The Right Voice

For those of you who know me (and I am assuming you do because you are reading this, but you never know) you know that I like politics and softball. Well, today (and two weeks ago) they merged. Today, our game was at the National Mall with the Washington Monument in the background. Very picturesque place to play.

Well, that’s where the picturesque-ness (not a word, I know) ends. The field was deplorable. No infield to speak of sans a few patches of dirt where there used to be an infield. The outfield grass ranged from about 1 and a half inches high to 3 inches high. Let me take this moment to talk about humidity. There is nothing good to say about it. After about 5 minutes, I was drenched in sweat and the shade provides no relief. For 7 innings, we drudged it out. We were dragging the last two. We ended up winning 22-10.

Did I have fun? Of course I did. I don’t usually toot my own horn, but toot toot. I was 2-3 with a triple, sac fly and 3 RBIs. YOUR Heritage Capitalist Tools are 8-2 and in first place in the Whig division of the Washington DC Think Tank League.

Oh yeah, I was in Austin, TX this weekend.

Todd

I would have loved to see the end of the All Star game last night. I love baseball and I love watching baseball. As a kid I looked forward to the All Star game every year and I loved it. Last night was to be no different…except now I live on the East Coast. The 835 start time was too much to overcome. Part of the blame goes to FOX and Tim McCarver, I guess, but it all goes back to the worthless slug of a commissioner known as Bud Selig.

Back before he ruined everything good and pure about baseball the All Star Game, as well as the World Series, used to be on during a time when everyone could watch it. It allowed everyone to enjoy the game, whether it was skipping work, or listening during school on transistor radios. The point is, that great memories were made from the time doing whatever you had to do to watch, or hear, the game.

With the current attitude of everything needing to be in prime time to make the maximum amount of money possible, the decision was made to put the games in Prime Time (for the East Coast). In theory, that wasn’t as big of a deal. Starts at 8, theoretically ends at 11, giving everyone plenty of time for sleep. However, that all changed when Bud Selig let FOX have a monopoly for post season and extra curricular baseball. Things went downhill in a hurry.

Sure, at the beginning, FOX was fine. They started a lot of innovative features that were copied by everyone else who broadcast baseball. However, the cool, new innovations quickly turned to really annoying features that seemed only there to glorify FOX and take away from the game they were broadcasting. They spent probably half the game showing the stars of whatever show they ended up cancelling a month later and, of course, the “celebrity” is wearing the hat of whatever the home team was (usually the Yankees so Tim McCarver can exploit his man-crush and drool at the site of Derek Jeter).

Bud Selig was at the helm when baseball became a shell of it’s former greatness. Thankfully, he can’t single handily destroy baseball, but he is doing his best. I wonder if Major League Baseball can make more money if all the games were broadcast exclusively online for a paid subscription? At least we won’t have to listen to Tim McCarver.

Todd

This last week has been a long one, but also a fun one at the same time. Monday I had a late night t work and I did not get home until 8, went to bed at at 11 and started over the next day. Tuesday, I had plans to meet a friend of mine and after work I took the Metro to Adam’s Morgan and we met up for dinner and drinks. I got home at 10 and went to bed at 11 and started over. Wednesday, there was a happy hour party put on by a blogger at the Top of the Hill room in the Pour House on Pennsylvania Ave. I went to that after work and stayed there until about 8 and got home about 930, or so, went to bed at 11 and started over. Thursday, I got of work at 3 and got home about 430. We picked my friend’s fiance up form the airport at 9 and we had dinner and saw a movie. We got home at 130 or so. We got to sleep in on the 4th, until about 930. We took care of some things we had to do (shopping, mall, otherwise) We got home and we all took a nap. After the nap, we headed over to DC for the party at mywork and watched the fireworks from the roof and went home. We got home at around 10 or 1030. Got up at 930 on Saturday for an intense day of touring as my friend’s fiance has never been to DC. We started with the Internatiaonal Spy Museum. We got tickets for the 4 o’clock hour and headed to the National Mall area. We took in the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, World War II (the big one) Memorial, and the Smithsonian. We walked by the capital and headed back to the spy museum. We got done with the spy museum and headed home. After we got the car, we headed for a place to eat. After eating we headed home. By this time, it was 11 and we left the apartment at 11. A full 1 hours. We were exhausted.

It was a week of long nights, but I had a really good time this week. It is something I don’t like to do all the time, but I  am not opposed to it once in a while. I am excited about next week, though, because softball starts.