Go Dawgs!

-Nick

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The Little League World Series is the best sporting event ever.  Yes, better than the Super Bowl, the Olympics, March Madness, and even the real World Series.

I’ve enjoyed watching this yearly event ever since I was in Little League myself.  This is why it’s great:

• The players are 11 and 12 years old.  One kid from Japan was sub-70 lbs.
• Instead of stats like “Batting Average: .325″, they show stats like “Favorite Food: Pizza”.
• It’s truly a “world” series, with tons of teams outside the US and Canada participating.
• The players are 11 and 12 years old.  Some are 6-foot, 70-mph-throwing beasts.
• Everyone gets to play.
• Every team has a $0 payroll.
• The quality of play is generally very good.
• Instead of celebrating amongst themselves after a win, the team shakes hands with their opponents.
• The players are 11 and 12 years old.  And wear their emotions on their sleeves.  The postgame interviews are hilarious.

I love it, and it’s kind of a big deal.  One early-round game drew over 40,000 fans.  For the sake of comparison, the Mariners are averaging 24,000 fans a game this season.

-Nick

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The resemblance isn’t as good as Eric Wedge and Ron Swanson, but still pretty close.  And now that Wedge has lost the mustache, it makes it a little tougher.

-Nick

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The Tahoe Rim Trail circumnavigates the lake at elevation, and covers 165 miles.  Looking forward to exploring it!  It’s very distracting to have the water right there and all this new stuff to check out.

I would wager Mochi has logged more hiking miles than probably most other shih-tzus.  He doesn’t always have a great time, but it’s good for him to get back to nature and burn some calories.

He looks happy here, but I think he’s just thirsty.

View of Castle Rock, apparently a good place for freeclimbing and scrambling:

And the aftermath:

-Nick

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This week a friend pointed out the similarities between Mariners manager Eric Wedge and Parks and Recreation star Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman).  I took the liberty of putting together some pictures:

Living in California I don’t get to hear Wedge speak much, but I can imagine him talking in a similar no-nonsense tone, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a baseball version of Ron’s Pyramid of Greatness in the clubhouse.

-Nick

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Team Dunder Mifflin took home the Spring title in the co-ed San Ramon league this week.  After a nail-biter in the semi-finals, the bats came alive for a blowout in the championship game.

The season had more than it’s fair share of drama and hospital visits.  Aside from my shoulder dislocation, our manager suffered a broken leg defending third base the following week.  Dangerous game.  He was on hand to witness our victory:

Champions!

We’ve come a long way from our first season in Hayward.  Now to repeat.

-Nick

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No trip to St. Louis would be complete without seeing the 10-time World Champion Cardinals play at home.  They’ve got a beautiful new park that opened in 2006.  It felt similar to Safeco and the other new-style parks.  We went on Memorial Day, braving the steamy 90-degree weather and sellout crowd.

(Everyone else is still hiding in the shade, since this was before the first pitch.)

The Giants opened it up with a grand slam early (that’s what you get for walking the pitcher), and the Redbirds couldn’t come back.  We did see Pujols leave the yard with a solo shot though, and that got the locals excited.

Our hotel was right across the street from the park, so we had great views and easy access.  So close in fact that the Giants stayed there too.  We saw Tim Lincecum getting a golf-cart ride over to the stadium and after the game we saw Freddy Sanchez as we were getting out of the elevator.

I’m making slow and steady progress on my Stadium Quest — now halfway there — but this was my first foray into the NL Central.

Still need 15/30:

American League: Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Texas

National League: Florida, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Houston, Arizona, LA, San Diego

-Nick

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2-for-2 hitting lefty the other night.  Ugly looking swings but got the job done.  And no trips to the hospital, which was priority #1.  (I’d planned on being a spectator, but we were short on guys.)

I’m slowly regaining some strength and mobility.  Hope to be able to swing righty with some authority again soon.

-Nick

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There I was, rounding first like I do several times a week without incident, when my cleats hit a hard patch of ground and come out from under me.  Instinctively I put my arm out to stop the fall.  In hindsight, that was dumb.  I heard a “noise” … snap, crackle or pop, and limped weakly back to first clutching my arm.

Ugh I could have had a double easily, maybe a triple.  Ok probably a double.

Instead I get a pinch runner and head to the dugout to see if it gets any better.  A half inning later, not so much.  So Bryn drives me to the ER.

Now I admittedly would say I have a pretty low tolerance for pain, but this was amazingly painful.  I’m breathing funny, sweating, and getting the shakes.  Yes yes, common symptoms of going into shock for you former boy scouts.

The ER service was actually really fast.  But even 10 minutes sucked.  At this point I make some comment about how I would be terrible if I ever got interrogated.  I’ll talk, I’ll talk!

For some reason Bryn brought her camera to the game so she documented the event.  Here we are in the waiting room fighting through the pain.

If it’s hard to tell something is messed up from that pic, take a look at this one.  That ain’t right!

At this point the doc comes in and starts pushing and pulling around on my arm a bit.  “Relax your shoulder,” he tells me.  And just like that it pops back in and he leaves.  Unfortunately the pain doesn’t go with him, so we’re laid up in the hospital for another hour and half or so getting loopy on pain meds.  During that time, they were kind enough to take an “after” x-ray to show what a shoulder should look like.  Much better:

Yikes that was a good distance from where it was supposed to be.  The orthopedic doc today looked at the first one and said, “Yeah you were way out in the woods.”  Thanks for that.  No wonder it hurt so bad.  Rec sports are dangerous.

While at the ER I saw a little leaguer who’d taken a grounder to the face.  It was a bad hop, his dad assured me, like I was judging.  It did make me feel a little better not being the only one there with a baseball/softball-related injury though.  And then I thought about how this kid was probably 10 years old.

I’m hoping for a quick recovery, although I’ve been told to take it easy for 3-4 weeks.  When I told the doctor I had 3 games next week, he laughed and made some remark about it being rec softball.  Which apparently is not something worth rushing back for.  (While I was on hold making the appointment I learned his office is the “official” orthopedic center for the A’s and Warriors, so I guess he’s got some perspective.)

Lame lame lame.

-Nick

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For me it’s my baseball-turned-softball glove.  Obviously it way too big at the time, but now 20 years later it fits great.  The leather is worn paper thin, so if I catch anything wrong I definitely feel it.  And it’s a little floppy up by the finger tips, which makes it hard to snowcone a catch.  But other than that it’s awesome.

You can tell it’s a product of the early 90s because of the totally necessary bright blue foam padding… on the outside.  Up until a couple years ago you could still read where mom had written LOPER (you can still make out an L and an O on the thumb) and the phone number 746-3136 in black sharpie, in case I lost it.  The lack of area code is another good clue to its age.

I’ve had to replace some of the laces, and I’m nervous that one day my knots are going to come undone and I’ll take a line drive to the face.

Yes, the Mizuno Techfire glove has served me well.  To be fair, there were a lot of years it didn’t see much use, having been replaced by a catcher’s mitt, but now gets work 3 days a week in rec softball.  I hope to keep this glove forever because I’d hate to have to break in a new one.

Anybody else have something from elementary school you still use on a regular basis?

-Nick

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