Carrie Underwood Goes Fishing, Open Greenkeeper Is A Rock Star & Urban Meyer Swims With Dolphin
I saw my very first game-ending triple play to win a playoff baseball game
Bases loaded, bottom of the 6th inning, my son Jack's team leading 2-0 with a trip out of the first round of the house ball playoffs on the line. The three hitter comes up, and he can clearly handle the bat. I heard the opposing team's manager tell the boy on first (Jack's best friend) that he's scoring on a hit -- there had been some shenanigans with Jack's team ignoring the one-base extra on an error gentleman's agreement rule -- and the coach clearly wanted a win to shove it back in the face of Jack's coach.
Anyway, the kid in the three spot gets a juicy fastball and pops it up to the shortstop, the best player on Jack's team, who knew what to do with the ball after he caught it. The boy on first takes off for second. Remember the coach said, 'You're scoring on a hit,' and it's 8U house ball. He's tagged out and then the boy who was on third had run home and was on the bench while all of this was going on.
It was total chaos. The shortstop has the catch, tags the runner from first and fires the ball over to the third baseman who misses the ball, it rolls to the fence, parents are screaming for the kid who didn't tag up to get back out on the field. Eventually, the 3B rounds up the ball, follows orders to step on third, the teenage ump rings up the runner for not tagging up and you have yourself a walk-off triple play for Team Purple.
TOTAL CHAOS.
Then we all went to get ice cream with the neighborhood crew, including the boy who was on first. The kids ran around a playground and life was just fine.
• The playoffs continue tonight against the yellow team. That's right, on league night. It means I have a very tiny mowing window today with a huge wall of water coming in Friday. I'm talking complete washout. This means I have to be strategic with my time this afternoon. This is when we separate those who are committed to the league from those who mow on Saturdays.
• Get the TNML starter kit!
• Bill C. saw the story on the fight at a Mississippi Buffalo Wild Wings and fired off an email:
First it was the fight at the Juicy Crab/Seafood a couple of months ago, now this. It’s getting to where its just as dangerous in the burbs as it is in the city. I’m just glad one of the mugshots was not an Ole Miss fan. Its’s that kind of Saturday night at a roadhouse behavior we’ve come to expect from MSU fans though.
Love the TNML updates. Back in the day with my zoysia grass, sprinkler system and Honda mower, I would have been right there with ya from spring training to the playoffs.
Keep up the good work.
He's referencing another Jackson, MS restaurant fight that I wrote about yesterday. Jackson is quickly turning into the restaurant fighting capital of the U.S. Have your phones charged up and ready if you roll through town and decide to get wings or crab legs.
• Scott K. has a TNML question:
I feel like a member of the TNML- but haven't settled my weekly ritual into that one day of the week just yet - several weeks of mowing to go in Dexter, MO so I will try and do better. However, I need to know if there is a standard of expectation, a rule, procedure, a MO when it comes to blowing the grass clippings in the street during each performance. Leave them in the streets without regard knowing the yard looks amazing? Let Mother Nature have her way with them? Use a leaf blower and get them back in fair territory?
Please give me some guidance on this Commissioner.
Commish response: Get them back into fair territory! Leave no clippings behind. Do the right thing and don't let a monsoon run those clippings down into the gutters. And then take care of your neighbors if they have clippings in the street. We have to be stewards. We have to set the tone. We're the pacesetters. Neighbors will fall in line if they see you giving that extra 10% effort.
Plus, my father would destroy me if he knew I left clippings in the street. Shame on the people who live out in the country who blow the grass out on the road and leave it. Pure laziness. Blow it back into fair territory.
• Roger C. got to meet his granddaughter and grandpa wore the softest shirt he could find:
