Old Classmate of Mine Signs with Orioles

I ran across this article in today's Pensacola News Journal:

It's been the toughest five years of Tim Spooneybarger's baseball life.

Now there is a happy ending in sight.

Battling back from two Tommy John elbow surgeries and countless sessions of intense physical therapy, Spooneybarger, a 28-year-old relief pitcher and Pensacola native, signed a one-year contract with the Baltimore Orioles Monday.

"Oh, man, I'm thrilled to death," Spooneybarger said. "I've just been throwing, getting back into it, just waiting until the time was right. Now that it's finally happened, I can't believe that I'm sitting here. I'm back doing it again. I'm excited as can be."

Drafted in the 29th round of the 1998 MLB Draft, the former Pine Forest standout broke into the major leagues in 2001 as a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves and started his promising career with the Braves (2001-02) and Florida Marlins (2003).

Everything changed in June of 2003 when Spooneybarger was sidelined with what was thought to be a minor elbow injury. It proved to be the first of two reconstructive elbow surgeries — he re-injured his throwing elbow in 2005 — and he hasn't thrown a major league pitch since.

Spooneybarger left Pensacola for Sarasota Monday morning and will participate in the Orioles' extended spring training. He will get game action moving up through Baltimore's minor league system and hopes for a return to the major league club by the All Star Break in July.

Spooneybarger was a classmate of mine at Bellview Middle School up to 1994. I remember watching a Braves game one night and suddenly there's this pitcher warming up for the Braves, who just happened to be from Pensacola. So, I looked him up and sure enough, there he is in my class. Glad to see he hasn't given up on his dream and hopefully he makes it back.

So, I Went To a Baseball Game & Froze My Ass Off

While at work on Wednesday, I was offered Nebraska baseball tickets for Friday's game vs. Kansas, by my store's back room manager Randy. I've told him in the past that anytime he had to give them up, I'd be interested. At $10 a ticket, I can go with that.

At the time of buying these tickets it was supposed to be about 65 and sunny. Then this low pressure system that came through on Thursday decided it liked the Midwest and hung around for another day. So, upon starting the game at 6:40 pm on Friday night, it's 45 degrees with winds out of the north at about 25 mph with dark grey skies. Even though it had stopped raining about four hours earlier, the air still felt damp. Not exactly baseball weather, unless it's April in Seattle and you're taking in a game at Safeco Field. I thought with how the stadium was positioned, we'd get a break from the wind. But, of course, it found a way to swirl it's way around from several directions, as if to make sure every inch of us was cold.

Oh yeah, Pensacola was in the 70's.

As for the baseball, the normally reliable Johnny Dorn, Nebraska's starting pitcher, seemed to have two Kansas baserunners or more on in just about every inning. Nebraska, however, seemed to rally and get back into the game, eventually pulling out a win. Unfortunately, I only saw the first six innings due to time constraints (mom had to go to work) and, oh yeah, it was COLD!!! She actually went to the car about two inning ahead of me.

But I did take advantage of one thing I wanted to do, and that was take pictures of the very nice Haymarket Park, the home of Nebraska baseball and the Lincoln Saltdogs. Those photos are on my Flickr now.

I'll be back to Haymarket Park next month as my hometown Pensacola Pelicans make their first trip into Lincoln. If you happen to be attending that series and wonder why there's one completely insane Pelicans fan in the crowd, you now know why. For the third year in a row, the Pels will host the Dogs in Pensacola to open the season. It's about time the Pels made a trip up here.

Take care folks.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

The video speaks for itself.

Bronx-bred Red Sox Fan Buries Jersey in New Yankees Stadium

Chalk this man up as having the world's largest grapefruits.

Construction worker, Gino Castignoli, took his one day to work on the new Yankees Stadium as a chance to bury a Boston Red Sox jersey within the stadium floor, in hopes of jinxing the building. Castignoli, a Sox fan since 1975, was born and raised in the Bronx, the epicenter of the Evil Empire itself. That alone takes some guts.

Oh, but this gets better.

Yankees President Randy Levine said team officials at first considered leaving the shirt where it was.

"The first thought was, you know, it's never a good thing to be buried in cement when you're in New York," Levine said. "But then we decided, why reward somebody who had really bad motives and was trying to do a really bad thing?"

Then comes Yankees Executive VP, Hank Steinbrenner's quote.

"I hope his coworkers kick the [crap] out of him", Steinbrenner said according to the New York Post.

