Go Rays and Red Sox! And Blue Jays and Orioles, for that matter!

There are about 6 weeks left in the regular MLB season, and lookie lookie:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Tampa Bay	77	48	.616	-
Boston	73	53	.579	4.5
NY Yankees	66	59	.528	11.0
Toronto	65	60	.520	12.0
Baltimore	60	65	.480	17.0

I realize that a lot- a LOT- can happen in six weeks, but I’m ne’er the less keeping every crossable appendage crossed that the YankMes continue taking it in the ass so badly that they don’t even get the opportunity to get bounced from the playoffs in the first round.

How ’bout them Sliders!!!

CICL 2008 Champions

The Springfield Sliders won the 2008 Central Illinois Collegiate League championship last night by beating the Danville Dans (whatever a “dan” is) 5-2. How friggin’ cool is THAT?! The first year and they bring home the championship.

Between putting out great baseball every night and having numerous promotions and giveaways every night, the Sliders did a terrific job this year. From what I’ve read, they’ve pulled in attendance numbers that rivaled those of the AAA Springfield Cardinals of the late 70s-early 80s. Hopefully the Sliders will continue to “keep it fresh” and the 1700 people a night that come to see the Sliders will tell a friend or two. I’d love to see them start selling out the place- and they could. If they start regularly having to turn people away because the joint is packed to the gills, that’d be awesome…

Maybe if there were a nice big new stadium downtown… hmmmm…

Dumb-ass of the Day

Okay, today’s dumb-ass of the day is SJ-R.com commenter Bob Judd of Chatham.  Don’t blame me; he chose to use {what I assume is} his real name.

This article, thankfully brought to my attention by Mr. Cacciatore as I somehow missed it in the actual paper, is an op-ed piece by the woman who was hit by a foul ball at a recent Sliders game.  I’m not even going to get into picking the article apart, which it at least somewhat deserves to be.  No, this is about the little mini-debate Mr. Judd and I conducted in the comments after the article.

Nutshell version:  he feels that there needs to be announcements about foul balls and what not made between every inning, and there needs to be signs posted.  First off, genius, there ARE signs posted throughout the ball park.  Secondly, an announcement is made before the game, but if you need reminded that friggin’ often, then you have some serious ADD issues.

Then our dumb-ass admits that he’s never been to a Sliders game, nor does he have any intention to attend.  Well, then what the phuck are you bitching about?!  Shut up and stay home.  As I told him, last I checked- and judging from the amount of empty seats- attendance at Sliders games is NOT mandatory.  I wouldn’t want your whiny ass there anyway.

Dumb ass.

Some observations upon watching the All-Star Game

Just a few things with which I came away from last night’s All-Star Game:

I loved seeing some of the Hall of Famers, but holy crap, could that pre-game show have taken ANY longer?!

Though still a great throw by Itchy, Albert Pujols was clearly safe at second in the 4th, which likely didn’t make any difference in the outcome of the game.

Ian Kinsler was clearly safe at second in the 11th, which may have made a difference or may not have.
Dioner Navarro was VERY clearly safe at home in the 11th, which would have ended the game 4 innings (and at least an hour) earlier.

HOWEVER, you can “what-if” and “shoulda coulda woulda” until the cows come home. Those three calls notwithstanding, I still don’t believe Instant Replay should be implemented. Baseball is already a pathetically slow game; why make it slower? To those of you that say “it’s already slow; like instant replay will make that big a difference”, well, I think it will. We’re going to start seeing games routinely run four to four and a half hours or longer if they start reviewing every other play, call, home run, or pitch, which you KNOW they’re going to. Besides, umpires make mistakes. Sure it sucks when the mistake potentially decides a game (especially when it’s against your team) but big deal. It’s part of the game. If you’re going to correct every call, then why go through the trouble? Why even have umpires, then? So you’re going to take that factor out? Then you better start allowing “do-overs” every time a player makes an error. Hey, a mistake is a mistake, right?

