What Now? Chow-Chow!

Continuing to tidy up my apartment, I made a new discovery: a jar of chow-chow from Aplin farms, bought at a Birmingham farmers market on our 2007 trip there. I must have been saving it for a special occasion.

How now brown chow? The photo makes the relish look darker than it is, but I am sure it is more brown than when I bought it six-and-a-half years ago. The lid is on tight and isn't distended ... what do you think readers? Should I give it a try?

Lost and Found

While tidying up my apartment, a task I have undertaken to forestall losing my current romantic interest, I have come across a considerable amount of forgotten ephemera from various trips along the baseball byways.

I avoided looking too closely at most of it, a potential distraction from my chore. However, a handful of items did catch my eye. An eight-by-ten glossy photograph of the 24 (as of 2012?) astronauts from Ohio? What did I think I was going to do with that? It's gone now, just like John H. Glenn, Jr. (first row, third from right).

Keep It Simple

A perfectly conventional view of the action at the Kane County Cougars,
on the last day of the 2013 season

When we started this deathmarch (no, I love it, I do!), we were really enamored with the idea that you could see so many minor-league teams in relatively short order, given how compact the clusters of teams are in some places. The holy grail was to somehow see two games in different cities on the same day—a matinee in one place and a night game in the next. So, naturally, we soon embarked on huge trips to far-flung locations, such as all the teams in Texas, the cross-country odyssey of 2009, and the Lightning Field wanderjahr.

In 2014, we're getting back to basics. There will be some adjustments, no doubt, but here's what we're contemplating right now—a lot of short drives, and a lot of two-city doubleheaders.

April 13–21

• Gwinnett County Braves / Atlanta Braves
• Rome Braves
• Augusta Green Jackets
• Hickory Crawdads / Charlotte Knights
• Myrtle Beach Pelicans / Charleston RiverDogs
• Savannah Sand Gnats
• Jacksonville Suns
• Daytona Cubs

July 1213–16, 20–23

• Wilmington Blue Rocks
• Frederick Keys / Baltimore Orioles / Aberdeen Ironbirds
• Bowie BaySox / Frederick Keys Aberdeen Ironbirds
• Hagerstown Suns
• Eastern League All-Star Game (Altoona)
• Reading Fightin' Phils / Wilmington Blue Rocks
• Philadelphia Phillies

If you can believe it, we've seen roughly two thirds of all the minor-league teams now, and the first trip will knock off a number more. (Rob has seen all the teams on the second trip, but he's kindly allowing me to catch up.)

Onward, Byways soldiers!

Bar One

View from Section 415, Row 1, at Wrigley on Sunday, Carlos Villanueva on the mound

Unlike the previous one, this wasn't a big post. If I sat up, I could see over this. But what was five-foot-two Watson to do? Still, hat tip to possible former basset hound Dan Cramer for the seats.

Someone, Somewhere

I was on the road again for my birthday, although not with Melvin this year. By email I received the following photograph by my friend Heather.

What a wonderful birthday greeting for a baseball fan. And, being perverse, I love it all the more because the text on the state historic marker is untrue.

Caboose

Following our recent thoughts on baseball and trains, I should note that I very recently had the occasion to observe the Joliet Slammers stadium from inside an Amtrak car. The Slammers aren't affiliated, but hey, going there by train probably beats driving. More provocative still, if you take the commuter rail, corruption and all, the same line stops by the White Sox stadium. I smell a doubleheader some day. Whoo-whoo!

Washed Out (but Nicely Framed)

An all-too-common sight on our recent trip (Evansille, Ind.)

We had a densely packed, wet trip to Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana with Rob and Norton. We'd planned for games in Louisville, Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Evansville. To make a soggy story short, we didn't see all of them. Herewith some brief photographic highlights:

Sure, it's just a LEGO Brand model, but the quality of play can't be any worse than in real thing, can it? (Louisville Slugger Museum, Louisville, Kentucky)

But who? Who? (Hartman Rock Garden, Springfield, Ohio)

Lightning Field x Monsanto = Concrete Corn Weenie, really, really (Dublin, Ohio)

Sky Giraffe wonders if anyone is out there (Traders World, Lebanon, Ohio)

Corn x UFO = If you build it, they will come... and probe you. Sky Giraffe, beware of what you wish for (Carlisle, Ohio)

Resistance is useless, unless it is within a very old TV, in which case the damn thing won't work without it
(Early Television Museum, Hilliard, Ohio)

Batters up! (Evansville, Indiana, before the rain came)

Pitchers Like That Are the Only Pitchers Here

I don't have a good "pitcher" of Jeff Francis, but I do have this view of a cemetery in Oklahoma, the state where we saw him dominate the El Paso Diablos in 2004. I'm fairly sure that this is not where all former Tulsa pitchers wind up.

News reached Byways HQ yesterday that nine years and one week to the day that we saw Jeff Francis terrorize the El Paso Diablos in one of his Double-A starts, the man has been let go in favor of what is almost certainly the Last Coming of Roy Oswalt.

To which I have to say, as a tear wells up in my.... wait, ROY OSWALT? Give me a goddamn break.

You Can Put It on the Board

Crotch-cam view of the Comerica advertising-conveying device

Meet the Detroit scoreboard, same as the Cleveland scoreboard. And Cincinnati's. And the White Sox's. And so on. When's it going to end?

Post-Game Show

The Mets are still not a good team* but even the most soured fan had to enjoy the four-game, home-and-away sweep of the Yankees this week.  Beyond the pleasure derived from the outcome, I was also amused by Yankee fans' post-game comments.  There was a remarkable uniformity, as if a new memo was distributed on a daily basis.