March Madness

For the past few years, I’ve been involved in picking the winners of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. For the last couple years, my #1 team lost in the finals. The winner of the pool last year was a five-year old boy, who had also won two years previously, when he was three. He picks based on school mascots, nicknames, and geography, which is obviously more successful than reading everything I can from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today and CBS Sportsline. I suppose I could just WATCH THE GAMES during the season, but truth is, the only game I watched this season was the six minutes of the Albany-Vermont game. That’s six minutes more than I watched LAST year.

Anyway, one gets one point for getting the games in round one, two points for round two, four points for round three, etc. Even if NO one picks the ultimate champion, someone will win the pool, which is not for money but for pride. I’ll be sharing my progress, but I won’t give you the blow-by-blow. I will tell you, out of sheer civic pride, i’m picking Albany to win one game. I also have Georgetown beating Ohio State, Florida beating UCLA and Georgetown beating Florida in the Final Four.

I was playing Internet backgammon with someone this week, and he or she seemed to leave their pieces intentionally vulnerable. Even if you’ve never played the game, what you need to know is that two pieces on a space are safe and one is not, and that this person seemed to intentionally want to get hit. Strange, and not that much fun, winning handily like that. Reminds me of an old girlfriend who was playing a card game called casino. Aces are worth a point apiece, and she was playing first, but didn’t pick up the aces on the table even though she had an ace in her hand to do so, which soon became evident. She did it so I could win; this did NOT make me happy.

Anyway, my posts for the next couple days will be short, because my back’s been killing me. I seem to have pulled something trying to right myself on the ice, the old melt-and-refreeze stuff. I didn’t fall; almost wish I did. So I stayed home Tuesday and watched the Grammys; yeah, only a month late. The highlight for me had to be Mary J. Blige doing Stay with Me, a song by Lorraine Ellison which I have on vinyl on THE 1969 WARNER/REPRISE RECORD SHOW. I LOVE those LPs, as they were wonderfully eclectic. – I have 32 of the 37 listed.

The Ellison song was the last of a quintet of songs I used to play when romance would go sour:
Remove This Doubt-Supremes
Sweet Bitter Love-Aretha
Gone Away-Roberta Flack
First Night Alone without You-Jane Olivor

ROG

ROG

Crackerjacks (my daughter is allergic to peanuts)

My ritual for preparing for the baseball season usually involves purchasing Street& Smith’s Baseball Annual. It helps to remind me who was traded or retired during the off season. I’m sure it’s a fantasy league player’s dream, but that’s never interested me.

What DID interest me is the career totals in the several categories. I was fascinated to find that the leading active player in hits (tied all-time with Rogers Horsby) and doubles (ahead of Hank Aaron and Cal Ripkin Jr.), AND second to Barry Bonds in runs (beating out, among others, Jimmie Foxx and Honus Wagner), and third to Bonds and Griffey Jr. in total bases is Craig Biggio. Barring some revelation, he should be a lock for the Hall of Fame when he retires.

So, who is the batter with the fourth all-time greatest slugging percentage after Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig? It isn’t Bonds, who is sixth, after Foxx. It’s Albert Pujols, who’s top 4 among active players in on-base percentage.

Of course, over the past few years, the issue of steroids has muddied the waters in terms of not only baseball but other sports achievements. For reasons that I’m not entirely sure I understand, it is the Albany (NY) County district attorney that is leading the charge in a major steroid bust in Florida.

At some level, I think I, and many others are fervently hoping that today’s stars, such as Pujols and Ryan Howard, will stay clean, for the sake of the game.
***
Paraphrased from The Very Worst In Sports

In 1895, Mike Grady played professional baseball for the Phillies. Grady, normally a catcher, was playing third base in a particularly memorable – and painful — game for him. As the story goes, he bobbled an easy grounder allowing the batter to reach first base (first error). His throw to first was wild (second error), allowing the runner to advance. The runner tried to stretch it to third. The first baseman’s throw to Grady at third was in time, but he dropped it (third error). Finally, the runner was racing home and Grady’s throw sailed over
the catcher’s head into the grandstand (fourth error) – ALL in one single play!

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I’ve been in conversation with this guy from the local newspaper about putting my little bloggy on the Times Union newspaper blog site. The paper would not exercise any editorial control over my work, and they could move the nearly two years of my back stuff onto the site.

