Looking back and looking forward

Long story short (for once), I didn't go out for New Year's. That puts me here, in my computer chair, at less than two hours into 2009, and somehow I don't feel any different than I did before 12:00 struck. Also, all the cool kids are doing years-in-review, so I have to too!

This blog and its author had some fun times in 2008.
Like...January, when we went to Texas and caught up with Mike Sweeney again. Fun times, right?
We also hit up the Royals Caravan in that month, got a snazzy pic taken with Ryan LeFebvre, and made John Mayberry chuckle.

In February, we had some trouble with an old laptop (may it rest in peace), and openly mocked KSU superfrosh Michael Beasley to his face. One of those things was more fun than the other.

In March, we fretted about Spring Training performances, made some pointless tables, and also got "discovered" by a couple of Royals message boards and other Royals blogs. Finally, someone who doesn't share my last name or bloodlines started reading this! Then Opening Day finally arrived, and we babbled like idiots.

Then came April, which meant the Royals home opener. We ogled Crown Vision's enormous glory and watched A-Rod strike out FOUR times. Then we became one of the Ladies..., which was pretty exciting, and reflected on the origins of our Royals fandom.

May...was mostly stupid. We stewed about the Buzz Bissinger affair, had our hearts broken by a 12-game losing streak, and finally had something to celebrate when Mike Aviles got called up.

June was all about branching out, like a piece for Yahoo! about Aviles, and a new sports blog elsewhere where I pondered the human drama of minor league ball, and shared a tale of a game the ORoyals played with no electricity after a horrible storm beat our fine city to a pulp. (That game ended up being my favorite sports moment of 2008 in this Ladies... post.) Oh, I also saw my first no-hitter in person, and was not amused. Oh, and I went to Kansas City for a few days!

The beginning of July contains my birthday, so we figured out how the Royals have done on birthdays past. We later wrote our first-ever FanPost at Royals Review, which was a trade rumor involving Tony Pena Jr. And then TPJ pitched. Then, we were giddy to learn that the Hawaiian Punch himself, Kila Ka'aihue, had been promoted to Omaha.

Remember the time the Royals won seven f*^*^&*^*ing games in an entire month? Yeah, that was August. But we had Kila to keep us sane. His plate approach was a sensational break from people who we won't specifically name, but whose name might rhyme with...Mason Pith. Oh, and here's a tale from the dugout.

September was SO. MUCH. BETTER! The Shealy finally got his much-deserved callup when rosters expanded - and was still misused - and hit a bunch of homers. But we also got to see Kila (now!) in KC. We enjoyed all the winning and pondered why we're still Royals fans. Then we got to see The Shealy at an awesome win over the Stupid PoopySox.

In October, we DID NOT WANT Mike Jacobs, but it happened anyway. How miserable.

November came, and the Royals did a bunch of stuff with catchers, which prompted us to examine the catching market. Then Coco Crisp happened, and we reacted. We then ate our words for your enjoyment, and hopefully more of those posts are coming soon.

December was a month of farewells, like Greg Maddux. And the Royals said farewell to Mark Grudzielanek but helllooooo to a sandwich pick. The Baseball Writers Association of America said some hellos, inviting two Baseball Prospectus writers to join their ranks. And we tried but failed to make any sense of the Kyle Farnsworth signing.

Going into 2009, I hope to post more often, use shorter sentences, and use more statistics. I hope more people find this blog to be worth reading and sharing. I hope the Royals give me happy things to say. I hope I don't suffer any awkward injuries at an ORoyals game in front of 6,000 people, because Joey Gathright is no longer around to save my life. I hope Brian Bannister bounces back to his 2007 form. I hope Zack Greinke signs a long-term extension already. I hope there's at least one person who has read this far, and I hope anyone who is reading has a happy new year!

The coolest thing happened to me tonight

Boy it's been a long time since I've posted, hasn't it? Long story short, I did not have Internet in my dorm room (horror of horrors!), and then both of my computers conspired against me and gave me hard drive failure scares.

Tonight was the last Omaha Royals home game until April 17, 2009. I'm not counting down or anything, but that's 232 days away. I have a lot of thoughts from the last homestand, but I'll have to get to those tomorrow when I have no classes to attend and a whole day to spend with my Baseball Prospectus and my laptop (now featuring an Internet connection).

For now, just one quick story:
I ran dangerously low on fuel on my way to the stadium this afternoon, but decided to wait until after work to get more. So I pull into the gas station closest to Rosenblatt, put in my debit card and pin number, and untwist my Taurus' gas cap. Before I could get any further, a white pickup pulls up behind me, and the driver, a 40-something man, says "Hey! You're from Western Nebraska?"

Turns out this man and his wife were from a town near my hometown. And also that they had $35 left on a gas card to that station that they couldn't use, so they gave it to me, based only on my familiar license plate prefix.

After the bummer of a game that Omaha played, on top of the fact that it was the last home game of the season, I was feeling pretty blue. I can't think of anything else a stranger could have randomly done for me that would have been better, or more timely. So now I'm in a good mood, reflecting on the positives of my day, rather than being completely bummed out that my season is over, and I no longer get to see the Shealy and the Colon and the Wright and the many, many other smiling faces that made my summer days so much fun. Man I'm getting all mushy and cheesy here, so I'll stop and go do something manly, like chop down a tree or watch last night's Project Runway. Back with actual baseball stuff tomorrow!

1st half in review, because I'm BORED already

Ugh, I really hate the All-Star Break. A lot. I hate it even knowing that the guys not involved in stuff in New York have the chance to go home (wherever that may be) for a few days. I suppose that much is cool, but it doesn't change the fact that this is the least interesting three days in the entire sports year. I don't buy into the hype that ESPN has been building around the Derby, or the ASG itself. The Futures Game is a useful tool to see who's who around baseball, but it's over, and the rest of the break has begun.

