Found In My Basement: Bobby Bonilla

This might be my favorite title of any posts over the 7+ years of this blog's existence. In case you're wondering, however, former Pittsburgh Pirate Bobby Bonilla is not in my basement.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m trying to find a journal containing my deepest thoughts and feelings from the road trip I took 15 years ago. Sure, deepest thoughts and feeling might be a stretch, but at least I can see how I felt about the song The Freshmen by Verve Pipe in 1997. While the search for the journal continues, I found this autographed picture of Bobby Bonilla from 1987.



I have no idea when or if I met Bobby Bonilla or if my Dad got this autograph for me from a Bonilla appearance at somewhere like Giant Eagle. In case you can’t read Bobby Bo’s message, he wrote “Sean, Keep hitting those homers.” While that was a very kind message from the 6-time All-Star, I never hit a home run in my baseball career which ended after Little League where I probably led the league in walks and strikeouts. (I had a good eye including watching pitches get called for strikes; for the record, the pitches were always low.)

If you’re wondering where Bonilla is these days, I have no idea. You’ll be happy to know that he’s doing just fine though as the Mets are paying Bonilla $1,193,248.20 every July 1 from 2011 to 2035! In addition, his son Brandon Bonilla, a left-handed pitcher, just finished his first year at Arizona State and has a Twitter account!

Please click here for more in the Found In My Basement series.

Congratulations Bobby Bonilla

Here are some links to start your week:

Instead of receiving $5.9 million in 1999, due to a cash shortage, the Mets worked out a deal to defer Bobby Bonilla's salary. Therefore, the Mets will pay Bobby Bo $1,193,248.20 every July 1 from 2011 to 2035. That's nearly $30 million. Good for him. [CNN]

One of my favorite professors, Marty Brownstein, is retiring from Ithaca College. [The Ithacan]

You knew this story was coming: Pittsburgh sports fans turn to Crosby (and away from Roethlisberger). [Yahoo h/t Bob Smizik's Blog]

I believe that I shared my quest to see how fast I can run 1 mile. My all-time best time was 6 minutes, 49 seconds in 10th or 11th grade. On Sunday, I completed a mile in 7:24, the fastest since I started this personal challenge last month. Why am I bringing this up as a link? While I ran my mile yesterday, thousands of people competed in the Pittsburgh Marathon. Kipyegon Kirui, a 29-year-old Kenyan, won the men's title with a time of 2 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds. That's an average of approximately 5:27 per mile for 26 miles! [Post-Gazette]

The Washington Capitals shockingly lost in their first round series against the Montreal Canadiens. (I may have mentioned this last week.) After the game, Caps' Brooks Laich changed a tire performing a random act of kindness. [D.C. Sports Bog]

Krista shares 10 random things. (An 11th is that she made the neat "S" for me that you can see when you look at my website address line. [Confessions of a Domestic Delinquent]

Finally, here's a trivia question to get you in the mood for Trivia Tuesday. This week, Jason Derulo reached #1 on the pop chart with his song "In My Head." Derulo is the first male solo artist in 22 years to have his first two songs go to #1. Name the artist who accomplished this last.