Virtual Bike Tour of Baseball Sites

As a result of my recent heart problems (three stents placed), I've got to exercise more. I used to spend a lot of time on a stationary bike but chest pain (that's why I needed stents) curtailed that activity. Well today its back on the bike. Riding a stationary bike has to be about the most boring thing one can do in the privacy of his own home. I need some stimulus. So to that end, I've decided to take a virtual tour of Major League (and some minor league) baseball parks. Google Maps has a new feature which gives you walking directions. I'm going to be using those to guide my trip. As I travel between parks, I'll highlight the players who were born in any of the towns I pass through. Since I live in the Houston area, I figure I'll start out at Minute Maid Park where the Astros play. Since I've actually been there, I've got some photos I've taken. And the first player I'm going to highlight is Michael Bourn who plays for the Astros and was actually born in Houston. At the end I'll put a map which shows my travel plans.

Originally called Enron Field, Minute Maid park opened in 2000 and replaced the famous Astrodome. The Astrodome had been a fixed roof park, the first of its kind. Minute Maid has a retractable roof for the 2-3 days a year when the weather allows outdoor baseball to be played (actually spring and fall games are usually quite pleasant with the roof open). The park was the site of the 2005 All-Star game which I got to go to. I took these following pictures at that time. After Enron collapsed (the less said about that the better), Minute Maid bought the naming rights. It turns out that Minute Maid orange juice has it's headquarters in Houston. Who knew?Michael Bourn had originally been drafted by the Astros in 2000, but did not sign. The Phillies drafted him (their #4 pick) in 2003. In 2007, he was traded by the Phillies to the Astros for Brad Lidge. Lidge is having a fabulous year for the Phillies. He is 40 for 40 in save attempts. Bourn is not having a great year for the Astros. He is generally their lead-off man but with a .244 batting average and a .285 on-base percentage, he isn't really getting the job done. He's stolen 44 bases (he's been caught 10 times), but has committed too many base running errors.

Here is the first leg of the trip. My next Major League Park will be the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington Texas. My next stop will be Spring, Texas, the birthplace of Josh Beckett. From their I'm going to detour to Round Rock, Texas to visit the minor league home of Nolan Ryan's team, the Round Rock Express. After Arlington, I'm not sure of my direction but it will probably be west. The trip to Spring is 22.9 miles. It was a good first day doing 6.05 miles and no chest pain and no shortness of breath. I could have gone further but decided not to push my creaky knees too much too soon.

Thursday Night at the Movies - Burn After Reading

We'd seen the trailer for this several times this summer and all I needed to see was a good review to want to see it. The reviews have been good. If you like the Coen Brothers' work you will like this. It's funny, pretty dark, and very intricate. but you don't ever lose the trail of the plot, even though none of the characters in the movie really know what's going on.

The movie has a well deserved R rating, mainly for language. I would not recommend taking a child to see this. For one thing, I don't think anyone under the age of maybe 15 would really understand what's going on. For another thing, the F-word and all its variations is used quite liberally. If hearing that word bothers you then stay away. The music over the closing credits is by, of all bands, The Fugs. I remember The Fugs from the '60's but had never actually heard anything by them before. I'd always heard that their lyrics were too obscene for radio. You're never gonna hear this song on the radio either but it was a pretty good song.

Trade with John in UK

What with a cardiac catheterization, a hurricane and no internet until yesterday (because of the storm), I've not been able to post much in the past two weeks or so. But all that is behind me now.

A few weeks ago I saw these cards called "Phil Rizzuto's The National Pastime" posted someplace (probably A Pack A Day). I commented that I really like the cards so, John, the poster, sent me some packs plus some Phillies cards. These cards are even better looking in person then in a blog.

They are a collection of baseball images from the late 1800's and early 1900's. Some are of old baseball cards, but there are also games, magazine images and old photos. You might think that the chrome finish wouldn't go well with the old time images, but the cards are very attractive. The readers of the Dinged Corners blog will recognize this image which came from a vegetable crate in the 1930s.
This next one is from satirical set produced in 1885. They were used by businesses as advertisements for products or services, as well as premiums for regular customers. Did I mention that the back of each card has a description of the image? Many of them have a piece of baseball trivia as well.
Dave also saw that I was a Phillies fan so sent me a random collection of Phillies cards. This next card is from the 1987 Donruss All-Star set. The card is 3 1/2 by 5 inches. These came packaged with Donruss Pop-up Cards. I had some of the Pop-ups but hadn't seen the All-Star cards.Also included was this 1983 O-Pee-Chee Tug McGraw card. I only had three cards from this set and no Phillies.
Thanks to John for the great cards. Now I have to find some Red Sox cards I think he'll like.

Song of the Week - Walking Wounded - Everything But The Girl

I had 5,515 songs in my iTunes library. This is one of them.

Everything But The Girl (aka EBTG) are a British duo which formed in 1982. It consists of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt. Wikipedia notes that they are also a couple and are now married and have 3 children. Although they have been recording since 1982 and have had a number of successes, they have managed to keep their private life private.

The video is from their 1996 release Walking Wounded. In the video, the first woman and man that are seen clearly are Thron and Watt. I'm only familiar with their early 1990's material which is a mix of acoustic and electronic music, much like this song.



Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every bus
Is you and me and him and her and nothing can replace the us I knew
Nothing can replace the us I knew

And no, I'm never gonna let you go
And no, I'm never gonna let you go
And now I know I had a choice though you never made it clear to me
I thought you never felt it deeply
Now I'm never gonna let you go
Now I'm never gonna let you go
'Cause I could have loved you forever
I could have loved you forever

What do you want from me?, Are you trying to punish me?
Punish me for loving you, punish me for giving to you
Punish me for nothing I do, punish me for nothing
You punish me for nothing, for nothing

Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every bus
Is you and me and him and her and nothing can replace the us I knew
Nothing can replace the us I knew

Now I'm never gonna let you go
Now I'm never gonna let you go
And now I know I had a choice though you never made it clear to me
I thought you never felt it deeply
Now I'm never gonna let you go
Now I'm never gonna let you go
'Cause I could have loved you forever
Oh I could have loved you forever
Or I could have left you forever
I could have left you forever

What do you want from me? , Are you trying to punish me?
Punish me for loving you, punish me for giving to you
Punish me for nothing I do, punish me for nothing
You punish me for nothing, for nothing

Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every bus
Is you and me and him and her and nothing can replace the us I knew
Nothing can replace the us I knew
Out amongst the walking wounded, every face on every train
Is you and me and him and her, some days I think I could go insane
Some days I think I could go insane

Photoshop fun

My Internet connection at home has not been restored after Hurricane Ike, so I thought I'd try to make a post from work.

In the old days (pre-computer days), if Topps didn't have a photo of a player with his new team, they would often air brush the photo to alter the uniform. Wikipedia has an enormous article here on air brushing, in case you don't know what that is. In this day of digital photography and Photoshop, air brushing is probably a lost art.

I came upon this example while cataloging baseball cards last night (yes, things are pretty much back to normal at my house). Thursday has been movie night for the past few months but, considering conditions in the area, we decided to put it off. Troy Glaus played for the Blue Jays the last two seasons but is with the Cardinals this year. I don't know how he got there, but I'm thinking free agent signing. Topps managed to find a photo of him in a Cardinals uni for their regular set. Or did they? The Topps Opening Day set comes out after the Series 1 Topps. You would think that with a name like "Opening Day" that perhaps the cards represent opening day rosters. I don't remember from past years of this set, but the 2008 set has several players with their 2007 teams. For example, this Troy Glaus card. Look familiar?

We're safe

Sitting through a strong Cat 2 hurricane is pretty scary. We're far enough inland that we didn't have to worry about storm surge, but the wind pretty bad. I guess we had 90 mph gusts at our house. I'm happy to report that my house came through without a scratch. I had an old crappy tree in the back yard go down but it managed to miss my house and not take down a fence with it. My neighbors all came through ok. Damage seems to be limited to lost shingles, downed fences, broken tree limbs, downed trees. We lost power early on but our service was restored on Monday morning. Fortunately a cool front came through on Sunday. Saturday was hot, muggy and miserable but its been very pleasent since then. We still do not have internet service restored. I'm at the League City Civic Center where the city is providing free internet, wireless even.

I'm not back to work yet because of the storm. I work for one of the big chemical plants around here and they only wnat hourly folks and those necessary to get the plant restarted. I'm not one of those.

We were very fortunate. Just 26 miles down the road is Galveston City where a real disaster is unfolding. My biggest problem is I don't have internet. Thier problems start with no food, no water, no power, no home and get worse from there. Please keep these folks in your prayers and consider donating to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, or some other organization helping out.

It is hard for us here to really understand what is going on. All the news we can get comes from either the local ABC or CBS affiliate. In this internet age I'm used to being able to find out what;s going on anywhere at any time. Now all I really know is what is going on in my own back yard and what Channel 11 chooses to tell me.

I have no idea when I'll be able to post again. Hopefully I've still got some readers left. If internet is not restored by Friday, I'll be back to the Civic Center and I'll make a brief post.

1999 SP Signature Autograph - Mike Schmidt

I thank all of you for your comments and prayers (except perhaps any comments favoring the Mets and Brewers). I got home this morning (Friday) after my cardiac catheterization. It went very well. I was, apparently, lucky I hadn't had a heart attack. They found blockages in 2 arteries and placed three stents. My doctor said I have to get my cholesterol lower, keep my blood pressure down, get thinner, and obey posted speed limits. Good advice for all of us, I think.

Of immediate concern is Hurricane Ike. League City, where we live, is not under a mandatory evacuation. This means they do not expect our area to flood. Ike is forecasted to make landfall on Galveston Island between 1 and 2 AM as a Category 2 storm (winds up to 110 mph). It is expected to weaken rapidly once it makes landfall and then to move rapidly north and out of the area. We've got the house as well prepared as we can manage. It looks like a lot of neighbors have stayed. This is being handled much differently than Rita which is why you've haven't seen days of traffic jams on the TV. I expect to be without power for maybe a few days so you may not hear back from me until Monday. I've got a Song of the Week cued up for Sunday. If I've got power I'll add a note. I prepared this post on Thursday morning before I went to meet the guy with the big needle.

I bought this card on eBay in November 1999 for $46. It's the most I've paid for a single card. It is the only Mike Schmidt autograph I have. Long time readers will know that Michael Jack is my favorite player of all time.

Schmidt retired in 1989 and was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1995. Between 1991 and 1998, there were 42 Schmidt baseball cards issued, that's approximately 5 per year. In 1999 there were 15 cards issued. In 2000, there were 17. In 2001 there were 129 Mike Schmidt cards and the flow has, if anything increased. Some of this has to due with the increasing numbers of parallel cards. But I also think it attests to Schmidt's continued popularity in the hobby. I myself own 103 post 1990 Schmidt cards. Prior to 1991 I own 72, which is pretty much every mainstream card issued.