Kalamazoo

We made our annual spring trip to Kalamazoo today. A little later than usual, but it was still a successful trip. You see, living down here in northern Indiana, you can walk into a store and have your choice of just a few sports team options when it comes to licensed merchandise. Typically, for spring stuff, you get to choose from the Cubs, the White Sox, or Notre Dame. You'll get an occasional Purdue or IU item, but for the most part, it's those three. But I'm a Detroit Tigers fan, so despite the fact that I live in their local broadcast market, our cable system doesn't carry their games, and I can't find Tigers merchandise for anything. Oh, sure, I could order it, but where's the fun in that?

Kalamazoo has a special place in my heart. It's the first real city that I ever lived in. It's where I lived when the Tigers won the World Series in 1984. I went to college there. I started my teaching career there. It's essentially where I made the transition from being a teenager fresh from high school to being a man. Every time we make this trip, my mind wanders back to those days. Today, as we were driving along a detoured route, I played Huey Lewis and the News's "Sports," an album I used to play quite a bit back in those days. It's funny how memories can be triggered by music, and those memories were certainly strong.

We were headed to Fanfare first, which meant we had to travel north up Westnedge Avenue. It was closed, and it was funny to think that I didn't even need to see the detour signs to know where I had to go. North on Oakland, east on Kilgore, and there we were, like it was yesterday. Fanfare was the first comic book store I had ever seen, or even heard of. As I wrote about here, I discovered it when I was a college freshman, and it's still there, 28 years later. We stopped in and picked up a Power Pack book that Sera will love to read, a short comic book drawer box that I can use in my classroom, as well as a used art portfolio and a couple of cheap trade paperbacks, also for my classroom. Then, we were off to find Tigers stuff.

Our first stop for Tigers stuff was a flop. While Magi went to Old Navy to find clothes for Sera, Sera and I went to Office Max. I was looking for note cubes and folder. Struck out looking. Bed, Bath, and Beyond, on the other hand, had just the item I was looking for. If you've never used a Tervis Tumbler, you've missed out. They keep stuff cold, and they keep stuff hot. Down here, of course, there were a million tumblers with teams I didn't want, but in Kalamazoo, I found one with my Tigers logo on it. I added a handle and a lid, and now I have the perfect cup from which to drink coffee and iced tea.

We were also successful at finding stuff at Meijer. The Meijer on Westnedge Avenue is where I worked in the summer of 1985. It was a good job. I worked my way up from bagger to cashier, over a summer, and the only reason I left the job was that I couldn't work my schedule around classes at Western. I had a budget for food that summer, and it consisted of a very simple formula: Every day, I would eat four hamburgers and drink a Coke from Hot 'N Now Hamburgers. Back then, (imagine an old man's voice here) they charged $0.39 for everything. $0.39 for a hamburger, $0.39 for a Coke, $0.39 for fries. So, basically for $2.03 (4% sales tax back then), I would eat each day, and that was typically my only meal. Anyway, Meijer had the Tigers stuff I was looking for. I got a pair of sleeping shorts and a new lanyard for work. We passed by the old Hot 'N Now on the way out of town, and it's still closed and not occupied.

On the way home, we stopped in Three Rivers, and the Meijer there had some pens and a luggage tag that will come in handy. So, all in all the trip was successful. It wasn't really about shopping for Tigers stuff. It was about something like baseball, though. It's always good touching base, and for me, Kalamazoo was my second base.

The New Batting Practice Caps are Here!

Very exciting news in my e-mailbox today, as the new MLB batting practice caps (left) are here! For those of you who don't know, batting practice caps are made of a moisture-wicking material that keeps the wearer's head cool. I really love the feel of the BP cap, especially when I'm active outdoors, but did not like the Tigers' design for the past three years (right). It featured a half-moon gusset that became discolored very quickly after just a few wearings. Looks like we have a winner here!

Ken Burns to Update "Baseball"

Best news I've read all year.

