Baseball's over

I'm less saddened by the end of this year's season than I often am, mainly because I found the World Series anti-climactic. You see, I am a fan of a team that struggles for two major reasons, and this year's playoffs threw those two things in my face over and over again. The first, and by far the greatest reason, is that Orioles owner Peter Angelos meddles in baseball operations without having a working understanding of how to build a good team. The second is economics. The Orioles play in the same division as Boston and New York, teams that spend a lot more cash on players and, confoundingly, have better farm systems than Baltimore does, too.
I've often argued that baseball needs a salary cap. The NFL has one, and it is a ridiculously profitable enterprise in which the players do not go hungry or have to take second jobs. A salary cap helps ensure some semblance of parity between teams, though smart coaching and management (see: New England Patriots) can still sustain prolonged success. Note that I think the Orioles would still be a bad team if there was a salary cap, but the playing field would at least seem level. I dislike both the Yankees and the Red Sox, but their money is not the only reason that they are better than the O's. Anyway, is there any incentive for baseball to adopt such a practice? No. Not really. Damnit.

slight addendum

So late at night last night, after a long and stressful day, I ordered the ingredient kit for my first batch of beer. The ingredient kit consists of malt extract (the main source of sugar for the brew), specialty grains, hops, yeast, and some priming sugar to carbonate the stuff. You don't care, so I'll stop talking about the details. Anyway, I clicked on the wrong box, and instead of an English Mild, I will be brewing an English Bitter for my first batch. Not a huge difference there, really just a ever-so-slightly higher abv, and a little more hoppiness to it. It's still a session ale, and a style I like a lot. I realized my mistake this morning, and was not bothered enough by it to call in and change my order.

Today is a day of research, and not in the cool, expand-your-understanding sort of way. I have to do preliminary research to determine the viability of an idea I'm thinking about for a big paper. If you have any ideas about whether or not Homi Bhabha's postcolonial third space can be teleological (Bhabha says no, but the theologian in me says yes), let me know. I'm thinking that process theology may hold some helpful ideas for this one. If only my advisor studied with John Cobb, a luminary of process theology, and if only she had just written a textbook about process theology... oh, wait, she totally did both of those things (luckily I have the book already, don't need to wait for it to be printed). Yeah... So the bar's a little high on this one.

Pay rent, change oil, write in the blog...

-Empty promises to post more often-

Nope, I'm a fairweather blogger, and that's a truth I'm comfortable with. The juggling act is a bit more complicated here, so I apologize, and assure you that things probably won't get any better real soon. Here's some things that I think are somewhat interesting (and probably not sports-related):

K and I joined another couple, both of whom are several years ahead of me in my program for dinner at a local brewpub on Thursday night. There's nothing in that sentence that you care about, but here's where it gets funny. The aforementioned brewpub has valet parking. When we were seated, the hostess asked me to doff my cap (a fitted UNC cap- the tuxedo of baseball caps to be sure). This in a brewpub. The beers were about on par costwise for such establishments (and were excellent- Octoberfest beers are a highlight of the season for me), but the food ran about twice what I'm used to for brewery fare, and while good, was not THAT good. So, here in the outer Jersey suburbs of NYC, they can make anything snobby, even beer and pub food. The company, by the way, was excellent.

Speaking of beer, I am a couple of FedEx deliveries away from brewing my own. This has been a long time coming, and I am very excited about it. K is quite sick of hearing me talk about it, but looks forward to drinking the beer I make. I would like to distinguish my upcoming homebrew venture from the guys you knew in college who brewed their own. I learned how to brew from my uncle, a microbiologist who worked in R&D for Miller for about 15 years, and have been geeking out on the scientific side of brewing and brewing with him and with friends for several years now. I anticipate making beer just as good or better than what you can get at the store for about half the cost (currently 20-35 bucks for 2 cases of beer, depending on the particular style). That means Left Hand quality at Natty Light prices. My first brew will be an English Mild, chosen to lead off because it A) is simple enough and cheap to make while still being a style I like a lot, B) is a "session" beer- meaning it's fairly low in alcohol so I can drink a couple without paying a heavy price, and C) will be ready to drink pretty quickly. After that, I'll get a porter going. Porters are K's favorite beers, and need about 6 weeks or so to reach optimum drinkability, meaning we'll have a bunch of good dark beer ready for ACC Basketball season. Beyond the porter, I don't know yet, but I have a ton of ideas. Future blogging will likely involve homebrewing content.

