I've Got Plans Then Too

When someone says, "I'll see you next Saturday," do they mean...
	This Saturday. The next one coming up in this same week.
	The Saturday after next. A week from this coming Saturday.
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Batting Crown

Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley is currently leading the National League in batting average with 18 games to play. (He'd wouldn't crack the top three in the American League.) If he wins the NL batting title, he'd be the first Phillies player to claim the title since...

Richie Ashburn in 1958!

Wow, that's a really long time. But to put that in a bit of perspective, the Phillies aren't the only club to claim such a drought.

For example, that's almost as long a stretch as the LA Dodgers who last had a batting champion in Tommy Davis 1962 and 1963. And it's only slightly better than the Cleveland Indians who last won bragging rights with Bobby Avila in 1954. Meanwhile, the Oakland Athletics haven't fielded batting champ since they moved out of Philadelphia in 1954. Their last title-holder was a first baseman Ferris Fain who won it in consecutive seasons in 1951 and 1952.

And with all the great hitters on the New York Mets and Houston Astros over the years, neither team have ever had a player claim the title while the Expos had two (Al Oliver and Tim Raines).

Richie Ashburn turned out to be a Philadelphia icon and had a statue erected in his memory outside the new ballpark. Will Chase Utley claim a similar legacy?

Shhhhh...

Two observations while watching tennis this week:

Why is that in tennis, spectators must remain so quiet during play? No one may shout or talk while a player hits a soft fuzzy ball with a big racquet. Someone could get hurt. Yet in baseball, with a small hard orb flying at 100 mph inches from your face, fans may yell as loud as they want, whenever they want. Ditto for football with 300 hundred pounds of lineman flying toward you. So why the need for such silence during the intense concentation required during tennis?

When did women's on-court attire start looking like figure-skating costumes? Is it really comfortable playing tennis in lace and toille?

Uma, Oprah, Oprah, Uma

Major gratitudes to my bro, Jammer Jive for an awesome birthday present. VIP seats for a taping of the David Letterman Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York are definitely a significant gift, and one that will be moderately difficult to reciprocate in the near future. VIP access means getting the best seats in the house without standing in line all day.

Those that did stand in line all day, sweating in the July humidity, had to keep up their energy and cheery personality to be selected by one of the CBS pages as a "dot." The "dots" were brought into the cool, air-conditioned lobby with us VIPs where they were informed that they would be seated in the front rows of the theater for the taping. Their gleaming smiles and effervecent charm would be required "front and center" to give Dave maximum energy -- even though their view of the production would be entirely obstructed by cameras, monitors, cue cards, stagehands, gaffers, grips and Eddie Brill.

After a speech from a former-cheerleader-turned-pharmaceutical-sales-rep-turned-CBS-page standing on a folding chair in the lobby about how we're not allowed to "whoop," "awww" or cheer when we hear our hometown mentioned, we were informed that there would be no access to restrooms for the duration of the taping. Such information caused immediate spasms of my ordinarily capacious bladder. Thankfully, we were granted access to one small, single-head bathroom in the already claustrophobic and mostly dingy lobby of the theater.

After relieving our bladders, we waited for a few more minutes before being ushered to our seats. The "dots' were taken to their seats close to the stage. The "non-dots" were shown their seats in the rear of the auditorium, out of sight of cameras and Dave.

Meanwhile, us VIPs were taken to our seats in the front of the balcony with a beautiful (mostly) unobstructed view of the entire set. The balcony is small, just a few rows deep, and probably seats barely 100 people. The lower level of the theater isn't that big either, and probably holds about 400 bodies in all.

The front edge of the balcony hangs low over the stage. During Dave's monologue, you felt as though you could reach over and check his hairpiece. Naturally, the whole set looks way smaller than it does on my TV -- and I own a 19-inch television. The legendary temperature of the theater is truly chilly. Looking at the empty stage prior to the show, one can't help but envisage the ghosts of John, George, Ringo and Paul (before his second marriage) taking the stage to a chours of 500 hundred screaming teenage girls. But there wasn't much time to admire the surroundings.

The warm-up act, Eddie Brill took the stage to get the crowd in a good mood. He was a funny guy, but you could tell he was giving his schtick for the 2,043rd time of his life and the second time that day. (We attended the evening taping.) They showed a short video on the monitors of some of Dave's best material: Dave as the drive-through attendant at a Taco Bell.

Eddie then introduced the band members one-by-one, culminating with the entrance of Paul Schaefer. The CBS Orchestra kicked up the energy with their take on Green Day's "Basket Case." The band sounded really tight, although it's clear a few of the guys are well beyond their prime. Do these guys get tenure or something?

