot at making it with a major league team -- my team, in fact.

If Darin is half as decent a fellow as his dad, he is fully deserving of whatever success comes his way.

Obviously all of these young men playing in a major league setting have family histories and usually fairly conventional life stories -- with the exception of their prodigious athletic talent. It just seems interesting to have had brief contact with the bloodline of a prospective major leaguer more than 20 years before he was born. Maybe that just means I'm getting old.

Anyway, I'm pulling for Darin and wish him well. It would be a blast to watch him play at the SkyDome this season. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

**********

 

MJWS:

Forget politics. Baseball's back! Spring Training is in full swing, fantasy fanatics such as myself are preparing for upcoming drafts, and, well, it means better weather is coming. And with the full sports package, I can see pretty much every game this year, every game of every team. Awesome. For all the problems with Major League baseball -- revenue and salary inequality between big and small markets, the steroid era, being a Jays fan and having to play in the same division as the Yanks and Sox -- I just love the game.

Like R.K., I was not a Jays fan at first. I grew up in Montreal and loved the Expos. Even after living in New Jersey, near Boston, and then in Toronto, I remained loyal. I went to all the Jays-Expos games here in Toronto whey they played interleague. But when the Expos moved to Washington, that was it. There was no way I was staying with them. And so it made sense to switch to the Jays, and while it's been a tough stretch these past several years since the switch, I'm really excited going into this year.

No, they're not a playoff team, not yet, but they seem to be on the right track under the leadership of GM Alex Anthopoulos. They have a few key veterans, including big-time slugger Jose Bautista, but they're a team of young hopefully-soon-to-be stars, and I have high hopes that they'll make a huge leap in the right direction this year. I'm not sure if Mastroianni will make the team out of Spring Training, but he's one of the bright young players in the system, and, like R.K., I wish him well.

I would just note, sadly, that it's not SkyDome anymore, it's the Rogers Centre. I do wish it were otherwise. And we really do need an old-fashioned baseball-only stadium in this city, preferably down by the water. As for Rogers, one of Canada's main communications companies, owning the team, well, let's just way I do wish that were otherwise too. But we have to take what we can get, and, for now, Rogers does seem willing to let the baseball people run the show. What we need is some salary cap sanity in the league, and that, combined with the strength of the Canadian dollar, would go a long way towards equalizing the playing field with the big spenders.

Now can we play ball already?! I've been waiting all winter for this. 

Duke Snider (1926-2011)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm much too young to remember the playing days of Duke Snider, the great Hall-of-Fame outfielder for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers (1947-62) whose career ended in 1964, but I remember well his many days as one of the voices of the Montreal Expos, from 1973-86.

As a huge Expos fan growing up in Montreal, his was one of the key voices of my childhood. I was still much too young in 1973, but by 1978 and '79 I was listening regularly to Snider and partner Dave Van Horne (the latest winner of the prestigious Ford C. Frick award), and they were wonderful together, at a time when the Expos were a competitive and successful franchise.

Not showy, not flashy, not sensationalist, they were true baseball men, and they knew their stuff. The fact that I'm still such an enormous baseball fan today owes a great deal to them both.

As for Snider, what can I say? He played on some pretty great Dodgers teams, including some memorable Brooklyn ones in the '50s that would have won more World Series than the one they did win (in 1955) had it not been for the damn Yankees, to whom they lost in 1947 (with Snider mostly in the minors and not playing in the World Series), 1949, 1952, 1953, and 1956. (They moved to L.A. in 1958 and won again, with Snider, in 1959.) He didn't put up incredible numbers by Hall standards (.295, 407 HRs, 1,333 RBI), but he made eight all-star teams (1950-56, 1963) and was a superb player.

Here, watch this:

Mark Buehrle vs. Michael Vick

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ESPN:

Chicago White Sox pitcher and animal rights activist Mark Buehrle told MLB.com recently that there were times this season he wished Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick would get hurt.

In 2007, Vick was convicted of a felony related to a dogfighting ring and served 19 months in prison.