K and I returned Sunday from a wedding in Minneapolis. I had been there once before, for a conference when I worked in mental health, but this trip was much better. I roomed with my wife, not with a client, got to see a lot more of the city (which I like a lot), and instead of plenary sessions, got to be a groomsman in a truly joyous wedding. If not for the soul-crushing winters, we could imagine living in the Twin Cities.

We have a big conference coming up here at Drew, the Transdisciplinary Theological Coloquium. Gayatri Spivak, a heavyweight in the world of postcolonial theory, will be keynoting, and a whole bunch of cool people will be presenting and responding. I will be shuttling them to the airport and to hotels in the Drew van. Sweet. My advisor is the driving force behind the TTC, and all of us who work with her are expected to pitch in a lot to make it happen.

Right before Thanksgiving, I'll be in San Diego (if it's still there) for the American Academy of Religion meeting. It's my first big conference in religion, and I'm quite excited/anxious about it. It'll be a great chance to meet a lot of the people I've been reading over the last few years, and to make connections for future work, etc.. Also, San Diego in November is generally better than New Jersey in November.

That's about it for right now. More at some point. Take care.

Here we go....

School is underway, and in many ways, it is what I thought it was; more work, a better academic climate, and way more interesting ideas being thrown around than I really have time to research/absorb. It's good.
Today, K and I are hosting a cookout in our back yard, with several folks from Drew coming by. It's about 75 degrees, sunny and breezy. The beer will be cold, the food will be good, and we'll get to hang out with some new friends. 2 months after we left CA, I feel like we have finally really arrived in NJ.
Stay tuned for posts about my involvement in efforts to green Drew's campus, my work to avoid shuffling off my mortal bicycle in the suburbs, and exciting travels to places like Minnesota and San Diego.

Why I Still Watch Sports

I have intended for a while now to write a post defending my ongoing love of sports, and I am fairly sure that the following is neither novel nor convincing. It's been a rough, rough summer for those of us who love watching people play games. A brief recap:

Baseball, my most beloved sport and perhaps the perfect game, has been beset for years by the steroid controversy, but Barry Bonds' run at the home run record has made steroids implicitly the lead baseball story nearly every single day. The biggest story of the summer was not that the sport's greatest record was broken, but that the guy who did it probably cheated. On top of that, my Orioles are free-falling toward their 10th straight losing season, for the same old reasons.

Tim Donaghy, an NBA ref, admitted to betting on games and conspiring to influence the point spread in games he reffed. Already a distant 4th on my sports radar, the NBA has only fallen.

Michael Vick, a fellow product of Newport News, VA, funded and participated in a dogfighting operation, doing things I don't need to recount here. Football will be dealing with the Vick fallout all year.

This leaves out the misfortunes of cycling and hockey, sports I don't watch anyway.

So. Why do I watch sports? I even admit my own complicity in the sports economy, which makes games into business, and which ultimately blows them far, far out of proportion. Here's why I stick around.
I still think that there are points of tremendous beauty in sports. A 6-4-3 double play, a pick and roll, a perfectly thrown touchdown pass to the corner of the endzone... these things never get old for me. There's something about a perfect jumpshot, a strikeout on a changeup, or the coordinated movement of an offensive line to clear a lane for running that amazes me every time, and which can't be touched by "off the field" stories. Those stories, for what it's worth, are often covered by writers such as Roger Angell, David Halberstam, and Joe Posnanski, whose writing creates a much more nuanced narrative than the ESPN Top 10 plays allow for. Maybe it's simplistic of me to think so, but I see artistry in sports being played at their highest level. This really is the main reason why I still watch.

