Damn Yankees

Looking toward right field from our seats at the Yankees game. This is the last year for the current Yankee Stadium. You can see the upper lip of the new stadium in the background.

Even though it looks like blue skies in the picture it was dark-ish and cloudy when I took this picture. I think that's a result of the lights. Judging by the fielders, the Mariners are up to bad. Not that we were able to do much. Although our 4 errors in the first three innings means we were worse in the field than we were on offensive. Not a great game.

While I'm at it ...

As it happens I also have a game update on the Tacoma Rainiers blog today. I went with a couple friends to see the Rainiers take on (and beat) the Colorado Sky Sox. It was my first baseball outing of the season and a good time at that.

Blog moderator Frinklin introduces my update and writes, "And if any other Rainier fans would like to file a guest wrap-up, just drop us a line!" If you're a Rainiers fan, here's your chance help keep people in the loop on what's going on. I know the next time I'm at a Rainiers game I'll keep my scorecard going so that I can send in updates.

Mariners at Yankee Stadium

I'll be catching the Mariners playing at Yankee Stadium the first week of May and the tickets just arrived! This is the last year for Yankee Stadium, so it should be fun to see it before it goes. Happily, the trip is also going to coincide with the TriBeCa Film Festival, so we'll probably try to catch a flick if we can.

It's turned into a big group of us going. There will be 10 (10!) at the game and 5 of us over the weekend.

I'd never been to New York until November '06, then I went again in August of '07. And now I'm going back in '08. Making New York an annual trip would be just fine by me ...

The Goose

I'm sure my dad will be happy to hear that Goose Gossage made the Hall of Fame today. He was the only person to make it this year after being on the ballot for 9 years.

From the NYT:

Rich “Goose” Gossage, the intimidating closer with the explosive fastball and the Fu Manchu mustache, secured baseball’s highest honor on Tuesday when he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Tacoma Pitcher!

Very cool to see a Tacoma native pitching in the 4th game of the World Series. Keep it up, Jon Lester!

Sleepy Sunday in Tacoma

Always good fun to watch the Seahawks on a sleepy fall afternoon.

And it is most definitely fall. I wore sweaters to work three times last week! That's a sure sign fall is here. There are still nice days and some good sun; but step into the shade and it's very clear what season we're in.

Actually, it's been a very nice weekend. Mary and I were at the CityArts reception Friday night for their 1st Anniversary at the Broadway Center, followed by dinner with the folks at Primo Grill.

Yesterday was a little quiet, but highlighted by a nice jaunt up to Capitol Hill for a movie at the Egyptian. And today a quick IKEA trip wrapped up the errands, followed by a very nice Seahawks game on the couch.

Bestow, Brand, or Banish

Barry Bonds' 756 home-run ball was purchased at auction for more than $750,000. The new owner has start a website and is asking for votes on what to do with the ball. He's got three options:

Bestow it: Give it to the Hall of Fame.
Brand it: Brand a giant asterisk in to it and then give it the Hall of Fame.
Banish it: Launch it into space.

While banishing it is kind of cool, I voted for Branding it. You can vote on the website. The polling closes on the 25th of September so vote soon!

"The Blind Side" by Michael Lewis

If you enjoy football to any degree, I highly recommend Michael Lewis' book "The Blind Side."

His previous book Moneyball (which I also greatly enjoyed) felt very academic, more economic treatise than sports-fan fodder, although again, it really was very good.

But "The Blind Side" is just awesome. At its center is a young man named Michael Oher whose story is compelling and makes for some of the best non-fiction reading I've done in awhile.

Surrounding his story is a mini history of the development of football and how the position of Left Tackle has become so important in modern football. It sounds dry but it's really not. Lewis is a very gifted writer and the story is top notch.

If you hate football, you're probably not going to like this book. But if you have even a passing interest in the game, I think this will make you sit up and take notice of the sport even more. It did for me. Now I don't have to pretend that I know what people are talking about when they refer to a West Coast Offense.

All Over The Sound

Happily, I was all over this weekend.

