Tag Archives: University of Virginia

“Baseball Weather Was Very Scarce.”

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Waiting 18 months between posts here … you would think we’d have a lot of catching up to do.

You would think.

Do you have friends from long-ago that you’ve lost touch with and so you avoid reconnecting because there’s just so much you’d need to recap and who has time for all that and you feel guilty constantly thinking about how much you need to keep in touch but argh the time it will take to do that just paralyzes you and hey it’s not like they’ve reached out to you after all this time and then finally you send a quick one-word text hi because it’s been so long you’re not even sure you have their right number anymore and then moments later they text hi back and you drop right into a rhythm as if no time had passed at all?

Hi.

I’m sure there is much we have to catch up on. But, in many ways there’s not so much.

Still three cats. But Mookie Wilson-Betts is now diabetic and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear about that. Although I think he’d appreciate if I mention that he is an incredibly good patient what with all of the poking and prodding we must do to twice-daily to check his blood sugar and stick him with little squirts of insulin. (Perhaps we have told him that the insulin will, if he is good, give him super powers. Perhaps we have told him that the insulin will give him the ability to fly. Please don’t ruin this for us.)

There. Consider us caught up. Oh and this … Continue reading →

And, Now There’s Baseball

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“Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter.”

© The Baseball Bloggess

Oh, baseball, how I’ve missed you.

Maybe you’re waiting around for Major League Baseball and the Players’ Union to work through their cumbersome labor disagreements. (Spoiler Alert: one side is being an unreasonable, mean-spirited, nogoodnik cheapskate.)

Well, I’m pleased to remind you that today, for college players, it’s baseball o’clock.

I heard that.

I heard you unkindly harrumph-mutter “aluminum bats” under your breath just now.

Stop grumbling and have an open mind.

Sure, maybe the clink of an aluminum bat doesn’t have the same satisfying crackety’crack-crack of a wooden bat.  An aluminum bat also doesn’t explode into devil shards that can put out your eye. Continue reading →

Re-Opening Day

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What did we talk about before covid became all we talked about?

If there were no vaccine waiting lists to talk about … or rumors of covid outbreaks in the next town over … or side-eye mentions of unmasked neighbors … or whining about all the things that are still closed … what, exactly, did we talk about?

I don’t remember.

Even when we’re not talking about covid, we’re talking about covid.

Which brings me to baseball.

On March 13, 2021, Editor/Husband and I – double-masked and with a fresh bottle of hand-sanitizer in my bag – carefully inched our way back to baseball.

368 days.

It had been 368 days since we had last sat outside … scorecard open … game unfolding.

But, then … yesterday happened.

Things are not normal yet. But there is just a glimmer of a kinda-sorta-almost normal’ish life out there.

I don’t suppose you’re all that interested in how the Virginia Cavaliers were trounced 12-4 by Notre Dame yesterday.

Good. Because, I have more important things to cover.

1) Socially Distanced And Masked Means … Socially Distanced And Masked, People.

The University of Virginia is slowly, slowly letting people dribble back in to baseball. And, yesterday, we got to be part of the dribble. Where you sit is assigned and clearly marked (and if one should sit outside their approved “safe seats” an usher will politely assist in proper re-seating). Masks, always. Hand sanitizer stations everywhere.

We had an entire row to ourselves … no one directly in front, no one directly behind. No one nearby. It was luxurious. Continue reading →

Real Baseball. Games In February. Games That Count.

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You can cheer for spring training and it might be warm where you are. But, it’s not quite spring – not quite, not yet – in Virginia.

Last week.

But, it is baseball season. And, not the warm-up-the-bones-in-games-that-don’t-count variety that the big leaguers are playing in Arizona and Florida right now.

Real baseball. Games that count.

The 2019 University of Virginia baseball team began their outside team practices back in January. In cold, snowy, polar votex’y Virginia.

Their regular season began two weeks ago. (Ok, their regular season began two weeks ago … in Arizona. I’ll give you that. But, your nit-picking is missing the point. My point.)

Last weekend, they played Villanova in Charlottesville and it was cold. Bone-chillingly-butt-numbingly-nose-frozenly cold.

(Ok, so maybe it wasn’t that cold on Sunday, and, yes, some people wore shorts to Sunday’s game. But, people who wear shorts in not-freezing-but-still-not-warm winter weather are not to be trusted.)

It was cold – 45-degrees cold – on Friday.

And, before you interrupt me again to tell me how soft people are today and how back in the day people lived without heat or fluffy parkas or polartec or hand warmers, let me point out that the University of Virginia baseball team 100 years ago – the 1919 team – had not even ventured outdoors until the middle of February because their baseball season would not begin for several weeks and it was too cold to practice outside. 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 →

“Welcome Fans!”

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“Virginia is a team that more than deserved to be a very high seed and host a regional. Why that didn’t happen, I don’t know.” ~ Jim Schlossnagle, Coach, Texas Christian University Horned Frogs

Last Sunday, the NCAA named its 16 host teams for their post-season Regional Tournaments which began yesterday.

The University of Virginia — ranked #13 in the country by D1 Baseball, #11 in USA Today‘s Coaches Poll, and #10 in the Baseball Writers Poll — was not among them.

In the scope of injustices in this world, the NCAA’s slight is plenty misguided, sure, but still pretty teeny-tiny.

And, sure you can argue that Virginia is still one of the 64 teams competing in the post-season this weekend. Look at poor Miami, left out for the first time in 44 years.

Yes, you can argue that at least Virginia gets to play today.

(Don’t try to make me feel better. I’m steamed about this.)

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 →