Jasper Jones

Well Alex is going to be on crutches for at least 6 weeks. He had surgery yesterday and I brought him back to the dorm last night so he could sleep in his own bed. It’s really hard to sleep in a hospital - too much activity and noise.

His parents flew in from California yesterday and I stayed with them in the surgery waiting room till the doctor finished putting four pins into his leg and stitched him up. His parents are going to stay over the weekend and spend some time with him. He’s lucky they could drop everything and rush out here. I’m sure my folks would do the same, but they are just a 2 hour drive away - not a 7 hour flight away.

Anyway - he looks great and the worst problem he has right now is an upset stomache from the antibitoics and pain meds that he’s taking.

Of course, these crutches and the cast are going to put a big crimp in his Halloween costume plans. We’ll have to figure out something real creative to work around that cast.

What should have been a quiet night at the hospital emergency room turned into a bad time for me tonight. Usually midweek is not much going on unless there is a car wreck or something unusual. But tonight the ambulance brought in someone I really didn’t expet nor want to see. My roommate, Alex.

We play softball in a recreational league and as much as I love to lay, if they have games that conflict with my work schedule, then I can’t play that game. So I missed tonight’s game and Alex went without me. He was running to third base toward the end of a close game, and slid into the base to avoid being tagged out. Well, something went terribly wrong in that slide and he ended up breaking a his leg. So they hauled him here.

Alex is in the back getting x-rays and I’m waiting to see what’s next. I get off work in a few minutes, but I can’t leave Alex here by himself.

The Titans game today could not have been any sweeter. We used a backup quaterback and he lead the team to a huge victory over the Bengals.

I think our QB, Kerry Collins, did a great job and really racked up the points with an almost flawless game.

We don’t miss Vince Young at all. In fact, I’m sorry he’s hurt but I’m glad he’s not playing right now. The team deserves a strong leader and a good player and he’s not been able to give the Titans either one of those qualities.

It was interesting to see how they played with having to adapt to the strong winds on the field in Ohio. The weather was ugly but the game was a good one. Way to go, Titans!

Yesterday’s game with the Titans taking on Jacksonville was a very physical game and a hard earned win for the titans. We hit hard and so did they. In fact, we lost our quarterback at the end of the game to a knee injury and I suspect he will be out of the line up for at least 3 or 4 games, depending upon how serious the injury is. But we had a back up quarterback ready to rock and roll, and sure enough he came out throwing and won us the game. Personally, I like Chris Collins better than Vince Young, and although I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, I’m glad that Chris had the chance to play yesterday and bring home the win. I don’t think that if Vince had continued in the game that we would have won. He had another crappy game, full of mistakes and I’m sick of the hype saying how great he is. He’s NOT great - he sucks. I’m waiting for Coach Fisher to realize that and put Chris Collins on the field.

Was talking to my dad over the weekend about maybe changing my college major from sports administration to something more medical and less sports. I’m even thinking about maybe social work, to help adolescents that are in trouble. I didn’t realize that there was such a need for people to do this until I’ve been hanging out with my buddy, the Metro cop.

Well, my dad wasn’t too happy with the idea so I promised to think it over some more. It’s not too late to change anything on my schedule if I decide to make the change. In the meantime I’m looking into what it takes to be qualified to get a job in this field after I graduate next May.

Had the chance to watch the Cardinals play the Cubs in St. Louis last night. It was an awesome game - up and down with many close plays and at the top of the 9th it looked like the Cubs were going to wind their second game in the Cards series, but hang on to your seats! because at the very last possible minute the Cardinals got the 2 runs they needed for a BIG WIN! Whew! That game was really exciting. I hope they can pull off another win today to send the Cubs home with 2 losses in a row.

We are still hoping to find a way to get to Chicago for one of the games when the Cards come to Wrigley in August. We’ve done that every year since I was a kid and hope that the high price of gas doesn’t ruin all our travel plans this summer.

First of all, I don’t listen to the Don Imus show. I think he’s a jackass and I don’t waste my time listening to the kind of stuff he talks about.

But I was amused when he caught the media spotlight off his “nappy haired ho’s” remark. He needed to be reeled in, and to be honest, I was surprised that he got back on the air so quickly.

But now he’s put his foot in his mouth again. I wonder how much the station management will put up with before they require him to see a shrink or just retire?

He was discussing the Pacman Jones debacle with his producer, who is black, and he mentioned all the arrests and trouble that Pacman brought upon himself while he was supposed to be playing for the Titans. Imus says, “What color is he?” (which was his first mistake) and his producer answered, “He’s African-American.” Then Imus was stupid enough to say, “Well, there you go.”

The station management needs to show Imus the back door that dumps out into the alley with the rest of the trash and say to him as they boot his ass out, “Well, there you go!”

And the Titans should have done the same thing to PacMan last year instead of rolling over like a  ____________ (fill in the blank).

Stopped by to check on Aaron and his mom today and glad to see that they are doing OK. They were just hanging out at the house - all the other relatives left this morning and they were finally having the house to themselves, but they didn’t really want to be alone, either. So they invited me to stay and watch the Cardinals game on TV this afternoon.

The game got us to talking trash about our own ball playing abilities, and by the end of the game - 13 innings, by the way - we had a challenge between us to play a softball game. Aaron will grab enough of his friends home for the summer and I’ll round up enough of my guys and we’ll meet at the local high school field on the Saturday after July 4th fireworks for a game.

I’m going to get tee shirts printed for each team if this shakes out. I gave him until Wednesday to make the calls and firm up his team roster. If this is really going to happen, I want team names, a cheerleader squad, custom t-shirts, the whole monty.

Got online and found a web site called “Design A Shirt” that does custom printing on t-shirts and other things like sweatshirts, jackets, caps, etc. I think I can get my girlfriend to draw something special to print on the shirts. She’s very artistic and I bet she can come up with some good ideas. The web site has lots of examples of designs and shirts they’ve already done for other people and organizations so you can look through those and get good ideas.

Haven’t figured out the team names yet and not even sure that Aaron can scrape together 10 guys to do this. I guess if we get desperate we can let girls play - I know some pretty good girl players. But I think I can gather up 10 buddies who will be looking for something fun to do on a long holiday weekend, especially if I’m buying the beer!

Tomorrow is the big annual NHL draft. This is where teams get shaped and molded for the next professional ice hockey season, which starts up again in October.

Cities compete with each other to host the live draft. This year it will be held in Ottowa at Scotiabank Place, starting Friday at 6:00 pm my time. I think Ottowas is in my time zone. Haven’t been there yet but maybe next year. Wouldn’t it be great to go to a live Canadian hockey game? It’s much more intense up there, eh.

The top 18-year-old hockey players in the world are bracing for the biggest day of their lives when the teams announce their picks and their trades. There will be an open party in the downtown arena on Friday, with a locker room equipment sale and autograph sessions. If they only had the free beer . . .

  The Lakers looked great in the first two games of their series vs. the Spurs. These first two games where in Los Angeles  at the Lakers home court. The next game was in San Antonio, where the Spurs would take the home court to their advantage. In game three the Spurs looked like a different team, mostly because of  Ginobali. He had thirty points in game three, more than in both games one and two combined. With the series at 2-1 in favor of the Lakers, the Spurs needed a win in game four win to tie things back up and sent the series back to Lakers town. However, things did not go as planned for them. Game four was a close game all the way through. With just a few seconds left on the clock, the Lakers were up 93-91. On the last attempt of the game, Brandon Barry tried a shot and missed which ended the game, giving the Lakers a 3-1 series lead and the next game at their home court.