Eddie then explained that David Letterman would come out for two minutes to say hello prior to the top of the show. And just then, Dave came sprinting onto stage without his jacket, ran across the set and grabbed the microphone. He swung it around by the cord several times, causing me to wonder when the last time was I'd seen a hard-wired mike. Holding the microphone like a harmonica up to his moth, Dave shouted a few untillegible comments about the weather and then asked for a single question from the audience. A nice woman from decided to use that precious moment to stand up and kiss Dave's ass and tell him what a genius he is. Dave nodded kindly and seemed gracious.

An assistant on set then motioned to Dave that he had 10 seconds until tape. And with a final joke, a quick wave and toss of the mike, he vanished into the background like clockwork. As the top of the hour hit, Paul gave the downbeat and the familiar strains of the theme song began.

Dave sprinted through the background, then walked onto stage for his monologue. The opening jokes were full of the usual late-night jabs at former presidents and B-level celebrities. On this Monday evening, we were actually seeing the taping for the Friday show. I had asked Jammer prior to the show how one could write timely jokes for a show that doesn't air for four days. His response was, "You can tell an adulterous Bill Clinton joke any day of the week." And of course, halfway through the monologue, when Dave cracked his first Bill Clinton womanizing joke, we both laughed that much harder.

The guests that night were Julia Stiles, some dishwasher guy who wrote a book about dishwashing and comedian Nick Griffin. The hour-long taping felt like it was over in mere minutes. Each segment felt brief and fast-paced -- and way funnier than it ever is when watching from home on the couch. During the "commercial breaks" a team of writers, assistants and make-up people surround the desk, only to scatter during the 5-second count down to "air." I don't really understand why a show that's being taped needs to run with such military serviture to the clock, especially when there was a re-take in the show. You see, after the second "commercial break," Dave and Paul messed up their little banter. Dave abruptly stopped the bit and asked to start over. In a flash, Paul gave a downbeat, the band played the intro again, and the whole segment started over like nothing ever happened.

At the end of the show, we were taken downstairs and sent out the side door onto 53rd Street. Jammer and I headed over to a Starbucks to relieve our now full bladders. Standing in line for the restroom we bumped into Nick Griffin, who we had just seen finish his very funny set during the taping. (He wsa buying coffee, not waiting for the bathroom. Something tells me they don't subject the guests to the same toilet provisos that they do the audience members.) It was definitely of a cool treat to meet one of the guests from the show.

The other great highlight of the day was getting to see Michael Lauziere, Master of the Unusual, do his thing on in-line skates. For readers of this blog, you might remember how I sang his praises a year ago. Michael was a featued guest during the first taping of the day. As he skated down the street, sticks on his skates hit tuned bottles in a sequence to play a complete song. So as Jammer and I walked by to get in line, we got to watch him do his thing. This time, Michael skated down 53rd Street playing a selection from "Carmen." Just what Bizet had in mind. Apparently, the top of my head could be seen bobbing up and down behind Michael during this segment. Probably not my greatest moment, being a boob on the street.

The other major highlight of the day was getting to stroll the MoMA, which I hadn't been to since it's re-opening. My main interest was in seeing the 50-year retrospective of the Helvetica typeface. The small exhibit included one of the original metal font sets and examples of Helvetica's ubiquitous usage. It gave me the opportunity to explain to Jammer the exact difference between a typeface and a font. Talk about a good time.

Yes, it was a great day. Thanks again, Jammer.

Nothing Interesting Here

Since I'm moving in a few weeks, I've been saving boxes, newspaper and bubble wrap. Boxes and newspaper are easy to come by, but bubble wrap is a fairly precious commodity. Bubble wrap, as everyone knows, is no good if all the little bubbles are popped. But the urge to pop the little suckers is just too great. Thank goodness for this nifty web site to help satiate the desire.

Meanwhile, among the newspapers I'm hoarding for packing/kindling, I came across an article about a solar-powered flashlight. Wasn't this the punchline to a joke I heard in fourth grade?

Uniform Uniformity

Men are more fashion conscious than they let on. Clothing is not something to be fussed with or talked about in the company of other men. But in the privacy of one's home -– or perhaps a locker room -– even the most chiseled men can become seamstresses and fashionistas.

Professional athletes are quite experimental when it comes to their threads, as demonstrated by the bizarre get-ups often on display during post-game press conferences or pre-game specials. For example, lime-green sharkskin suits with backwards lapels are not uncommon for some of these guys. But athletes don't just get bold with their street clothes. They can also get quite creative with their uniforms on the field, too –- sometimes too creative.

