I’m not real sure what happened, but my international readership kind of exploded yesterday. Usually when I check my analytics, I’ll have one or two foreign countries, and it’s usually Canada (not that exotic) or Ireland (probably Nelson). Today, my list consists of (in order of most visited): Brazil, Colombia, France, Mexico, UK, Portugal, Thailand, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Argentina, Canada, India, Malta, and the Netherlands. A couple of visits that didn’t have a country set. This all in addition to more or less my usual hits from the US. I don’t know what I did differently, but something must have worked. As far as actual sports are concerned, I really didn’t watch much last night, I was too busy fooling around with broken computers at home. The good news there is I’ve got everything working, and I even finished Sucker’s Portfolio while I was waiting for things to download and install. It was, overall, pretty fantastic, as Kurt Vonnegut tends to be. I will say, though, the unfinished story at the end had me a little rankled. Not because it was unfinished, which was a shame, don’t get me wrong. The premise it sets up is really promising. But what bothered me was the second person narrative. I have never read anything in second person that hasn’t just bugged the hell out of me. I suppose we all have our irrational dislikes. Some people hate purple. I hate “you.” From what I did watch, I saw the very end of the Pacers actually beating a team last night. Not only did they finally break 80, but they even managed to break 100 last night. They gave up more than usual, too, but given how the last few weeks have gone, I am not about to complain it. Just, please, keep it up, guys. The Cubs also managed to lose, which was not at all surprising. I have no doubt the Pirates are a much better team than the Cubs. What has been surprising about these losses is how close they’ve been. The first game went ten innings. Last night went 16. That averages out to 13 innings a game, or 2,106 innings for a season. As opposed to the usual 1,458 at nine innings a game. The Pirates and Cubs better hope they have some pretty tout bullpens. There are also a few exciting announcements to make. For one, Brad Montague, the guy behind Kid President, posted on Facebook yesterday a deal has been reached with Hub Network to make Kid President a TV show. I really couldn’t be more thrilled for Brad. Back when he was more into the musical comedy scene, he came to Wabash to appear on The Arson Show* and give a concert. You can listen to Brad’s live performances on the radio show here, though he rode along with us all morning. It was a great time, and he introduced Nelson and I to “Mountain Trip to Old Japan, 1959” by the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players, something we still heavily quote to each other to this day. He also spent a couple days sleeping in Morris Hall on my bed. So, yeah, long story short, I’ve been a Brad fan for a long time. He really couldn’t be a nicer guy, and it’s great to see nice, hard working guys win. *That would be Nelson and I’s college radio show. They called us Arson and Nelron on the disc team, and it was decided that Arson would make for a better title than Nelson. It really had nothing to do with setting fires, I promise. Secondly, I was contacted by a fellow from Answers.com yesterday. They’ve apparently done some reading of this blog and liked what they saw. As such, they reached out to me to write articles for their baseball section. I’m pretty conflicted about it, though. My “payment” would strictly be exposure. On the highest level, I’m against this sort of thing, just like I am for people that want bands to perform for free. If you want somebody to produce something for you, whether it be a physical product or a creative work, you really ought to pay for that. The only exception I can think of is college athletics, and even those guys are (generally) getting something significant in return for their services. With writing, especially, content farms get a pretty bad rap for taking advantage of writers and generally contributing to the downfall of responsible, reputable journalism. Which isn’t entirely fair, I feel, but not entirely off-base, either. So, yeah, that’s not great, and I don’t know that I would necessarily want to contribute to that sort of thing. However, things don’t happen in just a theoretical sense. I can recognize the reality of the situation. If I don’t write anything for them, it won’t put the smallest dent into Answers.com. They have taken a beating in the past for over-reliance on Wikipedia and just generally using unoriginal content. It would seem by reaching out to independent bloggers, like myself, and urging them to post their own, original pieces to their site is their remedy to this problem. It’s not a bad strategy. Again, I wish they would pay in something more concrete than exposure, but I’m sure they know there are enough desperate writers out there. Which is a bit part of the problem. If I don’t do it, there are people who will. And, no matter what you think of their policies, they do get hits. Whether I think it’s sleazy or not, the chance that I would get read, and read by somebody important, is much higher than my chances here. The age old question: just how negotiable are my principles? Now, in their defense, they’re not