Yesterday's Royals game put me in a deep funk, and I am having trouble remembering that there have been some great things so far this Royals season. All I can see is John Buck having a weak, inaccurate arm, Mike Aviles making the wrong throw, and Joakim Soria helplessly waving his arms at home, completely undeserving of the 'L' that was assigned to his record.

But I only have to look at the previous night's game to know that good things can happen to Royals fans. I've watched that DeJesus home run and listened to Denny's radio call of it over and over and over and over, and it doesn't get any less awesome. Couldn't have happened to a better guy, y'know?

DeJesus is having such a great season, and I'm not sure if it will serve to cement himself as a cornerstone for the beginning of contention, or if it will just bolster his trade value. Either way, I'm enjoying his '08 production so far. It's only halftime and he's already set a new career high for homers in a season; he's only 7 shy of his career high for RBI, and he's on pace to set new career highs in hits and steals. He's slugging better than he ever has (.474) and is getting on base as well as he usually does. And his OPS+ of 121 leads the team, and is head-and-shoulders above the All-Star That Wasn't, Jose Guillen (who is at 98).

With all that in mind, I invite you to take a moment and treat yourself to that walkoff home run again. Really. Here it is.

For one night, the Royals got to be the heartbreakers instead of having their hearts broken. And it happened in the same night that Mark Grudzielanek collected his 2000th hit. An honorable career milestone and a sweet walkoff victory in the same night? Awesome! Plus, Horacio Ramirez (or Ho-Ram, if you prefer, and I certainly do) picked up a win against the team that cut him. So many stories...this was the kind of game that left me so high on baseball I didn't think I'd ever come down.

And then Sunday happened. What a stupid game. If you didn't see how Seattle scored the winning run, you're lucky. I do not believe I've ever been this blindly pissed off about the Royals finding creative ways to blow a game, certainly not this season. It didn't help that Joakim Soria was on the mound and had to pay for the mistakes of his teammates by taking a loss.

So now I need to breathe, to stop being angry and to enjoy some of the cool things that have happened this season. I need to do something to keep me warm through this long, cold break from meaningful baseball.

Opening Series: Remember how cool it was to sweep Detroit? At that time, Detroit was the team that was supposed to score 1000. OK, I know nobody intelligent was actually predicting it. ESPN just kept building and building on the hype around the Tigers, and eventually the number just sort of ballooned into 1000. Anyway, it was exciting, to the point where I was an illiterate, blubbering mess. But once I collected my wits about me, I came up with some sweet math to commemorate the sweep.


Two aces: Zack Greinke and Brian Bannister both got off to those incredible starts, where their ERAs were both under 1.00 and each was 3-0. Greinke has kept it up to some extent, which is exactly what I expected of him. I had hoped that this was his 20-win season, but at this point it would take a near-miracle to get there form his current mark of 7-5. I suppose that's a symptom of playing for a team like Kansas City - lots of no-decisions. But I've got my fingers crossed as tight as they can be crossed that the Royals lock down Greinke to a long-term deal, and soon.

Anyway, the hot start for those two pitchers also included the home opener, in which Bannister struck A-Rod out three times. And I was there. Oh, and there were the back-to-back CG shutouts. Awesome!

Fast forward a little ways, and there was the night Jon Lester no-hit the Royals. I should look at that game as a low for the Royals, but I'm too enamored with no-hitters to have been that upset at the time. The rest of the games in that losing streak. hurt a lot worse.

Yeah, those days were dark. But this roster move was made, and the spark that Michael Anthony Aviles provided to the Royals lineup was undeniable. His hot streak made us all very, very excited, and paved the way for a winning June.

Lots of other cool things have happened to the Royals. Jose Guillen was the world's greatest hitter for about 6 weeks. Joakim Soria's legend has grown and grown, and justifiably so. Did you guys see this video wherein Soria was given a "Mexicutioner" t-shirt? Hat tip to Brad for the video, and there's just so much to love: 1) Jack is so adorably humble about being one of the best closers in the game. 2) I love the way the name "Mexicutioner" has caught on. Dutton uses it regularly in stories in the Star, and it has now been used in FNSKC broadcasts as well.

Do you have a favorite KC moment from the season so far? Which are the moments you can watch and relive and discuss, without loss of their awesomeness?

If only I had better words for this...Dad.

Many times,I find myself relating to someone else's experiences "as the daughter of a ________." Someone's facing a drug screening? "My dad was a probation officer, so I've heard so many stories about those." Someone's talking about incarceration? "My dad was a warden, so I can discuss these theories about corrections." Someone's telling about when they needed an ambulance at 4 in the morning? "Oh, my dad's a paramedic; that pager going off in the night was a big part of our household routine."

He was and is more things, too: a teacher, a firefighter, a coach in almost every sport I played. Most of all, he's a hell of a daddy. I have four brothers, so I'm kind of the princess, I guess. Dad likes to say I've got him wrapped around my little finger, that he'd do anything for me if I just bat my eyes at him. But I hope he knows the reverse is true - I'd give anything, do anything, go anywhere for him.

And how could I not? I can't think of any man between Jesus' time and today that I admire more than my father. Daddy is selfless - those 4 a.m. ambulance calls weren't fun for him, but he wanted to help people, and he never ever complained about being tired when it was time to go to work a couple hours later. He never complains about anything, except maybe the Royals, and he has more things he could complain about than many people.

Like I said before, my Daddy is a million things. He has always found time to cheerfully and skillfully be everything for everyone, whether it was coaching my Little League teams, volunteer firefighting, teaching EMS classes at the local college, serving on our parish council, working full-time, sharing in the cooking and cleaning with Mom...or all of the above.

When I screw up, he never yells, and if he ever completely loses patience with my idiocy he never shows it. I never have to question whether he loves me, my brothers, and my mom, and I thank God every day for that. If more daddies everywhere could be at all like my daddy, my hero, the world would be a totally different place.

