SB Nation User Blog: mtalken

May Schedule Look-in

mtalken — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:58:53 -0000

In seeing that we started the month of May with a series against the Nationals, I wondered how our May looked. In doing so, I figured maybe I’d do a fanpost to preview the month, so here goes:

The month of May looks favorable for the Cardinals with most of their road games being against teams that are not expected to be in contention for a playoff spot and about with home games against only a couple teams that should, at least on paper, outmatch the Cardinals.

The month begins with the last 3 games of a 4 game set with Washington. These games are on the road, but Washington, at least so far, has been a pretty hapless team, at 5-15. Amazingly, their offense is middle of the road in OPS, as they’re 11th in the majors, but their pitching puts them in at 23rd, with a 5.11 ERA so far. Nevertheless, this is a road series, and since their abysmal 0-7 start, they haven’t been as bad, and have posted a 3-5 record so far at home.

We then have short 2 game series against the Phillies and Pirates at home, followed by 3 gamers against the Reds and Pirates again. The Pirates have played us tough so far (2-2) and actually are 11-10, shockingly enough, so they’re not a pushover and the Cardinals should be ecstatic winning more than 3 of those 5 games against the Pirates. The way the Pirates have been 11-10 so far is even more shocking, as they are currently the best team in baseball in team ERA, at 3.41.

After that, the Redbirds return home for a nine-game homestand against the Crew, Cubbies, and cross-state rivals, the Royals. If I’d have asked you a month ago which order those teams would be in Team ERA, you’d probably have answered in backwards order, as KC so far (in large part due to Greinke) is 3rd in baseball in ERA, behind only Pittsburgh and Seattle (crazy, isn’t it?), with Milwaukee being next and Chicago, 19th in the majors, is last of those three. Despite this, the obvious series of importance here is the Cubs series. Despite a .500 start, the Cubs remain the team to beat in this division until the Cardinals either put more distance between themselves and the Cubs or at least hold this lead for another month or so, proving they’re for real this year. It is a home series, and so far each series has finished 2-1 in favor of the home team. It’s very important that the Cardinals keep that trend going (or more favorably, sweep the Cubs), both to keep the Cubs further down in the standing, but also for their collective psyche, after not doing terribly well against the Cubbies so far in new Busch.

With that, the Cardinals finish the month on the road for 6 games, playing the Brewers and then the revitalized Giants. Despite being “revitalized,” though, the Giants are still only a .500 team, but this is a huge improvement over the last few seasons.

So overall, for the month, things do look positive for St. Louis over the next month.

Overview:

Total Games: 28 (3 off days)

Road/Home: 15/13

Games against NL Central: 17 (Milwaukee – 6, Pittsburgh – 5, Cincinnati – 3, Chicago Cubs – 3)

Records against teams they’ve played so far: Pirates 2-2, Cubs 3-3.

Games against projected playoff teams: 5 (Chicago Cubs – 3, Philadelphia – 2)

Games against playoff teams if the playoffs started today: 5 (Kansas City – 3, Philadelphia – 2)

Ultimate Guy Movie - Sweet 16

mtalken — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:49:50 -0000

Since it had so many comments, I'm doing to assume it was a success here. Of course, I posted it right before going on a 4 day retreat, so I didn't really post much on the thread, but I was looking at it.

First off, the sports winners were the top four seeds, the only close one was Hoosiers/Slapshot, which shocked me. I figured Natural/Bull Durham would be closer than it was.

Anyway, many of the movies you guys said outside the sports bracket were on one of the other brackets, but I'll give you what's left, and if I have time later this week (probably Wednesday), I'll go ahead and post the original brackets, so you guys can see what the actual bracket itself was.

Anyway, here are the remaining picks:

War/Action movies

8 Braveheart vs. 4 The Matrix

2 Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back vs. 6 Gladiator

Sports

1 Rocky vs. 4 Caddyshack

2 Hoosiers vs. 3 Bull Durham

Comedy

1 Ferris Bueller's Day Off vs. 4 M.P. and the Holy Grail

2 Animal House vs. 3 The Big Lebowski (this one's basically this high because of my personal bias).

Gangster/Drama

1 The Godfather vs. 4 The Usual Suspects

2 Shawshank Redemption vs. 11 American History X

American History X is the lowest seeded movie left. The only 1 seed out so far is the Lord of the Rings conclusion, Return of the King, which was the #1 seed in the War/Action bracket. The closest 2nd round matchup was also in War/Action when The Matrix went up against Fight Club (5 seed) and Matrix won by 1 vote.

Another close vote that involves a movie mentioned here was a 1st round matchup between Gladiator and the Dark Knight where I actually had a tie and had to find someone to cast a deciding vote. The first person I found online to vote that I hadn't already gotten was my cousin who went Gladiator.

Anyway, on Friday, I'll cut off the voting. Next time I'll post not only the overall winners, but also the VEB vote.

Ultimate Guy Movie - Sports Bracket

mtalken — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:47:28 -0000

Hey everyone. I'm undertaking a project with some of my friends to pick what is the Ultimate Guy Movie. I actually kinda ripped the idea off from the Chicago ESPN station, which is doing this, but I thought it was fun and decided doing it myself. I considering posting it here to get votes as well, but I figured it was off topic. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought: "Well, one of the 4 16 movie brackets is a sports movie bracket, so even if it isn't Cardinals baseball relevant, it's still kinda fun."

Anyway, I'm in the 2nd round now, so I'll post the full Sports bracket and then list the choices for the vote now, and if you feel so inclined, you can vote on them. I'm going to tally up votes for this round sometime in the next couple days.

Furthermore, I'm taking the VEB vote as a community vote, so this is a collective vote, so a landslide or one movie edging the other out still gets the VEB vote.

1st round matchups: (This voting is already done)

1 Rocky vs. 16 Friday Night Lights

8 Rudy vs. 9 Field of Dreams

5 Rounders vs. 12 Major League

4 Caddyshack vs. 13 The Hustler

3 Bull Durham vs. 14 White Men Can't Jump

6 The Natural vs. 11 Remember the Titans

7 Raging Bull vs. 10 Slapshot

2 Hoosiers vs. 15 The Longest Yard (original one)

The 2nd round matchups (which obviously tells you who won each of the above rounds) are listed below. These are all open for voting:

1 Rocky vs. 8 Rudy

4 Caddyshack vs. 12 Major League

3 Bull Durham vs. 6 The Natural

2 Hoosiers vs. 10 Slapshot

Three baseball movies left in the fold, with only Field of Dreams losing as far as baseball movies (and that was a very close vote)

Feel free to vote on any or all matchups. You don't need to vote on all 4 matchups if you don't feel you know enough about one of the films or matchups to vote on it. I'll announce sports bracket winners later.

