Take The Time To Remember

Elmer Gedeon
Harry O'Neill
Herman Bauer
Fred Beal
Lefty Brewer
Merrill Brown
Ordway Cisgen
Howie DeMartini
Harold Dobson
Frank Faudem
Robert Gary
Conrad Graff
Alan Grant
Nay Hernandez
Robert Holmes
Gordon Houston
Ernie Hrovatic
Harry Imhoff
Art Keller
Lester Kirkkala
Walt Lake
Walt Loos
Henry Martinez
John McKee
Marcus Milligan
John Muller
George Myers
Walt Navie
William Niemeyer
Hank Nowak
John Ogden (front office)
Jack Patteson
Charlie Percod
Metro Persoskie
Joe Pinder
Robert Price
Ernie Raimondi
Mike Sambolich
Bill Sarver
Ed Schohl
Frank Schulz
Marshall Sneed
Rod Sooter
Billy Southworth Jr.
Earl Springer
Gene Stack
Sylvester Sturges
John Tayler
Jimmie Trimble
Wirt Twitchell
Lewis Varanese
Art Vivian
Elmer Wachtler
Roman Wantuck
James Whitfield
Elmer Wright
Marion Young

Can anybody tell me who these people are? Almost all the names here had little or no notoriety except to their familes and hometowns. The list above is a partial list of major league, Negro league and minor league players who died during WWII. The list does not even include those who died in WWI such as Captain Eddie Grant, who played for the Cleveland Spiders, the Phillies, the Reds and the Giants, who was killed in the Argonne Forest in 1918 while on a rescue mission to save the 'Lost Battallion'. Nor does it include Dodgers minor leaguer Carl Tumlinson who was killed in action on April 7th, 1952, what should have been Opening Day, while serving in Korea. On June 1st, 1968, ,the same day the Atlanta Braves were getting pounded by the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-4 at Forbes Field, Braves minor leaguer Udell Chambers lost his life in a rocket attack near DaNang in Vietnam.

As we celebrate this Memorial Day Weekend with a barbeque, family and friends, please take time to remember those who served and gave their lives in service to their country. Whether they were ballplayers or not, whether you agree with the cause, conduct or command decisions of the war, please remember that almost all of those who died giving "The Last Full Measure" died doing their duty for something they believed in.
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Last season the Nashville Sounds did not have their 32nd roster move until July 17th, something this years Nashville Sounds accomplished in a month and a half less time. Usuaally, this is not a good thing. Stability in a roster usually means the guys are getting the job done and there is a much better opportunity to gel and bond as a team than if you have a constant shuttle between farm clubs. Despite the increase in transactions from last year, the Sounds still have a comparitively stable roster compared with many teams. The Brewers made some moves to try and shore up their pen, calling up Joe Winklesas from AA as well as sending down Ben Hendrickson, Justin Lehr and Chris Demaria. While these moves are great for Joe and bad for Justin, Ben and Chris, they do help the Sounds out quite a bit. Lehr was designated for assignment by Milwaukee and upon his return to Nashville, was put in the starting rotation and threw five solid innings. Many of you may remember that last season Lehr was in the Nashville pen and Jose Capellan was in the Sounds rotation. When those two switched roles, they both took off and Lehr became one of the best starters on the team. As for Ben Hendrickson, his demotion was unfortunate. Anytime a team tells you that you are going down your confidence takes a hit. In this case it was the second time for Ben but the Brewers were very adamant in telling everyone that Ben figures into their future. Ben had three bad starts, but did show promise in relief and showed he has the stuff to be in the bigs. Down here his stuff is electric and he has been much more effective because his confidence at AAA is much higher. After his one hit outing last week, there were some grumblings that Ben was a Four-A player. PFFFFTTT!!! is all I have to say to that. A Four-A player has good enough stuff to get AAA guys out but not big leaguers. Ben has big league stuff. His problem is apparently mental. He even admitted that he has trouble with the first inning. Once he conquers that he will be back in Milwaukee.

I apologize for not writing a blog about Tucson and Vegas, but what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Though I think I might be married now, I can't remember. Suffice it to say that Vegas was hot. Pitchfork-and-horned-upper-management hot. As for the games, while the saying goes, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" the same can not be applied to Cashman Field. "What is thrown in Cashman Field does NOT stay in Cashman Field". As for Tucson, it was also mind numbingly hot. Nelson Cruz did apparently find a really good Cuban restaurant, but it was so hot the memory of the restaurant name melted on the asphalt. I did manage to find a Mexican restaurant nearby for a Sunday (okay, Thursday) brunch and it was not Taco Bell. My server kept reccomending I try a Mexican Chardonnay Mimosa. White wine and OJ, hmmmmmm.....No. I know a little about wine and I am pretty sure that unless its champagne, mixing wine and juice is pretty awful. If you have to mix Tropicana in your chardonnay thats a bad sign. I asked the server about the white wine from the Chihuahua, Mexico

"The orange juice is good."

I'll pass.

I'm writing this blog from the press box of Principal Park in Des Moines, IA. The Sounds are leading the Cubs 3-0 in the top of the fourth. Brad Nelson has already homered twice and it's nice to see Brad get some good whacks at the ball. Not to mention he is doing it in front of his family from nearby Algona, IA.....Mark Johnson just hit a two run shot woohooo! The game is not being aired due to the Vandy SEC game on WNSR and a technical glitch with the Iowa network server that won't allow us to webcast the game either. This despite the best efforts of the Sounds own computer guru, Alex Short and the Iowa Cubs technical network experts as well. I guess my laptop is the Ozzie Smith (old, no power) to the Iowa Cubs Tony LaRussa. They just can't work together.