asking me to post anything specific or even on any sort of schedule. Just a “write what you feel (about baseball) when you feel like it.” Granted, I already have a platform here to write whatever catches my fancy for free, but this site doesn’t draw the kind of eyeballs Answers.com could, and it doesn’t appear they want me to push anything in particular. I’m sure, for their end, it’s a way to point to writing and say “Hey, see, we do too have original stuff!” without putting any real work (or money) into it. For clarification, I wouldn’t be ending this blog. My plan would still be to mostly write here. My plan would be to write two pieces a month for Answers.com, one around the first and one around the 15th. So that should only mean missing two postings here a month, which was likely to happen thanks to general schedule slippage anyway. I’m just conflicted. Do I make a stand that will most likely be meaningless? Or do I give in to the machine in hopes that it would open doors I could never reach on my own? Life, just like sports seasons,* will go through periods of being nothing but a grind. You can read everything you want about living each day like it’s your last and carpe diem,** but it’s just not feasible to keep that up every day of your life. There are just periods that are not going to be particularly fun or exciting. You just get through them. *Other than football, because it’s just so short. **Or the modern day, trendy equivalent, YOLO. I’m going through a bit of that right now. As mentioned yesterday, a hard winter’s come to an end. We’re back from the big Ireland trip we’ve been looking forward to. Now it’s settling back into normalcy and routines. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not saying I’m depressed or unhappy or anything like that. It’s just, there’s a certain spark of life that I’m missing. Sometimes, it seems, the best way to break out of that sort of malaise is to look back at the real valleys of life. As I’m sure would come as a shock to many, I haven’t always had a ton of money. I still wouldn’t say I have a ton of money, but we do okay now. There’s no stress about paying our bills, we can pick up pretty well anything that looks appealing at the grocery store, we put money back, we keep a decent balance in the bank. It wasn’t always this easy for me. I can very clearly remember walking into Walmart in late 2008 with no food at home whatsoever and having all of $17 to my name. This was primarily because I had just spent most of my money getting my first apartment. I had saved up a little money from my couple months working in a lab at Purdue to where I felt like I could finally take the plunge and get a place of my own instead of either living with an uncle* or crashing at Kristine’s college apartment, which had been my bridge period. Between the security deposit and first month’s rent, I initially shelled out a little over $800 to get a fairly nice two bedroom apartment in an okay neighborhood. Nothing glamourous, and it didn’t have a washer/dryer hookup, but it would certainly do. The $535 a month also provided internet and all utilities other than electricity, which I could generally control by being judicious with my heat and air conditioning. And it had a fireplace, if things ever got to that level. Between that and filling up my car, I literally had $17 and some change left in my bank account to put food in my new fridge to go along with secondhand furniture that was mostly stuff my grandma was more than happy to give away. *Which I did for a job in Indy (or, well, Carmel, technically) that I honestly should have never accepted. I don’t remember what I walked out with, but it obviously wasn’t much. I think I had a package of hot dogs, buns, ketchup, mustard, a box of spaghetti, and a bottle of pasta sauce. Probably some ramen. That may well have been the whole list of what I had to subsist on until I was paid again. I didn’t have TV, or a couch, but I did have internet and video games. It was enough to entertain me, but I did have some moments of doubt. I had thought out the numbers, I thought I could do this place, but I really did wonder if I had made the right decision or if I had just ensured I would be getting myself kicked out. I didn’t make much at the lab, but it turns out you can make $12 an hour go decently far, at least in this part of the country. I didn’t upgrade any furniture,* but I did buy a new mattress. So instead of sleeping on a lumpy, broken-down twin mattress on the floor, I was sleeping on a $200 double mattress that came vacuum sealed in a box on the floor.