{"id":82,"date":"2022-10-30T06:50:45","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T06:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2022-10-30T06:50:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T06:50:46","slug":"im-a-guy-who-just-wanted-to-see-his-name-in-the-lineup-every-day-to-me-baseball-was-a-passion-to-the-point-of-obsession-brooks-robinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/30\/im-a-guy-who-just-wanted-to-see-his-name-in-the-lineup-every-day-to-me-baseball-was-a-passion-to-the-point-of-obsession-brooks-robinson\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a guy who just wanted to see his name in the lineup every day. To me, baseball was a passion to the point of obsession.\u201d \u2013 Brooks Robinson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Simply put, just like the famous third baseman of the Baltimore Orioles, I am obsessed with the game of baseball.\u00a0 The first Major League Baseball game that I attended in person was at Anaheim Stadium in 1985.\u00a0 My grandfather took me to see the California Angels (their name at the time) host the Texas Rangers.\u00a0 I still have the program from that game, which featured Brian Downing and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover.\u00a0 And on the inside you will still find the scorecard that depicts my attempt to keep track of the action on the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a lifelong Dodger fan, it\u2019s strange to admit that my first MLB game wasn\u2019t at Dodger Stadium.  But my grandparents lived in Orange County, and it was \u2013 and still is \u2013 much easier to get in and out of that stadium compared to the one in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandmother was a customer service representative at Bank of America in Placentia, and she noticed that one of her clients listed his employer as the Los Angeles Dodgers.  She asked for his autograph, and he wrote \u201cTo Darrell, Go Dodgers!\u201d and signed it \u201cOrel Hershiser.\u201d  That was in 1987, the year before he had one of baseball\u2019s most incredible pitching seasons of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After receiving that note from Hershiser, I became an avid collector of baseball cards and other memorabilia.\u00a0 As I grew older, and as the baseball card industry became more about the money and less about the fun, I turned my obsession toward building a collection of books and videos.\u00a0 I love to read about the great game of baseball, and watch old footage from what took place years before me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a sneak peek into my life\u2026  the bookshelves in my bedroom tell the story:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bookshelf
Photo of the bookshelf in my bedroom <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For our assignment this week, we were tasked with posting various images on our blog.  The photo above was taken by me with my phone camera.  The photo below of Adam Dunn swinging and missing a pitch, with a catcher and umpire standing behind home plate was found online on Wikimedia, and is used by permission of the source under Creative Commons licensing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Baseball#\/media\/File:Swinging_strikeout.jpg<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we were introduced to artificial intelligence software called Dall-E, which will create an image based on the text that you provide.  I literally told the AI software, \u201can overhead view of a baseball batter wearing a grey uniform, swinging while a catcher and an umpire are behind home plate.\u201d  This is what the software came up with in about 10-15 seconds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image created by Dall-E artificial intelligence software<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interesting, right?  The software was fairly close on its first attempt.  Perhaps I could try to fine tune my words even more to achieve the same angle.  But then again\u2026  I don\u2019t like to obsess over things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simply put, just like the famous third baseman of the Baltimore Orioles, I am obsessed with the game of baseball.\u00a0 The first Major League Baseball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrellsmind.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}