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