Monday, August 23, 2010
Daly cards a 64 on final day at Wyndham
Big John Daly carded a 64 Sunday at Wyndham to finish with a four-day total of 289 and pocketed $17,000 (and some change for a few cartons of smokes).
Things are looking up for Big John. After 17 events on the PGA tour, Daly has amassed $140,295 and has made the weekend 12 times.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sweet Lou hangs it up; Vinny stays
The "voice" will be around for another year.
Eighty-three year old Vin Scully will be back in the broadcast booth for the LA Dodgers in 2011. That's nice to hear. The Hall of Fame broadcaster announced over the weekend that he will back at the helm for his 62nd season. One baseball icon stays and another goes.
Chicago Cubs manager Lou Pinella called it quits today and announced to the world, in an emotional post-game interview, that he is stepping down as skipper of the club. Sad to see him go. The man had 1705 hits as a player in the major leagues, and as a manager, well he stepped into the dugout as a field general 3,547 times. He was on the winning side 1,835 times for a .517 winning percentage. Pretty darn good. At 66, Pinella will have a hard time staying away from the game, but the Chicago Cubs should be okay with 50-year-old Ryne Sandberg waiting in the wings to fill Lou's shoes.
As for the Dodgers, they get a reprieve for another year. Scully may give it up in 2012, but finding his replacement will be a tough task for the powers-to-be in Los Angeles.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Tucson Golden Aces prepare for 2010 MSBL World Series
It's that time of year again. It's just nine weeks away.
The 2010 Mens Senior Baseball League (MSBL) World Series for the 60-and-over division commences on Oct. 18 and the 65-and-over division will follow on Oct. 25 in Phoenix. All the spring training fields in the Valley of the Sun will be filled with oldtimers pickin' ground balls and chasing down log fly balls at the spacious parks in Tempe, Peoria, Glendale and Mesa.
Teams from all over the country, from LA to Boston, and as far away as Australia and Canada, will compete for the first-place trophy in their respective divisions. It's a kick. Yours truly, now 65, will be there along with his teammates from the Tucson Golden Aces as they once again go after the gold, so to speak. I'll once again keep you abreast of the games and the results as the Aces battle their way to the finals.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Holy Toledo...it is just 27 days til the Wildcats' season opener
Holy Toledo! It is just 27 days away.
The Arizona Wildcats will head for Toledo to take on the Rockets of the MAC West Conference. It has been 23 months since the Wildcats beat the Rockets, 41-16, at Arizona Stadium on Sept. 6, 2008. Nic Grigsby ran wild that day, gaining 142 yards, while scoring three touchdowns.
They call the Rockets' stadium the Glass Bowl. Let's hope we shatter the Rockets, break a few windows and head home with our first victory of the year.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Can A-Rod surpass Bonds?
Can Alex Rodriquez surpass Barry Bonds as major league baseball's home run King?
And does anyone really care anymore?
I guess I do. I love to play with the numbers. Say the 35-year old Yankee great hits seven more this season and then averages 26 dingers a year for the next six seasons. That should do it. That should put him atop the leaderboard at 763, one more than Mr. Bonds. Let's see, I'll be 71 years old in 2016 and Mr. Rodriquez will be a 41-year-old designated hitter. One thing is for sure, I'll have plenty of time to curl up on the sofa and watch the feat.
And they say nobody cares!
The high and low of a day in baseball...
There is certainly the have and the have-nots in major league baseball this season.
Unfortunately, the Arizona Diamondbacks can be found embedded among the have-nots. In baseball yesterday, August 4, the New York Yankees, in front of 47,659 fans, knocked off the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-1, as superstar Alex Rodriquez blasted his 600th career home run. At Chase Field, it was a different story as the Diamondbacks closed out a hot summer day in Arizona with a dismal 7-2 loss to the Washington Nationals in front of a season-low crowd of 15,670.
Of course Chase Field holds 48,633 and that left plenty of room for big Adam Dunn, a former D'back, to bounce a couple of dingers around the empty spaces. As for the Yankees, it was win number 67 on the season. For the Diamondbacks, it was loss number 68. The beat goes on as the Yankees head for another World Series and the Diamondbacks head back to the drawing board.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The TOTS are certainly in a League of Their Own...
I watched the 1992 release A League of Their Own last night on a cable channel. Of course, it wasn't the first time I've seen the film about the girls pro baseball league which filled a void while the men were off fighting in WWII. The movie centers on two sisters who play for the Rockford Peaches.
What I loved most about the film was the ending when the players met at Cooperstown some forty years later for a reunion and the unveiling of the wing which documented and celebrated the GPBL's nine years of existence (1943-1954).
I went to the movie theater in 1992 to see the film and over the years I have no doubt sat back, with a bowl of popcorn and my favorite beverage, and revisited the flick, especially some of the more memorable scenes with Tom Hanks, who portrayed the manager of the Peaches, Jimmy Dugan.
I guess I haven't seen the flick for a while, at least I'm sure it is the first time I've watched A League of Their Own since I joined the Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) in 2008. So, as I watched the film, I realized that I get to live three days a week at Udall Park a baseball reunion of sorts when I suit up and play with my buddies in our own League of Their Own, the Tucson Old Timers Baseball Club.
As far as I know, the TOTS are the oldest organized baseball team in the country, some 50 members play weekly and range in age from 60 to 90. The league was formed in 1968 and the dues for each member is just five dollars a month. That's three hours of fun, three days a week year around. You got to love it. So, if you're a baseball nut and turning 60 soon, grab the old leather mitt, which is gathering dust in the attic, and head out to Tucson's Udall Park. Take some batting practice, play a game or two, or sit in the dugout and relive yesteryear with another old timer.
The stories are endless.
It is likely the old timer you're sitting next to hails from Detroit, Baltimore, New York or Chicago. Chances are he will tell you a story about the Knot Hole Gang. Or about the time he faced a major league pitcher. Or about the time he shook hands with Mickey Mantle or sat in the bleacher seats in Boston and watched Ted Williams hit a tape-measure job out of Fenway Park. It is a reunion. An on-going reunion that never ends. Joe Garajiola said it best in a recent interview: "Yogi Berra and I would always get together for dinner with our wives and the gals would always say," 'You guys say the samething over and over again.' " Reliving old baseball stories. What a kick that is for all us oldtimers. As Garajiola puts it, "That's what we know. That's what we do." And thank goodness for those memories.
And if you're a new member of the TOTS, well then you're welcome to tell us all a tale or two of your own. And if you let us in on the same tale more than once, well that's okay too. Because that's what we do!
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