Odds and Ends

Here's a shocker, Brian Bullington will be out for longer than expected. Raise your hand if you saw that one coming. Raises hand, looks around room, sees many other raised hands.

Also, Seth Stohs of sethspeaks.com has kindly pointed me to an interview he recently did with Minnesota Twins second round draft pick Kevin Slowey, a Pittsburgh native. I think my favorite part was reading about how my school (Duquesne) had no interest in this kid who ended up being a top prospect for Winthrop in South Carolina. It's not like our baseball team couldn't have used the help. Our most famous baseball alumni is Joe Beimel at the moment. Yeah, that Joe Beimel. Anyways, since this guy is only about a year older than me, he's got a lot of the same Pirate memories. His though on the early 90s:

Well, I was still a little dude during the early 1990's, but I do remember the playoff titles and a normal sized Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and Andy Van Slyke leading the charge. I went to a handful of games each year with my dad and brothers, and the occasional birthday party. I really started going to games a lot during high school with buddies because we could hop on the T (public transit trolley) and be down by the ball park in an hour, no problem. My all time favorite player was, and still is, Andy Van Slyke. I think I still have a few hundred of his baseball cards actually. I was hoping to see him this year when we played his son in Johnson City, but no luck.

Anyone who lists Andy Van Slyke as their favorite player is OK in my book. He then recounts his 1992 playoff memories. I won't reprint that there for anyone that wants to avoid it, but if you want. If you really want to read about a stomach punch game you can hang around for the post that will materialize above shortly. At least it won't involve curse words like S-- B---- or F------- C------.