Star Girl Pitcher Has Little Leaguers Knuckling Under

My wife likes to tell this story about a high school female friend of hers who routinely beat the male swimmers at local meets and how the parents of the boys would complain to the girl's coach about letting her swim with the boys. The coach was unimpressed with the mothers' arguments, especially because their sons had just been beaten to the wall — by a girl.

I wonder if similar stories have been told in the past few years in houses in and around Plant City, Fla., about the feats of one Chelsea Baker, the only girl on the Brandon Farms Little League baseball team and indeed the only girl in the league.

Seems Chelsea can throw a knuckleball, which might provide a bit of explanation for her 12-0 record this year. In 60 innings, she struck out 127 batters. In the past two years, she has pitched two perfect games.

Yes, she can throw the knuckleball, which she learned from famed Major Leaguer Joe Niekro. But Chelsea has a hummer of a fastball, too. She can top 65 mph. That knuckleball comes in at about that speed as well.

What's a Little League batter to do?

Chelsea hasn't lost a sanctioned baseball game in four years on the mound. One of those perfect games was in an All-Star game.

The team finished this season with a record of 29-1. That one loss was in the sectional round of the Little League World Series, so Chelsea hit the all-star circuit herself, playing with a national all-girls dream team called the Sparks.

Seems Chelsea is also a bit handy with the bat. She's the owner of two grand slams.

The honors have been coming thick and fast recently. She's been the subject of a story on ESPN and in Sports Illustrated.

The Baseball Hall of Fame called not too long ago, wanting her jersey to hang in its rafters. Doesn't get much bigger than that.

Chelsea is also the holder of a 4.0 grade point average at her middle school.

Check out this video to see a wonderful feature on Chelsea, including some slow-motion shots of her picture-perfect pitch delivery.

And don't miss the bit where the boy who just struck out at the hands of a girl starts to cry. Remember, "there's no crying in baseball."

Pop-Tarts World: a True Destination

I am so there.

I'm counting the pennies now so I can book my ticket to NYC and frequent Pop-Tarts World.

This is such a great idea!

Where else but Times Square would such a place be? (OK, maybe Las Vegas, but they don't have one yet.)

So Pop-Tarts World is now open. Here's the deal: You go in, order all manner of Pop-Tarts-filled items and then chow down.

First of all, you can get your standard fill of the pastry goodness, the traditional Pop-Tarts, in a massive variety of flavors. You can get them toasted (the old reliable). You can get them frozen (Don't knock it till you try it!). You can get them at room temperature (with a little butter, perhaps?)

You can get them as sushi.

Yep, it's the idea, not the product. No seafood products to be found therein, although you could be forgiven for thinking so by looking at it. It's actually crumbled up Pop-Tarts inside a strip of rolled up fruit.

Want your Pop-Tarts frosted? No problem. Want them unfrosted? Again, no problem.

Want to get a bunch, served by a robot? Once again, no problem, with the Varietizer, a giant machine that lets you choose up to six flavors and then, using a robotic arm, delivers the boxes to your waiting little hands (provided that you've paid, of course).

Among the nontraditional yet yummy options on offer:

• Snickerdoodle cookies
  
• Chunky chocolate chippers
  
• Peach blueberry cobbler
  
• S'More Stix
  
• Pop-Tarts trail mix

It's not all hot and warm, however. You can get cold offerings as well, including

• Apple pie a la mode
  
• Strawberry milkshake
  
• S'More Pa-lease
  
• Pop-Tarts Ice Cream Sammys
  

Like I said, count me in, big time. It's taking me back, and I'll want to go back.

Educating Rural Africa, One Kindle at a Time

An old problem has an update of a new solution: A former bigwig at Amazon has brought his company's e-reader into the forefront of the drive to provide more educational to the developing world. Specifically, Kindles are heading to Ghana.

David Risher, who used to be a senior vice-president at online retailing giant Amazon.com, has started Worldreader, a nonprofit dedicated to improving literacy in places where it can be hard to find. Among the startup ideas put forward by this startup is handing out Amazon's signature electronic-reading device, the Kindle, to children at schools in Accra, Ghana, in what the nonprofit hopes is a wider rollout across the country in the coming months.

This is certainly not an attempt to sell more Kindles, in Ghana or anywhere else; rather, the idea is to get students to read, using modern technology that can work in places where other modern technology might not.

Many rural African communities lack infrastructure for computers or even landline phones, but the people in many of these communities do have cellphones, which is where the Kindle comes in. This device runs on a GSM cellular network, so users can connect to a satellite network and update the contents of their e-reader (which is pre-loaded with lots of free books anyway).

Worldreader also discovered that the Kindles could be charged using specially designed solar chargers. Tests have revealed that charging a Kindle for one hour can result in a couple of weeks of use for the typical student.

This is very much in the vein of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), a program to bring computers to the developing world that aims, among other things, to produce low-cost computers with nontraditional power sources (such as a hand crank).

The OLPC made headlines recently by offering its laptops at less than $100 each. Worldreader, for now, is depending on its donors to subsidize the cost of the Kindles, meaning that the children of Ghana pay nothing for their new e-readers (except, of course, for the time spent learning how to use their fun new learning centers).

The first e-books on these Kindles are in English. The plan is to include texts in multiple languages in the not too distant future.

Miss Iowa Gets Last Laugh on Big-mouthed Baseball Player

"You do not talk smack to an Iowan."

That might be a catch-phrase before too long, especially in this age of lightning-fast viral media.

