That lunch lady, Dorothy, and her now retired husband have been coming to Cardinals games for those 40 years and probably longer. They will continue to come this season and in the future. They were at this game (and in my seats!) with their grandchildren who were visiting from a state due south and west of Missouri. Their original intent was to take the youngsters to the All-Star Game festivities two weeks prior. That was cost-prohibitive however. So they enrolled the kids in Cardinals Camp for some drills and some autographs. They caught a couple of games with the kids as well. She also caught me.

We talked for nearly three innings. Her ability to pause our conversation in order to catch a play, or cheer a red-clad hero was a testament to her merit as a fan and merit as someone who knows how to multi-task. But her merit as an elder – in terms that society once regarded its wisest citizens – cannot go unnoticed as she flipped this interview on its head.

As hard as I tried to ask her about her school district, I ended up explaining to her San Francisco’s convoluted public school-by-assignment system. I also told her about the home prices in my town, because she does watch the news. Wanted to make sure it was real, I guess. She also asked me what I thought was going on in the country.

She had me talking about myself and my world more than I was able to get her to open up. It was my first opportunity on the trip to really take the time to talk from my perspective about what life was like for me and why I was still showing faith in baseball, the country, and most importantly – my own lot in life. This conversation with Dorothy was the most political conversation on the trip too. We agreed that things were as bad as our relative perspectives have seen it, and that more than perspective has to change in order for the country to get back on track.

I can only imagine the changes she has seen in the youth of America’s cafeteria in a post-Miracle Mets world. For four decades Dorothy has been there faithfully everyday for the kids at her school. She will be there presumably until she is no longer physically able. She loves what she does and has the perspective to be grateful for the opportunity to do it.

Baseball, eh?

There are singular sporting events that provide their locations a large portion of their identity. Europe has Wimbledon, The Tour de France, and Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls. The US has the Indy 500, The Kentucky Derby, and The Masters golf tournament. Canada has the Calgary Stampede.

The 2009 version of the world’s biggest rodeo had been tied-down for two weeks already when Judy, a sixty-something Calgary-resident, started talking about her love of baseball in the lobby of the Hilton at the Ballpark, St. Louis. Over the next two days, Judy and her husband were to board a bus with a score of other fans and head to Wrigley Field for a night game, then on to Milwaukee as part of a baseball bus tour.

That’s what I was doing! I was going to those same two cities, but as Gene Wilder said as Willy Wonka said on the boat in the movie, “Strike that. Reverse it.”

Calgary has always been a great baseball town, and I did not need Judy to remind me of that. Baseball Cube on the other hand needed to remind me that the Calgary Cannons of the Pacific Coast League served faithfully as a AAA-affiliate for four major league clubs (Seattle, Pittsburgh, Chicago AL, and Florida) from 1985-2002. Calgary has two teams these days: the Vipers of the independent Golden Baseball League and the Okotoks Dawgs of the Western Major Baseball League – a summer wood bat league for college players.

While both of those diamond remnants have supplied southern Alberta with quality baseball over the last few years, it and the bus tours (three years in a row) are still not enough for Judy and her husband. She takes advantage of Canadian Tax Day, which is 15 days later than ours in the U.S., so that she and her accountant husband can play snowbird down at spring training in Arizona. She books and he goes although I think he would rather stick around for the end of Calgary’s NHL team’s regular season.

Judy adores this game and takes great pride in how her fellow Canadians describe her as crazy for that adoration. Sheer glee emanated from Judy’s voice at midnight in the lobby of a hotel on the Mississippi River about how she was in the middle of stretching a single into a double in terms of this bus trip.

She will do this presumably until she is no longer physically able. She loves what she does and has the perspective to be grateful for the opportunity to do it.

Oh wait, did I write that already?

My number one goal for the Roadie was not to provide my own perspective, but to tell the stories of others. If I were to gain any perspective, it would have been be gravy, and I would not have expected it to come from the likes of Dorothy and Judy.

I was just grateful for the opportunity to have done it.

Billboard Photo Credit: Jesse Dorogusker

The weather might not be as perfect as it was on July 29, 2009, but it won’t matter. And sure, you will probably be delayed if you fly, but there is something about this town that is so authentic. More than any other city, and despite all the modern conveniences, Chicago seems to do things today the way they did them decades ago. Wrigley Field is the best example of that.

