So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 2

This blog post is a continuation of a previous post, So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 1.

As a catcher you have to manage your pitching staff by knowing your pitchers, all of their pitches, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.  Each pitcher on my high-school team had a decent fastball, but it was their secondary pitches that made each pitcher unique and interesting to catch.

Right hander Jake had a good curveball, and could throw a knuckleball that was hard to hit, but so unpredictable that it was very difficult for me to even catch.  Gary had a good slider, which is faster than a curve but doesn’t break as far.  Don could throw a curveball, and a split-finger fastball that would drop just as it got to the plate.  Dan had a tailing fastball (also known as a cutter) that had late motion at the plate.

Lefty Brian had a curve and a sinker.  Lefty Mark had a flat curve, a sinker, and another pitch that would break like a curve and then drop like a sinker.  I had absolutely no idea what it was, so we just called that pitch “Eephus.”  I’ve never seen a left-handed baseball player that could throw a baseball perfectly straight, so I think that comes in pretty useful when lefty pitchers are trying to prevent batters from hitting the ball.

I remember catching a game for pitcher Don one day where the wind was gusting from home plate out towards the pitcher’s mound.  I called a curveball against a right-handed batter, and just as Don released the ball there was a big gust of wind.  The ball started out heading right at the batter, so he naturally bailed out of the way & landed flat on his back.  Spinning into the gusting wind, that ball curved more than any curveball I’ve ever seen, curving until it actually crossed the plate.  “Steeeeriiiiike!” the umpire yelled.

The batter who was lying on his back, looked up at the umpire & exclaimed “What!!!???  He couldn’t believe that a pitch that almost hit him was called a strike.  My pitcher had to stifle a laugh, & I was grinning under my catcher’s mask because I thought it was hilarious.  I could tell that even the umpire thought it was funny.  I guess the wind was on our side that day.

Stay tuned sports fans for the next installment of So You Want to be a Catcher, where I’ll explain the Fine & Glorious Art of calling pitches, the intellectual Game within the Game.

What I Wanted to be When I Grew up, Part 1

The very first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a Policeman, just like my dad.  In 1st grade class we got to make our own hats out of paper, so naturally I made a policeman’s hat.  At home I made a badge, and completed the rest of my uniform by adding an equipment belt, flashlight, holster, and a cap gun (remember those?).  It was pretty sweet.

Around 4th grade I really started getting interested in space, so I read lots of library books & studied everything I could find on rockets.  I learned about the whole US space program, including the brand new Space Shuttle being developed at the time.

I located an address for NASA in a book, and wrote them a letter asking for information on the Space Shuttle.  NASA mailed me back some photos, and a brochure that listed all the major subcontractors making parts of the Space Shuttle.  I wrote at least two dozen letters to all of the subcontractors, and they sent back all kinds of brochures, patches, & photographs which I collected in a 3-ring binder.

I couldn’t believe all the great stuff I was getting in the mail, and it was the first time I was getting mail addressed specifically to me.  For weeks, my favorite thing to do every day was to check the mailbox and see if there was something new for me.  Getting all this great stuff made me want to become an astronaut on the Space Shuttle.

I learned that to be selected for astronaut training as a pilot for the Space Shuttle, you had to be among the best military test pilots.  Test pilots naturally test experimental aircraft & weapon systems, which is a very precise & scientific (but dangerous) occupation.  Military test pilots are selected from the most experienced & very best regular military jet pilots.

To be continued in What I Wanted to be When I Grew Up, Part 2 . . .

Turkey Vulture Stopped by for a Visit

I had a visitor swoop into the homestead today; it was a Turkey Vulture.  From a distance I thought it was a large hawk, but once I got the field glasses onto it and saw the bald, red head, I knew “that ain’t no hawk.”

First the Turkey Vulture landed on a dead tree in my back yard, and about half a dozen highly territorial Red-Wing Blackbirds swarmed around it to drive it away from their nesting area.

