From Victorville to Nashville

When I first started as a broadcaster I was in Adelanto, CA. I lived in nearby Victorville since at the time you couldn’t live in Adelanto seemingly unless you were in the prison or had a trailer in the middle of the desert. It was 1994 and I had just been promoted from Account Executive/ Number Two Broadcaster to Director of Broadcasting. The Mavericks had won the California League Championship in 93’ as a Marlins affiliate but the Marlins had left town for Brevard County (which, by the way, is now a Brewers farm team. In 1994 minor league baseball was in flux. There were too many minor league teams and not enough major league affiliations to go around and High Desert was in the unfortunate position of being the odd man out. Since High Desert was guaranteed a team due to the agreement between minor league and major league baseball High Desert became what was known as a co-op team. Major League baseball would be responsible for hiring a coaching staff and trainer and cobbling together an A-ball team from a variety of major league clubs.

What it meant in reality was that we had a team of players that nobody wanted or really cared about. There was a bit of talent. The Texas Rangers sent a pair of infielders to be our double play combination and they had good years. Hanley Frias, the shortstop actually had some big league time with Arizona, Texas and Minnestota and Mike Smith eventually changed his name to Alex Smith and became the Assistant Player Development Director for the Rangers during the Doug Melvin era. Much of the remaining roster SHOULD have changed their name to avoid the ridicule they might receive for their performance on the field.

There was Rod “Hot Rod” McCall. A 6’ 6” first baseman of prodigious power from the Cleveland Indians organization who also accumulated a prodigious amount of errors. If he broke his glove, they called a welder. There was Jerry Augustine, a Louisiana good ol’ boy from the Indians who was so menacing that for a time our manager thought his life was in danger if he visited the mound. Ramy Brooks was a catcher loaned out to the Mavericks by the Royals who was a pretty good guy with a bit of power. He had the largest fists I have ever seen on a man and I am sure they helped in his off season job which consisted of entering and winning tough man contests in Oklahoma. A scout once relayed a great story about Brooks:

Brooks liked to mix it up and was a pretty successful brawler at Oklahoma. He would take on anyone and everyone. One night campus security got a call that Brooks was in front of the football team dorms, bleeding, cut up, soused and challenging the football team to a fight. Ramy’s reputation was such that nobody in the football players dorm would come out and take him on. The school had had enough. Brooks was arrested and the baseball coach called his father and told him that Ramy had gotten into serious trouble and was looking at possible conviction and expulsion. Ramy’s father responded, “Are you telling me he might be red-shirted?” To Ramy’s credit, by the time he played for High Desert he had married and started a family and had cleaned up his act a great deal and was a pleasure to deal with.

The Mavericks finished with the worst winning percentage in minor or major league baseball. In a 136 game season the mighty Mavericks went 44-92, capped off by an 18 game losing streak in August. One unforgettable memory from that year was early August. The team had already tumbled to their eighth straight loss when the major leagues stopped playing ball. The Mavericks were playing in San Jose at the time and San Jose is roughly 30 miles away from their affiliate, the Giants. The Giants decided to broadcast a San Jose Giants game with no major league games available and a number of their broadcasters made the trip down. Hank Greenewald, Mike Krukow and Bob Brenly showed up at the ballpark in San Jose to air the game. They were accompanied by an engineer and Hank’s 19 year old son Doug, who is now the broadcaster for the Fresno Grizzlies. The press box was not very large (this was A-ball after all) so we came to an arrangement. Hank Greenewald do play-by play for the Giants the entire game along with either Brenly or Krukow. The broadcaster not on the air would sit in my booth and serve as my color commentator for a few innings. I was ecstatic. Here I was a first play-by-play guy and I was already working with big league announcers!

The San Jose Giants, predictably, beat the Mavericks like we had insulted their mothers. If there had been a slaughter rule, the game might never have started. The team didn’t/couldn’t hit, pitch or field. Watching our 4th reliever in the sixth inning left Mike Krukow almost speechless, they were that bad. Both tried their best to be kind to the team but it was like trying to put cherries on top of one of those horrible English kidney meat pies. In the end, the English still can’t cook worth a damn. Though Brenly and Krukow were never in my booth at the same time, they both had the same farewell when they left to go back on the air in the Giant’s booth. As each got up to leave they would pat me on the shoulder and say, “Don’t worry kid. The season’s almost over.” If I hadn’t been so excited just to be a baseball play-by-play broadcaster, I might have quit the business after one season. My love of the game and my job glossed over a lot of warts.

Fast forward 13 years to 2007 and the Nashville Sounds. The Sounds have won the division 3 out of the last four years, collected a championship ring and currently hold the best record in all of AAA baseball. From an 18 game losing streak, I have now been lucky enough to see two perfect games and two no-hitters in the last four years. I have watched prospect after prospect make the jump from Nashville to Milwaukee and Pittsburgh and become star players in the big leagues (How bout’ that Ryan Braun?). I have witnessed great stories and good people. I have seen a manger who deserved to go up to the big leagues get that opportunity (Trent Jewett) and another who deserves the chance (Frank Kremblas) as well as a manger who deserved the opportunity but has had to go overseas to sieze it (Marty Brown).