When you go, go with an open mind. Wrigley Field has so much hype around it and as a result expectations need to be set accordingly. If you set yours lower than you think you should you will be properly prepared. The place has the capability to exceed any level of expectations as mine were on this day. However, there were a couple of things I did not expect to see that really made we wonder where the expectations need to be on getting the country back on the good foot.

Back To That Same Old Place

You may be surprised when you get to Wrigley Field as you will immediately recognize two things: 1. people like you who spend more time looking up, taking pictures and getting in the way of your early-20th-century-conceived sightline – and 2. the die hard Cub fans who pay attention to everything, stay to the end, and sing ‘Go Cubs Go’ after a Cubs win in a way that would make any North Korean card-stunt choreographer proud.

During my walk down from the upper deck something caught my eye. About two pivots before the main level concourse a Cubs Jersey wrapped in clear plastic hung from a hangar on the top of a handtruck in an unusually Joad-ian kind of way. Next to it – a sign – with a logo from a Bank whose name I will not reveal, but they have been in the news lately and they are all over America. Next to that was a table with multiple clipboards with pens and paper and plenty of room to divulge your household income in an effort to get more credit.

There can’t be a better place to do that than the place nicknamed the ‘Friendly Confines’, right?

Normally, booths like this are crowded and there is plenty of free stuff to be had. On this day, the hawker was pushing credit to only one person as I approached. She was older than I (another observation about Wrigley is that demographic has to skew older) and was regaled in Cubs hat and jersey.

“I didn’t think they did this anymore,” I said.

“Neither did I,” said the Cubs fan shrugging her shoulders. “I have been looking for something like this for a while.”

She then split, awaiting her card in the mail. So I pretended it was 2005.

“You guys still do this.”

“Oh yeah,” said the credit man. “It’s not like it was back in the old days, but we get anywhere from 2-5 people signing up a game.”

“What’s the rate?”

“High. It starts at like 11-and-a-quarter and goes all the way to…” I think he said 18 but I cannot remember exactly. I thought to myself if that’s high, then I better sign up for another credit card right now.

He went on selling. “If you sign up, after the first $75 you spend on the card you get a free Cubs Jersey just like this one.”

Ignoring the generous temptation, “That’s it?” I asked. “Do a lot of people sign up for this?”

“No. When we tell them they get the jersey after they spend they usually walk away. But before we would give away shirts, or hats, or coolers and people would sign up all the time. Now you have to spend to get the jersey and when people hear that they usually walk away.”

I did too.

Sweet Home Chicago

Pirani was born and raised in Pakistan. He came to Chicago as a young man and lived there for several years before he moved to Atlanta with his family to pursue business opportunities – all of which fell through. The latest venture was a Dunkin Donuts franchise his partners squeezed him out of. Racked with debt he is back in Chicago alone, driving a cab, and “working all the time” in order to get out of the hole.

He is a willing storyteller and while the pessimist’s pessimist (yours truly) is always on the lookout for tall tales to engender sympathy (read: a big tip), this narrative was pretty compelling. One story however did not mesh with something heard earlier in the day and it left me scratching my head looking in the middle of the two extremes trying to find the truth.

Cabs were our mode of transport to and from Wrigley. (When you go, take the L. Period.) On the way there our cab driver said he has at least one fare per day on Cub game days and generally has more than 10 per week. Recently, he did four-in-a-row one morning.

With my expectations set fairly high when I asked the same question to Pirani he said no. He said he hadn’t had a Cub fare in a while and that the city was dead, the hotels were empty and the visitor count would be a fraction of what it was in May.

That stadium was full. My hotel was too and a couple of others that we checked were close to full occupancy. Was Pirani pulling our leg? Was the city really that dead? Or was he looking so hard for fares that he couldn’t find any. It is difficult to say what is exactly happening on the ground either in Chicago or in any other place for that matter. It could have been a great story for that something extra.

Pirani and I do have one thing in common and that is we are both looking, albeit for different things. His daughter is getting married and he desperately wants to get back to Pakistan to see family. Our relative personal perspectives not withstanding, it has been my experience that often times things find you more than you find them. That’s why the expectations matter because one person’s high is another person’s low everything else drives you crazy.

Now, let’s get some runs!

In other news – The red-hot Cubs destroyed Mike Hampton and the Houston Astros 12-0. A six-run first punctuated by the three-run home run from Alfonso Soriano was all the Cubbies needed for the easy win. Pitcher Randy Wells threw eight shutout innings for Chicago. Also, my dad was at the game and that was pretty cool.

