40 years ago today I was sitting in my living room with my parents waiting for the event of a lifetime, man walking on the moon. I was 11 years old and from what I can remember, the lunar module landed in the late afternoon but Neil Armstrong didn’t step on the moon surface until night time (10 PM ) I do remember my father waking me up to see this as I fell asleep on the couch as he didn’t want me to miss this unbelievable piece of history. No one could believe what they were seeing and the thing a lot of people feared was the astronauts getting stranded on the moon. In fact President Nixon had a speech already to address this if it happened.

I’m really sad to hear of the passing of Frank McCourt whose life story laid out in Angela’s Ashes is just one of greatest books ever written. I had the pleasure of meeting Frank and Malachy McCourt as they did their show ”A Couple of Blaguards” and it was a thrill and privilege to meet him and I’m honored to be known as a “blaguard” myslef .

Trying hard to put up a post today as I replay a tough loss over and over in my mind, no not the All Star Game, I gave up on that at 10PM when RESCUE ME came on, no I’m talking about my Babe Ruth team losing 8-0 to the top seed last night.

Don’t let the score fool you it was a closer game than that. We had one bad inning (the 3^rd) letting in 4 runs on a couple of errors and a some solid base hits. But the biggest obstacle was the pitcher we were facing a 13 year old with a big time yellow hammer that buckled my guys knees. We could only muster two hits on the night and three base runners total (my son accounting for two of the base runners with a walk, reaching first on a strike out/passed ball and two stolen bases) and now we face an elimination game on Sunday. Not much to say to the kids but “Hang with ‘em.

After the game we went home to watch the All Star Game and the first thing my son told me was “Dad, let’s get all the when I was a kid stuff out early so we can just watch the game” I guess like how the All Star Game was played during the day and how the two leagues played the game like it was a World Series game and how the NL had all the stars and always won and because of that the AL couldn’t draw fans so they sullied the sport with the DH, and how I miss Curt Gowdy calling the big games and that’s when I get the hand and “that’s enough old timer” and I quiet down.

I was listening to Joe (Bada Bing Bada Boom) Beningno and Evan Roberts yesterday and I agree with Joe that there is so much baseball available for us to watch that the All Star Game is no big deal, as it used to be a chance for fans to see players they never get to see much but with the Extra Innings package and ESPN and MLB Network and Mets and Highlander games on every night there isn’t a team or a player I haven’t seen add in that there is no more rivalry between the NL and AL with so much player movement and the fact that both leagues are not run as separate entities (remember when there were League Presidents ?) That has made the All Star Game hum drum.

Admit it you were hoping that President Obama would have brought Artie Lang with him to the game to hang with Doofus Joe Buck. Now that would have been riveting TV.

The legend of David Wright continues to grow. :

Team USA ballplayers want Felix Perez, the paralyzed Iraq War veteran who was their clubhouse postgame guest Tuesday, with them in Los Angeles as their guest for the World Baseball Classic semifinals. Third baseman David Wright offered to personally pay for Perez’s trip to L.A., including airfare, hotel and tickets for Perez and his family. When Wright broached the idea with teammates, they agreed to support Perez’s trip as a team.

“Twenty-eight guys would have offered to do the same thing,” Wright said of his gesture. “There’s nothing I was doing that anybody else wouldn’t do. I took the idea to a couple of the older guys on the team to see if it was a good idea, see if they gave it the thumbs up. They all loved it.”

Perez, 27, was a sargeant with the 82nd Airborne deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq when he suffered his injury. He attended the elimination game Tuesday in which the United States, down 5-3, scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to advance. As Perez waited in his motorized wheelchair at a gate outside Dolphin Stadium, hoping to acquire autographs on an American flag he carried with him during his tour of duty, a stadium security officer escorted him to the Team USA clubhouse, where players invited him in as they celebrated the victory.

Perez said Tuesday after meeting the players that he would like to watch the U.S. win the tournament at Dodger Stadium. “If we make it to the final, I will definitely go to L.A.,” he said.

Now, because of the gesture of Wright and his teammates, Perez could be on his way. Wright was in the process of obtaining Perez’s contact information Wednesday night before the U.S. team was to play a seeding game against Venezuela.