Monday, March 31, 2008

Play Ball!

Baseball season is upon us again. This year, the Rangers started on the road, in Seatlle, but it was a mid-afternoon game out there, so it came on at the perfectly normal time of 5 p.m. out here. I wasn't able to catch the first pitch (since, literally, that would be Kenji Johjima's job today), but I did listen to quite a bit of the game on the radio coming home from the college and again when headed out to dinner.

Some of my friends find it boring, but I'm a huge fan of baseball. As I've said before, it reflects some of the great qualities of this nation, and it's even a little bit like jazz. And Opening Day is always full of promise; every team (with the exception of the two that played overseas last week) starts out the day undefeated, and the ghosts of the past can sometimes stay there.

Granted, it was not a great opening for the Rangers, who lost to Seattle, 5-2, but tomorrow's another day, and there are 160 more tomorrows after that (unless there's a doubleheader in there somewhere). How do you think the Rangers will do this year?

Weather or not: A lot of people in the Metroplex tend to beat up on the local news stations for oversensationalizing the weather reports. This morning, the forecast called for a chance of rain, but most of the bad stuff was supposed to be to our north and east. But right before I got to the college, there was a big bulletin on the radio: We were under a tornado watch till 9 p.m., with the possibility of large hail and damaging winds. The worst stuff was supposed to happen around 4 or 5. But, although I heard a bit of thunder (or was someone just practicing the bass drum in the hallway?), it was sunny by 5:00, and the rain never materialized here at all. So the morning forecast was right after all. Was the second forecast a case of overkill, or was it a "better safe than sorry" situation?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Considering the fact that we here in Highland Village got hammered, I don't think there was any "overkill" to it! Condider yourself lucky!

Kev said...

I definitely do; I was teaching in an area with a high ceiling, so I would have had to go elsewhere if the sirens had sounded.

Sorry if I came off the wrong way there; I guess what I meant to say was that their forecast of severe weather for the entire area ended up being overkill. Hope you guys were OK.

Anonymous said...

You didn't come off the wrong way.....I think that the weather persons are starting a "CYA" (cover you a**) approach to the weather! It's Spring so somewhere there will be some bad storms. With the weather being really unpredictable, if they mention an entire area then they have a better chance of being correct! :) We had some minor damage, but nothing big enough to complain about. Thanks.

Eric Grubbs said...

Thanks to a hook-up in the industry I work in, I might actually get to see a Rangers game this year. The last professional baseball game I saw was the Astros in the early '90s. So, it's been a while.