Earning a place on the fridge ranks higher than the cover of S.I.

Machine ball - Back in my grandparents’ day Poppy got a new machine every year and it simply meant a new car. Last Tuesday night, new millennium Poppy watched his first Machine Ball game between the Mud Dogs and River Dogs at the Rehoboth Little League park and it may have been a bit strange but at least it was incredibly slow. Grandson Mikey wanted me there with my camera hoping to earn a place on the refrigerator door which is more prestigious than the cover of Sports Illustrated. God bless adults who teach young boys how to play baseball, because for the first three years it looks as much like baseball as the last three years of adult basketball look like basketball. Hitting a baseball requires incredible coordination, which is why most swings are misses and when a hard ball is hit hopping across an infield of hard dirt, it is just basic instinct to turn the head to protect the face. The best part of baseball is “a little chatter,” it always sounds like the opening of a “Village of the Damned” movie.

BRENNAN AND THE BUCS -Sean Brennan was Cape’s football coach for three years and suffered tough times before moving on to Milford where he continued to coach football, wrestling, baseball and this year took over as head softball coach for a team that won the state title the previous year. Brennan’s Bucs upset Laurel last Wednesday 3-2 in 10 innings fittingly on a base hit from Sara Kolobielski that chased home Nikki Parsley with the winning run. Milford moves into the semifinals to face Smyrna. Sean sent me a text after the victory which made me feel special, although it doesn’t take much, just a little loyalty and friendship.

If Brennan faces Caravel and Randy Johnson in the finals I’m rooting for Milford because Randy threw Cape over to become a St. Andrew’s lacrosse fan because his friend Karl Saliba has a daughter Grace who plays for St. Andrew’s and that trumps me having a granddaughter on Cape’s team and having been Randy’s high school track coach in 1977.

BLEACHER BLIGHT - Since when does not having money prevent anyone from spending it? I’m still trying to figure out why if we default on our own national debt, being as we are our own bank, and just don’t pay it back, what difference does it make? My longtime friend from the sports sidelines, Dave Robinson, now Cape’s interim superintendent, told me there is no money available to make a really cool stadium for the second turf field like the ones at Milford and Tower Hill.

Yes, sports fans, consider the car-up-on-blocks image, a concrete pad with bleacher sections and of course no lights either. A series of chicken barbeques, even if the chicken is actually hot, would take a long time to raise the funds needed. We need a heavy hitter to weigh in and say “I got this!” Stadium names are for sale; just look at professional sports.

COMPETITION CAMPS - There is a reason scholastic sports practices are limited to two hours in length and that is to protect the athletes from coaches who push kids too hard with diminished returns.

But mostly in the summertime from camps to travel teams teenaged athletes play multiple games in a single day for several days in a row, and this is just plain stupid, and if you assumed all adults in charge know better you would be sadly mistaken.

Girls are especially vulnerable to ligament and tendon damage around ankles, knees are hips.  Strength and flexibility and the most important and slightly undertrained is better than being burned out and used up.

SNIPPETS - I sleep at night and prowl in the morning, haven’t had a drink in three years so I know at 6 a.m it’s as good as it gets. I am roving photojournalist guy and show up at most road races because it’s fun socializing and not having to run. I am amazed how many people run races and hang around for trophies and awards.

We are a trophy-seeking culture which is weird because you can buy used ones really cheaply. Check out races2run.com and seashorestriders.com for updated race schedules and results.

Tower Hill School is now clearly focused on the high-definition sports screen as a great place to send a student athlete if they play field hockey, soccer or lacrosse.

Tower Hill costs $24,000 a year to attend the upper school and there is need-based financial aid. There are some Pennsylvania kids on the teams from nearby Kennett Square, Chadds Ford and Unionville who attend Upland Country Day School then go to Tower Hill for high school.

Send punkin chunkers to the gulf if you want that hole plugged or the entire well blown up; I guarantee you they can improve on zero success.

I can hear Doc Pepper now, "Cut the pipe and put on a top hat where the pressure is 152 times that on the surface; don’t seem like it could work but I’m just a dumb electrician, what do I know?"

By the way an occasional hag fish swims by the spewing grime and somewhere that is a clue to the puzzle.

Speaking of hags “Get your own coffee grand mom I’m on deadline.”