Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 19, 2009, 5:58 pm
I've tried on numerous occasions to film my dog mid-sleepchase. I always seem to wake him when I fumble for my camera. With this video, I no longer feel the need to try because Chambers could ne...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 16, 2009, 2:20 pm
1) I'm pumped about The Blind Side coming out on Friday. I'm not a football fan but I am a Michael Lewis fan, so I read the book. It was great. Lewis set out to write a Moneyball-type book ...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 15, 2009, 7:49 am
Eleven days without a post - I have some explaining to do. On November 7, Natalie and I were married. If you like to offset your baseball readings with wedding blogs, feel free to get more info on o...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 4, 2009, 7:29 am
New York Times reporter Tyler Kepner brought some clarity to the Cole Hamels comments that have had so many in an uproar. He added two things that are often omitted from post-game interviews, 1) cont...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 3, 2009, 1:43 pm
An autistic artist by the name of Stephen Wiltshire took a 20 minute helicopter tour of Manhattan, and then drew the entire skyline from memory. Doesn't it remind you of the time that I drew a pi...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Nov 2, 2009, 8:06 am
By now you've probably read/heard the ill-advised statement that Hamels made in a post-game interview on Saturday night. At the time, the Phillies trailed the Yankees by only one game and Hamels ...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 30, 2009, 8:13 am
Pretty funny video here. I love Bale as Batman, but I'm glad someone is addressing the ridiculous voice he uses. Good stuff.
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 29, 2009, 3:06 pm
Charlie Manuel had this to say about Cliff Lee's dominant performance in Game 1 of the 2009 World Series: Most of the time when he starts a game, and he's in control of the game, and ever...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 28, 2009, 8:33 am
Let me start out by saying I LOVE QDOBA. Love it. If you offered to take me out to dinner to either Morton's or Qdoba, I would choose the 8 dollar meal at Qdoba about 90% of the time (every once...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 26, 2009, 10:19 am
A psychologist by the name of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi proposed the concept of a mental state that he calls flow. Flow is characterized by a complete immersion in the activity at hand. It is a fee...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 24, 2009, 1:05 pm
Like most Dodger fans, I have mixed emotions about Ms. Ng not getting the Padres GM job. Selfishly, I'm glad she's still with the good guys. It's just that I really want to see her becom...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 21, 2009, 8:39 am
Celebratory gestures come in all shapes and sizes. They can be solo acts (the "Icky Shuffle"), duets (the high-five), or they can require an ensemble cast (the choreographed endzone dance). Some are...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 19, 2009, 5:14 pm
This one has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now. It all started when I saw this fantastic photoshop job on Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness (great dodger blog by the way): What are...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 19, 2009, 10:35 am
Most of the pitchers that I work with fall into one of three categories: 1) High school pitchers that have showed promise that are hoping to continue pitching in college 2) Middle school pitchers that...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 14, 2009, 12:34 pm
If you haven't read Bill Simmons' recap of his Vegas adventure, I highly recommend it. There was one section, however, that threw me off a bit: You know, every Vegas weekend has one song tha...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 13, 2009, 8:49 am
Who would have thought that Brad Lidge would pick up his second save in as many appearances this postseason? Part of me is happy for him because I know he's been through a lot this season. Despi...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 12, 2009, 8:32 am
1) I'm pretty sure that ability in Dance Dance Revolution is inversely related to actual dancing ability. I came to this conclusion after watching two goth guys (that appeared very uncoordinated ...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 10, 2009, 7:31 pm
I was perusing the Concord Mills Mall for the first time in ages when I came to 3 stunning realizations - the Dippin' Dots Corporation a) still exists, b) is now 21 years old, and c) still conside...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 9, 2009, 7:45 am
I understand Wainwright's desire to create an excuse for Matt Holliday. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to suspect that Holliday lost the ball in the stands. Perhaps he even lost it in...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 8, 2009, 2:16 pm
