42

I have a couple of posts in the hopper about deep thoughts, about things like male psyche and ego trips that combine to make some dudes do horrible things (looking at you, Swalwell); another examining, of course, Felon47 and all the talk we hear about how he's losing his marbles; yet another that isn't especially deep but just about umping. But I find myself pressed for time and generally unfocused at the moment, so for now I will just say the following on this, the 15th day of April:

Happy Jackie Robinson Day to those who celebrate. Wear your No. 42 jerseys with pride. And happy Jackie Robinson Day to those who don't celebrate, too, but only those who don't because they're unfamiliar with it. As for the rest—if you're in Felon47’s regime or are pissed about Abigail Spanberger putting an end to taxpayer subsidies for the United Daughters of the Confederacy—then I wish you a day of thoughtful recriminations about the bad choices you've made in life and hope that the next time you are in dire need of help from someone the only people available are black.

Also, happy Tax Day and sympathies to those who didn't get around to filing before today. And congrats to my friend the accountant for making it through the season. Usually, I recognize taxes as what we pay to have a civilized society, but it's hard to keep that perspective this year since so much of what we're contributing on our 1040 forms is being misspent on things that are the antithesis of civilized. In some parallel universe the President Harris administration is using our tax money for good rather than evil, but as I read on a T-shirt the other night while umpiring, "we live in the darkest timeline."

Posted on April 15, 2026 at 6:11PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Artemis II, Congressional backbone, and a no-drama ump shift

I could do separate posts on separate topics tonight, but I'm not feeling really coherent about any of them so I'm just gonna wing it with a hodgepodge.

• ITEM: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Haven't We Put Anyone on the Moon Since 1972?

  Well, we're on our way to rectifying that with the success of Artemis II, which has been quite impressive and which has been a needed reminder in this age of chaos and idiocy that is the early 21st Century that we as a species and as a culture can achieve great things for the common good if we just choose to. The Artemis II mission went off without a hitch, with the Integrity spacecraft successfully testing and evaluating the launch infrastructure and vessel components as well as navigation to the moon and back. Thus providing key information on what needs to be tweaked and improved for the scheduled Artemis III mission next year—for orbital tests of new lunar landing craft—and Artemis IV in 2028, which will be a crewed lunar landing. Of course, I can't help but be somewhat skeptical of those schedules because the landing craft are to be provided by SpaceX. Any outfit owned and run by Elon Musk can't really be trusted, can it? So for that Artemis III mission I expect problems. We'll see.

  Seth Masket wrote this in his newsletter today and it resonated with me:

  One thing that really stood out is that this is really NASA at its finest. Not that this is the most important mission they ever pulled off, but they did this in a competent way that celebrated the achievements and kept the crew and the science at the forefront of the project. This wasn’t some billionaire throwing celebrities or cars into orbit as a vanity project—this was a collective effort to send experts in to do a job and come home safely. We don’t see that sort of thing much these days. I’m guessing few people would describe many government agencies as inspiring, but this one counts for me.

  Plus, the photos from Integrity are fantastic:

  

  

• ITEM: We Finally Have an Answer!

  Having asked the question for over a year now, we know the answer to "what has to happen before people in Congress call for impeachment?!!" What had to happen, evidently, is for the alleged president of the United States to threaten genocide. Good, yes, this is a war crime and undeniably an impeachable offense, but we all saw some version of this coming the whole way. It's not even his first war crime. But, OK, let's not get hung up on why you were late to the party and just be glad you finally got here. There are now dozens of Congressional Democrats calling for impeachment (or the invocation of the 25th Amendment, but (a) 25A isn't going to happen with this VP and cabinet, and (b) if it did happen it wouldn't work, though the chaos it would instigate would be interesting). I doubt any are under the impression it will go anywhere so long as Mike Johnson remains Speaker, but it's absolutely necessary for Congresspeople and Senators to be calling for the removal of Felon47, loudly and frequently, lest the public fall victim to the wider corporate media's repeated implications that this is all normal and acceptable behavior from any public official let alone a President. Calls for impeachment need to be in the news each and every time Felon47 does or says something criminal, stupid, corrupt, and insanely dangerous, which is basically every day. And the calls should be varied in their presentation—some should be emphasizing the utter stupidity and madness of his war, others the flagrant corruption of the entire regime, still others the abuses of ICE and DHS, still others the rampant racism and misogyny exhibited in all of the various atrocities the regime commits.

  As columnist Will Bunch put it: "We must stop the killing and the crime spree—not 33 months from now, as Trump’s mental health continues to deteriorate before our eyes, but today. The indisputable truth that the president took America into an undeclared and illegal war for no reason, and lost that war in barely a month, should be the wake-up call for everyone still in denial."

  Now, the remaining question is what has to happen before Republicans figure out he needs to be removed?

   

• ITEM: Still No Bingo!

