Chalk Outlines

It seems as if ML MVP Ryan Braun is now under investigation for use of performance enhancing drugs, ESPN reports.
Braun was notified during the playoffs that he failed a test and potentially faces a 50-game suspension.
Braun claims that the charges are B.S. and a spokesman for him said that he will be completely exonerated.

I do hope that there was some sort of false positive though. This game doesn’t need any more scandals and especially centered on someone like Braun who has helped make baseball fun for Milwaukee fans and the Brewers fun to watch.

One of the memorable moments of this past year featuring Braun was when he was trying to complete an inside-the-park homerun and fell twice rounding thirdbase getting tagged out after the second fall. The next day his teammates drew chalk outlines where he fell as if it had been the location of a crime scene.

Hopefully MLB doesn’t have to draw a chalk outline around his career.

I spent a lot of time watching coverage of the Winter Meetings on the MLB channel.
The MLB channel is excellent for those who like baseball. They have some great analysis, great highlights, a fantastic statistics show and some great characters.

I always sort of thought that in some way it was a bit unfair that baseball players who earn millions of dollars during their playing careers can then just hop right in the TV booths and earn big dollars doing that after they retire. I always felt that those jobs were better suited for those who didn’t have the physical talents to play…LIKE ME, for example… and the players made better guests who could throw in an opinion now and then.
But I do have to say that MLB picked a couple of great characters to become regular analysts on the show. Kevin Millar, Mitch Williams and Sean Casey are all funny men and do have good insight and opinions about what they see. Harold Reynolds has been around for a while now and even Dan Plesac is decent. While not everyone they have brought through the studio is great, at least five guys don’t have me screaming at the screen that I can do better.

I take that back. I still could do better and certainly better than the regular dudes that generally host the shows.

I like to play poker but have rarely done so live except for the past four Sundays. I live near a place which recently opened up table games and with the US not so keen on online gambling this is the only place to go now.
I am not a gambler though. I have entered some free satellite tournaments hoping to advance to subsequent rounds where I could win money and then begin to turn that into more.
What I have found interesting is the number of people in this place at 6 am when I have to go to register to play for the 9am tournament. And there are people sleeping in chairs, eating, playing cards, slots, etc., much like we would find if we went to Atlantic City or Las Vegas.
I just find it a little strange to be right in my back yard though. Can the mob be far behind here in Delaware?

The show schedule is still very slow. I have only one more show booked for the balance of the year and then the start of the year is not looking so promising right now either. This does mean that I have to dig deep and find other things to do to generate revenue.
I seriously can’t wait for an administration change to one which is simply friendlier to business so that businesses can start making progress again. That is all that I will say from my stump currently. It is the holiday season and I swear that I just want to be jolly.

I would be jollier with a couple of new puppies. But I still can’t do it and these last 2 months without dogs in my life have been the longest since I was a little kid.

I’ll be 50 years old next Sunday. The start of my “Golden” years. Sure…HAHA. It seems like they will be more “Copper” than anything but at least I’ll have ten years to make them golden and hopefully my 60’s will be my “Retirement” years.

Done

Great Players, Great People

The MLB winter meetings are under way in Dallas and there has been a little bit of action although perhaps not as much as I might like to see.

Prior to the start of the meetings my team, the Mets, allowed their star shortstop Jose Reyes to escape NY and head to Miami to join the Marlins. He signed a 6-year, 106-million dollar contract and stays in the same division as the team that signed him and raised him.
This particular deal stings as a Mets fan. Reyes was the catalyst of the club and had a great year leading the league in hitting even though he missed 29 games. He did miss a bunch of games over the past few years so since he is approaching 30 that was getting to be a concern. But it was still a risk worth taking for the Mets to keep him in NY. Obviously the Marlins thought the risk was worthwhile.
The Mets simply have financial issues since the team owners were ripped off by Bernie Madoff. But this is exactly why Mets fans want the Wilpons to sell the team to somebody financially in a better situation.

The real big news happened last night though when the Marlins, preparing to play ball in a brand new stadium with a retractable roof, offered St. Louis Cardinal firstbaseman Albert Pujols a ten-year deal reportedly worth 220 million dollars. I did just hear that the Cardinals made a counter offer although those terms were not released. There has not been any comment from Pujols or his agent at this time. There apparently is a hang up over a no-trade clause that Pujols wants but the Marlins will not give because of the length of the contract.
Frankly I would like to see Pujols stay in St. Louis. This isn’t because he would be in the same division as the Mets now but rather because St. Louis is such a great baseball city and Pujols is one of those future hall of famers that I hold in high regards such as Stan Musial, also a Cardinal, or Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle who played his entire career with one team. It’s a trivial point really, but when players who make the Hall of Fame play with a bunch of teams what team hat do they put on the plaque? That question always gets asked. It should be a no-brainer, in my opinion.

By the way, that 22 million a year would not even make Pujols the highest paid first baseman in baseball. That honor goes to the Phillies Ryan Howard who gets 25 million a year and the Yankees Mark Teixera who, I believe, is at 23 million.
That is despite Pujols arguably being the greatest player in this particular era.

There is still no word about the other major free agent out there, Prince Fielder. Beyond that some people claim that Texas Ranger pitcher C.J. Wilson is a key free agent, but he choked hard in the playoffs and World Series so I don’t see teams piling up to pay him boatloads of money. There was a rumor that the Rangers offered him a 4-year 60-million dollar deal as a counter-offer to a rumored 6-year deal from a “nameless” team that his agent floated out there. But then my baseball hero Nolan Ryan, CEO and President of the Rangers, said that it was news to him.

I do have a hunch that if Pujols stays in St. Louis, the Marlins make a play for Fielder. It seems to make a bunch of sense since they could probably get him for less and that less would still be much more than Fielder might get in other cities.

Does anyone care that the NBA is going to play a shortened season this year since they have worked out that labor agreement? Not me. I’m not a basketball fan anyway with one major exception.
In my state, Delaware, we have one of the greatest female basketball players in the country, if not the world. Her name is Elena Delle Donne.
I’ve been able to watch this young lady play since her 8^th grade season at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, DE.
Delle Donne was a phenom about whom people were talking before I had a chance to see her in school. She was part of a couple of AAU National Championship teams and then won a few state championships with her Ursuline team.
Elena is a 6-5 forward who might have one of the best shots in ALL of basketball, and that would include professional men as well.
She is also simply a class act and if you search her name you can find out a lot more about her.
While at Ursuline she was courted by legendary college women’s basketball coaches who came to Wilmington to watch her play and they included Gino Auriemma from Connecticut and Pat Summit from Tennessee.
She originally decided to go to UConn but then stayed here in Delaware and was ineligible to play during her freshman year playing volleyball instead.
Now she is in her 3^rd year playing basketball at UD and had lead the team to its best start in school history and its first-ever top-25 national ranking.
This past year she was on the US team that won the gold medal in the World Cup or whatever it was called and she should be a candidate to make the Olympic team for 2012.
I finally had a chance to watch her play at the collegiate level the other day and without a video camera in my hands like I had for all of those years while she was in high school while working with my video company.
So what happens? The Blue Hens win, of course, but she gets rested by the coach for too much of the game. There are probably 3000 people in the stands most of whom would not have even been there if she wasn’t on the team (and no offense to the other girls on the team a few of whom I know also.) The stadium is selling food, drinks and merchandise on top of the tickets and she gets rotated in and out like one of the regular players.
Meanwhile she is chasing a national scoring championship also and ended up short of her average (30.4) for the game (23.)
The guy sitting next to me is trying to tell me all of these stories about Elena, all of which I knew (not that I am a personal friend or anything but I’ve just heard them since I’ve been around for years.) Now he is pissed off because the coach is resting her. This guy came all the way up from GEORGIA to watch her play in this particular game! He is calling the coach all sorts of names and I’m trying not to laugh but at the same time I agree with him.
He makes one real great point that I have made over the years and it’s that she is getting penalized for being too good. Here she has a chance to win a scoring championship that she deserves to win because she works hard and is talented but to “make it fair” for the others or to spread around playing time, Elena gets benched. We both agreed that the other players who didn’t get a lot of playing time should have gotten rotated in to get a chance to play with Elena since she makes all of them better on the court.
The same guy, Ralph was his name, also expands on his point and says that we keep doing this in America too. When somebody succeeds we chop them down. We tax them more, we regulate them more and do whatever it takes to “even the playing field” so everyone else can have more, or whatever the lame excuse is.  

