Final days of Spring Training

Today I joined the Corvette Club members and attended a final Spring Training game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays. The game was held at Ed Smith stadium in Sarasota, the former home of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds went West to the Cactus League. For a while a flirtation between the Sarasota town fathers and the Boston Red Sox was held, but it was not to be. So we got Baltimore, lots of civic debt in the form of bonds, and a team that is ho hum at best. Fortunately, Tampa Bay was their opponent, and I suppose if I'm forced to watch American League ball, may as well be the local team I support.

The game was a good one, with a final score of 8 to 5, in favor of Tampa Bay Rays. Several years ago, they were the "Devil Rays" but apparently they felt this might be more objected to than inspiring. Today, the Rays certainly acquitted themselves well, scoring most runs with homers - one of them a grand slam, which ultimately was the difference between a win and a loss. The Orioles also generated several home runs, I had intended to take my camera, but managed to forget it and took these shots with my cell phone.

By the way, I hate my cell phone, but my contract runs for another four months before I can trade for something easier to operate. Without realizing, I managed to reset the camera function to take pictures in the "blue tint" - clearly the phone is more complicated than I and wearing sunglasses I didn't notice till I got home and transferred them to my iPhoto function. My wife was impatient, and wanted to be able to "Face Time" with our children, both of whom have iPhones. She was on my plan, costing an additional $9.99 to be a second Verizon line. She paid $150 to get out early, went across the street and signed up with AT&T and now has an iPhone, and pays over $100 a month out of her account. AT&T isn't worth crap on Longboat Key, and where we live the signal doesn't have enough strength to "punch through" cinder block walls. She spends a whole lot of time talking from the screened lanai out back, or the courtyard in front of the house. I can get rid of my Android phone in October and stay with Verizon. Verizon has iPhones and signal strength. I suppose I could also just drop Verizon, get an AT&T iPhone and join her plan come October, but I don't know if the courtyard is big enough for both of us.

Of course, I could always vote on the P&Z board for the threatened 150 foot tower, which would really punch through on the north end of the island,............if I still lived on the north end of the island. Six more months of my third generation CDMA phone can be tolerated. I mean, anybody who can last four years in the AIr Force and forty years in marriage can do six months standing on his head while gargling razor blades. In six months, I'll write about my 4G phone with hopefully a camera function I understand. I hope so, since I keep leaving my digital camera at home or in the car at the ball park.

WTF?

Going into the ninth inning, five runs down, the Cardinals gathered on the mound to ask the proverbial question "has anybody seen the wheels for our wagon?". Twenty one days ago, St. Louis was in first place in the division. They've now lost nine of their last eleven games. Albert Pujols today finally broke out of a 0-for-18 slump with a single in the sixth, but would later hit into an 8th inning double play.

I shot three pictures of this conference - each successive one had more Cardinals clustered around, and perhaps cluster is a good word, at least it half describes their recent performance. The guy walking off the mound is Tony Larussa, and hopefully this is his last season in St. Louis.

Keep on walkin' Tony, as California is calling your name. Oh, you can take MacGwire with you when you leave too. Our hitting coach has struck out.

Albert Pujols - MVP

This is the real deal, and it's probably good that he plays in St. Louis, which is the best baseball town (we're talking fans here) in America. Albert, who recently appeared with Glenn Beck in Washington, D.C. is truly a great player, and a better American. It's an honor to watch him play the game.

As of yesterday, he was batting .313 for the season, and had hit 35 home runs, putting him in first place in the National League. He has hit 401 home runs in his career, which is relative short. He had his debut with the Cardinals April 2, 2001, and currently is a free agent. Hopefully, he'll remain with St. Louis, where he is actively involved in the community and generous with his fortunes. I do believe Albert likes Missouri, where he attended High School in Independence following his move from his native Dominican Republic. He was born January 16, 1980 in Santo Domingo. Baseball may have been very, very good to Albert, but he has clearly reciprocated.

I'm going to miss the Cardinals and National League ball. Spring training brings the Pirates to Bradenton, and the Orioles to Sarasota, but sadly the Cards left St. Pete and moved to the east coast of Florida several years back. Oh well, "Road Trip" may be the answer to getting a Cardinals "fix" in future years. It's a good thing my daughter has that fourth bedroom at her new home in Lake St. Louis.

Spring Training Final Day

Today was the final day of Spring Training. We went to the game with our neighbors, George and Lois. Their son is the head trainer for Pittsburgh, and the Pirates organization provided us front row seats behind the home team dugout.

This hasn't been the best Spring Training for the Pirates, who call McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Florida their home away from home. The weather this year has been unusually cold, and so have been the Pirate bats. We had low expectations, but today, the sun came out following overnight rain, and the temperature was pushing 70. Still, we took a windbreaker for whenever the sun retreated behind the clouds. Settled in with George & Lois (wearing all their proper black & gold logo gear), we peered over the dugout wall and waited to see who showed up. We were to become more, much more, than pleasantly surprised, as were most of the other 3,496 paid attendees.

The Pittsburgh bats were pushing 110 degrees, they were that hot. I'm not sure who those guys were in the Houston Astro uniforms, but their pitching served up 13 runs, including 4 (maybe 5 - there was a lot of noise while I was out buying nachos) homers. The home team scored in 6 of 8 innings - they didn't need a ninth, but with all the fireworks the game lasted long anyway.

The Astros managed one run on six hits and four errors - they couldn't even field straight, let alone score. Pirates did much better, with 13 runs on 15 hits and they were hitting everything. Pittsburgh had a ten run lead going into the fourth, and therefore we got to see many, many players. And, really, that's what Spring Training is supposed to be about - seeing not only the team of the present, but the players of the future.

Spring training includes veteran players, guys from single, double and triple A affiliate teams and
"invitees" - those are the guys without names on their uniforms. At the beginning of Spring Training, the player parking lot is full of cars, but each week it develops additional empty spaces. I learned that baseball players are paid on a weekly basis. Perform, and you'll have another paycheck next week - don't measure up, and your parking space opens up next.

We should have a similar pay situation for politicians, maybe their batting averages would improve.