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Last night was the All-Star game. Note that there's no sport attached to the front of that. Other sports have to label their All-Star game. NBA All-Star game, NHL All-Star game, etc. When you just say All-Star game, it's baseball. This year's game was at Fenway Park, in Boston. And it looked beautiful.

It was fairly obvious who the baseball fan in the house is, though. The pregame ceremonies included the introduction of something like 40 of baseball's literal living legends. Bob Feller. Hank Aaron. Willie Mays. Stan Musial. For the crowning moment, Ted Williams is driven out onto the field to throw out the first pitch. The cart is mobbed by the past and present All-Stars, with everyone wanting to shake Williams's hand, exchange a few sentences with him, anything. Williams is crying, but ignoring it. The man was a Marine, fer crissakes, he's not going to admit to crying. Players are turning away and trying to casually wipe at their own eyes. I'm getting a little choked up, too.

Liz looks up from her book and says, "Geez! It's been like 45 minutes, do they ever actually play a game?"

Thud.

So, anyway, it wasn't the kind of game I expected. In a year when all sorts of offensive records are being shattered, pitching dominated. They actually set a record for most strikeouts by two teams, combined in a 9 inning All-Star game: 22.

Just as an aside, the above is one of the bizarre quirky things about baseball that I enjoy but get a chuckle out of at the same time -- all the little unusual statistics that get compiled and casually inserted into conversation. There's a baseball movie starring Tom Selleck, and in one scene he's arguing why he shouldn't be cut from the team, and in a fit of frustration he screams, "Last year I led this club in ninth inning doubles for the month of August!" It was so dead-on it still makes me giggle a bit.

Due to the extensive pre-game stuff, the game didn't start until like 9PM or so. Later, maybe. Liz finished her book and needed some comforting and love before she felt okay to go to bed and be more or less sure I wasn't going to die a tragic death while she wasn't paying attention (For those keeping score at home, sympathy I give Liz for getting weepy over a character in a book dying: Lots. Sympathy I get for getting teary-eyed over seeing one of baseball's greatest having to be supported as he throws out the first pitch: Zip.)

Anyway, since the game didn't start until late, and since the managers always try to get all the players in to play for at least a bit, the game doesn't end until around midnight. *yawn* Naturally, the cat is a poop about 15 minutes after I come to bed, wakes everyone up, and is tossed out. The alarms go off way too early in the morning, and I fumble my way through the morning. On the way to work, I check my wrist to see what time it is... and realize I've forgotten to put my watch back on.

This is bad. I'm a very time-conscious person. I check my watch constantly. The hands glow in the dark, it's got the date of the month on the face, and I can push a button to make the whole face glow in the dark, in case I need to signal a covert operations team with it or something. But anway, I digress.

No watch. My whole sleeve feels looser around my wrist. Even though there's a time display at the bottom of my monitor, and I've got an alamanac program running that displays the time, date, and day, I check my wrist.

Oh, well. If this is the price I pay for watching the All-Star game, it's worth it.

I've added a new page to the site, called Nouns. Basically, it's a quick reference to stuff I might mention in here without an explanation. It's definitely in progress. But then again, isn't just about everything?