Lastly, this will conclude the 2nd round for all brackets, bringing it down to the Sweet 16. The other brackets are War/Action movies, Comedies, and Gangster/Drama movies. One last thing you can vote on is if this is too off-topic for VEB or if I should vote all the Sweet 16 Matchups for you guys to vote on. I don't want to load up the fanposts with stuff that's completely off topic, but if this seems fun to everyone involved here, I'd be happy to post this for you guys to vote on as well.

Baseball America Posts Top 100 Prospects

mtalken — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:15:57 -0000

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2009/267698.html

Colby Rasmus comes in at #3, Brett Wallace #40, Chris Perez #91

There's also descriptions (a relevant # for each player) that are kind of interesting, but not a whole lot of analysis really. More just a random quip about each player that gives you at least an idea of what their best attribute is.

I'm sure this could better fit as a fanshot, but for some reason it wouldn't post (I've never done a fanshot before) and I figured this would actually potentially be a good source of discussion, so I put it here.

Curveballs - A Short Story (Conclusion)

mtalken — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:22:06 -0000

Link to Part 1: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/17/726610/curveballs-a-short-story-p

Link to Part 2: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/19/727817/curveballs-a-short-story-p

Link to Part 3: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/21/731291/curveballs-a-short-story-p

I hope these aren't becoming laborious and wasteful, since the last one has 0 comments and recs. I just assume that maybe people are waiting for the conclusion, like one commentor said.

Anyway, this is the conclusion of "Curveballs"

There were too many thoughts going through Coach Hardwick’s head to keep them all straight. However, under the navy colored birds on a bat hat he always wore outside of class and the graying hair, one thought stood out from the rest. He had to get out of there. He looked through the office one more time before closing and locking the door.

Sitting outside the door was a box of random items he had collected just now. The picture of his ex-wife and kids he had kept in his office despite that his ex-wife had divorced him and left town nearly ten years earlier. A “Coach of the Year” plaque for the work he had done with the basketball team when he took them all the way to sectionals a few years before. The pictures of the baseball and basketball teams he had been a part of, including the current year, with Coach Cooper, Nick, Adam Murphy, and himself, all standing in the back row and smiling for the camera. In only a few months time, so much had happened. At the time of the picture, the team was simply one of the better teams they were able to put together around there, a favorite to win most of their games and the regional championship. Nick Cooper was just the arrogant son of the coach. Neither Coach Cooper nor himself had any ideas that Nick and Adam, two of the star players were potheads. Perhaps they weren’t at that time. But now, so much had changed, and he knew he couldn’t be a part of it anymore.

Coach Hardwick picked up his box of belongings with one hand, holding his letter of resignation from his position as teacher and coach in his other hand. He would turn in the letter and his office and school key and walk out, quietly. Maybe he would be able to find another position teaching somewhere not too far from there, but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to start over at a new school. He knocked on Principal Auburn’s closed door, and upon hearing “Come in,” opened the door and began to enter when he saw the principal and Coach Cooper sitting there, talking about the weekend’s events.

“Coach Hardwick, what do you need?” Principal Auburn asked.

“Steve, what’s with the box?” Johnny then chirped in as well.

Hardwick didn’t really want to face Johnny again. He merely wanted to hand in his letter of resignation and slip out before having to deal with him. Nevertheless, he knew he had to do what he went there to do.

“I just can’t deal with this anymore. I’m resigning.”

“What the hell is this all about?” Johnny blurted out before the principal even had a chance to speak.

“I just don’t feel like this is the right place for me anymore.” Hardwick responded.

“Is this about what happened this weekend?” Auburn said.

“Yes and no. I simply don’t think I can be here anymore. Please let me leave it at that.” Hardwick continued on.

Auburn opened his mouth to speak, when Johnny turned away from the principal towards Hardwick and said, “Steve. We’re going to need you to help lead the way for the team.” Johnny’s expression turned resentful as he continued, “You wouldn’t want to give the impression to the team that when you have some adversity, it’s okay to just give up, do you?”

“Johnny, I think you know it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it?” Johnny began to raise his voice, “So that’s it. You’re just gonna run out on me and the team. Just gonna pack up and call it a day?”

“Johnny.” Hardwick began, when Johnny cut in again, getting up close into Hardwick’s face.

“You’ll regret walking out on us.”

Hardwick brushed past Johnny, and handing Auburn the letter, said, “It’s been a pleasure working for you, I hope you’ll understand.”

Johnny’s eyes locked in on the envelope, and he was certain that the letter confessed finding Nick and the other boys just days before smoking pot. He turned toward Hardwick, grabbing his arm, and causing Hardwick to drop the box, spilling its contents on the floor.

“You sold me out, you asshole.”

Hardwick flatly replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about Johnny,” as he stared harshly into Johnny’s eyes, trying to appeal to him that he hadn’t and wouldn’t say anything.

“You son of a bitch. Isn’t it bad enough what happened already?”

Auburn started towards Johnny and Hardwick to separate them. Johnny turned back towards Auburn to speak and bumped him, catching him off guard and sending him back into a file cabinet. Auburn’s expression quickly changed from shock to anger, and as Johnny released his grip seeing what he had done, Auburn looked directly at Johnny and said, “I don’t know what you two are talking about, but I want you to get the hell out of my school. You’re both suspended until I can figure out what is going on.”

Johnny looked over at Principal Auburn with a weary look in his eyes, and almost said something, but finally just turned and walked out of the office. Hardwick took a moment to take stock of himself, pressing down his shirt from how Johnny stretched it in the altercation. He then bent over to pick up the box and turned, when he heard Principal Auburn address him, “Hardwick, you wait just a moment. I’m not going to accept this resignation until you sit down and talk to me for a moment.”

As much as he wanted to just slip out the door, Hardwick knew it was impossible now, and simply said, “Yes, sir,” and took a seat.

Johnny sat down in his office still unsure how everything had spun so out of control. He looked at the only picture on his desk, a professional portrait of himself, his wife and Nick. Nick was only thirteen years old in the picture. It was before he had a ninety mile-per-hour fastball. It was before he had found out his son was using drugs. It was before a little girl had died because he didn’t put a stop to his son’s addiction.

Johnny got up from his chair, putting the picture down on his desk. As he left his office and walked down the hallway towards the back door towards the fields, he thought about the games scheduled the next weekend. They were the top seed in the regional tournament. He walked out to the field and in his mind, he could see the game being played out. Nick pitching; Murphy behind the plate. The team in the same groove it hit in mid season when they started the win streak that hadn’t been broken until just the weekend before when they lost to Cypress.

Johnny thought about USC and how Nick might still be able to go as long as no charges were brought up against him. Tragically, they hadn’t had the chance to get the scholarship papers and letter of intent signed yet. USC might still take him with a drug charge, but anything more and who knows what would happen.

Johnny walked off the field and to his car. There would be no state championship this year. No parade. Not even a regional championship. Not for Coach Johnny Cooper.

