All posts tagged: Baseball

Petco Panorama

Baseball, Springsteen, infomercials and anything else that comes to mind

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Update: Since this blog was written, Joe Posnanski — like many bloggers — has shifted platforms one or more times. The first link in the post takes you to his current Substack page, where you can also find a link to his sports writing at The Athletic. Some of his posts will now be behind paywalls, while others are no longer archived. It is the nature of the digital platform beast, so reader beware. On my way home from work this evening, I decided to open my iPad to Joe Posnanski’s blog and just read and read until the train pulled up at the Silver Spring station.  Thirty-five minutes of bliss. Why? Perhaps I wanted to think about something besides work.  As my colleague Allie said yesterday, “It has been a very long short week.” Perhaps I am really getting sick of this endless string of days with temperatures in the single digits and wind chills below zero. (I vote for this as the real reason.  I don’t mind cold, but enough already!) Perhaps it …

No No-No, But Still A Special Night

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Well, that was a pretty special way to end Round One. Justin Verlander twirls a gem in the last game of the 2013 Division Series that included massive blow-outs, improbable walk-off wins, and one of the best days of baseball ever. Verlander must salivate when he can close out a series against the Oakland A’s.  For this year’s elimination game, he throws a no-hitter through 6 2/3’s innings, only to see it broken up by Yoenis Céspedes. (I mention Yoenis Céspedes just because I love writing “Yoenis Céspedes”…with apologies to Gail Collins.) But Verlander’s classic – supported by a surprise dinger from the injured Miguel Cabrera who, with only one home run in September, showed up in time in October to help the Tigers win the series – was just the latest in a good round of games. As the Nats learned last year, momentum can change quickly in these short five-game series.  Oakland looked like everything was going its way this year, until it didn’t.  Ditto for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who were rolling until …

That’s More Like It

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In a year of struggles, today’s Nationals/Phillies series wrap-up was one of the feel-good games of 2013. The day:  Beautiful late afternoon game at the ballpark with 32,355 other fans…including Andrew!  Third game in 8 days, and second with Andrew.  (Can you tell I’m on vacation!) Temps in the low 80s, and Section 313 starts out in the shade!  Smart decision to take the scorecard. Even the President’s Race was funny: each president wipes out Sharknado (don’t ask…something to do with the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week), Bill Taft gives him a body slam for good measure, and Teddy wins. On to the game itself… Stephen Strasburg:  First career complete game and a shutout for good measure.  No Philly makes it into scoring position. Totally dominant. Ten strikeouts. One walk. 99 total pitches – 66 strikes. Jayson Werth:  Second three-hit game in a row. Hitting ropes to left field.  Werewolf in London walk-up music shows he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Scores – along with Ian Desmond – on one of the best hustle/heads-up plays of the …

Summer Reading 2013, Part II: Or How the Nats Lost Their Way

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Technically, I read Shawn Green’s unique little memoir/meditation The Way of Baseball before summer began, but after a night at the ballpark watching our Nats utterly fold in a three-game series sweep by the division leading Braves and reading Tom Boswell’s insightful (as always) column about how this year’s season went so wrong, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed this book. Let’s begin with Boswell and the Nats. For two-thirds of a season we’ve been told that the Nats had “too much talent” to keep playing this poorly, and that they would switch it on in time to get back in the pennant race.  But the Braves put an end to that kind of talk, with as utterly dominating a three-game series as you could have where the total run differential was only 5 runs for the three games.  Boswell put it best when he described the sweep as “an execution by proper execution.” Amen. The Nats played so effortlessly last year that it is easy to forget how difficult baseball can be …

A Perfect Day for Baseball…and to Reach the Halfway Mark

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Sunday in Pittsburgh was a perfect day for baseball.  The hometown Pirates are playing the best baseball in both leagues at the moment.  The ballpark was packed with fans caught up in a pennant race.  The weather was picture perfect with temps in the low 80s. And Pittsburgh’s PNC Park – #15 on my list of 30 MLB parks to visit by 2015 – is a terrific place to watch a game. My request for this year’s “staycation” was to take a short road trip to Pittsburgh so i could check another ballpark off my bucket list of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums.  We saw that the Rockies were in town to play the Bucs for a weekend series, and so I scored four tickets behind home plate and we set out to build a trip around my baseball pilgrimage. This morning we all slept in a bit, and then after trips to the fitness center and showers, we took off for brunch at DeLuca’s – a Pittsburgh landmark in The Strip.  Pancakes, …

