Centennial Field: A Major League Monster

If there’s one thing Burlington politicians agree on, it’s keeping minor league baseball in the Queen City.

The Vermont Lake Monsters currently hold the best record in the New York-Penn League with a 21-9 record, and are at the top of their division (Stadler) by six games. At home, they have a 12-4 record.

Last week, the city council got behind an effort quietly taking place at City Hall — raising money from private and public sources to make millions of dollars' worth of improvements to the aging Centennial Field.

A task force will report back to the council in October with a range of possible ways to raise the funds necessary to either fix up Centennial or possibly build a new park in the county.

My Secret Fantasy

Hi, my name is Dan, and I play fantasy baseball.

Before you laugh, understand that I'm not alone. Fantasy geeks are no longer banished to the great mother's basement of society. It is estimated that more than 30 million people play fantasy sports worldwide. While major American sports like baseball and football are the most prevalent varieties, there are fantasy leagues for virtually every professional sport on the planet, from bowling and fishing to cricket and golf. The fantasy sports industry — that's right, industry — nets somewhere in the neighborhood $4 billion annually. In terms of fetish industries, that's not quite porn territory — although fantasy sports may well be responsible for an equal number of failed relationships. While playing fantasy sports may be an incredibly dorky hobby — OK, it is definitely incredibly dorky — it has become a legitimate and, for some, a lucrative pastime. If only the folks who invented it had thought to cash in.

Tonight, ESPN will air the premiere of "Silly Little Game," the next installment in the sports entertainment network's critically acclaimed documentary series 30 for 30, which explores some of the most overlooked and underappreciated sports stories of the last 30 years. Directed by Brooklyn filmmakers Adam Kurland and Lucas Jansen, the film tells the largely unknown tale of the very first "Rotisserie" baseball league, invented by a group of New York City writers, scholars and intellectuals in 1979. That league, named for La Rotisserie Francais, the NYC restaurant in which the idea was conceived, was the progenitor of what we know as modern fantasy sports. And yes, you read that correctly. Highly educated intellectuals invented fantasy sports. Although, since none of them made a dime following its eventual explosion in popularity, maybe they weren't so smart after all. Moving on …

By now, you may be wondering what the local tie-in could be, this being a locally focused blog and all — not to mention me moonlighting outside my typical domain as "music guy." Here it is. The film uses re-enactments to recount that first Rotisserie season, spliced with interviews with the actual members of the league and other notable dorks, er, people relevant to the topic. Playing Dan Okrent, the league's driving force and the man regarded as the godfather of Rotisserie baseball — and by extension, all of fantasy sports — is Vermont native Ben Rameaka. Nifty, right?

From UVM Baseball to VT Yankee: The Doyle Town Meeting Survey

It's an annual ritual: A Town Meeting Day survey of voters conducted by State Sen. William Doyle (R-Washington) on some of the hot topics facing the state and the nation.

This year, topping Doyle's 42nd annual survey is the question: "Should Vermont Yankee's license be renewed in 2012?"

Doyle and his fellow senators will vote this Wednesday on whether to let the Public Service Board issue VY a license to extend operations beyond its scheduled closing date of 2012.

Along with the survey, voters in 14 towns will weigh in on VY's future. Last year, 36 Vermont towns passed nonbinding resolutions to shut down VY in 2012 and ensure Entergy fully funds the plant’s decommissioning.

Doyle's survey also asks Vermonters how they feel about the cost of their health insurance, the cost of schools and whether they support bans on texting while driving, as well as using cell phones while driving. He also asks if Vermonters think Pres. Barack Obama is doing a good job.

An interesting question that popped up this year is "Should baseball and women's softball be reinstituted at the University of Vermont."

VT Yankee: Closing in on Source of Tritium Leak?

Vermont Yankee continues to focus on a key underground pipe that carries steam away from the nuclear power plant's turbines to its main reactor stacks as a possible source of a tritium leak.

However, Vermont's top radiological health officer, Bill Irwin, told Seven Days that it is too soon to determine if this was the underground pipe leaking tritium into nearby groundwater.

The main focus of investigation and excavation is a pipe about 12 feet below the surface, said Irwin, called the advance off-gas system.

"It's very early on, but as a tritium source the drain line related to this off-gas system has been identified early on as a possible source, and excavation started a couple of days ago," Irwin told Seven Days via phone from the Vernon-based power plant.

Yesterday, around 4 p.m., workers encountered steam coming from the area of the pipe and halted work to further determine what steps should be taken, said Irwin. Samples from the ground did not prove to have tritium at high enough concentrations, but further digging will occur.

