MojoScriber Etchings

…..to everyone in my Fantasy Baseball League, from the All Star Break vacation. Except John Snider of course, who never went on vacation but just kept working on his baseball team on the beach in Hawaii, afraid that he will monumentally blow a 30-something point lead.

Thoroughly enjoyed the All Star Game – can’t say I’ve ever said that before. Extra innings was pretty compelling and it would have been spectacular (in a baseball sense) if we could have gone to the 16th to see what Francona and Hurdle would have done about pitching. Couldn’t understand why Tito pulled KRod after only 1/3 of an inning in a tie game. He should have just let Rivera start the 9th and saved Rodriguez for extra innings. Seems like a waste of assets for the sake of creating a magical moment for the Yankee fans. Great defensive game by Russell Martin. I think he ended up playing nine or ten innings. If he could have delivered and driven in the winning run in the 12th or 13th, I don’t remember which, he could have wrapped up the MVP.

Looking forward to the 2nd half. After struggling with my offense and watching my pitching cruise along for three months, I’m in a new situation since I’ve systematically traded away a bulk of arms for bats. Not sure how effective it’ll be, but it should sure be a lot more fun. My team is not named Adirondack Big Arms. It’s time for the Tooth Picks to pick up its Big Sticks again.

Making a road trip to Anaheim this weekend (75 miles from home) to see the Sox. I missed them last season since we were in Hawaii at the time. This year I picked up my tickets in April. All this time I thought I had tickets to Saturday’s nationally televised afternoon game, Beckett v. Saunders, two All-Stars. But when I booted up my PC yesterday and opened Outlook, my weekly calendar popped up and I got a reminder about my baseball game on SUNDAY! OMG, Wakefield vs. Weaver!!! Boy did I feel like a dumbshit. Then I remembered I opted for the Sunday game because it started at 3pm and might be a little cooler weather than a 1pm start. How stupid. Being an impulse shopper, I browsed the eBay listing for Saturday tickets and found a deal that didn’t totally rape me. I REALLY wanted to see Josh Beckett. And so I’m spending the weekend down south. Trying to decide whether to wear the ‘DiceK Gun from the Rising Sun’ t-shirt or the ‘Pedroia Destroy-ah’. I activated Jed Lowrie onto my active roster for just this weekend. Hope he actually gets into a game.

Billy Beane is amazing. He unloads Joe Blanton on the Phillies and gets some pretty good prospects, again rebuilding on the fly. He’s gone from Mulder/Hudson/Zito to Haren/Harden/Blanton to who knows what, without skipping a beat. Fabulous talent evaluator. I should have jumped on that kid Sean Gallegher but hesitated while I was working on the Harden to Snider deal. Then Yac swooped in and grabbed him. You snooze, you lose.

I am the MojoScriber and this is my first posting. I live on the mean streets of Thousand Oaks, California….. okay, I live in a house in Thousand Oaks, perhaps one of the safest communities in America. Our youth look to escape our sterile environment in search of “real”. For me, just toss over another angora blanket for my coccoon.

I bought tickets and went to the Ravine last night to see the Pirates play the Dodgers. The Park looks beautiful – more off season renovations, you wouldn’t think the joint was almost 50 years old. Once the Steinbrenners christen the new Yankee Stadium, only Wrigley and Fenway will be older than Dodger Stadium. They built a new entrance to the park by constructing an atrium between the pavilion and the old outfield access gate. We entered down the left field line and can only presume they put an identical structure down the right. Jamie McCourt’s interior decorator painted everything in the field level concessions area white with gold trim. Everything gleamed, including the ivory pissers in the men’s room. They finally replaced the stainless steel mega-trough with individual porcelain urinals. Very fancy – I almost lost control of the stream while sticking out my pinkie.

Got there early so went to visit Kelmar, who had seats on the next level up. Boy, what a surprise. Popping up to the Loge level made me feel like I just ascended from a time tunnel – it’s retro Dodger Stadium, circa 1970. No interior decorator worked here – it still looks like its old self, except no Arthur Foods vendors and no double-bagged peanuts for seventy-five cents. Dim fluorescent lighting, smooth cement walls and yards of orange painted latticed grating – Cey to Lopes to Garvey, take me out to the ballgame.

Dodger Stadium is really a caste society. Kelmar said he’d forgotten he was in the Loge and followed like sheep to the aforementioned new atrium. When the gate attendant scanned his ticket, ‘EHrrrrr! Reject! Do not Proceed!’ Security pointed him to the stairs yonder which lead up to the next level. He was greeted there by an even bigger mob trying to enter through the Loge gate. A good 75% of them were rejected and pointed to more stairs leading to the even higher Reserve level. “Boy did we feel special to be allowed in.”

The inhouse security force really guards the stairwells. You can go up, but never down. The Lords can move anywhere, the Squires can mix with the peasants, but the peasants and serfs must stay in their appointed village. But you know these days, even the Lords have limits. They cannot get into the exclusive Dugout Club, the off-limits haven of the Kings who obviously get to piss in gleaming platinum vessels. I forgot to ask Kelmar what kind of men’s facilities they provided in the Loge. My next game is a week from Friday on Joe Torre bobblehead night. Those seats are in the low infield section of the Reserve level. I fully expect to have to dig my own slit trench to take a piss.

Incidentally, I purchased the tickets to last night’s game on eBay. I got them for under face value with preferred parking. Given it was a Monday night in April against one of the sad sacks of MLB with a short turnaround (I bought them last week), and you have a perfect storm. It was a very pleasant evening, not too warm and not too cold. I ate a six dollar hot dog and watched Tubbie hit a triple off the wall. But I missed having access to mlb.tv so I could watch my boy Grinke toss his CG.