Wednesday, July 08, 2009

A win, 1/3 of an inning, a putout and no pitches?

Last night we had yet another Guy's Night Out game for this season. The game was a good one, despite the fact that the Nationals are the absolute worst in the league. Jason Hammel didn't pitch very well, the Rockies didn't hit or field well, and the Nationals played like. . . well. . . the Natinals. The game ended up being tied at 4 at the end of the 4th inning. The excitement started later.

In the 8th inning, Alan Embree entered the game with 2 outs and Austin Kearns on first base. Embree, a lefty, toed the rubber, looked toward home plate, then fired a bullet to Todd Helton at first. Kearns was caught, started running toward 2nd. Helton dropped the ball, picked it up, chased after Kearns, who had fallen in the baseball. Kearns then got up and started going toward 2nd again. Helton tossed the ball to Tulowitzki, who was covering 2nd. Tulo chased Kearns back to 1st, tossed the ball to Embree, who had joined the pickle. Embree then tagged Kearns for the final out. It ends up being scored as a 1-3-6-1 putout. Inning over. The Rockies get a run in the bottom of the 8th, Huston Street comes in and sits 3 batters down and the Rockies get the W. Winning pitcher for the Rockies? Alan Embree. The guy who threw exactly zero pitches. Pretty cool thing to see.

After the game, we were trying to figure out if that had happened before. Thankfully, the Rockies website had the answer to our question. The last time a pitcher won a game without throwing a pitch was May 1 of 2003 (B.J. Ryan being the pitcher of record). There have not been any other instances of this happening in the last 23 years.

Needless to say, it was pretty cool to see in person. I think the best part of the story is what Jim Tracy said to Embree when he walked off the field. "You're done. Do you think you can go tomorrow?" Awesome. Hopefully he didn't have to ice his arm after such a heavy workload!

Monday, July 06, 2009

Change of Scenery

During yet another meet-up with E Dagger/Jonny X this past weekend, I was chastised for having a crappy blog. And I unfortunately had to agree with him. My frequency of posts has drastically reduced to zero per week. Alas, it is time to fire this machine back up again. I'm back!

First an update on the life and times of the Flicks:
  • The big news is the newest addition to the Flick family - John and Sara were married on Friday the 19th. It was a crazy weekend, but we had a blast. We got to see a whole lot of family members from both sides. Plus we bonded with John's family, so that was good.
  • Sara and John went to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
  • They got to hang out on the beach.
  • I was not on a beach. Boo.
  • Softball is in full swing. I'm only playing 3 nights a week these days.
  • The basement is so close to done I can almost see it finished. Only a few more hung doors, some quick touch-ups and some shelves in the closets and nous avons fini!
  • Harvey got his manhood removed on the 30th. Nothing is worse than being a male taking your male dog to get neutered. The look in their eyes is so terrible. They know what is about to happen and they completely take it out on you.
  • He also has been so lethargic and sad faced since he got home. I feel terrible.
  • But the good news is NO MORE PUPPIES!!
  • FYI - We had Jessica's (Sarah's sister) dog for a night and Harvey may or may not have knocked her up. We are still waiting for little Mia to start getting bigger. . .
  • I finally have entered the smart phone arena. I got the G1 from T-Mobile. It is the Google phone that is made by HTC. I have never been happier with a phone. It's like the iPhone except you don't have to pay for every tiny little thing.
  • Now I will never be able to go back to a regular phone.
  • We went camping over the 4th weekend up at Boyd Lake State Park. Not a bad place to camp. The only real problem I had with it was that the campsites are pretty close together.
  • We ended up taking the dogs. Mostly because Harvey had just been fixed, but also because Gizmo is a sissy. When he heard fireworks last year, he refused to go outside and do his business for a week. We figured that Matthew didn't want to deal with all the potential dragging of Gizmo to the backyard and/or interior pooping that might go on. Plus we figured Matthew would rather camp instead of watch our dogs and house.
  • The dogs were actually great on this trip. The only problem was their need to take care of business at 5:45 every morning. Lame.
Now for some other random thoughts:
  • Robert, Natalie, Sarah, Chew, and I went to Dickey's a few weeks ago. Robert enlightened me that day. He explained that they have free ice cream for patrons and they have a soda machine. Put those two together with the awesome giant yellow Dickey's cups, and you have delicious root beer floats.
  • All the times I had been in there,I had never done that.
  • I always had just loaded up on BBQ and ice cream.
  • Robert is wise beyond his years.
  • The Rockies ended the statistical first half of the season with a record of 42-39. Not bad considering the terrible start under the watch of Clint Hurdle.
  • Speaking of Hurdle, there are times in my life where I just love being right (all the time). I'm glad that I was right about Hurdle. Nice guy, terrible manager.
  • I will stand by the thought that the 2007 Rockies got to the World Series DESPITE Hurdle, not BECAUSE of him.
  • Congratulations to Brad Hawpe and Jason Marquis for their selection to the NL All Star team. They are both extremely deserving this year.
  • O'Dowd certainly got the Vizcaino for Marquis trade right.
  • I find it funny that the Rockies are in the hunt for the Wild Card, the Nuggets are coming off an appearance in the Western Conference Finals, and the Broncos and Avs are rebuilding. When was the last time we could say that? Never?
  • I have decided that I hate the heat. With heat, there is nothing you can do but deal with it. When it is cool or cold out, you can always put on another layer. High temperatures in the high 70's or low 80's are perfect for summer.
  • Some math for you: Snow > 100 degree weather.
  • If you have not heard of or have not seen the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge, you need to check it out. It is (a) going to be cool looking, (b) great for alleviating traffic over the dam, and (c) did I mention that it is going to be freaking cool looking? (It just so happens that my company did the design of this bridge, so that is a plus as well.)
  • Sad to see that Steve 'Air' McNair was found dead in his apartment. Also sad to see that his wife had to find out about his mistress after a fatal shooting involving her husband.
I leave you with a cartoon from Steve Moore I found on my desk one morning. Hilarious!

Til the next post,
Mike