Classic card of the week

Don Robinson, 1987 Donruss

Don Robinson looks like a happy guy. He engineers the “P” train, and also plays for the Pirates. He probably has many career highlights to be proud of. Let us discover them.

Also, let us remember that a highlight is, ideally, and by definition, something that is good.



CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Sidelined by a knee injury part of last year,

First highlight: bum knee. I would find it immensely enjoyable to watch a highlight reel of baseball players with bum knees, just sort of sitting around and doing nothing. Because their knees hurt. This, for me, would = highlight.

but wound up 1st on Pirates in saves

That is sort of highlighty. Considering that Robinson led the Pirates in saves in 1986 with 14, which is -- and I realize saves are stupid -- what Mariano Rivera -- and I realize he is the extreme -- notches in a month and a half, I think the implication here is, had Don Robinson not boasted a faulty knee, just imagine what he could have accomplished. (I am imagining along the lines of like 21 saves. Or a million.) So overall, the first highlight of Don Robinson’s career presents the potential for something greater, which is not really a highlight in itself. And so for the purposes of this post we will ignore the saves and file only the knee injury under “highlight.” Next highlight, please:

…Bothered by tendinitis in his shoulder in ’81 and ‘83

Second highlight: shoulder tendinitis. I should also mention that there is nothing more to add here -– that is the highlight in its entirety. It doesn’t finish: “but nevertheless went on to the win the Cy Young Award both seasons.” It is only the shoulder tendinitis that is the highlight. Shoulder tendinitis is good. Shoulder tendinitis is something to be envied. I envy the shoulder tendinitis that Don Robinson experienced during the years of 1981 and 1983. If my blogging career ends without a bout of shoulder tendinitis, I will be disappointed.

Let’s move on to final listed highlight:

Had .261 lifetime batting average going into last year and toyed with idea of switching to OF.

I am aware that .261 is a very good batting average for a pitcher, and Robinson’s offensive efficiency is well documented. But mentioning that Robinson considered switching positions sort of refutes the aforementioned pitching highlights in its insinuation that even Robinson himself debated whether or not he’d be better served as a position player, no? Whatever. Quick recap of Don Robinson’s career highlights:

-Bum knee
-Should tendinitis
-Considered switching positions due in some part to mediocrity of his pitching ability

Amazingly and astoundingly, Don Robinson’s Wikipedia page has more to add in the realm of Don Robinson highlights:

Highlights

On April 18, 1987, Mike Schmidt hit his 500th career home run off Robinson, a three-run shot to give the Phillies an 8-6 win over the Pirates.

I am beginning to wonder if it is me that has been misinformed about what a highlight is supposed to be. Because I would file this one under “Mike Schmidt highlights.” Although, considering the silly dance that he performed after hitting the home run (cannot find the video for the life of me), possibly this is a Don Robinson highlight -- albeit one that literally lost his team the game -- in that he did not look silly as a result, to my knowledge. Maybe Don Robinson has another highlight that resulted in his team losing the game:

On August 15, 1990, Robinson lost the first ever no-hitter at Veteran’s Stadium to the Phillies’ Terry Mulholland 6-0.

Highlight! More:

He was scheduled to pitch Game 3 of the World Series against the Oakland A’s. The game was postponed for ten days after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck Northern California. He wound up starting Game 4.

I am unsure if we’ve been able to differentiate here between “highlight” and “bad thing that happened.” It’s also uncertain -– considering his string of highlights -- whether or not Don Robinson’s mere presence actually induced the ’89 earthquake. Nevertheless, Wiki is indeed correct that Robinson wound up starting Game 4. His line:

Robinson L (0-1) 1.2 IP 4 H 4 R 4 ER 1 BB 0 K

Final recap of Don Robinson highlights:

-Bum knee
-Should tendinitis
-Considered switching positions due in some part to mediocrity of his pitching ability
-Gave up milestone home run, lost game (didn’t dance, though)
-Lost game
-Was around during an earthquake, then lost game

But hey -- if it weren’t for the injuries, losing, and natural disasters, just imagine how easily Don Robinson's career could have taken a turn for the worse. Whew.

