Melvin Mora, 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings #34

I hope no one missed me too terribly this weekend. If you live in Maryland, the fact that the skies were bluer than the one painted behind Melvin Mora should have comforted you in my absence. I absolutely would have posted on Saturday, but the wireless signal in West Hall (my dormitory for the weekend) was abysmal. Anyhow, here are a few items of interest to me from the past few days. Your mileage may vary, but it's my blog, and occasionally I'll veer off into my personal life so that I don't go mad from all of the baseball talk.

-I successfully completed the 5K Revolutionary Run on Saturday morning. Well...I completed it, anyway. I don't know about the "successfully" part. My time was 25 minutes, 34 seconds. During my brief cross country career in high school, my personal best in a 5K (3.1 miles) was 18:44. My personal worst was 23:34, in my first-ever race. But considering that I hadn't run a single race in more than a decade and that my "training" consisted of two-to-three mile jogs thrice weekly over the past month, I'll chalk it up as a little victory...even if my senior citizen ex-English professor left me in his dust. Dr. Gillin is a machine, folks.

-The Washington College drama alumni performance of "Thirty Plays in Sixty Minutes or Your Guineas Back" was a big success, and I had more fun than I had anticipated. A bunch of my talented compatriots wrote, directed, and performed in a series of short "plays" that were performed in a random order determined by audience request. I came aboard on a few days' notice to replace one of the actors, and it was a thrill performing in front of a capacity crowd in the new Tawes Theatre. I got reacquainted with some of my contemporary drama majors, and got to meet some others who were before and after my time, and I will definitely be on board with next year's Reunion show from the beginning. You can enjoy some context-free photos of Saturday's performance here, though I'll attempt to give some context to my role in things:

• In this cast and crew photo, I am in the back, third from your right. I'm not that tall; we're standing on boxes.
• The "everybody point at something photo" is a time-honored tradition whose origins have never been made clear to me.
• Here I am dropping my head to keep from laughing as Professor Tim Maloney makes a cameo as a tardy instructor who is annoyed to find that his students haven't left yet.
• In this scene, I'm a student hard at work in the Literary House. Katy (maroon shirt, crawling on all fours) is portraying Edith Wharton, the dearly-departed Lit House cat.
• At the conclusion of the previously-pictured scene, student and cat share a tender moment.
• I'm bringing up the rear in a rowboat.
• We shared a toast to departed friends from our college days - both people and places. (I'm to the left of the ladder, of course.)

-Speaking of photos, I finally remembered to snap a picture of the statue of Bill Nicholson that stands on Cross Street In Chestertown. I'll send you off with a look at the statue and plaque.

Miguel Tejada, 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings #28

There's a lot more uncertainty in Miguel Tejada's life now than there was when he was the subject of this portrait five years ago. He is no longer a threat to hit 20 home runs, much less 30, and hasn't driven in more than 100 runs since his excellent 2004 season. His defense at shortstop has slipped to the point that he will likely have to shift to third base to keep his career going. Of course, the Catch-22 is that his dwindling offensive numbers will look even less significant when compared to the competition at the hot corner. So it is that the 35-year-old, who has dealt with off-the-field revelations about his age (he was previously assumed to be two years younger) and performance-enhancing drug use (he was implicated in the Mitchell Report early in 2008), remains an unsigned free agent with a month left before spring training begins.

But rather than pouting about a lack of strong contract offers, Miggy seems to have focused on helping those whose problems are much greater than his. Yesterday, the former O's shortstop rode aboard a helicopter to Haiti to personally deliver emergency water, food, and other supplies to the impoverished victims of last week's major earthquake. Tejada is a native of the neighboring Dominican Republic, and employs four Haitians at his home. He said that the people of Haiti are his "brothers" and that he wants to bring them support. It would have been easy to write a check and not to have given this dire situation another thought, but the 2002 American League MVP gave his money and his time. He traveled to a place that most of us are probably thanking our lucky stars that we'll never have to see in person. I'm more than happy to call more attention to his good deed, rather than spend more time drudging up outrage over comparatively insubstantial matters like Hall of Fame voting.