I agreed with him whole heartedly.

The irony is, however, that Elena Delle Donne, just like many others I have met who are successful and talented, is also very humble. She is completely aware of her gifts and is as grateful for them as anyone can be. (That story of why is also out there and one which is not necessary for me to write here.) No one would hear her complain that because she is in that “one percent” of people who are blessed with her level of talent that others are trying (whether intentionally or not) to keep her even with the others around her.  

I try to surround myself with people who want to move forward and succeed because they work harder and overcome obstacles. I have a low tolerance for those who are jealous of what anyone else has and believes things should be taken from them just to “make it fair.”

Not that the UD coach is really doing this, mind you. She is keenly aware of what Elena Delle Donne is doing for her career right now. In actuality the team had a game the following night and rotating players wasn’t a bad thing to do with a big lead for the Blue Hens. But this was just a great time to talk about someone special and also make a broader point at the same time. See how clever I can be once every other month or so?

Done

Latvians

It is a disgrace that I have not posted here in almost two weeks now. I apologize to those of you who follow this for whatever reason you do.

Because I am a hypnotist I have this odd, niche, cult following around the world. It’s not large but it’s certainly diverse and definitely loyal and growing.
This blog has been read (more than just random accidental times) by people in 31 different countries now. Some of them also found their way here, and vice versa, because of the filthy podcast show I produce, which has invaded 55 countries now.
It doesn’t really matter; I find it interesting and amusing.

The Latvian Flag (for our Latvian followers, of course)

So since the hypnotism followers want to read about that subject, I’ll start there for this.

Obviously a hypnosis show requires volunteers. Well, what happens when no one wants to volunteer?
I’ve had occasions where in a crowd of 50 people or so at a party where there was a sever lack of volunteers to the point where only one hand was raised. But last week I did an event, a smaller one to be sure, where absolutely nobody wanted any part of it.

Normally what this means is that I have to take extra time in the introduction portion of the show to explain more about hypnosis and talk about the myths that everyone has heard and dispel them. Then I can usually pull enough people up on stage to have a successful show. I know that they won’t all stay until the end, but I can at least have a good show.

But this particular evening not a single soul was going to get up on stage and maybe one person performed well during the suggestibility tests.

This was an issue and one which I let the small crowd know was an issue.

But, telling them that was part of what I then needed to do to pull off what happened.

The show was then described as a demonstration for those in the audience and a chance for people to de-stress a little bit and “practice” to see if perhaps hypnosis would work for them for some other reason at a future point in time.

All of the audience except for two of them then participated right in the chairs in which they were sitting. From there, I just did my regular show and half of the crowd that started the induction process ended up being the stars of the show for the entire show.

It was tricky, but it was necessary and it paid off big time. The group that brought me there scheduled me for a return visit next year.

The show schedule is still very slow right now. I am hoping that some company’s move parties to January to take advantage of lower venue rates. But we’ll see. I think I’ll have to focus harder on teaching and doing some more hypnotherapy until we get people who know how to run an economy back in charge around here.

It’s that dead time of the baseball year where we are now waiting for the winter meetings to heat up and hopefully we will see some hot and heavy trading action. This hasn’t been the case recently since players are locked up in contracts that make it nearly impossible to trade people at this time of the year.
All of the awards are out now. If you’re a baseball fan you know who they are, of course. The only real surprise to me was that Tiger’s pitcher Justin Verlander won the MVP award. On the same team you had the AL’s batting leader in Miguel Cabrera who plays every day. Granted Verlander with the 24-5 record and the pitching Triple Crown winner was valuable but I just think the MVP has to go to a position player.

Let’s see…well, we’re in holiday season now. For years I had taken the last two weeks of the year off to relax and enjoy the season. During recent years I have kept my schedule open so that I could book shows.
The main thing that I do like to do is try to stay away from the news. It’s very difficult since I am glued to headlines and news like it’s a job for me. But because it is by the time the end of the year comes around I get so depressed and overwhelmed because of all of that negativity. So I turn it off whenever and wherever I can.

On a personal note, I am a completely single dude now and will be 50 in December. I can’t tell you how awful this really is. I suppose it’s better than being in a horrible relationship but knowing that it’s pretty much over as far as a dating or relationship life is concerned is rather tough.
I have tried to put myself out there a bit. But frankly I can’t stand the process. I hate having to tell the same story over and over again and getting judged about how I look and what I do and what I say and what I write.
One of the reasons I started the dungeon show was to talk about all of that nonsense and make fun of it and ridicule it and bash it and do so without a care about what people think my opinion of it is.
I said long ago that my last relationship was going to be my last whether it lasted forever or not. I’m pretty sure I am going to stand by that. I guess maybe someone might come along and sweep me off of my feet. But the reality is that I’m 49 going on 50, not 29 going on 30. Sure you might think that there is still plenty of time and plenty of people, but the real world reality is much different, especially here where I live where its just awful…freaking awful.

Well, that’s it. I’m going to try to write more and not leave my Algerian and Latvian followers disappointed.

Done.

Times They Are A Changin

There are a couple of interesting big changes on the horizon in Major League Baseball.

First, the Houston Astros were just sold and as an incentive to get a 70 million dollar discount on the sale, the new owner agreed to move the Astros from the NL Central division to the AL West division.
This now gives both leagues an even 15 teams each with 5 teams in each division.

The second change, still being negotiated, is the addition of two more wild card teams, one in each league, at the end of the year. The two wild card teams from each league would play a one-game playoff to determine the official wild card team and then the playoffs would resume as they have for over a decade now.

Naturally there are fans who expressed opposition to this. 30% of all teams now make the playoffs but I’m not so sure that just getting one more game and one more team is all that negative. I think it makes the wild card spot not as exciting to get because now in just one game the season could be over for that team. Currently the wild card team’s only disadvantage is that they don’t get home-field advantage for the first round, which is a best of 5 series.

This change in the league structure will, however, mean that interleague play will be year round. On days where every team plays it means that at least one interleague game will be played on that day.

Even now I’m still up in the air about interleague play. I’d sort of rather see the leagues compete within their own leagues. This was one of the topics that was always great for debate…which league was better?

I do sort of like seeing some of the geographic rivalries each year like the Mets and Yankkes, the Cubs and White Sox, for example. But I never really cared about the other matchups that end up unfolding. Who really cares about a Seattle vs Florida matchup?

Oh, I should say Seattle vs MIAMI matchup since the Marlins are now going their city name with the move to their new ballpark.

The Red Sox former manager Terry Francona has decided not to try to find a team to manage this year. It must be nice to be able to make that sort of decision, don’t you think?
There was talk that since former Red Sox GM Leo Epstein took the Cubs GM job that Francona might head there, but Dale Sveum just landed the Cubs managerial spot.

As expected Justin Verlander of the Tigers and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers won the leagues Cy Young awards. Since both were pitching Triple Crown winners these were obvious choices.

No one cares about the Manager of the Year awards but they went to Joe Maddon from Tampa Bay and Kirk Gibson of Arizona, neither off whom went to the World Series which simply makes the award sort of stupid to me.

Ok, so my favorite team is the Mets and my least favorite team is the Phillies.
This might provide a clue about the 2012 season and these two teams.
Transactions:
Philadelphia Phillies signed free agent 1B Jim Thome.

Philadelphia Phillies signed free agent RHP Jonathan Papelbon.

New York Mets signed free agent OF Vinny Rottino.

New York Mets signed free agent 1B Valentino Pascucci.

However, the Mets are moving in the fences at Citi Field slicing the playing surface there by 2%. Based on information provided by the team, had the fences been at the new dimensions since the stadium opened the Mets would have hit 81 more homeruns there and opponents 70. So this is a good thing for my team. I just don’t know if Rottino and Pascucci are just as good of a move.

