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baseball / family / photo / weekend — Comments Off
25
May 13

Yeeeeeeeep

He did not hit the ball today …

But the ball hit him …

That means the same thing: baserunners. And so it was that we found ourselves in the last inning, whatever inning it was, with the bases loaded and let’s say the tying run at the plate in the first round of the playoffs. This is a league casual enough that they run the scoreboard some of the time. And it is a league with enough sensitive feelings that the players aren’t allowed to say “Hey batter batter batter.” Instead they say “Yeeeeeeeep” each pitch and this is OK.

I saw my first little league parent today, not the cheering, “Pay attention” parent, but the “Don’t throw it to the cutoff man, throw it in!” parent. The “I want to see you dive and catch it” parent. Looked like a biker. He was mildly mortified when his boy overran a ball in center. I’m sure it’ll effect his work all next week.

There is no need to discuss the relative merits of the play of your teammate, the second baseman. These kids are nine. But the demonstrative, chain smoker, ponytail guy felt he had to get his money’s worth.

I’d like to think, if I had a child in a sports league, that I’d let the coach coach and I’d quietly cheer and not do much more than that. My post-game interview — the sort of thing I used to do professionally — would consist of two questions. Did you play hard? Did you have fun? Well, then, pizza!

I would, however, roll my eyes at the rule about squelching batter chatter. That, too, is part of the game.

I did not heckle like a champion today. It was widely acknowledged that the other team was cheating. They were juicing. They had a 32-year-old pitcher. The coach was recruiting not just from his little league fields, but the greater tri-county area. How could he have otherwise fielded a team that could defeat these wholesome young men who played pepper games with pure joie de vivre, who are looking forward to church tomorrow and the end-of-the-season party sometime next week?

When my second cousin was on first base he would have been the tying run. Perhaps. The scoreboard did not say. But there was a pop up and that ended the game. The season came to a sad conclusion, because the boys would play through droughts and rain and all through Christmas if they’d let them. There was a dusty mound and green grass and a long strand of black irrigation pipe topping the outfield fence. They had lights for darkness and a concession stand for hunger. They had gloves and balls and an umpire who couldn’t find the first strike zone on any of the three adjoining fields. What else did they need?

Fans had two sets of aluminum bleachers in the sun and an outfield lined with beautiful oaks for shade. They had the weather the national chamber of commerce orders when holding the chamber of commerce convention. It was a beautiful day for everyone.

Also, we saw the rare 1-3-2 double play. Ground ball to the pitcher, he threw out the baserunner at first. The first baseman noticed the runner at third sneaking home. He fed the catcher who chased the runner back up the line until he stumbled and was tagged out. That is a rally-killing double play, friends.

photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
19
May 13

Catching up

The weekly post of extra pictures. And, this week, there’s a special video at the bottom! Begin scrolling!

Baseball that doesn’t include Auburn, here’s Samford’s Phillip Ervin, who’s going to be one of those guy you hear about in the future. He’s a talented ballplayer.

Samford senior Tommy Corbin hit .294 this season, scoring 43 runs and collecting 33 RBIs.

And now, because they are wildly popular — which is to say they were once popular, which is to say that someone asked about them one time a few years ago — here are several fan shots from this weekend’s baseball when Arkansas visited Auburn:

Three of the best words ever: Barbecue House breakfast.

We had dinner at Mellow Mushroom the other night with a friend. I learned a great way to get the waitress to come over double quick is to take a picture of something. She’d visited twice before I was able to compose this the way I liked:

A lady that The Yankee swims with makes jelly from grapes that she grows. And she was nice enough to send us some. It was just about the best jelly ever. So I began to wonder: is there an etiquette for returning mason jars? The Yankee said that sounded like a Southern thing. (It does, doesn’t it?) I asked my mother and we decided there wasn’t a rule about this sort of thing. But! My mother had a great idea, fill the jar with candies and return it. So that’s the new rule:

So we took the cat for a drive. She always looks to the right when she’s behind the wheel. We’re still working on looking to the left.

Auburn / baseball / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
18
May 13

Last home baseball game of the year

The last baseball game of the season, and some nice photographs to celebrate it. Trey Cochrane-Gill pitched five and two-thirds innings in middle-relief for Auburn. He allowed six hits and chalked up five strikeouts against four runs:

Arkansas’ Brett McAfee homered in the third. Here’s a three-photo spread of his play at the plate in the fifth inning, when he tripled and then raced home on a squeeze play:

Cochran-Gill fielded the bunt and threw it home to Blake Austin:

And Austin looked up to the umpire who, finally, made a correct call. McAfee was out:

Brandon Moore was the second of seven Arkansas pitchers they trotted out today. He’s trying to catch Ryan Tella leaning, but that wasn’t going to happen:

In the bottom of the fifth Tella walked and then stole second. A single to left by Austin sent Tella to third. Mitchell Self was up to bat and he laid down the bunt of the day. Tella scored from third on the throw home, which was an error. Austin moved to second and then third on the error. Self got caught in a run down off first base. He held Arkansas’ attention long enough to let Austin score. It was a complete little league play by then, but Self, who started this with the bunt, found himself standing on second when it was done.

