Ferrandez: I'm In Love With My Glove!

Last night I played catch in bed and slept with her.

No, not Tay. I'm talking about my new softball glove.
She's a Mizuno Envy and I'm doing my best to break her in just right. She's soft and lacy with nice curves and a deep enough pocket to tuck two balls in.

She's also got that new glove smell that I never had growing up in a small village outside Mexicali, Mejico.

You see, we were too poor to afford gloves, so we used pieces of cardboard or whatever we could get our hands on to soften the sting of the ball.

I remember my first glove came from a case of Trojan Magnums. My eighteen siblings and I cut up the cardboard box and made about a dozen ball gloves out of it. My piece of cardboard served me well as over the past twenty years as it was perfectly molded to my palm.

Now, I'm still only 14 years old according to my birth certificate and still have aspirations to get that 4 year 62M contract from an Alzheimer's ridden George Steinbrenner. But, now I have a new glove. And I appreciate her more than others because it took me many years of picking various fruits and vegetables alongside my pal Supermonkey, to be able to afford such a luxury.

I think Tay is jealous of her, so I hide her. But every Sunday now, I'll be showing her off as she'll be flashing leather for all to see. Sweet!

Kennywood's Open!

Happy 10th Birthday shout to my daughter, Kitty!

We celebrated with a day at Kennywood and as always, had a load of fun. Tay, Aussie, Loni, Bebis and I rang in Kitty's birthday with a surprise trip to the amusement park this morning.

By the way, Kennywood's new alien ride, Cosmic Chaos, got a big thumbs down from the girls, who said it was actually pretty painful to ride.

As Granpa says, "Real junk!"

Leaves of Three, Doodlebee!

That's the permutation of the "leaves of three, let it be" quotation that I taught my girls in an effort to keep them away from poison ivy.

For about 12+ years I've managed to stay away from any major outbreak of my arch-nemesis. I certainly didn't get it by going in the woods. My guess is I got it from the dogs, which I'd argue is where most people get it.

Today, I am defeated as my right arm has become a casualty of war. It's so bad I had to cancel the Softball/BBQ event at my place this weekend. Major bummer.

Put Poison Ivy on top of the list of things that give me cancer.

Full Faith and Credit

For my birthday last week, I received several "naughty and nice" coupons from Tay among other things. The coupon above is an example of the "nice" lot.

But, then I started wondering...

What exactly are these coupons worth? So, I decided to perform a little test to see if they were indeed worth the ink and paper they were printed on.

On saturday night, after Tay fell asleep and I was watching TV, I reached into the bureau and extracted a coupon. Then I gently shook her awake.

"Whhhaaatt? huh....what do you want ?

"I've got a coupon"

"What?"

"I've got a coupon"

"Are you kidding me? I'm asleep, leave me alone!"

"But, I've got a coupon (waving it her face). See?"

"Are you crazy, you woke me up for that? I'm tired, I'm going back to sleep!"

"But it was my birthday present. Won't you at least look at it? C'mon, turn on the light."

"I'm going back to sleep"

"Oh, I guess all these coupons are worthless then"

"Hrrrmmmph....okay (turning the light on), lemme see"

She looks at the coupon which calls for one passionate kiss. She honors the coupon and then rolls over and goes back to sleep.

We wake up the next morning.

"I could kill you for waking me up in the middle of the night with a coupon"

And then I proceeded to make my argument:

"You know why a US dollar has worth? Because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. No matter where I take a US dollar, I know that it will be honored and that I expect to get a certain value from the note. The only reason it is worth something other than the paper and ink that make it up, is that it is universally accepted anywhere you go, even in foreign countries."

"So, what's your point?"

"These Love coupons you gave me, don't exactly have any value except at the Bank of Tay. If they do not have the backing of the full faith and credit of Tay, they are worthless. Yesterday, I tried to redeem one and was very close to being unable to "cash" it."

"You woke me up in the middle of the night!"

"Do you know why sometimes there are runs on a bank because people don't think that their money is safe and want to withdraw it immediately? If enough people try to redeem their accounts at the bank at once, the bank would fail to have enough cash to pay out. Banks don't operate by holding all of their cash in the bank at once. Banks operate on a certain faith that your money is there when you need it. Well, last night, I felt like I had a stack of cash in the Bank of Tay and all of a sudden I realized that it was worthless because the bank may never be open. I had these coupons, but I would have a hard time redeeming them."

"It was the middle of the night!"

"The coupons don't have any time restrictions indicated on them"

"Well, I'm not going to honor them when I'm asleep."

"So, you're saying that the Bank of Tay has a schedule of hours?"

"Yes, when I'm awake...and when I feel like it"

"What!, when you FEEL like it?"

"Pretty much."

