It's Baseball Season!

Put down your Hooch gator and prepare your chop arm!


GO BARVES!

The worst third base coaching job in history. Also, brief card show recap

I got to the card show today. It was pretty good even though my two favorite sellers weren't there. Before the show I was at my son's little league game. I've been helping out with coaching and the manager made me the third base coach. I'm not a good coach. Not even going to deny it. I've got a decent grasp on the fundamentals, but I get situations screwed up occasionally and I can't keep track of runs and outs to save my life. Also, I'm 'quiet' in real life and quiet and getting hyper distracted kids to listen to you is a lousy mix. My son especially hates to follow my instructions on the basepaths and would routinely run through stop signs until mom gave him a lecture. I try hard, but I really need a crash course in coaching before next season if I'm going to be doing this again.

I had done ok so far this season. I was a little too conservative the first game. I was way too aggressive the second game. I kinda hit a balance the last two games, then today Murphy struck. Except it wasn't Murphy's fault, it was me. The next time you are watching a game and your team's third base coach does something idiotic, just remember how lucky you are that I'm not out there. Here's the highlights of my game:

First inning: Two outs, the fastest runner on the team is on second. The batter hits it to short left field, I hold the runner thinking the left fielder could make a play at home. This is coach pitch little league. No outs are ever made at home. The runner looks at me like I'm insane and holds at third. The next batter gets out and I cost the team a run with the stop sign.

Second inning: Manager's kid is running, there's a hit to the outfield. I put up the stop sign, kid blows right past me like I'm invisible. Throw goes home, beats the kid by 20 feet. THE COACH PLAYING CATCHER TAGS HIM OUT. The hell just happened??

Third inning: Runner on third, one out. I tell her to hold up if it's in the air and I'll tell her when to run. Batter hits a pop up to the third basemen. I watch to see if the kid catches it and when he does, look to the bag to tell the runner to stay put and see her halfway down the line. Tag, double play, inning over. Oops.

Fourth inning: Bases loaded. We're losing by five. Snakes are in my head right now and I'm terrified of screwing anything else up. There's less than two outs so I make SURE everyone knows not to go if it's in the air. Immediate pop up to short. Everyone dutifully stays on their base. The pop up is over the shortstops head and it looks like he's going to miss it. He dives backward, I see the ball hit his glove and think it popped out so I say GO. Really loud. The kid friggin' caught it. Seriously, this was a Web Gem play right here. Batter is out and I just told the runners to run. Pants were shat, I told the kids to get back to their base and miraculously everyone made it back probably because the rest of the defense was so amazed by the catch. The fast kid from the first inning is on second during this debacle and he completely loses faith in anything I have to say. So now the kid refuses to run on ANYTHING the rest of the inning. Two long hits ensued after the pop up and I literally had to beg him to run to the next base with the parents in the crowd yelling along in the stands behind me.

Fifth inning: We're down by five. We're visitors, so unless we score 6, the game is over. I'm a complete nervous wreck at this point. One more bonehead decision by me and I'll be breaking Jimmy Dugan's first rule of baseball right out there in front of everybody. Manager's kid is on the basepaths again on first. Loooong hit, kid rounds second. I put up the sign to stop at third, Manager overrides me and tells him to go. Out by a mile again. Hooray! It wasn't my fault this time! I can relax! I'm off the hook!

NOPE.

Girl from the third inning is on first. BIG hit from the tallest kid on the team. It's deep but the outfielder tracks it down quickly. Girl gets to third, I wave her home. Tall kid gets to second, I tell him to stop because the outfielder is throwing it in. Tall kid keeps running, finally stops halfway to third. We're screwed by this point so I tell him to keep on coming. I look to the bag and the girl I waved home also stopped herself when I threw the stop sign up for the tall kid. So now she's 10 feet off of the base the tall kid is about to be on, the ball is already at the cut off man and you can't have two runners on the same base. I somehow tell her to go on home (I think I was having an out of body experience by this point, I'm not really sure what was going on) and she runs. She's out by 12 parsecs and the other team's manager took pity on us and told the catcher not to tag her out. God bless that man, he saved my sanity today. The inning continues despite me, I manage not to get myself or anyone else killed out there and we score the maximum 7 runs.

And after all that? The kids save my tuchas, and get the other team out 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning to win the game.

I will never, EVER, yell at Brian Snitker again.

