Exhibition games are in full swing now with the Nats joining the fray yesterday with a split-squad twinbill. As far as winning and losing goes, they didn’t fare well dropping a 15-5 decision to Houston and falling 10-4 to Florida.

Former Sens were all over the place in the games as many of the vie for spots on the Nats. Garrett Mock went the first two innings against Houston allowing just three hits but more importantly, working ahead of the hitters. In the same game, Drew Storen was outstanding throwing seven strikes in eight pitches and retiring the Astros in order.   Offensively Roger Bernadina and Josh Whitesell both had nice games as Bernadina went 1 x 2 and scored two runs while Whitesell was 2 x 2. Former Sens Seth Bynum, Leonard Davis, Michael Daniel, and Jonathan Solano all appeared in the loss.

In the other game of the split-squad, former Senator Collin Balester pitched two innings and allowed a run and a hit. Luis Atilano had a tough first outing getting roughed up for five hits and four runs in one inning of work. Ian Desmond started the spring the way he ended the season in Washington, showing the Nats what he’s capable of by going 2 x 3 with a stolen base and playing shortstop and right field. Many former and future Sens appeared in this game as well.

Even though the results of the two games are a bummer, it’s nice to have baseball to talk about instead of snow. 

The minor leaguers not already in camp report today and tomorrow and begin working out on Monday. The first minor league spring training game is still a couple of weeks away. I’d love to tell you I’ll keep you posted on those, but spring training box scores are pretty hard to come by, that’s for sure.

Construction Update:  Things seem to be moving along quite well. I’m heading up into the construction zone later this afternoon and will have more to report then. The brackets for the seats are being installed in the upper bowl as we “speak” and the finishing touches on connecting the boardwalk are taking place too.

On a related note, we estimate that over 1000′ of the ballpark is connected by boardwalk now! Wow!

So today I listened to my first game this season. It’s nice to think it’s warm and baseball is being played somewhere. We’re six weeks away from games in Harrisburg and five weeks away from games involving the Sens.

Tomorrow the Nationals play their first game this season, actually two games as they’ll be in split squad action. Several former Sens are set to start in the games and slated to pitch.

The starting line-ups for the games tomorrow are as follows:

VS. ASTROS IN KISSIMMEE
Managed by Jim Riggleman
CF Nyjer Morgan
2B Adam Kennedy
RF Elijah Dukes
1B Chris Duncan
3B Pete Orr
LF Roger Bernadina
DH Josh Whitesell
SS Alberto Gonzalez
C Wil Nieves
P Garrett Mock
Relievers: Shairon Martis, Matt Capps, Drew Storen, Jason Bergmann, Eddie Guardado, Atahualpa Severino, Andrew Kown.

VS. MARLINS IN JUPITER
Managed by John McLaren
2B Willie Harris
SS Ian Desmond
C Ivan Rodriguez
1B Adam Dunn
LF Mike Morse
CF Justin Maxwell
3B Eric Bruntlett
RF Jerry Owens
P J.D. Martin
Relievers: Collin Balester, Brian Bruney, Logan Kensing, Ron Villone, Luis Atilano, Juan Jaime, Josh Wilkie, Mike Venafro

The players in bold have played for the Senators. The game against the Astros is on game day audio with the Astros broadcasters calling the game.

I’ll try to keep up and post more or less daily the results of the big league games, especially those things former and potential Sens are doing.

Spring training isn’t like the regular season since the “pressure” of building stats isn’t there however the pressure of making the team is there for a number of players.

There’s been a lot of news and quotes out this week about Stephen Strasburg and where he might start the season. I don’t think we’ll find out for a few weeks what city will have his services to start the season but those in the running are Potomac, Harrisburg, Syracuse and certainly Washington. For those of you old enough to remember Fernandomania, you have an idea about what could happen here.

Construction Update: Things are just moving right along. I’ll be going into the ballpark late tomorrow afternoon so I’ll have a better update on Friday. The boardwalk connecting the main seating bowl and the left field boardwalk is nearly done. Visually it looks like all that’s left is some finishing work and hand rails.  The seat rails started being installed yesterday and two sections are nearly done.

Until next time, enjoy some game day audio!

Today is the last day with no baseball until sometime late
next October or early November. How great is that? Pitchers and catchers begin
reporting tomorrow and Thursday, with workouts beginning next week. But many of
the pitchers and catchers that are due to report tomorrow have already
reported, so it won’t be long now before there are actual highlights on TV of
baseball activity. 

Spring is just around the corner!