  I had a three-game umpire shift at Capitol Hill last night, which had very little in the way of drama or oddities. Except that it was a championship series, and usually I have prizes to give out to the winning team at the end of such things. Certificates good for credit at a sponsor bar and a discount on future league fees, typically, sometimes along with a token like championship wristbands or T-shirts. Actually, we haven't had T-shirts since pre-COVID. Those might never come back, I don't know. Anyway, last night I had nothing. No prizes to be had. I presume this was an oversight, because some of the other, regular game stuff was also not present in my provided batch of gear, so I merely noted it in my report and assume that the winning teams will be given their prizes at a later date. Meantime, the Bingo card remains un-bingoed:

  

• ITEM: For All Mankind is Back!

  The brilliant alternate-history series For All Mankind is three episodes into its fifth season on Apple TV+ and it is, as usual, awesome. It's changed a lot since its first season, but that's by design—the show begins in 1969, when the Soviet Union is the first nation to land a person on the moon and thus history as we know it begins to diverge and the space race continues on in a much different fashion, with the US feeling the need to one-up the Soviets and vice-versa. (Technically, the point of historical divergence, according to showrunner/creator Ronald D. Moore, was in 1966, when Sergei Korolev survived a routine surgery rather than died from its complications; Korolev was the prime force behind the Soviet moon mission in both "our" reality and in the FAM history, where he was able to continue on.) Each new season begins with a time jump of about nine years, each season premiere showing a brief retrospective on what has happened in the world in the interim, where we not only see things like new technological advances borne of the continued space race, but what became of President Ted Kennedy (who due to the Soviet moon landing fallout canceled his trip to Chappaquiddick in 1969 and defeated Richard Nixon in 1972) and his razor-thin loss to Reagan in 1976; how the astronaut program forges support for the ERA, which is ratified in 1974; how the Camp David Accord meetings end in failure under President Reagan; how John Lennon survived an assassination attempt in 1980 and reunited the Beatles for a concert tour in 1987; that Blockbuster Video opens its first store on the moon in 2007; and so on. All that stuff is just background, though, the show is really about a cast of astronaut/cosmonaut characters and their support people and families, a few of whom appear in all five seasons (spanning forty-some years). Some of my faves aren't in season 5, but maybe they'll make appearances later on even though they'd be pushing 80. As the series goes on, life in space becomes more and more prevalent—by season two there is a permanent moon presence, by season three we have space tourism, season four establishes permanence of a sort on Mars, and here in season 5 we have a proto-Mars colony complete with refugee immigrants. It's more and more sci-fi as we get further and further from 1969, but the show is still, well, grounded in realism and logical politics and is just damn well written with compelling human dramas. It's an awesome show and you should watch it.

Tagged Umping, Politics, Space, TV, Posted on April 11, 2026 at 12:50AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Positive imagery

I thought about writing another political screed tonight, another exercise in venting my frustrations and outrage and dread over the collapse of America because the entire Republican party has switched sides and become fascist. But really, I've done that before. Repeatedly. It makes me feel better in the sense of having an outlet to vent my rage, but it also doesn't in the sense that it doesn't make any difference.

So I won't be doing that right now.

Instead, here are a few of photos that show the parts of my day not involving fretting over the state of the world. A microcosm of calm to the macrocosm of chaos, if you will.

Pre-dusk from an overlook at Boeing Creek Park (everything has a damn sponsor name these days), where I went for a lengthy walk today and was reminded just how out of shape I really am.

The front door of my place had somehow accumulated four doorbells for two units using the door. I spent some time disconnecting two of them and doing quick-and-dirty coverup of the mess left behind. Eventually it'll have to be spiffed up with matching paint. So now there's one bell for me and one of those creepy camera-doorbell things mounted at an angle above it for my neighbors.

Zephyr vies for attention as I'm trying to watch the ballgame. He will not be ignored.

Long-distance shot of Mizuki in her comfy hammock. The pic doesn't blow up very well, but I thought she was cute there. She and Zeph both like the hammock.

Posted on April 8, 2026 at 9:12PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Screaming into the void

As the outrages continue—as the military misadventures further destabilize the world, as the criminality rolls on mostly unchecked, as Felon47 demonstrates more and more insanity—I figured it was time for another letter to Congress.

It's not exactly a rewarding exercise. I've got the best representation in the House and pretty decent representation in the Senate, so I'm expressing my frustration to people who already share it. But what else can we do?

Anyway, here's my latest missive. If you are inclined to send one off as well, there's a link in the sidebar that makes it super easy. It might not help. But it can't hurt. Particularly if you have less principled or more malleable people representing you than those of us in WA-7.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Congress, Posted on April 6, 2026 at 11:19PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Once in a while, even I have to look up a rule

Thursday night I had a three-game umpiring shift at Cap Hill. All three games were blowouts and all involved teams I generally like to draw on my schedule. Nevertheless, by the time we got into the third game I wasn't in the mood to be there anymore for whatever reason. It wasn't especially cold, wasn't raining, I hadn't skipped lunch, I wasn't on short sleep, nothing like that, it was just one of those things. Might have had something to do with getting some lip from a few different players about ball/strike calls. Or it might not. I don't know.

