A few pieces of necessary background information:

Our friend, Rhiannon, just moved to North Carolina to become a doctor.

It was recently her birthday.

She and my brother have an ongoing joke about the nonexistant “Pericardial Artery.”

My brother and I jokingly call each other gay (in a completely non-offensive way with no ill intent toward folks of that persuasion).

She cooked us Cuban food when she lived in Alachua County.

This is the most complex song I could think of. I threw an Em and D7 in there just to make it not comprised of G, C, and D.

Ian holds the microphone too close to his mouth.

Weak, man. Weak.

What did we come up with? A facial hair growing contest, of course! I am offering Angus $20 if he makes it until October 12 without shaving. A modest amount, yes. But the wonders that await Angus’ face will repay me tenfold.

Below is a photo taken with my (terrible) camera phone and a professional artists’ rendering of what we anticipate in a couple of months.

However, after seeing how joining a business fraternity (read: the kind of fraternity I don’t hate because it’s not completely filled with douchebaggery) allowed my good buddy James to drastically expand his social life, my other good buddy Angus and I have decided to find such an extracurricular club to join and, in turn, allow us to make love to hot women.

Trouble is, I can’t find any club that a couple of guys with completely different majors (Political science and industrial engineering – guess which one I am!) who don’t care about any issues or things beyond the realm of bacon and football would be particularly interested in joining.

There’s a list on the UF Web site, but I can’t find anything.

Maybe The Hip Hop Collective?

Lately, we have been aching for things to do on the weekends. And seeing that we are not particularly interesting or anything, we have had to create fun things to do in the absence of actual social lives. Over break, we were confined to the realm of our hometown, the parent-filled purgatory of any college student. Ergo, we made socially acceptable things to do, most of which involved wandering aimlessly in our local Wal-Marts and ending the evening at Steak n’ Shake.

Now, this is all well and good, but it can get old after about one night spent in the toy aisles, pressing the button that cues the novelty horn on every miniature Dukes of Hazzard General Lee.

So, we’ve come up with a new game: generally, I attempt an absolutely amazing feat and if I can successfully accomplish this, my best buddy Angus has to do something silly.

Last week, I was dared to eat 10 tacos and an order of Nachos Bel Grande from Taco Bell. In return, Angus allowed us to bind his wrists and ankles for the rest of the night. While this sounds lame, I can assure you that it was quite humorous – at least until he had to go to the bathroom and I was the one in charge of removing his pants. If this sounds gay, it’s probably because it is.

Tonight, I was challenged to eat a Frisco Melt platter from Steak n’ Shake in addition to three double cheeseburgers and a large order of fries from McDonald’s.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “You, Casey, are the least healthy person on the face of the planet.”

Yes, I agree. And I regret this. But friends, the payout on this wager was marvelous: Angus Wade Hill was forced to shave his arms and legs.

Petty? Yes.
Silly? Yes.
Hilarious? Unequivocally, yes.

I know that all of this sounds extremely juvenile. However, I think we can all agree that as time progresses and the hilarity of Angus’ payback grows so too will the necessity of this entire process for the sake of physical humor both in Alachua County and our lives.

That said, any thoughts on what next weekend’s challenge should entail? We are running out of ideas.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we made it into the second round of the playoffs – having played only two games. See, two of our four regularly-scheduled games were rained out. We won one of the games we played and lost one in a very close fashion. Then, the team that we were to play in the first round of the playoffs decided not to show up for our round one game. So there we were earlier this evening, with our pride and ambition almost bubbling over. Then our season ended the same way it did last year: we lost a playoff game to a team comprised of what I can only guess are thirty year old alumni in a hotly contested match up officiated by some of the worst umpires on earth.

And I don’t mean for this to sound like sore loserdom or anything, but I swear to God: the first base umpire was watching the game on the field next to ours the entire night. I am disappointed to know that my university’s recreation department does not have higher standards for such a paid position. Of course, sucking at everything in life is sort of a prerequisite when becoming an umpire on any level.

Ah well, c’est la vie. We wouldn’t have won even if Mr. I-Could-Give-Two-Flying-Flips-About-Your-Game were paying attention.

Either way, we will be back, because Red Devil Gators Softball never sleeps.

Cherish your friends.

And I do.

This semester was the highly anticipated inaugural season of what was supposed to be the world’s finest Slow Pitch Coed Intramural Softball team. We all had high expectations, that’s for sure. But, somehow, things went terribly, terribly wrong.

We did not win a game all year. We had been outscored by as much as 19-3. I forsook my catcherly duties by throwing the ball into right field when I was trying to throw to first base. But somehow, the Gods of intramural fate smiled down upon the disappointing Red Devil Gators by helping us to recruit some great infielders. Our luck did not end there. Despite having not won a game all season and finishing the year with four devastating losses, we were granted a playoff birth by way of the wonderful caveat that you had to literally sign up for postseason play.

There we were, without three of our best hitters in both Mikes and Stephanie. I played catcher while Angus braved the entire game, pitching the best he has ever hurled. Tim, Bonnie, Dhyana, and Heather took to the outfield. And around the horn we had Katie, Greg, James, and Bryce. It didn’t look good for our seasoned veterans, as we had to play Ad Society, a team with a heavy-hitting lineup of right handed monsters.

