Baseball DIY

"When they violate that policy and don't adhere to a number of warnings, they need to leave," Sarver told the newspaper."

You might think that quote refers to the Major League Baseball steroids policy. Nope. It turns out some Colorado Rockies players got out of hand while watching a Phoenix Suns game, while seated directly behind Suns owner Robert Sarver. The Rockies were ejected by Sarver's henchmen.

Does anyone know where I can buy some henchmen? I've got the black sweatsuits and ski masks hanging in my closet with nowhere to go.

John Fisher, the billionaire son of Gap chairman and CEO Don Fisher, will be a majority investor—a sign the small-market A's might not be one of baseball's low-budget teams for much longer.

My beloved Oakland A's are getting a new owner. From the days of the Bash Brothers to the current bane-of-Joe-Morgan's-existence Moneyballers, I've always had a soft spot for the boys in gold and green. It'll be interesting to see how much changes now that Billy Beane (a) doesn't have Mulder and Hudson and (b) does have some money to play with.

Now, every time Jill spends a gazillion dollars at the Gap, she's going to tell me that she's just "helping the A's stay competitive in MLB's malevolently unfair economic structure."

At practice the other day, the Captain passed around a couple of baseballs that he wanted us to sign as a souvenir of the St. Louis Unions first season (that is, of the Unions' 2004 season...just like a man to put something off to the last minute). With ballpoint pen in hand, something occurred to me: it's pretty damned hard to sign a baseball, especially while standing up. To sign a small, spherical object somewhat legibly and smoothly must take hours of practice. For better or worse, I don't think enough of myself to practice signing baseballs in the event that someone wants my autograph (this event would, of course, mean more to the autographer than the autographee). While not all MLBers take the time to sign a ball well, those who can sign their name so that you can read it possess a skill that takes time and dedication to master. Huzzah to them.

Every time I say that I'm not going to post, little thoughts just leak out...

I didn't say anything about the Unions first practice this past Saturday, and I know that makes some of you really, really sad (by "sad", I of course mean indifferent). About ten Unions showed up, including two rookies, to the joint practice of Unions and Perfectos. It must have been sixty degrees; absolutely beautiful, sunny, not a lot of wind. My face got some color standing out in the infield for a couple of hours.

The normal sarcastic remarks like "it must be March," "practice much?," or "you're in mid-season form" competed with the chirping of birds for our listening pleasure. It's a challenge to find new ways to say that you or your teammate aren't quite playing up to par. I had problems making strong throws to first from short, eventually getting quite upset with myself and cursing my shortcomings, which is something I usually reserve for game day. A couple line drives bolted through my hands; I made the mistake of trying to catch them from the side instead of getting in front of them. If you're square in front of them and they go through your hands, you've at least got a chance to harness them with your chest/face/arms.

When my turn to take some swings, I appeared to have gotten stronger over the offseason. My trip to the batting cages the day before paid off, as I lashed quite a few deep into the power alleys. Again, I can't really judge if they'd have been bound-outs or what, but they felt good. After one particularly long drive, I shouted "I'm not here today to talk about the past!" There's nothing like an anachronistic non sequitur to spice up a vintage base ball practice.

We practice again next weekend. I'm ready to play today. If I'm going to make mistakes, they might as well count for something.

My goal is to win a World Series. That's it. I don't like to set many goals for myself. Focusing on a single goal relaxes you.

That's Albert Pujols, who obviously has not read Moby Dick, in the latest issue of Men's Health. The article alone is not worth the cover price, as it's only a page of text and a full-page photo of the man. God bless the Internet (the nonporn parts, at least).

And now, just when you thought this whole steriod scandal could not get anymore sordid, Barry Bonds is talking like a man who wants to quit for good because the media has hounded him into hating the game....and there is also the issue of his mistress who has testified before a grand jury that Bonds told her about steriod use. So, finally the element this whole thing was missing: SEX!

Great, just great.

If indeed she is to be believed then it looks like old Barry lied to the grand jury and that means trouble with the law, not to mention trouble with the wife and kids.

And how much do we keep paying to watch these guys hit a ball? Minor leagues people! The game is just as good and a whole lot cheaper!!!!!

(You're going to need to sign in for the NY Time story.)

In the interest of learning more about the game, I give you the saga of Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first African American to make it in the majors. He played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884 and it did not go well. Walker's career was cut short for all the racist reasons one would expect but remains an interesting footnote to the sport's history. He played the game in 1884 and he played it in the majors. How come no one remembers him?

