Justice For Trayvon

From TownHall cartoons.

Windy in Peoria: Moyer is Wild & Gently Whacked by Former Team-Mates

Yes, I said Moyer, Jamie Moyer that is. I thought he had retired a year or two ago but he fooled all of us, checking into a hospital for Tommy John surgery, and then signing a minor league contact with the Rockies. When I saw the familiar motions and number (50) too, I gave a shout of glee at the Mariners v, Rockies game in Peoria this afternoon. 49 years! At this rate Jamie may beat Satchel Paige's numbers.

What a lovely serendipitous pair of starters: Felix Hernandez and Jamie Moyers. The former looked sharp, striking out 6 in 4 innings and as usual getting a little upset when the home plate umpire called an inadvertent quick pitch a balk. He will be the Mariners' ace for sure this year.

Moyers' line didn't look quite as good: 5 innings, 4 runs, 9 hits, no big flies: not really bad but not as good as usual. His control seemed a little off, e.g. he walked 1 and hit the same batter twice. I'm not sure if the decision has been made or not yet but we are for him.

I heard the distinctive plonk of a thrown baseball on plastic helmet today: Future star Mariner Jesus Montero was hit by Edgmer Escalonte and clearly dazed. I hope things work out. As soon as I heard the sound I had a flashback some 60 or so years when I saw and heard my father hit on the head with a thrown baseball in the years before they wore helmets. He dropped like the cows that were dispatched in his slaughterhouse. Eventually he got up and dizzily stumbled to first base, where his manager decided he could not make it any further and replaced him. No wonder we all have to overcome the fear of someone throwing baseballs surprisingly close to us.

Gatsby Play Grabs Many

Arizona Theatre Company's production of The Great Gatsby was as "titillating, fascinating and shocking" as the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel was in 1925. Thank Goodness there was enough stagecraft magic to keep the show moving as it was meant to be. Of course, the audience was not empathic with any of the characters. If we did we were not paying attention to the author of the book or the playwright both on the same page in my opinion. Still on through this weekend. Worth a trip to downtown.

There was an absent-minded review of the play in the Arizona Republic by Kerry Lengel last week sometime, I think it was 27 March. Apparently he or she disagreed with the campy nature of the hydroplane scene. And then there is this:

"In the book, Fitzgerald paints images of emptiness. But in this production, it's the imagery that lacks substance,"

says Ms Lengel in a final paragraph of wisdom. Hmm. I, for one, have trouble understanding the difference between "emptiness" and "lacks substance." Fortunately, the last Sunday afternoon matinee was well attended and the audience thought the show was pretty good. Keep up the good work AZ Theatre Company. Maybe you just need to buy some advertising to get a decent review.

Sailing To Salt River Fields

From Sun City West we took the GPS recommended route around the northern borders of the Phoenix metropolitan area to Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, an oasis in the desert east of Scottsdale , and a 45 minute journey at 70 mph from the safe environs of Sun City West. Seemed fairly easy to get to. Parking $5. Surprise appears to be the only place so far that doesn't charge for parking. Mostly pleasant people.

Long uphill walk to the baseball field. Not many golf carts or wheel chairs. The rocks on either side of the walkway are fake. They are really annoying loudspeakers trying to sell you something. See below for more on this last point.

Kind of looks like a smaller version of a major league park, doesn't it. I suppose because it is cheaper the rise on each row is not enough to see over the galoot in front of you. There appear to be some nice shaded seats on the 2nd deck. I forgot to ask if they were available to us commoners. Fairly expensive seats in the sun. Maybe that is what some come for.

I guess I should have been warned by the short lines at this place. I knew I had made a mistake when I was hand my burger with some yellow crap on it the second after I ordered it. Could not finish this.

On the other hand this Asian-looking concoction was very tasty and they were making it on the spot.

We managed to find some shade on the visitors side of the stadium, in today's case that was the Cleveland Indians. As you can see we were "taking time for paradise," as Bart Giamatti recommended. This was  marred by a really annoying public address system. Either they think we old folks are all deaf or the system was set up by a young person who had ruined his hearing by attending too many loud rock concerts.

So then, high prices for the seats and the concessions, $$ parking, and a loudmouth announcer, what more could we want. This is what the true aficionado comes for.

Thistles in Paradise

I woke up this morning to find someone had sown this nasty-looking thing in our front yard. It even has its own drip irrigation device!

I was reminded of multiple episodes in my childhood when my father would drop Gerry and me off at Grandpa Mueller's farm on the outskirts of Hustisford WI to harvest the crop of thistles that came up every spring. My guess nowadays is that they couldn't afford baby-sitters in those days. We wore thick gloves to protect our hands. They seemed gigantic but then I guess we were smaller in those days.

