One of those mornings...
Slept late. Just a little late, but enough to have to rush into work. Which is tough to do seeing as work is about 70 minutes from home (on a good day... today was a good day).
My stomach is off. My nose is stuffy (just a little, better than yesterday). I ate McDonalds last night and I am totally paying for it. After the better part of a month eating correctly on weight watchers I fell off the wagon hard for Easter. We had dinner with Jen's mom and step dad on Saturday, then on Easter Sunday we had brunch at the kid's father's house and another huge dinner at my parent's house. Then there is the little issue of the gobs and gobs of chocolate available in the house. My stomach is not happy with me right now. There were a few minutes there when I considered calling in sick out of fear that my entire digestive system would revolt on me. How's that for too much info on a Tuesday morning.
I am feeling achy all over. My head aches, my neck aches, my legs ache, everything aches. This sucks. I better feel better by Saturday. Saturday is my not-bachelor party. Instead of the traditional bachelor and bachelorette parties our wedding party, ie my brother and his wife, are throwing us a joint get together. Not a bachelor party, not a bachelorette party, but something combined that falls somewhere in between both of them. I don't know what it is or who is going. I just know that it involved Boston and jeans are not an outfit option. You'll know more on Saturday night when I tweet/blog the dickens out of the thing.
Last night I saw a post on twitter saying that Mark Fidrych had died. Fidrych was a Massachusetts guy who piched in the major leagues for Detroit in the mid 70's. He was briefly a superstar. He won the rookie of the year award in 1976. He also came in 2nd in Cy Young voting and a very respectable 11th in MVP balloting. He was one of baseball's better personalities. He was known for getting down on his hands and knees and grooming the pitcher's mound during games. He was better known for talking to baseballs. He also would occasionally ask umpires to remove balls from play because he felt they "had hits in them." Simply put he was a whack job. In '76 he did two things. Win games and sell shit loads of tickets. He also is the shining example of mismanagement of a young pitcher. His manager relied on him so heavily during that amazing season that his body pretty much revolted and his career was ruined as soon as it started. Read this article for the specifics.
I once went to a baseball clinic at ULowell with my father and his little league team. I had already aged off of his 10-12 year old team and I don't think my brother was old enough yet, but I think he was there too. They had two major leaguers working along with the ULowell team. The major leaguers were Spanky LaVallier (who hopefully won't sue me for butching the spelling of his name... sorry dude) who if memory serves had just moved from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the St. Louis Cardinals and would not long after become the Cardinals' starting catcher. The other big leaguer was Mark Fidrych who had recently made an attempt at a comeback with the Red Sox but never got out of AAA.
Spanky was there to talk hitting, and at the end of the day they raffled off one of his bats. It's still in the closet in my old bedroom in Tewksbury. When I was 15 I used it in Senior League games. It is huuuge but I think I might have snuck a hit or two out of it.
Mark Fidrych was there to tell the youngsters in the crowd about the dangers of throwing curve balls. He told us horror stories about how his arm had been mangled so badly he would never have proper use of it again. He actually lifted it up and showed us how it would no longer hang straight. The lesson was that throwing junk pitches has a physical affect on you. It's bad enough for an adult, but for a kid, especially a kid who is just hitting puberty, it can ruin you. Fidrych was 21 at the start of his rookie season. he was only three years out of high school. It's hard to imagine him going through puberty as a fastball pitcher and in three years becoming a league dominating junk pitcher. He was a curve ball guy all through his life, and after one gloriously fantastic major league season it was pretty much over.
Ironically, we saw him on NESN last week while Jen and I were at my parent's house. Dad and I reminisced a little about that clinic and about his wackiness on the mound. Now less than a week later we learn that he's gone. He was 54 and far too young. Rest in Peace Bird.
In happier sporting news, EA Sports ran their annual NHL Playoff simulation and the predicted winner is? None other than our own Boston Bruins! Granted, EA picked San Jose last year... funny, so did I. Here is their story.
That's it for now, but some one just emailed me youtube clips of the Bruins playoff ad campaign... you might be seeing those in a little while.
Until then... Go Bruins!
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