It is 12:09 am on Thursday morning May 29th.  We just wrapped up our 8th game of our 9 game road trip with a horrible loss of 19-4.  Sorry I have not updated in a while but there just hasnt’ been a ton of time to update.  Instead of giving you something that happened each day, I am going to just talk about things that have happened on this roadtrip.

First the bus is amazing.  It is a sleeper bus that has plasma tv’s with Satellite and each bed has it’s own mini tv with dvd player.  It is the best bus I have ever been on and it has made traveling a lot easier.  You can fall asleep and then next thing you know your at your destination.  Definately a nice perk I was not expecting.

Life on the road is hard for a baseball team.  First the hotels are not the greatest ones and are not really located in good areas with a bunch of restaurants.  We have to make bus trips every day to a mall to be able to get some sort of lunch.  While it does not effect me as much you can tell it takes a toll on the players.  Most places are supposed to supply the team with food after the game but on one stop they didn’t and that made some people unhappy.  So it is not a great life to be traveling on the road.

Now for the story that everyone has been talking about.  The Laredo Broncos traded 10 bats for a pitcher named John Odom.  First off, that was not the original idea for the trade.  I know exactly what it was supposed to be originally for.  I don’t want to say it cause I don’t know if some random person might read it.  If you want to know call my cell or text me.  But the guy is a very nice guy and he has been through a lot of hell dealing with all the media.  On our off day on Monday they interviewed him one ESPN’s First Take.  It is amazing how much mainstream coverage this has gotten.  It is something that I couldn’t belive when I first heard it and still think it is pretty cool.  What are the odds that I would be working for a team that does this.  Just unreal.

Well now the team is 7-7 on the season.  If they could get some consistent pitching this team would be easily in first place.  The hitting is awesome on this team but besides 2 solid starters and 1 pretty solid starter and only 1 or 2 good arm in the pens, we are in need of pitching help.  The one thing that is really killing us is runs with 2 outs.  Today only we gave up 9 runs in an inning and the first two guys batting that inning made outs.  It is just insane.  Till we get some better pitching this team is going to be nothing more than a .500 team.  Fortunately that is what is happening to most teams in our league so we are still in it.

Well that is all I got.  Hope all is well with everyone back home.  I am liking to see the Cubs doing so well.  I just wish I could be up there going to some more games.  Oh well that is what September is for.  Well have a good one everyone and talk to you later.

It is 3:19 pm on Monday May 19th and all I can say is WOW.  Sorry I have not updated in a long time but I have been so busy with the season this is the first chance I had to write down what has been going on.

We will start with last Monday which saw me and the staff getting ready for opening night.  We went around the park making sure everything was set to go and I ran a practice broadcast to make sure it worked and everything went smoothly.  So we were set to go for Opening Night on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I began my offical career as a professional baseball broadcaster.  What I do before the game is print out rosters for fans and media, I prepare all the stats for the media so they have it and I can use it for my broadcast, I go and talk to both managers to get the starting lineups, I run the commercials during the broadcast, do a pre game interview with our manager, and then I broadcast.  It is pretty wild.  The first broadcast was an awesome way to begin my career.  We won the game in the bottom of the 9th inning on a walk off double!!!  So I got to call a walk off victory in my first professional game.  How crazy is that.

Our 2nd game took place the next day at 11 am as it was a special kids day.  I was so wired from the previous night I only got like 2 hours of sleep but was ready to go for the early start.  We lost but the nice thing about that game was that I got the whole night and afternoon off.  I ended up taking a brief nap during the day and then from 7 to 12:30 in the morning I sat at the hotel bar with our manager and asst. coach just drinking beers and watching the NBA Playoffs.  That was pretty cool and I really felt like I was starting to fit in.

We finished off the first series on Thursday as we lost the series to Amarillo.  After we scored 7 runs in the first game we only managed 3 in the other two.  It was not a happy time here as we were not expecting to be 1-2 early on.

