In this age of instant messaging, e-mail, twitter and other ways to communicate at the speed of light it may come as a shock to some of the younger Triple B readers that there was once a time when correspondence was not handled as quickly.
Before the days of Facebook, it was not possible to post a status while on vacation to all of your friends to let them know that you were “Having a great time exploring the world’s largest ball of twine.”
Instead, when you were at that ball of twine, and you wanted to let your friends know how much fun it was, you had to buy a postcard and actually place it in something called a mailbox.
In a little under two weeks the 2013 Major League Baseball season will officially begin with the prime-time Easter Sunday showdown between the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
Minute Maid Park will be the site of the first game of the 2013 Major League Baseball season. Photo R Anderson
Ever since I bought my ticket to that game I have found myself with a little spring in my step knowing that soon the games will count for real.
I guess it is not to say that Spring Training does not count but there is certainly a difference between the validity of a Spring Training record versus a regular season record.
Another factor that has me ready for the start of the season is the historic aspect of being present for not only the first game of the season but also the first game for the Astros in the American League.
So with all of the excitement one might even say I have a fever for baseball.
The fever got me thinking about a classic Saturday Night Live skit involving Christopher Walken. In the skit Walken plays a music producer who has a fever and the only cure is more cowbell.
Throughout the skit Will Ferrell runs around like a man possessed banging his cowbell all over the sound stage to the dismay of his band mates.
With the baseball season approaching I am in the mood for more cowbell. Photo R. Anderson
If you have never watched the skit I highly recommended you do so if for no other reason than to watch one of Jimmy Fallon’s many times that he broke character and laughed during a skit.
Inspired by the skit, teams soon made sure that cowbells were available in the various gift shops for fans to make sure they get into the spirit.
Of the ballparks that I have visited I have to say that Tropicana Filed, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, is the most cowbell frenzied one.
While the Rays often rank near the bottom each year in terms of attendance one cannot deny that the fans who are there definitely make some noise and that noise is often fueled from cowbells.
What can I say there is just something fun about thousands of one’s closet friends clanging on the cowbell in unison.
Fred Schneider of the rock band The B-52’s is definitely someone who enjoys more cowbell as demonstrated during a concert at Tropicana field. Photo R. Anderson
But like everything in life there is a time and a place for the cowbell.
The most appropriate times to ring the cowbell are when a pitcher has two strikes on an opposing batter, the home team player reaches base or scores a run, and of course whenever one is prompted to do so by the stadium announcer or visual cues.
Of course another time for cowbell in the ballpark is when the B-52s are in concert there. That was the case during my first visit to Tropicana Field.
For those of you living under a rock, or perhaps more appropriately under a blarney stone, yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.
St. Patrick’s Day is named after Saint Patrick, one of the patron saints of Ireland. The actual origin story and legends surrounding St. Patrick are varied and tend to depend greatly on the source material one looks at.
There is of course the legend about St. Patrick driving all of the snakes out of Ireland.
Not too long ago, I decided I needed a quest to mark my place in history. A lofty goal I know but I have always been one that dreams big.
So with my goal of finding a quest in mind, I sat down in a thinking position with pen and paper in hand, along with a cup of hot Earl Grey tea close by to try to come up with what my mark on society could be.
Just like Jean Luc Picard I do some of my best thinking when the Earl is involved. Photo R. Anderson
As I thought about quests, two people naturally came to mind; Bono and Oprah.
While Bono’s quests are genuinely aimed at helping all mankind they really seem to be time-consuming and tend to happen in far away lands so I figured I would aim a little more domestically at seeking my first quest and try to look at what Oprah would do.
Sadly, the more I thought about quests, the more I realized that Oprah seems to have a monopoly on look at me type endeavors.
From giving people cars, to building schools in South Africa and hosting Legend’s Balls on her front lawn the woman really likes her quests. If one ever doubts her commitment to being known as a giver, one need only travel to the local newsstand where the media queen gives her readers a glimpse into her wonderful life each month on the cover of her magazine.
Realizing my meditation on finding the perfect quest was going to require more than sipping tea in the thinking position, I ventured forth to the local Taco Bell to get the kind of nourishment only really cheap faux Mexican food can provide.
