Okay, so they actually clinched the NL Central title last Tuesday, but I’m slow getting around to writing this up. This is a good feeling that we Reds fans haven’t had in a while. After 15 long years, we are back in the playoffs. They didn’t finish off the year quite as strongly as I had hoped (they should have had home field in this round), but Jay Bruce is on fire right now, and the (presumptive) NL MVP Joey Votto has come out of his mini-slump. I was kind of surprised that it was Cueto rather than Wood in the starting rotation for this round, but with Wood and Bailey both pitching well here at the end of the year, I don’t think any of the starters (except perhaps Arroyo) will have a really long leash. If the good versions of Volquez and Cueto show up, this series against the Phils could really be a pitching duel. As much as their rotation scares me, we are actually 3-1 against them (Halladay, Coles, and Oswalt). Plus, the Browns and Buckeyes both won this weekend, so I’m loving life right now.
Category: baseball
More random thoughts
Wow, so I went another month without posting anything. Sorry about that. Since I last posted, I finally got the notification that my GREM Gold paper was approved (it hasn’t been posted yet, I’ll update this (or post a new one) when it is (it should be at http://giac.org/certified_professionals/practicals/grem/48.php when it is). I actually turned the original draft of the paper in around the end of Feb, but for some reason it took almost 3 months for my advisor to sign off on it even though I made no significant changes in it. I’ve written up and done a trial run of my SANSFIRE talk based on the paper, it was too long, so I’ll have to shorten the talk up some before I give it on the 18th. The pool is open, I got in it yesterday, Erin got in today, but it is still a little on the chilly side. I really need to find some time to fly under the hood with and instructor and get IFR current again. Mom and Dad leave this week for their Alaskan cruise (did I mention we –the kids– gave them this cruise as their 50th anniversary present?). I saw the new Star Trek movie and I’m still (even 3 weeks later) not sure how much I like it and how much I dislike it. I’m not real happy that they tossed out everything that came before, but I kind of understand why Abrams felt like he needed to. Mark’s baseball team lost too early in the state playoffs, but Marist made the NCAA tournament (where they were promptly eliminated by Ohio State). Hopefully he can help them get back there again next year. There still isn’t a new contract with the union, so I still have to worry about possibly getting sent out to the New Lex CO. I finally watched The Bucket List this evening. I DVRed it a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed it though I thought Jack Nicholson had too much weight on him for someone going through chemo. How’s that for an odd thought. I have built a database using the baseball databank data to give me game info back to at least 1920 and play-by-play back to 1960 (except 1992-1999). I even figured out how to convert the current season data into retrosheet format and put it in the database. I want to use it to get more accurate fielding data than I can get from the box scores. I’ll play with it after my SANSFIRE talk and before I start studying for my GCFW recertification. I enjoyed Leno’s last week and Conan’s first on the Tonight Show. I need to call my baby sister, I didn’t get to call her on her birthday, I hope she’ll forgive me. How’s that for random thouhts?
What is going on?
Things have been pretty busy for me lately. I took a brief vacation last weekend and visited my baby sister and got to see my nephew, the baseball star, play. His team won both games, he scored the first run in one and drove in the game winner in the other (and according to my internet research, he appears to have won this past Thursday’s game with a solo homerun in the top of the 7th inning). It was a good time, I always enjoy spending time with Munchkin and her family. Yesterday and today seemed like they would have been great days to fly, but, alas, I didn’t get to. I hope to get in some flying again in the next week or two, but that will depend in part on the work situation. The company and the union are still negotiating although the contract expired last night at midnight. If the union goes out, I’ll have to work in a new place and, I’m told, it will be 6 12-hour days per week for the first few weeks (if the strike lasts that long). Ah, well, it isn’t flying weather now, we have thunderstorms and a tornado watch and they are predicting snow tomorrow and Tuesday. Gotta love spring, huh?! Oh, well, tomorrow is opening day of the baseball season and the NCAA championship game (in basketball), so I’ll try to OD on that and enjoy the snow. It also just occurred to me that yesterday was the 41st anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis. As I think I wrote before, I really came to appreciate him much more in the mid-70s, but I do remember the rioting that broke out after that awful day. I’ll try to write something of substance in the next week.
