People, and you know who they are, are saying that I’ll go easy on Matty when he steps into the batter’s box. Look, that’s just plain stupid. I pitch better than he hits and I’ll show God and everybody every chance I get. I already warned him that I’d set him on his ass if he even asked me to throw him a lollipop.

A wise pitcher named Tom Seaver once said, “If you don’t think baseball is a big deal, don’t do it. But if you do, do it right.” And that’s why I go out there and do my best each and every time. And that is why you won’t see Matty taking me deep anytime soon. He’s fresh out of AAA. He isn’t even good enough to be a starter.

I truly believe in doing it right. That’s why I won’t do steroids. It’s no secret Casey Lane tried to talk me into juicing. But i wouldn’t do it then and I won’t do it now. There are all kinds of health reasons not to juice, but even if there weren’t, it’s cheating. And I am not a cheater.

Every time I take the mound, I give it my best. Sometimes my best isn’t good enough. That’s baseball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. But if I lose it’s not because I didn’t try. And if Matty gets a hit off me, well good for him. Because he will have earned it.

Well, it turns out that hole in the outfield was David Ramirez-shaped. Everyone thought he was going to Allentown to play for Annie and that lunatic but It turns out Ramirez didn’t know about the lunatic and he refuses to play for him. Skip was able to sign him and now our outfield is complete.

So Skip said, maybe Matty could learn SS. Okay, whatever it takes to be in the bigs. Turns out that was bogus too. Skip ran out of money signing big-name guys so he had none left for small-name guys like Miatty.

So Matty picked up and moved on. Instead of Ramirez playing in Allentown, it’ll be Matty. Matty will probably start as a backup though. I’m concerned about him. He’s just the sort of young guy that Annie would be into. “You want more playing time? I can give you more playing time if you’ll do a little something for me.” I think that’s how Aaron Jacobs stayed in the rotation for so much of 2008. He was 5-11. Annie is a predator. I would rather Matty sign with anyone else.

Let me tell you about David Ramirez. His bat has some pop in it, but his main asset is that he’s fast and sure on the basepaths. He strikes out about three times as often as he walks. Defensively, well his range is only average, but he converts the balls he gets to into outs. He was on a bunch of leaderboards in 2009. With him and Mike and Grady we should definitely be set. With a good team around him, DR’s numbers should be solid and he should be back on the leaderboards in 2011.

Oh, and while I’m talking about him, David Ramirez is hot. His dark skin and beautiful dark eyes are definitely worth taking a second look. He’s well-built, like any ballplayer. Good muscles. And he moves with grace, like many speedy guys. Very fluid. So ladies, check him out. He needs a nickname, though. I’m thinking of calling him “the doctor” because his initials are DR. And because he can give you a shot in the arm.

And about Matty. Sometimes things happen for the best. I’ve never been in a position where I was dating a teammate. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m not now. Although I want to spend every moment with Matty, it’s cutting into my workouts. And that can’t be good. When I was seeing Neal we’d sometimes be apart for a month and it was all okay. This is different. I’ll manage though.

Matty is a free agent. This means he can sign with any team. And he’s talking about signing with Hartford. So I ask Skip what are the chances and he says pretty good. And where will he be playing this year? AAA? Well, with the trade of Bankz, there’s a Matty-sized hole in the outfield.

It’s Christmas Eve and we’re all at my parents place. That’s me, my big brother Alex, his wife Susan, my niece Carla and my Aunt Katy. Aunt Katy is my mom’s sister and she never married so my parents invite her over so she won’t be alone.

I threw some off my mound today. I have the best Dad in the world. He built that mound when I was just 11 years old. I’m 28 now. And he’s kept it up all these years.

And you should see our yard. All the trees have lights in them. And Dad also put lights around the edge of the roof and all the windows. And luminaria along the sidewalk. He put orange bulbs in those so they almost look like real candles.

Because I pitched the last game against Bangor, I was scheduled to pitch the fourth game against Elmira. That game was in Elmira. The first two were here. Neal came over. And, well, it didn’t go very well. I don’t know what he was thinking, that I’d always be there for him when he wasn’t always there for me. All that Hollywood stuff. He loves the camera more than anything except pitching. I still have the purple baseballs.

Anyway, I have to digress a little here, speaking of Neal. He pitched game three and lost. He gave up only two runs and neither of them was earned. He was scheduled to pitch game seven but Rachel pulled him in favor of Alex Williams. So maybe Neal is cursed. That’s okay, it’s not my problem anymore.

My dad is computer programmer and he has a saying, “Excitement is vastly overrated.” It sort of reminds me that, while excitement can be a good thing and can mean something wonderful is happening, excitement can also be your heart beating when you narrowly avoid a traffic accident.

Well, we had excitement of both kinds. We are going to the Patriot Cup. But we did not spank Bangor. They played us tough. And Skip gave me two starts. With the help of the boys, I won the first one, 7-4. I gave up all four of those runs and every one of them was earned, too. Had the boys not brought their sticks, that could easily have been a loss for us. I keep telling people, we have the best boys in the league.

We’re playoff bound again! w00t! What can I say? I play on a good … no awesome team. There are too many great guys to name names.

Speaking of great … I have 15 wins. That’s one more than last year and my final record is 15-8. That’s two goals I’ve achieved. I have more wins than losses and I passed 14. That was my revised goal at the ASB when I was projected to win 13.

Maybe you remember a couple weeks back when I said that I didn’t think the team wanted me around because no one came and said, “Look, we paid for your expensive rehab. Please consider staying.” Well, it turns out Skip was waiting for me to be fully healed and to be pitching well again.

The look of the blog has changed. Which you would know if you’re a regular reader. There are a number of different themes that you can choose or you can build your own. I’m not ready to build a theme yet so I’ve been looking through the library of available themes. I’ve settled on this one for now. I like how it looks like a girl theme. A lot of people think that, because I play baseball, I don’t like girly things. But I do. I’m not really fold of the color, but I like how the text is light on dark.

Anyway, leave your comments about it.

So my arm hurt. But I didn’t tell anybody. No, I figured I’d just pitch through it and it would be all right.

Instead, I had the worst outing ever. Oh, it started out okay. I got Drew Mitchell to fly out. And then it was party city. I gave up two three-run shots. I didn’t get anyone else out, either. As soon as they could get him warmed up, Smokin’ Joe Johnson came in to take over. The only two runs we scored were when Hottie went yard twice.