As usual, the Fathers' Day contributions at PostSecret have broken my heart, but made me weep a little (OK, a lot) with appreciation for the dad I have. So...hi Daddy, sorry I can't be at home to bake you a Royals cake this year, but I hope this will do. Happy Father's Day.

Love,
Minda

Quick and random musings

I'm hitting the wide open road tomorrow so I can go see some friends and then go see my parents/little brother/dogs for a couple of days before the College World Series takes over my every minute. But here are a few things, in my beloved numbered list form:

1. So, how about that Mike Aviles? Well, except for today*. I loved the other night as he was standing on second after his first big-league hit. You could tell he was trying SO hard not to smile, as if it was just another hit, business as usual. After a few seconds of that charade, the glorious face-splitting grin couldn't stay inside much longer, and it was just...cute. I love those grown-men-being-reduced-to-little-boy moments that baseball gives us so abundantly.

Seeing Aviles get intentionally walked to set up the Guillen grand slam yesterday was one of the most delightful things I think I've ever seen. Not only is it more fuel to the flame of people who are annoyed by IBBs, but the mere thought of Andy Pettite, a likely HoFer, pitching around Mikey in his 7th big-league at-bat is hilarious. Then Guillen did the most un-babylike thing possible with the situation.

*not that I could see how he did today, because Cox doesn't care about Royals fans enough to televise all the games they're supposed to. It's a problem for them to institute a tiny surcharge to accommodate those extra broadcasts that a lot of people would like to watch, but it is not a problem for them to institute HUGE rate increases so two people can watch HGTV in HD while seeing caller ID on their TV screens. We love paying for useless garbage that no one will use, instead of getting something useful and entertaining.

2. I came halfway to having a lifelong dream fulfilled yesterday. Carlos Rosa pitched four perfect innings and was not really showing any signs of letting down, but then a bunch of stupid rain came, and there was an hour and seven minute-long delay, and of course by that time they didn't send Rosa back out, so the dream of seeing a PG were shattered. Not only that, but Omaha went on to lose the game anyway. On that note...

3. I couldn't be happier to be done with the Iowa Cubs for a while. The O-Royals are just 2-6 against the Cubbies so far, and many of the losses were of the heartbreaking variety. (However, I will miss the crowds that the Cubs series always bring. Those crowds have some great energy!)

4. I will have my first actual professional baseball writing gig for this year's College World Series. During that time, I probably won't write here much (if at all) but I will post links to whatever I write for Baseball Prospectus. (Yes, them. Woo!)

5. Glad to see Jeff Fulchino called up to the bigs (the first-ever ex-Natural to make it there), and to see that he was effective in today's game. I wonder how Joel Peralta will react to being demoted; he really didn't like it the first time this year but responded by not allowing a run in his time with Omaha. I hope he does the same thing; some more scoreless relief would be dandy.

6. I would love to have written more, but I need sleep. Earlier when I sat down on my living room floor to fire up my laptop, I noticed that the carpet was soaking wet. After some severe weather last night and a bunch on other recent nights, it seems that maybe my house's foundation has a leak, because the water was definitely coming up from under the carpet, rather than having been spilled on to it. This is disturbing because I have a specific fear of water-related accidents that stems from the time a toilet* in my childhood home literally split apart and flooded a big chunk of the house.

*No, a pipe didn't burst; the toilet tank itself just inexplicably split open, so as the tank kept trying and trying to re-fill itself, hundreds of gallons of water spilled down into the TV room below that bathroom, and then the room below that. I still freak out at the possibility of more flooding in the 4 places I've lived since then.

7. From the Heartwarming Stories Department: Lady Andrea at Ladies... writes about how the NFL has pitched in to help a tornado-ravaged town in her area.

8. Two of my brothers and I have recently started joining in the in-game open threads at Royals Review. For me, it feels like a support group. I can never have enough bitter-yet-optimistic, snarky, clever Royals fans around. I don't know why we didn't start doing those things much sooner.

Thanks for sticking around while I haven't been writing much. I love you all dearly. On that note, if you find yourself at an O-Royals game, feel free to come say hello! A while back, reader 'mike in omaha' introduced himself, and it was delightful to meet someone outside of my family who reads this here site.

Excruciating.

I can't take this. It's got to be bad for the heart.

I have nothing to say about tonight's disaster that hasn't been said already by better writers (to start: here's Joe, here's Rany).

I'm not quitting the Royals; I'm not selling my fandom on eBay. I'll still be watching, criticizing the bad things, celebrating the good things (wait, there's enough good to warrant an 's' on the end of 'thing'? Hrm.), and hoping like hell that this thing ends. In 2005, during the 19-gamer, I liked to share with my radio listeners all the different ways my team was inventing to lose games. I didn't think that this year of all years would be the one in which they decided to invent more.

Enough of this. I'd rather think about stadium evacuations due to hydrochloric acid spills. That's a lot easier to stomach than anything the big league club is doing. After a sloppy beginning to the top of the 4th, Matt Wright seemed to be working his way toward salvaging the start, and had at that point only given up 2 hits and 2 runs. I was really curious to see what he would do in the 5th after that adventurous 4th, so when the O-Royals went away pretty quietly in the bottom of the 4th I got all ready to pay extra attention to pitching.

Instead, I got pulled aside and warned that we were about to evacuate the stadium because of a chemical spill nearby. This was officially the weirdest postponement I've heard of since the days when games had to be called on account of darkness. The official box score on the front page at oroyals.com says "Postponed: Other." The game will be resumed tomorrow afternoon, and the regularly scheduled game will be shortened to 7 innings, like a normal rainout situation. I wonder how both managers will handle their pitching staffs: Do the starters stay in, since they had each only thrown 4 innings and neither was doing too poorly? Surely that's what they'll do, right? I can't imagine putting that many innings on the bullpens' shoulders, given that they have to get through Game 2 as well.

