Success and excellence
Don’t get hung up on success and what people think of you; focus on excellence, play the game the right way, enjoy the moment and don’t be scared of it.
All posts filed under: Baseball
It breaks your heart
A. Bartlett Giamatti said it best. “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.“ Giamatti – the former president of Yale and the great commissioner of baseball who banned Pete Rose for life and then died of a heart attack 8 days later – was writing about an earlier Red Sox loss on the last day of the season many years ago. But the “breaking your heart” line applies in all sorts of baseball situations. Friday evening, on the last day of my summer vacation before heading back to work, the MLB-worst Washington Nationals played the division leading St. Louis Cardinals like they were equals. Young Nationals “ace” John Lannan matched recently acquired and crafty veteran John Smoltz pitch-for-pitch through a well-played ball game that took only a little over two …
The Sun Shines and the Nats Sign Strasburg
I went to bed last evening around 11:40 p.m. after checking to see if the Washington Nationals had signed #1 draft choice Stephen Strasburg. They had not. I awoke this morning and checked the Nats icon on my blackberry to find…YES, they pulled it off! And for ONLY a little over $15 million. The sun is indeed shining over baseball in the District today. Writing in the Washington Post, Tom Boswell talked about Washington’s baseball redemption. Few teams have ever needed a watershed event more than the Nationals. And no town in baseball has needed a validation and a fresh start more than Washington. On Monday night, at 11:58:43 p.m., both the team and the town got their wish. Just 77 seconds before a witching midnight deadline, the franchise that so often gets kicked when it is down and the town that is constantly accused of baseball’s original sin (being Washington) proved that it could do something big and difficult and right. The Nats signed Stephen Strasburg, probably the most heralded young pitcher of the …
Great Week to Be a Nats Fan
With the Washington Nationals heading into today’s game with a chance to sweep a home stand AND extend a winning streak to eight in a row, I just couldn’t stay away from Nationals Park. So when friends made plans to join me, it was a done deal – humidity and a hot sun notwithstanding. And am I glad I went. Sixteen hits! Adam Dunn’s 30th home run! J.D. Martin’s first major league win! Zimmerman gets 3 hits and scores 3 runs! The offense continues to come through with timely hit after timely hit! Happy friends and fans all around! A 9-2 romp. (How often do you get to use the words “Nats” and “romp” in the same column?) What a great week to be a Nats fan. At the end of 25 straight games without a break, the Nats find their inner ballplayers and go on a tear. As a vacationing bachelor this week (with Candice and the twins away), I’ve also had every opportunity to catch the games on TV and in person. You …
What’s Gotten Into Our Nats?
On a beautiful night for baseball in the nation’s capital (81 low-humidity degrees at game time), the Washington Nationals continued their mystifying ways – by winning their 6th in a row! Our boys have been playing error-free baseball with sparkling defense since Rockville’s own Jim Riggleman took over as manager more than 20 games ago. Combine that with a new-found timeliness with their hitting and a rebuilt and generally effective bullpen and – while we may see a bunch of bush-league politics in this town – all of a sudden we’re seeing major league baseball in the District of Columbia! With Candice and the twins in Florida visiting her family and tonight’s promise of beautiful weather, I made up my mind early to take in the Nats-Diamondbacks game. I was worried that my presence at the ballpark would jinx them, as I’ve been to 4 or 5 games already this season…and all have been losses (if you throw out the 10-10 tie that was won about two months later). When I barely missed a batting …
Summer Saturdays
As summer Saturdays go, this was a pretty good one. First of all, I’m focused on moving things off my desk so that both my head AND office are cleared to begin vacation on Monday. So I went into work this morning. That may not sound like fun on a summer day, but if no one’s around and you can put on the Bluegrass Instrumentals playlist off the iTunes site and crank up the sound, it makes for a great setting for getting things done. I didn’t stay too long, however, as I wanted to catch the championship game of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Baseball League, featuring the Bethesda Big Train. My colleague at work (and fellow baseball enthusiast) Dolores and her son Noah joined me at Povich Field where – after the strangest “sun downpour” (this was more than a shower) – the Big Train played a stellar game and beat the Maryland Redbirds 7-0. to cap a 31-10 season with both the regular season and playoff titles. The Big Train pitcher had a …
Brooks, Big Train, and The Onion
I’m not sure it is a good sign when New York Times columnists begin showing up at Bethesda Big Train wooden bat league baseball games. Tonight I was at Shirley Povich Field for the Cal Ripken, Sr. League playoff game between Big Train and the Herndon Braves when I look down my aisle to the right (of course) and there sits David Brooks, conservative voice of the Times editorial page and PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Brooks is a commentator who says enough sane things (e.g., see comments about Sarah Palin) to make some believe he’s bi-partisan. I’ll reserve judgment on that…but I usually agree with how his columns are “interpreted” by the Daily Kos Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up (e.g., David Brooks recycles another “we’re all going to die” column). Nonetheless, I’m not picking on conservatives. Heck, I’d be concerned if it was Maureen Dowd sitting down the row in the bleachers from me. Part of the fun of college wooden league baseball is that it really has that small town, family feel. Kids throw out …
Modernism and baseball stadiums
My colleague Dolores recently pointed me towards a springtime blog rant by long-time preservationist – and baseball fan – Clem Labine. Entitled Hey Nick – Get REAL, the blog goes after New York Times architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff for panning the two new baseball stadiums in New York City by saying that “American stadium design has been stuck in a nostalgic funk, with sports franchises recycling the same old images year after year.” Read it for the writing, if nothing else. (Clem was the founder of The Old House Journal eons ago and you’ll see his way with the written word.) Camden Yards in Baltimore (photo at the top of the post) began the trend toward throwback stadiums. Having attended many a ballgame there (and in other similarly inspired parks), I agree with Clem that these ballparks work AND give the fans what they want. But my recent trip to Kansas City gave me the chance to visit one of the first of the good modernist sports venues – Kauffman Stadium. The architects here show …
Wooden Bat League Baseball Makes the Big Time
Our local college wooden bat league – the Cal Ripken, Sr. League – made the big time tonight when the DC/Baltimore regional sports network (MASN) carried the Wooden Bat League All Star Game between the Ripken and Valley League all stars. Held in Waldorf, Maryland, this was a great showcase for a wonderful summer tradition. Just like last evening’s MLB All-Star game, pitching dominated, with the Ripken All Stars taking a 2-1 win in a crisply played contest. It was great to see Staunton Braves players, from our former home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, battling players from the Bethesda Big Train and the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts. There’s still plenty of time to catch a Wooden Bat League game in your area…whether it be DC, the Shenandoah Valley, Cape Cod, Alaska, California…you name it! More to come… DJB
As We Approach the All-Star Break…
Regular readers know that I like good baseball writing. So on a night when the Nationals are uncharacteristically beating up the Astros with 13 runs and 21 hits in a laugher, it was a double treat to find a great story on ESPN.com by Jayson Stark. Best, worst, and weirdest of the first half is a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of April – July 2009 in Major League Baseball. Stark goes through his first half Cy Young winners, but he also calls out the Cy Yuk winner for the worst pitcher in each league. Yep, you guessed it…former National Daniel Cabrera won that dubious award for the National League. Cabrera got the boot… …from a boss so exasperated by his work that GM Mike Rizzo actually announced to the Washington Post, right out loud, that he had to dump this guy because “I was tired of watching him. There are little gems throughout, but the laugh out loud stuff comes in the “Injuries of the Year” section. Here’s Stark’s take: …
MORE TO COME... 