Thankful

1. We live in Brooklyn Park and our nieghborhood got hit pretty bad by the storm. The power was still out at 7pm Thursday night, so E, C, and emptied our fridge and freezer into three coolers and left for E's parent's house two hours west of town (we were coming for the weekend anyways). Nothing like two huge natural disasters around your own little natural calamity to make it seem like nothing. For the record, we had:

a. Cool and dry weather afterwards to make cleanup easy.
b. Only about 2 miles to drive to get fast food.
c. A tree that fell on the neighbor's property only glanced their house and did no real damage, and could have easily fallen on our house as well.
d. A daughter that we could convince.
e. Family in and out of the cities offering us a place to stay til the power came back on.
f. No water flooding our house.
g. Some (not all) neighbors willing to help clean up the downed trees and branches.

Plus, the power outtage gave me the courage to finally trim some branches that were up by the power lines. The power outtage could have really upset us if only we hadn't seen the ravages of Katrina. I mean, the Twins game was an afternoon contest, so I didn't even have to miss a game (missed 7 innings of the Thurs game driving outstate).

2. So far this season, the Giants are a .750 team with Barry Bonds and a .450 team without him. Again, if I were a baseball writer, I'd think about giving him an MVP or comeback player award. I'll guess right now that he's comeback player of 2006.

3. Magic Numbers:
ChiSox: 9 (ALCD), 8 (ALWC).
Hafners: 12 (ALCD), 9 (ALWC).
Padres: 6 (NLWD).
Giants: 16 (NLWD).

4. Wins to break .500 (all with 10 games remaining):
Twins: 4
Brewers: 7
Padres: 6
Giants: 10 (Will not have a winning season)

5. Frightwig suggests I look at naming my PTBNL "Travis" or "Coco" after the sluggers on the Cleveland team. But then I'd have to get the little guy a Cleveland hat or jersey ("I" only, no Wahoo), and that's wrong. Plus, I still haven't found out what Hafner's speaking voice is like. Just one more reason I want to see them in the playoffs.

5a. Sabathia's name, "Carsten" isn't entirely out of the running. Coco's "Covelli" is.

6. Seth linked to this article in which Luis Tiant takes issue with Mudcat Grant's "12 Black Aces" Book because it doesn't include Black Hispanic pitchers (such as himself) with 20 wins, only "African-Americans." I think Mudcat's right on this. I haven't read the book, but one thing that just its presence has made me think about is the growing absense of American Black players in MLB as a whole, especially among starting pitchers. There are only two I can think of: CC and Dontrelle, although there might be a few more, but CC is the only one in the AL Central. Even the Twins, who for years have had an all-black outfield, have maybe one black prospect (Denard Span? going off Seth's Page), and he's a position player. Right now, I'd guess 2/3 of players with African ancestry are Hispanic, and I'm sure the number's even more extreme among players under 30.

I mean, if a Hockey fan wrote a book about the 8 greatest goalies who were from France, I wouldn't expect the 22 great French-Canadian goalies in the book. I'd say that ethnically, there are as many differences between Black Hispanics and African-Americans as there are between African Americans and Eurasian-Americans. Should a book about the few great American-Indian players also include all the Venezuelan players who probably have as much Indian ancestry? No. Place and Ancestry combine to form ethnicity, and while I'm sure that Black Hispanice players have thier own great stories and have overcome similar hardships, I'm sure they've also overcome some unique hardships. If Mr. Tiant would really like himself included, he should white the companion volume "14 Hispanic Aces."

6a. BTW, If you would have asked me to name the greatest player to ever play before I got back into baseball, I would have said Satchel Paige. Now I know more, so my opion is less clear.

7. Today's soundtrack: Roisin Murphy "Leaving the City"