dayton is not in ohio

Cyclists in Chicago recently protested to save the “Spindle” sculpture at Cermak Plaza. Chicago Sun-Times article.

Some of you may know that I’m an avid disc golf player. This is the craziest putt I’ve ever made. A long one too.
I lofted the disc high in the air to play it safe, it slid into the basket from the right never touching the chains, flipped over and onto the rim, rotated out, and became suspended by the rim of the disc on the outside of the basket. The first picture is taken from where I shot from.

“It was extraordinary for something like this to happen to us,” Dodgers manager Grady Little said. “But at least nobody got injured.” I’m not quite sure what he meant by this, but he’s referring to the Phillies’ 26 hit, 15 - 3 wasting of the NL West leading Dodgers last night.

My dad told me he heard a recent quote from a ballplayer that the difference between Philadelphia fans and everybody else is that when when Philadelphians throw bottles onto the field, they break the neck off first. Perhaps if Dodgers fans were as ‘passionate’ as those from Philadelphia, then he’d have something to worry about.

But speaking of feasts and famines, here are the final scores of the last five Phillies games: W 13 - 3, W 10 - 4, L 2 - 10, L 3 - 10, W 15 - 3. Make all of these losses and they look more like me playing Ping-Pong at Dupont Ping-Pong arena, than consecutive baseball scores.

Here’s a video I made about the canoe trip I took with my brother and a friend this summer in Mississippi.

It’s really just a (very) glorified slide show, intermingled with a little video that I shot on my camera. I planned on having more video, but the disposable video camera I bought from CVS just didn’t work… should have tested it.

The soundtrack includes Black Water, by the Doobie Brothers, Dueling Banjos from the Deliverance soundtrack (if you’ve seen the movie then you understand the nightmarish significance of that), Copperhead Road, by Steve Earl, and Gonna Fly Now, by Bill Conti, from the Rocky soundtrack (shot out to Philly!). There are also a lot of layered sound effects, so I’d watch it with some good audio, turned way up.

My brother kept bugging me about how long this took to finish up, but I always turn these kinds of things into a big production.

For a bigger view, download the video to your desktop and play it from there, then stretch your video player bigger.

But as Chesterton says, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing….” you know the rest. I’m… I’m, just. I’m speechless. Why do I torture myself.

There are only two reasons why any Philadelphia Philly batter would be the final batter in a ball game. One, you hit a walk-off __________ (home-run, single, anything…) or two, you get the last out.

The same is true in the All-Star game. The same is WORSE in the All-Star game - uh, oh… did I give it away, Aaron Rowand. Oh! Uh.. sorry Aaron, that… that you put a final end to the National League rally…

It’s not your fault. It’s Tony LaRussa’s fault. Two words: A-L-B-E-R-T. P-U-J-O-L-S.

I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t care about those readers who have no idea what I’m talking about. Right now, I don’t care.

It’s worth doing badly.

Faithful readers may remember my posts (1,2) on Cermak Plaza, the shopping center that has been a somewhat controversial home to many artworks. The Chicago Tribune reports that the “Car Kabob” is to be destroyed to make way for a new Walgreen’s.

Note to artists: If anyone ever invites you to create an artwork in a strip mall, and you’d rather not see that artwork destroyed, say no, regardless of how much money they give you.

The best example of this poaching at Cermak Plaza is James Wines’ “Floating McDonald’s.” This was a McDonald’s designed and built by his firm SITE (they’ve designed the single family skyscraper in India that has been in the news recently). I saw old pictures of the McDonald’s, and went to see it, only to discover that the feature that made it “float” had been bricked in - essentially destroyed.

(then)

(now)

I contacted Mr. Wines to find out why and when this had taken place, to which he replied that he was unaware it had happened. He added: “This is a particularly ironic moment for the “Floating McDonald’s” to have been destroyed, since the FRAC collection (part of Centre Pompidou in Paris) just bought all of the drawings of this project for the institution’s permanent collection.”

The pitching woes continue, but if you didn’t have a favorite Major League team before today, and this doesn’t convince you to come within the Phillies fold, there is no hope for you.

Above: The first and last pitch from Jose Mesa last night

It all makes sense now.

Here’s the scenario: The Philadelphia Phillies lead their opponent 3 - 0 after seven innings, until a reliever comes in and gives up four runs in the eighth and the Phillies lose.

No, this wasn’t last night’s game against the Astros, it was the Phillies’ first loss ever, back in 1883. Now the Phils are only four losses away from becoming the first sports franchise in the history of our nation to record 10,000 losses.

Here’s what frustrates me right now… The Phillies are ranked in the top six in the Majors in three of the five most important offensive statistics, including leading the National League in runs scored. They are a good hitting team, and they’ve been putting up runs.

However, our bullpen is one of the worst in the majors. In the battle of good hitting vs. bad pitching, the pitchers usually win — the only thing they know how to win, apparently, and nothing to write home about.

Above: Eaton spotting the Astros a run in the second inning.

These last two games against the Astros are a GREAT example: the Phillies bullpen has walked in what have eventually turned out to be the deciding runs in both games. Last night, thanks to a gift-wrapped run in the 2nd (from Adam Eaton, the starter), instead of going home at 9:30 with a one-run win, they played four extra innings, until Jose Mesa took the mound in the bottom of the 13th inning. He earned his salary last night with one pitch, right in the middle of the plate. My daughter could have hit it out. Hunter Pence did.

Happy independence day. I’m still grateful that we live in a country where we can play baseball, and we’re free to pitch anyone we like, as painful as that can be sometimes.