8th Gateway to Hell

I was completely unaware that my dog was guarding a dimensional rift in the corner of my bathroom.  I'm sure there are other explanations for why he has been staring in the corner for 16 hours a day/night for the past four weeks, but I can't think of another good one.  Compound that with the 4-5 times I wake up per night and the oddity of waking up between 4:06 and 4:22 AM and you have some weird coincidences.

Strange animal reactions are common when the paranormal is involved.  Researchers have documented instances where pets will react in fear, stare at nothing, or growl at unknown and unseen intruders.

Back to my dog.  See the round spot near the bottom of the green trash can?  That is commonly known as an orb.  Most often they are seen in haunted locations like cemeteries.  Very comforting to see one hovering on my floor.  So could this be a gateway to hell?  Not likely.  But I am a bit concerned about waking up night after night after night.  Is something bad going to happen between the dates of April 6 and April 22?  Is Chief keeping the creatures in their world and out of ours?

I got old recently

I got old this weekend.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I felt it coming.  A broken leg, torn ankle tendon, two dislocated shoulders, a plethora of bad ankle sprains, wrist sprain, three surgeries, more crutches and casts than I can remember, and a left knee that feels like it has sand in it has been more than adequate for a warning.  Even with all that it was still a sudden and depressing realization I was as good physically as I was ever going to get.  No wait, I had BEEN as good as I was going to get.  No more pipe dreams about "well, if I work just a bit harder, maybe rehab just a bit different, and get that next surgery" that things will be OK.  Nope, this was it.  Injury and age will keep me from deluding myself into believing I can reach my athletic goals.


So that begs the question....what now?

3 Ideas to make MLB even more perfect

My chief concern for the day is that nobody is watching baseball this time of year.

After watching a game snowed out and now rained out in the playoffs this year I got to thinking a bit about some things that could fix this incliment weather issue.  That of course lead to a trickle down of ideas that MLB might want to consider going forward to keep competitive with the other fall sports now dominating the airwaves.

Idea 1 - End the regular season in mid September
Why?  Well, my point about weather is the main reason.  Do we really want to see a snow out in Colorado?  Is playoff baseball better when all the warm weather players make silly errors because they can't turn their heads with all the cold weather gear on?  How about the playoffs, arguable the best time of the year (unless you are a Royals or Pirates fan) playing third fiddle to the NFL and NCAA football as it heats up during the conference season?

That leads to....
Idea 2 - Play Saturday double headers
I don't support shortening the season.  I am way too absorbed in statistics, and shortening the season would make me feel lost in a fog if I didn't have the same number of games to compare stats in my youth to stats in my adulthood.  The 2010 season for the Royals has 26 Saturdays.  If you play just half of those as double header days you shorten the season by nearly two weeks.  This allows you to get the LCS and LDS series over by the first week in October and set up the WS for the first 10 days or so of October.  Back to the World Series really being the magic in October.

Idea 3 - 30 Man roster
If you are playing all those double headers you might need a few extra players.  But lets take a page out of the NFL book.  You can have 30 on your roster but only activate 25 for each game.  Effectively, you would just deactivate all you starters not starting that day.  Want to keep three catchers?  Do it!  How about 4 utility infielders?  Yea!  Maybe we can keep some players on the roster for specialty reasons and keep the defensive liabilities off the field.  Oh and they all still have to be on your 40 man roster.

So there you go.  An idea, from an idea, from an idea.