The week before spring training begins, I'll start my annual viewing of Ken Burns's documentary on the greatest game ever invented. It's ten volumes of pure poetry and history about baseball. This is welcome news and I'm very excited about it.

Math is Hard

"Math class is tough" was the actual phrase that the 1994 Teen Talk Barbie doll uttered, but "Math is hard" will do for our purposes.

I'm crushed over the end of the Detroit Tigers' season this year. The Tigers had a seven-game lead on September 6, and the Minnesota Twins caught them on the 161st game of the season. They remained tied through the last game and had to play a 163rd game on Tuesday, which the Twins won in extra innings, 6-5. The Tigers finished second to the Twins for the third time in four years on the final day of the regular season. It's something to behold, reading fan reaction to the end of the Tigers' season. Words like "collapse" and "choke" dominate the message boards and blogs. But when it comes to actually understanding how baseball works, you have to have a basic understanding of mathematics, which most sports fans apparently don't. Math is hard.

To win a division of Major League Baseball, a team has to win more games than the other teams in the division. It doesn't matter if the games are won and lost in April or October, because they all count the same. I keep reading about how Miguel Cabrera was drunk on the morning of a big game with the White Sox during that final weekend. I don't question that his state of mind was the reason he went 0-for-11 for the series with the White Sox, but I do question that it was a big game. They're all big games. Angry fans are writing that the Tigers went 11-16 after September 6, which was the date of their biggest lead over the Twins. They fail to mention, however, that they were coming off a six-game winning streak in which they swept both the Cleveland Indians and the Tampa Bay Rays. When you take a look at the normal split of September/October, the Tigers were 17-16, above .500. But some people never let facts get in the way of a good story. Math is hard.

To really look at the season objectively, all we have to do is take a good look at July. In July, the Tigers went 10-14, losing no fewer than six games by scoring only one solitary run in each. In five consecutive contests, the Tigers lost by a score of 2-1 in four games. Five relievers from the bullpen lost games in that month. Not only were our starters not getting any run support, but our bullpen couldn't hold leads and we couldn't score late in games when they did get run support. One could easily argue that the season was lost more in July than October, but it would be lost on the media and angry fans. Why? Math is hard.

If the Tigers had won any one game that they lost during the season, there wouldn't even have been a one-game playoff in the Metrodome. Any one misplay gets fielded cleanly leading to a loss, or any swing and miss on a hanging curveball that a batter should have knocked out of the park for a walkoff win and the whole season could have a different complexion. It didn't come down to the last game, last series, or last anything of the season. In a 162-game regular season, any one loss turned into a win would have given the Tigers the divison title. But there are some people who just can't see past the heartbreak of that final week. Why? Because math is hard.

Inferno

Insert your own "flaming" joke here. I cannot believe DC is actually publishing a book named Inferno with a character who looks like a gay porn star...or Kevin Youkilis, take your pick. Same difference.

A Great Day

How do you define a great day? I had one this weekend, and it was one of the greatest days I’ve ever had. What made it great? A little background first:

Every year my teacher friends and I plan a trip to Comerica Park to see the Tigers play. This began in 2000 when my good friend Dana suggested that we go visit the Tigers’ new park. I had lost most of my interest in baseball following the 1994 strike and hadn’t been to a game since the 1993 ALCS. We saw the Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 10-1 on June 10, 2000, and saw a very rare feat: Mark McGwire stole second base! I loved Comerica Park. Compared to the new Comiskey Park (now U.S. Cellular Field), which was a bland, grey bandbox of a stadium, Comerica was an amusement park for baseball fans. We returned in 2001 to see the Tigers and Cubs (Cubs won 10-6), in 2002, 2003 (Bonderman’s second career victory during the worst season in Tigers history), 2004 against the Yankees (Tigers lost 5-3, but Pudge Rodriguez went 3-for-4 at the plate), and then in 2005 we started expanding our operation.