Now, I have been known to eat my fair share of Taco Bell however I really don’t like their namesake food item. My dislike of the Taco Bell taco most likely stems from binge eating boxes of tacos back in college.
Another factor in losing my love of the taco centers around the day I learned just what exactly they put in the tacos. But that is another story for another day. While I dislike the tacos, I absolutely love the bean burritos. So I normally get a bean burrito with whatever else I order.
So while I was waiting to order, I realized that the bean burrito and the soft taco were the same price on the menu. With this realization in mind, I told the order taker that I would like to substitute a burrito for my soft taco in the combo meal.
From the look I received you would have thought I had uttered the most absurd statement she had ever heard. After gathering her thoughts for a moment she told me, “Sir, you cannot substitute a burrito for a taco.”
Not willing to give up so easily on my perfectly thought out reasoning I retorted, “but they are both the same price on the menu, it should be very easy to make the switch.”
You can learn a lot from reading a sauce packet but you cannot swap a burrito out for a taco. Photo R. Anderson
At this point, the manager came up to see what the fuss was about and I offered her my very carefully reasoned out logical thesis on burrito versus taco combo economics.
I could see that my reasoning was not getting through so I thought about what Oprah would do and raised my voice while repeating the same reasoning I had just stated using my indoor voice.
My use of the “Oprah voice” did not seem to sway the manager any more than my indoor voice did. While this was going on I could hear people talking in line behind me and along with the “hurry up you’re holding up the line” were a mixed in a few, “wow, that kind of makes sense I had never thought of that before.”
So I left the line having planted the seed of civil burrito disobedience in a few brave souls behind me.
So while I went in looking for lunch I left armed with a quest. I vowed that day to do all that I could to ensure the freedom of choice between soft taco and bean burrito.
Racing sauce packets used to be a staple of Houston Astros games. Photo R Anderson
I know the burrito movement will be slow and there will be some casualties along the way but I am committed to seeing it through to the end, or at least to the point where I get tired of eating bean burritos.
So, let Bono have his quest to end hunger and global poverty and Oprah have her quest to basically brand everything with her likeness and show the world how important we all should think she is.
At long last I have a quest. Granted it is not as far reaching as giving away cars, building schools, or hosting balls but everyone has to start somewhere. Who knows, maybe one of Oprah’s first quests was food related.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I am off to do some more field research on my quest, I just hope Oprah doesn’t beat me to it and start her own chain of Oprah Bell.
The other day I decided to watch the World Baseball Classic game between Mexico and Canada.
Part of the motivation for watching the game was to try to figure out how it was that Team USA lost to the Mexican team the day before. The other motivation was the fact that I had watched Team Canada play in a tournament in St. Petersburg, FL last year.
Members of Team Canada take batting practice during a 2012 exhibition game at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg, FL. Photo R. Anderson
So as I settled in to watch the game I knew that while there are Major League Players on each of the rosters, the World Baseball Classic plays by international rules which differ from the MLB rules in some areas.
One of those rules involves running up the score when possible to help the run differential numbers.
In most cases running up the score is frowned upon in sports when the lead is well in hand.
In fact, high school and college games include an 11-run mercy rule to help prevent really lopsided scores.
Back when I covered high school baseball I actually found myself rooting for the mercy rule to come into play many a night.
It wasn’t that I wanted a team to lose by that much, but a shortened game meant that I could get back to the office sooner and in theory get the pages on the press earlier. It did not always work out that way but when it did it was uber nice.
So during the Canada versus Mexico game, and with Canada having a very safe lead late in the game, the lead off batter in the eighth inning for Canada dropped down a bunt and reached safely when the third baseman was late to react.
There was nothing inherently dirty about the bunt. As mentioned earlier, the tournament was set up to encourage teams to score as many runs as possible.
Apparently the third baseman for Team Mexico missed that memo and directed the pitcher to deliver a message to the next better.
There are many dynamic things about the game of baseball.
There is the dynamic between a pitcher hurling a ball towards a batter close enough to look tempting to hit but not too close to end up over the wall for a home run.
