Hello. My name is Vic, and I play baseball for a living. It’s a great gig that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, even though I’m not a real person. However, because it’s Minor League Baseball, I’m not going to get rich any time soon. If I make it to the bigs, however, then that will be another story.

I’m writing here on the Web site because this company helped me get my hands on payday loans when I needed them most. I had what you might call an equipment malfunction that had to be taken care of quickly, as I was slated to start at third that night and the whole team was clinging to its supply of bats like there was a maple and ash tree famine. Nobody had a bat to loan me, so I had to figure out a way to replenish my supply without the luxury of having recently been paid.

As it could have happened…

My buddy Frank and I came up from Rookie ball together, shortstop and second base. Last season, when we were in Class-A ball in Spokane, we went hunting the morning before a game, and I bagged a ten point buck. Cries of “beginner’s luck” rose from the peanut gallery, which included not only Frank, but our catcher Sully and Rizzo, a middle reliever. I’d never even fired a rifle before, so I guess I did pretty well.

We finally climbed out of our blind and made it over to the kill, but it still wasn’t dead. Sully leaned in too close, and it jerked like mad, tossing him aside like a sack of light potato chips. I shifted into autopilot, running back to the blind to grab the first thing I could get my hands on: a bat from my game gear bag. As we were all out of ammo, my bat was the only thing to keep my friends from being gored and trampled. As hard as it was, I swung away. Neither buck nor bat survived.

Craaaack!

Of course, that was my last bat. Nobody had a loaner, and I was short on cash until payday. So I had to get cash fast, and carving the buck and peddling the deer meat wasn’t an option. After regaining consciousness, the first words out of Sully’s mouth were “Aaaah!” and “Uuuuuh!” Then he said I should check out this little Web site you’re reading right now. Sully knew I needed money for bats, and payday loans was the quickest way to get fast cash.

I checked this site out and was surprised by how easy it was. I qualified for the payday loans I needed to buy a few new bats (we play in a wood bat league), and had it wired to my bank account before that night’s game. It was as smooth as a 6-4-3 double play!

Related Video:

Spring and summer are time for baseball. It has been called “America’s pastime” for a reason. It is a look back to that riparian Eden of myth where we can play a game between the white lines that is bound by no definite amount of time. Only those nine innings can bookend the pursuit of perfection at bat and in the field. There is perhaps a great innocence of youth that we all long to reclaim, when things were simpler. When we didn’t need to think about extra cash via – yes -  a payday loan. Roger Angell, who for my money is the greatest baseball writer who ever lived, said it well about the sport:

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

The 2009 NCAA Baseball Super Regionals

The 2009 MLB season is in full swing, and the Los Angeles Dodgers appear to be the class of the game thus far. But let’s take a brief look at a couple of the 2009 NCAA Baseball Super Regionals games to see just how crazy the game can be. Courtesy of the AP at http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/1226685.html:

• Texas takes it in 25

How long did this game take to complete? Try seven hours and three minutes! That’s the beauty of the game… no time clock! It sets its own pace. But I must admit, all of those innings of hitless, no-run ball (Texas reliever Austin Wood pitched a whopping 13 innings, 12 1/3 or those no-hit) can be an endurance test for all but the most fanatic fans of good pitching. Texas prevailed in this overtime matchup, handing a hard-fought 3-2 defeat to the Eagles of Boston College. Fans in the home stadium in Austin walked away with the sweet taste of victory after this monster, the longest game in NCAA history.

• Florida State pounds Ohio State

A tiny handful of players have pounded out seven hits in a Major League game. Now, there’s one in the college ranks, as Florida State’s Stephen Cardullo set an NCAA tournament game record with seven hits. His three doubles paced a Florida State attack that included an NCAA-record 15 doubles. Just how badly did the Seminoles defeat Ohio State? Try 37-6! The Seminoles advance after pounding out an NCAA-record 37 runs, 38 hits and 66 total bases. Mercy rule, anyone?

Related Video:

Curt Schilling has retired from baseball. CLICK HERE if you missed part one of this tribute to the warrior and fair drubbing of Ken Davidoff for his off-base characterization of a free-thinking man who challenges Davidoff, New York and Newsday’s tender sensibilities. Seems like newspapers are going to need a big cash advance to stay in business as it is, so I can understand them being edgy…

Here’s more of what Davidoff has to say, plus my comments:

• You acknowledge Schilling’s greatness against the Yankees in the 2001 World Series, when he pitched for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Point… Hurts, doesn’t it, Ken?
• But here’s where you completely miss the boat, you Newsday ninny. You make a point of telling us that you were at the infamous Congressional hearing where Schilling and others testified regarding the use of steroids in Major League Baseball. You call Schilling a “fraud” because he wasn’t as tough as he was in a landmark Sports Illustrated article on the topic.
• Clearly, you didn’t actually read the article, Mr. Davidoff. Schilling talks about the obvious physical changes players who are alleged users have gone through, and he speaks of how steroid use endangers baseball statistical records, but at no point is he quoted as taking the hard line of banning users from the game for life.
• Schilling IS known for making candid comments to that effect, but it DOES NOT APPEAR in the article you cite as evidence. Furthermore, you cite a CNN article on the hearings to back up your position that Schilling “doesn’t know anything about steroids.”
• Again, did you actually READ the CNN article? Schilling warned that Jose Canseco’s tell-all book on steroid use should be put in its proper place, or you run the danger of glorifying the steroid use Congress claimed they wanted to clean up. Schilling also speaks of the public humiliation cheating players will face. The public view of Mark McGwire, Raphael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens is more than enough evidence of this… Ken, I’m sure the CNN reporter was also at the trial… why is his version of events so different than yours?