"You know how I feel now? I feel like I just went into the bank at 1:50 pm and filled out a withdrawal slip for $40 and stood in the teller's line. There are about 3 or 4 tellers mulling around in the back but none are at the window. So, I wait patiently, for about 5 minutes or so as they stand around the coffee pot and make chit chat. Finally, I get upset and scream, "Is anybody in this godforsaken place gonna fucking help me or what?", and then finally begrudgingly one of the tellers approaches the window with a fucking puss on and asks me what I want. "I'd like to withdraw $40 from my account", "Okay, I'll have to check with the branch manager", then after another 10-15 minutes, I finally get frustrated and yell, "Can someone please help me!". Finally, another teller comes to the window and slides the $40 under the glass and I say "It's about fucking time". Then as I make my way to the door, I open it and hear a hushed voice behind me saying "asshole". As soon as the door closes behind me, I hear the door latch and the sign on the door is switched to CLOSED. That's how I felt last night when I tried to redeem my coupon".

"You are being ridiculous"

"Am I? God forbid I got out the door and realized I needed another 20 bucks. I would have gotten a big "Fuck You" from the bank.

"Honestly!"

"I just want to know that the "currency" I have in my bureau is worth something, that's all. And if it's not, is it transferrable?"

"Transferrable?"

"Yes, if I took my coupons to another "bank" would they honor them and would they be allowed to honor them?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I found myself some mexican honey, say, named Odette. Would I be able to take my coupons and cash them in to the Bank of Odette? And given the exchange rate between the US dollar and the peso, could I expect 20-40% more "services" for my coupon?"

"That is definitely not allowed!"

"Well, then the Bank of Tay needs to stay competitive with other branches and be flexible with her hours. That's all I'm saying."

"What was I thinking when I gave you those coupons?"

"I don't know but I sure got alot of them. And they have no expiration dates."

"Good grief!, let me see those coupons! They're only good for a year"

"Nice try, no deal."

(My name is bluey, I've got a coupon, I've got a coupon shiny and new, I'm going to get me all sorts of "favors", that's what I'm going to do!)

Fatties Rejoice!

Finally! No more chunking out while binge drinking good ol' H2O. Now I can pound down my 8 glasses of water a day without developing cottage cheese ass and blubber flaps. Science finally has a breakthrough that will allow us all to look like Kate Moss as early as this summer.

So drink up and let's all be thin for a change. Now that we don't have to worry about the water weight, scientists can concentrate on making the fat-free pizza and lo-cal fried cheesesticks!

It's truly amazing what morons will buy. Props to Long/Short Capital for bringing this photo to my attention.

The Last Thing I Want To Do Is Start A Race Discussion But...

from ESPN.com, an article quoting Gary Sheffield:

The percentage of African-Americans playing Major League Baseball is at an all-time low and Gary Sheffield says he has a theory why that's the case.

In an interview with GQ magazine that's currently on newsstands, the typically outspoken Tigers designated hitter said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as baseball's most prevalent minority because they are easier to control.

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. … [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do -- being able to control them," he told the magazine.

"Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.

"These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys."

According to a 2005 report by the University of Central Florida Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, only 8.5 percent of major leaguers were African-American -- the lowest percentage since the report was initiated in the mid-1980s. By contrast, whites comprised 59.5 percent of the majors' player pool, Latinos 28.7 percent and Asians 2.5.


Wow. You would think that when someone is paying you $10M, that they would retain "control" of your professional life. Expect you to conform to the companies' policies and conduct yourself in a manner consistent with the company's goals. Especially, on a baseball team where you are expected to follow the strategies of the coaches to the letter in order to win in a team sport. Obviously, you would have the freedom to turn down the $10M contract.

I won't say that Gary speaks for more than a very small percentage of African-Americans, but these comments speak volumes to an "attitude problem against any authority" in this segment of the population. My personal belief is that this perceived "Uncle Tom Syndrome" is what is really holding back some African-Americans. Being able to mesh with those around us is what makes us successful as a country as well as on an individual level. Looking down upon those who have accepted this notion and having achievied personal success is pathetic.

Life is a team sport, Gary. Your brand of racism is offensive to me and I'm sure the Latin players will have much to say on this topic in the coming days.

What a jackass.

Buccos Win!

Well, some of us go to Pirates games even as they sport their losing record. Sure, I'm not a Pirates fans and I didn't pay for the tickets but Tay, Aussie, Loni, Bebis, Kitty and I enjoyed a nice night out at the ballyard with LiLi and Cal. The weather was beautiful for a night out on the town with overcast skies and a cool breeze. The Pirates won 3-1 over the LA Dodgers.




We got enough Adam LaRoche bobbleheads (8, and courtesy of LaRoche College, which I thought was hilarious) to make $3.47 total on Ebay! What genius in the Pirate organization decides to have a bobblehead night for a new player that only recently started hitting over the Mendoza line?



Okay, okay, what you guys really want to know and what I'm here to report: Hannah won the great pierogi race on Saturday as the Pirate Parrot kept Chester away from the finish line in a dastardly show of interference. Bud Selig, has yet to review and rule on the outcome nor has he indicated if the Parrot would be disciplined by MLB.

Raise the Jolly Roger!