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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The big move
Yes, this is the week. We have sold our apartment and will be moving into a house on Friday. It's not a
very far move. The house is only about 2.5 miles away from the apartment. But still, moving is very time-consuming.
We've lived in the apartment for many years, so there are plenty of roots that need digging up -- not to mention closets that
need cleaning out, etc.
But of course, we're quite excited about getting a house. We think the new place is in a terrific location, and the
house has just about everything we really wanted. I will try to post more details once we get settled in.
In other news, I ran the New Haven Road Race again this year. Thankfully, I seem to be fully healed from the broken ankle, so I was able to participate without any problems.
The weather on Labor Day was very nice for a run: sunny and not too warm. While the ankle didn't affect me, I am still
slower than I used to be. My best time for the 20k distance is 1:41:28. For this race, my time was 1:47:25. Nonetheless, I am still pleased. I ran the second half quite a bit faster
than the first half, and I was still feeling strong at the end. I know I could have pushed more if I needed to. For
now, I just wanted to make sure I could handle a race of this distance. I am sufficiently pleased to the point where
I am ready to begin a marathon training plan. I just haven't figured out what marathon I might be training for.
Lastly, Jillian's website has been update with some new pictures. Please check them out...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Hey, another baseball post. Actually, this will be quick. I want to point out an article by Jim Caple on ESPN.com that discusses something very similar to what I've been saying for a long time. The article discusses how the closer
position in baseball is the most overrated position in sports. While I'm not sure I'd quite go that far, I do agree
with the premise that baseball managers are slaves to the save stat, sometimes to the detriment of the team. Those of
my readers who have discussed baseball with me personally know that I've felt this way for a long time. If I were a
manager, I know that I'd prefer to bring my "closer" into a one-run game in the 7th or 8th inning with the heart of the order
coming up instead of the 9th inning with a three-run lead against the bottom of the order. Sometimes the most important
outs to get aren't in the 9th inning. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Some news I found disappointing is the news that Chris "Mad Dog" Russo will be leaving WFAN. I've listened to the Mike & The Mad Dog show for as long as I've been in the NYC area, and I always found Russo
to be the more entertaining of the two. Russo and Francessa pretty much invented the sports talk radio format
19 years ago, and it'll be strange not to have them together. It's a sad day for sports talk radio.
My last bit of news, in case I haven't mentioned it before, is that I have registered for the New Haven 20k Road Race again. This'll be my 5th straight year running it. While I think my ankle is completely healed, I know I still
won't be at full speed. Also, I have begun to get some nagging pains in my legs these last few days, which might mean
that I am coming back too quickly. I might need to dial it down a little for a while. I don't think this will
affect my ability to run in New Haven. But it does likely delay any marathon attempt I might consider making this fall.
12.4 miles I can handle... but 26.2 is another matter...
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Trade winds
It's been a while since I've posted about professional sports. The trade of Manny Ramirez is something that I had
been meaning to post about for a few days now, but never got around to it until now. Imagine that! Me, slow to
post about something!
I've been a big fan of Manny for all these years. Sure, he was quirky (to put it politely). But he could
always hit, and that made it worthwhile. I'm certainly no baseball insider and I don't know for sure what goes on in
the Red Sox clubhouse. But it always seemed to me that his antics over the years never really created any animosity
within the clubhouse. "Manny being Manny" really meant something. He'd do something goofy, and his teammates would
just write it off as something normal. If someone else had done the same thing, it might raise a few eyebrows.
But Manny could get away with being goofy because it was already expected of him.
However, for the first time, his actions in late July seemed to finally cause some friction within his team. Throw
in the fact that he's almost 37 and his production isn't quite what it used to be, and it makes it harder to stomach.
Now, I've always been a fan of Jason Bay. It's not like I've watched all that many Pirates games, so I don't have much
first-hand knowledge of his ability. But I've seen his numbers for the last few years, and I always thought Bay was
an underrated player. He put up All-Star numbers in the wasteland of the Pirates lineup, so I thought he'd fit in very
nicely in Fenway Park in the middle of the Red Sox potent lineup.