Coach Hardwick looked out the back door of the school and watched as the rain blanketed the pavement of the parking lot behind the building. He was torn between wanting to get the season over and wanting to have more time to work with what was left of the team. Having agreed to stay on at least until the end of the season and school year, Hardwick was handed the reins to a team without its star pitcher and catcher. They were the top seed coming into the regional tournament, which gave them the opportunity to host the event, but without those two players, they would need amazing performances from more than just a few of their other players to hold off the teams in the rear-view mirror, all seeing the drug charges against Nick and Adam to be an opportunity for them to advance.

Hardwick watched the rain come down and wondered how all this could have happened the way it did. He felt like the little girl’s blood was on his hands as well, but Principal Auburn had told him that he knew he was just trying to do what was right at the time. Coach Hardwick couldn’t bring himself to tell Principal Auburn that he knew it was pot they were smoking and that he believed he could have prevented it all from happening. The word “smoking” was used without “marijuana.” Not much of a distinction, yet it was the difference between Hardwick being the head coach and being in the same situation as Johnny, unemployed with a tarnished image that would prevent him from getting work at any school ever again.

Hardwick watched as the rain came down on the field just across the parking lot, allowing him the time to work with his team, with Kenny Johnson, who despite his blown save opportunity and sub par pitching arm was the best arm they had in reserve in case of a situation like this. He walked back to his office, which was still mostly stripped of the personal belongings that sat in the box next to his desk, and prepared a game plan for how to try to win the regional tournament with a heavy heart and an undermanned team.

Johnny Cooper hung the phone up after calling in one of his favors from a former player’s father. He got up from his couch and walked down to Nick’s room. Opening the door, he saw Nick sitting in the alcove created by the protruding window in his bedroom, watching the rain wash down the windows. He sat there, with his arms locked, holding his knees up in front of his face. He had done this almost every time it rained since they first moved to this house, when Nick was only nine years old. Nick looked over at his father with a blank expression before turning his head back to watch the rain.

“I’m going to work over in Cypress at the Ford lot.” Johnny said, trying to put an optimistic smile on his face. “Always wanted to try my hand at sales.”

Nick didn’t even look over, but lowered his head between his knees as Johnny could see him begin to sob. Johnny wanted to go over beside him and tell him everything would be alright, but he was fully aware that neither of them would believe the words coming out of his mouth, so backing out of the room quietly, Johnny slowly closed the door, turning the knob as he closed it to make as little noise as possible, as though the quiet would make it all seem less real.

Curveballs - A Short Story (Part 3)

mtalken — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:11:41 -0000

Link to Part 1: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/17/726610/curveballs-a-short-story-p

Link to Part 2: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/19/727817/curveballs-a-short-story-p

This takes it up to page 24 out of 29. Last section will be posted later this week.

Putting the ball in Nick’s hands at the beginning of a game seemed like a sure thing ever since he became the top starter midway through his sophomore year. While Johnny still seemed calm and collected about it, Coach Hardwick was visibly agitated. He looked down the bench at all the players who, in his mind, were just your typical high school students who didn’t have the internal ties that Nick Cooper had. Any of these players would be off the squad in a moment if they were caught using any sort of drug illegally.

In the bottom of the fourth, Nick had already set up an expectation of dominance against Cypress. With the exception of an unearned run that scored after a throwing error in the second inning, no one on the Cypress team had advanced to even second base. Regardless, Nick looked in to get Adam Murphy’s signal, down 1-0. With a 2-2 count, Murphy called for the changeup. Nick waved him off and wasn’t happy until he got the fastball. He looked over at the bench and at Coach Hardwick and began his delivery. The ball flew past the batter at Nick’s typical ninety mile per hour plus speeds, but missed the strike zone high.

“Come on blue, that was at the letters,” Nick pleaded for the call and shook his head in disgust when the umpire gave him nothing more than a cold stare.

Nevertheless, Nick struck the batter out on the next pitch, another fastball, almost straight down the middle of the plate, but fast enough that the batter could not catch up. As the defense came into the dugout, at the change of the inning, Hardwick grabbed Nick’s arm as he went to sit down.

“Just play the game, Nick. You get on that umpire and you’re not gonna get any calls later in the game.” Hardwick was still burning inside about how Johnny had pushed him and how he had caved and let the boys off, but there were about twenty people on the squad, and he didn’t want to bring off the field problems into the dugout to possibly cost the other sixteen or so a chance at a title.

Nick looked up at Hardwick as he spoke, but didn’t even so much as give a vocal acknowledgement of the request. Hardwick thought how he should smack Nick. Just one good punch, then turn him in to the police. He didn’t even care about the school penalties. But he couldn’t do it. Not now. Not since he himself sacrificed his principles to protect this boy.

After a big inning for Coach Cooper’s squad in the sixth, they led Cypress 4-1 with only one inning to go. As Nick and the defense took the field in the bottom of the seventh, Hardwick reminded him once again, “Just play the game, you’re better than anyone they got. You play the way you can, we’re looking at an easy victory.”

“I know I’m better than any of them. Don’t worry, this game is in the bag.” Nick replied, not even looking over at Hardwick as he said it.

But two batters later, Nick looked in for the sign with runners on first and third and Cypress’s most dangerous batter waiting on deck. Nick looked in for the sign and saw Murph put the sign up for a slider. Gripping the seams, he began his wind-up and threw the ball in towards the outside part of the plate. The ball spun outside, but only about an inch compared to the normal five to six inches bite he would normally get on his slider. The batter swung hard and connected, sending the ball into the gap between the right and center fielders. The runner on third came home easily and the runner on first came around third as the ball began coming in. The second baseman relayed the ball home to Adam Murphy as the runner came barreling down the line and full speed, but the throw came down the first base line by about three feet, just enough distance to let the runner slide in past the tag of Adam Murphy.

“Safe!” came the call from the umpire at home plate.

Nick slammed down his glove on the ground, and cried at the umpire, “What the hell was that? He was out!”

“Go back to the mound and get out of my face, kid.”

Murphy grabbed Nick and pushed him away from the umpire before Nick could get any more words out. “Come on, Nick. We’re still up. We need you to dig in and stop this guy. It’s still a 4-3 game, man. This game is still ours.” Nick opened his mouth to complain, but Murphy continued, cracking a smile, “Hey, you keep complaining and I won’t give you your pat on the ass when I go back to the plate.”

Nick was still irritated at the umpire’s calls—squeezing his strike zone, the safe call at the plate—but he calmed down, took the ball from Murphy and walked back to the mound. Murphy was right, he decided. He still had this game under control.

The next batter was Cypress’s best hitter, but Nick looked in at him and Murphy with enough anger and hostility to fuel him to throw three mid-nineties fastballs right past this chump.

Murphy called for a first pitch slider, hoping to keep the batter off guard, but Nick waved Murphy off and didn’t agree with any of the off speed pitches Murphy called for. After receiving the fastball call he wanted, he checked the runner at second, who was lazily standing only a few steps off the bag, then looked in at Murphy’s glove, edged towards the inside part of the plate.

