Hooters Sloan & The Hooters Girls Celebrate John Daly Signing A 2-Year Deal, The Reds Are On Fire & A Chilito!
The Rec Ball Boys® have officially accomplished my goal of building a pitching staff that can go six deep & we're going to need it to keep winning
Game 3: 20-3 win
Team record: 3-0
How we did it: Pitching, pitching, pitching and defense. My No. 1, my Greg Maddux, PG was on the mound last night after 10 days of pitching rest & he didn't miss a beat. He threw 62 pitches (41 strikes). I know, I know…I said 60 was the pitch max this season, but I did pull PG after 3 ⅓ when he could've easily kept going. You have to give me a little break going over by two pitches.
PG's line: 3 ⅓, 4 hits, 3 ER, 1 BB & 7 KO.
The bullpen went 2 ⅔, gave up two hits, 1 walk and had 2 Ks. I was even able to run out my 6th pitcher, a kid who had horrible control because his stride to the mound was way too long, which caused weird arm angles & balls sailing over the catcher or landing five feet in front of the plate. He shortened his stride and had a 1-2-3 inning to close the game. All three kids he faced hit the ball & that's all I want out of my 6th pitcher. No walks.
How we did it: DEFENSE. Those of you who've been through Rec Ball® know that it's rare at the league level to see 1-2-3 innings when the ball is being put in play. In the bottom of the 6th, I ran out Nate Dawg, one of my less experienced players, to play 2nd base. Guess who made the play on a scorching ground ball to end the game? Yep, Nate Dawg. Got the glove down, the ball scooted across the skin infield like it was on glass, he scooped, rushed the throw, nearly overthrew PG at 1st, but he held on and that was ballgame.
Daddy Ball Report:
Screencaps Jr. went 2-for-3, 2B, HR (inside-the-park) and 7 RBI.
In the top of the 6th, with the bases loaded, he hit the furthest ball I've ever seen hit on that field featuring 230-feet down the line with a 16-foot-high fence in left. He's starting to get so strong that when he connects, they're no-doubters. Last night's shot, which was hit to the warning track, was a stand-up triple to left that he legged into the HR on one errant throw.
Now, I know some of you are doing the math in your head and asking: Why'd you send him?
I NEED some of these boys who work so damn hard to have that life experience. He just absolutely destroyed a baseball. Go finish it off. Score. I want the boys to win the right way, but also have these bucket list moments for their memory banks. I want that fire burning inside. I want them chasing that athletic drug.
Conclusion: Through 18 innings, our pitching staff has given up just 16 walks. I'm ecstatic over that stat. That's a house ball rec team that I DID NOT DRAFT. For comparison, our hitters have drawn 45 walks.
At the end of the day, the boys are really playing well, having fun and winning. That's the goal, right?
The Trail of Dollar Generals & would I consider the Reds-Braves at Bristol?
— Dawgs Fan Sam has been out on the road & noticed all the DGs that I wrote about last summer:
I just got back home in Atlanta. Spent last week visiting Mom up in the Tazewell, TN area. The same area where you noticed the every five miles Dollar General on a prior family road trip. They actually just slapped a new DG Market after 2-3 months of construction!
Its a bit more of an hour drive to the Johnson City folks. That said, a note to them - you know that you will have close access to one of the best crop outputs in the US? Grainger County Tomatoes. Soon, the hot houses will start outputting to the local grocery stores. By July/August, even my local Kroger in Atlanta will have them.
https://farmflavor.com/tennessee/tennessee-crops-livestock/why-grainger-county-tennessee-tomatoes-are-so-tasty/
You probably know of Braves vs Reds Aug 2 at Bristol with Tim McGraw as pre-game concert. I think there should be Screencaps party. Team Clay (since his son is a hard core Braves fan), vs Team Joe (since you are cursed with Reds fandom).
https://www.bristolmotorspeedway.com/events/mlb-speedway-classic/
Bennigan's Death (?) Watch: Had lunch at a Bennigan's in Morristown. I think their recent financials were decent with their focus on food once again. Had a burger and it was nice. Lunch crowd was pretty good, but the demo was skewed GenX, Boomers, and Greatest Gen - so 50+ age. I never was a regular, but I never had a location near me, so...
Finally, did you watch Josh and Jase from England tour Houston and small towns of Louisiana on FB/TicTok? They just flew back to UK. Our local Americans treated them so well.
Kinsey:
- Breaking news: I'm not saying no to the idea of a Bristol trip, but if I'm going to do it, I have to take an RV and stay at the All-American Campground like 2016 when I went to the Battle at Bristol. My dad turns 70 in August. This might be the perfect birthday gift. Stay tuned.
Pickle lemonade?
— Has Mike T. in Idaho lost his mind? He sent over this recipe from the NYT for those of you who might want to dabble over the holiday weekend:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1026873-pickle-lemonade
Movie genres that grew on you over time
— Kevin says:
Joe, in answer to your question: What movie(s) of any kind of genre would you say you didn't like at first watch, but actually came to enjoy it on repeat viewings? For example, mine would be "Dazed And Confused."
