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Last weekend was pretty fun. I got to go to the Royals game Thursday night and Chiefs game Friday night for free. Saturday we went fishing and Saturday evening we got to have BBQ at the Filling Station with the Whiteheads. It was great that the games didn’t cost me anything but the highlight of the weekend or the one thing worth noting is how Yohan got clobbered in the head with a line drive foul ball! Thats right. Alberto Callaspo tried to take Korea down but Korea stood its ground. Its ok he isn’t dead or anything… but it did bleed. When he got up to go to get first aid assistance the crowd cheered for him. He was a good sport to take one for the team.

Video here. You can see the hit that came flying right at us. Although it doesn’t show Yohan and they don’t even mention it.

Jet singing: “Take me out to the baaaaaall game”

Last Friday we took the kids to the Royals game. Initially it was miserable. Getting to our seats with all our gear and what not was pretty rough. Eventually once we got settled the situation smoothed out. It was Buck Night and Fireworks Friday. These combined make everyone in a family happy. Well except for Oliver. He was scared to death of the fireworks. At the end of the national anthem when they shot off a bunch of fireworks he let out a blood curling scream that attracted attention from everyone. He covered his eyes and buried his head trying to hide from the sight and sound.

We wouldn’t have gone had we had to pay for the tickets ourselves. Fortunately I have a father who works at the stadium that can get us sweet deals. Dad got Jet a Blues Crew package for his birthday which included 6 tickets worth $17 each. He got me a parking pass which was in Lot A and we parked the second row back. And he bought us Royals bucks, something only Royals employees can get. Its basically half off concessions. So for $10 you can get $20 worth of concessions. All together we got 4 hot dogs, 1 Nacho, 5 drinks, 1 Cotton Candy, and 1 snow cone. And Jet was stealing peanuts from the nice couple next to us. Good deals and fun night. I’ll have to lower the bar for next time and the Royals will have to raise it.

If you want to go home happier than you came then it really is a good idea to kiss your wife if you are on the kiss cam. Don’t act like you forgot how. Its easy to call out a fake dumb founded look on the largest HD screen in the world.

David Glass confesses his sins. Don’t be confused he hasn’t committed adultery or something like that he is talking about baseball so its much more spiritual. There is a good chance this isn’t real. If it isn’t real then it is hysterical. If it is real then its exactly what needed to happen …either way. Somebody ripped him a new one. Now we truly have a reason to be optimistic. Today I am a happy Royals fan. Lets go Royals Lets GO!

Here are some of my highlights.

I’ve been in charge of the Royals for almost 15 years. There hasn’t been a lot to cheer about in that time. A once-proud organization has become a source of nearly constant frustration and disappointment….

Latin America is, of course, rich with talented baseball players. Latin America was also the responsibility of my son Dan, who worked in player personnel before he became club president. In his team bio, my son takes “credit” for the coordination and development of the Royals’ Latin American program.

…But fixing the franchise will take time. After all, I gave real management duties to my son, who worked in the jewelry business before I brought him out to Kauffman Stadium….First, the Royals will no longer be a Glass family project. Dan will no longer serve as the team’s president. I am also removing my wife, Ruth, and children Don and Dayna from the board of directors board of directors. I love my family, but it has become obvious that this corporate structure does not work and hurts our credibility.

I’m also going to stop lying. I’ve forcefully denied that my son and I have interfered in the baseball side of things by rejecting trades and the like. But I wasn’t telling the truth. For instance, we walked away from several opportunities to trade the expensive and often-hobbled Mike Sweeney.

Finally, I promise to continue to try to improve public relations.
PR has never been a skill of mine. When I was at Wal-Mart, we ran a “Buy American” campaign. Trouble was, children in Southeast Asia made some of the clothes that we sold. Confronted with the evidence by Dateline NBC, I looked like a buffoon.

Again, fans, I’m sorry the Royals squandered your adoration and your money. I’m sorry that I acted like an imperious creep all these years. You can take the man out of Wal-Mart, but it’s hard to take Wal-Mart out of the man, I guess.

Now I’m going to find a jewelry store for my boy to run.

