Our final spring training practice will be tommorow (April 14th) in Livonia at 12:30 PM.

LaRue has our new jerseys. You will not be given your jersey until you've paid your 41 bucks, so tommorow would be a good time to pay up.

Team Email
We're hoping to get in another practice or two on the following dates:

Thursday April 12th, 6PM
Saturday April 14th, (time to be determined on thursday; probably a late morning time)

Same location in Livonia.

Please respond, let me know if you plan on being there. Thanks.

Team Email
Ok, I think we have a team to play tommorow. Here's a cc of the email their manager sent to their players today:

Practice/scrimmage is on for Sat.4/7 at 11:30am in Livonia at the fields at Inkster and 5 mile. Rain or shine. Hope to see everyone out there. Season starts in a couple weeks and I'm sure we could all use the workout. If you're unable to attend let me know except for the folks I've already spoken to. Should be a good time. See you all there.

I'm figuring on 7-9 players from our side. If you haven't already, please let me know if you cannot make it, otherwise we'll be looking for you.

Also please notice that I've added Don's email address to the team roster/mailing list. I've also added a daytime contact phone number for myself you may want to note (see the members-only roster).

We are close to working out a scrimmage for this saturday. Please have a look at this email exchange with the Pikes over on the private area.

Updated. Please note game date
LaRue and I attended the Managers Meeting at Liberty Park last night. They didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know, except that the season is being pushed back a week. Our first game will now be on April 19th with time, diamond, opponent, etc. T.B.A.

LaRue is calling a mandatory practice for next thursday.

We didn't hookup with Scott of Grillos last night, but did meet the management of another former team from Softball City, the Pikes. We may be able to arrange a scrimmage with them for this or next saturday (more likely would be this saturday).

Team Email
We had a decent turnout of 8 for this morning's practice. It snowed and rained, but it wasn't too bad. We may well be playing games in worse weather than that.

Anyway, I count 11 days until our first game. So we're having another practice in Livonia at 6PM this thursday, and probably one more next weekend. Next weekend's might turn into a scrimmage game against Grillos Bar & Grill (formerly Team Drunk) if we can get a hold of them.

I'll send an update on next weekend's particulars as soon as we know anything. In the meantime please reply and let me know if you will be at the practice this Thursday.

Map to the practice field in Livonia.

Team Email
Next practice is Sunday April 1st 11:00 AM in Livonia, at 5 Mile and Inkster.

The weather was too damn miserable to practice yesterday. But we will hold a practice next weekend no matter how cold it may be. With only 18 days until the season starts we can't be too fussy about weather conditions. This would be a good time to bring some money out to LaRue.

Please respond so I can help LaRue with the head count.

Team Email
LaRue is calling a practice for this saturday, March 24th...I forget what time....check the webpage and I'll have it posted shortly.

The practice will be at the Livonia facility.

We will know the time and diamond of our April 12th game on April 6th. LaRue and I will be attending the Managers Meeting at Liberty Park on April 2nd. LaRue also wanted me to mention here that there's a tournament at Liberty Park on April 21st.

We have word that Don plans on playing again this season, and Eric and Rocco are "90%" sure they'll be playing. Also, I heard from Barry D., and I'm trying to get him to play in the Fall half.

I was surfing around today and came across this. I didn't know that Mike Macenko played for the Softball City Team. Didn't know there was even Softball City team for that matter. Interesting.

We are now officially signed up at Liberty. First game is April 12th, time TBA. I have confirmation that we will definitely be getting new jerseys. Please check your line on the members-only roster, because that's the jersey number you are getting. Let LaRue know if it's wrong. I believe he is ordering sizes based on what we told him last season.

In personnel news, we have confirmation that Eric will be playing and Rocco is listed as "probable". LaRue says the head count is at 15.

Please see the "Shedding a tear!", post by Mark C. in the members-only section of the site.

LaRue wants to get a practice in soon. We *might* be able to an indoor facility, but there's nothing more I can say about it yet. We're going to need 41 bucks per player in the next week or two. If the weather doesn't permit a practice we may all have to meet somewhere anyway so that we can pay LaRue. We should be signed up in the next 2 or 3 days.

...then I get something worthy of mention the very next day. Some email to the team:

Hey boys, so you are finally being forced out of Softball City...... Well thats good. Come and join your old rivalry former TEAM DRUNK / BUDGET PAINTING at Liberty. Go where there is real umps and real fields. Tell LaRue that am still waiting for my case of beer.
We played D'ball second season and it was better than Softball City. We ended up 7 & 3 and the compatition was alot better. We are playing again on Thursday nights at Liberty and hope to see you guys there. Let me know through email what you guys do. Scott.