Magi and I had taken our friends’ kids to a game on Father’s Day 2005 to see newly-acquired Placido Polanco hit a walkoff home run against the San Francisco Giants, and while I was at the stadium I asked about group ticket sales. I was able to get 15 tickets to a Yankees game on July 2, and we made a weekend of it. I saw Bonderman beat Randy Johnson on Friday night, backed by home runs by Chris Shelton, Polanco, and Magglio Ordonez (in his first game back after hernia surgery). Bonderman went the distance, scattering eight hits and two runs over nine innings. The Tigers lost the next two games, but we all had fun sitting down by the Tigers’ dugout. I went back for Sunday’s game, too, seeing the whole series against the Yankees that season. The best game, though, was on September 11, when my teacher friends and I went by ourselves and sat right behind the first base dugout against the Royals. I was able to get this picture of John McDonald from on top of the first base dugout:

There were only 20,559 fans in the stands if you believe the official attendance. I think there were really only about 10,000 to be honest. The Tigers won 14-4 and made me very happy.

In 2006, it was literally a whole new ballgame. I went to nine regular-season games that year, seeing the Tigers play the Yankees (another group outing), Red Sox, White Sox, Twins, Orioles, and the Royals, including the last game of the season, when the Tigers lost the division title. But when I did get to see all four home games in the ALDS and ALCS AND the first game of the World Series because of the schedule change brought about because of that last regular-season loss, all was forgiven.

Once Sera came into our lives, our excursions to baseball games dwindled somewhat, but now we still make it to at least one game every year. I went to a Tigers-White Sox makeup game with my friend Doug on April 25, 2007, and Sera’s first Tigers game was in August, just four short months after we brought her home. I honestly remember nothing about the game except that the Tigers lost, but I do remember taking her to the gift shop because she was restless and I remember not caring as much about the game as I did her enjoyment of the experience…as it should be.

We took Sera to another game the following year, on June 28, and that was my only Tigers game for the year. It was memorable because of Miguel Cabrera’s theatrical walkoff double in the bottom of the ninth, but what really sticks in my mind is Sera’s enjoyment of the postgame fireworks.

So what made Saturday such a great day?

First, we had our annual teacher outing to Detroit planned and two people backed out. That freed up two tickets, so Magi and Sera could go. After I got the first night of at least eight hours of sleep since my dad got really sick, I was rested and ready to go. We loaded up the car and headed to my friend Dana’s house. First, though, we stopped at Charlie’s Butcher Block in Elkhart for some food, since we hadn’t yet eaten breakfast. Their full sandwich menu was available, so I got us a couple of their subs, as well as some lobster bisque pasta for Magi and fruit salad for Sera. The lobster bisque pasta may have been an unusual choice at 9:00 AM, but it was delicious, as were the subs.

Dave was already there when we got to Dana’s house and I gave them a walkie-talkie so we could chat on the road if we wanted to. We got on the toll road and took off. About two hours later, we stopped at a rest area, used the rest room, got cinnamon rolls, and got back on the road. About a half hour later, we arrived at the Dundee, Michigan Cabela’s. This was my fifth Cabela’s store visit in ten days, and the Dundee store is tops. First, it’s huge, and the selection is far better than the other ones, especially for the clothes I need. I’ll remember that next time. Since all of my clothes shopping is done for the year, I pretty much just looked around happily, planning for next year when I’ve (hopefully) gone down another size.

Then we arrived at Dana’s friend Steve’s house in Ann Arbor. Steve is a great guy and always goes on our outings with us. Sera had, of course, fallen asleep in the car about two miles before we got to his house, so we planned a late lunch in Ann Arbor before we planned to make the last leg of our trip to Detroit. Ann Arbor has lots of great restaurants, but it really has a wonderful attraction in Zingerman’s. Zingerman’s is a world-famous deli with high-quality meats, cheeses, and breads. Magi knew about the place even when she lived in New Orleans. Well, Zingerman’s also has a restaurant along the highway called Zingerman’s Roadhouse and we’ve talked about going there for some time. We were not sorry we did. We were seated outdoors in their covered section, within sight of their HUGE barbeque grill and smoker. We could see that they were taking slabs of meat off the grill that were at least two feet long. Our mouths collectively started watering. Our waitress carefully described the menu and the chef in great detail, and even brought us some pulled pork to sample with each of the three sauces they use. We had a sumptuous, fantastic meal. I had the pulled pork sandwich with their zesty tomato BBQ sauce, with fried sweet potatoes. Wow! Steve surprised us by very generously picking up the check. Dana surprised us even more by paying for the baseball tickets. It’s nice to have good friends like this!