Ok. card show. I took my son with me who was jazzed after the game because he made the play to get the last out. He had no money because mom took it all away when he decided to take a bubble bath with mom's expensive shampoo. I spotted him a fiver because you can't have no money at your first card show. I will admit I steered him to some dime boxes and a couple of piles of cheap auto/relic cards. He had none of it. His purchases:

A Who's Who of Baseball book from 1976. He got that for a dollar. When he opened it up to see what players were inside he asked me why Chipper Jones wasn't in there. I pointed out that Chipper Jones was 4 years old in 1976. He still kept checking out that book the rest of the time we were in the show. This cost 1 buck. The other four bucks went to a 1990 Fleer factory set. that was my fault. I pointed out that there were complete sets at a table for 4 bucks without actually looking to see what kind of drek was over there. I panicked slightly when I saw what he picked, but he loves it. There's stickers in there! And rookie cards with TWO players on it! But the cards aren't in order! Hell put them in order when he puts them into a binder! Hey dad, can I have a binder with some pages? If I don't see the set scattered all over his room in a couple weeks I'm probably going to give him all my crappy factory sets from the late '80s too.

Ok, here's the list of my goals for this show along with the result.

COMPLETE ONE SET. - Failed. Not for lack of trying, though.

COMPLETE ONE SERIES. - Mission Accomplished!

COMPLETE ONE TEAM SET. - Mission Accomplished!

FIND A '53 TOPPS CARD I DON'T HAVE - Mission Super Accomplished!

FIND ONE J-HEY CARD I DON'T HAVE - Expectations Exceeded!

Four outta five ain't bad.

Here's the very first card I got at the show.

I picked it up for a buck, which is a bargain at half the price. The shopkeep had the nerve to tell me that it would cost a lot more if it weren't marked up, creased and quite frankly warped in a couple places. Thanks for that info buddy. If  I had $999,999 more dollars, I'd be a millionaire. The reason I got this card (and was dang exited to find it too) was that it accomplished one of those goals up there. You've probably guessed which one, but I'll show it off in another post. All the stuff I got today (actually yesterday now that it's taken me so long to write this) has given me enough material for posts that will keep me busy probably through December. And that's not even counting all the Cartoon, art, sticker and pony posts!

Speaking of ponies, not ONE person asked me to draw them a pony. I am disappoint.

Random stream of conciousness thoughts on today's game

I have GOT to start leaving at least two hours before first pitch. Period. I dawdled today, left an hour and a half before game time and got off the exit to Turner field just in time to see the flyover. We got to our seats in time to see the beginning of the second inning, but alas, the score was pretty much settled by then.

I always screw up parking. If I don't flat out miss the exit, I end up in the wrong lane for my lot or end up trying to get into a permit only lot. Today I turned too early and ended up in a $20 ripoff lot. The bright side is it was right next to the interstate so getting on the road was actually pretty easy.

I found out there was a $3 surcharge on tickets bought the day of the game. It might have been just for this game though - I've never seen that before. I'd rather give the Braves my money instead of Ticketmaster getting it anyway.

In my haste to get into the game I forgot to gawk over Maddux's newly retired number. I regret that.

I didn't even bother to check out the gift shop for cards. Again, I need to be getting there early for this stuff. I did get my son one of those foam #1 hands ($10?!?) and remembered to hit the penny squisher this time.

The seats were way up there on the first base side. They worked out well for three reasons:

1. I got aisle seats with a decent view of the first base side and it wasn't a hassle to get up when we wanted.
2. We were directly facing the fireworks that were shot off above the Club 755 level  and we were high enough so they were just about right in front of us.
3. Scantily clad women EVERYWHERE and up and down those steps all day. If I had a dollar for every time I saw cleavage today I'd have eleventy bazillion dollars. Seveny bazillion after taxes. 

Whenever I arrive late to a game I never get my GameDay program at the gate. I always manage to scrounge a discarded one in the stands though.

There were lots of guys resting today. Conrad, Hinske, Diaz and Blanco all got starts. Chipper got in the game late thankfully. 

The fans were somewhat subdued today. I think the heat got to us a little. That and the lack of offensive threats.

Huddy was dealing. I don't know what he did in the first to give up the two runs that ultimately decided the game, but he didn't deserve a loss today.

Ricky Nolasco didn't deserve to lose either though and he didn't. Strikeouts everywhere! Gosh!

Friggin Uggla. #@$%!!

We wandered up to the Coca-Cola Sky field after the 5th inning. Got there just in time to see Big Mac's homer.

For the second straight year, my son ran the base up there at the Coca-Cola pavillion. also for the second straight year, I tried to video it and somehow buggered it up. The camera's supposed to go when you hit the START button, right?!?

The new Coke Bottle sucks, I don't care if it has a video screen on it now. Bring back the old one with all the baseball equipment on it.

Big ovation when announcing the All Stars. J-Hey got the hugest ovation. That man owns this town already. 

Moments after scolding my kid for not getting his drink out of the way of the aisle while people were trying to pass, I dropped a peanut shell onto the guy sitting in front of me. D'oh!

