Alvarez. I forgive you.

As the Pirates struggle today against the New York Yankees, I lost focus.  The 12th batter was coming to the plate for the Bronx Bombers.  Zach Duke (9 hits, 3BB through 3.1 innings) had been chased after a rough, rough inning. Sean Burnett was in and facing  Pena.  The Yankees are up 8-2 in spite of seven Pirates hits off AJ Burnett.

My mind wondered around the world wide web and I discovered a very interesting article.  The name Babe Ruth in the search engine brought up a link to a story about the Pirates very own Pedro Alvarez hitting a ‘Ruthian’ like homer an estimated 550 feet. 

Check it out. Jayson Stark of ESPN includes a google map to show how far Alvarez hits the ball.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=4017183

When the front office decides he is ready, (in the meantime we get to enjoy Nyjer Morgan–who just got a hit!  What it’s not as exciting? Well, I know. )we have a lot of fun to look forward to. God I envy all those lucky residents of Lynchburg where he will be mashing this year.  Hmmm…I wonder if I can get a google map of Lynchburg?

Well, check it out.  When you click on the link below click on the left arrow and you can see the landing zone/targets for Alvarez homeruns this summer.  It appears that the Minister of the church may want to tell his church goers to watch where they park this summer..

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lynchburg+hillcats+baseball+field&sll=37.394439,-79.1681&sspn=0,359.998367&gl=us&ie=UTF8&ll=37.402619,-79.168081&spn=0,359.947729&z=14&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=37.394159,-79.168099&panoid=F0y2pA900syB9U3vGkeLuQ&cbp=12,80.08386582618321,,0,5

The Pirates didn’t go down easy today losing 9-8 to the Yankees.  Sean Burnett and Craig Hansen kept the Pirates in the game, before Jason Davis gave up a rare run in the bottom of the eighth.