Did you know?
The outtakes from the "Bum Knee Highlight Video," in which the players forget their knees hurt and subsequently fall down trying to do things, features the theme music from Benny Hill.

Play Soccer

Some colourful characters were hanging around Yonge-Dundas Square today as part of the Play Soccer which is an event which promotes participation in soccer. I saw Tony the Tiger and Ronald McDonald.

Ronald was a nice guy because he brought plenty of free coffee.

The Daily Commute

Over 1.2 million people are said to commute into and around Toronto and I happen to be one of them. For me the almost two hour ride, each way, on the GO Bus and GO Train is a huge commitment of time to get to work. Like many I enter downtown from Union Station and head up Bay Street towards the Eaton Centre.
The trains and buses disgorge people by the hundreds who grab other forms of public transportation or just walk where they want to go.

I always find it fascinating to see the people as we march in one direction, en masse. Occasionally someone fights through the crowd in the opposite direction - hoping not to get run over. Usually on our city streets there are people going both directions, it never seems a focused movement, that is until rush hour, then with a single minded purpose we are heading north from Union in the morning (pictured) or back south to Union in the afternoon.

Walking is the best part of the commute. During nice weather many people keep above ground, catching a few rays and getting some nice excercise before the start of the work day. If the weather is bad more people stay underground until the last possible minute using Toronto's fabulous PATH system.

Kayaking - not quite there

I came upon a bunch of kayakers sitting on the dock of the bay, just sitting, waiting for the water to rise I guess. No, I am sure they were just getting used to how to sit and what to do before they got into the water. Watching kayaks roll during white water competitions suggests that practicing before you have to get wet is a great idea.

The location was on Queens Quay at the Harbourfront Canoe and Kayak Centre. You can even learn to paddleboard at their school.

Drama & Desire at the AGO

The AGO, or Art Gallery of Ontario, has gathered quite a few art masterpieces of the 19th Century as part of Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre running until September 26, 2010. To advertise the show they have sent out actors to the streets of Toronto dressed in fashions of long, long ago posing behind a large picture frame.

The AGO says "An art experience unlike any other. Featuring artwork inspired by the theatre, presented “on stage” with live performers, full-scale sets and period lighting. See works by Degas, Delacroix and other masters, from the world’s greatest museums — including the Tate, MoMA, Musee d’Orsay, Louvre and the Met. Be there when the curtain rises."

Toronto has so many great Theatre options including the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Princess of Wales Theatre, Canon Theatre and the Panasonic Theatre. For discount tickets you can always try the TOtix kiosk at Yonge-Dundas Square.

Everything and the kitchen sink

Note: This column appears in the 7/29 issue of The Glendale Star and the 7/30 issue of the Peoria Times



Our kitchen faucet has been leaking for three months. We keep a plastic container that used to hold oatmeal raisin cookies from Trader Joe’s underneath it to capture all the water, and then everyday I will take that container outside and use it to water the plants that aren’t attached to our drip system. All of these plants however, died when we traveled back east for a week and a half. So now my favorite thing to do after work is take the water from our leaky faucet and use it to water dead plants. This is what my life has come to.

A better man would have fixed this faucet a long time ago. That is why I have employed better men –- namely my dad, father-in-law, and buddy Pete –- to check it out. I wanted them to fix it, and not to tell me how to fix it, and so in my mind they have all failed.

I am not, as it has been well documented, Mr. Fix-It. I am open about this. I even have several friends who have claimed to share this inability to do manly things. Then I will go over one of their houses one day and discover a new shed in the backyard, and I’ll be like, “Wtf?” And they’ll be like, “It’s just a shed…it was easy!” And I will say, “We’re not friends anymore.”

This is not to say that I cannot do things. I am just consistently intimidated by not knowing how to do things, and fearful I will do them incorrectly. I have even found minimal success in states of emergency. Last month my mother-in-law clogged her garbage disposal with potato skins, and water was leaking everywhere, and I was the only man, for the most part, in the house. So I got on the floor and –- with my wife’s help, admittedly –- took apart the pipes (!), unclogged it and fixed the problem. I emerged from underneath the sink a hero, sweaty, and covered in potato skins. I could not have felt more like a man if I had just returned home from war.

