Baseball In The Daytime: 6-21-07

I hope all you pervs enjoyed your portion of softcore smut yesterday, I sure did. Now that Bankmeister has issued his weekly post and we're still a couple days away from Cecil's weekend witchcraft, you're stuck with me til payday. Suck it up, and enjoy some more weekday baseball, bitches.

I don't know who's catching for the Cubs these days, but someone's going to have to drop signs for Ted Lilly (6-4) starting at 12:05 Mountain. Chicago gets one more game in Arlington against the Rangers, following last night's awkward milestone. The eminently awful Vincente Padilla (3-8) gets the start for Texas on XM 182 and DTV 734. One juicy Cubs note is that even though the White Sox are hosting their interleague, intracity rivalry series this weekend, they'll still play the afternoon game tomorrow. Awesome.

The Big One today is at Coors. Seriously. The Rockies have gone to the hardware store and purchased brooms, and they're fixing to break them out against the God damned Bronx Bombers at 1:05 on XM 176 and DTV 735 (no word on FSRM's intentions). The Rocket will make over a million dollars to try and halt the Yankees' miniature losing streak, while the surprising Rodrigo Lopez revisits his old AL East tormentors. I am trying very hard to reach a spot where I can watch this game and give y'all some updates and observations, we'll see how that goes. By the way, the Red Sox are back to a double-digit division lead, so everyone can step away from the bridge railing.

Although those Red Sox have already arrived in San Diego for their weekend series versus the Padres, their hosts still have a getaway game with the Orioles to host. This one gets underway at 1:35 on XM 189 and DTV 736. Erik Bedard, who's only 4-4 despite a nice ERA and the MLB lead in strikeouts (the O's 'pen is horrible), faces B.F. David Wells (3-4) in another ex-AL East matchup.

UPDATE: I tried to live-blog Rockies-Yanks, I really did. But the "sports bar" I intended to watch from was an abject disaster: it doesn't open until 2, it has no wireless Web-com-nets and the TVs have neither Extra Innings nor Fox Sports Rocky Mountain. These are the times when living in a small, isolated alpine community licks the balls. As a bonus, I'm blacked out from watching on MLB.TV, so I'm stuck with the radio broadcast. I could say fuck it and go home, but that would be bad form. I'd rather sit, sulk and not work. By the way, a couple of solo jacks from Atkins and Tulowitzki have tied it at 2, end of the 2nd. Read more

Father's Day

Two-thirds of the HoG rolls dad-free. It's just how we do.

But you know, boys and dads and everything. It's nice to grab a moment here, on this June day that some old lesbian dreamed up, Richard Nixon acknowledged and Hallmark coronated, to remember the important things our Dads taught us as kids.

Baseball, for instance. Or how to (not) shoot a 30-foot hook shot while holding a full can of beer. The value of the eternal sweater. Being a good sport, shaking the other kids' hands even though it was the savage era pre-Little League mercy rules and they beat your asses 42-7. Donuts, coffee, fishing lures.

Today, my wife, my sister, her husband, their two boys and I took a jaunt to Centennial Airport to see the Aluminum Overcast, one of the few flying B-17 bombers extant. We climbed in, like my dad did in World War II before another bombing run over Germany, through a tiny door and onto a tiny landing that I'd never squeeze through after a few Pabst and a can of wax beans.

We tiptoed along the catwalk. Seven feet from the tarmac, 30,000 in my imagination, thinking about how they'd have to literally kick stuck bombs loose in mid-air. It was like touring the inside of a watch. All mechanics, no room for humanity.

I won't use this occasion to mount my partisan soapbox, lecture about how subsequent generations lost that important sense of shared misery. Not today. I just hunched in that ancient weapon of war, worn silver with the dust of a thousand fly-ins, parked and breathing hot in the prairie sun, and wished I could buy my old dad a cheap beer at some bowling alley bar.

(Bowling alley bars: yet another valuable lesson.) Read more