SIDE CHALLENGE: okay, all you tech geeks, baseball-sucks-bad-enough-now-as-it-is people, it-just-makes-sense people, and you people that just like to argue… make an argument (an intelligent argument) and convince me why instant replay in baseball will be a good thing. And I don’t just mean the whole “give it a try and it’ll probably wind up more good than harm” argument. I don’t necessarily 100% dispute that, but people also said that about the DH rule, and the DH rule sucks. I’m saying someone out there needs to sell me sight unseen on instant replay.

YankMe’s fans (at least those actually in New York) are still the worst in all of sports. Hey, blind loyalty is one thing- especially when it’s against your archrival- but there’s a fine line between being loyal and just being ignorant. All you YankMe fans booing Papelbon for “letting” the NL take the lead again in the 8th: I got news for you– your precious little canonized Rivera didn’t really do much more about which to write home either. I found it just sweetly poetic that a Red Sox player- and one of the biggest little bitches in baseball- was voted MVP in YankMe Stadium. Like the great philospoher Nelson Muntz says…

Players that don’t put “the curve” into the bills of their caps look like total asswipes. Sorry, but it’s true.

I didn’t envy Terry Francona’s position. Which means more, your word or winning the game? Sure, nobody had any idea the game would go for 6 free innings, but even so- do you the “right thing” and not use your {current} biggest division rival’s ace like you said (before the game) would be the case, or, especially since your bullpen is empty and it’s the 15th friggin’ inning, do you say “to hell with that”, use him, and try to win the game, thereby winning home field advantage in the World Series- possibly for you or for said biggest division rival?

Speaking of winning the game and the whole World Series home field advantage thing, and especially the whole “this time it counts” catchphrase, give me a friggin’ break, folks. The Cardinals didn’t have home field in 2006 and they won the World Series. The Red Sox had it in 2004 and 2007 and didn’t need it, since they were so far superior to the Cardinals and Rockies, respectively, that it wouldn’t have mattered if they didn’t play any games at Fenway. The Red Sox still would have swept those Series. I wish people would quit kidding themselves into thinking {and trying to make the public think} the All-Star Game “means” something. NO All-Star games “mean” anything. In the NBA, they don’t play defense in their All-Star game, nor do refs make traveling, double-dribble, charging, or blocking calls. The NFL’s Pro Bowl has been a joke for years. Players get selected to their conference Pro Bowl team- which is supposed to be an honor- and then blow off the game. A game in friggin’ Hawaii in February. I said Hawaii. In February. HAWAII!! In FEBRUARY!! No, MLB’s All-Star game may “decide” home field advantage in late October/early November, but the All-Star game still does not “mean” a friggin’ thing. Nor should it. Let final records decide who gets home field advantage like nature and Abner Doubleday intended. Oh, but I guess that wouldn’t allow for MLB and FOX Sports to have 4 months to make up a bunch of needless waste of time shit like hour-long ridiculous pre-game shows, requisite pull-at-your-heart-strings pieces, cheesy suck-up-to-the-city-in-question reels, and the like, now would it?

And somewhat in that vein, big kudos go to ESPN on the great job they did teaching FOX Sports how to properly fellate the YankMes and the city of New York in general. OhMyFrigginGoodness, folks, I honestly thought Jeannie Zelasko and Chris Rose were gonna 3-way with Mayor Bloomberg on worldwide television. Could they possibly have kissed his ass any more than they did?! I’m thinking no. I was half expecting to see Mark Grace go all Brokeback on Jeter. I wanted to friggin’ PUKE. I realize (and, being a baseball fan, can actually appreciate) the history of YankMe Stadium, and the YankMes having bought won 26 championships, but holy crap, they and the Red Sox, as their rival, are not the only friggin’ teams in Major League Baseball, people!! Did FOX really have to go so far overboard with the gushing?! I thought the All-Star Game was about the history of Major League Baseball, not one single team. All I know is that Fox better suck the Cardinals’ proverbial dick (and that of the city of St. Louis) for four hours next July. Other than the YankMes, there’s no team with more championships than the Cardinals, after all. And the Cardinals actually earned theirs, as opposed to buying them. Speaking of buying things, I wonder what effect, if any, Anheuser-Busch being sold to InBev will have, as it relates to baseball, especially come ASG time.

Still, those little gripes aside, it was a pretty good game. I just felt so unclean afterward, though.

