the Swingin' A's (Kurt hits a dinger!)

Tonight was throwback night at the Oakland Coliseum in the game between the Oakland A's and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Not only were the A's wearing throwback uniforms (a garish yellow for both their jerseys as well as their pants), but the Pirates wore old-style uniforms too. The green on the A's caps were the lighter lime green they used to have; the Pirates had the boxier-shaped caps with the horizontal lines on them. And the A's coaches even wore the white caps that the coaches of yesteryear wore.

Players from the World Championship teams from the 70's also participated in festivities, with many of them riding around the field in convertibles prior to the game. The television broadcast featured appearances from Billy North and Vida Blue joining Glen Kuiper (who wore spot-on 70's clothing, a wig and a mustache) and Ray Fosse (himself a member of those championship A's teams) in the booth. Also in the booth to call play-by-play for the 5th inning was longtime favorite A's broadcaster, Monte Moore. It brought back great memories of way-back-when, when he and Fosse worked as a team calling A's games.

In a perfect synchronicity, as Monte Moore was describing the origin of him using the word 'dinger' to describe home runs hit by the A's back then while having an actual favorite bell he used to ring that he brought on a whim to tonight's visit to the booth, with two outs, A's catcher Kurt Suzuki hit a home run! So both Moore and Fosse got to ring the bell as Suzuki was circling the bases - just like old times.

The entire broadcast was geared towards recreating the 70's, including the graphics that were used during the game: the old-style box scores using yellow-colored type was really well done. Many fans dressed for the occasion wearing wigs and donning mustaches, some wearing the Joe Rudi (#26) jerseys that were given out to early arriving fans.

It was one of the most enjoyable games I've watched in a long time... and by the way, the A's won too. :-)

P.S. - as I mentioned in my previous entry, I've signed up to submit articles to a website called Associated Content (recently bought by Yahoo!). My first submission was an entry I posted on this blog first (with minor changes). Here's the link if you're interested in checking it out.

Associated Content

Hello readers, all handful of you - I recently discovered an online repository for writers called Associated Content. I've signed up (no worries, it was free) and will be submitting things to them to see if I can reach a larger audience for my 'musings.' Part of the sign-up process included the option of choosing a pen name, and after some consideration I decided "why not?" The nom de plume I came up with is Chandler H. Alan. Yes, it does have meaning to me, such as the middle initial standing for Harry, a late uncle who died during World War II. The plane he was on was shot down somewhere over Southeast Asia. I don't think he even got a chance to cradle any of his many nieces and nephews that came to be with the baby boom.

Thanks to those of you whom have complimented my writing style - it means a lot. And maybe increasing the exposure of what I have to say will lead to bigger and better things!

Also, I won't be as consistent in adding to my blog as I devote more of my time to this other venue. Thanks for visiting Gold Mountain Musings as much as you have, and I'll try to add thoughts here periodically!

unusual names

I used to think it was such a disadvantage growing up with an unusual name: Apple Martin, Moon Unit Zappa, Rumer Willis, Scout Willis, et al. Crazy celebrity parents! And I suppose even non-celebrity parents have given their kids the most creative of names too. But in modern times, with the world getting ever 'smaller' from the Internet and its ubiquitous searches, having a unique name can be an advantage. Even on Facebook, it seems that typing in virtually any name will come up with over 500 results, which makes it more difficult to find someone in particular. I've tried locating old classmates and have been unable to pinpoint them. It's a big, big world with lots of people and having a few-if-any kind of a name can actually be an advantage.

orioles of yore

The Baltimore Orioles baseball team's caps have an oriole on them. Makes sense, doesn't it? But they look so serious and staid. I've been waiting for years for them to go back to their more playful, happy logos, the ones that they wore way back when.

the Crimson

Many years ago, my brother and his best friend traveled along the East coast and brought me back a T-shirt from one of the universities. It was a subdued crimson color with a single word printed across the front of the chest in refined type:

HAHVAHD

Classic!

who you callin' inscrutable?

For the longest time, whenever I heard the phrase "those inscrutable Chinese," well frankly, I took offense. That's because I took the word inscrutable to mean unscrupulous. So when I finally realized what inscrutable meant, I was like, oh okay, I can see it, no big deal. Sometimes, I can't figure myself out.

Chinese faux-paus (pardon my French)

Okay, I'm American-born Chinese, or ABC. I had different places to live during my college days, and different sets of roommates. The first place I lived after my one year in the dorms was perfect, but the roommate whose father owned the condo unit we were in got married and we all had to find somewhere else to live. The condo was good while it lasted... actually, it was great! Peaceful, near downtown, I miss it.

So anyway, one of the other places I lived in during college was an apartment I shared with two Chinese roommates, one also American-born, and the other from China. Besides both of them being much better cooks than me (they were much more talented with stir-frying), they were both much better versed than me when it came to Chinese customs. For example, one night there was a bowl of rice sitting on the table (as opposed to each of us serving ourselves out of the rice cooker), and I decided to be, uh, "creative" and stuck a pair of chopsticks standing straight up in the middle of the bowl. The collective gasp! I heard from my roommates was oh-so-palpable. A BIG no-no, just like the number 4. Chopsticks sticking straight up like that is symbolic of funerals. What else? Oh yeah, never give a Chinese person a watch or a clock as a gift, particularly a hospital patient. It indicates the counting down of the seconds of their life.