We arrived in Detroit right on time, finding our usual parking lot and making our way to the mosaic tile Tigers logo on the third base side of the stadium. We had our annual picture taken, and went right inside, hardly even waiting in line. We received complimentary Detroit Stars Negro League caps, as the Negro Leagues were being honored that night. We quickly found our seats in section 122, and settled in.

I got to the gift shop just before the game started, picking up a new Tigers T-shirt for Sera and a new insulated lunch bag for myself. My old one literally fell apart this summer. I really wanted to pick up a Brandon Inge All-Star jersey and some other shirts, but the largest size they had available was XXL. It just gave me more motivation to keep losing weight. I got out of the gift shop for less than $40 (a record) and got back to my seat before the National Anthem was even played.

It was a good game. Brandon Inge came up with a clutch RBI single and made a spectacular diving play at third base, and Miguel Cabrera hit a majestic opposite field home run in the 9th to pull the Tigers to within a run, but they ended up losing 5-4.
During the game Sera had seen a vendor with cotton candy and had asked for some, and we promised to get her some the next time he came around, but he never did. We even asked the other vendors to send him our way for a guaranteed sale, but after four innings of waiting she began to get impatient. I finally got up and found a kiosk that was selling it, and wouldn’t you know it, just as I arrived back at our seats before the top of the fifth inning, the vendor was just getting to our section! The fireworks show was not quite as impressive as last year’s, but Sera enjoyed it nonetheless.

After we dropped Dana and Dave back at Steve’s place in Ann Arbor, where they spent the night, Sera dropped off to sleep. Magi and I got to spend a very quiet three hours together, chatting the night away in the car, which is an amount of time we never get to spend together (awake) without Sera being the focus of our attention. I think this was my favorite part of the night. We had time to relax, listen to music on our iPod, and to reflect on our lives together and our wonderful, wonderful daughter. We got home at around 2:30 in the morning, exhausted, but very happy for having each other, our generous friends, and a great, great day.

One Year Later

Here's our annual family picture together at Comerica Park, compared to last year's picture. One of us has grown in that time, and two of us have not. Can you tell who's who?

Left Behind

One of my students picked up this photograph and asked, "So is this guy named after the battery, or what?"

No Child Left Behind, indeed.

A Sad Day--for XM Radio

I canceled my XM Radio account today. I have been an XM subscriber since 2005, and the service has given me hundreds and hundreds of hours of listening pleasure. I remember spring break of that year, listening to the Tigers from the patio of the condo we used in Gulf Shores, thinking that it was amazing technology that allowed me to listen to my favorite team while almost a thousand miles from home.

Now, sadly or not so sadly, I have that technology at my fingertips every day in the form of my Blackberry Storm. Using its 3G connection, I pay only $19.95 for the entire season of baseball. Not only do I get to listen to every game, but I can even choose which broadcast to listen to, home or away. I can watch video highlights using the same application, and check box scores too. I can also listen to music channels on my phone, which makes the XM pretty much obsolete. I'll miss it, I suppose, though I really don't know why. Just habit, I guess.

The Bird

Mark "The Bird" Fidrych passed away yesterday of an apparent accident at age 54. For every kid I knew back in the summer of 1976, The Bird was a hero. As a rookie pitcher for the Detroit Tigers he went 19-9, won rookie of the year honors and was an all-star. But it wasn't just the pitching that made him attractive to fans. It was his manner. Mark talked to the ball, fussed over the condition of the mound, and just made baseball fun. There were songs on the radio about him, and even an iron-on transfer in the newspaper so that you could make your own Mark Fidrych t-shirt. Even though he suffered injuries that he was never able to recover enough from to return to baseball, I will never forget that magical season that he gave us all those years ago.