** After a little time, I even sprung for DirecTV in that apartment, complete with DVR for the main TV, even. I got my own cell phone. I had food and drink in the fridge, and I was still regularly eating fast food and the occasional nice meal out. Bills weren’t an issue. I typically had three or four hundred dollars in the bank at any given time after bills. I don’t think anybody would confuse it with a glamorous life, but I was getting by just fine. There were moments then, just as now, I would look back on that trip to Walmart, counting every penny, to make sure I didn’t overdraw and still had something to eat for the week or so until I had money again. I had to smile thinking then about how far I’d come during that time. *Though my mom did get me a futon for Christmas, I think it was. **Which, all mocking aside, has been a damn good mattress. I loved that thing, and it’s now in our guest room. It seems to get nothing but good reviews from people who stay with us. As cozy as I’d made myself, I didn’t want to be stuck in that life forever. So, I took a risk. I jumped from my Purdue job to a tech start up in downtown Lafayette. The pay there was $13 an hour, which was fine, but it really wasn’t a jump for the pay. I had dreams of getting in on the ground floor and growing with this company, to go along with all the great experience that I would surely gain and what a nice bit it would be to put on my resume. Which was all fine and good, but there is a reason it they call it a risk. A couple weeks later, I was met in the parking lot by the guy who was just so excited to be hiring his first employee now telling me he just couldn’t afford to keep me. It was quite the blow. I had just signed onto another’s year’s lease in my apartment, but unless something came quickly, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I lasted two or three months there, but it was useless. Nothing came to fruition. I now had zero dollars in my account. I had to call the landlord and let him know that I would be forced to break my lease and I would pay him back as soon as I was able, which he was surprisingly cool about. My bills were going unpaid. I had no choice but to move home. As luck would have it, I actually did find another job almost the same day as I got resettled at my mom’s house. And it paid $15 an hour. Which, after a couple months of not making a damn thing, sounded amazing. Without having to pay rent, I was able to pretty quickly knock out my overdue electric and TV bills, which then left me just to pay back the landlord. It took a few months, but I was able to get both him and my maxed out credit cards paid off as well. I let my bank account get back to something healthy, and then I moved into another apartment. I think my mom would have rather I stayed with her and let my money build, but I didn’t want to live with my parents any more than your average 24 year old. I was getting out as soon as I could. This apartment wasn’t as nice as the Lafayette one, but it was also cheaper. And somebody in the area had an unsecured wireless, so that worked out in my favor, too. Before long, not only was I debt free, but I had upgraded from mattress on the floor to an honest-to-goodness bed frame, which also still serves in the guest room. I had also bought and quickly paid off an engagement ring and did my part in paying for the resulting wedding. Again, it was nice to see how things could rebound from having less than nothing. We had a wonderful wedding, mostly paid for it ourselves, and had a wonderful honeymoon in the Bahamas to boot. We moved to a very nice three bedroom apartment in Crawfordsville, close to campus. Things were good. If you’ve followed this blog from the beginning, or just know me well enough, you know that job ended rather suddenly and unexpectedly. I can’t say I missed that job, and I wouldn’t have said it at the time. I had been actively looking for other jobs, and I firmly believe this was what cost me my job. The timing was awfully suspect, anyway. I went from having nothing but good reviews to suddenly being a problem. This all seemed to pivot after having an interview for a job I wasn’t even sure I wanted.* In any case, I was out of a job again, but this time I had help in that Kristine was working. Plus, I received unemployment during this bout of staying home. Instead of watching our bank account slowly wither down to nothing, we actually saved money. We went from around $3,000 in the bank from when we got married to around $10,000 when I finally landed another job about eight months later.** On the back of that and some other savings, we actually were able to buy our house just a few months after I started working again. *And didn’t get offered. **What’s scary is that my story of unemployment was fairly typical at the time. Some people were seeing their unemployment benefits being extended to 100 weeks and things like that. It was not a good time. So, sure, life is a grind sometimes. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes and all that. But when you look back on it, you realize everything you have built, what all that grinding has been about. And it’s a pretty proud feeling. I look around now. Healthy bank account. Four bedroom house. Furnishing that house with adult stuff. When you start thinking about what you can build when you just grind it out, well, suddenly it doesn’t feel like that much of a grind any more. I think I wrote a little bit about this last year, but for a city and team with so much history and such a beautiful stadium, Pittsburgh really fails terribly on Opening Day. It’s a shame, and it’s not an isolated problem. MLB as an organization has made an awful mess of Opening Day as a whole. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs. And the answers are just so obvious. Let’s start at the local level. Pittsburgh, really, come on. I know the Pirates spent a lot of time being bad, but it’s been a few years now. More than enough time to make things right. Besides, those couple decades of being bad are no excuse at all. The Pirates have been around since 1891. This isn’t Denver or Tampa. This is a traditional baseball* city with a long and (mostly) proud tradition. So how can you have an opening day so bland? *And sports in general, really. It was the same story last year. You can very quickly forget that this game is anything special. Sure, in the standings, there isn’t anything special about the first game. But on the baseball calendar? This is one of the holy days of hardball.