Then it flew in a wide circle around my yard and it landed on my tool shed.  The Red-Wing Blackbirds dive-bombed it.

Then the Turkey Vulture flew up into the top of a tall tree, where of course, the Red-Wing Blackbirds harassed it some more.  By this time he had enough of this nonsense and flew away for some peace & quiet.

Turkey Vultures almost exclusively eat carrion (dead animals).  I read they can locate carrion while flying overhead by smelling the gases produced during decomposition.  There was a two week old Raccoon carcass around here, which is probably what drew him into this area in the first place.

I also read they can grow to a wingspan of up to six feet, and they have no voice box.  Their only method of vocal communications is with grunts and low hisses.

That sure is one ugly bird!

(picture from Wikimedia Commons)

I was a Human Hi-Lo at the Stroh’s Brewery

There I was on the 9th floor of the Stroh’s Brewery in downtown Detroit, with no outside wall, looking straight down at the crane on the ground below . . . but I’m getting just a little bit ahead of myself.

When I was in my early 20’s I worked for Phoenix Metals, a small startup company that was going to recycle scrap metal into powdered metal.  They built a small pilot plant in a warehouse with some used furnaces, crushing machines and conveyors.

One source for their used machinery was the closed Stroh’s Brewery on Gratiot in downtown Detroit.  The Stroh’s Brewery was a 10 storey building with no electricity, so there were no lights, no elevators, and no heat during a cold November.  And it was also scheduled for demolition, so we only had a few intense weeks to get what we needed & get out of there.

Sometimes we worked in the underground sub-basements, where the cold walls seemed to suck the heat right out of your body.  Large holes had been broken in the concrete floors so large equipment could be lifted with a chain fall hoist to the main floor above.  It was really backbreaking work, and we sarcastically called ourselves “human hi-lo’s” (human forklifts).  All we did every day was muscle around heavy machines and equipment.

Mostly we worked on the upper floors, and it was really not fun to carry the heavy tools up all those flights of stairs in the mornings, & then carry them all back down in the evenings.  One outside wall had been knocked out on each floor, so you could walk right up to the edge of the floor and look straight down to the ground below.  It let in lots of light, but we really didn’t appreciate the natural air-conditioning during a cold and windy November.

Our favorite pastime was to go up to the 5th floor for lunch, where one wall was broken out so that we could look down onto the Stroh’s bottling building next door.  There was a very large overturned vent cap filled with rain water sitting on the roof next door, & we would try to throw flat broken cement wall tiles into it.  It was kind of like skipping flat rocks on the lake, except the tiles would sail through the air in a wide sweeping trajectory.  It was very difficult to make them land in the water in the vent cap, but when they did hit the target, there was a very satisfying “sploooosh” and a shooting geyser of water.  It was great fun!

The last job we did at the Stroh’s Brewery was to remove some very large and heavy machinery from the 9th floor, which could only be done by crane.  The foreman volunteered me to be the guy to wear the safety line, and stand at the edge of the floor where the wall had been knocked out.  My job was to give visual hand signals to the crane operator on the ground, 9 stories below.  By the way, did I mention that I’m afraid of heights?

The foreman told me that he left just enough slack in the safety line so that if I went over the edge, I’d be left hanging in the middle of the 8th floor below, where they could pull me inside.  “Oh, that’s just great,” I thought sarcastically.

I had never done anything like this before, but I got out there by the edge, and I directed the crane operator via hand signals where to move his boom, up or down, left of right, extend or retract.  We managed to get all of the machinery out of there without any of it crashing to the ground below, or without the crane boom smashing into the building, and most importantly, without me falling over the edge.

I’d like to think that we were successful because he did exactly what I told him to do, but it’s more likely that he was just a really good crane operator.  He was probably ignoring all my hand signals the whole time.

It’s funny how you look back at things you did when you were young and dumb, but at the time it all seemed like a big adventure.