I responded to him this morning as follows:

Hey Scott.

I talked to LaRue last night and we're about 98% sure it's gonna be Liberty Park, Thursdays class D for us. Maybe we should try to get Liberty to place us in the same league. What do you think?

LaRue found a message on his machine from Mark C. today, who said his responsibilities with the Tigers will be cut back so he'd like to rejoin the team this year. I'm really hoping that turns out to be the case.

I've received minimal feedback from the email about nights, and I had to tell LaRue that. So we'll let the opinions of the few represent the many. It seems to boil down to this: there isn't one night that's good for everyone. Wednesday is particularly bad. No one wants monday, and friday is a problem for a couple of guys. That leaves tuesday and thursday. LaRue and Dale have the exact same problems as each other with those nights respectively. The tie-breaker is the guy with the clipboard. So it's looking like we're probably sticking with thursday.

Jeff G. did indeed commit to sponsoring the registration portion of our financial needs. But the matter of player fees (whatever that means) and ump fees all have to paid as well....up front. So we'll be collecting from the players for that. Figure somewhere around 30-40 bucks. Jeff was in agreement with the idea of trying class D at Liberty, with a Fall season move to another complex if necessary.

Hopefully we will be registered some time next week.

Team Email
As promised at Winter Meetings, Randy has talked to Softball City's Ron about what's going on over there. He called LaRue with the info. Apparently the're paving it over for a parking lot for the new whatever complex the school board is putting in over there. As if the outfield's aren't already harder than asphalt. Anyway, unless we hear otherwise in the next week or so we're signing up elsewhere.

The consensus at Winter meetings for a plan "B" was Liberty Park Class D on a weeknight to be agreed upon later. If we find ourselves with a 2-12 record after the Spring half, we'll consider Rotunda for Summer/Fall.

I strongly urge you to voice your opinion in the next few days. Our Members discussion board is the preferred method, unless you want to call LaRue directly.

Also, I've put a new poll on the Members-only main page, asking for your night preference.

Please resend
A guy from Eastpointe sent me an email today about playing with us this season. Dude, the dang email got waxed before I had a chance to reply. Damn Linux machine :/. Please contact us again, especially if Liberty Park Class D is of interest to you.

Also, if Scott of Team Drunk is still visiting here, drop an email too, please. We want to talk to you.

Liberty Park Online
In case you didn't notice the link above, Liberty Park is online now. Yeah I'm not too impressed with it yet either. They promise each team a webpage. Been there, done that, wrote the blueprint. But I'm thinking the schedules, scores and standings they talk about could be pretty cool. If that's the case, I'll probably write a script or two to slurp the standings and other league news and info off their server and into our site directly.

Well, I've been so busy with work, taking care of sick people in the house, car problems, car lease expirations, etc., that I haven't had much time to check in here. I see eight days after the fact, that Dale posted this message on the private message board:

..... Let's plan on 7:00 PM The meeting agenda will include dinner and snacks (pizza, chips?) provided by Larue and I, followed by an alcohol research seminar. Please bring your own research material. The meeting will conclude with a pep rally led by our esteemed coach, and presentation of last season's "rusty-razor" award. Of course, spouses, partners, or otherwise significant others are welcome.

I know LaRue's been telling guys to visit the site for a map to Dale's house. And that's true; the link is down below somewhere. But it is password-protected, cuz we don't want any spys showing up ;). Email me if you forgot the login name and password to the Members Only Section.

On another matter, LaRue tells me that Jeff G. has agreed to sponsor us another year. Thanks Jeff! Jeff may be playing this year, but he's not sure yet. Depends on how the arm feels I guess. Dave on the other hand, will not be returning to the team as we originally hoped.

The date's been officially set for February 10th, the place is Dale's house, but the time is still T.B.A. (it will be in the evening, I believe).

I've been asked to post a map to Dale's house on the site. You'll find a link to a map over in the private area of the site under this message board post. You'll need the player's username and password to get there. contact me if you've forgotten it.

Update 8:40PM
I added a pair of new reciprocal links to our links page this evening, thanks to the people at slopitch1.com.

Am I the only one who immediately thought of former team member Brad Lewis when reading this story.

Winter Meetings
LaRue tells me Dale's Volunteered to host Winter Meetings once again, February 10th at his house in Ferndale. No time has been set yet nor are any other details available. If you have a problem with this date, let someone know ASAP (Me, Larue, or Dale) so we can change the date if it's a problem for enough people. Thanks, Dale!

Etc.
Got this email today. Are we interested?

