Knuckle Them Under

Well it’s been a while since I posted in here. I’ve been actively posting on a political blog under an alias. I’ve had a lot to say there and not so much here because I would simply rather not be whiny here.

Wow, the baseball season is almost half over now and I haven’t mentioned anything about it.
Well, I’ve been watching intently and there isn’t a whole heck of a lot to rave about. That’s even though my team, the Mets are actually first in line for a playoff spot right now in the NL. They only trail the Nationals, of all teams, in their division and are three spots ahead of the hated Phillies at least for now.

A couple of the main stories, individually, are R.A. Dickey a pitcher for the Mets and Bryce Harper, the 19-year old rookie from Washington.
Dickey is a 38-year-old knuckleballer who came into this year with an overall losing record in his career. He is currently 11-1 and leading the league in ERA and pitched two consecutive 1-hit shutouts for the Mets. He has a current scoreless inning streak of 42 innings which is just a couple games short of the major league record.
He goes against the Yankees tonight at Citi Field and will have that streak seriously put to the test.
Dickey also has a biography of his life for sale now and in it he speaks of his sexual abuse when he was a kid and how that has affected his life even today. He is also probably one of the smartest guys in the league, well liked, and is easy to root for in these times.

R.A. Dickey

 

Bryce Harper has burst onto the scene in a big way. With all eyes upon him because of his age he has shone like a bright star. He is hitting about .280 with 7 homeruns and has provided a spark for the Nats that has kept the team in first place for quite some time and has helped boost ticket sales in the nation’s capital.

As clearly confident as he it is clear that he has just enough humility to be likeable as well. We know that he is going to do and say some things that will show his lack of maturity, such as an incident where he punched or threw something that came back and cut him in the face, but as long as he continues to hustle the way he does and grows emotionally, he’ll be a star for a long time.

Bryce Harper

It does make me want to see more young guys called up to the big leagues. I truly think most players are sitting in the minors far too long. Many are coming from college and are already 22 or 23 when they get drafted and then spend a couple of years “seasoning” in the lower leagues. Bring them up already and get that energy onto the field.
I think that has been the second biggest mistake that big league clubs have been making over the last 15 years or so. The first is the ridiculous concentration on pitch counts. There is no way that any of these pitchers can strengthen their arms if they are limited the way that they are. What is truly insane is the amount of pitches (100) that makes everyone panic and the announcers in the booth start to worry about the health of the pitchers and the sanity of any manager for pushing the boundaries beyond that mark.
In between each inning the pitchers warm up by throwing 7-9 pitches. Stop throwing so many of them then. Throw 2 or 3 if its really such a concern. Use the energy for the game.

No one listens to me though so I am just talking to myself.

I have had a stack of hypnosis shows recently that have all gone really well. My show continues to get better and I continue to get great reviews for them.
I am trying to step up game somehow. I have been trying more booking agents to put me on their rosters across the country and have had some recent success with that.
But I believe that my show is ready for much greater things and I am trying to find a path that will take me there.
I am trying to find a publicist or a public relations firm that can help with this process.
I mention this mainly because I have to talk about how insanely expensive this is and how arrogant I have found these people to be so far.
These particular groups of people are supposed to help make contacts with important media outlets. For example one guy claims that he can get bookings on places like Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, Oprah, and places with large audiences like that.
But just to speak to this guy to find out if he will even work with you costs hundreds of dollars. That might not seem like a lot of money but that’s just a consultation. Then, if this guy decides to grace you and allow you to hire him you put him on a retainer for thousands of dollars… A MONTH. Then there are a minimum amount of months that they charge. Of course there are then no guarantees that it will work.

So I don’t really have thousands of dollars to spend on something without a guarantee. If I guaranteed success, then that’s a different story; I’d have the money. But I wasn’t born yesterday either.

Some idiot in Canada made national news when he hypnotized a bunch of young girls and allegedly couldn’t wake them out of hypnosis. He had to call his mentor to do it who told him to talk “in a stern voice” to awaken them.
What a quack. Both of them.
It is literally impossible to have someone not awaken from hypnosis. Somebody could fall asleep and a tap on the knee might be needed but in this case these morons simply didn’t say the right thing. I’m not going to give away how it’s done here. You have to pay ME thousands of dollars to learn how to do that.

