GrillSgt's Firepit

Sonrise – New Song Added

I went ahead and uploaded what I have done on my song “Sonrise.” It’s just rhythm guitars and drums. I still need to add bass, lead guitar and vocals, but that’s going to happen sometime later. I got some new recording software with some of the gear I purchased a couple of months ago and I may have to re-record what I already have. I don’t know if what I have will be compatible with the new software. Plus, I have some old lyrics that I need to set to new music and get recorded in the next couple of months.

Anyway, take a listen to Sonrise on the Demos page or right here.

 Sonrise - Instrumental: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

World Baseball Classic

Last night was the first and only night that I had a chance to catch any of the World Baseball Classic games. I watched Japan beat USA 9-4. USA played alright, but it was obvious that USA wasn’t completely ready for the level of competition that the World Baseball Classic brings.

The announcers attributed much of this to the fact that the USA players are essentially in Spring Training mode. They also discussed that the USA manager, this year it was Davey Johnson, is somewhat handcuffed by MLB and MLB teams/managers because it’s Spring Training for USA players. Their commentary made it sound like the other teams weren’t in Spring Training mode.

While this all may be true, there are major league players on virtually every squad, maybe not as many on the USA team, but there are still some. The Latin teams, such as Puerto Rico and Venezuela, have a significant number of MLB players on their rosters. Japan has Dice-K and Ichiro. MLB players on other teams are also, to a certain extent, in Spring Training mode. While it is true that many of the Latin players play in fall and winter leagues in their home countries after the MLB season is complete, not all of them do.

There was some discussion about how other countries are catching up to the USA in the quality of their baseball. This is probably true. Baseball is becoming quite the international sport and other countries are putting more money into training facilities and developing amateur and professional leagues. However, I think that the main difference is in off-season preparation and desire.

It’s not that I think that USA players don’t want to win. Based on the comments I’ve read from participating players, they are passionate about participating. From my experience playing baseball and softball, I don’t think any athlete can just show up and go through the motions once games start, except perhaps Spring Training, when the primary focus is to get back into baseball conditioning, get timing down, work on improvements to fielding, pitching and hitting, prepare for the coming season and, sometimes, learn a new position (see Skip Shumaker of the St. Louis Cardinals). Once serious games start, professional athletes play to win. It’s in their nature. They have to be competitive and have the desire to win. If they don’t, they don’t play.

While the quality of baseball played in other parts of the world is improving dramatically and it is catching up to the USA, I don’t necessarily think it’s caught up with the USA completely. I think the USA’s less than stellar showing in various international competition is because of timing. The Olympics are held in the middle of the season, and MLB has yet to take a mid-season break to allow professional USA players participate, like the NHL has done. I also think that MLB teams are loathe to allow their high salary players participate for fear of injury. OK, but the NHL does. So does the NBA (although for the NBA, the Olympics are off-season). Therefore, USA’s best baseball players aren’t participating.

I also think the difference is in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. I’m not saying that USA players take the winter off and get lazy. But from some of the commentary I heard and things I read, it sounds like many of the international teams are preparing for the World Baseball Classic starting in November and December. Professional USA players are conditioned to begin preparation for their seasons in February and March, getting ready for the MLB season which starts at the beginning of April. They aren’t really ready for high-octane, ultra-competitive games in early and mid-March. For them, they’re still 3 weeks or so away from being “game-ready.”

I think if the USA team was to bring its players together and started training in December or January, they’d have their full 6-8 weeks of training before starting the World Baseball Classic tournament. While they wouldn’t have the benefit of live Spring Training game action, intra-squad scrimmages could help with that. Having this Winter Training might also help reduce the number of injuries. This year USA had a number of injuries: Chipper Jones, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, and several others. Injuries didn’t appear to be a problem for many international teams. From last night’s commentary, Japan had one or two injuries and South Korea had none.

