Category: Sports

“The string is out” – Why?

Listening to Tom Hamilton call the Indians game tonight made me stop and question a baseball term I’ve likely heard a hundred times. When the count was full (three balls and two strikes) Hamilton said “So the string is out.”

What, exactly, does that mean? I could Google it, but what fun is that when you can use your imagination and run with a hunch?

Years ago I read a book about settlement of the territory now known as Ohio called “The Latch String Is Out”. In pioneer days a cabin would have a latch in the inside of the door, but none on the outside. There was a hole in the door below the latch that would allow a string to loop from above the latch in the interior and out the hole. Therefore, if the latch string was threaded through the hole and left to dangle on the exterior a visitor could open the door. “The latch string is out” meant that a door could be opened.

Could this be the origin of the baseball phrase? If the count is full I would think (metaphorically) the batter has an invitation to “open the door” for a hit or walk on the next pitch.

What do you think? No fair using Google, Bing, or Duck Duck Go.

The Riddle gets me every time

I never wanted my blog to be a fan blog just posting links to music or musicians I happen to like at the moment. I also never intended to abandon my blog, so I guess a fan boy post is better than no posts at all.

I cannot listen to Five for Fighting‘s “The Riddle” without getting verklempt. It talks about father/son love. It reminds us of our mortality. (We’re talking meaning of life stuff here.) There are subtle baseball references. It has emotive vocals with great guitar and a beautiful piano accompaniment. The young boy in the lyrics is both serious and playful. The video even has a cool muscle car.

I’ve a house full of intelligent and rambunctious boys. My own wonderful father passed away last year. I’d have to be a robot to not get a little weepy, right?

Well done, John Ondrasik.

 

Glad that is over with. LeBron gets his ring

The Miami Heat won the NBA Championship last night. This means all the true blue Heat fans are ecstatic. I hear they are having a big party in a phone booth with lots of room to spare.

Back in Cleveland all sorts of wailing and gnashing of teeth have occurred, first at the prospect that LeBron would get a ring and then that he did. In one respect I am pleased that this chapter is closed. Many of my Facebook friends and Twitter pals have really had a tough time with it. I get it. He was disloyal and left us in the lurch. It was their fondest desire his Decision would never produce joy in South Beach.

I never really had a problem with his decision. I feel that it is a free market and all of us should be free to take our talents to South Beach, South America or the South Pole if it meets our goals. I still think the ESPN very special after school special Decision was a product of a self absorbed immature and unwise man. But nobody cares about Jim Gray anymore.

Cavs fans, not to mention Dan Gilbert, have held on to the hope that the Heat would somehow blow it every year and LeBron would be made a fool. Deep in our hearts we must have known that was unlikely. All the suspense is over now.

Real joy can never be found in another person’s sorrow. Now we can hope for the real joy of our Cavs doing well.

Top Shot Season 4 Finale: Who’s Going To Win?

On Tuesday nights for the last couple of months my tweets have been filled with the #TopShot hashtag. Not only is Top Shot (Tuesday night 10 Eastern) my favorite show, there are several key players live tweeting while it airs most weeks.

The host, Colby Donaldson (@Colby_Donaldson), is very active on Twitter with behind the scene insights. He jokes with fans and answers questions and this is an excellent addition to the viewing experience. He was missed a couple of weeks ago as he was forbidden by the show’s brass from live tweeting. This was in response to his tweets the previous week asking fans to make some grassroots noise to convince The History Channel to renew the show. Hey History Channel! Renew Top Shot!!

Contestants have also been very active and interacting with viewers in Top Shot Season 4.

Terry Vaughn (@Terry_Empowers) added a British angle on the proceedings and brought a real enthusiasm and level-headed approach the the sometimes dysfunctional blue team. He seemed to enjoy the cannon most of all.

Gabby Franco (@GabbyFrancoTS4) was the first female contestant to wear a green shirt. This isn’t a fashion statement. For those unfamiliar with the show, team competitions pitting blue and red teams thins the field by eliminating contestants until the individual competition begin. The teams are then disbanded and contestants wear the coveted green shirt. Gabby was a fan favorite and after elimination continued to cheer on the remaining contestants.

