Getting to First Base

This is my last day here - the whole blogging section of my parent site, Twolia, is shutting down. But I don’t have to write a teary farewell, because I just moved the whole operation to Wordpress. My new home is still called Getting to First Base, but it’s obviously a new URL, so please update your bookmarks/RSS feeds accordingly!

So instead of a teary farewell, I will simply offer a sincere thanks to all of you who have stuck with me in2009. You paid my bills and funded some great trips to Royals games, and I have been blessed to be a paid blogger this year. I couldn’t have done it without you! Here’s some stuff that happened on this blog this year

January
I had to root for the Sooners to be national champions, and it was painful. All the while, I missed the little things about baseball season.

These are one of those little things.

February
I mused about the Rocky Mountain News’ closing - and shared the Reader’s Digest version of a school paper I wrote about the evolution of sports blogs - all in one post. That was quite the post. Later, I saw an incredible hockey game, from right behind the home team’s bench. My gallery of ridiculous Spring Training photos got linked by Deadspin.

Joel Zumaya leads the Tigers in a game of airplane. Then he goes on the disabled list. (AP/Tony Dejak)

March
I shared why I really don’t want to be a baseball wife anymore, got linked on Deadspin again with a story about Royals catcher and Cuban defector Brayan Pena, and mused about autographs and the people who seek them.

April
I giggled at April Fools Day shenanigans, hated my life after the Royals lost on Opening Day, and was hit surprisingly hard by Nick Adenhart’s death. (Public service reminder: Don’t drink and drive!)

Chilling.

May
I went to a thrilling, instant-classic Royals game (and shared some photos from it the next day), made up some new Wonderlic* questions, and shared my Baseball Prospectus Idol entry. Then I got mugged and rescued by my brother! Whew, what a month!

June
This was my favorite month in the history of the blog, mostly thanks to the MLB draft. On Draft Day, I made some decent predictions, tracked and analyzed the first 20 picks (part 1, part 2), and interviewed 2008 Royals draftee Tyler Sample about his own Draft experience and how potential picks should handle the experience.
Meanwhile, the College World Series teams got commemorated with galleries of sad players after each elimination.
That month, I also went to the game where Gil Meche’s arm died. It was fun at the time, though, and I had some amazing seats thanks to my favorite KC radio host!

July
I gave Juan Uribe an award for botching a perfect game (and later listened to an actual perfect game), felt awful for poor Erin Andrews, and made up a Baseball-Reference drinking game with my brothers.

August
Joe Posnanski got his well-deserved position at Sports Illustrated, so I shared how he changed my life. (Later that month, I got to hang out with him for a bit in Omaha. Pure bliss.) Later, I was greatly moved by a tour of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, and strongly disagreed with a stupid Royals TV commercial.

Me in the Memoral Stadium press box.

September
My name was in Posnanski’s book! AAAAHHHH! Here’s what Poz meant when he said I “almost” tracked down George Clooney for an interview. That weekend, I was heartbroken by Bo Pelini’s decisionmaking against Virginia Tech. With the start of the NFL season, I launched the Chiefs Fan Experiment series. The Huskers sold out their 300th consecutive home game, and I boasted.

That's my name!

October
Nebraska beat Missouri! The Chiefs won a game! I picked on Buzz Bissinger’s lack of understanding of sample sizes, then compiled some great #oneletterofffamousquotes ideas. And then I put Fievel’s hat on his twin, Jorge Posada.
November
Nebraska and Oklahoma is an awesome rivalry, and here’s why. I was thankful for a bunch of stuff, then made a handy guide for reporting medical statuses of celebrities.

December
Barry Bonds was intentionally walked more in 2004 than almost everyone in baseball was in the entire decade. The Heisman voters are dumb and I don’t respect them. Here’s some awesome photos from a hockey game; here’s the opening shot in my battle against unfair MiLB wages, and a Venn diagram about marching bands.

Horrifying.

Thanks again for your support in the last year. I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!

Jonah Keri does this, and although my list is much shorter, I’ll give it a shot. It’s every city where I spent at least one night this year. You’re about to see how boring AND how poor I am. And my love of day trips shortens the list even more. Yikes, this is bad.

Washington, DC

Madison, WI

I was in Pittsburgh and Cleveland twice each, but didn’t stay the night either time.

Not one of my trips to Kansas City involved staying the night. I always drove back late at night after glorious Royals games.

McCook, NE

Do Lincoln and Omaha count? I live in both of them at various times of the year…

Ugh, I think that might actually be it. If I hadn’t had surgery, I would be in Orlando right now.

And so ends my pathetic journey in never leaving the house. Where have you been? Leave yours in the comments, or on your own blog and then give me a link!

[Goal for 2010: Double this list!]

My brother called with this fact. I graphed it.

You know it's true.

He’s a beast, a one-man wrecking crew, and far and away the best college football player in the country (though that was apparently kept a secret from certain pieces of garbage Heisman voters, not that I am bitter).