Winding up, he looked up at the umpire, rather than on Murphy’s glove, and throwing as hard as he could, lost control and hurled the ball at well over ninety miles-per-hour right at the batting helmet of the man in the batter’s box. The batter’s knees buckled and he tried to duck out of the way, but the ball was coming too fast and it ricocheted off the top of the helmet. The batter dropped to the ground and popped up almost immediately, the helmet having protected him from what could have otherwise been an ugly incident.

The home-plate umpire jumped to his feet and taking his mask off yelled, “You’re outta here,” making the customary over-dramatic motion to throw a player out.

“What the hell? I didn’t mean to hit him!” Nick exploded, jumping off the mound and charging towards the umpire.

“Get out of here, kid. I’m not gonna tolerate you throwin’ at players.”

Johnny then charged out of the dugout as well and also jumped in the face of the umpire. “Why the hell would he throw at one of their players? Are you fuckin’ blind?” Johnny continued to argue his case, while face-to-face with the umpire, until he was also thrown out.

Coach Hardwick looked on with disgust from the dugout, knowing that Nick could have easily gotten any one of the batters he faced out. He looked down the bench until he saw one of the more talented sophomores who was in his history class as well.

“Henderson, out to center field. Tell Johnson out there to take the mound and start to warm up.”

After Nick, there was a considerable drop off in the talent of their pitching staff though. They had a few other players capable of short stints, and a sophomore who they intended to use in the first game of their regional to save Nick’s arm for the later games, but no one really stood out. Clinging to a 4-3 lead with two men on and no one out, Hardwick knew their chances of a victory were dwindling, but without Coach Cooper and Nick there, he had to do the best he could for the team.

It was hard to tell that Nick had just been kicked out of a game in which he earned the loss in a 5-4 heartbreaker earlier that day. Johnny was irate, but transferred any irritation that should be targeted at Nick towards the umpires for the game. After a quiet dinner, Johnny retreated to his den to flip between the Cardinals game and whatever game was on ESPN that night, leaving Nick to leave the house without question of what he was doing or where he was going.

Nick escaped out of the house to meet Murphy and the other guys as they pulled into the driveway to pick him up. The passenger seat of Murphy’s Mustang was empty, while Ricky and Tony, the other two guys, sat in the back, the way it always was when Johnny let Nick go out with them.

“Hey man, whatssup?” Murphy said, slurring slightly.

“Not shit, the old man’s passed out in his den. He’d probably kick my ass if he knew I was coming out tonight, after that incident with Hardwick.”

“Fuckin’ Hardwick. Good thing he’s a big softie.” Murphy smiled as he said it.

Nick didn’t respond, but instead looked out the window as Murphy pulled off of his street. He thought about his father for a moment, and almost felt guilty for leaving unannounced, when Murphy said, “Hey, one of you get another bowl going, we need to get Nick in on this round.” Nick looked back to see a hand reaching up with a ceramic pipe being handed to him.

He thought momentarily about saying no, but accepted the multicolored pipe and the lighter that was handed to him just afterwards. Murphy pulled off the main strip of town onto a side road to give Nick a chance to smoke with fewer cars around with people who might see them. Nothing would be worse than getting spotted by a cop just a day after being caught and let off by Hardwick.

Nick bent down in his seat to hide under the dash and held the lighter close above the opening where the cannabis was packed. Inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, he began to have his typical coughing fit that he hadn’t gotten over in the short period of time he and the other guys had been using marijuana. He passed the still lit pipe to Murphy who took a quick hit and then relayed it to the back seat. Nick could feel his lungs burn a little, but quickly reached back to the back seat to force the issue of a second round. He knew the rest of them had smoked some before they picked him up. He needed to catch up.

After they had finished all the the pipe, they pulled back onto the main strip of road, looking for the cars of other people they knew. After a few trips up and back the main road, one of the guys in the back said he knew of a party at some girl’s house that they could check out, but Murphy and Nick quickly vetoed that, hearing that the girl was no one they really cared about, figuring that there would just be band and choir geeks there anyway.

After driving around for a few hours, Nick and Murphy were about ready to give up and just go to the party, when they saw Kenny Johnson’s car, the same pitcher that eventually allowed the two runners Nick was still responsible for score, giving Nick the loss earlier that day.

“Hey, pull up next to that fucker. He blew the game for us,” Nick said, suddenly interested in what was going on around him.

Murphy pushed down the gas pedal as far as it went for a brief moment, letting it kick into a higher gear, as he sped up to about fifty-five to quickly catch up to Johnson. Murphy rolled down his window as they got up beside the car.

“Hey! You fuckin’ loser! Why don’t you learn how to pitch?” Nick yelled out the window at Johnson, who just then noticed the belligerent and inebriated group of fellow baseball players in the lane next to him. “Hey, fuck with him a little bit, Murph.”

Murphy swerved his car several times into Johnson’s lane. Johnson got an aggravated look upon his face as he swerved his own vehicle into the turn lane each time as Murphy came at him. Nick then extended his arm past Murphy, extending his middle finger towards Johnson. Murphy and the other boys in the car laughed as Nick kept his finger extended, even as Johnson’s car slowed down and fell behind its side-by-side position with Murphy’s car.

“Oh shit!” Murphy’s voice resonated in Nick’s ears and as Nick looked ahead, he saw the rapidly approaching intersection, with the stoplight reading red. Nick tried to brace himself for impact, but there was no time, and Murphy’s Mustang collided hard into a van going through the intersection at the time. The Mustang’s front end collapsed as it thrashed through the driver side of the Chrysler minivan. Nick’s body lunged forward before the seatbelt took hold and shook him back into his seat violently. He was completely disoriented for a brief moment, before he looked next to him at Murphy who looked in about the same state of confusion he was in just moments before. In the back seat, the two boys were taking inventory of themselves, but were generally alright.

Nick then looked forward to see the smashed in side of the minivan they had crashed into while not paying attention. The driver was a thirty-something father, who looked incredibly shaken, as he looked back into the back seats of the car frantically. He tried to open his door, but the Mustang had slammed into it just far enough forward on the car that the door was impossible to open, while most of the damage was further back on the car.

The father finally crawled over to the passenger door and opened the back up. Nick watched the man as he crawled into the car and picked up a young girl, obviously his daughter, the left side of her head bleeding badly. The man was hysterical. Carrying his daughter, he ran from the middle of the intersection where the accident happened to a bench on one of the corners, where he laid her down and began crying for someone to help his daughter. As Nick got out of the car, he heard the man cry out that she wasn’t breathing, as a couple onlookers rushed up and began checking the girl’s pulse.

Nick’s eyes held in them a detachment from what he was seeing. Completely unmoved, he approached the scene on the street corner and watched as the father looked on helplessly and the two onlookers ran to call 911.

Looking up at Nick, the girl’s father got up from beside the bench where he kneeled beside his daughter and started walking towards Nick.