I’ve gone from average crowds of 1,000 to great promotions like Faith Night and Thirsty Thursday that draw over 7,000 on a regular basis. I’ve managed to go from cities like Visalia, Modesto, Rancho Cucamonga and Zebulon, NC to Nashville.

There is a great brand of baseball being played at Greer Stadium and I hope that all of you out there that read this little blog get a chance to see it. It will be worth your while.

"PARRA IS PERFECT! PARRA IS PERFECT!"

Well, I had another blog written but it seems pretty useless now.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe helping all those old ladies cross the street or rescuing cats from trees has paid off in good karma. I’ve now seen not one, but two perfect games. No man can be this lucky. I’m half expecting a piano to fall on my head to balance out the universe.

It doesn’t take any skill to watch a perfect game but it sure does take a lot of skill to throw a perfect game and Manny Parra put all of those skills on display last night in Round Rock. In just his second AAA game Parra set down 27 batters in a row and made it look easy. He struck out a career high 11 batters and the Sounds defense did the rest.

It was obvious early on that Parra had good stuff. He struck out the first two batters on six pitches and threw strike one to the third batter before retiring him on a fly ball to center. When Humberto Quintero took the first pitch high to start the bottom of the sixth inning it was the first time all game that Parra had not thrown a first pitch strike! He only had three batters get to a ball three count and worked past all three.

The Sounds defense behind him was solid but had no tough plays to make. When Wasdin threw his perfect game in 2003 he had two stellar plays turned in by third baseman Mike Gulan. In Parra’s perfecto you could see the players behind him increase their effort with every out nearer to the end he came. Pop ups in foul territory became a life and death effort for Brad Nelson. Fly balls into the gap were treated like Faberge’ Eggs. The closest the Express came to a base hit was Barry Wesson’s tapper down the third base line that would have been a hit……….if it stayed fair. I still think the groans of the 8,600 fans in attendance when they saw how far Joe Dillon had to go to get to that ball somehow pushed it foul. And lets talk about the fans. My hats off to the fans of the Round Rock Express. They cheered for their team through the early innings when the Sounds held just a 1-0 lead, the lone run coming in the top of the first when Callix Crabbe ran through catcher Humberto Quintero to score from second on a Joe Dillon single to left, but as the game wore on they began to realize that something special was happening. Something that makes you forget that your team is losing. Something that transcends “Root, root, root for the home team”. Parra received an ovation after setting down consecutive batters 22, 23 and 24, received a standing ovation when he came to the plate in the ninth and cheered him as if he were one of their own when the perfect game was complete.

When first baseman Brad Nelson closed his glove around Jesse Garcia’s pop up to end the third nine-inning perfect game in the over 100 year history of the Pacific Coast League the celebration began. Catcher Mike Rivera, who would be driving Manny’s car if he could come up with a way to signal for it since Parra seemingly never shook him off all night, jumped into Parra’s arms. The players streamed out of the dugout and the bullpen and surrounded Manny, who suddenly had to worry if his greatest moment might end with Laynce Nix landing on his knee, and celebrated just as hard as when they won the PCL title two years ago. In one moment, the years of setbacks due to shoulder and back problems ceased to exist. Yours truly was screaming “PARRA IS PERFECT! PARRA IS PERFECT!” Fans and reporters gathered around the Sounds dugout to get a few quotes from Manny and, of course, all the fans wanted an autograph. I think they all got them.

As for me, after wrapping up the post game show I just sat there staring at the field, still not quite accepting what I had just seen. All the other players and coaches had left for the clubhouse. The only one left was the man of the hour Manny Parra.

The last thing I saw before I shut out the lights in my booth was Manny, the only player on the field, carrying his glove and making the long walk towards the left field corner and the clubhouse entrance. He had entered the field with something to prove and 27 batters later the field belonged to Manny Parra and Manny alone.

Ahhhhhh........ The Life

Well dear reader. It's been a while. Why have I not written a blog in a while? Well, with the schedule we've had I've had about as much time to write a blog as somebody who can't think of an analogy about somebody who has no time to write a blog.

That's a lie..................I'm lazy.

The schedule has been tough with the Sounds last road trip consistimng of three 10:30 AM games that came right on the heels of a 10:30 AM game at Greer. Usually when you have so many day games following night games following travel days you contribute toone of the favorite baseball pastimes. Bitching about your schedule.

[FOUR OLD MEN WITH CREAKY KNEES AND BLOWN OUT SHOULDERS SIT AROUND A TABLE WITH LARGE CIGARS AND SNIFTERS OF 20 YEAR OLD TAWNY PORT]

1ST BALLPLAYER: I remember one year we had it rough. There were four of us in a three bedroom home and everyday we would all pile into a beat up old Cadillac and drive to the ballpark for early work and our manager would yell at us all the time. The clubbie would feed us chicken wings every day and we wound up a game under .500 that year.

