One More Day in the Sun

Posted on October 5, 2012 by RegenAxe

19 Inning Game

Almost a year has passed since the Saint Louis Cardinals came from behind, to win Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. After a year, Game 7, the game that actually secured the championship seems almost like an epilogue. The Red Bird’s underdog status began a month before the end of the regular season. They secured a wildcard berth on only the last day of the regular season. They were never favored to win any of their post-season series, but some how they did.

Today, begins the Card’s 2012 playoff bid. Today, they have a one game do or die against the Atlanta Braves. Hence this post’s title, ‘One More Day in the Sun’. I suppose that the Cardinals will remain the World Champions until the final out of the final game, but calling yourselves the Champs has more gravitas, if you are still a contender. Just to get you non-Saint Louisians in the mood for another exciting October of baseball, I offer up the following synopsis of that dramatic Game 6. I believe that this video has escaped MLB censorship, because it ‘artistically’ melds the national and local audio feeds. Watch it, dream and join with me when I yell, GO CARDS!

Front Yard Bone Yard

Posted on September 21, 2012 by RegenAxe

Front Yard Bone Yard

Brother-in-Law Carl was the last fan left standing at Wednesday night’s Mariners versus Orioles game. At least in his section. The game ran eighteen innings until the Orioles finally prevailed. The Seattle Times posted a great photo of Carl, nearly alone in the center field stands. Jay reposted it on her blog here. Jay had linked to our experience at a nineteen inning Cardinal and Pirate game, so it seemed the right thing to do to link back to her. Ryan, another Cardinal fan and I were supposing about this picture of Carl at work on Thursday. We were trying to come up with some sort of Onion caption. The best that I could come up with is this, “Mariners trade their last fan for an undisclosed sum of cash. Yep, super-fan Carl and spouse Jay have been traded to Saint Louis.” Do the readers have any ideas? This post’s photograph is from Jay and Carl’s front yard. Carl started this front yard bone yard, but it has taken on a life of its own. Now new bats are planted by other people.

There Is No Crying In Baseball

Posted on August 21, 2012 by RegenAxe

A Rabid Cardinal Fan

“There is no crying in baseball”, said actor Tom Hanks, as the alcoholic manager of the featured all woman baseball team in the movie, “A League of Their Own”. While I did not breakdown into tears after Sunday’s nineteen inning for nothing loss, I did whine a lot about it in my Sunday night post about it. All I can say in excuse is that I was tired. I am a little bit more rested now and I am prepared to be more upbeat than I was before. Hey, a win is a win and of course a loss is a loss. A win would have been nice, but as a consolation prize we get a three game home stand against the hapless Houston Astros.

We are the champions of the world. We may have lost our best hitter and our manager from last year, but we are still the champions, at least for now. The Cardinal fan pictured above, who was chosen totally at random is totally upbeat on the Card’s chances this year. While last Sunday’s marathon ended disappointingly, by last year’s standard it is still way too early to start peaking. Cheer up Cardinal fans! It is not even September yet. Conserve your strength for the playoffs. It’s still summer, it is still a long way to winter!

An Unexpected Double-Header

Posted on August 19, 2012 by RegenAxe

I Went to a Day Game that Turned into a Night Game

We went to the baseball game on Sunday. The idea was to get a little father and son and mother bonding time. It was beautiful day for a ballgame. The only thing that we didn’t realize was that we would end up watching the equivalent of two ballgames, two for the price of one. No it wasn’t a double-header. It was just one game, one nineteen inning game. After 19 innings, 6 hours, 9 runs, 27 hits, 2 errors and 16 pitchers, the Cardinals ended up losing to the Pirates 6-3.

It was a disappointing loss, especially since we had stuck it out to the bitter end. At least we had the satisfaction of not having to listen to those annoying Pittsburg fans gloat at their victory. The ones that were sitting right behind us and all of the other nearby ones had all left by the twelfth inning.

They say that baseball is a game without a clock and that a given game could theoretically go on forever. Theory was put to the test today. In the 17th inning, after eleven straight innings of no score, the pirates inched ahead, but the Cards came right back and tied it up. At this point Dave turned to me and said, “Just when you thought the game was over.”

After the game, we waited for the Metrolink. Our train showed up after the station had all but emptied, but that’s OK, because I was in some sort of suspended animation state by then. After the train ride we enjoyed excellent Vietnamese at Mai Lee. It rejuvenated me.

We’re Still the World Champions

Posted on May 12, 2012 by RegenAxe

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this blogger from the swift completion of his self-appointed posts. I try to post everyday and I do. Sometimes I even post more than once a day. It is generally a pleasure, but sometimes it is a chore. Sometimes life gets in the way, like tonight. So, this will be an abbreviated post, just hitting the highlights sort-of-speak.