On Friday we kicked off our 2nd series taking on the Harlingen White Wings.  we were trailing 8-1 and decided to play long ball late in the game to cut the lead to 8-7 going to the bottom of the 9th.  We had two runners on base with 1 out and our 4 and 5 hitters up and we couldn’t get the job done.

Saturday we pounded out 12 runs in a 12-1 blowout.  We just went and destroyed the opposing team.  It was just domination.

After the games on Friday and Saturday I went out with our Asst GM Albert and his family.  We had a blast just chilling out and drinking beer.  It was such a great time.  It was cool hanging out after hours too where we don’t have to be worried about being so formal.

On Sunday I called what was possibly one of the weirdest innings I have ever seen in baseball.  The first batter for Harlingen had a 1-2 count and was complainning about the strike zone.  He got ejected as well as a player on the bench and the manager.  It went on for 5-10 mintues.  We got confused in the press box cause instead of a pinch hitter batting the 2nd hitter came up and hit a home run.  I later found out that the batter was called out on strikes because he refused to step back in the batters box.  Then with 2 runners on  a player for Harlingen hit a fly ball to the right fielder and he dropped the ball.  But the base umpired ruled that it was an infield fly even though it was not even close.  The runners did not tag up so we tried for the double play by appealing to first base and the runner was called out.  Then Harlingen got upset with the outcome and complained and then the umpires discussed what happened.  The final ruling was that the batter was out on an infield fly and if we had appealed to 2nd it would have been a double play.  But we appealed to the wrong base and you only get the chance to do it once so that is why the runners stayed on 2nd and 3rd.  It was a very confusing inning and if you want to hear it you can listen to the archive of our game.  It was nuts.  We ended up winning which made it all better.

Today we have an off day before we head to a 3 town 9 game road trip.  Now I had no clue what kind of bus we would be taking, but I found we are getting a luxury sleeping bus.  Every seat turns into bed and has a tv with sattelite tv as well as a dvd player.  It is going to be sweet.  I hope to update this sometime on the road so you can see how life is like on the road.

It is 1:02 pm on Sunday May 11th.  Happy Mother’s Day to My Mom and Grandma!!!  Since I last left you on Monday a lot of stuff has happened.  Remember when I said things were slow, well that is no the case anymore.

So, Monday night was the night we went to the city council meeting to have them vote on whether or not we are going to get a new stadium for the team.  The league owners flew in from Florida and all of the front office and players were there in support for the team.  We were supposed to leave the hotel at 6:30 but we found out they wouldn’t hear us till 8 so we left at 7:45.  We get there and the council is in recess and that lasts till 8:45!!!  Then they get back and for 40 minutes talk about how cars are getting stolen in Laredo.   It is a pretty high number but the police chief just shows them numbers and not how they are going to fix it.  So really we wasted 40 minutes there.  Then for a half an hour they talked about putting a light up by the airport.  Here is the problem with this debate.  The debate was on whether or not they should install it even though it couldn’t be activated till they got traffic numbers to warrant a light to go up.  So the one guy was trying to have them install it but not have it work and then take the numbers not even knowing if the numbers would warrant it being installed.  This council is such a joke.  We end up not even speaking because of this and get pushed back for what I was told was the 3rd time already.  One council member even said that we should be heard since we had people in from Florida but the Mayor was like no we have no time meeting over.  WOW!!!!

That was some real BS there.  All that time wasted on the stupidest things that could have been talked about at any time.  You had the league owners fly and waste their money for this.  How can that be the way a government should be run.  What I also forgot to mention they spent a half hour on giving the City Manager a raise by having everyone comment on what a good job he has done.  You can do that at any time!!!!  This is showing that this city does not want the Broncos hear and If we don’t get that stadium they might have to move.