2^ND BALLPLAYER: Bedroom’s? You had it easy. There were six of us living in a two room trailer. And we slept on the floor. Each day we would get up at 9:00 AM and all six of us would pile into a ’81 Chevette and drive to the ballpark where we had to rake the infield every day while the manager, drunk off his ass, would call us names and fine us for stupid stuff, a hundred dollars every time, and he would work the bullpen each and every night, sometime throwing guys five days in a row. We had cold soup after every game and we finished 20 games out of first.

3^rd BALLPLAYER: A FLOOR?........Luxury. There were 20 of us sleeping in the groundskeepers shed and every day we’d get up at five in the morning and pick up all the garbage in the stadium. Then the manager would release five or six of us just for fun and tell the press how bad the rest of us sucked. Then he would bean us in the head during batting practice and fine us for not getting out of the way. Since we were always short players, I had to play first and second base and we lost over 100 games. Aftre the game the clubbie would feed us leftover hotdogs from the previous game.

4^th BALLPLAYER: You had a shed? Oh! What we would have given for a shed! There were 24 of us, plus the roving catching instructor living in a shoebox in the middle of the road! Every day we would get up at midnight, an hour after the previous game ended. Eat a bowl of hot gravel and we would lick the road clean with our tongues. Then we would report to the ballpark, all of us on one unicycle, and run 20 miles while the manager beat us about the head and neck with a baseball bat and fine us a thousand dollars for every mile. We were so bad we lost almost every game. 130 that year I believe. The only games we won were when the other team would refuse to take the field because they felt so sorry for us……….But we were glad to have a job then.

1^st BALLPPLAYER: Well, when I said home, it was a home to “us”. We lived in a paper bag in the bottom of a septic tank. Really, there were 146 of us, all the rosters from AAA to Rookie ball, and thirty guys on rehab recovering from gangrene. Every day we would get up four hours before the previous game ended and do PFP’s for 28 hours. Then we would clean the septic tank with a tissue. Then we would crawl on our hands and knees to the ballpark and pay the manager $500.00 just for the privilege of playing. We lost every game and were charged with 60 extra losses just because by the league and after the game the manager would cut our heads off with a dull knife.

2^nd BALLPLAYER: But!........We were happy then.

3^rd BALLPLAYER: Try telling that to the rookies today.

4^th BALLPLAYER: They won’t believe you

1^st BALLPLAYER:……….I had to room with Emil Brown.

OTHER BALLPLAYERS: Eeeeewwwwwwhhhh!

Sometimes I have to check myself and realize that I have a job that most people would kill for and I get to watch baseball every day for a living. As Willie Stargell once said, “I ain’t complaining. I asked for this job.”

Well, with the Sounds currently two games out of first as of this writing(boo Iowa), and two games over .500, things could be worse. The roughest part of the schedule is over (On the road for 16 of 20 days) and the Sounds are still hanging in there. The lineup has been boosted by the addition of Laynce Nix. Andy Abad is hitting A-Good (Yeah, I know, it’s a stupid joke but hello? Lazy? Me?). Andy is a veteran ballplayer who not only holds down a job playing first, left and occasional DH, he also helps hold the clubhouse together. Like Brent Abernathy and Pat Borders before him, Abad is the clubhouse veteran who makes sure the young players act right and behave. You know, say something to the AAA rookie who leaves his smelly shower shoes in the middle of the clubhouse or the young guy who doesn’t know how much he should tip the clubbie, etc. Andy is also the guy who has been around and if he doesn’t like something, he’ll say so. The thing is, the more he disapproves of an aspect of his working environment, the better he hits. For example, Andy isn’t too fond of our batters eye. Nobody is. It should be a bit bigger and even the flat green paint they use to cover it tends to reflect light on those Sunday afternoon games. Andy shows his displeasure by hitting everything off of the batters eye as if he is trying to get a head start in knocking it down.

The prospects are prospecting. I keep thinking I’ll have to edit this blog every time the phone rings. Yovanni Gallardo and Ryan Braun really have nothing left to prove in AAA. They are ready for the majors. Braun, after 12 days off with a sore left wrist is back to hitting bombs and Gallardo continues to pitch lights out. Gallardo is 21 going on 31. I don’t exaggerate when I say he is likely the best pitching prospect I have seen in a Sounds uniform and that includes Kris Benson and Bronson Arroyo. Yovanni has the rare ability of having a great arm and knows how to use it. He can throw 95 but realizes that he doesn’t always have to. He’ll generally start hitters out with an 89-90 mph fastball and once he gets two strikes on you he’ll turn the dial up to 11 and blow one past you at 94-95. The hitters have a better chance of hitting the ball out of the catchers hand as he throws it around the horn than they do Gallardo’s. With Doug Melvin in town the last few days I expect I will soon see a luggage tag on their equipment bags for Milwaukee soon.

One more game left at home, Thirsty Thursday where Greer Stadium turns into the biggest nightclub in Nashville for five innings and then it’s off to Albuquerque, a city with far to many “q’s” in its name. I’ll try and get off my lazy butt and write another blog soon. Ripping off Monty Python isn’t too hard.

