I weighed 176.8 today, which is pretty normal for me now. I would still like to lose about ten more pounds. I believe this is doable, I just need to make a few more adjustments.
Listening to sports radio can be really frustrating. For about a week now, all I have heard is how the Pirates need to go out and trade for a bat. Because that is the easiest thing to do. I understand the frustration fans have with watching this team. I would love to see some power-hitter in the lineup. Unfortunately, who is out there that the Pirates can trade for?
Looking at a list of 2013 free agents does not look very promising. Maybe the Buccos could trade James McDonald and Alex Presley for Curtis Granderson. Or wait, how about Joel Hanrahan and Starling Marte for Andre Ethier. Oh, you mean the Yankees and Dodgers might not go for that? Weird.
I guess they could try to pry Kendrys Morales away from the Angels or maybe go after Matt Adams. I wonder if Detroit would be willing to give up Brad Eldred (not that he would really be an upgrade since he never hits well in the majors). Aside from some unproven AAA masher, there really are not many options.
A few months ago I did a post about the National League, today I will discuss the American League. For a reminder, this is the first thought that pops into my head when I think about a team. Could be a player, or moment.
New York Yankees
Mickey Mantle. I know, it is the Yankees and there are about 1200 things that could pop into your head and you could make a strong argument for all of them. However, when I was a kid, a relative of mine had a Mickey Mantle baseball card (not his rookie card, but like his fourth or fifth year card) and it was worth a few grand. I always hoped to somehow go through a family members attic and find Mantle's rookie card, which when I was a kid was worth something like $40,000.
I read before that Mantle hit some of the longest home runs in the history of baseball. Granted, the figures were not as accurate as today, but still pretty damn impressive. Also, check out his stats.
Plus, I loved the movie 61* and the way you see how Mantle abused his body by going out partying every night.
Boston Red Sox Another team with so many great moments. Before last year, I would probably have mentioned two things: the come back against the Yankees or them trying to trade for Alex Rodriguez (and then crying when the Yankees got him). Fortunately, last year had this moment, which will always be the first thing I think of when I heard Red Sox.
Baltimore Orioles I went to a game at Camden Yard back in 1999, which honestly should be the first thing that comes to mind, however that is not the case. I always remember the trivia question "Name the four 20-game winners for Orioles in 1971." Actually, I never can remember the answer. I usually get three of them (oddly enough, not always the same three). The answer is: Mike Cuellar Pat Dobson Jim Palmer Dave McNally
Seriously, this is a fun bar trivia question to ask someone older who is a baseball fan. If you can remember the answer, they are impressed.
Toronto Blue Jays Joe Carter...
Suck it Philly!!!
Tampa Bay Rays I like Evan Longoria. Seriously, I wish the Pirates had a player like him (to be fair, they have McCutchen, he is like Longoria--I wish Pedro was like Evan). He is a fantastic player and he just seems so damn cool. Yeah, I think I have a man-crush on him. Whatever, deal with it.
Fun fact: when he came into the league, I thought he was the sister of actress Eva Longoria. Nope, they are not related.
Minnesota Twins I will always remember the Twins beating the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 World Series. The Braves beat the Pirates in '91 NLCS in seven games, but not nearly as dramatic as the 1992 series. I hated the stupid braves and was so happy to see the Twins win the game.
Detroit Tigers C'mon, when people talk about crazy things players do nowadays, I like to point out Ty Cobb. This guy did all of the insane things people hate back in the 1900s. He sat out games to win a batting title (and do not worry, apparently Nap Lajoie had a bunch of bunt singles to try and beat Cobb, and since the opposing team hated Cobb, they played their third baseman deep). He beat up fans, he was considered a jerk by all his peers.
He also set most of the records for a hitter and still has the highest career average. And he held the AL record for total bases in a game until the other night when Josh Hamilton broke it. Why did he have that record? He wanted to prove that hitting home runs was not that hard and if he wanted to, he could hit more than Babe Ruth. Instead, he liked hitting for a high average.
Hell, just look at that slide/flying jump kick...
Chicago White Sox Speaking of old time players. I was fascinated by the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 when I was a kid. I could not read enough about it. I always thought that Shoeless Joe Jackson got a raw deal. I mean, just look at his stats from that series. Does it really look like he was not trying?
