PLAY BALLLLLLL!!!!!!

"In our sun-down perambulations of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base", a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were more common among us. Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms... The game of ball is glorious!"

-Walt Whitman, 1846

Jerry, Bobby & Vince
"The Star-Spangled Banner"
Candlestick Park, San Francisco
SF Giants Opening Day - April 12, 1993

Today is the greatest day of the year... the Final Four is set.
Wait... that's not it... watching paint dry is more exciting
than college basketball! It's Opening Day, baby!!

Once again this year for Opening Day I have arranged my work schedule to make sure that I had yesterday afternoon off from work (for last night's game) and today, as well.

At 8 a.m. this morning it was time to have some baseball for breakfast -- Toronto Blue Jays at the New York Yankees -- final Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, well, at the one that has had games played on the diamond since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. (Unfortunately it's rainin' in The Bronx and they're in a Rain Delay but ESPN's got on the Kansas City Royals at the Detroit Tigers... borrr-rinngggg. On ESPN2 the Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs just came on... but it looks like another Rain Delay. Yup. Sheesh!)

Anyway... games will be on all day long up until about 10 or 11 o'clock tonight. That means all day long (for the most part) I'll have my butt firmly planted in place watching games on this Opening Day 2008. Now where's my peanuts and Cracker Jack?

There may have stupidly been a couple games already played in Japan, but last night in our nation's capital it was the celebratory Opening Night for North America. The former owner of the Texas Rangers threw out the first pitch... and Ryan Zimmerman gave the fans an exciting ending as he hit a game-winning Home Run in the bottom of the 9th for the Washington Nationals in the very first regular season game at the brand new stadium there.

Unfortunately the New York Mets, my one and only favorite team, they won't be on TV today. Hooray, I say sarcastically. Normally they're on ESPN on Opening Day... but after last September's, ummm, most unfortunate collapse, they really do not at all deserve to be on national television today. Let's face it -- they suck. First place all year and then they blew it BIG TIME. Part of me thinks the Mets can just kiss my ass... but I can't turn my back on 'em. I grew up goin' to Shea; the Mets are my team. It's not gonna be easy to regain confidence in them this year. Things could be great all season long but no matter what, there's still September. Ugh.

Yet somehow I'm still excited for the season. All through the winter I complained that we'll have 162 games that are once AGAIN this year filled with talk of steroids and human growth hormone and what deserving players will NOT get elected to the Hall of Fame because of allegations of possibly using banned substances. It's still kind of a bleak time for our national game ... but I'm gonna take what excitement that I do have and watch what games I can. In October, a World Series victory for The Amazin's would make everything a whole lot better. But it's gonna be a long (and hopefully not too agonizing) time between now and the push for the Playoffs. This initial excitement will wear off some, the season will go on... and on and on and on... then come September, oh yeah, gonna get exciting again! Until then, today will be a great day of baseball!

Well — it's our game; that's the chief fact in connection with it; America's game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions; fits into them as significantly as our Constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.

-Walt Whitman

	Baseball A Film By Ken Burns Original Soundtrack Recording 1994
196 kbps Baseball - part 1 Baseball - part 2

	Walt Whitman (Quote) -- Garrison Keilor			Kansas City Call (Quote) -- Ossie Davis
	Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- Jacqueline Schwab			The Star-Spangled Banner -- Jacqueline Schwab
	The Star-Spangled Banner -- Big League Orchestra			The New Black-And-Tan Fantasy -- Duke Ellington
	Hurrah For Our National Game -- Jacqueline Schwab			Jackie Robinson Radio Call (1956 World Series) -- Bob Wolff
	Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- Harvey Hindermyer (1908)			Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball? -- Natalie Cole
	Gee, It's A Wonderful Game -- Dodworth Saxhorn Band, -- vocal: Juliet Lambert			Baseball Boogie -- Mabel Scott
	Sol White (Quote from History Of Colored Baseball, 1907) / Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground -- Ossie Davis / Blind Willie Johnson			Bobby Thompson's Shot Heard 'Round The World -- radio call by Russ Hodges
				Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- King Curtis
	Steal Away -- Bobby Horton			Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song) -- The Treniers
	Babe Ruth Radio Call -- (circa 1927)			Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- George Rabbai
	Clubhouse Stomp -- The New York Hawks			Hank Aaron HR #715 Radio Call / When You And I Were Young, Maggie / New York Times (Quote) -- Milo Hamilton/Jacqueline Schwab/ -- Studs Terkel
	If You Can't Make A Hit At The Ballgame, You Can't Make A Hit With Me -- National Pastime Orchestra
	Pound Cake -- Lester Young with Count Basie -- and His Orchestra			Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- Dr. John
	The Minstrel Boy -- Jacqueline Schwab			Eulogy for Jackie Robinson/ Steal Away -- Jesse Jackson/Jacqueline Schwab
	Joe DiMaggio Radio Call (1937) -- Red Barber			Take Me Out To The Ballgame -- Carly Simon
	Joltin' Joe DiMaggio -- Les Brown and His Orchestra -- featuring Betty Bonney			The Sporting News (Quote) -- Amy Madigan
The Star-Spangled Banner (320 kbps) Bruce Hornsby & Branford Marsalis

Eddie Vedder -- Take Me Out To The Ballgame
(Wrigley Field ... I think 5-14-06)
mp3 download grateful dead jerry garcia vince welnick bob weir ratdog phil lesh brent mydland mickey hart bill kreutzmann pigpen ron mckernan

Let's Go Mets (1986)
Let's Go Mets 12"
Meet The Mets (1963)
Meet The Mets (1999)
unfortunately the quality of these blows and there's no Ralph Kiner.