“This is because of you. You took away my little girl. You killed my little girl.” The man’s words cut through the detachment in Nick’s consciousness and Nick’s look went from detachment to withdrawal. He stared blankly towards the girl laying on the bench and her father, who returned to her side, crying as he held his daughter’s hand. An ambulance rushed up to the scene and Murphy finally came up beside Nick, watching the scene as the paramedics began trying to revive the girl.

Within ten minutes, police officers were everywhere and the girl’s body was being loaded into the back of the ambulance, covered by a sheet. Paramedics tried to tend to the girl’s father, but he pushed them away as he followed the stretcher carrying his little girl into the back of the ambulance.

Coach Cooper’s car pulled up into a corner parking lot and Johnny jumped out of the car, running towards Nick and the other boys.

“Nick, are you alright?” Johnny shouted while still running towards him and the other boys.

Nick didn’t even look up at Johnny, but instead held his eyes tightly downward.

“Nick.” Johnny repeated, and started to continue when Nick finally answered.

“Yeah dad. I’m fine.” Nick then looked up into Johnny’s eyes and Johnny walked up to Nick and hugged him tightly against his body.

“What happened?” Johnny finally asked, as he continued to hold onto Nick’s shoulders, but pulled him far enough way from his body to look his son in the eyes again.

Finally, several of the police officers working on the accident walked over to the boys and told them that they would have to come to the station while they finished up.

“All of them?” Johnny blurted out towards the officers, “I understand Mr. Murphy needing to go as the driver, but…”

“Yes, all of them,” said one of the officers. Johnny opened his mouth to question why all the boys had to go when Nick stepped in front of his father.

“Dad. We were high.” The words were spoken quietly but with a conviction that brought Johnny’s attention immediately back to Nick.

“What?”

Nick then lowered his eyes and turned to go with the police officers, leaving Johnny standing there on the street corner, stunned.

Curveballs - A Short Story (Part 2)

mtalken — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:07:11 -0000

Part two of four of "Curveballs."

For anyone that missed it, part one can be found at: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/17/726610/curveballs-a-short-story-p

This part takes the story through approximately page 14 in the double-spaced Word document form of the story, so this serialization of the story should be a total of four parts, and I'll try to continue to post every 2-3 days for the next two parts.

Without going into too much plot discussion so as to reveal a spoiler, this 2nd section is where we see the main issues of the short story reveal themselves.

Anyway, without further delay, here is part two of the story.

Nick looked in to his catcher, Murph, to see him extend his index finger, the signal for the fastball. Nick checked the runner on first, who he had just walked to put the tying run on base in a 1-0 game that the two pitchers had dominated. He began his windup, looking only at the center of the catcher’s mitt, placed over the outside corner of the plate, and hurled the ball with as much strength as he had left this late in the game.

Several scouts were in the crowd that game, one wearing a shirt with Rice University’s logo, one with the University of Missouri, and even one from the legendary and far-off University of Southern California. Lined up with radar guns locking in on every pitch, the USC scout had a pleased look upon his face as he read the radar gun. Johnny continued to look up towards the scouts to try to catch every look. All of the schools were good schools, but none would be better than USC.

Nick looked in for the next sign. He nodded off a change-up and wasn’t happy until Murphy gave him another signal for a fastball. Checking over towards first, as the runner there juked like he was going to steal before returning towards the bag, Nick looked back in to the catcher’s mitt and began his windup again.

“Strike two!” came the umpire’s voice as the hitter took a huge cut and missed.

Johnny looked up again to see all the scouts in tandem checking their radar guns and writing in their notes.

Murphy threw the ball back calmly to Nick before yelling out to his team, “Two away, guys. We got this one.”

Nick’s solitary focus was on Murph’s glove though. He felt for the seams in his hand as he looked in to see Murphy give the signal for the slider. They had been thinking on the same page almost the whole game, and yet again, they had the same pitch in mind. Nick found the seams, holding the ball in his glove, began his windup, and unleashed the ball towards the catcher’s mitt again.

With a more controlled swing, the hitter bit on the slider and started to swing, when the bottom fell out and the slider cut down and away from the plate, eluding the bat.

“Strike Three!” came the umpire’s voice once again.

Murphy dropped the ball on the ground beside the umpire and rose to his feet, as Nick raised his hands in victory.

A few weeks later, the good news came in the form of a phone call shortly after Nick and Johnny arrived home from school. Picking up the phone, Johnny answered plainly, “Cooper residence.”

“Mr. Cooper. This is Mike Gillespie at USC. Is your son available?”

Johnny nearly forgot to reply as he looked around excitedly for which direction in the house Nick had gone.

“Yeah, one moment, let me find him,” came the words on the phone eventually.

Johnny quickly paced back towards Nick’s room, barging in the door to find him laying on his bed watching TV.

“Nick, Mike Gillespie is on the phone for you.”

Hearing that, Nick jumped out of bed and nearly knocked Johnny off his feet trying to get past him to the phone sitting off the hook down the hall. Picking up the phone, Nick cleared his throat and finally said, “Hello?”

Johnny studied Nick’s face while he stood beside him, waiting for the verdict. He wouldn’t possibly call to let him down, would he? Considering the situation, he was almost certain his son would be a Trojan the next year, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions until he heard the news for sure.

“Yes, sir,” Nick said into the phone, continuing after a brief pause saying, “Thank you very much. I’ll see you next fall,” as he placed the phone back on the hook.

“I GOT IN!” he continued to shout as he jumped in the air and pumped his fist. He then turned to his father and threw his arms around Johnny, who was laughing and smiling as though he had just won the lottery.

Practice that night was unfocused, with most of the attention being around Nick being given the honor of throwing batting practice. With a game in three days, they didn’t want him to tire out his arm, so he was told to keep the fastball down around sixty miles per hour and no breaking balls at all. The other players would all razz him every time they got a solid hit off of the mild fastballs, which was often, saying things like, “Man, I’m killing this guy, where’s my scholarship?” and “4 for 4 already, forget college, I’m declaring for the draft.” Nick would smile and roll his eyes at all the guys as Johnny looked on from the bench, beaming with absolute pride that his son would be going to the same college that produced great pitching talents like Randy Johnson and Mark Prior.

Coach Hardwick ran most of the practice, as Johnny was just too much in a mode of internal celebration and pride to give any serious criticism at all. Hardwick even looked over a few times to see Johnny just looking at his son with a look of contentment that you would rarely find on his face, especially in accordance with his son.

After an abbreviated practice that was more a celebration of the success of one of their own, Hardwick called the players in, and Johnny came back onto the field from the dugout area to join the team.

Getting the team in a tight circle, Hardwick began, “Now, we got the season finale coming this weekend. We’re all very happy for Nick, but we need to finish this season right and win this last game. Are we gonna let the boys over at Cypress beat us?”

