June 16 is Bloomsday, on which people in Ireland and around the world celebrate the life and work of James Joyce.  The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Joyce’s novel Ulysses, the events of which take place on Thursday, 16 June 1904.  My first thought was to produce a recap written in the style of Joyce’s novel.  The problem is, I’ve never actually read Ulysses (I’ve tried a few times, but it’s notoriously difficult and I’m just not up to it) and even if I had I’m neither smart enough nor creative enough to pull off a recap in that style. I did have dinner tonight at O’Reilly’s, our local Irish Pub.  That will have to do.

Thoughts of the novelist prompt me to remember former umpire James (Jim) Joyce, whom I’ve admired ever since his most famous call, the one that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game.  It’s not admirable that the call was incorrect.  What I respect so much is the way Joyce promptly admitted his mistake and apologized to Galarraga.  I’ve tried to emphasize to my students that we all make mistakes.  The key is to recognize them, admit them, and rectify them if you can.

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Speaking of people I admire, today is the birthday of Ernie Johnson, Sr.  He was born June 16, 1924, in Brattleboro, VT.  Here is something I wrote about Ole Ern a few years ago:

He pitched for the Braves throughout the 1950’s, and then from 1962 until he fully retired in 1999, he was one of the voices of the Braves in the broadcast booth. For the first ten seasons of the Atlanta Braves, he was in the radio booth with Milo Hamilton. From 1976 to 1989, Ernie, Pete, and Skip Caray were the voices of the Braves as Ted Turner put the team on the satellite and they became America’s Team.  The team was pretty good in 1982 and 1983; other than that, those were lean years on the field (to put it mildly).  And yet, I derived enormous pleasure from watching the team and listening to those guys during that time.

By all accounts, Ernie was one of the nicest and most humble guys in the game. When Skip first joined the broadcast team in 1976, he referred to Ernie on air as “the voice of the Braves.” Ernie leaned over during the next inning and told Skip “You don’t have to do that. We’re all the voices of the Braves.”

I recommend the bio of ole Ernie on the SABR website Ernie Johnson – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) , which says in part:

“Over his 32 years in broadcasting, Johnson worked more than 4,100 games, and through it all maintained his grace and gentle humor. For all of the home runs hit by Hank Aaron and knuckleballs thrown by Phil Niekro, nobody spread more goodwill for the Braves than Johnson. ‘I love baseball,’ he once said, ‘and I think it shows.’

“While going through the many passages from the online tributes Braves fans had posted about his father, Ernie Jr. read one that buckled his knees. It said, ‘When you heard Ernie Johnson do a game, it was like summertime would never end.'”

Ernie Johnson’s love of the game was contagious, at least for me.  I spend countless nights in my childhood listening to Ernie on my transistor radio, and thanks in large part to Ernie, I still love baseball.

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This is supposed to be a recap of tonight’s game.  I’m afraid I can’t help y’all much on that.  The game’s been suspended until tomorrow at 2:00, with the Giants leading 3-2 in the middle of the second.  This was about the strangest rain delay I’ve ever seen. The game began in a steady light rain, but the forecast was that it wouldn’t last long. After an inning and a half, it hadn’t stopped and the field was getting pretty muddy. But instead of putting on the tarp, they kept spreading that stuff on the infield that’s supposed to absorb water. There’s only so much that stuff can do. When the rain never did quit, they eventually suspended the game.

A lot of offense happened in the time they slopped around the drizzly muddy field.  Most significantly, The Drake is back!  Baldwin let off the first with a long home run to center.  At 473 feet, it’s apparently the longest in MLB this year.  Not so encouraging is that MHII left the game after the first with low back tightness.  That tightness did not prevent him from singling and scoring the second run.  Let’s hope it’s nothing serious.  It would be nice to have all our good hitters on the field at the same time.  Even less encouraging was the start of Grant Homes.  He wasn’t very good in his two innings of work, but then who would be in those conditions.

I suppose the resumption of this game tomorrow will feature the two bullpens. The good news is that Holmes is out of the game; the bad news is that Houser is as well for the Giants. If we keep it close until the 7th, I like our chances.