MLB Records - Someone Always Watching and Waiting

Justin Hayward - Watching and Waiting

While driving on our way to Panda Express for dinner, we were listening to NPR All Things Considered news and heard that a new Major League Baseball record fell last night - for the first time. It seems there never was a day in the past 150 years (at least since the expansion to 30 teams), that all 15 home teams won all of their games in a single day. It was especially fun to hear that the Seattle Mariners were the home team to win their home game last night, and in extra innings against the Baltimore Orioles. The NPR news report made a point that there was actually someone out there who was watching and waiting for new records - in this case, one that was not in the record book before.

It is humid out this evening, and greenish dark storm clouds are forming this evening over the Front Range in northern Colorado and making their way to the east of the western Great Plains. I can watch and wait for the August days these weeks to pass by as we head to September. A good time to remember watching the Seattle Mariners baseball games on our television back in Corvallis, waiting for the rains in the early evenings here in Fort Collins, thinking about and listening to the Moody Blues play Watching and Waiting.

Watching and waiting
For a friend to play with
Why have I been alone so long
Mole he is burrowing his way to the sunlight
He knows there's some there so strong

'Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The thing you've always been denied
Look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Soon you will see me
'Cause I'll be all around you
But where I come from I can't tell
But don't be alarmed by my fields and my forests
They're here for only you to share

'Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The things you've always been denied
So look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Watching and waiting
For someone to understand me
I hope it won't be very long

THOMAS, RAY/HAYWARD, JUSTIN

Pulp Fiction - George Plimpton - Sidd Finch - Baseball Is Around The Corner

My son noted on Facebook that I should view an ESPN video feature: Unhittable: Sidd Finch and the Tibetan Fastball. I was sitting out on our patio Saturday, enjoying a quiet afternoon, and had time to catch up on posts. I had no idea what I would see, particularly since it was more than seven minutes into the piece when it was revealed: this was a report on an April Fool feature from 1985, and I am one, 30 years after it was published - pure fun.

MLB Spring Training has been under way for some time now, and opening day will soon be on us. My old iPhone died this past week, and since I hadn't backed up the applications that were uploaded, I had to reload my MLB.com app. Of course, I chose the Mariners and Giants as my teams to follow.

Baseball Text Haiku

Note - September 30, 2014: This game turned out to be the difference between making the one-game playoff for the wildcard slot. Oakland needed to lose, and Seattle win on the last day of the season. Seattle did it's part and win, but unfortunately Oakland won as well, ending a losing streak and making it into the playoff's. When I asked my son which team he was going to root for now that Seattle was out until next season, he said, "No one, just wait for the Blazers."
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My son Mike and I often text about the Seattle Mariners game that is playing - he watching it on a regional coverage station, me via my MLB application on my iPhone. Tonight, things were going fine until the bottom of the seventh inning, when I noted a late-game surge by the Los Angeles Angels - four runs, eventually five for the inning. I noted the score in a text, and then noticed a near-perfect haiku structure in the three lines, and with a little cheating,  jotted down the poem:

Too bad, maybe come
Back, in the bott'm of the ninth
Baseball heroics
 
Tough loss, they need to keep moving forward to make the American League Wildcard slot. I hadn't written a haiku in at least a couple of years - I was thinking about that just a few days ago.
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Here is the dialogue: going back and forth this evening, between my blue-colored call-out text boxes - his gray:

0-0 tie so far.

Some good pitching.

Ok.

Bunch of runs scored against them.

Ploop.

Too bad. Maybe come back, bottom of the ninth - heroics.

If we can pull out some of that last night stuff.

***The point of epiphany, that last text from me looks like it could have a haiku structure - inspired, I write back***

Haiku poem in 5-7-5:

Too bad, maybe come
Back, in the bottom of the ninth
Baseball heroics

I hadn't written a haiku in two years.

Last time I wr[o]te one was when I learned of them many moons ago.

Inspired by the game - I hope they win.

Hobbes was laying on my lap with his back leg kinked back.  Just got up and limped around confused by a leg that went to sleep.

That's pretty good.

It was funny.