Participation wasn’t what I had hoped

Last night was the unofficial Springfield Bloggers Night at the Sliders game, as you all know from my having written about nothing besides that for two and a half weeks. Shoo did a terrific job of plugging the event, and seemed to be getting a few more people than had originally said here that they would come.

So… what happened?!

Last thing I remember reading was that we were all going to meet inside the gate on the visitors’ side, roughly 15-20 minutes prior to game time. Now, since Nick from Unpainted Huffhines is the only one of any of you that I’ve actually met, I was looking for him. Well, I didn’t see him, and didn’t see him, and it’s getting closer and closer to game time, so I decided we’ll just go grab some seats on the first base side- where I thought we were all going to sit- and see if I could find him there.

No sign of Nick.

Finally, as I’m making a napkin run to work on cleaning up L’il Johann’s Popsicle spill, I see Nick. So I figure I’ll go get the napkins and then come back and find him and we’ll join the throngs of people that showed up, right? Wrong. I come back up the stairs and Nick is nowhere to be found now. So I go back to our seats up the first base line, and long story short, right after the Anthem was over, Nick comes walking up. Success, right? Now we can join all the others, right?

Nope.

Nick was just as baffled as I was. He said he had briefly spotted Dan and Shoo, but really couldn’t find anyone else. So Nick sat with Mrs. Johann, L.J., and me and we watched some good baseball. Shortly into the game, Nick spots Dan and calls him over and introduces us. Shortly after that, here comes Shoo- who is now bigger in Springfield than Gus Gordon- and I finally meet him. So we all pretty much sat there and took in the game and chatted and had a pretty good time. Eventually, Dan’s wife and kids came by to sit with us, and frequent commenter extraordinaire Nancy came by and introduced herself. Mrs. Shoo eventually wandered over as well.

In hindsight, maybe if we are to attempt this again, perhaps we should just meet outside by having someone stand there with a ‘SPFLD Bloggers’ sign and we can congregate there and then all go in together. To any bloggers/commenters that were there but sat alone because you weren’t able to find anyone, I apologize. Poor planning, poor execution, I don’t know- something kinda caved in in the process. But if people {that said they’d come} just didn’t show up, then I have to ask:

WASSUP WIDDAT?!

Now I realize things come up- trust me, until about 3:30, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it myself. I just figured there’d be more than what there was. I don’t know, maybe it just seemed like a greater response than what it was. Oh well. Anyhooze, it was a great game (Sliders win 5-4 in 11 innings after a botched throw on what should have been the third out) and the family and I had a good time. Not sure if anyone else did… I wouldn’t be against doing another night, but we’d definitely have some things to work out.

So let me just say- Nick, as always, it was great to see you; and to Nancy, the Shoo’s, and the Dan at BFS’s, it was great to finally meet all of you. Oh, and Dan, I am still not really getting that whole Steve Buscemi thing. I thought that Tammy, on the other hand, could be Mariska Hargitay’s twin sister. Just my opinion. I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, I had a good time, had some good conversation with good people, and got to see some good baseball. Hopefully we can possibly do it again, or have some other similar (or maybe not so similar) social gathering of some sort. Since we’re all in the Springfield Bloggers “community”, why not get to know each other?

(RANDOM TANGENT ALERT) What was the deal with the kid in the front row, straight down from where we were, and his hair?! He had some sort of Mohawk-meets-mullet thing going on– sort of a mull-hawk, I guess– yet had some pretty narly Flock of Seagulls-esque bangs action happening as well. Like Nick said, it was like 3 really, really bad 25-year-old hairstyles were all trying to fight it out for scalp supremacy. I don’t know if this kid lost a bet, or if his parents are punishing him for something, or what, but it was pretty scary.

Tonight’s the night

We’ve finally reached the day for Springfield Bloggers Night at the Sliders game!!

Looks like Shoo’s been trying to drum up some more attendees, and seems to be having some success!

