Tag Archives: photography

All-Star Break: Waiting, Day 2

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Waiting to catch a ball …

© The Baseball Bloggess

A record 312 home runs were hit at last night’s All-Star Home Run Derby.

People got really excited about all the homers, but if you ask me, it’s sort of just a glorified batting practice and the home runs aren’t even really home runs … no one runs anywhere, no one scores a run.

According to MLB.com: “There were 24.8 miles of home runs hit in the 2019 Derby — the 312 homers totaled 130,779 feet.” Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., of the Toronto Blue Jays, alone hit 91 homers – 7.3 miles of them. (Dear Toronto Blue Jays Fans, That’s 11.75 kilometers worth.)

In case you missed it, Vlad, Jr. lost in the final round to the Mets’ Pete Alonso.

Sure, 24.8 miles of batting practice home runs is impressive. I guess.

OK, people, time for some Babe Ruth talk. Continue reading →

All-Star Break: Waiting, Day 1

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Four summer days without baseball. That’s what the All-Star Break is.

Maybe you count tonight’s Home Run Derby and tomorrow’s All-Star Game as baseball. My friend Jay doesn’t.

All I have to do each July is send Jay this email: “Do you still hate the All-Star break?” and I get a fast reply, like this:

“I HATE the all-star break – and the all-star game which causes the all-star break.  Especially now that they have extended that break to 4 days. The best thing about baseball is that it happens (almost) every day.”  

I don’t mind the All-Star game, even if just one Oriole will be there. Sure, the game is sort of pointless. But, it’s sort of cute, too. Like a puppy.

Awww. Continue reading →

Two Games. In 2018. In The Middle Of Virginia.

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Charlottesville, Virginia. Saturday Night. 88 Degrees At Gametime.

I appreciate all you photographers who come out to ballgames with your fancy cameras and your lenses that weigh more than my cat.

Do These Cookbooks Make Me Look Fat?

I like the way your photos are all alive with action … with kicked-up dust and the satisfying blurless smack of bat against ball. You’re always in the exact right place at the exact right time to catch the pick off with its ball-into-glove-into-face-of-player-diving-dirt-side-down-into-the-bag action-packedness.

If I sound a little jealous … well …

I can’t do that.

Chain link fences and nets get in my way.

I’d screw it up anyway.

I suck at this picture-taking thing.

Can I document two games in Charlottesville, Virginia without actually showing the game?

Probably not. But, here we go anyway.

Continue reading →

New Year’s Rulin’s

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First of all, New Year’s Resolutions are stupid.

Because if you waited an entire year to decide you need to make some major life change, because, while unpleasant, you know it will be good for you, then why did you wait until today to start it?

I’ll tell you why. Because you don’t want to do it. That’s why. And, eventually, we don’t do the things we don’t want to do.

So, resolutions stink when you make them – because they are things you don’t want to do. And, they stink even more when you fail at them – because now you’re a failure.

Resolutions just stink.

But, there are always exceptions. Woody Guthrie wrote these – his “New Year’s Rulin’s” for 1942.

I can’t tell you if he kept them, but I’m hopeful he at least took the occasional bath and sent money to his kids.

Continue reading →

Waiting To Go Home

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We were booted out of our house today.

Me, Editor/Husband, and all three cats.

Workmen are in there doing workingmen things. Things that must be done without the interference of humans or cats.

It has taken us the better part of a week to prepare the house for this upheaval.

And, today, I am tired, stressed, and, at least for now, homeless.

(I am promised that our home will be opened back up to us by dinnertime. Yes, dinnertime. So, sure, I’m being a little melodramatic here. But, I’m also so tired my eyes hurt. And, cranky. And, I’m sitting here in my studio with the volume on my phone turned all the way up so I don’t miss the text that says I can come home.)

As the workmen do their workingmen things, and the cats are boarding at the vets thinking cat thoughts about how much they hate us now for taking them away from home this morning, I am looking through the photos I’ve taken over the past year.

There’s a lot of waiting going on.

