Opening Day

WE'RE TALKING BASEBALL: Today was the first day of the 2011 Major League Baseball season. It has been a long, harsh winter, so this harbinger of spring couldn't be more welcome.

We started our celebration off by reading "Take Me Out the the Ballgame." I picked the book up earlier this week at a used book store for 50 cents. I liked it because it's about a grandma who takes her two baseball lovin' granddaughters to the ball game. (Girls like baseball too!)

After a couple of pages of introducing the characters, this book by Maryann Kovalski just follows the words to the classic song in its title, so we sang it more than read it. As we paged through it, I couldn't help but notice the distinctive blue font on the players' uniforms and the abstract blue birds on their caps. When we were done, I predicted to the kids that the book's publisher was Canadian. I was right - it was published by a Canadian division of Scholastic.

This led to a conversation about Canada's two MLB teams, and my number one memory of the Toronto Blue Jays - the 1993 World Series. And you can't tell that story without talking about Mitch Williams. ...

I told CJ and Annabelle there were two things they should know about Mitch Williams. One was that their dad played baseball with him as a teenager. That impressed them. And the second thing they should know? That his nickname was "Wild Thing."

That made them laugh. I asked them why they supposed his nickname was Wild Thing. CJ guessed that it was because he threw beanballs. I told CJ that was close - that it was because of Williams' famous (infamous?) lack of control at times.

And then I told the kids about my Mitch Williams moment. The year was 1993, and I was on a camping trip. Everyone else had gone to bed and it was just me with the towering trees in nearly pitch darkness. There was snow on the ground and I was shivering over a dying fire, holding a transistor radio, begging the scratchy signal not to completely crap out as I listened to the Jays and the Phillies play game six of the World Series. When I heard that Williams was trotting in from the bullpen for the 9th inning, I was beside myself. "My god, don't the Phillies WANT to win?" I asked the evergreens. Though the Phillies were up 6-5, I knew that was about to change. Williams walked the lead off batter (Rickey Henderson), gave up a single to Paul Molitor, and then Carter brought them in with the shot heard 'round the world (well, at least from Toronto to campsite in the foothills in central Washington).

A GAME OF NUMBERS: One of the reasons I love baseball is because it's so full of stats and numbers. While we didn't get into computing OBPs, RBIs, slugging percentages and such today, we did play a number of Web based, baseball themed math games. First up was FunBrain's Math Baseball. I remember the kids playing this last year, and they had a time with even the easy level. This year we bumped it up to medium difficulty and had the type of problem set to "algebra" (meaning that instead of 4x3=? it might say 4x?=12). They were awarded anything from base hits to home run if they solved the problem. Missing it meant a strike. CJ winded up winning the game, 10 to 3, I do believe.

From there it was on to Batter's Up Baseball, which was very similar to the FunBrain game. Next, we visited Exploratorium's Science of Baseball page. Checking out their Fastball Reaction Time feature, we learned that a 90 mph reaches home plate in about one half a second and that the normal human reaction time is about .2 seconds. In the game, when the player sees "swing batter" on the screen, you are supposed to click your mouse ASAP. The site explained that when you see those words, "a signal in your eye sends a message to a part of your brain that controls your muscles. Your brain must then send a signal to your muscles, telling them to click. Although it takes some time for the signal to travel along each nerve, the major delay in your reaction time occurs at the junction points in between the different nerves involved, and between the nerves and the muscles in your fingers." CJ's way to circumvent the whole process was to click before "swing batter" appeared on the screen. :) Nice try, CeeJ. After a couple of strikes, we three were able to "hit" the ball. On the Exploratorium's "Scientific Slugger" page, we learned that the distance a batted baseball travels depends on two primary factors: the angle at which the ball leaves the bat, and how fast the ball is hit. It explained, "The speed of the ball depends on both the speed of the pitch and the speed of the bat. If the bat is standing still and the ball hits it, the ball will bounce off the bat with most, but not all, of the pitch speed. (Some of the energy is wasted in the friction of deforming the ball, making a sound, etc.) If the ball is standing still and is hit by the bat, it's given a good portion of the bat's speed. Combine the two and you can see that a pitched ball hitting a swinging bat gains a good portion of the sum of both the pitch and the bat speed." I used a pencil and a small bouncy ball to help demonstrate some of the principals, then we played the game on the site that let us adjust the angle of the ball, the strength of the swing, and the pitch's trajectory. We each left the yard a couple of times. ;) Next, we checked out a NPR story on why curveballs are so vexing. We listened to a short podcast called "When What You See Isn't What You Get," and checked out their fascinating visual interactive simulating how a curveball confuses the vision (you really should check it out!).

