Not Sure How This is A Writer's Workshop But I'm In.

Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop: 

1. Write a post based on the word surprise. 
2. Write a post in exactly 8 sentences. 
3. Tell us about your favorite restaurant when you were a kid. 
4. Share links to 5-10 of your favorite non-political YouTube videos from this past week. 
5. Tell us about a time you had a really elaborate project in elementary school. 
6. Tell us how you named one (or more) of your pets.

I love writing too much, too look for a loophole when it comes to these Workshop prompts.  But if I were, prompt 4  would be right up my alley.  A writing prompt that just has me sharing links?  Bring it on.  

Some of the videos are not from  the past week but were in my you tube feed in the past week.  I had already put a few You Tube links in previous posts which is why I have the minimum amount.  Yet another loophole.  

Bob Bennett Weekly Live 1/12/2025

 

Ving Rhames Give His Golden Globe to Jack Lemon

MLB Remembers Legendary Broadcaster Bob Uecker

1987 Dal@Phi Buddy Ryan Runs Up The Score

The Newsroom: That's How I Got To Memphis

That was almost too easy,  So I decide to do # 6 as well. It's how I renamed a pet.

When I was in highschool my family bought a cat.  They named him Tiger.  I say they because If I had been conulted in the naming process such a predictable name would not have escaped my lips.  One of my best friends already had a cat named tiger, and of course every other striped cat was named tiger.  

Not only did I refuse to call the cat Tiger. I unilaterally decided to change his name.  So in my family of 7 people, 6 people called  our new cat Tiger and I called the cat Larry. I was very aggressive  and vocal with my naming preference. While no one switched over immediately I wore people down. My Dad would  accidentally call  him Larry, sweat under his breath and switch back to Tiger. I was always a pretty obnoxious teenager but this was me ar my most obnoxious.

in the early 80s VCRs were coming on the scene and our family got one before a lot of my other friends had them. So that summer I had a big party and we watched a number of movies. In between and even during movies people hung out I’m different places in the house and on the front porch and people came and went freely.

At some point during the party Larry/Tiger went freely but didnt come back. He probably got tired of  all the name calling. We never did see Larry or Tiger again. 

2025 Baseball Hall of Fame Voting: Returning to the Ballot

The 2024 Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame Ballot contains 28 names of former MLB players being considered for enshrinement. This year the ballot has been split right down the middle with 14 players returning to the ballot and 14 players eligible to be on the ballot for the first time.   Players have 10 years of eligibility to receive the 75%  or more votes needed to make it to the Hall this way.  If they have additional years of legibility remaining and receive between 5% and 74.9 % of this year's vote they will remain on the ballot for next year.  

The returning players are listed here in descending order of the % of votes received in the 2024 BBWAA election.

Player                  Position                 YOE           Highest PCT. (YR)         Lowest Pct. (YR)

Billy Wagner       Relief Pitcher        10th            73.8 % (2024)                 10.2% (2017)          

Andruw Jones      Centerfielder         8th              61.6%  (2024)                 7.3% (2018)

Carlos Beltran      Centerfielder         3rd              57.1 % (2024)                 46.5 % (2023)

Alex Rodriquez    Shortstop               4th              35.7 % (2023)                 34.3% (2022)

Manny Ramirez    Outfielder              9th              33.2 % (2023)                 22 % (2018)

Chase Utley             2nd Base                2nd              28.8% (2024)                  28.8% (2024)

Omar Vizquel           Shortstop               8th               52.6% (2020)                 17.7% (2024)

Bobby Abreu            Righfielder            5th               14.4% (2023)                5.5% (2020)

Jimmy Rollins          Shortstop               4th              14.8% (2024)                 9.4 % (2022 )

Andy Petitte              Pitcher                  7th               17.0% (2023)                9.9% (2019)

Mark Buehrle            Pitcher                    5th              11% (2021)                   5.8% (2022)    

Francisco Rodriguez Pitcher                 3rd             10.8% (2023)                  7.8% (2024)

Torii Hunter              Pitcher                5th               9.4% (2021)                    5.3% (2022)

David Wright           3rd Base               2nd             6.2% (2024)                    6.2 % 2022

Billy Wagner who is in his final year of eligibility missed enshrinement last year by only 1.2% of the votes.  

Fun Fact of the 12 players who are on the ballot for the 3rd time or more, only 4 of them received the highest percentage of votes in their election cycle in 2024. 

