(that's Portrait, if you're curious)
**I apologize ahead of time for the lack of photos in this entry: I've taken plenty, I just don't have the energy to upload them and place them in a way you'll enjoy. So close your eyes and imagine the ballpark if you want, the image is better than any picture my cell phone can reproduce, anyway**
The past few days have been nothing if not entertaining for their high untentional comedy value. I've dealt with sunburn, an exploding well, rush hour in Tampa, yipping dogs and, last but not least, baseball. Only one of those is positive by the way, but I'm not here to insult your intelligence by asking you which one you think it is. Moving right along...
Those of you who've been following the baseball blog since 2006 must well have learned two things by now: That I wait 10 1/2 months each year for this wonderful 6-week stretch, and also that every year about a week or so in I get really bitchy and whiny from lack of sleep. Don't worry, friends and family! I have not disappointed you at all; yesterday I had a complete meltdown and Saturday morning I screamed to my neighbors over the back fence that I promised to, "KILL YOUR F***ING DOGS!"
In all fairness to me, my amazing backyard associates first fired up a chainsaw from 6-7, then added a woodchipper shortly thereafter. On a Saturday morning when I hadn't slept in many days. Just when I thought I was going to be able to get back to sleep... they let their tiny, screaming canines out, who proceeded to bark their lungs out for five minutes straight. It was then and only then that I opened the lanai door long enough to scream the above threat. To their credit, I haven't heard those little furry assholes since.
This segues nicely into my next disaster, one which involved both of my well's bladder tanks to crap out shortly after I left for work. Thank God for wonderful neighbors, who not only noticed the sound and came over to shut off the water and the well pump, but called me to fill me in and then, after I bought new tanks at Home Depot, graciously helped me install them.
The entire process, from leaving work early to the final piece of pvc pipe in place, only took about 3 hours, which is good considering I didn't know what the hell I was doing. All was, ahem, well, until I turned the water back on... and the backyard pipe (going down to the well) blew a seal, causing me to visit three hardware stores for a part that none of them had. Liquid cement, a lot of duct tape and two hours later all was "well" again... until I turned on the water and the motor in my aerator blew. I'm now bathing in the pool because I really don't know how much more bullsh!t I can take from my plumbing.
But who cares about all that, right? It's SPRING TRAINING, the most glorious of all times of the year and I shouldn't be whining just based on principle. So let's skip right over the boys basketball regional quarterfinal in Tampa that took me 3 1/2 hours to get to on Thursday evening, and get to the good stuff: Camp stories.
There's going to be a lot going down in camp this spring; mostly because seven of the eight bullpen guys from last year have peaced out. Right now though, this week was just about pitchers and catchers getting back in the groove before everyone reports tomorrow to work out as a group.
I'm really getting sick of people asking Maddon (Joe, the manager) what he thinks about the bullpen, or how they'll do without such-and-such, or how much this will hurt them this year, or who'll be the closer. He says the same thing to everyone -- mostly that he doesn't know, but that he's confident things will work themselves out -- but every time a new national guy comes around the hut, he has to repeat himself and the rest of us have to sit and listen.
I mean, do people really think you can snap your fingers and get eight guys to work together seamlessly? Most teams have a hard enough time doing that with their returning guys, let alone a whole new group. What happened last year in the Rays' pen was lightning in a bottle, and while they have about 40 guys ready to fill three spots and can pick and choose as they please, I don't think anyone should be screaming for anyone's head should this year's relief corps not perform up to the standards set by those who came (and went, clearly) in 2010.
But hey, what do I know? I'm just a baseball nut with a keyboard.
Some random ramblings:
+ The new guys are, for the most part, pretty cool and seem to be fitting in the clubhouse with everyone else famously. Yes, that includes Manny, who made a "Where's your cap?" joke to Evan by the batting cages the other day.
+ On that note, if I hear/see/read/think anyone say/write/think "Just Manny being Manny" one more time this week, I'll probably snap. This is fast going the way of the Justin Bieber franchise (every song sounds the same, hella cliche, makes me want to break watches, etc.)
+ All of the 62 guys in camp had reported by today, save the guy who just signed yesterday and someone I hadn't heard of. When I started covering the Rays in 2006, the guys showed up only when they had to. It's cool to see how far they've come.
+ I'm not sure why Eliott Johnson came up and introduced himself to me this morning (he's been with the Rays since 2002, me, since 2006), but it was nice that he was friendly about it and I'll take it. I've never actually had any athlete go out of their way and introduce themselves to me before; usually they care as much about our names as we do theirs (the flip? We're paid to care so we must). Different, but not bad.
+ Vogt gave me a hug when he saw me, that always makes you feel good. Like I said in my last post, he got invited to big-league camp this year which I'm all for; he's got one of the coolest crawl-through-a-river-of-shit-and-come-out-clean-on-the-other-side stories I've heard in a while and he and his wife are great people, and it's always good to see the good guys succeed. He's one of (I think) seven or eight Stone Crabs in the clubhouse this spring, and it's always neat to see the guys you covered in the minors step up and do well.
+ Joe Maddon has a '72 Chevelle painted "candy apple blue." It's beautiful and I want it. He entered it in the car show across the street from the park today, no word on whether he won or not.
+ Helli's hamstring is still sore so he didn't do anything outside today. Word on the street is that he'll be back outdoors tomorrow, but will probably be limited to playing catch or something non-strenuous like that.
