Saturday February 14th, 2004

1:27am

Elsewhere in the NCAA

Since A&M didn't play yesterday, I suppose I'll throw some info out there on other happenings in the world of college baseball....

#1 Rice 9 v. texas tech 6

The game was actually much closer than the score reveals....They were tied 6-6 in the 9th before Rice busted it open....Rice starter Wade Townsend went 5.0 innings giving up 2 hits and run (unearned) and striking out 10 while walking only 3....Their big hitters at the plate appeared to be SS Paul Janish (1-4, 3 RBI, 2 R, HR), RF Lance Pendleton (4-5, 2 RBI, 2 R, 2B), and 2B Josh Rodriguez who had a FC in the 9th which scored two runs....Tonight Rice will square off against #6 texas and will probably throw Jeff "Big Dutch" Niemann (the projected #1 pick in the upcoming draft)....the game will be televised regionally on FoxSW at 7pm....

#6 texas 6 v. Ohio State 0

texas shut out the Buckeyes on a total of 3 hits from only two hitters. Justin Simmons was on the mound for the horns and he worked 5 IP and gave up 2 H, & 0 R while K-ing 3 and walking 1. Houston Street came in to finish off the game and again gave up only a single he already has 3 of texas' 7 wins as their closer). Looking at the box score, J.D. Reininger was the hero going 2-3 with 1 R and 3 RBI with a HR in the 6th inning. They face off tonight against Rice in another Minute Maid Classic Tournament game.

#20 Florida 3 v. #3 Miami 0

Basically Miami's offense was held down by Florida's starter Justin Hoyman who went 7 IP and gave up 1 H while K-ing 7 and walking 2.

#15 Arizona 11 v. #8 Cal-State Fullerton 8

CSF falls to 3-4 on the season as Arizona battles back scoring 6 runs in the 8th and 9th innings. So far CSF has a rough and pretty difficult starting schedule, playing 9 of their first 12 games against teams ranked in the top 26 (3 v. #4 Stanford, 3 v. #15 Arizona, & 3 v. #26 Houston).

#4 Stanford 7 v. Kansas 1

Kansas (7-5-1) was just overmatched by the Cardinal (7-1; its singular because it's the color, not the bird). My boy, Sam Fuld, was held hitless for only the second time on the year, but his teammates made up for it with four other Cardinal players having multi-hit games. Stanford's starter, Mark Romanczuk, went 7 IP and gave up 1 R (earned) on 6 hits as he struck out a career high 13 batters (walked 2). K-State's starter, Ryan Knippschild, was pretty much the anti-Romanczuk, giving up 7 R (4ER) and 10 hits in his 6 1/3 IP.

Sam Fuld On The Year:
G R H RBI 2B 3B HR SO/BB SB/Att   BA  OPS  GPA
7 6 7   6  1  0  0   5/9    0/0 .280 .791 .292

Friday February 13th, 2004

12.52pm

Rain Out

Today's game has been postponed....We will now play a single game at 3pm on Saturday and a double header on Sunday starting at 1pm....

It was pointed out to me yesterday that my counter that was counting down until first pitch was off by a day....it was then pointed out to me today that it is quite eery to find out that it was correct all along....Feb. 14th 3pm....Never Underestimate the power of TAMABINPO!

12:21am

Game Day!

It's game day baby! Hopefully the Friday the 13th gods won't crash the party....

As you well know, A&M opens up the season today at 3pm vs. A&M-Corpus Christi at the glorious Olsen Field. I will most definitely be in attendance (sitting out in Aggie Alley spot #19, as usual). If it looks like I'm dead, it's because I'll be so bundled up I won't be able to move....or maybe it'll be because I will have frozen to death. Hopefully it's the first of those two. No, actually I'll be pretty excited and the cold won't keep me down (but some rain might move me inside the stadium....)

We play on Saturday at 3pm and on Sunday at 2pm, also against A&M-CC.

B.T.H.O. atm-cc! Whoop!

Thank You...

I wanted to take this time to say thank you to everyone who checks out my site. I really enjoy putting in the time to keep this thing up and running and I also enjoy having an outlet where I can talk about what I want, when I want and no one can butt in and try to talk over me.

I thought that some of you folks who check in on a regular basis might be interested in knowing how much you've helped the site grow....

Here are my monthly records (since September 7th...prior to that I kept my records on a paper that was unfortunately conquered by Olsen when he was younger and bad)

Sep   191
Oct   202
Nov   475
Dec   519
Jan   708
Feb   363*

*as of midnight this morning

Every month we've had a steady increase of viewers and this month we are again on pace to continue that (I'm calculating 877 hits in the shortened month of February).