Hey everybody...I've got to read Moby Dick by next Tuesday. Combined with work, the holiday weekend, and time spent sleeping or in the car, I'm not going to have much time to post. Colleen, of course, will be posting as much as she feels like (and I'd invite you to do the same). Anyway, see you next week!

The Mayor says they are ready for a ball club. Now it's up to MLB to get the Giants to step aside.

A&E has a special on Wednesday night called Sports Wives. Roger Clemens's wife talks about supporting her man and Daryl Strawberry's explains the difficulties of addiction (she should know what it's like.) This sort of special always appeals to me no matter how bad I fight it...sort of like trying to ignore People magazine when I'm stuck in the check-out line. I'm not going to buy the damn thing but flipping through the pages for a minute just to see why Charlie Sheen's wife left him when she was seven months pregnant....well that's just healthy curiousity, right?

I'd also like to say that I think it is weird that all of Clemens's kids have names that start with the letter "K"...in honor of his strikeouts. I guess I should be relieved that at least they aren't named Boston, New York and Houston.

Mike Lupica makes a pretty impassioned case for giving the home run crown back to Roger Maris, or at least adding an asterisk next to his stats as in "this player held this record prior to the use of steroids in the sport."

I've wondered about this for the past couple months while all the rumors have been circulating. It's like comparing anything that the players did in the 1920s or 30s to what goes on now. Can you imagine playing for a few dollars, traveling in a burnt out bus and being lucky to get fed let alone having a place to sleep and yet still winning the game everyday? It seems like there should be a lot of asterisks in the record books, and the drug-free are just the beginning.

Over at the Baseball Toaster the Congressional Hearing Recap is one of the funniest and smartest things I have read yet on the steroid hearings. And it rhymes! Baseball fans are so talented.

While shopping at Target today for Lincoln Logs (I erroneously thought they were Linkin' Logs) for my nephews, my desire for a Lego-like baseball stadium toy line rekindled. I want something where you buy a big bucket of interchangeable parts: seats, outfield walls, scoreboards, press box, various vendor booths, bunting, etc. The field would be on the base board, and you could angle the walls however you liked. You build whatever you feel like building that day and leave it set up until you're ready to build another one. I could spend hours or days in this fashion, and I never played with Legos.

I'm also looking for Strat-O-Matic, so if you know where I can find it, please point me to it. I've heard good things about this game, but I never have played it. Are there any board games where you can play General Manager and simulate seasons, something along the line of Risk-for-baseball? I know you can do this with video games, but it's not the same.

I got to watch the Cardinals whoop up on the Dodgers today on good old WB-11. It's the second Spring Training game I've seen this year. Albert and Larry Walker each hit home runs, and Suppan only allowed one run in the four-plus innings he pitched. Edmonds played, but Rolen had the day off. Notable broadcast notes included the sideline reporter interviewing Lou Brock and Bob Gibson (Gibson maintains that he had more power with the bat than Lou) and a Bruce Hornsby (not Rogers Hornsby or Bob Horner, Bruce F. Hornsby) sighting on the bench in between Tony and Dave Duncan. The game had a nice pace and fine defensive plays on both sides, and the Cardinals (even Bo Hart) did a good job at the plate. By the seventh inning, I couldn't resist: I had to go to the batting cage.

So, in 40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather, I drove to the local batting cage wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Needless to say, it stung a little bit, especially since I don't use batting gloves (how vintage would that be?). I hit quite a few pretty solid, but it's hard to tell where they'd have gone in a field populated with the opposing team. By my last round (six tokens for five bucks), I was getting tired. Lesson: I should take more time between rounds, just like resting between sets at the gym. I'm glad I went, especially since there's a joint Perfectos/Unions practice tomorrow.

Mike Shannon and Wayne Hagin called the game for me as I drove back home. Along the way, I heard sirens, but I couldn't see any approaching ambulances/fire trucks/cops. The sirens continued, but I still didn't see anything. Wising up a little, I turned down the radio, and the sirens miraculously disappeared. That's what I love about Spring Training games. You don't hear that kind of thing during the regular season.

Now this sounds like a little beauty.

The Diamond Angle has several different takes on the steriod testimony. Every opinion is covered, so there's something for everyone. I have to agree though that steriod use among police officers should be garnering more attention than ballplayers. What does that say about our country's priorities?

