Hat trick

Times have been rare that I’ve root, root, rooted for a Boston-area sports team, but I think tonight is one of those times.

Much as I hate the thought of a Boston triple of professional sports trophies, I can’t help but want to see the novelty of it: Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, all holding league titles at once.

Quite a hat trick.

Go, Bruins.

Life comes full circle

Remember that Werther’s Original commercial from about 30 years ago? Old man remembers getting a Wether’s Original from his grandfather when he was a kid… flash forward a few decades… now I’m the grandpa…

Well, this is kind of like that.

When I was a kid, on the last day of school or last day before a long vacation our teacher would always show an old Disney short called Donald in Mathmagic Land. The Donald in question is Donald Duck, and the film shows his exploits in a marvelous world of numbers and equations. It really is a great introduction into a few real-world topics suitable for kids and grownups alike (aren’t all things Disney?), such as the math involved in billiards and the shapes of nature. Even in middle school and high school we begged the math teacher to show it.

Well, now I’m the math teacher…

Report from the road

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of visiting Hagerstown, Maryland, home of the Hagerstown Suns. The Suns are the single-A affiliate of my hometown Washington Nationals, and play in one of the best minor league parks around.

Is it big? Nope.

Is it modern? Nope.

Is it filled with gadgets and high-techery? Nope.

Municipal Stadium was built in 1930, and is a cool place to visit precisely because it does not contain any of those aforementioned qualities. They also have little between-inning silliness I’ve described elsewhere as totally useless. Oh, there was a moonbounce but my son really enjoyed that.

The concession stand menu?

Hot dog, hamburger, ice cream, peanuts, and something called “beer.” Yeah, no vegan fried kale sushi for 27 dollars or whatever the major league parks are giving out these days.

Guess how much it was to park?

That’s right. And I could see my car from the grandstand.

Did I sit in the grandstand? Heck no, for 12 bucks I got the Marlins Man seats, right behind home plate. My son and I did move around a bit, as there were 4,000 empty seats. (That’s a slight exaggeration; capacity is 4,600 and official attendance was 638.)

This is what minor league baseball is supposed to be.

Nightmare scenario

Nightmare scenario: the “national” basketball association’s final pairing has a team from Toronto in the finals.

No entrant from America Jr. gonna mess this up.

And hockey? Those pesky Boston Bruins have a chance to give Boston its third straight championship. St. Louis, let’s not let that happen.

That is all.

NBA update

The word “raptor” in Latin means thief (so they tell me), and the Raptors of basketball are about to steal one from the Milwaukee Bucks and TV executives across the fruited plain.

Yup, this is what every American TV exec wants… Toronto playing in the NBA Finals.

I can hear the “U-S-A!” chants already.