We FINALLY Got This Table.

No.

Of COURSE it's not the real Honus Wagner card.

I don't know where that is (someone will enlighten me) (MAYBE. No one reads this blog but my dad and husband.), but it's so unimaginably valuable, that to glue it to the wall would be unthinkable.

Still, it's a nice spot to have a dinner or a few drinks; both, even. I like this table, but I don't ever ask for it. I figure that for each rare occasion we are seated there, provided it's a random gift rather than an engineered favor, it's a special baseball moment shared.

 

Rats. Nuts. Criminy. And all sorts of other PG-rated ephithets...

My cellphone screen is broken.

I have no idea how it happened. It was in a pocket -- not a tight pocket, nor an overly loose and floppy pocket, where it would bang against things easily -- and I was indoors (by which I mean it didn't freeze). I had just posted during the Colectivo Forum, so I knew the phone was perfectly find just moments before I discovered the damage.

There is a crack in the liquid crystal display screen. (I know, right? What the frack??!?) If it weren't such an annoyance and inconvenience, I'd be completely fascinated!

The crack is beneath the thick, clear, protective cover (perhaps a type of plexiglass; it scratches easily, so it's definitely not glass) and the liquid has spread laterally to form a dark, rounded, aspen-leaf-shaped pattern towards the lower right-hand corner of the display. Again: sort of cool, if it weren't so blasted irritatingly inconvenient. Sadly, while that sounds like it may not be that bad, it in fact takes up a little over half the display.

I find this very aggravating. It doesn't affect the operations otherwise, however I can't read the display when I dial a number to call someone. I can place and receive calls, but can't see who is calling when a call comes in. I can't read the display when I open the phonebook to place a call. (Important, as it's been years since I've memorized ANY number, having had a cell phone to perform that function for me!!) I can't see whether things are properly framed or not when I take a picture. When I text, I can only see part of what I'm thumb-typing in.

Aaaaccckk! I prefer to text than to interrupt someone's day with a phone call!! I know I'd rather *GET* a text!!!! OH!! My lifestyle is COMPLETELY CRAMPED.

The net result is miserably misspelled posts with errant letters here and there.

Picky, picky, right?

I was raised better than to resign myself to permitting poor spelling, and one of my spelling and grammar teachers reads this blog. (Hi, Daddy!!)

Here's hoping my phone can be replaced very inexpensively and hopefully quickly, so all the typos that cause me grief can be eliminated.

 

Um... Jumping the Gun, Much???

They don't make any announcements regarding this year's Cy Young Award recipients until this afternoon, yet this is what I just found on Wikipedia under Cliff Lee's entry:

2008 Season

Cliff Lee on the mound at Progressive Field on September 12, 2008.In 2008, Lee had a career year. Despite the Indians playing with a l 500 winning percentage for the season, Lee started the 2008 season with much success. Lee was one of only eight pitchers since 1920 to win 19 or more of his first 21 decisions. He was the first Cleveland pitcher to win his first six starts since Greg Swindell in 1988. He also recorded his first career shutout on April 25, 2008, against the Kansas City Royals, allowing just 3 hits and 0 walks.[9] He had the lowest On-base percentage-against at .163 through five starts since 1909. For his efforts and success, he was named the American League Pitcher of the Month for April, when he went 5-0 with a 0.96 ERA. .[10] Lee was selected to his first All-Star game in 2008, and was selected to start the game. Lee worked two scoreless innings for the American League team, surrendering only a Chipper Jones base hit and striking out three.[11]

On August 26, Lee won his 19th game of the season, yielding only 2 runs to the Detroit Tigers.[12] This victory set a new career high for Lee, besting his previous mark of 18 wins set during the 2005 season. On September 1, Lee won his 20th game of the season, throwing a complete game shutout. He was the first Indian to reach 20 wins since Gaylord Perry in 1974.[13] In August, for the second time in the 2008 season, Lee was named American League Pitcher of the Month. He went 5-0 with a 1.86 ERA in the month. On September 12, Lee won his 22nd game, making his record 22-2 on the season. This marked the first time a pitcher had gone 20 wins over .500 since Bob Welch in 1990. Overall to end a career year, Lee went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA and 170 strikeouts. He started 31 games, completed 4, and had 2 shutouts. He pitched a total of 223⅓ innings. Lee ended the season as the American League champion for both wins and ERA.