On the field, thanks to Jesse D. (l to r) Jesse J., Tom J., Jonathan, Jesse D.

Quote/Lyric credits: Fred Fisher, Robert Johnson, Harry Caray

Firmly ensconced in his window-side throne in one of Busch Stadium’s enclosed dining areas, The King (as he shall be called) made it known to my traveling companion that he bet on the Cards/Dodgers game. He took the over on a line at 7 ½. Meaning, as long as the combined total of runs scored by both teams was greater than 7 ½, The King would be a winner.

Gambling Is Illegal At Busch

Gambling is not a topic I expected to cover on this trip. Yet MLB preposterously dredged up Pete Rose’s name and possible reinstatement earlier in the day. My sense was they tried to get the lead back from Sportscenter and the guy with the dogs (Vick), so I suppose it was inevitable. Shoulda bet on it.

Additionally, a <a href="“>front page article in the USA Today on this day discussed the topic more broadly about how states are seriously considering legalizing sports betting in order to support their failing economies. Delaware will legalize betting on football games for the upcoming season and all four of the major sports franchises are fighting them in court to stop. MLBAM President and COO Bob Dupuy refers to the 1919 Black Sox scandal and MLB’s desire to never have to deal with anything like that again as one of their reasons for the lawsuit. Yet the article and I cannot ignore the constant reminders at major league stadiums for fans to gamble once they leave the ballpark, such as at the Casino Queen, an advertiser for the St. Louis Cardinals.

I Never Slice

I never understood betting on baseball, and I know my way around a casino and sports book. The lines and odds are not presented in an intuitive way, and after The King explained it to me I was reminded why I don’t like it. He said if you see a “+130” on a team’s line that means you win $130 with a $100 bet.

At $100, you can barely get your family in the ballpark, why would you risk the cash this way?

Betting on baseball probably is not the staple it is in football for two reasons. First, ten times as many games per season as football means 100 times the risk (at least) from a dollars perspective. Second, even if you could… for argument’s sake… control who was playing at any given time – baseball is just not that easy to predict.

An admitted hockey fan, The King said that this game’s “over” was too good to pass up. I then decided to challenge him a tad by asking for which of the St. Louis teams (Blues, Rams, or Cardinals) whose tickets would he take every time – the no-hesitation answer was for the NHL’s Blues. I then asked him what one bet of all three of those teams he would make every time giving or taking points – he said he’d take the Rams to lose. EVERY TIME.

Interesting how baseball does not fit in either of those landscapes.

Juiced

Adrenaline is gambling’s sweet nectar and silent killer. Its most unfortunate part is the money attached to it. Or is it? Some like the juice from the competition aspect – beating the odds. That’s me. For some it is a career. For The King, it is an outlet.

The aforementioned outlet for The King developed as a result from some changes at work down at the tile factory. They instituted random drug testing. He is also recently married so he can’t chase the skirts as he once did. Some vice grips have closed and others seem to have opened for His Majesty; and today, on his birthday, he clamped down on a sure thing.

Once done with sports gambling theory, The King also expounded on stocks. We schussed down that slippery slope because he mentioned he hedged the over/under by betting the Cardinals to win. I told him that given my experience and training with stocks I hated derivative trading. You could get in trouble real fast if you got it wrong. Ask the Lehman Brothers.

He disagreed and said that the best buy over the short-term was GM (k.n.a. Motors Liquidation [Ticker: MTLQQ.PK]) and some covered calls. “It can only go up, “ he said.

“Unless it goes to zero,” I said. I have seen it happen.

In hearing The King’s strategies for betting the one sure thing is that he only bets his sure things. We all surely know there is no such thing.

One thing is for sure; however, and that is that something changed for him. It killed the king.

Long live The King!

Epilogue – Once the Cardinals started to pull away in the game it looked like The King was going to be in the money and for one evening in the right. The Dodgers put themselves in a position to score the 8th run of the game in the 8th inning, which would have ended up perfectly for The King. A Cardinal win and a cover would likely have provided jet fuel for another night rolling soft 10’s at the Illinois side’s Casino Queen. Just the fresh squeeze His Majesty ordered.

In other news – The Cardinals won 6-1.