The questioned strike calls I actually have some sympathy for because they came on pitches that I absolutely hate to face myself as a batter. Both pitchers in the third game were partial to very high arc pitches, ones that scrape 12 feet off the ground before dropping back down. I hate these. They always, always look like they're going to be high. And sometimes they drop right into the strike zone.

After doing the ump thing for several years, I've gotten better at ignoring the high arc when calling the pitch. It's hard, though. You've got to focus as much as your attention as you can on watching just the strike zone and see if the ball crosses it or not, but you can't totally ignore what happens before that because an arc can be too high (or too low) to be legal and you've got to call that too.

As a batter I've gotten a number of strikes called on me from such pitches that I (internally) groused about, but mostly because I just hate them. I mean, yeah, in my playing league we sometimes get Seattle Parks & Rec's answer to C.B. Bucknor as our umpire and I'm less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when I'm grousing it's not about the call so much as the super-high-arc pitch being legal. But it is, so you live with it.

Anyway, I called two batters out on strikes on such pitches. One, someone I see a lot of in this league, was cool about it even though she disagreed. We had a nice conversation about it when she came back out to catch the next inning and agreed that high-arc pitches suck. The other one was not cool about it and tried to start an argument. "How can that be a strike?!" I stopped short of being snarky and replying with, "well, you see, there's this thing called the 'strike zone,' and when the pitch crosses it..." and instead just said, in what I hope was a subdued manner, "really?" And she was ready to get into it until her teammates corralled her back to the dugout. (It's usually dudes that get in my face if anyone does, but hey, feminism.)

But those weren't the odd thing about that shift. The oddity came when, in a bases-loaded, two-out situation, the runner going from first to second base was hit by a batted ball; weird in and of itself because it was a high bouncer that took a few seconds to reach the basepaths, but she was still hit in the foot. By the time she was, though, the runner from third had already scored with time to spare. So, the runner is out for being hit, it's the third out so the inning is over, but does the run count? I did not know and just decided on the spot that it would. (It was a blowout, the run wasn't going to matter, and I had to decide, so...) But should it have?

I had to look it up later. And what I found in the rules was not helpful. Rule 5.09(b)(7): A runner is out when "touched by a fair [batted] ball in fair territory before the ball has gone by an infielder (other than the pitcher) and no other infielder has a chance to make a play on the ball. The ball is dead and no runner may score, nor runners advance, except runners forced to advance." (Italics mine)

The bases were loaded, so on a bouncer all runners were forced to try to advance. However, the runner from first was the one out when hit by the batted ball. In other circumstances, that runner being out (the third out) before reaching second base negates anything accomplished by other runners, but in runner-hit-by-fair-ball cases the batter is awarded a base hit rather than reaching on a fielder's choice, meaning s/he didn't hit into a force play. How does that come into play, if at all? Also, the rule says no runners may score except those forced to advance, and if we're using the any-other-circumstances force theory then in any case of a runner being hit by a batted ball there could never be a runner forced to advance. So why would the rule include that exception? Is it a convoluted way to say, well, if there are runners at first and second and the runner from second is hit by the batted ball, then obviously the runner from first gets second base because the batter gets a base hit and you can't have two runners at first? I guess that technically tracks, but it still isn't clear to me that "forced to advance" doesn't refer to where runners are at the start of the play, and the fact that the batter is not recorded as hitting into any kind of forceout but credited with a hit further screws it up.

If it happens again, I think I will rule differently—that such a run does not count and if not the third out then the runner must go back to third base (and runner going from second to third back to second) because the force would have been removed when the runner from first was declared out and therefore the runner from third isn't forced to advance.

But I still don't know if that's right or not.

Then there was something in tonight's game between Your Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Angels of Orange County Which Isn't Technically Los Angeles. Angel right fielder Jo Adell—who had already, by the way, robbed the M's of two homers—leaped into the right field seats to catch a fly ball that would otherwise be a home run. Adell went over the fence, tumbling into the first few rows of seats but did catch the ball. Still, he's off the field by that time. Is it a catch? I knew that it would be once Adell returned to the field never having lost or surrendered control of the ball, but since he took his sweet time doing so, and since there was a second or two that he was out of view of all cameras, it was questionable enough that the Mariners challenged the ruling of fair catch. In a search of the rules I didn't find any mention of catches by a fielder leaving the playing field other than as pertains to the dugouts, but I know from past occurrences that a fielder that makes a catch while one or both feet are on or directly above the field of play and falls into the seating area or a bullpen or whatnot has to maintain control of the ball and return to the field before the out is official, and since Adell stood there reveling in his catch for a bit before jumping back into right field it was a little murky. Or maybe the M's challenged on the chance that Adell only caught the ball after his whole body was past the field boundary?

In any case, the catch was ruled legal and thus Adell had accomplished the rare feat of catching three would-be home runs in one game. Incredible.

