You Asked for it San Diego

I've lived in San Diego for 30 of the 33 years I've been on this planet, so I feel like I have a pretty good "feel" for the landscape. And while this town had grown up a lot since 1980, we really still are a sleepy little border town at heart. Maybe it's the beach, maybe it's the fact that LA has more then 3 times the population that we have down here, or maybe we're just delusional...either way we fancy ourselves a bit more casual then most down here.

Case in point. I can't tell you how many times people have commented to me about the suits the Bob and I wear on the Padres Postgame show...and it's always the same thing.

"Why to you guys wear suits? This is San Diego, put on a polo."

My answer is always the same as well, we wear suits when we are in the studio because it looks more professional that way. I challenge anyone to find a studio show in any market that doesn't have the hosts wearing at least a jacket. Grand Junction, CO...check. Beaumont, TX...check. Bristol, CT...check. It's just the industry standard.

Well today we broke our rule. Due to the rain this afternoon, at the very last minute we had to move the Pregame show (which is usually at the ballpark and therefore we are NOT in suits) inside to our Channel 4 studios. That meant it was a studio show in golf shirts...just what San Diego has been clamoring for.

Personally, I didn't like it...and believe me I am not a suit guy. I just think it looks better to have a tie on when your in studio, but I want to know what you think.

Now that you've seen it...do you still like the polo's in studio?

Flan Man

In 1985 Tim Flannery and Jerry Royster platooned at second base for the defending National League Champion San Diego Padres. For Flan it was a career year, hitting .281 with 40 RBI and 9 hit by pitches...and I guarantee he sprinted to 1st base after all 9.

For me, it was the start of something special. I was in 4th grade at the time, playing for my Little League team in Coronado, and I absolutely feel in love with the way Flan played the game. He was the ultimate scrapper who always played the same way...with 100% heart. Think of David Eckstein with long blond hair and a surfboard.

In fact the more I learned about Flan, the more I loved him. He wasn't just a ballplayer that played the game right, he was a surfer and a musician and a guy that embodied the Southern California lifestyle (even if he was born in OK). In a word, he was my boyhood idol...okay maybe that was more then one word. Here's the point, no one can live up to the image a 10 year old boy creates in his head. Especially a 10 year old as "creative" as I was. It's just not going to happen.

So in 2004 when I learned that I would be co-hosting the Padres Pregame show with my boyhood idol Tim Flannery, I was both extremely excited and pretty damn nervous. Not nervous to meet him (I had already interviewed him a few times when he was the Padres 3rd base coach in 2002), but nervous to get to know him. What if he wasn't everything I had built him up to be...I mean how could he be.

It turns out I was right, he wasn't what I thought he was when I was 10 years old...he was so much more. The three years we spent co-hosting the Padres Pregame show were some of the best years I have had in TV. Working with Flan was great, and even though he was the newcomer to TV, he taught me so much about performing. But the real gem was getting to know him on a personal level. I mean not that many people even get to meet their boyhood idol, let alone become friends with them.

I get to do a lot of cool things because of my job...but that was easily the coolest.

Cutest Kid Ever!!!

So normally I like to include some sort of witty anecdote with my picture of the day, but not today. Today I answer the proverbial question, "What's a picture worth?"...how about a thousand words. It would take at least that many to describe how cute my buddy Andre and Kristy's son Noah is.

I mean look at him. Have you ever seen a better looking croquet caddy anywhere? Doubt it.

On a side note...neither Noah or I got to actually play croquet today, but I am confident we could have beat anyone.

Family Style

One of my wife's good friends from college, Liz (you might recognize her from "Twin Cities Live" on ABC 5's Eye Witness News in Minneapolis) is in town this weekend so we have been busy. Padres games, night's on the town and a little family style dinner at our friends Tonya and Greg's.

As you can see we had a good crew there tonight. Lot's a food, lot's of conversation, lot's of laugh's and a lot of competition. The competition came courtesy of a game called "Celebrity". If you've never played...look it up on the internet. If you know the game, you still might be wondering why all the competition. That's just a factor of our group.

