Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Congrats!

A big congratulations and good luck go out to the Eleva-Strum Cardinals, who are heading to state for the Boys High School Basketball Tournament this week. The Cards were there last year, but lost in the first game. It will be a tough road again this time around, as the other teams in the field appear to be absolutely loaded with offense. E-S prides itself on shutting down the opponent, though, so hopefully they'll be up to task.

And yes, of course, E-S is my alma mater (1990--incidentally, the last time E-S won a game at state. I'm sure it had something to do with the wonderful stat guys they had!)

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Sorry For Being Away

I really thought I'd get into this blogging stuff, but I guess not. I'll try to update a little better as we go along.

Updates:
*Still haven't heard for certain about the publishing of the Burleigh article. It's actually probably a good thing--no news is good news. I'm 95% sure it will be picked up either in this edition or next.

*Finally have started actually writing down some Eau Claire baseball history rather than just researching. I'm nearly finished with the 1886 season. My goal is to finish all pre-Northern League seasons by the end of the year. Not a very aggressive goal, but it's a lot more progress than I've made in the last few years.

*I've been able to get a few images of some of those 19th and early 20th century players through a source familiar to me--baseball cards. I've never really been into the vintage cards, but I found a great site that now has me hooked: www.oldcardboard.com . Go into the "VBC Forum" and you find a whole bunch of collectors that are willing to help out with images. I've got a few nice ones of some obscure players that I plan on using in the book when it's ready.

*Shifting gears--there's a nice little fluff piece on Cuban defector and Brewer prospect Yohannis Perez here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BBN_BREWERS_PEREZ?SITE=WIMIL&SECTION=SPORTS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

*The Eau Claire Baseball History Committee is in the process of raising funds for refurbishing the area around the Hank Aaron statue. It's going to be a nice addition, with a "Walk of Fame"-type thing for other major leaguers who played with Eau Claire and a "Wall of Fame" honoring the people that made Eau Claire baseball happen through the years. I guess I consider the wall to be out "true" Hall of Fame, as without their contributions to baseball there is no way the history of the sport in our area would have been as rich. If you wish to contribute to the project, go to www.eauclaireexpress.com and click on the "Eau Claire Baseball Hall of Fame" brochure for more information.

*Lastly, snow sucks.