This
is the third installment in my looks at landscaping and beautification efforts
in Old Town. We return to
the river to look at Harborside, a lovely spot with town homes in between Union
Street and the river near Ford’s Landing and next to Windmill Park. A marina and walking trail are
prominent features. History goes back to the late 18th
Century, when ship-making took place here.
Giants fans are excited. Cautiously excited, mind you, but it feels good to know that as we head towards the All-Star break, thoughts of the post-season for the Orange and Black are percolating.
On the mound, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain’s ERAs are Marichalian, and currently ranked number two and number three in the National League. Seeing that got me to thinking “When Was the Last Time?” thoughts about the Giants, as in, “When was the last time they had two of the top ERA marks in the league?” Granted, ERA is longer the stat it was, but it’s still an overall good measure in terms of "understandability," and certainly better than wins in term of player performance.
I counted over 35 times when at least two Giants finished in the Top Ten (thank you Baseball Reference) so I narrowed things down to the times they had two in the Top Five.
As expected, Mathewson and Hubbell have starring roles in this show, but surprisingly, Marichal and Co. did not make the mark.
At first glance, it appears Sam Jones and Stu Miller did, and would take the San Francisco crown with their 1-2 finish in 1959, but Miller was not a full-time starter.
So the door is open for Lincecum and Cain, who could have the best finish ever in team history, in terms of ERA for starters. It’s going to be fun to watch these two, especially if their achievements keep them pitching into October.
1954
1. Antonelli 2.296
4. Gomez 2.883
1951
2. Maglie 2.930
5. Jansen 3.036
1950
1.
Maglie 2.709
3.
Jansen 3.011
1936
1. Hubbell 2.309
3. Gabler 3.118
1934
1. Hubbell 2.300
5. Fitzsimmons 3.042
1933
1. Hubbell 1.662
3. Schumacher 2.157
1931
1. Walker 2.256
2. Hubbell 2.649
1930
2. Hubbell 3.873
3. Walker 3.925
1922
1. Douglas 2.626
2. Ryan 3.005
5. Nehf 3.287
1917
1. Mathewson 2.059
3. Tesreau 2.170
4. Demaree 2.209
1912
1. Tesreau 1.963
2. Mathewson 2.119
5. Ames 2.464
1911
1. Mathewson 1.997
4. Marquard 2.496
1910
3. Mathewson 1.894
4. Ames 2.222
1903
2. Mathewson
4. McGinnity
Several years ago, Neil Peart wrote Roadshow: Landscape with Drums, A Concert Tour by Motorcycle. His fourth book was well-received by fans, except for the part where Peart talks about encounters with the fans. Clarifying his point, the RUSH drummer and lyricist told Mark Goodman in an interview that he enjoys the “wonderful little… human to human” conversations and said that “999 out of 1000… are nice people.” What he dislikes are the unrealistic, over-the-top, “I’ve been waiting my whole life” (to meet you) type of encounters.
Some RUSH followers find this difficult to reconcile. (Neil should carry a sign with him, Writer/Observer at Work!!) My response has always been that these fans don’t seem to know just how good they got it with Peart. Through all the years, he has given the fans a lot of his time and talents with the interviews, his writings from the road and for the tour books, the live chat with the Drum Channel, the instructional DVDs, the four books and now his blog, where he reviews books, shares his travels and musings and now, his latest foray is cooking.
On the Fourth of July, Neil opened up Bubba’s Bar-n-Grill with recipes, photos and his commentary. RUSH fans in particular will enjoy the place mat with inside RUSH jokes. Foodies might not be impressed with the well, simpleness, of the recipes, but anyone who has ever watched Rachael Ray knows that “A great meal in 30 minutes” ain’t easy to pull off. (Much of the prep work is already done and have you noticed how she’s made progress during the commercials?? )
So way to go Neil, because it was high time for some recipes that are easy to make.
I decided to give one of Chef Peart’s recipes a try, the Salmon Teriyaki, which is one of our favorite meals. I made it his way, except I didn’t use soy sauce for the marinate. I usually do, but the place where we buy our fish offered it already marinated (chipotle-lime) today for the same price.
Anyway, it came out great.
Thanks
Bubba…
Congrats and major kudos to Tiger. He won his tournament yesterday and did a fabulous job playing host. In just three short years, Woods has turned the AT&T National into a special tournament. Jim Nance kept praising it and rightly so.
Washington hates to lose Tiger’s Tourney for the next two years, but we’ll have to hang in their until the U.S. Open comes here in 2011. If you’re like us, you’re debating over whether or not to drive up to western Philadelphia next year. Greg McLaughlin, President of the Tiger Woods Foundation, has sweetened the deal by announcing that “anyone with a Maryland, Viriginia or D.C. driver's license will be admitted free to next year's tournament.”
As far as going forward to 2012 and beyond, Tiger wants to build the AT&T National into a first-class tournament. He’s getting there, as noted by Doug Ferguson who said the AT&T National was one of the best run on tour.