Speaking of Free Agents, there are many but just a few of real consequence. Thome and Papelbon were decent signings for the Phils. With Ryan Howard out for months because of his Achilles tendon surgery, Thome can fill in there at firstbase. Papelbon, a closer for the Red Sox will take over that spot in Philly…for way too much money, but let them spend everything they have, I don’t care.
Other key free agents of note…
OF Carlos Beltran. He went from the Mets to the Giants in a mid-season trade and had a decent year coming off knee surgery. He should get a good chase.

SS Jose Reyes. This one kills me. If the Mets don’t sign him I’m going to find it tough to continue rooting for them. The fact that they signed Rattino and Pascucci makes me think the team, which has had financial difficulties, is saving to pay him.

1B Albert Pujols. St. Louis fans are probably saying the same thing that I am saying about Reyes. There is no way that city can let Albert go.

1B Prince Fielder. I think Fielder is a lock to leave Milwaukee. I will actually be shocked if he stays there, but the Brewers were fun to watch this year making the playoffs and they put butts in seats so maybe enough cash is there.

RP Heath Bell. I think paying closers anything more than a million dollars a year is a waste of money since they pitch one inning at a time. But of the closers still available he has been one of the best.
OF Grady Sizemore. Yes, he has been injured but he is still just 29 years old. A 3 year deal might be workable and a team could get a decent return for him for a contract much smaller than he would have had if he had not been injured.
SP Mark Buehrle. Buehrle is just 32 and a lefty. Every team needs a left-handed starter and one who has thrown a couple of no-hitters is icing on the cake. If the Mets don’t sign Reyes I think they need to sign this guy or…
SP Roy Oswalt. He was part of that monstrous Phillie starting rotation and he had a decent year. He is 34 so anything more than a 2-year deal is foolish. This makes me think he stays in Philly, but we never know, do we?


So that’s baseball talk. I would talk more about hypnosis but my show schedule has been light. I’ve been getting requests to go all over the country but the fees people have been expecting to pay haven’t covered air fare, which is something that completely baffles me.

So with the show schedule light, hypnotherapy is spotty, hypnosis training is spotty and pretty much everything else I have tried to do not producing much, I have to find some additional ways to do better than just survive.
I am open to suggestions here.
I find myself at a crossroad in my life…again. And just when I find myself there and was dealing with the loss of my dog for a while, someone in my life kicked me and pooped on me when I was down. This is something I shall not forget…ever.
But I shall try to use it to my advantage in some way. Hopefully I will figure out exactly what that might be.

At least Beavis and Butthead are back on TV. They make more sense to me than what is going on in my world these days.

Done.

Speaking His Mind

Longtime CBS news correspondent and editorialist Andy Rooney just died at the age of 92.

This dude was at CBS for 60 years and most notably was the guy who closed out editions of the TV show “60 Minutes.” His essays at the end of each show were what he was known for writing and broadcasting.

I was never a Rooney fan but I respect someone who is courageous enough to say what he believes he needs to say in front of millions of people regardless of the consequences. Rooney, during his tenure in this spot, angered Blacks, Indians (oh crap, I just said Blacks and Indians…forgive me…African-Americans and Native-Americans,) Gays, Christians, and even fans of OJ Simpson and Nirvana.

He even called out CBS executives, on the air, to fire him over the responses he would get to some of his work.

So in his honor, I’ll proceed. Read on with caution.

Andy Rooney 1919-2011

I’m staring at my hypnosis show schedule for December and I am still stuck on ONE.
The Holiday season is one for Holiday parties, mostly Christmas parties of course, but some places have become freaked out enough that the parties are simply named Holiday parties so as not to offend any other group that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. You know, that 15% of people living here legally and not in a sleeper cell.

So why only one show? Well, it could be because my show sucks, but with plenty of other places bringing me back to do shows during my other normally busier times of year, that might not be it.

I have spoken with one particular person who had me scheduled for a show but now the company doesn’t have enough money for entertainment.

But why is that? I thought this country was on the road to “recovery!”

Hogeffingwash, that is.

I watch and follow the news and see people in the streets protesting in front of big businesses telling these businesses that they “aren’t paying their fair share,” and other sorts of commie nonsense.

These “unfair” companies are the ones who hire someone like me at Christmas parties where they spend thousands of dollars to celebrate the season with their employees. Not a single one of these companies is obliged to do this, but lots do. Many more are beginning not to do so. They are cutting back because times are tough and because they are told that these types of expenditures are frivolous and wasteful. They are told that they don’t have the right to celebrate like this because other people are out of work and that such a celebration spits in the eye of those who don’t have jobs.

So what happens? I teeter on the brink of bankruptcy by the end of the year if this doesn’t change, or if I don’t find an alternate plan for myself.

So, it’s cool and all that people want to go out and protest and speak their minds. We all have that right. But these particular demonstrators are calling themselves “occupiers.”
Now, I would imagine that since most of these demonstrators are leftists, and we know this is the case since both the Communist and National Socialist (NAZI) parties are in solidarity with them, that they were, and are, against the so-called “occupation” of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course I speak of our own military operations over there where our own soldiers are called “war criminals” and other such names by the people protesting in America.

So if our military is “occupying” a country waging a war, aren’t demonstrators who are “occupying” a city such as…let’s say…Oakland, where there is now violence in the streets, waging and committing acts of war?

I would say that those revolutionaries are doing just that…waging Civil War in our country…and we should take tanks and machine guns and go to war with them.

Oh, but wait! President Obama used to be a lawyer with the community organizing group ACORN which, I suppose just coincidentally, is at least one of the groups that has organized these demonstrations. So I guess it’s ok then for these revolutionaries to revolt like this, right? Because Obama is the President of the US!

But isn’t the Presidents #1 priority to safeguard the people of the United States? I see that in the Constitution, at least. Are big businesses doing business in the US not eligible for protection from violent mobs?

I’m confused. I have heard Mr. Obama rage against banks and other big businesses that aren’t spending enough money supporting his campaign (like General Electric, Solyndra, etc.) so is then this his Army of people rioting now in the streets? Are we supposed to be at war with banks and businesses in this country?

Help me out here, please! Banks loaned me money to get my house. Businesses hire me and pay me to do work so I can eat and buy clothes and all of that happy stuff. They both give money to charitable causes and generate tax revenue for local governments. WHY ARE WE AT WAR WITH THEM?

The banking regulations slapped on banks in the last couple of years by the Obama administration and the leftist controlled congress from 2009-2010 have made it extremely difficult for some people…oh, I don’t know…maybe LIKE ME…to get a business loan. So coupled with a poor economy (oh wait, I’m sorry…VP Joe Biden and head of the DNC Deborah Wasserman-Schultz say that everything is just fine) increased regulations, and the increased demonization of any big business that isn’t trying to build solar panels and wind mills that aren’t keeping my energy bill lower, I, and many others like me, face…let’s say…an uncertain future.

So if war is being waged against banks and businesses then people, praised by none other than our own President and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, are effectively waging war on ME, because I am directly affected by these regulations, restrictions and demonstrations.

So against whom do I fight back? No one, that’s right, because I simply don’t have the money or power to do it. And that’s by design, make no mistake about it.  

I can speak about it and write about it, for now. How long will that last though? Hopefully we can all make it until 1-20-13 where we change things back to a time where we weren’t on a road to Greece and we can call Christmas, Christmas, call Halloween, Halloween, call Easter, Easter, have hypnosis shows at celebrations of all of those types of events and parties, and we can all have fun and make money and grow and prosper together…all of us, not just one or two select groups, but all of us. As long as we have a President who stands in front of our people and actively chastises and pits one group against another…for example, the rich against the poor…this will not happen.

Three guys who I had hoped would join the race for President are not going to do so. I currently like Herman Cain, who is running. I mentioned him some time ago in this dumb-assed blog. I’ll be happy with any of the above right now, even Ron Paul. I just want to work at helping make people laugh at parties. This President has done nothing to help facilitate that…AT ALL.

I take a big risk writing down this stuff here. I don’t have the resources to fight off being placed on some black list by people who might hire me but don’t agree with what I just said and decide not to do so. I might even have an agent or two who disagrees with me. I know I have at least one who says her corporate business is down 80% though, so I’m betting she is with me.

