All posts tagged: Baseball

Tough Time to Be a Nats Fan

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Last night’s game between the Nationals and Padres was tough.  It is bad enough when two of the three teams with the worst records in baseball are playing.  But when the Nationals enter the game needing to win 5 out of the remaining 8 games to avoid losing 100 games for the season, there’s extra pressure. The pressure won. Routine grounders that should extend a shutout pitching performance turn into 3 unearned runs.  Balls lost in the lights turn into triples.  And the explanation for the latter shows just what we’re facing.  In this morning’s Washington Post, Nats left fielder Willie Harris provides the following explanation for his adventure in lights: “They’re among the brightest (lights) in the league, he said.  Sure, they’re a problem for opposing outfields, too, ‘but, I mean, we haven’t been hitting many balls in the lights.  They’ve been hitting the balls in the lights.’” Say no more, Willie.  It is a tough time to be a Nats fan.  But hey, let’s go win 5 out of 7.  And remember, the …

Nats vs. Mets – On Any Given Night

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One of the great things about baseball is that on any given night, the worst team in the league has a decent chance at beating the best teams in the league.  You may believe that’s true in any sport, but think about how often you see a lousy NBA team give a top-notch NBA team a close game.  I can’t think of many times.  However, with baseball you see it virtually every night. And tonight’s no exception.  I’ve been doing chores and keeping my eye on the televised game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Metropolitans .  The last time I checked, the Nats were battling the Mariners and the Padres for the worst record in baseball.  The Mets, on the other hand, had the third best record in the National League and were leading the East. So the Mets jump off to a 2-0 lead and you think to yourself, “Uh-oh, it is going to be a long night.”  Well, that’s true, but not for the reason you think.  Everytime the Mets pull …

PNC in 2013

Monday night thoughts – about baseball

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“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.  You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. “The Green Fields of the Mind” by A. Bartlett Giamatti While channel surfing past the opening telecast of Monday Night Football, my thoughts naturally turn to the winding down of the baseball season. This year I picked up a new book by Garrett Park, Maryland author Paul Dickson entitled Baseball’s Greatest Quotations . Here are some samples to whet the appetite: Choo-Choo Coleman would…give you the sign and then look down to see what it was. – Roger Craig quoted in “Bad Beyond Belief” Blind people come …

Baseball and Bluegrass

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Oh my!  Major League Baseball has finally caught up with the key themes of More to Come…(a blog for family and friends about acoustic music, baseball, places that matter, and other random topics) with the post on MLB.com entitled Bound by Baseball and Bluegrass.  This is an article on the new Gibson Brothers CD Iron and Diamonds.  Who knew we were so cutting edge here at More to Come… DJB

Scoring a Walk Off

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Walk Offs.  The name is pretty descriptive.  One pitch and the game is over.  And last night, I had the chance to see one in person.  From my perspective, nothing in sports is so exciting.  You may ask, “What’s the difference in a walk off in baseball and a sudden death touchdown or field goal in football, when the last score wins it all?”  (I recall Curt Gowdy liked to rename these extra periods “Sudden Victory” in place of “Sudden Death.”)  What about the last second shot in basketball? Here’s why…in baseball, the walk off comes as part of the normal course of the game.  Baseball is famous for not having a clock.  This infuriates some when it is 11 p.m. and you have babysitters at home or an early morning alarm clock is on the horizon for work.  But there is no sudden death (or sudden victory) in baseball.  When you win with a walk off, it means that the home team has won in the course of the normal rules of the game.  It …

Boswell on China

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Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post is one of the smartest sportswriters on the planet.  (For evidence see Why Is Baseball So Much Better Than Football.)  So I found his column today on the Beijing Olympics (They Made the Buses Run on Time) to be smart, funny, and – I suspect – pretty accurate.  My father often told me, “Don’t believe everything you see on TV.”  Many of you who don’t normally read the sports pages of the Post will find Boswell’s comments of interest. More to come… DJB

Stadium Memories

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Some people read 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die and think about how many they can check off in a year.  My quest is more modest:  to visit all the major league baseball stadiums in the next ten years.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through my list, but I have to admit that given stadium demolitions, I’ve had to make up my own rules about what counts.  Essentially, I’m just trying to get to at least one stadium  per team. So along that line, I wanted to let you know there’s a great online story – accompanying a magazine feature in Preservation – of Yankee Stadium memories on PreservationNation.org.  If you like baseball stadiums and/or baseball stories, check it out. FYI, this has been a good year in my quest.  So far I’ve visited three new (for me) parks this year:  Oakland (with Anthea and all the folks from the Trust’s Western Office), Coors Field in Denver (with Mountains/Plains Office Director Barb and Dolores), and – of course – the new Nationals Park …

Skip Carey – RIP – A Follow-up

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A friend of mine, John Lane, sent an email after the post I made last week on the death of long-time Braves announcer Skip Carey.  It included a great story that I just had to share.  After noting that he appreciated baseball and was headed to Fenway next month for a game, John turned to basketball announcers when he wrote: “That brings to mind Johnny Most, who was for many years the radio voice of the Boston Celtics (1953-1990), one whose allegiance was never in doubt.  Catch him on YouTube. On one occasion the game had gotten very exciting.  Most was screaming into the microphone when suddenly his voice was lost, though the crowd noise in the background continued at a roar. After nearly two minutes of no play-by-play, Most’s voice resumed:  ‘Sorry about that Celtics fans.  I got so excited I fell out of the press box.’” If you have stories to tell on your favorite sportscaster, please feel free to write a comment to this post. Off to hike the Grand Canyon.  More to come… DJB

Summer Reading

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An email from the husband of a friend who shall remain nameless showed up in my home email in-box recently with a list of books on his table ready for his summer reading.  There were a lot of very serious titles—some of which I’ve read and many of which I’ve missed—but the one that caught my eye was War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.  Now I’ve read that book, and I don’t consider it light reading.  In fact, it is pretty depressing.  For while Hedges calls for humility, love, and compassion as the only chance for the human race, he writes of the addiction of war and its unifying force.  When you read this, our chances seem pretty slim. But that’s NOT why I’m writing about Summer Reading Lists.  There are 9 other months of the year to read books like War is a Force…  Summer reading is different.  Here are three books (two on baseball; one only tangentially on architecture but really on love) I think are great for …