How College Students Can Lead to a Wonderful Holiday Weekend

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When a colleague asked about our plans for the upcoming holiday weekend, I told her that Andrew and Claire each had friends from college who were in town and would be staying with us.  I assumed our role was “To stay out of the way.” Thankfully, I was wrong.  Jason, Jordi, Jackie, Kelsey, Claire, and Andrew were delightful guests and hosts, sharing some of their time with us and also giving Candice and me the space to enjoy our weekend with each other. We began with our “traditional” July 4th celebrations – and all the twins’ friends joined us (rather enthusiastically, I think).  While the Takoma Park July 4th parade didn’t have quite the pizzazz of a presidential year (I miss the “Mutts for Mitt” floats with dog puppets on top of cars and there wasn’t anything to reach the level of last year’s “precision grill team”), we still had a great time laughing at the floats and enjoying the world music you always hear at our little slice of Haight-Ashbury here in DC.  Afterwards, …

A Great Week for Ballparks

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In my bucket-list quest of visiting all 30 major league ball parks, this week didn’t really move the needle…but it was a great week nonetheless. Two cities and two ballparks.  That’s the way I like to travel. Last Tuesday, I was in Denver wrapping up a set of meetings, and joined some colleagues at Coors Field for a Rockies vs. Nationals game.  Yes, my Nats were in town! This was my second visit to Coors Field – which means I didn’t get to check off another park from my list. But while the outcome was disappointing (the Nats lost this game, yet won the series), I did get to catch a wonderful Coors Field sunset over the Rocky Mountains.  Few stadiums have better views, and all of us – Nats and Rockies fans alike – marveled in the sunset. Then on Friday, I was in Boston.  Those of you who know the schedule will say, “Hey, weren’t the Red Sox playing the O’s in Baltimore this weekend?”  Well, yes.  (I am actually catching the last …

A Gem of a Day

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By just about any measure, it was a pretty wonderful day for a baseball game in the nation’s capital. Sunday of Memorial Day weekend…the start of summer. (Check.) Sunny skies with temps in the high sixties/low seventies throughout the afternoon. (Check.) A huge crowd at the yard.  Official attendance of 39,033.  (You look for these things when you’re scoring the game.) (Check.) Wonderful daughter along for the afternoon. (Check!) As we left home for the metro around noon for the 1:35 first pitch, Claire and I had on appropriate game-day attire.  (I think she still finds it amazing that someone who is 20 – her age – can play major league baseball, so I offered up the Harper shirt.) Strasburg was on the mound, and he was sharp! The Phillies were confused all day.  Eight strong innings and nine strikeouts later – with the only blemish being a balk on his next to last pitch allowing a man on third to score – he showed that despite the strange 3-5 W-L record this year, he’s …

Opening Day Finally Arrives!

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A quick lunch break shout-out for the arrival of opening day!  Let’s go Nats!! I’m part of a season ticket group, so the “coordinator” of the group gets – as it should be – the opening and closing games of the season.  Tom’s photo from 20 minutes ago is at the top of the post.  But come Wednesday night, for game #2 of 162 (and more!) this year, Candice and I will be in these same seats ready to cheer on Gio and the rest of the boys of summer. I know that the first day of the season was actually yesterday when the Astros played the Rangers, but it was just weird to see the Astros as an American League team. I was glad to see former Nat Rick Ankiel get the key home run.  Maybe when a recent N.L. doormat roughs up a recent perennial A.L. playoff contender, it just shows that the N.L. has passed the A.L. in playing quality baseball.  But I digress. It has been a long winter since our …

Angels Stadium

My personal preseason

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This is my second installment of the things I do to get ready for the baseball season…which is necessary because pitchers and catchers report tomorrow. Why’s he calling me meat?  I’m the one driving a Porsche. Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic. The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self awareness. You just got lesson number one: don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club. You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down: “We gotta play it one day at a time.” Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don’t you think? (Nuke) I ain’t pissing nothing away. I got a Porsche already; a 911 with a quadrophonic Blaupunkt. (Crash) Christ, you don’t need a quadrophonic Blaupunkt! What you need is …