She probably wouldn’t say it like I just did, but I am writing to speak my mind just like Andy Rooney did for all of those years. He got paid a lot of money to do it though, so he took a lot less risk than I did. But I’d be a coward if I didn’t stand up for and speak of the things in which I believe, regardless of the consequences.

And to think when I started this that I didn’t really have anything to say. RIP Andy Rooney, and thank you for doing what you did.

Done.

Beavis Returns!

Imagine the feeling of stepping up in front of 50,000 people and getting a standing ovation for having done something that those people appreciated so much that they would stand in your honor.

In particular I reference the ovations that the St. Louis Cardinal’s David Freese and Lance Berkman received for their heroics in game 6 of the 2011 World Series.

What a game that was. Both of those players faced a situation in which probably all pro baseball players have imagined before – being up at bat with the game on the line and delivering the big hit. That situation is one where a player most of the time will fail, statistically. Both players faced 2-out, 2-strike counts with their team losing and came through with game tying hits to keep their team alive.

Freese, of course, went on to top himself after his effort in the bottom of the 9^th inning in that game to blast a monster homerun to win it in the 11^th.

Then in game seven after spotting the Rangers two runs in the top of the first inning, Freese delivered another 2-out, 2-strike hit to tie the game. Perhaps not as dramatic, but it was as clutch as it gets nonetheless.

Game 7 was sort of a letdown after game 6 but I watched every pitch anyway. As someone who calls himself a baseball fan, I had to unless I was obligated to be some place else.

The games and the series have been covered in depth by those who are paid to do it. I had some other thoughts after watching it.

I wrote about Lance Berkman here back in the early days of this blog. He had a chance to play with Texas this year but didn’t want to play there. His quote at the time was "I felt like if they didn't re-sign Cliff Lee that they were going to be an average team, and I feel that's probably what's going to end up happening. It's all about your pitching. I feel like last year was one of those special years where you kind of catch lightning in a bottle and they got hot and they had some guys that I felt like were pitching better than their talent level, and consequently, they had a great year."

My quote was, “The almost 35-year old, listed-at-230-pounds Berkman is coming off of a .248 season where his contribution to the Yankees included a home run. Ironically, his signing with the Cardinals just made his own new team worse.”

Ah, irony. Berkman ends up having to face that very same team in the World Series and then in the bottom of the 10^th inning of game six was faced with the possibility of making the last out of the series against them and sending the Rangers into a cuddle puddle of athletes on the St. Louis pitching mound.
He had a great year for the Cardinals bouncing back from that disaster of a year ago and in one way he was right…if Cliff Lee had signed with the Rangers, how would that series have gone? I think there is a small chance that Lee could have made a teenie bit of difference in a series that was stretched to the distance.

I also bashed the Milwaukee Brewers in that same post I see. But that wasn’t really about the team but more about the city.

So my preseason picks pretty much stunk Braves, Phillies (WC), Reds, Giants
Red Sox, Yankees (WC), Tigers, Angels.

This is clearly why playing the lottery is not wise for me even though at 200-some million today, I’m there, dude.

One of the coolest parts of the World Series was watching Alfred E. Neumann sing the National Anthem before game one.

One has to feel for the Rangers though losing for the second year in a row and being just one pitch away from winning it…twice, in fact.

If you have imagined the feeling from the standing ovation now imagine the feeling of being one pitch away from the world championship and then losing. You may have worked your entire life to reach the goal of winning like that. You have been injured, you have sacrificed, you have dreamed for maybe decades of finally having your dream come true and then someone else takes that from you in a split second, or because of a bad bounce or simply because it’s a game of inches. Ugh, that has to be hard.

Softened by the fact that they get paid millions of dollars to play a game, but still bad thoughts must run through their minds for a second.

I watch the MLB network religiously and I love watching old baseball games and highlight reels. If only the current technology was available since the beginning of baseball though. With super slow-motion, digital-high-definition, broadcast equipment the images of these games are captured in ways that are truly amazing.
We can see the stitches on the way to the plate as it travels over 90 miles an hour. We get multiple angles of shots to let us know if a ball was fair or foul, or if a runner was safe or out, or if, for example, the ball that Nelson Cruz hit last night that was caught by the Cardinals Allen Craig was going to be a homerun or not.
The best part of this technology is that since its digital that quality will remain pretty much forever, unlike material shot just not as far back as the 80’s.

I am glad that they are keeping some of the uber close-up shots out of the broadcast though. The shot that was really annoying to me for a couple of years was the centerfield camera shot of the ball inside the pitchers glove. Then the cameraman would slowly pull out and follow the ball toward the plate. It was just too close. Sometimes doing something just because you can isn’t such a great idea. There are so many other things that I prefer to see in an at-bat with the first being the actual batter.


The return of my favorite actor to TV the other night was quite exciting even though I was on the road when his show premiered. Beavis returned to Beavis & Butthead on the MTV network on Thursday night. Their new shows will replace the real Buttheads on Jersey Shore.
I find it funny that the 10 pm time slots on Thursdays on MTV have actually become more intellectual with Beavis and Butthead replacing Snookie and the Situation. Who could have seen that coming?

 American Horror Story revolves around the Harmons, a family of three who moved from Boston to Los Angeles as a means to reconcile past anguish. The all-star cast features Dylan McDermott as “Ben Harmon,” a psychiatrist; Connie Britton as “Vivien Harmon,” Ben’s wife; Taissa Farmiga as “Violet,” the Harmon’s teenage daughter; Jessica Lange in her first-ever regular series TV role as “Constance,” the Harmon’s neighbor; Evan Peters plays “Tate Langdon,” one of Ben’s patients; and Denis O’Hare as “Larry Harvey.” Guest stars for the series include Frances Conroy as the Harmon’s housekeeper; Alexandra Breckenridge as the Harmon’s housekeeper; and Jamie Brewer as Constance’s daughter.

The house which they purchase is a “murder house,” where pretty much everyone who ever lived there was murdered and their spirits live on to terrorize all the subsequent residents and their guests. There have been three episodes so far and they have all been great.
I know that FX is a cable channel so they don’t have the same language guidelines for it. But I have been surprised to hear language on there so far that would have made us in the Dungeon of Manlove show blush a little bit.
This is the same network which aired The Shield, which was fairly raw like that. I haven’t seen Sons of Anarchy on that same station but imagine that it might be a little rough too.
I’m ok with all of that, I guess. I don’t have kids so curse away and show lots of boobs for I care. But I guess that’s a pain in the neck to have to monitor that stuff all the time if you’re someone trying to keep your kids vocabulary from sounding like mine on a daily basis.
Jessica Lange in great in this show so far and I like Connie Britton in it who is pretty hot. Her bio says she was in the series “24” but I can’t recall when that would have been.
Anyway, if you’re into “horror” shows, this one is for you.

Beavis, my favorie actor

I did watch the new show late last night after the baseball game. Sadly, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but anything with Beavis in it will have me glued to the TV.


I have also been watching American Horror Story on the FX network. Here is the official description of the show:

Speaking of horror shows, I had a potential for one of my recent shows to be just that as I traveled to Franklin, VA to do a hypnosis show at a party for a 60-year old.
Now generally these parties for older people are tougher right from the beginning. We get more and more jaded and suspicious as we get older so it can be tricky getting volunteers to participate in such a show. I normally have to spend extra time prepared the audience and easing any of their concerns. In shows with younger crowds people are more likely to be more open to the thought or being on stage in a situation where they have no idea of what is about to happen.
My host for the birthday party told me when she hired me that this was an “all black folk crowd.” Why she made mention of that, I’m not totally sure. Maybe because I’m an all-white dude or something. This has never been a concern for me. I’ve done historically black colleges, shows in inner-cities where I was the only white dude, shows where everyone was all White, all Asian, all Jewish, all Catholic, all Indian and all Lawyers, for some examples. I don’t care. Just volunteer for my show, I’ll hypnotize you, you’ll be funny and I’ll get to eat for the next week.

So I get to Franklin, VA and I notice something right away that, for the first time, made me think that I might have a real tough time for this show. I was right in the middle of a bunch of cotton plantations and was going to do a show for this “all black folk crowd.”

