Fortified Candy Bars redux

I mentioned my favorite protein bar in a post earlier this year.  I take them traveling, so I packed some for my trip to the USSSA Worlds in Orlando, FL last weekend.  Never mind how we did, I'm here to write about the protein bars.

When I ran out of the bars I brought, I picked up some more at the Publix in Kissimmee.  Or maybe it was the Walmart.  No, I think it was Publix.

Anyway, I noticed it seemed to have a much darker color than I was used to, and was dryer and tougher to chew. I'm guessing it was closer to the expiration date than what I had been used to.

When I came back, I remembered a similar experience when I bought some of those bars on clearance at the local GNC a couple weeks ago.  Lo and behold, I found the wrapper to one of those.  The photos below show the wrapper of the "clearance" bar, and the freshly-opened bar I just purchased at the local Walmart earlier this week.

The difference in freshness was obvious.  I wish I could show you how the older bar looked. (Well, "wish" is putting it a bit strong; "would like to but can't" is more accurate.) Their expiration dates, excuse me, "sell by" dates, are a year apart.

I saw a teaser on CBS This Morning about sell-by, use-by, or make-banana-bread-by dates and what they really mean, if anything (teasing an old bit, apparently).  I didn't get the least bit ill from eating the old bar, but eating it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the fresh one I bought this week.

Generally speaking,  that is what companies will tell you the dates are meant for.  You don't have to pour out that expired-yesterday milk (sniff it first), nor the bread (check for mold, though), or toss out that MetRx bar.  Just don't blame the company if it isn't as good as you expected.

Old Man Slowpitch

My cousin asked me this year if I wanted to play softball with him one night a week.  He's 16 years younger than I, plays 4 nights a week plus weekend tournaments. 

I remember those days. Three nights a week plus weekends.  The final year in which I did that much I was 35, but already playing a little less on weekends.  My body was more achy the mornings after than when I was 25 for sure.

Then I got married again, had two more kids, went to law school in the evenings, and started playing more golf for my summer fun. Now my youngest kids are in sports, I'm coaching two nights a week (plus on the side in the yard), my personal activity of choice in the non-golf season has been bowling, and my 47 year-old body is even more achy the morning after softball.

So of course, when he asked, I told my cousin I'd play. 

So far, so good.  I've still got the pop, if not the consistency.  But I'm starting to work on it again.

It will mean less golf, which is great on the pocketbook. And it will also mean finally getting to play in the one tournament I've been wanting to play in for 25 years, "The Dudley." We may go two-and-out, but at least I'll have something else to scratch off of the bucket list.

And then it will be back to retirement from softball.  Or so I say.  The right 50-and-over team might be hard for me to turn down in three years.

My No-Show at the 2011 Minnesota State Mid Amateur Golf Tournament

For the first time in five years, I did not compete in the Minnesota State Mid Amateur golf tournament. Open to 240 golfers, with the top 60 (and ties) making the cut to the third and final round, it's a tournament I've come to look forward to every September.

This year, however, due to lack of consistency in playing frequency, which led to inconsistency in playing quality, I decided to pass. Plus, it was at a couple courses that I wasn't too excited to play - Dellwood Hills and Tanners Brook. I've only played Dellwood, a private course, once, and that was nearly 30 years ago. I've never played the other. Still, from word of mouth, I was OK with missing out. Not to mention I would have had to withdraw because of my back injury (which is still healing well, thanks).

Apparently, I wasn't alone. There were no fewer than 200 entries in the past four State Mid-Ams, but this year, unless I'm reading it wrong, there were only about 160, and several of them no-showed. It looks like a lot of the scores are missing from the first two rounds, but the cut line was a two-day total of 161, which happens to be one stroke higher than my lowest two-day total of the four times I've entered. So you're telling me I had a chance.... (Final Results here)

It's sad to see the drop in competitors, but I'm used to this kind of disappointment. The same thing has happened in bowling and softball locally. The state championship I was so proud to share in just ten years ago no longer even exists. The local Central Bowler's Alliance, which 20 years ago saw about 100 or more of the top scratch bowlers in the state (and some from surrounding states) compete every month. Nowadays, it's typically around 45 during "peak" season.

I'm sincerely hoping this year's drop in interest was for much the same reason I skipped it: apathy about the specific courses, and their less-than-exciting-or-convenient locations.

