Shattered

I play in 2 adult baseball leagues. One of them happens to be a wood bat league, which I'm very excited about because it's the way the game should be played.

A couple of weeks ago I read this article about MLB investigating maple bats because when they break, they don't just crack like ash, they actually shatter. More often than not the barrel goes flying into the field endangering players. This was definitely in the back of my mind when I took the mound last night.

Althought I didn't saw anyone off, I did have to borrow a teammates bat while I'm waiting on the one I ordered come in. It happened to be maple...I happened to be holding a toothpick after the second pitch of my second at bat...The barrel happened to be resting by first base.

I think there might be something to that MLB investigation.

And now to toot my own horn.

5 inning pitched, 2 hits 9Ks 1 ER

Cleats For a Cure update

A little update on the Mother's Day promo.

Saturday MLB sent a memo out to all clubhouses stating that any player wearing pink cleats of batting gloves would be "disciplined"

I can't imagine why this happened. I can only suspect some ulterior motive coming from Reebok having the MLB license.

Nonetheless about half of our players wore the cleats with pride and without hesitation. In fact Jose Reyes, who has a big time contract with the swoosh decided to wear the cleats I made up for him.

Brandon Backe took a little razzing from his teammates, but ultimately kept in mind the great cause. This is an excerpt from the Astros website

Backe's support extended all the way to his Easton shoes. The company sent their clients black shoes with pink trim and laces, in honor of Mother's Day.

"They thought it would be good to make some that were pink, sign them after the game and donate them to raise money for fighting breast cancer," Backe said. "It's another way to try to add on to the collection of money for fighting against breast cancer."

Backe received some good-natured ribbing from his teammates, who feigned disgust at the pinkness of the pitcher's shoes.

"We all love our moms," Blum deadpanned. "But this is bad. There's a line, and he's crossed it here."

Backe was unfazed by the reactions from him teammates.

"I think they're pretty cool," Backe said. "I'm color blind, so it's tough for me to tell. It's obviously for an occasion and for a good cause. I hope my signature with these shoes will raise as much money as possible."

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how it went, Big Z didn't get a chance to wear them because of the crap weather in Chicago, but he fully intended to, and Pedroia managed to flash them on ESPN. I'll keep an update when the auctions become available.