 My enthusiasm is curtailed only by the fact there is over 18″ of
snow on the ground at my house right now. Growing up in Sacramento I never had snow at this time of
the year in my yard. Then again, I think it had only snowed two or three times
in my life. So I’m not really sure how to handle all of these
conflicting feelings. Snow/spring. Snow/pitchers and catchers reporting.
Snow/warm weather in Florida and Arizona.

I don’t know how many emails I’ve received about the snow and the construction
on the stadium, so let me take this space to set the record straight. The
ballpark is going to open on time. The snow is having little to no affect on
the progress of the construction. I’ll touch on the construction more later.

New manager Randy Knorr was here most of last week, thanks to the snow. He was
supposed to arrive here on Tuesday and go home on Thursday, but with the
blizzard that took place last week he didn’t get home until after midnight
Friday into Saturday morning.

He didn’t seem to mind though as I’m not sure how much snow he’s been around,
at least while it is falling.  He was able to tour the ballpark and home
clubhouse and he seems genuinely excited about the ballpark.  We had a
chance to get to know one another since we spent a lot of time together. 
If you want my unsolicited opinion, I think he’s going to be great. 

Construction update time… the ballpark is still on schedule. Just outside our walls we can hear the work on the new Senators merchandise store. On a side but related note, I’m not sure what we’re naming the store, but if you have any ideas let me know at tbyrom@senatorsbaseball.com.

The boardwalk connecting the main seating bowl with the existing boardwalk in left field is nearly finished, which is exciting. Work continues on the luxury suite level and on the main level, finishing the concession stands, restrooms, etc.  The clubhouses should be finished by the first week in March and I heard a rumor that the seats should be installed by the middle of March.

I want to personally thank everyone that donated money towards the Haitian relief in hopes of winning a luxury suite for a night. I’ll be announcing the winners later today so stay tuned to the Senators website for that big announcement.

One last note, one of my co-workers, Jonathan Boles, made his TV debut today when he was interviewed by cbs21.  The interview will take place this Thursday so if you’re in the area you can see it “live” on the 5pm Thursday newscast. If you’re not in the area, it will be on their website beginning Friday (www.cbs21.com).

I think that’s it for now. I need to go do some digging so I can take some updated pics of the ballpark.

Living in the east means dealing with Snow. When I first moved away from California back in 1998 and to Indiana, the first few times it snowed were pretty cool.  Now, well, not so much.  Although I must admit it was gorgeous this morning at 7am. Unfortunately, I was shoveling it instead of admiring it.

With snow on the ground and the potential for more this weekend, the thought of pitchers and catchers reporting in less than three weeks is a strange one.

Kids in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and other places throughout the country wake up to snow and either want an “official” snow day, or they just want to play hooky to play in all the snow.

Growing up in Sacramento, we never had a snow day. I had one fog day, but never a snow day. I had to find other reasons to play hooky.

Every year when I was a kid, I would mysteriously be sick sometime the first week of March. Why you ask? Well because sometime during that week was the first Giants broadcast of the spring.  What a glorious day that was (and still is).  It signaled that spring was just around the corner. That baseball season was just around the corner. And it meant that the end of the school year was finally in sight!

Over the years there were other days that hooky was played as well. If you’re under 35, you probably don’t remember that back in the “old days” the playoffs were just a best of five and there were games played in the daytime. Without looking it up, I don’t think the first weekday World Series game was played at night until the Pirates and O’s played one in 1971.

So in the fall, I didn’t really pretend to be sick, I just stayed home and watched the games. Come on, they were the playoffs! And yes, I’m talking about PLAYOFFS (screeching my voice high and pretending to be in a post-game press conference).

There was also another day that I’m happy I played hooky and that was in October 1978. The Yankees and Red Sox had just finished an incredible division race that ended in a tie. If my memory doesn’t fail me, the Red Sox had a huge lead in August and worked themselves into choking (something they did quite well until 2004) allowing the Yanks to catch them.

My mom wandered through the living room that afternoon and before I could get the channel changed to whatever movie she thought I was watching, she saw the game on and realized I wasn’t sick.

Just drive through Boston yelling the name Bucky Dent and see what kind of reaction that  still gets, over 30 years later.

Speaking of hooky, how many of you are going to play hooky on Monday? And how many of you think that the Super Bowl should either be on Saturday, or that Monday should be an official U.S. holiday?

Speaking of the game here’s what I think for what it’s worth… Colts 38 Saints 21. Of course, my World Series prediction was exactly the opposite of what happened.

Stadium Update… things are going very well. Pictures continue to be updated weekly on the Senators website of the construction.  Excitement is growing in the offices over the construction and certainly seems to be growing in the ballpark as well.