I’ve started hitting the gym again with more intensity and have actually started to run again. I recently submitted an audition tape to the TV show Survivor and suddenly realized that I better get my ass in better shape just in case they actually call me.
The chances of that are slim, I would imagine, and I won’t even know one way or the other until January or February. But now I have a fitness goal in mind so that is helping motivate me to get in great shape.
It would be bad enough to be out in the wilderness without good shelter and little food but then to have to compete in lots of physical activities in horrible shape would make it even worse.

Besides, I’m 50 now and trying to find one more woman to spend the rest of my life with. Since no one wants to date a 50-year old dude, except 60 and 70-year-old women I don’t even want to look remotely porky. Wow this whole process is horrible and a completely different and long story. I’m trying to do it online and only have horror stories and funny stories to tell. I’ll save them for another time because for now I’m

Done.

Pure Adrenaline!

Some of my favorite commercials on TV are the Geico commercials. I love the gecko. I loved the woodchuck ad and most of all I love Maxwell the pig and his commercials.

Maxwell is an adrenaline junkie who loves to go fast and scream weeeeeeee whenever he is doing so.
What particularly makes me laugh at all of them though isn’t the fact that a pig is having so much fun and going weeeeeeeee and talking. No, it’s the fact that he is holding pinwheels in each hoof as he is doing so.
Who even owns a pinwheel anymore? How many people under 30 even would know what one was at first sight? It was such a random and goofy prop to stick in the ad that it kills me every time.

Maxwell the Gieco mascot

But, no matter how much I love the ads that Geico runs, I will never buy their product. It’s too expensive. It has to be spending all of that money coming up with all of those ads. Obviously they work to the point where people buy the product, but it will never be me. Not as long, anyway, as 21^st Century Insurance continues to cost me half of what every other plan does.

Over on American Idol last night, Heejun Han got the boot. It didn’t matter to America that he tried to get more serious the evening before or that a concerted effort to keep him on the show was in place. It was just his turn and it was inevitable.
Sadly that meant that DeAndre Brackensuck is still on the show. He is the absolute worst “singer” that has ever made it this far.
Jimmy Iovene had it right about Brackensuck; his style is polarizing. One can either love it or hate it. I HATE IT.
I also don’t like Joshua Ledet’s voice and style either but I get it how others might. He is at least likeable enough also.
My current belief is that Philip Phillips will win AI. Jessica Sanchez is the best singer left of the eight but the female vote is much larger this year, apparently.

I know people who scoff at American Idol for a few different and strange reasons. One thing is certain about this show, however, and it is that it is huge and powerful.
What other type of show has there been in prime time like this that attracts the type of stars to it like it does?
Let’s face it. Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler are superstars in the music industry and this show attracted them to it to take it on as a new career and it has made their careers bigger. Randy Jackson was well known in the industry also but as a member of bands (Journey for one) and is now pretty much just famous for AI.
Let’s not forget what it did for Ryan Seacrest.
The real proof of the shows power though was evidenced last night as last year’s winner Alfred E. Neumann (Scotty McCreary) was presented with a platinum album for his first-ever record. Platinum means one million albums sold. That was in less than a year, my friends. That is truly amazing.

The same holds true for The Voice, a show which I know continues to attract more viewers and even some of those who I know don’t like American Idol. After all this show has Christina Aquilera as a judge and not just for the first year but now also the second and the same holds true for the other three judges. I didn’t really see them all coming back for year two. This means that the opportunities for these judges, and anyone who appears on the show, are gigantic.

Speaking of gigantic, the Mega-Millions lottery drawing going off tonight is currently at 540 million dollars and it will grow by the time it is drawn tonight.
The cash option on that is a whopping 389 million dollars. If you just figure that half will go for taxes I will get a staggering 190 million dollars clear when I hit it tonight.

