Saturday 5-29-21
Though I’d gotten to bed late Friday night after month end
processing, I’d gotten up only a bit late.
After exercising and showering, I tried to decide what to do next as Major League Baseball came on a Mexican
channel. It was the Devil Rays (the Rays in
their throwbacks) against the Phillies. I watched all of the first inning, where Austin Meadows hit a two-run homer to
put the Rays up 2-0.
Hunger finally made up my mind. I left to run by the Barnes & Noble for a minute to look for a couple of magazines. I couldn’t find the Archie digest I was looking for, but finally found the latest issue of Imagine FX. The last issue I’d gotten didn’t really convince me to buy another, but after seeing that spectacular Pernille Orum cover, I was interested in taking a look at it.
After two fruitless visits to the bookstore to find a
copy, I finally looked online for a good image of the cover for wallpaper. Unexpectedly, I found the issue available for
free and downloaded it from what looked like a somewhat reputable website. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? It really didn’t occur to me that the whole
issue would be posted up for grabs anywhere. I’d planned on buying it anyway, but after
reading it, only the Pernille material interested me. If they
sell it with a poster of the cover, I’d probably still want it, I
thought.
Today, there it was and it did have a poster inside. Swell.
How much? $17! Owww!
The other issue I’d gotten was $20, but it was a third bigger and had a
bunch of art I liked in it. If it was $15, I could have probably still talked
myself into it. I’m just going to
have to live with being a pirate. (There
was also a link in the PDF for a download of Imagine FX’s first issue.
Even with that, it still wouldn’t have been worth $17.)
I went to McAlisters
on the way back. I’d run right into the
heavy lunch crowd and had to cool my heels for a while waiting for my Chicken Avocado BLT. I got back home famished after walking for
the whole trip in 90-something-degree heat.
The sandwich was great.
Admittedly, anything would have tasted great. Oddly, the bacon was actually weakest
ingredient involved. (Sidebar: I had one
of these in 2019. I didn’t even
remember it. I wrote, “It didn’t hold
together well.” The current sandwich is
an improvement.)
The game score hadn’t changed three innings later. I got back in time to see the Phillies tie it
in a painful manner. Roman Quinn blew his hammy rounding
third. He had to be carried off. The Rays eventually won 5-3. I missed the go-ahead
score, as I was flipping between this and another game.
Dad called. He was
out of town. He’d gone with Joe to City of Rocks park and was about to eat
lunch. He hadn’t mentioned planning this
trip. I wasn’t invited. He said he tried calling me, but didn’t leave
a message or try my cell. I guess I’ll
see him tomorrow anyway.
The other game was Oklahoma
versus Washington in the NCAA Softball tournament. They said this was the first time they’d
shown softball on ABC. Last week, I’d hit the wrong numbers on the
remote for the TV at work and saw a little of ESPN2 showing a softball game, which was by odd coincidence, Seattle U playing Michigan. I’m sure the Redhawks,
who’d beaten the Aggies to get in, were
thrilled to be on national TV.
The Sooner’s stadium was filled and an impressive facility
with multiple stands, outfield seating, and free berm lawn seating. The team is averaging 12 runs a game this
season, including dropping 30+ runs on the Lobos. The Huskies, meanwhile, were a 16 seed. They’d been ranked in the national top 10 all
year and were disappointed by the placement to the point of actually walking
out after their selection.
I’ll say this much, in addition to some attractive
players, both head coaches were pretty good-looking. The Washington main pitcher was also catching
my eye. Admittedly, not the sort of girl
I usually go for, but she was always flashing a pretty smile in the circle with
a light shade of red hair.
As for the game, OK dominated and won on a run rule, 9-1.
The crowd there loved their team.
One of the girls even came out for curtain call after a home run. Afterward, the team went to the outfield wall
with the years of their College World
Series births on it, took it off, and carried it to home plate to have
another year added to it. They go into
the CWS with a 50-2 record.
Flipping around, I saw 7’ of extra time as Chelsea beat Man City for the UEFA
Championship, 1-nil. I thought I
read something on the ticker that this was the first time an American player
had been on a championship-winning team.
There was also Mexican League
Baseball on. I couldn’t identify the
teams. It looked like an interesting
game, but it couldn’t hold my attention, other than the rabbit mascot waving to
the crowd. Stadium was also showing indoor
football later. There was even
outdoor football on Fox
earlier. It’s some kind of developmental
league.
I was waiting for the Dodgers
versus Giants game coming up. Fox started showing games again on Saturday
nights, basically exclusively Dodger games so far in my area. The Dodgers swept out the Giants in San
Francisco earlier in the month. The
Giants had been looking good up and surprisingly leading the division up to
that point. No one was surprised by the
sweep. With the reciprocal series in LA,
the Giants have come back with a vengeance.
They blasted the Dodgers Friday night.
The pregame showed Cody
Bellinger back with the team. The
Giants picked right up from last night with the hitting, but good Dodger
defense kept them from scoring in the first.