Until next time, have fun and well, if need be, play hooky for a day and just do something fun (like playing in the snow)! 

Is everything worth having a title? Do all of my blogs
really need to have a title? I’m thinking I don’t always have to come up with a
title. I can just write, you can read, and it doesn’t have to be titled.

Now that we have that out of the way…

I’m not a huge football fan, but I do enjoy watching the playoffs. And
boy-oh-boy, so far this year they have been serious duds. There has only been one
really good game (Chargers vs. Jets) and even that one wasn’t that good.
All I care about is something fun to watch. Wait, there was one high scoring,
close game right? Oh yes, the Cardinals and Saints from the opening weekend. I
missed most of that due to my Sunday night bowling league.

Speaking of the bowling league, I’m in a horrible slump. We’re talking a
three-week, not holding up my end of the bargain, slump. Emily Winslow and Mac
Simmons are on my team and well, I’ve failed them miserably the past three
weeks. Consequently, we’ve only won two games out of the last 12. Ouch. We have gone from second place in our league to seventh.

In less than eleven weeks, the players will be arriving from spring training. Does eleven weeks sound far off? It isn’t. It may be to you, but it
isn’t to us. The time is going to fly by, that’s for sure. I was telling one of
the interns today that once the Super Bowl is over time really starts to roll
along at a pace that is too quick.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, we’re down to two teams in the NFC that have not
won a Super Bowl and two teams in the AFC that have won a combined three Super
Bowls including Super Bowl III when they played one another.  Sounding
like a broken record (can you really sound like a broken CD?), all I want this
weekend is two interesting games. For those of us that work Monday through Friday, Sunday night is the end of the weekend. So ending the weekend with dud games just stinks. But you’re not reading this blog for football reasons, right? (okay, who knows why you’re one of the few people reading this)

This time of year much of the baseball talk is centered around contracts. How many of you baseball fans out there have a baseball conversation that has nothing to do with contracts? I am probably in the minority, but I could care less about contracts. Teams are going to spend money on players, so I want my favorite team to go out and get the best players they can and leave it at that. I don’t worry about what my favorite restaurant pays their chef, so why should I care what my favorite baseball team pays their right fielder?

Where was I going with this blog and not having a title? Who knows…

I think it’s time I move along to a construction update, don’t you? The boardwalk extension from the main seating structure out to the left field boardwalk started this week. Most, if not all, of the concrete has been poured in the areas that are going to have concrete. The roof is nearly complete, with just one area where the metal has not been attached to the roof. Overall, the construction is still moving along nicely.

That’s it for now. I’ll have more football to talk about next week, yippee! And I promise I’ll have a title!

Okay, okay, I know its been forever since I typed one of these. One of my resolutions this year is to be current with my blog. I’m anticipating this to be the case because I have hired an assistant for the 2010 season.

Matt Tymann has joined the Sens, along with seven other interns, and is assisting me with writing press releases and will be joining me on the air during home games this season. I am thrilled that our fans will have a second voice to listen to this year besides me just droning on and on. I, for one, believe that baseball on the radio is meant for two voices. And as games become longer and longer, it’s just that much more important to have a second voice.

Changing subjects.

We’re in our new administration building. If the new ballpark comes out as nicely as our offices, then WOW, everyone will be delighted! There is actually room for all 25 of us that have offices or cubicles in the office. Pretty amazing!

Speaking of the new ballpark, it is coming right along. And I can tell you, it IS going to be amazing. Amazing. Amazing. The project is on schedule which is a good thing. If you are in the Harrisburg area do yourself a favor and come on over to take a look. Even though the website is updated frequently with pictures, they just don’t do justice to the size of the structure.

As for the baseball side of things, I’m excited about the 2010 season. While I don’t know the exact players yet, it is VERY exciting to speculate on whether a particular player is going to appear in a Sens uniform. That player is the 2009 Washington Nationals number one draft choice and the overall number one draft choice Stephen Strasburg. Time will tell whether he is on the roster, but I do know we’ll have plenty of players worth watching including a few prospects.

The Sens have a new manager for the first time in three seasons this year as Randy Knorr takes over from John Stearns. Randy was the bullpen coach for the Nationals last year and managed for the Nats in Potomac two years ago, leading the P-Nats to the 2008 Carolina League Championship. Randy also has two other Championship rings, earning them while a member of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993.  I have spoken with Randy several times on the phone and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to work with him all season long. Troy Gingrich, Randy Tomlin and Atsushi Toriida round out the 2010 staff, all returning from last season.