Lastly, here is a post to which I contributed at Ladies... . I think I'll expand on the ideas in a little more detail here soon, because the balancing act of being a girl and being a sportswriter is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

KC snatches defeat from the jaws of sweet victory, but at least Omaha won

Clouds, helium balloons, ecstasy, unicorns, Nintendo 64...these are words that come close to describing how high I felt seeing Mark Teahen fly around the bases on what was a few inches away from being a harmless foul ball, but instead was a three-run inside-the-park home run. I screamed with glee, not caring that my entire block may have heard. Did that really just happen?

The words to describe how losing in spite of that hit...those words are not publishable here. How in hell can a team lose after getting THAT to tie things up? Especially when the next pitcher they face is Dennys "The Sphere" Reyes? Come on, Royals. Seriously. Now it's official: Kansas City really is never going to win another game.

On a lighter note, Carlos Rosa picked up win #2 here in Omaha tonight.

PROS: He struck out seven batters in his five innings, walked only* two, kept the ball in the park, and worked his way out of a heck of a jam in the 5th inning. The two hits he gave up in the first four innings were barely hits - a couple of inches lower, and one might have been caught, etc. - and one of those batters was wiped out on a double play.

*Two might be high for a guy like Rosa, but would be a decent number for anyone else. I'm keeping it as a pro, especially given the 7 Ks. The fact that both came in one inning almost put them under the cons list.

CONS: That fifth inning. When Rosa is doing well, he exudes control. Every move he makes, every pitch he throws, everything about him on the mound screams "I own this game." He did not look like that in part of the fifth tonight. After allowing a single to John Mayberry, he struck out the next two batters. Up to this point in the game, Rosa had only had to throw more than 5 pitches to any Oklahoma batter one time. But when RedHawk Travis Metcalf came up to bat, something happened with Rosa's control. He threw a wild pitch that allowed Mayberry to advance to 2nd, and never quite recovered.

Metcalf worked a full count, then singled. Casey Benjamin singled on the 2nd pitch he saw. Jason Ellison worked a full count, then walked. The bases were now loaded, which brought up Ryan Roberts. He, too, worked a full count and then walked to score a run and bring Nelson Cruz to the plate. He worked a full count as well, then struck out.

So Rosa really had to work for his outs when he got to about the third time through the Oklahoma lineup - 39 of his 91 pitches came in that inning. Did the Hawks figure him out? Did he get tired? Did he tweak a muscle when he threw the wild pitch? I don't know. He was good enough to get a win, but I'll be interested to see how he handles the third time through other batting orders the rest of the season.

On the offensive side of things, Mike Aviles pretty much screamed "CALL ME UP ALREADY" by bashing another two home runs, which coordinated nicely with taters from Angel Berroa and Brian Buchanan. It was cold out and a little rainy, but the few who stayed long enough for the victory pigs were a heck of a crowd. Matt Wright will take the mound tomorrow in pursuit of his 2nd win on the season. If last season was any indication, this will be about the time Wright really gets into a groove and starts making everyone look silly. I hope that's how it goes; that was really fun to watch.

Speaking of this time last year, Sunday marked one year since I fell/jumped/awkwarded (yes, "awkward" can be used as a verb, especially by me) off the dugout and sprained my ankle. Good times.

BIG news for B&OT

After the departure of a few of their fine blogstresses, the Ladies... were looking for new contributors. After a rigorous screening process that included a background check, urinalysis, submission to random drug testing, an IQ test, and a strange ritual involving paddles, two kittens, and KY Jelly, I am one of them.

Why would I want to write for such a website? Fame, glory, and the big bucks. Duh. Also because I've always loved the balance the Ladies... provide for me as a sports fan. The Ladies... all legitimate sports fans with intelligent* thoughts, ideas, statistical knowledge, etc. about our favorite teams and sports. And we all have our regular blogs and other websites for those ideas. But from time to time, I find myself wanting to extol the virtues of high socks and eyeblack, or criticize MLB's dumbest goatees, but this blog isn't really the place; that wouldn't be fair to people who are here for actual baseball (...and, uh, Other Things?). I can do those posts there, comfortably assured that Ladies... readers understand that it is a balance, not merely a girly obsession with athlete asses in tight pants.

*Them, not me.

This is by no means the end of Baseball and Other Things. It's more like B&OT now has a baby sister. And that I'm this much closer to being Internet-famous.

Just so you know

I won't be posting much this month. It's unfortunate because April is so awesome -- it's the month I spend all offseason pining for. Now that it's here, I have zero free time. None. Tonight is the first Omaha Royals home game, one of 16 this month. I'm working all but one of those (taking off for the KC home opener!) and I have a one-hour commute each way. Meanwhile, I am a full-time student, and apparently that is supposed to take some time. So I apologize profusely, because a lot of times I'm certain that blogging is more useful than classes ( because it has allowed me to "meet" so many of you fine people!) but I don't really have a choice.

If you're in Omaha this month (or at all this summer), I'd love to see you at a game! The schedule is here, and the promotions are listed here. See you at Rosenblatt?

EDITED TO ADD: We have sole possession of first place! Whee! (Click image for beautiful evidence) And I'm not terribly good at math (which is unfortunate because I really love baseball math), I've come up with an amazing statistical breakthrough comparing the Royals to the Tigers this week. Are you ready for this? Click here to see this mathematical revolution in the making.

Briefly: Technology isn't my friend

My computer inexplicably crashed in the middle of a paper I've been avoiding writing (but cannot avoid much longer), and lost some of my work. (Thank you, MS Word, for not recovering that last hour's worth of work.) Then, even more bizarrely, all of my hundred or so Firefox bookmarks had disappeared.

For a while, it felt like a little part of me had died. I know it sounds stupid, but there's a lot of me in all those pages: funny comics, brilliant photography, inspiring things, cool Royals stuff I'd buy if I could, great sportswriting from all over, resources for all my greatest computer (read: pirating) needs, a crazy number of sports blogs, a bunch of research for one of my part-time jobs....all gone.

