The Happy Fishermen

Intramural softball at UCSD, something about playing against the college kids that makes me feel old.

Mobile blogging

Wow! I just updated my blog and posted a photo right from my phone.
This new fangled tecnology is amazing.

Carin, you really don't have an excuse for not updating BTs blog since
Christmas.

Brian's First Beer

Rarely are moments like this caught on film. Fortunately, through the magic of digital transfer is this incredible footage.

Padre Disappointment

I'm over it already but I think it should be known, Holliday never touched home plate and here is the conclusive video evidence to prove it. Notice this is the same angle that the home plate umpire had. I think someone just wanted to go home after 13 innings.

Padre Status

The lack of updates is by no means a reflection of my enthusiasm for baseball at the moment, particularly the Padres. After a great series of games on the road against the Mets and Phillies which included a stellar home stand against the Diamondbacks, taking 3 of 4, the Padres hit the skids a bit in Colorado, Arizona and LA but have turned it back on as of late. They currently find themselves just 2 games back of Arizona in the West and 1.5 games up on the Phillies for the wildcard with only 14 games left in the season.

Leading the way as of late has been the rookie 3rd baseman, Kevin Kouzmanoff, who is hitting .299 with 16 homers since May 1, and there's no reason to think he can't continue producing along those lines. I like the Padre's chances for the post season and I am confident the Pads can leap past the Diamondbacks with a little help from the Dodgers and Colorado to take the West! Hold on tight, no days off until the end of the regular season for the Pads.

The Crushin Russian watches another hot smash to the opposite field!

Classic Moment

It's been awhile since I've put something up here. So here is a classic moment from the past. Enjoy!

July 4th Festivities

The fourth of July is almost upon us, a holiday which has always been a favorite of mine. As a child the 4th usually meant a day spent at the pool, hovering around the BBQ, watching the homemade ice cream turn and of course fireworks and sparklers. Nothing like tauting your younger sister with a blazing metal stick emitting glorious streams of white hot light. While I try and still keep with tradition, minus the tauting, I have recently added another event to the enjoyment of the holiday. So what is the wonder you ask? Well it is nothing less than amazing, it is Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest! It is the SuperBowl of competitive eating and biggest event held in the world for the International Federation of Competitive Eating or IFOCE for short.

For those of you that may not be familiar with the IFOCE and the hot dog eating contest, this event has been dominated for several years by Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, who has held the record for hot dogs consumed at 53.75 until recently. The United States' own Joey Chestnut broke Kobayashi's record earlier at another IFOCE sanctioned event by eating 59.5 hot dogs setting up the big July 4th match! Rumors have also begun to fly that Kobayashi may not be 100% due to an arthritic jaw but I believe he is just playing mind games with the young Chestnut. This year's big event will be broadcast live on ESPN on July 4th at 9AM (Pacific Time), don't miss it! Nathan's also makes a great dog for grillin so be sure to bring a pack to your July 4th BBQ. Just be careful if a eating contest breaks out. Lastly, reflexes contrary to swallowing are cause for disqualification.

I Wanna Pitch!

On the week my Dad officially retired and while Roger Clemens can't commit to retirement I got a chuckle out of this video. I suppose if any of us could get paid a cool million for a day of work I might find it difficult to hang them up.

Congratulations on your retirement Dad! I highly recommend home brewing to fill your weekdays

Father's Day

If you haven't already heard I celebrated Father's Day by brewing the first batch of beer this calendar year. I can't believe it is already June and I am just now getting something into the fermenter, better late than never. For this brew session I went with a homebrew favorite Denny Conn's Rye IPA recipe! It's been fermenting away now for several days and smells heavenly already!!
That's 13 gallons of pure statisfaction!

Khalil OS

You guys do know our shortstop is a robot right? His operating system has been revealed. For exclusive images of his recent wife click here.

Hilarious graphic below can be found at Gaslampball.com

What does this Family Guy clip and Dodger Fan have in common.....

uncontrollable vomiting last night.... this is one of my all-time favorite "Family Guy" clips, Enjoy! Dodger Fan may want to advert the eyes.

NL West Analysis June 8th

Wow!! What a series against the Dodgers this week! Padres pull off the sweep with three very different games. Game 1, Padres win with 2 hits and 1 run which scored late in the game on 8th inning single with a runner on second. Game 2, Padres jump out to an early 5-0 lead and win 5-2 capped by Trevor's 500th career save. Last but not least, the Pads rally in the bottom of the ninth with 5 runs to win in dramatic fashion 6-5 to complete the sweep. Entering the series the Friars were a half game out of first and by the end of last night had taken sole possession of first place 1 game ahead of Arizona and 2-1/2 games up on LA. So what do the numbers look like compared to our last evaluation?? Lets look at the figures..



