T.G.I.B.W.D.
Since Baseball Widow has moved to the weekly format, she has plenty of time to think about her posts. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of post ideas float in and out of her brain before she has time to blog them. Yes, yes, Baseball Widow could jot them down the old fashioned way, but who wants to kill a tree when you can burn fossil fuels by using extra electricity? So, bear with me as I do my best to address some recent areas of thought.

--We Ain't Talking about Sandwiches, Either
Baseball Widow has gotten lots of great suggestions for the heroes/villains matchup. One of my favorites is the idea that Doc Ock, who possesses the potential to be a great pitcher, might not be the best choice simply because his balk rate would be astronomical. (Not that lack of playing potential has ever stopped Baseball Widow from signing someone. . .) Baseball Widow actually thinks the nickname would be the hardest thing to overcome. Can you say "Doc 'the Balk' Ock" without swallowing your tongue?

--Sight for Sore Eyes
The Eye-Candies have dropped Jose Reyes for Braves cutie Nick Green. Baseball Widow is sure that there are other hot prospects out there, but since she only watches Braves games, her pool is limited. Baseball Widow is seriously considering dropping Jaret Wright, though. He looked rough last time up, and I'm not talking about his pitching.

--Can you believe Terrence Moore wasn't included?
Picked up The Best American Sports Writing, 2003. In a word, it's not. Many stories concern baseball, but most of the selections are so overwrought that the reading can hardly be called pleasurable. Take, for instance, Gary Smith's "The Ball," as originally published in SI. The "American Story" behind the lawsuit over Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball contains lines like, "Their eyes met, a few minutes before their fates did." At this point, Baseball Widow checked the cover of the book for a picture of Fabio.

Of course, almost all baseball writing suffers from emotional excess, so leave it to David Grann to tell just the facts in "Baseball Without Metaphor," a story that purports to reveal the "real" Barry Bonds, one who understands baseball is a business. So Barry Bonds thinks baseball is a business. Imagine if A-Rod thought that way: he could stand to make some serious money. . .

Look, Barry Bonds isn't a new breed of player; Honus Wagner was in it for the money, and he didn't care to be an idol. Even assuming that Bonds's screw-the-media mentality is radically different from that of other players, the only thing new about Bonds's behavior is his acknowledgement that he crafts a character who takes on a life of his own, independent from the "real" Barry. It's soap opera Barry--the one the audience loves to hate.

Unfortunately, for all his lack of metaphor, Grann still gets it wrong. The issue isn't really an overabundance of metaphors in baseball, it's an underrefined description of baseball as a microcosm. Baseball Widow will let you ponder that for a week.

Catch-up
Baseball Widow wanted to play catch-up on a couple of lingering items.

1. Smokies Game
Widow and Hubby managed to squeeze in another Tennessee Smokies game before leaving Knoxville. It was an eventful night. First, free hat night. Sweet. Second, since the Smokies were playing the Greenville Braves, Hubby went down to the dugout to get 3B prospect Andy Marte's autograph. He returned bemoaning the fact that Marte and all the players in the park were younger than he. (FYI, Hubby can't yet run for Congress, although Baseball Widow can.) Third, we got to see Widow fave Papo "Pop-Up" Bolivar receive the Southern League Player of the Week Award. Fourth, exciting news for Len Cleavelin: Cards' pitching prospect Brad Thompson was hot on the trail of the minor league scoreless inning record, which he recently broke.

2. Fantasy Team
No, not the Eye-Candies, poor souls. My latest intellectual quest is to determine the roster of the Superheroes (and Villians) fantasy team. Clearly, Spiderman is made for shortstop, and, on the other side, the Hobgoblin can seriously throw the heat. Haven't decided on the other positions, though. I'll keep you updated.

