Shorebird of the Week – April 22, 2010
Whenever one of our players merits selection as South Atlantic League Player of the Week, you can bet that a SotW berth isn’t far behind if he hasn’t already received one.
Certainly Tyler Kolodny was deserving right out of the gate – even though he’s cooled off just a bit against Greensboro, Kolodny holds a number of league-leading ranks: home runs (6), triples (tied for first with 3), total bases (45), slugging percentage (.818), and OPS (1.215). His 13 runs scored rank 3rd in the loop and he’s ninth in RBI with 11.
Most avid Shorebird fans recall Tyler held down the third base position for the majority of the 2009 season, and his current .327 average is over 100 points better than the .226/9/42 numbers he posted last year in 107 games. This year he’s also worked a little bit at first base to improve his value down the line.
The 22-year-old Californian was picked in the 16th round of the 2007 draft out of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills and has slowly progressed up the organization during his prior 3 years, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine him in Frederick before season’s end if he maintains a reasonable facsimile of his efforts so far. Given the work ethic I see out of Tyler, I think it’s doable.
Harris slates two-day tour of First District
Hoping to capitalize on the success of bus tours like the TEA Party Express, Congressional candidate Andy Harris is doing his own small-scale version of the tour tomorrow and Saturday. The schedule is as follows:
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
Smelling out the green
Tomorrow is Earth Day, the day we need to make unnecessary trips in our Hummer, fire up the charcoal grill for eating various tasty animals, and otherwise poke a finger in the eye of those fringe environmentalists who would tell us what we can do and eat.
Freedom Action points out the hypocricy:
Freedom Action, a new political advocacy group, has launched a new ad campaign blasting environmental groups like World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Wildlife Federation for “spending big bucks to promote global warming as a crisis and to advocate energy-rationing policies.”
In addition, “major corporations such as General Electric, Duke Energy, Dow, Shell, General Motors, and Exelon stand to reap windfall profits from cap-and-trade,” the ad points out.
What’s more, the CEOs of such companies won’t feel the pinch from the rise in energy prices resulting from government mandates and taxes on energy use. “People like Jeffrey Immelt of GE, James Rogers of Duke, Frederic Krupp of EDF, and Frances Beinecke of NRDC can afford paying $7 for gas and twice as much for electricity. On the other hand, average working Americans and unemployed Americans are going to have to suffer so that these fat cats can get fatter.”
I can’t argue with that. One contention I’ve had with these companies is their compulsion to use rentseeking policies at the highest levels to ace out any potential competition. Granted, these companies are seeking a course to maximize profits for their shareholders but it’s obvious they got along well before under the old rules. General Electric can build its products to the market just fine without government help, but they would love to have even more of a stranglehold by gaming the system and that’s where I cry foul.
(The bitter irony is that on the one hand they engage in rentseeking activity which will enrich them and grow government while on the other playing up their onetime association with Ronald Reagan as the 100th anniversary of his birth arrives next year. How about putting that imagination to work on innovation to corner the market instead of lobbying and regulation?)
As for me, I think I’ll celebrate Earth Day by eating some meat then going to a place where thousands of watts of electricity will be spent in lighting a diamond for the enjoyment of several thousand patrons. Sounds like a good celebration to me.
Just as disclosure for those interested: Freedom Action is allied with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, making them a definite ally of monoblogue.
Pork in the Park 2010 in pictures and text (part 2)
Now for the more fun stuff. This isn’t going to make a point; it’s just pics I found interesting.
Obviously the idea of this festival is to promote tourism and the local economy. No question the ribs are the attraction, but other vendors hoped their wares were sufficient to make theirs a profitable weekend too.
When I came to the Eastern Shore six years ago and attended my first Pork in the Park, I was expecting an event similar to that held in my hometown (Northwest Ohio Rib-Off) where 20 or so rib joints peddled their wares to the public. I was actually disappointed that only a couple places were actually selling ribs to eat.
But as this event grows more and more places are selling ribs to eat. These are some of them and aside from Florida Skin n’ Bones I believe many of these vendors are new this year.
Like any good food event, you could get more than just ribs.
Another new attraction came from Mountaire, oddly enough playing in Perdue’s back yard.
There’s a few other interesting shots the two of us took. Some have a point and others are just for the “awwwwww” factor.
Can you tell we enjoyed ourselves Saturday? Probably wasn’t that great for the waistline but we did walk around a lot and rocked to the Battle of the Bands, if only to keep warm!
