Crap. Another totally unique baseball game. I'm gonna eat some ice cream and then I'm gonna write about it.

The game, not the ice cream. Although the ice cream was good. Would've tasted better if we'd won, though.

Timlin pitching two and a third perfect innings is good. So is coming right back after Tavarez blew the lead. It really looked like we had that one in the ninth, but, oh well. 10 games up over Toronto and the Yanks. Team Dunbar lost to the D-Rays with Clemens on the hill tonight. Love to see that.

I never mentioned that I thought it was a terrible job by Leyland on not getting Okajima into the All-Star game. First he's not picked for the game, which is a travesty. Then, the fans vote him in, righting the wrong. He goes all the way out there, and sits around the whole game. K-Rod was shitting the bed in that ninth. Maybe that would've been a good time. But nooooo, Leyland's gotta be his usual prick self. TJ by him, also, for saying he chose to start Haren, while sitting right next to him, because he pitches in a city near the All-Star city. He said if the game had been in Cleveland, he would've started C.C. "DeVille Wasn't In Black" Sabbath-ia, etc. Good to know he's picking by region instead of performance.... (He lucked out, as Haren actually was the best at the break.)

Oh, and I guess the reason we had two ASGs in a row in NL cities is so that they can get the game in at Yankee Stadium next year, in it's last godforsaken season. Should've known the answer to my query would be: "to appease the Yankees."

One minor nerdy baseball card update. Actually, this is one rung below that--baseball stickers. First some quick background. In '81, Topps introduced the Sticker Album. You'd buy packs of stickers, and put them in your album. I loved this as a five-year old, and completed the whole thing. (Even then I noticed the egregious error on the cover--George Brett batting right-handed. I guess their "excuse" was that his team logos were airbrushed out. With no lettering, they assumed he was a righty and let the photo go out reversed.) Anyway, after a few years, the "sticker book" concept had grown stale. After "gold foil" stickers and stickers that made up pieces of a larger photo when placed side-by-side, there was nowhere left to go. Then in 1987, my friends and I all got a letter in the mail from a company called "Panini," advertisig their new baseball sticker book. They may have even proclaimed themselves the official sticker of Little League, and maybe that's how they got to us, through the master Little League World Domination mailing list. For whatever reason, my friends and I, now in middle school, became addicted in sticker collecting again. Recently, I found this on the internet, while Gedman-hunting:

This is the year [1987] that Topps switched from the soft paper stickers, as made for them since 1981 by the Italian company Panini, to the "hardback" card stock issue.... Following this "test" year, The Topps 1988-1990 stickers were produced with hardbacks.

So after 20 years, I finally see what went on. Panini got the shaft from Topps, and found themselves with a big, empty, sticker-making factory. We'll make our own fucking book, they said. That's why '88 was their first year. And I have to say, they kicked Topps' ass. Then we all went to high school.

Check out the videos up at Jason's blog (he's back from blog-hiatus!). Really interesting speeches from war veterans.

In case you missed it, my mom and I are writing a book. Should be fun. See the press release right below this. Thanks.