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Showing posts from July, 2011

The End of the Beginning

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Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center this morning. I rose about 5:30 this morning and took time to fire up my iPad and open the NASA TV App in order to witness the successful landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis . This marked the conclusion of flight STS-135 and, moreover, the completion of the US Space Shuttle Program that has been so much a part of my life over the past 30 years. Having missed the launch 13 days ago due to a business meeting and missed virtually every important aspect of the mission live (I was able to replay videos of everything online later, of course), I wanted to be sure to at least be in the Now for the touchdown in Florida. STS-135 replenished the International Space Station (ISS) with a year of supplies and brought back to Earth a lot of “junk” (mostly various devices that have broken over the years aboard the ISS) for analysis by various engineers to make such things better the next time. And there will be a next time. This is not the end of a

10,000 - 9,992

This is the total Atlanta Braves Franchise record since 1876 after an 11-1 pounding of the Washington Nationals last night. The Braves are baseball's oldest team . Reaching 10,000 wins last night placed them in the company of the Cubs and the Giants Franchises as the only three baseball organizations to offically win 10,000 games. Everybody of course thinks the DamnYankees would surely be a member of this club. But, they are part of baseball's junior circuit and many of their earlier games don't count. As a mental exercise this afternoon I connected Warren Spahn with Chipper Jones, covering the Braves continuously from 1946 in Boston up to the present in Atlanta. Here's how the lineage works. As it should be, it is mostly with pitching. Warren Spahn had a great career for the Braves but his worst season was his final one in Milwaukee in 1964 . That was his also the first season for Phil Niekro even though Niekro only pitched 15 innings. A late season call-up. Nev

Jeter and Jones and What-ifs

The latest edition of Out of the Park Baseball version 12 (OOTP12) was released late this year, primarily because the OOTP guys were busy developing and introducing something called iOOTP for iPhones and iPads. At any rate, better late than never and, as usual, I have spent most of my (limited lately) free time fiddling with the game. I have played every release of OOTP since version 5 and, as corny as it sounds, they just keep making the game better and better each year. OOTP12 comes with highly detailed and (with very few exceptions) accurate opening day rosters not only for every Major League Baseball team but for each organization’s entire minor league system as well. You can manage any minor league team in baseball in addition to your major league favorite. There’s the usual stuff too, just more of it with many, many improvements. You can play any baseball season with real players and real schedules from 1871 up to this year. You can model player development, get scouting report

Beached Whale

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Looking west toward Destin on our first evening there this year. We spent most of last week on a beach near Destin, Florida . Jennifer and I have been there many times during our marriage. Just as a couple, then with both sets of parents (on different trips), then with my daughter as a child, then with my daughter and a friend as teens, we even went once with my sister and her daughter; all sorts of variations dating back before most of the high-rises and overdevelopment. This year’s excursion held true to the fact that my daughter has taken only her cousin to Destin twice. All her other best friends have only made the trip once so far. (You don’t think it is us do you?) But this year’s friend was bright and chatty and fun to be around. The two girls were on autopilot much of the trip, Jennifer got to sit in her beach chair, drink beer, and stare. Meanwhile, I got up early, did the coffee routine on the beach with Jennifer, went for beach walks both alone and with Jennifer before the b