Housekeeping

Baseball Widow and Hubby have settled in lovely Davidson, North Carolina, for their summer teaching positions. Baseball Widow will move to a weekly posting during June and July, and she plans to focus more specifically on criticism and commentary (not that you weren't enthralled by the posts about the yard sale). Please check in on Friday afternoons, and, of course, tell your friends to do the same.

Would You Rather?

When Baseball Widow gets bored during games, she plays her own game, "Would You Rather?" This is a variation on a game Baseball Widow first learned in college. In its collegiate form, it's a hypothetical Fear Factor. . . would you rather spend 24 hours in a pit with garter snakes all over you or five minutes in a tank with 1000 mosquitoes, one of which has West Nile Virus? Yes, we were certainly putting our tuition dollars to work.

Baseball Widow's latest question to Hubby is, would you rather have a batter who hits .320 or a batter who hits .300 but takes seven pitches every at-bat?

Hubby has flipped-flopped on his answer (these games usually last several days), and Baseball Widow doesn't really give a flip. I play the game just for the conversation.

Quick, what's a six letter synonym for Tony Batista's batting stance?

Baseball Widow knew it would happen. Things were going too well. She was enjoying blogging about baseball--stretching the intellectual muscles. She had made new friends. Even though the Braves were struggling, she was having fun. Even though Baseball Hubby was so engrossed with baseball that he forgot our anniversary. . . still, things were going well.

Then it happened. Baseball Widow snapped. Please forgive me, but I just have to say this: I HATE BASEBALL. STUPID, STUPID, IDIOTIC, HUSBAND-CONSUMING BASEBALL. STUPID 30 MAJOR LEAGUE TEAMS AND THEIR STUPID 3+ HOURS GAMES ON TV ALL THE TIME. STUPID ESPN AND FOX SPORTS NET COMPLICIT IN THE ATTEMPT TO DESTROY HOME LIFE EVERYWHERE. STUPID ANNOUNCERS. STUPID MINOR LEAGUE TEAMS THAT KEEP DEVELOPING NEW STUPID PLAYERS TO PLAY STUPID BASEBALL.

Here are the two stupid final straws:

1. Nomar Garciaparra in STUPID first place in the STUPID All-Star voting when he hasn't played a single STUPID inning all year. The guy's been playing in the minors, for goodness's sake. (Don't give me lip about the apostrophe _s_. It's grammatically correct, even if it looks stupid.)

2. Mike Hampton, facing the Expos, walked in a run during the top of the 4th. First problem: "walked in a run" wreaks havoc on my grammatical processing. Second problem: the batter got an RBI. Why is this a problem? WALKS DON'T COUNT AS AT-BATS. HOW CAN A BATTER POSSIBLY BAT IN A RUNNER IF THE BATTER DIDN'T HAVE AN AT-BAT?!?!?!
Okay, so this isn't the first time Baseball Widow has recognized this terrible inconsistency in the game, but tonight it's enough to drive me crazy.

Welcome to June, folks. The new season has lost its shine and Baseball Widow is beginning to remember exactly why she started this blog.

Baseball Widow and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Baseball Widow has had a rough day.

We got back from Florida last night, and Baseball Widow tumbled into bed. When she awoke to the sound of the dog chasing the cat on the bed, she should have recognized the melee as a harbinger of the evil to come.

Baseball Widow needed to return the rental van, so she woke Hubby up to have him drive behind her. Here's what happened next:

Hubby's car had a flat.
The air compressor was dead.
We couldn't find the lug wrench.
The spare tire was flat.
Baseball Widow's sister car wouldn't start.
Baseball Widow's cousin's car was in the shop.

Cut to later. . .
The muffler fell off Hubby's car on the way to the repair shop.
Had to buy four new tires for a car with 190K miles on it.
Bought groceries. Got home with five broken eggs.

So, like Alexander, Baseball Widow and Hubby decided to start the day over again. They crawled into bed to watch the Braves game and take a nap. What happened? The Braves managed to blow a 3-0 lead, and Baseball Widow learned that the Braves had lost Adam LaRoche to a collar bone-type injury.

