PsychoPhil

Archive for the ‘Baseball’ Category

The rec council that my kids play softball and baseball in have quite a few ballfields they use that are scattered through the area. However, only one of this fields has lights. This means that a night game playing ‘under the lights’ is a big event for the teams involved and the kids really look forward to it.

Unfortunately, because of the number of teams, the fact that baseball and softball run at the same time and the limited number of days during the school year where a night game is feasible the schedule works out so that each time gets one ‘under the lights’ game per season…. which brings us to the title of this post.

In the five years that my kids have been playing in this council, every single night game they have sceduled, every… single… one…, has been rained out. For FIVE years. Last night was my daughters night softball game. Rained out. Tonight is my sons night baseball game. Forcast calls for rain and thunderstorms.

Lets hope this post does something do break the curse.

So yesterday we found out the names for the boy’s Baseball and the youngest daughters Softball teams.

The Daughter has a infatuation with Lions and Tigers. It borders on a complete obsession really. From screaming ‘LLLLLIIIIIIIIOOONNNNNNNNN!’ so loud it nearly burst my eardrum during the safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom to sleeping under a mountain of stuffed felines. If I remember correctly her first words were the complete script of ‘The Lion King’. So when she heard that her team was the Detroit Tigers she screamed like…. well, she screamed like a little girl. Once again nearly bursting one of my eardrums.

Later the same day we’re picking up the boy’s uniform and we found out his team name is the Milwaukee Brewers. So after I belt out a nice ‘YES!’ I look over and notice my wife has her face buried in her hands once again (she seems to do that alot when we’re out in public. I haven’t quite yet figured out why). It took a bit of explaining to the boy until he understood why I liked the team name and if you haven’t yet figured out why yourself, just take another look at the title and header graphic for the blog again.

side note: The sponsor of the boy’s team happens to be the local mortician. Oh well… you can’t win ‘em all. At least its not Chico’s Bail Bonds.

Very cool.

Best Game Ever

For our latest mission, we turned a little league baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California into a major league event. Enjoy the video below and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

ht: The Anchoress

As a part of our 16 game season ticket package for the York Revolution we received tickets for the first and last home games of the season. Last night (Thurs) was the final game for the Revolution’s inaugural season. Even though it was a school night, the wife and I took the girls to the game… and it was one hell of a game (the boy has been having some ‘issues’ with school so he wasn’t allowed to go… but thats another story).

The Revolution have had a tough season. They played the first half without a home field and spent the second half using temporary trailers as a clubhouse/dressing rooms in a partially completed stadium. It also doesn’t help that they were a new team (no returning vets) with a new manager. Their roster also took a beating with four player’s contracts being picked up by major league affiliated clubs. Most notable being Tike Redman who is now playing LF for the Baltimore Orioles. Two other players left for the Mexican Professional League and Taiwan Professional Baseball but came back to the Revolution before the end of the season. Even with all that, they managed to be keep the number one spot in the league for 36 games. They also managed to go out with a bang in their last home game.

We got to see the Revolution beat the Bridgeport Bluefish 19-2. The game had just about everything you could ask for. A grand slam followed by a two run homer by the same player the next inning, a bat flying into the stands, magic foul balls which always seemed to find the one fan in a section who isn’t paying attention, diving catches, several double plays and an amazing through from center field to home plate which netted an out. Oh, and fireworks after the game. The only thing that was missing was a triple play. The girls were into the game so much that didn’t ask once to go to the playground. That’s never happened before.

The Revs weren’t completely golden however. They did treat their fans to a classic Three Stooges play where three of ‘em charged a pop fly then proceeded to stand in a circle as it plopped to the ground between them. I guess they were trying to make Bridgeport feel a little bit better about their 17 run loss.

The family has had a great time at the games this summer (though they REALLY need to come up with some new between-innings entertainment. You can only watch so many ice creams races and sumo suit wrestling matches in a season). I’m excited to see how they’ll play next year with a full season under their belt as a team (not to mention a stadium that is actually completed. No more trailers for dressing rooms). Yet despite all that, I’ve decided I will not be renewing my season ticket package for next year. More on that later.