Said Castignoli in response, "Tell Hank he can come meet me if he wants to try - and tell him to bring [catcher Jorge] Posada, because he's the one Yankee I can't stand".

Apparently, the Yankees might be considering taking legal action on the matter. "We will take appropriate action since fortunately we do know the name of the individual", said Yankees CEO Lonn Trost. A spokesman for Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said Sunday he did not know whether any criminal charges might apply.

However, the Yankees will be showing at least a little class with this matter. The team plans on donating the jersey to the Jimmy Fund, a Red Sox based charity that funds cancer research, for auction.

Makes me wish I had the balls and opportunity to do something like this. I'd love nothing more than to jinx the new New York Mets stadium that's being built at this moment.

Gotta love rivalries.

My First Braves Game

Found these photos of the first Braves game I attended in 1990 in Atlanta. I remember three things about that day; the look of the field as I came through the tunnel, Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants fouling a ball behind my head that landed about five rows back, and the Braves lost (it was 1990 after all).

I'm hoping to see the Braves next month for the first time since 1993.

View the photo set here.

WSJ's Walt Mossberg Speaks On Digital Media, Braodband, and the 3G iPhone

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, one of America's leading tech experts, spoke out on a few things of interest, at least for me, at an executive summit for Beet.tv in Washington on April 1.

First, he speaks on the purchasing of digital media. Although there's still a lot of people who illegally download content, wether it's music, tv shows, or movies, there's proof that people will buy this sort of content online. For example, Apple's iTunes Store just passed Walmart for #1 in music sales, online or offline. Really this make sense. I'm one of those people that wether I buy an album on iTunes or purchase it in a store, it will become a digital copy that I can use to put on my iPod, play within iTunes in a mix, or stream to my Xbox 360 while playing a game. The same goes for movies and TV shows. Fox just recently started releasing their DVD's with a "digital copy" on the disc, one that you can transfer to your computer and play on your iPod if you choose.

TV shows have been another successful area for Apple. I've personally have bought a few shows, one of those being season one of America's Game, the NFL Network's excellent documentary series on Super Bowl champions. This is a series I would not of seen otherwise since Time Warner Cable has b.s.'d it's way out of carrying the channel. What I purchased was a totally commercial free version of the show in good quality that I can use however I like.

Another method I've started using is recording shows straight to my computer using my EyeTV Hybrid, a small device and software package that turns my computer into a DVR. The cool thing about the software is that I can actually go in and edit out the commercials. This is one of the points I was glad to see Mossberg bring up. As you know, during most 30 minute shows, you will see about eight minutes of what Mossberg calls "terrible" commercials. He puts it this way because, let's face it, most of the commercials you see really don't appeal to you. So, it's become understandable for people to pay not to see commercials, much in the way people are now paying for commercial free radio with Sirius and XM. Essentially, people are growing tired of the crap that's being force fed to them.

Another thing Mossberg brought up is out poor quality of internet service in the US. This is possibly one of those deals where you don't miss what you've never had. But now knowing that Europe and Japan are getting fast internet speeds than we are and that what many DSL providers are calling "broadband" would only pass for what we pay $10 for in the States in Europe is appalling. Secondly, cable companies frequently false advertise the speeds they're giving you as well, often giving you less than half of what's advertised while vastly overcharging you for it. Mossberg says this is where the next Presidential regime needs to step in.

Lastly, Mossberg mentions that we should be seeing the 3G version of the iPhone in the next 60 days or so. This falls in line with many other reports on the beautiful little touch screen device that does just about everything and embarrasses other cell phones while doing so. Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference is set for early June and with the newly release software development kit (SDK) being released in March and numerous training sessions set for the iPhone at WWDC, there's been plenty of speculation. Also, the iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0 software update is due for June. Additionally, iPhone inventories have been low in all the locations the device is sold and T-Mobile Germany has even gone as far as giving a 300 Euro price drop in it's stores. It's all adding up.

Cal Ripken's Last Trip to Kansas City

I decided to scan some old photos so that I'd have a digital copy of each and ran across my set from Kansas City, when Hall of Famer Cal Ripken made his last trip into town with the Orioles in 2001. I was lucky enough to see Cal hit a homerun that night, one of only a few times I cheered an opposing player in Kauffman Stadium. The photos are a bit fuzzy, mainly because I shot these with a disposable camera.

I've posted these photos on my .Mac web gallery, and you can view them here.

Speaking of the Royals, congrats to them for sweeping the AL Central division favorite Detroit Tigers. I don't care if it's April, that's impressive.