Sunday Potpourri No. 8

Today's post comes with the Standard Sunday Disclaimer: "The post title is using the term 'potpourri' in the second of the two senses listed here. The post may also be rather short, although not necessarily so."

The Road Ahead

...doesn't look particularly inviting right now...

I'd like to pull off onto the shoulder and rest for a bit, but that simply isn't possible...

"You know I'm riding shotgun no matter what, right?"

Yeah, I know...

And as long as we're on the subject of driving...

My First Grown-Up New Car

Just a few weeks after my late first wife died in the spring of 1977, the AMC Gremlin we had bought together when we got married (I wrote about that car here) got rear-ended while I was sitting at a stop sign. Gremlins being especially bad at keeping any resale value, I wasn't really surprised when the insurance company declared it a total loss rather than paying to have it fixed.

By the time it happened, I had already signed a contract for my first teaching job, and had joined the teacher's credit union. With their help, I was able to purchase my second brand new car, a 1977 Pontiac LeMans Sport:

1977 Pontiac LeMans Sport

Mine wasn't gold, though. She was a color Pontiac called Goldenrod Yellow, which looked like this:

She had a tan vinyl interior, Pontiac's new 301 V8 with Turbo Hydramatic transmission, and a pretty good radio (by 1977 standards). It was the last year of production for the Fourth Generation LeMans. The Fifth Generation models were hideous, so I considered myself fortunate to have gotten a LeMans while they were still cool. She served me faithfully and well for three years, and if I could I'd take another one just like her in a heartbeat...

Things That Make Me Happy: Never Give Up Edition

One of my favorite things about baseball relative to other sports is that there is no clock. A baseball game is over when the requisite number of innings have been played, no matter how much time that may take. And, if neither team is ahead at the end of nine innings, you keep playing. One of the advantages of playing at home is that the home team always gets another at-bat in extra innings, even if the visiting team takes the lead. Only the home team can win immediately by breaking the tie in extra innings. Yesterday, my beloved Kansas City Royals needed four extra innings to vanquish the Chicago White Sox, and since we were the visiting team it was an especially tense game for Royals fans...

The Royals jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the 1st inning, saw the White Sox come back to tie the game against starter Jeremy Guthrie, then took a 4-3 in the 6th. Time for the bullpen to take over, which is usually a good thing for the Royals. Yesterday, though, All-Star reliever Kelvin Herrera gave up a home run in the bottom of the 7th that tied the game at 4, and after the Royals struck for two runs in the 8th inning for a 6-4 lead, closer Greg Holland blew the save in the bottom of the 9th, allowing a two-run rally after getting the first two outs of the inning. That meant extra innings.

Luke Hochevar struck out the side in the bottom of the 10th, and rookie Brandon Finnegan pitched solidly in the 11th and 12th. Finally, Lorenzo Cain led off the top of the 13th inning with a solo home run that gave the Royals the lead at 7-6...

"Boom!"

...and Ryan Madson saved the win for Finnegan (3-0, 2.96) by closing out the White Sox in the bottom of the inning, aided by a game-ending double play.

The Royals used seven relief pitchers in the game, which does not bode well for today's contest. The Royals will need a strong effort from Danny Duffy to give the bullpen a breather. The Royals have won three of Danny's four starts since he came off the Disabled List, but today he'll be facing All-Star Chris Sale (8-4, 2.72)...

Some Things Man Wasn't Meant to Know

Cut me some slack. I'm having a hard time writing today, and I need to make sure the entry isn't too short...

Until Next Time...

There was a time in my life (roughly 1990-95) when I listened to more country music than anything else. This was largely a function of who I was married to at the time, and where I was working (a car store run by a country boy from North Carolina by way of Houston, Texas, who had country music playing in the showroom pretty much constantly...hi, Jim!). As I usually do in other genres, I tended to gravitate toward the more distinctive voices. And Vince Gill might well be the best male voice of my generation in popular music. 

I had been a fan of Vince's singing for many, many years before I discovered that he was also a kick-ass guitar player. He's one of the reasons I decided to get a Fender Telecaster when I took up guitar-playing again in 2010. Karla, my Classic Player Baja Telecaster, looks a lot like Vince's classic 1952 Tele. And Vince even guest-starred on my blues-rock hero Joe Bonamassa's Dust Bowl album back in 2011.

Today's send-off is one of Vince's early hits. "When I Call Your Name" (from the album of the same name) was released a little over 25 years ago (May 1990), and reached No. 2 on the charts, the first of 16 straight Top 10 hits for Vince (all but two of which reached the Top 5, including four No. 1s). Enjoy...