Tagged Baseball, Umping, Posted on April 4, 2026 at 10:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Art imitating life imitating art

After listening to some recap analysis of Felon47’s pointless address to the nation last night—no, I didn't watch the thing itself, that clearly wasn't going to be useful—I decided to switch gears into some comic-book inspired escapism and watch the latest two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. But it turned out not to be much in the way of escapism.

The series reimagines a more-than-a-decade-old Marvel Comics storyline wherein Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, becomes mayor of New York City. It's good, well-done in a way that's true to the characters and compelling to watch (though brutally violent in spots), but also depressing because the parallels between Fisk's governance of New York and Felon47’s governance of the United States are a bit too on the nose.

Not intentionally, of course. The source material predates even the administration of Fraudster45, and the scripts for the series were being written before the 2024 election campaign. But how could it not parallel?

The premise of placing a career criminal in a position of massive political power demands plotlines and story tropes that show staggering corruption, manipulation of the press, mob-tactic intimidation, shocking levels of cruelty, even an extra-legal "police force" terrorizing the public. So it's really inevitable that the real-life career criminal given a position of massive political power mirrors the fictional one.

Thankfully, the real-life analog of Wilson Fisk is not nearly as smart. Fisk is a cruel, psychologically broken, utterly corrupt narcissist, but he has intelligence enough to be truly terrifying. Our alleged president is, by contrast, one of the stupidest people on Earth. Which is its own kind of terrifying, to be sure, but does set him apart.

Fisk is opposed by our hero, Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, a lawyer by trade and, despite his tactics of masked vigilantism, believer in the rule of law ultimately taking down Fisk and his corrupt empire. Also on the side of good is internet journalist BB Urich, who by day produces videos that show New Yorkers supporting Fisk's outwardly keeping-us-safe policies while by night making subversive videos that mock Fisk as "Mayor Kingpin," exposing what she can of Fisk's corrupt and violent underbelly. We don't have Daredevil to oppose Felon47, but we do have rule of law, at least for now. We don't have a BB Urich either, and we could use one; but there are journalists outside the mainstream that keep digging for evidence of criminality that might finally take the regime down.

As the series approaches resolution, we know Fisk will be deposed and receive some sort of comeuppance; sadly, we don't have the same surety for his real-life analog. But it does give me a weird sort of hope.

 

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Daredevil, TV, Comics, Posted on April 2, 2026 at 4:56PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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First game of the year

Last night I attended my first in-person game of the year at the ballpark by Elliott Bay, a crisply-played 2-1 victory by Your Seattle Mariners over the New York Yankees, won in the bottom of the 9th when Cal Raleigh stopped swinging for the fences and chopped a base hit over the first baseman to drive in Leo Rivas from third base. 

I took Cal's base hit as a good sign, as in his previous AB Cal struck out with a runner at third and only one out, the very thing that had been the Mariners' bugaboo for years before Dan Wilson took over as manager and the kind of thing that, if I were in charge, would result in a sizeable kangaroo court fine. I may be grasping at straws looking for good signs, though. The M's again broke double digits with 11 strikeouts—against such vaunted pitchers as Ryan Weathers and Brent Headrick—matching their per game average so far. Last year they struck out an average of nine times per game, so it's not all that different (yet) but I still see it as a red flag. In general strikeouts are too prevalent in the majors, have been for quite some time now, and I would like the baseball culture to Make Strikeouts Embarrassing Again, if I may coin a phrase. Put it in play, my dudes.

There are some minor changes to be found at the ballpark this year. One, of course, is the new 2025 Division Champions banner:

Cool, cool, cool. Also, as is the case every year, concessions are more expensive. I got through the evening without partaking but only out of frugality. Anything I wanted to buy in the upper deck would have been at least $20. (Next time maybe I'll be early enough to detour to the lower level before the game and see if the vegan hot dogs are still available and still under $10.) Also, there's a large new Amazon ad under the main scoreboard, which I find distasteful:

I dislike the ever-expanding presence of advertising in our lives generally, not just at ballparks, and I loathe Amazon as an entity more than most other companies, so it's a bit of a double-whammy. On the other hand, thus far the Mariners have refrained from doing what many other teams have done and sold ad space on the field itself; a lot of parks now have ads on the grass in foul territory, a holdover from the COVID year of no fans in the stands and one of Rob Manfred's proudest accomplishments, I'm sure. Manfred would sell ad space or sponsorships on every surface and for every lame excuse for an event imaginable if he could, so despite my disapproval for the new under-the-scoreboard ad I am grateful the grass remains untainted.

Also notable on the scoreboard, at least to someone like me, is a new typeface on the graphics. It's narrower and slightly shorter, allowing for a new column alongside runs, hits, and errors for "ABS"—the number of automated-ball-strike challenges available for each team—and info on the batter/pitcher within the lineup columns without bumping anything from the main screen area or the allocated ad space.