The Cub Reporter has today's testimony literally down to the minute and proves just how insane much of the proceedings were. I'm sure no one is pleased with the route McGwire took, claiming the 5th is never a good idea when you have millions of little leaguers to answer to. Essentially, he told us what happened when he refused to answer the question. The most annoying thing though is not baseball but our Congressmen. I keep thinking about the McCarthy hearings in the early 1950s when I read about all this and not because there is a similarity between communist witchhunts and steriod use in baseball, but because politicians always seem so gleeful when they have the chance to subpoena America's heroes. They like to place themselves about Hollywood or the sports world; they like to make statements about how "no on is above the law" and that sort of ilk. They like their little moments of power. What do I think? Baseball needs to deal with its mess and maybe now it has finally figure that out. Otherwise, there's a war in Iraq and we never took the time to finish the last war in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying in the Sudan, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola and God knows how many other places around the globe. It is beyond pathetic that the most important thing in America today was a hearing about athletes using drugs. Everybody needs to grow up.

Mr. Snitch considers the parallels between baseball and zen in an essay on the game. Elsewhere, Roger Clemens wants to steal a base.

Oooookay.

Now this is interesting: what is it like to be a beat writer? I'm fascinated by these guys who cover essentially the same small story for twelve months out of the year. It's pretty easy during the season but how do you keep baseball interesting in the middle of December? I didn't realize how much was going on in the sport (from a sportswriter's perspective) until I read what Gregor and Sullivan had to say. Very very interesting.

Local baseball enthusiasts have until April 24th to visit the Baseball as America exhibit at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. Produced by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the exhibit’s nationwide tour brings fans in contact with artifacts and memorabilia that they might not otherwise get to experience.

I was lucky enough to get to go to the exhibit a few weekends ago with my wife and a couple of our friends. Even before entering the actual exhibit, we saw a glass case in the hall filled with examples of the different styles the St. Louis Cardinals uniforms have taken over the years. Another case demonstrated how baseball gloves have evolved from dainty to daunting, leaving it for the viewer to determine whether all of that leather really is necessary in Derek Jeter’s glove when Honus Wagner made do with much less. Throughout our visit, it proved impossible to view the past without comparing it to the present.

Of all the pieces in the collection, I was most affected by two letters addressed to Hank Aaron. The first, written in the 1970s, was a semi-literate, racist attack on Aaron, who, at the time, was approaching Babe Ruth’s career home-runs record. The letter’s handwritten hatred contrasted starkly with a letter typed in 2001 by a supporter of Aaron who wanted to thank him for all that he had endured and for all that he represented. These two pieces underscored the main idea of the exhibit: really, baseball is just a game that shouldn’t mean much to anyone other than the players, and even they should probably not think much about it when not actually playing it. Somehow baseball grew to such a magnitude that, thirty years ago, one man’s “pursuit” of a meaningless (in non-baseball terms) record carried great racial and cultural significance, which caused someone living two-and-a-half decades later to take a few minutes out of his life to write, address, stamp, and mail a letter about it. Baseball may be played within walls and baselines, but its psychological impact radiates oblivious to boundaries.

Other highlights of the exhibit include stadium seats from Forbes Field; baseballs autographed by Presidents, including William Howard Taft, the first President to throw out a “first pitch;” a letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt requesting that organized baseball continue play during World War II; a genuine Seattle Pilots cap (seriously, who remembers the Seattle Pilots?); various examples of improvised forms of baseball, particularly from military bases and internment camps; and a letter from then-Senator John F. Kennedy addressed to Jackie Robinson that contains at least one typo. The San Diego Chicken costume is also present.

If you take your time going through the exhibit (as you should, since it costs $8 for adults, $7 for seniors, $4 for students older than six years of age), you might find this one picture that I particularly liked. It’s tucked away in a display focused on the tools and methods of baseball trainers. The picture, featuring Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and a trainer or two, is not a posed shot; it’s doubtful that they even knew they were being photographed. Ruth is stretched out on a massage table getting a pre- or post-game rubdown, and Gehrig is seated next to him, possibly telling Ruth that if he took better care of his body he wouldn’t spend so much time on the table. Out of uniform, off the field, the two baseball deities look utterly human and normal. They’re not icons; they’re just a couple of guys who got caught up in baseball and went along for the ride.

Just like all of us.