I just happened to come across this picture in the Baltimore Sun while browsing through their site this morning.

Caption: Few Orioles fans made their way to Camden Yards last night for the game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. By game’s end, the Orioles had lost nine in a row. (Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr. / August 30, 2007)

Original picture location here. Not sure how long that link will last.

What an absolutely pathetic turnout. I’d be willing to bet more people show up for a weekend Atlantic League minor league game than the number of people in the seats at Camden Yards. Then again… after the 30 to 3 debacle as well as a string of loses (9 as of this writing) what can you really expect. Many Major League Baseball fans seem to be the very definition of a ‘fair weather fan’ anymore.

Doing a bit of channel surfing just now I happened to come across the Orioles/Texas game. I sat there for a bit watching it all the while wondering in the back of my mind why the network was showing football scores.

It finally dawned on me that the 21-3 score wasn’t a football score, but the actual score of the ballgame I was watching.

Whoops. Texas just hit a three run homer. Make that 24-3. Looks like thats a new record for runs scored this season.

Turns out the O’s are good for something after all.

Edit: Good God. The final score ended up being 30 to 3.

Rangers’ 30 runs sets AL record in rout of Orioles

The Rangers’ 30 runs sets a modern MLB record, surpassing the mark of 29 runs that were scored by the Red Sox (June 8, 1950) and White Sox (April 23, 1955). It’s the second-most runs all-time as the Chicago Colts (now the Cubs) scored 36 against the Louisville Colonels on June 29, 1897.

Could it be worse? Well yeah. It was the first game of a double header. The Orioles lost the second game as well (9-7). Did I mention that Texas is currently the team in last place?

I can’t image what it feels like to be an Oriole right now.

Who’s the MLB player flying high right now?

“It was AMAZING in capital letters,” said Travis Metcalf, who hit a grand slam after being called up from Triple-A Oklahoma earlier in the day.

edit: Corrected ‘Detroit’ reference (thanks JJT). Don’t know how that snuck in there… might have been watching the Detroit game while I was typing.

(alternate title: because what else is the internet for if not to bitch about things?)

Last night was supposed to be Southern York County Community Night at the York Revolution game. This game was not included as part of our season ticket package but we bought tickets since the youngest daughters softball team had been invited to go onto the field with the players during the national anthem. Youngest daughter was extremely excited about this and had been talking about it constantly for the past week.

The problems started with the weather we’ve been having over the past few days. The games from Sunday and Monday night had both been rained out. At this point the league was getting desperate to get some games in. Because of this, they changed last nights games from a single to a double header (two seven inning games for time). This is where things start falling apart. Because they switched to a double header, they moved the start time up one hour to 6:05pm. This means the softball team has to be there at 5:50p instead of 6:50p. I find this out while I’m at work in Hunt Valley at about 4:20. I race out of work early to try and beat rush hour traffic. I make it home at 5. Running around to get jackets, rain gear, gloves, tickets and all that crap we make it out of the house a 5:20. It takes 30 minutes to get to the stadium parking on a good day. Yesterday we made it all the way to the ticket gate at 5:50 on the nose.

Here’s where it gets fun.

I notice the ticket people are holding some new hand scanners. Since the stadium is still under construction, they’ve been tearing tickets by hand as you come into the stadium. Looks like yesterday was the day they decided to play with some new toys. I hand my five tickets over the to taker and they get scanned. Every one errors out with ‘access denied’. At the next gate over I notice another girl from the softball team standing there with her father. They’re having the same problems. Looks like all the tickets sold at Sports of Course in Shrewsbury for Community Night are coming up access denied. Of course, as usually happens when a computer is involved, the person who is operating the computer’s response is to simply shut off their brain and blame the computer. After trying to scan the tickets repeatedly, then calling over a manager, whose solution is to try and scan the tickets repeatedly I’m told I need to go the main box office and sort out the ticket problem.