Tour de Grove

We biked today and got 16 miles. We rode over to the Grove neighborhood. It was sponsoring the Tour de Grove professional bicycle races. Yesterday, we missed the Loop de Loop, bike races in the U-City Loop. I would have liked to write a whole blog about the Loop de Loop. I like the sound of it, but that will have to wait until next year. We saw Kubie racing in the Women’s Cat 4/5 race. We also checked out the posters at Art Crank.

Art Crank is a charity art project to benefit Bike Works. Bike Works gets bicycles in the hands of underprivileged children. Art Crank is composed of forty artists, each of which designs a Saint Louis and bicycling themed poster. Forty copies are made of each poster, which sell for $40. Last year, everything was thirty. I bought a poster last year. It was all about Pee-Wee Herman’s ‘Best Bike in the Whole World.’ I’ve blogged about it in the past. I intended to get another poster this year, but stuff happened. Basically, we tried following a Trailnet ride, from just the pink dots and lost the trail. Just to get a few more miles. The ride’s arrows had been taking us back home, so that is where we went.

One final bicycling themed story occurred as we were returning through the park. Every Saturday afternoon, the knights that fight with Nerf hold court in their realm of the park. We were passing by just as the melee was breaking-up. I spied one knight mounted atop his bicycle, wearing full chainmail, with a Nerf sword ducked into his belt. I tried to get him to pose for a photo, but he was uncooperative and got away. It would have been a heck of a shot.

Yadier Molina

All of this happened earlier on Saturday. Why couldn’t I have just written it up? Well, we had Cardinal baseball tickets tonight. My boss had gifted them. We had four tickets, so John G. and Joanie accompanied us. Joanie and we drove over to the neighborhood MetroLink stop and as we were walking down to the platform, I heard John call out my name. Cool! So, we all rode downtown together. Adam Wainwright, the Cardinal starter, got shelled. The 7-2 final score doesn’t tell the whole story of how bad it looked. But, it is only a game and we are still the World Champions.

The preceding picture shows Yadier Molina, the Cardinal’s catcher at bat. It is a pretty good action shot, if I do say so myself. OBTW, he is still 0 for life in home runs versus the Braves. This swing resulted in nothing more than a long fly out. Anne reminded me that we had seen his first major league at bats. The first time he stepped to the plate, his batting average was 0.000. He got a hit, so the next time his average was 1.000. He was put out, so the third time his batting average was 0.500. In the intervening years he has managed to stabilize his batting average at a respectable figure and become the well respected ballplayer that he is.

It was so late that I forgot to wish my brother, Frank, Happy Birthday, Ski!

Baseball, Space, Guns and Mitt

Posted on April 13, 2012 by RegenAxe

In the ending of the movie, “The Natural”, Robert Redford’s baseball is propelled out of the ballpark, winning the game. Against a black background with molten sparks descending like falling stars, the ball arcs higher and higher into the night’s sky. It floats across the screen, as it floats across both time and space, and eventually drops into the glove of his son. Glenn Close watches her two men play catch. Redford looks content, at peace with himself. Fade to black.

Apollo 11 vs MLB Map (Click to Enlarge)

The graphic for this post comes from NASA. NASA has superimposed a map of the first moon walk, Aldrin and Armstrong’s strolls around the Sea of Tranquility onto a standard baseball diamond. They didn’t cover too much ground, it turns out. Both stayed close to the mound where the Eagle set down, except for Armstrong’s quick jaunt over to the rim of East Crater to photograph the outfield.

The NASA map is in honor of the World Champion Saint Louis Cardinals. Today is the Cardinal’s home opener. They’re playing the Cubs. Unfortunately, I do not have tickets to the game. Besides, it is day game and I have to work. On opening day, not even the sky is a limit, but it will be tough to top last year. Go Cards!

Traffic was horrible on Thursday night. An extra long commute combined with two accidents on the new I-64, one blocking the east-bound lanes and one the west-bound, all combined to create a ninety-minute drive. So, it is with some trepidation that I look towards Friday night’s commute. Home Cardinal games always exacerbate traffic. A daytime home opener is about as bad as it can be, except that this is not all of it, not even by half.

The NRA is holding its national convention in Saint Louis. I briefly toyed with the idea of going to it. It is sure to be a spectacle full of much worthy blog fodder. I could be the sinner in an unholy land. Alas though, commonsense won out. That and cheapness, the $30 membership fee seemed too steep for just a blog post or two.

Now there is news that Mitt Romney is coming to town, to speak at the convention. As the newly anointed Republican candidate-elect, he plans on trying to convince the gun-toting tourists downtown that he never meant it when he said that he would never be beholden to the NRA. “Leave it to Mitt Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.” Good luck with that Mitt. 😳

As bad as Thursday’s commute was, Friday’s looks to be a trifecta of pain worse. The combination of a Cardinal’s home opener, a major convention and the visitation from a Presidential candidate ought to ensure traffic snarls galore. This is why I am posting early. I may not make it home.

Happy Friday the 13th!