There’s still the question of the date. I think it is very tempting for Tiger and his advisors to keep the Fourth of July weekend. It matches up perfectly with his honoring the military. But the wildcard is the weather. This time around it was unbelievably great. But a week like what we just saw may not happen for another 10 years.
Tiger wants to emulate what Jack has, a tournament where all the top players want to come and play. The only way he can achieve that is to have a date that doesn’t conflict for the European and International players who stay overseas in order to get ready for the British Open.
It’s going to take a while, but Tiger will get what he wants. Good luck to Philly.
We
spent a relaxing Fourth yesterday at Solomon’s Island in Southern
Maryland. Roberta’s cousin Emmy
provided her usual fantastic hosting, including a delicious meal of ribs,
shrimp, homemade chili, potato salad, cole slaw, salad and the blue crabs she and
family caught. We pigged
out on what is perhaps the best eating day in the good ol USA.
Ok, this is supposed to be about the third round at Congressional. I only watched a little bit
of it on TV, so I’m catching up this morning.
Saturday is “moving day” in tournament golf. While the leaders tend to protect
their lead, the rest of the field in contention will play aggressively and try
and make a charge into contention or upwards on the first page of the leaderboard. And that is exactly what happened yesterday. Kim shot a two under 68, Tiger went
around in even par, while Michael Allen and Cameron Beckman went five and four
under respectively to earn the penultimate pairing today.
The tournament has been going great, especially the pleasant temps and absence of t-storms. Attendance
is reported as the best of the three years with a total (Tues-Saturday) so far of
150,137. Last year’s
attendance through Saturday was 77,253 and the first year was 102,178.
Tournaments
hope for a good set of names going into Sunday. As Jim Nance noted yesterday, it was a "handsome" leaderboard. Today’s
final round is shaping up to be a good one with Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim
in the final pairing.
Oh yes, dinner will be eaten in front of the TV...
Since getting to know Washington, DC, I realized that its a place that most Americans visit, but never actually see. The true beauty of this city is known only to residents and this provides a strata of a commonality that binds them together. Why do I love DC? Community, plain and simple. – Kirk, WeLoveDC
The contributors at WeLoveDC (Congrats on your anniversary!) have been publishing a series of articles on "Why I Love DC." Kirk wrote a really good one the other day, stressing the point of community. I found myself thinking in this arena several times in the last few days.
The first was watching John King on CNN. I forget his exact words, but it was something like, it’s good to get out of Washington now and then and visit the communities across the country.
You hear this all the time, the juxtaposition of Washington as the cold, calculating political capital, versus the heartland, the fabric of the country, the “real” people of the U.S.A. But as Kirk notes, Washington has communities too. (Isn’t it amazing how those who loved to malign Washington when they were in office, end up staying??)
Of course, it takes time to get to know them. As Kirk says, “I’ll admit that I lived in the area for a solid 4 years before I began to discover that DC actually had a personality.”
We got here in 1995 and I remember how it took time to get to know the area. Gradually, you do feel like you are part of the community. And what I’m going through now are the continuing discoveries. In the last month or so, I’ve been getting to know Del Ray more and more (I’m addicted to frozen custard!), and I’m finding it to be a page right out of small town America. I was sitting on a bench on its main thoroughfare last week, shooting the breeze with a lady who was born there. The cars whiz by Mount Vernon Avenue, but life slows down in Del Ray. There’s lots of mom and pop shops, and I felt very relaxed there.
Kirk’s themes also emerged when I was listening to Bob Scheiffer on CSPAN Radio. Like many of the older journalists on the beat here, he has lived in Washington for quite a long time. They rarely say it, but I bet if you pressed them, many would say they like living here. But Scheiffer, who said he visits his hometown of Fort Worth a couple of times a year, said, and once again I don’t have the exact words, I will always call Fort Worth home.
Bob’s sentiment is quite understandable. My Mom used to say, your home is where your heart is.
Washington certainly has a heavier side, but
it has communities too.
It was a gorgeous day for golf yesterday. Some lucky stiffs, part of a tournament record crowd of 46,000 plus at Congressional, got to enjoy some of it by following Tiger Woods, who shot a four under 66 to become the leader in the clubhouse.
By the end of the day, Woods was still on top of the leaderboard with a 10 under score that bested Rod Pampling by one, first-day leader Anthony Kim by two, and three ahead of Jim Furyk. Woods’s 130 mark also established a new 36-hole record at Congressional.
Tiger’s early tee time was the result of a rule on the PGA Tour. To try and make things fair for the entire field, the pros start out in the morning for Round One, and in the afternoon for Round Two, or vice versa.
