The baseball season may be a week old, but it officially begins TODAY in Detroit!  

How I LOVE this day!  It’s that hope springs eternal feeling!  It’s great friends and great memories!  It’s a cold beer on a weekday afternoon with the sun breaking through the clouds,warming the skin (even though it’s raining with a high around 47 today).  The crack of the bat, roar of the crowd and grass that uncharacteristically green for April in Michigan.

That may not be as poetic as Ernie Harwell or a Ken Burns documentary, but I think you get the gist. 

So it’s off I go…

Go Tigers!  Bless you Boys!

Okay – been one hell of day.  Travelin’ for work and still in the Phoenix airport (time now is 9:48 EST) when I should have been in Palm Springs at 2:00 pm EST (11:00 am PST).  There is an “I’m an Idoit” story that started this “butterfly effect” and I will share with all tomorrow.

Until then, how did I deal?

Talk to you tomorrow, hopefully from sunny CA.

Ed. Note – YouTube is being pukie, so you’ll need to click through to watch. 

Watch the whole thing (cause it’s awesome) or just start in at the 1.36 mark…

What more needs to be said. 

Bacon goodness comin’ back at ya!

Sittin’ here just tryin’ to relax, watchin’ “The Soup“, and it hits me…I didn’t get anything posted today.

So I jump on and then noticed I didn’t have anything posted yesterday either.  Seriously, what’s going on Baird?

Well, it’s been quite a week and over these last two days it just seems like I haven’t been able to catch my breath. I’ll make it up to you though next week…lot’s to catch up with including “TOP CHEF” HAS RETURNED!!!! (bacon foam anyone?)

We’ll have a video funhouse tomorrow and then see you all on Monday.  Make it a great weekend!

Yesterday Ernie Harwell, the long time broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers, died.

This morning I cried.

Mr. Harwell’s passing has been strangely personal for me these last few hours as his death coincided with my remembrance of my grandfather’s birthday.  Many summers were spent in my grandfather’s backyard, with Ernie’s voice coming through the tiny little speakers of a small AM radio.  Through those moments with my grandfather, of which Ernie is forever linked, I grew to love baseball and the Tigers specifically.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Harwell years ago when I worked for the Lansing Lugnuts.  We were holding our first Lugnut Charities gala and Ernie was our featured Guest of Honor.  I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was to shake his hand and, for the brief minute I had, to let him know how much I appreciated his work.  I am not an “autograph” guy, but I have his and it has been and will always be something that I cherish.

My story is not unique.  Everyone has there own Ernie story.  Each special in there own right and every one affirming not only that he was tremendous talent but what a gracious, generous and kind person he was as well. Allow me to direct you to the very personal and touching piece my friend Larry Lage wrote for USA Today.

Also I would like to share this video of Mr. Harwell’s farewell address to the fans last fall. Thank you DJ for sending.

Rest in peace Ernie.

I’m back in the saddle again…

It has been a crazy two days that have taken me completely away from the interwebs, but I am back and ready to rock!

Sorry about the hiatus but hopefully I’ll have a good story or two or three to tell you in the next few weeks (how’s that for foreshadowing?)

WARNING – This post is nothing more than a rant!  If you feel that you don’t want to involve yourself in such things, keep scrolling below for bacon goodness.

Okay, so a few weeks ago I stop by my local Dunkin’ Donuts for my typical order, a XL black coffee and two chocolate frosted old fashioned (cake) donuts.  This has been my basic order for almost 20 years…20 YEARS!!  The man on the other side of the speaker tells me he doesn’t have chocolate frosted cake. Hmmm…maybe they ran out today. So I begrudgingly order some other donuts and away I go.

I go back to that location about a week later, order the same thing and once again I am told that they do not have chocolate frosted cake.  What is going on?  When I get to the window I ask and I am told that they do not make that kind anymore.  WHAT????  He tells me it doesn’t sell well and they just stopped making it.

So now I am scratching my head.  This particular donut is a staple for donut shops everywhere. I personally have had chocolate frosted cake with my coffee, again, for 20 years.  Hmmmm.

I decide I would start going to another Dunkin’ Donuts location.  It is farther from my house, but still on the way to work.  My first time in there, they still had my donut and I thought, ok all is fine with the world. I will just come here from now on.  But then three weeks ago I notice they no longer have my donut on their racks.  I have since been back to that location three times, including today where I was told by a manager that they no longer make the donut.

So now I am pissed!!!  But understand that this is about more than just two Dunkin’ Donuts locations no longer carrying a donut I like.  I understand business…if something isn’t selling, you move on or stock a product that is.  My problem is from a customer service standpoint. The fact is they STILL make a plain old fashioned donut.  They STILL have chocolate that they use to frost other donuts.  Why is it so hard for a regular customer to get a chocolate frosted cake donut?!?  Why can’t someone say no problem sir it will just be a second?

Better Half and I have had this sort of test for when we go to the more high end restaurants.  While I enjoy a full dessert, usually chocolate, after a great steak dinner, she typically only wants a hot chocolate to cap things off.  Most places however do not offer hot chocolate on their menu.  We still always ask and usually about 60% of the time she can get her hot chocolate.  The places where she get her hot chocolate, we frequent again and again and recommend to our friends.  The places she doesn’t, we never go back. 

Here’s why:

Every restaurant has milk. Every restaurant has some form of chocolate sauce.  Most of the high end places I am referencing here have an espresso machine or something similar (in fact almost all offer an after dinner espresso or cappuccino beverages on the menu).  So if you have the means to make it, why not make it and give the customer a great experience???  I could order an number of weird cocktail combinations, I could ask you to cook my food a certain why, adding this or subtracting that from the prepared dish but yet a simple request such as hot chocolate in some cases creates such an uproar.

You have the means!!!  It is not some incredibily unreasonable request and in the case of the donut, it is a product that you have been making for over 20 YEARS!!! 

So Dunkin’ Donuts, you are on notice and that sucks for me.  I love your coffee and have for years been a loyal customer.  There is one more location between home and work and I will try next week to see if my donut is available there.  If it isn’t, I will see what the employee’s answer will be.  If it is sorry we don’t make that, then you have lost me as a customer.  I know for a fact that there is at least two Tim Horton’s I could always stop at.

Hey all…it’s early and I’m off to Opening Day in “The D” (after I get Lil’ Baird to daycare).

Depending on how I feel on Saturday I will talk to you then

I’ll leave you with what I wrote about Opening Day last year.

Also, here is the great Ernie Harwell’s poem “A Game for All America” to help get you in the mood.

Let’s Go Tigers!!

Who loves you baby?!  “The Daily Bacon” that’s who!

Have a great day everyone. 

Image from CafePress…

Oh boy, what a long weekend…

Lil’ Baird got better but she managed to pass her stomach virus to Daddy.  At least my sickness didn’t hit until after the Super Bowl but when it did hit, it knocked me clear out.

But I’m up and almost back baby!

We’ve got some catchin’ up to do…