Good Day

Yesterday was a good one. Here are the components that made it so:

**The Royals selected Alex Gordon, third baseman for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, with the number 2 pick in the MLB draft. The general consensus is that he's the best hitter in the college ranks and could be contributing to the major leauge club as early as next summer. There were murmurs that they might select another player based on signability, but, thankfully, they went with the best player available. As a Nebraska kid, he would attend several Royals games per year with his family and has the humility and work ethic of a stereotypical Midwesterner. Hopefully those traits will be evident in the contract negotiation process.

**I purchased the latest offering from Coldplay. I had heard nothing but good things about it and "Speed of Sound" has been playing on the radio. One comment equated some of the songs to "lost tracks from U2's 'War' album". I found "Square One", the opening track, to definitely be reminiscent of that sound. The rest of the album is quite good, though I don't see many other similarities to U2 quite yet. I'll listen to it a couple hundred more times and then pass judgement. Also, it was fun "cracking the code" of the album cover with David. The cover has a strange sequence of colored blocks and in the liner notes there contains a "key" to the code. David and I enjoyed figuring it out and deciphering the message on the last page of the notes.

**I've been playing on my church's co-ed indoor soccer team this past session and enjoying it very much. Unfortunately, the girls never show up and we have to forfeit the official outcome, but we still play anyway. It has been an enjoyable way to fulfill my competitive spirit and have fun at the same time.

Well, a couple of days ago some of the guys on our team asked if I would be willing to play on their all-guys competitive team. They didn't have a true goalkeeper (which is what I play) and they hoped that I would join them. I figured my competitive spirit would help make up for the coordination, agility and quickness that I once had.

We played our first game last night and I'm not sure my spirit made up for any of my inadequacies, but we won regardless, 5-3. My head was swimming having come from an environment where girls were playing (no offense to girls. It's actually a compliment. You all are generally much more civil than us male-folk) and the games didn't count and everyone was going at about 3/4 speed. These guys were young, fast, strong, competitive and, in some cases, mean. It was great! I let in the first two due to misjudging speed and angles and the last one bounced off my chest, between my arms and into the goal, which royally pissed me off. But we hung in there and I made some decent stops and the guys played a great possession game and we won.

And in game recaps circulating via email today, three guys thought I had earned the game ball. Either I did a lot better than I thought or they were just buttering me up so that I would keep playing and they wouldn't have to get between the pipes. Either way, I was quite pleased.


**Finally, the Royals played the Giants last night in San Francisco and won 8-1. D.J. Carrasco, a replacement level starter if ever there was one, pitched a complete game. The only run that scored against him came in the first and at one point he retired 16 straight batters. I don't think Buddy Bell is the long term managerial solution, but one thing is clear: the Royals are playing focused, crisp, pressure-free baseball since he came on board. I'm sure this is just a function of the players reacting to the "new guard", trying to make a good impression and realizing that the gravy train era of Tony Pena is over. I have nothing personal against Buddy Bell and I hope he succeeds but his track record is overflowing with losses, losing and losers. Of course, Joe Torre had a lousy managerial record before signing on with the Yankees. But then, he has had the highest payroll and best players in the land to work with.