Baseball is a funny game

I've always enjoyed those famous utterances and insights from days gone by, such as the famous "Ninety percent of baseball is half mental" from Yogi Berra. Or this gem from San Diego play-by-play man Jerry Coleman: "There's a deep fly ball... Winfield goes back, back... his head hits the wall ... it's rolling towards second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!"

There are a couple recent entries. Earlier this month I was watching the Mariners face the Pirates on television. The Pirates catcher, according to broadcaster Dave Sims, eased into second base "with his 11th triple of the year." And I spotted this in one of the Seattle newspapers: "As far as all that other stuff, it's bridge under the water for me," said Reds first baseman Scott Hatteberg.

Playing catch-up

After a couple weeks of doing a really bad job coming up with a substantive topic to share, I find myself needing to bust out a series of random thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head. See if any ring true for you.

• Are any other Ducks getting tired of being asked why Oregon doesn't have a baseball team? I've taken to saying it's for the same reason Oregon State doesn't have a track team.


• Meanwhile, the Duck contingent at work got a good chuckle out of the photo of OSU fan in Omaha with the sign proudly proclaiming that she is a "BEAVER BELIVER." ("I wonder if she needs a liever transplant," says my friend David.) It reminds me of the giant banner that hung on the outfield fence at Goss Stadium last year, courtesy of Arbor Custom Homes: "GO BEAVER'S"


• There are some really amazing people on the Gladstone Education Foundation board.


• Have you ever been to the Wonders of Wildlife museum in Springfield, Missouri? It's an extraordinary place. But there's one thing that has always bothered me. I can deal with "Adopt a Whatever," but this outfit invites you to "Become a Parent." Well, hold on one second! Writing a check to "adopt a madagascar hissing cockroach" does not make anyone a parent. Calling these supporters "parents" really demeans and diminishes actual parents of human beings, adoptive or not. It just rankles me that things like nurturing, guidance, dedication, etc., are being ignored in a cheap effort to tug at heartstrings and wallets.


• Shouldn't I be able to listen to a baseball game on the radio (the Mariners, in this case) on a Sunday afternoon and not have a promo for other station programming (I believe it was Jim Rome's show) spend its entire 60 seconds blabbing about sex and orgies and how much sex somebody in the NBA has had and lot of sex and orgies and, uh let's see...oh, yeah, sex—all with a 7-year-old and a 14-year-old in the car with me? C'mon, KFXX, you can do better. Baseball should be safe for families, even on the radio.


• Next time you're in Lincoln City, give Momiji a try for some great Japanese food. I loved the udon in particular. They've been on Hwy 101 near SW 51st for awhile and have now opened an outpost up the road in the Tanger Outlet Center.


• More baseball: I'm not a big fan of the Internet when it comes to athletes who aren't even out of high school. Too much toxicity, not enough responsibility. But the boys in the Class of 2011 have a lot going for them. They are currently 12-4 at the Junior Baseball "Senior Federal" level and have been bouncing around between second and fourth place all season, in a 12-team league populated almost entirely of 5A and 6A teams. They should be fun to watch in the years ahead.

Until next time...

A commercial word

Part of my professional life involves working on behalf of a couple of Pacific Northwest brewing icons: Widmer Brothers Brewing and Redhook Ale Brewery. You may wish to direct your interest to a couple of fun interactive contest Web sites they each have recently launched.

www.lemonyourwidmer.com
Check out the amazing videos already posted here. I have it on good authority that the golf shot required no more than 10 takes.

www.defyordinary.com
We're all a bit odd, somehow. Immortalize your oddity in cardboard, or vote for others bold enough to want to.

Portland Ave.

The city is in the middle of an evaluation process regarding business and traffic (or lack thereof) in downtown Gladstone. I appreciate being able to get a haircut in downtown Gladstone for half of what it would cost me in downtown Portland. But good ideas for viable businesses are hard to come by. I do recall, though, that when the center turn lane was added to Portland Avenue some years ago, it became more difficult for intersecting traffic to see oncoming vehicles. Unless that center lane is important as temporary parking for delivery trucks, I wouldn't mind seeing it go away.

Click for Google Maps image of downtown Gladstone

If you're personally interested in this topic, there's a community forum scheduled for 6:30 p.m. June 14 at the Senior Center.

News and (my) commentary

Two items in last night's local television newscasts struck me as just plain wrong. Now, I'm not one of those "all media are bad, and biased, and stupid, and controlling the agenda" types. But there are definitely moments when you have to wonder what they're thinking.

Earlier this week, a man was shot and killed by Portland police officers after he screamed he was going to shoot someone and then pointed a loaded shotgun at the officers. The news last night on our CBS affiliate was that the "victim" had been identified. Victim? Victim of what? Certainly not the police, though that was the implication. Maybe of his own stupidity or mental instability. But calling him a victim in this story made it seem like he was wrongly shot by the police. And that struck me as wrong.