Yesterday was a record breaking occasion with the site getting over 120 hits thanks to the 2004 Aggie Baseball Preview. Thank you for taking the time to check that out because I put in over 12 hours on it all together. With the problems I was having with the site yesterday I was terribly afraid that no one would get to see it. (a little FYI....it was the 3rd +100 hit days in the history of TAMABINPO).

Again, I thank you for taking time out of your day to check out my thoughts. It amazes me that 363 people (most of whom I've never spoken to or met) have clicked onto my site so far this month. That makes me feel like all the time and research I put into this is worth it. Not that I don't love it, but it's not nearly as rewarding to spend 2 hours writing something that you're passionate about only to have no one read it. Let's just say that I'm honored to say that I am finally getting away from that.

I'd also like to take the time to send a special thank you to the folks who have been loyal since early on. You all know who you are....

Last thing....Feel free to email me with your comments or thoughts on a certain topic or even critique the site to help me make it better and easier to navigate....I always enjoy hearing from yall....

Thursday February 12th, 2004

1:30am

The Spectacular 2004 Aggie Baseball Preview

CLICK HERE FOR PREVIEW (it's too big for this page)

Wednesday February 11th, 2004

12:47am

Buy Me Some Peanuts & Cracker Jacks...

Yesterday we all learned about the greatness of sunflower seeds and today we'll be moving along to a couple more big time baseball snacks. While I am not personally delighted by peanuts or Cracker Jacks, everyone else in the baseball world seems to be.

Peanuts

Let's start off with peanuts. The idea is terrific, two prizes in one shell! You'd think that someone in the candy industry would have jumped on it to make it happen, but nope....it's all natural.

The entire idea for the ballpark snack posts started when Pat and I got to thinking, "Where do peanuts come from?" We knew that they were a seed, but weren't sure what they looked like before they were harvested. We thought and thought if we'd ever heard of a peanut tree but that just didn't sound right, so off we were to search Yahoo for the answer (because Yahoo is all knowing).

Turns out that it is a shrub that gives off the peanut. The secret is that the peanut is grown underground but is connected to the shrub above the ground. Who knew?

There are four types of peanuts in the USA, each with its own shape and flavor:

• Runner
• Spanish
• Valencia
• Virginia

The type that you get at the ballpark are usually Virginia peanuts.

Two fast facts....

• Georgia has 1/2 of the peanut crops in the entire United States
• Peanuts aren't nuts....they're legumes and they belong to the pea family

Cracker Jacks

Frito-Lay is the company that reaps the benefits of this ballpark favorite (they bought it from Borden in the early 90s) and for some reason they use a sailor and his dog as their mascot. Can sailors even have dogs? Well, when they're at home they can but when he's all gussied up in his uniform his dog should be in a kennel somewhere.

I don't know about you, but I've never quite figured out what exactly that popcorny crunchy stuff is made of so I looked it up....sugar, corn syrup, popcorn, peanuts, molasses, salt, corn, and/or soybean oil, and soy lecithin. Doesn't it taste like there is more in there? I thought so.

The only time I went through a little Cracker Jacks phase was in the early 90's (1991 to be exact) when they were putting the tiny baseball cards in the boxes as the prizes. I remember finding an Andre Dawson card on the playground at school and just being elated. I suppose I was a bit of a dork back then....

Who Knew?

This is the same man! ESPN's Jayson Stark apparently decided to cut the 'stach and I honestly didn't have a clue who he was. That is just amazing!

Tuesday February 10th, 2004

1:39am

Sunflower Seeds: A Ballpark Necessity

You've all seen that symbol before. If you haven't, then I don't know why you're here at this site. David Sunflower Seeds have to be the most famous brand of seeds on the market. I can't even name a competitor of theirs (ok, Mr. Peanut probably sells 'em but I don't ever see'em). They are the official seed provider to MLB and many, many collegiate programs.

I think that the only people who don't like seeds are the guys (and gals) who have to clean up dugouts and bleachers across the nation. In fact, they would probably like to see one of the roasters at the David Sunflower Seed factory blow up and make the entire place go up in smoke.

For the rest of us, I don't see how anyone can even attend a game without the slow roasted, salted flavor of seeds in your mouth? If you don't like regular salted peanuts then try out David's BBQ, Ranch, Jalapeno Hot Salsa, or Nacho Cheese flavors. Watching your sodium intake? Grab the Low Sodium bag. They've got a seed for just about anyone and they come in a tube, a single bag, a new travel cup or the HUGE team bucket.

Seed lovers are so hard core that there are actually 3 different levels of seeders:

1. Rookie Seeder: Like to eat a few at a time
2. Casual Seeder: The Occasional Seeder
3. All-Star Seeder: The pro. Likes to eat seeds by the mouthful

I think one of my buddies on my high school team would be considered a Hall of Fame Seeder. This guy would fill his cheek, shell'em, separate the seed from the shell, eat the seed and spit the shell. We're talking about a handful in about 45 seconds...It was all one fluid motion of the tongue and jaw.