The Sens staff has several new full-time people with the two newest joining us last Monday (January 4th). David Simpson is the new box office manager, and yes Virginia, there IS a real box office this season.  David has an interesting background that includes being a bat boy for the Cleveland Indians for parts of five seasons.

Ann Marie Naumes has been hired to put together our new merchandise store. She comes to us from the Cleveland Indians, where she worked in their retail stores for the past few years. She is a huge Baltimore Orioles fan. (Booo)

For now, that’s it. Stay tuned as I will be updating the blog frequently.

Rain delays. No other sport has delays like baseball. It’s just another aspect of baseball that makes the game the national pastime.

As a fan, before Jumbo Trons and Video Boards, rain delays were spent reading and re-reading the program. Or wandering around the distant reaches of Candlestick Park. Sometimes it meant eating a lot. Oh wait a minute, I always ate a lot at the ballpark.

In my book, a true baseball fan has to do three things and only three things.

1. Root for a losing team.

2. Sit through a rain delay.

3. Listen to more games on the radio than you watch on TV

That’s it. Pretty simple, eh?

Rain delays somehow cause fans to come together. It’s hard to explain, but when I was going to games there was always something different about being at a game that was being delayed. It was almost as if we were all in it together, sitting there, braving the rain waiting patiently for the game to start. Sometimes hoping it would start. Those crowds would always seem to have more energy, more life. Maybe that’s because in a way it was a rebirth once the game started and the rain stopped.

Matt Williams, when he was with the Giants, used to do a great Babe Ruth impersonation during rain delays.

About now you’re probably just how many I sat through in San Francisco. Well, I don’t know. I’m guessing more than ten and less than 20. The truth is that it just doesn’t rain all that much out there during the baseball season.

Shawon Dunston of the Cubs used to put on a good show during rain delays. He’d have fun slipping and sliding, entertaining the fans.

Occasionally you’ll see a player in the big leagues messing around during a delay, but not very often. The game has changed. The business of the game has changed.

As the saying goes, it is what it is.

So the next time you are at Metro Bank Park, or any park for that matter, and the game is being delayed, take the opportunity to say hello to someone near you. Make a new friend. Remember you’re in it together, those of you hanging out waiting for the rain to stop.

So as the rain continues to fall at Prince Georges Stadium tonight in Bowie, I think I’ll get up and go make a new friend.

Until next time, go Sens.

The Sens have had a pretty good week winning a couple of road series and splitting the first two games at home. The exciting thing about being home in the opening of the new Capital BlueCross Boardwalk.  Watching the reactions of fans the past two nights has been a lot of fun. And seeing people surround the playing field makes it seem we are in a big league ballpark.

One of the wonderful things about working in AA, or at any level of the minor leagues, is getting an opportunity to watch future major leaguers while still in an intimate atmosphere. Off the top of my head, I’d have no idea how many players I’ve watched the first four plus seasons in the Eastern League that have made the big leagues. But it’s a bunch, that’s for sure.

As much as Metro Bank Park feels more big league it is definitely not the big leagues. For the players, the pay is obviously much better in the big leagues but so is everything else. No more late night delivery from Gino’s Pizzeria or the long bus rides. Being in the big leagues means chartered air travel… not handling your own bags… and being in lush surroundings in the clubhouse.

The players aren’t the only people trying to reach the big leagues though, all of us aspire to reach a higher level, maybe a better job within baseball. For me, it is a big league radio job. For others here, it’s getting to a place that maybe they’ve always dreampt about like running the New York Yankees. For one person with the Sens front office, she is moving onward and upward trying to reach more goals. 

Today is the final day Director of Picnic Operations and unofficial social director Melissa Altemose is working for the team. She’ll be back for a couple of games between now and early June, but today is her last full-time day. Though we are separated by a whole lot of years in age, Melissa and I both started with the Senators in 2005.  She is leaving to take a job with the Washington Wizards of the NBA, joining former front office staff member Tony Duffy who is also with the Wizards.

I have no doubt that Melissa will someday be running a minor league team if she so desires. Or working the front office on the sports side of a professional organization.  Here’s to wishing Melissa good luck in all of her future endeavors! 

Last night in Erie the Senators and SeaWolves played 10 innings and the game took three hours and forty-eight minutes. You read that right… Three. Forty. Eight. If you don’t know the outcome you’re probably thinking that it was a 15-14 type of game with a lot of action.

Nope. 4-3. There were however 20 strikeouts and fifteen walks. Strikeouts and walks take a lot of pitches and a lot of pitches mean games move slowly.

Don’t get me wrong, there was some outstanding pitching in the game as both teams left numerous runners in scoring position because of great pitching. And there was some great defense too. Edgardo Baez threw a runner out at third, and Luke Montz was thrown out at home by Brennan Boesch of the SeaWolves.