Luckily, Firefox backs up bookmarks every day, and my brother gets the most golden gold star in the world for helping me discover that nice little feature, and find and restore that part of my life.

Now, back to that paper...if I survive tomorrow and Thursday, I will bring Part II of my 2008 Royals forecast, and perhaps some other cool stuff. Until then, you can keep watching Joey Gathright put his car-jumping skills to practical use.

Bummer in Boulder

I have a confession to make: (Mom, cover your eyes for a moment, please.)
I spend a lot of time in class writing potential blog ideas, rather than paying attention to what the teacher is saying. I don't even know why I go to class half the time, because I have taken a total of maybe 20 pages of notes in my entire college career, and filled the rest of my notebooks with ideas for blog posts, and fun with numbers.(OK, Mom, you can look again.)

So I had this wonderful little plan that I was going use class time today to outline exactly how bad the Nebraska-Colorado basketball game last night was; something more substantial and stats-based than my little rant in a comment on another post. Turns out, I actually have to (or kind of want to) participate in all of my MWF classes. (Well, I suppose I could try to use time in Econ to do blog stuff, but my prof in there is...well, strict would be as big of an understatement as I've made in quite a while. Seriously, the guy might will snap me in half with his hands or shoot my face in with mind bullets if he were to catch me doing anything other than paying rapt attention to his lecture.)

The point is, you don't get my in-depth analysis of how sucky the Huskers were last night. But you are smart folks; you don't need me to tell you how awful it was if you saw any of the game. If you missed the game, the box score tells it pretty vividly too.

Nebraska was led in scoring by little Cookie Miller, whom I love dearly but who is not typically any kind of scoring threat. I mean, good for him that he scored 18 points, but most of them came off of stupid shots forced by a complete lack of intelligent ball movement. Nebraska looked like a court full of idiots, meaninglessly meandering around the arc, dumping the ball off in endless succession of pointless passes, none of which ended up inside the paint, or even inside of 30 feet from the hoop. In theory, it's cool that coach Sadler doesn't draw up every little play the Huskers are supposed to run. I like the idea of them being a tight enough team that they can work together to figure out where the ball should go and how to best get it into the hoop. But last night, that was less than an idea; it was a hopeless dream, and there was nothing the six of my friends and I gathered around the TV could do about it.

Furthermore, the more I watch Aleks Maric, the more I am convinced that he hates basketball. I know he prefers soccer, but now it looks like he has zero fire for basketball left in him. It's pretty sad, really, and pretty confusing to consider why he's going to try for the NBA if he hates the game so much.

What might be the most sad thing about last night is that if you look at Colorado's box score in isolation, you would probably bet money that they got their asses handed to them. They had almost as crappy a game as Nebraska did, and still won. Just like the Huskers, only two Buffs scored in double digits, but Colorado's top scorer had 13 compared to Miller's 18. 11 team assists for CU? Pathetic. But Nebraska sucked a little bit more, dishing only 9. Ditto for rebounds, and pretty much anything else in the box score. Yuck.

In the immortal words of Mike Gundy, "That's all I've got to say. Makes me want to puke."

Annnnnd.....back!

I just spent a week in lovely Grapevine, Texas for the FOCUS national conference. It was overwhelmingly awesome, and now that I'm home, I am overwhelmed by the task of catching up on the stuff I missed while I was gone. The Royals made a couple of moves, JoePo wrote approximately 7 million words (including the results of the Pozcars!), the Ladies... covered all the bowls of the week in a way that only they could, some great conversations about the Royals' future were opened up over at Royals Authority, and I gained some major ground (and possibly even first place) in my bowl pool, based on my arbitrary picks and as-stupid-as-I-could-muster reasons.

Well, that's the stuff that happened that had nothing to do with me.

For my part, I survived an outlandishly long bus ride to Dallas to start my 2008. You should know that buses and I...we're not friends. But I made it, so 10 points for me! The conference was held at the Gaylord Texan, which was completely wonderful despite having really tacky carpet everywhere:
I think the goal of the Gaylord Texan is to see how many Texas cliches they could cram into one resort. It seems kind of silly to me. I mean, Nebraskan hotels don't have carpet with ears of corn all over it, right?

Part of the carpet in the ballroom featured larger versions of the motifs in the hallway design. Those giant boots, hats, and belt buckles were a crazy-awful distraction during daily Mass.

This being a Catholic conference, there were tons of nuns (Say that a few times out loud, it's fun: Tons of nuns! Tons of nuns!), priests, brothers, deacons, and even bishops everywhere. Some regular hotel guests (ones not associated with the conference) were quite confused by this; people overheard some fun observations like, "There's some nun convention going on here," and "What in the name of hell is this??"

We had a lot of dynamic, hilarious, intelligent, moving speakers address us throughout the week. They talked about everything from birth control to spreading the gospel on our campuses; from baseball to navigating the Bible. My favorites were Mike Sweeney (of course) and Fr. Benedict Groeschel. Sweeney kindly took a few minutes to see how I've been doing since we met up in August, because he's that awesome.(Pictured are me, Sweeney, and my good friend Becky.)

On Sunday night while we were stopped for a needlessly long dinner break in Oklahoma City, I called my dad to check up on football scores, and to pass the time before all 200+ people in my traveling party got their darn food and boarded the buses. I was planning on telling Dad how amazing it had been to be at Mass that morning, because there were four bishops there, and I felt very privileged that they had given us their time. But before I could say that, Dad told me that my brother, who is traveling around Italy, had gone to the Mass given by the Pope that day. I think he wins, but I at least got a picture taken with a cardboard cutout of His Holiness.


Now I'm back at the home of my parents, and I brought back some souvenirs from Texas, like some t-shirts, books, and a sinus infection. Their furnace has gone out, so my fingers are getting a little bit too cold to type any more (lucky you!). That means I have no choice but to snuggle up under like 20 blankets, make a giant mug of hot chocolate, let my dogs curl up at my feet, and watch some movies, right? My, my; what a hard life I lead...

