Colossal Expectations - RJR

I had the unexpected pleasure of watching today's opening day game between the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers. The only reason this game was on TV is that the Yankees game was in a rain delay, and luckily I have nothing better to do than sit and watch the game. Pitching for the Royals is Gil Meche, who I've always known would be a great addition and be worth every penny the Royals are paying him. Anyway, I have a few comments about the new baseball season:

1) This morning I woke up to about 4 inches of new snow on the ground in South Dakota. That means if I decide to leave the house today, I'll likely have to de-ice my car, and maybe even shovel the driveway if the sun doesn't come out. I wonder how many baseball players shovel their own driveways?

2a) The Royals have a new manager this year in Trey Hillman. Hillman has never managed in the majors, and spent the last 5 years managing in Japan. Rumor has it Hillman's former team auctioned off the right to negotiate a contract with him, and the Royals took the "Price is Right" strategy of bidding one dollar. I'm actually cautiously optimistic about this guy. Of course, I'm extremely concerned that Jose Guillen will end up missing 65 games due to suspension, another 40 due to injury, and will come back from the all-star break to hit .240.

2b) In the top of the first inning, Kansas City reached first base on an error, then immediately stole a base. The announcer said something about the Royals playing "small ball" and "advancing runners" under their new manager. If I read about "clutch hitting" or "manufacturing runs" on kcroyals.com, I'm going to start a letter-writing campaign to have sabermetrics taught in Kansas City high schools.

3) Apparently, Miss America sang the national anthem and threw out the first pitch in this game. I didn’t see how she did, but can you think of anything more terrifying than throwing out the first pitch? You only get one chance! I would practice for weeks if I had this opportunity.

Predictably, the Royals got shut out
Shockingly, the Royals played very well, got some good breaks, and had great relief pitching on their way to a 6-5 11^th inning win.

On a related note, the Royals play the Yankees in New York on Monday, June 9. It's the last season for Yankee Stadium, so I might not have another opportunity to go to a game there. If anyone wants to go, email me. Tickets are pretty reasonable on stubhub.com.

Stuff White People Like 3/5/08 jpw

I am obsessed with this website:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Absolutely can’t get enough of it right now. I'm interested in seeing what other people weigh in on this. I'd like to see how many categories you (honestly) fall into. My money is on Cmah to take the crown by alot. (Cmah, come back home. Seriously. I apologize for all the racist Asian jokes. You were white after all.) You can either reply to the post or post your own analysis using welsh@stanford.edu and harwick7.

I’m only counting 9 things that I like on the list. (I would probably also like Wrigley Field except I've never been there. My parents did bring me pictures of Ryne Sandberg and Shawon Dunston from Wrigley when I was a kid which I really liked.)

The list of things I like:

Graduate school: I've been here for 2.5 years and am less than halfway finished.

Juno- Good movie. I like when she plays that Hole song with Jason Bateman.

Dogs- Must be over 20 pounds, though.

Indie music

Arrested Development- Favorite show ever. Probably my #1 on this list.

Microbreweries- They usually have sports on tv, food, and beer. All things that I like. (I guess they always have beer, huh?)

Traveling- There is something I gave up for Lent that I like doing on road trips. Wow, I’m really craving one right now.

Wes Anderson movies- Bottle Rocket is on my Facebook profile!

Assists- I think the blogger meant to say 'hustle' but probably doesn't understand sports enough to get the concept. (He’s from Canada so he only knows hockey and basketball. He would clearly also like Mike Alstott and David Eckstein who have never made any assists. I love hustle. (I read an interview with the guy who made the site. He described himself as a white guy from a neighborhood in Toronto where Indian people tried to be white and white people tried to be Jamaican. Do you think Bart van Veghel made this website?))

Finally, I would like to say that I don’t like marathons. In the marathon I ran 17 days ago, 5 of my toenails fell off and I became an alcoholic for 2 weeks afterwards.

The Hold Steady: Still in the Bars--(Hopefully for the Ausinist.com-Let me know what you think)-bwh

I explained to my buddy, Mark, that he had no choice; we HAVE to see the Hold Steady. NPR, I told him, named the Hold Steady “the best bar band in America.” If you ask me, NPR probably knows bar bands like a nun knows sex positions. But Mark, that goofy bastard, loves NPR.

I divide concerts in Austin into three categories: 1. not worth it, 2. I’d feel bad missing it or, 3. if you’d like to continue being my friend you’d better go. NPR advice notwithstanding, the Hold Steady fall right into that third category.

I’m also forcing Mark to listen to the Hold Steady for at least an hour every day. To his first listen, the Hold Steady sounded like the music his older played driving him to track practice. The Hold Steady songs are about characters as familiar as the riffs: Gideon the lovable fuck-up, Charlemagne the scary but incredibly older guy and Holly the beautiful, contagious party girl. I can’t wait to hear what happens to them in the yet to be released album “Stay Positive.”

For all their gritty stories and critical acclaim, the Hold Steady play with the enthusiasm of kids in a garage. It’s as if they can’t quite believe they’re rock stars. Granted, the lead singer looks like a level 8 Dungeonmaster, and the keyboardist is a pair of overalls away from stomping Koopa Troopas—but the Hold Steady seem to really appreciate being rock stars.

The Hold Steady are playing at Emos on March 27^th. Gideon, Charlemagne and Holly will be there, so will Mark.