* This comes with some certain expectations, just certain bare minimums. Believe me, the bar for this level isn’t hard. For one, give us the extended introductions. This may have happened yesterday in Pittsburgh, I don’t know. WGN didn’t really show us one way or the other. Second, dress the place up a bit. Let us know at a very quick glance that this is something special. Put up a bit of bunting or something. Patriotic is traditional, but I wouldn’t bat an eye at team colors.** Lastly, dress yourself up. Wearing the softball tops is akin to jean day in the office. I’m not saying it’s never to be done, but there are times when it’s just inappropriate. Opening Day is one of those days. Unless there is a very good reason not to,*** wear your good whites and greys. Especially when you’ve got uniforms as sharp as the Pirates have. That’s it. That’s not too much to ask, is it? *In my mind these days are, in no particular order, Opening Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, All Star Game, and the World Series. If you want to expand that to all of October, I wouldn’t fight you. **Obviously, you would have to change the logo on that bunting. But, I mean, isn’t it a little bit of a problem in itself that I was much more able to find Steelers bunting than Pirates bunting? ***Off the top of my head, I can only think of three exceptions, and they’re all pretty iffy. The Padres wore their camo tops, which I’m generally not in favor of at any time. I just feel there are better ways to honor the military. But, San Diego was at least among the first teams to do this, so I’ve always given them a pass for this. And, because they were one of the leading teams with the camo thing, I’ve always kind of thought it was a certain tradition for them. I still wouldn’t have made that choice if I were in charge of deciding the uniforms, but I won’t be too harsh about it. The A’s and Royals also have pretty strong ties to non-white colors with gold and powder blue respectively. Again, I wouldn’t pick those uniforms for Opening Day if I were charge, but I would accept it. As a bit of an aside, I wasn’t a big fan of the Cubs new alternate road uniforms. I didn’t care for them much on a mannequin, but I was waiting to comment until I saw them on the field. Now I have, and my opinion is unchanged. They just look cheap. It looks like some knock-off jersey you would buy off a street corner somewhere or for your kid. The huge block letters just lack a certain elegance the normal road greys have. Plus, the numbers on the front of the new jerseys were tiny. That may have been the cheapest looking part of the whole get up. I’m excited to see a lot of the jerseys the Cubs will wear this year as part of the 100 Years of Wrigley celebration, but this one missed the mark. Anyway, back to other Opening Day matters. Those are the minimum requirements. Other teams take it a few steps further, and it’s great. St. Louis usually busts out the Clydesdales, many times complete with the red blazered HOFers. Cincinnati (naturally) pretty well shuts down for Opening Day, complete with parades and starting local broadcasts at 4:30 in the morning. And, just to further prove that some teams simply understand what they’re doing, here is a picture from the Cardinals vs. Reds game yesterday. Cardinals in road greys,* Reds in home whites. Sure, it would be nice to see some high cuffs, but we’re taking baby steps here. *With blue hats/helmets again. I thought I would miss that last year, but honestly I felt like the red hats worked pretty well. I’m a little surprised that experiment has apparently already ended. Speaking of Cincinnati, what have you done, MLB? I didn’t like the weird opening schedule with games in Japan, and I don’t like it any better in Australia. That’s fine if you want to play games abroad and up the stakes to draw more interest. I don’t really see why these can’t be exhibition games, but whatever. But I just don’t see why these games have to be so far ahead of the rest of the regular season. They end up feeling like exhibition games anyway. And if the answer is “too much travel,” well, that kind of shoots the idea of an NFL team in London down, doesn’t it? And then there was yet another wonky Opening Day game in San Diego on Sunday night. Except it wasn’t an opener for the Dodgers, as they were involved in the Australia games. An unbalanced schedule is one thing, but that felt especially bad. Can somebody please tell me what was so wrong in always starting the season at noon or one in Cincinnati? It’s a great nod to history in a sport that is typically so steeped in and reverent of history. And the way the city celebrates, it would be great for national TV. It’s a natural extension for ESPN or MLB Network to do a College Gameday type show every Opening Day. Again, it seems like such a simple answer, I just don’t understand how it ever got mucked up. But, hey, I’m not the commissioner. Not yet, anyway. When does Bud retire, again? |
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