Fun with technology

Google just launched a new service called Street View. For select places in the US, you can take a virtual tour of nearly the entire city. I went to San Francisco today (love that place!) and inevitably ended up at my favorite ballpark in the world, the park I had known as Pac Bell Park back when it was my playground but should rightfully be called Mays Field forever. Here's a view of Willie Mays Plaza.

What a great city.

Going to Cincy

Mom just got some Reds tickets for us, so I'll be going to Cincy to see three games in four days!

Sat., June 30th vs. Deadbirds, sec 107,
Sun. July 1 vs. Deadbirds, sec 108, and
Tues, July 3rd vs. Giants, sec 140, MoonDeck.

Looks like mostly bleacher seats left for the Deadbirds series. That's awesome news! Hopefully Eric Milton hasn't put the Reds out of contention so those games against the Deadbirds are important. Or perhaps Braden Looper will have put the Deadbirds out of contention?

Ahh, it brings me back to just last year, the back to back sweep of the Deadbirds and the Asstros, the rage of excitement flowing through our veins as we realized our team was in first place in June, those hyperexciting dollar hotdog nights against the Deadbirds later in the year before that fateful plunge into the Pacific Ocean all but drowned our dreams. We surfaced one last time thanks to the floundering Deadbirds...It was a great season, even if it was a losing one. This one will be even better!
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Keep Hamilton on the roster

The human being in me is rooting for Josh Hamilton to make the team and have an amazing year. Life is all about redemption, even if people don't realize that we all make mistakes - some of us are just luckier/more fortunate/more blessed than others. (Hello - have you ever read the Bible?) Plus he just has a sweeeeet swing that you can't pass up! (Photo is of him and his daughter.)

I think bringing 11 pitchers and only 2 catchers North is totally worth the price of keeping Hamilton on the roster. Cincinnati would be good for him, and I am rooting for him in life and not just in baseball. I'm glad the media has made his story out to be a good one rather than demonizing him.

I mean, why is Bonds the Devil while Josh is rooted for? Who's to say Bonds has fewer demons than Josh? You know, he had to live up to his father's name - the pressure of that had to be incredible. Why is Hamilton being given a free pass while Bonds is the bane of Major League Baseball? (Not that Hamilton shouldn't be given the chance - that's the whole point of the post!)

I'm going to write a ton about Bonds this year - just a warning. I'm going to as many Giants games as possible. (If you don't know, I lived out in California for a couple of years and saw season 73 and even went to a World Series game out there - most amazing baseball game of my life!)

But this post is about Josh. Good luck, man! You have a whole country rooting for you!
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This still cracks me up

Make sure to check out Rehab the Crab, too!


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On surrogate teams

I was born a Reds fan in the winter of 1977 when the Big Red Machine were World Series champs. I would not experience the post-season as a living, breathing soul until 1990, and I had October joy only one more time in my life after that. It may have been a blessing, however; I can't imagine many young Yankees fans can truly appreciate the game of baseball, for they don't know what it's like to hope, to have that excitement that maybe this is the year, as they've come to expect winning.

My team's lack of participation in the glory of October all these years has forced me to adopt surrogate teams to root for when October comes around. Some of these teams I have personal reasons for liking, others I root for because of their rich histories. Here's a brief rundown of the teams I root for and the reasons, before I am labeled a "frontrunner." I'll start with the teams in this year's post-season.

SAN DIEGO PADRES - I was born outside of San Diego and saw my first Reds game as a one year old at Jack Murphy Stadium.

NEW YORK METS - Though not steeped in a century of tradition, I will root for this team over others because it is the team I will root for when I finally move to New York City. I also like how the blue and orange are a combo of the Giants and Dodgers colors to fill the void left by the greed of the owners who moved the teams to California. It was blasphemy. And who didn't like Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry before they wore solid orange in another place?

MINNESOTA TWINS - Kirby Puckett and small market winners - how could you not like them?

OAKLAND A's - Bash Brothers. The mesh A's cap I still have was stuck to my head until the Reds put an end to that. Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersly - what more could you ask for?

DETROIT TIGERS - See this post.

BOSTON RED SOX - The anti-Yankees. Have you ever been to Fenway Park? Have you ever seen the whole city wearing Red Sox gear, even on their ties with their suits? One of my goals in life is to have season tickets to Fenway for a summer.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES - 1993 - Darren Daulton, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Mitch Williams, Curt Schilling.

CLEVELAND INDIANS - Ohio comrades. All of those great years during the nineties were fun to watch with Thome, Manny, and Vizquel.

BALTIMORE ORIOLES - Spent my first two years in DC watching them. Cal Ripken. Brooks Robinson.

CHICAGO CUBS - Yeah, Reds fans hate them for some reason. They are in our division, I know, but it's only been 12 years, and there's never been any competition between them. Ryne Sandberg was one of my favorite players - I collected all of his baseball cards. Wrigley field is Heaven. Except for their crappy hotdogs.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS and WASHINGTON NATIONALS - I've lived in these places and root for these teams at all times, except when they are playing the Reds.

Do you have surrogate teams? Who are they? Why do you like them? (Non-New Yorker Yankees "fans" will be subjected to voodoo.)

Go Tigers!

Don't buy the book

I had the good fortune of living out in Monterey, California for the 2001 and 2002 Giants seasons, following Bonds' 73 homer season and even getting to see the Giants crush the Angels in the fourth game of the World Series in 2002. Best game I've ever been to in my entire life, even if I did pay $350 for a bleacher seat.

I love the Giants. I am a big fan of teams with storied histories, and so rooting for the Giants came naturally to me during those seasons. (As a lifelong fan of a forever underachieving team, the Reds, I've come to appreciate other teams as sort of September stand-ins to root for, and those with the histories are the ones I've developed affinities for, with the Giants, Cubs, and Red Sox having the ability to break my heart.) Pac Bell Park, as it was then known, was my playground, a weekend escape from the daily grind of Arabic language training that I was undertaking in Monterey.

San Francisco is a beautiful city. If it weren't so far away from the rest of the world, I would consider living there. Maybe when California breaks away from the mainland we can dismantle the city and move it to the East Coast - it would fit nicely in that space between Baltimore and Philly that they call Delaware. Anyway, the baseball season air in San Fran is positively delightful, and when you are sitting in the right field view seats, it feels like Heaven as you look out over the Bay and into the China Basin, watching the kayakers wait around for a Bonds ball to make a splash and seeing the people on boats listening to the game while having a few beers out on the water. I miss that place sometimes, especially on scorching days at RFK, where not only are there no splash hits, but there are few dingers even leaving the yard.

The air changed when Bonds came to the plate - you could literally feel when he was going to hit one out. The crowd's collective breathing shortened until the bat made its mighty arc toward the ball, then the breathing stopped completely while the ball sailed for the fence, and an explosion of cheering erupted as soon as the homer was complete. The air was electrified when he came to bat, and last year only proved how much he was the team, he is the team. John Perricone at Only Baseball Matters has a great take on the Bonds issue.

I will always be a Bonds fan thanks to those two years of watching him play day in and day out when the magic air came, picked up his hits, and threw them out of the park and into that lovely water. I don't care what cream he used to try to keep his body from falling apart, the man is other worldly, a legend, a god. In the off seasons until this past one, he worked out six hours a day, six days a week, so don't say he isn't a hard worker. Make him pee in a cup this year, but don't destroy his legacy. It's time to put the past behind us and simply revel in all the man has accomplished. Please don't buy that book when it comes out. It's time to slap the sportswriters in the face; they're only trying to destroy the game.