[sarahsprague-blog]

Hey, they’re letting me give away a copy of the 2015 Baseball Prospectus (that I am in!) and I’m sweetening the deal by having a little contest for the best baseball poem. Winner gets a copy of the BP Annual and a gift basket containing two of my favorite recipes suitable for mailing; Sweet Ancho Chile Roasted Cashews and Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies.

Full contest details over on Sportadically. 

Come play!

[sarahsprague-blog]

Welcome to Sportadically. 

(It’s already got a few posts, including Goodbye to the MLB Fan Cave if you want to see what some of your favorite sportswriter-y people looked like in 2012.)

[sarahsprague-blog]

In book form!

So some crazy people let me write about the Pittsburgh Pirates in the annual Baseball Prospectus guide. (Peter Gammons wrote the forward!) The rest of the authors are veritable murderer's row of talented editors and writers from ESPN, Deadspin, Grantland, USAToday, Vice, so on and so on. Anyway, you should order it because you like sports, you like good writing and because you cannot believe my name is listed along with all these other smart people and we should all get that in print form before the next time I fall on my face.

Amazon (#1 seller in baseball right now!)

Baseball Prospectus 2015 full author list

[sarahsprague-blog]

Wrote an essay during the Twitter outage. Someone brought a gun to my football party. 

Brought a gun to a football fight

“I’m not going anywhere where I can’t bring my gun. I’ve got it here.”

It was halftime of the Steelers-Ravens playoff game and suddenly my ears were ringing with one of our guest’s admissions. There was a gun somewhere in my house.

You can read it over on the mothership. 

[sarahsprague-blog]

Our dream of opening a vintage theatre that only plays silent French films will only be complete with $500 antique Belgian theatre chairs.

[myornament-blog]

Since the ornament topic isn’t getting the same number of submissions as the blog about our pens, I thought I’d grease the wheels a little bit and add one more of mine. 

Grease. Bacon. (I’m sorry.)

I had already picked this ornament as a backup because I like how I really remembered its story when Bryan didn’t when we decorated the game room tree. I asked him if he remembered where it came from and his memory pulled a story that had nothing to do with anything before he finally admitted he didn’t remember where and when we picked up this ornament. 

We bought this ornament about ten minutes after we signed the title for our house last year. The title company’s offices are over in Old Town Pasadena, right off of Colorado. We went through a terrible escrow where the owner tried to back out for more money from another buyer, was hostile to our inspections, extended the close for 90 days, and then the day we were to get the keys tried to stay even longer. Going the the mortgage process wasn’t any easier, and if anything, worse despite having cash, jobs, and good credit. Signing the documents saying the house was ours was probably one of the most biggest events of our marriage, and we felt like we needed to celebrate with… well anything really. Had a leaf fallen from a tree in front of us at that moment, I probably would have framed it I was so relieved the fall nightmare was finally over.

Next to the title office is a vintage candy store that also sells old time-y sodas, and realizing how thirsty we were from all the signing, decided to pop in for a quick anything, our heads were buzzing that the process was finally over. It was the holidays, so they had a display of ornaments up to go with the rest of the kitschy tin sign reproductions, the Coke ads from the 1940s smiling down from above the register.

I grabbed the bacon. “Our first new ornament for the new house. Our house. If we manage to get a tree up this year.” This of course we ridiculous, we moved on the 22nd and there was no way we could manage a in all of the mess.

But it’s up this year. Our first new ornament of the new house. A piece of bacon.   

[sarahsprague-blog]

Submit your ornaments so my vanity project isn't MY vanity project. 

[thepeniwritewith-blog]

Via @Rob_In_Wi.

This is the pen I write with. It is a Uni Jetstream 101 1.0.  I have it in blue

And in black

And in red

For my various reports.

[sarahsprague-blog]

That is one fine point pen. 

Still looking for more pens! Submit yours!

[thepeniwritewith-blog]

Via @chuckycrater. 

Turns out you can still find Yoropen ballpoint pens on Amazon, so I’ll have a new one sooner than I thought. There’s also a Kickstarter for their new fancy Z3 model.

[sarahsprague-blog]

Today's pen involves a Kickstarter it's so desired!

[myornament-blog]

Via Julia. 

While not a tree ornament per se, “My Snow Angel” is special. When I was probably around 8, we (Mom, Dad and 3 siblings) were shopping when we saw these diorama type decorations. There were 4 different ones - so perfect for us. I believe mine is the only one left after almost 50 years - I was the oldest and most responsible :).  But, even though my husband and son snicker and roll their eyes, it is not Christmas until I have unpacked - from her own box - “My Snow Angel”.

[sarahsprague-blog]

First ornament in! Come play and add yours!

[thepeniwritewith-blog]

Via Ryan Stites.

This is the pencil I use to keep score at baseball games. I have no idea where I got it, but it is all I will use. I’ll be legitimately crushed if I ever lose it.

I’ve used a Uni-ball Vision (black, micro) for almost 20 years now. I still disgustingly chew the little nub at the top. Every time I need a new box, I live in fear that they will be discontinued.

[sarahsprague-blog]

Starting to get pen submissions!