Now for the business at hand. Tuesday’s program is the season finale and it has come down to Chris Cheng, Gregory Littlejohn, Augie Malekovich and Gary Shank. Who will it be? All four finalists have proven themselves to be very capable of winning the whole thing, and they got there with diverse styles.

Augie Malekovich is a strong shooter and keeps his cool under almost all conditions. He served in the United States Marine Corps and his military background has helped.  He is not an active twitter use, but you can follow @malekovich to see what his wife Crystal has to say. I’d be happy to see Augie win because he is a father of four and seems like a real good guy and dad.

Gary Shank is kind of a sleeper candidate to win. He wasn’t involved in too much drama and is proficient in many types of weapons. His specialty is historic weapons. If a blunderbuss or trebuchet are involved he has to be your favorite. In all seriousness, he absolutely was flawless in the SWAT style elimination challenge which emulated what final challenges have been like in past seasons. I’d be OK with Gary winning because I was briefly in a Civil War reenactment group while in high school. It’s not easy being a history geek.

Chris Cheng (@TopShotChris) is an IT professional with no formal military or police training. He was a fan of earlier seasons of Top Shot, and became proficient with a diverse set of guns as an enthusiast. As you would expect from an IT guy, he brings an analytical approach to the game. This caused some friction with other contestants when team meetings determined who would go to elimination challenges. But those contestants are gone and he is in the final. I’ve had some interaction with Chris on Twitter and found him to be a real enthusiastic, nice guy. Because he is an underdog to a certain degree and I work in search engine marketing (kind of IT related), he is probably my favorite.

Which brings us to Gregory Littlejohn (@TopshotGregory). He is a Federal Police Officer and Air Force veteran. He is also one of the most derided contestants by fans online. He has gone to the elimination challenges more than anyone, but also has won enough Bass Pro Shops gift cards (by surviving the challenges) to outfit his outdoors activities in fine style.

He’s got a big personality that rubs some people the wrong way and brings out the critics. I really enjoy how he lets the criticism bounce right off of him on the show and in the twitterverse. He and I have had a couple of twitter exchanges, and his tweets reveal a very funny guy.  The show has been edited to give him the role of “they guy who lets the pressure get to him.” This is one of the reasons I suspect he may take the grand prize. The producers know who won before they edit the season. It is better entertainment if there is a story arc that has a surprise ending. If you wanted to have a twist at the end you would edit Greg to look like a guy who would choke in the big game. But in the last few episodes he has shown real skill.

If you asked my who I think will win, my money would be on Littlejohn for that reason. Of course I could be wrong. In short (too late, I know) anyone could win and I’d be happy for any of the finalists.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to the Top Shot Facebook game and clear Level 12. Boom go the exploding targets!

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE:

Someday the Browns will win the Super Bowl

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I’m writing this at 9 o’clock in the morning and I’m sure there is pregame programming on right now making predictions. I predict that the Giant will win and it will be a close contest. But I really wouldn’t care if the Patriots win.

I am a Browns fan. I have no rooting interest. Some would say I should root against the This is what a Browns Super Bowl will look likePatriots because Bill Belichick was not well-loved when he was the Browns coach. I don’t live in the past when it comes to the Browns. As a matter of fact, I don’t live in the present. The only place a Browns fan can live is in the future. In the future the Browns will win the Super Bowl.

I will admit there is scant evidence that this will happen anytime soon. It does not matter. This is how we cope.  If we were to dwell on the last decade or so of Browns performances, we would only become bitter and cynical.

So on this day of great excitement or disappointment for Patriots and Giants fans, do not despair. ONE DAY THE BROWNS WILL WIN THE SUPER BOWL!

Searches related to Matt Keough

Matt Keough is not an extremely common name, but it only takes one other guy sharing your name to make Google related search suggestions interesting.  Don’t pretend you have not performed a vanity search of your name! When I type my name in Google, the top results all relate to the poor fellow who used to play MLB baseball.

You might think it odd that I refer to a guy who was formerly a professional baseball player as “poor guy”, but I would not trade my life for his. No way, no how.  Although we might think it was good luck to marry a former Playboy bunny, they are now divorced.  “Matt Keough Divorce” is a suggested search.