The upside:
Potentially more readers, as the TU would support my/their blog

The downside
No bloglinks (though I could, I suppose, keep a blog with links)
These transfer things always seem to be more complicated than they’re sold on being
I’d get grief from someone about selling out to the evil Hearst corporation

But I’m thinking about it.I imagine those oof you who have strong opinions will share them.

Meanwhile, friend Judy sent me a link to “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us”:

From an unsolicited e-mail:

Dr. Benjamin Wiker has summarized the background of the popular phrase:

“The story begins with Mr. George Hull, a student of archeology and paleontology who contrived a famous hoax to make money. Hull had a ‘giant’ carved out of stone, and buried on his cousin’s farm in Cardiff , New York . Why? Because evangelists of the time were preaching about lost giants that roamed the earth, and Hull knew he could make a mint if the buried giant was ‘suddenly’ unearthed and put on display. And he did. Things went so well that he was able to sell two-thirds interest in the giant for $30,000 to a group of men, one of them being banker David Hannum (who believed the giant real). P.T. Barnum tried to buy the giant, but Hull and Hannum wouldn’t sell. So, ol’ P.T. had one carved of his own, and claimed Hull and Hannum’s was a fake! Seeing the streams of visitors flowing in to see P.T.’s ‘giant’, Hannum, still believing his own giant to be real, declared: ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ROG

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Look alikes


Not having come across a meme that struck me, I went with this art de computer, via some FOL (Friend of Lefty). Frankly, don’t think any of them REALLY look like me. Do you? (The fifth is Paul Tibbetts.)
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UAlbany plays Virginia in Columbus this week in men’s basketball’s March Madness. I’ll probably do some pool. Any insights on upsets, such as what #12 is going to beat the #5 seed they’re playing?
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Today would have been my parents’ 57th wedding anniversary. On their 50th, in 2000, my sisters and I were trying to plan a surprise party for them. However, my father was ALSO trying to plan a surprise party for his wife, and the people my sisters and I called were confused by the fact that TWO parties were planned for the same day at the same place – their church – so, we ended up joining forces in surprising mom. Dad died five months later, so that last party holds a special place in our hearts.

ROG

ROG

Flick Tunes


But first, a sports note: UAlbany 60, U Vermont 59 in Burlington yesterday, where the Great Danes had never won in seven previous tries since 1999, when they went to Division I. I watched on ESPN2 as VT had the ball, down one with 30 seconds to go, but thanks to great defense by Albany never even got off a shot. Albany, my grad school alma mater, wins the America East men’s basketball title and gets to get seeded something-teen in the NCAA bracket tonight.
***
I made this mixed CD for Lefty and his comrades, and I was so happy that the process worked that I made an extra five copies for whoever wants one.

I started with the God/afterlife songs:
Morning Hymn and Alleluia-Nuns Chorus-The Sound of Music
I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord-Lyle Lovett-The Apostle
In Your Mind-Johnny Cash-Dead Man Walking
The Great Beyond-R.E.M.-Man in the Moon
I’m Going Home-Sacred Harp Singers at Liberty Church-Cold Mountain
Then the revolution songs:
Beware Verwoerd-Miriam Makeba-Amandla!
[Title]-Bono and Gavin Friday-In the Name of the Father
Revolution-Grandaddy-I Am Sam
Segue is from a revolutionary movie
Overture to the Sun-A Clockwork Orange
Transportation songs; the protagonists in the latter two movies have a none too positive fate:
Ridin’ the Rails-k.d. lang and Take 6-Dick Tracy
Lonely Avenue-Ian Gillian and Roger Glover-Rain Man
Tennessee Plates-Charlie Sexton-Thelma & Louise
Ballad of Easy Rider-Roger McGuinn-Easy Rider
Easy Rider hits New Orleans, so I’ll go there
Ma ‘Tit Fille-Buckwheat Zydeco-The Big Easy
Another celebration
The Funeral (September 25, 1987)- George Fenton and Jonas Gwangwa-Cry Freedom: the bulk of this track is the very noble Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (God Bless Africa). So I need some leavening.
Gump-Weird Al Yankovic
Upbeat, positive ending
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive-Clint Eastwood-Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
You’ve Got a Friend in Me-Robert Goulet-Toy Story 2

ROG

ROG
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