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After what seemed like a long drought of no baseball, I was lucky enough to go to two games within the span of 5 days.  The first game was the home opener of the Durham Bulls against the Norfolk Tide on April 15th.  The second game was a Monday night game between the Carolina Mudcats and the Tennessee Smokies on April 19th.  Both games were losses, but fun was had by all.  Here are some pictures of the games...

Game 1 - Norfolk Tide at Durham Bulls

 We ditched our right field bleacher seats to sit atop the first come first serve Blue Monster in left field.  Got to enjoy a few beers 30 feet above the left fielder.  Awesome.

 

 The mascot, Wool E. Bull, landed on the field in a helicopter to bring the AAA Trophy to home plate.

The famous smoking bull was right above our heads.  The eyes gleam red and the nose blows smoke during a Bulls HR.

Game 2 - Tennesee Smokies at Carolina Mudcats

My son enjoying his favorite sport, BAAAAAAASE-BALL!!

 A check-swing strike!

My daughter disagreeing with the 1st Base Ump on the check-swing strike.

I can't wait to get back out to the ballpark, especially now that my son knows Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Tuesday Tournament Update

Here is the weekly tournament update.  Teams with the best record after 32 games move on to the second round.

The Mets, Padres and Nationals are putting a real scare into some higher seeded teams.  I know Night Owl despises tournaments (or so I think), but I bet he is praying for his Bums to not be the first #1 seed team in history to fall to a #16.

If you want to get in on the action, drop me a line about a trade in the comment box or give me the link to your want lists!

Teams taken: Dodgers, Nationals, Phillies, Twins, Rangers, White Sox and Rays

Teams pending: Braves and Marlins

Doc T

Welcome Home!

It is my pleasure to announce that my Brother-In-Law has safely returned from Afghanistan.  This was his third tour of duty with his previous two being in Iraq.  The 15th Engineer Company was gone for 362 days, and EVERY single one of the soldiers that left last April returned safe and sound this past Saturday.  Thank you God.

I am extremely proud of my BIL, and very thankful for the work that he and his Company did over there.  He worked on the construction of FOB Wolverine and FOB Delaram.  I saw him while he was on leave in December, and he was doing great. 

Last April, just prior to his deployment, he and I drove from Fort Knox to Dayton, Ohio to watch his cousin pitch opening day for the Dayton Dragons, the Single A Affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds.  His cousin is now the staff ace of the High A Lynchburg Hillcats.  

Now that my BIL is back, I can start publicly keeping an eye on his cousin via this blog.  Wade Boggs had fried chicken, Turk Wendell brushed his teeth between innings, and I never spoke of my BIL's cousin in the minor leagues.  Just didn't want to jinx anything.

I'll start up soon on the followings of Matt Fairel.  Does anyone know if he has a card?

Here are a few pictures of his tour and his home coming!

Welcome home Rob!!!!!

Wanted!

I created this sometime back for PunkRockPaint when he was putting a call out for Wanted Posters.  I sent it to him, and nothing ever materialized (Just like the Old Planter advertisement I did for Thorzul).  Oh well, so I'll post the wanted poster here.

Any guesses as to who this bandit really is?

Kicking the Buckett

For Christmas in 1987, my mother got me a subscription to Beckett Magazine.  I was more than thrilled.  I imagine this came about because I had nearly destroyed a Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide I had bought one summer visit with my Grandma in 1987.  Having found the book at a local book shop in a small Indiana town, I felt I now possessed the Holy Grail.

No longer were my cards pictures and stats of my baseball heroes, they were now priced.  They had “value.”  To an 11 year old, whose allowance was raiding the change from my Dad's key bowl, finding out some cards were worth over a dollar, and at worst were worth 5 cents, was like stumbling upon an open armored car.  In essence, the money was mine for the taking.

Trading among friends lost the notion of obtaining your favorite players or teams, it now became the stock market.  I vividly remember us pulling out our price guides to make sure no one was pulling a fast one.  I even remember a kid standing at the only exit to our school, holding up a 100 card stack of 86 Topps.  He’d bark “$2 for 100 cards!,” and inevitably, every day some younger kid would buy them.  That kid must have made a killing, selling 500 cards a week for $10.  I later found out the 100 cards were starless, and that he kept the good ones, sold the “bad” ones and used the money to buy more cards.  Ingenious, if not deceitful, yet truly sad in retrospect.

The innocence of collecting cards was gone.  No one saw Jose’s smirking mug, they saw a big fat $ sign.

I could rail on again about my disdain for what Beckett and Mr. Mint did to the hobby, but I’ve done it before, even if in a hack literary effort.  No, this time, I’m going spelling-Nazi.

Leafing through my last Price Guide from 2002 (which was the only price guide I had since my 1987 version – and the monthly subscription ran out back in 1993), I noticed several annoying UERs, to use their lingo.

Exhibit 1:

Not one, but two within a mere inch of each other.

Exhibit 2:

Japenese – UER.  Way to denigrate an entire nation.

Judging by the number of people who are acknowledged for working on this guide, one would think that spelling would be easy to notice.  It goes to show that if attention to these details can’t be followed, then I’d think the “prices” are wrong, too.

Yeah, I know I'm being picky.

Doc T