I’ve banged up my body via lack of athleticism and not minding which step of the ladder I was on. But I’ve never been drilled in the head by a ball hit off the bat of a MLB player, so another suggested search, “Matt Keough brain injury“, doesn’t apply to me either.

This humble blog does show up for “Matt Keough 2011“, which makes sense. I am Matt Keough and I did write at least a few posts in 2011.

I’m really glad nobody really cares about my “Matt Keough Stats“!

I feel fortunate that “Matt Keough arrested” is talking about the other guy as well. Behavior modification in later adulthood also gets credit for avoiding my true identity ranking well in Google for that one.

In short, while it may seem from the outside that the people in the spotlight are in a position to be envied, that really is not the case.  I wish the more famous Matt Keough nothing but better days ahead. I also wish us both less dramatic suggested search topics from Google.

All my clueless friends are coming over tonight

Bocephus got the boot. Not the cowboy boot, which I presume he already had, but the metaphorical boot out the door. I’m sure you are familiar with the story. Hank Williams Jr. had his performance on the Monday Night Football open axed because he compared President Obama to Hitler. This is a really stupid thing to do. Only he didn’t. Please watch the video. Fair warning- it is awkward.

Hank might not be the most well-spoke man, but he was not saying President Obama acts like Hitler, dresses like Hitler or is a vegetarian (like Hitler.) He was making a bad analogy. Any analogy that involves Hitler is a bad analogy, of course. It is unwise in every meaning of the word to evoke that kind of evil.

What amazes me, though, is the repetition by news sources that he compared Obama to Hitler. I guess the story was too good to check. I don’t think an honest person who watched the clip could conclude he was comparing the two men. You might just as accurately say he was comparing Boehner or Kasich to Hitler, if you applied the same (lack of) logic.

Also, while it irritates me the way the story was framed, it also irritates me that anyone would invoke the First Amendment to defend Williams. ESPN isn’t the government, and they can play pretty much any song they choose before Monday Night Football. It is not as though many people will see it anyway.

My bucket list, and how you can help

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’m middle aged.  This means that I’ve already squandered at least half my chances to check items off my bucket list. Actually more than that, several things on my list are unavailable to minors.

To keep it concise, here are some items I would like to cross off.

  1. Ride in the Goodyear blimp. Goodyear is about to convert its fleet of blimps to dirigibles, so this is an urgent matter. I ask any of my friends with a direct line to Goodyear public relations the help me make this happen.
  2. Skydive. This one is simple. But I’m a pretty large guy and have the little voice inside my head saying that the parachute couldn’t handle it.
  3. Get a bad ass tattoo of St. Michael driving a sword through Satan’s head. I can’t decide if it would be in color or where I’d get it.
  4. Travel to Ireland
  5. Travel to the Vatican
  6. Buy a nice bit of land somewhere in the country with a little cabin and some water to fish in.
  7. Fly in a WWII fighter plane
  8. Kick the winning field goal in the Super Bowl. (OK – that’s not going to happen, see next item)
  9. See the Browns field goal kicker kick the winning field goal in the Super Bowl.
  10. Hit the winning home run in the World Series. (Sigh -see the next item)
  11. See the Indians win the World Series

So there you have it, the things I’d like to experience before departing this life. I don’t really expect my blog readers to help with any items other than #1. If you happen to be a member of the Cleveland Indians, the Cleveland Browns or a tattoo artist let’s talk.

Opening Days

Time to return to blogging. This is about the fourth or fifth post in which I’ve had to say that. Actually I don’t have to say that,  but I feel compelled to do so.

Two new seasons are near upon us, Lent and baseball. Lent’s opening day is Ash Wednesday. Baseball’s Opening Day is a bit later. Given this confluence of two important aspects of my life, I’ve decided to update the banner at the top of this blog. I took the picture at Progressive Field before a Mass held there last fall. It was odd to attend Mass at Progressive Field, but my parish is pretty progressive so it felt familiar.

Be forewarned that my posts will probably touch on either or both sports and Catholic topics in the near future.