There was one other white dude there. He was the town’s real estate attorney and friend of the guest of honor.
I wouldn’t say that I was uncomfortable at all. Everyone was very nice. After all, it is the south and southerners are just generally nicer and I stand by that opinion.
But the show just didn’t go as well as I would have hoped. I had volunteers right from the beginning, but it just wasn’t my usual chaotic experience. I ended up with about 5 people sort of hypnotized. One of them was kind of funny. I kept wondering if history had any role to play in the quality of the show that night. Was it possible that this group, overall, just didn’t trust me in that type of position where I was “in control” of their minds?
That thought ran through my head for sure. How could it not?

I have found it interesting to learn that I have readers of this nonsense from 18 different countries. It’s because of my hypnosis career and not the sheer brilliance that I pen from time to time here. There is an interesting…let’s say…sub culture of people who are fanatics of hypnosis. So I have fans out there that will follow what I do because I am a hypnotist and only because I am a hypnotist. They are searching to find out what my secret messages are in my writing and on the podcast. (xaxlxlxmxyxfxaxnxsxpxlxexaxsxexsxexnxdxmxexmxoxnxexyxsxoxIxcxaxnxexaxtx)
I think that’s funny. It’s cool though and it is partly why my podcast, the Dungeon of Manlove, is closing in on 1000 subscribers now (that’s subscribers, not listeners) and has reached into 52 countries. It just needs to pay for me at some point. I have to eat!

Done.

Cruzin' and Freesin'

The 2011 World Series starts tomorrow, the 19^th, and features the Rangers of Texas and the Cardinals of St. Louis.

Both teams closed out their championship series in convincing fashion pounding the baseball all around Arlington and Milwaukee in game 6 for each.

The Rangers Nelson Cruz set a single playoff series record with 6 homeruns and was named the MVP while the Cardinals David Freese earned the same honors for St. Louis in the NL.

The Cardinals have the better starting pitching in this series but simply because the Rangers might not have the horses to start games, they have a nice bullpen and have the power to overmatch the Cardinals.

The Rangers return for the second straight year to the World Series but the Cardinals are no strangers to it either. They won it in 2006 and have Albert Pujols. I know that every time I write about baseball that I mention his name. But he is the premier player in the league and, as such, deserves the mention. After all, look where his team is right now.

Ron Washington’s Rangers starters need to hold off the Cardinals for a good 6 innings in each game or they are doomed again. Five inning “quality” starts aren’t going to get the job done, I imagine, especially on this stage. But this is going to be a tricky thing for them.

But the Cardinals staff has its own worries. Michael Young, clean-up hitter and future hall-of-famer now, is now on fire getting locked in at just the right moment. That’s fuel on the fire that Cruz lit against the Tigers. The Cardinals can’t pitch around these guys either because there are 5 other guys in the lineup who hit at least 24 homeruns this season.
Normally the DH rule has an effect on the AL in the World Series, but not here. When the series is in St. Louis, Young, the regular DH, will play first. They don’t lose a thing there and I think it tightens up their lineup. The Cardinals will get to DH Lance Berkman in Texas which will help their defense in those games. But that won’t matter too much in that park, which is a launching pad anyway.

Will there be any new-found heroes this year? Will the stars we already know are stars, like Young, Pujols, Adrian Beltre, Chris Carpenter, Josh Hamilton, Berkman, Matt Holliday, or Cruz add to their stature? Will there be one of those “goat” moments or a black-cat kind of moment which will go down in baseball lore? 

Wednesday we will begin to find out.

I am a news junkie and particularly a political news junkie. But I am now currently interested in odd news stories from around the world. To be precise I am interested in finding headlines that stick out as odd to me. For example…

Scrabble player demands strip search of opponent after letter 'G' goes missing...

Teacher on trial for punching, choking first-graders...

Burglars steal 7-year-old's piggy bank...

The main reason is to discuss them on the Dungeon of Manlove show. They provide good fodder on which the cast can opine. These conversations get pretty interesting and often times funny as our diverse group of misfits provides a unique blend of commentary.

If you’d like to hear examples of that, you know what to do, but I really bring up this point to bring up a different point.

The Holidays will be upon us soon and as soon as Thanksgiving hits I stop reading the news. Even though we will be in an election year and there are extra things to think about and discuss, I try every year to keep as far away from the news as I can so that I can enjoy the season.
This will be particularly important this year as I have all the classic symptoms of depression once again. Whether this is a chemical issue or just the result of an awful year, there is little doubt about this.
I was in the gym a week or so ago and was watching a screen talk about depression and its symptoms. Now, I’m not a hypochondriac here; I’m pretty objective about myself when it comes to this stuff. I had everyone they listed. It was depressing to read that I was depressed!

But certainly not shocking. This means taking proactive measures wherever possible short of checking in with a doctor for medication. That is one place where I will not turn unless as an absolute last resort. As a recovering person diagnosed with depression a long time ago in a rehab clinic I was pretty pissed off when I was prescribed anti-depressants when I was trying to rehabilitate myself from self-medicating for far too long.

Staying away from the news is one of those ways. Now I did just start my political blog under my fake name so I might have started that too soon since I might have to take the holidays off from it. But since it’s my fake name, no one will care even if anyone finds it anyway.

Autumn does have a positive effect on me though. The summer really drains me and is a reason why I get down in the dumps. It’s totally opposite of most people, I know. I’ve been fortunate to have a few shows this month which have taken me to a couple of areas where I can enjoy watching the leaves change in the mountains. It has been sort of tempered by the fact that my dog is gone but it still helps. Driving, and driving to see as much territory as possible, is one of my favorite things to do.

Well, there are lots of things I need to do and not a lot of money to do them, so I guess that I’m off and I’m

Done.

Bribe the Audience

Two tough battles are raging the MLB Championship series.
The Tigers held off elimination last night with the aide of their third base last night. Not their third baseman, but their home field third base bag as a routine double play ball bounced off of the bag fair and into the leftfield corner to help save the game.
The bag itself was removed after the game and is now in the possession of Tiger manager Jim Leyland who said he would place the bag in his personal memorabilia collection. Should the Tigers win it will be worth a little more than if they lose the series, of course.

The Rangers Nelson Cruz has smacked five homeruns in this series already, which tied a record for one post-season series. He has hit 2 extra-inning homeruns which is a record and became the first player in post-season history to end a game with a grand-slam homerun.

I refuse to say “walk-off” homerun, because it’s a stupid saying and I am tired of hearing announcers shout out “WALK-OFF!” when their guy strokes a game-winning hit.

Some of these announcers are really bad but I won’t name names because I am feeling kind today…sort of. I hate the way they count pitches, call game-winning hits, and overly praise players with stupid adjectives like “gutsy” when they are playing a game that last 3 hours, for the most part.

The Cardinals and the Brewers are now tied at two games each. This should not come as a real surprise since they split the 18 regular-season games that they played. The perfect way for this to play out is for the series to go seven games.

I would imagine that MLB and the network that airs the World Series would like to see a Cardinals-Tigers WS matchup. They played against each other in 2006, which the Cardinals won, and famously in 1967. St. Louis is the best baseball town in America and Detroit is such a hell hole that the city could really use a boost of morale for its citizens.

But the Brewers Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are prime-time players. Braun seems to thrive in the limelight and I am sure that he will pick up a lot of new fans and enemies in the Fall Classic, should they bounce past St. Louis.

The Rangers pound the ball though and in a season which didn’t showcase a great deal of power numbers, they have three guys who hit 30 homeruns each and two others with 24 and 29. Since they are the defending champions of the AL, they do have some players which casual baseball fans would know like Josh Hamilton, Michael Young and Adrian Beltre, for example. The return appearance would also solidify their standing as an AL powerhouse which bodes well for the AL since the Red Sox and Yankees could use some competition in that regard.

For whatever reason there are more people reading this blog than I actually imagined. It has left me with a bit of a dilemma. I teeter back and forth with what I want to do with this stupid thing here. In one respect it’s a journal for me but I do also have the desire to write about more intense things that are on my mind. These things include politics but they also include a venting process where I would like to speak more freely about things that aggravate me and I would like to swear a lot while doing so.

I am writing this around 5pm. I have been thinking about this since 8am. I think that what I am going to do is start another blog with a fake name and rant there rather than risk alienating people that I don’t wish to alienate.