That was the start of a huge inning, where Auburn scored eight runs on six hits. Self singled later in the same inning. He got caught in his second rundown of the inning, but he managed to drive in another run doing it. N for the senior, Mitchell, on senior day. He’s had just 26 at-bats all season before cracking the starting lineup because of an injury. He finished the weekend 5-for-9 at the plate.

Here’s Tella scoring from third on the bad throw that was the beginning of Self’s first big play. Arkansas’ Jake Wise could only stand and watch. See the ball?

On the strength of that eight-run fifth inning, the second eight-run inning Auburn has recently had and one of the more exciting innings we’ve seen this season, the Tigers won the regular season finale 11-6, taking the series from the 11th ranked Razorbacks. The bats have come alive for Auburn at the right time, as they’ve won eight of their last 11 games overall and will face Alabama in the first round of the SEC baseball tournament in Hoover next week. Arkansas is the three seed in the tournament. Alabama is slotted at seven, Auburn enters at 10. Here’s the bracket.

Here’s the video, including the big fifth inning rally:

family / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off
12
May 13

Happy Mother’s Day

My wife, grandmothers and role models. I’m fortunate to have a lot of strong, loving, beautiful women in my life. My mother is, of course, one of them.

Those early memories are impossible, and then fuzzy, and then they become more clear.

No matter how the memories look in your mind’s eye you could always count on your mother to be in the background, lifting you up, holding you safely, pushing you onward.

Happy you day!

adventures / cycling / I do not know what is happening. / maps / photo / weekend — Comments Off
11
May 13

Just ran a triathlon

I do not know what is happening.

About a month ago at dinner The Yankee says “I have a crazy idea for you.” This turned out to be “Let’s run a reverse triathlon.”

She’s a good swimmer. We’re both middlingly average cyclists. Neither is much of a runner. So that’s why we’ve recently been running. The trail near us, I mentioned, is safely removed from the road and conveniently measured at 5K. She did four installments on the Couch to 5K plan. I did three. We realized the kinds of in-shape we are does not fall under the “running” category. I also learned this same lesson over my three recent swimming adventures. On the basis of three runs and three swims, and not really knowing how my shoulder would feel about the whole thing anyway, I decided last night to run a triathlon.

We load up the bikes at about 4:45 this morning and head to the nearby Army installation where this will be held. We’ve read that it is a good race for beginners and for people just starting their training for the year. It is mostly flat and typically casual. Those were good things, both in our rationalization and in practice.

A reverse tri, as you might imagine, is done in the opposite order — running, then cycling, then swimming. She thought this would be good because we could get the worst part out of the way. So we start the run at 8:01 — which is a time I’d forgotten occurs on a Saturday. All of the military members, who run everywhere constantly, and the serious athletes take off at an inspirational clip. There’s one small hill to climb on the run, and that’s only a block into the thing.

I make it about a mile before my legs started to bother me. Told you I wasn’t much of a runner. Cramps in the calves tend to slow anyone down, though, so I took it in a limping stride through the rest of the 5K. The running-shuffling-fast walking thing was no fun, but I focused on the upcoming bike leg and before long there we were, changing shoes and chasing people down on wheels.

Which we did. I was happy to pass a lot of people on the bike. My calf complaints disappeared. I couldn’t figure out why my left hip felt numb. But the first half of the route I had a personal best pace. This without trying overly hard because after a 5K run-shuffle and a 20K ride I still had the matter of swimming to do. And I’ve never done all of these things before in one day, so I was consciously trying to save a little bit of energy.

Here was the bike route, which featured one section that made me feel like an actual, competent cyclist:

Got off the bike and realized I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. I am standing there with one sock on. If I sit down I’m afraid I won’t be able to stand up. I contemplate swimming in a sock. But somehow, I forget already how, the problem was resolved and I made my way to the pool. This transition was long enough for someone who I caught on the first leg of the bike route to catch me again. I was nominated as the inaugural president of the “Runs like garbage but can ride a bike” club.

I take it as a high honor.

The pool was cold. The Yankee — who was also competing in her first triathlon and nursing some aches and pains herself — said it felt great, like an ice bath. The last part was true.

She got in the ice bath and had a fine swim. No one passed her. No one passed her on the bike, either, except me, and we just took turns going by one another. In the pool, though, I just scooted along with a breast stroke and a side stroke since I can’t freestyle very well with my shoulder, which felt good throughout the day.

We didn’t win any prizes — this time — but she was awesome. And we each achieved our individual goals.

I wanted to finish the triathlon and physically feel decent when I did. That was the real one. The silly, made-up-this morning ones included not being the last guy to finish. I also didn’t want to be the last guy in my age group. I didn’t want all of the girls to beat me. And I achieved all of those things. The other important goal was to establish a baseline. Now I have a number to improve upon, should I ever do this again.

The run was terrible, and something to work on, but everything else was pretty decent, considering.

The volunteers were all nice and encouraging. This sort of thing actually helped: “Go anonymous person I’ll never see or think about after finishing this sentence; you are doing a great job, which is to say we haven’t called the ambulance on you thus far, despite your inherent struggles as reflected in how many people are in front of you and your overall pace!”

I was surprised.

And by this, too: I think I want to do another triathlon.

Now we have this open question: How many triathlons must one complete to be considered a triathlete?