Meanwhile, on our NBC affiliate ran a story about a group of seniors at a area high school who dug up a lawn on campus and planted "SENIORS 07" and a giant peace sign in flowers. Only one student has admitted to participating. Among the ridiculous details:
(1) The news station calls this a "prank"; it's actually criminal vandalism.
(2) All those other students are letting Maggie twist in the wind on this; she may want to choose some new friends.
(3) Maggie doesn't want to "out the other kids" and her mother, amazingly, says she doesn't want to encourage her to do so. Mom, sorry to resort to name-calling, but you are an idiot. When a crime has been committed, you cooperate. You're fortunate the school has handled this themselves rather than calling the police.
(4) Maggie apparently has received calls and offers of monetary assistance to pay the fine that stems from this prank/vandalism (since, as the only identified perpetrator, she is on the hook for all the damages). I was astonished to hear the news anchor editorialize at the end of the report that it's "good to see that Maggie is getting some support." Are you kidding? Support for what? Damaging school property? Withholding information about the commission of a crime? For this she deserves "support" and we're supposed to be glad?

Facts and accountability

On the morning of the election in our fair city last week, an anonymous (to me, anyway; I have no idea who sent it) e-mail was sent out to some Gladstone residents, ostensibly to support a particular school board candidate. Among the smears, half-truths, misleading statements and outright lies in this long, virtually unreadable missive entitled "vote for a change" from "werteachers4life@yahoo.com" was this gem:

"Neighbor Vicki Baker told candidate Janet Simmons her children were rude and weren't allowed to play with Vicki Bakers children anymore and went on to tell Janet that her neighbors all hated her and Vicki hoped Janet and her family moved out of Gladstone and Janet should have never thought about running against Leslie Everson with out telling her. What kind of behavior is this? Janet was so scared and intimidated by Vicki she thought about pulling her name from running for a Board position and that is why she isn't in the voters pamphlet. She was too intimidated and distraught to file."

If you were able to follow that, congratulations; it's like Vanessa Huxtable channeling William Faulkner. But more to the point, it's sadly lacking much basis in reality. Make no mistake, Vicki can handle her own fights, especially with people unwilling to own up to the words they write. So less to defend her honor and more in hopes that this writer (if I'm not being too generous) would see the error of his or her ways, I chose that day to respond as follows:

I have no idea who you are, but you've professed to be interested in facts and accountability [this was a significant theme of the e-mail], so you should probably reconsider at least this portion of the "vote for a change" e-mail you sent out this morning...

Point by point:

- "Vicki Baker told candidate Janet Simmons her children were rude and weren't allowed to play with Vicki Bakers children anymore..." Never happened. What actually happened was completely unrelated to the campaign and Janet's candidacy. My son had observed what he felt like was rude behavior by Janet's boys toward his sister. He's very protective of her and suggested to her that maybe she shouldn't play with them. That's it. Vicki never said any such thing to our kids nor to Janet.

- "...went on to tell Janet that her neighbors all hated her and Vicki hoped Janet and her family moved out of Gladstone" Never happened. What she actually said was that she'd discussed the matter with a couple neighbors who expressed surprise that Janet hadn't told Leslie she intended to run for the seat. She also said she'd heard from a third party that Janet (and family?) had considered moving out of the neighborhood, which might be a good idea if she doesn't like her neighbors.

- Told Janet she "should have never thought about running against Leslie Everson with out telling her." Yeah, that's true. [And rightly so.] Janet and Leslie live almost across the street from each other; directly telling someone who has been a good and helpful neighbor for a number of years that you intend to run against her for the school board would seem to be the courteous thing to do. But Janet didn't extend that courtesy, and, as you say, what kind of behavior is that?

So because most of these things never happened, I'm quite unclear as to what role Vicki had in making Janet so intimidated and distraught that she couldn't bring herself to file information for the voter's guide, and I really don't see what an e-mail supporting Joe has to do with Janet or Vicki. But I invite you to share the above facts with your original "vote for a change" distribution list.

Did you follow that? This e-mail message overall wasn't even about Janet, much less Vicki, who isn't running for anything except groceries. Why the writer (there's that word again) thought this paragraph bolstered the argument in favor of voting for Joe is a mystery. Anyway, that was last Tuesday. As of last night I hadn't heard back from werteachers4life@yahoo.com or otherwise heard that they had taken any corrective action. A reminder seemed to be in order:

Have you sent out the corrections...to your “vote for a change” distribution list? You’ll recall that you’ve come out (though anonymously, as far as I can tell) as strongly favoring accountability and publicizing the facts. The decent and accountable thing for you to do would be to share this factual information with your list in order to correct the misinformation—someone less charitable might call them lies—you disseminated last week. So that I know you’ve chosen to do the right thing, be sure to CC: me when you send it out.

It's 24 hours later, and werteachers4life@yahoo.com has not mustered the will to do the right thing. Mind you, whatever the nature and depth of their disagreement, Janet and Vicki have apparently both already set it aside and moved on. It's too bad this person has failed, even anonymously, to own up to the facts and correct his or her libelous message.

Hit-and-run genius

My mother-in-law's brother and his wife were involved in a hit-and-run accident yesterday. Well, "involved" hardly seems like the right word; "victimized" is probably more accurate. But besides the welcome news that they weren't seriously injured, I'm pleased to report that the impact tore the front bumper off the perpetrator's van, and yes, the license plate was still on it. Plus, the van trailed liquid all the way home, where a drunk 20-year-old was located and invited to spend the night in jail. I predict his mom's insurance carrier is about to become more profitable.