Here are a couple of bands to check out. The first are the Lower Broads. While they may not like the comparison I think of the New York Dolls every time I see them. They have a good time on stage and so do their fans. It’s high energy and its good for you. Like Red Bull.

The other is november. These guys have gotten better with every album and Hunter Briley is one of the best frontmen in town, even if he is a crappy bartender who has to ask the customer what goes in a Jack and Coke. They are playing a bunch of dates around town these days and you should go check them out.

I Look Like I’m Having a Stroke, I’m Missing Cake But, At Least The Sounds are in First!

It’s been a great start to the season. Seriously. It feels like 2005 all over again. In 2005 the Brewers put together a AAA roster that included potential superstars Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks and they were as good as advertised. Home runs, stolen bases, incredible athleticism, the whole package. After one month you just looked down on the field and you could see a potential championship. It didn’t hurt that at this time in ’05, Corey Hart was on the verge of being sent back to AA he had such a horrible start and beginning in May hit the switch and started hitting line drives everywhere.

In 2007 the same feeling is starting to overtake me. The Sounds have won six in a row as of this blog and are firing on all cylinders, except hitting with men in scoring position but you can’t have it all. Where would you put it? The pitching staff is tops in the league and the bullpen is shortening the game by three innings almost every time out. The two top prospects the Brewers put in Nashville are playing like top prospects. Opposing pitchers are finding out fast that pitching Ryan Braun down and away does not work all that well, he just hits homers the opposite way. Iowa found out tonight that trying to jam Braun will result in Braun getting a free guitar for bouncing one off the scoreboard. Pitch him away? Nope. Pitch him in? Ouch. I’ve been in baseball for 16 years and the only place left is down the middle……….Let me know how that works out.

Yovanni Gallardo had a rough first start. He was a little nervous and was leaving some pitches up and in AAA those get hit…hard. He shooed the butterflies away before his second start and struck out 12 New Orleans Zephyrs in six innings. It helped that New Orleans hitters somehow got the idea that major league baseball expanded the strike zone. Previously it had been from the knees to just below the letters, but the Mets AAA club was operating under the impression that the strike zone was being called from just below Grants Tomb to the moon. I really did think that Gallardo would throw a fastball and Lastings Milledge would hit himself in the head. Milledge is the big prospect for the Mets but from what we saw, he is to outfield defense what blenders are to brain surgery. In his first game he managed to strike out on a pitch over his head, butcher a fly ball and get picked off of first. The only way he could have hurt the Zephyr’s worse would have been to run over pitching prospect Phillip Humber in the dugout and then take the mound and give up JD Closser’s game deciding homer. That would have been the …. I don’t know…quadfecta or whatever word means screwing up each and every aspect of the game.

Back to Gallardo. He’s real good. Good velocity, good control, unflappable, keeps the ball low and knows what he is doing. Fun to watch. He even fields his position well. He’s put in two very solid efforts and while it is great to see Gallardo and Braun excel at AAA, it also means we will probably lose them all that sooner to the big leagues.

The Tennessean did a very nice feature on me in Mid April. In my ten years with the Sounds I had never had one written about me and it was a lot of fun. Finally a forum for my communist views! I tried to explain to the reporter, the very patient Bryan Mullen, that Leprechauns really were living in my attic, but he cut that out of the article. He asked me about my background which turns out to be one of lying (that’s how I got into the biz) vice (I bartended in the off-season for the last five years) and addiction (I am a huge Jane’s Addiction fan) I didn’t get a chance to wax poetic about my love of baseball and of Nashville, the closest I came was “Boston Baked and Fried has awesome Buffalo Grouper Tenders!” Not exactly Vin Scully is it?

Then came the bad part. The picture. There is a very good reason I am on the radio. I can’t smile for the camera. I always look like I’m having a stroke and the longer I have to smile the more I look like I ran face first into a patio door. They tried everything to get me to look normal to no avail. I looked like I needed sleep while at the same time having my face screw up like I swallowed a lemon. Luckily the article was fun and I didn’t come off as the curmudgeonly lunatic I really am and even my mom liked it (Though she did say the picture was horrible. Whose fault is that? Huh Mom?)

We are going through a craptastic part of the schedule. Gone for eight days, home for four, gone for eight, home for four……Wait! What the hell?!. Greer Stadium may not be as nice At&T Bricktown Ballpark but at least I get to sleep in my own bed! I had to leave my dog a picture of me so he’d remember that I own the place. The worst part is that some music festival I have never heard of is taking place May 11^th and 12^th at Riverfront Park and I will be in Colorado Springs (lucky me). One of my favorite bands, Cake, is playing. They are an incredibly inventive talented group who somehow turned Gloria Gaynor’s 70’s disco anthem “I Will Survive” into a very cool song. I will hate to miss them but Colorado Springs awaits! (Kill me now……please).

Here are two more bands you should go see. They play country mostly, though one plays a lot of covers and not enough of their amazing originals and the other plays on the road so much I never get to see her unless I’m in North Dakota or Jackson Hole, WY and lets face it, who is? In any case they are both incredible, beautiful and don’t run the other way when they see me.

