CrabAppleLane Sunday - October 22, 2006 Issue

Then - After Katrina

Now

My first bottle brush bush was down in the backyard after Katrina. I pulled it up, staked it, and pruned it to within an inch of its life. It’s not perfectly straight any more but I think it will survive once it completely gets over the shock. It would have broken my heart to lose it. Pre-Katrina, it put on a very nice show twice a year that attracted bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. I like it so much that I bought three more for the front yard..

Note to Major League Baseball: Have someone look into the broadcast schedules and make sure every market has radio and TV coverage for the World Series. Last night, I went out to pick up a pizza just after the first inning. The game was nowhere to be found on my AM or FM dial. Well, that’s not entirely true. I found it on some far away station sharing bandwidth and mostly being drowned out by one or two other stations but it was so frustrating that I had to turn it off. This is your showcase event. You have a fabulous product with young and exciting players out the wazoo. You have many shiny new stadiums (I just can’t say stadia). The two participants this year are playing in spectacular new venues. You have newfound management/labor accord. Fans are coming back. You finally seem to be doing things right again but not having radio coverage for those fans who can listen to but not watch for various reasons is a grievous oversight. Do you think the NFL would allow that to happen for their showcase event, the Super Bowl? Get it together guys. You’re almost there. You will probably never catch up to the NFL in popularity but you really don’t want a return to this, do you?

Speaking of new stadiums: The only thing I can say about Comerica Park is WOW.

About the game last night: It appears that both teams and at least one manager didn’t read the script. Pitching to your opponent’s lone threat with first base open? That wasn’t in the script, Jim. Anthony Reyes was supposed to blow up in the third or fourth inning and a parade of tired relievers were going to come in for the poor National Leaguers while those hard throwers for the Tigers were just going to overpower the weak Cards. That was the script. Well, you can throw that one on the pile with the one that had the Yankees hosting the Mets last night.

CrabAppleLane and the NFL today: The Saints have a bye this week. With Carolina playing the Bengals, Atlanta playing the Steelers, and Tampa playing the Eagles, the Saints could easily gain ground this week in their division but I’m not counting on it. I think Carolina and Tampa will win.

Quote of the Day

It worked out pretty nice for me.

Anthony Reyes, St Louis Cardinals

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Louis Riel follows a Canadian freedom fighter as he toils for fair representation for his people."