Though the Dodgers took a lead, Julio
Urias proved very hittable. He walked
in a run in the second for a 3-1 Giants lead. Donavan
Solano at second made two errors in a row next inning leading to a run. Buster
Posey called time and talked to the infield. He’s basically coaching the team. Gabe
Kapler just gets coffee and donuts for him.
Donavan came up the next inning and hit a two-run homer. I missed it live. I was watching the end of Twister in Spanish on a Mexican
station. I couldn’t resist. It’s such a big dumb, but entertaining
movie. It’s not Bill Paxton’s best or best-remembered role, but it was his
biggest.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Albert Pujols is now playing for the Dodgers. I’d say this would help the Angels by finally getting rid of him,
but Mike Trout is on the IL. The curse continues. Shohei
Ohtani is meanwhile having a great season hitting and pitching. He’s well on his way to being Andre Dawson: the league MVP on a last
place team. Anyway, the Giants continued
to pour it on and won 11-6. The play of the game belonged to Mike Yastrzemski, who handed a ball to
a delighted child between innings, which was all caught on camera. The little boy then handed it to a pretty
lady next to him. Power move, junior,
especially with her husband right there.
And there was playoff hockey between the Islanders vs Bruins. I just haven’t sat
down to try and watch any hockey since that Winter Classic debacle by Lake Tahoe. I’m
still smarting that I missed the NBC
special on Mike “Doc” Emrick, who quietly retired before
the season. (It was bad enough losing “Uncle” Ted Leitner.) Emrick was my actual favorite play-by-play
announcer.
The game looked pretty good as I was flipping between it
and baseball. The score went
back-and-forth. There was a big fight at
end of the second period. David Pastrnak scored a hat trick for
Boston. He picked a good time for it as
there was a full house of fans there, who showered the rink with hats. Boston won 5-2. There was an empty net
goal late.
I tuned in for tonight’s Chihuahuas game and was surprised by ESPN Radio coverage of the Padres
and Astros. I had no idea that was on. (I’m planning on checking for a day game on
Monday.) I sort of wish I’d been
listening, but on the other hand, they broke away from the game in the 12-th
inning to go to the local team. That
would have sucked, if I’d been more invested in it. The Padres would win it as I saw on the
out-of-town scoreboard in Dodger Stadium. Apparently, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a game-tying three-run homer to send it to
extras. Okay, now I’m sorry I missed that
game.
I listened to a couple of innings and heard the Chihuahuas
take the lead. At sundown at around
8:00, the station powered down. The only
Rangers game of the three-day
weekend that I could listen to (having lost the El Paso affiliate and still bitter)
was coming on at that time. I switched
over to the after dark Amarillo affiliate to hear their game against the Mariners. I’m only going to get so many opportunities
to hear Eric Nadel and Matt Hicks calling these games this
season. The Rockies aren’t doing any night games over the holiday that I could
listen to.
Reading an MLB
article on possible beneficial trades for contending teams, they’d written
about what a great fit Joey Gallo
would be for the Yankees. Indeed, they made a great case. Just one problem, they never mentioned what
the Yankees would be trading the Rangers in return. I guess the Rangers should just do it for the
good of the league.
The Mariners were playing with Jarred Kelenic, baseball’s top prospect. The Chihuahuas had faced him on the Tacoma Rainiers in their first series
of the season. After hitting a couple of
home runs and doing well, the M’s moved him up to the big league. On the Rangers, they suddenly had a rookie
phenom in Adolis Garcia, who I think
is leading the league in home runs.
Meanwhile, the Rangers have been better known for getting no-hit twice
this season. (That’s okay. So have the Mariners and the Indians. I begin to wonder if the issue here isn’t
that there’s several historically bad hitting teams in the league this year.) One of those no-no’s was by Corey Kluber on the Yankees. Kluber pitched one inning for the Rangers
last season before having a season-ending injury.
The two games nearly finished at the same time in spite of
the hour difference in start times. I
really wish I’d just stuck with the Rangers game, since it turned out to be
pretty good. The Chihuahuas were losing
bad when I checked back and the game was dragging. Two-and-a-half hours in and they were in the
sixth. I just wanted the final
score. It could have been worse. The crowd there endured a 12-5 loss that took three-and-a-half
hours while they were waiting for fireworks.
The Rangers made it interesting in the ninth when they were down by
2. The tying run was on base, but they
lost 3-2.
Finally, after doing a drawing and giving up on doing any more
writing, I sat down and watched Ring of
Honor Wrestling. Does that count as
a sport? Well, if watching a fake
competition with real athleticism isn’t a sport, then I’ll start excluding any NFL coverage from this blog. (No, I don’t get tired of saying that.) Quinn
McKay was darling as ever. She was
featured in several segments. The
feature match was an 8-man tag team bout, which was surprisingly
entertaining. With that, I went to bed
early.
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