A second, less defensible reason also should be mentioned. Someday the Baltimore Orioles will win the World Series, and I can't stand bandwagon fans. If I'm going to continue feeling superior to them, it is incumbent on me to put up with the O's current futility.

I'd write more, but Roger Federer's 4th round match at the US Open starts in a few minutes. Watching him play tennis is like watching an unscripted ballet. Gotta go.

Scholarship Competitions.

Sorry.

This is another sports post. Some people write about crafts, some about their new children, some about their wildly exciting travels. I just moved to a new state and structured activity doesn't start for a while, so the Orioles 12-0 win over the Yanquis of former New Amsterdam is the highlight of my day.
Let's be clear that being a fan of the Orioles is not a lighthearted undertaking. They haven't been good in 10 years, and their owner is not willing to spend on the players it takes to compete against my least favorite professional sport franchises (the Yanquis and the Red Sox, who have formed themselves into a slightly cuter incarnation of the Yanquis). Since firing Sam Perlozzo, an inept manager if ever I saw one, the O's have been above .500, recently taking series from both of the aforementioned Atlantic seaboard baseball vampires. This makes me happy, and a 12-0 win against the New York American league ballclub, viewed in HD at home, made my week.
Pity me if you must, but I'm happy.

756

I don't really want to write about 756. Everything that could possibly be said about it has been said several times in recent weeks. It's an incredible accomplishment by a guy who is the best player of his generation, and in the pantheon of best ever. Ty Cobb and Pete Rose weren't real nice guys either, and Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford cheated, so it seems to me that the expectation that Barry Bonds has to be nice and clean is a bit misplaced. I reserve the right not to root for him, and exercise that right routinely, but 756 is an incredible achievement.

Big Country and I witnessed .13% of Barry's home runs. It was an inside-out, opposite field shot off of his fists in Camden Yards, against Rodrigo Lopez. Maybe he had some help making it go so far, but making good contact and driving that pitch is a feat that very, very few baseball players ever could have pulled off, and one that drugs cannot perform for you. Congratulations, BLB.

Thanks, #8.

Skip Prosser

Skip Prosser was one of the good guys.

garden state variety post

Just some odds and ends this time, with numbers next to them to give the illusion of organized thought.

1. Baltimore's road back to baseball decency certainly includes Jeremy Guthrie. Incidentally, since I just got internet service here, today's game was the first I've listened to since leaving Berkeley. I listened to it while making...
2. Seared wasabi-glazed tuna, with cold soba noodles and edamame on the side. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the finest meals I have ever cooked, and it was on the cheap too, thanks to Trader Joe's fine selection of frozen fish. The whole meal for two clocked in at about 10 bucks.
3. 9 of the 10 dumbest traffic patterns I've seen in my life are in New Jersey, a state I've lived in for 2 weeks.
4. Other than #3 and absurd state bureaucracies that make everything take longer than it should, NJ is great. The summer weather is nice, but not oppressive, NYC is right there (cheap options for getting into town have been located and will soon be explored), and it's on the correct coast. The apartment is excellent, and I feel like a king in my new kitchen (many readers may not know until this post that I love to cook).
5. K and I have visited two churches here so far. At the first, they had us, as newcomers, present the elements for the Eucharist. The one this morning removed the epistle and replaced it with a contemporary spiritual text. So far the first one is the favorite. Paul's not my best friend, but I think churches need to come to grips with him.
6. The Sunday NY Times is fun for the whole family. K and I enjoy the excellent reporting and the day-long process of perusing it, and the cats find it to be an excellent place to take a nap.
7. As a veteran of several different stores in the chain, I can safely say that IKEA is what hell would look like if we let Swedes design it and fill it with largely practical and attractive furniture. It provides the illusion of escape at all times. The Elizabeth, NJ location is right next to the turnpike and Newark airport, and yet mysteriously hard to get to.
8. I read articles in last month's Harper's about the greening of urban spaces in Detroit and also about the "topography of resurrection" in NOLA. Even given the melodramatic slant of both articles, I've been daydreaming about the next phase of urban development in the US, post-whatever. Jurgen Moltmann (rightly, I think) cautioned a recent audience not to confuse the end of our society with the end of the world, so I'm not labelling anything apocalyptic.
9. UNC's basketball recruits for the '08-'09 season are nasty.
10. I'll be back more often now that I'm settled in NJ and have reliable access to the interwebs.