But that moment was fleeting, and I am reminded of it every time I hear the drip of our kitchen faucet. Granted, I and we have made attempts to fix it. None of them have worked. Last weekend we went to Home Depot, faucet in hand. (By the way, that is my Home Depot strategy when applicable: Bring what needs fixing there, and hope that they, Home Depot, will fix it out of frustration with my incomprehension with what they are telling me.) The guy there recommended we soak it in CLR. I said, “Alright, cool. What is ‘CLR?’” My wife rolled her eyes. It stands for calcium/lime/rust. Whatever.

It didn’t work. The reality is only now (my dad said two months ago that we need a new faucet) setting in that we may need a new faucet. I can’t even determine the manufacturer of our current faucet, and am unsure of how to tell which potential replacement is compatible with our sink. It would probably take me two seconds to figure this out, but then I’d have to install it. It’s one thing to unclog someone else’s sink in a fit of passion, but to install a new faucet of my own, with my skeptical wife looking over my shoulder? Sheesh.

Let’s just say I’m dragging my feet. This is important though, because if I can’t fix everything but the kitchen sink -– and I can’t fix the kitchen sink -– then there is no hope whatsoever. In the meantime, the plastic container remains indefinitely. Besides, dead plants can’t water themselves, 'ya know?


You put the who in the what now?

The War of 1812

The last time America was really mad at us we had the War of 1812. British, Canadian and American soldiers and native Indians made war on each other across a lot of southern Ontario, on land and on water. In Toronto we have the great old Fort York which is a historical military museum of the period - a period where York was captured by the Americans. Here is a shot of Fort York taken from high above on the Gardiner Expressway.

I also discovered that the war carried on up in Wasaga Beach where a supply ship called the Nancy was hiding from the Americans in the Nottawasaga River. The mast of the ship was seen by the Americans who attacked the vessel. The Empire sailors abandoned ship and set fire to it before the enemy could capture it's stores. That ship burned down to the waterline and over a period of many years the wreckage caused an island to form Nancy Island which is now home to the Nancy Island Historic Site. The re-enactors set up a large encampment for the three day's of fun and excitement.

Every year they re-enact the events leading to the sinking of the Nancy on the sandy beach during the Historic Military Establishment of Upper Canada's Wasaga Under Seige. There was even a small sloop trading cannon balls with a Tall Ship a little ways off the beach.

See more pictures after the jump.

While in Wasaga Beach you can also enjoy the world's longest freshwater beach. You can walk on the boardwalk, check out the strip driving along the beach or see the peeps enjoying the weather and water.

During my stay I found some girls on a bachelorette party - they needed the bride to be to squeeze the ass of a stranger so I volunteered my ass.

Sunset over geese

Summer time and the living is easy. It's time to stop and smell the roses and watch the sun rise or set.  On August 27th the Earth and Mars will be pretty close but but even then Mars will not be as big as the Moon - in fact it will only look like a bright star.

Classic card of the week

Chuck Crim, 1991 Fleer

Crim. Chuck Crim. Tough? Yes. Hat? Yes. Throw? Word. Good? Ehh. Effective? Too many syllables, but let’s find out anyway:



Effective reliever for Brewers,

Effective. Is there a higher compliment? No. Chuck Crim: You effect things. Mostly, my heart.

who quietly established himself as the workhorse of the staff…

Robin Yount: Hey, have you guys noticed that Chuck Crim is the workhorse of our pitching staff?

Chris Bosio: Yeah, I just noticed that! I always knew he was effective, but this is crazy! Is it because I'm kinda fat? When did this happen though? Because I didn’t hear anything…

Paul Molitor: Me neither. But what does is it even sound like when someone is becoming the workhorse of your pitching staff?

Robin Yount: Some people say that it sounds like a horse. Other guys say you’ll hear a lot of grunting. But like, horse grunting. Whatever the case, Chuck Crim is one quiet-ass workhorse.

Now, I bet you’re saying to yourself: All this stuff about Chuck Crim is great, and stupid. But is there a Chuck Crim website that I can go to, which will tell me more than I ever hoped to know about Chuck Crim, and which features tons of exclamation points, and which introduces future Chuck Crim websites? Well, of course not.