Michael Yon, MilBlog Website Review

Michael Yon is an independent reporter & blogger who regularly embeds with American and British military combat units in Iraq & Afghanistan.

While his fondness for American service personnel is evident in his reporting, his candor and opinions in some of his writings are sometimes in conflict with U.S. Military command.  In 2007 Michael Yon won the Weblog Award Poll for Best Military Blog.

Currently Michael Yon is embedded with American Green Berets in the Philippines helping the local Philippine military fight insurgents.  Prior to that, he was embedded with a group of British soldiers & Ghurka’s going through a tracking training school on the jungle island of Borneo.

I followed Michael Yon’s blog regularly during the Iraqi war, and I was fascinated by his blog posts while embedded with the 1st Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment, a Stryker Brigade operating in the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq.  (A Stryker is an armored 8-wheeled infantry combat vehicle, with less armor & firepower than a tank but more speed & mobility.)  One of the most gripping things I’ve ever read was a blog post from August of 2005 titled “Gates of Fire.”

A soldier is shot while on patrol, and the unit commander, Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla is searching Mosul with several other Stryker vehicles for those responsible, when they come across some suspicious characters sitting in a car.  A wild car chase ensues, then a foot chase, a gunfight where the commander gets shot but continues to fight, another soldier comes to the rescue and charges into the shop where the bad guy is hiding, resulting in hand-to-hand combat and a life-and-death struggle.  Michael Yon was there, taking pictures, while under enemy fire.  Here is a short excerpt . . .

”The driver (suspected terrorist) tucked his head and gunned the gas. The chase was on.  Strykers are fast, but Opels are faster. We were roaring through little streets and along roads, horn blaring, cars zipping off the sides, the steady chatter of multiple radio channels colliding inside the Stryker. A Kiowa helicopter pilot radioed that he spotted the car. As the chase continued, the Kiowa pilot said, “It’s going about 105 mph.”

Seriously, you have to click here on this link to Gates of Fire to read the whole gripping story.  You’ll never see pictures or hear first hand stories like this on ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN.

Absolutely fantastic.

Click here to go to Michael Yon’s Dispatches.

Chippermunkers

I have three or four Chippermunkers running around my yard all day long.  Some people tend to call them Chipmunks, but I call them Chippermunkers.  Why do I call them Chippermunkers?  Well, they’re in my yard, so I can call them whatever I want.  Chippermunkers!

They are always stealing pieces of dried whole kernel corn that I put out for my wild Sandhill Crane family.  The Chippermunkers stuff their cheeks so full it’s a wonder how their heads don’t get stuck somewhere inside their own underground tunnels.

Whenever Chippermunkers run, they run fast.  I think maybe they need to cut back on their caffeine & sugar intake a little, because they are just way too hyper.  Did you notice the “racing stripes” along their sides in the picture?

Chippermunkers will often get in fights and chase each other around the yard.  When they run, their tail sticks straight up in the air like a periscope; it looks really funny.

I’ve also noticed that Chippermunkers seem to like to charge straight at birds on the ground just to make the birds jump up in the air to get out of the way.  Whenever they run across the yard into the marsh for water, they always seem to run straight at some birds.  I’ll bet the Chippermunkers laugh when they do this because they think it’s really funny.

A New Entry Gate for My Garden

This weekend I installed a new set of entry gates for my garden.  It’s kind of old because I built the swinging gates about two years ago, & they now have that old wood silver-grey patina that I love.

But it’s also new because I never got around to installing the gates until now.  Yeah, I know 2 years is a long time, but you just can’t rush engineering genius.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.

I was afraid digging the holes for the posts was going to be tough, and I expected many rocks and roots to be in the way.  Surprisingly it was just packed soil and soft sand which made for easy digging, and I ended up with two holes about 18” in diameter and 24” deep.