Don't get me wrong, it's not cut-throat and nobody is throwing any blows, but things can get a little chippy at times. The good news the heat of competition never lasts beyond the actually competition. I guess that's why we're all friends.

Sneaky Fast

I went out to dinner last night and then out to a bar called Hamilton's Tavern afterwards...and somewhere along the line I got pretty tipsy. I realize that going to a bar is a pretty easy way to "get tipsy"...but this one surprised me.

The best way for me to describe how that came to be is to use a baseballl analogy...so here goes.

A good fastball in the Major Leagues clocks in between 94-97 mph...and average one comes in between 91-93 mph. If you're throwing a 88 mph fastball in the Majors...you better be sneaky fast. The Padres Chris Young is sneaky fast...and so was the beer at Hamilton's last night.

The thing is when you're drinking beer you expect the alcohol content to be around 4%...that's a good average. The beers at Hamilton's averaged around 7% or 8%. The beers I was drinking came in at 9% and 10%. All of a sudden 4 beers is closer to 8 or 9...hence sneaky fast tipsyness.

Grounds Keeper Willie

I shot an "Anything You Can Do" story today with the Grounds Crew at PETCO Park...and I am exhausted. So exhausted in fact that I am going right to bed and I will finish this entry tomorrow. Until then, I will leave you with this...ballplayers are slobs, especially when it comes to things they put in their mouths.

To be continued...

***Friday AM***

Okay, I am well rested and ready to tackle the rest of this blog entry.

As far as yesterday goes, it really wasn't all that surprising to me that a.) the grounds crew at PETCO Park works extrememly hard and b.) ballplayers spit a lot of things out of their mouths onto the playing surface. The thing that was surprising to me was the volume of both the work put in, and the substances spit out. To be fair, a lot of the work is directly related to the spitting, because it all has to come up off the field before the mowing and repairing and grooming can start.

That's what I am doing in this picture, sucking sunflower seeds off the infield grass. I always thought that was a little bit of overkill myself, but you don't consistently get voted one of the top playing surfaces in the Nation League like PETCO Park does by cutting corners.

For the record I also had to hand grind clay brinks, take the grass clippings to the dumpster (which smelled worse then anything I have ever smelled), clean the bases, clean the mowers, shovel dirt, set up the cage for BP, water the infield and drag between innings...but you can see all that when the story airs.

Holding Court

One of the great traditions in baseball is that before every game the manager sets aside some time to talk to the media. It usually takes place in the dugout, no matter if you're at home or on the road, and it serves as a time for the writers and broadcasters to ask whatever they want of the manager. This happens for every single game! Can you imagine an NFL head coach posting up on the bench a few hours before kick off on a Sunday? It would never happen.

That's one of the beauties of baseball...it's so much more accessible then some of the other sports. The best part is that these impromptu press conferences usually consist of some pretty amazing baseball stories. The kind of things you imagine Hall of Famers talking about behind closed doors over some beers and a card game.

Just like those stories would be, most of what you hear in the dugout is "off the record", but occasionally you hear one you can share. Today was one of those days.

Someone asked Buddy today about Bobby Cox...that's the Atlanta Braves manager for those that don't know. So Buddy regaled us with one of his memories of the legendary manager.

It was 1991, Buddy was pitching for the SF Giants at Candlestick, and he was facing Braves pitcher Steve Avery. Buddy made a mistake and Avery smoked it over the chain link fence in center. It just scrapped over the fence, landed on the cement beyond the wall and then took a big bounce. The second base umpire however ruled it a ground rule double because he thought it bounced over the wall. Bobby Cox came running out of the dugout and all the way into right center field where the umpire was, arguing the whole time that it was a HR. The argument of course, was to no avail and as Cox was walking back to the 3rd base dugout he passed Buddy on the mound and asked him what he thought. Buddy looked him right in the eyes and said, "I thought it was a homerun." Cox's response, "G*@ Dammit I knew it!!!"

That;s why I love baseball...it's a story tellers game.