30 thoughts on “February 1, 2017: Start Making Plans”

1. Guhhh, my imagination seized up a long time ago.

   1. EAR's birthday is Feb 7th, LBR's is Feb 9th. The Webelos (Cub Scouts top rank) that I'm Den Leader for have their Blue & Gold Banquet (graduation to Cub Scouts) on Feb 11th.
      I might be going to NU the evening of the 11th to help my dad finish moving all of their stuff out of the old house.
      EAR and I used to celebrate our semi-anniversary on the 11th as well. Valentine's day can move back a couple weeks for all I care.

      1. ... maybe a few more days so it's lost in Smarch.

2. when your junior high school band has a guest dad come perform with them.

3. Under the gun to get stuff done before our vacation, and now the next door neighbors are replacing their roof. The dog is going to freak...

4. Some big goings on in the sleepy rural town this morning. 4 police cars and a fire truck (and presumably at least a second fire truck and/or a couple ambulances, judging by the number of cars around the city garage), and now a another fire truck from a neighboring town has come back, filled up, and headed back out. Hopefully all turns out alright.

   I want to say, though, that I have been repeatedly amazed at the dedication people in rural communities have towards those communities. All fire/ambulance is volunteer in the small towns (not in the nearby bigger ones), and people are constantly giving of their time and money to support everything and everyone in the community. It is really special. I wish more people were really aware of it first-hand.

   1. So what you're saying is we soon get to see you in a fireman's outfit?

      1. Wait . . . isn't that his plan for Valentine's Day?

         1. Philosofette gives you a buck.

      2. I think my kids might have one in the dress up box. (Wait, my kids are taller than Philo.)

      3. I've thought about it. Something about me being the local attorney and going out to emergency situations seems off though. Ambulance chasing, and all that? I'm trying to find other ways to contribute to the community. So far, I think my puns have made a real difference for the children.

5. Huh. Interesting article on Byung-ho Park. I guess I'm not expecting anything, so any surprise here would be a pleasant one.

   1. Wrists are incredibly important to a batter. That's why I couldn't understand why Molitor and the Twins front office kept insisting Park's injured wrist wasn't affecting his batting. I have hope that we haven't seen the real Park yet, and that if he's healthy this year we will.

      1. It seems like every front office in every sport is the Black Knight from Monty Python. I don't always know if it's naivete or if it's strategic elusiveness, but I'm trying to think of a completely transparent organization when it comes to stuff like this.

         1. I wouldn't expect or want them to be transparent considering info we would get would surely be available to all the other teams. However, the fact that he kept playing shows that they certainly thought it wasn't enough to sit him. I'm hopeful the new regime will be more mindful of a more balanced approach to work ethic versus recovery so that players not helping the team while playing through injury will at least sit if not go on the new (shorter) DL.

            1. For MLB, that information has to be available to other teams already. Or should. I'm looking at you Preller.

      2. Didn't we see the real Park for the first month or so, before the wrist started hurting? He was a pretty good masher, if I remember correctly.

         1. There's some question there, I think, because maybe the league was quickly figuring out how to pitch him, and "the real Park" was something closer to those later months?

            1. I want to be really hesitant in saying the later months were anywhere near his real abilities because he was very clearly not healthy. As JeffA said, a wrist is incredibly important to a hitter, especially a power hitter.

               1. Counterpoint: he was signed by TR.

                  Seriously though, those are my hopes too.

6. Trey's junior high baseball team made the playoffs and won their first playoff game yesterday. They jumped out to an early 6-0 lead and won 8-2. Trey had a walk and made at least five outs in the field playing second base, including jumping to catch a line drive.

7. Thing I learned today:

   Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), also known by her married name Marcenia Lyle Alberga, was the first of three women to play Negro league baseball.