I attached each gate to a 4”x4”x8ft cedar post with three hinges, lined everything up on the ground and clamped both gates together as a single unit.  Then it was a matter of doing a weightlifting “clean and jerk” move (it was heavy!) to lift the assembly up while dropping the posts into the holes in the ground.  Not bad for accomplishing a 2 man job with one person.

After shimming up once side of the gate until it was level, I started filling the holes with soil a little at a time, and compacting the soil around the posts in the holes with a sledgehammer.  Everything is not perfectly square, but it’s close enough for country living.  The important thing is it will keep out the big critters like deer from jumping over the top, while keeping the little critters like rabbits and groundhogs from crawling underneath.

And that means more vegetables for me . . .

So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 1

You could have been an Infielder, or an Outfielder, or even a Pitcher, but no, you decided to be a Catcher.  You must really be a glutton for punishment!

You have to wear the “Tools of Ignorance;” a mask & helmet, a padded chest protector, shin guards that protect your legs, and a cup.  In spite of all that body armor, you’ll still get hit by pitches and foul tips, and you’ll feel it.  It hurts.  But you can’t show it.

Got strong legs? You better; you’ll be up & down constantly getting in and out of your crouch on every pitch.  It’s tiring.  Hope you can save enough energy to hit, and run around the bases too.

Ready to pounce on a bunt, or run down a pop-up behind home plate?  All of that protective equipment gets heavy, and it’s hot.  The mask clamps your jaw shut making it hard to talk and to breathe.  How’s you arm?  Can you stand up and snap-throw the ball to 2nd base?

Okay, that covers the 25% of the job that is Physical; the other 75% is Mental.  Can you keep track of the game in your head?  How many balls & strikes, how many outs, and what inning is it?  How’s your situational awareness?  Everyone is counting on you.

Can you manage your pitching staff?  Every pitcher is different; what pitches are working today, and which one’s aren’t?  Do you know which pitch to call and where to place your catcher’s mitt as a target?  Where is the batter standing in the batter’s box, and what did he hit or miss the last time at the plate?  Think fast!

Hope you’re not looking for glory.  If you play your position perfectly, you’re invisible.  But make a mistake, & everyone knows it was your fault.

I was a Catcher for four years in high school.  It was very demanding both physically and mentally, and I absolutely loved it.

Okay sports fans, stay tuned for more to follow in So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 2.

Crockpot Turkey Sausage & Tortellini Soup

Ingredients:

- 6 ounces cooked smoked turkey sausage
- 2 cups packaged shredded coleslaw mix
- 1 cup loose-pack frozen cut green beans
- 2 x 14.5 oz. cans Italian-style stewed tomatoes
- 1 x 10.5 oz can condensed French onion soup
- 3 cups water
- 1 x 9oz. pkg. refrigerated cheese-filled tortellini
- grated Parmesan cheese (garnish)

Halve the turkey sausage lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch slices.  Place sausage, coleslaw mix, green beans, un-drained tomatoes, soup, and water in a 3-1/2 to 5 quart slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low heat setting for 8-10 hours, or on high heat setting 4-5 hours.  After cooking, stir in tortellini, cover & cook for 15 minutes more (if using low heat setting, turn up to high).  Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

From the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes, page 57.

I modify the recipe a bit when I make this dish.  I use the entire package of turkey sausage, and the entire package of shredded cabbage coleslaw mix.  I add two large sweet onions, add 2-3 large diced potatoes, and increase all of the liquid ingredients by about 50%.

Any soup with cabbage in it has to be good, and this recipe is delicious.  If you don’t like sausage, you could probably substitute cooked, Italian-seasoned meatballs.  While the Italian-style tomatoes and the French onion soup add flavor, the next time I make this recipe I will probably add some dried Italian seasoning or fresh Italian herbs (Basil, Oregano, & Parsley).

Personally, I think that the Crock Pot is the single greatest invention of the 20th Century!