Just kidding!

Chuck Crim makes a Pitch for the Future of Baseball!

Alright!!! Future, here we come! For baseball! This blue background is hurting my eyes!

It’s not my way…it’s Baseball’s way!

And baseball says: Chuck Grim –- you’re headed to a bullpen in Milwaukee. Also, you’ve been traded. I hope you have an optimistic outlook on these transitions, which are all just part of me, baseball.

California Here I Come!

Alright, good. It looks like you’re dealing with th-

Chicago is My Kind of Town!

Okaaaaay.

There’s No Place Like Home!

Alright just shut-up.

He is a Pitching Guru is every sense of the word,

Why capitalized? And how many senses of the word(s) “Pitching Guru” are there?

And now, through the 24-hour interactive website he has developed

24 hours? How did Chuck Crim convince the Internet to stay awake so long?

UltimatePitchingCoach.com for Pitchers of All Ages & Skill Levels from Youth Leagues to the Pros, Coaches, Parents & Baseball Enthusiasts,

Is that the full name of the website, or are we just capitalizing at will? Regardless, let’s go there!

Site Under Construction…COMING FALL 2010!

That is not as ultimate as I had envisioned. Obviously someone other than a workhorse is responsible for getting Chuck Crim’s website up-and-running. Nevertheless: !!!

Did you know?
Chuck Crim's original pitch for the future of baseball included "laser balls" and robots as designated hitters.

The big red canoe

There is a park right along side the Gardiner Expressway where a large red canoe sits at the top of a hill, ready for when global warming raises the height of the water. The park was named through a contest and is called Canoe Landing. Because it is an new urban park there are not a lot of trees - they decided to go with a bunch of tower cranes.

The park and the hill were created from excavations of tower foundations and parking garages. Douglas Coupland designed the park and situated the colourful vessel at the top, pointing towards the Gardiner and presumably Lake Ontario, via a number of condos.

The plight of the flight

Note: An edited version of this column appears in the 7/22 issue of The Glendale Star and the 7/23 issue of the Peoria Times

There are few things that make my wife and I more uncomfortable than being the center of negative attention. I think it’s one thing that separates us from the east coast stereotype, where people take pride in not caring what anybody else thinks and act accordingly. This is one of the reasons that both us never talk on our cell phones around others, lest we become “obnoxious cell phone talker person.” (In the instance that we’re talking to each other and we’re forced to talk around others, it inevitably results in both of us whispering to the point that our voices are inaudible, and we end up getting mad at each other because we can’t hear and so we raise our voices to a loud whisper and then angrily hang up.) So, if I had to imagine our most nightmarish scenario, it would probably involve being the parents of a crying child on a five-hour plane ride.

Foreshadowing!

We traveled back east recently to introduce our daughter to the family. As excited as we both were about this trip, both of us quietly dreaded the travel. Neither of us likes to fly in the first place, and now we had a 10-month-old flying companion who could cry, poop, or both at anytime. The good news was that our original fears of the plane crashing or getting hijacked were replaced by the anxiety of corralling the behavior of our unpredictable little party-animal.

Overall, she did great. We took the red-eye on the way there hoping for sleep, a strategy employed by many other parents, as there were about 30 kids on the flight. And after a rough start, she did sleep the rest of the way. Even while we were back east, we did so much traveling via car, train, and subway, and she did fantastic. She was a trooper, and we were so proud of her.

Still, we worried about the return plane ride, which would take off right in the middle of her typical morning playtime. Now, not only is she at that age where she can barely be contained, but she also fights sleep like it’s her worst enemy, and her weapon of choice is uncontrollable, I-sound-like-I’m-being-abused-type wailing. After she was finished pulling all of the magazines out of the pouch and dropping them on the floor, crawling on me and waving to the other passengers, she started fighting to stay awake.

And so it began. I should also mention that she was the only child on the plane -– it seemed to me that everyone else was the type of seasoned traveler that dreads only the crying child –- and so there was nobody to drown her out. We had told each other not to worry should such a scenario play out, but the panic-stricken looks on our faces said otherwise. I wanted to stand up, point to her, and mouth to everyone with a forced smile: “This is just how she gets to sleep! Ha, ha! Kids, right?” My wife just looked at me and said, “We are NOT going home for Christmas!”