Now, if they would just leave the game info up and not replace it with stupid "MAKE NOISE" garbage every ten seconds that would be great.

Hopefully, when I return to the ballpark in a couple of weeks it won't be 42 degrees out. It was chotto samui last night, I could have used gloves and a scarf.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Posted on March 31, 2026 at 5:47PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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No Kings, rainouts, and roboumps

I went to my local No Kings protest rally on Saturday. Like last time, I opted for the one just a couple of blocks from my house rather than go to the big one downtown, for good or ill. I was on my own, so it wasn't a social thing. Anyway, the turnout was pretty decent for an ancillary/satellite event and I'm glad to have participated. I threw together a quick-and-dirty (by my standard) sign and walked the length of the several blocks long designated area a few times, then across the street, then back again, for a couple of hours. Chatted with a few fellow protesters, mostly about the Mariners but also about our shared outrage at the modern Republican party, which is now basically the new American Bund.

Below are some of the signs people had at my local event.

Then yesterday I had a four-game umpiring shift that only lasted two games; the rains came and the infield became muddy and slippery, so I called the other two off and they'll be rescheduled. Hopefully for a warmer, sunnier day.

Meanwhile, baseball's opening weekend had some good games and also saw the introduction of ABS, the "automated ball-strike system," colloquially known as the "roboumps." In its present form, I actually kind of like ABS. How it works is, if the pitcher, catcher, or batter disagrees with an umpire's call of a pitch, he can tap his helmet and say "challenge." Then the technology which just recorded the pitch on camera replays it through it's computerized wizardry and notes where the pitch crossed the vertical plane matching the front of home plate. If by the system's boundaries—which are calibrated for each individual batter based on his height—it even nicks the edge of the strike zone, it is a strike, otherwise a ball, regardless of what the umpire said it was. Each team gets two failed challenges per game, after which they can't ask for any more.

The fact that it's limited to two unsuccessful challenges per team gives the system an element of strategy to it—do you challenge one early in the game? If it's an obvious miss, sure, but if it's close do you risk it? So I like that. Also, when you've been unlucky enough to draw C.B. Bucknor as your home-plate ump, at least you know you'll have an opportunity to show him he was wrong a few times. But when I really like it is when the challenges fail. That's obviously my bias as a rec league umpire, but I quite enjoyed when in Friday evening's Mariners/Guardians game, HP ump Will Little was proven right all four times he was challenged and the system was off the table for the rest of the game. Little's been one of the better umps for a while now and here's real evidence to back it up.

But I fear the current version of ABS will be short-lived. Things in the early going are trending more toward the C.B. Bucknor side of things than to the Will Little side, with the majority of challenges being successful. The great sportswriter Joe Posnanski has also opined that the day is coming soon when every pitch will be called by cameras and computer tech and the home-plate ump will be essentially just like the other base umpires, there for safe/out calls and random weirdnesses. That I won't appreciate. I like human frailties. I like having to know who your umpire is going to be so you can plan accordingly. I like that some umpires have a tight zone and some a more generous one. Ideally, they wouldn't be inconsistent with it, and that's where guys like Bucknor and Hunter Wendelstedt become frustrating.

One more positive hope I have is that with the challenge system, TV broadcasts will stop overlaying the approximate strike zone onto the camera shot for live pitches. It's become normal over the past several years, and I don't like it. I do like it on replays, but live I want to see the pitch unencumbered by overlays and distractions. On the close pitches especially.

I'll be at the game tonight live and in person, so no video overlays to worry about there. Temps in the low 40s, so I'll be layered up. Go M's.

Now, No Kings signage from Saturday:

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Umping, Posted on March 30, 2026 at 4:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Analogies to Doug Fister and Lucille Bluth

A couple of topics today, starting with last night's umpiring.

As on Monday, we were joined at the field by Alfred the amateur photographer and former Army medic. Unlike on Monday, we had no need for his medic experience, though it was a close thing. This time I was the one that went down in a heap.

About midway through our first game of the night, a batter for the team that calls themselves...I want to say Pushing Bunts, but I think that's wrong; they're a new team and their name isn't on the official documentation yet. Anyway, their batter took a cut at a fat pitch right down the middle and juuust got under it a smidge and fouled it straight back. At speed. At me. I instinctively began to turn and duck away, but I was nevertheless struck flush on the temple. I hit the turf and stayed there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, during which time half the players on both teams were rushing toward home plate. I got up with a painful impact reminder above my ear, but otherwise none the worse for wear. I was good to go after a minute or two and thankfully didn't need to prevail upon Alfred's Army expertise. But it wasn't fun, and I felt it a bit more painfully later in the night well after I'd gone home. I took a couple Tylenol caps and I could ignore it again. Today it's pretty much fine, though I can still feel a phantom sting.