Next year’s event again retreats a little earlier on the calendar; the 8th Annual Pork in the Park is slated for April 15-17, 2011.
Pork in the Park 2010 in pictures and text (part 1)
On Saturday my significant other and I spent most of the day at Pork in the Park. It provides us the opportunity to enjoy good food, taking lots of pictures – which explains why I have two parts – and a chance to tell a story from perhaps a different angle from one you may have seen before.
During the awards ceremony, we were told that our humble little event has grown in seven years to be the second largest in the country and largest east of the Mississippi River. I guess that’s based on the number of participants, but it amazes me that something a lot of us guys take for granted has grown into a pastime which can take up most of a summer. Yes, leisure has become work for many, including what I presume is a local group called Smokin’ More Than Pork.
Other groups come from farther away, and they have one thing in mind.
Certainly slaving over a hot grill for hours on end can be demanding work.
I found this shirt worn by the folks at Mook’s BBQ interesting. If you didn’t think this was big business, check out this ambitious “Inaugural Tour” schedule:
It also takes some funding to buy the equipment necessary to compete at the level, like these special trailers.
Part of the marketing involves the bragging rights garnered from previous high finishes.
Others have various wares to sell to grilling enthusiasts.
Others chose their distinctiveness in different ways.
In the end, though, the competition was about the money. All those trinkets and toys cost some coin, and top finishes in the seven categories won up to $1,000. The Grand Champion, Reserve Champion, and Maryland State Champion also won additional prizes up to $2,500 – needless to say this hobby isn’t lucrative unless you do some additional marketing or have it as an adjunct to a main food service business.
But here were your winners from Saturday.
You may have noticed Kim took most of these pictures. I tended to look at the event as a whole for its newsworthiness and as a comparison to past events. Most of my photography will come with Part 2 tomorrow as will the later coverage of the music as another volume of Weekend of local rock.
Weekend of local rock volume 31
Damn, this is a post I’ve been meaning to get to for about 3 weeks now but I’ve had all kinds of other things take precedence. This concert happened way back on March 26th (I even put some of these pictures on my Facebook page 3 weeks ago and one video’s already been on FNV) but these local bands deserve their due and by golly I’m going to give it to them!
For the last 8 years, local promoter Skip Dixxon has put together a concert he dubbed the Spring Luau and 2010 was no exception. Nine bands took the stage and Pickles Pub in Ocean City even reopened a few weeks early to host the event.
Here’s a handy guide to the lineup. Unfortunately Kim and I were a little late and missed the Aaron Howell Band.
So we’ll start with the Electric Company, who played a mix of their stuff and others. Between them, these guys are in several other bands and solo acts so they have a pretty good list to choose from.
Next came the Joey Saah Band. This was the only one of the nine I’d not heard, and I was impressed.
Bet most of you wannabe guitar players can’t do this.
Next came the brightly clad and original playing (for the most part) Crookedfinger.
Agent 99 doesn’t have to be brightly clad to stand out among bands. This was one of their first efforts as a four-piece band.
I think Marla was a tad dismayed with how they played but the crowd still liked how it came out.
Another female-fronted band, Witches Brew, came next. They did a number of hard-rock covers in perhaps the heaviest set of the nine bands.
Gravy brought things back a little more to the mainstream but didn’t lose any of the energy.
An interesting and somewhat quirky trio is Phantom Limbs. They sound like a melding of surf rock with more modern stuff, with a dash of punk thrown in – not many bands cover the Dead Kennedys but these guys did.
The final band on the bill was my friends in Semiblind. If you pay attention to FNV you’d know they played here and they were the headliners.
But the rock wasn’t done yet, even though we were at closing time. Ryan of Lower Class Citizens wanted to belt out a couple Led Zeppelin tunes so the musicians who knew the parts to “Rock n’ Roll” and “The Immigrant Song” jumped right in to play.
Yeah, that’s how we roll. This was a good show in one of the rare places hereabouts I hadn’t seen one. Next up in the near-term future is another edition of Weekend of Local Rock covering this past weekend.
Pictorial posts
Well, we’ve hit a hiatus politically for a spell, so this post serves as a warning of sorts to expect a number of pictorial posts about life in this little corner of the world we call Delmarva.
I’m a bit backed up on Weekend of Local Rock posts and have batches of pictures from Pork in the Park. Next weekend is the Salisbury Festival and I’m sure to have my camera at the ready there. Add in Shorebird of the Week and some other outdoor events and there should be plenty of color to grace this page.