But this blog isn’t really about last night’s game, it’s about time.

Last night’s game started at 6:35pm local time, which meant it was over by 10:30pm even with the game lasting 3:48, it was still over by 10:30pm.

The World Series has started later and later over the years to the point that at 10:30, without the games being played slowly, the games are in the fifth or sixth inning. At 10:30pm EDT, they are in just the fifth or sixth inning.

Keep in mind that with those games, the typical break between each half-inning is something like 2:30, which means with 17 half inning breaks, makes for over 30 minutes of commercials during a game.

It also means that games are ending, even the “quick” games, between 11:30 and Midnight.

In case you hadn’t heard, MLB and Fox announced yesterday that all of the weekday World Series and ALCS games would start before 8:00pm. They were gleeful in this announcement. Like they had accomplished something major. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you the actual start time, 7:57pm. Yep, a whole three minutes before 8:00pm.

I’m wondering if any of you know how many major league games will start this week at 7:57pm? Anyone know the answer? Ferris?

I do.

None. Zippo. Nada. As a matter of fact, the latest local starting time for any game this week is 7:15pm with most night games starting at 7:00 or 7:05pm.

I just wonder how all of those teams manage to get fans in the stands and home watching the games since prime-time hasn’t started yet. I realize no one in America watches any TV before prime-time, but somehow for six months starting at that time makes sense for baseball teams, but not for the playoffs.

The worst part of all of this is that Fox made the announcement, as if they control what baseball does.

Oh wait, my bad. They do.

The NLCS has not announced any changes because there games are on TBS. Heaven forbid baseball actually control when the games start.

I wonder if the world would end if World Series games started at say, 7:15pm and were over by say, 11:00pm!?!?

The single biggest televised sporting event in America, the Super Bowl, starts at 6:30pm EST on a Sunday night. Supposedly the worst night of the week for Nielsen ratings, and yet it seems to do just fine.

Somehow in the “old” days the World Series was pretty popular and was actually played, gasp, in the daytime. Imagine that, day baseball!?!?

Okay… that’s it. I’ll get off the old soap box for now! By the way, downtown Erie is gorgeous today. And it looks like a great day for a run. So, I need to get moving and get outside, the streets of Erie are beckoning me.

And besides, time is starting to slip away on this fine Tuesday!

Baseball is a game of streaks and statistics. What other sport has so many numbers so closely related to it?

For example, what does 714 or 755 mean to you? Well of course you know that is the number of home runs Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron hit in their careers.

Tell me, how holds the all-time rushing record in the NFL and how many yards?

Almost all baseball fans know that 300 wins by a pitcher is an incredible accomplishment and is nearly an automatic berth in the Hall of Fame.

There isn’t a comparable number in either the NBA or NFL. Whether baseball is the most popular sport now is certainly debateable. The fact that literally MILLIONS of fans attend games says that it’s still pretty popular.

Yesterday alone over 380,000 fans attended major league games for an average of over 29,000. And remember, there are games today, and tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday… well you get the picture. The games aren’t once a week or two or three times a week, but… Every. Single. Day.

It’s easy to understand injuries in football because of the violent collisions and in hockey with banging into the boards. But in football the players have a week between games and in hockey they are only on the ice for 90 seconds to 2 minutes at a time.

The next time you see a ground ball bang off the shin of the short stop, you just think back to when you were a kid and got a bruise there and how badly it hurt. And then remember that that particular short stop is going to keep playing, every day, with that bruise among others. Baseball may not be the physical game the others are but it is an everyday grind.

As I’ve mentioned before, this year the Senators will spend about 10,000 miles on a bus, play 142 games in 151 days, and spend over 1,200 hours at ballparks this summer. Is it hard work, no, is it work, yes.  

All of this makes some streaks easier than others. For instance, the start this season by the Senators has been bad, but playing everyday makes it difficult to step back and take a deep breath, maybe after a couple of days of not playing, and regroup. Instead they come to the ballpark everyday, with no break, and try to break out of their collective slumps.

Ryan Zimmerman just had a 30 game hitting streak snapped this past week in San Francisco. 30 games. That is a month’s worth of getting a hit in every game. How many of  you out there play slow pitch softball? Do you get a hit in every game for 30 games? Now thinking about playing against pitchers throwing 90+ miles per hour and getting hit. Every. Day.

Hats off to Ryan Zimmerman and his 30-game streak. And hats off to the Sens who snapped their 15-game road losing streak last night. Here’s hoping they start a winning streak tonight.