The Face of Pure Evil

That’s right . . . this is the face of pure evil if you’re a gardener.  It loves to dig holes and eat leafy vegetables, and will strip your garden in a day, destroying weeks and months of your hard labor.  It’s a Groundhog, also known as a Woodchuck.

Yes, the same Woodchuck as in “How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck if a Woodchuck could chuck wood?”  (Did you know that’s just as difficult to type out on a computer keyboard as it is to say it?)  I’ve read that the name “Woodchuck” may have come from an old Algonquian Indian name for the animal, “Wuchak.”

Groundhogs are about 12-15” long, not including their tail.  They like to hang out in open country near wooded areas, and live underground in burrows.  Groundhogs will dig their own burrow, or move into an unoccupied borrow, and they particularly like to live under my shed, and under my deck.  In early April when it still cold, I’ve even seen a Groundhog stretch himself out flat on his belly on my deck and sun himself to get warm.  Apparently my deck is like a Groundhog resort or something.

Wherever they live, they like to have multiple entrances to ensure they can escape from predators.  They will occasionally climb trees to escape a predator or to have a look around.  Groundhogs are very wary animals, and they will run for cover at the first sight of a human.

Around my house and garden, they are very much Public Enemy Number One.

Crazy Good Salmon Party Spread

Ingredients:

- 2 x 8oz. packages vegetable light cream cheese
- 3 x 6oz. cans boneless & skinless salmon
- 4 Tbsp. ketchup
- 2 Tbsp. creamy horseradish sauce
- 1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped fine
- 1 Bunch green onions or chives, chopped
- Baby Dill Pickles, Crackers, & Paprika for garnish

Drain salmon well, mix with cream cheese, ketchup, and horseradish sauce.  Fold in finely chopped red bell pepper and green onions (or chives); add by the hand-full and mix until it looks right.  Chill for at least one hour and serve on cucumber or zucchini round slices, cocktail breads, Melba crackers, or regular baked crackers.  Serve with Baby Dill Pickles.

Yield is about 20 – 24 servings; if you want to cut the recipe in half, use 1 package of cream cheese and 1 can of boneless & skinless salmon.  I often made this for work and got rave reviews.  People who don’t like fish really liked this Salmon Party Spread because they said “it doesn’t taste fishy.”

My friend Mandy is just crazy about this Salmon Party Spread; she says it’s more addicting than crack.  I have heard on occasion that when she is eating her Salmon Party Spread, she will not share it with her relatives, or her husband, because it’s just too good to share.

Mandy says to get the full culinary experience you have to take a bite of the cracker/salmon spread, and then a bite of the pickle, another bite of the cracker/salmon spread, and then another bite of pickle . . . 

Recipe from (my mom) Kathy Nye, Kathy’s Kountry Kitchen cookbook, page 8.

Detroit Red Wings Bird-Slapped the Penguins

On Saturday night the Detroit Red Wings came out and bird-slapped the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, winning the game 5-0.

The Penguins carried the play for the first 5-10 minutes, continuing what they had done by winning the previous two games in Pittsburgh and tying up the series at 2 games a piece.

However, MVP finalist Pavel Datsyuk was back in the lineup for the first time in 7 games, and set up the wings first goal with a pass to Dan Cleary.  After that, the Wings took control and dominated the remainder of the game, scoring power play goals, killing off penalties, keeping Crosby & Malkin off the score sheet and shutting out the Penguins.

Pittsburgh lost their composure and took a lot of dumb penalties, an elbow here, and a slash there, but Detroit just continued to play their game even with the Penguins trying to goon things up.

I expected Datsyuk to be in the lineup, and for Detroit to play a good game, but I wasn’t expecting a 5-0 shutout.  Tuesday will be a very tough game in Pittsburgh, but Detroit now has two chances to win just one more game to reach another Stanley Cup Championship.

Go Wings!

