I packed my bags last night, preflight

I'm trying to install Linux on my laptop. I'm not sure exactly why. I've been sick of Windows essentially since 3.1, which was the last one I felt like I understood. I guess if I had been in the field, I would have kept up, but I'm not, so I didn't.

Speaking of my field, I had my first day back from vacation today. What a disaster. Stuff everywhere, and I spent the whole day just digging out. I guess it's partially my own fault-we don't really train anyone, and everytime I'm with someone new I'm too busy to show them anything.

I was mildly hopeful that a week off would have given me some perspective, some renewed energy to devote to my tasks and remind me why I do this for a living. Nope. Right back into the same fatigued, miserable shell I was in before.

http://www.hbo.com/events/hardknocks/index.html

HBO's Hard Knocks is coming back this year. Starting two weeks from Wednesday, 10pm on HBO. It's the Cowboys again, but with Terrell Owens around, as he says, better bring your popcorn.

Hard Knocks is a reality show, of a sort-they seed an NFL training camp with cameras, and report on meetings, strategy sessions, and really let you get to know some of the players. If you have any kind of a football interest, it really is worth your time.

I've watched every season, I think, and the part of it I most enjoy is the feeling you get that you really know certain players, and you can follow them for the rest of their careers. I still feel that way about Todd Heap of the Ravens, who was on the first season.

Football is a lot more intense than baseball, in the sense that there are only 16 games, and so much of it can depend on freakish, random events. The pressure on these people is immense, and although they do get fairly well compensated for it, what you have to remember is that they are on an extremely tight leash-NFL players can get released, essentially, at any time. I guess I wouldn't like living on a knife's edge like that.

The Boston Red Sox lead the Anaheim Angels of Anaheim in Anaheim who play in Anaheim, 3-2 in the seventh. According to the ESPN game cast, Coco Crisp (his real name is Covelli, and his grandmother used to call him Coco) walked, stole second, and then scored on an error by Vlad Guerrero. I have trouble picturing that. Coco is pretty fast, but what kind of an error is this? The game is actually on TV, but to watch it, I'd have to get up, and I'm too damn tired.

Darren Oliver just struck out JD Drew to end the inning. Darren Oliver is still playing? Damn. He's older than dirt.

He's actually one year and 11 days older than me. Hot damn. For a baseball player, that's old.
He started pitching in 1993. Looking through the list of his teammates, I see Nolan Ryan, Geno Petralli, Josias Manzanillo (The Dominican Mystery Man), Willie Banks (who once earned a save in a 24-5 game), Steve Balboni, Jose Canseco AND Roger Clemens, Tony Fossas (whose name my brother used to relish mispronouncing), Benny Agbayani, who was from Hawaii, Jack Armstrong(The All American Boy) , Gary Redus (not to be confused with the word puzzle), Richard "Guadalupe" Hidalgo, Rickey Henderson (who I think was teammates with everyone, going back to Cap Anson), and Donovan Osborne (who should have been a superhero's secret identity).

It's kind of like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for baseball geeks. In fact, there is a version of that game, where, using teammates, you can get from any modern player to Cap Anson in 6 links or fewer.

Let's try that.

Darren Oliver played with
Rickey Henderson(02 Red Sox) , who played with
Dave Hamilton (79 Athletics), who played with
Orlando Cepeda (72 Athletics), who played with
Hank Sauer (58 Giants), who played with
Lloyd Waner (41 Reds), who played with
Heinie Groh (27 Pirates), who played with
Christy Mathewson (12 Giants), who played with
George Van Haltren (00 Giants), who played with
CAP ANSON! (1887 Cubs).

That was ten links, granted, but I did it by hand.

Baseball-reference.com has an automated tool that does this.

Its version went a little more efficiently than mine:

Oliver-Tom Henke (93 Rangers)-Phil Niekro (87 Blue Jays)-Warren Spahn(64 Braves)-Si Johnson (47 Braves)-Edd Roush (31 Reds)-Nixey Callahan (13 White Sox)-Cap Anson (1897 Colts).

If you read through the previous couple of inches, you have my sympathy.

Ah well, it was too good to last. Tim Wakefield gave up a pair of doubles in the 8th, tying the game at three, and then Metropolitan District Commission gave up a double to Casey Kotchman to score two more runs. Boston now trails 5-3 in the top of the ninth, and they need three runs off of Francisco Rodriguez, who throws 853 miles per hour, to avoid a sweep. A sweep! Horrors!

K-Rod, so called because he racks up strikeouts by the fistful, struck out Coco and Sean Casey to start the ninth. He always looks like his arm is going to come off at the shoulder-a very violent, herky jerky motion that shouldn't work, but does.

After going 3-0 on Jacoby Ellsbury, he throws three straight strikes for a third strikeout that wins the game for the Angles.

Consarnit.


"Holy Moses, I have been decieved."