Category: Baseball

Dusty Does What He Must

Baseball, Politics

(Via Think Progress.)

Opening Day: The Making of a Presidential Photo-Op: “

This afternoon, President Bush was on hand to throw out the first pitch in Cincinnati as the hometown Reds took on the visiting Chicago Cubs. Before the game, President Bush had an encounter with Cubs manager Dusty Baker that was described by Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post in the White House pool report:

He greeted Cubs manager Dusty Baker with a handshake. ‘This is the year, right?’ Bush said, in what some in the pool thought as sarcasm directed at the team’s perennial pennant futility.

‘Dusty Baker, good to know you,’ POTUS continued, turning to the cameras. He held the grip and grinned as the cameras snapped away. ‘Smile,’ POTUS encouraged, and Baker complied, saying: ‘I’ll do what I got to do.’

And with a little cajoling, Bush got the photo-op he wanted:

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“

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Cubs Tix!

Baseball

It’s been a stressful few days, but our Cubs tickets are bought. I’ve spent the last five days endlessly dialing ticket offices and re-loading the online ticket site, in a seemingly futile effort to secure tickets to a game. Now finally, after widening our target window for travel and game selection, I got Cubs tickets for the family and we’ll in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field this summer!

What has become of me? A few short years ago, I couldn’t give a flying f*#! about baseball. Seasons could start and end, with me only barely aware. Now I’m counting days until tickets go on sale, I know when Opening Day is, and I’m actually aware of some general comings and goings on different team rosters. Don’t misunderstand, I’m no encyclopedic sports fanatic or anything. But I guess I’m changing, because I’ve discovered an interest in the game I have had since I was a little leaguer. I’ll be 40 by the time our Cubs game this summer roles around, and I know I’ll enjoy it more than I would have as a kid. I will no longer watch the pros with the little leaguer’s dream of growing up to be one of them one day. I will instead be older than most of the players on the field, and will enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that each beer I drink is helping each of them earn more in that single game than I might earn over many years of work. Wow, it may take several beers to take the sting out of that reality.

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Nomar Stays A Cub

Baseball

I still consider myself a fledgling baseball fan. Not yet a long suffering Cubs fan, but I have suffered with them. And despite the exciting, curse-breaking win by the Red Sox, it’s still an off-season of disapointment for Cubs fans, waiting for Spring and another season. And there was good off-season news today, Nomar Garciaparra has re-signed with the Cubs to play a second season. It must have been tough, watching the Redsox break the curse without him, but I am glad he’ll be back in Wrigley next season to help break a different curse.

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Greetings from Boston!

Baseball, Politics, Travel

Chris & Neil @ ConventionI’m sitting in the last row of Section 320 in the Fleet Center in Boston, the section of this area that has been designated as ‘Blogger Alley’ for the event we are all here to attend, The Democratic National Convention. So much as happened since getting here last Friday, it’s difficult to find the time to recount it all! (As I’m typing right now, my old boss, Senator Edward Kennedy, has just begun his speech, really).

I am here at my third Democratic Convention working in the Democratic News Service. Our mission, to help the candidates and elected officials that are here to reach their local news… television, radio, and Internet. My team’s focus is on the Internet. The Convention’s web team is doing a great job with the officlal Convention web site, that’s not what we’re doing from the DNS. We are working to help do some matchmaking between the politicians who use the DNS, and the online media and bloggers who are here to cover this event. And so far it’s going very well.

But I should back up a bit. The adventure began last Friday, when I arrived on got checked into my very nice dorm room at Northeastern University. Not quite the Four Seasons, but then again I am one of 30,000 or so visitors who have descended on Boston for the Convention, and having any place to rest your head is something to be thankful for, even a college dorm room with roomates (not somewhere I imagined to find myself again at 39). My good friend Neal Stillman accepted my invite to join the Internet team in the DNS, and we began the week eager to take in another event here in Boston… yes, the evil New York Yankees were coming to play the Red Sox at Fenway. We took in the Friday night game at a popular sports bar near Fenway, the Cask and Flagon. And though the Red Sox lost, I still took a bet from my Yankee friend Bobby that the Sox would win the series. Two days and many beers later, I won that bet. Go Sox!

The ball games were a welcome distraction, but we were plenty busy getting oriented with the Fleet Center, setting up our workspace, training our teams, and enjoying the buzz and parties of the big start on day one. Conventions are hectic by definition, and this one is no different, except for the fact that this is a ‘National Security Event’, and so the Fleet Center has been turned into a fortress, and the troops/police/security are everywhere in Boston. At least they’re not wearing Red Coats.

Stay tuned, more to come…

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