So I will stick to basic cultural things here like baseball, TV shows, and anything that I might find interesting to pass along while on the road performing. I’ll toss in some personal things that, for some reason, generate more feedback than anything else (like when the girl friend left the house and when my dog passed 2 weeks ago) but leave the bitching about some otherwise polarizing subjects to my ghost name, which I naturally will not reveal here.

A show at West Chester University went rather well last night. It was my first time in there and there was a crowd of over 100. There is no telling how many people will ever show up at these things and it is sometimes a risky proposition taking a show like this without a decent estimate of crowd size. This is particularly risky doing a show for a place like for the first time. Let’s face it; I’m no household name so I don’t get any draw because of that. I have to hope that the hosts give out cookies and ice cream and make a free show out of it to get a room full of college kids on a Thursday night.

But more often than not my concerns are unwarranted. Ugh…I’m not even going to jinx myself by expanding on that any further. It went well and I’ll probably get asked to come back there again in the future; that is what is most important.

I am concerned about the future months coming though. Last year I had my December shows booked by August. It’s now October 14^th and I have one show booked for December. It’s getting hard to make ends meet and I just got some local real estate information that was disturbing for me also with the depreciation in home prices here. My house was my out in case of emergency. It still is, of course, but now it’s less of an out for me.

That is one thing makes me need to go write another blog…RIGHT NOW BEFORE I EXPLODE!

Done.

Curse of the Squirrel

Round one of the MLB playoffs is out of the way and so is a combined 370 million dollars in payroll between the Yankees and the Phillies, the teams with the top payrolls in both the AL and the NL.

I was on the road for a couple of the 5^th games of the divisional series and watched from a hotel room and heard on the car radio. All three of the final games were interesting and exciting for a baseball fan.

The Brewers and Diamondbacks game featured one of the best postseason catches in history in the 7^th inning by the D’Back’s Chris Young in centerfield, who coincidentally wears #24, the same as Willie Mays. Young made a run-saving, back-to-the-plate running, stretching catch that was simply better than the one Mays made in the 54 series against the Indians. At the time the game was 1-1 with a Brewer standing on second base.
Unfortunately for the Diamondbacks ace pitcher Ian Kennedy, he then paid Young back by hanging a fastball and a bloop single scored the run anyway.
But the Brewers closer, Jon Axford, who hadn’t blown a save since April then blew one in the 9^th to send the game to extra innings.
In the 10^th there was some déjà-vu. The Brewers Carlos Gomez stood at second base and scored the game winning run on a Nyjier Morgan single, scoring as he had for the Twins in a one-game playoff a few years ago that helped the Twins advance to the playoffs.

In Philadelphia good friends Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter faced off in a great pitching duel won by Carpenter and the Cards on a 3-hit shutout. The Cards scored their run with their first two batters and Carpenter shut it down the entire way. Credit Cardinal manager Tony Larussa for not trying to fix what wasn’t broken and leaving Carpenter in to finish what he started.
This game featured a little déjà-vu also as the Phil’s Ryan Howard made the team’s season-ending out for the second year in a row. Howard added injury to insult this time as he ruptured his Achilles tendon trying to get out of the batter’s box and he’ll require surgery that will most likely keep him out of the Phil’s lineup for the first couple of months of the season. I have a feeling it will be longer than though. I had an Achilles issue in my 20’s and it was a couple of years before it felt right again.
The Phillies’ fans have a scapegoat, if they wish, and it’s not Ryan Howard…it’s squirrels. In the 4^th game in St. Louis, which they lost, a squirrel ran across home plate while the Phil’s Roy Oswalt was pitching. Prior to game five, in Philadelphia, groundskeepers had to chase down and remove yet another squirrel.
I believe that it was the exact same squirrel which was brought to Philadelphia by the Cardinals in order to get in to the heads of the Phillies. And it worked; the Phillies lost because of a squirrel!

 

The Yankees went down weakly in the Bronx with the heart of their batting order looking like minor leaguers in the bottom of the 9^th needing one run to tie the game and keep them from advancing to the championship series. But Tiger reliever Jose Valverde, who was perfect in save situations all year, stayed perfect in post-season play too closing out this game by striking out Alex Rodriguez.

So those three game five winners joined the Texas Rangers who dispatched the Tampa Bay Rays in four games. The Rangers capped off their final game win with help from Adrian Beltre’s three-home run game.

I think the Rangers are now the favorite to win the World Series. They beat the Tigers in game one and now the Tigers are down two starting outfielders, Delmon Young and Magglio Ordonez. Young tweaked an oblique muscle in the Yankees series in which he hit three homeruns and Ordonez broke the foot which kept him from playing in most of the 2010 season.
The Rangers have 5 guys who hit over 20 homeruns and three of them hit over 30 so they can bomb a team for sure. With CJ Wilson their number one starter they don’t match up as well on the mound but it might not matter.
The Brewers beat the Cardinals in game one as their marquee players (Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder) both went deep in a 9-6 come-from-behind victory. I can’t see the Cardinals beating them but they did split the 18 games they played against each other this year. But since my predicting skills have been less than skillful don’t place any money on anything I have to say.

There is a new Showtime series called Homeland that I think is a winner. It aired its second episode last night following Dexter, which is still fantastic. Homeland is about a US Marine who was help captive in Afghanistan for 8 years and was rescued and returned to the states. A female CIA agent believes that he was turned by his captors while there and the “rescue” was facilitated by the terrorists so that they could send him back as a sleeper agent. Her superiors don’t believe her but she attempts to watch his every move nonetheless.

I’m not going to write more about TV shows right now since it would make it sound like that is all that I do. But to recap, I am currently watching Dexter, Homeland, Hung, Survivor, Raising Hope, Jersey Shore, Two and a Half Men, Whitney, Terra Nova, Fringe, Stossel, Baseball, Football and anything that involves politics (I have to get my share of horror shows in there, after all.)

The last couple of weeks have been tough for me without my doggie. Today was probably the first day that I noticed that I wasn’t looking for him around every corner. That, however, made me sad anyway. But for the most part I have come to terms with it. Aside from the fact that he had been with me for 15 years I am also bothered by the fact that I simply can’t just go get another dog right now. With times tough for me and no one else around the house to help take care of one when I am on the road it’s just not fair to try bring one home to fill some emptiness within me. So until such time as our times improve or my living situation changes I will have pet and play with other people’s doggies for a while.
Ok, that just made me sad again, so I’m…

Done.

Back to Baseball

The 2011 MLB Playoffs start in just a couple of hours. I’ll keep an eye on them as a baseball fan but frankly they don’t interest me all that much with the teams that are involved.

What did interest me was the final day of the regular season which was one that will be remembered as one of legend years from now.

With two wild card playoff spots remaining the Braves and Cardinals in the NL league were tied in the NL and the Red Sox and the Rays were tied in the AL.

The Braves had the toughest assignment taking on the Phillies and one could perhaps make the same case for the Rays since they needed to beat the Yankees.

The Cardinals blew out the Houston Astros early and they were waiting for the finale of the Braves-Phillies game which the Braves were winning 3-2 going into the 9^th inning.
But the Braves rookie closer, and perhaps the NL Rookie of the Year, Craig Kimbrel, blew a save and allowed the Phillies to tie the game to send it into extra innings.
In the 12^th inning the Phils scored a run on what was basically an infield hit. In the bottom of the inning the Braves other ROY candidate Freddie Freeman grounded into a season-ending double play capping off an amazing season-ending choke to allow the Cardinals to earn the final playoff spot.
The Braves had an 8.5 game lead on the WC race at the beginning of September. This collapse became the second worst in NL history pushing my 2007 Mets from 2^nd to 3^rd and settling behind the 64 Phillies.

So over in the AL, the Red Sox were playing the Orioles and they too had a 9^th inning lead. They also had the comfort of knowing that Yankees were beating the snot of the Rays and were leading 7-0 going into the bottom of the 8^th inning.

