Bud Norris ERA vs everyone other than the Angels last year was 4.92. He's also got a 2014 salary of 5.3 Mil... Trading assets for him and paying him that much seems like a really bad move.
I'd rather they pick up a guy that gets waived at the end of ST than offer anything for a 5.00 ERA guy.
The Holidays will get you every time, won’t they? You think you’re ahead of the game. This year will be different since you’ve already got the gifts, you’ve booked your time off, and you frontloaded some good excuses for why you can’t go to this or that party.
Date Chick and I went to a couple good parties. Since two of them were in L.A., we were pretty done with the party circuit by the time another one came around. We hung out around my house long enough the Saturday of one party, where we avoided all the traffic on the way up, not arriving to the party until about 9:30pm when everyone was sauced. That’s the way to do it. You never want to be within the first 1-15 people at a party. No one knows what to say to one another and you’re caught in the middle. I feel like I’m that guy the first 10 are looking at to kick start the conversation. I’m probably giving myself too much credit, but it’s a relief when you don’t have that burden.
One party was at my Iranian friends’ house. Bel Air. Makes me think of the band 999 and their song ‘Hollywood;’ an older semi-punk KROQ tune from about 1980. I loved that song. It’s about the band and how they’re all excited to go to Hollywood for the first time but ultimately, they’re disappointed. One of the lines in the song is: “Have you heard about Bel Air...Have you heard about...clean air? HOLLYWOOD!â€
Anyhow, Iranians have a playful cultural insensitivity. It’s harmless, but surprising. Kind of like white folk parties up until about 1985. My friend was throwing a ‘hip hop’ party to celebrate his birthday. The invite called for guests to dress up in hip hop attire. I was very afraid I would see some Iranian folk in black face, but that didn’t happen. However, I don’t think the DJ of color was too thrilled to see that pimp costumes were supposed to be hip hop. There was a hired break dance crew who were fantastic. Date Chick and I had a good time, but we got out of there after about an hour. Neither of us really drink, so the party circuit gets lip service from us. Small talk isn’t real fun when you’re hammered or tipsy. It’s a downright disease when you’re sober.
My brother and his family were coming in from Spain for Christmas and to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday. She wanted all the family around for her January birthday, but with a good sum of them living half way around the world, the decision was made to move the party to December 28th when everyone could be around. My brothers flew in from everywhere, but first, the Spaniards arrived December 21. I waited up for them. I looked online and their plane landed at 9:30pm. I waited for them to arrive at my mom’s house. And waited. Then waited some more.
I thought I had Christmas all put together but I got a call earlier in the day that threw everything sideways. My sister-in-law, who lives close to my dad, called around noon. She was crying. My dad had just passed away and she couldn't reach my other brother as he was driving from Montana, daughter in tow. She couldn't get ahold of anyone and I was next on the 'to call' list.
I wanted to tell my brother from Spain in person about our dad. It was only right that I tell him after he arrived from the airport. It sucked for both of us, but it was the right course of action.
Finally, at 2am, the Spaniards walked in, exhausted. It took them nearly five hours to get from LAX to Newport. The shuttle van driver drove right into the traffic caused by the closed off section of the 405 freeway near the 22. Despite my brother’s pleas, the driver would not take an alternate route. The driver followed the detour signs and ended up...right back on the 405 where they repeated the path they had just sat in for an hour. My brother’s youngest son puked a few times. The van had to pull to the side of the freeway so the gents could take a whiz. Remarkable that this dipshite driver, who drives for a living, did not think that maybe this section of the 405 might be closed down, as it had been on and off at night for over a year. Maybe two. He wouldn’t take my brother’s advice to shimmy over to PCH.
I asked my brother to follow me upstairs so I could tell him about our dad. The brother took it a little harder than me, but we both expected it since my dad had: lung cancer, was on his third pacemaker, had fought off pneumonia several times and so on. He really should’ve passed 10 years ago, but he was an ass kicker, built of depression era stock.
My wife’s passing prepped me for this. Hardened me for bad news. I wasn’t as sad as I should’ve been, but I don’t feel bad about it. My dad lived more than 80 years and did alot. Raised kids, raised hell, built a business, sold a business, invested poorly, invested wisely, met his grandchildren, saw his four sons grow up. He also purchased a share of Angels season tickets with his friends in 1966. They divided up the tickets at the Arches in Newport, well before the town was saddled with Mercedes Benzs and boob jobs. And when JC Pennys was the anchor store at Fashion Island. And decades before the Arches would become ‘A.’ Which is on the land owned by the family of Date Chick. Incredible how this all works out, isn’t it?
I have a vision of my dad and his three amigos drinking like four Don Drapers at the Arches bar in the middle of the day in their dark suits and skinny ties, sliding around Angel tickets like so many baseball cards. He lived a life. My wife got cheated. That’s life.
If it weren’t for my dad, I don’t know if I would have become an Angel fan. There’s a chance you wouldn’t be reading this now. Selected by the Chicago Cubs years ago, my dad instead decided to play in the Army softball league during the Korean War. Not that he had much of a choice. He taught me how to hit, field and most importantly, deal with death. It wasn’t explained as such, but my dad simply didn’t let me or my brothers slag anything off. If we were presented with an issue, we had to deal with it. And if you complained, then you were only making the problem worse. Don’t complain. Fix it. If you weren’t trying with everything you had, then you were failing. In the ‘70s, when the Angels had some unbelievably crappy teams, my dad wrote as much in a letter to Gene Autry. He wasn’t pleased with the team going through the motions on the field as evidenced by a couple of players not hustling out grounders. I don’t remember who it was, but one of the Angels players called my dad at work to apologize.
This Christmas wasn’t going as planned. But that’s okay. If everything goes as planned, you’re not really living.
I flew up to my dad’s funeral New Years Day. Date Chick took me to the airport and picked me up the next night. I don’t like funerals. I don’t like to linger and get maudlin. It does me no good. I can service all that depression in private (or on here, of course).
Just as my dad had prepared me for my wife’s passing, my wife prepared me for my dad’s passing. I didn’t shed a tear. I didn’t get in the dumps. Instead, I realized that this was a gift. My dad was no longer in pain and he was saved from the awful subsistence that is hospice. He went out the way he would’ve liked to: A nice meal, a few minutes on the throne, and then, lights out. Elvis in affect.
Date Chick, as you might gather, is still in the picture. She’s great. I still don’t know what she’s doing with me. She’s a head turner and she’s the type that gets all sorts of crazy messages on facebook at 1am from would-be suiters flying high on Ambien.
Life just moves on, doesn’t it? The more you plan, the more things change. What did the organist play at the end of my dad's funeral? "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," of course.
Is it the getting wet and smelling gross all day? The increase in fatal car accidents? The awesome traffic jams? The mud getting tracked into your house? Personally, I love cancelling tee times and spending my Saturday working on the honey-do list.
Hiller was amazing last night, the Bruins could've been up 2 or 3 to 0 after the 1st. It was so huge that Hiller kept the game at 0s in the 1st. That may have been the most opposing team fans I have ever seen in the Honda Center, especially in the lower bowl on the half where the Bruins shoot twice. We Ducks fans held our own though, great atmosphere on a Tuesday night!
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