On Tuesday, it was back to the old ways except we were having our season ticket holder party that night.  My job was to take pictures and run the table where the people were to pick up their tickets.  That was all fine and good.  However one of our staff members named Doug was telling me to do this other stuff when I was trying to do mine and I was like I can’t right now I have other duties to do.  He was like well I need you to do this so do that instead.  This was the stuff that finally got me mad and made me talk to our gm about him because I know I am an intern but he was not respecting me.  (more on that later)

On wednesday my job was to drive all over town and deliver the season tickets to the people that did not pick them up as well as drop off some pocket schedules.  It was fun driving around town and getting to see parts of it I had not seen before.  It took a while but I finally got it done and then that night me, the GM, and the assistant GM cleaned the concessions area.  With very little money and manpower in an indpenedent league team everyone does everything.  It is kind of crazy but also cool in a way.

Thursday I got to drive around town again and deliever more pocket scheuldes.  After that I helped put some banners out on the outfield wall.  Then I stuck around and watched practice for a bit when Doug asked me if I had delivered pocket schedules to this car dealership and I said I did not.  He was like well you were supposed to and have to do it.  I then say to him me and Jose (the GM) sat down and went over all the places I were to deliver them too.  Doug was like well you have to go there.  The assistant GM (Albert) was there and was like lay off of him he drove around all day and got a lot of them out.  ( I was told I already had delivered more pocket schedules than they did last year)  This made Doug mad and when the GM was told about this he sent Doug an email saying that I am not his intern.  I only answer to the GM and assistant GM and no one else.  Doug really thought I was his intern and had to do whatever he wanted, which is not the case.  So now there is some turmoil in the front office because Doug is pissing everyone off.  When you are this close to opening day this stuff happens.

Friday was more cleaning and putting up billboards and that was about it.  Saturday we did more of the same during the day but we had a scrimmage against a local team that had young players as well as some older players from the Mexican league.  It was a fun night as I got to do the PA Announcing which was really cool.  I had a lot of fun with it as well as plugging myself and my broadcast a bit too.  All in all it was a crazy week and I have been so busy this was the earliest I could update.

On one last note I want to congratulate my sister Rachel on graduating from the University of Illinois.  I am very proud of her and so happy to see her moving on to a big step in her life.  She is a great person and I know is going to find a job in copy editing soon and will be great at it.  Congrats Rachel!!!!  Well that is all for now, I probably won’t update till after my first broadcast so tune in on Tuesday night at 7:30 when we open up the season.

It is noon on Monday May 5th.  Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone!!!  I know I have not updated in a long time, but there just hasn’t been that much to do.  However this weekend was a busy one.  On Thursday It was still a pretty slow day and then on Friday is when everything picked up.  Late in the day we ended up getting the pocket schedules.  So I started to put them in the boxes.  I start to deliver them tomorrow which will take up a lot of the day.  After that I had to go to the Airport at 6 and 7 pm to pick up players from the airport.  It gets annoying driving to and from the airport, but it is one of those things you have to do.

On Saturday we had our local tryouts.  there were 6 guys that came out to tryout and we ended up keeping 3 of them and inviting them to spring trainning.  It was a really fun day for me as I first when the registration table.  Then as the tryouts were going on I got to walk around the field and take pictures and when they started hitting I was able to stand behind the cage and take pictures and just be involved in the whole process.  It was the first time that I really felt that I was a part of a baseball team.  I then wrote a story on it and you can see it on our website now.

After that I went back to the hotel and watched the Cubs Cardinals game and relaxed for a bit.  Then at 6 pm I headed back to the field as a local Mexican wrestling promotion was holding an event there and we were going to sell some beer to make some money.  I worked the cash register all night and I worked with the assistant coach of the team as well as my boss.  We had a good time just hanging out and serving the beer.  It took us a while to figure out how to get the draft beer flowing as no one was really experienced in that.  That led to some very funny moments throughout the night.