Biggest ovation: Chipper Jones coming in to pinch hit for Hinske in the 8th.
Biggest boo: The Marlins intentionally walking Chipper.

Jersey Totals:
Heyward #22 and Jones #10 were in abundance. The two were neck and neck for the battle for #1 most worn jersey. 
I only saw one #7 Frenchy jersey THANK GOD. There were dozens being worn last game.
McCann was well represented. As was Hudson. Also saw Prado, Escobar, Hanson. No Glaus, Wagner or Jurrjens which surprised me.
Old School representin': Aaron, Murphy, Glavine, McGriff A. Jones. No Smoltz.
Most anachronistic jersey seen: Fred McGriff red Sunday alternate jersey. 
Soccer football jerseys beat American football jerseys 3-1. The one American Football jersey was a bootleg Falcons #7.

Vuvuzelas: 1. It was kinda weak. They must only be annoying when they number in the thousands.

Final Score: Marlins 3, Braves 2. Disappointing, the pitching was solid but the bats just weren't there today. Still a good game, can't complain about it.

After the game there was an hour or so before it got dark enough to shoot the fireworks. I guess they started at 5:00pm just in case the Braves decided to do another 20 inning game on the 4th. To fill the time before it got dark they had a band play. Yacht Rock Revue.  OH. MAH. GAWD. AM GOLD. The cheese! It burns! Even Worse: I LIKED HALF THE SONGS THEY PLAYED. Good Lord I am old.

The fireworks: awesome as usual. No shrapnel hit the seats causing small fires this time. The song list leaned a little to country for my tastes, but country is practically their marketing plan right now.

My favorite song to hear fireworks to: Stars and Stripes Forever. I love me some Sousa.

Cracker Jack Prize:

Benjamin Franklin foldee. Highly appropriate for today, no?

Ok, back to Normal

hehe...

Conan

What ho? What is that demonry?

Dale Murphy Autographed Ball

Now that I have a new toy to play with I can start posting stuff that I had wanted to feature for a long time.


The Dale Murphy autographed ball was a birthday present from my grandmother last year. Autographed balls sort of became a yearly present from her, and she helped build most of my Braves collection. The first auto ball I ever got was from a card shop down in Conyers. I don't remember the name, or even if they are still in business, but it was a small shop in a strip mall and they had a ton of cheap Braves cards. I would go these once every other week or so and pick up a little pile of Braves. One day they had a Phil Niekro autographed ball for $25 and I snapped it up. This was back in the mid-'90s and I had never seen a ball for sale in a shop that was in my price range before, let alone one of my favorite player. A few years later I got the idea to get autographed balls from every player who had his number retired by the Braves. So my grandmother got me an Eddie Mathews ball for a birthday present, then a Spahn, an Aaron (with a '58 Topps All-Star card thrown in!) and finally this Murphy. A project I have planned for one of these days is to build a custom display to show off all five. I probably need to stretch my carpentry skills quick though, because one the Big Three pitchers decide to hang 'em up there will be a few more numbers displayed at Turner Field.

Dale has a pretty nice looking signature as you can see. The NL MVP 82, 83 is extra cool since he was winning those awards when I first really got into the Braves. Granted, I liked Bob Horner and Phil more than Murph, but every Braves fan was proud of their superstar back then. A couple of years later my grandmother started really getting into the games as well. My grandfather and I would be watching them every night while she sat and read a book, but after a while she ended up as big a fan as us. Her favorite player was Greg Maddux. She knew that when Greg pitched the game would usually not be "lousy", as she called just about every Braves loss whether the score was 1-0 or 12-3. The past few years she watched more games than I did. My goofy work schedule had me listening to most of the games on the radio or following on GameCenter over the net while she was glued to the TV almost every game night. West coast trips were a pain in the butt, but she would sometimes stay up till midnight watching them. We'd usually talk about the games the day after the late nights where I got to watch the game on TV.


Ah, the shiny serial numbered sticker that proves this is a real ball with a real sticker. None of my other baseballs have one of these, although I do have a COA for most of the others. I forgot to ask for one for the Spahn, so now it's obviously fake to everyone else but me. The season is over and there's not much to talk about the Braves anymore. I recently talked with her about Chipper's batting title and the fact that Hampton is finally off the books and that we might be able to spend some of that money on someone good now. It's a long offseason with no baseball though. Baseball will be back next spring, and until then I have these autos to remember the good times watching the games with her.

South Korea beats Cuba

WOW. These Olympic games have been full of upsets. In the other medal game, USA beat Japan for the bronze.

No, I don't have any pictures for the post. It's Saturday, I don't want to do anything right now.