While I'm on the topic of crime...I'm not a regular reader of the police blotter in our local daily newspaper. But I've noticed twice in recent months that a theft has been reported in the 500 block of Portland Avenue. Among the buildings located in the 500 block of Portland Avenue is our local police department. Now that's some bold thievin'!

All politics is local

Today is Election Day in these parts. For us, that pretty much means just the school board. And in contrast to the often boring races, this year’s campaign has featured some intrigue. Most of the seats are contested, and there are some pretty clear choices if you look just below the surface of the typical political platitudes.

One candidate distributed a flier throughout town (I wonder if he got the required permit?) that was remarkable for the amount of misleading information it contained. For example, it claimed his opponent had failed to attend every budget committee meeting. I happened to see his opponent at a Little League softball game a couple days after the flier went out, so I asked her about it. There has been exactly ONE of these meetings, and yes she did miss it—at the time the meeting notice went out, Comcast had some sort of Microsoft-related glitch causing some e-mails to not get delivered and she never got the meeting notice. But I guess the flier is sort of accurate in that regard; as she has missed every meeting—all one of them.

It also mentioned that spending is up (well, yes, after a down period, the state did come through with some additional funding that allowed some class sizes to be reduced), then juxtaposed that against a lower test scores statistic. Maybe you’ve heard that you can make numbers say anything you want, and that’s pretty much what’s happened here. The flier’s author took last year’s 10th grade test scores, which were among the lowest since testing began at the beginning of the century, and compared them to one year when a class had some of the highest scores recorded. Two data points, of course, do not make a trend, and there will always be differing levels of achievement from class to class, especially in smaller districts. He didn’t show the complete scores trend from year to year, though, nor from other classes, because revealing all the relevant information would have caused his argument to fall apart.

There was also some baseless whining about bond money going to salaries (which is closely regulated by law and by the terms of the bond measure) and a technology center which is claimed to be on the “back burner” (it’s actually a key centerpiece of how the bond money is going to be used).

Oh, and the rumors! That’s been the fun part. According to the rumor mill, my wife “verbally attacked” a neighbor regarding a school board race. Mind you, this neighbor came over to our place to approach my wife, not the other way around. And another neighbor happened to be about 15 feet away when this supposedly occurred; all he saw (and all that really happened) was a conversation. That’s just one of the silly examples.

A lot of this apparently started because a small group of citizens can’t be persuaded that it might be worth spending $10,000 to investigate ways to make sure the $40 million bond is utilized to have the greatest possible positive impact on our kids. But that’s another story.

Vote, vote, vote!

Caring even less about the NBA

Just when I was starting to get interested in rooting for the Golden State Warriors, Baron Davis and Jason Richardson proved themselves to be little more than two-bit thugs. Davis is trying to say his cheap shot "wasn't nothing," but to me it looked like Todd Bertuzzi taking out Steve Moore. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bertuzzi) Both should be suspended for at least one game.

You never know who...

So I'm in my supervisor's office earlier this week discussing a new project. "You need to call Bob Blackburn," she says. "In Seattle?" is my question, though I'm not sure why.

So I talk to Bob Blackburn, in Los Angeles, and it all comes back to me. Bob Sr. was the radio guy for the Sonics for years. His son, the target of my call, is in syndicated radio programming in L.A.

These things seem to happen to me a lot. Robert Kennedy Jr., Jay Leno, Dick Enberg, Eli Haydel (you probably have to hunt ducks to know that one), it's strange who I end up running into.

BTW, I'm now working for the "world's largest independent public relations firm" (plug that phrase into Google) in their Portland office. I hope to share here some useful or interesting information on the world of PR, so stay tuned.

Travel opinions

Airports I like:

• Portland
• Pittsburgh
• Detroit
• St. Louis

Airports I hate:

• LAX
• DFW
• Burbank (convenient, though)
• Las Vegas
• Phoenix
• Kansas City

Eh...

• O'Hare (difficult to get to)
• Houston
• Denver
• Boston
• Seattle

Wir machen eine Reise

Vicki and I are headed to Leavenworth, Washington, for the weekend. It's a Bavarian-themed "tourist trap" (according to a friend in Moses Lake) nestled in the eastern slope of the Cascade mountains. I imagine there's probably a sleigh ride planned, along with cruising the downtown shopping amid sub-freezing temperatures. http://www.leavenworth.com/ With Germanic heritage in both our families (including names like Hesse, Lehrer and Zweifel), we sort of dig the bavarian thing. Will see if I can figure out how to put up a couple pictures when we return.

Cheney defends Bill of Rights

"I'm honored to have played a role in Mr. Cheney's exercise of his second-amendment rights," said Whittington. "The pain and disfigurement is a small price to pay in defending the vision of our founding fathers. After all, if doddering old business tycoons shooting each other in the face isn't necessary to the maintenance of a well-regulated militia, I don't know what is."

(Joking! Stole some of this concept from an old "story" in The Onion.)