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   Toni Stone graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She married Aurelious Alberga, a man forty years her elder and one of the many people who did not want her playing baseball. She had always been referred to as a “tomboy” growing up and consequently received the nickname “Toni” because it sounded like “tomboy”. She enjoyed the name and eventually adopted it as her own. ”I loved my trousers. I loved cars. Most of all I loved to ride horses with no saddles. I wasn’t classified. People weren’t ready for me,” she said. Toni Stone's playing career began when she was only ten years old when she participated in a Catholic Midget League, which is similar to today's Little League. She moved on to play for the Girls' Highlex Softball Club in Saint Paul, Minnesota. By the age of fifteen, Toni Stone played for the St. Paul Giants, a men's semi-professional team. Stone soon began playing on Al Love's American Legion championship team. She began her professional career with the San Francisco Sea Lions (1949), where she batted in two runs in her first time up. Toni soon became discontented with the owner of the Sea Lions after she did not receive the pay she had been promised. She quit the team and joined the Black Pelicans of New Orleans. After a short stint with the Black Pelicans, Stone joined the New Orleans Creoles (1949–1952). She was signed by Syd Pollack, owner of the Indianapolis Clowns, in 1953 to play second base, the position Hank Aaron played for the team one year earlier. She did this as part of a publicity stunt. The Clowns were compared to the Harlem Globetrotters of the basketball world, so having a woman on the team attracted more fans. During the fifty games that Stone played for the Clowns, she maintained a .243 batting average, and one of her hits was off the legendary Satchel Paige. All of these accomplishments may make her “one of the best players you have never heard of”, according to the NLBPA website. Stone's contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs prior to the 1954 season, and she retired following the season because of lack of playing time. After the 1954 season, Stone moved to Oakland, California to work as a nurse and care for her sick husband, who later died in 1987 at age 103. Toni died on November 2, 1996 at a nursing home in Alameda, California. She was 75 years old. Stone was the first female player in the Negro Leagues, and she was not met with open arms. Most of the men shunned her and gave her a hard time because she was a woman. Stone was quite proud of the fact that the male players were out to get her. She would show off the scars on her left wrist and remember the time she had been spiked by a runner trying to take out the woman standing on second base. "He was out," she recalled. Even though she was part of the team, she was not allowed in the locker room. If she was lucky, she would be allowed to change in the umpire’s locker room. Once, Stone was asked to wear a skirt while playing for sex appeal, but she would not do it. Even though she felt like she was “one of the guys”, the people around her did not. While playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, she spent most the game on the bench, next to the men who hated her. “It was hell,” she said. Toni Stone became one of the first women to play as a regular on a big-league professional team in 1953. In 1985 Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Foundation’s International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1990 she was included in two exhibits at the Baseball Hall of Fame, one on “Women in Baseball” and another on “Negro League Baseball”. In 1993 Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the Sudafed International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1990, Stone’s hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota declared March 6 “Toni Stone Day”. Saint Paul also has a field named after Toni Stone located at the Dunning Baseball Complex. She was 75 when she died.

   1. Fascinating--thanks for sharing!

8. Does anyone regularly read The Ringer?
   I do not unless I see like 3 tweets to an article. I don't like the green bar that is on top of the page and never leave when you are reading an article. I don't like the artwork for the articles. And when I do scroll around the front page, nothing interesting catches my eye. I'd visit Grantland every day and read at least an article a day.

   Anyway, they talk about the Timberwolves here

   1. That almost exactly describes how I interact with The Ringer.

      I ran into a Bill Simmons mailbag on there yesterday, so I'm a little less likely to click on their stuff going forward.

9. If the Wild somehow pull a point or two out of this, I will start to believe #itshappening.

   1. Nevermind that, when the hell did they open up a six point lead on Chicago (and missed it before, but a five point lead on SJ)? The inevitable playoff collapse is really happening, isn't it?

      1. The +50 goal differential, and that's after yesterday's game, had something to do with it I think.

         1. Yeah, that would seem to help. I really need to find some *ahem* PERFECTLY LEGAL STREAMS *ahem* of games.

            1. They also caught up despite having games in hand.

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