The first is Magnolia, you can catch them in various Nashville locales, the other is Marci Mitchell and you should catch her when she is in town because she doesn’t get to play here much though she promises that will change.

Opening Day is Here! (TAPS WATCH) What Took You So Long?

In 1955 Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell wrote an essay/poem for “The Sporting News” on Opening Day. Harwell was only a teenager in Atlanta, GA when he convinced “The Sporting News” that he was a much older much wiser man and deserved to cover the Atlanta Crackers for the number sports paper in the country. Harwell later became the voice of the Crackers and made the move to the big leagues with the Dodgers. He became a state icon in Michigan after he moved to Detroit with his famous catchphrases such as “He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by.” when a batter took strike three, or when a foul ball was hit into the stands at Tiger Stadium exclaiming, “That was caught by a fan from_______” and inserting the name of a nearby town or city.

The essay/poem he wrote became so popular that “Sporting News” ran it every Opening Day for years, right inside the front cover. As we get ready to start the 2007 season and a chance for a thrird straight division title I can’t think of any way to express what baseball means to me and thousands of other fans than to reprint this poem, titled “A Game for all America” by Ernie Harwell. It doesn’t hurt that this poem, considered a baseball masterpiece makes mention of Sulphur Dell.

----------------------

A Game For All America

By Ernie Harwell

Baseball is President Eisenhower tossing out the first ball of the season; and a pudgy schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. Its the big league pitchers who sin in night clubs. And the Hollywood singer who pitches to the Giants in spring training.

A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from his dugout -- that's baseball. So is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running out one of his 714 home runs with mincing steps.

It's America, this baseball. A re-issued newsreel of boyhood dreams. Dreams lost somewhere between boy and man. It's the Bronx cheer and the Baltimore farewell. The left-field screen in Boston, the right-field dump at Nashville's Sulphur Dell, the open stands in San Francisco, the dusty, wind-swept diamond at Albuquerque. And a rock home plate and a chicken wire backstop -- anywhere.

There's a man in Mobile who remembers a triple he saw Honus Wagner hit in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old sandlot pitcher in Cheyenne is the new "Walter Johnson."

It's a wizened little man shouting insults from the safety of his bleacher seat. And a big, smiling first baseman playfully tousling the hair of a youngster outside the players' gate.

Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered -- or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. Here the only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. Color is something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.

Baseball is Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, asking his Brooklyn hosts to explain Dodger signals. It's player Moe Berg speaking seven languages and working crossword puzzles in Sanskrit. It's a scramble in the box seats for a foul -- and a $125 suit ruined. A man barking into a hot microphone about a cool beer, that's baseball. So is the sportswriter telling a .383 hitter how to stride, and a 20-victory pitcher trying to write his impressions of the World Series.

Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words. A carnival without kewpie dolls.

A housewife in California couldn't tell you the color of her husband's eyes, but she knows that Yogi Berra is hitting .337, has brown eyes and used to love to eat bananas with mustard. That's baseball. So is the bright sanctity of Cooperstown's Hall of Fame. And the former big leaguer, who is playing out the string in a Class B loop.

Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Game to game. Series to series. Season to season.

It's rain, rain, rain splattering on a puddled tarpaulin as thousands sit in damp disappointment. And the click of typewriters and telegraph keys in the press box -- like so many awakened crickets. Baseball is a cocky batboy. The old-timer whose batting average increases every time he tells it. A lady celebrating a home team rally by mauling her husband with a rolled-up scorecard.

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby, the flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an overaged pixie named Rabbit Maranville, and Jackie Robinson testifying before a Congressional hearing.

Baseball? It's just a game -- as simple as a ball and a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, business -- and sometimes even religion.

Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chagrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppy eludes two groundskeepers and the fastest outfielder. And Pathos, dragging itself off the field after being knocked from the box.

Nicknames are baseball. Names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is a sweaty, steaming dressing room where hopes and feelings are as naked as the men themselves. It's a dugout with spike-scarred flooring. And shadows across an empty ballpark. It's the endless list of names in box scores, abbreviated almost beyond recognition.

The holdout is baseball, too. He wants 55 grand or he won't turn a muscle. But, it's also the youngster who hitch-hikes from South Dakota to Florida just for a tryout.

Arguments, Casey at the Bat, old cigarette cards, photographs, Take Me Out to the Ball Game -- all of them are baseball.

Baseball is a rookie -- his experience no bigger than the lump in his throat -- trying to begin fulfillment of a dream. It's a veteran, too -- a tired old man of 35, hoping his aching muscles can drag him through another sweltering August and September.

For nine innings, baseball is the story of David and Goliath, of Samson, Cinderella, Paul Bunyan, Homer's Iliad and the Count of Monte Cristo.

Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch. And then going home to Harlem to play stick-ball in the street with his teen-age pals -- that's baseball.

And so is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot-roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, winter trades, "Down in Front," and the "Seventh-Inning Stretch." Sore arms, broken bats, a no-hitter, and the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a highly paid Brooklyn catcher telling the nation's business leaders: "You have to be a man to be a big leaguer, but you have to have a lot of little boy in you, too."

