Big Mac

I remember when I began following Mark McGwire as a baseball player. I was in 7th grade and just getting into baseball cards. I bought a 1988 Topps Mark McGwire card noting that he hit home runs. This was something I treasured since Jack Clark played with the Cardinals. St. Louis was never known for its power hitters, so Clark shook my imagination. I changed my hitting stance to look like him. But McGwire was the new and, my goodness, 49 homers!

I watched the 1989 World Series on TV, happy that the Athletics beat up the Giants. Watched the series in 1990 when the A's got the crap kicked out of them by Cincinnati.

In 1990 my parents took my brother and I to Chicago to Old Comisky Park to see the A's play the White Sox. My mom was pregnant with my youngest sister. It was a blazing hot day and I think mom and dad spent most of the game in lines for lemonade and ice for mom. Our seats were right on the field along the first base line in the sun (still the closest I've ever sat!). At some point McGwire came up and hit a homer to left. It made my summer.

When he came to the Cardinals my parents again got tickets. I'd just started going with my girlfriend (to be fiance, to be wife) and was reluctant not to spend time with her. But I went to the game and saw McGwire's first homer as a Cardinal. Later that summer and the next in 1998 I would go and see more of his moon shots, this time with my baseball fan girlfriend. One, against the Cubs, was the longest homer hit in old Busch Stadium. Another was when my brother took me to a game for my bachelor outing before my wedding.

So now there is the admission of past excursions with steroids. Whether they helped or hurt I don't know or really care. I never looked upon Mark McGwire as other than a hitter and someone to track. I never asked his opinion on what field of study to choose or whom to marry. I am sorry that Mark did what he did and that he, along with most of a generation, won't be given the recognition they (may) deserve.

But in the end, I really just miss watching the ball fly out of the park with him running the bases.

all winter for that?

Well, that Cards game last night was not really worth watching. If that is the way the outfield is going to play (yes, I am looking at you Taguchi) and hit (Preston @!#!-ing Wilson, that's your song!) I maybe will be OK not watching a lot.

So Apple will begin selling some music sans DRM limitations. That's good. Higher bitrates too, that's good. But I wonder if it is smoke and mirrors to higher prices in the future. The new songs are $1.29, and you know that the conversation with other music companies will try to push that up for new stuff.

I have always been OK with the 128 kbps protected AAC file. They sound OK (I only have headphones) and the price is convenient. I doubt the extra cash will deter me a lot, but I will miss the old pricing. Simple is good.

Supposed to snow this week. That's what I get for putting on the summer tires on the car. Note to self: one 81 degree day means nothing.

opening day

Finally, baseball season again. After last year's magical run with the Cardinals, we will see what this year holds. My only real prediction is more Joe Mauer-gasms for the Minneapolis press. Good grief for a city are they provincial. "He's one of US!!"

But wait, the Minnesota congress is already swinging for the fences: a $1 billion tax increase. They are using the "it is for the kids, education is our biggest investment, ..." I won't even go into to the real stupidity of this argument, but I will note the following:
- This increase is WAY above the increase we are seeing in salary, meaning a real quality of life decrease for Minnesotans, and
- This will never be enough.

Jesse Ventura (uugh) at least has one good thing: he went to the education people and asked "how much do you want." The idea was to make them give a number that they would be given and then they had to make little Einsteins or shut up. They couldn't do it. Look folks, "more" is not a number. Trust me on that. MN spends almost as much per pupil per year as it cost my wife to go to a top-flight private school. And I guarantee that the brats coming out of MN are not that well off. I have to deal with them on a daily basis in the workplace--and they are causing serious issues (medical device industry, remember?) that I have to fix.

As a state we need to ask again: how much do you need?
After that, no more.