This has to be one of the more obscure baseball books to come along in awhile. Eric Stone has written the true story of prison ballplayer and former St. Louis Browns pitcher, Ralph "Blackie"Shwamb in Wrong Side of the Wall. Who knew about this guy?

I took a half-day from work yesterday to watch the Cards and Braves on ESPN. Aside from Harold Reynolds and John Kruk jabbering about God-knows-what, there wasn't much going on. The Braves jumped out to 5-0 lead in the third and then just kind of hovered. The Cardinals seemed incapable of much of anything. Albert did a whole lot of nothing, and Jeff Suppan got lit like a doobie in a high school parking lot. David Eckstein's arm at short made me feel better about my own. Rick Ankiel had a guest spot pinch-hitting for Suppan and grounded into a fielder's choice before being stranded at third. Some schnook named Duke Castiglione interviewed Ankiel the next inning and received short answers to dumb questions. Apparently Ankiel has developed quite the 'tude regarding the possibility of ever pitching again: he ain't gonna do it. The only "excitement" came in the Cardinals' half of the ninth, when the Cardinals scored one and loaded the bases before Cody McKay popped out to end it.

Now that I'm at work and can't watch the game, the Cards are up two on Baltimore.

First off, I'm already tired of the NCAA tournament. Good thing it hasn't even started yet...

Secondly, I'm going to see Interpol tonight! Right after my American Literature Before 1900 class! There was a day that I'd have blown off class completely, but now I'm mature and have already paid for the damned class, so I might as well go.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I had my first semi-practice of the vintage base ball season on Saturday. The Captain and I went to Murphysboro, Illinois, along with some St. Louis Perfectos, to talk to some people who are thinking of starting up a team there. We advised them on where to play and how to recruit/enlist players (ransom and blackmail are good places to start). We're playing there in May at Longfellow Park, which I think is a great name for any ballpark, especially one that will hold games played according to nineteenth century rules.

After the Murphysborites bought us lunch, and I mean right after we had an exceedingly good and greasy lunch, we thought it sounded like a good idea to go outside and run around after a ball. I laid some good wood on the ball and made a few nice plays while shagging. I do much prefer shagging during practice to playing in the field during a game because there are fewer people that you could possibly run into. I've only had one collision, and I'd rather not have another one. I came up early on a couple of grounders, so it's nice to see that I'm already in mid-season form. As Flash likes to say, "Baseball is a game of humiliation and ridicule."

We (the St. Louis Unions) are having a combined practice with the Perfectos this Sunday. It'll be nice to see more of the guys and get a little closer to game-ready. Our opener is April 16th against the Perfectos (or Defectos, as they might be known after we womp 'em by twenty runs that day...that wasn't a very gentlemanly thing to say, was it?).

There's a boatload of baseball history and lore over at Chatter from the Dugout. Most recently there's a great history of all players banned for life. Over at the Resource Shelf a lot of baseball links have been posted with everything from the Negro Leagues to bios on all the previous commissioners. There are also several baseball stats sites, which should settle any of those ugly little conflicts that come up around inning seven, after one beer too many.

The current issue of Elysian Fields Quarterly has a look at the end of the Expos (although everyone still seems to be referring to them as "the team formerly known as the Expos) and the history of college baseball, among other wonderful things.

And finally, even though I really don't want to write about the steriod scandal, Selig has handed over a ton of documents to Congress in the hopes of stopping the need of players to testify. I'm pretty conflicted about this, to be honest. On the one hand, I'm sure that a lot of this is just a bunch of crap where politicians get to pick on someone bigger than them in public opinion and make themselves look good by yelling "no one is above the law!" (Unless you're Tom DeLay of course.) But I also think that baseball brought this upon itself by having a weak commissioner and an acute inability to face serious problems when they arise. MLB also seems to worry more about making things go away then fixing them. So maybe they all need to get spanked in order to wake up to the fact that all those high salaries and high ticket prices only work when the fans think it really is a game they are watching and not a chemical freakshow.

I'm going to bed. Tomorrow we buy The Incredibles and listen to the three year old laugh hysterically for a couple of hours. I'm looking forward to it.

Just in case you hadn't heard, there has been a long rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees. That rivalry culminated in the AL Championships last October during which the Red Sox beat the Yankees on their way to ultimately winning the World Series.

I write all this just in case, you know, you hadn't heard.