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When you decorate your Christmas tree, there are always one or two ornaments that may not fit with the rest of the crowd. It doesn’t matter if a tree has an overt theme or not (although I guess the theme of all Christmas trees is ‘Christmas tree’), you can generally see what a person or a family is attracted to in their ornaments… along with a few puzzlers. These are almost always my favorite ornaments on anyone’s tree because they always have a story. 

I’m not talking about, “Oh, this ornament we found at a Christmas shop in Vienna one year on our way to skiing and it feel in our mulled wine as we passed by and we just had to have it.” No.

The tattered Santa made from a star shape in 1983. The singing cat one because your grandmother gave it to you ten years ago even though you were 35 at the time. One half-eaten by mice because your child made it out of macaroni and you keep the ornaments in the garage and DAMMIT they chewed through the Christmas lights too. 

So here is my ornament that I love the story behind: four penguins riding a sled. Painted glass. Has a wreath glued on the back. 

This ornament was a gift from a small group of older ladies that worked at Mellon Arena when I worked there through the 2001-2002 season. Known as the “Pretzel Ladies” throughout the building, they came in bright and early and got pretzels ready for the whole arena every day. We didn’t interact much other than they made pretzels two feet from the office I shared with my boss, the smell of warm bread and salt crept under our door all day, but they were always really nice and would sneak you a pretzel if you looked tired and wan. 

I ate a lot of pretzels that year.

Anyway, they kindly gave me this and an oversized candy cane-striped cappuccino cup and saucer that I only recently had to retire due to chipping. It was thoughtful and unnecessary, and at the time, a huge ornament for my small tree. I pull it out ever year even as other ornaments sort sit in the bottom of the bin awaiting their fate. 

Plus, penguins for the Penguins. You have to appreciate that. 

—

I’d love to see the random ornaments on your tree and hear their stories. Please submit your photos and words to [email protected] or use the “submit post” function on Tumblr. 

Tell me where you’d like to link to and such, just like on the blog about our pens. 

[sarahsprague-blog]

I started another Tumblr that I hope you all come over and play with. It's about our weird Christmas tree ornaments. 

Submit yours!

[thepeniwritewith-blog]

A few weeks ago we were faced with an emergency plumbing repair that needed taken care of on a Sunday evening. We were exhausted from hosting our housewarming/my birthday/our anniversary party the night before, the plumber was tired because it was 5pm on a Sunday night and we had obviously woken him from his weekend nap. Anyway, the plumber was pleasant enough and gave us a break on the off-hours repair costs. I was relieved that the whole deal of him opening the mainline cost less than $100 since I was the one who broke the thing that needed repaired in the first place because I hate making expensive mistakes.

We were signing and countersigning the slips and receipts for the repair when he looked down at the pen I had pulled out to use and remarked, “This is a really good pen. What type of pen is this?”

I replied, “Yes, yes it is. I have a ton of them.”

I went on describe how I had cleaned up my mom’s house last year at the end of her life and how she had dozens of these pens in all different colors. Pentel Energel, generally with a 7mm tip with a few 5mm tips mixed in. That while I was there, I really started to like her pens more than my pens, so when I left I grabbed a whole bag-full for myself to take home.

(This of course was no big deal, as the house still had a good thirty years of pens stashed in drawers all over the place.)

"That’s a nice story, a nice memory. It is a good pen then," he replied as he gave it back to me.

I’ve been thinking about this pen blog a bit recently because of my conversation with the plumber, how the original intent of it was to reveal something a little personal that we all take for granted every day but is rarely seen even by our closest friends and colleagues. Missed it in a way. Had another idea (we’ll get to that post later) in a similar vein as this site, but couldn’t fathom doing it without bringing this one back first.

It’s fun to poke through the archives just to see how passionately people feel about their pens (and were stealing pens from jobs they since moved on from). I still have the box of pens with the note attached from "Santa" Mom for the blog. Yes, the grammatical construct of this blog’s name is awful, I still don’t care.

So this is the pen I write with now, three years after the first post. Pentel Energel with liquid gel, 7mm tip. My mom had submitted this same type of pen back in 2011, as did Sarah Kogod. It’s incredibly smooth, the color holds nicely. Nice weight, slightly better balanced than my previous favorite pen.

What type of pen do you write with? Email a picture of your pen to [email protected]. You don’t have to use your real name if you don’t want to and send a link to whatever you want to link to in your post; your Twitter, Tumblr or whatever. A digital somewhere without a pen.

[sarahsprague-blog]

I brought back the blog about our pens. You should submit yours. 

(Also, new idea like this one coming soon. Like later today. Get your story telling ready.)

[sarahsprague-blog]

I've been a bad, bad Tumblr user for the past year. Back on track.

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This is some beeswax finally get to beer drinking hour on the front patio and the sun is already going down. Hate the end of summer.

[sarahsprague-blog]

You ask, "Where did these raisins come from?" And then you look up to see your neighbors' are letting grapes overtake the bougainvillea in their side of the fence.

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The only thing you can do after a TWIN PEAKS screening.

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Pretty excited for this. #pie