This is a game for America, this baseball!

Its still the best poem I ever read.

One of the greatest things about living in Nashville is the music. It reminds me a lot of a minor league stadium in the familiar way it is a part of the city. Whether you run into Mark Knopfler on the street or see Neil Young jump on stage at The Mercy Lounge it’s a cozy music community without all the pretension of an L.A. or New York. Traveling to other cities you realize how lucky you are to have so many musical choices each and every night. I should have done this a long time ago, but Brian Anderson of the Brewers beat me to it in his blog at milwaukeebrewers.com. It’s a great idea and I hope to steer some of you towards some bands and singers who not only make music I like, but are also friends of mine that I have made in my ten years in Nashville as a broadcaster and bartender.

Kim Collins and her husband Scott have been friends of mine for more than four years and its hard to meet two nicer people in this city, or two more talented muscicians.

Scott and his brother front a band that has gone far too long without releasing a new album and that is the only bone I have to pick with him. They are: Pale Blue Dot

Kim Collins not only contributes to Pale Blue Dot but she and Scott have formed their own duo called The Smoking Flowers. I’ll probably link them someday soon, but this time I am going to link Kim’s new band which evolved from her old band, a Nashville favorite called Kim’s Fable. The new band is called Walls of White and they just held their new self titled debut album CD release party at The Basement on April 4^th .

Check them out.

Oh! And PLAY BALL!

P.S. Don't forget to email any questions you may have to chuck@nashvillesounds.com

Spring Training, AKA, My In-N-Out Pilgrimage to Cheeseburger Mecca

A couple weeks back I went for my annual check-up. I found that I was in horrible shape. My organs were too busy telling me I was number one to actually do their job and had gone on strike, not for better wages, but for a better host. Somebody who would actually treat their body as the temple it truly was rather than the repository for horrible foods and drink it had become. I vowed to change. I quit drinking soda, cut way back on drinking period and started eating more salads and going back to the gym.

This blog is about my trip to Phoenix and how I trashed that vow like it stole something.

In reality it wasn’t that bad. I still cut way back on drinking, avoided soft drinks and managed to lug a heavy backpack and even heavier case around Arizona. My dietary lapse, however, can be blamed on one location. In-N-Out Burger. This hamburger chain, located only in California, Las Vegas and Phoenix is the Mecca of fast food burger joints. The fries are fresh cut, the burgers are perfectly broiled the shakes are that perfect consistency between chocolate milk and Sakrete Cement Mix. We arrived on Saturday and managed to eat at this Hamburger Valhalla Saturday, Sunday, and twice Monday (on the way to Tucson and when we got back to Phoenix). Tuesday we ate at IHOP which, by the way, doesn’t have a very international feel. Everyone spoke English, nobody tried to charge me $100 euros for a two block cab ride and being an actual American did not cause a chorus of boos and hisses. Though I must admit our syrup steward was exceptional. It’s ironic that we ate almost all our meals at eateries with names that denote movement, yet contributed greatly to our future immobility. Besides, Doug Scopel, our outstanding Media Relations Director and my traveling companion on this trip ate there more than I did.

Oh! Yeah. And we watched some baseball.

The Sounds parent club, the Milwaukee Brewers, hold spring training at Maryvale Baseball Park on the northwest side of Phoenix. If you ask for directions to Maryvale and somebody tells you to take a left at the strip mall........................smack them. Phoenix is one BIG strip mall after strip mall after strip mall after PETCO after strip mall. If the Roman Catholic Church has an arch diocese in Phoenix I’d be willing to bet its shoehorned into a strip mall between a nail salon and a Blimpie’s. Maryvale Baseball Park is a pretty nice facility set back in a residential neighborhood. The minor league complex is a nice series of offices and conference rooms with a pretty good workout facility and four fields behind them that back up against each other with a tower in the middle that coaches and instructors will sit up in and try and view all the games going on.

After picking up our press passes from Mike Vasallo, the ever helpful Brewers Media Relations Director, we headed off to Mesa, Arizona and the Chicago Cubs complex to watch the Brewers Triple-A club (that would be the Sounds) take on the Cubs Triple- A club (Iowa. Duh.) It turned out to be a pretty good game if you were a Brewers fan and a pretty typical one if you rooted for the Cubs. Yovanni Gallardo pitched into the 2^nd inning before leaving with what appeared to be a blister and Alec Zumwalt threw well in relief.

After the game we stopped at In-N-Out Burger.

After lunch we attempted to check into the motel without any luck. Our reservation had gotten messed up and we wound up having to go to another motel. This worked out well because the new hotel was closer to Maryvale and there was an IHOP right down the street.

Sunday we managed to get a bunch of work done filming segments for “Sounds On Demand”, our monthly news magazine. We were lucky we had a very patient cameraman in Tim George who was very patient with the numerous times I messed up. A typical shot would go something like this:

ME: Welcome to Maryvale Stadium…

TIM: It’s Maryvale Baseball Park

ME: Welcome to Maryvale Stadium in sunny Tucson, Ariz….