Tonight is my night!
If you see another blog of mine in a couple of days you will know that it wasn’t me who took the jackpot down to the bank. But if you never read this again you will also never hear anything from me again because I’ll disappear faster than my puppy’s breakfast every morning.

And stock up on pinwheels!

The premier edition of our second show, Marshcast, was recently posted. You can find it right here on this blog page over to the right in that Podbean player. As mentioned this is a mainstream show and in the first edition my friends Chris Park, Mike Peco, Pete Rotteveel and Dennis Morina joined me to discuss gas prices and what we believed could be done about it. A conversation about uses of urine came up also after I mentioned that someday it would be cool to use that to power cars. Wouldn’t that be awesome though?

Our second show with the same guys featured talk about gay marriage and about our favorite TV shows. If you even remotely like reading this page you’ll get to hear a whole lot more on this podcast and meet some new people who have some funny and interesting things to say as well.

Done

Silent No More

Ok, I can’t take being silent any longer. It’s time to get back into this.

I am someone who suffers from depression and there are simply times when it doesn’t matter how much I would like to write, that the battle with it makes it unwise to do so.

But Spring is here now which means baseball season is upon us and that is reason to have cheer.

Except if you root for the Mets, like I do.

Damn, now I’m depressed again.

I am a fan of American Idol, as you know by now, and one my regrets about not writing for a while is not being able to prove that I have again picked a bunch of singers who have made it into the top ten.
The ones that I picked early on during the show were Jessica Sanchez, Phillip Phillips, Elise Tostone, and Hollie Cavanagh. I did also pick Shannon Magrane, daughter of former MLB pitcher Joe Magrane, but she was eliminated in 11^th place and out of the tour.

Magrane was actually selected by the AI terrorists at www.votefortheworst.com as one of the worst singers. Granted she had one real bad night that spelled her eventual doom, but at 16 years of age, she belonged there.

The one who doesn’t belong there is Deandre Brackensick. (Lets just call him Brackensuck right now.) This kid is horrible in the mold of Sanjaya from a few years ago but at least Sanjaya didn’t shriek in falsetto and bop around like a bobble head on stage.

The VFTW terrorists have chosen Heejun Han as their worst of the group right now, and while Han has really blowin off tune the last couple of weeks, he at least has real personality and is funny. Brackensuck just sucks and needs to go.

It’s more obvious than ever that the voting audience is heavily female since Brackensuck is still hanging around and getting votes while decent singers like Magrane and particularly Erika Van Pelt, who was booted last night, are now gone.

DeAndre Brackensick

I think the two most interesting people left are Phillip Phillips and Colton Dixon right now.
Phillips is a humble southerner who took advice from singing coaches Jimmy Iovene and Diddy (or whatever that dude is calling himself now) and from fashion advisor Tommy Hilfiger and tossed it all out of the window. Iovene told Phil Phil to lose his guitar and Hilfiger said to never wear grey on stage. Phil Phil came out with his guitar strapped over not just one, but TWO gray shirts and blew the house down with his rendition of a Billy Joel song.

Dixon’s story is interesting because he was a contestant last year who made it to Hollywood week and was eliminated. This year he came to support his sister who was auditioning and he was going to audition. Somehow he was in the room in front of the judges with his sister (sort of suspicious, yes) and then was asked to sing again. He was put through to the next round…then the next round…then the next round, and now he is on this summer’s tour.
Dixon also is a Christian who makes it known to this National audience that God is his driving force. He apparently has been told to tone down talk of all that on the show and then last night gave thanks to God anyway.
I’m agnostic so I’m not pushing anything here one way or the other. I admired that the kid stood up for what he believed in that case.
Both Dixon and Phillips stood up for what they believed was right for them and that is particularly courageous given the fact that major players in the music and TV and fashion industries are telling them to other things. Neither of them have reached high levels of success where it wouldn’t matter if the industry booted them to the curb so to risk sacrificing potential higher levels of success to do what they think is right is admirable for sure.

