the mighty stampers have struck out

softball season officially started last wednesday when "the stampers" fell 11-9 to "team b." we had a slow first inning, giving up 6 runs. in the bottom of the 6th we came within one (8-7) only to give up 3 more runs in the seventh and then failed to recover. it was a good start though. not a bad effort from the graduate english department team. we had a blast. i played third base and hope to stay there. i guess i could just stay there, since i'm the captain, but i'll try to be fair. it was a very sunny and chilly evening. sweatshirts and long paints. (notice the grass stains on my right pant leg in the second picture and the clean pant leg in the 1st and 3rd picture. a result of sliding into second right after that hit you can see in picture # 3. a grass stain i am very proud of. i may not wash those jeans again.) we had to play on a grass field, infield and outfield, grass. it was hard to see the bases, so we're going to try to sneak to a real field next week. normally you have to pay to get on the real fields. but, we're crafty. after the game we had a mandatory team meeting at vangos bar and pizzeria, where we discussed batting order, euchre techniques, and cormack mccarthy. then played euchre and shared pitchers of beer till it closed. a great ending to a great evening.

incidentally, last night the pistons beat the bulls in game 6 to advance to the eastern conference finals for the 5th time in five years. i was booted out of the house so stacey could watch the season finale of grey's anatomy, so i rode my bike to the nearest watering hole to resume my watching of the game. go pistons.

also, this is for you alex, tonight, the tigers will take on the cardinals, a recap of last year's world series. looking forward to watching that one right after softball practice. go tigers.

graduate drumming

someone mentioned to me the other day that shrontz is drumming again. i think this is a good thing. i think this is a good thing for all of us. to listen to it, click here. This is my new band. so far, we call ourselves "the teague whalen trio." Though, there is four of us. i hope you enjoy it. and yes, that is a rhodes piano that jennifer simula is playing. beautiful isn't it? by the way, this is the second of two posts i've written tonight, so keep scrolling.

my new ball mitt

i'll get this part over with quick, the negative part (by the way, the picture is of a mini origami swan, the symbol is one of tedious-ness):
1. i don't have a job. everyday now, I have been pounding the pavement, turning in applications. i trust it will come soon, though. today i had to do a little research and report my employment history for the last ten years!! TEN YEARS!! thats a lot of entries for a lifetime college student. 14 jobs i recorded in the last ten years, and that still allows for my time off for high school and college. But, i finally did the research, got all the addresses and numbers. i found out that 4 of the places I've worked at went out of business soon after I quit (either that means that they could not function without me or I am like the plague, hire me and your business will go OUT of business). Also, I am in the process of applying to the local casino, but their application is about 40 pages long (lots of regulations to work on an indian reservation).

2. school is out. This should be a good thing, except that I am a nerd. I like school. i like required reading and deadlines and research papers. I am not me when i am not doing these things.

3. Joel Zumaya, Tiger's reliever, may be out for the next fifteen days or longer due to a sprained finger. I guess as long as sheffield, mags, granderson and monroe continue to hit the long ball, we will be okay. 7 game winning streak as of now. (sorry about your cardinals, alex. it's early).

okay, the good stuff.

1. i'm sitting in my living room, wearing a #32 rip hamilton pistons jersey, drinking beer out of a pistons mug that i got at game 5--pistons vs. philadelphia in 2005, while watching the pistons beat the bulls by more than 20 points in game 2 of round 2 of the playoffs. this is a good start to the evening. oh yeah, and stacey and i just ate a pizza from vango's--the best pizza in town, maybe the world.

2., and probably the most important. the other day i bought a baseball mitt. i am the captain of my english dept. softball team this summer and on saturday i bought a mitt. i was like a kid in a candy store, or better yet, like a kid in a baseball mitt store. lets just say, very excited. i bought a cheapy, as our budget allows. when i finally got home, stacey and i played catch (i had some extra mitts in my truck from my other teammates). if you've read stacey's blog, this is the part where we heard the fire alarm, smelled the smoke, called the fire department which shipped out two full trucks with sirens blaring, beckoning all our neighbors within a 3 mile radius to come out to stare; all to find that up upstairs neighbors moved out, leaving on their self-cleaning oven. so anyways, soon afterwards, we put down our coronas (it was cinco de mayo) and went inside. at this point, i had the pure and simple joy of spreading oil on my mitt. i havent oiled up a ball glove since my little league days when my dad coached, brother pitched and i caught. it was pure bliss with the ability to erase any stress I have had during the entire week (week being Finals Week: 2 research papers and 2 full revisions of 2 short stories). Then, after my ball glove was thoroughly oiled, i wrapped a giant rubberband (one of stacey's hair bands) around my glove and hung it in my office. I scheduled a softball practice tomorrow and wednesday. i am looking very forward to putting on my now oiled and pliable glove to throw around the ole baseball. this will be a great summer.

sorry about the positing hiatus.

your brother,
jason shrontz