Take care.

Road Trip update...

Exhaustion and lousy wifi have kept me from updating thus far, so here's a quick update.
Day one of the drive took us through the Sierras, the state of Nevada (the northern part, which is huge and desolate), and into Salt Lake City. Nevada still creeps me out, since I-80 takes you through Reno and then 410 more miles of pretty much nothing before dumping you into Utah and the salt flats, which I thought were way cool. Salt Lake seems like a nice place, and predictably enough, does not present many dinner options at 9 PM on a Sunday.
Day 2 included the Wasatch range in Utah (which is really just an amazingly beautiful state) and then Wyoming. Wyoming is like Nevada, but greener; long, generally pretty, and with hardly any towns. My coastal brain doesn't cope too well with being 50 miles from the nearest town. K and I stopped in North Platte, Nebraska, which had the lowest budget local news I've seen (the library is getting new carpet, and swimming lessons are a good way to keep your kid from drowning this summer), but seemed like a nice quiet place.
Day 3, yesterday, ended in Davenport, Iowa, after crossing the rest of Nebraska and Iowa. K and I ate at a brewery downtown and walked along the Mississippi (Davenport is the biggest town on the Big Muddy without a levee). It was a nice way to spend and evening.
Today we crossed the river, Illinois (including the Chicago southland), Indiana, and most of Ohio, ending up here in Cleveland. We went to Jacobs Field to see the Indians-A's game, which had gotten out of hand before the weather got ugly, chasing us back to the hotel.
Tomorrow, we'll drive to Cherry Hill, NJ, so K can get licensed to work in the Garden State, and will drive from there to NC on Friday. It's been a nice trip, though we're tired of driving, and can't wait to relax in NC. Current mileage total is 2200 and some change. We're on Eastern Standard Time again, it's humid, and there's a thunderstorm outside. It's funny to realize all the things we've missed on the left coast...

baseball addendum

So the Orioles fired their manager, Sam Perlozzo, a couple of days ago. I think it was the right call- he made several game-losing decisions this year that violated all rules of common sense and baseball strategy. You can't have the manager losing games for you. Today Joe Girardi, the O's first choice for the job, turned down the job. This is fine with me, and here is why:

According to the Baltimore Sun, Davey Johnson is interested in the job. Davey Johnson has managed a world series team, but that's not why I like him. He played for the O's during the good times, which helps. He managed the O's to consecutive playoff appearances, including the wire-to-wire first place run of 1997, after which he was named AL manager of the year. Davey left amidst a conflict with Peter Angelos, who is a poor man's George Steinbrenner. Angelos, though, has just hired successful baseball man Andy MacPhail to be the Chief Operating Officer, and it seems that Andy has control of baseball operations. The time is right for Davey to come back, as Angelos is currently eating the crow which has been carefully prepared and seasoned during the past 10 consecutive losing seasons.

Davey Johnson is one of the only managers around who actually adds wins to his team. A good manager usually just doesn't get in the way, allowing the team to run its natural course. Davey understands players and also holds a friggin' degree in math, meaning he can make use of statistical analysis, which the Oakland A's and Boston Red Sox have proven to be a very good way to strategize and win games (see: Moneyball, 2004 World Series). Hiring Davey will make the team better.

The other named being kicked around for the job is Dusty Baker. I will probably develop a stutter if the O's hire him. Just get Davey. Do whatever it takes to get Davey.

Best get moving.

