Do you do any baseball tributes?

[Rob D.]

In one of his early books from the 1980s, Bill James extolled the baseball prowess of Hank Aaron when he mentioned that as a little personal tribute to Aaron, whenever James reheated a cup of coffee in the microwave, he'd always set the timer to 44 seconds. That little tidbit has stuck with me all these years because I thought it was so cool.

The past few summers I've done a tribute to Earl Weaver, not only because I admire his career as a manager but because he gave us one of the best pieces of baseball comedy with a certain episode of his Manager's Corner pre-game radio show. (Don't click the link and listen to the show unless you're prepared to hear a lot of profanity.)

I always thought it neat that during the season Weaver grew tomato plants that were hidden in the Orioles bullpen. On a side of our front yard is a hedge about 4 feet high and 12 feet long. The area gets full sun, which is perfect for tomato plants. I'm able to plant the tomatoes on the house-side of the hedge (or as I think of it, a natural version of an outfield fence) so we can see them but they're hidden from our neighbors and people on the street. I don't even like tomatoes, but it's fun growing them for our family and neighbors, and it serves as my little tribute to Earl (plus, tomato plants play a key role in the aforementioned Manager's Corner.

I know a board member named his child Mathewson as a tribute, and while we didn't go that far, our first dachshund's official name on his AKC registration was Wahoo Sam (we just called him Sam, among other things).

I'm curious whether other folks on the board have little baseball tributes they do during everyday life. (For your own safety, please don't post that your PIN number is "T206" or you always use the password "Mickey7" on websites.)