On September 30, 2008, Lee was awarded the AL Comeback Player of the Year Award.

Lee was awarded the Players Choice Award for AL Outstanding Pitcher of the Year, and AL Comeback Player of the year, by fellow players.

Lee was also given The Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award and The Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year Award for his 2008 season.

Lee's 2008 winning percentage of 88% was the twelfth best of all time, and the fourth best by a pitcher starting a minimum of 30 games. Coincidently, the three pitchers ahead of Lee also pitch left-handed (Randy Johnson, Ron Guidry, and Lefty Grove). Lee's winning percentage is the second best in Indians history, behind Johnny Allen's 93.8% (15 wins, 1 loss, in 24 games) in 1937.

In 2008, he also won the AL Cy Young Award for his outstanding pitching in the season

[edit] See also
List of Major League Baseball wins champions
List of Major League Baseball ERA champions

Trippy, huh?

Notice how the important sentence is incomplete. The boldface and italics were added by me.

It'd be great if it's true. In fact, it will be rather suspect if Lee doesn't win. No American League pitcher had a better season this year. However, no one should have this information reported on a website at this time of this day. A leak of this sort is more appropriate on ESPN or MLB.com...

Wikipedia? REALLY??? (Yes, that's a link to the article referenced!!)

 

I'm late with this post. Wait...

...no, I'm not going to say it (you know where I was going, though, right???). I AM going to post a silly web comic, because when something sad or scary happens, I take comfort in humor. And this week something sad happened, so here's the silly before the big sad:

Subscribe to Doug Savage's daily insanity-on-a-sticky-note HERE.



Herb Score in 1958, from The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Tuesday morning Cleveland learned we lost a local sports giant. Herb Score, Indians pitching great and radio voice of the Tribe for decades, passed away at the age of 75.

He'd been retired since 1997, so we've been without his voice as a broadcaster for over a decade. Still, it seems a little less Cleveland-y right now.


Herb at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in August, 2005 from MLB.com.

Enjoy your Endless Field of Dreams, Herb. I hope you get to pitch one now and again.

 

An Excellent Argument in Favor of Procreation

This is a child's t-shirt, available by clicking HERE in sizes from 0-6mos. all the way up to 5T/6T, in a decent array of colors, including the black that's shown. I imagine the baby blue and baby pink are very popular, though, and good for greater irony points.

This shirt is full of win!

And really: isn't the most important about raising your child properly that you share traditions and values that encourage that child to be a better citizen? This t-shirt begins to prime that pump.

 

Vote for the name. Choose your favorite or the one that fits justice!

A. Ryan DEmpster.

B. Ryan DUmpster.

It's a Chicago thing, so vote early, vote often!!

Come ON, Cubs. Millions of fans agonize over Every. Pitch. And. Swing. Of. The. Bat. GO CUBS!!!

 

Crazy Condiments & Running Bunned Meats!

The Sugardale Hotdog Derby is a hoot. Tonight's spectacle was part silly, part World Wrestling Federation antics, which compounds and underscores the "silly" label.

 

Gary Sh(EFFINGIDIOT)field, Humanitarian

Gary Sheffield, barroom brawler extraordinaire and sometime Detroit Tawney Kittaen, put his muscles to work proactively (for a change) and ended a going-no-where inning with an expertly placed ground out.

Bravo, Gary! Who knows to what heights you might hoist yourself, given the right guidance!

Aaarrgghh!! We need a pirate's 'tude!

We had a chance to plonk Gary Sheffield on the top of the 1st inning. While the option to NOT do it may be seen as good sportsmanship, and while I may approve wholeheartedly of that, the Indians *WHOPPINGLY MISSED* a strategic opportunity.

If Tribe pitcher Jeremy Sowers would have beaned Detroit batter Sheffield, he'd've reached on HBP, not by a double. No big deal right? Because nobody scored.