As of July 26, 2009, and in perhaps the most competitive season in recent MLB history the Kansas City Royals seemed to be battling the Indians for AL Central basement yet again. This year, that could certainly be considered a surprise given their 18-11 start, a pitcher in Zach Greinke that is certainly capable of being a stopper, and a GM in Dayton Moore that is trying to make his team better.

He has too. The Kansas City Royals are too proud a franchise to endure this consistent mediocrity. And given the refurbished palace in which they play, their fans are still wondering when their knight in shining armor will come.

You Play to Win The Game

A scouting director once told me that at any given level of an organization, there are no more than five players per team capable of making the major leagues. Then he said that the rest of the guys are there so they (the five) can play games. Everything else after that he said “was gravy”.

While I never asked any of the minor league players I was around on a regular basis what side of the line they thought they were on, they all seemed to know. After being in Kansas City on a glorious Sunday afternoon, I got the sense that the fans of this quadragenarian team chooses to ignore that they are part of an ignominious handful of teams that cannot get out of its own way and – along with four or five others teams – are there so that the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, and Mets (in that order) can play games.

Much Ado

Two million fans may pay or even pass their way through the turnstiles at Kauffman Stadium in 2009. If that happens, it will be the first time since 1991 and 22% higher than last year. The average attendance through the first 54 games is 23,784 or 19% higher than last year total.

Further renovations to the already comfortable Kauffman Stadium may be a part of it. The Royals knew that while their ballpark was good, in order to keep people coming they needed to make it better. They have. There are also pictures to prove it.

BJ, a St. Louis native, Kansas City-area resident, and Cardinal fan who was close by said that he thought the ongoing renovation was to cost $250 million with the Royals kicking in some and Jackson County taxpayers the rest. Had he said 10% by the former and 90% by the latter through a sales tax increase, he would have been exactly right.

It all begs the question as to how can these types of projects still get green lights. This specific project was actually ok’ed under much better economic circumstances, but crews had to boogie in order to get the place ready for the Yankees and opening day 2009. They did it and they did it well. The crowds are holding up, but if the Royals keep losing, then whither GM Dayton Moore and Manager Trey Hillman?

Matt Campbell of the Kansas City star wrote on March 1 that “you wouldn’t know there was a recession,” given all the activity down by the Sports Complex of which Kauffman Stadium is a part. BJ seemed to agree. He said he heard the place had many more fans the night before for the always festive – and totally awesome – Christmas in July promotion. However, he and other fans have to act quicker on the nights that Greinke pitches because they do draw much better.

What it comes down to unfortunately is wins. As the Giants can attest, as they have nights with Lincecum that draw very well, their overall numbers are getting better after a slow start because they are winning.

The play is the thing, in which teams must capture hearts, minds and wallets to be considered king.

104 foot HD screen part of the Kauffman Stadium renovations. Photo Credit: Jesse Dorogusker

The voter-approved Jackson County sales tax increase in 2006 meant to cover renovations at both Kauffman and Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs. The chiefs and the Hunt family (its owner) will contribute approximately 20% of the $375 million renovation there.

In addition to the Shakespeare lines, we borrowed a line form Herm Edwards too – former coach of the KC Chiefs.

These individuals can come in many forms. There are the fans of college sports teams who didn’t matriculate, but take a loss harder than those who did. There are the local school administrators who forge lifelong friendships with the aspiring ballplayers that come through a minor league town.

And then, there’s Pat.

Pat was an orphan, native to the Sacramento area, who did not have it easy in gold country as a youngster. So he enlisted to go to Vietnam – a subject about which he does not like to talk.

There was not much for Pat when he got back from southeast Asia either. He went down to see his VA man and managed to eke out $144/month on the GI Bill to go to school. He was able to turn that into some jobs locally, but his health quickly deteriorated.

His cataracts make it difficult for him to do much these days. It is getting more difficult for him to do his job let alone get there. The Rivercats are his only source of employment today. He is a parking lot attendant not just for baseball games, but concerts and all other events as well. He rides his bike 32 roundtrip miles to the stadium from his shared trailer in nearby Mesa Verde (possibly verified as Citrus Heights) for his team.

The double whammy though is that when his eyes go, the gig goes with them. The games seem to be going away too. He says the ‘Cats are cutting back* his game allotment. He worked all 72 games last year and says he will be lucky to get 60 this.

Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the story is that he says he can’t get the necessary healthcare (you knew this was coming, right?) from the VA for his cataract surgery. He also says he cannot get assistance from the state because he does not have a birth certificate. Getting one has proven difficult for him because he says California’s budget cuts have closed the office that makes them available (my research has not been able to confirm this) and he has limited (read: zero) resources to try to obtain the information online.

An ephemeral spirit, Pat had 16 miles to pedal in the 104-degree temps after today’s game, so I let him go. True or not, he had spun enough yarn for me to knit an Afghanistan-sized Afghan. True or not, what is he saying?

I asked him if the healthcare bill before Congress would help because I did not know. Neither did he. Looks like we both have some reading to do. However, he did point out that it likely would not matter because the cataracts were worsening faster than Congress plans to act.

Son, don’t you understand?

My teeth would have rotted out of my head 15 years ago as a below-the-poverty-line hard-working 26-year-old broadcaster, were it not for Oregon’s healthcare assistance program. I have also sat in pitch meetings and investor presentations listening to MBA’s – and worse yet doctors – talking about profiting on healing. Surely there must be a way to bridge the divide between making medicine worth the incredible cost to pursue and improve and giving everyone of our citizens the right (to) life – especially the ones that served.

Those smarter than I are working on that. I am just a cool rockin’ daddy with 20/10 vision that can’t see the way forward.

Pat may have a leg up on me there.

* The Rivercats were not contacted to determine the veracity of Pat’s claim on his assignments.

Quote credits: Bruce Springsteen, ‘Born in The USA’

Clip shows are usually aired at the height of, or even in the twilight of a show’s popularity. Family Ties was where I remember seeing it first in the 80’s. Friends made it an art form in the 90’s. Hopefully, I won’t do it this decade, but a clip show becomes useful when the characters have grown, the actors have better contracts, and nearly every conceivable plot line has been tried. They fill time, allow the viewer to refresh and reminisce, and they save the network money.

The last thing I want to do is a clip show, but I think this is a good point to stop and reflect on what has happened and what’s to come. I can also preserve some of the other content that’s percolating and save some energy with warp drive on the horizon.

Starting in Oakland, there was a family of four enjoying an afternoon together while taking a break from a slumping housing market and a classic labor vs. management fight.

Across the bay in San Francisco, Supervisor Will extolled the virtues of free baseball when times are good and bad.

Down the road in San Jose, the best of minor leagues was on display on the diamond, in the stands, and from across the Pacific Ocean.

What’s to come before the plane leaves for Denver? Two more samples of extended bay area baseball for sure, updates on the Roadie, and maybe some more analysis of attendance and money trends.

As to the latter topic, there have been many stories in other outlets that are addressing the strain around the country – all in different ways.

New York was once considered to be recession-proof, but that was before over 30,000 jobs disappeared in the financial sector. Now, Met and Yankee fans alike are having problems unloading this year’s tickets and are worrying about whether they will be able to get next year’s, according to the New York Times.

Just in St. Louis, Forbes reports on the violent collision between real estate and sports, where an adjacent project sits idle to the new Busch Stadium. Tying residences and retail to new stadium construction was seen as a calming influence on the opponents of the stadium-building binge of the last 20 years. There are unfortunately a handful of examples around the country where it’s not working out so well.

The Coquis family is one after my own heart. Dad Roberto, mom Judy, and daughter Sofia are halfway through a 30-ballpark trip they did not intend on taking at the beginning of the year. They are trying to raise money for charity and raise awareness for their own plight. It’s one big job interview. The site called 30ballparksandababy.com is great and they are doing a magnificent job marketing themselves. It’s a journey I intend to follow and I encourage you to do the same.

Two other sites I am following intently do a fantastic job with analysis. If you want more nuts and bolts financial analysis then you have to put The Biz of Baseball in your rotation. If you prefer visually striking and very funny takes on the game then Craig Robinson is your man.

Lastly, it’s a bit too early to say with certainty about what the pitching matchups will be for the five major league games on the Roadie it does look like that it will start with Matt Cain for Giants against Jason Marquis of the Rockies.

If that is the matchup in the pilot episode, I am pretty confident that series will be picked up for sure.

The manner in which I introduced myself to Po-Hsien will go unmentioned. Innocent enough, yet too embarrassing to detail, the incident hopefully puts the cap on a year of social and other faux-pas that I wish to never repeat.

Yet as they say, you can’t close the deal if you don’t ask for the close.