I've got some ideas brewing that were inspired by the Bill James Handbook (which I finally own, hooray!). Those ideas should magically turn into a post or two in the coming week, along with some Nebraska basketball stuff, as the 11-2 team gears up to open conference play against #3 Kansas (gasp!) this weekend.

It's that time of year again

"If you want to arrange it, this world you can change it. If we could somehow make this Christmas Day last, by helping a neighbor, even a stranger. To know who needs help, you need only just ask." -Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Old City Bar"

Whether you're of any religious persuasion or not, this is still a beautiful time of year in which anyone can -- and most people do -- show the best they have to offer for their neighbors. Yesterday I saw a cashier at my university's bookstore (typically an evil place, no?) skip her lunch break because she saw that her co-worker had a long line of customers and she didn't want anyone to be stuck in line all afternoon. A teller at my bank (another entity not usually associated with Santa's Nice List) took a few minutes to help me with my Spanish after I told him that my final in that class was tomorrow. It's the time of year when a lot of people remember that giving is really, really, really easy. Anyone can do it, regardless of age, abilities, income bracket, religion, or anything else. I like the little drummer boy; he gave everything he had to offer, even if it was just playing a drum.

So if all you have is a love for video games, there's a place for you too. Child's Play might be my all-time favorite charity. It was started in late 2003 by two gamers who were sick of the way their fellow gamers were portrayed in the media as bloodthirsty monsters, and the project grew into an overwhelming avalanche of gifts that required three separate moves into ever-larger storage spaces. At first they gave to one hospital, now they give to 45. Last year, the gaming community raised over a million dollars' worth of games, toys, and cash contributions. Can they do it again? I don't see why not; at this writing they stand at $851,000. If gamers -- people who are not typically thought of as the world's best philanthropists -- can do that, everyone else can too.

Whatever holiday you'll be celebrating in the coming weeks, I hope you have a good one.

Senselessness

Wednesday afternoon, I didn't get to eat until after 2:30 or so. I was pretty hungry, so I went to the dining hall I can't stand, because it was the closest one still open. But what I saw when I entered the cafeteria was the shocking news....well, you know by now that I'm going to say it was about the shooting in an Omaha mall.

I didn't write anything here for several reasons. Part of it was that I had school things and social things happening, and part was that on Wednesday I just didn't know what to say. Wednesday turned into Thursday, and then it became the weekend, and I figured it was too late to say anything meaningful. And then I realized how utterly horrible it is that before the funerals have even happened, my MTV-generation mind has already classified this horrible occurrence as "old news," that people might be disinterested in a piece of writing about eight people losing their lives unexpectedly and, by my best judgment, unfairly.

The truth is, I'm angry at Robert A. Hawkins for senselessly taking 8 lives and his own. I didn't realize until tonight in my Bible study that I was still pissed off, that I hadn't moved on to whatever the next stage of grief is.

My brother described the shooting as "numbing and incomprehensible" in his post about the shootings, and that is right on. This kind of thing does not happen. Now I get it when people respond to tragedies with "I never thought this could happen to me." Why would anybody ever predict that they'd be a part of something so horrible, so thoughtless, so devoid of humanity?

I never wanted to know what it felt like to make phone calls to my friends and family and ask the question "is everyone alive?" but now I know. All because a young man -- he's my age, which is weird to me -- decided that the best way to become famous was to make it rain bullets in a shopping mall at Christmas time.

Hawkins said in his suicide note that he wanted to "go out with style." I've been racking my brains since Wednesday and I still can not think of anyone who thinks it's stylish to tear eight families apart during a time of year when things are supposed to be happy and full of love. Those victims were probably shopping for their loved ones, anticipating the joy that comes with giving a gift. Instead, they had everything taken away, all in the name of some demented idea of "style."

I'm hoping that I remember to remember all the people whose lives were torn apart by this shooting, even if CNN has quit updating their stories on it. I pray that I haven't lost touch with humanity to the point where I only care about something like this for as long as the news networks do, and then my attention turns to the next story, never to revisit this one. But mostly, I pray for the people who never thought that the last time they saw those 8 family members was the last time they'd see them, forever. Robert A. Hawkins has given them the least merry Christmas of all.

Giving thanks

I'm typing this in the odd time between the end of football and when we're finally hungry enough for the pie that was ready by dinnertime. We never eat it until later, of course, but wouldn't it be sad to want pie right after Thanksgiving dinner and not have it ready yet? So year after year we make sure to have that pie baked and ready to go, but we never eat it till hours after dinner is finished. (And the turkey is done!)

I have a lot for which to be thankful this year. Both of my shoulders work, after over a full year of pretending to be left-handed because of an injury to the right side. I can even box on my brother's Nintendo Wii. That's progress if I've ever seen it.

In the last week, I've driven somewhere around 1200 miles in my aging Taurus, and it has carried me safely through all of those miles and many thousands before. Here's to many more miles.

Several rooms away, I can hear my brothers and my parents laughing about one thing or another while they eat their pumpkin pie. We're always laughing when we're together, so much so that my sides and face always hurt when we finally have to part ways. It's the best pain I could ever feel.

I have a new sister-in-law this year; after growing up with brothers, having Haley in the family is a welcome change.

The Royals are taking positive steps toward becoming something other than a joke. What's not to love there? Is it April yet?

And really, I have to be thankful that I'm a student at the University of Nebraska. $35 for a whole season of men's basketball? Yes please!

