Padre Steve: Soon to Be Sports Blogger…Could it lead to the Big Leagues?

This has been an interesting few days.  I got a chance to get some rest over the weekend, saw some baseball games, spent time talking to Chicago Cubs and a Philadelphia Phillies scouts on different nights, spent some time talking with Tides Pitchers David Pauley and Radhames Liz in between innings.  Both are interesting folks, Pauley and his wife just had a baby and Liz is one of the few pitchers in the Major League 100 mph club.  Both are nice guys and I hope that both do well.  I think that Radhames has a good chance; he seems to have his control back and can throw a ball of fire.  Last night I went to the game and had almost my full cast of characters in place.  Elliott the Usher and I had our usual running commentary during the game, Barry the Scorekeeper was back after visiting his family and going to a wedding over the weekend out of town.  Chip the Usher was in his appointed place, Marty the Card Dealer, Mandy the Tides Store Manager who by the way is leaving us for another job, congrats but you’ll be missed kid.  Ray and John my Vietnam Veteran of America friends who pour the beer behind home place had just returned from the organization’s national conference.  The only person missing was Kenny the Pretzel Guy.  Heck I even had my buddy Elmer the Shrink as a guest.  It was a great night even though the Tides lost.  Today I was able to see the score in between patients and the Tides won 8-7 to split the series with the Chiefs.

I came in to work this and got my usual large 24 ounce coup of Southern Pecan coffee with 4 French Vanilla creamers and four packs of Splenda from Pat down at the Dancing Goat.  I got changed, did my duty turnover and got busy, but not nearly as busy as last week.  It has been a good day, some good ministry, a lot of hard work doing some writing for our residency program and some nice times on the wards with some great people, staff and patients alike.  However, in between rounds of my ICU a coworker ask to talk to me about helping with a project that she is working on.  I went to my office and when I opened the door I saw water spreading out across my lowest bidder carpet.   I look up and the words “oh crap” or something synonymous passed through my lips.   My ceiling tile near the sprinkler system was sagging down, water coming at a steady drip from it as the tile itself was cracking under the weight of the water that it had soaked up.  Now this is not the first time this has happened, last time it happened after hours and was a soggy mess, the rotten tile looked like really bad oatmeal gone really bad.   I was not impressed so immediately I put in a call to facilities saying “I need you guy’s STAT, my ceiling is leaking and looks like it about to crash.”  It took a while for the guys to get here and when they did they looked up and said, “Sir move all your stuff, this could get ugly.”  I already had moved almost everything to the high ground and rapidly moved the last box.  He brought down the tile and oh what a mess.  Fortunately after they looked they knew where to go to fix the problem, now I only have some residual drips from the insulation around some ductwork.  Thankfully that is done and hopefully by tomorrow my ceiling is fixed and I can arrange to have my carpet cleaned by our housekeeping folks.  Praise God for Grace the lady who cleans my office and waters the plants that would die if not for her great work.   She found a second garbage can to put in the middle of the room to contain the residual drips from the ceiling and vacuumed the crap from my floor.  It appears that the Deity Herself ensured that things broke my way in what could have been a nasty mess.

The past week was also interesting as I have two opportunities to do some blogging as a Sports blogger.  Maybe it will be a step to being on ESPN’s Around the Horn, sitting next to Woody Page. Who can tell right? Evidently my stuff is getting seen and at least some folks like it.  I have been invited by the Virginia Pilot, our local Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake newspaper to have a blog dealing with Baseball, general sports and life.  I was approached last week by the Most Valuable Network an independent sports network located at www.MVN.com to do something similar for them.   I received approval from my boss and legal to go ahead.  These blogs will be up by the end of the week or maybe the weekend.  I will post the links to the stories on these sites to this site.   The blogs will primarily focus on baseball and life and will likely on MVN be entitled The View from 102, The Church of Baseball. The Virginia Pilot will likely be Padre Steve’s View From 102Baseball Life and Faith. Once they are set up I will post the links here.  The articles will all be sports and life related and will occasionally delve into the heretical sports of football and basketball and will not be located on this site which will remain fully up and running as it does now.

Peace, Steve+