As I mentioned at Shoo’s blog, there is still a small possibility that my seven-year-old’s baseball tournament may spontaneously continue this afternoon.  His team is playing in the consolation game, but the game that decides who he plays and who plays for the championship still has yet to be played because of all the rain we’ve had the last couple days.  At least I don’t think it’s been played yet…

More than likely, if they get any games in today, they’ll likely play Friday’s game today, and then try to have the consolation and championship games in the evening this coming week.  But then, they may call this afternoon saying the game is at 5:00 today or something…

At any rate, I should be there tonight.  To Dan at BFS, whom I owe a beer at the game, let me just say that if I do have to miss the Sliders game, I hope to work something out to still be able to buy you that beer.  But I should be there.

Unless, of course, I can’t make it.  *Cough*

Like I said on Shoo’s blog, I’m full well aware of what an idiot I will look like for “insisting” we do this and then not showing up, so I’m really counting on being able to go.

One more thing ref Springfield Bloggers Night

Okay, now that it looks like we’re all set for next Sunday’s Sliders game, I have kind of a dumb question:

How are we actually getting together, i.e., meeting?

With the exception of Nick, I don’t actually “know” any of you.  I mean, there’s a couple of you whose pictures I’ve seen either on your blogs or in the SJ-R (Daaaaan….), but I am SO horrible remembering faces that I would likely run right into one or more of you and never know it.

I am assuming that the plan is to get general admission tickets so we will have a greater chance of finding a spot to all sit together, as opposed to getting reserved seats, where we’re a lot less likely to be able to even be in the same section, let alone all together.

So what’s the plan?  Are we going to meet outside the gate and all go in together, are we going to go ahead and buy tickets and meet inside, or what?  And since I won’t know anyone by sight, and since I doubt many of you know me by sight, how will we actually physically get together?

Any ideas?

Apparently, the stone has been etched

It appears as though the six of you out there who read my blog (or at least those that have taken the time to post their opinions) have decided to partake in a Springfield Sliders game on Sunday, July 13.

Therefore, July 13th’s game against… um, the Sliders’ opponent that night… is now officially unofficially dubbed Springfield Bloggers Night.  (DISCLAIMER: ‘Springfield Bloggers Night’ not affiliated with or endorsed by Springfield Sliders, Inc.  Any business relationship between Springfield Sliders, Inc. and the members of Springfield Bloggers should neither be assumed nor inferred.  E pluribus unum, trachemyss scripta elegans**, carpe diem, semper fidelis, quid pro quo.  All rights reserved, patent pending.)

Bring the spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend (just not spouse and boyfriend/girlfriend- we don’t need that kind of drama), and kids out to Lanphier Park for a night of beers, brats, baseball, and bloggers.  And most anything else that might begin with the letter ‘B’.

Hope to see the six of you (and anyone else that wants to join a bunch of middle-aged men that sit around and type tales of woe in their underwear) there.

** Johann will buy a beer or other beverage of that person’s choice for the first person to correctly provide the English meaning of this Latin phrase.

Sliders game… yay or nay?

Okay, Springfield bloggers- or at least you half-dozen or so that responded to my first post about it- the interest is apparently there for us to meet for a Sliders game.

Now we need to decide when.

As I stated in the last post, July was the overwhelming preference (which is smart, considering there is only one home game left in June now). The problem is that it looks like someone might get left out. AnonCom can only go on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in July due to his work schedule. (Speaking of A.C., anyone know why he’s gone AWOL from the bloggiverse since late May, and if he’s coming back?) Allie cannot get back from New York until mid-July some time. Mr. Cacciatore is only available until mid-July, and then he’s closing up shop down on Sullivan St. (across from the medical center) and heading for the land of Boilermakers. Therefore, unless we wind up having more than one get-together, someone may have to miss out, and I hope that doesn’t have to occur.

Anyway, now that we know the interest is there, how do we want to solve this pickle? Also, I’m assuming we decided on a family and/or kids night, correct?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Springfield Bloggers night at a Sliders game?

There appears to be at least some small measure of interest in an unofficial Springfield Bloggers night at a Sliders game. I’m not necessarily spearheading the effort to coordinate this, but I’m just going to throw the home games dates out there and then we can use this forum (or any other of your choosing…) to banter back and forth on what dates work and what dates don’t, and if there is enough interest, we can pick a night and call it “Springfield Bloggers” Night at the Ballpark. (And of course, this is all contingent on the weather.)

