Monday, May 20, 2013

Archive for the ‘From Left Field’ Category

Blackwater Night at Oakland A’s Game

Posted by Waldo On April - 29 - 2011

by Joey Trum

If any of you have been lucky enough to attend a sporting event in Oakland, be it a Raiders game, an A’s game, a Warriors game, or a gang fight, you know that it’s not exactly the family friendly, all-American, Budweiser and dot races display you’ve come to expect from sporting events in the USA. Between the drabness of the Coliseum and a suburban fan base more suited to being Giants fans, you understand that your experience at an Oakland sporting event will likely be defined by its rough and tumble quality (hitting the bong, passing the Jim Beam, and getting into fights in the parking lot before the game) and its lack of attendance.

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HAPPY HOLIDAZE!!

Posted by Dark Star On December - 23 - 2009

CONFESSIONS OF A DARK HORSE

Chapter 1

December 23, 2009

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Hey, Bob Watson! Hit Me A Foamer, Man!

Posted by Dark Star On September - 26 - 2008

NOTE: Some of the various threads of this story began floating around in my head over a year ago, around the time I posted an article about George Bjorkman and myself here. Over the intervening months, I thought several times about sitting down and trying to pull everything together; but I never did, because A.) I knew it would be a lot of work and, B.) I feared some of it might be painful. I basically resigned myself to the idea this story would never be told in its entirety. No great loss, there.

Then Ike happened. Sitting around alone in the hot, almost dark every night for over a week (the family had evacuated to Rayne, LA), listening to the thrum of a generator creating just enough juice to run a refrigerator, a few lamps, and a few box fans; with enough left over to power up this old Dell Inspiron laptop/boat anchor I had sitting around, well, some force compelled me to sit down each night and go about lashing this thing all together.

So I did. It is a little dark in a few places, convoluted in a few others. If you decide to read it, keep the context and setting of when and where it was written in mind, and maybe it will make a little more sense. Or not.

Anyway, everything in it is factual – all this stuff happened. I might have altered an ancillary detail or two in the interest of flow, but that is it. I did change a few names, not so much to protect the innocent – I don’t know any of those, and certainly no one in this story is anything close to it. No, I changed them on the off chance one of the principals might come across this on the interwebs, and feel compelled to come after me, with the intention of kicking my ass.

So, in a way, I guess I am protecting the innocent. That being myself.

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The Good & Bad Report: Lexington

Posted by Duman On July - 3 - 2008

June ate the Legends alive. There wasn’t too much good about the month that ended with the Legends finishing the first half of the season with the worst record in the Sally League. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes on the Nature of Competition from a Non-Athlete

Posted by Noe in Austin On May - 5 - 2008

Submitted by Joey Trum

My dad didn’t like baseball while I was growing up. It being the 80′s and him being a very 80′s type of businessman (Porsche driving, polo wearing, Reagan-loving Houstonian), he was more attuned to the growing white-collar hipness of the NBA than the old-fashioned nuance offered by MLB. Sure, he was an Astro bandwagon jumper in ’86 like everybody else, but overall he had a certain disdain for the sport that I’ve never understood. And the result of this disdain that is most relevant to this story is that I grew up playing basketball. Not just playing basketball, but absorbing everything about it. I was one of those kids who routinely stayed up late to watch random Big West teams complete ESPN’s Big Monday college basketball triple header, who went to the half-full Summit at every opportunity to watch the parade of lackluster complements to Akeem the Dream. I went to Pat Foster’s Cougar basketball camp 4 years in a row, and even went to the one at Rice a couple of times (Tommy Suitts?). Read the rest of this entry »

The Night Before Christmas (A Visit From Ed Wade)

Posted by Andyzipp On December - 20 - 2007

Submitted by Farmstro
December 2007

Twas the night before Christmas in the Farmstro house
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.
The caller IDs were turned on with great care
In hopes Ed Wade’s number soon would be there. Read the rest of this entry »