This is where I start to get pissed off. I explain that my daughter is supposed to go onto the field before the game and even though I busted my ass getting there on time for an earlier start time, I was now being held up AT THE GATE because of a new and obviously faulty ticket system. I also explained that its obvious that by looking at the date on the ticket that they for that nights game and that I seriously doubted someone would be creating counterfeit tickets for an Atlantic League team. Not to mention the fact that there were now THREE little girls from the same softball team all having the same problem with tickets bought from the same location. Can’t someone there connect the dots? One of the ticket managers explained they were worried about doubled up seats since because of some ticket sales that weren’t properly recorded so I needed to go to the ticket window to get it sorted out. My direct, and not to friendly, response was ‘Its a Tuesday night game with crappy weather. Do you REALLY think you’re going to have any shortage of seats tonight? By the way, this is most definitely NOT the way to treat your fans the very day you sent out emails asking the season ticket holders, like me, to renew our plans.’ After a pause, our tickets are ripped, and we’re allowed through the gate.

Problem is it’s now too late. Its 6pm and the game starts in 5 minutes. Since almost half the softball team was stuck outside of the gates, they canceled the on-field bit since enough girls didn’t ‘show up’. I corrected the events employee by making clear she knew that we all had in fact ‘showed up’ and were on time (despite the short notice on the earlier start time) we just weren’t allowed in.

To top it off, the Revolution ended up playing one of the worst games I’ve seen them play yet. There wasn’t a single player on that team that looked like they even wanted to be there. They where the absolute definition of the term lollygaggers. It was pathetic. Even my daughter asked ‘what’s wrong with them tonight?’ They ended up losing the first game 7-0. I overheard another fan trying to excuse the crappy play by saying it was ‘too cold’ for them to play. I pointed out that it didn’t seem too damn cold for the team who scored 7 runs.

They did eventually end up taking the softball team down to the dugout to meet the players in between games but buy this time it had already starting raining a bit. They pulled out the tarp (see previous entry) and we waited a while but the rain just kept coming down harder. They called the second game at 9:30. My daughter ended up getting a few autographs on a ball which seemed to make her a bit happier but she said she would have preferred to go out on the field as planned.

Pretty sad when the highlight of the night is a tossup between watching the grounds crew pull the tarp out and splashing around in puddles in the parking lot on the way back to the car.

Rain Delay, originally uploaded by psychophil.

August 21st Double header. York Revolution v. Road Warriors at York. 2nd game rained out.

(forgot to publish this when I wrote it Monday)

Saturday I did something I hadn’t done in years… I watched a Major League game on TV. I was flipping around and came across the Giants/Yankess game. Not sure why I stopped flipping channels, but I just stopped and watched. The Baseball gods rewarded me for watching by having the Giants beat the Yankees in 13 innings.

Giants bring eight-game losing slump to end

Not a bad game to watch for the first time in years. The boy also sat down and started watching with me. Without any prompting for me, he started rooting for the Giants. I asked him why he liked the Giants:

‘I don’t really’
‘Well why are you cheering for them?’
‘Because I don’t like the Yankees.’
‘Oh really? Why?’
‘I dunno, they just seem like jerks.’

Heh. Even the nine year old gets it.

The next morning I wake up and find the boy’s already up and in my office. He has ‘The Sandlot’ in the DVD player. Thats a bit odd since the kids love to try and wake up before me so they can sneak in some cartoons. When I asked him why he was watching this DVD his answer was ‘I just felt like watching some baseball.’ When we finished watching Sandlot, I switched the set over to cable to catch the morning news. Instead, I found the Tivo recording and tuned to USA Network which was just starting to play…. wait for it… ‘For Love of the Game’. I didn’t sit and watch it for two reasons. One, USA managed to take a 137 minute movie and stretch it out to three hours with commercials. Two, I own in on DVD (duh). What I did do was pop in the DVD and watch the last 30 minutes (the boys favorite part, he’s still a bit young to ‘get’ the rest of the movie).

edit: I just got the news that the Orioles shut out the Yankees last night. Strange things are afoot in the world of Baseball.

And quotes from them. According to me. (And I’m only doing 5 because 10 is too easy).

5- The Sandlot
quote: Ham Porter: You play ball like a giiirrrrrrrrl!

4- Major League
Harry Doyle: That’s all we got, one goddamn hit?
Assistant: [covers microphone] You can’t say goddamn on the air.
Harry Doyle: Don’t worry, nobody’s listening anyway.