*HERE'S* the big deal: if Sowers had been the first pitcher to hit a batter, the Indians *and* the Tigers get a warning, and THE NEXT PITCHER GETS TOSSED.

How much you wanna bet Jim Leyland's coaching staff (mgr of the Detroit Tigers; though not he himself -- he's got a weekend 'discipline pass') took advantage of that as soon as White Hat Eric Wedge passed on it??

Wuss vs Puss.

 

Major League Support Towards NMSS

Major League Support Towards NMSS
Originally uploaded by sunspotting.

Last night I got to meet Indians great Joe Charboneau. The American League Rookie of the Year, 1980. Read more HERE.

Well, I have actually met him before, but *this* time, seeing him, I knew about his wife having MS. I wanted very much to tell him that people care about her situation, enough to do something about it. (I did get that chance.)

So, with this knowledge, I took my BikeMS Team Captain cap to see if he would sign it. That was a success. But (thankfully) in more than one way: he seemed to have been moved by my (and our team's) commitment to this cause.

So in addition to Patti and my cousin Roger and my friend River, I'll be riding for Cindy Charboneau, when we ride Pedal to the Point.

I also gave him a Patti's Paladins 'business' card, so that if he happens to be interested, he can look us up. I hope he does. I hope he and Cindy take even more strength from the strong commitment to fund raising the whole of the Buckeye region has. I also hope that this year is the strongest year yet, for us and for all teams! The stronger we can be, the better the benefit for all who suffer with this wretched disease.

So many people in all "walks" of life need this cure. It was a special (though necessarily fleeting) moment.

I'm sure it'll be one from which I'll draw strength on the day of the ride.

(BTW: I've cropped the photo so the autograph cannot be used fraudulently.)

Boys of Summers Past

Hall of Fame Indians pitcher Gaylord Perry signs my husband's jersey. The gentleman next to him is Hall of Fame Indians pitcher and WWII veteran Bob Feller (with his very nice, friendly assistant).

Such nice men!

Different kind of baseball contact today...

Tonight, Rick and I had dinner with Bob Feller.

You know how yesterday I was a little peeved about the irritability factor during our national passtime? Well all is well with the world today. We were at a season tix holder event at the Rock Hall with 4 former Indians players who were gentlemanly and charming.

And YES, Rick and I sort of imposed ourselves on Mr. Feller...

We were early (didja hear that, World? Filippino time took a holiday today!!) to the event, picked up our food, and observed (in addition to the abundance of empty tables) that two of the featured guests were seated having their dinner. No one was anywhere near them. No one was shoe-ing people away, either! So we approached Hall-of-Famers Bob Feller and Gaylord Perry and asked politely if we could join them.

Feller said sure, as long as we didn't "talk ball". No problem. We were delighted to talk about all sorts of other things. In fact, he was absolutely fascinating when he remenisced about his experiences during WWII.

He graciously and generously and gladly signed my Sports Illustrated. I had a spread with all of the Hall of Famers from this year's All Star Game, which pictured both of these fine gentlemen. Mr. Feller signed it without batting an eye. Mr. Perry? He took a moment to remember the day fondly. I could tell it meant a lot to him, and I was extra glad I took the time to look for the issue.

But this wasn't it!! Not by a long shot!!

When we first moved to Cleveland, there were few familiar names for us National League people to latch onto. We had a lot of catching up to do, to become Cleveland Indians fans after being life-long Chicago Cubs fans.

So some of my earliest memories of Indians players date back to the early 80's. It was a special treat to meet (once again -- we met them last year, too!) Len Barker and Joe Charbonneau.

Lenny Barker pitched a breath-taking perfect game one spectacular May evening when I was in 7th grade. I was NOT at Municipal Stadium. I did NOT watch the game on TV. but I DID listen to it in entirety on the radio (1100 AM 3WE) while doing my homework at the diningroom table.

The significance of all of that was that the next day at school, my teacher loudly predicted that that evening's game would be a sell-out (it was), because people would suddenly be interested in seeing a miracle perfect game happen again, contrary to the negligible statistical probability. He also predicted that many more people than would actually fit in the stadium would tell Barker over the course of his lifetime that they were there on the night he pitched his perfect game (probably true, but hard to quantify).