George Kell, RIP

"Hello again everyone, George Kell along with Al Kaline..."

"Hello, George."

These were the words that rang through our locker room before baseball games when I was in high school. They were burned into our minds by the Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer third baseman and right fielder as they sat in the broadcast booth for the television broadcasts of the Tigers of our youths. I would imitate Kell and my friend Ken would do the voice for Al Kaline and we'd run through the lineups as we knew them. We'd easily slip into the patter of the veteran voices, and do play-by-play.

"He hit it like a shot." That was one of my favorite descriptions that George Kell would use, the emphasis solidly on the last word.

George Kell was known long before I was born as the guy who beat out Ted Williams for the batting crown of 1949 in a race so close that the statisticians had to take it out to the fourth decimal place, .3429 to .3427. I only knew him as a broadcaster, but I listened to his voice more than probably any other in my turbulent childhood. There's something to be said about being there every day to provide comfort. I'll miss him.

How do you Spell Relief?

I spell it b-a-s-e-b-a-l-l. I've been having a down couple of days where I snap at stuff that shouldn't even bother me. Maybe you've seen it in my writing here. When I just don't feel it, I can't fake it. But just when I thought I was going to have another cranky bad day, the Detroit Tigers played and won their first spring training game and brought me right out of it. Ordinarily by this time of year, I'm seriously jonesing (and I don't mean Todd) for some baseball. I usually shave my beard off when spring training starts. For some reason I just wasn't feeling it this year. I don't know why, but I just wasn't looking forward to the season as I have in years past. Pitchers and catchers reported, and it just didn't click. I used to be a big contributor on the Detroit Tigers message board with almost 2,000 posts, but didn't even visit after the season ended.

All that changed today when I saw that the Tigers had their first spring training game and that it was going to be on XM satellite radio. I tuned in to channel 184 at 1:05 and felt happiness flood right back into my life! Even while at work I will keep my radio on, turned down low enough that the kids can't hear it and watch the display, which keeps track of the score, inning, and the number of outs. To hear the voices of Dan Dickerson and Jim Price brought me out of my funk faster than you can say Magglio Ordonez. I think it's definitely time for a roadtrip to get Sera her new Tigers outfit for this year!

A-Rod Allegedly took Steroids. So What?

I'm getting tired of this idiotic argument that somehow the record books and the game of baseball are tainted because some players took performance-enhancing drugs, especially steroids. THIS ISN'T NEW!

Players have been taking amphetamines and gulping coffee and everything else under the sun for DECADES. They have surgeries that didn't exist 120 years ago to extend their careers, too. Good grief, can we move on, please?

Fever Pitch

Like "That Thing You Do," another one of those movies that I just have to watch whenever I see that it's on is Fever Pitch. The Farrelly brothers' romantic comedy is set in 2004 during the Red Sox's historic baseball season in which they won their first World Series championship since 1918. Jimmy Fallon plays 9th grade math teacher Ben Wrightman, who meets Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore), an up-and-coming mathematician, while showing his students what kind of living one can make with applied mathematics. He finds himself attracted to Lindsey, and asks her out. On their first date when he shows up at her apartment, Lindsey is suffering from food poisoning and vomiting. He takes it upon himself to not only look after her but to clean her bathroom, which in my opinion, nominates him for sainthood.

Things progress normally between the two until one day, baseball season starts. You see, Ben is a Red Sox fan. And when I use the word "fan," I mean it in its original sense: fanatic. Everything in his apartment relates to the Red Sox, including a wall decoration which is a replica of the Green Monster (the left field fence in Fenway Park), that is complete to the degree that the hand-operated scoreboard is set to a specific game. Lindsey is a little taken aback by the degree of Ben's enthusiasm, and the tension begins.