Lastly, I am quite thankful for pumpkin pie and Cool Whip. So I'm going to join my family in enjoying both.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Home sweet home

It's weird to be back in front of my computer after a long, crazy weekend. Around Nebraska football and basketball games on Saturday, and my brilliant idea of driving from Lincoln to Minneapolis and back for a concert last night, I feel like I'm a little bit behind everything happening in my own little computery world. So here's some catching up:

Joe Ganz? More like Joe MANz!
If you follow college football, you might have heard about the insane beating that Nebraska handed to Kansas State on Saturday. It was at least as crazy as the score indicated; I had the pleasure of seeing it from Row 3 right behind the "B" in the word "Nebraska" painted in the south end zone. Some of MANz's seven (yes, seven) touchdown passes happened about 10 feet from me, and I loved each one more than the one before it.

After last week's embarrassingly large loss to Kansas (no, I am not consoled by the fact that nobody has beaten Kansas. I still hate losing.), it was refreshing to see the Huskers play with some heart again, the way they did against Texas two games ago.

I am a fan of gentlemanly, sportsmanlike play, but I was not at all offended by some of the penalties called on the fired-up Husker players. Excessive celebration? At least we're in the endzone. Roughing the passer? That means our defense got through someone's line... Hallelujah! I think a lot of Nebraska's losses this season can be attributed to lack of heart. All season, the team has lacked the intensity and attitude to incur the types of penalties I just named. I don't want my Husker players to act like thugs, but it was kind of fun to see them, for once, showing up at Memorial Stadium with a little bit of attitude, that "swagger" that can make winning even more satisfying for this year's beleaguered Husker fans to watch. After that game, I finally feel confident that the Huskers can beat Colorado in the annual day-after-Thanksgiving meeting.

Incidentally, Joba Chamberlain paid the stadium a visit, which got people pretty fired up. Before they introduced him, along with his father, Harlan, the good folks at HuskerVision treated the 84,665 in attendance with a Chamberlain highlight video, complete with many of those trademark fist pumps from his Husker days and his magical time with the Yankees. When he walked behind the endzone, right under my seats, I very shamelessly yelled "Holy crap! It's Joba!" He turned and did a thumbs-up/gun finger gesture in my general direction, which was my first encounter with a Yankee player. I may hate the Yankees with the fire of a thousand suns, but I love Joba Chamberlain. All this stuff that's written about him...it's true. It's all true; it's the story that brought tears to my eyes every time I heard it during Joba's time in a Husker uniform. I was thrilled with his visit to Lincoln this weekend so I had an excuse to spend some time thinking about some of the good that's left in the world, the good that is impossible to ignore even when it's wrapped in Yankee pinstripes.

A father who raises his son to sincerely say things like this is a father more kids should get to have:

"I wake up with two purposes each day: Make at least one person smile and have fun. If I can make a wisecrack or give someone a hug, that day's been worthwhile, even if I give up 15 runs. No matter how bad it is, it'll get better. I mean, look at this ."

His hand sweeps across a beautiful ballyard -- Comerica in Detroit -- shimmering beneath a cloudless August sky. "This is what I do for a living. I get to come here on a weekend day and watch a major league game for free -- and maybe even get to pitch in it. What could be better than that?"

Wow, that was quite a tangent. This post was really supposed to be about Husker football, and then basketball. My bad.

Yesterday three friends and I made a car trip to Minneapolis to see my favorite band, the Dropkick Murphys, in concert. I learned many things, like driving 900 miles when gas is over $3 a gallon was not the most economically sound decision I've ever made. In fact, it may have been the least so. At least I didn't get a speeding ticket -- I'm looking at you, Mr. Posnanski -- and my car behaved splendidly. And my map was reliable and despite the fact that I was navigating, we got where we needed to go and back without getting lost. The weather was unseasonably warm, and most of the people we encountered were kind, even if they were ridiculously shocked that actual people live in Nebraska, and would travel such a great distance for a show. One patron who was not so kind was this kid who apparently loves his elbows so much that he has to share them with everybody by keeping them in the air at all times. In a crowded nightclub, this meant that those lovely (pointy!) elbows were embedded in the side of my neck for most of one of the opening bands' sets. My attempts to dislodge the elbow from my throat ended in him glaring at me and digging it in more deeply. Sigh.

But the really cool thing about seeing this particular show was that it was Veteran's Day, and the Dropkick Murphys' beliefs about war and service are delightfully different from most punk bands. When they offered up a song as a tribute to veterans and to those who are serving right now, the club was transformed, almost as if by magic, from a venue full of all the usual moshing, nosebleeds and chaos that are usual fare for a punk rock show, into a crowd full of people who were belting out the words to the song in respectful remembrance of a lot of people who are normally not respected by such crowds. After the song was over, the chaos resumed, but those three minutes alone were beautiful enough to make the whole trip worth it.

A personal note

It is necessary to occasionally include non-baseball things here, so that the title of this blog is not a lie. Therefore, I would like to wish myself two happy anniversaries:

Anniversary #1: One year ago tonight, I dove awkwardly after a ball on an ice rink and ended up with a torn labrum. This required surgery, and left me without my right arm for most of last winter.

Anniversary #2: Five months ago tonight, I jumped off the Omaha Royals' dugout awkwardly and sprained my ankle pretty badly. No surgery this time, but I was placed on the 30-day DL.

Two themes here: First, I do awkward things and get hurt. Second, these things happen on the 25th of various months. Perhaps I should stay indoors and sit perfectly still on the 25th of every month to avoid further mishaps?

Sweeney home among those endagered by Cal. fires

When I heard about the fires in California, for some reason Mike Sweeney popped into my head. I of course knew he was a SoCal guy, and I wondered how or if the fires have affected him.

Turns out, very significantly.

"We only had time to grab what we could. We got our marriage certificate, the birth certificates, three wedding pictures and two pictures of the kids with Pope Benedict last year in Rome," Sweeney said Wednesday night. "That's all we have."

Sweeney has been told that nearly 50 homes in his community have been consumed by flames and nine were lost within a mile of his home. But he isn't sure about the fate of his house.

"I don't have any certainty. They're not letting any residents in," he said. "We're checking on the Internet and our home is not on that list, so we're very thankful."

