Meetup Wrap-up
About a dozen of us gathered to eat, drink and make merry last night before heading to the yard to cheer on King Felix, Justin Leone and the rest of the Rainiers. The weather was perfect, and the night would have been perfect, too, if we’d had a Rainier win and a Doyle sighting. Sadly, these latter two qualities were lacking.
Felix looked a little jittery in the first inning, giving up two quick runs, but settled down to pitch well. Dan Meyer didn’t dominate, but wriggled out of several jams. Though I think there’s something to the “Meyer is hurt” theory — his velocity did not seem to be what it should — he also impressed me as a mature guy who knows how to pitch. If he stays healthy, I think he’s got a great future.
It was great meeting and talking with everybody who came out. Thanks for coming!
Other highlights for me included:
— A Justin Leone home run, witnessed by Devin of the blog formerly known as Leone For Third.
— The 25 beers on tap and 25 additional bottled beers available at Engine House 9.
— Debates over what exactly Rhubarb, the Rainiers mascot, is supposed to be. The prevailing theory is “jackalope,” and no one can tell me different. Of course, I also think Webbly looks like a Sleestak.
— Zumsteg booing the four-year-olds trying to shag balls in the outfield for prizes.
— Wiki Gonzalez living up to his reputation as the laziest man in baseball on at least two separate occasions. First, Wiki failed to move a foot or so — or even attempt a goalie-style “skate save” — to catch a throw to the plate, forcing an alert Felix to back up.
Then, he failed to score from first on a double scorched off the left field wall hit by Mike Morse, because Wiki apparently decided it was time to take a leisurely jog and check out the hotties sitting behind home plate. He ran the bases with all the intensity of Manny Ramirez, and half as fast. Also, as my friend’s grandfather would say, it looks like he likes the groceries, too.
— Doing Rick Rizzs impersonations with Devin, Christian and Tim Ferguson in the bleachers along the third base side.
— Just as I was telling my uncle what the “Three True Outcomes” were, Jack Cust hit a ball off the light standard in right field. “Case in point,” I said, glumly.
Despite the loss, a good time was had by me (and, I hope, all) on what Tim Ferguson’s favorite announcer would call “a beautiful night for baseball.” Before he went over the unhappy totals, of course.
Pictures to come, hopefully!
Comments
77 Responses to “Meetup Wrap-up”
Hey PLU –
What’s the deal with PLU? With the new Pope hapnin’, is the faculty gonna ban the opposite sexes from even looking at each other? That campus seems like as much fun as taking a cooking class taught by Martha Stewart.
BTW – I just remembered hearing Neihaus call Sexon ‘Sexy’ on yesterday’s broadcast.
I had no idea there was such a thing as dugout hoes. Looks like I need to get to the games more often.
Heck, I don’t know. I just goto the school. I’m too old to really care about the campus anyways, but from what I hear the dorms have thier fair share of S,D, and R&R going on. Just like other colleges.
a google image search for “dugout ho” yields …
disappointing results.
[deleted, see comment guidelines]
Try googling for “cleat chasers”, the more common term. And yes, watching the girls doll themselves up to try to hook up with a ballplayer is the highest of high comedy. Scott Olson, a top arm in the Marlins system, wins the “prize” for picking the pick of this litter, though. Sitting next to her at a Greensboro game was like taking a walk through the unintentional comedy hall of fame.
#51
PLU = Pacific Lutheran University
Us Lutherans don’t have a pope cause Martin said so.
#53
Does PLU offer any grammar classes? I need some help.
There are variations on this human comedy at minor league hockey games, where young girls dream of escaping the hell of Kitsap County for the bright lights of Moose Jaw or Saskatoon, and at the mall and assorted bars and nightclubs, where underage babes squeeze themselves into tube tops and thong-revealing low risers for the privilege of being picked out for a night of drunken groping by a Navy enlistee from North Dakota. Dave’s right. It is people-watching at its apocalyptic comedic best.
Arena football is pretty amazing too. The cheerleaders look like they stepped out of the Replacements, and the “eye candy” in the crowd couldn’t get much funnier.
