Hello, my name is Ruben and I've been a baseball fan for many years. (Here's where you all say "Hi, Ruben"). I am slightly obssessed about baseball, and I'm not here to get help controlling my addiction.
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The author of this blog with Jim Rice the day his #14
was retired af Fenway Park. Based on the smile on his
face, meeting me was the highlight of his day! |
I’ve been a fan, coach, umpire, sabermetrician, collector, and writer. It started when I was a kid and as a Red Sox fan Jim Rice was my favorite player. After he retired I spent 15 years lobbying for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I set up a website and wrote to BBWAA voting members who made their ballots public and omitted him, until he got to Cooperstown.
Traveling around the continent I was amazed at how many Red
Sox fans I ran into everywhere. I realized Red Sox Nation was very extensive and
decided to start a blog focused on Red Sox news of interest to Canadians. I then joined the
Baseball Bloggers Alliance and included some general MLB articles on my site. It was maintained at
RSNAlberta.blogspot.com
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Baseball Alberta Provincial
Champion Medal |
I am also a strong supporter of local baseball. I have
coached youth teams on and off at every level up to Bantam AAA (U15) since
1989. Won several different league championships throughout that time. I have
been on the Board of Directors of local Little League as well as Provincial
baseball associations. Served in several capacities including VP Technical
& Player Development, Evaluation Coordinator and Umpire-In-Chief. I am
currently a nationally certified Level 4 umpire, and officiate games at every
level up to and including college ball in Alberta, and have umpired at several National Championships. Between coaching, being on
boards and umpiring, I have become familiar with many of the baseball
organizations and participants in the province and started writing a blog to
promote what individual teams or players were doing. It was maintained at
BaseballinAlberta.blogspot.com.
I'm a contributor to the
Canadian Baseball Network, and occasionally write articles about baseball related Alberta stories there:
As a coach I always needed volunteers to keep score, to help
me compile player’s stats. Over the
years I saw many unusual plays and many questions came up regarding their
scoring. I would look up the appropriate rule afterwards and make mental notes. At some point I became referred to as the scoring rules guy. I've been asked to be a volunteer scorekeeper a few times and eventually I created a website to be a reference for scoring some of the trickier
plays. It can be found at
BaseballScoring.wordpress.com.
There are always other baseball related things I’ve wanted
to talk about but they didn’t fit neatly in one of the aforementioned
sites. This site consolidates all my writings and will include other miscellaneous baseball
topics as well.
Did I mention I was obssessed? Here is my licence plate... acquired 2500 miles away from Fenway:
I've had cats named Fenway, Red Sock and Wally. The current family feline is Tessie.