Nice days and I’m stuck inside watching and other thoughts…
Work has been really busy lately for a number of reasons (that I won’t go into now) and this blog has been one of the victims. The other thing that has been driving me nuts is the weather has been so nice I did manage to get out a fly for an hour last Monday, but there have been another 4 or 5 (including today) that have been absolutely gorgeous (and most of them not too windy) that I’d love to have flown more. I did take the opportunity to intercept and track radials and even took two turns around in a hold at the Appleton VOR (APE). I still need to do a post on the book I read last Sunday. It has been a while since I read a book from cover to cover in one day, but I did last weekend, but that is a topic that requires more time than I can devote to it right now. Today is Ash Wednesday, but I didn’t make it to church this evening because I was working on something that my daughter needed. I have a book (or two or three) that I’d like to knock off my list during Lent, but whether or not that happens will be determined in part by how much more work I need to put into the paper I’ve been working on. More on that later, too. Last thought for this evening, today was the first spring training game and the Reds won, 7-0. No, I didn’t watch or listen, just read that online after the fact. I’m hoping for a better year than the last 8, but I’m not holding my breath. Hopefully, my next post won’t be so scattered. Shalom. —Jim
Trip #2 to GABP
Prior to this year, I hadn’t seen the Reds play in person since sometime before they moved into Great American Ballpark. That changed when Sherry and I went to see them for Fleece Blanket day in April when we got to see Johnny Cueto pitch. For that game, we sat in the outfield just to the foul side of the left field foul pole. Last night, on a whim, Sherry and I decided to attend today’s day game, so we went online and I got tickets in section 424 (seat map can be found here), the lower part (6 rows) of the upper deck directly behind home plate. It was raining all the way down to Cincinnati. When we got in the stadium we went to the Home Plate Grill for lunch and to wait out part of what ended up being a 1:45 minute rain delay. The game was scheduled to begin at 1:15PM, first pitch was 3:00PM. The batting order was
- Jerry Hairston, Jr – SS
- Jay Bruce – CF
- Ken Griffey, Jr – RF
- Brandon Phillips – 2B
- Adam Dunn – LF
- Jeff Keppinger – 3B
- Joey Votto – 1B
- Paul Bako – C
- Bronson Arroyo – P
In the bottom of the first with one out, Bruce doubled, then Griffey followed with HR #604 which gave him 5,001 total bases for his career (the 18th player in major league history to achieve that). The picture below is Griffey touching the plate, Bruce is waiting for him, Phillips and Dunn are by the on-deck circle. In the outfield, you can see the smoke coming from the stacks and they have just changed the 603 to 604.
Arroyo went 6 innings, Weathers, Burton, and Cordero each threw an inning and the final was Reds 3, Nationals 0. By the way, I think Arroyo was robbed when they ruled his triple was an error by the left fielder. It sprinkled a few times during the game and it was overcast the entire time, but it didn’t start really raining again until just after the game ended. By the time we got home, we had some blue sky here (though ceilings were probably below 2000′ the entire time until we got to Pickerington).
Cincinnati Reds Winter Caravan 2008
Well, it is 9°F/-13°C outside and I just got back from treating myself to an early birthday present. I didn’t decide for sure until last night that I was going to go, but since I had never been to a Winter Caravan and they were right here (well, in Dublin up by my old apartment) the night before my birthday… Marty Brennaman, Wayne Krivsky, Brandon Phillips (he got the biggest applause when they finally walked in), Lee May, and Matt Maloney were present, Tom Browning joins this group tomorrow. They were 10 minutes late arriving and the whole thing didn’t start until about 19:30 (it was scheduled from 19:00-21:00). When they did the Q&A, the very first question for Krivsky was “When are you going to lock up Brandon to a long-term contract?” Which, of course, caused the crowd to go nuts. His answer was, “Soon, I hope.” The next biggest applause were when Marty introduced BP saying he “got screwed out of the Gold Glove.” The team hasn’t exactly decided how they will honor Joe Nuxhall this year beyond having his name on the jersey sleeve, but Junior had a great idea that I hope they will follow through on. It would be black jersey’s with the players names and Joe’s number for opening day, then auction them off on reds.com after the game with all the money going to Joe’s foundation. That would be pretty cool. Once the autograph session got started, I actually got a few minutes to talk to Marty because Krivsky was being interviewed by some TV guys. We talked about Joe and the Big Red Machine. I didn’t say much to Krivsky and I had to wait for Brandon to finish his TV interview and the line was long so I didn’t get to talk to him much either. It was kind of cool meeting Lee May, but he was gone before I started following the Reds. I talked to Maloney for a while since he was getting ignored at the end of the line. He’s looking forward to the opportunity to compete for a spot in the rotation next month. Only 23 days until pitchers and catchers have to report. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but I forgot my camera, so these were taken with my cell phone.
Marty
Brandon Phillips
Matt Maloney