+ The Rays motto this season is (I think) "find another way," meaning after losing everyone who could run to more money +40 percent of their payroll, they're going to have to find another way to compete in the tough AL East. This motto is along the lines of Maddon's recent "theme for a year" deal, which included "9=8," "9>8" and "WIN," and really makes reliever J.P. Howell happy. Howell, ever the comedian, quipped that he "just didn't get all that math stuff" and this year's ditty was a lot easier to handle.
+ I talked to Chirinos today. His English has gotten 500 percent better since the last time I've seen him, and my Spanish has deteriorated proportionately. He seemed to find that funny.
+ I'm almost certain I misheard that David Price was in catcher's gear for a day this week. How did I miss this? Oh yeah, I'm avoiding the sun because my skin either a) reflects light, or b) absorbs it at a rate of zero to Dawn's-a-freakin-tomato that I've never quite fully understood.
+ The baseball tab is FINALLY done, so I can stop being tempted by drowning myself in the pool now while I sit on the lanai and write in the afternoon. It's even possible I might get to bed before 3 a.m. and show up to the park at 10 feeling like a human being... but that's a big "if." We all know how I hate mornings.
+ Mom is 80 percent of the way to my humble abode, where she'll be shacking up for a week. I got two phone calls about 3 minutes apart this evening - Mom, to tell me how good the 80-degree weather feels on her Panama City balcony, and Dad, who was out in the driveway shoveling snow, but not fast enough that it hadn't covered up his snowblowing tracks by the time he got to the end of the driveway today. Poor Daddy.
+ Miguel Cabrera gets my preseason vote for most balls and worst dumbass move all in one night. Poor Miggy. :/
+ This is the first spring in a while that Shane isn't in Florida to train. Now that he's with the Giants I guess he figures he's some kind of big shot, but I'm sincerely going to miss sipping coffee at a bookstore and making fun of passersby as we talk about life. We've been friends for nearly a decade, and I've watched him grow from thinking it was cool to smash shotglasses on his back fence and shoot his friends with dart guns for fun, to husband and expectant father. The part of him I love, though - the part that will always listen to my problems and then put me in my place - hasn't changed. I bet he'll never lose his sharp tongue.
+ My kids are learning a lot in practice and I've decided while it's a lot of work, it's also fun to be a coach. They call me "Coach D" (I would NOT let them even utter 'Coach K' around me), and are really good at listening. Practices and tournaments make life really hectic on top of spring training, softball, tennis and school, but it's so rewarding to be able to pass on my passion to a group of teenagers who - gasp - actually listen to what I say. I enjoy going to the gym and hanging with them throughout the week. Now, if only they could shoot...
+ I made the best dinner ever tonight: baked potato with honey, salad and a flank steak pinwheel with spinach and mozzarella wrapped in it. It's been so long since I've actually had the time to cook that I forgot how much better I feel when I'm eating homemade stuff, as opposed to flooding my system with Diet Dew in order to stay awake and not have my stomach eat itself. I've got chicken marinating in a bowl for tomorrow, should be just as good. :)
+ MSU FINALLY won a close game. They've been breaking my heart so much lately it's hard for me to even turn on the tv when they play. I get so mad and I think it scares Hova, who cowers in fear under my bed until the game's done, which can't be good for her I-love-mom psyche. Anyway, Kalin Lucas has been on fire the past few games and Day-Day had some nice end-of-the-game contributions against Illinois despite only playing about 1/4 of the time he usually does (he had the flu), so I'm encouraged. Not so much damn-we're-gonna-make-a-run-in-March encouraged, but let's start small: Say, hey, we might make the tournament after all. And, if I'm being greedy, say we win the first round before we get smoked by a bunch of white boys from Liberty and I cry for the rest of the month. Ah well, there's always Mook and Kansas to root for. :)
+ I finally got an iPhone, after 4-5 years of waiting for Verizon to sell it. It was well worth the wait, except that now I'm addicted to playing something called "Words with Friends," with my sister, which is pretty much electronic Scrabble, which I never liked. We're 1-1 as of now and I hate her because she comes up with these bullshit 50+-point words that she doesn't even know exist by just throwing random letters up and hitting "send" until they process. I think this is cheating, but she's adamant about telling everyone how cool she is because I'm a writer and she beat me once, so I'll let her have it. (WTF is a "zoon" ?? She sure didn't know, but it's the reason I'm trailing by 20 points right now)
+ I got called racist by a black guy shooting pool at the bar last week. I don't know how I am supposed to respond to this, although I'm not ashamed to say that all I could do is laugh in response, which didn't help the situation any. It all began over him eavesdropping on my conversation as I talked about hot sauce and how you can put it on any food and make it taste delicious, and how I learned that from living with Luck-e. Now, I'm a racist. Still trying to figure this one out, but I'm pretty sure the whole bar laughed with me when he got in my face, so at least everyone else knows the true story. I really need to learn not to let drunken, ignorant people make me sad, but I don't take that lightly.
+Gary Brown's retirement party is tomorrow night, and I think we should all wear mustard-stained shirts to honor him.
+ I can't wait til I have the day off so I can go to a Tigers' game.
I think that's enough rambles for the night; these entries should become a little more regular now that I can actually look at my keyboard at the end of the day without wanting to frisbee it into the pool, so you snowbound Michigan friends will be free to live through me vicariously once again. For now, it's bed-time at Casa de Sportsgal.
G'nite, kiddos.
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