TIM: We’re in Phoenix

ME: Phoenix Tennessee!

TIM: Arizona

ME: Where the grass is always greener, the beer is always colder and the something is always something……..

TIM: Let’s try that again

ME: Sky is always bluer!

TIM: Still rolling…..

We did manage to get those shots done and we also put a number of interviews in the can. We interviewed Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder and Cory Hart on camera (watch Corey Hart try and keep a straight face as Prince and Rickie do a goofy dance off-camera). We then headed up to the front office where we sat down for interviews with Brewers GM Doug Melvin and Assistant GM Gord Ash. Melvin burst one of my bubbles when I asked him if promising Bill Hall he could stay in one position was a factor in Hall signing a multi year extension.

“No, I think 24 million dollars was a big factor”

I am now of the opinion that Doug Melvin is an unidealisitic realist. Poor Doug.

Monday brought about the task I had really come down to Phoenix for. I was scheduled to broadcast two spring training games back to Nashville. Game one would be in Tucson, AZ at Tucson Electric Park. I offered to drive because 1) I have been to the park before and nominally know my way and 2) Doug Scopel drives like he is getting paid by the hour.

Having made the 116 mile drive in just under 23 minutes (I was driving) I set up to broadcast the Brewers v. Arizona Diamondbacks. This game would feature two teams who have made numerous deals in the past few years with the end result being that the Brewers have Chris Capuano, Dave Bush, Craig Counsell, Johnny Estrada, Zach Jackson Tony Graffanino, Claudio Vargas and Greg Aquino from the Diamondbacks or from trades involving players they snookered away from the Diamondbacks, while the Diamondbacks have Dave Krynzel, a hamster named “Squeaky” and a pet rock. As soon as I walked in rolling my equipment case towards the elevator, I passed Tom Haudricourt, the Brewers long time beat writer in a hurry to get somewhere. Tom was racing to get down on the field to get quotes from Brewers management about a deal that had just been completed minutes before, the trade of Brady Clark to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for left-handed reliever Elmer Dessens (another former Sound, albeit for just one game back in 1998) Being around the core of major league baseball when headlines are made gives you a rush that is hard to describe. It may explain why the writers were almost sprinting down to the field as if they just heard the ice cream truck coming.

The game was a beauty if you were a Brewers fan. Vargas pitched extremely well with no hits allowed until Justin Upton tripled to right center. Vinny Rottino, “The Pride of Racine”, leading off the top of the third inning with a solo home run and capping the third with a two run double to put the game away. Tony Gwynn and Corey Hart both doubled so the Nashville contingent was well represented. It was a good way to see if the broadcast equipment and the broadcaster still worked. The equipment was in better form.

After the game and an aborted attempt to find an In-N-Out Burger in Tucson (“COMING SOON” just doesn’t cut it guys) we drove back to Phoenix. Actually, I drove because A) In-N-Out Burger was in Phoenix and B) Doug Scopel drives like he’s going into brain surgery. Seriously, if I drove that slow I’d wear a “World’s Greatest Grandpa” t-shirt.

Tuesday was more of the same, just in Phoenix. The Brewers hosted the Oakland A’s and besides a mix up in who was using which booth (possession is 9/10ths of the law and I was there first! Sorry Robert) things went well. I shook off the some of the rust from the off season and managed to keep the mistakes down to my average of 376………per inning. The big news Tuesday was the trade of former Sounds ace Ben Hendrickson to the Kansas City Royals for a catcher named Maxim St. Pierre. This, by the way, is one of the greatest adult film names ever invented. He shouldn’t be catching; he should be in a cheesy movie like “Bikini Summer II”. I hope this trade will give Ben a new start. He absolutely dominated at this level and earned a few call ups to the Brewers, but could not get much done when he was there. A new organization, city, team, etc. should be good for all concerned. I honestly think that we will see Ben in a long relief role in KC by the end of the year. By the way, the Brewers lost 8-3.

So now we are back in Nashville ready, or not, for another season. I can’t wait for the umpire to yell “Play Ball!” on Opening Day. I can’t wait for the smell of popcorn and funnel cakes, the crack of the bat, the sight of fans entering the ballpark and the sound of Chuck Ross yelling “I seeeeeeeeee you Chuck Valenches! I seeeeeee you!...............Touch my buckle.”

Really. I can’t wait.

Grading the Brewers Offseason.

I was a horrible student in high school. I rarely showed, rarely cared, rarely saw the benefits of an education. So, of course, now I work in minor league baseball and write a blog for the Nashville Sounds and I, YES I, I get to grade Doug Melvin on his offseason. Oh, the irony.


Not that he is going to much care what I write. I work as a broadcaster in AAA, he is the GM of a major league team. He is a member of the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame, I once threw a guy out of a bar in Dallas, TX. Like the Manchurian Candidate, he could speak a codeword in the clubhouse and five guys would come up to my booth with baseball bats and blank expressions and hit me repeatedly (unless they are pitchers. Everyone knows they can't hit anything). The point I'm trying to make is that he could give a rat's tookus what I say. I could write that he should have traded his entire team, the young infield included, for an empty BIC pen and a broken bat and it would not matter. None of these "organizational grades" matter.........But they're fun and I'm going to do one anyways.