But some funny things happened. The Rays scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 8^th inning capped off by an Evan Longoria 3-run homerun. The Rays still looked doomed and they were hurting by a real bad at-bat by one of their rookie hitters which, had it not happened, could have helped the Longoria homer tie the game. With Mariano Rivera, the Yankees closer, perhaps ready to come in to get a save in the 9^th, the Rays come-back attempt was valiant, but probably too little too late.
The Red Sox game became delayed by rain and so the attention was on the Rays game.
The Yanks didn’t score in the 9^th and in the bottom of the inning the Rays didn’t have to face Rivera. Red Sox fans were no doubt fearful that their enemies, the mighty Yankees, perhaps weren’t putting everything into this effort, but the Yankees decided to rest some key players.
It looked like it didn’t matter. The Rays made two quick outs and then manager Joe Madden sent in pinch hitter Dan Johnson who was hitting .108 with one homerun during the entire season.
Johnson and the Rays were down to their final strike of the season quickly. They could see that the Red Sox were winning their game. At that point they could only hope for an improbable Orioles comeback.

Johnson then hits a 2-out, 2-strike homerun to tie the game and ultimately send it into extra innings.
I’ve watched countless numbers of baseball games and baseball game highlights. I even had shivers watching that play. The Rays were back in the game.
Just to give this a little more perspective about how improbable this comeback to tie the game was; the Yankees had not blown a 7-run lead that late in a game since the 1950’s.
To make it more unreal was the fact that the guy who hit the homerun was not exactly some superstar player who came off the bench or up to bat and became the hero. No, Dan Johnson became Bucky Dent at that moment or Bobby Thomson, names of otherwise little known players who hit gargantuan homeruns for their teams at key moments in their team’s history.

But the Rays still hadn’t won. They played into the 13^th inning. Meanwhile the Red Sox and Orioles resumed play.
In the bottom of the 9^th in Baltimore, the Red Sox bring out their stud closer Jonathan Papelbon.
Papelbon blows the save in Baltimore. The Orioles tie the game. The Orioles then get a game-winning hit to drop the Red Sox.
I turn the TV almost immediately over to the Rays game after I watch the Red Sox sulking as the Orioles celebrate as if they had won the playoff spot. Up at bat is Evan Longoria. All of a sudden Longoria smokes a line drive down the Tropicana Field left field line which clears the fence for a game-winning homerun. The Rays win the game and clinch the final playoff spot in the AL.

The Red Sox end up beating every MLB team for the biggest September collapse in baseball history. They blew the 9-game lead they had over the Rays on 9-4. The Sox went 7-20 in September. If they had just gone an absolutely miserable 8-19 they would at least have clinched a tie for the WC spot. They started 1-10 and then became unbeatable only to become unable to win when they had to do so.

So the matchups are Phillies-Cardinals and Diamondbacks-Brewers in the NL and the Rays-Rangers and Yankees-Tigers in the AL.

The Yanks and Phillies are the favorites to meet in the World Series but both teams have the exact matchups that are the worst for them in the best-of-three Division Playoff Round.
The Phillies aren’t exactly hitting very well and the Cardinals are the best hitting team in the NL. That is offset by the Phillies pitching rotation of course and they are still favored to win, but no team wants to face an Albert Pujols lead team with momentum at it’s back going into a short series.
The Yankees have to face the best pitcher in MLB in Justin Verlander and they may very well have to face him twice. But they have another issue…some dude named Doug Fister who in his last 8 starts is 7-0 and has only given up 4 earned runs.

I like the Brewers over the Diamondbacks in the NL to set up a Phillies-Brewers championship. I’m on the fence with the Yankees and Tigers, to be honest. If the Tigers win game one in NY I think they’ll win the series though and then face the Rangers who I like over the Rays.

I just saw that the Red Sox are not going to exercise the option of manager Terry Francona for next year. That basically means he just got fired for this collapse. He can’t hit, throw or catch the baseball for the team but ultimately he is the fall guy. When the Mets choked in 2007 I wanted their manager fired too. The Mets didn’t fire him and they bit it again the next year also. So I guess that the Red Sox didn’t even want to fool around with him any more. He will leave with two World Series rings in his pocket though; no one can take those away from him.

Now I must get ready to kick back and watch the games. Nothing much else going on today to do so I’ll have that to keep my mind off of this past week.

Done

Goodbye Sweet Prince

My dog, Brother, is now frolicking around on Rainbow Bridge as I had to lay him down this past Saturday afternoon.

Brother was an abandoned dog who I rescued 15 years ago. At the time I had another beautiful little dog named Spooky and I called the stray dog Spooky’s Little Brother for a while and Brother just stuck.

The vet guessed at the time when I first brought him there that the youngest he could have been was a full year so his birth date was simply estimated. But if the youngest age he could have been was a year or so, he managed to make it 16 years in this world.

Because he was abandoned I tried my best to take extra good care of him. I wondered if he was abandoned because a family couldn’t take care of him and then wondered if some little kids were missing him and had no clue where he was. I know that had I ever lost a dog and someone else found him that I would have wanted him found by the best person possible (and not someone like the Eagles quarterback) and that he would lead a wonderful life if not with me.

I left home when I was 16 years old and only returned for about a year a couple of years later. Considering that we don’t have much memory of the first years of our lives I was with this dog longer than my own family. Since I never had children, he was not only my family but a surrogate child to me.

Brother was my fourth dog. There were a couple of more in my family when I was younger, but consider him MY fourth.

My first dog Sheba was a German Sheppard that I had to put down when she was about 12 and I was 17. When her time came I brought her to the vet and basically just passed her off to the staff. I was trying to recall if I had the option to stay or not but quickly regretted not being man enough to stay with the dog I grew up with from the time that I could remember.

The very next day I was given a cute little white dog which I named Napoleon. He lived to be 14 years old and while I had him I bought a little black puppy which I named Spooky.

Napoleon died in my house while I had been drinking myself into oblivion one final Saturday night. I came home wasted to find him lying on the floor dead while Spooky was trying to wake him up.

That, of all things, ended my drinking career at 31 years of age. I was an alcoholic, and already had come to that conclusion some years earlier, but the fact that I made the decision to drink like that (and it was every day) and wasn’t there for my dog was the ultimate reason that I checked into a rehabilitation clinic the next day.

The only thing that kept me from shooting myself in the head that morning was that I knew at least that Spooky was with him at the end if I wasn’t a good enough man to be there for him.

Spooky lived to be 12 years old. He had a brain condition the name of which I can’t recall. He had broken his house training and the vet diagnosed the reason and said he had a short time to live. He was still quite energetic and this was particularly shocking, of course, so I didn’t make that call right away.

Spooky pretty much told me himself one weekend when he did something uncharacteristic of him and I could tell he was in pain.

If you have never been with a dog when he/she is put to sleep I can tell you that it is a very peaceful and comfortable process. It is quick and there is no evidence at all that there is any pain involved. Thank God for the people who developed the method of doing this in a way that is humane and dignified. Back in the old days our pets would just get taken in the back yard and shot when it was their time.

I was initially shocked and therefore extra upset with how quickly it was all over but it was the right time and his pain was now gone so I was comforted knowing that reality and the fact that Brother was still with me and waiting for me at home.
I had one regret with Spooky afterwards, however, and it was that he was still a little agitated when the shot was administered. Had I known how fast it was going to be I would have spent a few extra minutes calming him down more.

At the time Spooky passed Brother was nine years old. He was already a senior dog at that point. So I basically spent the next 7 years of his life trying the best that I could to be an even better pet owner. I fed him better food, I changed the way I corrected to him to keep him less stressed, I played with him more, I sat with him more, I hugged him more, I savored every minute that I could. I loved his dog more than any other as a result of all of that.

Since I laid him down I’ve been upset wondering if I did enough for him and with him. I guess anyone might think that they didn’t once their pet is gone and I am no different, but I did try my best to make him as happy as possible. I take solace in the fact that since he lived to be 16 years old that I did something right.

About five years ago he came up lame because of a bulging disc in his back. Back then I thought it might be over for him too and to say I was upset (and anytime I say that) is just an understatement. But his vet prescribed him steroids to relieve inflammation and after just two doses it was like he was a little puppy again. This stuff is the fountain of youth, I’m going to tell you. Now, I knew this wasn’t a cure for his back but what it did for him was nothing short of a miracle, in my opinion.