+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|+|

Remaining Sliders home game dates and day of week, along with any special nightly promotions, according to the Sliders website:

JUNE:

• 6/19 Thurs- double header (first game starts at 5:30), T-shirt giveaway to first 500 fans;
• 6/23 Mon- Fredbird at the park; free ice cream sandwich giveaway to first 400 kids <12
• 6/30 Mon- free hot dog and soda to first 500 kids <12

JULY:

• 7/2 Wed- post-game FIREWORKS display for Independence Day
• 7/7 Mon- first 500 fans will receive an envelope containing cash from $1 to $20
• 7/11 Fri- Jimmy Buffett night: first 500 fans >21 receive a can coozie; $2 cheeseburgers and “Landsharks” all night, whatever those are
• 7/12 Sat- team poster to first 750 fans
• 7/13 Sun- ice cream sandwiches to first 400 kids <12
• 7/15 Tue- two Reserved tickets for $5
• 7/17 Thurs- logo baseball for first 500 fans; $2 admission for fans wearing Chicago Cubs apparel
• 7/18 Fri
• 7/24 Thurs- Throw Cancer a Curveball Ladies Night: $1 for each ticket purchased will go toward cancer research; specials all night for ladies; ladies can run the bases after the game (wooo-hoooo! )
• 7/25 Fri- Guns vs. Hoses (po-po vs. firefighters) charity softball game; $3 admission
• 7/26 Sat- mini-bat to first 500 kids <12; $2 admission for fans wearing Cubs OR White Sox apparel
• 7/27 Sun

AUGUST:

• 8/2 Sat- Speedy the Slider bobblehead to first 500 fans
• 8/3 Sun
• 8/4 Mon- Dog Days of Summer: doggie bandana to first 500 fans, also bring your dog to the park; $2 admission for fans wearing Illini apparel- full price for fans sporting other Big 10 schools (BURN!)
• 8/8 Fri- free children’s book to first 500 kids <12
• 8/9 Sat- Fan Appreciation Night- ice cream sandwiches to first 400 kids <12; giveaways all night long

*** WEEKLY PROMOTIONS: ***

• EVERY MONDAY: Paint the Park Red- $2 admission for fans wearing St. Louis Cardinals apparel
• EVERY TUESDAY: Two-For Tuesday- two-for-one concessions
• EVERY WEDNESDAY: Guaranteed Win Night- if the Sliders lose, redeem your ticket for a free ticket to a future home game
• EVERY THURSDAY: Bang For Your Buck Night- $1 beer and soda (I’m guessing this will likely be the most popular promotion…)
• EVERY FRIDAY: post-game fireworks; kids run the bases after the game (charity softball game on 7/25 not included)
• EVERY SATURDAY: Giveaway Saturdays; kids run the bases after the game
• EVERY SUNDAY: Family Fun Day- free game tickets available at County Market stores

Dang… I sound like I work in the Promotions Dept. for Springfield Sliders Inc., don’t I?!

Anyway, that’s the remaining schedule for Sliders games, if anyone’s {seriously} interested. As I said, we can kind of kick dates around and see what nights work best for the most people. Of course, I suppose there’s nothing saying we only have to do one night, but we can jump off that bridge when we get to it.

UPDATE (6/18 2:45pm): So far, we have a vote from Allie for “mid-July or later”, and then we have votes (all from Mr. Cacciatore) for any of the following:

• July 2
• July 7
• July 11
• July 12
• July 13

Again, understand that I’m not necessarily assuming the role of Julie McCoy, your cruise director, and putting all of this together, but if we can get enough interest and decide on a date or two, hopefully we can all work it out. Who knows- it might actually be fun to meet the faces behind the blogs for a night of baseball and beers* and what not.

* The question was posed by Dan at BFS as to whether this was to be a Bloggers ‘n Beer night or a Family (i.e. bring the kids along) Night. I suggested in return that we could at least in theory have one of each, but I also know how difficult it potentially will be to decide on ONE date, let alone two. What are everyone’s thoughts on the kids-or-no-kids, spouses-or-no-spouses, etc. thing?

UPDATE (6/19 8:53am):  Apparently, July is the overwhelming preference.  I’m not suggesting we chisel this in granite yet, but how do people feel about the Sunday the 13th game?  Or maybe Saturday the 12th?  Or maybe other suggestions?