What's the point? Baseball Widow's day was a cakewalk compared to the Braves' woes this season. Injury after injury--only four games with the "regular" lineup. Somehow, the Bravos keep plugging away. They've won 7 of their last 10, and there's even talk of a short-term low-budget signing of semi-retired Andres Galarraga or Fred McGriff. Could be cool to see one of these vets return, but one of the bright spots of the season has been being able to get to know new young players. Nick Green is doing a bang-up job filling in for the injured Marcus Giles, and he's quickly establishing himself as one of the hot young prospects for the next generation of the Eye-Candies. Speaking of new (but not necessarily so young) Braves, Seth Stohs has an interview with left-handed reliever C.J. Nitkowski who happens to be a baseball writer as well.

Baseball Widow is going to stop typing now before the computer explodes or she manages to break the Internet.
Soon I hope to post some about balanced schedules and my latest "fantasy" lineup.

This used to be my playground

Another one of the gems Baseball Widow found when cleaning out the attic was a project from her 8th grade American History class. As I recall, we had several options for the assignment, but the project I chose was mapping all of the Major League Baseball parks in the United States.

Baseball Widow, who was quite handy with a jigsaw at the tender age of 13, had no way of knowing that her project would end up being a memorial. It's surprising to see how many of the parks are now gone.

There were 26 teams back then (24 in the U.S.). Out of those, these parks are no more:

Kingdome
Candlestick Park
Jack Murphy Stadium
The Astrodome
Fulton County Stadium
Comisky Park
Tiger Stadium
County Stadium (Milwaukee)
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
River Front Stadium
Three River Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Arlington Stadium

That's 13--over half in about 11 years. The newest park listed on my project was Camden Yards, which kicked off the current trend toward smaller, baseball-only stadiums that heralded the end of the municipal stadium.

Although it's always sad to see an old friend go, certainly the newer stadiums can be great ballgame experiences (see post "Not Exactly Disneyland, or What I did on My Husband's Summer Vacation").

Baseball Widow is looking for a lesson in all of this, but I think the real story here is that Baseball Widow has mad wood-working skills.

Going Yard--Sale, that is

Baseball Widow just finished a crazy week of cleaning out the attic, sorting through junk, and selling it at a yard sale.

Somewhere buried in the rubble, Baseball Hubby stumbled across his old collection of baseball cards. He collected from about 1988-1992, and we were surprised at some of the cards we found:
--Rookie Randy Johnson, about 15 years away from a perfect game
--Baseball Widow favorites Harold Reynolds and John Kruk
--A middle-aged Julio Franco
--Mike Maddux and Greg Maddux, looking like twins--identically poised in the windup with that patented Maddux tongue sticking out of the corner of the mouth. (Incidentally, Baseball Widow adopts much the same appearance when playing piano.)

Perhaps the most surprising thing about examining the collection was the sheer amount of players that we simply don't remember. Hubby had carefully placed his "favorites" in a couple of three ring binders, and he didn't even remember half of those--not to mention the hundreds of loose cards thrown in a cardboard box.

Often it seems like Major League Baseball is a game of superstars, of millionaire celebrities destined for greatness. But the lineups are comprised mostly by the work-horses or those with flash-in-the-pan moments--guys you don't remember ten years later, but who were there just the same. They're the home runs or the strikeouts or the hits allowed by the great pitchers that you do remember. In fact, without them, the greats couldn't be greats, for greatness consists of dominating the average.

So here's to you, Ken Oberkfell. . . you played for the Braves for four seasons in the late eighties and hit 16 of your career 29 home runs for my favorite team. I'm sure I watched you play, but I have no idea who you were. A 3.5 inch piece of cardboard, Baseball-Reference.com, and some clippings in your mom's attic are all that remain to tell your story. Well, at least you got more of Baseball Widow's column space than Randy Johnson's perfect game.