As the relationship deepens, Ben and Lindsey agree that while he dives in headfirst into his obsession, she will focus on her job and getting the big promotion she wants. If only it were that easy!

There are so many things that I love about this movie. It captures the spirit of baseball, the tradition, the superstition, the beauty of the game, and yes, the math. Ben explains the game and his team to Lindsey, and I wish I could be as eloquent as he is, bringing home the majesty of a great pastime to a relative n00b.

Like a typical Farrelly brothers movie, not only is it funny, but it's sweet as well. The emotional depths of the characters is well-written, and the way the two characters reflect on their relationship with their friends seems very authentic. Lindsey talks about everything with hers, and Ben doesn't. Well, with the exception of a rhetorical rant in front of one of his students. Yep, he's a man, all right!
The eventual heartbreak that comes seems very, very real. How it is presented and how they deal with the resolution seems right on the money.

The only thing I would change about this movie is that I would make it longer. When I watch the DVD, I always begin with the deleted scenes and watch scenes 1-13, which extends scenes dealing with Ben's childhood. Then I start the movie with the actual scene 3, which begins the part where Ben is grown up. The fleshed-out "young Ben" scenes do a lot to explain the importance of some of the things in his apartment, where if you don't watch them, they just seem like random memorabilia. But the meaning these deleted scenes give the items, deepens Ben's character appreciably. It's a shame they weren't included in the original release.

So Long, Pudge

The Detroit Tigers traded Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez today to the New York Yankees for relief pitcher and former Tiger Kyle Farnsworth.

I hate this trade.

When general manager Dave Dombrowski signed Pudge in 2004, it was the renaissance of the Detroit Tigers. Following a horrible 43-119 season in 2003, they immediately improved to 72-90, adding 29 wins. Pudge hit .334 that year, including going .500 for the month of June. The Tigers were able to add more free agents in the following years, bringing them back to respectability and a World Series appearance in 2006, and it all started with Pudge.

Kyle Farnsworth was one of the players who signed with the Tigers in 2005, but before he had played with the Tigers for even a season, he refused to negotiate a contract extension, instead expressing an interest in the free agent market. The Tigers traded him before the year was over, instead of getting nothing for him when the season was done. Now the selfish jerk is back.

Pudge wasn't likely to return after this season, as he is getting old for a catcher (36) and the Tigers have Brandon Inge under contract for next year already. But I really wanted Pudge to hang around to at least see his contract finished up. There's just a sour taste in my mouth giving Pudge to the Yankees, of all teams, for a guy who doesn't want to play for my team.

Update: I forgot to mention that I personally took this photograph of Pudge in 2005.

Sera's Dollar Monday and Summer Plans

On Monday night, we were watching the news when the forecast for the Silverhawks game came on during the weather. Magi asked me if I wanted to go. I had quite forgotten that it was Dollar Monday again, so instead of cooking dinner, we packed Sera up in the minivan (now dubbed "The Crimson Cruiser") and went.

We arrived later than usual, and I had to park three blocks away and carry Sera, since I had dropped Magi off at the ticket window. We found our seats quickly, but it was crowded. Sera had very little room to move around, and the crowd was fascinating to her. She wanted to see everything. I was also a little leary about sitting on the third base line because of the people who had been drilled with line drives the previous two times I had gone. I'm pretty sure I can protect myself, but I wouldn't stake Sera's life on being able to deflect a ball coming right at her unless I had my glove with me, and I didn't. So when the announcement came over the PA system that we could upgrade our dollar tickets to box seats at a cost of $2 each, I ponied up the $6 and we sat right behind the plate. Sera now had her own chair, an unobstructed view of the action, and a screen to deflect foul balls that came our way. I could finally relax!