Cleveland Indians When you mention the Indians, how can you not think of the film Major League? Hell, this clip pretty much sums up how you feel when you watch a Pirates game.
Also, I was at an Indian's game a few years ago at Jacobs Field. Unfortunately, I do not remember much of the game.
Kansas City Royals If there is a team that is as pathetic as the Pirates, it is the Royals. And just imagine if you allowed them to play...yep, it was as bad as it sounds. Just check out WHYGAVS liveblog of one of their games. I recommend reading the whole thing and the comments with it.
I remember reading it while the game was happening and almost pissing myself laughing. Back before the days of twitter...
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim That should be my memory. The number of times they have changed the name. Los Angeles Angels, Anaheim Angels, California Angels...whatever, we get it. I will always associate Jim Abbott with the Angels. Dude was born with one hand and still became a major league pitcher. Yeah, makes you feel good about your life.
Plus, if I remember correctly, he was one of those guys who made the majors without spending a day in the minors.
Texas Rangers Josh Hamilton. I hope he signs a long-term contract with them. He is the positive story we all love to hear in sports. I think you all know it by now. Oh, did I mention that the dude can absolutely destroy a baseball?
Oakland Athletics
The Bash Brothers! Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Huh, who would have guessed they were slightly juiced up...
Seattle Mariners I think about all the really good players they have had at one point and yet they never won a World Series. They won 116 games back in 2001. Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Ichiro, Randy Johnson, Jaime Moyer, John Olerud, and Jay Buhner all played for this team (not all at the same time). Just crazy when you think about it. Imagine if they had kept A-Rod and Griffey (maybe he stays healthy in Seattle)...
Anyways, those are my thoughts. Soon I will move to a different sport. Leave your own thoughts/memories/players in the comments.
So we made it back, safe and sound. We had a pretty good time. As you know, the first few days rained for us and made for a pretty irritating time. We got through it and the weather became really nice.
The House We Stayed In
Our house was a five bedroom place out in Pompano Beach. The house was actually for sale for the cheap price of $2.5 million. I was very tempted to buy the place. The kitchen was enormous, the pool area was nice, but my favorite part was the built-in bar and grill.
The master bathroom was also pretty sweet. The shower had six heads and was computerized. Yeah, you could sent the temperature and do all kinds of other things. Yeah, I am impressed with simple things.
Grill and bar area
Okay, enough of the house. What did we do while we were there?
Casino
During the first rainy day, we ended up heading to the Seminole Casino at Coconut Creek. When I signed up for a card, I was able to win $100 in free slot play, which I gave to Lindsey. I decided to play Three-Card Poker, but they only had $15 tables and I played a few hands and lost. After that we just hung out at the bar for a bit playing video poker.
Lindsey actually won a little bit of money with my free money, but then we lost all of it playing the crappy video poker.
Jungle Queen Cruise If you ever head down to this area, I highly recommend going on the Jungle Queen cruise. You basically travel all around the canals and see the giant mansions that rich people own. Most of them are owned by Wayne Huizenga or his nieces and nephews. Apparently if you are like a distant relative of the guy, he will buy you a mansion.
Also, you get to see some amazing yachts. This first one was just a random we saw that the guide said it cost a couple million.
This next one was called KISSES and was a slight brown color. I have come to the conclusion that the ship must be owned by the CEO of Hershey.
The next yacht is just a monstrosity. It is absolutely ridiculous how much money some people have. This is Steven Spielberg's boat called the Seven Seas. It cost over $200 million dollars to build! You can charter it for the weekend for $1.5 million. That is just absolutely ridiculous.
The cruise then takes you to a place where you can see a guy wrestle alligators. That dude was a little bit crazy. Here are a few pictures and then three videos.
Also there was a monkey and a bunch of birds in cages, plus a peacock just running around.
And now for some cute pictures of Lindsey and I at the cruise:
Fishing Trip The next day we went out on a fishing boat. It was just Lindsey, myself, her sister (Kayla) and her fiance (Adam). Plus J.C., the girl's uncle, who chartered the ship. I really did not think that I would get sick out there. In fact, I kind of bragged about it. At first everything was going smooth, minus the water was a little choppy. Kayla and Lindsey looked a little rough, but nothing major. We were out there fishing for sailfish. The method is kite-fishing. I know, it sounded weird to me too. Basically, a kite holds two lines and basically dangles the live bait in the water.
