Opening Day thoughts, etc.

The baseball game went well tonight, the Cardinals lost, the Mets won, all is good. My man Carlos Beltran went 1-4 with an RBI and a run scored, plus he threw out Eckstein at the plate by full step. What was 3rd base coach Jose Oquendo thinking, sending Eckstein? First off, Eckstein is not a speedy runner. Secondly, you don't test Beltran's arm on a week grounder to center. Thirdly, you don't send the slow-ish runner against a strong thrower with the best player in the league on deck!!!!!! I cannot emphasize that enough. Having Albert Pujols at bat with two men on and one out is a big difference than having him up to bat with one on and two out. And it worked perfectly for the Mets, Pujols walked, Rolen (I think he was up next, I can't exactly remember) was hit by a pitch, which loaded the bases for. . . Yadier Molina. Who promptly does what he did for most of last season, get out. Had Eckstein not been sent, assuming the inning played out similarly (which is a stretch, granted), they would have scored at least one run. If I were a Cardinals fan (luckily I'm not), I would be furious. As it is, I'm upset that a third base coach would take that chance with the physical specimen Albert Pujols on deck. There is no situation in which that is an OK thing. That's your World Champion, folks. (I feel dirty saying a team that won 83 games in the regular season was a World Series Champion. But they did, and now all season we'll hear the phrase "Defending Champion St. Louis Cardinals." To borrow a phrase from the Sports Guy, I will now light myself on fire.)

I'm very pumped for the Royals opener tomorrow, especially since the game will be televised here!!! It makes me happy to no end that espn is showing the opener for Kansas City. Sure, the Red Sox being the opposing team probably sells the game, but still. . . If you see me around town tomorrow (I'm not sure how many people in Iowa City read this, if any), I'll be decked out in my Royals shirt, hat, and maybe the wallet will make an appearance. Plus I'll have my KC keychain. Now if I only had a tie, then I could celebrate Opening Day all day long! I don't know if I should wear my royal blue underwear tomorrow; they've brought me bad luck in the past. (Yes, I am 26 years old and believe that the pair of underwear that I put on affects my day-to-day happenings. You don't want to get me started on things that I believe can affect things, especially when it comes to sports. Here's a quick one: If I'm not able to watch a game, I will not check the scores, and will purposely avoid looking at the score ticker across the bottom of the screen for fear of seeing the Royals' score. Because if I see the score, it will make them lose. That's one of the more rational habits.)

My weekend was uneventful outside of the show, but nice. I went home to Muscatine to watch our dog there on Friday night and most of Saturday. Spent some time in the hottub on Friday night, which was amazing. I need to get me one of those. Then Saturday was rather lazy, I loafed around watching TV during the morning, then KP came over and we grilled some brats and just talked for a few hours, which was nice. Then, a couple hours after that, there was a tornado warning for Muscatine County. A pretty interesting 18 hours there, from the midnight hottub, to grilling in the afternoon sun that occasionally peaked out, to sitting in the basement reading with our dog Niles while I waited for the twister to come. (It's almost been a year since the tornadoes hit Iowa City, so I was going to be cautious this time. There were some strong winds howling around, so it seemed like the smart option. For better or worse, Muscatine is still intact.) Then today I ran some errands and went to work. Now I'm blogging. woo. But all is right in the world, the baseball season is upon us, and I'm feelin fine.