Diary of a Diehard

With the opening day of baseball still 70 days 22 hours 33 minutes and 15 seconds away, I needed something to keep myself occupied for another couple of months. So a bunch of us at work decided we would start a XFL Fantasy League. After all, this would work perfectly. The XFL season begins on February 3 and it ends on April 7. That almost exactly fills the timeframe between now and opening day. Well, it is actually a week to long since Opening Day is April 3 but I figure all the other owners in our league will understand if I just ignore the last week of the XFL season. Since I am not much of a football fan, I thought I would be at a disadvantage with the other owners in our league. I quickly determined that I was wrong since there is no information available on the XFL or their players. When I opened up my draft card, I found that all the players are listed as rookies and even worse, the athlete rankings are strictly alphabetic. If I left my draft card as it was, I would probably have the only team made up completely of people with the last name that started with an “A”. But then again, from looking at the names before me, I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad. Obviously, I could not just leave the draft order at it’s default settings so I went through the list and I ranked the players whose names I knew. When I finished, I found that they were still in alphabetical order. Finally, I came up with the ultimate draft order and set my line-up accordingly. I am now going to draft only players whose names sound like cartoon characters. I can see now, I am going to clean up in this league!

The next two weeks are the darkest of the winter for baseball fans. Most if not all of the big free agents have been signed and no one is making any deals of any magnitude. Teams and players have exchanged figures for arbitration and are in the midst of negotiations. Spring training does not begin for another four weeks so there is pretty much nothing going on with regards to baseball. Unless of course you live in Venezuela. If I were in Venezuela, I would be seeing the final weeks of their season leading up to the play-offs and the Caribbean world series. I would be basking in the sun watching baseball and eating burritos. It is times like these when I wonder whether living in the United States is all that it is cracked up to be. Curious, I decided to go out to the Internet and see what the cost of living would be if I decided to move to Venezuela. The first thing I noticed was that there are very few web sites devoted to people wanting to relocate to Venezuela from the United States. The next thing was that most of the sites I did find were in Spanish. Although I don’t speak Spanish fluently, I do know enough to get by. For example, I know enough to ask where the bathroom is located. I can ask if the house is red and most importantly, I can say “This is the story of the three bears.” What I found though was that none of these sites used any of these words. I quickly decided that if I moved to Venezuela that one of two things would happen. I would either starve to death because I would know how to communicate with the natives or I would cause some sort of international incident by saying or doing the wrong thing. I guess I will just have to search the Sporting News for winter ball scores and highlights. It would be safer for me as well as our country if I didn’t travel abroad.

After a long and drawn out election process, George W. Bush was finally inaugurated as the forty-third president of the United States. With this inauguration, the country experienced something that had never happened in the history of this country. No I am not talking about a president that was elected electoral but did not win the popular vote. I am not even talking about the father/son combination elected to the presidency. Instead, I am talking about this being the first time in history where a former Major League Baseball owner has sat in the White House.

Continue reading ‘Inauguration Day’ »

Today was the final day of the Clinton administration. Tomorrow George W. Bush will take office. As has been the case with every president since the beginning of this country, President Clinton took his last day in office to issue pardons to several individuals, a total of over 140. Among those who received pardons were Patty Hearst, former Arizona governor Fife Symmington, and his brother Roger Clinton. There were 2 names that were obviously absent from the list, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. It was obvious from this omission that President Clinton does not believe these two have a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame nor as regular citizens. These two players are on a list which banishes them from baseball for life making them ineligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame. I have a hard time believing that these cases were not heard by the president and overturned. Granted, Pete Rose did accept his punishment voluntarily and he did bet on baseball so from a traditionalist standpoint, perhaps the evidence against Mr. Rose was more than even the president could withstand thereby forcing President Clinton’s hand into upholding the ruling against Charlie Hustle. What I cannot understand is his lack of respect for Shoeless Joe Jackson. Even the Chicago courts in 1919 could not convict Jackson, especially after the numbers he put up during the World Series. How can someone possibly be throwing a World Series when he hits .375 in 8 games with 3 doubles, a home run and 6 runs batted in? I cannot fathom how President Clinton did not pardon Joe and insist that Major League Baseball place his name on the Hall of Fame ballot. It is a travesty! My only hope is that with George W. Bush in the White House that baseball players will once again be pardoned so that they can once again be recognized for their accomplishments on and off the field.