The first bite of the day came pretty early and the guy handed it to Lindsey, who battled for about five minutes before giving it up to me. She was starting to get sick. It was a big sailfish and she could barely turn the reel. I will not make fun of her though, I had some trouble as well. I was able to pull it in after a good thirty minutes or so. My forearms burned like a mo'fo. They estimated the size to be around 85-90 inches, which puts it around 160-190 lbs. Considering that these are the fastest fish in the ocean, you can imagine how much of a fight they put up. Enjoy the photos below.
This is the kite, it seems very odd to me.
Lindsey trying hard...
ME
Both pictures are of my sailfish
Our puke station!
This is where the story becomes fun. Adam caught a little silver shark, which I could not get a picture of and then he (or J.C.) caught a smaller sailfish. Lindsey while they were catching these was busy throwing up over the side. After a bit she seemed to be feeling fine enough to lay on the couch. I went in to check on her and laid down as well. Seeing her vomit made me kind of sick. Laying on that couch was the worst idea ever. I could feel my stomach heave up, then down, then left, then right. It did this for a good 15 minutes and then I realized my stomach had enough. I jumped up off the couch and sprinted towards the railing. I puked for a good five minutes. Then, I felt great. Unfortunately, we never caught another fish.
Las Olas Blvd We kept hearing how Las Olas was the place to go for shopping. Ummm, yeah, if you are wealthy. Actually, most of Fort Lauderdale seems to be for the uber-rich. None of the stores on Las Olas had one shirt for less than $100. Definitely not my cup of tea.
One of the cool things about being in a rich area though: the cars. Hell, I can count on one hand the number of Ferrari's I have seen in person. Yet, this week I was able to actually see tons of them, plus a dealership. Not to mention all the Masoratis, Lamborghinis, etc.
Mini-Golf Another fun attraction to do at the beach: miniature golf. Well not at Fort Lauderdale. I guess rich folks do not like playing mini-golf. We found a place and ended up having a pretty good game. Okay, not really. Adam kicked our asses. I think he had like 8 hole-in-ones. At least we got a cool picture out of it. ScienceMuseum One of the other rain days was spent at a science museum (which turned out to be for younger kids). I had a good time, but I do not think anyone else did. Oh well. The place had a bunch of Egyptian stuff, including a mummy of a baby from the Ptolemaic period. I took a picture, but it did not turn out at all.
They also had some cool dinosaur bones, which I did manage to get a good picture of some tiny raptors attacking another dinosaur. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
The Bar Scene We managed to go out to eat most nights and just drink at the house. One night though, Lindsey and I went out to the bars and had a pretty good time. We started at this place called the Elbo-Room, which was kind of famous for being in some movie. We then went to a bar called Sangrias, which had outdoor couches. We had a couple of huge margaritas there and at one point allowed some crazy artist guy to do a caricature of us. The dude was not very good and he only charged us $4. It was actually funny just watching him do it. Sorry, I will work on getting that picture posted...
We then left there and went to another little bar and had a few more drinks before catching a cab home. The cab ride was an adventure. The guy did not put the address in his GPS, he was just relying on us. For some unknown reason, Pompano Beach likes to name their roads either court or street. For example, to get home, you had to turn onto 9th street, then make a right onto 9th court, then another right onto 9th street...
This guy would just not get that! He kept thinking that 8th street would just take him right to 9th and it did not work that way. After some arguments, he finally agreed to use his GPS, which took us straight to the house. Damn idiot...
The Beach When we finally did get a chance to head to the beach, we discovered that it was actually very nice. Also, the water was pretty warm. It did not feel like it at first, but the water got deep pretty quickly and then shallow again if you went further out. Once you went to the second shallow part, it was quite warm.
The best part of the beach? Some weird dude doing yoga and his wife sitting beside him reading a magazine like nothing was happening. It was definitely funny to watch. Sorry, the picture is not all that great though.
Anyways, it was a very relaxing trip. It sucked that it rained for a few days, but after that it was quite nice and we all had a great time. Here are some more pictures to prove how much fun we had:
