The weekend got off to a good start, which a date night; my parents let the kids sleep over. This gave Tonya and me a chance to have drinks with some friends, and some much need time alone. It is always fun to have a lazy Saturday morning – breakfast at the ATL Bread Company (their vanilla nut coffee is to die for) while reading over the newspaper, followed by a shopping trip to the book store, and then a nice walk around the park. Needless to say, date night is highly recommended!
It seems like it has been book review central around here for me lately, and I do not see much of an end in site. I started perusing through the “Baseball Prospectus 2006,” and earlier this week, “The Book: Playing The Percentages In Baseball” (Tom M. Tango, Mitchel G. Lichtman, and Andrew E. Dolphin) arrived in the mail, and just this morning I picked up “Steal Away: Devotions for Baseball Fans” by Hugh Poland.
I am not sure what to make of the prospectus book – I have never even glanced at a register or prospectus type book on baseball. The section on the Braves was fairly interesting, especially the writer’s take on C. Jones and Smoltz ultimately setting back the team by restructuring contracts (Jones), and insisting on moving back into the starting rotation (Smoltz). The book also pretty much says Jones sucks as a fielder, but “The Fielding Bible” shows him as middle of the road among other 3B. It is always interesting to see different perspectives on the same players.
I have only glanced at “The Book” so nothing really to report at this point. There is a chapter on base running and how much a runner actually distracts a batter (as opposed to the pitcher); should make for interesting reading.
I have always read that baseball is a religious experience; “Steal Away” looks to be just that (on in a book). I normally struggle to finish devotional books (just not my thing I guess), but I figure I have a pretty good chance at making my way through a devotional book that makes all sorts of references to baseball stories, facts, players, and other sorts of nuggets of information. I have only read a few pages, but I think I can highly recommend this book to baseball fans that want some type of devotional book.
What else? Looks like the F1 season quietly got underway at Bahrain; I saw quietly only because I have not followed the off-season this year. The US advanced to the next round of the World Baseball Classic thing; would have been embarrassing if we did not push forward. March Madness is upon us …
All for now. Happy weekend!
