Memories

After visiting the University of Michigan last week, I swung through Minneapolis for a three-day "layover" and spent Easter with my parents. Monday night I drove by the old softball fields at Oakwood where I spent much of my summer evenings growing up, and I also had dinner with a former softball teammate at Snuffy's Malt Shop. (Hi, Amy.) These occurrences, combined with the fact that I've been reading The Brother's K, have inspired me to attempt to write down little vignettes based on my experiences on various ball fields growing up. This might become a series of entries. Or it might be a one time thing to get this out of my system. In any event...

The Catch

Back in 8th grade, I was the star first baseman of the Wayzata East Junior High softball team. Given that we didn't win a game all season, that's not saying much. We were pretty much the girls softball equivalent of The Bad News Bears. One of our outfielders repeatedly showed up to practice and games high on whatever magic pills she was storing in her locker and our sober outfielders were infamous for watching the fly balls soar over their heads, waiting until they landed to go and retrieve them.

Due to my own solid glove and the lack of initiative in our various deliquent right fielders, I pretty much took defensive claim over any foul pop-ups to the right side. In one memorable away game, we were playing on a muddy field that lacked all fences, save the backstop. We were in the field, and the current batter had one strike against her. On the next pitch, she swung and connected and I saw the ball soar high into the air right towards my right field foul territory.

Now, it's worth noting that when I say the ball soared high, I mean that it pretty much went straight up and the fact that it traveled a significant horizontal distance was due do the large amount of time it spent travelling vertically. As soon as it left the bat, I focused on nothing but the ball and chased after it somewhere deep in foul territory. All I could see was the white dot flying against the blue sky, and thus I had no idea just how foul the ball was or how close I was coming to the giant mud puddle that had formed on the dirt path behind our visiting team bench.

Realizing that I was going to come a few steps short of actually reaching the ball, at the last second I desperately stuck my glove way out in front of me and dove onto my knees, right into the aforementioned mud puddle. Much to my amazement, the ball landed right in my glove. I raised it above my head to the cheers of my team. I could see my coach, the illustrious Mr. Lamphere, laughing and shaking his head in disbelief. Then I realized that I had run right past my team's bench, off of the playing field entirely. And that's when the umpire broke the bad news.

"The catch was out of bounds. No play. Foul ball - strike two."

I was incredulous. I had just made the catch of my life, gotten myself covered in mud, and yet it didn't count because I had run too far. My coach continued laughing and shrugged as I picked myself up and headed back to the infield, ball in hand.

On the next pitch, the batter straightened it out and sent a towering drive over our center fielder's head. She crossed home plate before we even got the ball back to the infield.

Blowing my nose

As anyone who has talked to me in the past few days can attest, I have a pretty bad cold, complete with runny nose. Unfortunately, I left my kleenex at home and thus I went downstairs to the MGH gift shop to buy some. But, much to my dismay, they were out of the regular kind. Luckily for me, they had plenty of designer tissues.

That's right, folks. For $1.50 for a pack of 10, you can buy designer tissues with which to blow your nose. You can see the style I selected here. Now, just to be clear, this design is not on the box, but repeated on the tissue itself. Very stylish, indeed.

Of course, there is a downside. They're 4-ply and are only slightly softer than printer paper. My nose, somewhat sensitive at the moment, couldn't take being scratched for very long. Thus I have replaced my 15¢ apiece designer tissues with free plain white napkins from the cafeteria.

Nicknames

For reasons not worth going into, I was looking up city nicknames today and came across some rather bizarre ones. The best ones are mostly in the midwest. Some of my favorites:

• The Birmingham of America: Pittsburgh, PA - Shouldn't this honor go to, oh, I don't know... Birmingham?
• Hog Butcher for the World: Chicago, IL - Yeah, 'cause that's what I think of when I think of Chicago.
• The Icebox of the United States: International Falls, MN - Ironically, I've only been there in the summer when it wasn't all that cold. But Frostbite Falls of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame was modeled after International Falls.
• Mistake on the Lake: Cleveland, OH - It even rhymes. How cute.
• Band Instrument Capital of the World: Elkhart, IN - I guess someone has to take that title.
• The Catfish Capital of Iowa: Linn Grove, IA - Belzoni, MS already took the title for Catfish Capital of the World, so poor Linn Grove had to settle for whatever it could get.
• The City That Refused To Die: Sanford, ME - Hey, Dustin, aren't you from there?
• Cow Chip Capital: Beaver, OK - What kind of city would proudly nickname itself after dried shit?
• Goat Ropin' Capital of the World: Gotebo, OK - The next time I want to rope me some goats, I know where to go.
• Home of the World's Largest Cheeto: Algona, IA - It looks like a cancerous growth.