Have you ever been to Moose Jaw?
Saskatoon I understand, but Moose Jaw?
It’s lame that hot women will throw themselves at high school athletes in the hopes they’ll hook one who’ll become rich, but they don’t throw themselves at (say) high school journalists and writers who might become equally rich and successful and as a group are probably a better bet to make more money over the lifetime of their careers.
Not that I’m bitter.
Derek, these women aren’t exactly on the honor roll. I doubt half of them could even spell journalist.
59- As a former Navy enlistee, I have a great deal of respect for the tube tops and thong showing low cut jeans that you speak of 🙂
That reminds me of a great P.J. O’Rourke line, about Dan Quayle:
“There was teriffic press bias against Dan Quayle, because most journalists studied harder than Dan Quayle and all it got them was jobs as journalists. That, and Dan stole all their girlfriends, too.”
Derek, these women aren’t exactly on the honor roll. I doubt half of them could even spell journalist.
You think they can spell “athlete” correctly? That’s not my point. They’re smart enough to be scheming about how to get their hooks into potential wage-earners via hotness, then they should be spreading their attention around to other high-reward areas, like the writers.
And wait– Navy groupies, I kinda get, right, they’re after strapping young lads, rather than a high ROI.
This ends up being a lottery ticket vs. IRA debate.
I dunno if you’ve looked up close at “today’s Navy,” but they’re pretty much now just as slouchy and beer-bellied as us journos. But I can see how a certain kind of girl might get excited about hitching her future to a man who makes $19,000 a year who leaves her to raise their four kids for months at a time while she lives in paint-peeling base housing in exciting ports of call like Guam and Newport News, Va. Makes me want to trap a squid myself!
I saw a really good set of articles by a female journalist/blogger for the Mets who wrote some stuff about a friend who was trying to be a “cleat chaser” or what have you. I wish I had a link for it.
I don’t think really any high school girls date jocks to get rich, unless they (their parents) are already rich — which is probably true a lot of the time. It’s more because they’re cool/good looking (according to them). The same reason some girls like firefighters and armymen.
You may be thinking of Melissa Hughes, who wrote
http://www.strikethree.com/98/04/25/hughes.shtml
http://www.strikethree.com/98/05/15/hughes.shtml
among her other fine work. Old but good.
People watching is the 2nd most popular sport in Arkansas, behind Razorbacks football. I enjoy people watching every time I go to Wal-Mart. Kids, don’t buy your music from Wal-Mart. Just a little PSA from one of the writers of Sports and B’s. You’ll thank me later.
Jim (59), I miss the people watching in Kitsap County. That was some high comedy as well. It’s safe to say that I’ve lived in two of the most screwed up places in the world, Kitsap County and Arkansas.
Jeremy, next time you come home, spend a Friday night in a corner at the Horse & Cow. Wall-to-wall Pall Mall smoke, Wonderbras, bad cologne and shots of Jagermeister … just like in the romance novels.
OK, this string took a weird turn.
But, being a Kitsap County native myself, who once worked (as a civilian) at the Bangor Navy base, that the girls weren’t after strapping young Navy lads so much as they were after guaranteed health care, and the other, similar benefits offered by Uncle Sam.
Well it’s good to see another Tim at PLU that is a Mariner fan.
I went to school in Spokane and lived there afterward for a couple years. The cleat chasers in short-season A ball are even more fascinating to watch. Some of them couldn’t even have been teenagers yet. Average age must have been 14. And the scary part was, after the games, they got a *lot* of interest from the players.
I thought minor league hockey players were bad…
I did kind of a funny story on this four years ago when I covered the Bainbridge Island Little League team at the LL World Series in Williamsport, and saw, over and over, girls from 10 to 13 go up to the boys (all 11 or 12) and ask them to sign the tops of their chests or other PG-rated body parts. I asked one of the players afterwards what he thought of that, and he blushed furiously and said, quite perfectly, “I don’t know. It was cool, I guess. But maybe not. I don’t know. It’s confusing.”