It's Here!

It's finally here! Opening Day for the St. Louis Cardinals is tomorrow against the Rockies. Like I say every year, it's been a long winter and baseball couldn't get here fast enough. So, this blog will be all things baseball.

You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.-- Earl Weaver

This week WGN has been playing baseball movies at night leading up to Opening Day. For those of you who don't know, WGN is the Cubs t.v. station. The movies they selected weren't my favorites but it gave me something to watch so I didn't have to watch basketball.

My top 5 favorite baseball movies of all time are...

5. The Rookie
4. Benchwarmers
3. Sandlot
2. League of Their Own

And my favorite baseball movie is...

1. Eight Men Out

I come from a long line of baseball players. My grandfather was asked by the St. Louis Cardinals to come try-out but my grandmother told him no because, "You just returned from the war and you are not leaving me here with our baby." To hear the stories about my grandfather and the way he batted. My brother actually has my grandfathers bat and I have no idea how we ever got the bat through the strike zone because it is so heavy. Once, my great grandmother come to Memphis to see my grandfather play ball. My grandfather hit a tripple and my great grandmother leans over to my grandmother and says, "John ought not hit the ball so far and make those poor men run after it like he does."

My dad was a catcher and I've heard stories about how great a catcher he was. I was home visiting a couple years ago and ran into one of the coaches that dad played AGAINST. The coach asked me if I knew how good my dad was and I just said, "I've heard stories." He points his finger at me and with his hand on my shoulder tells me, "I've coached against your dad and let me tell you how good he was." The coach proceeds to tell me that on his team batting 1 and 2 were 2 members of the Germantown track team who won the State Championship in the relays the previous year (and who would win it again this particular year). Dad was a catcher. The first batter gets on base and tries to steal 2nd - naturally dad threw him out. The next batter got on base and tried to steal 2nd base as well. Dad threw him out. The coach's wife yells at him, "Stop sending runners. Martin is going to throw them all out." The coach called time out, walked over to my dad's coach and said, "Tell Martin I'm not going to send any more runners the rest of the game." The coach kept his word.

The baseball coach at my high school was asked "In your 20 plus years of coaching baseball who is the best shortshop you've seen." His response was "Kevin Woods." I've always said that but i'm also a bit biased. Kevin had incredible hands and incredible range and an incredible arm. When he batted, he had the best eye which sometimes worked against him. Kevin went to school on a baseball scholarship but came home after one year and began coaching at our high school.

I love going to baseball games especially with my dad. He still teaches me so much about the game. Dad and I can talk baseball for hours and I love it. Mom has always told us that if the house were to ever catch on fire that we had to grab all the photo albums and videos that we could. Dad always told us that if the house were to catch on fire to carry out all the autographed baseballs we could. You see, at our house we have a Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Ted Williams, Ozzie Smith, Pujols and many many more autographed baseballs and probably close to 60,000 baseball cards.

Baseball is in my blood.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come. - Field of Dreams

Play Ball!

For me, the 2008 baseball season couldn't get here fast enough. I'm traveling this week to Jupiter, FL this week for work. As luck would have it the St. Louis Cardinals hold their spring training in Jupiter at Roger Dean Stadium. I love baseball and anyone that really knows me knows that I get to the stadium early enough to see batting practice (bp) and infield.

So, since this is my first spring training game i have no idea what time the stadium opens and what time bp and infield are. To make sure i didn't miss anything, I arrived at the stadium at 9:00 a.m. I arrived so early that the parking lot attendant wasn't even there yet so free parking for me!! I finally found out that the stadium didn't open till 11:00. What in the world was i going to do for 2 hours? I walked around the stadium and ran into the practice fields. I got to see all the players in the Cardinals farm system practice.

One of, if not the best catcher in the MLB - Yadier Molina

Albert (nothing else needs to be said)

This made me laugh so i had to take a picture. The lady on the phone owns her own business and is apparently in the process via the phone writing up one of her employees for telling one of their loyal customers that he smelled, needed to take a bath and change clothes as well as brush his teeth. At the end of her phone conversation she tells her husband who also owns the business that she is going to fire the employee on Monday. Apparently the employee wanted her tickets to today's game and she wouldn't give them to him. I guess he thought insulting the customer would get back at the owner. What an idiot.

Albert

The game was sold out and my seat was awesome (5th row)! Even though the Cardinals lost, it was great to finally hear the crack of the bat, smell the hotdogs and popcorn, and the sound of the ball hitting the glove. It's been a long cold winter and baseball is finally here! Play Ball!!

While i wait for my pipes to thaw out i thought i would update my blogs.

Sunday in Puerto Rico...
After getting my bag from the hotel, Christine and I got ready and headed out to the east part of the island to the rain forest.