Me? I'm a Casual Seeder who likes the classic original salted flavor. I would go for original w/o salt before I went to one of the other flavors, although I get a BBQ craving about once per season.

As for purchasing seeds, I will admit that I'm a bit of a moocher. Someone always has seeds and they're always offering them up, so I'll usually take'em up on it.

There is a whole ton of information on Sunflowers and Sunflower seeds at this site, so if you'd like to know more....then click it....

This Week's Schedule

In case you missed it yesterday......

Wednesday: Peanuts &/or Crackerjacks (I'm trying to make these entertaining, yet informative while allowing myself to concentrate on Thursday's post....Wednesday will be better than Tues. I promise)

Thursday: The HUGE 2004 Aggie Baseball Preview (make sure you stop back by for that...I've been working on it for about a week and it's going to be more than you wanted to know about Aggie Baseball '04)

Friday: Game Day!

Keep checking back for more details as the week progresses....Whoop!

Monday February 9th, 2004

12:49am

This Week's Schedule

Since this is opening week for Aggie Baseball (Friday 3pm at Olsen Field v. A&M-Corpus), I thought that I should dedicate the week to ballpark related stuff. Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: Sunflower Seeds
Wednesday: Peanuts &/or Crackerjacks
Thursday: The HUGE 2004 Aggie Baseball Preview
(make sure you stop back by for that...I've been working on it for about a week)
Friday: Game Day!

Keep checking back for more details as the week progresses....Whoop!

Hats....Part II

On Friday, Will Carroll asked his readers which team has the best lid. He was referring to the actual design on the hat, but I (someone who likes to consider myself something of a hat guru) would like to not only cover that but go a step farther and talk about styles as well.

Some of you may remember a post I did about hats back in July, but don't worry because that post was more about hats that I own and this one will be more about hats that I like.

You're sitting there wondering, "What's the difference? Why don't you buy the hats you like?" Well, there is a big difference. I'm one of those loyal guys, and I won't wear hats simply for fashion....I have to like the team and follow them. I didn't own anything but Texas A&M, Cubs, and Astros hats from about 7th grade (1995) until last spring (when I decided that 2 years of allegiance is enough and bought an A's hat).

Symbols

Favorites

In my opinion, one of the great things about baseball is the fact that it is a game that has such rich tradition and it doesn't follow the IN YOUR FACE style the NBA and the NFL have come to adapt. I really like the hats with the classic symbols that have been around for decades and decades.

(Click on hats to see larger and clearer photo)

The classic Detroit Tiger's Old English D hat is just awesome. Hank Greenberg wore it, Al Kaline wore it, and now......Jeremy Bonderman wears it? Ok, they're worse than Michael Jordan was at baseball but you see that it's got its history and tradition (even if it all came from pre-1990). I obviously can not purchase this hat for myself due to the fact that I just don't have much love por el Tigres....my buddy Jeff from Detroit, however, pulls this off nicely.

I think that every single person outside of NY City likes this hat. I would own it, except that Pat is a huge BoSox fan and owns 2 or 3 of them already so it'd be tough for us to hang out together in public wearing the same hat.

Ok, so I'm a bit biased, but the Cubs hat is awesome. I love the bright, vibrant blue because it makes me think of a gorgeous summer day sitting in the bleachers of Wrigley Field. The reason that I didn't mention it first is because the color is so bright, it makes it hard to wear with clothes that aren't a bright blue, grey, white or black. This particular hat is New Era's On The Field hat that they made for post-9/11 games in '01 and has been used on national holidays since then.

I Like

If I'm not picking hats simply by the classiness of the symbol, then we move onto the next group of hats that I like...

For some strange reason, I really like both of the Minnesota Twins hats. I don't have any particular favoritism towards the team but I think that the symbols are simple and still stylish enough to differentiate them from some of the other hats in the big leagues. Oh yeah, for those of you who need a bit of help figuring out what T.C. stands for.....Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul)

This is my favorite hat that has an actual design on it, as opposed to an alphabetic letter. I just like Chief Wahoo....probably because I had a friend growing up who looked EXACTLY like him (Sammy).....

I like the fact that the Padres changed up their uniforms to move into their new ballpark, but they didn't feel like they had to go all the way and dramatically change the hats. In fact, they didn't really change them at all because this hat was their road hat (I believe) over the last couple of years. They stuck to the simple, clean, classic design and I like it. Their new uniforms look sharp, but if they had tried to make the hats with the new colors it could have turned into a disaster (see Tampa Bay below).

This is the San Francisco Giants' batting practice hat symbol. I like the fact that the font is so different from all the other hats in the league.

