Three awesome things at my first Bluefish day of the season, 14 and a half innings of Atlantic League walk-the-ballpark Baseball, vintage 1998 at its finest:
–Bill McLaughlin happened to be there, as well. One of his daughters was part of the choir that sang the Star-Spangled Banner before the second game. He’s doing well, in sales for Eli Lilly. He said to say hi to everyone. If you’re here, I’m guessing you’re in that group.
–I made it back from the clubhouse just as the fireworks show ended. Fireworks are cool and all, but explosions while you’re writing? Not so conducive to the creative process.
–Cap’n L.I. Sounder has come to life. I knew it could happen if we wished hard enough.
Three less-awesome things about this Preakness AP story:
–We loved the filly. She was game as heck and gave this horse his only challenge in two races. But do we need to refer to her death three times in the Preakness story?
–But given that, it feels unwise to use the word “destroys” in a headline…
–The lead confirms my suspicion that we need to ban the use of the phrase “sneak peek” in all its forms. “Kent Desormeaux sneaked a peak”? Good gravy. And to where did he sneak this mountain?
Anyway. Who’s gonna run this horse down on the long stretch? Will be interesting in three weeks.
As Paul noted, Jamie Johnson to Turku, according to this from the team, which is in some foreign language*. Eurohockey also says something about Chris Simon playing with Ensign Chekhov next year. And speaking of Finns and Swedes, Finland took the bronze in Quebec. A 1 p.m. start today for the gold.
Miriam asked in the comments if there was anyone I was looking forward to seeing at the kiddie camp in July. You can check my flippant reply — most likely made while someone was yet again taking four balls — if you’d like**. (Miriam, thanks for catching on to the intended spirit…) To attempt a serious answer: Last year, it was kind of the Okposo Show. This year, not as much. I’m kind of interested to see Marcinko and Joensuu go regularly with guys they might well be playing with this year. Maybe to get a closer look at Rechlicz and get a sense of which camp is right(er).
“All will be well, if, if, if, if if,” wrote Idris Davies, sang Pete Seeger and the Byrds. Not one of them probably expected Cardiff and Portsmouth to be playing for the FA Cup. OK, I didn’t. But unlike colleague Mike Cardillo, I spend my time following IIHF tournaments instead of important things like the Football Association…
And finally, today is the 49th anniversary of the day the Crickets recorded Sonny Curtis’ masterpiece, “I Fought the Law.” Bobby Fuller’s final remakes — the mono and stereo versions are noticeably different, and that’s not counting the at-least-two versions he made in Texas — were six years and change away.
*-Finnish, unlike Swedish, does not appear intelligible to me. In the slightest. Unless, as noted yesterday, “ruotsalainen” appears somewhere.
**-Not to slight Garrett, of course.