Madness to the method

I happened to buy a ticket two rows behind the home team dugout thinking that the Giants’ season ticket holders would come out in full force to root for the series sweep. I was wrong. There was no one else in my row. The row behind me was filled with children, and the women who sat in the row in front of me were more interested in making plans for the Chicago/Earth+Wind+Fire concert than they were about the San Jose 9.

So I ventured over toward the bleachers down the left field line where I could see those who did come for the game came with provisions such as coats, blankets, and hats that are the hallmark of any baseball game played at night, in July, near San Francisco Bay.

As I was settling in my new seat, I noticed roughly 10 fans of Asian heritage who were all standing up against the left field retaining wall. Three had cameras worthy of a serious journalistic assignment. Everyone else looked like the trendy young hipster I thought I was 15 years ago, but thinner.

They were all staring at, and trying to get the attention of the visiting team’s left-fielder, who I would learn from Po-Hsien was Kuo-Hui Lo from Taiwan. He had actually hit his 10th home run of the season an inning ago, which would stand as the Mavericks’ only run of the game. I had not made the connection.

Lo does not have eye-popping numbers, but his numbers have been improving every year. Ten dingers in ’09 is already two more than he hit last year at low-A Wisconsin. His greatest moment on a baseball field may have been at last year’s Olympics in Beijing when he reached base six times with four walks and a home run in an 8-7 loss to China in the preliminaries.

None of this information deterred Lo’s fans – including Po-Hsien. An intern at Apple in the iPhone group, Po-Hsien was holding a baseball that had Lo’s name on it both figuratively – and would actually display it later. I tried to get a sense of what Po-Hsien thought of baseball as I would from John from Fremont a couple of innings later, but that was not going to happen due to Po-Hsien’s younger age and our language barrier.

What I was able to learn from him was the tremendous sense of pride they all had for their countryman. I asked about Chien-Ming Wang, perhaps Taiwan’s most famous baseball player ever, and his face beamed. I asked why Taiwan always does well in the Little League World Series, and he said that they can essentially put an all-star team together every year because the island’s little league organization is set up that way. I asked him if he played baseball as a kid. He looked at me like I would look trying to take apart and reassemble his iPhone.

I have many friends of Taiwanese descent. I have also worked with many Taiwanese and seen their generosity and foresight. However, I know nothing about the Taipei Physical Education College, whether or not Taiwan has a professional baseball league, or if they sing during the 7th-inning stretch.

It does seem as though that one of the by-products of this country’s post-WWII history, which has included so much difficulty, includes a love for baseball and an unyielding support for others trying to make their way in places away from the island.

As I walked out of Municipal Stadium on Thursday night, all 10 fans stood waiting behind the rope protecting the team bus with cameras, baseballs, and smiles as if Elvis was about to leave the building. I asked them to pose for a picture. Po-Hsien is second from the right.

Their faces express a feeling that Elvis himself might say if he spoke Mandarin (though not all Taiwanese do):

Xie xie very much.

Baseball paparazzi

Consider the cases of the San Francisco Giants’ super-talented pitcher Jonathan Sanchez, super-sub infielder Juan Uribe, and the former’s no-hitter of 10 July 2009. Sanchez pitched to 28 batters, which is one over the minimum any pitcher must face to win a complete nine-inning game. The only San Diego Padre to reach was Chase Headley on Uribe’s error T8.

Headley is quoted on MLB.com as saying, “It’s one of those plays at third base that’s a tough play to make, an in-between hop with a lot of topspin on it. It’s what I call the common third-base error. You get a couple of those a year.”

Watch the video. You can see the spin and the crazy kick the ball takes when it hits the infield dirt.

The In Between Hop

It’s a classic in-between hop. Uribe recognizes it. He does everything in his power to protect his teammate’s sprint toward history by blocking the ball, keeping it in front of him, and trying to pick it up and throw.

What happens next is the microcosm. Per the video, Uribe does not get down on himself, Sanchez immediately signals to the shortstop that he will throw to him on a comebacker for the double play, and the announcer mentions the young catcher heading out to the mound so the 30,000+ in the stadium and catch their collective breath and complete the task at hand.

Five more up and five more down after that and the no-no is complete.

We have all seen our share of in-between hops in last year or so — what I like to call real adversity. Hopefully the hops didn’t have as much topspin on them as if they were hit from a pitch by Jonathan Sanchez. Or if so, you had a teammate like Juan Uribe to back you up.