Old School

With the new (now getting a bit old) trend of retro, I felt like I should go through a couple of the old school symbols that we're seeing make the come back....or a couple I'd like to see come back....

I already own this hat, so I suppose I'm biased. This hat is just a classic, but down here near Houston it seems to becoming more of a trendy hat. I bought mine in November of 2002 so I was on the front end of the rush, but that is partially why I don't wear mine as much.

Yes, more Astros....I love this hat because it was the hat that the 'stros wore when I was at my peak in going to Astros games in middle school and high school. The hat on the right was the batting practice hat from 1999, which I liked (but I didn't like the mesh material).

The Houston Colt .45s hat is another classic in my opinion. I would buy this one in a second if it was made by Twins in their Franchise line.

Outside of Houston hats, I really like this Padres hat. I think that the symbol is really cool and when it is taken away from the hideous brown color scheme that it is associated with it becomes soo much cooler. The Hat World here in College Station doesn't carry this one, but I'm on the lookout for it.

How can you not love Mr. Met? This hat looks like fun.

I don't like the Blue Jays, but I've always loved this hat. I was able to convince my brother how cool it is and he now owns it and it makes him look good. I think the white and the blue make the hat look very clean. I actually purchased a Cubs hat with the same white front panels and I wear it every once in a while but it is a bit too flashy for me (and yes, I bought it before this craze came out too....it was April of 2002).

UGLY

I just don't like this new Blue Jay's hat. It has a clean, bold look to it, but it reminds me too much of a cross between the Carolina Panthers and some Arena Football League team. Why does Toronto keep changing their hats? They're worse than the Brewers about it....

The only thing I don't really care for on this hat (which is the Giants Alternate hat) is that there is too much going on in such a small area. The SF looks so crowded that it is almost difficult to read.

A big fat sorry goes out to Tampa Bay fans. They got a crappy stadium, a crappy team and a crappy hat to go with it all. I'm probably straying from the "symbols" theme, but I just don't like the colors. What shade of green is that exactly?

This is similar to the Giants hat just above, where there is too much going on. I think the colors are too dark and bold for a game that is traditionally a spring/summer game. Another bit of advice to Met's management....get more original! That's the same basic design as the Yankees and the old NY Giants.

Styles

As you can tell from the simple, mostly navy blue hats from above I'm a pretty conservative guy and I don't really go for a lot of the fancy, busy hats that you see in rap videos or on the street-ball courts in NYC. I'm also not really into the resurgence of the mesh backed hat for myself, but on others people they can look pretty good.

Low Profile

This is my all-time favorite style of hat. It is the Franchise Collection made by Twins Enterprises. I wrote about this hat in my first hat post, so I'll give you a little recap:

The hat is 100% cotton and sits right down on your head and is very conforming. It's probably the most popular style hat in America for my age group. I've been wearing it since the summer before my freshman year here at Texas A&M (Summer of '00). Oh yeah, they're fitted and sized S, M, L, & XL and usually have the team's alternative logo on the back.

I'd like to expand a little bit on that....The reason that the hat is so successful with the kids my age is because the hat is light and breathable (thanks to the cotton), but mainly because it has a low, unstructured crown. I want the fabric of my hats to be touching my head all the way around, not sticking up an extra 1/2"-1" in the front. We can see the difference if we compare the New Era Authentic Collection to the Franchise hat.

If you look at the location of the holes on the front two panels, you can see the difference without needing to try on the hats. The front of the New Era hat is very flat, tall and boxy in shape. Inside of it is a mesh sort of plastic wiring to keep the hat structured and tall. This is not what we want, and when I buy a hat that has the structuring in it, I cut it out with X-acto Knives.

I currently own 2 A&M hats, 2 Cubs hats, an Oakland A's hat, & the 80's Astros hat from the Franchise Collection.....and like I mentioned, I've been on the lookout for that 'Dres hat for about 2 months.

Mesh-backed

This was a product of the 80's, and frankly the only thing that I'm happy about from the 80's is my own birth. That said, I do like the fact that some companies are trying to combine the huge trucker hat with the low profile. Most of these hats that you see are sold at the trendy retail stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, etc and don't have anything to do with sports. Also, these haven't seemed to take over the baseball world just yet, so I'm going to use the NFL hat as an example of what I like.

Since the NFL sold its soul to Reebok, they obviously have the best NFL hats. I like this hat because of the low profile that it keeps and the Reebok symbol on the side, somewhat breaking up the look of the mesh.

Here is Heisman winner, Carson Palmer, sporting the lid after the announcement of his #1 Draft Pick status. The hat looked sharp on him, thus I gave it a chance (just not on my head).

That is about all I can think of with regards to hats....trust me, if I can think of more I'll do another post on it eventually....

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