Best baseball clip ever: Pat Venditte, switch pitcher for the single A Staten Island Yankees, decides which hand to use against a switch hitter, who is simultaneously deciding which side of the plate to hit from.
That’s right, I said “switch pitcher.” More on Venditte from the Sporting News. [Editor’s note, 2023: THANK YOU SO MUCH, ARCHIVE.ORG!] This is seriously the best thing ever. I hope Venditte gets to the majors. Seeing him in action would be more than worth the price of admission.
There are so many more points of decision in this scenario than the standard one with a switch-hitter and a non-ambidextrous pitcher. Normally, it’s easy: The conventional wisdom is to bat lefty against a right-hander, and bat righty against a left-hander.
But if you don’t know which hand he’s going to pitch with before you approach the plate, when do you decide which batter’s box to go stand in? And if you’re the pitcher, when do you decide which hand to throw with?
I had no idea: Pete Rose and Alex Rodriguez have been talking hitting for years. It’s a good article.
I just found this out today: Rory Root, owner and proprietor of the great comic bookstore Comic Relief in Berkeley, died in May at age 50.
I loved his store and spent more than a few bucks there over the last few years. I actually didn’t even realize he was the owner until I heard this news today. And now I kick myself for never giving myself the chance to get to know him as a person. But his legacy lives on in Berkeley. See the site linked above for memorial service information (June 21st).
Bay Area’s own Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk In movie festival features original shorts from around the world
June 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shelby Toland, 415-273-1545
The New York Times says the Brainwash Movie Festival “pirat[es] a piece of that old Hollywood magic and challeng[es] conventions on the role of public space in the process.†(“Now Playing, a Digital Brigadoon,†7/29/04, Chris Thompson)
“We show movies on a big sail in West Oakland,†counters festival director Shelby Toland.
If Senator Barack Obama finally proves that he can win the Democratic nomination for President today or tomorrow… after the snowball effect of building a grassroots movement, winning Iowa, raising millions of dollars online, and winning 11 straight primaries…
Does that mean he’ll have put the finishing touches on the Obama-nominatable Snowman?
Learning To Love You More (ah, Miranda July)…
[Note: this is the first entry in a series of entries, categorized “Unfinished Thoughts”, which were originally posted to gohlkus.wordpress.com ostensibly to blog about later. But, the vast majority never saw gohlkusmaximus.com until July 2010.]
I’ve been meaning to write about rock shows for a while now.
This kind of thing (previously) seems to tend to happen right around the time I’m about to take a long trip on Amtrak. Or maybe that’s when I most notice it.
I did ride 13 hours on Amtrak last Thursday, and it was pretty uneventful and relaxing. It was also supposed to be an 11-hour ride (which is a fairly typical delay, I think). And I’ve had a great time in North Carolina with my family. But how long, I wonder, will my scheduled 13-hour trip from Kannapolis to Manhattan take tomorrow?
Speaking of NYC, I enjoyed Yankee Stadium way more than I expected to.
I was a little embarrassed that only a few days after scoffing at how dangerous Oakland is, I got shot. I intended to post about it, but I just never got around to it. Each time I thought about it, it moved farther away from “kind of scary” and closer and closer to “old news,” but it never quite became a blog entry.
Anyway, one Wednesday night last fall,