Wednesday, October 11, 2006

ACC Champions?

Tech was so bad when I was there, particularly in football, so now I only pull for them, especially against Ceil’s Clemson team and UGA. But I have admired Dooley and Richt’s programs ever since the Herschel days, and now I enjoy following UGA more than GT. While I understand the reasons why the Braves win or lose, it’s hard to follow a 6 – 5 team year after year. How anyone could follow Clemson like my in-laws is beyond me. Academics isn’t a problem, though what is there to attract top athletes to Clemson? It is close to the ATL, but that’s it. Year after year they fall short of their expectations. It would be wild if they met in the ACC Championship game…there would be tons more Clemson fans than GT fans.

Will’s season ends October 28th. Had he not played for his Pony team last night, the older Colt team had asked him to fill in as well. Saturday the opponent didn’t show again, so eight of the Colt team stayed to play the Pony team. I didn’t keep score, but it was close…some said it was a tie. Two of the Colt boys who hadn’t pitched much took the hill, but they were still good and fast. Willie, my favorite, didn’t play. Will had an unassisted double play at short to kill a rally, and hit a couple of good line drives.

Those days when you could practice were great. I had the key to the old gym at our old church, before they tore it down. In college we practiced a lot…I even kicked a bunch. Now Will enjoys pitching to me, and it’s nice to hit, though we don’t get out as much as we should. Last night we were up until after 12:30 am after the game working on his reports…that’s when I wrote up his game recap for the grandparents.

I was able to develop two good relationships in Orlando…so with my old boss Steve, they are the three most influential people in Florida. Nelson, the GM of Florida, is a big baseball and football fan…he was impressed with my knowledge of stuff like early 70’s Kansas City Chiefs…Otis Taylor, Ed Budde, etc. He’s been to Fenway, Wrigley, etc…and is related to Robin Roberts, who he visits in Tampa. Nelson said he’d thank me for the work I did by bringing me to Miami next year for a Marlins game…and to play golf at Doral! Later I told Steve I wasn’t worthy of playing Doral, but Steve said that Nelson wasn’t worthy of playing there either.

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