But we held our own. We batted first, which is likely what led to our demise; after each of our half innings, we were leading our foes. It was just that last inning when we couldn’t hold the lead. Angus pitched beautifully. The infield was a well-oiled machine that, had the umpires not been completely ridiculous in the way they called plays at first base, could chew up and spit out any opponent. The outfield played far better than I had expected, making use of the concept of a cutoff man better than they had all season. All in all, it was the greatest game we had ever played as a team; unfortunately, we were one run short of glory.

So, here’s to those warriors, those lonesome losers, those Red Devil Gators.

Just wait until next year.

Anyhow, while at the Trop, I picked up and filled out an application for the Devil Rays Fan Hall of Fame. Apparently, they’re picking some select fans to enshrine for all of antiquity in plaque form at some permanent display at Tropicana Field. I must say, I am overqualified – I’m a small part of the team’s young and troubled history, after all – but the application had a word limit of 25 words. What this team has meant to me since 1998 cannot be fit into the cramped space intended for do few words; hence, this is my explanation of why I am an obvious candidate for the Rays’ Fan Hall of Fame:

Where to begin? Well, I was there since the very beginning, March 31, 1998, when we lost to the Tigers. But what’s so special about that? I mean, 45,368 other people were there. What’s so special is the fact that despite the loss that may have been a precursor of the painful decade to come, I continued to watch the Rays. I was 10 years old at the time, and to have a baseball team to call my own after not caring about the sport for the first stages of my childhood for lack of a home team was a special privilege. Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, Larry Rothschild, I remember them all. Heck, I even remember sitting in the stands and wondering what nationality Rolando Arrojo could possibly be. I was young and quizzical, what can I say? To this day, I still have all of my inaugural season souvenirs: The three-baseball set I got exclusively with my breakfast meals at McDonald’s (signed by such crowd favorites as Vince Namoli, no doubt), the inaugural season gift calendar I picked up before 1999, and, of course, the tacky purple seat cushion given away at game number one:

And that was 1998. In 1999, we were promised a Hit Show! I can still sing you the whole promotional song, but I will spare you the pain of reading about all the promises that never panned out. Vinny Castilla, Jose Canseco, and Greg Vaughn may not have delivered that year, but it was especially memorable for yours truly. During a game, the roving cameramen in the stadium searched out the fattest and cheekiest kid in the vicinity. Of course, back then I was a portly young lad. Hence, they videotaped me. This footage, incidentally, was used in every single Rays commercial that year. I was a celebrity, so to speak, and soon people would recognize me in public. This footage was also used in a Rays music video by Sequel, though I have never seen it except for at the Trop that year and on the tape the PR department sent me. If you’re from the area and you need something to jog your memory, give this screencap a look:

Ah, those were good days. They got better, too. At another game with none other than Angus, I imagine their guest vocalist got stuck in traffic, which caused the cutest little girl from upstairs came down and asked me sing for the 7th inning stretch. Now, I had no prior vocal training, but I figured that it would be fun enough, so I agreed. I blew them away, too:

But that wasn’t it. They weren’t content with my tear jerking performance of “Take me Out to the Ballgame,” so they asked me to do a little jig to the tune of “Love Shack.” Now, as a fat little Irish boy, I’m well-accustomed to doing little jigs, but in front of 15,000 people? I was mildly nervous, but a few pelvic thrusts later, I was right at home; I was definitely a crowd favorite.

I was a Rays’ favorite, too. Because a few days later, I got a phone call from the guy who was in charge of Rays Vision at the time, asking me to star in a between-inning video segment where I would ask players pop culture questions (you know, silly things like their favorite movies, and so on and so forth). They had me do a lot of stuff: I dressed up (and impersonated!) Dick Vitale, who goes to many games and sits just to the left of the third base dugout; I impersonated a flying Superman who was curious about the players’ favorite bands; I even sported a beard that, apparently, made me look like a Rabbi. Oddly enough, only my Jewish friend Doug recalls that last one. Either way, I was big, and it was all because of me being lovable like this:

After the 1999 season, the Rays’ interests in me tapered off, probably because the players were in no mood to talk and because I was quickly growing out of my cute stages. It’s like when Beaver hit puberty and just became pathetic, asking Wally about things he should already know.

Anyway, I still followed the team. I remember Wade Boggs’ 3000th hit, a beautiful homer into right field. To this day, the seat where it hit is painted yellow, which contrasts the plastic blue of the rest of the stadium very well. I remember the crack of Tony Saunders’ arm. I remember the players that have come. More so, I remember the players that have gone.

Roberto Hernandez. Dave Martinez. Jesus Colome. These are only a few.

I remember seeing Hal McRae come in during the middle of a season, not knowing the atrocities he’d inherited. I’ve seen manager after manager. And, interestingly enough, I am content with the team’s management as it is now.

I’ve also co-founded the largest Devil Rays group on Facebook. It’s called Scotty Kaz Owns You. And he does.

With the sale of the team to new owners, the inception of Joe Maddon, the signing of Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli to long-term contracts, and with the new outlook on baseball that the new management brings, I’ve begun to become more entwined in this world of Tampa Bay Baseball. I’ve admired (perhaps a little too much) Travis Lee, fist baseman extraordinaire since the beginning of the season. I now sit in the beach, where I can be as loud as I want for the team at a low price. I live with a real, live Ray Team member. Baseball is as big in the Peterson household as it ever has been, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I will leave you with a picture from my latest journey to the Beach in the Trop, with my Ray Team sister Stefanie and two Russian girls to whom I tried to teach baseball (I was unsuccessful.):