“NO, COACH HARDWICK!” cried the team in unison.

“What’s that?” he shouted back at them.

“NO, COACH HARDWICK!”

“Alright boys, hit the showers and get some rest. One more good practice tomorrow and you’ll have Friday off before the game on Saturday.”

Breaking up the circle and heading to the showers, the team evacuated the field, leaving only Johnny and Hardwick. Johnny still had a glow surrounding him and Hardwick smiled, chuckled a little bit, and said, “Boy, you sure are proud of that boy, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I can’t help but be. He can get on my nerves sometimes, but he’s a good kid. Always tries hard at everything he does. Ya know, it ain’t easy nowadays to get good grades and be in sports. A lot more shit these kids got to get through nowadays.” Johnny replied with a smile on his face, as the two men started walking back towards the school.

“Yeah, I know Johnny. He’s a good kid. Hard worker too, despite his mouth.”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be a long way to go to see any of his games way out in California.”

“Shit, he probably wants to go there just so you’ll leave him alone for a little bit.”

Johnny smiled and let out a little chuckle. “Yeah, I know. I am hard on him sometimes.” They walked back in, laughing and letting the euphoric sense of pride wash over them both before they went their separate ways, getting ready to go home.

The day before a game, Johnny always had Coach Hardwick check up on every last detail. For home games, that meant that the field had been taken care of and that the locker rooms were at least relatively clean, and for away games that meant making sure the bus would be ready when they needed it. The first couple of seasons they coached the baseball team together, Johnny always had to ask Coach Hardwick to make sure, but after coaching together for nearly fifteen years, it wasn’t even something either of them even mentioned anymore.

Shortly after his last class of the day, a sophomore History class, Hardwick dropped his books and papers off at his office, still thinking about how the sophomores irritated him so much with some of their stupid questions. The “Was King Richard the Lionhearted really gay?” question seemed to come up every year around this time somehow.

He began to walk back towards the back exit of the school, back by the locker rooms and close to the baseball field. Like always, he had to go check the field to make sure it was in playing condition. Walking out the back door and over to the field, he was so enthralled in thinking about his history students he almost didn’t even notice the voice of a student saying, “Oh shit, put it out.”

Looking over into one of the dugouts though, there he saw Adam Murphy and Nick Cooper, along with two other players, Ricky Stone, a junior third baseman, and Tony Murphy, Adam’s younger brother, fumbling with something he couldn’t make out from the distance he stood from them at the time.

“Hey, what are you guys doing out here? Shouldn’t you be heading home and resting up for tomorrow?” Hardwick said to them, wondering what was going on, but not sure yet. He began to approach the dugout to see what it is they were doing.

“Uh, yeah Coach. We were just checking out the field, talking about how we’re gonna destroy Cypress tomorrow. We were just about to take off and go home,” Nick said, as they all began to leave the dugout to escape.

“Wait just a minute. None of you are moving.” Hardwick continued on. Besides the obvious suspicion that was raised by four of the ballplayers randomly hanging out, he could smell something strange in the air as he approached the dugout. Matter-of-factly, he asked, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?” Nick replied. Adam and the other two boys just tried to look away while Nick continued trying to talk his way out of the situation.

“I think you know what the smell is, Mr. Cooper. And I think you know that I’m well aware of what it is too, where’s the roach?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nick asked, putting a false look of disgust upon his face, “I don’t have to take your accusations.” He started to step out of the dugout, when Hardwick stepped in his way and put his hand out to push him back into the dugout.

“Don’t you act like I’m stupid.”

“Don’t BE stupid then, coach.” Nick replied.

Hardwick was furious and began towards Nick when Cooper walked up to the field.

“Hey Coach Hardwick. Nick. Boys. What’s going on?” Johnny could sense something wrong in the air, but didn’t know what it was.

“Johnny, could I have a word with you in private?” Hardwick turned away from Nick and the boys towards Johnny to look him directly in the eye.

“Sure Steve, there a problem?”

Hardwick’s look of anger began to subside as he looked upon Cooper’s face, knowing how proud he was of his son. “Let’s just talk in private,” he said, “Boys, I want you all to wait in my office.”

Johnny and Hardwick escorted Nick and the other boys back to Hardwick’s office before proceeding to Johnny’s office. As they both entered Johnny’s office, Hardwick closed the door behind them and they both went to their respective chairs and sat down. Hardwick pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger and looked down at the nameplate on Johnny’s desk, deciding how exactly to say what he had seen.

Johnny looked back at Hardwick skeptically, and finally started off, “Steve, what’s up?”

Not knowing of a better way to say it without being patronizing, Hardwick finally said flatly, “Nick and the other boys were hiding out in the dugout smoking pot.”

“Oh. Alright.” Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off a suddenly inevitable headache. Several thoughts began racing through Johnny’s mind. Could his son be involved with drugs? Not possible. He thought about the punishment for a drug incident. The school’s rule on a drug infraction on the campus was immediate dismissal for any and all extracurriculars, a two week suspension, and for the incident to then be handed over to the police.

More importantly than the possible police involvement or the two week suspension though was the dismissal from the baseball team. A charge like this would show up on Nick’s transcripts and would probably lead to the termination of his scholarship to USC as well. Johnny began to feel sick at the possibility of all that he and Nick had worked for could be swept away by one incident. Nick was a good kid. It probably wasn’t even his idea, but rather one of the other boys.

“Are you sure about what you saw?” Johnny asked.

“One hundred percent. They were acting very suspicious and I could smell it in the dugout. I didn’t actually see it, but I know that’s what they were doing.”

“Maybe you smelled something else,” Johnny said more forcefully, looking Coach Hardwick directly in the eyes.

“What?”

“Look, I’m not telling you what you saw. But perhaps you didn’t smell what you thought you smelled. Nick’s a good kid, got that full ride to USC. And you know Murphy’s never been in trouble like this before. Maybe you smelled something else.”

Hardwick had disbelief in his eyes as Johnny made it very clear what he meant. He had always looked up to Johnny for the way he always did what he thought was right. Now Johnny was telling him to lie about what he saw though. A fire burned inside him as he began to grow angry that Johnny would use his power at the school to try to protect Nick.

Hardwick got up out of the chair, and walking towards the door, said, “I know what I smelled.” Opening the door and proceeding to his office, he didn’t know whether he wanted to go back and tell Johnny off or go hide in his office and cry. Either way, he knew he had to deal with Nick and the other boys first. Reaching the doorway of his office, he saw Nick sitting on the front of his desk, the other boys standing and sitting in various places in the office, awaiting their judgment.

Hardwick cleared his throat before beginning, “Well, you boys head on home. You need your rest for tomorrow’s game.”

Watching Nick’s face, Hardwick could see a glimpse of shock in his eyes, but at the same time, a new degree of arrogance was born, as Nick knew he had won this round. Coach Hardwick watched as the boys gathered themselves and filed out of his office to leave the school. After he knew the boys were far enough away, he slammed the office door and sat down in his desk chair, wondering how this could have happened.

