Cubs vs. Rockies — Coors Field

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Roger

I’m making it an annual tradition to go to a Rockies game when the Cubs are in town. This year we went with a coworker and his wife.

Our seats were in the upper deck just down the third-base line.

The Cubs scored five runs in the second, capped by a monster three-run shot by Kyle Schwarber. They scored three more in the fifth and another two in the eighth. The Rockies scored a meaningless run in the ninth due to defensive indifference.

But the runs weren’t the main story. Last year, Kris Bryant was hit in the head by a Rockies pitcher. He was out for a while and never returned to form all year. In Tuesday’s game, the day before we were there, Bryant got hit twice more. He didn’t play in this game.

In the third inning, Javy Baez was knocked down by a pitch at his head. Cole Hamels, the Cubs starter, had had enough. He waited for the Rockies’ best player, Nolan Arenado, and hit him in the elbow with a 90 mph fastball. Arenado went full soccer-player-flop like he’d been hit with a bazooka, then started yelling at Hamels that the pitch was “too high,” even though the shot at Baez was head high. After he got done whining, he went down to first, but he came out of the game with a “bruise” an inning later.

We weren’t done. Hamels got hit on the foot in the seventh, and then Rizzo got plunked in the back in the eighth. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t flop or scream. He just went down to first. The umpire warned both benches. There’s an unwritten rule in baseball that you don’t steal bases when your team is way up. Rizzo wasn’t having it. Nobody was watching him, so he strolled down to second, then made the figure “100” with his fingers to indicate how many runs he thought the Cubs should score. He headed for third on the next pitch, but Baez fouled it off so he had to get back.

Javy was on a mission. He was swinging as hard as he could. With a 2-2 count, he nailed one that went 460 feet into left center. He stood and watched it for a long time (breaking another unwritten rule), then broke into a very slow jog while staring at the pitcher.

In the bottom of the ninth, Cub pitcher Brad Brach hit Rockies catcher Wolters (which led to the Rockies single run). He should have been tossed from the game but wasn’t. I never heard why. The Rockies manager was out on the field protesting — which was kinda funny since it was his team that started it and kept it going. I figure the umps told him that it was the bottom of the ninth with one out in a 10-0 game. If Brach got tossed, the Cubs’ next pitcher would have as long as he wanted to warm up, and everybody would have to stand around for another 15-20 minutes. Wouldn’t he just rather get it over with?

Hamels went seven innings and allowed no runs, his third straight start of seven or more innings and no earned runs. The Rockies loaded the bases in the first with one out but didn’t score.

 

The Cubs lost the series 2-1 but won 2 when the Rockies were in Chicago a week ago, so the season series ended 3-3. It’s probably a good thing the two teams don’t see each other again this year.

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Academy Chapel

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Roger

I went on Academy grounds today with my department to see a movie on engineering in the Planetarium. The movie was designed to interest kids (especially girls) in engineering as a career and really had no other theme. It also didn’t seem to be particularly well designed to be shown on a curved overhead screen — all the tall buildings curved ominously.

Anyway … I had a half hour to kill before the movie, so I walked over to the chapel.

A steady stream of tourists were wandering about inside, but I hung out until I could get this vertical panorama of the Protestant chapel.

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Stuttgart Fair

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Roger

On our final day in Germany, our plan was to spend the afternoon at a fair in Stuttgart. That meant I had the morning free. My sore throat had kept me awake most of the night, so I very much contemplated staying in bed instead of going out birding. But I reminded myself that it was very likely my last ever opportunity to bird in Germany, so I got up. I spent about three hours in the woods near the base and saw three new species, bringing my total for Germany up to 41.

I felt worse and worse as the day went on. Every time I swallowed, I was in severe pain.

We caught a train near Boblingen and rode it for about half an hour. I thought it was interesting how there were no inside divisions between the cars.

We were at the fair for two or three hours. We grabbed pork on a stick for lunch. It came with rolls that were covered with sunflower seeds and tasted like it. We ate while enjoying the song stylings of a keyboard player. I don’t know what it was about the guy, but I thought he was fun.

We also had chocolate-covered strawberries on a stick, which were very tasty. We went on two rides — a Ferris wheel and a haunted house roller coaster that my wife fixated on for some reason.

Scenes from the Ferris wheel.

The roller coaster.

We caught the train back to Boblingen. I was so groggy by this time that I fell half-asleep, and we almost missed our stop. My daughter had been sitting several seats away and was walking off the train when she looked back and saw us sitting there paying no attention. She yelled, and we managed to stir ourselves and get off in time.

