Today is going to be a pretty easy going day. I woke up too early, just after 4:30am I think it was, but that’s ok. I went out for breakfast as I do most weekends. I dropped by the campaign office, still here actually. I am leaving soon though, other things to do like laundry and what not before my baseball practice tonight, presuming it doesn’t rain. We have a fair amount to do at practices before the season starts and that it right around the corner.
More later (after my nap perhaps)…
It has been a busy last few days. I was off of work on Friday, it was a good day. Today I ran the coaches meetings in the morning and all house league teams were drafted. I worked on a co-workers computer, got it going and made some good cash. I had a baseball practice this afternoon, poorly attended due to previous commitments. I then watched and helped a little with the Minor Bantam B club.
I am not doing too much tonight. Watching Batman Begins, not a bad movie.
Tomorrow is an “off” day for the most part. I am hitting breakfast in the morning and have a practice in the evening but otherwise I am not doing anyway. I plan on napping tomorrow afternoon – I haven’t had a nap in a few weeks.
Tomorrow is the last day before the election. Monday will be busy I am sure.
Go Blue Go !!!
I received an email from the parks guy for St. Catharines Minor Baseball yesterday which was Tuesday. The email is here:
Hi Guys,
Due to copious amounts of moisture that has already fallen & which is still about to fall, the city has cancelled all park use for both this Sat. & Sun. Please do not use our parks for baseball until we can officially go on, tentatively scheduled for Monday, May 2. Please let me know your tentative schedules for May.
Never seen anything like this before. Gotta do the best we can.
Frank
PS – you may try some school parks or some other open spaces for conducting some practices but make sure they are safe. I don’t want to hear about anybody running into soccer poles or into swing sets
So, this email was sent around noon yesterday, again, a Tuesday. It cancelled diamonds in St. Catharines for the COMING WEEKEND which was 4 days away. The City can’t get their diamond ready in that much time? Please…
OK, we have received a lot of rain in April – here’s a tip, it RAINS IN APRIL. It was also a pretty cold month all in all but come on, get our diamonds ready so that we can get out there.
I have always hated the way that we are treated by the P&R Department as a whole. There are, of course, some employees who do a very good job. I have no idea who the Parks Foreman is this year but you can count on me getting a hold of him. I will also be bringing my concerns to some of the City Councillors.
It is now April 27 and I have to make alternate arrangements, if I can, for parks this weekend.
All I have to add is that this is insane.
Well, to hell with try-outs. That’s what I say…
The weather isn’t cooperating, at all. It has rained almost every day for the last couple of weeks. It sucks.
I am also getting tired of trying to chase players to try-out for the team. If they want to try-out they will, if they don’t want to, they won’t.
So, in saying that, I have cancelled the try-outs that I had scheduled and have selected the 11 players whom I’ve met and seen and left it at that. Those players are locked in. I have open spots remaining for 2-3 more players if they show up. If they don’t, so be it. I will do some recruiting at high school games or something, I will figure it out.
So, in short, congratulations to the 11 new Cobras for the 2011 Major Bantam baseball club.
It is the start of a long weekend, a 4-day long weekend. They don’t happen too often, only a few times a year. It is Easter this weekend, Good Friday today. I am not actually sure what the significance of Good Friday is actually, I am not studied in my religions… Don’t actually care either, all I know is that I am off work today and Monday so that is good.
My baseball try-outs start on Monday evening. I have seen a total of 13 different players. Not a great start to be sure. I will be making calls later this afternoon to the rest of the players who have expressed some interest in coming out. I do hope that the total turns into at least 20 – with that many I can run a good try-out and put the players through the paces.
I will have the team picked fairly quickly I think. I have seen a bunch of good players as of now, I am impressed with them, none have been weak, they all have good qualities. I am really looking forward to getting on with it. I do wish that Spring would freakin’ arrive – this weather is insane. We had very wet snow flurries today. It is April 22 and it was snowing. It didn’t stick mind you, melted before it hit the ground but come on, that is wrong.
I don’t actually remember an April that was this miserable. I expect our fair share of rain but the cold temps is what is getting me. I still have my heat turned on – that is the latest by far that I have ever had heat on. Typically, by this point the windows would all be open with nice spring air shooting through the house – this year, I am not sure if I will EVER have the windows open…
Oh well. Spring will happen eventually, I think…
Enjoy your long weekend.
Well, I am moving. I have been in the same place for 4.5 years, which, excluding where I grew up, this is a record. A record by 2.5 years.
I like where I am currently living. It is a great little house, good sized back yard for Zeus and has most of everything that I want/need.