I was happy to see Haley Reinhardt singing on the results show last night. She was looking hotter than ever. Not sure that I liked the song but I liked watching her sing it for sure.

There are so many other things to say because I’ve been away for so long. I sort of want to get it all out in case I don’t write again for a while but no one will stick around that long.

So I’ll make shorter notes.

I’ve been watching a lot of TV because it’s the only thing I can really afford to do these days.

The next time I write I’ll say more about the Voice. I continue to like that show and soon they will do live songs from their finalists. The guy with the actual best “Voice” there is an opera singer and it will be interesting to see how he will get molded to get enough votes to win the competition. Again, more later…if I don’t hibernate again.

I am a fan of the show The Bachelor on ABC. I won’t watch the Bachelorette because there are too many dudes on it for me. But watching 25 desperate women trying to find “love” on a TV game show creates so many opportunities for good laughs for me that it is so worth watching.
I also happen to be great at picking who will win. I have successfully chosen the past two winners from just the very first show of the season. That’s right, Bachelor fans, I picked Courtney from day one and during Brad’s second season I picked Emily from day one (who will be the Bachelorette this season.)

This past week we taped our last weekly version of the Dungeon of Manlove. It’s been a full year that we have been taping that show which has now reached into 61 different countries.
It’s time for a change of pace for us in our podcast world and next week we will begin taping our new show.

The new show will be pop culture related and will be a mainstream show rated PG (ok, perhaps from time to time someone will curse but there will be a warning, if so.)
The new people on this show will have their own blogs, such as this one, which will help them expand further on topics that come up on the show but perhaps we don’t return to discuss on it.
The main reason for this change is pretty simple; the Dungeon show has a niche audience and those who are on the show are all afraid to tell their friends that they are on it!
I never cared about all of that. I had nothing to lose if people didn’t like something we were doing on there. Ok, perhaps somewhere I missed something to gain, but I never wanted to play by all of those rules either (much like Phil Phil and Colton Dixon.)
But for those who are starting this new show with me I would like them to have the chance to share what they are doing with their friends without taking the same of risk that I took myself. I certainly don’t wish to force that type of risk on anyone.

I still don’t know what to call the new show though. I don’t really want to call it the Marshal Manlove show, because there is no draw because of my dumb assed name. I have been thinking about calling it Poppourri (as opposed to Potpourri of course) or something like “The Culture Vultures” (even though a websearch for that name had a few hits.)

Any ideas for a name of the new show? Send them to me and I’ll give you credit for it, if you wish.

But for now, I’m

Done.

Tiger Bombers

I wonder if any of these young women on American Idol who rush up and kiss Steven Tyler know that he is going to be 63 in March.

You have to hand it to him; he can still get hot women chasing him around.

He can’t sing the National Anthem though. This much he proved before the AFC Championship Game last weekend.

I have only spoken of football once since I have been writing this blog for a year now. I do root for the NY Football Giants and am excited to see them in the Super Bowl for the 5^th time next weekend in a rematch with the New England Patriots.
The Giants beat the Pats in a regular season match this year and they are pretty much on fire. While Tom Brady has been a machine for his career, he doesn’t play defense and the Pats pass defense is one of the worst in the league.
That’s not to say that Giants secondary is the best either. They have been banged up all year long. But their pass rush is good enough to keep Brady on his toes. If the Giants can establish a run game, they’ll win. Otherwise, it’s anyone’s guess.

So yes, it’s been a year since I have been writing this blog now. It has actually reached into 43 different countries thus far and I haven’t said anything of importance or relevance yet except to talk about Haley Reinhart last year on American Idol and Christina Aguilera’s fluorescent hair.

The countdown is now underway to Spring Training in MLB. The big news of the week was that free agent Prince Fielder signed a 9-year 214-million dollar deal with the Detroit Tigers, who again become the favorite to win the AL Central Division. The Tigers did lose a key player in Victor Martinez for the year to an ACL injury. He is a .330 hitter who drove in 106 runs last year. Fielder isn’t quite the hitter that he is. But he is a great replacement. The move does make the Tigers stronger for many more years though and it clearly is a long-term plan that they have.
This will mean that the AL’s leading hitter, Miguel Cabrera, will need to move to 3^rd base. Who knows what that now means for Brandon Inge who was playing there. But that’s just tough noogies for him because any team would happily replace anyone they had with Cabrera if given the opportunity.