There is the dynamic of the outfielder timing his jump just right to rob the opposing batter of an extra base hit.
There is the dynamic of a manager trying to decide when to apply an infield shift or make a pitching change based on certain factors or match ups.
There is even the dynamic in the stands of trying to decide how soon is too soon to start the wave and whether it really is wise to eat those chilli cheese fries that look so good but always end with you in pain.
There is also a recent trend of calling things dynamic when in reality they are anything but.
The Houston Astros recently announced plans to adjust their home ticket price in relation to how popular the team coming to town is. Photo R. Anderson
The Houston Astros recently announced plans to join this group of dynamic blunders when they announced that this season will include dynamic pricing for all seats at all of the games.
The team tried a small roll out of dynamic pricing in certain sections of the ballpark last season with some seats costing more on some days than others.
In the simplest form, dynamic pricing is a way for teams to charge more for games that people want to see.
The formula has been used by teams for years whenever the Yankees and Red Sox would come to town since it was felt that there was a higher demand for those tickets and in turn more money could be charged.
The Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs have some of the largest fan bases in the nation. So, the dynamic pricing says that those fans will flock to see their team and pay more in the process regardless of where they are playing.
While ballparks across Florida and Arizona are coming to life with the sounds of Spring Training baseball, there is another tradition of the season that has arrived a little closer to my Texas home.
It is rodeo time and all throughout town the sights, smells and sounds of barbecue, bucking broncos and music abound as the annual salute to all things country and western rolls into town.
Rodeo time has come to Houston and everyone is getting into the spirit. Photo R. Anderson
For several weeks the days and nights will be filled with livestock auctions, skills competitions and nightly concerts. As part of this rodeo bonanza television ads for everything from trucks to mattresses focus on stampedes, herds and other buzz words of the season.
Another tradition of the season is the unexplainable need of the local television reporters to dress up in rodeo gear while they are covering the various activities. Some of the reporters look the part, but most of them definitely look like they are all hat and no cattle.
I have always said that you either are something, or you are not. So the dressing up as a cow poke, when you are a obvious city slicker, really is not fooling anybody. Still, I am sure when rodeo rolls around next year there will still be the pretenders that dust off those once a year duds or go to the Western wear store to get something new.
In the decade plus that I have lived here I have yet to attend a rodeo. When people ask me if I am going to the rodeo, and I reply that I am not, often times it is like I have stomped their balloon animal into tiny little pieces.
It is not that I am anti rodeo per se, I just don’t feel the need to battle the crowds to see the events and concerts. Plus, growing up I was not really exposed to the cow and horse events where it became something that I am drawn to.
Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect for the rodeo performers and I know that they each have spent years honing their craft on horse and bull. I can also respect the people who raise livestock for the various judging.
Countless hours and sleepless nights go into any effort to become the best at anything. While there are always the exceptions and phenoms that seem to have everything come easy to them, for the rest of us we get where we are through hard work and practice.
The same can be said for the baseball players kicking up dirt on those various Spring Training ballparks. Each of them has spent years honing their skills and making countless sacrifices to reach the pinnacle of their field.
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Ben Zobrist was a popular target of hecklers at Rangers Ballpark at Arlington. Photo R. Anderson
While not working with temperamental bulls or raising sheep with the best looking wool, they have nonetheless paid their dues and earned their place in the spotlight.
This is why I have never understood the activity of heckling players when someone attends a sporting event.
Even if someone does not necessarily like the other team or certain players it seems like one could respect the amount of time and effort they took to get there without the need to resort to name calling and other tactics.
To be clear, I am not talking about the “little league” heckling about “belly itchers” which is started as a way to focus wandering minds in the dugout and create team chemistry.
I am talking about the heckling that amounts to personal attacks and other areas that seem to go beyond the line of good taste. And yes the players can usually tune out the stands but there have been a few times when I was sitting in the outfield that I could see a physical reaction from the player who was the target of the heckling.
Proponents of heckling, when confronted on the issue, will usually quote the First Amendment or say that buying the ticket gives them the right to shout down at the players. While I am a huge believer in freedom of speech
Observations from the cheap seats, the beach seats and everywhere in between