She was –- as she often is when she’s overly tired and unable to move around –- inconsolable. There were only brief interruptions of her whining throughout, and I spent at least an hour just holding her at the back of the plane by the bathrooms, getting whiffs of delight while she patronized me by waving to the flight attendants.

After what seemed like five days, we landed. As we arrived at the gate the man sitting directly behind me stood up and said, “She reminds me of my daughter.” We turned around, taken aback that anybody wanted to talk to us at this point. He continued, smiling: “She’s 14 now, but she was just like her –- has to be a part of everything. Even her cry sounds exactly like hers used to. I wanted to call my wife to let her hear.” We talked a bit more, and thanked him for understanding our plight. He glanced around the plane and said, “Unless you’re a parent, you can’t understand.”

We walked off the plane feeling better, humbled again by parenthood and amazed that at least someone on the plane felt more nostalgic than annoyed. Eventually we reached our car, and put her in her car seat. Our unpredictable little one predictably fell sound asleep.

Shout out to blog reader

I am always happy when people recognize me from my Toronto blog while I am out and about. In the crowds of the the Honda Indy Toronto, just exiting the pits, I ran into one reader who said he checked out my blog everyday. Luckily I had my camera ready so I was able to take a picture - thanks for saying hi and thanks for reading my blog.

Honda Indy Toronto - Post Race Driver Interviews

We met with Canadians Alex Tagliani (pictured below) driving the #77 car who finished 17th (who crashed into a wall during the race) and Paul Tracy of the #15 car who finished 13th (who started from the 24th spot) after the race. Alex was not very happy with the person who crashed into him. He said the guy was happy that he took Alex out of the race as he was nursing a grudge from the previous year.

Paul Tracy (below) had led the race for awhile (laps 18 to 31) and said that the yellow flag after yellow flag did not fall into his strategy. He agreed that it would have been easier had he started earlier in the pack. Paul said that the settings on the car were off for both the practice and qualifying periods. They had found and changed the settings for the race but were unable to go back in time and improve their qualifying time. He also agreed that he would do better if he drove IRL full time but that sponsorship levels limited him to racing a few times a year. Paul hit a bump at the end of a straight away and ended up locking his brakes which he could not unlock at which time his ride stalled. He had to wait for a boost to get back going.

The three race finalists Ryan Hunter-Reay (3rd in the #37 car, pictured immediately below), Dario Franchitti (2nd in the #10 car, shown after Ryan) and winner Will Power also met the media and discussed the race with us. Both Ryan and Dario liked coming to Toronto and the only improvements to the track that they would like to see would be in the back stretch where the bumps in the road limit passing as everyone tries to avoid the bad areas which closes down the opportunities to pass. Both also talked about how slick the track was after only a few laps. Ryan said it was like a football game with a lot of pushing.

Race winner Will Power (pictured below) of the #12 car also had the fastest lap at 102.910 mph and led the race on laps 54 and 72 to 85 where he took the checkered flag and top of the podium. Will had contact with car 19 in turn one. Will is tops in the IndyCar Series standings with 377 total points. He felt the key to winning was his risky move to pass on the outside after the last restart. It was important to avoid accidents and sometimes he felt you just needed to chill. He heads into Edmonton on a back to back wins and as winner of last years Edmonton race.

The girls of Honda Indy Toronto - part two

Update: Click here for a chance to win Dr Pepper Grandstand tickets to the Honda Indy Toronto 2011 race.

There were a lot of beautiful women around the Honda Indy Toronto - from the Bud Pit Crew girls to the Hooters girls. You can see the girls of Honda Indy Toronto part one here.

See more pictures after the jump.

The Bud girls march through the pits holding up signs with driver names as part of the opening ceremonies during Sunday's race.

And don't forget to check out my video of Pretty Girls of Toronto - including many from previous Toronto races.

Here are some of the girls of the Fight Network during the Toronto Grand Prix - it has over 170,000 views.