The Mayor's Cup

Recently my father told me about a spring training tradition that I had surprisingly never heard of. "Surprisingly" because it involves my two favorite American League teams (no, not the Tigers... I'm still working on warming up to them). Each year, the Twins and the Red Sox train in Fort Myers, FL and as a result, they play each other a fair number of times (six this year). The team that wins the spring training series takes home the annual Mayor's Cup.

After yesterday's 4-2 victory by the Twinkies, the series is tied at 2-2. Joe Mauer, who I remember as the star quarterback for the Cretin Durham Hall team that trounced my high school's football team by some ridiculous score, was back behind the plate after some knee problems and went 2-2, scoring the first run of the game.

However, since the Sox won the cup last year, if the series results in a 3-3 tie, they'll retain ownership. Thus, if the Twins want to win it, they'll have to win the next two games.

In other baseball news, Tony Oliva was 15 votes shy of gaining entrance to the Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee. In fact, no one gained the 60 votes (75%) necessary to earn a plaque in the Hall. This was Oliva's last year of eligibility. Sorry, Tony, you was robbed.

π Day!

Happy π (3/14) Day! (And Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein.)

It'll be more exciting in 10 years when it will be 3/14/15 9:26:53. Or if you want to skip the time and prefer rounding, in 11 years it will be 3/14/16. For whatever it's worth, I currently have π memorized to 3.14159265358979, which I believe coincides with the number of digits of π stored on a TI-85. In case you missed it, I was, and am, a HUGE math nerd.

Many years ago, my parents threw a pie party (although I don't think it was on π Day). All the guests were requested to bring a pie and no other type of food. There were fruit pies, mincemeat pies, pot pies, and I think even a pizza pie. But being the creative child that I was, I made some chocolate chip cookie dough and formed it into a gigantic π-shaped cookie. More than one of my parents friends didn't get the joke, if I recall.

π day is also Albert Einstein's birthday. He would be 126 today, which is relatively old. (Pun entirely intended. We're so sorry, Uncle Albert. (Oh man, now I'm punning/quoting Paul McCartney songs. I better stop this before it gets out of hand.))

Edit: Yes, I fudged the time of this entry.

Confusing Standings

So, I checked Yahoo! Sports to get the update on spring training and noticed that the standings were listed as follows (screenshot in the "Complete Standings" link):

AL Spring Training Standings
Team	W	L	Pct
LA Angels	6	3	.667
Cleveland	6	2	.750
Toronto	5	2	.714
Baltimore	4	3	.571
Tampa Bay	4	3	.571
Boston	4	3	.571
Texas	4	4	.500
Chi White Sox	4	6	.400
Detroit	3	3	.500
Kansas City	3	5	.375
Oakland	3	6	.333
Seattle	1	7	.125
Minnesota	3	6	.333
NY Yankees	2	5	.286
Complete Standings

Now, I can appreciate a conspiracy to put the Yankees at the bottom, but isn't there something a little fishy about those rankings? Seattle is 1-7. Why are they listed above the Twins and Yankees? And why are the Angels ranked first, even though both Cleveland and Toronto have better winning percentages? Even the National League standings are a little off - St. Louis should be 2nd, not 5th.

Of course, it's spring training, so who really cares, other than big math nerds like me?

And it starts...

First spring training game today for both my hometown team (the Twins) and my adopted hometown team (the Red Sox). Conveniently for me, they were playing each other, so I only had to check one box score. Unfortunately, I had rehearsal tonight, so I didn't get to watch the game on NESN. But that's just as well -- my hometown team lost.

Now, admittedly, I'm not one for following off-season trades, unless a major player is involved and I can't avoid hearing about it. When one season ends, I prefer to wait until spring training to take notice of all the changes in the roster. So forgive me for not noticing until now that Christian "Mr. Triple" Guzman is no longer a Twin, but an Exp... er, Washington National. I'm going to miss watching him zip around the bases.

And since it's very likely that I'll be living just outside of Detroit by next fall, I checked up on the Tigers. They creamed the Phillies 9-1. <sarcasm>Oh joy, oh bliss.</sarcasm>

Man, how am I supposed to get excited about the Detroit Tigers?

Dog Bark Park Inn

I think that one day I will have to make a trip out to Cottonwood, ID, just so that I can stay at the Dog Bark Park Inn, a 30 foot tall dog/bed and breakfast. From the website:

Guests enter the body of the beagle from a private spacious 2nd story deck. Inside and up another level in the head of the dog are a loft room for additional sleeping accommodations and a cozy reading nook in the dog's muzzle.

Staying inside a dog named Sweet Willy might actually be cheesier than South of the Border. Oh, who am I kidding - nothing could be cheesier than the 200 foot tall sombrero.