"Plant officials had hoped it would be indicative of a leak, but a sample taken last night and reported today proved they need to go deeper before they can confirm whether this is the source," said Irwin. He cautioned that finding the true source of the leak could be weeks, even months, away.

Should Big Air Snowboarding Be "Reined In"?

By now, those who follow snowboarding in Vermont know that on New Year's Eve, Kevin Pearce, a Burton Global Team rider from Norwich, Vt., was critically injured on a training run out in Utah. If you don't follow snowboarding, well, now you know. As would be expected, Pearce's crash has ignited a blaze of commentary on the safety of the sport. The question being asked in the wake of Pearce's accident has become, should snowboarders be allowed to go so big?

Pearce, 22, was one of Burton's rising stars. As a member of the company's men's Global team, Pearce rubbed elbows with the sport's major players — Shaun White, Terje Haakonsen and Jeremy Jones. He was a heavy favorite to make the U.S. Olympic team this year. White and Ohioan Louie Vito, a Stratton Mountain School grad and Dancing With the Stars alum, already qualified. Pearce was expected to provide stiff competition for the other men battling for spots on the halfpipe crew heading to Vancouver. He was practicing a double cork — a twisting double back-flip — when he was injured.

Pearce sustained a "severe traumatic brain injury" when he hit his forehead on an icy halfpipe at Park City Mountain Resort, where his brother Adam works as an instructor. He was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. He was flown to the University of Utah Hospital and continues to be listed in critical condition. According to an article in today's New York Times, Pearce is "intubated and being kept sedated," which is common in instances of head trauma. Friends and fans can follow Pearce's progress on the Facebook page set up for him.

Pearce is the son of Simon Pearce, founder of the eponymous glassblowing company and restaurant in Quechee. Jake Burton Carpenter, founder of Burton Snowboards, has known the Pearce family for years. He used to go snurfing with Pearce's uncles. Recently, Carpenter and his wife, Donna, flew to Utah to be with Pearce and his family.

Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie — Better Than a Box of Wheaties

About a week and a half ago, Ben & Jerry's announced its most recent ice cream flavor. No, it wasn't the "Lauren Ober's Chocolate River of Salaciousness and Sin," which is where I thought they were going. The newest flavor in the B&J family — Maple Blondie — is actually named after Hannah Teter, Olympic Gold Medalist and all around swell shredder. I suppose grabbing some Olympic bling on the halfpipe in Torino '06  is somewhat more impressive than winning third place in the 2005 New York Newspaper Publishers Association feature writing contest (circulation 25,000 or less). But I better be next on the list.

Photo at right — Teter going big at Mt. Snow last season. Courtesy of Burton Snowboards.

In having a flavor named after her, the 22-year-old snowboarder joins the ranks of Phish, Dave Matthews and Jerry Garcia, all of whom have had their essences rendered in pints of Ben & Jerry's deliciousness. But Teter has one-upped them all. Not only is she the first athlete ever to have a flavor named after her, but she is the first woman and first native Vermonter. Belmont, Vermont's most famous daughter now has another thing to brag about — being immortalized in ice cream.

Maple Blondie, which is only available now in scoop shops, but will soon be available in pints, is the type of flavor I always dreamed of. Maple ice cream, laced with ribbons of maple caramel and studded with blonde brownie bits. The overall effect is somewhere between orgasm and nirvana.

Because maple syrup — or liquid gold, as I like to think of it — is absurdly expensive, Maple Blondie is being made in limited batches. That's the bad news. But here's the good news: part of the proceeds from Teter's signature flavor will go to benefit Hannah's Gold, a charity Teter started to help the village of Kirindon, Kenya, secure clean drinking water.

I chatted with our girl Tetes last week over the phone about Africa, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and how I was on her mind when she developed Maple Blondie. 

Seven Days: Hey Hannah! How are you?
Hannah Teter: Great! Just driving to the gym.

SD: Where are you now?
HT: In Tahoe right now.

SD: What are you doing at the gym?
HT: I am going to get my workout on!

SD: I was just having a conversation yesterday about whether world-class snowboarders go to the gym or whether you just, like, ride all day long.
HT: Some workout, some just ride. But I feel like there’s a big transition going on right now where a lot of the riders are starting to taking working out more seriously to be super strong.

Whatever Happened to Mike Ives?

Staff writer Mike Ives left Seven Days in May, after spending two years writing news and feature stories about Vermont life. He's been traveling in Asia ever since.

We get dispatches from him every once in a while — he sent an email last week to let us know that he's been picking up freelance writing gigs overseas, using Hanoi, Vietnam, as a home base. Next month he'll be following the Vietnamese national soccer team to a tournament.