FROM HEAD TO TOE: Though the Baseball Hall of Fame had lots to explore, we settled upon their page about the history of baseball uniforms. We read about the history of shoes, shocks, pants, belts, patches, jerseys, numbers and names and last but not least, the baseball hat.

I asked the kids which hat they thought was most unlike the ones players wear today. They both chose #1. Then I showed them the Pittsburgh Pirates hats from the mid 1970s to the mid '80s. ;) I pointed out #3, the derby style hat (which never caught on with a Major League Club - surprise!) was the most different, IMHO.

POETRY MOMENT: Inspired by Opening Day and daily emails from Grandpa R featuring baseball haiku, we here at MPA tried writing our own baseball haiku today. First, I had the kids sit on the couch and with the Yankees vs. the Tigers on the big screen, I asked them to blurt out things they see and hear, as well as things they might smell and taste if they were at the ballpark. I wrote the words on a big sheet of craft paper (formerly a grocery sack). I asked them to write one poem that was two 5-7-5 haikus together. It's interesting how CJ & Annabelle's haikus really give a glimpse of what the game experience is from their perspective.

Here are CJ's:

People hit the ball

There are advertisements here

The ball is rough

The pitcher pitches

The stadium has candy

Watch it on TV

And Annabelle's:

The whack of the bat

The ball gets hit really hard

The pitcher throws hard

I love the candy!

There are really good hot dogs

Strike 3, you're out Ms!

I tried my hand at one, too:

Angry manager

Pompous, lazy umpire

Batter kicks the dirt

Mutters, "High, outside"

A fastball sails up and in

Punched out, caught looking

CUPPED CAKES: Last night we started an April Fool's Day-related project. The first step was making cupcakes. I used a recipe out of "Hello Cupcake" and followed it exactly, as it was the first time I've used it. The cupcakes looked good in the oven, and after the appointed baking time and a toothpick coming out clean, I pulled them out of the oven. And then disaster struck - they truly did become cup cakes, their centers completely concave. WTH? I went online to research possible causes. Under cooking, over mixing, baking at the wrong temperature were the top 3 suspects. I knew that none of those applied to me. I also knew that I'd followed the recipe to the letter. I'm always super duper careful to do that when trying a new recipe for the first time. My conclusion - it was a bad recipe, period. And so, I got to remake them this morning. This time I turned to Martha. I knew she wouldn't lead me wrong. Though I have to admit, I was really nervous after mixing the batter. It was runnier than any cake batter I've ever seen before. I though for sure I had another FAIL on my hands. Mercifully, this go round they baked into nice little domes. Phew. This afternoon we began decorating them. CJ and Annabelle were quite helpful. And, as Annabelle pointed out, "It's good to practice on things like this for when we have to do more intense stuff, like birthday cakes." That made me LOL. We were making three different types of decorated cupcakes, and one required a crust of corn flakes. Annabelle smashed 'em ... and CJ helped roll the frosted cupcakes in the flakes. ... I can't show you the finished product until tomorrow, for fear of ruining the surprise for a couple of potential readers.

THERE IS ANOTHER: Though NASA's space shuttle program is near its conclusion, there are other space-related enterprises on the horizon, including Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Here's a tour of the craft's inside (preceded by a 10 second commercial) By the looks and description of it, it's certainly NOT a vehicle that could get astronauts to the International Space Station. It's strictly a thrill ride - designed to take rich tourists on a five minute flight in zero gravity.

ANCIENT JAPANESE SECRET, HUH?: So today a Facebook post from Kennedy grabbed our attention. It read, "How I've gone 23 years in life not knowing this I have no idea: after dying and being taken back to the main menu screen in the original Super Mario Bros., if you press and hold A and then 'Start' you will start back up at the world where you died as opposed to World 1-1."

Surely that couldn't be true. I mean, all the hours and Hours and HOURS Rick and Ken spent playing Mario. Though there was no Internet back then, we read the Nintendo magazines, even called the Nintendo hotline, and never heard this tip. And we HAVE had the Internet for a solid 15 years now, and CJ and Annabelle are huge Mariophiles, studying up on him for hours on end, and we'd never heard that. Could it be true?! The answer is a resounding YES!!!! This changes EVERYTHING! ;)