Some Odds and Ends, and Another Red Head Story

Thanks to those that commented on my last blog post, although whoever referenced South Park needs to find more productive ways to spend their evenings than watching that horrible show.

I especially like the person who asked why this blog got relegated to "difficult to find" status on the new website. The problem is that where we had three spots on the right panel of the old website for things like this, on the new website we only have two. Granted, you can click the arrow to the right and get my blog link there as well, but that's too much work. Apparently someone has decided that the link to our facebook page is more important than my blog. I beg to differ. It is my stated mission to get my blog link back on the main page, where you don't have to click around on arrows or other links to get here. We'll see how that goes.

One baseball link for you today: I'm not a Minnesota Twins fan necessarily, but you hate to see a headline like this in Spring Training regarding one of your better pitchers: Joe Nathan May Need Tommy John Surgery. Ouch!

Now, as promised, here's my Red Head Story for today (read yesterday's posts for why I'm on a red head kick):

When I was working for the enemy (AKA, the Dayton Dragons), I would often go out and give speeches about the team or organization. In a shameless plug, I'm doing the same for the Silver Hawks, so if you are interested, click here for the information on the Speakers Bureau.

Anyhow, one day I was invited to speak at an after-school daycare facility. I assumed I would be speaking to children in middle school whose parents worked and couldn't be home when their kids got out of school. As it turned out, the "after-school" part of the facility was misleading, because I was basically speaking to 4- and 5-year-olds, who certainly were not yet in first grade. In case you were curious, 4- and 5-year-olds do not care about baseball broadcasters at all.

I finish my speech (most of them didn't pay attention) and open up the forum for questions (what was I thinking?). After getting the usual questions from kids about the mascot and what food he eats, one little girl with red hair who had been quiet the whole day raised her hand. When I called on her, she very shyly asked, "Is it true that red-heads will be extinct in 20 years?"

After regaining my composure, I promised the little girl that red heads were here to stay, and that whoever told her that (turns out it was an older sibling), was just being mean and trying to scare her.

Surgery for Jarrod Parker

Ugh...not the news you wanted to hear if you're a Diamondbacks fan. Former Silver Hawks pitcher and future star Jarrod Parker is going to have Tommy John surgery later this month, the Diamondbacks announced yesterday.

Tommy John surgery is so commonplace these days, that not too many people think twice about it. He'll miss the 2010 season of course, and hopefully should be ready to go by 2011. Parker is only 20 years old, so he still has plenty of time to be a star in the majors. However, we can't overlook the fact that this is still surgery on a youngster, and the Diamondbacks plans of having him as a major part of their rotation in 2010 is not going to happen.