If I wrote about politics all the time, I’d be bored and it would show in my writing. Certainly there’s a lot of intriguing things going on in the political world but now that the General Assembly has taken a break and campaigns aren’t quite in stride yet it’s a good time to look at other aspects of life.
And that’s what I plan to do. It’s a good thing I had a couple prewritten posts at the ready over the last few days because, quite frankly, they’ve been a blur. This week should be a chance to regroup unless big breaking news comes across my desk.
Remarks to Salisbury TEA Party, April 15, 2010
As part of “open mike” I prepared these remarks for delivery Thursday:
Greetings to my fellow TEA Partiers!
My name is Michael Swartz, and as my life has evolved I’ve become a man of many hats (besides the Shorebirds one I’m wearing today) – by profession I run a website called monoblogue and am currently a freelance writer but – most importantly – by grace of God I’m an American!
There’s a sort of humorous irony today. At this place where I’m speaking, to a crowd who agrees with me that we’re taxed enough already, Mayor Ireton is revealing his FY2011 budget for the city of Salisbury as is County Executive Pollitt for Wicomico County. I’m certain their message is that we’re going to have to endure pain and sacrifice to balance these budgets.
Yet while some observers, those who are fed misinformation by what passes for the mainstream media, believe that we in the TEA Party movement stand for no government – well, they are mistaken. They assume that what we mean by limited government is a lack of government, and nothing could be further from the truth. To have no government would be anarchy, and the Founding Fathers were certainly just as interested in preventing anarchy through the rule of law as they were of stopping the tyranny of the rule of man.
They placed checks and balances on our political system, but most importantly their intent was to create a republic as opposed to the simple mob rule of a democracy. We stand here today to reclaim the republic for the average, hardworking American who’s fed up with government excess!
Our elected leaders tell us there will be sacrifice, and they are correct. For government to truly live within its means we may need to give up some of what we cherish. I’m not here to tell you things will be rosy, but the truth doesn’t necessarily lie in their dire predictions of doom and gloom either.
These elected leaders truly don’t need to have a lot of courage to stand up for what’s right; it’s only conventional wisdom which says that they do. Our job here in America is to properly vet those among us who want to serve as our leaders – needless to say, we’ve found that the press won’t do it for us and those we’ve elected to serve us have instead decided to serve the special interests who would weaken this great nation.
In 1964, before Ronald Reagan served as governor of California or as our President, he noted, “You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”
Among my company today are those on the right – Republicans, those in the center as independents, and thoughtful members of the left who remain Democrats. As Reagan said, we have a choice to make and by removing the shackles of overbearing government we can rise once again to prominence.
It’s likely my short speech won’t be repeated on the lips of millions tomorrow, but if we can promote the attitude it exudes over the next few months as our republic prepares once again to choose its leaders, the message will resonate over the next decades as we lift ourselves from this slavery to our Beltway and Annapolis masters and regain control of our own destiny.
Thank you and God Bless America!
Friday night videos episode 29
Back after a one week hiatus, the focus shifts to fiscal responsibility and TEA Parties.
Obviously the GOP is critical of Barack Obama’s policies, and this video explains why.
The same goes for Reason.tv, which reminds us how California got into its financial mess.
Two filmmakers for Americans for Limited Government bring the green jobs fallacy home by looking at the closing of the BP Solar plant in Frederick, Maryland.
Now it’s time for a little bit of tea. But first, it’s interesting to note the tenor of counterprotests, as an alert reader sent me a video from another March 20 rally in Washington D.C. that had little to do with health care.
To echo one commenter, I bet you didn’t see this on the nightly news.
Fellow blogger and patriot Bob McCarty does yeoman’s work covering the TEA Party scene in the St. Louis area. Here I have two videos, one from their weekly (!) rally last weekend and one from their TEA Party Express 3 stop a week or so back.
Finally, here’s local TEA Party organizer Chris Lewis from yesterday’s Salisbury rally as I excerpted the conclusion of his speech. Good background music, too.
Speaking of music, there’s no local music to wrap up this week, but that’s intentional. Next Friday I’m doing another all-music edition of FNV and plan on making it a regular event every 10 episodes (along with placing a music video or two in most other editions.) I look forward to putting it together so hopefully you’ll enjoy watching!
Salisbury Tax Day TEA Party in pictures and text
Well, this was definitely an interesting exercise in airing our grievances for redress. And let me warn you: there’s a LOT of pictures which go with this post. Let’s start with this one.
As was the case last year, a number of speakers took the podium. Unlike last year, they weren’t being rained upon. It started with ten of us reading the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights (I read the Ninth Amendment) and one of our featured speakers, author and internet radio host Dr. Gianni Hayes.