From these seats, I observed five people with radar guns sitting in the same section. Not only were they charting the speeds and locations of the pitches, but they were also making notes on position players and their hitting strengths and weaknesses. At one point, I saw a scout pass over a business card with the Kansas City Royals logo on it to another scout. There were other scouts without radar guns making notes of the game as well. Magi leaned over to me and suggested that it would be my dream job. Gee, I don't know, being paid to travel all over the country watching baseball games? That just sounds rough. When I was single, I would have done it for free, but as a parent I know it would be hard on my family, just as it is for the players and coaches of teams in both minor and major leagues.

When I retire, I want to do stuff just like that. I love to write in this blog. I would love to travel, take photographs and write about the places I visit. That's why I'm looking so forward to July. Once summer school ends on June 27, we are taking off. First, we'll be headed to Utah. We're going to pass through Omaha to see the zoo, and spend the night. Then we'll stop in Denver to take in a Rockies game. After that, we'll visit my father, and then my sister in Utah. We haven't even decided on our route back, yet. We might just be spontaneous, and see where the road takes us!

Later in the month, we are going to Mackinac Island for a weekend at the Grand Hotel, which was a gift that Magi's dad gave us two Christmases ago. We didn't even get a spare weekend last year to use it, which is probably just as well. Sera will appreciate it more this year with all the flowers and "horsies" there. We're going to camp in northern Michigan with my buddy Eric for the week leading up to that weekend, too. I'm going to start plotting out that trip soon, because there are certain places where I know some good camping spots and beautiful sights to see. Magi's never even been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan before, and I used to live there when I was in sixth grade. It is a beautiful place to visit and live.

All I have to do is make it through two more weeks of summer school and then we will be off!

Another Dollar Monday

And here I am, just back from another Dollar Monday at the Cove. The Silverhawks beat my Tigers' single-A West Michigan Whitecaps 4-1, and it just seems like someone doesn't want me to see any team I root for win this year.

Dollar Monday has to be the best bargain around for entertainment. Tickets are $1.00, hot dogs are $1.00, and pop is $1.00, and even with $3.00 parking, I had an enjoyable dinner and evening of baseball for just $9.00.

The Silverhawks are struggling this year, but they have an absolute beast in Sean Coughlin. He hit a bomb of a home run his first time up, and while it was his only hit of the evening, he hit the ball extremely hard every time he was up. Look at this guy's forearms. He looks like Popeye! He's also hitting .352 with 6 home runs and 19 RBI in only 54 at bats. If he keeps this up, he won't be around here much longer. He'll be promoted quickly, because catchers who hit like this are rare, indeed.

Starting pitcher Bryan Augenstein threw a nice game, allowing only four hits and one run over eight complete innings. Evan Scribner picked up the save in relief with a 1-2-3 ninth.

For the second straight Dollar Monday, someone in the stands has gotten absolutely nailed by a foul ball. Last time a guy got pegged in the ribs and had to be helped up the steps by his wife and mother. This time was worse. An elderly man had to be carried out on a stretcher by paramedics with an oxygen mask on. Please, watch for foul balls at baseball games and for goodness sakes, protect your children. Don't let them run around unaware while the game is in progress!

I met my buddy Rob at the game, and we in turn met some pretty cool people as well. There were some local kids sitting behind us, reuniting after a year away at college, and one of the young women asked me what I was writing. I explained to her that I was keeping score, and showed her how it was done. She said that she'd never seen anyone doing that before, and I looked around to see and sure enough, I was the only one doing it. Throughout the game, she asked several questions about the rules and I patiently explained why runners have to tag up on a fly ball, why a runner crossing the plate doesn't score a run before the catch of a fly ball makes the third out in an inning, etc. and one of her male friends and I talked about China, which he has just now returned after four months abroad. We talked about how dirty Beijing was and how amazing the food was, and generally had a nice conversation between pitches. I think that's one of the great things about baseball. There are natural times during which you can strike up a conversation with people around you and there are plenty of things to talk about inside and outside the game.

My Little Tiger

Eight months ago, I got Sera a little Tigers outfit to wear to her first game, and she was just the cutest little girl ever. At her first game, everyone who saw her said, "Aaaaaaawwww." We got her the cheerleader outfit because her hair was so short she got confused for being a boy when I put her in ordinary baseball wear.