Team Saturdazzle: The One With Downtown Chicago

Third Saturday of the year. Third Team Saturdazzle post. For Christmas this year I gave Amy tickets to a Bulls game. We used them this weekend and drove to the city to watch The Bulls lose a close one to the Charlotte Hornets. Amy likes either playing sports or watching them live. I like those as well as watching sports on TV. , listening to sports on the radio and reading the accounts of a game in a newspaper or online.  But being with Amy makes everything even losing to the Hornets better.

Horace Grant 87-94 Bulls (1st 3 championships)
Randy Brown 95-00 Bulls (Last 3 championships)

A case in point is after I gave Amy the tickets she decided that staying overnight in Chicago would be better than driving back to our home in the suburbs. This is why I sit here at a Chicago hotel chronicling our adventure so far early on a Saturday morning.

One thing Amy and I like about staying in a hotel is television. In the 26-plus years we’ve been married many of those years have been spent without a TV. A few more years have been spent owning a TV. You can only watch DVDs or video cassettes.  So on those  occasions when we have stayed in hotel rooms we have enjoyed watching broadcast television. Yesterday after the game we watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld followed by an episode of Friends.  After that we turned on TUBI and watched a part of an episode of What's Happening and part of an episode of The Floor,  We watched the former because one of the Bull's bench players, Jalen Smith gives off a big Roger vibe from the show.

The latter is because we have been catching up on the 2nd season of the Fox game show sporadically over the past few months.  

This morning I went downstairs for some breakfast and I encountered a young man with a Hornets hoody and a Bulls Cap.  It's the kind of thing I would do with Cubs and Sox gear so he let me take a pic of him. The breakfast was good.  I don't see grits as an offering very much in the Chicago area but was glass to partake.

Bulls Cap Hornets Hoodie

Breakfast these days takes grits and hard-boiled determination.

Checkout at the hotel wasn't until noon.  So we lingered and then on the way home we stopped by a restaurant I'd seen on Friday that appealed to several parts of my nature.  

1. It's a classic Chicago Hotdog spot.

2. The name of the place, LuLu's is also one of our nicknames for our youngest daughter.

3. Three Words: Home Made Chili

4. Art work reminiscent of the Little Lulu comics without giving any of the credit. 

5.  When I went  in I decided I would see if they could put Chili on my Polish.  Not only could they but the Chili Cheese Polish, which I thought I had invented seconds before, was their special of the day.

While I don't subscribe to the no ketchup on hot dog 

theory, I do appreciate the wry wit of this poster.

For the last 3 years our Saturdays were too busy in the winter to get away for the weekend.  Almost every weekend, we were judging a speech tournament which took a huge portion of our Saturdays.  Even yesterday we drove by a high school on our way home blissfully unaware that the Larkin Speech Team was participating in a tournament there.  

Last 5 Sporting Events

1/17/2025 Charlotte Hornets Defeat Chicago Bulls 125-123 @ The United Center Chicago Illinois

11/16/2024 Class 7A Football Quarterfinal IHSA Batavia 17 Downers Grove North 7 @Batavia High Scool Batavia IL

11/2/2024 Dad's Day Weekend Minnesota 25 Illinois 17 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL 

10/26 Mt Carmel 34 Loyola Academy 20 Mt. Carmel High School, Chicago IL

10/19 100th anniversary game of Dedication of Memorial Stadium Illinois 21 Michigan 7 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL 

 

The Newfangled Four - A Spoonful of Sugar (parody) [from Mary Poppins]

I  found this the other day on YouTube while looking up prune videos.  Not sure why it would come up there, but I am glad it did.  

This video resonated in me for multiple reasons: 1. I have had multiple family members over the years who have participated in singing groups.  My first trip on an airplane was because my Mom's Sweet Adeline's group was going to sing in Washington D.C. and families were allowed to come with.  Both my sisters have been in Sweet Adeline's as well. I also have several family members who have been in Barber Shop Quartets.  2) I love parodies, write them myself, and love to see them performed.  3) Since the time my youngest daughter was in 4th grade started performing in speech contests, my wife and I have been volunteer judges in them. This performance is a send-up of judging rubrics, especially for judging barber shop quartets, but I found it matched up to speech judging in a most delightful way.

 

Extra Bonus Video: Judges by The Fabulous Bentley Brothers from Jelly Telly which was Phil Vischer's follow up to Veggie Tales.  And, yes the Bentley Brothers are Rhett & Link.