Realm of the Wombat

Trial of the century: Devo v. McDonalds

What happens when an ambidextrous pitcher faces a switch hitter? In the New York-Penn league, chaos.

#1, Little League Division:
Occasionally in non-professional games, a pitch will be thrown above or behind the batter, and the ball will incidentally hit the bat and land in foul territory. This is seen as a lucky break for the pitcher, as the pitch was destined to be called a ball, but instead goes as a strike, without the batter swinging at the pitch. However, at a recent little league game in Ohio, a pitch was thrown behind the batter that hit the bat and landed in fair territory. Most everyone at the field believed it was a foul ball. Fortunately, that population did not include the umpire who, after several seconds of silence, informed the 9-11 year old players that the ball was in play. The batter reached first, completely unintentionally obtaining a single.

#1, MLB Division:
Felix Hernandez is a 22 year old pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. He made his debut at age 19 and is expected to be one of the best pitchers of this generation. However, playing in the American League, he has few opportunities to take a turn at bat. In fact, he only has two hits in his career. (It’s also likely that he had no hits in the minor leagues.) The first came on June 10, 2007, when he reached first safely on a bunt that was presumably meant to sacrifice a runner to second base. The second hit came on Monday night, facing Johan Santana, the best pitcher in baseball over the last 5+ years, at Shea Stadium, a park that supressed home runs by 10% in the 2007 season. In the second inning, Hernandez came to the plate, with two outs and the bases loaded; there was no chance he would be bunting. Instead, the budding superstar hit a fastball, later described by Santana as out of the strike zone, over the right-center fence for a grand slam.

And that, my friends, is what happened on my last visit to Shea Stadium.

Joe Morgan is the analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN must consider him an expert to give him this job. His responsibilities include following baseball games and news and providing intelligent commentary. He does none of these things. Consider the following exchange from last Tuesday’s chat on ESPN.com:

Lee (NYC): Joe, thanks for taking my question. I am a Yankee fan but I have always been a huge Willie Randolph fan. I feel that Willie Randolph has nothing to do with the mess the Mets are in. Shouldn’t Omar Minaya take most of the blame? He put this team together.

Joe Morgan: He has to take his share of the blame for putting the team together, but the manager usually takes the blame first. If Willie is fired, the focus will go to the GM. If he stays, the focus will stay on him. But it would be that way in other cities too. The Mariners are way under .500, for instance, but no one is criticizing the GM, they’re looking at the manager.

I’m guessing that the average fan in Kansas City or Houston doesn’t know who the manager and GM of the Mariners are. But Joe Morgan, the top baseball analyst for ESPN, should know. He should also know that the Mariners’ GM, Bill Bavasi, was fired the day before this chat took place while the manager was not.

This is a diagram of the typical route of the CTA #174 bus from the University of Chicago to the Garfield Red Line station:

This is a diagram of the route we took last night:

The driver was clearly lost. My coworker JJ asked the driver what was happening. The driver said he missed a turn and was going to get back on course. He added that he had been driving the route all day, insinuating that JJ should sit down and mind his own business. A few minutes later, we were heading back toward campus. JJ again asked where the driver was going. He replied that he was going back to the university. My coworker then explained that he had just picked us up on campus. The driver changed his story and said that he was new to the route. Finally, he let JJ give him directions to the Red Line, and we made it there just in time to watch the train head off toward downtown.

Since I’m sure CTA doesn’t care, I will likely send this story to the IOC.

tie-5) Any of the 50 people who were standing on the trail with no intention of moving
4) The female who was rollerblading very slowly across the entire width of the trail while talking on her cell phone
3) The guy riding toward me on the far right edge on a very crowded trail and made no attempt to avoid a crash with me
2 & 1) The two guys walking toward me who were kicking a soccer ball back and forth across the trail

Miss Rockaway Armada: Berkeley boats? (pics/about)

I saw this crazy bike outside the Art Institute. It’s sort of an art vehicle so I got the picture.

However, when I walked behing it, I discovered that it’s actually a mobile puppet show. Seen here are a penguin and a monkey.

At PuppetBike.com you can see all eight of the puppets and reserve the bike for a party. Someone out there must be organizing a party in Chicago this summer…