Friday 5

BASEBALL: Name that pitch

FRIDAY 5: Fan's Guide to Spotting Baseball Pitches from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

This week's Top 5 grew out of my frustration at listening to Bob Brenly casually announce whatever pitch had just been thrown. Most looked pretty much alike to me. What was Bob seeing that I wasn't?

When I started asking around, it turned out I wasn't the only person befuddled by the pitching game. Lots of people love baseball, but an awful lot of average fans simply don't know how to identify basic pitches.

So I turned to Andy Solomon and asked him to set something up for me with the Riverdogs. He got me down on the field with pitching coach Jeff Ware for a typical warm-up sequence with right-hander Adam Olbrychowski as the team prepared for a 7:05 start. This is the result.

Can I spot every pitch now? Of course not. But thanks to Jeff and Adam I know that a curve has a hump in it, and when I see a fastball that drops into the catcher's mitt with a sly little last-millisecond wiggle, I've got a pretty good idea what just happened. See for yourself.

Wallets: a Council of Manliness edict

The men of the Manly Football League helped pioneer online fantasy football and were billed in 1995 as “the ultimate arbiter of all things manly,” on the Web. I turned to them for advice recently when my wallet simply fell apart.

What do you look for in a wallet? “Got to be leather. After that condition is satisfied, a manly man should never concern himself with his wallet again until it loses its functionality.” — Craig Allen, newspaper editor, Salisbury, N.C.

What’s too much to pay for a wallet? “Thirty dollars to $100. Anything above $100 is too designer, unless you can clarify the item as something like Willis & Geiger.” — Rex Davison, airline pilot, various American cities.

Is there a limit to the appropriate number of slots for family pictures? “You are allowed three pictures; your mother, your family and one of your naked wife.” — Rex, again.

Is a money clip an acceptable alternative? “If you’re a real man, you should go with a money clip for your cash. Save your nice, tight wallet for your cards and ID. This keeps your wallet nice and thin, so you don’t go walking around with that bulge on one side of your keister.” — Will Rothschild, reporter, St. Petersberg, Fla.

How about a rubber band to hold together your cards and cash? “Not unless you’re an old redneck who likes to carry enough cash to buy a goat or two while he’s out riding around.” — David Allen, high school administrator, Shelby, N.C.

IN SUMMARY: Get a leather wallet that's not all fancy, don't spend too much, ditch the photo album, keep your cash separate (if you've got any, that is) and nix on the rubber-band trick. Any questions?

5 green tips for Earth Day

Earth Day isn’t an official holiday and doesn’t have a bunch of fun traditions built up around it (at least in most families). That said, it’s as good a time as any to make some changes in your routines for the sake of the planet, not to mention your own pocketbook.

CHANGE YOUR LIGHT BULBS: It looks like the era of the incandescent light bulb is rapidly drawing to a close. The new compact fluorescent bulbs cost more up front, but will save you $30 in energy over the life of an average bulb. The good news for global warming? Replacing a regular light bulb with an efficient compact fluorescent bulb equals a 150-pound reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

CHECK YOUR TIRES: Under-inflated car tires aren’t as efficient, and you’re paying for it. Keeping them at the proper pounds-per-square-inch rating will improve your gas mileage by about 3 percent. Look at it this way: If it costs you about $50 to fill up your tank, you’re saving almost $1.50 per trip to the gas station.

RETHINK YOUR THERMOSTAT: Spending about $100 on a programmable thermostat that manages your home heating and cooling for maximum efficiency is a smart investment. It will pay for itself in less than a year, and that’s without you having to change your comfort habits. You’ll get about 3 percent energy savings for every degree you shave off your thermostat setting, which means more money in your pocket and less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

DRIVE LESS: Duh. And if $2.70 unleaded isn’t incentive enough, remember: Every mile you drive equals about a pound of carbon dioxide gas.

PLANT TREES: Not only do trees recycle carbon dioxide, they’re also great for shading your house in summer.

CAGW's Top 5 pork projects

First, the good news this tax season: The amount of pork-barrel spending (patronage programs that reward narrow interests) in the federal budget took a dramatic dip this year, down from $29 billion in 2006 to about $13 billion in 2007.

Now the not-so-good news: It remains to be seen whether that reduction in pork was a one-time accident of politics.*

The non-partisan watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste uses seven criteria to identify the pork-barrel projects it lists in its annual “Pig Book.” Friday 5 asked the CAGW to pick the five worst examples of current government pork, and since only those bills authorizing spending for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security passed with earmarks last fall, all five of their 2007 picks come from those two departments. 

One thing to bear in mind as you read this list: The issue at hand isn't the individual merits of individual programs, but the way in which these programs get funded. Citizens Against Government Waste classifies spending as “pork” based on one or more of the following criteria:

1. Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
2. not specifically authorized;
3. not competitively awarded;
4. not requested by the President;
5. greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
6. not the subject of congressional hearings;
7. serves only a local or special interest.

The deadwood edition of Friday 5 comes with a handy icon reference that describes which criteria apply to each of the projects selected by CAGW. You'll have to bear with me here as I just use a number code.

CAGW's choices after the jump...

(Really) Frost-safe planting

I actually went out on March 1 to get info for the "First Frost-Safe 5" item on plants you could put in the ground on or after March 11.The scene: A rainy afternoon on a cool pre-spring day on Johns Island. Perfect for cat-naps.

The 5-gimmick: I asked Chad Dausener, a "plant propagator" at Pete's Herbs, to give me five plants you could put in the ground around March 11, which is what I'd heard was the frost-safe date for this zone. But Dausener said they looked at things differently on this locally owned farm: "We don't consider it really frost-safe until April 15." As evidence, he cited a recent season marred by a surprise frost in the first week of April.

Which brings us (as so few garden topics do) to a Dirty Harry quote: "So you gotta decide: Do I feel lucky?"

What I wound up with was a hybrid: A "non-gambler's 5" for the March 9 edition... and then I'll come back in April and check with some other nursery for spring/summer vegetables to start setting out when things are really, really frost-safe.

Chad's picks (and remember: click the image to see it full-size):