The Official Rules of Major League Baseball have an entire section dedicated to the appearance of players' uniforms. Most of the rules pertaining to on-field habiliments are routine guidelines pertaining to home uniform color (white*) or the minimum size of numbers included on the backs of jerseys (six inches). There are a couple slightly more surprising restrictions such as the limitation on glass or metal buttons on jerseys. Wouldn't those hurt to slide on? Or the ban on any "pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a baseball." One might assume that this is mainly directed at pitchers who could use such ball-shaped embroidery as a distraction to hitters. But this seems like a double standard since every member of the St. Louis Cardinals is allowed to step into the batter's box with the likeness of a bat splayed across his chest. This doesn't seem fair to pitchers.

The collective bargaining agreement between the Major League Baseball Players' Association and MLB gets even more specific when it comes to "uniform regulations." (Regulations, in this author's opinion, are always best when uniform.) These provisions are a "supplement" to the MLB official rules and are an interesting insight into the peculiar behavior of professional athletes when it comes to hemming and stitching.

The first such regulation that caught my attention was a restriction on the practice of lacing one's shoes through one's pants. Kids these days. Additionally "pants pockets may not intentionally be untucked." I thought the tuck rule only existed in the NFL. Speaking of tucking, jerseys also may not be "ordered or altered to a length where it cannot be properly tucked in." I didn't realize baseball was so anti-midriff.

Shoe endorsements are big in basketball, but baseball players are clearly limited by a pesky ban on a runner's ability to "change shoes while running bases." The practicality of changing your shoes while running simply baffles me.

And these uniform rules don't apply solely to baseball equipment. Apparently "any player wearing a golf glove underneath a playing glove may not rub up balls for use by the pitcher." Well, one certainly shouldn't waste time rubbing up a baseball while in the middle of a round of 18. This just holds up the whole foursome.

What I find absent from all these rules is any mention of stirrups. Ordinarily found only on women's stretch pants, stirrups also used to be essential baseball attire. For many of us, stirrups were the most fascinating part of the little league baseball uniform. Once one figured out the front from the back, and how to wear them without them bunching up inside your cleats, stirrups were the best part of dressing for a game. Back then all the big leaguers wore stirrups, too, stretched high up on the calf creating the illusion of a crisp, broad stripe that ran from the waist, down into the shoe. Alas, it appears the stirrup has gone the way of the helmet-without-earflaps and powder-blue jerseys. Maybe they'll come back some day along with those whacky pillbox hats.

Note:
* The Sand Francisco Giants' home uniforms are not white. They are a light cream color.

Werthless

Somebody please tell me. What business does Jayson Werth have being on a major league ballclub? Oh, wait. He's on the Phillies. Nevermind.

Apparently this guy is, too.

Take a Number

I've never bought a lottery ticket before. Until tonight. I bought three.

The urge was brought on by the confluence of two events: tomorrow's drawing is the biggest Mega Millions jackpot in history and I just put an offer in on a house yesterday. The estimated lottery jackpot is $355 million. After taxes, that's approximately one shitload of money. Roughly speaking, it should be just about enough money to cover the outrageous taxes and closing costs on our potential new home.

I'm aware that I'm about as likely to hold the winning ticket as I am to be the father to Anna Nicole's child. (Acutally, statistically speaking, the latter odds may be better.) I've always said that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. So I don't feel bad buying a few lottery tickets since I know the proceeds benefit convalescents and orphans -- oh, and the one lucky bastard who wins.

I spent three dollars and got three different combinations to play. I let the machine pick the numbers for me. I did this at my brother's advice. I remember him wondering why people use their birthdays and anniversaries to pick their lottery numbers. What are the odds that you'd win the lottery and the number you picked also happened to be the same as the anniversary of your mother-in-law's gallstone surgery?

Of course, what you're really playing for is the momentary rush. For a buck, you can experience the waking dream of just exactly what you'd do with so much crazy money. Since I bought my tickets a couple hours ago, I've spent a little time devising a plan. Here's what I've come up with:

Upon discovering that I posses the winning numbers, I will take the winning ticket, fold it up tightly and place it in a secure location on or in my person. Then, you will not see me or hear from me for days, maybe weeks. I will take my wife and child out of state and check into a hotel under an assumed name. This will become my homebase for contacting immediate family only as well as some financial advisors. I might take a moment to call my employer to offer a few supportive words about my experience working for them. And how much I will truly miss them all since I won't be coming back -- ever.