For those of you who want to shell out more than $20 bucks for the more detailed version of what I just shared with you, Dan Shaughnessy and Mike Vaccaro both have books on the subject coming out in the next couple of weeks. I'm sure they will both sell very well, but I'd like to see something more interesting than this.

I'll get back to you when I find it.

Here's a look at the steroid cocktail FBI informants say Mark McGwire took to become big in the '90s:
1/2 cc of testosterone cypionate every three days
1 cc of testosterone enanthate per week
1/4 cc of equipoise and winstrol v every three days, injected into the buttocks, one shot for one cheek, one shot for the other

Now we're getting to the fun stuff. Not only did Mark McGwire associate with and receive steroids from known steroids dealers during his days in Oakland, according to the New York Daily News, he worked out with them at a Racquetball World!

In a related story, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that MLB is trying to get Congress to to "change the list of players being called to testify, so that players could avoid the embarrassment of answering direct questions about steroid use" (I'm lazy and will just direct you to the ESPN.com digest of the story).

In another related story, Jeremy Giambi admits to having used steroids. So maybe steroids don't help as much as we think. In other J.G. news, for some reason he has a Web site: http://www.jgiambi.com.

Oh, for those simpler days, when the Black Sox seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen to baseball...

Okay, confession time. I am a huge comics fan...huge! It started when I was young and mostly I blame my big brother. As to why I'm still buying comics in my 30s...well, I'm still going to blame my big brother. Anyway, the latest Comics Previews has a new one shot issue listed from Alternative Comics called Centerfield about a boy, his father and a summer of little league. If you added Batman it would be perfect, but we can't have everything. Sounds like the perfect quick read for the deck while I'm listening to John Fogarty though. I'll be checking it out.

Vanity Fair is a surprising source for baseball information this month, maybe they're trying to embrace the SI image beyond just the bikini cover. Seth Mnookin followed the Red Sox last Fall when it looked like they were going nowhere fast and writes about what he saw in the article, One Miracle Season. Buzz Bissinger has a book coming out, Three Nights in August, which looks at the management style of Tony La Russa. Drew Barrymore has decided to edge into Kevin Costner territory with her new movie, Fever Pitch, opening April 5th. It's based on Nick Hornby's best seller about fan obsession of soccer (since Hornby is British that makes perfect sense but in the U.S. version it is about the Red Sox). Jimmy Fallon plays the fan and Barrymore (I'm assuming), his girlfriend. But hey, don't feel bad for Kevin, his new movie Upside in Anger opens in limited release today. He plays a retired ballplayer this time around although the movie seems less about baseball and more about relationships. (I know, men everywhere shudder in fear.) Sundance liked it though and it's Kevin and baseball (at least a little bit.) It must be Spring!

I'm currently in a reading group with my wife, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and one of my sister-in-law's fourth grade students. We're reading Bob Costas's Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball, which was published in 2000 at the height of Yankee dominance. It's interesting to take another look at this book and see how things have changed (and how some thing haven't). This article by ESPN's Jayson Stark is a nice summary of how MLB has improved when it comes to that great catchphrase, "competitive balance."

The start of the Major League Baseball season can only mean that vintage base ball is also revving up. This, of course, excites me greatly, as I play shortstop for the St. Louis Unions of Florissant (our official name is the St. Louis Unions, but I strive for accuracy in all endeavors). If you don't know, vintage base ball is played according to the rules of the nineteenth or early twentieth century, depending on whose field you're playing on. Our team plays by 1860 rules, which can be found here. The most obvious differences are that players don't wear gloves (this isn't codified in the rules, it's just how the game was played) and a ball caught on one bounce is an out. There are no called strikes or balls, and the pitcher pitches underhand without the intent of striking the batter; he is merely trying to get the striker to put the ball in play so the defense can do the work. Foul balls are not counted as strikes but can be caught for outs; also, ball that rolls foul before going past the first- or third-base bags is a fair ball (fair or foul is determined by where the ball lands). For more subtleties of the game, watch one!

I confess to having played very little baseball over the winter, although a couple guys from work and I went to the batting cage a month or so ago. It'll take a while to get the hands used to snagging line drives, and I imagine that I'll voluntarily let a few pass by during the colder weeks before true spring arrives. My goal is to end the season in the top 3 in batting for the team, since my .500 average found me in 8th place. As I've said elswhere, I unfortunately played the part of stereotypical, light-hitting shortstop. Here's hoping for a bigger stick in 2005!