The Arizona Diamondbacks announced today that they had signed closer Matt Mantei to a four-year contract extension. With this statement, the female teenage population of the greater Phoenix area sighed in relief. Had the Diamondbacks not been able to re-sign the “Ice Man” it would have left girls everywhere with broken hearts. It was bad enough with boy hunk Travis Lee was sent to Philadelphia, a town so rough that they boo Santa Claus. To allow Vanilla Ice’s twin to also leave town would have been more damaging than Leonardo DiCapro getting a pimple. For one reason or another, Matt Mantei has become the poster child for girls 12-15 wherever he has played. I wish I had a dollar for every “Ice Ice Baby” T-shirt I saw on a young girl around the Diamondbacks bullpen. I at least thought that my kids would be immune from this behavior. Instead, Tiffany has become one of Matt’s biggest fans. Her enamor for Matt though is less for his looks and more for his fastball. Early on in his career with the Diamondbacks, she made friends with him and they became buds talking before every game. Usually the conversation would be about pitch selection or Tiffany would suggest he work on another location next time he pitches to a certain batter. When I came home from work yesterday, it was Tiffany who met me at the door to tell me that Mantei had been re-signed for another four years. “That’s good.” I said to her. “Yeah, that should help the other pitchers in the bullpen to understand their roles. If Matt had become a free agent after this season, we would have been in trouble. Do you think he has been working on his breaking ball this winter?” she replied. Ah, all is right with the world when your daughter understands the importance of a good slider.

Today, Major League Baseball owners met in downtown Phoenix for their winter meetings. Foremost on the agenda was the discussion to restore competitive balance to Major League Baseball. Of course everything they would talk about must be agreed upon by the Players union so I am not sure what the big deal is. Peg leg Selig has come up with the idea that there should be a draft where the 8 worst teams would be able to draft a player from the best 8 teams. This would somehow allow the weaker teams to get talented players and make them more competitive. I am still unclear how this is going to make any difference. After all, everyone had the chance to draft these players in the first place. Now that they are established, I guess Bud believes they should get another chance to correct the scouting mistakes they made in the first place. I wonder how long it is going to take before the owners finally realize that some of these teams are just run by idiots and that by getting rid of some of the owners and replacing them with people that actually know baseball they will restore competitive balance. It will also take someone to explain to the owners (using small words) that they don’t have unlimited money and that there will be a point when the fans will no longer accept owners increasing ticket prices in order to pay for these outrageous player contracts. Funny, I didn’t realize the circus was back in town. Maybe I should go downtown and try to catch a glimpse at the clowns.

During the long dark days of winter, this date stands out as a beacon of light. I can always look to this day as a sign that warmer weather and spring training is just around the corner. For today marks the day that Major League Baseball announces the inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I sat close to the computer today to keep close tabs on who was voted in and who was passed over.

Continue reading ‘Mr. Puckett in the Hall With a Baseball Bat’ »

Seven score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand developed the game of baseball. This momentous game came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of sports fans who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred fifty years later, we must face the tragic fact that the baseball fan is still not free.

Continue reading ‘I Have a Dream…’ »

Raising a son is much different than raising daughters. I am always amazed at what a difference there is. Today was another prime example. Each Sunday, we get the kids ready for church and attend services. I believe it is important that kids are taught to be bored while acting attentive so in this sense church acts as a great teaching tool. As a leader, Trina usually has several additional meetings that she must attend. Some of these occur before church and on those days, I am responsible for getting the children ready to go.

Continue reading ‘Things Not to Take to Church’ »