Mark Parent is gone; he made his choice.  Now he’ll spend the next year filling out lineup cards for the Chicago White Sox and taking over if Robin Ventura gets thrown out of the game.  It was a career move, not a personal one, but it sure felt personal when he sat silently in the corner at First Energy Field during our birthday party, then said he was going out to get some cigarettes and he was taking everything he owned with him for some reason. (more…)

Don’t be stupid.  Freddy is frequently brought up in conversation when it comes to infielders of the future.  Namely shortstops, because he is one–the problem being his name ought to be “Freddy Glove-is.”  Or “Freddy Bat-less.”  Or you could just call him “Freddy Galvis” because that is what his name is and trying to shoehorn a joke in there is without a point.

I… feel like I still don’t know who he is.

Sorry.

Are you going to explain it again?

No. (more…)

“You’re never going to win it,” they said to me, as I put aside work, friends, and two fairly notable family emergencies (my absence at which “…won’t be forgotten.”) to stay nose-deep in some ”Redwall” books.

And it turned out I didn’t, because I “didn’t have a teacher to nominate me” and “…have been told, hundreds of times, that it is a contest solely for school children.”  So because of their “rules,” somebody else walked away with a Phillies Shane Victorino backpack, a Phanatic T-shirt, Phanatic doll, a book, and tickets to a game. (more…)