I read little articles like this and wonder how on Earth we have gotten here. I have this awful feeling that regardless of what happens on the field this season the only baseball story that will endure from 2005 will Canseco and Congress.

I think I need to read about Jackie Robinson again to remind myself why this game is still a good thing.

Would it be such a bad thing if baseball players just played baseball and writers got to write books about it?

When everyone was making fun of the Expos' demise last Fall I didn't say much. Honestly, I thought the whole thing was pretty sad. If professional hockey can be played in Florida and California then I didn't see any reason why the Canadians shouldn't have their fun with a little summertime ball. Last ditch efforts to save the team didn't work, of course (do they ever?), but it's nice to see that Montreal fans are staying organized and making an effort to keep the memory of their team alive. I don't know if anyone powerful is paying attention, but they've got my support. It's a lot more entertaining to read this type of thing than wonder whose going to be subpoened next.

I think that if any players test positive for steroids, their uniforms should be emblazoned with a big red "S" on the chest, which they would have to wear for the rest of their careers. I particularly like this idea because of the Superman implications.

Yes, I did just read The Scarlet Letter for my graduate class.

Read all about it.

Unfortunately, this makes Ankiel the record-holder for most wild pitches by an outfielder.

Mad props to Colleen for sending this link about the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee and their apparently stringent dress code. The article goes into good detail regarding the voting mechanisms and how players get on the ballot in the first place.

"Election to the Hall of Fame has always been difficult, as evidenced by only one percent of those privileged to play baseball in the major leagues are enshrined in Cooperstown," said Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark.

How many of that one percent deserve to be there?

FAN SUPPORT: Fans wishing to voice their opinion in support of their favorite candidates may do so in two ways: by sending a single letter to Hall of Fame Veterans Committee, 25 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, or by logging on to baseballhalloffame.org and sending us an e-mail. The Hall of Fame does not forward petitions to the voting members, but makes all correspondence known to any interested voting members, as well as to the Screening Committee members and Historical Overview Committee members.

Do we really think that there are "interested voting members" who ask the HOF what the word on the street is? Come on, if we don't really have any say in this, then don't pretend like we do.

Not to BJ you to death, but James wrote an excellent book on the Hall of Fame titled, coincidentally enough, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?

First off, I'd like to whole-heartedly apologize for the infrequency of posts to this blog. I'm currently busy with actual work, a graduate class reading load, getting the second issue of BDIY together, and trying to have some kind of social life so my wife will let me live in our house. I promise that this blog will eventually be something that you can check every other day and find something new and interesting.

With that said...a "Retro-Bermanism" is a Bill James invention wherein an pre-ESPN ballplayer is given a nickname in the manner of those distributed by one Chris Berman. A few examples: "Rocky (I'll Call a Tony, You) Colavito," "Frank (I'd Follow You to) Shellenback," and "Ray (Electric) Schalk." In the car, I've started playing this game with literary figures. Here's what I've got so far:

1. Nathaniel (Every Rose Has Its) Hawthorne
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson (Lake and Orlando Palmeiro) <---a perversion of Berman's own "Rafael (Emerson, Lake, and) Palmeiro"
3. Henry David Thoreau (Me the Damned Ball) <---in the spirit of Keyshawn Johnson
4. John Steinbeck (beck, beck, beck...Gone!)/Ernest Hemingway (back, way back...Gone!)
5. Ford (Greg) Madox (Whitey) Ford <---a two-for-one special
6. Herman (No Joy in) Melville
7. Mark (Party On) Twain

Feel free to send in your own. It's a great way to waste your time with two of your great loves!

They made it quick and painful. About ten minutes ago, I learned that there were no longer tickets available for Opening Day. Hey, at least I got out of the Waiting Room and can now "go about my business," in the parlance of the day. It took an hour for the Standing Room Only tickets to vacate the premises. Other tickets to Opening Day had been available through various season ticket or partial-season ticket plans, but I thought they'd last a little longer than this (and I was even willing to pay the extra $8 bucks for this "premium" game, though I am kind of relieved that I did not have the ability to let the Cardinals gouge me like that).

The last game at Busch, of course, is sold out as well. How much is it worth monetarily to go to one or both of these games that are special for purely sentimental reasons?

Any wagers on whether I'm successful at procuring Opening Day tickets for the last season at this version of Busch Stadium? I'm in the Virtual Waiting Room and plan to be the foreseeable future.