Curveballs - A Short Story (Part 1)

mtalken — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:33:51 -0000

With this being the slow part of the year for baseball and with the lack of topics, I thought it might be fun to give everyone something different to read.

What I'm posting is a short story I wrote about 5 years ago while I was still getting my BA and was taking a creative writing workshop for my minor (creative writing, of course). Luckily, I had two excellent editors to help me mold this into what I, and they, thought was a pretty good story. One was my professor, who is at least a casual baseball fan and an expert on the writing side of the situation. The other was a fellow student in the workshop who incidentally also worked as a high school umpire, which helped tremendously, since I had some issues with rules and with interactions between players and umps that were unrealistic on the high school level that he helped me with.

In Microsoft Word, the story is 29 pages, double-spaced, so I'll post about the story basically as a serialization over the next week or so probably.

Anyway, I'd like to think the story is pretty good. At least as far as prose goes, it's the thing I ever managed to write. Despite my opinions of it though, if anyone has critiques of the story, I'm always open to listening to what other people think of it.

So without further discussion, below is approximately the first 6-7 pages of "Curveballs"

As the ball came down into the webbing of Nick Cooper’s glove in center field, he made it look so easy, as though the ball’s natural habitat was to be immersed in the oil tanned glove that extended from his left hand.

“Two hands, Nick. Two hands.”

“Yeah sure, coach.” Nick replied, rolling his eyes as he fired the ball back in, past the cut-off man and directly to the man giving him the critique.

“And stop trying to show off. Hit the damn cut-off man.” Johnny knew he had his hands full this year. There was a great deal of talent on the squad, but also too much ego, and none of the egos could surpass that of Nick Cooper. Nick ignored the old man as he turned back and got himself in position in center field.

Johnny threw in another 60 mile per hour fastball over the heart of the plate to Adam Murphy, the team’s slugging catcher who batted cleanup and led the team in RBIs the previous year. The bat crushed the ball deep into center field, where Nick began to run back towards the fence before stopping to watch as the ball sailed overhead by about another 15 feet beyond the fence.

“Nice hit Murph.” The somewhat distant voice came in from the outfield. There was other chatter going on among the players in the field and waiting to take their turn to bat, but Johnny’s ears tuned in to the singular voice that came in from center field.

“Alright, next batter. Good job Murphy.” Johnny looked around at his fielders to see where they were all playing at the time. Nick stood incredibly shallow in center field, over halfway in from the wall towards 2nd base. Anything hit to deep center would be at least a double if he played there during a game. He had a look of impatience in his mannerism, as if he was growing tired of standing there waiting for Johnny to throw the next pitch.

“What the hell are you doing, Nick? How many times have I told you? You don’t play shallow unless I specifically tell you to.”

“C’mon, this is about where Jim Edmonds plays, and he’s a gold glover,” Nick replied, knowing the exact things to say to irritate the coach.

Johnny pulled the ball cap off his head, exasperated. He looked down at the mound he stood on and rubbed the sweat off his forehead as he gathered his thoughts and tried to decide where to begin. He broke his momentary silence, yelling without even raising his eyes to look out to center, “Nick, get over here. Now.”

“Christ, what the hell is wrong now,” came the reply from Nick as he started to jog in towards the mound.

Johnny called over one of the assistants to take over the job of pitching batting practice as he began to stride off to the 3rd base side of the field. Nick caught up to him just as he began to enter foul territory on the torn up practice field. Nick remained quiet and looked back towards his teammates, who all snickered at the imminent discipline that was about to be handed down to him.

“First off, we don’t use the name of the Lord in vain, you got that?” Johnny began, turning around sharply to be face to face with Nick.

“Yes, fa..” Nick began before Johnny interrupted again.

“Do I look like I’m done, boy? You’re no gold glover and until you are, you will use two hands to make catches and you will play where I tell you to. And knock off the showboating. Let’s see how much showboating you do when you’re running five laps around the field.” Johnny continued, irate at the obvious disrespect. Nick just looked at him for a moment, and Johnny burst out again, “Well, get to it! Five laps, and don’t be jogging.”

“Yes, father.” Nick said, with obvious disdain for the ruling handed to him, as he tossed the glove onto the bench and began running along the outside of the fence.

Coach Johnny Cooper had a look of weary frustration throughout his body as he unlocked the door to his office. His top assistant, Stephen Hardwick, followed him into the office crowded with bookshelves full of game tapes and classic novels. Johnny’s office was arranged so that his desk formed a barrier between himself and any students that would come in to talk to him about more playing time or any coaches coming to ask for a larger slice of the athletic department’s funds.

The desk itself was in a state of organized chaos. Next to the “John Cooper, Athletic Director” nameplate rested a picture of Johnny and his wife Susan, who had died nearly a decade before, and a pencil holder that held only about two to four pens or pencils at any given time while the rest of his writing utensils lay strewn about amidst papers he needed to grade from the two American Literature classes he still taught—despite the promotion to Athletic Director—and any number of sports-related forms he either needed to fill out or file in his mostly empty file cabinet. Yet, whenever he needed to find a particular student’s paper or a particular form he needed to get in to the Illinois High School Association, he could always find it without too much shuffling of papers.

“What’re ya gonna do about your boy?” Hardwick asked, as he began to sit down in the chair placed on the far side of the desk.

“Shit, I don’t know. Maybe one of these days he’ll realize that he only has to run laps as often as he runs his mouth.” Johnny replied, sitting back in his chair, an old, slightly padded chair on wheels designed before the word ‘ergonomic’ became a household word.

“Yeah, but he’s a good kid. And his arm isn’t too bad either.” Hardwick continued, scratching at the now graying mustache he had sprouted long before Johnny had met him.

“Nick’s still got to learn he isn’t gonna always get his way though. Hell, there are plenty of D-1 college pitchers that throw just as hard and they all listen to their coaches.”

“Oh, I’m sure plenty of them ignore their coaches too,” Hardwick said, a smile crossing his face as he did so. Seeing Johnny wasn’t as amused, he continued on, “The rest of the team looks pretty good this year. Anything big you think we need to work on in practice tomorrow to get ready for the opener?”

“A few of the boys are opening up too soon on their swing, but I’ll work with them. I’ll probably have you pitching batting practice to the rest of them.”

“Sounds good. Man, I just got a feeling this year’s gonna be a good one. Who knows, maybe 94 good,” the smile crossed Hardwick’s lips again as the words came out of his mouth.

Johnny noticed as a few voices began coming down the hallway approaching the office. Three of his players walked by, including Nick. Spotting him, Johnny called to him, “Nick, could you come in here for a moment?”

Nick let out a sigh, loud enough to be audible to his father in the office, turned back from the other two guys he was talking with, and came to the office door. “Yeah dad, what?”

