🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Cold🎶
Tattoo✒️
Pitching⚾
THE DAILY UPDATE
Three Things I’m Grateful For Today:
- A great first week at my new job. Please, God, let things stay this way.
- Seeing Boy The Younger do his thing on the pitching mound. He’s fun to watch. He makes hitters look stupid with his change-of-speed stuff.
- My final paycheck from the Catholics.
Wordle 1,064 5/6
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Connections
Puzzle #342
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The song in my head when I woke up: “Cold,” by Crossfade
Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: Maybe in a different light/You can see me stand on my own again/’Cause now I can see/You are the antidote that got me by
ballpark Tunes: My drive to the ballpark for our game last night was done to a combo of Last Podcast on the Left and songs from my Nu Rock playlist.
- B.Y.O.B., System of a Down
- Everlong, Foo Fighters
- Teenagers, My Chemical Romance
- Deer Dance, System of a Down
- Prison Song, System of a Down
- Breaking Inside, Shinedown
- I’ll Follow You, Shinedown
Something I’m looking forward to today: A date with Wifey Poo. Just gotta figure out what to do!
Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: A new tattoo next Saturday!
Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: That my boys fought back from being down 10-2 going into the last inning. Our rally came up just short and we lost 10-9, but dang we made it close.
What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved writing another round of LinkedIn posts for a Johnny Boy Marketing client. He’s got a book coming out in June.
What I’ve written: Speaking of that book … It’s available for preorder now and you should buy it.
If you look at Boy The Younger on the pitching mound, you see a really skinny kid who looks like he could be blown into centerfield by a slight wind.
Teams we face consistently underestimate him while he’s warming up. I have heard opposing players see things like, “Oh, man, they’re bringing the skinny kid in” and “Easy pitcher, guys … easy pitcher.”
And then BTY starts pitching.
The first time BTY threw a baseball to me, he was about 4 years old. And the ball moved. I’m not talking about moved from him to me. I’m talking about dancing like a baseball shouldn’t.
BTY has never had to do much to get a baseball to curve and dart and dive. As he’s gotten older, he’s refined this ability. And now, he uses that ability to make opposing hitters look stupid.
What he’s able to do is the antidote to this modern philosophy of pitching that requires everyone to throw the ball 100 mph. BTY can bring gas when he needs to, but it’s definitely low-octane stuff.
He doesn’t need velo to get outs. He’ll throw you a fastball to start an at-bat, and then he’ll throw a variety of junk that you think you can smash and then is suddenly not there as your bat comes around.
I have seen so many kids who are taller, stronger, faster than my son look incredibly dumb trying to hit what he throws up there.
And I’m proud of him. I’m proud of him because he recognizes he’s not the biggest dog in the fight, but he’s got a huge competitive fire and enjoys toying with hitters who think he’s an easy pitcher. I’m proud of him because, when he does give up a hit or a walk, he gets right back up there on the mound and does his thing to the next batter. I’m proud of him because he’s learned how to control his emotions and not be rattled by a bad call from the umps.
I’m proud of him because he helps the team and puts his teammates first.
Would you please help a brutha out? I’ve created a weekly eNewsletter called News-B-Nuts in which I’ll be sending out news nuggets and witty commentary to subscribers. If you can, would you support this endeavor for just $5 a month via Patreon?