As you can see the Friars have been playing out of their minds! They have increased their run differential dramatically! You'll also notice that Arizona has also moved from the negative to positive side of the graph propelling them right into the thick of the NL West. The Giants remain a team that is a complete mystery looking a lot like Jeckle and Hyde from game to game.

The Father's open up interleague play tonight while on Sunday the Crain family is headed to the game for Ellen's first major league experience. I should have lots of images of the event posted to Ellen's World come next week.

Test your Padre knowledge

Think you know your 2007 San Diego Padres? Take this quiz and test your knowledge.

Here is another Padre puzzle for you fans out there. Enjoy the long weekend!!

Crossword answers available by clicking on the image below.

Looks like #2 and #10 Down were the stumpers for most people. Some of you might remember ramicackle from the days at Qualcomm when they would flash it across the score board following a hot smash. While even myself can't say I've seen a fungo up close and personal.

Until next quiz.....

Padres Win!!

That's pretty much all I have to say. You can read all about it here. Time for me to get to bed as Ellen will be waking before I know it.

NL West Analysis May 22

It's been a long time since I have posted lately. I've been so busy trying to keep Ellen's World updated that I really have neglected Crain Life. I figure most people rather see fresh content of Ellen anyway since she changes on a nearly daily basis. Speaking of which she is recently become infatuated with her feet! I got some really great shots of her playing with them and will post them soon at Ellen's World.

Moving on to other things, after Ellen hits the sack I usually take in several innings of the Padre's game. This season has been more of same compared to last two years, which isn't a bad thing! The games are usually low scoring which makes for close and dramatic endings. I don't know this for sure but I'd be willing to bet the Pads probably have played the most extra inning games in MLB. Currently, the Padres find themselves just a half game out of first place in the NL West just behind the Dodgers, who have been struggling as of late. With the Cubs in town who have also not played great as of late the Friars could find themselves in first after tonight. While looking over the standings I also noticed an interesting trend which doesn't really completely surprise me since I keep a pretty close eye on statistics but I thought I would share it with those baseball fans which might not.

Below is the amount of runs scored by each team (blue bar) in the NL West along with the amount of runs scored against them (red bar).

Nothing terribly exciting.... most of the teams have scored similar amounts with the edge slightly going to the Giants. The Padres are just ahead Arizona and Colorado the latter of which play half their games a mile high. Albeit, Coors field is not the Coors field it use to be with the installation of humidors to store game balls. Maybe the Padres are not the woeful offensive team we were led to believe. Before you protest, I will confess they aren't exactly knocking cover off the ball but they do break out every once in awhile. They lack consistency at the plate and generally don't hit well in clutch situations.

So if everyone is so close in runs scored what does separate them you ask??? The answer lies in the pitching. Below is a graph of the differential of the runs scored minus runs allowed adjusted for each game.

Wa La! The Padres are head and shoulders above the rest of the division. Their inconsistency at the plate explains why they are not at the head of the division. The teams are ordered from left to right as of May 22nd in their respective places. What is also interesting is the two young teams in the division, Arizona and Colorado, are both in the red! It's hard to win games when you give up more runs than you score. Not looking so good for the Rockies. I really thought they stood a better chance this season.

Well I hope this extra long post makes up for the lack of content recently. Cubs in town to face the Padres with Peavy on the mound tonight. Should be good one. Any game Jake starts has a really excellent chance at being a WIN!

Padres open season versus Giants

Baseball fans rejoice the season has begun!!! Before I continue the screaming baby is not Ellen, as she will never wear the colors of the enemy as long as I can stop her. I just found this image to be quite humorous after the Padres took the first 2 games like candy from a a baby.

My Padres opened the season Tuesday by taking 2 out of 3 against the Giants. The Padres looked strong in all 3 games and nearly swept the Giants, falling short in the last inning. This team shows no quit and even though they lost again last night in the home opener they once again fought till the end! I expect great things from this team. In just the first few games of the season people are already starting to take notice.

"Now, one of our preseason whipping boys, the Padres, could further our anguish. See, we did pick the Padres to finish dead last in the NL West. We just don't like their offense. But our numerous critics reminded us in the Power Rankings feedback how we are overlooking perhaps the division's best pitching staff.
Touché.
Jake Peavy could really make us look bad picking his team last. As could third-year breakout starter Chris Young and the best starting pitcher you might have never heard of, Clay Hensley. And that doesn't mention a bullpen fronted by future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman, free-agent-to-be (and closer) Scott Linebrink and another unheralded arm, Cla Meredith."