At some point, one must claim the prize, which I will do in privacy and without the glitzy press conference. I've always wanted to get one of those big cardboard checks, but I do all my banking by mail and I could see that being a bit cumbersome. I will then work with my advisors to calculate just how much money one really needs for their family to live a reasonable lifestyle. Realistically, a few million dollars should do the trick unless you're a total idiot. Familiy and friends will then see a nice windfall, too. (This will be doled out based on how many years you've known me and how often you've left comments on this blog.) The rest of the money will be donated anonymously to deserving charities. Why should I ask buildings and monuments be named for me when I didn't earn a single dime of this money?

I imagine there would be a great deal of guilt in retaining so much false wealth. Which is why most of it would just have to go. Well, maybe not too much. Alright, none of it.

The drawing is Tuesday night. So if this blog isn't updated for a while, you can make your own assumptions.

Hello, Huxtable Residence

Playing in an adult softball league is one of the few youthful pursuits I have left. As I approach a milestone birthday, I feel like I'm showing my age more than I should. I'm married. I'm a father. I own a minivan. I have a mortgage. And now the wife and I are shopping for a bigger home for our growing family.

We've been reading lots of real estate listings and going to open houses. In shopping for homes, I've been in several different styles of abodes, from different eras and with varying floor plans. They include townhouses, ranchers, split-levels, colonials, dog houses and outhouses. They all have "master suites," "beautiful hw floors" and "custom wdw treatments." They also all have kitchens and they all have doors. But none of the kitchens have doors.

I have never lived in a house, apartment or condominium that has a door between the kitchen and the living room. Come to think of it, I've never even been in a house that has a door between the kitchen and the living room -- let alone a house with a double-hinged door.

Of course, in every single sitcom, there is a double-hinged door between the kitchen and the living room (never the dining room, which would make more sense.)

Where did this cliche originate? Is it just Hollywood imitating itself? Why not a pocket door? Or a beaded curtain? Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned pass through?

Maybe someday, I will install a double hinged door to my kitchen. Then, while guests are sitting in the living room, I can go in the kitchen and argue with my wife without having to worry that anyone can hear me. Except for the live studio audience, of course.

Mercy Rule

Today I continued to be annoyed by having to traverse icy glaciers just to cross the street. I saw a man across from my office trying to "shovel" the ice off the sidewalk in front of his restaurant this afternoon. He grew increasingly frustrated as the thick chunks of ice that nearly claimed eight lives in 48 hours simply refused to budge. I watched as he broke not one, but two snow shovels. Maybe it's because they were "snow shovels" and not "three-day-old-packed-ice shovels." I surmise that if he had attempted to shovel his walk on Wednesday before the 3 inches of snow turned into two inches of solid teflon-coated-concrete, he wouldn't have had such a problem.

But then my day was brightened by a little e-mail I received just moments later. It was the notice that my spring softball league was now open for registration. The first game is April 29. That's practically just around the corner. Spring is almost here. I can just feel the warm rays on the back of my neck.

Now that's an e-mail I liked receiving. Maybe I won't close my inbox after all. Funny how it all comes full circle.

Willing to Sacrifice

On the subject of manners, people aren't just weasels online -- they're jerks after a snow/ice/sleet storm, too. There are some standards of human decency in times of wintry weather that seem not to apply south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Namely:

1) A few handfuls of rock salt sprinkled on the ground are not a substitute for actually shoveling your sidewalk.
1a) Shovel your g.d. sidewalk.
2) When driving on a road covered with a light dusting of snow, it is not necessary to drive at 5 mph...while riding your brakes...uphill. Please get the hell over.
3) Clean off the roof of your car. The huge, jagged slabs of ice that fly off the roof of your car can actually be slightly dangerous.
4) If there is a snowbank plowed against the curb, this does not give you permission to park perpendicular to the flow of traffic so that everyone has to merge into a half lane to get around your crap-ass car.
5) To the snowplow drivers: Try plowing all the way up to the edge of the curb. Just clearing a single curvy lane down the middle of a street is not terribly helpful. It makes for a fun driver's ed course, but is not efficient for assisting in the flow of two-way traffic.
6) SHOVEL YOUR SIDEWALK!

Perhaps these various wintry hazards are what have caused all the schools in the area to remain closed for two days. Yes, the weather on the first day of the storm was a little squirrelly. There had only been one snow-day all year, so I guess the kids (read: the teachers) were deserving of one. But today, Baltimore County Schools were "closed all day due to inclement weather."