So here's a little story that has all kinds of happy endings, no matter where you happen to be. It begins as a sports story, morphs into a human-interest story with a touch of beauty pageant thrown in, and ends up being one big laugh.

Act One: the Sports Story
The Washington Nationals baseball team have had few bright spots this season. (Their won-loss record isn't the worst in the National League — that would be the Pittsburgh Pirates — but the Nationals aren't winning a whole lot this year.) One of those bright spots has been the arrival of pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who burst onto the scene a few months ago with several devastating performances in a row. Strasburg routinely throws 100 mph (which is in itself somewhat of an uncommon feat), he has great command of his pitches, and he isn't afraid of pressure or crowds. Trouble was, he was hurt.

So 40,000 people go along to see the Nationals play the Philadelphia Phillies and to see Strasburg pitch for the Nationals. But Strasburg was hurt and had to be pulled from the lineup at the last minute. So when the announcer said the name of the Nationals starting pitcher and it was Miguel Batista, the fans made their displeasure known with a showering of boos. Batista, a journeyman reliever pressed into a starting role, tried to make light of the boos by saying the equivalent of "The reaction doesn't bother me." He said, however, a lot more.

After the game, Batista had this to say: "Imagine if you are there to see Miss Universe and you end up having Miss Iowa — you might get those kind of boos."

Well, the game was being shown live on ESPN and broadcast across the country, which is how a friend of the reigning Miss Iowa saw the pitcher say the thing and how the friend called Miss Iowa while she (not the friend but Miss Iowa) was getting her hair done. This being the digital age, the call was actually a text message, but the friend was incensed. So, it turns out, was Miss Iowa, Katherine Connors.

Act Two: the Beauty Pageant
Through a series of events that could have been possibly only in the 24/7 wall-to-wall media culture in which we now live, Connors made it known to the Nationals that she was not amused at being unfavorably compared to Miss Universe. The baseball team, fearing bad publicity when the team already had a losing record, decided to do all it could to make everyone forget about the relief pitcher's ill-timed, poorly worded remark.

So the Batista called the Beauty, personally apologizing over the phone and also sending her flowers. Connors was admittedly touched by the gesture. She was also touched by the team's offer of throwing out the first pitch at a Nationals game. She accepted and brought her sash with her, wearing it over a baseball uniform while doing the first-pitch honors. And Connors, who had never played organized baseball, made a credible show of throwing the ball over the plate, which is something that some recent presidents haven't mastered. And who should be the catcher behind the plate for Miss Iowa's famous first pitch but Batista, the journeyman pitcher whose big mouth uttered the remark that touched off the minor furor in the first place.

Act Three: the Big Laugh
Now fast friends, Batista posed for pictures with Connors, who was sporting a special Miss Iowa baseball jersey. The two shared a few laughs and a few photographs and then went their merry ways. Their association isn't at an end, though. Seems that the Miss Iowa pageant has invited Batista to be a judge. Whether he accepts remains to be seen.

What also remains to be seen is what he wears. As a parting show, Connors had this to say: "I told him I can throw a pitch or two. The question is, can he walk in my bikini in high heels."

The Air Up There Powers Our Lives Down Here

In rural eastern Oregon, people are being paid to keep quiet about noise they're not making.

Seems wind turbines are proliferating in that part of the country at a rapid (some would say a

Image via Wikipedia

larming) pace. Long known as windswept and rural, these regions are now being recognized as potentially advantageous for clean energy companies looking to harness natural power to run ever-increasing electricity grids. In fact, many wind turbines are already in place, quietly (or not so quietly, depending on your point of view and your hearing level) rumbling away. Many people who live in the area aren't too happy about the noise that they hear from the wind machines or about what they see as some sort of blight on the natural landscape.

And the energy company, out of New York, has sent a representative round the area with some cash, to entice residents to keep their complaints to a minimum — meaning none. After enough people had registered the same behavior, the company did, in fact, confirm that the energy company representative had paid several people $5,000 each in return for a promise not to make a loud noise about the wind turbines. Other people had refused the money, preferring to retain their right to complain. Technically, the people who have taken the money still have a right to complain. They have merely entered into a verbal contract with the energy company to do otherwise.

But the more pressing juxtaposition is this: In an age when electricity needs are far and furiously outstripping the nation's capacity to adequately fill those needs, these people are protesting a natural solution that would solve a lot of problems. The wind is so fierce in that part of the country that residents have often had to shout to make themselves heard anyway, and that was before the windmills went up; so it's not as if these people are having to deal with a whole lot more noise than normal, since the turbines don't really turn nearly as much when the wind isn't blowing. (Some people have requested that the machines be turned off at night, which is fair enough, as far as it goes. Theoretically, the demand for electricity is lower in the middle of the night, anyway — except for all of those television programs being recorded using digital hard drive technology.)

The main point here, though, is that it won't be too many more generations until those wind turbines will be an absolute necessity, as fossil fuels run out or become so hideously expensive as to create the same result. It is entirely possible that an energy crisis is looming in the next few decades.

Energy generation always has a cost and a by-product. We don't tend to see or experience what occurred in the production of oil, gas, and other "traditional" forms of energy because we just buy it and consume it. In fact, most of us probably give no more than a passing flight of thought to how actually electricity is actually made, transmitted, and transferred.

Image via Wikipedia

The more diverse the power sources, the more stable the production of electricity becomes. In the same way, the closer to home the energy is generated in the first place, the lower the cost that the electricity company has to pass on to its customers.

Wind turbines do make noise, but that's nothing compared to the noise that electricity consumers would make if their power went out — for a long period of time.