Speaking early because she had another commitment, Hayes went on at some length about the “new world order” and lack of assimilation from today’s immigrants. As a first-generation American herself she proclaimed, “to be American you must be assimilated,” otherwise “we are losing our identity.”
After a short pause to bring us up to the 5:00 hour and formal beginning to the program, Joe Collins led off and served as a master of ceremonies.
Collins cautioned infiltrators to “free your mind…be not wicked on this day.” He equated control with votes, but more importantly compared the deregulation of health insurance with the deregulation of airlines, including the example of Salisbury being a small market whereas larger airports provide more choice due to their larger market.
He was followed by a number of other scheduled speakers, including event organizer Chris Lewis and Joe’s AFP cohort Julie Brewington.
Conveniently, Julie posted her remarks on her website.
Other speakers included Dr. Greg Belcher on taxes, Dave Parker of the local GOP on their relationship with the TEA Party, and author Patrick Samuels, who noted, “if we’re going to put the genie back in the bottle we need to stop wishing to it.” Dustin Mills also spoke about being an educator and political activist, as you’ll note on his shirt.
Surprisingly, there was a media presence at the event. Channel 16′s Ko Im arrived early on to get some still shots for voiceover and a soundbite or two.
Like sharks to chum, the media flocks to any controversy. Let’s tell the tale of local radio host Matt Walsh.
Things went along all right until he told the crowd “don’t vote Republican” and lashed out at Sarah Palin.
After a verbal volley where an observer called Walsh a “young punk” and Walsh retorted that the man was a “senile old fart” there was no question Matt would be the center of media attention, like a Daily Times reporter.
While Walsh may have a point, the stunt seemed more to attract attention to his radio show than to contribute to the dialogue.
Of course, a number of local and state political campaigns had a presence too. People advocating votes for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rutledge, Congressional hopeful Andy Harris, and State Senate hopeful Michael James circulated through the crowd.
Another minor controversy erupted over this table, as the TEA Party wanted to maintain a neutral tone. But the table was allowed to stay as anyone who wanted to be civil regardless of political affiliation was welcome.
Frankly, I found the attendance disappointing because I expected a crowd about 3 times as large. The final pictures are a view from the back I took a little after 6:00 and four panoramic pictures taken at around 3:20, 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30.
My thought on the TEA Party movement is that perhaps it’s beginning to be a little more celebrity-drawn. Other TEA Parties with “name” speakers did well yesterday while this one didn’t have that same attraction. Also, there’s competition from surrounding areas such as Ocean City, who will have its event Saturday.
I spoke at the event as part of the “open mike.” Tomorrow I’ll post my remarks for all to read.
Shorebird of the Week – April 15, 2010
There’s nothing that getting a couple bloop hits to fall or a streak of three or four hits in a row wouldn’t do to right my SotW’s ship. A lot is expected of Mike Planeta based on his solid season last year at Bluefield.
While Planeta is off to a .160 start on the young season (4-for-25 in 6 games) he is tending to score when he gets on and make productive at-bats: in each of his six starts he has either scored or knocked in a run despite the four hits.
But at Bluefield last year the 27th round pick out of Surprise, Arizona (and Glendale Community College) put up good numbers: in 61 games Planeta hit .288 with 3 home runs and 29 RBI – he also scored 29 times and had a nice .717 OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage.) At 21, Mike is also the youngest on Delmarva’s outfield roster.
It looks like Planeta will be part of a four-outfielder platoon this season as the Shorebirds have some good talent out there. As I noted, once a couple hits fall in Mike’s average will be more respectable but so far he’s been quite productive nonetheless in Delmarva’s 5-2 start.
On the cusp of history
Tomorrow won’t just be a significant day in Salisbury because of the local Tax Day TEA Party. With the Shorebirds winning a matinee game in Greensboro earlier this afternoon 9-4, another win over the Grasshoppers tomorrow evening will be victory number 1,000 for the team celebrating their 15th season this year.
Delmarva’s beloved ballteam is now 999-950 in their 14 years plus 7 games and have gotten off to a 5-2 start. The win today solidifies their hold on first place in the SAL North. And while Delmarva has had 9 winning seasons in 14 years, they haven’t made won a SAL title since 2000 or made a playoff appearance since 2005.
While it would be nice to see history made in the home opener, I’d rather start on the next thousand victories Friday after a 6-2 roadtrip to open the season. In the meantime, I have a Shorebird of Week to name.
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