Frog story

 Let me tell you a story. It is a simple story. A story of a dad. A dad trying to give his daughter a hands-on education… 

It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. Warren G was on the streets, trying to consume… uh, maybe I shouldn’t listen to old school rap while trying to write. Let us begin, again.

It was an unusually cool June evening. A dad was just finishing up trimming the lawn when he felt a tiny pair of eyes staring at him. Looking around, he glanced upon a little frog sitting in the freshly cut grass next to the house. “My daughter would love to see that frog up close,” he thought to himself, “and as an added bonus, I bet my wife would jump out of her skin if I showed it to her.” The frog did nothing, so the man bent down and stared at it, trying to figure out the best way to catch it. Still the frog did nothing, so the man leaned in a foot closer, and felt his heart rate speed up. And still the frog did nothing, so the man, ever so slowly extended his hand towards the frog. The frog jumped onto the low retaining wall next to it, so the man stifled a scream and jumped back.

The man took a deep breath and glanced around to make sure none of the neighbors saw him lose round one to a frog no bigger than an infant’s fist. He took a deep breath, and could do nothing. He took another deep breath, and still could do nothing. He took a third deep breath, and before his mind could catch up to what his body was doing, both hands had darted towards the frog and were covering it. Unsure of what to do, now that he had won round two and actually trapped the frog, the man opened the gap between his hands just to make sure the frog was really there. He closed his hands around the frog and stood up, gloating to himself over his triumph.

As soon as the man cupped his hands to see the frog better, the frog took a long hop off a short pier. Channeling all his childhood baseball and football training, the man caught the frog in midair just as it started its decent. The man stared at the frog in his hand in shock. The frog stared back at the man in shock. Then, seeing that it was only being held captive by a flat open hand, the frog attempted another leap to freedom, and again was caught before it could escape. Again the man and frog stared at each other in shock, before the frog made a third futile attempt at freedom. This time the man got smart, or so he thought, and covered up the frog with his free hand. Seeing no way out, the frog brought out his big guns. The man dropped the frog and stared in disbelief at his hand. “Huh, that’s pretty awesome,” the man thought to himself, sarcastically. “I’ve never been peed on by a frog before.”

After the man turned off the hose and dried his hands on his t-shirt, he looked to his right and saw a frog staring at him. The frog did nothing, so the man stared at it. Still the frog did nothing, so the man continued to stare at it. When finally the frog continued to do nothing, the man bent over, reached out his hands… and picked up the trimmer to finish his work.

Ok. The man is this story is obviously me, and looking back at it I realize it isn’t putting me in the best light. So, let me start the story over.

I submit for your reading pleasure, a simple story. A story of a hunter so fierce, that he merely needed to touch an animal to have it piss itself in fear…

Armando Galarraga’s Perfect? Game

June 2nd, 2010 was a memorable baseball day. It was the day the retirement announcement of one of the game’s greatest players (Ken Griffey Junior) got overshadowed by a blown call. The fact that a call was blown in a baseball game should come as no surprise. There is a huge human element to the game, and that is one of the things that makes the game what it is. Most blown calls are taken as part of the game, and not even second guessed, let alone talked about on every news outlet, radio show, and corner of the blogosphere, and not just the sports ones.

So what makes this blown call different from all the rest? Had the call been made correctly it would have been the last out of a perfect game. A perfect game is where no player reaches base. Not by hit, walk, bean ball, or error. This game would have been only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history. There has been a lot of clamoring for the commissioner of MLB to overturn the bad call and give the pitcher, Armando Galarraga, his perfect game. Here are the reasons why that would be a good and bad idea.

Good Idea

-Perfect games are rare. Despite the fact that this should have been the 3rd perfect game in 4 weeks, this would have only been the 21st perfect game in the last 130-odd years.

-The next batter, Trevor Crowe, is batting .240 and grounded out to end the game, so overturning the call won’t really affect anything.

Bad Idea

-Changing the call after the fact sets a bad precedent. There have been many bad calls throughout the years that have affected games, playoff series, and even World Series (as a Cardinal fan, the 1985 World Series comes to mind). None of these calls have been overturned, so why should this one?

-What if the 1st batter of the game was where the mistake was made and the rest of the game was perfect? Or what if the bad call came in the 4th inning? Would people be clamoring to overturn the call then? Doubtful anyone would have even paid attention to this game if that had happened. Also, would the Tigers have even let Galarraga continue pitching, or would they have brought in their closer to earn the save?

-What if the Tigers hadn’t scored any runs and the game went into extra innings? Would all of the plays made in that/those inning(s) be nullified when the call was overturned because they happened out of order?

-What if the Tigers had only scored 1 run, and Trevor Crowe hit a home run when he came up for the fourth time that game? Would the outcome of the game and the standings of the AL Central division been switched too?

-What if the call is reversed, taking away the out Trevor Crowe made, then he goes on the greatest hitting streak ever seen and wins the AL batting title by one point, and with the out he wouldn’t have won the title?

-What if the last call had been the opposite way? What if the runner should have been called safe and instead had been called out to give the pitcher the perfect game? Would we want that call overturned to protect the integrity of the game?