There are a couple of minor issues:
Things that I really like:
So, the new place has tile and hardwood throughout. It has a basement apartment that I am able to rent out – the income comes to me to assist with the higher rent that I will have. The house is VERY new. It has a double width driveway, no more moving cars around – I HATE doing that. Great location, very quiet neighbourhood.
I move in sometime during May, not sure when. I don’t think that Frank will have any issues renting this place. There are only minor issues that he will clear up before it is re-rented.
I am actually excited about moving.
The past few days have been a whirlwind. The weekend zipped by so quickly that I am not sure it actually happened.
I have been trying to run baseball workouts and the weather has NOT been cooperating, AT ALL. It has been a cold and rainy April. Sure, we’ve had a couple of nicer days in there, intermixed with the crappy days like we had today. High temperature today was 2 degrees Celsius and there was wet snow falling. What the heck is with that? Snow, on April 18? I don’t think so…
I have cancelled baseball workouts last Wednesday, Saturday and again on Sunday. We are supposed to be out tomorrow (Tuesday) and “they” are calling for rain all day, guess what that means… No practice more than likely. Thursday might be a go, who knows as yet. We have the long weekend off, well, mostly off anyway. We start tryouts on Monday which happens to be Easter Monday, but it is really only a government holiday anyway. I hope that I am able to get tryouts down, that would be nice.
I am likely going to have to make some phone calls to get players out. I have had 10 out thus far and a team that does not make. I need at least double that number to get a good core of players. At least out of the 10, they all seem to be good players and good kids. I am coaching major bantam and they are 15 year olds. Should be an interesting summer for sure.
The campaigns are both going well. I haven’t been called to do much IT work which is a good thing, I have been busy elsewhere. I have a campaign meeting in St. Catharines tonight, this is meeting #4 I think, perhaps it is only meeting #3 though. The NF campaign has only seen one meeting or at least one meeting that I was invited to.
The PM is supposed to be hitting St. Catharines on Thursday so I hear. Might be able to attend another rally. The first one was great.
I am going to look at a new place tonight. It is a bit pricy, BUT, it has an in-law suite in the basement that I could rent out. Sorta cool being a landlord. 🙂 No real pictures so I guess that I will see tonight.
Well, I am out for now. Take care.
This article was in the Hamilton Spectator earlier this week. It is about a good friend of mine from Hamilton, Mel Oswald the founder of the Canadian Thunderbirds. Although my two coaching stints didn’t work out the way that I wanted them to when I was with the Thunderbirds, Mel became a good friend. I wish him well in his retirement:
Here is the article:
Scott Radley
April 12, 2011
It’s not that he’s somehow grown tired of the game. Not a bit. The priority list just seems to be changing a bit these days.
There’s his wife who’s seen him put in 80-hour weeks for years and years and deserves a larger slice of his life. There are his nine grandchildren who he wants to make more time for now. And there’s his health. The hours have admittedly worn him down, he needs a hernia repaired and his heart’s due for a rather scary-sounding procedure to fix some wonky valves.
“It’s open-heart surgery,” Mel Oswald says. “They kill you for a few seconds. You just hope that when they hit the start button, you come back.”
Put it all together and it’s not hard to understand why the 70-year-old is stepping down as head of the Hamilton Thunderbirds at the end of this month.
Thing is, when he walks away, he’ll take a big part of Hamilton baseball with him. Oswald has helped produce scores of players who won scholarships in the States and has helped propel a couple dozen young men to the pros. He’s been named Canadian coach of the year, Hamilton Sport Volunteer of the Year and has won more than 50 elite tournaments, including a World Sandlot title.
Not bad for a guy who came from anything but a sports background.
Oswald was introduced to baseball when he was five when his dad — who had nothing to do with the game — signed him up to play at Mahoney Park. Mel worked his way up the ladder until he was playing semi-pro in London.
When the baseball dream came to an end, he carved out a career in financial planning. He coached Little League and OBA, but money matters were his living. It was during a stint in Florida doing some real estate speculating that the course of his baseball life took a rather major turn.
While helping with baseball camps geared toward college scholarship hopefuls, he realized there wasn’t much in the way of similar development opportunities available up here for serious players. There were good players but he saw nowhere for them to get elite training. So, when the Toronto Blue Jays threw their support behind a high-end team in the mid-’90s and came looking for other teams to play against, Oswald helped get a league together and put together Hamilton’s entry. The Thunderbirds.
“This was the true start of elite baseball here,” he says.
Oswald has rarely gone by the book, though, and this was no exception. Rather than take his team down to Florida for March break so his guys could be seen by pro scouts, as most did, he decided to barnstorm the southern East Coast, taking his Thunderbirds to universities so college coaches could see them first-hand.
“We may get the (crap) kicked out of us, but we had some kids that would be seen,” he says.