He sent along a links to three blog posts he wrote for Outside magazine, about a rock climbing festival he attended in Yangshuo, China. Read them if you want to live vicariously through our friend, the foreign correspondent.

Greek Tragedy: Q&A with Filmmaker Fritz Miller

Today's "State of the Arts" column features a short piece I wrote about "The Legend of Jimmy the Greek," a documentary directed by Charlotte-based filmmaker Fritz Mitchell, which premieres at the FlynnSpace this Tuesday along with "Muhammad and Larry" by legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles — see 7D film critic Rick Kisonak's review here. The films were made as part of ESPN's ongoing "30 for 30" project, a series of 30 films by 30 directors covering under-reported or forgotten sports stories from the past three decades. And they are really, really good.

As anyone who follows my ramblings over on SolidState is likely aware, in addition to being 7D's "music guy," I'm also a "sports guy." So I've been following "30 for 30" almost religiously since it debuted on ESPN three weeks ago. (I should note I'm also a huge fan of the series' architect, the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons.) But what has impressed me most about "30 for 30" thus far — Mitchell's film very much included — is how accessible these stories are, even for the most casual sports fan.

For example, my girlfriend — whom SolidState readers know as Plus One — is a reluctant sports fan. She tries (hard) to take an interest, almost solely because I enjoy it so much. But "30 for 30" has been a different experience altogether. If anything, the series has resonated more with her than it has me.

She choked up as hockey legend Wayne Gretzky bade his tearful farewell to Edmonton during "Kings' Ransom." She cheered when football returned to Baltimore and redeemed the passion of — of all things — an amateur marching band in "The Band That Wouldn't Die." And she fumed at Donald Trump's manipulative arrogance in "Who Killed the USFL?" ("Wow," she remarked as the credits rolled. "So he's always been a d-bag, huh?" Yup.) These are not just great sports stories. They are great stories, period. 

Unfortunately, a 400-word column bit is hardly enough space to do the Greek's story justice — let alone the story behind making the film. So what follows is the transcript of an interview I conducted recently with Mitchell about the project, which I hope sheds a little more light on the man, the myth and the legend that was gambling icon Jimmy the Greek.

Smashing Pumpkins the Vermont Way

OK, admit it — you've always wanted to smash a squash, gouge a gourd, zing a zucchini.

Well, this past Sunday in Cambridge, in a field behind Boyden Farms, there was all that and more. The farm was home to what promises to be an annual event: The Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival.

I won't bore you with the details of how this fest came to be, and I don't really care all that much. I'm sure as heck glad it happened.

Watching five pound pumpkins hurled more than a hundred feet only to splatter into a mix of rind and guts is a glory to behold (see carnage pic below).

About a dozen teams were able to construct a trebuchet for the competition — which was literally pulled together in a month.

The winning team, a group of three guys from Central Vermont, ended up winning in the heavyweight division by hurling a pumpkin nearly 140 feet.

They later tossed cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, pineapples and more for fun and let as many kids as wanted help load the trebuchet and take turns pulling the release cord.

If They Can't Stay It's A Shame

For 103 years Centennial Field has been home to Vermont Baseball and it's finally showing signs of age. The mound, like a bum hip, needs replaced, the outfield seems to need a cane to stay level, and like any 103 year-old, it's getting harder to see in the dark. But to quote Satchel Page — who pitched past his 59th birthday — "Age is a case of mind over matter, if you don't mind it don't matter."

And it especially don't matter when you have fans and boys who want to play ball.

I was at the Lake Monsters home opener the other night, and you would have thought Major League Baseball approved the stadium for 15 more years. You could barely keep the thought of losing the team in your mind during the nearly nine innings of shutout ball. Everyone had the stomach for hot dogs, the energy to dance between innings, and the stamina to watch the winning run in the 10th.

The spirit was undoubtedly alive in the stands, but it's anyone's guess whether it will prod the "supporters" in City Hall, The State House, and beyond. Hopefully they don't shake off the sings coming from the stands.

And one more thing, what's so bad about an outfield with a few lumps? Now, I'm not condoning an outfield that resembles the foothills of the Green Mountains, but do you think Satchel Page played on level fields when he was in the Negro League? Do you think minor leaguers have always enjoyed perfect lighting? Of course not. That's what makes theses young ballplayers tough — it's probably the reason someone like Satchel Page lasted as long as he did.

After all, this is Single-A ball, not the show, and certainly not the ballet. I like baseball. I like when the games are dirty and tough. But now I'm rambling. Play ball!