Thursday, June 10, 2010

Strasburg



Travel aboard the oldest railroad company in the US, the historic Strasburg Railroad 's nine mile steam train ride runs though Amish farmland and features several different travel accommodations, including fully restored open air coaches, a deluxe lounge car and a first class parlor coach. Special excursions include a Wine & Cheese, Dinner & Murder Mystery trains. Check schedule for "Day Out with Thomas" trains as well. Listed in Parade's "Unforgettable Day Trips by Rail". Directions.

Yes.



Unfortunately, not that Strasburg this time. Although, that's how you run a mf train.



This Strasburg goes something like this.

You like to read? You're gonna like it a lot more after you read this. Via Posnanski.

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Glen Perkins sits behind home plate and charts Stephen Strasburg. This is Rochester, N.Y., and Glen would rather be somewhere else — namely Minnesota where he grew up, where his wife and daughters live, and where he pitched for the Twins in 2008 and 2009. He won 12 games for the Twins in 2008, though he’s baseball savvy enough not to put too much stock in pitcher victories. He felt hurt in 2009 and had a rough season. Now he’s in Rochester trying to get healthy and get back.

When you’re pitching in the minor leagues trying to get back to the big leagues, you are happy to find distractions whenever you can. Charting a brilliant young pitcher is a good distraction. Perkins charted the Reds brilliant prospect Aroldis Chapman and found himself a bit dissatisfied … he had heard so much about Chapman but what he saw was an inconsistent fastball and slider and shaky command. Chapman is only 22, (“Obviously he has time to figure things out,” Perkins says) but the point is that for Perkins the hype did not match the reality, the talk did not match what he saw. It’s usually like that.

“I got to hit against Greg Maddux once,” Perkins says. “And he threw me one of those inside fastballs that looked like it was going to hit me. I’m not going to say I closed my eyes, but I definitely flinched and pulled back and looked away. And then the umpire called it strike three. It was really pretty unbelievable.”

He smiled. That’s what he wants to see in baseball. Something beyond belief. And on this day in Rochester, with a sellout crowd around him and hawkers selling Stephen Strasburg T-shirts, he settles in to watch baseball’s biggest pitching prospect.

“Wow,” he texts me after Strasburg gets a strikeout in the first inning. “98, 99, 100 on the first strikeout. Wow.” (http://pyleoflist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ricky-vaughn-tale.jpg)

Strasburg then throws an absurd change-up that makes a young player named Brian Dinkelman swing about a half hour early.

“I’m seeing Lincecum with that change,” Perkins texts. “Absolutely filthy.”

And he texts this after another change-up: “Guy next to me thought it was a curveball … Just saying, when it looks like a curveball and it’s not = nasty.”

And this after a sick curveball that make Jacque Jones look silly: “That appeared to be belt high for about 59 feet."

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He throws sinkers in the upper 90s. Shit, his curveballs look like sharp sinkers. Christ, his changeups look like curveballs. Alright, I'll stop gushing. Here's the deal.



Remember the posted Halladay pitches against The Jays on Saturday June 26th in Philly roadtrip? It just got expanded. Strasburg is scheduled to pitch against the Orioles in Baltimore, Camden Yards, on the June 25th.

Yeah. It's not hard to make the connection. It was a one in a million shot doctor..

So... yeah... I was thinking, if you could call in sick Friday, we leave that morning, say 7am (before traffic), be in Baltimore by 4, 5 latest (9 hour drive), walk, whatever, catch Strasburg, see a game at Camden Yards (#3 on ESPNs best parks), have a good night in Baltimore that starts at 10pm (that game will be done in 3 hours easy), hotel it up, explore Baltimore that morning or escape to Philly (2 hours away) for a cheesy steaky lunch, explore Philly, go see Doc pitch against The Jays, see Citizen's Bank Park, (#4 on ESPNs best parks), have a great night in Philly that starts around 7pm (that game will be done in 3 hours easy), and return to Toronto the next day in time to call your mother crying that you just had the best motherfucking baseball weekend of your life.

At this point there is a push to leave Thursday morning just to see a bit more of Baltimore.

Either way, this is Jesus country.

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