I took a short nap before we went to a local brauhaus for a light supper. I didn’t sleep much this night either, mostly because of my throat. This wasn’t the best way to prepare for jet lag.

One last thing about Germany. There are a couple things they could learn from us, like ice in their drinks and free bathrooms. But it’s not all one-sided. One thing we could learn from them is the way they merge in construction zones when traffic goes down to a single lane. Instead of everyone immediately pulling into one lane and getting angry and trying to prevent anyone from passing, in Germany traffic stays in both lanes until the merge is actually reached and then cars take turns zippering in. There are even signs explaining this. Literally translated, it says, “Please thread.”

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Bird #547 — Black Woodpecker

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Roger

dryocopus (from drus, tree, and kopos, beating) martius (name for a woodpecker with a tufted crest)

Thursday, April 25, 2019 — 9:46 am

Boblingen, Germany — hiking trails through the woods along the Panzerstrasse

This bird was also on my “boy I hope I see one of those in Europe” list. When I was looking at the Gray-headed Woodpecker on Sunday, I heard another bird that I thought must be this one because its calls sounded like a large woodpecker.

I heard the calls again on this walk and was keeping my eyes open. There was a section of forest that had been cut and planted with new trees. They were very short, giving me a long view over the woods on the far side. The top of a dead pine poked above the leaves, and I could see a black “lump” near the top. One look through my binoculars convinced me I was looking at a Black Woodpecker. Which surprised me. I expected it to be the size of a Pileated Woodpecker. The field guide says it’s even a couple inches larger than a Pileated. But it sure didn’t “look” any larger than a flicker from where I stood. Perhaps there was a trick of perspective and the pine was much further away than it appeared.

Anyway, through my binoculars, I could see an all-black woodpecker with a red cap, a white eye, and a pale bill. It stayed where it was for several minutes while I watched. It did nothing but look around, call occasionally, and flap its wings a few times.

As I got closer, it was hidden by the taller trees. I never could find the particular tree it was in from any other angle, and I didn’t see the woodpecker again.

The bird is blurry in this next photo, but I include it because its the only shot that shows the full red cap of the male Black Woodpecker.

And that was it. I’d seen 41 new birds in Europe. I kept my eyes open to the very end, but never saw some that I thought would be easy finds —  like the Jackdaw (although through the car windows I did see smaller black birds hanging out with Carrion Crows that may have been Jackdaws. But I never could get a clear look). There were  others that I saw well enough to narrow the identification down to a couple species, but counting them just doesn’t pass the feel-good test. These included a probable Goldcrest that was so far up in a dense pine that I can’t definitively rule out Firecrest. I also saw a Marsh Tit or Willow Tit that was actually calling, but I didn’t realize until checking the field guide that the call was the way to tell them apart and I couldn’t trust my memory because I wasn’t paying strict attention.

My numbers were also limited by the fact that I only spent quality birding time in a single habitat — mature woods — except for the hour or so I spent in the cemetery. I’m sure I could have added several more species if I had a chance to wander through more open rural areas or along rivers, lakes, and marshes. It was also a couple weeks too early for some spring migrants.

Still, I’m happy with what I saw and achieved my long-time goal of birding where almost everything I saw was new.

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Bird #546 — Eurasian Treecreeper

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Roger

certhia (small tree-dwelling, insect-eating bird mentioned by Aristotle) familiaris (familiar)

Thursday, April 25, 2019 — 8:10 am

Boblingen, Germany — hiking trails through the woods along the Panzerstrasse

One of the weirdest things about birding in Germany is how similar it felt to birding in the Midwest. The woods felt and looked very much like woods I’ve birded in many times. And the birds were often very like birds I know well.

Take this Treecreeper for instance. If I saw it in the United States, I would identify it as a Brown Creeper without hesitation. There are actually two very similar creepers in Europe. I’ve identified this one as a Eurasion Treecreeper and not a Short-toed Treecreeper because of its prominent white line above the eye and the details of the pattern of the beige markings on its wing. It was an active bird, rarely staying still for more than a second. It circled the trunk of the pine it was on and even crept out onto the branches.

The only thing that differentiated it from the Brown Creeper is that when it flew to another tree, it didn’t head to the bottom and spiral back up but would instead often land at the same level in the new tree. As I watched, it flew from this tree to another non-pine across the path, then back to this pine, then into the branches of another non-pine maybe 40 yards away. I later saw a second one near a flock of tits.

The photo above has been cropped a great deal from the original. Here is the original, to give you an idea of how well camouflaged Creepers are.

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