Yeah, 11-day bus trips were costly, but he often returned home with a handful of scholarship offers. Seemed like a good trade-off to him. Still does as evidenced by the fact that every topic of discussion with him comes back to helping kids get opportunities to advance in the game and in life.
Yet when he walks away — Oswald will stay on with the Thunderbirds as an adviser and assistant coach at least until the end of the season, maybe longer depending on his health — he freely admits not everyone in baseball will be heartbroken.
“(I have) many critics,” he chuckles. “Many critics.”
Some folks have felt he’s driven up the cost of playing youth ball. Some organizations have been angry he’s lured top players away from them to play for his teams. Some players have become angry they didn’t get scholarships they thought were supposed to be theirs.
Oswald admits he can rock the boat a bit. Still, he says he’s never been paid a penny of salary for his work with the Thunderbirds — only his expenses have been covered — while the organization has brought in tutors for players, paid for SAT exams for scholarship hopefuls and directed cash to charities. He says his efforts and those of other elite teams have forced other leagues and organizations to be better.
“I know I’m in it for the right reasons,” he says.
Running the show is getting tougher, though. When he started, as many as 400 kids would come to tryouts. Today, that number is often closer to 40. There are so many more elite teams now. Plus the economy is having an impact. More than a few families are having to choose between paying a few thousand dollars for baseball or paying the hydro bill and their mortgage.
Still, he’s proud of what he’s done. Over the years, he proudly points out he’s helped put 23 men into professional baseball at various levels — that includes reigning National League MVP Joey Votto — and has more than 350 kids who’ve won scholarships. As a legacy, it’s pretty good.
“No,” he interjects. That’s not his legacy. Not as he sees it.
Hmm. OK. What is it then?
“One of the things we always prided ourselves in is we never turned a boy away because he couldn’t come up with the player’s fees.”
That’s pretty good, too.
sradley@thespec.com 905-526-244
It has been a busy few days. Both election campaigns are running well. I have spent a fair amount of time at Nicholson’s three offices, all is ready to go though, actually, everything was good as of Tuesday morning – or was it Wednesday morning?
I started outdoor workouts with the Major Bantams. The forecast for this past Monday was heavy rain and it hardly rained at all – we got outside for the first time and had a good workout. We were supposed to go back out on Wednesday and although the forecast called for very little rain, we got tons. Figures… We were out tonight again, a VERY small group though. I may have to actually make some phone calls in order to get a good group out there.
Got a new tire for the Grand Prix. It was $206ish installed, balanced including tax. What fun.
Poker tomorrow. The group hasn’t played in ages. Should be fun. I will be having a nap before going out for sure, otherwise I will be sleeping by 10.
We have a late baseball registration on Saturday, NDBA meeting on Sunday and, weather permitting, a couple of baseball workouts.
Guess I will see what the next few days brings.
Well, my house has been cleaned top to bottom. It looks great and better yet, I didn’t have to do any of the work – I like that. The security system is installed, not quite correctly functioning as yet though. There is some sort of issue with the motion detector, Zeus set it off yesterday after I left. Good thing I had forgotten something and had to come home. The window sensor in the office was defective as well – it will be replaced. I’ll be getting the cleaning people in every two weeks. For two of them, it is $30 per hour. I’d suspect that they will need to be here for 1-1.5 hours every two weeks to keep on top of it, or me I guess.
I was driving home from Niagara Falls yesterday and had the rear passenger tire blow out on me. I pulled over (was in the slow lane anyway) to the side of the highway. I was on the QEW north bound lanes heading to St. Catharines, it happened right before the 405 merges into the QEW. Anyway, on Tuesday or Wednesday I decided to enter the OnStar draw that I had heard about on the radio. Well, I registered for the free draw and then they offered me 6 months of OnStar because I hadn’t had it previously. Good deal, right – well, I signed up for it and it came in VERY handy yesterday. The flat bed truck would have cost me $100 to get it towed. They only take the vehicle to a GM dealer so it will sit there (John Bear on Lake Street) until Monday. I presume that I will get it back Monday afternoon. I am hoping that the tire is under warranty.
I am heading to Rob Nicholson’s Fort Erie office today to configure the PC there. I hope that I will get some sort of mileage for it, the gas alone is costing me a fortune. I haven’t been to the Dykstra campaign for a few days. The Campaign Manager sent me a text yesterday asking if I would be around. Bad Kevin… Anyway, after the blow out I couldn’t make it in. I will drop by today.
On the baseball side of things, I was chatting with one of my former ball players who was (and likely still is) and excellent pitcher. He’s agreed that he’d like to help out with the Bantams – I am meeting him in a couple of hours so we can discuss. Good news there.
That’s it – I am off…
Kevin's Ramblings... 