Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Tournament Assignments/The Rain Returns

After 4 straight days of summer like windy and warm(hot) weather, temperatures in the mid to upper 80s, the rains returned last night in the overnight hours. This morning dawned wet, but still mild. The next 10 days appear to be mostly cloudy and wet, at least on and off. Not good for the winding down of baseball's regular season. Games are getting stacked and backlogged, especially in the various leagues, and this is leaving Athletic Directors, Coaches, and Umpires, checking their schedules to see what days they have open...In my case, not much is the answer. Just one non-Sunday opening between now and the Sectional Tournaments....

I received my final assignments for the OHSAA Tournaments last night.

Right now I am scheduled(along with Sam) to do the Sectional Brackets(Division 4, smallest schools of the 4 baseball Divisions) at Bascom, Ohio, Hopewell-Louden High School...Sam and I did the same games last year, it's a 100 mile run each way, but the miles are paid for, and it's a nice, small venue. I will then do the Division 3 District Tournament at Elida, outside Lima. This will have a couple of local teams in it, and usually produces a State Tournament favorite from it's ranks. This will cut into my Mushroom Hunt in Mesick, Michigan, but will still get up there for the last part of the Memorial weekend...so all will not be lost. I will finish up my Spring schedule at the Division 4 Regional at Patrick Henry High School near Hamler, Ohio, on May 28th. I have a First Base assignment in the first semi-final game there. I was eligible for the State Tournament, but seldom do you get a State game your first time eligible, and this was not to be...no disappointments there, especially considering only about 3% of eligible umpires get Regional assignments., and less than 1/2 of 1% get State Assignments.

I have already began to set my assignments for summer ball....but that's still a long ways off....plenty of time to consider how much I want to work in the heat.

NHL______

The Stanley Cup saw it's first major upset last night....#8 Anaheim Ducks defeated the top ranked team overall, #1 San Jose Sharks, 4 games to 2 by beating them 4-1 at The Pond last night. The Chicago Black Hawks finished off Calgary in 6 as well.

With the Flyers, after blowing a 3-0 lead last Saturday, being out, and the Blue Jackets done...I have to admit I have little rooting interest left...what I hope not to see, is a repeat of last year's final snoozer between Detroit and Pittsburgh, 2 teams I cannot stand. I could root for Carolina or Boston, the Ducks, but not the Pens or Red Wings...at least give me something, 1 team, to root for or against....with Pitt and Detroit, I would not bother watching.

Meanwhile in the minors...The IHL, my team, the defending Turner Cup Champion Fort Wayne Komets, move on to the finals against Muskegon...The Ks dominated last season before winning the Cup in 7 games(coming back from a 3-1 deficit)...this season Fort Wayne was not as dominant, but finished winning 13 of the final 14 to run away late...hopefully they can finish off the Michigan team in short order...Go Ks!

Politics, Swine Flu, and other ramblings___

I was originally going to talk about the Swine Flu "outbreak" and the Obama Administrations handling(see mishandling) of same. I still believe His Majesty is in this deep....speaking of deep, did anybody see this guy and his butchering of his speech on the Teleprompter last night? But rather than rant on about him and the flu, I have decided to wait and see what happens....you can be sure those in charge will screw this up if it's serious. If you think the Government is going to "cure" or solve this...get your Nanny State rose colored glasses off....they won't/can't get it right...and your Savior, Barry Soetoro Obama, isn't going to save your bacon....he is clueless, live/deal with it.

I was also going to go off on Fox News hack Shepard Smith. The so-called Right Wing Network Fox, has a bleeding heart gutless Liberal, Smith, running his mouth...this guy is becoming a closet Keith Oberman in his screaming about the so called "torture" of Islamic Terror suspects, even dropping the "F Bomb" on a show the other night when talking about it....more on his dimwitted rants later.

For now however, I will hit the shower, wait out the rain, and see if my game at Lima Central Catholic gets washed out.

back later>>>>

3 comments:

Grandpa-Old Soldier said...

Looks like you have a busy summer lined up. I love baseball season, I am following our Houston Astros, but I don't hold out much hope for them again this year. If The ONE could introduce some kind of someting perhaps they could do better.
As for this flu thing, I am like you, just wait and see. Did you that 38,000 people die from normal flu each year.

Mr. Grey Ghost said...

I guess FOX doesnt want come off as too conservative so they let Shep Smith on to combat the yahoos who make those accusations. However, after the f-bomb err, they should definitely get rid of Smith and replace him with a centrist.

Deborah Wilson said...

I left last Thursday night to head back to the mountains for a few days peace, no tv, no radio, no computer, no newspaper - and when I got back home late Monday evening, I see that hell has broke loose. I have more to say later on the swine flu, but I have to wonder why it is close to being declared a *pandemic* so early in its stage by the CDC???

Before February Ends...

The plan is, is to get at least a post a month here for 2024...so here we are in later February so let's do it... It has been, for the m...