He’s Ndamukong Suh, and we haven’t seen a defensive tackle quite like him, ever. Suh’s final game as a Nebraska Conhusker is the Holiday Bowl against Arizona, and I’m guessing every quarterback he’s ever terrorized is celebrating tonight.

(Still my favorite highlight EVER)

This is your friendly reminder to watch that game, because Suhis not the kindof player college football fans get to see every day, or ever. He’s a little piece of sports history and he’s flat-out fun to watch. So tune in tonight and treat yourself to the mighty House of Spears.

[Another shortish post, as my right arm is still in a sling and so I'm typing one-handed.]

Yesterday, a question was posed at The Big Lead: Where are the good, faithful husbands in sports? Or more specifically, who are they? BigBrainOnBrett named some names, but it’s a short list. I have one to add - to his list of zero - in the baseball category: Mike Sweeney.

I guess BBoB was looking for “stars,” and that really isn’t Sweeney, not now anyway. But for a while in the early part of the decade, Sweeney was one of the best hitters in the American League. Maybe he was underappreciated or didn’t get that much attention because he was a Royal, but he really could mash. A long string of injuries cut down his production at the plate and his playing time. I hate to do that “what if” thing, but man…if Sweeney had stayed healthy, who knows what kind of decade we’d be talking about.

His time with the Royals ended after the 2007 season, but I did get to meet him while he was still here. That, and a later encounter at a church conference, led me to believe he’s actually as good a person as his public image suggests. So there’s one. Unfortunately, the poster at The Big Lead has a point - baseball players, as a whole, aren’t a faithful lot. I approximated their social norms in a MS-Paint’ed Venn Diagram:

More of the pink circle probably belongs within the blue circle, but then the text wouldn't have fit.

[Ed. note - today is shoulder surgery day, so I'm not sure when I'll be back at the keyboard. Hopefully there's at least one more post before this blog is taken out back and shot on New Year's, but if not...this is a good enough topic to end on. It means a lot to me.]

Your average baseball fan assumes professional baseball players are all wealthy. Obviously, this is true for Alex Rodriguez, and bizarrely also for guys like BJ Ryan (whom I saw blowing saves in AAA while still making $10 million). However, it’s a frighteningly untrue for most Minor Leaguers.

Maybe you’ve heard this figure, but it bears repeating: The average Minor Leaguer made just $10,000 this year. And a lot of that has to go right back to the team for stuff like clubhouse dues. And of course, many of them have to move all over the place several times per summer on the whims of their parent clubs. And what about the married ones? Being the wife - or child - of a minor leaguer isn’t an easy path. The lack of income, the constant moving, the not-so-great health insurance, the inability to get a job in many of the MiLB towns where the husband pays because they’ll be moving soon anyway…it’s not good.

That's what a chasm looks like.

The problem is, not enough people see that there’s an issue. The assumption still prevails that “pro ballplayer” = “wealthy.” Check out the illuminating blog of Garrett Broshuis, a MiLB pitcher who happens to be a fantastic writer. He explains this whole situation better than I can on his blog and his work at Baseball America.

This post from Broshuis was what finally stirred me into action, after I knew what was going on for several years. And bear in mind, no one’s asking for multimillion deals here. Sayeth Broshuis:

“Minor league players recognize what they are: minor leaguers. They know most are doomed for obscurity, and they don’t expect to be paid richly. They don’t expect to drive Bentleys or to dress as if they’re auditioning for the next Kanye West video. They just want to be able to afford to eat.” -Garrett Broshuis

This isn’t a plea for a personal donation from you. As Broshuis explains in the linked post, the necessary changes to the MiLB pay structures wouldn’t have to cost fans anything - or at most, a tiny amount, like 50 extra cents per ticket. All I want is for more people to see what’s happening all over the country. And hey, if you’re interested in helping to change things, shoot me an e-mail. We’ll need all the help we can get to make this much-needed change.

I’m having shoulder surgery tomorrow. Yes, right before Christmas. Yes, the first day of winter break. That was intentional.

Because I’ve had surgery on this shoulder before, I know I should enjoy using both arms while I can, because it will be a while before I have that privilege again. That, and I just like going to hockey games, so two of my brothers and I went to a UNO* game.

*That’s University of Nebraska at Omaha…not, like, New Orleans. Go Mavs!

Before the game, in the living room:

Merry Christmas!

Obviously, none of the hockey pictures are perfect. We were about 8 rows back, so the posts in the glass were in the way of approximately everything. And the camera desperately wanted to focus on the marks on the glass instead of what was beyond the glass. But still. I had fun. Moving on…

At the Qwest Center, introducing “Your…UNO….Mavericks!”

Whee spotlight!

Minnesota State took an early 1-0 lead. Oh look, that’s the puck in the net.

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[click image for larger (but still not full-res, sorry) version

Minnesota State JUUUUUST missed another goal, a bit later.

I don't even remember taking this.

Omaha’s goalie John “Not to be Confused with William” Faulkner earned his keep. Here’s a save.

