Tag Archives: ronni redmond

BLAKE SNELL & PATRICK BAILEY TOGETHER AGAIN!

Posted on April 10, 2024 | 2 comments

I LOVE this new guy. And of course I’ve always loved Patrick Bailey, but there’s something about his demeanor, his self-confidence that makes you want to believe in him. Especially during his SF Giants debut last night. His name’s Blake Snell. I didn’t know much about him but there was hype all day in the Bay Area. So he throws his first pitch, and the second and the third, all balls, and then throws three strikes in a row and the batter’s out. What a way to start a game as the newby huh?

Then it begins and it was really unbelievable. It was SO obvious it seemed intentional on the part of the umpire. His calls were SO bad it was almost comical but obviously not to the new kid, who waves to his catcher, Patrick Bailey, to come to the mound.

That was the first clue that this guy was something special. I’ve never seen a pitcher do that before. I mean, he’s standing there, glaring at the umpire (me too) and then waves his hand to Bailey like “c’mon, we need to talk” and catcher Bailey trots out to the mound like it’s a common everyday thing. This is all in the first inning or so, I can’t really remember. That umpire was way out of bounds, blind as a bat, so I was thrilled to see the pitcher take matters into his own hands.

It didn’t go too well after that. I think it was an 8-1 loss for the Giants last night. But I’m going to keep my eyes on this kid. He’s got whatever it’s called, “chutzpah” or something like that.

I found out later these two guys, the pitcher and the catcher, have a history and have played together before but it’s still a really great thing to see the comaraderie between the two. Maybe the next time Blake Snell’s in the line-up or even when he’s not, they’ll line up a really good home plate umpire for the game. Most of them are johnny on the spot so it’s not an issue and besides life’s too short for the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s.

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Posted in A4 Uncategorized

Tagged bad umpires, BASEBALL, Blake Snell, GARLIC FRIES, GARLICFRIESANDBASEBALL, Major League Baseball, MLB, Patrick Bailey, ronni redmond, San Francisco Giants, sf giants, Sports

BACK IN THE BATTER’S BOX…..ER, CAGE!

Posted on February 24, 2024 | 2 comments

It was a short process, nursing the wounds from the Super Bowl but honestly, it was a really good game so it’s sort of hard to be disappointed for too long. And besides, today was the first exhibition game of Baseball’s Cactus League and the San Francisco Giants were in it, kinda, sorta.

So I’m reading Evan Webeck’s article in this mornings Sentinel that casually mentions our newest center fielder, Jung Hoo Lee, was nursing a sore side from, (get this) “from swinging in the cage”. Really? Swinging in the cage? He should be ready in a couple days according to new Manager, Bob Melvin. And the other new member of the team, Jorge Soler, was in “bubble wrap”. Melvin had already explained when they acquired Jorge he’d be bubble wrapped to “ensure he breaks camp healthy”. Whoa. It sounds like it’s going to be a long season folks.

The final score of this exhibition game was Chicago Cubs 8 – SF Giants 4; with the Giants scoring all of their 4 runs in the 9th inning.

There is a bright side though and it happened back on October 25, 2023, when Bob Melvin was announced as the new Manager for the Giants. You can’t help but love this guy:)) His first press conference brought it all home as he actually played for the Giants back in 1985 for a few years. The reason I’m so excited sounds corny but it has to do with the differences between him and previous Manager, Gabe Kapler.

This goes back a few (okay many, many) years to when I was a teenager. It’s mentioned in one of my early blogs. I used to score daytime games for my dad so when he got home we could talk about it. And the only way I could do that was to get the line-up from the morning paper and have my scorecard ready to post. Back in the old days the lineup was fairly static, not a lot of changes from game to game except for the Pitcher of course. But the catcher, basemen, fielders, were pretty much established for each game. At least that’s how I remember it, those many years ago:))

It was a disappointment to see Blake Sabol and Patrick Bailey, Joc Peterson and others sitting on the bench, not always of course. I’m sure every Manager has their own way of doing things. But I’m hoping for a familiar line-up most games. I never did figure out the Roger twins, unless they were pitching, then it was easy.

