Last night the Bees played the first two games of the divisional playoffs, at DeWitt Clinton Park.  Our first opponent was a bank called Societe General (Soc Gen) who we beat in the regular season.  As in the regular season, we won again.  This time the score was 12-2.  Meanwhile, on a field across the park another game was being played.  The teams were Debevoise & Plimpton (D&P) and College Sports TV (CSTV).  This game was a close one, as it was tied in the bottom of the 7^th inning when the home team, D&P, scored a run to eliminate CSTV.  So the Bees would play a team that beat us in the 2008 regular season, as well as a few prior seasons.  It seems to be a repeat of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ inability to beat the new York Yankees in the World Series 50+ years ago (except in 1955, and later when the Dodgers were in California).  And like 50+ years ago, the Bees and their fans are saying “wait until next year”.  We lost 8-2 and D&P are the divisional champs.  But at least we made it to the finals, and a great time along the way.  After it was all over they walked to Dixie’s on 11^th Avenue.  As for me, since it was already almost 9:00 PM, I kept on walking down 11^th towards Penn Station to get the 9:29 train home.   I definitely plan to play for the Bees in the 2009 season.

Since the last entry it’s been busy time at work, since we are at the month end.  Not much has happened at the firehouse, as we had no meetings, fire schools, or even any interesting calls.  All I have been doing there is having coffee and using the computer in the evenings when Eileen is using our home computer.  It gives me a chance to check my e/mails on Yahoo and Hotmail, since I am not able to do that at work because of the firewall.  It also lets me listen to radio broadcasts of my favorite minor league baseball teams’ games.

On Tuesday when I was at the firehouse I was re-typing the minutes of a prior meeting of my fire company (it must have been deleted by accident earlier) and listening to a game.  I must have been enjoying the game too much since I did not hear my cell phone ring.  When I got home I checked the missed calls screen and saw that Ellen had called me around 9:30 PM.  It turns out that my mom called her to say that my dad is in the hospital (New York Hospital Queens) with a possible inflamed pancreas.  Naturally Ellen had tried to contact me but I did not hear the tones (it’s possible that I also muted it by accident).  Anyway, since Tuesday my dad has been moved out of the intensive care unit (ICU) and into a regular room.  But regular room or not, we are not out of the woods yet.

On a happier note, last night the Bees play the first round of the Yorkville Sports Associate’s playoffs.  Our rival was Interactive Corporation (IAC) who we played a couple of weeks ago in the makeup game at Central park.  This time we played at a field in Morningside Park, at 110^th Street near Manhattan Avenue.  Our field was actually in line with 112^th Street, and up on the hill above us on Morningside Drive sat the eastern end of the massive Saint John the Divine Cathedral, the largest church in the Western Hemisphere.  We could plainly seen the chapels that extended from the main building (some as large as some free standing churches, and the bronze angel on the easternmost end.  When the game got underway, IAC eventually led us by a score of 8-2 after three innings.  We were a little bit dejected, but most of us remembered what Yogi said years ago about outcomes.  So, over the next few innings the bees started the pile on the runs (but so did IAC), and the lead started to see-saw.  Finally, by the end of the 6^th inning we led 13-10, and even though IAC scored two more in the top of the 7^th, the final score was 13-12 and the Bees are going to the next round of the play-offs, which will be on August 5^th at Dewitt Clinton Park.  So it looks as if the bronze angel on the top of St. John the Divine was really looking out for us!!! After the game we walked to Amsterdam Avenue to an Italian restaurant named V&T, between 110^th and 11^th Streets.  I enjoyed some Italian beer, pizza, and shrimp parmagiana.  We also talked about some of the blockbuster trades that occurred in Major League baseball over the last few days: Ivan Rodriguez to the Yankees; Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers; and Jason Bay to the Red Sox.

Then it was a walk to Broadway to get the #1 train to Penn Station and the Long Island Railroad to go home.   

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In the pictures below we have a view of the front on St. john the Divine, on Amsterdam Avenue; the bottom picture shows Morningside Park, with the field that the Bees played on, with the eatern end of St. John on the hill above.