In retrospect, this was not a bad thing for my ego. Because all those players were concerned and one of them—I don't know who, I was still down on the turf, but it was a guy—said, "shit, dude, you can't get hurt, you're the good ump." Anyway, the rest of the night when several of the players came to bat they checked in. "You still OK, man? Only one pitch coming in at a time, right?" I waved them off. "I'm good, no worries. Occupational hazzard." Which is true, but I may be losing a step, because even though I've taken several errant pitches or foul balls to the shins or the sternum, I'd until now always been quick enough to get out of the way of anything at my head. But I think it must have looked pretty bad from the perspective of, well, everyone else, because there seemed to be real concern that we'd have to stop the games. I was reminded of either a World Series or playoff game several years back wherein pitcher Doug Fister of the Detroit Tigers was hit on the side of his head with a line drive back through the box. Everyone was rightly worried, but Fister just waived off the training staff and his manager, or tried to anyway, and shrugged it off like it was nothing and went back to pitching. He seemed annoyed by the attention. Of course, I also thought of Billy Wagner getting similarly tagged with a hard liner to the side of the head and he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, so...yeah, there's a range of possibilities. At least (a) this is softball, where the ball isn't so dense and the speeds it travels aren't extreme; and (b) this was a foul tip with no extra velocity added to it by the swing of the bat. Really, the time a pissed off soccer player kicked a soccer ball at me was worse.

So we moved on and finished out the games without much other drama. The second game featured less experienced teams, which meant more errors, more weird plays, and, interestingly, a walkoff comeback victory by the team I figured would lose handily at the outset. I had to explain both the infield fly and obstruction rules to newbies, but nothing outlandish.

Alfred again shared some of his photos with me, so I'm including some here. Sadly, he did not get any shots of my close encounter with a foul ball.

Stephen and Colin celebrate finally throwing different options in rock-paper-scissors to determine which would be the home team. I think it took five tries?

 

I don't recall what this was about, but I'm probably saying something like, “yeah, it's an out, what do you want me to do?"

 

Here is when I and one of her teammates had to explain to the inexperienced first-basewoman why I called obstruction on her and ruled a runner who appeared to have been forced out to be safe at second base.

 

This and the next are actually from Monday, but I like them in sequence because this one shows my usual move of running with the batter toward first base in order to be in better position to both see a play at first and hear the pop of the ball being caught...

 

...and this shows my usual move when Joel is batting; I know he's not only going to be safe at first, but if there's a play to be made on him it will be at third, so I'm hurrying there instead. Typically I can get there by the time Joel's around second. He's not Barry Allen, but he is faster than most.

 

Onward to topic number two, our demented president.

The felonious moron occupying the White House held one of his mock Cabinet meetings today, wherein nothing of consequence was discussed. In fact, Felon47 was so uninterested in discussing substance that at one point he meandered off into one of his stupid "sir" stories. You know, a story he tells in which some other person addresses him reverently as "sir," which is a sure tell that it never happened. This one was about, I kid you not, Sharpie pens.

Of all the many many things this pathetic excuse for a human being says and does that are horrifying and imbecilic, this rates near or at the bottom of the list, but it still sticks in my craw because what he did with this story was have a Lucille Bluth moment on camera.

Apropos of nothing, he complained that the pens presidents have generally used in signing ceremonies, the ceremonial pens that are then typically given away as souvenirs to people attending the signing, are "thousand dollar pens" and "don't write very well" and that he really prefers the Sharpies. So he found himself talking to someone at the Sharpie company (sure, Donny) and said he'd prefer to use the Sharpie for these things but couldn't possibly use a commercially branded pen in front of the press and so on (sure, Donny), so the imaginary Sharpie guy told him they could make special Sharpies just for him, ones that say "the White House" and even have his signature on them, and that he could have them free of charge. Ever magnanimous, Felon47 insisted on paying for them (I mean, it's not his money, right, it's our money, who gives a damn about our money?) and that he used his "art of the deal" skills to buy them for five dollars a pen. "Five dollars instead of a thousand dollars, and the pens are better."

OK, two things: The ceremonial pens were nice pens, probably a couple hundred bucks a pop, but not a grand per pen. That's one of the fictitious numbers he pulls out of nowhere like when he says there are 15 points in his peace plan (that has zero points because it doesn't exist). And, the retail price of a Sharpie pen, when bought in a box of 36, is sixty-four cents. Even if we factor in the custom branding of "The White House" and all that, you can buy them retail—as I'm sure some White House staffer actually did—for a little more than a dollar apiece if bought in bulk. Good deal-making skills, you idiot. It's no wonder you don't care about inflation and the affordability of goods to American consumers, you've never pumped gas or bought groceries.

Of course, the interaction never really occurred, which means that even in his made-up fantasies about his alleged great deal-making he still fucks up and doesn't know it.

 

 

Topic three: Opening Day!

