Sixth grade girls wear the oddest shirts. I learned this today when, dressed as our mascot at a grade school appearance [the final one of the year], I presented a sixth grade girl with a gift pack.

Her shirt...green, I think, with navy text. The text, just simple block letters, read, "MAYBE, IF YOU WERE IN A BAND."

Good advice for dudes aspiring to have groupies, I guess, but a bit uncomfortable across the chest of a sixth-grader, don't you think?

Also, I looked at a thank you card that a school group had sent to the club, as gratitude for a field trip to the ballpark. I happened to notice a girl on the extreme right side of the photo, standing in our ballpark, with a green shirt with white block lettering that read, "I'LL BE SOMEWHERE BETTER LATER."

Not as smarmy, and, in fact, pretty funny, but still pretty odd as well.

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Harper was in town for the past two days or so, so inspired by the recent career-related ramblings of this humble journal that he decided following me and interviewing me would somehow make for a compelling bit of mini-documentary. Oddly, I think I did my best to prove him wrong.

In how many ways can an individual pretend to think deeply about himself? I'm not sure, but I broke some sort of record. (Longest sentence about oneself ever constructed while sorting tickets and wearing a wireless clip-on mic?) The good thing is that I contradicted myself about every 14 seconds, so he'll be able to shape it however he wants. That's worth something, right?

He also talked to one of our owners, who apparently openly talked about the R/DS being gone soon enough. (She didn't say that she was planning to axe him, but rather said, "Who knows? There's a lot of movement in the business. He could be somewhere else come next season," or something to that effect.) Yes, she talked to Harper about this. She had met Harper about 28 hours prior. Oh well.

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Harps made me talk about whether my career choice was the right one, and I accurately stated "No regrets" about any career move thus far.

But what's interesting is that, over the past few days, I've lost all confidence in my on-air skills. A big part of that, of course, is repetition, and I'm not getting it. At this point in the season, our team just played its 20th game. Two years ago, I would have called 180 innings of play-by-play by this point. Last year, with an intern, I would have called about 150 innings by this point. This year I've called, I believe, 27 innings of play-by-play.

Point is, I'm not particularly good right now, and it's frustrating. I can say with 100 percent certainty that I was better at this juncture last year, and probably in each of the two previous seasons. (I sucked hard in 2002, I'm sure.) I don't know enough about the players' backgrounds but, more importantly, I can't notice subtle changes in a given player's approach or attitude or fundamentals; I'm just not around, and it's frustrating. And I have no sense of rhythm, when to fit pure description in, when to focus on game situations, how long I can take on an anecdote. It sucks.

Or maybe, and it's not altogether unlikely, my frustrations with the R/DS situation have affected my call. Maybe I'm less enthusiastic because he's left me downtrodden or angry or just hopeless. I don't know, but I'm not happy about it, either. (That reads like a lame excuse, and it is.)

Anyway, it was great to see Harps. He had mentioned when this crazy idea came up that he'd like to come up maybe three times during the summer and, apparently, I was so good that he'll knock it down to twice, with the other visit coming Labor Day weekend. Honestly, I wish he'd come three times, because it was fun having him.

He decided not to accept my offer of sleeping on the R/DS' couch, however, choosing instead to camp. I didn't take it personally.

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Game two of a three-game homestand tonight. I went out pretty late on Tuesday, and was up by 7:15 for this appearance on Wednesday morning. I'm tired. This is our third homestand, all three games; the six-gamers will be rough, I think. Perhaps I should, you know, not go out. Oh well.

That's all for now.