Yesterday

Ellen, Eileen and I went to visit my mom & dad in Queens.  As is the usual scenario, Eileen stays with her grandparents while Ellen and I go out, usually to Manhattan.  We decided to visit Soho and the Scholastic Bookstore.  We boarded the #7 Flushing subway line and took it to Queensborogh Plaza to get the Broadway N line.  Once we got to Prince Street the Scholastic store was right there.  Scholastic Publishing earned the rights to print and distribute the Harry Potter books and other items, so besides the books, there were ties for sale (one for each of Hogwarts’ houses), a sorting hat (I wonder what house it would have put me in?), and models of the steam locomotive and the English Ford that would take Harry and Ron to school from London or Surrey.  While we did not buy any Harry Potter items, we did get some reference books for Eileen, as she is still being tutored at home and then in September will start the life skills course at Islip High School.  After paying for the books we walked through Soho to Houston Street and admired the historic buildings.  Then Ellen asked if we could eat dinner at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street.  I said sure, why not.  We had walked past it countless times, but never went inside.  The pub has a very important place in literary history, since it was the favorite haunt of British poet Dylan Thomas when he visited new York City.  Being the lush that he was, it was in the White Horse Tavern that he drank himself to death (actually he keeled over on the front sidewalk and was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he actually passed away).  We appreciate Dylan Thomas as the provider of Robert Zimmerman’s stage name – Bob Dylan, and the author of the poem “The Boys of Summer” whose title Roger Kahn borrowed in 1970 when he wrote about the Brooklyn Dodgers.  When Ellen and I walked in there were no drunks, only a family of German tourists who spoke very loudly.  I opted for a bottle of Blue Moon beer and a steak & kidney pie.  It’s something that I would never make at home and had not had since I was last in London 30 years ago.  After our dinner we walked into Chelsea to the former National Biscuits Company (Nabisco) bakery at 75 9^th Avenue.  Today the ground floor is a collection of food stores – the Chelsea Market – with some unique but a bit expensive shops.  On the upper floors are the offices of EMI Music.  One of the reasons that we walked there was that another of the Statues on Parade is there – the Detroit Tigers.  Ellen managed to take my picture with the statue using my cell phone camera.  After we walked out of the Chelsea market we headed to the subway at 8^th Avenue & 14^th Street to head back to Queens.

On the major league baseball front, both the Mets and Yankees won on Sunday.

On Friday night at 5:30 PM the Bees played the final game of the regular season.  It was actually a make up game from May, against InterAction (IAC), that was rained out.  We nearly forfeited since being the home team, we were required to furnish the bases, and we forgot to bring them.  I was planning to leave at 5:30 since I could not get time off.  Around 5:10 PM a teammate called me in my office from the field in Central Park on her cell phone telling me that they need the bases.  I went and retrieved them from another floor and then a few minutes later our coach called me on my cell phone for the same reason and while I am talking to her the main reception desk called me on my office phone to tell me to call our coach.  Since I had the speaker phone with the receptionist, the coach heard what was said and I was talking to her and repeating what the receptionist was saying.  Finally I told the receptionist that I was talking to the coach and would meet her in the lobby at 5:30 with the missing equipment.  A car service was called to take us to Central Park’s North Meadow and we got there with the stuff and it was “Play Ball”.  We eventually won by a score of 12-7 and made the playoffs.  I did not play or even keep score this time, but did serve as a “bullpen catcher” to warm up our pitchers.  When it was over we took a cab to Brother Jimmy’s at 3^rd & 92^nd for some Southern grub and beer.  I eventually got home at around 11:35 and then hit the computer.  

Over the past several days I had been taking pictures of the various Statues on Parade that were placed around New York City I downloaded the various pictures on www.photobucket.com and have been trying to create some web-pages of the photos and to commemorate the All Star game.  I made one so far, using the former Softball 2008 page.  The address for that site is: http://softball2008.zoomshare.com/0.html.  Over the next several days I will try to make a page on Homestead or Yahoo Geocities (maybe both). 

It’s been a wild ride so far. I had my monthly fire company on Monday the 14th (Happy Bastille Day to the firefighters (pompiers) in France ) and before and after the meeting we watched the Home Run Derby. We were impressed with Josh Hamilton hitting 28 homer runs in the first round, and at least one missed going out of Yankee Stadium. If he succeeded, he would have been the first to do so. Not even Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, or Alex Rodriguez were able to do it.

