PriorBlog

I was originally going to post about why I think I still might like Hugo a little better than Proust, but since that would take too much thinking, a post about basketball scandals and phone conversations I have had with baseball players… 

I am still trying to come to terms with Sean Williams’ departure from the BC basketball team.  I have been going to the blog section of google to see if the reason he got kicked off the team will turn up.  It’s not the rumor mill I had hoped it would be.  A lot of people are saying that BC should be alright.  I still think they are pretty good (not as good of course), but I think it will really hurt them next year.  Williams was getting better and better. 

Al Skinner must be hurting right now.  I feel bad for the guy.  Great coach with a lot of years on him now, his teams are getting better and better, and now a major setback.  I have to give him credit for doing it, even though it hurts.  I really hope he stays at BC.

On a lighter note, I was thinking about great baseball players I have known, and thought my readers would be interested to learn that I have spoken to not one, but three baseball players on the telephone.

1. Mark Fidrych– My roommate Brendan and I found him in the phone book when we were in college and called him.  He was in the middle of dinner.  A little kid answered and handed the phone to him.  He answered my questions, but I got the feeling that I was bugging him, so I relented after a question or two.

2. Steve Yeager– I answered some ad in the paper about a job selling baseball cards door to door.  Yeager was involved with the company, and after I sent a resume in, I got a call from Steve telling me I was “hired” and that I would soon be getting a kit in the mail.  It sounded like he thought the idea was as bad as I did.  We didn’t say too much.  It was weird answering my phone and having Steve Yeager on the other end of the line.

3. Rawley Eastwick– I was working for a real estate agency (In actuality, it was a front for money laundering, selling illicit percocets, racial profiling, prostitution, racketeering, and making death threats [What’s funny is that you probably think I am making this all up.  I’m not.].) and calling some management companies for leads.  I called some place and ended up in Rawley Eastwick’s voice mail.  The voice mail instructed you to call another number if you were looking for listings, but I decided not to hear that and called back ten minutes later.  This time Eastwick answered the phone, and I asked if it was the Rawley Eastwick.  He was.  The strangest thing was that I had just seen one of the ‘75 World Series games on teevee two nights before and he was pitching.  Eastwick was super friendly, I felt like he even wanted to get to know me.  For instance, when I told him how I used to see him play at the Vet all the time, he said, “oh you’re from the Philly area, where abouts?”  After the phone call I thought about inviting Eastwick over for dinner or to a Red Sox game or something, but not long after that I was fired from the job for not embezzling money well enough or something and that meant I no longer had his phone number.

4. Grady Sizemore– I am almost not putting him on the list.  I bought Indians tickets last year because for a while it looked like I might be in Cleveland, but that didn’t pan out.  Anyhow, the Indians ran this promotion in which Grady Sizemore called fans with a prerecorded message.  Not a big fan of the prerecorded cold call, but since it was a baseball player, I didn’t get mad.