Top of the scoreboard at Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens (NYC)
(image opens a little bigger but not much)
Notice the ribbon on the twin towers of the World Trade Center

Out With Miranda For One Last March Run

The great thing about watching Sunday Night Baseball in Alaska -- it's really just an afternoon game, just like Sunday and Monday Night Football. Starts at about 8 p.m. on America's East Coast ... that's about what time it's all over here. Can head out to the gym (or the bar or wherever) after the game and never have to miss a pitch. Not that missing a pitch is a bad thing, except when the Mets are on. And since my runs are pretty short, I wouldn't miss much of a game anyway ... but the point is when the game's over, in Alaska the night's just startin'!

And after the first Sunday night game of the year, with just hours to spare, I got my final run in for March. The 8 o'clock hour on a Sunday night -- best time to go, place is dead.

Sunday Night Run: 18 minutes 43 seconds

+5 sec · indoors ·

XXXXXXXX+++++++ 00 sec +++++++XXXXXXXX

Run Time March: 3 hours 57 minutes February: 3 hours 11 minutes January: 2 hours 56 minutes

Oh so close I came to 4 hours for the month. Yes, a joke to many who run but a sweet success for me.

Tonight's run went okay. I was eager to get out there, good tunes, good pace, finished up without any problems at all. So boring when it goes smoothly but I'd rather have a (somewhat) easy run than a hellish time that gives me a lot to type about!

April running will hopefully kick off on the 1st day of the month but we'll see. Whenever, the goal is 4½ hours for the month.

Running tunes from
the album of the day...

Miranda Lambert

(self-titled)

2001 DEBUT







Somebody Else
Texas Pride
Lyin' Here
Another Heartache
What In The World
Jack Daniels
Texas As Hell
Something That I Like About A Honky Tonk
Last Goodbye
Wichita Falls

There are probably a whole lotta people out there who think Miranda Lambert's 2003 album Kerosene is her debut. Nope. There's this hard-to-find GEM from 2001, released before Miranda's appearance on Nashville Star.

I've never heard Ms. Lambert's two commercially produced CDs but after hearing this I'm not sure I exactly want to. She was just 18 years old when this independently released collection of songs was put out and holy cow -- this is what country should sound like. I don't listen to a whole lotta country but this ranks up there with best country albums of the past 20 years. Nothing against Nashville but this makes me think Texas and that's what I like.

Paying attention to people who because famous thanks to American Idol is not my thing. I don't even watch the show. And I never watched the countrified version Nashville Star either ... and I'm not about to start. Ms. Lambert got her career kickstarted because of appearing on reality tv but I ain't gonna hold that against her. Had she not appeared on the show, this album proves she had what it takes to be successful at singing great country music!

Find a dload @ DeaconBlues1103CW

This Morning I Mutter These Babe Ruthian Mutterings...

Normally I just have to type something here. I can't just put up mutterings without an intro. No, no, no, I just can't.

But at the moment I can't think of anything to type. Nothing to mention. The fact that it finally got above freezing today (now yesterday) for the first time in about two weeks? Nah, I won't mention that.

Baseball season starts tonight ... sort of ... there were already two regular season games played in Japan but the Washington Nationals and the loser Atlanta Jerkwads play their first game tonight, in the brand spankin' shiny new stadium in Washington, D.C. ... should I mention that? Nah. Nothing to mention there especially no comment on the fact that the stadium is temporarily called Nationals Park. That's a great name because it doesn't have some stoopid corporate moniker attached to it ... yet. But it will. And then in a few years the name will undoubtedly have to be changed just like so many stadiums and arenas and summertime music venues in North America nowadays. Pretty sad situation when an arena that's only ten years old is now on its 3rd name. Come on, give me a break. Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Lambeau Field, Soldier Field ... ahhh, at least some organizations have class.

Anyway... here's what Nationals Park looked like around Spring of 2005... (if you're confused, that's looking straight down from space... I should also add that construction had not yet even started at the time of this satellite imagery.)

click for bigger

A lot different than today... actually this was yesterday, the real first game at the new stadium. borrowed from -- Nats320 ...many more great pics of the opening of the ballpark so go check 'em out!

Alright, well enough with not mentioning anything for the beginning of this morning's post...

on with:

Unconscious Mutterings

a free association game -- I say... and you think ... ?

1. Stuffed :: oysters

2. Gills :: fish

3. Distance :: runner ... Long distance runner
what you standing there for?
Get up, get off, get out of the door
You're playing cold music on the bar room floor,
drowned in your laughter and dead to the core
There's a dragon with matches loose on the town
Take a whole pale of water just to cool him down

Fire - Fire on the mountain
Fire - Fire on the mountain

4. Panties :: seriously? Ohhh-kay. String bikini, cute, sexy, mine are red.

5. Checkered :: past ... surely mine's completely on the up and up, not checkered at all ... more like plaid.

6. Fill in :: the blank

7. Taunting :: picking on

8. Diner :: New Jersey! When you grow up in New Jersey/the northeast U.S., you know diners! I grew up in a (relatively) small town with a population of about 12,000 and we had 3 diners ... and within a 20 minute drive another 3 dozen ... and I've been to 'em all! The further you travel away from the area, the harder it is to find a real diner. Denny's doesn't count.

9. Pizza :: We also had as many as 5 pizza places and pizza place absolutely does not refer to pizza hut or dominoes. We didn't have any chains, we just had real NJ pizza places. (I didn't even have a pizza hut or dominoes pizza until i moved out of NJ when I was 18.) What is real NJ pizza? Brother and best friend to a NY pie, that's what ... and if ya don't know what a NY pie is, please, hop the next plane for NYC and have one!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?!

10. Best friend :: Man's best friend -- dog

Bendix Diner
Hasbrouck Heights, NJ
about 15-20 minutes from where I lived...
one of the most famous diners in the world,
on Route 17 kinda close to the Meadowlands