Lastly, I think some of USA Baseball’s “problems” lie in the style of play. Japan plays Whiteyball. For those of you not familiar with Whiteyball, Whitey Herzog was the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980s. His teams didn’t feature a lot of power hitters. In fact, Jack Clark was really the only regular home run threat. But he had a lot of good, sound fundamental players. Whiteyball was all about manufacturing runs: get on base, move the runner to second, and get him home. Whitey relied a lot on stolen bases, hit and run, run and hit, sacrifice bunts…the fundamentals. MLB baseball today is very reliant on home runs. Remember the commercials “Chicks dig the long ball.” In addition to earlier preparation, Team USA needs to work on manufacturing runs, doing the little things and not waiting for the three-run bomb.

So, there you have it. My take on USA Baseball in the World Baseball Classic. Start preparing earlier and work on manufacturing runs. Success should follow. Now if I could only get the softball team I play on to buy into this philosophy.

Euthanasia

My brother-in-law recently had a pancreatic cancer scare in his family. Fortunately, it was not pancreatic cancer, which is currently incurable. But it got me thinking about euthanasia and assisted suicide.

We put down animals, like dogs, cats and horses, regularly because they are too ill, can’t walk, and such. We do this so they don’t have to live their final days in pain and misery. A couple of my friends recently had to put down their dogs. Euthanizing animals is legal and not considered cruelty toward animals. In fact, animal activists would probably consider it cruel if we didn’t put down animals that are terminal or otherwise would have a poor quality of life during their final days. Veterinarians likely recommend euthanasia daily.

What I don’t get, though, is why people are forced to live under similar conditions. We pump them full of drugs to relieve as much pain as possible, but sometimes all the drugs in the world aren’t enough. Sometimes all they can do is lie there and stare at the ceiling unaware of what’s going on around them or that their family is keeping watch. Why must people live through unbearable pain, misery and suffering with a poor quality of life when we know that all of the efforts to keep them alive will ultimately be for naught? Why is it that it’s okay to end an animal’s life for terminal conditions or poor quality of life, but it’s not okay to do the same for a human being under the same or similar circumstances?

What about the person’s family? They have to stand by and watch the person suffer the pain and waste away until there’s nothing left, putting an enormous emotional, and often financial, burden on them. It’s painful to stand by your loved one and watch him or her suffer knowing there is nothing you can do to help. You can’t even really tell them it’ll be okay, everything’s going to be fine. Because it’s not. At least not until they die and escape the pain and suffering.

What if you were the one who was living in pain, misery and suffering with no way out except waiting for your body to give out? What if you had to live that way for years? Would you want to live that way? Would you want to live your final days in extreme pain, misery and suffering? What if it was your loved one lying in that bed?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone with a terminal illness should be allowed to take this course of action. I mean there are plenty of people who have defied odds and lived long lives despite incurable diseases. What I’m talking about is those times when a person has little time to live, absolutely no chance for recovery or a cure, and the remaining time they have will be spent in insurmountable pain, suffering and misery.

Perhaps Dr. Kevorkian had the right idea all along. Perhaps it’s time to rethink our values, morals and laws.

Winter Wonderland

A few photos of the snow left behind by the mega-snowstorm that barreled through the Southeast and up the Atlantic Coast on Mar 1-2, 2009. Wasn’t much of a storm where I live. The weather forecasters were predicting 4 to 6 inches in my neck of the woods, but we only got about 2 inches, and most of it melted by nightfall.

Still, it’s pretty. Here are a few photos I snapped this morning from the lake (east) side of our house.

BillCanGrill.com Updated

I updated the mobile theme so it’s not quite so blah anymore. I also fixed the visual ugliness that was appearing in browsers other than Internet Explorer.

I’ll have those recipes for smoked ribs, holiday turkey and poultry brine up sometime this week. I’ll also get the links on the front page fixed. I realized a little while ago they are still linking to the old pages I had when I was using Movable Type.