My new puppy, Sasha, is now 3 months old. In the two weeks that I have had her she has nearly grown twice her size. It’s sad in a way but she is still beautiful. Since I don’t have any work scheduled for about 6 weeks (another sad story) I do have plenty of time to train her and she is doing quite well in puppy school.

I have to say that I just wrote about two pages chronicling how this year has started off just where it left off for me last year. But I deleted it. It doesn’t serve much purpose. Let me remain positive.

On the MLB Network there is a new baseball trivia show. This is now the most awesome show in all of television. Currently, people outside of baseball circles are not competing, but that’s ok. I love baseball trivia and find that for as much as I think I know, this game is pretty tough. It’s played a little differently than one might think. It’s not a simple one question, one answer type of thing. There are categories which relate to lists of answers. For example a category could be named something like “Tiger Bombers.” Then the contestants will find out that they have to name as many Tigers who have hit 30 homeruns in a season as possible. Or it could be something like name the top ten all-time Tiger homerun leaders. It’s very tricky to do after one reels off the first few obvious ones.

For baseball fans, I highly recommend this show.

Ok, that’s all I have then so I’m

Done.

Hot, Humid and Happenin

Yes, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, I just haven’t been feeling very chatty. Besides, there really isn’t a whole heck of a lot going on in Baseball and I haven’t done a hypnosis show since December 20^th and don’t have one on the schedule right now until March 3^rd.

But American Idol did start again, the Bachelor is back on and I got a puppy so there are some things to say.

American Idol did feature a baseball player on its opening night though. Former St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Joe Magrane has a daughter who passed her audition and helped provide an awkward moment on the show.
Shannon Magrane, 15 years old and 6 feet tall entered the judges chambers in Atlanta and shortly thereafter brought her family in with her including her dad who currently works for the MLB Network. After busting out her song Idol judge and former rocker Steven Tyler said its “hot, humid and happenin, just like your daughter.”

It was too funny. I wondered for a moment if her father was going to throw a water bottle or something at 90 mph towards him, but he sucked it up and didn’t say a word. After all, his daughter was moving on to Hollywood. Everyone, even a former MLB player, can be bought.

I watch the Bachelor because I like to make fun of all of the desperate women who try to find love on a TV show. I do envy, however, every single dude that gets to play the Bachelor. He has 25 women at his feet and he knows pretty much that they all want him. This season the guy who is the Bachelor has a bumper crop of women though and I do like to try to predict who will be in the final four.
If you watch this show I’ll mention my final five. I’m having a tough time chopping down the last one because he is a self-professed fan of brunettes and the best one there is a blond.
So here it goes briefly…Courtney, Kacie B, Casey S, Emily and Nicki.

I hadn’t really been looking for a new dog yet but had been casually searching for Golden Retrievers online when I sent a link to some to a friend of mine to see. They were pure-bred dogs and I really was just window shopping. He wrote back and said, “don’t go that route, rescue a dog,” and sent me a link to Petfinders.com and a page which had Goldens on it. I immediately saw the cutest little puppy face I had seen in quite some time and saw that she was mixed with Siberian Husky, a breed I also favor.
I instantly sent a note and after a few notes back and forth I drove down to W. Virginia two days later to get her. I have named her Sasha. She has her own Facebook page already (Sasha Manlove) and since business is basically non-existent right now I have plenty of time to house train her and begin obedience training.

The move was a great one for me. The three months since my last dog Brother died was the longest that I have been without a pet since I can remember. It’s been lonely in here and now I am feeling a little better with her in the house.

That’s about all that I wanted to say except that I am doing a public show in Delaware for the first time this coming March 9^th at St. Marks HS in Wilmington. If you are interested in seeing my show just head over to www.firststatehypnosis.com for more details.

Done

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