Earlier this week, a construction worker who is a Boston fan working on the concrete crew at the $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium buried a Red Sox shirt in with the concrete foundation, in the hopes of jinxing the New York Yankees‘ new home, the New York Post reported.

It took about five hours, but the Red Sox jersey that was embedded in the concrete of the Yankees’ new stadium to place a curse on the New York franchise has been unearthed with jackhammers.  here

When I was 9 or 10 I pitched a “no hitter” for three innings.  At that age they take you out to give everyone an opportunity to play.  I don’t think they were thinking about my “pitch count”.  I recall not having a clue what was going on.  I just knew I was pitching and I needed to throw hard.  After pitching an inning my fellow teammates kept saying stuff like, “your pitching a no-no”.  First thing that came to mind was, “what are they talking about I thought I was doing ok”.  I honestly had no clue what was happening.

Fortunately 23 year old Clay Buchholz of the Boston Red Sox knew exactly what he was doing.  He threw a no-hitter in his second major league start, just hours after the Boston Red Sox promoted him from the minors Saturday night. 23!?  Can you imagine throwing a no hitter on your second start in the majors at 23?  Wow.  At 23 I was deciding whether or not I was going back to community college or back to work in a wharehouse.

Fortunately, for the Royals, Minnesota right-hander Scott Baker was unable to maintain his perfect game into the ninth inning before settling for a one-hitter in a 5-0 victory at the Metrodome.  We were sitting on the deck at home enjoying the beautiful cool evening and Jet was playing with sparklers left over from The 4th.  Had the game on and was able to hear as Sweeney got what seems like his “first” hit in the majors.  Its been sometime since that guy did anything for us.  And in this case I almost wish he didn’t hit the ball.  I mean a no hitter is great…but a perfect game is even rarer.  A perfect game would have been good at least for “the game”.  I mean whats one more loss to The Royals anyways?  I was there August 26, 1991 when Brett Saberhagen pitched a no-hitter against the White Sox.  Thats an experience I wouldn’t trade for much of anything(figuratively speaking).  Why not spread the love Sweeney?  Come on aren’t ya a Christian boy?

When I was 14 I had a chance to complete those three innings that started when I was 9.  I pitched a perfect game…well almost.  What should have been the last out of the game the batter hit a infield fly ball to second base.  It couldn’t have been fielded any better.  The second baseman was under the ball using two hands perfect little league form.  I thought the game was sealed.  And just as I was going to walk off the field the ball hit his glove and then dropped to the ground.  Good thing I wasn’t expected to pitch a no-hitter 10 years later in the majors.

With out even thinking about it I just realized I have been blogging for over a year now. I believe my first post was on June 25 and is a video of Jet walking for the first time. Last year on the the fourth I tried to find video of a scene from The Sandlot when Ray Charles version of America the Beuatiful plays during the one and only night game of the year. Well I tried again and wasn’t able to find it. So I’ll give you 3 videos. One- Ray Charles performing the song himself, 2- The trash talking scene from The Sandlot and 3- A reenactment of that same scene. Its pretty funny. Take a look! Happy Fourth of July. May you be filled with contentment as you are chased down the street by a spinning object emitting sparks.

Ray Charles

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Game was tied in the 9th with 2 outs and Magglio Ordonez of the Detroit Tigers hit a 3-run homer to win the game.  Pretty awesome to watch.  Particualarly because this team lost over 100 games 3 years ago.  Remind you of anybody?

Another notable hit last night by the Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan.  Not only did he pitch an 8 inning shut out but also hit a home run.  The homerun was pretty good but seeing the “what the…” on Tony La Russas face was even better.

All this just goes to show that the games can go anyway.  Its all about controlling your momentum as La Russa would tell you.

A while back I found this sa-weet site that documents all home runs hit.  It gives all the basic stats like distance, true distance, speed off bat, horizan angle and of course the weather.  It also links to video of the hit so you can see it.  And a blog of course. 

I love technology, not as much as you you see…but still I love tech…

Oh and let me know of any good baby names.  I’ll include it in a poll on a future post.