Last night, my long-suffering wife and I ventured up the road a piece to Altoona, PA to take in a AA baseball game between the Altoona Curve (Pirates affiliate) and the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets and Tigers affiliate). Lest anyone ask, I do not know the difference between a rumble pony, a show pony and/or a Shetland pony. According to the team media guide, the name was changed in 2016 to the Rumble Ponies to “reflect Binghamton’s standing as the ‘Carousel Capital of the World’”. Who knew…?
Binghamton won last night 4-3 rallying for 3 runs in the 8th inning against a relief pitcher who looked terrible. Two players for the Rumble Ponies played very well last night:
- Nick Meyer looked excellent on defense as a catcher, and he has a strong arm.
- Luis Carpio made two excellent defensive plays at third base; he also had two hits and is fast. Most MLB teams look for power hitting at third base and Carpio is a “little guy”; he may need to hit the weight room to make it at third base in the majors.
One more item from last night: The game took 2 hours and 36 minutes. There was a 15-second pitch clock when no runners were on base. The game moved along smartly; when MLB and the MLBPA lock horns over the next CBA, they should agree on a pitch clock for the majors.
Moving on, I read a report early this week that there were going to be changes in rugby matches played at The Aviva stadium in Dublin. That is where my son, daughter-in-law and grandson live and that is the stadium where I saw my only live international rugby game, so I sent a note asking if this announcement portended good or evil. Here is the response from #1 son:
“This is like a stadium in the US switching from Anheuser-Busch to Miller.”
Moving on … On Wednesday of this week, I got an email from a former colleague that I filed away to use on a “rainy day”. Here is the pertinent part of that note:
“Mitchell Trubisky got married on July 3rd. Now we know he completed at least one pass in his life.”
[Aside: Yes, my friend is a Green Bay Packers’ fan…]
I had planned to “respond” here by wondering if the ceremony included a reception. But for now, just recall that the marriage was on July 3rd because that date was not completely celebratory for every NFL QB and his marital status.
Dwayne Haskins and his wife were in Las Vegas on July 3rd to renew their wedding vows. According to reports, they were married last March; most married couples wait a tad longer than that to renew their vows but too each his own. That Vegas visit ended poorly for Haskins family; he lost a tooth when his wife allegedly hit him during an argument, and she was subsequently arrested and charged with domestic violence. According to the report in the NY Post, the argument arose over a dispute about plans for the evening; Haskins and his friends went to a night club without waiting for his wife and her friends.
One report I read said that Haskins would “require surgery” to repair the damage done in the course of this incident. The Steelers’ training camp starts in less than two weeks and Haskins needs to demonstrate an uptick in his talent, his maturity and his leadership to make the team in a backup QB role. Somehow, I do not think this recent incident is a plus for his career.
Mentioning Las Vegas in the item above provides a segue to reports that officials from the Oakland A’s have now paid three visits to Las Vegas looking for possible stadium sites there. The A’s desperately need a new stadium; the powers that be in Oakland and in Alameda County are not amenable to funding a new playpen; the A’s want to build a stadium and to develop the land around it at a site on the waterfront in Oakland but the infrastructure costs for that site are estimated to be at least $1B; the local officials have not shown any interest in that idea.
Hence the team’s looking around for another place to play their home games. The most recent information is that the team and the officials in Nevada have identified two sites in Henderson, NV. For those who have not been to that part of the world, Henderson is the moral equivalent of a Las Vegas suburb just southeast of the city. Reports say that the aim of these visits is to find the right place to put a 30,000-seat baseball stadium that would cost $1B or so.
Is this just a power play to nudge the pols in Oakland to shift their position? Sadly, Miss Cleo is not around to tell us how all of this will play out, but the fact remains that the A’s facility in Oakland as of 2021 is a mess. Even the little minor league park in Altoona I visited last night does not have random sewage backups in the clubhouse and dugout areas.
If you are interested in the scope of the research here and the various actors in this potential move to Las Vegas, you can catch up with this report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Finally, having mentioned two NFL QBs in their role as husbands above, let me close with this observation from French writer, Honoré de Balzac:
“The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
Actually, when they met, Trubisky tried to send a drink to her friend… but it was intercepted….
Ed:
BaDaBing! BaDaBoom!!!