Next year's tournament will be hosted by Midland Hills and Town and Country. Midland is the home course of my high school alma mater, Alexander Ramsey (now Roseville Area), and the other is where my Vice President at work is a member. So I'll be looking forward to that one, and will try to train weeks in advance in a serious attempt to make the cut.

Both are centrally located, private courses, so there's no reason to expect the same apathy as this year from Minnesota's elite 30-and-over amateur golfers. But as Yogi Berra once said, if people don't want to come out to the golf course, how are you gonna stop them? (He actually said "ball park.")

If they don't come out, at least I'll have a better chance to make the cut, and the free round on a private course that would come with doing so.

"Just hop on my back...no wait, don't!"

It's been a roller coaster past few days for me. I was unable to fix our water softener, so I planned on taking it apart to give it one more try. "After the golf tournament, Dear, I promise!"

The golf tournament was Saturday. On Friday, I achieved a 24-yr-or-so goal of bench pressing 315 pounds - "three wheels" as my old lifting buddies and I would call it, because it represents three 45-lb. plates on each side of the lifting bar. A nice aside, I thought to myself, was that my joints and tendons felt terrific compared to the last time I got close to doing 315.

It was fairly short-lived, however. Oh, Saturday went great. My playing partner and I won the two-man best-ball tournament at Troy Burne Golf Club. I shot a plus-three 39 on the front nine, which included a triple bogey on hole 2.

By the ninth hole, my already iffy lower back started to hurt. I barely made through the round and didn't say a thing to my partner, not wanting to make excuses. I shot a plus-eleven 46 on the back. Thankfully, he shot 37, good enough to carry us to victory, like Kirby Puckett in Game 6 of the '91 Series. The old joke in such situations is to tell the guy who carried the team, "I sure hope your back doesn't hurt." Oh, but I wish I could say that mine did only figuratively.

While my back was hurting bad when we putted out, and I was looking forward to relaxing at home. But by the time I was done relaxing, my back hurt so bad, Felix Unger would've said, "Man, I'm sure glad I'm not you!"

Thankfully, it's getting better, although I did have to postpone my start to the 2011-12 bowling season. For a while Saturday, I was seriously wondering if I'd ever play any sports even semi-competitively again, including bowling. Ironic because I started lifting years ago to improve my softball power.

I'm still a bit down about it all, so to cheer myself up a bit, I'll post last year's league bowling results. I kept more complete stats, even frame-by-frame, but for now, I'll keep it simple below. I never got around to it this past spring, and then summer league went horribly (after a decent start), so I've been pretty down on bowling as well.

It was a good season last year, here's hoping my back, wrist, and fingers all get to nearly 100% by the time I get to start this season.

To Slide Into First or Not

Apparently, Nick Punto is being stubborn about sliding into first base, as he has been wont to do for several years. This is much to the dismay of many Twins fans and media-types, and I suppose other baseball fans who think that you just don't do that, because, well, everyone knows you don't.

But consider these points:

1) It has never been proven that NOT sliding is better, it has only been passed down for years as "studies show" or "everyone knows" hearsay.

2) On a throw that pulls the first baseman off the bag, the head-first slider is immeasurably more difficult to get out with a sweep tag. You will commonly see this type of throw on a hurry-up play, a play that is likely to be close, yet the runner doesn't quite know HOW close, like a high-chopper or a bunt...the type of play in which Nick commonly finds himself.

Bottom line...if you know how to slide head-first without getting hurt (which, by the way, is the SAFEST base to slide into), go for it.

If you are Justin Morneau, step on the bag and head to the dugout. You'll get 'em next time.

I would not, however, recommend sliding into first in recreational softball. On the bang-bang plays in which the fielder has made an on-target throw to first, most umpires will likely have the old "everyone knows you don't do that, therefore I'm calling you out for doing that" mentality. You may occasionally avoid a sweep tag on poor throws, but it is still at best a wash, and just not worth it for us wannabes.

Oh, and in case anyone wants to submit the argument that you don't see sprinters diving head-first at the finish line, consider these three points:

1) It isn't exactly slide-friendly dirt on the other side of the finish line
2) They DO stick out their chests, an act which detracts from proper sprinting form (thus slowing them down, to borrow from the anti-sliders' logic)
3) Sometimes they do