This treatment allowed Brother to have a better quality of life and it also allowed me to have more quality time with him and to make sure that I could do my part to try to do even more still figuring that he didn’t have a great deal of time.

He had a couple more cycles of steroids during the next few years and each time with the same results. I even asked the vet at one point if we could just cycle him through a steroid round occasionally as a proactive and preventative measure. He was sort of reluctant because there can be liver complications so we never did that, but given that he was on them now and then anyway, I didn’t want to risk any side effects needlessly.

A body-builder that I know believes very strongly that men over 40 should cycle through a round of steroids now and then to improve their overall health. And I will say that watching what happened to Brother the five times he was on them made a believer out of me.

Back in early September, Brother came up lame again and it was a trip to the vet with a specific request for the steroids this time. Sure enough, two doses and he was running around the backyard like a puppy again. But it was a little different this time. He didn’t get the power in his legs back to jump up on the couch like he used to do.

Brother was a very charming little dog. He used to step in front of someone from whom he wanted attention and would sit up for you. It was completely irresistible and worked every time, even on me to whom he did that thousands of times.

But during the past nine months or so, he wasn’t able to do that any more and it was very noticeable to me that he was trying but just couldn’t.

When the round of steroids was done he came up lame again and it was worse than a month ago. I knew that if I pressed the vet for another round, he would give in to my request but I knew that I would probably have to sign a waiver.

But Brother had a few other issues also at this point. He had what was diagnosed as some sort of heart issue which made him dry hack to a point which I was feeling was too uncomfortable.

For about ten days I would help him get in and out of the house to pee. I hoped that maybe he just twisted something and he would get better, but it never happened. Then a front paw was hurting him so his whole left side was now not working right and he really couldn’t get up at all this past Saturday morning.

I knew that this was probably the time. I got upset thinking that this had to be too much for him and also knowing that I had to make a decision about the life that meant so much to me and had changed my own life as well. I am sure that it was not a pretty sight to see me right about then.

But then I had to go to work for a few hours; it was unavoidable. I contacted the vet along the way to see if I could get in there to see if there was anything that he could do. Maybe, I thought, I could leave him in their care for a couple of days and they could help him. Maybe even when I got home a couple of hours later he would be better.

I worked (videotaping a football game) and tried not to cry on top of the press box (and failed) knowing that I had left him alone while he was in pain.

I rushed back home praying he was ok.

But he was not better. While he did come down the four stairs necessary to reach outside to pee, he fell when he tried. During those 3 hours I was gone, he messed the kitchen where I had to keep him.

Again, I was just a mess. I thought I let him down. Dogs need dignity just as much as humans do. If I ever get to the point where someone has to lift me around so that I can pee I will beg someone to put me down. I thought that he deserved the same respect.

My poor little boy was as brave and strong as he could be and he didn’t know what was happening to him and why; he just pushed forward the best that he could, and it was so admirable.

But I knew what was happening and I also know that dogs have feelings as well and all of that was running through my mind as I lifted him into the car and rushed down to the vet.
That ride wasn’t pretty either as I was petting him the whole way there realizing that these strokes of his soft hair were probably going to be some of the last.

Usually when our car rides were done, he would easily get out of the car. But he didn’t move to even try to get down. He just couldn’t. Now, I’m slumped over at the waist in the middle of the parking lot doing whatever I could to try to compose myself. Finally I lifted him out carried him to the vet’s office. He was resigned to being carried and this was something that he didn’t really like before.

We were brought right back into a room and I was sitting on a bench with him in my lap. I was trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do but was waiting for the conversation with the vet. As Brother was sitting in my lap he was hacking again. Then the vet walked in and I really couldn’t keep calm.

The vets where I go are truly amazing. Although this wasn’t Brother’s regular vet this guy was truly, 100%, professional and compassionate. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to talk through this situation with the dog.

He did offer to go through another round of steroids and pain medication but it was going to mean doing some blood work and regular blood work after that as well. Then there were financial considerations. Here is where I lost it again. If you have read this blog you know that I have had financial issues this year. Now I was angry on top of everything else; I had just been turned down for a job this past week and I simply don’t have the savings or unlimited cash flow necessary for something like that. I would spend whatever I could have to help my dog but I simply didn’t have it. I have plenty of credit left but still have too much unpaid on there now.

Ultimately I knew that I had to resign myself to the fact that this was not about me at all; it was only about my little Prince. I didn’t want to risk finding him like I found Napoleon. And I had thought about this moment for years now. I knew how I was going to be able to control it so I wouldn’t have that small regret that I had with Spooky. He lived a great life, or at least as great as I could make it for him with my limited ability as a flawed human being.

I had to make sure that I was not trying to keep him alive as long as possible because I was being selfish. I needed to be as selfless as possible with this life that I cherished so much.

So I made the decision. I wondered what gave me any right but it was only really only mine to make.

I am not really a man of God. I am best described as agnostic but I have my moments when I can only think and believe that God exists. I do pray from time to time. How I know God is through what I hear, read, and sometimes even see and experience. One thing that I have read, and do believe more than anything when it comes to matters of God, is that our pets are placed with us by God to watch over until He wants them to come back home to Him. My main duty for the past 15 years of my life was to take care of Brother until this time came. I did pray and said to God that I hope I did a good enough job doing that for Him.

The vet techs took him to prepare him and carried him back in to the room wrapped in a blanket. I got down on floor with him and had a few minutes to say everything that I wanted to say. I know that sounds odd to some people but I really don’t care what those people think.

I told him that I loved him and how happy he made me. I told him that Michelle, his mommy, loved him. I petted him and hugged him and had him kiss me back, which he did.

The vet came in and, again, was just amazing during what must be a very challenging time for them. Brother was calm, in my arms, and looking at me as his eyes slowly began to close shut. I knew it was over right away having been through it before but the vet talked out loud about what was happening and how it was gradual and peaceful. I appreciated it and just took that time to say to my Prince that I loved him and petted him and hugged him more.

I was noticeably shaking when I knew I was now alone and my little boy was gone. I am right now as I write this. My heart is broken and empty. I am so destroyed right now even knowing that it was the right thing to do for him. I wonder if I have done something wrong to deserve this pain that I feel.

Since I am alone and I have to travel for work I cannot have another pet without imposing on other people to help take care of one. My little boy was my life. I didn’t even realize how my life was revolved around him. I haven’t been able to sleep right for the past couple of nights, although I got more rest last night than Saturday.
He used to make a certain sound to try to wake me up in the morning, or whenever he wanted me to awaken. I heard that noise the first night while trying to sleep. I can still see him in my mind around every corner and whenever I look out the window into the back yard. It’s not very surprising; I thought that something like this might happen.

I walked around the house most of the day yesterday not really knowing what to do now. I am sure that this is much like what happens to those who take care of elderly parents or other sick family members who stay as close as possible and do every thing to help that you can. I am also sure that what I am going through pales in comparison to those situations. But I will say that the bond and love that I had with, and for, this dog was as strong as any other that I had in my life.

I found a great poem that I had posted on his Facebook page but it seems to have disappeared. Here it is…

LAST NIGHT

I stood by your bed last night; I came to have a peep.
I could see that you were crying you found it hard to sleep.
I whined to you softly as you brushed away a tear,
"It's me, I haven't left you, I'm well, I'm fine, I'm here."
I was close to you at breakfast, I watched you pour the tea,
You were thinking of the many times, your hands reached down to me.
I was with you at the shops today; your arms were getting sore.
I longed to take your parcels; I wish I could do more.
I was with you at my grave today; you tend it with such care.
I want to re-assure you, that I'm not lying there.
I walked with you towards the house, as you fumbled for your key.
I gently put my paw on you; I smiled and said, "It’s me."
You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair.
I tried so hard to let you know, that I was standing there.
It's possible for me, to be so near you everyday.
To say to you with certainty, "I never went away."
You sat there very quietly, then smiled, I think you knew...
in the stillness of that evening, I was very close to you.
The day is over... I smile and watch you yawning
and say "good-night, God bless, I'll see you in the morning."
And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I'll rush across to greet you and we'll stand, side by side.
I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out...then come home to be with me.
- Author Unknown

Goodbye my sweet prince...