Hadn't realized it until just now, but the ol' posting routine at The Home has gotten a bit sporadic as of late. I can blame part of it on the recent bout of Creeping Crud I've battled for the better part of a week now. Some of it can be blamed on Internet Burnout: I just haven't had much of an attention span for trawling the Interweb for news, baseball, and amputee midget bondage porn. (How many site hits do you think those four words are worth?)

Mostly, I've been busy. Busy doing what, you ask? Well, busy getting things ready for the newest addition at The Home. Yep, the wife and I are expecting our first child next month. I'm pretty excited. And scared to death.

So I hope my threes of readers will bear with me for a while. I'm sure there'll be more lapses in the flow of wisdom(?) I share with you. There may be days I prefer to discuss the viscosity of what the baby left in his diaper, rather than Marcus Giles' on-base percentage. And according to my friends and family who've already been through this- I may prefer to grab a twenty minute nap (whenever I can) over everything else. But I'm sticking around, and I hope you do too.

I didn't make it into work last night. Spent a few hours singing arias into the toilet. The degree of difficulty was rather higher than normal, as I was wicked dizzy to boot. (I thought I was going to pass out on my first trip to the microphone.)

I very rarely get sick. I chalk it up to being a good looking, left-handed vegetarian, but my wife says that's a bunch of crap. I digress. As someone who doesn't get sickly very often, I don't handle it well when I am. I've been told I'm whiny, which I don't believe. I've been told I'm very mean, which I DO believe. Anyway, my wife braved my whiny nastiness and fed me tea and bagels, and I'm here to live another day. And there was much rejoicing.

Holy Jeebus- tearing down two 20-gallon tanks, moving them to the other end of the house, and then setting them back up is a lot more work than it sounds.
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Watched a bit of the Braves and Dodgers while doing my fish business. I don't put much stock in Spring Training wins and losses, but it was nice to see the Braves come back from such a large deficit to win the game. The young guys looked pretty good with the bats. Matt Diaz looked pretty bad in left. John Thompson looked really bad on the mound. But that's what Spring Training is for and I'm sure all the kinks will be worked out by the time Opening Day rolls around.

"They didn't think Buck was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. That's the way they thought about it and that's the way it is, so we're going to live with that," he said. "Now, if I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck."

Well, Mr. O'Neil- there are plenty who do feel you're a Hall of Famer. Count me as one of them.

It really makes you wonder about the persons on the voting committees for the Hall of Fame. How the hell could you not vote for Buck O'Neil?! What about his days in the Negro Leagues? What about his .288 lifetime batting average? What about the fact he was the first black manager in the big leagues? What about the work he's done to keep the history of the Negro Leagues alive, as well as continuing to be an ambassador for the game of baseball?

Members of the voting committees: it's time to take your heads and your calculators outta your asses and look at the big picture. Yes, numbers are a big part of baseball, obviously making them an important element in determining who gets in and who doesn't. It's not all about the numbers, though. At least it shouldn't be...

These'll be the same morons who look at two cheaters like Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro and make them first-ballot inductees, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, I've gotten so worked up about this I failed to provide a link to the story about Buck O'Neil not being voted in that has me so up in arms. Here it is.