Conference Report Day 2½: Miles to Go, or rather Miles that Went, Before I Sleep

[captainsblog]

Much more tomorrow. The presentation went well and was relatively glitch-free, I joined the informal bloggers' group for one last discussion, then cut out before the final two segments to get home tonight, which I just did- 7½ hours after leaving the parking lot, and with the Met game finally carrying through the sky to reach my car antenna for the last hour. (They were leading when I pulled in, but then, they were leading last night when I turned in, too, and that didn't hold up.)

So many stories to share and so few functioning brain cells right now, but I did promise one to a very special non-attendee. Our good friend Sharon, whose photo of Dana Brand graces the cover of our memoir to him, had a pre-existing commitment this weekend to honor another Met brethren departed too soon: our longtime reliever and you-gotta-believer, Tug McGraw. She runs long-distance races to help fundraise for his foundation, and today, in Nashville, she completed the Country Music Half-Marathon in under three hours:)  At our table at dinner last night, Miracle Met Art Shamsky shared this Tug story with us.

Like most of us, baseball would rather forget its bad fashion choices of the 1970s. Those were the days of cookie-cutter stadiums with Astroturf and sliding boxes. Even a number of the older ballparks got on the Jetson bandwagon, and while the Mets never did, in the 1971 season, the San Francisco Giants experimented with it, converting their infield and pitchers' mound area to the hated green stuff.  Tug pitched in relief there on one of the first nights it was installed, and after the game, one of the reporters asked him to compare Astroturf to grass.

And Tug, being Tug, replied: "I wouldn't know. I've never smoked Astroturf."

Comments

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you had a great time! Are they going to do an edited collection of the papers?

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I asked about that when I first got there. Silly me, thinking this was like CLE's where the participants all have the written materials handed to them at the door.

They said they would, eventually, be published, but there are academics involved and we're therefore looking at months, if not years. I've looked online for some of the more recent conferences they did and can't find publication details for any of them.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

That's about normal; it's usually a 2-year gap for any sort of publication in Humanities.