From a fans’ and marketing point of view, it’s tempting to want this rule changed to where the marquee players tee off in the afternoon both days. This aspect of the tour, however, is probably not going to change. What will hopefully be looked at is the anachronistic coverage of a golf tournament. I mean, there it was, Tiger Woods, certainly the greatest golfer of our time, arguably the greatest athlete in the world, and a man just valued at $100M, making birdies and surging to the top in front of the huge throng.
And yet, only the gallery, whose cell phones and cameras are confiscated if they try to bring them on the course, was watching. All across the world, technology is breaking down barriers of communication and making the world smaller and smaller. But as Tiger made his move yesterday, his legion of fans and all others interested were shut out. No TV, no radio, just the live scoring graphics and some twittering by reporters.
I watched some of The Golf Channel’s coverage yesterday. At one point they finally showed some of Tiger’s highlights. But it was a mere tease, showing just two of his birdies.
The TV coverage turns to CBS for today and tomorrow. With Tiger in the lead and in the last pairing, no problem. Fans, the network, sponsors, and the media are in heaven.
But still, the producer in the booth calls all the shots. Maybe one day soon we’ll have pay per view with “The Tiger” package. For now, there’s still the frustration of knowing there are going to be days when the only Tiger birdies we’re getting, is the reporter’s tweets…
Note: Tiger’s earnings this week
will go to his Foundation.
Watching golf on TV or in person gets weekend hackers like myself in the mood to play. We have a tee time for Sunday, but on this holiday morning (Happy Fourth!), I had the itch for the sticks.
Hilltop’s driving range is closer to our house, but I decided to head over to Top Golf on South Van Dorn Street in Kingstowne. It had been a while since we were there, so I was interested to see if it was still a happening place. Wow, was it ever. I got there around 1030 and business was booming.
If you don’t mind, I’m copy/pasting my description of how to play Top Golf from my write-up in 2005.
Here’s how it works. Instead of a green, you aim for a target area, a flat surface with sectors where the golf ball falls down into a collection area. The balls have a tiny computer chip embedded inside. When you hit the ball on the virtual green, it falls down into the collection area and signals the distance to a monitor at your hitting area. You get points based on accuracy and distance. There are 11 targets ranging in distance from 20 to 260 yards.
If you haven’t checked this place out, you should give Top Golf a try. Just make sure you drop each ball through the green tub, or your
shot won’t count!
If you're attending a golf tournament, and can only see one round, you have to make a choice for a particular day. The weekend play is more exciting, but Friday’s cut means you’ll probably not see everyone you’d like to that way.
I prefer Thursday or Friday, so I can see as many notables as possible before they make the cut. With a good forecast, and Tiger teeing it up at 1:02pm, we went today. With no parking in Northern Virginia this year, we decided to just pay and park at one of the small lots near by. Actually worked out pretty good, we handed over a Jackson for a lot near the entrance by the 5th hole. Some were charging as much as $40, which is ridiculous.
On Thursday, anyone can get hot and go low. We got on the course around 1045, and caught up with the Kim/Furyk/Love threesome. Kim was six under, Furyk three under and Love two in the red. The defending champ kept it going, draining putts on 7 and 8 to get to eight under. Wanted to walk with him to number 9 (his 18th), but we also wanted to see Tiger tee off. We found out Kim parred 9 to fire a 62 (par 70), breaking the previous course record held of 63 by Tom Pernice and Peter Lonard.
As expected, Tiger had a huge following. Tiger’s Troops gave the first tee the look and feel of a major. The $100M man birdied the first hole, drawing a huge roar. On number 2, the long par 3, he sank a long, curly one. That drew an even bigger roar. A spectator beside me, who couldn’t see the green, asked who made the putt. Someone said Tiger, and I thought to myself, that was a Tiger only roar.
Chatted up some of his gallery. Father and son came down from Delaware, a couple from Pittsburgh. I talked with a wounded warrior who had TBI from an IED blast in Iraq. What Tiger is doing for our troops is incredible, and they really talk about how they appreciate it. But we appreciate them, and I could barely keep my eyes dry as this soldier told me his story and others who did not make it back.
We followed Tiger through 3, and by then had had our money's worth. Came back home and watched on TV.
Round ones can sometimes lack some luster as far as the big names, but Anthony Kim gave the day a buzz. Tiger responded to his friends challenge, and carded a 64.
For those hoping the hosting would distract him, not a chance...
This is my second look at landscaping and beautification efforts in Old Town. Previously, I mentioned the crews that do the work, but after talking with a lady doing some gardening the other day, I realized it’s also the individual home owners too.
By the way, I picked Chatham Square as my second entry because it provides a contrast with Ford’s Landing. Unlike Ford’s Landing, which is marked by signs and stands out as its own distinct part of the neighborhood, Chatham Square, a mixed-income set of housing, blends in more with its surroundings. I kept looking for a sign, but from what I could see, there’s only one small one, and it's not even visible from the street. I'm sure this is intentional, part of the effort to make it sympathetic to its surroundings, yet puzzling in some ways.
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