Category: Life in the Big City

Taney Dragons to the World Series!

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Reporter: “What’s your signature pitch?”
Mo’ne Davis: “Strike.”

It was an amazing game and a delight for any baseball fan. Mon’ne pitched a shutout and a complete game. Twitter lit up as the word got out:

Taney won the title with aggressive baserunning and mistake-free fielding. The Dragons gave themselves an early cushion with four first-inning runs, each manufactured on the base paths.

The final run of the inning demonstrated the scope of Taney’s dominance. Zion Spearman danced off third base after a low-and-outside pitch to Kai Cummings. When Newark catcher Joseph Rinarelli tossed the ball back to pitcher A.J. Blanchard, Spearman bolted for home. He slid in just before the tag.

Newark National spent the two days before the game preparing for Mo’ne Davis, but it was of little use. The first-inning runs were all she needed. She pitched a shutout, allowing three hits. By the time Davis allowed Newark’s first hit in the third inning, Taney already had a 6-0 lead. She struck out six batters in the game.

Davis will be the first American girl to play in Williamsport since 2004. She downplayed her personal accomplishment, but her pitching performance on national television showed that gender is no barrier.

“More girls should join boys’ teams so it could be a tradition and it wouldn’t be so special,” she said.

A stout Taney defense sealed the win. Jared Sprague-Lott made several difficult plays at shortstop and Eli Simon caught two high fly balls in left field in the fourth inning. Taney did not commit an error in the game.

The game fittingly ended on a perfectly executed double play, then the celebration began.

Afterward, Taney’s players said the win was about more than baseball. For one thing, it means new uniforms, no small matter to Taney’s players. The players shouted in joy after the game in the Little League Recreation Center when they saw the new gear they will wear in Williamsport, emblazoned with the words “Mid-Atlantic” across the chest. It was another sign that they are champions.

The origins of Taney’s players added meaning to the win. They nodded in unison when asked if the win meant more because they are the first team from Philadelphia to reach the Little League World Series. Many of the players murmured about the stereotypes related to inner-city kids and baseball.

“It means a lot,” second baseman Jahli Hendricks said. “In the beginning, a lot of people were a little bit doubting us and criticizing us.”

The stereotypes are now irrelevant. The bus to Williamsport leaves Monday morning.

Here’s Mo’Ne a few years ago meeting Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, the only woman to play in the Negro League”

Local team one game away from Little League World Series

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

taney-dragons

The Taney Dragons, a Little League team based out of a Philadelphia playground, is ONE GAME AWAY from playing in the World Series. ONE GAME. I’ll be watching tomorrow at 6pm EST, on ESPN2.

And what makes it even better? Their ace pitcher, Mo’Ne Davis, is a girl.

From The Good Phight:

mone

If you had asked me in January to guess which baseball game I’d watch this year that would be the most exciting, most nerve-wracking, and most entertaining, the LAST thing I would have answered would be what I watched today.

Heck, if you had asked me that question two weeks ago, I would have said that, given the Phillies’ doldrums, there was going to be no such thing this year.

But then the Taney Dragons happened. They won the Pennsylvania state championship. They wound up the #2 seed after open play in the Mid-Atlantic regionals. Mo’ne Davis became a sensation. And, if you’re anything like me, thirsting for winning baseball, loving the city of Philadelphia, believing in kids having fun playing this amazing game, and being committed to breaking down gender barriers, the Taney Dragons have become your team.

It really makes no sense – a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds playing baseball is not what should be keeping us on the edge of our seats. But this Taney team has grabbed me, and hopefully you too, and thrilled us with what they’re doing.

I love a parade

~ susie

A small parade just went by my house, some kind of Polish Catholic pilgrimage (according to a sign). They had a loudspeaker blaring Polish music, a color guard from the Boy Scouts, someone carrying a large crucifix, and maybe 100 people, including some nuns and a monk, marching behind. I wish I’d been quick enough to take pictures.

Nixon memories

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

My boyfriend and I were in our ’63 VW Bug, headed down the Vine Street Expressway on our way to Cape Cod. We were listening to NPR on the car radio, and we heard the news: Nixon resigned! Everyone started honking their car horns, it was so strange.

Knowledge economy

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Green Bean Casserole with French Onions
I was in the supermarket yesterday, waiting in line to pay. A haggard-looking man asked me if I knew what was in a string bean casserole.

“Sure,” I said, and told him: string beans, cream of mushroom soup, and french-fried onion rings. (My sister used to insist I make this for every family gathering.)

Thanks, he said, and went off to find the ingredients.

He returned with a customer service rep: “Are the onions in the freezer section?”

No, they come in a can, I said. He went off to look again. When they finally found them, he returned to the back of the line. “How long do I cook these?” he wanted to know.

“Do you have a computer?”

Yes, he said.

“You can find all that online.”

“Okay, thanks. It’s my turn to cook for the guys in work, and one of them really wants this string bean casserole. I never made it before,” he said. He was wearing a Parking Authority shirt. Do they work in shifts, like a firehouse? I guess I’ll never know.

EMTS turn in NYPD for punching patient in the face

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Let me put it this way: If these EMTs turned them in, it had to be damned excessive:

Two FDNY EMTs who had to intervene to stop four police officers beating a handcuffed patient on a stretcher have turned the cops in to authorities, the Daily News has learned.

The emotionally disturbed patient was punched multiple times in the face by the cops on July 20, according to FDNY documents obtained by The News. The cops only stopped when the EMTs bodily intervened, the report said.

The violence broke out when the patient spit at the Emergency Service Unit officers and swore at them. The officers responded by hitting him in the face, hauling him off the stretcher to the ground and then tossing him back on the stretcher, the EMTs said in written statements submitted to the FDNY.

Some good news in L.A.

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

We don’t get much positive stuff these days, so I’m happy to note this:

Los Angeles officials are developing a new strategy for taming pervasive homelessness on skid row, easing up on arrests for petty offenses while concentrating mental health, medical, housing and sanitation services in the long-troubled swath of downtown.

Officials say the effort involves cooperation between the city and county, whose inability to mesh hampered earlier homelessness plans in the 50-block neighborhood. The area now finds itself pinched by gentrification, with homeless people camping in tents just around the corner from trendy, upscale bars and restaurants.

The changes grew in part out of the frustration of skid row beat cops like LAPD Officer Deon Joseph, who issued an anguished cry for help to answer what he described as a mental health crisis.

“It is not the LAPD that has failed the mentally ill or the public,” Joseph, a 16-year skid row veteran, wrote on Facebook and in the Downtown News. “It is our society that has failed them.”

This year, the city announced Operation Healthy Streets, budgeting $3.7 million for stepped-up street cleanings and improved bathroom access and storage for homeless people on skid row.