Some listener email:

from Matthew Bond: "On a different subject, what was the curfew rule that halted the Cinco de Mayo marathon at 18 innings?"

Thanks for the email Matt. Minor League Baseball does not allow any inning to start after 12:50 AM. It's a little known rule and was not really applied until about 1:15 AM. The Sounds were still tied with New Orleans 4-4 after 18 innings. The game was completed the next day after 24 innings, the Sounds lost 5-4. The game was the third longest in professional history at eight hours and seven minutes total. Oh, and the Sounds and the Zephyrs had to play another game right after that the same night they completed the 24 inning game.

Mike Valentine wrote: "I was looking over the Brewers website and noticed that Cory Hart is a coach for the Brewers A ball team in Brevard County. Is that Cory D.
Hart?"

Yep. Thats right Mike. Corey D. Hart was released in spring training and at the same time offered a coaching position as the hitting coach for the Brewers Single A club in the Florida State League. It's been a good year for Corey, he got a championship ring, a new career, he met and married a good friend of mine, Stacey Peterson (now Stacey Hart) and they are expecting a baby.

Thanks for the hellos to snmartin@chorus.net, as well as Molly, Ryan, Jesse Eichorn and Gator Jay.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend

Personally, I blame Jim Byers

Jim Byers is a great guy. He is a wonderful broadcaster for the Oklahoma Redhawks. A funny fellow he follows another Oklahoma celebrity's motto, Will Rogers, who said he never met a man he didn't like. Of course neither Jim nor Will Rogers ever met Jose Guillen, but I digress. Jim is a great guy and I am glad to call him a friend but if he gets within 100 feet of me I'm calling security. Here's why: I first met Jim in 2000 when I became the number one broadcaster for the Sounds. The day after I met Jim I wound up on an operating table. Fast forward a couple of years to 2003 and the Sounds are hosting the Redhawks for a four game series. I, of course, get the flu. In August! Skip along the chronological trail to 2005 and a series against Oklahoma City where I have a mini disc player stolen. This year I have been to Okie City once and had to make an emergency trip to the dentist. The great benefit to knowing Jim Byers is that I get a lot of really, really good painkillers. The bad news is that the painkillers are used to stop really bad pain. When we last visited Oklahoma City the tornado sirens went off after the second inning and a staff member came into the booth to inform me that a tornado had touched down about 30 miles to the west in a town called El Reno but that we were in no danger. I asked if Byers was in the building and upon being told that he was I told the staff member I was looking for shelter. Thankfully there were no injuries because, I believe, Jim Byers was 30 miles away!

Don't get me wrong. Jim is a great kind talented man, but I swear, If I wind up in one more dentists or doctors office, or jail, or operating table, or natural diaster, or if any firearms are discharged when he is near, I'm going to seal him in a lead coffin and drop him in the ocean. Not really, but I have priced them out. The curse of Byers must be stopped.

The Sounds are playing some amazingly good ball and except for one game, a game for the record books, have done all the fundemental things right. At 20-9 as of this writing its hard to find fault with any aspect of the Sounds game. The one game that all fell apart was one for the ages. And, in "One for the Ages" I mean that it took ages to finish the game. On Friday May 5th and 6th the Sounds played a 24 inning game. Chris Barnwell was clean shaven at the start and had a full beard at the end. The game lasted a total of eight hours and seven minutes. You could read "War and Peace" in eight hours and seven minutes! Not that you would want to, but you could. The game tied a record set in 1911. 1911. 1911! It also broke records for most at bats, most pitchers used and most strikeouts. the old record was 29 K's for both teams and we managed to etch our name in stone with 29 on our own! Between the Zephyrs and the Sounds there were 48 strikeouts which kept our home plate ump busy as a bee. Both teams were frustrated by the end of the game. Both teams went something like 0-for-a-gazillion or something with runners in scoring position and the interminable time passed without any help from New Orleans catcher Wiki Gonzalez who went out to the mound so many times I thought that was where the keg was. The worst part was that I broadcast every pitch while suffering from a cold.

The Sounds have been pretty lucky weatherwise. Every city we go to has had rain predicted for it, but except for Opening Night in Omaha we've managed to avoid bad weather. The same has been true for Nashville. The weatherman predicts 68 degrees and a 75% chance of rain, we get 80 degrees and clear skies. You may as well have chimps throw darts at a dartboard. "Let's see 20, 13, 4, 8 thats 45, add 3 thats 48.....The chimp says its going to be 48 degrees!" And when you walk out the next day and its 87 degrees and you go, "What....the....." They just say, "Well, what did you expect? It's a chimp!" My apologies to all Lewis Black fans for my blatant thievery.


A few emails I got.

From Danny H.

What ever happened to Steve Scarborough?

Steve, who was a pivotal part of the Sounds championship team last year decided to hang'em up and now enjoys life outside of baseball and works, I believe, in a family owned business.

From brewcrewguy: Where is Julio Mosquera, he made it up to the big leagues last year and now he's dissapeared?

Well brewcrewguy, Julio also hung up the spikes this off season, but he is still in baseball. I've heard that Julio is now the roving catching instructor for the New York Yankees, working in their minor league system. I was a little surprised, only because I thought that Julio would wind up coaching in the Brewers system. From what I could tell Gord Ash is a big Mosquera fan and I thought that he brought Julio over with the eventual goal of getting him into coaching. The Yankees are lucky to have him.

Thats all for now, keep the emails coming at

chuck@nashvillesounds.com