Charlottesville Tom Sox, June 2017 © The Baseball Bloggess

Continue reading →

“Gateway To The Majors”

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“Within the ball park, time moves differently, marked by no clock except the events of the game. This is the unique, unchangeable feature of baseball and perhaps explains why this sport, for all the enormous changes it has undergone … remains somehow rustic, unviolent, and introspective. …

“Baseball’s time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors.” 

~ Roger Angell

Baseball keeps me close.

It keeps me close to my dad who didn’t even really like baseball, but it keeps me there nevertheless whenever I hear Vin Scully’s voice (less often now) or see a Dodger’s logo. Even though my dad’s been gone for years.

Continue reading →

Our Season In The Blue Seats (part 3)

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Sure, I know I’m wearing out my welcome, but here’s one last look from our season in Virginia baseball’s blue seats.

Last post on this. Promise.

If you’re playing catch-up … here’s “Our Season In The Blue Seats” (part 1) and (part 2).

I have a college chum who is an accomplished photographer. He tried to help me understand how carefully manipulating the wheels and buttons and levers on my camera can create a beautiful photo. But, I just can’t seem to ever get it right, especially when I’m trying to shoot through — and wash out — the protective netting at a game while actually also watching the game.

So, my pictures are frustratingly not right most of the time. Which is ok, because if people like me could take a great photo with ease, all the good photographers in the world would be out of work. Which is to say, I’m keeping all the professional sports photographers in business, which makes me a job creator. You’re welcome.

I took a lot of pictures while we watched Virginia baseball from the coveted blue seats this season. A lot.

These were all shot through the protective netting. They are my favorites.

Virginia Pitcher Teddy Paisley.

I’ve been waiting all season to tell you about Teddy Paisley.

Continue reading →

Our Season In The Blue Seats (part 2)

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I’m the person you meet at a party who wants to show you a picture on her phone and then as she’s sweeping through hundreds of them she stops to show you a bunch of unrelated ones that have made her nostalgic (well, as nostalgic as a picture from 2013 can make one). She ultimately forgets the one she was looking for in the first place, which is ok, because one more tiny picture from last summer’s family reunion filled with people you don’t know is going to end the friendship.

Just a few more pics from our season in baseball’s blue seats at the University of Virginia. I promise it won’t take long.

(What? You missed ‘Part One’? Poor dear. Start here.)

Today’s theme – ACTION!

My camera doesn’t catch much action at the game. Blame the camera. (All of these photos were shot through the protective netting.)

Sure, I missed catcher Caleb Knight’s homerun swing, but I did get Virginia’s celebration in a game versus Pittsburgh.

Continue reading →

Our Season In The Blue Seats (part 1)

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Editor/Husband broke his leg on New Year’s Day.

You might think that this was a terrible thing and it was. Not for me, of course, but for him. It was a lousy thing to happen.

But, look at the bright side.

His bum leg wasn’t ready for steep steps. And, our season tickets for University of Virginia baseball are out in the bleachers and up some very steep steps. We had to figure this out. Because I don’t care whose leg is broken, we’re not missing baseball.

So before nearly every home game this season I stood in line at the ticket window – sometimes for nearly an hour – in the hopes of upgrading that day’s tickets to closer-in seats that would be an easier commute for Limpy.

Those close-in seats are the ones that fans like us, with our bleacher tickets, dream about.

The blue seats.

Real seats with sturdy backs, not the long backless benches that line the rest of the park. When you’re in the blue seats you can put your bottle of water beside your feet and not worry that someone will accidentally kick it into the opening in the bleacher floor where it will disappear into the abyss.

Continue reading →

It’s Baseball O’Clock

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Old scoreboard, Porterfield Park. Orange, Virginia.

On second thought, maybe I owe the Florida Georgia Line a thank you.

(Florida Georgia Line is a country duo. And, I’ll admit I haven’t heard a single thing they’ve ever done. You might think less of me for it, but that’s where we are.)

Last night, the duo I don’t know, the Florida Alabama Line, played in Charlottesville. I’m sure they sold out the place, because apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t know a thing about them.

This would be meaningless except for this …

When bands like the Tennessee Kentucky Line play in Charlottesville, all the accessible parking for University of Virginia baseball games is taken away.

This would be meaningless except for this …

Continue reading →