Summary

There is only one good reason to overturn the bad call made yesterday: Armando Galaraga deserves to have his name mentioned with the other 20 perfect game pitchers, and because of this age of supersaturation of media coverage and the obviousness and timing of the bad call, he may still be. But there is so much baseball history that would be trampled and spit on, so many cans of worms opened, and so much water muddied if the call was overturned after the fact that it simply cannot be. If instant replay had been a tool the umpires had at their disposal, then I would be the first proponent of using it to get the call right, at that time. Maybe as a silver lining to Galaraga, his name can be synonymous with ushering in a new era of baseball. An era where calls like this can be corrected instantaneously and the beauty, integrity, and history of the game can be left intact.

Stuff Christians Like 2

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Stuff Christians Like 1

Congratulations! You’ve just received or finished one of the two copies of the amazing traveling book Stuff Christians Like and followed the directions to track and update its progress. Good for you for following directions. You deserve a gold star.

Please post a comment with your name (first name only is fine, if you feel more comfortable that way), city and state where you live, date you got the book, and what you thought of the book. Feel free to put anything else down you think other people would like.

NFL 2009 Postseason Predictions

Before the season started I made NFL postseason predictions. You can find them here. Seeing as how I only correctly predicted 4 of the NFC teams and 3 of the AFC teams that actually made the playoffs, I figured I better update my predictions with the teams that actually made the playoffs.

NFC

Round 1

(1) New Orleans Saints & (2) Minnesota Vikings – bye, I guarantee these two teams will be playing in round 2. 😉

(3) Dallas Cowboys – 27, (6) Philadelphia Eagles – 21. Eagles actually keep this game closer than the matchup in Week 17 (a 24-0 Cowboy win), but Tony Romo will continue his hot streak into January and finally give the Cowboys their first playoff win since 1996. Oh, and DeSean Jackson will continue to get owned by the Dallas defense.

(5) Green Bay Packers – 34 @ (4) Arizona Cardinals – 24. Arizona will actually put points on the board in this Week 17 rematch, but Green Bay’s defense will prove to be too much for Kurt Warner, especially if Anquan Boldin can’t play. Aaron Rodgers finally gets his chance to prove to Packers’ fans he was worth keeping, and his won’t disappoint.

Round 2

(1) New Orleans Saints – 31, (5) Green Bay Packers – 27. Drew Brees will lead his team to victory in this shoot-out, proving to Saints fans the last 3 weeks of the regular season were a fluke.

(3) Dallas Cowboys – 20 @ (2) Minnesota Vikings – 17. If this matchup happens, it is really a coin toss as to who will win, but the Cowboys have been in playoff mode since they beat New Orleans a few weeks ago, and Minnesota has floundered the last few weeks. The nail in the coffin with Minnesota will be when Brad Childress decides to try to rely on Adrian Pederson, rather than let Brett Favre open up and sling the Vikes to victory.

NFC Championship Game

(1) New Orleans Saints – 31, (3) Dallas Cowboys – 20. The Saints will exact revenge on the Cowboys for ruining their shot at a perfect season.

AFC

Round 1

(1) Indianapolis Colts & (2) San Diego Chargers – bye. I actually predicted the exact seed the Chargers would be in my previous predictions.

(6) Baltimore Ravens – 13 @ (3) New England Patriots – 10. The loss of Wes Welker in the final game of the season doomed the Pats. The Ravens defense will stack the box and double team Randy Moss, making 10 points questionable for the Pats to score.

(4) Cincinnati Bengals – 24, (5) New York Jets – 17. The Jets defense will actually keep them in this game, but let’s face it, they shouldn’t even be in the playoffs. If not for the Colts and Bengals both giving the Jets a win in the last 2 weeks of the season because they both had their playoff seed solidified already, the Jets probably wouldn’t even have a winning record. I look forward to watching this game to see what Chad Ochocinco will do when he scores a touchdown.

Round 2

(1) Indianapolis Colts – 27, (6) Baltimore Ravens – 14. I feel sorry for the Ravens in this game. Peyton Manning hasn’t played a truly meaningful snap for weeks, and he had his perfect season taken away from him by a stupid decision made by Jim Caldwell. He will run up and down on a very good Ravens defense, taking out his frustrations over the last few weeks.

(2) San Diego Chargers – 38, (4) Cincinnati Bengals – 24. Chargers have won 11 in a row and are running on all cylinders. Bengals have no way to stop the quintuple offensive threat of Philip Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson, Darren Sproles, Antonio Gates, and the overlooked one, Vincent Jackson.

AFC Championship Game

(2) San Diego Chargers – 31 @ (1) Indianapolis Colts – 28 (in overtime). For the second year in a row the Chargers will beat the Colts in an overtime playoff game in which the Colts offense never got to touch the ball. Hopefully this will prompt the league to finally reevaluate its assinine overtime rules. Hopefully it will also get teams to review their “I’m gonna piss off the football gods by not chasing the perfect season I have a very good chance of completing” stance.

Super Bowl

I’ll go with my original prediction from August:

“San Diego Chargers – 41, New Orleans Saints – 38. (Two of the) highest scoring offenses in the NFL will make Super Bowl XLIV one of the most entertaining ever. This game will basically come down to whichever team gets the ball last, so I give the edge to the team that has the better defense: San Diego.”