I did not get tickets to this year's opening day game, but will be at the park in person to see your Seattle Mariners on Monday night. Tonight I watched on TV, and for the first time in years did it without having to resort to skirting the system. We now have a local streaming option for the M's, and it's not all that pricey given the nature of inflation and the current economy. Of course, one could argue that the current economy means you don't add new expenses no  matter how reasonable, but the difference between the MLB.TV package I'd been using for years and that plus the new Mariner streaming product is basically the cost of one in-person game. So I put my tickets for tomorrow night on StubHub and assuming they sell will pay for it with the proceeds. It's going to be cold out there tomorrow night anyway and everyone I asked to go with me either said no immediately or bailed later, so this seemed a good option.

Meantime, the M's did play tonight and lost to the Cleveland Guardians. Because the only way the Mariners could score tonight was to hit solo home runs. Jesus, guys, I thought we'd been over this already: There are other ways to score in baseball. Put runners on base and move them along. To be fair, none of the four homers hit by the M's appeared to be "on purpose," it wasn't a case of swinging for the fences, just happy accidents on well-struck liners. But they also struck out 14 times, and the combo of four solo shots and 14 Ks and nothing else (their only other hits were two-out doubles, and not in the same frame) is not a promising way to begin the season.

Well, there's time to turn it around. 161 more to go, after all.

Tagged Umping, Baseball, President VonClownstick, Politics, Softball, Posted on March 27, 2026 at 1:41AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Bloody Monday

Another umpiring shift at Capitol Hill, another game shortened due to lacerations.

Am I bad luck for teams playing at Cap Hill? Consecutive shifts there now have seen a player—two yesterday—get smacked in the face with a thrown or batted ball and have to leave the game. Last week it was a split lip, last night it was a forehead gash. And a bloody nose earlier. And an oblivious bystander got clocked in the head by a deep foul hit into the darkness as well, although that one I was unaware of at the time (I was informed later by the left fielder, who witnessed the impact).

Of course, I've done plenty of games there that didn't feature any blood or injury, so I know this is just the random nature of sports. But it does seem like I've seen more than my fair share of blood on the field this year, and we're only in March.

Also, we had a couple of interesting spectators last night. One I initially put in that Cap Hill Bingo category of "guy talking to no one as he stumbles by the field," but instead he was on a hands-free bluetooth phone call. His side of the conversation was audible to the catcher and myself and we agreed that this guy had some stories, probably invented but at least distorted in his telling. This youngish guy was complaining to whoever was on the other end of the call about how "Trump gave [his] ribbon to some asshole" at the State of the Union, that though he had the medal, the ribbon went to some undeserving shmuck who got feted for it on national TV. He went on about other things too, like how he was barred by a court from seeing his mom in the hospital and that's why he didn't have money to fly back to DC. He seemed quite the character.

The other spectator was a different type entirely (though it turned out he was also a veteran). He introduced himself as Alfred and was taking photos. He said he wanted to take the opportunity to get some experience shooting sports as that wasn't something he had in his portfolio. Nobody minded, so he hung around the sidelines with his camera and promised to share the pictures later. Nice guy.

In the first game, a fly ball carried to center field and the center fielder, Josh, drifted under it to make the catch, only he somehow missed it with his glove and instead took the ball right off his schnozz. He left the game bleeding. He stuck around in the dugout, though, and by the time that game was over and his team was heading out Josh was no longer losing blood and was in good humor. His team lost, too, which added insult to injury. Alas, but I'm sure he's fine now.

The second game ended abruptly on an ambitious infield play trying to nail a runner at second for a double play. The throw from third to second sailed a little bit and struck the second basewoman in the forehead and down she went. She was lucid and alert, but blood was pouring from the wound.

Enter Alfred.

Fortuitously, Alfred was an Army medic, so he offered his assistance—which we all gladly accepted, especially since my first aid kit was truly unhelpful in this situation. It was not a serious injury, just—as any head wound is—rather bloody, and when I got a look at the gash (peeking over Alfred's shoulder) I could see it wasn't particularly long, but it was deep. Though it would likely have healed fine if merely treated with a couple of butterfly bandages, Alfred nonetheless recommended stitches so it would heal faster, so the player and her fellow-player partner left for urgent care. We called the game at that point.

I'm grateful to have crossed paths with Sgt. Alfred the amateur photog and ex-Army medic on this occasion and look forward to seeing the pictures he took, though he made sure to note that he wouldn't send photos of the bloody injury to anyone but the player involved. [EDIT: Alfred sent me some of the pics, but just the ones with me in them (two posted below). Much more curious about the rest of them.]

Not sure "bloody injury" or "made use of Army medic" will make it onto the Cap Hill Softball Bingo Card anytime soon, but we can add them to the potpourri of incidents at that particular field. It's been quite the week.

 

 

Tagged Umping, Softball, Posted on March 24, 2026 at 3:19PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Link of the day

As I get set to bug out for the evening, allow me to heartily recommend today's Jeff Tiedrich column to all y'all. It sums things up rather nicely vis-à-vis the news of the day: https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/lets-all-watch-a-french-general-tell...

Not unrelatedly, I'm glad I'm not planning to fly anywhere anytime soon and would urge everyone to delay any flight plans they may have in or out of American airports.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Jeff Tiedrich, Posted on March 23, 2026 at 5:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Am I getting too old for this?