“I just wanted to tell you I’m probably not gonna make it home until nine or so. I want to try to get some of this grading done.”

“I’m going out with Murph and some of the other guys for awhile.” Nick declared to his father, despite the request.

“Not tonight, Nick. I expect you home when I get there.” Johnny reasserted himself more forcefully.

“Dad, come on,” he pleaded, while the two boys in the hall waited for him.

“Nick, Mrs. Saban told me you’re behind in English and I know about the Trig quiz you have tomorrow. You’re not going anywhere until you have those taken care of.” Johnny looked Nick straight in the eye and continued on, trying to keep his cool, “Now, go home and get your work done.”

“Fine, whatever.” Nick’s disapproval was nothing new to Johnny, he was used to having to put his foot down whenever Nick wanted to go out to a movie or a party when his school work was suffering. He could hear Nick’s voice down the hallway saying, “Yeah, I can’t go tonight,” and after some response Johnny couldn’t hear, Nick’s voice continued on again, “I don’t know, he’s just being an asshole.”

Johnny shook his head and picked up the top part of his stack of papers and began to place them on the desk before letting out a sigh and putting them on his lap while he made room for the stack of papers he was intending to grade.

“You have fun with those. I’m gonna take off, get myself home, shower and get some supper in me.” Hardwick began to get out of the chair, when Johnny interjected.

“Am I being too rough on him?”

“Johnny, you have to do what you have to do. I’m not gonna spout my opinions one way or the other,” came Hardwick’s response. It shouldn’t have surprised Johnny to get such an answer, as Hardwick always let the kids off the hook too easily, whether it was basketball season, where he was head coach, or baseball or football, where he assisted. Hardwick had a great understanding of all three sports and desire to teach them, but Johnny and the other coaches always had to deal with the discipline issues that were bound to occur every year.

“Alright. Have a good night Steve, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Johnny said, distracted with the thought about whether he was too rough on Nick. He began to read over the first essay he had to grade, trailing the pen along each line of text as he read it, but kept thinking about hearing Nick’s voice from down the hall echoing the word ‘asshole’ over and over.

“I don’t know, he’s just being an asshole.”

He knew he had been called an asshole plenty of times before, but this time it was his own son, and within earshot of his office. He thought back to playing catch with Nick when he was in little league and they would just throw the ball back and forth and Johnny would give Nick little tips, like not to “let that front end fly open,” or when he would tell him to save the curveball ideas for high school so he didn’t tear up his arm.

His pen still moving along lines of text, Johnny realized he had reached the end of the essay without reading a single line. Getting up from his chair, he walked over to the coffee maker that sat on the mostly empty file cabinet and started a fresh pot of coffee. He began to think nine o’ clock would arrive sooner than the bottom essay on the stack.

FJM closing their doors.

mtalken — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:46:37 -0000

It's another sad day in sports blogdom.

I've become very attached to reading sports blogs. I've tried to create my own, but without any significant niche that made mine unique, it kind of went to the wayside, so I appreciate how difficult it is to have a very good sports blog that gets decent readership. I check in from time to time all over the SBNation network. I try to check out Future Redbirds from time to time to see the good work they're doing there. There's the intermittent posts by MLB.com Cardinals writer Matthew Leach that give new insight into what's going on in and around the clubhouse. But there are only a few blogs that have entered my regular rotation. I always check VEB, I always check MLBTradeRumors, and I always check Fire Joe Morgan (http://www.firejoemorgan.com -- The link thing seems to be broken right now otherwise I'd link it the right way).

Sadly, they are closing their doors. If you've never checked them out, it's still worthwhile even though there won't be new posts most likely. They do an excellent job of ripping apart bad sports journalism. Many of the articles are very prominent writers who get quite a bit of coverage on a national scale, including an article fairly recently by the LA Times' Bill Plaschke. Of course, the original purpose was to bring down Joe Morgan, by pointing out how ridiculous and contradictory he really is, and they did an excellent job of keeping up with the regular Joe Morgan chats on ESPN.com, but with the news that Joe Morgan will quite possibly no longer be doing Sunday Night Baseball, and with time constraints taking them away just like they did with lboros, Fire Joe Morgan will be no more.

The writers do acknowledge that there might be an occasional post if they find something really egregious and want to do a post, but those of you who are regular viewers, like myself, will certainly not find the amount of new content going up to be what you're used to.

So, with lboros hanging them up, and now the boys over at FJM ending their shenanigans as well, it's certainly a sad period for blogdom (at least for MY regular viewing of blogdom).

My plan for fixing the team

mtalken — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:52:13 -0000

Of course, the plan at this point is always to put enough out there to help the team make a run at the playoffs without actually selling the future, so with that in mind, here's my thoughts on the subject:

While Matt Holliday is certainly the sexiest name we've discussed on this board as of late, I don't think that noticeably improves our team. Our needs, in this order, are: bullpen help (especially from the left side), starting pitching, middle infield.

To improve all three, we either need to get incredibly lucky or we'd have to sell most of the farm, which we don't want to do, but I think the first two can be helped without doing too much damage. The Mariners beat writer for the Seattle Times wrote a blog entry stating which players he expected to see traded and in what order. The list was this:

1) Arthur Rhodes

2) Erik Bedard

3) Jarrod Washburn

4) Raul Ibanez

5) Adrian Beltre

The URL for the full article is: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/2008/07/trade_winds_blowing.html

Now, having said that, with what Seattle gave up for Bedard, I don't think they'd accept any package from us that didn't include Rasmus plus others. But the other two guys at the top there are both options.

Jarrod Washburn, according to the writer, would pretty much be a salary dump. Now, his stats look REALLY bad, and early on, he was exactly that. He currently sits 4-8 with a 4.83 ERA. However, since May 25th, he has pitched in 9 straight games, going at least 5 innings every time, and over that time, he lowered his ERA from 6.99 to the current 4.83.

Rhodes would be the one that would take a real prospect to get. I still don't think it would be a king's ransom, by any means, but he would take at least something to get. He makes league minimum, as his contract was a minor-league contract, and he currently has a very non-Cardinals like 3.06 ERA from the pen, and most importantly, he's a lefty. I know the whole of the bullpen sucks right now, but I think the biggest need, seeing how Villone and Flores have been, has been the left side of that bullpen.

If the Cardinals could work out a deal to get these two, and the injured players eventually come back, we could see this as our pitching staff:

Starting Rotation:

Adam Wainwright
Todd Wellemeyer
Kyle Lohse
Jarrod Washburn
Braden Looper
(If someone falters) Joel Pineiro/Jaime Garcia

Bullpen

Tyler Johnson (L)
Arthur Rhodes (L)
Ryan Franklin
Kyle McClellan
Russ Springer
Chris Perez
Jason Isringhausen

Obviously the bullpen isn't entirely fixed with this move, but this leaves Perez and Izzy as the only guys who should really scare you on the mound. (Kinda sad that those are the past and potential future closers, isn't it?)