On Sunday, I had to drive to the airport and pick up a few more players here and there.  That was pretty much it, as I was finally able to relax and watch the Cubs Cardinals game on Sunday Night Baseball.  I was planning on going to bed after that, but I found that the Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks game 6 was on the TV and they were tied at 1 in the 3rd.  Little did I know I would be watching a game that featured some of the best goaltending I ever saw.  Because of that goaltending the game went 4 overtimes till the Stars scored to win the series 4-2, setting up a matchup in the conference finals against the Detroit Red Wings.  It was nice to finally watch a good overtime hockey playoff game as I haven’t seen one in a while.

Well that is all I got for now.  Hope everyone had a good weekend and has a great week.  Just want to say Happy Aniversary to my Grandparents today!!! Have a good one everyone.

It is 5:42 pm on Wednesday April 30th and have not had much to update you on.  On Sunday, I just relaxed and did nothing.  On Monday I finished up organizing all of our season tickets.  It took a while and then I had to put them all in envelopes that the owners will pick up on our ticket holder party night on May 6th.  Other than that I have not done much this week.  But things are about to get better as we should be getting our pocket schedules in and once we do I will be going around town and dropping them off which will take a whole day and actually keep me busy.

My third roomate has moved in and as me and my other roomate are finding out is a very annoying and messy person.   This guy orders room service every night and leaves the food all over the place.  Also he stays up later cause he does not have to work and sometimes that disrupts our sleep.  For instance, last night I was sound asleep and all of a sudden i hear this loud noise and wake up thinking it might be my alarm.  I look at my phone and it says 4:30 am and I was like I must have been dreaming.  I am about to go back to sleep when the noise goes off again.  I looked up and saw the third roomate doing something on his phone so I knew what is was and attempted to go back to bed.  However, every minute it would make that same noise so after about 10 min I finally sat up and said it is 4:30 in the morning will you keep that noise down I am trying to sleep.  After that he closed his phone and didn’t do anything more.  Me and my first roomate both can’t stand him and we decided that it will be better if we get a room just the two of us cause our schedules are about the same.  It will be a little more, but we don’t have to deal with the hassel of the players.

Other than that things are going great.  I know I haven’t been doing much but it is going to start happening soon.  Once the season starts I will be doing nothing but working.  I am really looking foward to that because that is when the job really takes off.  This Saturday should be fun because we have local tryouts.  I get to run the registration table, and then take pictures, and then write a story for the site and get to talk to some of the people.  And then later that night I have to help serve concessions for a local wrestling promotion.  Should be a fun night.

Well that is all I got.  Tonight I plan on watching the Cubs since they are on ESPN.  They are also on ESPN Sunday night as well which means I will finally get to watch a little of Cubs baseball.  Hope all is well with everyone and take care.

It is 11:12 am on Sunday April 27th.  I have not updated the blog in a while due to their not being much at the time to cover.  It was a good end of the week at the job with me actually doing some work which was nice.

On Thursday I really did nothing there was no work really to be done at all.  Friday I finally got to work as I updated the website under season tickets and groups.  There was some info that needed to be changed and some new info that needed to go up, so I was able to make that more updated.  Then we got our season tickets booklets in and It is my job to seperate all of them into the groups that get them.  I almost have it all done but have to finish it up on Monday.  Also on Friday, one of the staff did some cooking of the food we are going to be using this upcoming season.  It was pretty good stuff so the food at our park will be cheap and excellent.

Also on Friday, I was able to get a free ticket to the Laredo Bucks hockey game.  They have made the finals the last 4 years and were down 3-2 in the conference semi finals to the Arizona Sun Dogs.  The Bucks won the game 9-2 and were able to push the series to 7 games.  However, during the course of the game I found myself wanting them to lose and Arizona to win for a couple of reasons.  The Bucks were up 5-1 in the 2nd period and then trying to be jackasses they just started taking cheapshots to the Sun Dogs players.  I can understand if it was a close game and stuff but Arizona was getting smoked, and the Bucks were just going out there to try and hurt them.  I did not like that play at all.  Also the refs in the game really wanted a game 7.  The bucks had 7 power plays in the first period and 5 of them were very weak calls.  One other thing that pissed me off in the game as that after every goal the Bucks score the fans throw plastic corn on the ice because Bucks eat corn.  By far that is the dumbest gimmick I have ever seen.  They allow the fans to throw it on the ice for 40 seconds and it ends up delaying the game 5 minutes after every goal.  Just stupid.  The good news is that the Bucks lost on Saturday 6-1 and are out.  I guess the cheap shots came back to bite them.