Overall I have to agree with the experts in that the Brewers had a great offseason. The brightest thing Melvin probably did was realize that he didn't need a lot of pieces. He just needs to keep the pieces he has healthy. The Brewers had good players last year. A staff ace in Sheets, a good reclamation project in Ohka. One of the best young inflields in the game with Fielder, Weeks, Hardy and Koskie. A power closer in Derrick Turnbow (Franklin in the house!!!.....ahem.....sorry) and two franchise cornerstones in left and right with Lee and Jenkins. The Brewers were primed to have their first winning season since "Joanie Loves Chachi" was on the air.

Helmuth von Moltke once said "No plan survives contact with the enemy". He should have amended that quote to include, "And either do Hardy, Weeks, Sheets, Ohka and Koskie!" When you have your staff ace and 75% of your infield go down with injuries you have to wonder what you did wrong in a previous life. In Melvin's case I'm willing to bet in a former life he was Neville Chamberlin. Nobody had worse luck than the Brewers. First, Hardy injured his ankle on a slide at homeplate, then Koskie slid for a foul ball and suffered post-concussion symptoms that linger to this day. Weeks tore a ligament sheath in his wrist and Sheets and Ohka suffered long injuries as well. With the exception of Weeks, who has now had two straight years of nagging injuries, none of the injuries had past histories or are expected to repeat themselves. For Rickie Weeks, his strong wrists may be a concern, but that might be it. You don't go out and replace those guys, you get them back out on the field.

The Brewers addressed some needs. By dealing Doug Davis at the height of his trade value, the Brewers got a good hitting catcher in Johnny Estrada as well as a major league starter in Claudio Vargas and a major league reliever in Aquino. Melvin also managed to get a pair of backup infielders with Graffanino and Craig Counsell to deepen the bench and play third base until Ryan Braun is ready. Then of course there was Jeff Suppan. Apparently four years and 42 million dollars is the going rate for a pitcher barely over .500 who is expected to slot into the 4 hole in the brewers rotation. And in other news, while Jet Blue cancels more flights out of JFK, monkeys are flying out of my butt. Face it fans, that is the going rate for middle of the rotation starters. Not to mention starters with a record of throwing a bunch of innings and NLCS MVP's to boot. He couold go out and win 15-16 games with an ERA around 4.00 and help get this team over .500. If he gets this team six games over .500, it might be enough to get into the payoffs!

The Brewers are deeper than last year with addition of Graffanino and Counsell and the pitching staff looks a bit deeper as well. In 2006 when Sheets and Ohka went down with injury, the replacements went 6-18 with pitchers such as Hendrickson (who did perform well as a replacement reliever) and Eveland, who was dealt to Arizona as part of the Johnny Estrada deal. It wasn't until option three rolled around (Carlos Villanueva) that a suitable spot starter was found and he is ready to fill that same role again.

One of the most puzzling pieces of the Brewers 2006 pitching staff was Derrick Turnbow. He took over the closers role in 2005 and was well on his way to another fine season when he lost "it" whatever it was. It was like watching that guy on "Wide World of Sports" who epitomizes the "Agony of Defeat". Except in the Brewers case, they had to watch that Italian skiier go ass over tea kettle down that jump over and over again in the month of July. To remedy the problem Doug Melvin dealt his number one bat, Carlos Lee, to Texas for Francisco Cordero, who had lost HIS closers job in May. It worked out alright as Cordero performed very well, but the offense, without Lee, went south. Melvin had little choice. He had to get somebody who wasn't carrying nitroglycerine in his glove to finish games and Carlos Lee was going to be asking for a huge amount of money in free agency (And he got it too. 100 million six years from the Astros, a team that obviously ignored the outfield skills Lee displayed in Texas that will make him such a great DH)

The outfield is still the one area that is not firmed up for the Brewers. They did move Bill Hall to center, and promise him he could stay there, but they still have a glut of outfielders and only one spot to put them. Corey Hart is set in RF, Hall in Cf, and quite possibly a platoon of Mench, who crushes lefties and Jenkins, who doesn't, but does hit righties at a .360 clip. That still leaves Gross, Gwynn, Nix and Brady Clark and his 3 mil a year contract to find room for. And this is assuming that Jenkins will accept a platoon role. Remember, this is the guy who said the Brewers were premature in benching him even though he was in a 5 month slump. He also claimed he was a 'great' player. Apparently in French 'great' means 'Southpaws own me'. Jokes aside, Jenkins is in a contract year. He's a proud player who hopefully will make the adjustments to get him back to his former role as Brewers masher. Even in a platoon role he still hit .306 against righties during his wost season. But, that 'great' quote still cracks me up.

Those are just some of the moves Doug Melvin has made or will have to deal with this season. What should I give him as a grrade?...........Ahhhhhh! Why bother? He won't care anyways. And either will anybody else as long as they win. Which is what I think the Brewers will do.