We have to go to Kalamazoo, Michigan just to get her a Tigers outfit. Around here you get a choice of White Sox or Cubs. So we make a point of going to Michigan each year to re-stock my supply of Tigers stuff. I even go to office stores to get calendars and mousepads.

We took Sera back to Kalamazoo today to update her wardrobe. I felt like I was home again, as I was not the only one wearing a Tigers cap for a change. Kalamazoo is full of Tigers fans.

Sera's wearing 18-month clothing now, and look what a fan I have at home:

Sera is always taking my Tigers cap off and putting it on. Now she has one of her own!

And don't let her 22 months of age fool you. I turned on ESPN Classic today to a game played between the 1993 Astros and Mets and the first thing out of her mouth was "Beesball!" She knows when they're talking about it on XM radio in the car, too, even before they say the name of the game. The brainwashing has begun!

Spring Training

At last!

Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training yesterday, and I can't wait for baseball to begin! I even shaved off most of my winter beard. With a week from hell behind me, I have something to look forward to.

Monday all the 8th grade math teachers in my building had an all-day inservice. Tuesday, all Elkhart teachers had an all-day inservice. We actually had school on Wednesday and Thursday, only to be followed by a four-day weekend. Guess what, when school's back in on Tuesday data coordinators have a half-day inservice so I will miss three of my five classes. I'm sure my students' learning is going to improve from this schedule somehow, but I'll be darned if I can figure out how.

I was listening to XM radio yesterday to try to get the lowdown on the beginning of spring training, but all I hear is talk, talk, talk about Roger Clemens. Good grief, Senator Mitchell suggested in his report that we proceed from here: "Knowledge and understanding of the past are essential if the problem is to be dealt with effectively in the future. But being chained to the past is not helpful. Baseball does not need and cannot afford to engage in a never-ending search for the name of every player who ever used performance enhancing substances." Isn't that good enough? Let's develop tests to eliminate this crap from the game, not target and smear every player named in the report. Nothing good will come of that.

I finally found some good coverage of the Tigers in spring training from the Detroit News. I would give a lot to be in Lakeland, Florida this weekend. The Tigers made key trades this winter, and on paper the team looks to do well, but they have to play the games. I'm ready to see them! We'll be headed up to Kalamazoo, Michigan this weekend to see if we can find some Tigers wear for Sera for this spring. I can hardly wait!

Message Boards and the Truth

Okay, today I will talk about factual dishonesty on message boards!

I was on the Detroit Tigers message board today where there were, as usual, a bunch of people bashing third baseman Brandon Inge. I grow weary of discussing baseball with people who can't do fifth grade math, specifically comparing decimals. One of the complaints about Inge was his failure to hit with runners in scoring position (RISP). I did a quick check on CBS Sportsline's website and sure enough, Brandon Inge was better than half the team with RISP, including superstars Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen, and Sean Casey, who get criticized far less.

I would have let the whole thing go after I posted the research, but one guy just said, "I don't think so." That's his argument? "I don't think so?" Wow, I hope he thought long and hard about that one! Are people so intellectually lazy that they just don't care if they are misrepresenting the truth? I'm not talking about opinion. I'm talking about cold, hard fact.

Last year a guy on that message board claimed that Chicago White Sox fans were low class because of an incident that occurred in the 19th century. I calmly explained to him that at the time the incident occurred, the team we now know as the Chicago White Sox was a minor league team located in St. Paul, Minnesota. They only became the Chicago White Sox in 1901, when the American League was founded. Furthermore the team calling itself the Chicago White Sox at that time became the Chicago Cubs. He wasn't even talking about the same team!

He didn't let that get in the way of his rant. He raved on and on and on about how White Sox fans were classless because of this incident.

I just don't get how people, even when confronted with incontrovertible fact, maintain that their unsubstantiated claims are true just because they say they are.