Made my own TV Antenna so I can watch the Wings

I really wanted to watch the Detroit Red Wings hockey team playing in games 3 & 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but they were not on NBC.  I couldn’t get CBC Channel 9 out of Windsor, Canada on my regular TV antenna.  There’s no way I’m gonna pay to watch the Versus Network.  So what’s a highly irritated Detroit hockey fan supposed to do?

I decided to design and build my own homemade high-gain TV antenna.  Being a Ham Radio operator (FCC license KA8PVT), I already know a lot about antennas.  After researching on the internet, I found a version of the Bobtail Curtain Array designed for the 2 meter ham band.  It’s highly directional, rated for 10dB gain, & appeared easy to construct out of inexpensive materials.

It’s a set of 3 vertical driven elements 1/4 wavelength in height and 1/2 wavelength apart, with another set of 3 vertical reflectors spaced 0.15 wavelength from the driven elements.  I constructed the antenna using 1/4” copper tubing connected by 12AWG wire, on a light weight framework of plastic PVC pipe.  The original design was for 144MHz so I had to recalculate all the dimensions for 189Mhz, the center frequency for TV Channel 9.

There was one problem with impedance matching; the Bobtail Curtain has a 50 ohm impedance and my TV requires a 75 ohm impedance.  I solved this by constructing a 1/12 wavelength matching transformer out of coaxial cable.

Combined with a 10dB amplifier, the Bobtail Curtain Array performed surprisingly well.  While  Channel 9 wasn’t crystal clear, it was more than acceptable for watching the hockey game.  I was even able to pull in CBS Channel 11 and ABC Channel 13, both out of Toledo, Ohio.

Not bad at all for $30 in materials and a few hours of labor.

Big Snappin’ Turtle is Tearin’ up my Lawn

Walked out of my front door this morning, just minding my own business, when I noticed there was something unusual out in the front yard.  It turned out to be a large Snapping Turtle about 18” long and 12” wide, the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Apparently she had been busy all night tearing up the grass, digging holes in the ground, laying her eggs and covering them up.  I counted at least 3 separate nests freshly dug and covered over.  Turtles can lay anywhere from 10 - 96 eggs, which hatch entirely on their own in 2-3 months.  Raccoons are very serious predators and are known to dig up turtle nests to eat the eggs.  I may have to start thinning out the Raccoon population around here a bit.

I grabbed my camera and crept closer to snap some pictures, not wanting to disturb her too much and scare her away.  I stopped my approach just as she started to retract her head inside her shell, so I couldn’t get too close.  The reason her shell looks kind of strange is because it’s covered with mud & algae.

You know, with all the space around my house, this turtle could have torn up the grass and dug holes anywhere in my BACK yard instead of right in my FRONT yard . . . stupid turtle!

Detroit Red Wings in Control, up 2-0 in the Finals

It’s the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals and the Detroit Red Wings are in control, up two games to zero against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and only two wins away from winning the championship.

After winning both games at home, the Wings travel to Pittsburgh for the next two games of the series.  It’s possible that the Penguins might tie up the series, but more likely that Detroit will split the next two games, setting up an epic Game 5 in Detroit.

It’s funny how the players and the fans in Pittsburgh, and even the news media are saying Detroit’s players are too old, too slow, not physical enough, and they have too many injured players.  It’s true Detroit is playing without their best offensive player (Datsyuk), their #1 Faceoff man (Draper), their best defenseman isn’t 100% (Lidstrom), and their best players aren’t scoring many goals (Hossa, Zetterberg, Holmstrom).

However, the Wings don’t pay any attention & just continue to win games anyway, beating the Penguins with their 3rd & 4th line role players, including the young, fast minor league players called up from the Grand Rapids Griffins.

I think it would be great for the Wings to beat the Penguins again in the finals like last year, just to spite the NHL’s over-hyping of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby.  The only thing better would be for the Detroit Red Wings to sweep the Penguins in 4 games, closing them out on Pittsburgh’s ice, in front of all their fans.