I’m blabbering I know, but I’m just excited about the possibilities our new Manager brings. He reminds me a lot of Boche and what else could we ask for? Welcome home to San Francisco, Bob Melvin! We’re so glad to have you in our organization:))

“PLAY BALL” !!

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Posted in A4 Uncategorized

Tagged BASEBALL, Bob Melvin, Boche, Chicago Cubs, Evan Webeck, Gabe Kapler, GARLIC FRIES, Giants, Jorge Soler, Jung Hoo Lee, MLB, ronni redmond, San Francisco Giants, Sports, Taylor and Tyler

UPDATING THE BASEBALL RELIQUARY!

Posted on September 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

I’ve spent the past few days researching a Blog I wrote back in 2014 about the Baseball Reliquary in Whittier, California. I’ve always loved the idea of it and was interested in its survival, whether it made it or not (the institution, not the blog:)) To tell you the truth, when I wrote that particular piece I was a bit concerned as I’d included a rather risque photo and a kinda, sorta irreligious quote. I mean, you know, reliquary defined is about religious stuff.

But I posted it anyway and hoped for the best. It had to do with Annie Savoy’s now famous “Church of Baseball” in the movie “Bull Durham“. Come to find out the man who wrote the screenplay, Ron Shelton, also produced and directed Bull Durham and, get this, he’s also a Member of the Advisory Board for the “Baseball Reliquary”. Who knew? Whew! It made me feel at least a bit vindicated for my sort of religious transgression. I mean, he did it first:))

Check it out online ~ the Baseball Reliquary. It’s a fantastic tribute to everything baseball. Also, “The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Mischievous Cousin” by Scott Miller, New York Times, gives us some entertaining background of what’s been happening with the Reliquary these past few years. It will make you want to go there!! …. if you haven’t already decided to.

A special thanks to Joe Price, Director of the Baseball Reliquary and The Institute for Baseball Studies, for his interest and support in what I’m trying to do here.

Oops! Almost forgot. Here’s the original blog from October 15, 2014 in case you missed it: https://garlicfriesandbaseball.com/2014/10/15/baseball-reliquary-you-say-what-the/

THE SOUNDS OF BASEBALL

Posted on May 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

“SOUNDSOFBASEBALL.COM“

There’s a new kid on the block, the result of a terrific website that literally outgrew itself. Jam-packed with over 400 audio clips and several thousand photo’s its popularity as an online baseball library continues to grow.

“Sounds of Baseball” is the dream of Steve Contursi, a teacher and non-apologetic baseball aficionado from Catskill, New York, and is the culmination of years of work on an archaic system of programming known as “coding”. It involved the ideas around what it could, should, and would be, and eventually ended up as an informative website that was like no other.

Most of the data on the website could be found somewhere else in the blogosphere, but it would have been a real challenge to find a website that contained all of this specific type of data in the same place.

This was and this is exactly what he did. Over time and with much patience, “Sounds” reached the level of top-rated baseball websites by the top search engines.

However, change was occurring fast in the internet world and with that came many challenges. A call was put out to the baseball community for someone to help with a transition to a more user-friendly website.

Along came Ronni Redmond of Santa Cruz, CA, a baseball blogger with a small amount of baseball knowledge, and not a lot of computer experience. But she wrote a decent blog, had an insatiable appetite for anything baseball and lots of chutzpah and opinions.

This is the new “Sounds of Baseball”. Its foundation is the original “Sounds” with a few little ditties thrown in and published in a Word Press format that’s much easier to maintain. The Site will be evolving as new material becomes available. Goodbye to coding and hello to the formation of an unlikely pairing of a fan of the New York Yankees and a fan of the SF Giants and all teams in-between.