Joe Charbonneau was the Rookie of the Year in 1980. That was the first full year we lived here. It was such an exciting time. In Chicago, things like that never happened for the Cubs, so we felt like we had just moved to a charmed city -- I mean, it was already so much cleaner with zero traffic, and now THIS???? How could you beat that?? What an amazing ride that season was. Joe was Grady Sizemore before Grady was Grady Sizemore. He had that kind of star power, that kind of charm, and that kind of talent. Then he got injured, and we all mourned.

Both of these gentlemen are still marvelous faces of the Cleveland Indians organization, and awfully nice guys.

Mr. Charbonneau's wife Cindy had MS. I asked him to sign my BikeMS captain's cap, and I have pledged to ride for her when I ride for Pedal to the Point.

All four gentlemen were there for the love of the game and because they know that we fans were there to pay them tribute. I had a very good time. I had my faith restored. I shared a hotdog with a Hall of Famer. I shared a moment of hardship with another who is great.

It was neat to be human with these exceptional humans.

 

Unbelievable but true.

Tonight Rick and I had dinner with Bob Feller.

Driving heat

Seems like a likely licence plate for an All-Star pitcher?

Baseball is a contact sport. Who knew?

First I thought the White Sox were just having a rough game against the Twins.

But now I'm not so sure...

SOMEBODY'S hot under the collar!

________________________________
Later edit: Apparently, Neil Diamond's tour manager (or some sort of manager; I can't find a link to corroborate the story reported on WOIO, so now I'm suspicious...) was ALSO hot under the collar this afternoon, because he was absent from tonight's concert. The reason reported? Like the baseball players and fans, he was too busy getting in trouble for fighting. In his case, said fighting reportedly took place in the bar on Whiskey Island. That's at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, in downtown Cleveland.

There's a lesson to be learned here. It's hot, and tempers are easily lost. Stay cool and stay properly hydrated. Breathe. Be excellent to one another.

PS: Daddy and Ginny, I hope you enjoyed the concert!! :-D

 

CC Was my mom's favorite player.

He was a great starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.

Now he's a great starting pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers.

But she liked him for more than that, she could list a whole lot of other reasons why C.C. Sabathia was a darn good guy. Click here to see one she didn't live to see.

It's well worth reading.

 

Tribe Game Twist

A seemingly kindhearted stranger offered us a ticket upgrade at tonight's Tribe v Twins game.

It was at Progressive Field. That's the home of the Tribe.

Slightly disconcerting to find ourselves in a nest, nay! fiendish infestation!, of Twins fans.

Still. It'd kick so much tail to meet Bat Girl.

Grr. Argh. 'Zombie Night' at Prog Field.

*le sigh* Thus ends the less-than-triumphant return of Fausto Carmona.

*HEAVY SIGH* It appears Eric Wedge has given up this game. The reliever? Tom Mastny. >groan<

Tribe Action

Grady hits a solid single! A solid response to the reprehensible 6 runs we permitted the Twins to score.

And My Beloved asks the valid question, "What's up with a DH who hits .225?", referring of course to David Dellucci. We can't wait much longer for our beloved Pronk!

my new favorite sports channel obsession

Dear Setanta Sports Live:

I love your selection. Really. You're in my favorite bar, and you tear me away from my beloved baseball every time. Nevermind that we usually are in that bar to watch baseball, because we don't have cable or satellite at home. No other sports network has ever had such a mesmerising hold on me. Nature really *DOES* trump nurture.

But here's the thing.

Muscle shirts + knee socks = World's. Stupidest. Look. EVER!

Seriously. What were you thinking? I have gay friends who look at that and say, "Honey, that's gayer than *I* wanna look!"

So it really doesn't matter what sport you're showing: Aussie rules football; rugby; piles of rough-housing men mindlessly cheered on by beery football hooligans-all of whom doing what they're doing for no apparent reason (OK, not an actual sport... YET...); they ALL look like they're wearing outfits left over from toddlerhood.

I realize the players' collective manhoods (menhood?) would be severely compromised by the introduction of protective gear. Consider taking some inspiration from the worlds of martial arts or comic books.