Monday, April 26, 2010

Alive And Well

Tybalt said that he misses Designated Sitter. April may or may not be the cruelest month, but I've been busy. First it was tax season, then I took a long-needed break and spent a couple of days in Bennington, Vermont. That cut into my time.

I also started the month by trying to see if any publishers had interest in a collection of stories like the ones I posted here and at Seamheads linking various baseball figures. Haven't heard anything yet, but then I got sidetracked when my girlfriend mentioned that she was flipping through The Big Sleep and said that my writing reminded her of Raymond Chandler. Like Derek Zumsteg, I have dabbled in fiction in the past and this got me thinking about trying my hand at a detective story again. So far, I'm about 1200 words into one. (By the way, there's a baseball themed one in the latest Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.) So I'm still writing, but haven't done much that's DS-worthy.

In the meantime, I want to let everyone know that Jason Heyward still has the longest homerun of the season and that Jamie Moyer is up to 494 home runs surrendered in his push for 500 and the record.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

This and That

This is the vintage base ball league I will be playing in. They spelled my name wrong, but I actually like the ambiguity. I'll answer to Jon or John. I'll answer to Daly, Daily, Dailey, Daley, or Dayley.

I finally saw Sherlock Holmes Friday nite. It was steampunk and Arthur Conan Doyle probably rolled over in his grave.

According to hittrackeronline, Jason Heyward had the most prodigious blast of the year so for by a comfortable margin.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Trey Junkin, Eat Your Heart Out

Check out this play by Mark Buehrle. This is what I mean by Maranvillesque showmanship!

I caught this highlight somewhere yesterday, but thanks go out to The Factory for alerting me to the clip.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Orlando Isales and The Farm

I see a lot of folks link to their first major league game attended either using retrosheet or bb-ref, but here's a question for you? What was the first minor league game you attended? I haven't figured mine out yet, but I narrowed it down.

When I was a kid in the Ellington Farm League, some roving minor league instructor for the Red Sox gave us a clinic. He also gave us tickets to a Bristol Red Sox game. That played at Muzzy Field. That field is still there and they use it for high school football (the minor league franchise moved down Route 72 to New Britain.) I believe it was old enough that Babe Ruth played there on some barnstorming tour.

In any event, my family went to the game and I remember my aunt jokingly wondering why there were no players with names like Orlando Grabowski. As far as I can tell, Orlando Isales was the only Eastern League Orlando during that era. So that narrows the game down to a 1978 battle with the Reading Phillies.

I can probably narrow this down more when I get a chance to visit ProQuest (the dentist beckons), but what about you? What was your first minor league tilt?