The big move is nigh. K had her last day of work on Tuesday, and we are in full-time packing and logistics mode. This, I think, is probably the worst part of a cross-country move. The numbers of i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed seems to multiply exponentially as departure nears. The City of Berkeley gets some props, though, as the staff at their permit center was actually very helpful in the process of acquiring the necessary permits for parking a moving truck on our city street for several days. Their paperwork, like all government agencies, was still a special vision of hell, but the people were very nice.

ENORMOUS props go out to my parents and sister. The whole gang, including my brother, was out here last week, and we had a good time being Bay Area tourists and visiting Yosemite. The truly clutch aspect of their visit came when my parents and sister took our cats back to NC with them on their respective flights. Taking a cat on a plane is not the simplest of endeavors, and it made their traveling considerably more complex. Now, though, our cats are happily in the 'boro, eating, drinking, pooping and being merry, and K and I get to make the transcontinental road trip sans felines. This means we can get out of the car when we stop for lunch, can stay in any hotel we find, and have more freetime at night. We plan to attend at least one baseball game on the way out, and will explore our options as we go. Our drive out here was not so much fun, because we had an unhappy cat singing the blues in the back seat. This will be much better.

In the department of looking beyond the tip of my own nose, the best news this week has to be the birth of Tadpole Taco Country, son of Big and E Country, good friends of ours in NC. That's one lucky baby, getting to have parents like them. We'll get to visit the Countries and meet the baby in a couple of weeks, which is something I am looking forward to a whole lot, on several levels.

Assuming that they have internet access in our hotels next week, look for some incredibly self-indulgent posts from the road. As a quick prelude, though:
The desert scares me. Wyoming is sparsely populated. Nebraska is long and flat. Iowa is like Bill Bryson said it was. Chicago! Toll roads suck. Jacobs Field is a nice baseball park. Woohoo, we're back on the right coast! Relaxing in NC.

Dear ESPN,

Please stop labelling as "top plays" or "web gems" plays in which an outfielder playing in the HHH Metrodome reaches over the wall to bring back a would-be homer. Torii Hunter is a great center fielder, but the left and center field wall in the Homerdome is seven feet high. Torii is 6'2". Yours truly, a profoundly non-athletic 6'0" beanpole, could "rob someone of a home run" in the Homerdome without leaving my feet. My considerable 12" or so vertical leap would allow me to haul in a ball that would have cleared the wall by nearly two feet. If I could do it, it's not a top play. Thanks,

SJL

If you thought the pig was gross...

...you should see the pictures I could have taken at the Bay to Breakers race in SF on Sunday. K wanted to check out the race for her birthday, and many of the city's sedentary consumers of pizza and beer showed up in their commemorative birthday suits. After about 20 minutes, though, you stop noticing them, and the costumes really are great at Bay to Breakers; imagine Halloween in Chapel Hill on acid and with warmer weather. My personal favorite was the group of people that dressed up as a school of salmon and then went the wrong way on the course.

The presentation of K's birthday present is delayed until Friday, when her twin sister gets here. The suspense about the present is palpable in the arranging your lamp household this week.

I received an empty diploma holder and an inside out hood on Friday at graduation. Grades should go final in the coming days, thus making my status as a Master of Theology official. It's nice to have a break from the academic grind, as I worked right through Winter Break and really haven't relaxed since last summer. The primary goal now is to move to New Jersey.

Thanks to those who participated in the hat survey earlier this spring. I received a Lookouts hat as a graduation gift. K says it looks like an Elmer Fudd hat. I think it's just fine.

Sacre bleu!

Click on the pig to see more creepy ads.

Teach your children well

Smoking is now on the list of things that can get a movie a more restrictive rating. I wonder when murder, pathetic female role models, misrepresentation of Native Americans and Virginia geography, bondage, or implied doggy-style sex will affect such matters...

Hi Roger,

Welcome back to the American League. Please feel free to choke on your overbloated ego any time you'd like to. Also, if you could criticize some marginalized group or make some really lewd comments, I'd appreciate that more than you could know. I don't like you, and I hope you have a terrible season, followed by an overweight retirement. Thanks,

SJL

This is Greensburg, Kansas today.
I used to have nightmares about tornadoes.
This is why.