Other ballplayers and their families might be in danger too, and David Justice's home has already been lost:

Players with the Padres and other teams who live in the San Diego area also have had to evacuate. Royals second baseman Mark Grudzielanek lives in the area, but Sweeney has not been in contact with him.

"David Justice lost his home; it was completely burned down," Sweeney said. "It's hit hard in the baseball community because so many live within two or three miles."

Maybe it's because my dad is a firefighter, but I just find news about people losing their homes in fires to be terribly sad. I'm going to keep an eye on this situation; hopefully no more families have to lose their homes, much less members of their families.

Monsoon season?

Last night's O-Royals game was rained out, which created a double-header tomorrow. Tonight's game was also rained out, which created...we don't know. A double-header Saturday as well? I asked a few players, but no one seemed to know if it's possible to just cancel a game and never make it up. Mike Aviles gave the best answer, saying neither Omaha nor Round Rock needed this game, so why make it up?

The rain delay and eventual cancellation provided some interesting opportunities for me, my coworkers, and my brothers who were at the stadium. My brother Brad and I were desperately hoping that Mike Sweeney would be hanging around the clubhouse in preparation for his game with Omaha tomorrow, but he apparently was not there. Or if he was, he is very good at hiding. But I did get to have him (my brother, not Sweeney) come out by the dugout with me so he could meet Angel Berroa and just be around the team, because every good fan should get to be around their team at some point, right?

The owner of the Omaha Royals was here for tonight's game but obviously did not get to see his team in action. Sadly, he was only planning to be around for today's game, so bummer. The promotions staff was planning on putting on our best performance EVER for him, too, but instead we all just huddled up in the hallway next to the Royals clubhouse in a feeble attempt to stay dry. (The attempt was not feeble because rain came in, but rather because Aviles and Fernando Cortez found our bucket of water balloons we were going to use for a promotion, so we bore the brunt of a few of those watery explosions.)

I guess I've always wondered what it would be like to hang around the clubhouse with a bunch of pro ballplayers, and I gotta say it's a lot like hanging around the playground with my Little League teammates. The guys are a bunch of little kids trapped in grown men's bodies -- I'm not saying that's a bad thing; it's perfect for their jobs! But it's just funny how much my coworkers and I have to watch our backs around them, lest we get pinched, tickled, de-ponytailed, or nailed with a water balloon.

Tonight was the season's final Thirsty Thursday, so fans who were "Here for Beer" got to sit and have as many dollar Hi-Lifes as they wanted (in quantities of only two per customer per visit, of course) while they waited for the rain to let up. And then again after the rain let up and then came down again. And again. And again. I wonder how concession stands do during a long rain delay when all the fans gather on the concourse to stay out of the rain.

- Last winter I decided to emulate one of my favorite MLB players, Mark Teahen, by suffering a torn labrum in the shoulder of my throwing arm. OK, that may not have been the reason it happened, but the subsequent surgery and long immobilization of my arm made school ridiculously difficult. I still managed to scrape together a 3.4 or so for the semester, but I'd rather not EVER go through a semester without my writing hand ever again. I bring this up because I think I may have re-torn it. Whoops.

- I moved my first car load of stuff to my new dorm today (the moving might be related to the shoulder thingie). It didn't rain much during my drive from Omaha to Lincoln, but the minute I eased my car into its parking spot, the heavens opened and I began my moving process in a downpour. Of course that's how it would happen with me. I am only half-heartedly committed to moving, which is evident in the fact that my computer is still here in Omaha. I suppose I'll finish moving eventually, but I have a MiLB season to finish!

- Here's how much baseball has permeated the lives of my brothers and me. My brother Ryan, who got married last weekend, is also in the process of moving out of the current house (which he so graciously shared with me this summer) and into his wife's condo. He told me that he had some items that I could claim off of waivers, but if I did not claim them before the season was over, they'd lapse into free agency and some other organization might nab them. I claimed a GameCube and a bunch of games that way. Hooray for waivers!

- Lastly, please say a prayer or two for someone very close to me who is making a career change. Thanks!

Weddings make fans miss baseball

Only a few special things could ever, EVER take the place of baseball in my life for any amount of time. As you can tell by the lack of posts lately, one of those things has come up. My brother Ryan got married on Saturday (YAY!!!!) so I was occupied for much of the week with bridesmaidly duties and with spending time with my parents and little brother, whom I don't get to see nearly enough.

Because of the wedding, and the visiting family members, I have missed a lot of Royals baseball. I was also blessed to miss Barry Bonds' record-tying and -breaking homers, so in that respect I'd like to thank Ryan and Haley for having their wedding this weekend.

Just a few quick notes, because I still have some wedding business to attend to (all the tuxedos have magically appeared at my place, so I suppose I should do something with them other than let them sit on the dining room tables).

- Someone at royals.com finally came out and mentioned Matt Wright as someone who should/will see time in the Majors this season (Toward the end of the article). He has quietly been the best starting pitcher on Omaha's staff all season, and it's about damn time he gets some recognition.

- Neal Musser is SO the real deal. Look at his ERA. Now look at his IP. Yes, he has pitched 46.2 innings, and yes, his ERA is 0.19. He finally gave up one earned run yesterday. I never mentioned his 0.00 ERA before, because I knew that as soon as I mentioned it, he'd give up like 15 earned runs in one inning, and it would be my fault.

- I'm very much looking forward to watching KC tonight. It will be the first time in longer than I can remember that I'll have had the opportunity to watch a game. I've missed some great ones in the last week or so, and I feel SO out of the loop. Don't call me tonight if it's not about Royals baseball. I need this game.

- Lastly, and most importantly, congratulations to my brother Ryan and his new wife, Haley. If I had hours to sit here and type, I could fill every minute with gushing about how wonderful they are, and what an inspiration they are as a couple and as individuals to their friends and family. I do not have hours to do this, I only have seconds, so I will just say congratulations and God bless!