The truth

Curt Schilling was a warrior on the mound and a generous warrior in the game of life. He works extensively for charities and isn’t afraid to tell the truth. Writers like Ken Davidoff have their opinions and biases, but that will never take away from Curt Schilling as a man or a baseball player.

Related Video:

For sports fans, there is a currency of trust and admiration that we place in our favorite players. For the span of two to three hours, we make personal loans of our time and money in order to watch them perform. In return, they give us enjoyment and fire our imaginations.

When the end of the line comes for a sports hero, it is a somber moment for true fans. For myself and millions of baseball fans worldwide, I say goodbye to Curt Schilling.

A warrior-pundit

Ken Davidoff of Newsday writes that Schilling, like Barry Bonds before him, has “helped destroy the athletes as role models paradigm.” In the case of Schilling, however, he has knocked down false idols because it is in the best interests of the game of baseball. He always did this with a free, uncensored tongue, particularly when it came to the steroid controversy in Major League Baseball. Check out his blog 38pitches for this and more.

But I take issue with Davidoff over a number of points he attempts to make about Schilling. I acknowledge that I am a fan of Schilling, but the New York-based pundit Davidoff clearly shows his New York bias. What he calls Schilling behaving “like such a horse’s you-know-what,” I call him being outspoken about what he believes in. Some residual resentment from Schilling and his “bloody sock” performance against your beloved New York Yankees in 2004? Schilling helped “reverse the curse” of the Bambino for the Boston Red Sox and has always been a student of the game. Davidoff at least will acknowledge that.

A few of Davidoff’s thoughts on Curt Schilling(plus mine)

• He admits that Curt Schilling should probably be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Point.
• He suggests that the Yankees should have signed free agent Schilling a few years ago instead of allowing him to escape to the rival Red Sox. True, but you don’t get a point here, Ken. Baseball fans know the Yankees throw around mad money for players, but you betray your New York arrogance in assuming that everyone bows to the Yankees first before going to play somewhere else.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE OF WHAT Ken Davidoff feels he must mouth off about regarding Curt Schilling…

Related Videos:

Allow me to explain. I’m a fanatic, and I’m certainly not alone.

Baseball has captivated the American imagination since its origins as a gentleman’s game on green pastures. It is a game with its own poetry of time and movement, tension and release. Its timeless quality – a reminder of that inner peace we so deeply desire, that emerald Eden sailing sapphire skies – never ceases to inspire.

Baseball is a unique endeavor.

Even a team that has lost 10,000 games can swing its way to the top. How’s that for optimism?

To sportswriters, poets, essayists, broadcasters, photographers, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, heads of state and those struggling just to make it, the game of baseball is now, then, and for Cubs fans, the eternal “wait until next year.”

Right now, the “Hot Stove League” is in full swing, and the General Managers’ annual meeting has trade talk flying fast and furious. Will “Man Ram” continue to batter NL pitching in Dodger blue? Now that C.C. has proven that the senior circuit is his personal buffet line, will he be long for Milwaukee? Where will K-Rod and his lock-down slider fly? Where’s Teixeira gonna rake? These and many more questions will be answered this off-season.

You can’t tell what’s happening in free agency without a scorecard, ladies and gents

That’s why you’ll want to follow the action with resources like this. Sort by team, position, or just go through them all alphabetically. I want to know how things are shaping up for the 2009 season, so I’ll be visiting there regularly.

Wait. You don’t know what free agency is?

Then it’s time to hit some high points.

As television revenues began to grow and issues with meager player pension funds loomed, the Major League Baseball Players Association began to look ahead to ways they’d be able to strengthen their bargaining power. In 1965, they hired a labor organizer by the name of Marvin Miller. By 1968, the first collective bargaining agreement was in place, which gave the players some leverage against the machinations of team ownership.

“No man is going to sell my carcass unless I get half.” – Deacon White, National Association/National League catcher/third baseman

However, big things didn’t begin to happen until 1969, when St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood refused to report to camp. He took it upon himself to challenge Major League Baseball’s long-standing unwritten rule, the “reserve clause.” Essentially, players were completely under the control of the team to which they were under contract. Teams could buy, sell or trade players at any time and salaries were kept low because players could not shop their services to other teams. Top stars were paid well, but the average player couldn’t live on their baseball salary alone under this system, particularly if they had a family to support.

Flood lost his challenge against baseball, but he succeeded in setting the wheels in motion. By 1975, pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith filed grievances against their respective teams. On December 23, 1975, an independent arbiter ruled in favor of the players. The owners’ position boiled down to “you can’t rule against us… we’re baseball,” while the players wanted their say as valued labor, as men. It was a slam dunk case that paved the way to free agency as we know it today in professional sports.

Today, it’s easy to look at player salaries and remark at how out of touch with reality they all seem. Indeed, it could easily be argued that after gaining the upper hand against ownership, the Players’ Union has taken the ball and run so far away that they’ve forgotten where the game is. However, if you take into account what networks pay teams for broadcasting rights alone, you’ll see that there’s lots of revenue to be shared.

And since the owners can’t play a position…

What you end up with is entertainers – the ballplayers – who want their fair share of the profits. That makes sense in the real world, doesn’t it?

But YOU can take a position…

In much the same way, it makes sense in the real world that you as a consumer have a right to your fair share of installment loans when you are in need of bite-sized, short-term funding. Despite the stories interest groups may throw around, they’re like a batting practice fastball. Swing away and round the bases. You’ll end up back at home without paying too much or damaging your credit. That’s what you get with installment loans.