During lunch I walked around the Times Square area and took pictures of the various miniature Statues of Liberty that are placed around New York City . During that walk I was able to photograph the statues commemorating


* the All Star game,
* the Seattle Mariners,
* the New York Giants,
* the Arizona Diamond Backs,
* Shea Stadium, and
* the Tampa Bay Rays


While on the West Side I ran into two secretaries who I worked with at my prior firm. They agreed that it was a railroad job 7 months ago, and said that it’s good that I am not there anymore.



Yesterday it started to get interesting. In the evening was the All Star game at Yankee Stadium. During the afternoon there was a parade up 6th Avenue from Bryant Park to Central Park . The marchers did not walk, but rode in Chevrolet pickup trucks (Chevrolet was a major sponsor). So I got to be a few feet from nearly all of the living members of baseball’s Hall of Fame. Here is a partial list: * Hank Aaron * Reggie Jackson * Bob Feller * Gary Carter * Harmon Killebrew * Tommy Lasorda * Tony Gwynn * Juan Marichal * Al Kaline * Rod Carew There were also the managers of the two all star teams, as well as the stars themselves. I was a few feet from * Terry Francona * Jim Leyland * David Ortiz * Derek Jeter * Alex Rodriguez After an hour I had to get back to work, so I did not get to see the National League all stars up close.



In the evening the Bees had a game in Central Park against Richmond , which is a London based (their borough of Richmond , on the Thames River ). I did not play but only kept score. Who cared, the Bees won 15-4. I spoke to one of the British born players and mentioned that Richmond-on-Thames fields a baseball team called the Flames. I mention the team on one of my web-pages - http://london43baseball.homestead.com/. Please check it out and remember to sign the guest-book. After the game we went to Brother Jimmy’s to watch the pre game ceremonies and the game itself. I could not stay too long since I have a long train ride, but watched the remainder of the game when I got home. Since I am a National League fan, I was a bit disappointed with the result – 4-3 in favor of the American League.



During lunch this afternoon I took the subway to the Financial District to photograph a few of the Statues of Liberty down there. I was able to photograph * The Boston Red Sox in the Sports Museum of America, * The Brooklyn Dodgers at the Topps Building and * The Chicago Cubs in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The area around the NYSE is like Fort Knox: iron fences and barriers, guard houses, the street behind building (New Street) closed to traffic and protected by a retractable street barrier (reminding me of a submarine net) while the street in the front (Broad Street is also closed to autos but at least pedestrians are allowed to walk down the middle of it. I guess after 9-11 they can never be too careful, and the NYSE is a symbol of our way of life, like the Twin Towers were. Besides, in 1920 a bomb went off at the former headquarters of Morgan Trust Company (now part of Chase Bank) at 23 Wall Street , across from the NYSE. After 88 years, marks from the blast are still visible. We don’t want history to repeat itself here.

Weekends around here seem to be getting a lot like weekdays, as nothing exciting seems to be happening. Maybe that is because we did not have any fires or interesting ambulance calls. However, on the baseball front it has been getting interesting. This evening the Mets won their 9th in a row this evening against the Colorado Rockies. If they keep on track, they just might be in the post season. Earlier today I watched the Future All Stars game at Yankee Stadium, as part of the All Star celebration. I consisted of a game between the all stars from the affiliated minor league teams. It was not broken down by the league that the parent club is in, but rather if the player was US or foreign born. Guess what – the International players won, 3-0! Most of the International players were from Latin America, but we did have a player from Curacao, China – Taipei, Canada, and Australia. Hopefully they will help their countries’ teams at the Olympics in Beijing next month, the same that we hope that the US born players will do. But no matter where they are from, we hope to see many of these guys sporting major league uniforms in a few years. Ever the Internet addict, I created a web-page on Yahoo Geocities to commemorate the All Star game. The address is http://www.geocities.com/ironmen8@y7mail.com/allstars.html . Sorry, there is no guest book.

I also managed to download and e/mail to myself one of the pictures of one of the 42 miniature Statues of Liberty that are commemorating the All Star Game. This is of the two that are dedicated to the Yankees, the hosts.