I'm wondering just what about today's February weather was so "inclement." Was it the low humidity? The moderate easterly breeze? What is the sub 29-degree temperature? Maybe it was the bright, shining sun that beamed most of the day. Or maybe they were waiting for the rock salt to melt all the ice in front of the schools, rather than just shoveling the sidewalks.

Don't Be a Human Paraquat

Speaking of mustaches, you never see politicians wearing facial hair. William Howard Taft was the last US President to have any. He was also the last President to weigh more than 300 pounds. I guess times have changed just a little.

Back then, people still knew what a buggy whip was. They read books. And when they were angry with someone, they'd call them a scalawag or rapscallion. Such abasements could be followed by a strongly worded letter or the challenge of a duel. But certainly, there was no e-mail flame copied to eighteen other people in your company.

I am exactly one e-mail away from closing my inbox. It never fails to shock me at how the immediacy and perceived anonymity of e-mail empowers individuals to be complete and utter @ssholes.

At my job, I receive hundreds of e-mails per day. These range from nettlesome business solicitations to inocuous messages about empty tupperware in the staff lunchroom. But mixed among the meeting requests and deal confirmations are always several abusive messages per day. Some of them are directed toward me (deservedly or not). Others are messages I have been copied on for the purpose of embarassing the target. Worse yet, some of them I have been blind copied on.

I can appreciate how easy it is to be a complete and utter schmuck over e-mail. When you're angry, upset or just being an irrational douchebag, it's easy to sit in your filthy hole and fire off an obnoxious and hate-filled e-mail. And with a couple extra clicks, you can enjoy the cheap rush of copying the recipient's boss, secretary, janitors, ex-officemates and former-employees.

But I've learned that if you just stop for one second, take a breath and look at what you've written, it's quite easy not to be a total shithead. Don't call ex-girlfirends when you're drunk and don't write e-mails when you're angry. And certainly do not copy your insulting rants to others. It only broadcasts what a complete and total jerk you are.

There's a saying that you should never put anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't say to someone's face. Unfortunately, this is not a good rule of thumb. Because when you're sitting behind your vintage 1997 Gateway with 64MB of RAM, it's easy to feel eight feet tall. It's quite possible to picture yourself actually having the spine to say each and every word you're typing to someone's face.

As is the case with so much new technology, there are still few societal mores that keep bad behavior in check -- think cell phones that ring to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" or oblivious morons wearing iPods and blocking your way in a store.

I am serioulsy considering an e-mail boycott of one whole week. Messages sent to my inbox would receive an automated response instructing the sender to either call telephonically or correspond via US Postal Service. I kind of want to see what life was like before e-mail. If you wanted to "carbon copy" multiple people, it required multiple envelopes, multiple stamps and multiple paper cuts.

Or maybe instead of closing my inbox, I'll contruct a form e-mail that I bounce back to e-morons. If an incoming message contains criticism, editorializing, bullying, sarcasm, venting, foul language, needless "cc'ing," "bcc'ing" or general shitiness, a boiler-plate response will indicate that such messages will not be returned. A telephone number will be provided should additional communication be desired. Otherwise, please go to hell. Simultaneously, your message will be filed under "@."

Michaels, Cosell and Weaver

Speaking of hiatuses, baseball is about to come out of it's annual hibernation. To get us all in the mood, all this week the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network has been replaying a game of the 1983 World Series each night. I guess it's one (dis)advantage of living in Baltimore. Hey, it could be worse. I could live in Toronto.

Even though I know the Orioles will eventually beat the Phillies in five games, I've found myself watching pretty regularly. Maybe it's the lousy mid-season replacements on the networks. Or it could be a touch of "spring phever." Whatever the reason for watching, I sure am enjoying the trip down memory lane.

Oh, the wasting confines of Memorial Stadium. The bright green carpet of the Vet. The powder-blue road uniforms. The cartoon Oriole bird logo. And check out those stirrups and zippered jerseys.

But what's up with the facial hair? I can't believe how many of these guys had mustaches! I think each team was allowed only two clean upper lips. Pete Rose and Von Hayes for the Phillies, Cal Ripken, Jr and Jim Palmer for the Orioles. Every other guy on the field was sporting their own style of soup-strainer. Of course Schmitty's 'stache was way manlier than anything Dempsey or Flannigan could muster. And it's definitely not something A-Rod or Jeter could ever pull off.

So what of the mustache? What killed it? Where did it go? Is it poised for a comeback? Why is it that relief pitchers seem to be the only players these days than can wear a hairy lip?

One Hiatus Begins...

...and another ends.

These are some big shoes to fill. Can I possibly help to bridge this gap in the blogosphere? I can't promise to try. But I'll try to try.