**I was a big fan of Eddie "The King" Feigner of "King and His Court" fame. The first new glove I ever had was an Eddie Feigner model my mom bought for me when I was in fifth grade. Many years later, I tried to arrange to bring the Court to Eau Claire. I found his address and mailed a request, along with the hang tag from that old glove of mine for his autograph (unfortunately for a glove collector like myself, the glove was left at the park on the last day of my last Little League season, and I haven't seen it since. One just went for $70 on eBay a few months ago--too much for me). I was stunned to have a large box come to my home a few days later from Eddie himself. He wrote me a long letter and told me some stuff about his tour, some of his favorite places, the glove, etc. He sent along a bunch of old "Court" yearbooks, all of them signed, along with a press kit and some other photos that were all personalized. He also gave me his home phone number and asked me to call him. So I did. We spent about a half hour on the phone, just shooting the breeze and talking about softball. Unfortunately, the time he would be in Western Wisconsin didn't work on our end, so we just sort of left it there. We tried a few other times in subsequent years, but I'm not connected enough in the community to get things rolling and I didn't want to shoulder the responsibility myself. It never worked out.
Of course, Eddie passed away just a few months ago. He had a book out called "From an Orphan to a King", but I never ordered it for one reason or another. After Eddie died, I ordered the book, hoping that it might help out his wife who was struggling with the medical bills. I wanted to report here that the book is a phenominal read full of amazing stories. Well, I guess it is. But I don't know that it's not full of something else, too. The stories, by and large, just sound like they were the work of someone who had an awful lot of travel time to think of things. I have no doubt that Eddie had a number of incredible, unbelievable experiences in his years of touring. I just don't believe everything the book says. One example: he recognized some Olympic pole vaulter or something like that at a hotel, but didn't recognize later on that weekend he was riding in an elevator with Harry Truman. It's still a nice read, and proceeds of books bought at kingandhiscourt.com will help out "The Queen", Anne Marie. But I suggest you read it with some skepticism.
**I recently volunteered to do preliminary judging for a few presentations and posters for the upcoming SABR convention in St. Louis. I was given abstracts from nine different projects and asked to score them on a 50 point scale. Now, those of you that know me (all two of you) know that I'm not a huge stat-based person. I belong to SABR for the stories, not the numbers. That said, of the nine abstracts I was given I only gave one perfect score. It was for a presentation titled "How Valuable is Strike One?". Of course, it's widely known that getting ahead in the count on the first pitch is important. The abstract mentions a 1986 Stanley Katz article that supported this. However, it was noted there were several factors that couldn't be studied due to small sample size, such as game situations. Now there is available data from over 30,000 games since 1988. This new study will show the effects of pitch sequence including situational analysis, ballpark factors, pitcher "types" (predominantly ground ball or fly ball, power or finesse, etc.), hitter types, etc. Stuff like this could turn me into a numbers guy after all. Once I get the study, I'll post here about it. Or better yet check out www.sabr.org for yourself and consider joining this wonderful organization. There's something for everyone in SABR.
**I want to send my congratulations to Al of Al's Ramblings fame on the amazing weight loss so far. It's Gleeman-esque!
I, too, am on a quest to get into better shape. At one point, I was planning on hitting LA Weight Loss but decided if I could do it on my own I would put the money that would cost into something fun, like partially funding a trip to Brewer fantasy camp or something. Well, I've dropped 28 pounds--nearly 10% of my starting weight--since the beginning of the year. I've enjoyed lifting weights for quite some time, so I make sure to incorporate weight lifting in with my cardio. I've never been stronger or had more endurance with my cardio--even when I was lighter. One day I watched the NFL combine and saw some lineman doing 22-25 bench press reps at 225. I went down to my bench, without warmup, and did 24.
I'm happy with my pace, too. It's not fast, but that has to do with my dietary choices. I'm very light for the work week--around 1,000-1,200 calories a day. On the weekends, I usually let go a little bit and one of the weekend days I go all out with whatever I want. It helps me mentally because I know I'm never more than six days away from my favorite foods. Plus, it jolts the system and reminds my body that maybe I'm not starving myself. So far, so good.