Two come to mind...
I've only walked out of one movie in my life because the plot seemed so asinine and unrealistic that I looked at my three fraternity brothers who I was with and said, "that's it, I'm done" and we got up and left. It was The Professional and it was when the main "bad dude with a golden heart" (french guy Jean Reno) came walking up the road with a pre-teen Natalie Portman like he was going to train her how to be a hit man. Plus Gary Oldman was absolutely gonzo with his pill chomping weirdness. I caught it later on in life and gave it another shot and it was actually pretty good when you got past the accents and pure ridiculousness of the plot.
Then I had two daughters and tried watching it again and it seemed like a lot of weird pedo themes going on behind the plot. So in this case it went from terrible to, actually pretty cool based on violence and new appreciation of Gary's acting, back to terrible.
The other movie I nearly walked out of but rallied to one of my all time favorites and a Gen X top 5 quotable comedy featured sets early in the movie that looked worse than a porn production. It didn't deliver the big laughs in the first 20 minutes but rallied hard the rest of the way. If you think about how it looked on the big screen you may agree...but once they joked about selling a dead bird to a blind kid it was on for me. That movie...Dumb and Dumber. I quote it with my friends to this day.
Finally, Dazed and Confused is an all timer for me - all star cast, plausible plot, classic quotable lines from every character. How much fun and what was that set like?
I follow one baseball team - your local house team. Keep the updates coming. Is a championship team? like 1 in 1,000,000 - so you're saying there's a chance.
— Joe St.A. says:
The wife and I recently binge watched the 4 American Pie movies and laughed our asses off. I almost liked the last one, American Reunion, better than the original. Eugene Levy was stellar in all four.
If you are looking for a great music "movie" The Documentary about the making of a Country Rolling Stones tribute album "Stoned Cold Country" is very entertaining. It is free on the Roku channel as well as Tubi, or you can rent it on Amazon prime. If you even just kind of like the Stones you will enjoy the show.
What's a show that's a shell of what it once was?
— Kevin adds:
What about a "dad show" (as my kids call them) you started to watch that has at least 5 seasons, is now a shell of its former self. A show where deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want to watch the show. You need to watch the show, hoping maybe this time it captures the thing that got you started in the first place.
For me, Gold Rush Whitewater. Even my youngest says "get down to bedrock and possible life changing gold". Used to be fun. Now feels manufactured. Plus they never find enough gold. If Discovery wasn't starved for content it would have been cancelled a few seasons before Fred passed.
Fred Hurt is the Dick Trickle of "Gold Rush" TV. RIP Fred, RIP Dick.
Kinsey:
For a few years, I would watch the Bering Sea Gold show, or whatever it was called, where they'd go under the ice to suck up gold. There were some strong character storylines on that one like the old guy, Vern, who would blow through money thinking he was going to hit the mother lode.
Rick wants to buy me a beer
— Rick writes:
Yo Caps. I’ve got a little gift for you for creating such an awesome, engaging and entertaining community. Just tell me your favorite beer and an address to send it out to you. Thanks my man for keeping real.
Kinsey:
Rick, I appreciate the offer. I just went through corporate training on taking gifts. I'll have to run this up the chain to see if one beer is OK.
The kids grow up so fast
— Mike is shipping off one to the real world:
Our youngest son graduated Sunday on a perfect 67 degree partly cloudy day. His friends that play baseball have two more weeks of regular season. He starts his summer job Thursday. He and his friends revisited the football field last night at midnight for a late round of memories.
We will both miss the Friday Night Lights the most.
The Summer of Gardening
— Joe St. A. says:
I grew up with my Pop being an avid gardener which may be a bit of an understatement. He had every inch of our yard planted with something. Fruit trees, berries, squash, tomatoes, roses herbs, you name it. He would graft our Avocado and other various trees. My sisters and I always thought he just had green hands not just thumbs.
We would joke that plants would grow out of respect. In reality, he was a great researcher and lifelong student. He always had the "Sunset Western Gardening" book on his workbench or some other UC Extension garden book or seed catalog.
Short story long, I have found that Sunset Western Gardening is a great resource for planning your gardens and researching plants. I have found success with my raised beds and growing from seed a variety of plants.
One of the best webpages I have found for all levels of gardeners is Homestead and Chill https://homesteadandchill.com/, not sponsored.
This gal is amazing, she has tons of information. I could not say enough good things about her blog.
The National gardening Association Webpage is a fantastic resource as well, https://garden.org/.
There is a community section where you can submit questions and pictures and get real good help solving problems. I hopes this helps some of our people.
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And that is it for this gloomy Tuesday. Let's go have a great one and go strong until the long weekend kicks in.
Email: joe.kinsey@outkick.com or use my Gmail