"He had a great year and a great comeback, but there were times where we watched the game, and I know it's bad to say, but there were times where we hope he gets hurt," Buehrle told MLB.com. "Everything you've done to these dogs, something bad needs to happen to these guys."

One doesn't necessarily wish injury upon an athlete, even Vick, but it's hard not to appreciate the sentiment.

Yet while I admire Buehrle's and his wife's efforts on behalf of dogs, he's not exactly against animal suffering altogether. You know, because he's a regular dude who loves hunting -- so much so that he even goes bear hunting with a bow and arrow:

The kill was made from about 20 yards away, and the bear ran about another 30 yards before going down. Buehrle plans to have the head stuffed and have a necklace made out of a bear claw.

I know it's bad to say, but there are times I wish he'd gotten mauled by a bear and experienced a bit of suffering himself. It would have served him right.

What a fucking hypocrite. To say the least.

June 5, 1985 -- the day Ferris Bueller took off

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Larry Granillo of Baseball Prospectus has figured out that the Cubs game Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane attend in the great Ferris Bueller's Day Off took place on June 5, 1985, a 4-2 loss to the Braves. (Although they, or rather the actors playing them, may have been filmed at Wrigley Field at a later time and then edited into the game footage.)

Interesting stuff, to those of us who love the movie.

Go to the 2:17 mark:

Halloween

This weekend was Halloween, and not suprisingly, the weather it sucked. I was giving out candy over at my step-dad's mom's house in Delhi Township and I wore my Geisha costume and under it I had to wear jeans, a hoodie and gymshoes, I didn't really look like a Geisha. They must have been shipping these kids in from all the neighboring neighborhoods, like Sedamsville, Price Hill, and they came from as far as North College Hill, Western Hills, Fairmount. There were greedy kids as far as the eye could see. They kept reaching into the bowl to grab candy and some kids cried because they couldn't get seconds. Stupid brats! But all the cool costumes seem to be in Ohio rather than Kentucky, I seen costumes like Ninjas, a couple Michael Myers, a couple Freddy Kruegers, princesses, one kid dressed as the killer from Jeepers Creepers, turns out that kids' mom was a friend of my mom's, they work together, her son dressed as that, her daughter dressed as Regan from the Exoricst, some of the other costumes I seen include lions, ladybugs, rockstars, zombies, police officers, you name it, one kid even dressed up as Steven Tyler somehow, he had a brown hair wig all messed up and wore a white jumpsuit that he sometimes wears on stage and he had messy hair, that costume was cool, I gave him extra candy, and apparently you can't give out candy to the kids whose costume you like, because I seen my next door neighbor Vicki and her son Nathan over there, he was dressed as a baseball player, he had a New York Mets player uniform on, he was so adorable! But Halloween ws good, my step-dad decided to ditch candy giving to watch the football game inside, it was so cold outside that me and my mom had to resort to wearing blankets over our legs to keep warm. And across the street, this guy had a blow-up haunted house set up, I heard kids screaming all night. The cool costumes were all over there, I even seen people who didn't even put any effort into it, just going around getting free stuff. I swear, Halloween must be the one holiday when you can actually legally take stuff from strangers.


And I also went to Kenwood Mall with my step-dad, mom, sister. We went into this puzzle place out there and my sister was looking for this Ed Hardy tattoo artist puzzle and she couldn't find it, so she asked the lady at the front desk and she asked her if they had any Goth themed puzzles, this lady must have been dumber than a bag of hammers, she clearly said Goth puzzles, so instead she takes us to where they have all these Beatles puzzles, my sister is not a big fan of British 60's and this lady clearly didn't get it. she picked up one that depicted the Beatles Revlover album, my sis didn't like it, so then she oicked up one that showed the Yellow Submarine album, she didn't like it, she even picked up one with John Lennon on it, and if you know my sister, she hates The Beatles. We had to tell her" she's not a fan of the Beatles" So then we just told her we're going somewhere else. Let her think about that one.