Hi:
My name is Iten Covaliu and I´m a commissioner in Mexico City.
I saw your page because We wanted to play some international games.
If you are interested please contact me at:
@yahoo.com so we can arrange the games we have several ideas for this games. thank you and hope to hear from you

I'd probably invest a couple hundred in this today if I could.

I ran into LaRue yesterday. He told me he spoke with Dale recently, and Dale's volunteered to host Winter Meetings again this year. It will be some time after the superbowl.

LaRue has also spoken with Harry. His new business is not yet opened, so apparently he will be unable to sponsor us this year. LaRue thinks Creative Impressions will continue sponsoring us. But he has to talk to Jeff first.

Interesting coincidence: about three days after returning from vacation in Henderson Nevada, I received an email from Henderson's Recreation Department inviting us to play in a President's day tournament.

cut/pasted from this page: http://detnews.com/2000/lions/0012/22/g05-166217.htm

The Lions can qualify as hosts for a wild-card game in the NFC playoffs. They have to beat Chicago on Sunday and hope that Cincinnati beats Philadelphia and Green Bay beats Tampa Bay.

The Eagles (10-5) are favored by 10 1/2 points over the Bengals (4-11). The Packers (8-7) are favored by 2 1/2 over the Bucs (10-5).

If the Lions play host to a game, it would be against the Eagles on Dec. 30 or 31. If the Lions and Eagles win, the Eagles would play host to the Lions in a wild-card game. Other possibilities are not as clear-cut.

The Team Stats Report has quite a few new options on it now. You define what types of games you want the report to include or exclude.

Now, there's tons of other types of reports I'd like to write in the future. Reports that include stuff like...oh...what's our record in games where we left more than X number of runners stranded?....Who has the best batting average of everyone who's ever batted leadoff...or clean up?....stuff like that. Very doable because we have all that data. I'll get to it.

Anyway, the revised Team Stats Report does show some interesting things. For example, did you know we were only 8-8 as home team, but were 18-6 as visitors last season? Or, we were 18-2 when scoring 15 or more runs? You can also use the report to check your batting average against certain teams, or on certain diamond, or both. One thing I forgot (errr...was too lazy) to add was a parameter for game time. I'll put that in there next time I revise the report.

As I said on the player-only discussion board, the Lions will be billing me for playoff tickets soon. That bill came today. Here's an excerpt from the accompanying info:

"Should the Lions win the Central Division of the NFC or qualify as a Wild Card team, it is possible that a playoff could be played at the Silverdome on either the weekend of December 30-31, 2000 or January 6-7, 2001. (Note: There is no possibility of the Lions hosting games on both weekends).

Depending on the results of games played, it is possible that the Lions could also host the NFC Championship Game to be played on January 14, 2001.

This presents the possibility of one or two games being played in the Silverdome."

So what this means to me, since they lost last night, is the only way I see a game at home is if they win two playoff games...a wildcard game maybe at home, and the Central Division championship definitely at Minnesota....and wind up with a NFC championship game against another wildcard team. Not too likely, but I'd hate to not have the tickets if that does indeed occur. Question: does anyone see a hypothetical possibility that the Lions play on the road on the 30th/31st and at home the following week? That's what I'd like, but I just don't think its possible now that they lost last night.

I should be dry-shaved for planning a vacation during the playoffs.

As promised, I added a new link on the photo page, to the Williams Collection. There's four pictures from July 15th. I have 6 more to scan from this collection over the coming months. Plus I still have more from my own collection. Check back periodically, I'll be posting a few every month.

Also, we got a new reciprocal link over at Dog Kennel Softball a few weeks ago. Stop by there and woof at em or something. Who let the Dogs out?

Another site I'm sure you'll want to have a look at is Barry Sander's new site. IMO, somebody must have paid him to put his name on this POS "website", and write a few stupid columns and game predictions. I guess he's got nothing better to do. here's a quote from his site:

" No, I won’t play in 2000 and I don’t ever see myself playing again. I probably won’t ever come back under the current circumstances. Would I play if Detroit traded me? Probably not, even if they were willing to trade me."

I emailed Matt S. the other day, asking him how the knee's doing. Here's the reply:

Thanks for checking up on me. I have a tear in my medial miniscus. It should be ok on its own.

I'm in the process of winterizing the site. Even though this summer's site redesign has rendered the archive page obsolete (or at least redundant) for storing post-1999 season info, I think I'll put parametered links to that stuff there anyway. So look there, or use the main menu for the reports.

I have a number of photos to scan and add to the site. LaRue gave me a bunch, and I also have some off a roll of film we just had developed. I'll add a few periodically.

I'm hoping that over the winter we can stay in touch somewhat by using the discussion board a little more.