DECEMBER 28 UPDATE
COMMITMENTS
Reinhardt College 2007
signings..
Brittany Hasty - ss/2nd - GA Fire Gold
Katie McDannald - 3rd - GA Diamonds
Danielle Kirkpatrick - C/1st - GA Blitz
Amanda Bills - c/3rd - GA Fire White
Christina Wofford - OF/ss - East Cobb Bullets
Erin Byram - C/of - East Cobb Bullets
CONFERENCE FOR PITCHING COACHES
A number of coaches and other observers commented at the recent Batbuster, as they did at earlier tournaments, about the quality of young pitching, notably at the 16 and 18 level, even at Gold. We saw mechanical and other problems which should have been addressed at younger age levels. At the same time, SPY has heard the lament from college and travel ball coaches about the scarcity of quality pitching coaches.
Ernie Parker would like to address those deficiencies through a conference for pitching coaches. Recognized experts would discuss/illustrate the various pitches – not just how to throw them but when and to which batters – as a part of a total game strategy.
The conference, as envisioned, would not be a money-maker. Lecturers/instructors and participants would pay their own expenses. The possible cost would be for a centrally-located facility. SPY has volunteered to help organize the conference.
The decision rests on the degree of interest shown by pitching coaches in attending such a conference – more properly, a workshop.
Ernie will welcome comments and also suggestions on a facility/locale.
PITCHER NEEDED
Young Harris College, a junior college in the North Georgia mountains is looking for a pitcher for the spring semester. Contact Coach Eric Geldart at egeldart@yhc.edu or 706-781-3648
ANAT BEN-YEHOSHUA
Thanks to reader Tricia Bessho, who also loves a challenge, we now know that the Israeli who sang “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” was Anat Ben-Yehoshua. Took two hours of research. Sadly, no bio. But, I rewired my triple input Sony so that I could record the movie from VHS format to Betamax, which has better sound characteristics.
THE WATCHMAKER
I will probably get mail from the evolutionists but this is a creative message (no pun intended)
Beautiful video!!!
http://www.kids4truth.com/watchmaker/watch.html
MY CAREER AS A PRIVATE EYE
A Mike Hammer moment! The blonde, her silky tresses hanging over one eye like Veronica Lake, leaned forward to light her cigarette. She wanted me to ogle her ample bosom, so I did. We may fight for home, motherhood and apple pie – but we dream about babes like this green-eyed doe across from me. There’s a reason boys leave home, and this lady with the killer smile knew all the answers. Endowed? She could breast feed Ethiopia. We had dinner at the Kentucky Club, and now we watched the floor show at the Jamboree Club. Linda Johnson was singing “That Old Black Magic.” A leggy auburn-haired chanteuse who had been around a few corners, Linda had the kind of husky voice that Jane Greer used to lure Robert Mitchum out of his past.
Jake Samara, a Syrian with some underworld ties, looked at me with a suspicious eye, when I escorted Marina into his club. I thought Jake was surprised to see me in a white dinner jacket; I learned later he had recognized Marina. If I had been as smooth as Peter Gunn, I would have noticed that Jake posted his muscle at the door after we entered and would have associated it with Marina. I knew one of the apes, a former lineman, but assumed someone with a rap sheet was in the club and Jake was laying off the odds on trouble.
The orchestra shifted to dance tunes, and the vixen fixed me those emerald eyes, “You do dance don’t you?” A line from a Bogie movie, but this broad had lost her innocence when Lauren Bacall was in bobby socks. I took her in my arms as the band segued into Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” – one of those romantic hold-them-close numbers where you nailed the proposition at university sock hops or went down in flames. Hot damn! This was playing out just like the detective thrillers I read and watched. That’s me, Mr. Smooth.
She reached behind me, and patted the Colt .380 in the small of my back. “You can shoot – can’t you?” she asked, pressing that bosom into my chest. I kept failing in the witty reply category – if the Judge for some reason looked in the lower drawer of his desk and found his gun missing, I would be in a world of hurt. Finally, I summoned enough hubris to assure her I could hit what I aimed at, and said, “Don’t worry. I will protect you.” The laugh kind of erupted from way below the deep slit in her dress. “The gun is to protect you, my gallant escort. He wouldn’t hurt me. He just wants me to stay out of court. I know too much. Jack will buy my silence, with or without a divorce. But, his goons might rough you a bit if they think I’m sleeping with you.” My casual demeanor went south, as I tried to square this dialogue with the story a defense attorney whom I knew recited when he asked me to pose as a private eye for one night. The attorney insisted I had to pack heat. With what I thought was John Wayne’s studied disdain for danger, I said, “What the hell. Tell the bugler to sound the charge.”
The attorney said he had a client up from Dallas who was seeking a divorce. Her husband, a gangster of some repute, wouldn’t agree to a divorce. Above all, he wanted her silence about his business, which she had threatened to expose if she couldn’t get a divorce. I thought of a scenario from a Cagney movie, where the broad really didn’t want a divorce – she wanted big bucks and a looser leash.
To demonstrate her determination, Marina wanted to show off around Oklahoma City. Enter stage left: one college boy with a Caddy coupe and dinner jacket who knew all the clubs and the people who ran them. I agreed to show her a good time.
People would surely have thought we were about to match our respective knowledge of the birds and bees, the way she cavorted around the dance floor. You let that doozy nibble your ear, and a saint would renounce his vows. My mind was racing – which Commandment covered adultery and did I have to confess just thinking about it?
Finally, I bundled her into the Caddy and drove her back to a pad the lawyer kept for certain clients. We stood in the living room for a moment, then she went in to change clothes. I was right on the knife edge – do I make a pass at her – or run like hell. Marina walked back into the living room, wearing a diaphanous gown that could get you arrested in several states. Before I could decide whether I was supposed to sample the fruit in this abundant orchard, I heard a key in the lock, the door opened – my hand flew to the gun – but it was my “friend” the attorney.
He strode across the room, swooped Marina into his arms, and their mouths locked in the kind of deep kiss that Kirk Douglas planted on Lana Turner before disrobing her. Just as they waltzed into the bedroom, he turned, “Keep an eye out. Don’t let anyone in.”
Like Moses parting the Red Sea, my mind reeled from the sudden revelation – the guy who was putting the horns on the gangster in Dallas was her attorney. I was a decoy.
My penchant for excitement on the dark edge of night had really put me in harm’s way. This wasn’t a Raymond Chandler thriller. I was walking down a dead-end street. Some very ugly Texans could wallop hell out of me, send her home to Jack where she would promise to behave – she would get some goodies and my friend/shyster would get a big check from Jack for talking her out of the divorce (after getting his ashes hauled.)
Another person might have thought of shooting both of them but the gun was registered to my father -- and a veritable bus load of people had seen us at the clubs -- including the parents of my about-to-be ex-girl friend. So, humbled beyond belief, I choked down my anger, walked out, got in my car and went back to the University.
My career as an 18-year old private eye had lasted six hours.
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