Tip of the day...don't wear a white t-shirt to a RAINforest.

I was able to get a couple of great pictures while at the rainforest before I entered the Puero Rican Rainforest Wet T-Shirt Contest. I got caught outside in a heavy rainshower while we were in the upper region of the rainforest. I got drenched. I blame it on American and Hampton Inn. Not that it was there fault but everything that went wrong on this audit i blamed on American Airlines and Hampton Inn.

Waterfall at the rainforest


View of San Juan from the rainforest


Last picture before it rained on me

Monday morning I mee thte rest of my audit team (who flew in late Sunday night) downstairs for breakfast. We leave the hotel and begin to make our 1 hour trek south across Puerto Rico to Cidra where our hospital is located. After we get off the interstate we have about 20 miles of a 2 lane road up a mountain. Christine makes a comment about how horrible the drivers are in Puerto Rico. David coins the term "Driving Laws - Optional." I started laughing and at the same time, Jason and I both say "It's nothing compared to Honduras drivers." Neither one of us knew the other person had even been to Honduras. Puerto Ricans do not use their horns like the Hondurans. I tried to get Christine to bring "horn honking" to Puerto Rico but she would have none of it. Later on in the week when i drive I bring back horn honking.

FYI - shoulders of the road in Puerto Rico can also be used as a lane if you are too impatient to wait.

The view at the hospital is incredible. Later on in the week the view gets better when i see the hot interns!

View from the parking lot at the hospital

Hot off the Press! Honduras Day 10 is now posted.

Dumb American and Dumb Hampton

My trip to Puerto Rico started out uneventful. Flight left at 6:15 a.m. We landed in Miami at 10:30 and our connecting flight left at 12:30. We had two hours to kill at the airport. I love to people watch and the airport is one of the best venues. The Miami airport didn’t let me down. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud when I saw this girl. She walked up wearing one of terry cloth swimsuit cover-ups that some people wear as a sun dress. Well, this chick was wearing a green terry cloth swimsuit cover-up (strapless) with her swimsuit on underneath. That alone was not bad but when I looked at her shoes I had to turn away. She was wearing Uggs. She looked as though she had passed out by the pool the night before and someone woke her up in time to get her to the airport just in time. My co-worker looks at me and says, “Clearly she isn’t from England because the English have more of a fashion sense than that.” I get in line and I over hear this chick talking. Sure enough – she’s from England.

We boarded our plane and made it safely to Puerto Rico. We go to baggage claim and our bags did not make it. Not only did our bags not make it, none of the bags from Nashville made it to Puerto Rico (about 40 bags). We were told that they might make it to the island that night. Christine and I go eat dinner in Old San Juan and then head back to the hotel, which happens to be located right next door to a (no lie) Cockfighting Arena. I call American Airlines and they have located our bags. I was told that the delivery service would pick up our bags at 11:00p.m. and I would have my bag within 6 hours. I go to bed.

I wake up in the morning, call the front desk to see if my bags had been delivered and they had not. The hotel told us we should probably go to the airport to pick them up ourselves. Christine and I get in the car and head to the airport. There is no way for me to enter the baggage claim area from the outside so I have to go to the ticket counter, have them print me off a fake ticket where they write in huge red letters BAGGAGE. I take my fake ticket and go through security and then I find my way to baggage claim. Once at baggage claim I am told that my bags had been delivered to the hotel the night before. At this point I’m just ticked. I try to always remain calm but I’m just tired of the run around. I made American Airlines call Hampton Inn and talk to the front desk. The front desk tells them they have not received any bags. Before American hangs up the phone I tell her to tell the front desk to actually look for the bags. Sure enough, my bags are at the hotel. At this point Christine is laughing at me because she’s never seen this mad. This is ridiculous and uncalled for. As soon as I make it to the front desk the lady tells me 5 minutes after we had left the hotel for the airport, American delivers our bags. I know that’s a load of crap and I called her out on it. I’ve received pretty good service from Hampton since then.

You are probably wondering where all 40 bags had been for 16 hours. We were told that they were in Miami. American had FORGOTTEN to load the bags onto our connecting flight. How does someone forget to load an entire cart of 40 bags sitting on the tarmac? I surprised the Airbus didn’t roll over them.

Greetings from Puerto Rico

Greetings from Puerto Rico! We arrived here yesterday afternoon so we could get a few days of fun in the sun before we have to work on Monday. It's only day 2 and I already have so many stories to post. I'll try to post some tonight. Got to go...i think i hear a few Puerto Ricans calling my name...

Scrubs: Payback

Scrubs is my absolute favorite t.v. show and the following clip is probably my favorite of the entire series. Watching Dr. Cox "get the spirit" is too funny.