Category: Thinking

So Long, Jamie

Sad to see Jamie Moy­er suf­fer a pos­si­ble career-end­ing injury at the ten­der age of 47.

In all seri­ous­ness, Gramps will be missed. I was at his his­toric com­plete game shutout win over the Braves this year. That’s a pic­ture I took of the score­board from our seats in Sec­tion 143. It was elec­tri­fy­ing. Felt like a per­fect game. Would’ve been, too, were it not for Troy Glaus!

Helen and I have seen more than our fair share of Moy­er starts. Turns out our sea­son tick­et pack­age lines up with some of our dici­est starters, whether it’s Moy­er or Eaton or Blan­ton or Kendrick. We just seem to get the guy who’ll either be lights out or out of the game by the fourth inning. Since Jamie came over from Seat­tle, I can’t think of a pitch­er who leaves me with a big­ger grin on my face than Jamie, through all his ups and downs.

It’s easy to for­get the times he got past­ed by the oppos­ing nine when he gives up a long fly ball to Evan Lon­go­ria, only to have it land in Pat Bur­rel­l’s glove, fol­lowed by Moy­er stick­ing his tongue out at the Tam­pa Bay dugout. Draw­ing a walk ear­li­er this sea­son against Johan San­tana to load the bases, set­ting up anoth­er amaz­ing Vic­tori­no grand slam. Watch­ing him dis­man­tle a young stud like Jason Hey­ward is exact­ly what makes him so spe­cial. It’s been a treat to see him have suc­cess this late in his career.

When we reached the All Star Break I was­n’t sure if the Phils would­n’t give him anoth­er shot, but I don’t think any­one will take that risk now. Ride off into the sun­set, old fel­la. You’ve had an amaz­ing career. We’ll nev­er for­get you dig­ging up the pitch­ing rub­ber in ’08. That was a vet­er­an move, just the sort of thing we brought you here for in the first place.

Then again, read­ing this great post over at Fin­ger Food makes you won­der if the crafty lefty does­n’t have a plan after all.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 0

This Feels Like Home

I think I’ve final­ly set­tled on my ide­al Word­Press theme. I love the fonts, even if the main head­er is wonky on arti­cle pages. I got peo­ple who have insight into fix­ing stuff like that. (Yes, I’m look­ing at you, Roz.) I’m also gonna total­ly cop the fol­low suite from the bot­tom of Eric Smith’s blog short­ly and plant it right over there atop the right rail. Should be pret­ty sweet actually.

I’m debat­ing a few oth­er fea­tures. Feel free to sound off on them if the spir­it moves you.

  • Should I both­er adding a blogroll of any kind? I know they’re real­ly just there to gen­er­ate rec­i­p­ro­cal links and that very few peo­ple actu­al­ly click on them. I’m sure that like­li­hood decreas­es tremen­dous­ly when put on a sep­a­rate page, even if that page is clear­ly labeled and in the top nav that hov­ers over the right rail. Thoughts?
  • Tag cloud. They’ve always hor­ri­fied me. I just added one called “What I’m Talk­ing About,” which seemed pret­ty cool until it barfed up pret­ty much every tag I’ve ever used. I checked to see if I could lim­it the num­ber of tags with the out of the box Word­Press wid­get. No dice. Do I have any recourse?
  • Archives. I’m not pre­ten­tious enough to think that any­one real­ly trawls through the back pages here and I real­ly hate that they’re bro­ken out month­ly by default. I wish they could be orga­nized by years just for the sake of ele­gance. Is it worth the hassle?
  • Var­i­ous and sundry wid­gets just clut­ter up the place, right? I’m over hav­ing my Twit­ter feed post in the right rail. The fol­low suite will take care of that mess. I like the Flickr inte­gra­tion, but feel like that could go in the fol­low suite as well. Is there a Last.fm wid­get any­where in the wide world that gen­er­ates album art thumb­nails from your scrob­bles with­out total­ly stink­ing up the joint? I have yet to find one and I’ve looked high and low.
  • Last, but not least: what do you think of Kens­ing­ton Blues? I chose the name because I live in the Kens­ing­ton neigh­bor­hood and am a fan of the late great Jack Rose. But some­times I ask myself if it’s too imper­son­al for a blog that’s real­ly just about beer, babies, and base­ball for the most part. Feel free to offer sug­ges­tions on such things as per­son­al brand­ing if you are so moved.

By the way, I snagged this theme from Woo Themes and it was total­ly free. I’m as shocked as you are. Thanks, Internet!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 1

The Trade Deadline

A co-work­er said that it was “depress­ing” that I was already talk­ing about look­ing for­ward to the Phillies next sea­son. I told him that once upon a time I’d have felt that way in April!

Times cer­tain­ly have changed for the Phillies. Watch­ing the media cir­cus around their acqui­si­tions of Cliff Lee and Roy Hal­la­day were the sort of spell­bind­ing moves Philadel­phia teams sim­ply don’t make. We’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly been per­ma-sell­ers, unload­ing super­stars like Charles Barkley and Curt Schilling and get­ting noth­ing in return. We’re the sort of town where teams move into a rebuild­ing year that lasts a decade or more. In short, the Phillies are spoil­ing us by being so competitive!

I don’t know if the Phillies can make the play­offs this year, but I like that they’re try­ing to piece togeth­er a top-notch rota­tion that will be here for the next sev­er­al years. I still think they could make a strong run at the play­offs this year. They’ve shown they can do it in the past and if a team like the Rock­ies can go on a tear and snag the wild card the way they did in 2007, then why not us?

Make it excit­ing, Rube. Show us you’ve got what it takes to pull togeth­er a team for the ages with­out Pat Gillick look­ing over your shoul­der. I won’t even men­tion that you’re work­ing with your old boss Ed down in Hous­ton. It shows that you have the desire and will to build a cham­pi­onship team and that’s what this city wants as much as the cham­pi­onships them­selves. Go get Roy Oswalt for the 2010 run and see where we end up.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 0

I Have a Content Problem

My bro Mark sure has a way with words, huh?

When he’s not run­ning things at his day job or blog­ging up a storm at his Tum­blr pow­er­house, Yvynyl, he and I are usu­al­ly shoot­ing the breeze over instant mes­sen­ger. Recent­ly our con­ver­sa­tion turned to the sor­ry state of this blog, which has more or less sub­sist­ed in a state of neglect since I start­ed blog­ging way back in the aughts. Trag­ic, I know.

As usu­al, I blamed my Word­Press theme. He told me I did­n’t have a for­mat prob­lem, but that I had a con­tent prob­lem. He was right. For a guy who’s churn­ing con­tent to dri­ve activ­i­ty of one sort or anoth­er to earn his dai­ly bread, I do an awful job of keep­ing up with the lit­tle things. Does­n’t take much, real­ly, espe­cial­ly not now when a sim­ple pic­ture or a link and brief com­men­tary pass for blogging.

How times have changed. Hope­ful­ly I’m on the good foot now. Tell me what you think of the new theme!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 0