(And thanks for all the interest and the great comments!!!)

Pretty damn good time for $13

Last night the eldest l’il Johann and I went to the Springfield Sliders game.

I know I’ve posted before about going out and supporting the team, but you’re going to sit through it again.

Folks, just suck it up and go. I decided I’d “splurge” and get tickets in the diamond boxes, which come complete with wait staff (”wait staff” = a seventeen-year-old chickie who takes your order and then goes and gets your snacks and beverages- beer included, strangely enough- for you so you don’t have to). That set me back all of $6.50 each. We sat in the second row, just to the left of home plate. Folks, for seats like that at Busch or Wrigley, you’ll likely be dropping minimum $75 per. (I don’t know how much a field level box costs at either stadium, but I’m guessing it’s a tad more than $6.50.) Plus, you don’t have to burn nearly as much gas to get there. Oh, and don’t give me the shit about the “quality” of the game. Yes- Pujols, Soriano, and their cronies are quite a bit “better” than a bunch of juco college kids. But then again, these kids also haven’t yet been turned into little bitch primadonnas by the ridiculous bullshit contracts, either. In other words, they still play because they enjoy it. And it’s simply a relaxed, very enjoyable way to spend an evening with the family.

The Sliders wound up losing the game 9-3 (ouch), but it was still a good game and a lot of fun for me and my seven-year-old. They had all these little activities throughout most of the game. First of all, it was Hat Night, since the first cap giveaway night got rained out, so we got Sliders caps. Kinda cool, since they’ll likely become collector’s items, due to not enough local support (assholes…). Anyway, they did all sorts of things from human tug-of-war to air guitar contests to closest chip to the pin to throwing newspapers with your “other hand”, all for Cardinals tickets. Some of them were kind of comical. The air guitar contestants all pretty much sucked. I could have kicked all their asses- especially considering the musical selections they used (standard 80s cock rock: AC/DC, Def Leppard, Billy Squier). For the closest chip to the pin thing, they had a couple (a guy and his girlfriend) at the left field foul line try to chip-shot it to Speedy out in the outfield. The guy stepped up and duffed it big time, and then the girl knocked it way the hell into right-center. They had kids dressed up as a hot dog, a bottle of mustard, and a bottle of ketchup, and they raced from the bullpen to home plate, a la the Sausage Races they have at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

Then, apparently for each game they (whoever “they” is) pick a player on the opposing team and designate him as the Roly Poly K-Man, meaning that if this guy strikes out, then they hand out coupons for Roly Poly sand-a-wiches. (Note the words “hand out”…) So this guy, Justin Wilson, I think was his name, sac-bunts his first time up, then I think grounds out and then gets a hit after that. Finally in the seventh inning, dude strikes out and the place goes nuts. Then we discover that “hand out” means they run through the main aisle between the levels and just throw the coupons in the air, leaving the fans to run after them and scavenge and fight over them like all the little white trash bastard children that go after candy at the State Fair parades. L’il Johann was pissed. He kept saying “I’m serious- I am NOT leaving until I get a Roly Poly coupon!” It was cracking me up. The guy came up again in the 9th inning and the roughly 60 of us that were left in the stadium at that time were dogging him BAD. Even L’il Johann was yelling “I want my saaaandwich, Juuuuustiiiiiiiin”. Then, a chant started of “ROLY…. POLY…” which rather reminded me of that timeless water sport Marco Polo. I’ll be damned if dude didn’t strike out again. The place goes nuts again. So here comes another guy with a fistful of Roly Poly coupons, and since there was hardly anyone left, I let L’il Johann try to get a coupon. Well, he came back without one, and was even more pissed than he was before. Finally, a kid sitting across the aisle from us obviously had heard {enough of} his lamenting over this friggin’ coupon, and he gave us one, saying he had two. So whoever that was out there, thanks.