Friday we journeyed west and spent the evening at Mason Lake, which is always nice. Saturday it was lunch with the family and then a trip across the water from Bremerton to Seattle by ferry, followed by seats with friends to see Griffey and the Reds lose to Seattle 9-1 (clearly I chose a better day to go than Friday night's 16-1 loss).

And today it was breakfast at PSP where we bumped into the good folks at ZestyEnterprise. And this evening, it's off to Seattle again for the Hedwig show at Neumo's! Hedwig will be back in T-town Friday and Saturday night down at the SOTA Theater, so hopefully I'll see you there for that!

Tacoma City Marathon - Tomorrow!

To the 1,400 runners competing in tomorrow's marathon, half-marathon, or 10K, my hat is off to you. Actually, my hat will be hanging on my bedpost because your marathon is at 7:00 in the morning and I'm going to be sawing logs like a normal person.

But good luck. Have fun. Thanks for putting Tacoma on the map by racing in this successful event. I hope you do it for years to come.

But I'm staying put.

11-2? Ouch.

For a brief while I was a Minnesotan, which made me a temporary Twins fan. But that didn't make the loss tonight any easier.

The M's got crushed. It was my second game of the year (2nd this week, too). I think I'm going to try to stick with the Sunday games so I can ride the Sounder to and from. Doing that this weekend was a spoiler; it's the only way to go!

A Ride on the Sounder

I went to the Mariners game yesterday with some friends and took my first ride on Sound Transit's awesome Sounder.

Should I repeat: it's awesome. I've ridden the Express bus to many a Mariners game, but this was much cooler. For a buck more than the bus, we had a much better ride and saw a much more interesting side of the route between Tacoma and Seattle.

The trains right now only run for 1:05 games on Sundays but it's still pretty cool.

Mariners won too and wound up in first place, so all in all--a good Saturday!

365 Days Ago ...

Sometimes you catch a certain date and think ... hey! I know what I was doing one year ago today. Today was like that, except that while I didn't know exactly what I was doing, I knew enough to know I was in Torino, Italy at the Winter Olympics.

That's where a blog comes in handy. A few clicks back to Feb. 13, 2006, and--voila!--it turns out Phil and I were watching the US women's curling team get beat by the Norwegians.

If you love the Winter Olympics, you already know that we are 3 years away from the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics because you get the emails from vancouver2010.com. But you may not know that the Tribune launched an Olympics blog recently.

Just in case you're interested.

Man I was way off

Good think I'm not a bookie. Colts take it. 29-17.

Regarding the Game

If I were a betting man, which I suppose I am, I'd put money on the Bears today. Bears up by at least a touchdown.

Pillaged and Plundered

Ouch, Joe. Your Vikings were true to their name.

Go Seahawks!

While I do have affinity for my ol' Vikings from my Minnesota days, I still gotta say ... "I hope we trounce you."

Sorry, Joe.

Ta ta, Yanks

Here's a brutal stat from today's Yankees-Tigers game: "The Tigers did not swing and miss until Wright’s 37th pitch."

Thanks to the NYT for keeping track. Go Tigers!

(Joe, you'll be happy to know I am not rooting for the AL West Winner the A's. I can't cheer for anyone who clobbers Twins. As a Gemini, I'm opposed to that.)

Bring your earplugs Sunday

A possible allegation into piping in crowd noise? Seems to bizarre to be real. But casinos pipe the sound of slot machines into their lobbies and exterior areas, so perhaps Seattle is actually trying it. Although it seems unlikely.

But as Dave Boling points out: it's certainly going to rev up the fans against the Giants this week. Kind of a "We'll show you what real fan noise is." So if you're going to the game, and you don't happen to be on the Giants offensive line, then let me suggest ear plugs. Cause it's going to be damn loud.

Another great game

I didn't want to, but Joel made me stay until the game was over. So a 3-2 win in the 13th felt pretty good by the time we got to it. It was particularly nice, too, that the game was at 6:05, so that by the time we got to the 13th it was still 10:15. The cell phone pic below is probably from the 6th inning or so.