Archive for Event

First baseman: “Nice poke!”
Base runner: “What?”
FB: “I said, ‘Nice poke!’”
BR: “Thanks! I didn’t hear you at first! I guess the crowd is pretty loud!”
FB: “Yeah, they’re definitely proud! And why not? They love their Rays!”
BR: “Who got a raise?”
FB: “What?”
BR, after a pause: “Looks like your skipper is removing the pitcher!”
FB, after a hard squint: “Yeah, I guess it does!”
BR, after a longer pause: “So, how’s the family?”
FB: “The what?”
BR: “I say, the family!”
FB: “Pretty good, but I prefer the Corolla!”

This has been the recent Old-Timers’ Game at Yankee Stadium.

First baseman: “Nice poke.”
Base runner: “Thanks.”
FB: “No. I mean, ‘Nice poke.’”
BR: “Oh. How do you know about that?”
FB: “Dude. Baseball’s a small fraternity.”
BR: “Right. Well, do me a favor and keep it quiet, will ya?”
FB: “What’s in it for me?”
BR: “Next time you hit a ball in the 5.5 hole, I’ll ‘dive’ for it. Know what I mean? Olé!”
FB: “That’s not enough.”
BR: “What else do you want?”
FB: “Her number.”

This has been the recent Two-Timers’ Game at Yankee Stadium.
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It’s not for the present author to say whether the reader should or shouldn’t click upon, and therefore embiggen, the image embedded above. What such a reader would find upon so doing, however, is a lightly annotated version of tomorrow’s (Wednesday’s) MLB.TV schedule — which schedule reveals that, indeed, three spring-training games are available for consumption by the capital-P People.

Among the players expected to appear, for example: the very curious Trevor Bauer (for Cleveland) and very promising Joc Pederson (for the Los Angeles Nationals) and not actually that Italian Tony Cingrani (for Cincinnati).

Do you have something slightly less than total indifference to late son-of-a-bitch Boileryard Clarke? Have you ever wanted to spend a probably inclement weekend afternoon at Maryland’s Druid Ridge Cemetery? If so, then have your photo for your family Holiday Card taken in front of or beside or behind Boileryard Clarke’s actual headstone this weekend.

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Oh, Cleveland. You are fighting for a wild card spot. Even though you have been working your hardest to secure one of the two spots, you continue to provide fan entertainment.

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A brief episode observed by the author this afternoon, during the pre-game hours at Fenway Park.

Artwork by the actual Pedro Martinez himself, courtesy Nick Taveras.

Generationally talented and now retired right-hander Pedro Martinez, in town for a local fundraising event, is giving an interview to an elderly reporter in the loge boxes on Fenway Park’s first-base side.

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Because it takes place within mostly idyllic surroundings, produces literally dozens of top draft picks per annum, and is also entirely free of charge, the Cape Cod League is really one of the great treasures of base-and-ball. That its 2013 season starts today (Wednesday), is the point of this post.

The point of this post is not to intimate at all that the author is an expert on the Cape League. That same author, for example, has only been to two games ever — not from a lack of wanting to, it should be noted, but rather from a confluence of factors involving mostly geographical and fiscal constraints.

So far as assorted notes on the Cape League are concerned, however, the author has managed to collect five of them:

• About one-third of the players taken in the first 10 rounds of this year’s draft were former Cape Leaguers.

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It’s official — @robdelaney will sing the national anthem for the @dodgers this Friday: atmlb.com/13YtWkE

— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 23, 2013

The purpose of this post is to remind the reader that — inside his handsome leatherbound agenda and on this particular date — that he has made plans at ca. 10pm ET to watch American comedian Rob Delaney sing the National Anthem at Dodgers Stadium.

Note, please, that this post is concerned with none of the other entries in that same agenda — not the one on Saturday night, for example, to “Five-finger-discount someone else’s dreams” and not the one for next Thursday, either, to “Wear parachute pants like it’s my destiny.”

Recently, in the midst of an auto trip from Chicago to Grand Rapids, the author opened (for reasons that remain mysterious) a pack of 1987 Topps at a Starbucks in Michigan City — and documented the experience for America. With a view to capitalizing cynically on the success of that first post, the author presents this hastily composed sequel, in which he opens a pack of 1990 Fleer at a cafe right by his tastefully decorated apartment in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Let’s not ask what circumstances have led the author to a Starbucks in Michigan City. Let’s, instead, open a pack of 1987 Topps — i.e. the rarest sort of baseball card there is in human society — at that same Starbucks.

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