Baseball DIY

I meant to post this sooner, but, you know, I'm irresponsible and forgetful.

An entrepreneur wants to turn the former home of baseball great Honus Wagner into a bed-and-breakfast and museum.

And later...

"One of the biggest attractions in Baltimore is Babe Ruth's home. Experts in the field believe [Wagner] was a much better player than Babe Ruth."

This according to the entrepreneur behind the B & B idea. I love Honus Wagner, but "much better than Babe Ruth"? That borders on false advertising.

If you were a scrub pitcher trying to make the St. Louis Cardinals, you might think your chances of making the club went down just a little when you plunked Albert Pujols in batting practice.

Hey speaking of Albert ... The next time you get a craving for some brownie goodness, why not bake up some Phat Alberts? How do you make Phat Alberts? It's quite simple, really. Bake up a pan of fudge brownies (the fudgier, the better). Once they've cooled, melt down some (read: a lot of) peanut butter and spread it over them. Finally, sprinkle some chocolate chips on top of the peanut butter-glazed brownies. Put the pan back in the oven for two or three minutes so the choc-chips and pea-butt meld together, then pull and let cool. Booyah: You've got yourself a pan of Phat Alberts, the dessert so good it was named after Jose Alberto Pujols.

Last night, three of my fellow St. Louis Unions (a vintage base ball team that plays by the rules of 1862) and I met at our home field to toss the ball around and remind ourselves of just how far 90 feet is. I'm here to tell you, it's really far.

Let me just say that playing catch and taking some swings gave me such a fucking high that I'm going to type "fucking" in my blog because I feel that it is warranted. I missed the game so much, and I am so excited that it is returning. MLB teams have opened camps in Florida and Arizona, the World Baseball Classic (more on that later) starts on March 3, and even Sportscenter features the occasional non-Bonds baseball segment now. It's just fucking fantastic.

As for how our practice went: On a scale of 5 to 27, I'd give it an 18. It was Doc, Scoops, Ricochet, and I (my nickname's "Buttermilk" for reasons which I have yet to make up). I'd pay Scoops money to have him train me; he is an honest-to-Zeus ballplayer. He plays shortstop, so I moved over to second base from short last season. That's as it should be. We all made our share of boots and blunders, but we also made some plays that would make you think we'd been working hard all winter (which I think is actually the case for Scoops).

My goal this season is to lead the team in OPS; I finished third last season. I don't know how well I can trust my batting practice performance last night, but at minimum it was encouraging. We used an aluminum bat and soft baseballs for BP, but I still managed to crush a good number into the garden (19th century speak for "deep in the outfield"). I think with a heavier bat and a harder ball, those would have gone even farther. I need to work more on going to the opposite field, especially since we have a short porch now that we've re-oriented our field.

My favorite part of the evening was just standing around talking with the guys. When you're on a team with guys or girls you like, it's just really hard to beat.

And if you win a lot of games, that's just frosting.

I'm not bragging or anything, but Mark Buehrle of the World Champion Chicago White Sox and I go to the same gym and take our pets to the same veterinarian.

That's all.