Yesterday was a full day of umpiring for me, and as is usually the case when I have to get up before, say, 11:30am, I was going on short sleep and was maybe a little bit cranky. I was also creaky—for whatever reason, I got out of bed with a sore lower back, just feeling really stiff and achy for no discernable reason other than being well into my fifties. I found myself wishing that it had rained overnight so the field would be unplayable, but that was not this reality.

Even so, things started out fine. My first game featured a number of players who also play against me in my Wednesday night summer league with the Smiling Potatoes of Death; one of them was catching when a particularly errant pitch came in. My call was, "low, outside, flat, generally bad, ball one." This got a chuckle from the batter and this comment from the catcher: "You've been hanging out with [Spuds teammate] Mack too much." I disagree. Anyway, it was a crisply-played affair with good defense and no troubles; we burned through all seven innings in under an hour and even though I had said we'd do extra frames if needed, the home team pulled out a run in the last of the 7th to walk it off in regulation. So I had 30 minutes or so to wait around for the next teams to file in for the 1:30 game. If you're going to have a 58-minute game, I said to no one, can't we have it at the end of the shift instead of the beginning? Alas, no.

Generally speaking, the teams that play in this bracket of the league at Northacres park are all good folks, we all get on well and things are usually copacetic, but there's one guy that bucks the trend. He was there for game two. I ignored him best I could, especially since his teammates all were enthused to have me on the field for them and since we'd finished the prior game early a couple of their early arrivals had time to chat me up a bit. I like the rest of them a lot. But this guy is one of the few players I've ever ejected from a game, and when he's pitching he pushes all my buttons. Sometimes I think on purpose. I really, really dislike him. He tries trick pitches, he snorts and scoffs at my strike zone, he even shouts at me, as when he responded to my call of a low pitch with "LOW??!!" and I replied, incredulously, "yes, it hit the plate, so LOW." And his catcher jumped in to say that it did, in fact, hit the plate, so move along. It crossed my mind to wonder if he was trying to provoke me to throw him out again. Can't imagine why, but I don't grok the macho nonsense some of these guys live with in their little minds, so who knows. When the game was over, he tried to bullshit me about why he was challenging my calls, but I knew it was BS and he likely knew I knew it was BS and again I was befuddled and annoyed and just wanted him to go away. Which he eventually did, because I had to get the next game rolling with different teams, ones with no troublemakers on their rosters.

Aside from my back stiffening up even more, my stomach starting to rumble that breakfast was many hours past, and my feet demanding some downtime, the rest of the games were good, though I did screw up once: in an infield fly situation, a batter lined to the shortstop, who caught the ball—I immediately called "OUT!"—only for the shortstop to intentionally drop the ball in the next instant to turn a double and potential triple play, the entire reason the infield fly rule exists but for good or ill the rule exempts line drives. In the end I allowed the double play but awarded the batter first base safely as he had stopped running as soon as he heard me say "out." In retrospect I should have disallowed all of it, just said, "no, batter is out and everyone else back to your bases, because that was a dick move." And that I had already called the out, so play should have been over. But really I was too quick on the draw, it's my only bad habit (I think) as an ump. I need to learn to take a beat before making those calls just in case.

Then the real fun of the day. As the final game was in its late innings, someone came down to the backstop and asked me if I had a key to the gate. "Gate? What gate?"

It seems someone—the consensus was "probably kids. Meddlesome, troublemaking kids."—closed the gate-like barrier to the parking lot of the park and slapped a padlock on it.

Of course, I did not have a key, nor did anyone else, but I was still working the game, so while we finished up I called the league office and asked if they might call the parks department for us and get someone out to open it up. Game ended, I packed up, and no parks people. One of the players had called the police as well. No help there. Ultimately, one of the players who had parked outside of the gate drove to Home Depot and bought bolt cutters. She returned and I attempted to aid a few of the burlier players in cutting the lock off the gate. In the end, I was no help at all; it took some physics ingenuity and muscle from Brent, one of the late-game pitchers, with the aid of a metal tube that was lying around as part of the parking lot's security apparatus (which he covered one arm of the bolt cutters with to get more leverage), to snap the lock off. We and a smattering of non-softball people could all then leave with our cars and I arranged with the office to have the player reimbursed her outlay for the bolt cutters. The whole thing took an hour or so, by which time I was truly and thoroughly Done With All This for the day. When I got home I made one of my rare uses of the bathtub to soak my aching back before spending the rest of the evening reading a brain-candy Star Trek novel and trying semi-successfully to get to sleep early (for me).

Unfortunately I have to go back out there tonight. Cap Hill this time, so different kinds of wackiness is bound to ensue. My back still hurts some; better but not really better, if you know what I mean. At least it's only two games, and at least ichiban suki na senshu's team is on the docket.

Tagged Umping, Softball, Posted on March 23, 2026 at 3:51PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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