3- Eight Men Out
1st Reds Player: These guys don’t look so tough.
2nd Reds Player: Yeah, that’s what Custer said when the Indians took the field.

2- Field of Dreams
Ray Kinsella: The Voice is back.
Annie Kinsella: Oh, Lord. You’re supposed to build a football field now?

1- For Love of the Game
Favorite quote: None. More like a favorite moment. Towards the end of the game when Chapel finally notices the scoreboard and begins to realize that he’s close to pitching a perfect game.

Honorable Mention – The Bad News Bears (the original with Walter Matthau)

Just about every list I’ve looked at has included the movie ‘The Natural‘. I’ve never been able to watch the entire movie. I’ve tried a few times but it has literally bored me to sleep each and every time.

And finally, just what is it with Kevin Costner and Baseball movies? Has Costner even been in a non-baseball movie that didn’t suck? Dances with Wolves doesn’t count since it was set before the first professional baseball league was formed (my blog, my rules).

I’ve mentioned before my belief that it’s very important for kids to participate in sports. Specifically team sports. And not ‘touchy-feely everyone wins we don’t keep score look there’s a butterfly lets go have ice cream’ sports, but real ‘we’re keeping score so somebody’s going to win and somebody’s going to lose’ sports. I believe the team concept and teamwork is vital. I’ve made it very clear to my kids that once they sign the line and make that commitment to a team, they’re in it for the long haul. Even if they break a leg they’re going to the games even if all they can do is sit and cheer for their teammates.

Teamwork is only one of the lessons a kid can pick up by playing sports. There are also harder lessons to learn. The kids will learn that there are times when, even if you do everything right, life isn’t fair. Equipment breaks, Umpires make bad calls, kids quit the team, some idiot brings unfrozen free-z-pops straight from the store as the after game snack, etc. More importantly, you learn that there are assholes out in the world and you are going to just have to deal with from time to time. How you deal with them helps develop your character and, I believe, is usually a good indication of the type of person you’re going to be.

The little league the boy played in this year had team rosters that averaged 13 kids per team. At this age group they play four outfielders instead of the standard three. That means 10 kids in the field and three on the bench. Earlier in the season we were scheduled against another team who had a run of bad luck in the days before the game. Because of injuries (off field) and illness, they only had nine players show up. That meant, of course, that they couldn’t field the full 10 players. The boy’s coach, being a decidedly non-asshole kind of a person, also only fielded 9 players. He didn’t have to short his fielders. He could have played 4 to their 3. He did it because he thought, and I agreed, that it was simply the right thing to do. We ended up losing that game.

Fast forward to the end of the season. We made it to the playoff round in a wildcard spot. Unfortunately by this time attrition had taken its toll on the boys team. For various reasons they had gone from a full 13 players down to just eight. This meant that they could only place two outfielders. With only eight players its also a good bet (in little league at least), that everyone is going to bat in just about every inning. No time to rest… there’s suddenly a lot more field to cover and there’s a heck of a lot more at-bats.

As luck would have it, we were up against the team who played short against us earlier in the season. They were back up to a nearly full roster of 12 players while we were the ones short this time. We were relieved to say the least. Surely our favor would be returned and he would match our number of fielders. I mean, it would be the decent thing to do… right? We were… disappointed… when a full 10 players from the other team took the field.

I’ll admit to being impressed with our players. There was no bitching, whining or complaining about the situation. They just went out and played baseball the best that they could given the situation.

Unsurprisingly, the game was a blowout with a final score of 23-11.

Surprisingly, our team… the short roster of only 8 players against a full roster of 13… was the team that scored 23 runs.

Ain’t Karma a bitch?

We ended up losing the next game and getting knocked out of the playoff round. But seriously, after a game like that, who cares?

IMG_7688, originally uploaded by psychophil.

York Revolution inaugural game. Sovereign Bank Stadium, York, PA. June 15, 2007

Just a quick warning… this site is about to go into a mini Baseball blogburst. Not sure exactly when it’ll start, but until then here are two past entries for a little background:

I used to love Baseball

York Revolution Baseball