I <3 goalies.

The game was tight, so quite a few players had words with one another.

"Why don't you pick on someone your OWN size?"

During the second intermission, a dad and his kid show that college hockey is fun for the whole family.

AWWWWWWWWWWW CUTE

Neither team scored in the 3rd period, so we went in to sweet, blessed overtime.  It didn’t take long for Rich Purslow to score the winning goal. Click on this picture to see a bigger version and check out all the fans’ faces across the ice. THAT is why sports are awesome.

Part of me is mad that that guy is in the foreground, but he's a fan. I can't hate on fellow fans.

And since that goal was scored RIGHT IN FRONT OF US OH MY GOSH, the celebration was also right there. Hellooooo, Mavs.

So much fun. No words.

So that was fun. Since both teams are the Mavericks, the winning team every year gets the “Spirit of the Maverick” trophy. It’s good to have it back in Nebraska, where it belongs. Go Mavs! (our Mavs, not theirs.) And, thanks to both teams for providing one last fun thing to do before I go under the knife tomorrow.

Erin Andrews, who is ESPN sideline royalty and one of my favorite broadcasters, wants the longest possible sentence for Michael David Barrett. He’s the [guy*] who stalked her, rigged cameras in three of her hotel rooms, and released videos of her in the nude. His lawyers are working toward a plea that would only lock him up for two years.

*I tried out about 17 other words there, but none of them were family friendly enough for this blog. You may mentally fill in those brackets with whatever word you want.

Now, re-read what he did to her. I’m no psychologist, but does a guy who does all of those things - and that’s just the stuff he has admitted to - sounds like someone who’ll stop in two years when he gets out of prison? Via The Big Lead, I see that other women have contacted Andrews’ lawyer, saying the same thing has happened to them.

Whether or not Barrett was responsible for the creeping on all of those women, I still agree with Andrews. There’s not really a point in giving him a light sentence unless it’s accompanied by a labotomy, because people who are sick enough to do that stuff in 2009 will be sick enough to get right back to it in 2011.

In my little heart, I had hope that Ndamukong Suh would wrap up his trophy-filled week by hoisting the Heisman up on the stage tonight. But in my brain, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen. Defensive players just don’t win the Heisman; it’s a “best at scoring touchdowns” type of award. (Woodson excepted, obviously.)

But hey, there Suh was, in his suit, next to QBs and RBs in their suits. He had invaded their world already - and the announcers were not shy about mentioning how Suh had utterly annihilated fellow candidate Colt McCoy a week ago. You’ve seen this, I’m sure, but it’s worth watching again.

In this 13-second clip, you can clearly see who is the better football player. And that whole game was like that - Suh owning McCoy at every turn. And it’s how Suh played all season, breaking through double- and even triple-teams to sack QBs, blocking opposing kicks, or even dropping into pass coverage to knock down passes.

And yet.

Colt Effing McCoy finished ahead of Ndamukong Suh in the Heisman voting. Colt McCoy was Suh’s…erm….I can’t say the word I want on this family-friendly blog. Prison-buddy, wink wink? ANYWAY. In no way are any voters justified in placing McCoy ahead of Suh.

That Suh didn’t win is sort of expected, but that he finished only fourth is a farce.

Before the Car Crash Heard 'Round the World, this was the only indication we had that Tiger wasn't a robot.

The day of Tiger’s car accident, when his condition was still being reported as “serious,” I had this fear that his injuries would be bad ones and he’d be done golfing. I pondered future-Minda telling her grandchildren about the day the best golfer in the world could no longer play golf.

Then, when it sort of started to become clear that the Woods’ have some domestic problems, and that Elin got mad about some mistresses and chased him down with a golf club…well, at least it was proof that Tiger was a person, not a robot who golfs. Up until this story, he was correct when he referred to himself as “boring,” because he has publicly displayed all the charisma of a kumquat for all the years we’ve known him, except those on-the-course moments where he pumps his fists to celebrate moments of, you know, being the best golfer in the world.

A few weeks ago, Joe Posnanski said he was fascinated by this story, not because he is secretly a tabloid addict, but because he was dying to know how Tiger’s oh-so-careful PR people would wrap this up.

The worst possible idea? Have the best golfer in the world quit playing golf. If the goal is to not have the New York Post put Tiger on the cover for 14 straight days, taking a break was the wrongest of wrong moves. The best way to get people to shut up about his, erm, “body count” was to get back on the course and shut them up by winning.

But running and hiding? Really? Now we’ll never hear the end of it. It’s going to be easy to fill in his absence from the golf world until….well, until I actually do have grandchildren to talk to about this. And those  grandchildren will roll their little eyes and say, “Grandma, you’re still talking about that? We’ve been reading about it on [whatever absurd technology replaces sports/gossip blogs] since we were BORN.”

The only possible good that could come from this escape is to fix the Woods’ marriage. If they can manage that somehow, power to them. I guess the best way to stop a man from visiting road [friends] is to take him off the road. But I’d much rather see him golf again.