Found a very thoughtful and very humanizing article on Paul DePodesta's blog about the Padres letting go Kevin Towers. Job security in any facet of baseball is a rare thing. I can clearly rememb...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 7, 2009, 8:37 am
With 26 votes in on the $10 Beer Poll, it's time to do some light math. Let's assume that each voter buys 10 beers throughout the course of the season. This might not be a safe assumption be...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Oct 5, 2009, 7:43 am
Driving home from Savannah yesterday, I passed a Bojangles billboard that featured the phrase, "Indescribably good chicken". Indescribable....that's sort of a funny word, isn't it? Indescriba...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 30, 2009, 10:06 am
What is it about barbecue establishments and their willingness to use the word 'pig' in their name, and/or cartoon pigs in their advertisements? I'm especially puzzled by the logos that h...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 29, 2009, 7:51 am
I spent the weekend of Sept. 19th in Louisville this year which meant I was there for the University of Louisville / University of Kentucky football game. I'm not much of a football fan but I pla...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 28, 2009, 9:53 am
Sorry for my bloglessness lately, but I do have a pretty good excuse. I spent the past weekend in Myrtle Beach with 15 former Davidson Wildcats (all baseball players). We played our own version of t...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 22, 2009, 3:51 pm
It was a typical July day in Rome, Georgia - very hot and very humid. For us (the visiting Columbus Catfish) it was the last game of a brutal 12 day road trip. We were anxious to get home and we wer...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 20, 2009, 3:08 pm
I was going to write a movie review on The Informant, but in my brainstorming efforts I was quickly side-tracked. If you're interested, read Ebert's review and add my own tagline, Fraud has n...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 18, 2009, 7:55 am
So I was giving a pitching lesson to a 10 year-old the other day, and like most 10 year-olds, he had the attention span of a ferret. He's a great kid though, and he always peppers me with amusing...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 17, 2009, 7:20 am
My Apologies in advance for once again drawing inspiration from Joe Posnanski. Lately I've been referencing his blog as much as Stuart Scott references the urban dictionary (c'mon Stu, you...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 16, 2009, 8:01 am
Is Andre Ethier trying to single-handedly disprove the idea that clutch hitting does not exist? Six walk-offs in one season? Ridiculous. And four of them were with the long ball. That's got to...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 15, 2009, 7:02 am
Jennifer's Body, starring Megan Fox, opens this weekend. I'm pretty sure this movie was written specifically to test how bankable Megan Fox can be. Here's a line from imdb's plot syn...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 14, 2009, 7:47 am
If you haven't read Joe Posnanski's blog, you probably should. Last night, he wrote a post about the incredible shot that Roger Federer hit in his match against Novak Djokovic: In analyzing ...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Sep 5, 2009, 2:01 pm
Relief pitchers spend a lot of time in the bullpen. A lot. As minor leaguers, we play 140 games in 148 days. That's 1260 innings of baseball, and relief pitchers typically pitch about 75 innings...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 28, 2009, 3:03 am
In one of my first years playing organized basketball (probably age 7ish), I had a game that made me feel like a hero. According to memory, we were trailing by one point against the best team in the ...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 25, 2009, 12:50 pm
Doesn't it seem like the nicer hotels always charge for internet? I'm sure there's a logical economic explanation for it, but I'm too annoyed by it to try and figure out what that exp...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 22, 2009, 1:44 pm
One very exciting part about joining the Inland Empire team (that I forgot to mention in my last post) is the opportunity to work with pitching coach Charlie Hough. Every pitcher I know that has work...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 20, 2009, 11:08 pm
Just got the word that I will be joining the Inland Empire 66ers (Advanced A) tomorrow. While I'm not thrilled about being back in A ball for the first time since 2006, I am excited to be part of...
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 20, 2009, 3:34 pm
That was the headline of this article on msn.com today. If there is one opinion that I trust regarding Kate Gosselin's situation, it's Octomom's.
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Brian Akin posted an article on Dear (Tommy) John Letters - Aug 20, 2009, 11:55 am

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