First of all, Happy Canada to all of the Canadian subscribers.

Since the Bees’ routing of the Pirates there was some excitement around Islip and New York.  Over the weekend the Yankees and the Mets played out the Subway Series.  There were the three regularly scheduled games for the weekend, as well as a game from May that was rained out.  The end result was the Mets and Yankees splitting the 4 games at 2 each.  However, the Mets were 2-0 in May against the Yankees so for 2008 it’s Mets 4, Yankees 2. 
Over the weekend the Islip Fire Department had several ambulance calls, including an overdose in the apartments across Union Boulevard from the high school, and the ill father of a deceased department member. 

On Sunday afternoon Ellen, Eileen and I went to a graduation of one of Eileen’s former schoolmates.  It was held in Port Jefferson at Lombardi’s, overlooking Long Island.  The view was impressive, and the food was quite good too.  While waiting for the valets to retrieve our car, I met a man form the Islip LIRR station who was a guest at a wedding held on another floor.  He mentioned to me that the reason that the inbound train was late on Friday morning (June 27) was that the police had to meet the train at Jamaica to arrest a groper who got on at Babylon.  So who said that nothing exciting ever happens on Long Island!!!!

This afternoon I got some more exercise by walking from my office on Park avenue to Fordham University’s Manhattan campus at 60^th Street and Columbus Avenue to have lunch with a friend of mine who is a visiting professor this week.  He is the same man that I meet at John’s Pizzeria on Bleecker Street (which we will be doing on Thursday).

Since the last post the Bees lost again, this time to a law firm named Debevoise & Plimpton.  The game was played at Dewitt Clinton Park, and this time the poor condition of the field helped D&P.  Several grounders that should have been caught by Bee infielders bounced away to become hits.  While there were no base running blunders like last week, we still managed to lose 6-1.  I got there late as I had last minute requests for work by partners to send to clients that were not mine (my colleague was on vacation).  But once I got other the manager turned the scorebook over to me and I faithfully recorded every play of the game.  When it was over we walked to Whistling Dixie’s on 11^th Avenue to cry in our beers.

The 2008 All Start Game is going to be played this Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, and will be the last one played at the old Stadium.  In the meantime, I have been taking pictures of the 42 various Statues of Liberty on Parade.  They are miniature replicas  (about 8 feet high) of our famous Lady Liberty and each is painted in various colors:
·        the 30 current major league teams,
·        the two that departed New York (the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants);
·        the two New York City ballparks;
·        a second Yankee statue
·        the two major leagues
·        four All Star Game themed statues
·        one in tribute to the artist who painted them.

During lunch I went to festivities on Vanderbilt Avenue next to Grand Central Terminal.  Modell's had a trailer there selling various All Star related merchandize, and the store itself hosted an autograph signing from our newest Hall of Famer, Goose Gossage.  Since I did not have time to wait on line all afternoon, I simply went inside and took his picture with my cell phone camera.

I had also adjusted the contrast on the cell phone camera and re-took the picture of the Yankee themed Lady Liberty that is on the 42nd Street side of the Modell's store.  I will try and download that one too, after I e/mail it to myself. 

 

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.

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.

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). 

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.