It was fun. As I’ve said before, not exactly the hi-tech full-on multimedia gang-bang assault on all senses that a game at Busch is, but then I actually have money left afterwards. I did enjoy the 6 seconds of most of the songs they played pretty much between every pitch. It kinda became like Name That Tune, trying to guess what the song was from a tiny little snippet. And then there were the three Like Totally Bitchin’ Girly Girls that were sitting behind us until the 7th “quarter” (yes, one of them said “quarter”, even when the other two kept correcting her). At one point the loudspeakers started rocking the opening bars of “Jump” by Van Halen, to which the following conversation unfolded:

Like Totally Bitchin’ Girly Girl #1: This song sounds all futuristic and stuff.

LTBGG #2: Um, NO, this song is, like, SO oldies. Like, my grandpa used to listen to it in school or something.

It was all I could do not to go all dickhead on them. It was bad enough we had to listen to “ohmigod, he is SO hot!!!” for seven quarters, but then to get BURNed by three little dingbats like that was just wrong. But I probably shouldn’t say anything too disparaging about them- they did apparently think enough of me to ask me to watch their purses (WTF?!) while they went to the car and got their blankets. (I know, I thought it was a pretty bizarre thing to ask a total stranger at a baseball game as well.) I imagine I reminded LTBGG #2 of her grandpa.

Bitch.

Anyway, to sum it up, it was a lot of fun for very little money. We’re definitely going again. And I hope as many of you that are reading this will not only go yourselves, but also take people with you, so that the Sliders can hopefully stick around a while.

Maybe we can still work out something for a Springfield Bloggers night at the ball park!!!

If only it could last

Courtesy of MLB.com:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Tampa Bay	25	18	.581	-
Boston	26	19	.578	-
Baltimore	23	19	.548	1.5
Toronto	22	23	.489	4.0
NY Yankees	20	23	.465	5.0

I know it’s only mid-May, but DAMN if it doesn’t warm the icy recesses of my heart to see the Evil Empire in the basement where they belong.

Where does it end?!!

I don’t usually care for this comic strip, but I felt I had to share today’s comic.  Kinda says something on how absolutely colossally stupid the whole retaliatory brushback thing is in the game of baseball nowadays.

Gotta support the team

I mentioned a few months back how semi-pro baseball once again returns to our fine Capital City this summer for another go-round in the form of the Springfield Sliders.

I just want to bring it up again and request to anyone and everyone reading this that you give them a chance. We’ve had Cardinals farm clubs at various levels, we’ve had a Padres (I think) farm club, and we’ve had a couple of independent-league teams, all of which ultimately pulled up their tent stakes and left town due to lack of support.

Folks, if you enjoy baseball (i.e. watching a simple game played by players who simply enjoy playing the game, and not by people ob$e$$ed by other factor$), or if you simply enjoy relaxed, friendly, family fun, go check these guys out. The most expensive tickets are $6.50. That’s six dollars and fifty cents. True, it may not be the steroid-enriched, multimedia assault on all five senses entertainment that a day at Busch or Wrigley provides (or it may be, you never know), but holy crap, how can you beat a day at the ballpark, especially for $6.50 or less?! The $6.50 seats even have vendors (the website calls them “waitstaff”!!!). Season tickets are only $60 bucks.

Again, it’s not the big-name guys with the overinflated salaries and egos to match, but it is a terrific opportunity to enjoy the finest sport in the world with your family, and on the cheap as well. Don’t complain about the lack of sports teams in town and turn around and not even support the teams that try like hell to entertain you.

Play ball!!!

What a great time of year we’re looking at right now. The weather might actually start getting consistently warmer. You seem to notice more birds. Flowers are slowly creeping out of the ground. Leaves are budding on the trees. There is a general sweetness to life that permeates–

{insert needle-being-dragged-across-a-record sound here}

Screw that– it’s steroid baseball season!!

Today officially begins the 2008 baseball season. I don’t count those two games Oakland and Boston played in Japan, nor do I count the Braves-Nationals game last night. It’s not Opening Day until all 30 teams are playing. More importantly, my St. Louis Cardinals. Should prove to be a very… mediocre year for the Redbirds. It’s quite a different team, albeit one with the same problem- they STILL have no pitching. They have Wainwright, but everyone else is so friggin’ inconsistent. But, stranger things have happened. That’s one good thing about the Comedy Central division- it’s almost always wide open from April 1 to October 1. Hell, Milwaukee almost won the division last year until they imploded with two games left in the season and literally handed the division title to the Cubs.