Yesterday was a slow day as I pretty much just watched the NFL draft and NBA playoffs.  I also got a 3rd roomate who is one of the players trying to make the team.  He is from Puerto Rico and was signed by the Twins at the age of 16.  He is now 19 and just trying to find a way to play baseball.  He speaks enough English that I am understand him and is a pretty cool guy.

Well that is all I got for now.  I am not doing anything tonight and will just be relaxing before working tomorrow.  hope all is well with everyone.

It is 5:08 on Wednesday April 23rd and I am wrapping up the day at work.  Not much happened yesterday, so I waited a bit to update the blog.  Yesterday was another easy day.  Did some minor work on the website and then I had to figure out how to make a statistical sheet with all the players stats.  It took a while but I finally figured out how to do it and then it finally worked so that will be all set to go once the season starts.  Other than that I started making the small boxes that our pocket schedules go into and when they come in on May 1st, I will be going around town and dropping them off.

Later that day when I got to the hotel, I had to switch rooms because I have a roomate now.  No more living on my own which kind of sucks.  I liked having a room to myself but the new roomate is a nice guy and he brought with him an XBox 360 so that should help pass the time.  I then went to Best Buy and bought Cloverfield.  I loved that movie and I look foward to watching it again sometime soon with all the bonus stuff as well.  I would highly reccomend that movie if you like Godzilla type movies.

As for today, it was a very easy day.  The only main chore I had was every hour to start up the team van because it has been having some battery problems.  The van is used to transport the players from our hotel to the ballpark.  It is not working and we think we are going to have to get a new battery which sucks.  They need to get it fixed by next week, because that is when the players come in and start getting to work.

It is nice to see the Cubs sweep the Mets in their short 2 game set.  The key player in the series was my good old buddy Ronny Cedeno.  As most know, I have been a big supporter of this guy and have taken a lot of grief over his bad start to his career.  Granted, I don’t think he will keep up the numbers he is putting up, but he is perfect for a bench player with a spot start at 3b, ss, or 2nd from time to time.  But, besides playing the Brewers this was the Cubs first big test against a team predicted to be a good team.  Z and Lilly looked like 1 and 2 starters and I can’t ever remember a Cubs team hitting like this.  It will be interesting to see if they keep this up because they have a lot of guys that are better hitters once the weather warms up.  If those players do that, there is no limit to how many runs this team can score.

Tonight I plan on watching the Yankees/White Sox game on the tube as well as some of the NBA Playoffs.  Well hope everyone is doing well.  Take care and talk to you next time.

 

 

It is 5:50 pm on Monday April 21st and It was a pretty busy day.  I started out the day by dowloading all the software for the broadcast on my computer.  It was pretty easy and now I am all set to start broadcasting.  I also put up the link to go and listen live to the cast.  I also uploaded my first press release on the website.  It is the main story on www.laredobroncos.com so feel free to read it if you like.

Other than that we had a meeting that last about 1 1/2 hours.  It was mostly going over what billboards we are putting up in the stadium, but sitting in on out was pretty cool.  I also found out that next week I will be going all the town dropping off pocket schedules.  I will finally get to see the whole town which should be an interesting experience.  That was all that I did today at work.

I know a lot of you talked about wanting a Laredo Broncos hat.  I am working on the information on how to get that.  I know that the offical cap is $20 and they have another hat that is like a trucker hat which is $15.  Once I get the sizes and stuff, I will let everyone know how they can order them.