So with Manny seemingly crossing the line of becoming a distraction to his teammates, and as good as I think Bay is,
I was all in favor of the trade. Probably Bay isn't quite as good as Manny when Manny gives 100%. But the problem is
that it became quite a quetsion whether Manny would give 100% for the rest of the season. And 100% of Bay is certainly
better than 75% of Manny. Or 50% of Manny. Or whatever Manny was willing to give for the next two months.
In my opinion, it wasn't worth the risk of finding out how much Manny would be willing to give.
In addition, Bay is 7 years younger and is a much better fielder and baserunner, and is under contract for one more season
at a very reasonable price. There really doesn't seem to be much downside to have him on the team for the next year
and a half.
So far, the trade seems to be working out well for both the Red Sox and the Dodgers. Manny's giving his 100% and
is hitting like a machine. Bay, meanwhile, is hitting .440 for the Red Sox. Obviously these stats won't keep up forever.
But I do think the Red Sox will be better off in the long run. And trading Manny was definitely not a throwing in of
the towel...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Big news
It's been an exciting week around here. Most importantly, Maggie and I have sold our apartment and bought a house!
Yup, after more than 8 years at our current place, we will finally be moving into a house. We'll only be moving about 3 miles
away, so it's not a big move. But it is definitely something that we've been wanting to do. With Jillian getting
older -- and being oh so close to walking -- we wanted to get our own place with our own yard where she can run around.
Our closing date isn't quite set yet, but it looks like it will be the first week of September. We really like this
house, and it's in a great location, close to our church and a park and the local schools. This is New Jersey, so of
course it wasn't cheap. But we think we got a decent deal. We're both very excited about it.
Speaking of our apartment, we had a bit of excitement here over the weekend. Early Sunday morning, we were woken
up by a bright flash of lightning and loud boom of thunder at the exact same time. Of course, this indicated that the
lightning was extremely close. But we didn't realize just how close until we got up for good. The lightning actually hit the chimney of our
apartment building! This caused a bit of an explosion of bricks, which rained down on the cars that were parked underneath.
Three cars were heavily damaged, and our driveway had to be closed so that the rest of the now-teetering chimney could be
dismantled. This is not something you see every day.
The last bit of excitement from the weekend occured during my run on Saturday morning. I was acutally struck by a
car that rolled thru a stop sign. I was on a main road, running along the side of the street facing traffic -- which
is the proper side for a pedestrian. The car was approaching on a side street, ahead and to my left. The guy was
intending to make a right turn onto the street that I was coming from. As he approached the intersection, all he bothered
to do was look to his to make sure that no cars were coming from that direction. When he saw none, he rolled right on
thru the stop sign without ever looking to his right. And thus he rolled right into me and knocked me over. Yes,
I was actually hit by the car! Luckily he was going very slowly, so there was no harm done. But it could easily
have been a lot worse.
And this is not the first time this type of thing has happened to me. In fact, this is my fourth such encounter (or
near-encounter) in the last 12 months. Is it just New Jersey drivers who make so many careless right turns? Or
does it happen everywhere? No matter what, I implore anybody reading this to please be careful out there. As a
pedestrian, you must expect that drivers don't see you. And as a driver, please look BOTH ways before going thru a stop
sign or making a right turn on red. Thank you.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Finally, a race
This past Saturday, I ran in a road race for the first time since the broken ankle. This was the Teterboro Airport 5k, which I had run the previous two years. Good news: The ankle held up just fine!
The weather was a little warm, but really not too bad. Nothing to really complain about there. My time ended
up being 24:27, which is more than two minutes slower than my 5k PR, and is more than a minute and a half slower than I ran this same race
last year. But hey, that's okay. I knew I'd be slow, just getting back into this. The important thing is
that the ankle felt fine.
In fact, at this point I think my slowness is due to the loss of fitness plus the added weight I put on during the downtime.
I thkn the ankle may not be a factor at all any more. (Knock on wood). Hopefully I can continue to improve and
eventually get back up to where I used to be.
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Welcome to Bob Mann's web page. I was looking around the internet recently and I thought to
myself, "Gee, there aren't enough blogs out there. What the world really needs is one more idiot throwing his every
moronic thought into cyberspace." And thus this page was born.
Of course, this site is a work in progress, and probably will remain so for quite a while.
Please feel free to poke around as much as you'd like. And please send me any comments you may have. Idiots like
me who make these sites couldn't possibly make them better without input from idiots like you!
-RBM 05/30/06
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