How Come Our TV Bobble Heads Don't Say This?

Mark Shea's comments on the shooting in Florida.

Good Times at Goodyear

It seems fitting that two Ohio teams, the Cincinnati Redlegs and the Cleveland Indians, join together for spring training in an Arizona town named after Akron Ohio's Goodyear Tires.

Although the Indians had long come to Arizona in the spring (1947 to 1992), they had left for Winter Haven, Florida after the '92 season.  They returned in 2009 when the good folks of Goodyear opened their wallets to build a nice park for them and were persuaded by others that things would be better in Arizona. They were joined by the Reds in 2010.

This place looks familiar. It reminds me of Dehler Park in Billings MT, especially the way it was supposed to look before the suites got knocked off in the name of egalitarianism and the hope of getting enough ordinary folks to vote for it. Of course Dehler doesn't have palms and certainly doesn't have the dopey stretched out baseball looking like a rocket ship that you can see above. Must have been one of Salvador Dali's lesser known works.

There is one less than helpful shield against the sun and rain on the 3rd base side. As you can see in the picture at the top the scoreboard is similar, though the bottom row of info at Goodyear in contrast to Billings is not very readable. They do have a space for pitch speed but it was not used for the Reds' game that I saw. When I asked Gary Roller why we didn't have this info at Dehler, he told me that the Reds didn't like their players to see that info, so at least they are consistent, both in how they treat their players and their fans too now that I think about it. Perhaps the Indians use it at Goodyear.

Houston's Cause of Death was Accidental Drowning?

Really? Do you mean that she fell asleep in a bath tub full of water? C'mon man, we need a little more thought than that.

It seems to me she must have lost consciousness while in the tub, which suggests to me either some primary central nervous system depression, or the same effect secondary to a loss of cardiac function. Although a fair number of drugs were found in her room and in her body, they were not found in concentrations high enough to be a sufficient cause by themselves.

It looks like the circumstances surrounding the death, i.e being found dead under water; and the drug use history, especially cocaine use; together with an absence of any convincing morphologic cause on autopsy, led  to the coroner's conclusion.

But what caused the loss of consciousness in a potentially dangerous environment? Could she have suffered some CNS or cardiac malfunction because her drug levels were low enough to be dangerous? Could her tolerance for the drugs have sunk so low that even small amounts might be dangerous? What is the mechanism of death in cocaine and poly-pharmacy deaths? If the drugs increased the probability of a sudden CNS or cardiac event, even when still present in small amounts, shouldn't they be listed as the probable cause of death, in that they initiated the process that led to death?

Curious people want to know.

Billings Theatre Expanding

We are starting to look forward to our spring trek back to Montana. Especially when we read in the latest Enjoy that Kelly Martin is going to open a new theatrical venue, the Prince Theatre, in the old movie house on Broadwater. Not surprisingly he plans on specializing in musicals and comedies, both of which he does very well. Both BST and Venture always seem a little small when they do a musical. I can't remember what the stage looks like at the old Cine 7. Let's hope it will work. Wow, three theaters in a town the size of Billings. Next thing we know, someone will get the idea of putting on some Shakespearean plays.

Checking Out the Baseball at Camelback Ranch

Camelback Ranch in Glendale AZ is the spring training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox. The latter has been doing spring training in many places over the years, including a couple years at French Lick Indiana during the war years, WWII that is. Most recently the boys from the South Side of Chicago have been down in Tucson  for around 10 years and before that they were in Sarasota Florida for almost 40 years. They have been at Camelback for 4 years now.

This feels like a big park, seating around 13,000. I like the architecture, a kind of modern desert adobe look with a large concourse all the way around and relief from the sun in some places but not much of the lower deck. The upper deck is for the elite amongst us, in contrast to what is available for us ordinary folks at Surprise and Peoria. In addition they charge $30 to $40 per ticket for these seats in the sun, a lot more than Surprise and Peoria. Perhaps the folks from Chicago are willing to pay but there wasn't a full house.

I saw the Sox play the Royals on Thursday afternoon; play is not exactly the right word, pounded is what I was searching for: 16-4 was the final score I think. The parking is free and I saw a few wheelchairs being moved around as well. A good variety of concession stands, some mobile, all with major league prices of course.

This is probably the best place to watch the game, in the shade, with an expensive beer in your hand. All the parks I've been to so far feature expensive food and drink.

The view from the left field corner. There are some comfortable seats with shade just to the left of this location overlooking the visitors bullpen. There are scattered areas for grass sitting too, if that appeals to you. The outfielders were paying attention to some of the more scantily-clad fans of the female persuasion.