Tonight I plan on watching the Cubs/Mets game because it is on ESPN.  It is nice to see that the Cubs are off to a 12-6 start.  Much better than last year.  It is cool to see they are already in first place, but it is a long way to go.  The next few weeks should give us an idea of how good this team can really be.  Well that is all for today.  Go Cubs!!! and talk to you all later.

Hope everyone’s weekend went well.  It is 5:43 pm on Sunday April 20th and I am just chillin in the hotel lobby since that is the only place where I get internet service in my hotel.  My weekend was pretty uneventful.  I did nothing on friday but chill and did some stuff on the internet.  Then on Saturday I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Cubs game at noon, but for some reason the mlb package had it blacked out and I couldn’t watch it.  Sometimes I don’t get how mlb decides to black out some games.  After that i went to Walmart and did some minor shopping. 

 Other than that I just watched the NBA playoffs which had some exciting games.  The Suns/Spurs game was the best.  A double overtime game that neither team wanted to lose.  The Spurs eventually won, but I would not be surprised if it went 7 games.  It is going to be a really good series.  During that game I also realized something.  The state of Texas has 3 NBA franchises in the Spurs, Rockets, and Mavericks and all 3 are in.  While Illinois only has the Bulls and they are not in.  Must be nice to live in a state where every single one of the teams make it in.  That is pretty crazy.

On Sunday, I woke up and watch some more NBA playoffs but what I really wanted to watch was game 6 of the NHL playoffs between Detroit and Nashville.  I don’t get to watch the hockey playoffs much since they are on versus and I don’t have that in my hotel.  As most of you know I am a big hockey fan and the playoffs are always exciting.  As much as I hate the Red Wings, I was pulling for them to win which they did 3-0.  The winning goal came from Nikolas Lidstrom who scored from the red line on trickey hop.  It was pretty cool goal to see and such an interesting way for the game winning goal to be scored.  When it comes to the NHL Playoffs and the Blackhawks are not in it, I find myself rooting for teams in the following criteria. 1: an original 6 team and 2: you don’t play in warm weather cities in the winter time.  I can’t stand seeing these warmer weather towns winning the championship.  Just a pet peeve of mine.  Nashville doesn’t fit in the warm weather city category but I hate them cause they just beat the Hawks out of the last spot.  My picks for the finals are Pittsburgh vs Detroit.  That will be a fun series.

Well that is all I got for now.  Tomorrow it is back to work.  Can’t wait cause I feel I will be really busy.  Well take care everyone.

It is 3:48 pm on Friday April 18.  It has been another very slow day, and I decided to post right now because we are going to be doing some moving of equipment for the next few hours and figured to get this post in now.  Nothing new happened today.  I tinkered with the website a bit, but am still waiting on word from my boss on what else I need to do.  Other than that I have done nothing except surf the web.

I talked to the assistant gm about this saying that I feel like I am not doing my fair share and that I wanted to make sure the staff is looking bad on me.  He told me no it is fine.  He said with the GM gone it is hard to do my area of work like this.  So he said just keep answering phones and helping out when needed to and it is ok.  That made me feel good.

I sent most of you a message on facebook or an email with a link for a site that has the thread on which I found this job.  At the bottom of the page it mentions I got the job.  I thought it was really cool seeing this and am going to post it here in case you miss the message or email.  The link is: http://www.staatalent.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=891

I probably will not post till sunday as then I can let everyone know what i did during the weekend and all.  I will take this friday night to set up shop in our lobby of the hotel and play some poker and chat with people on aim.  I feel like I have been away from that for a while.  i will probalby be on around 9 or so.  So feel free to pop me an im and we can catch up.

One final note is that I heard there was an Earthquake in Illinois that was a 5.4 magnitude.  It could be felt miles away as my mom said that she felt it in Chicago.  yet one of my friends at SIU did not feel it.  That must have been an interesting experience for Chicagoans since we are not used to earthquakes up there.  Well hope everyone is safe.

Well that is it for now.  Have a good weekend everyone.