more Trot

I really wish I had been there!

More here from the red sox web site:

""I've been looking forward to coming back here for some time," said Nixon. "I've got a lot of friends, a lot of special guys over there that I've been through a lot with."

A homegrown product of the Red Sox -- general manager Lou Gorman's regime selected him in the first round of the 1993 First-Year Player Draft -- Nixon made his mark with clutch hits and all-out hustle. He cemented it by being on the 25-man roster of the first Red Sox team to win a World Series in 86 years.

And Nixon left Boston on good terms following last season. Nixon's durability had failed him the last three years, and the Red Sox opted for a five-tool replacement in J.D. Drew.

Even after winter back surgery, Nixon found a very appealing new home in Cleveland, where a talented core of players looks primed to make a run at the postseason.

When the Indians and Red Sox converged on the field between batting practice rounds, the expected hug-fest took place between Nixon and several of his former teammates.

"He's a total baseball player," said Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis. "If you're going to get a team together and you have one game to play and you want guys who give it their all and scrap, that's the guy you want. You want to bring him to the table when you have to scrap out hits and make plays on defense."

What did manager Terry Francona appreciate most about Nixon?

"The way he approached the game," Francona said. "His willingness to try to run through the wall, even sometimes when he'd probably hit it and bounce off and get hurt. He'd play hurt. He's down and dirty. You saw the pine tar and the helmet and his hat was always wrinkled up in his back pocket. He's kind of a throwback."

Nixon's work in Boston was hardly limited to what he did on the field.

Roughly 10 minutes before the first pitch, Nixon and wife Kathryn, standing in the grass area behind home plate, were presented with the 2007 Jimmy Fund Award. It was a tribute to the many years of service the Nixons' gave to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. Red Sox owner John W. Henry and Francona both took part in the ceremony.

As the roars came thundering down from the sold-out crowd and a video tribute marking Trot Nixon's on- and off-field work in Boston was played on the scoreboard, Kathryn Nixon's eyes welled up with tears.

Trot Nixon simply smiled and took in the moment. There was still a baseball game to be played.

"I was spoiled for my entire career to play in this type of atmosphere, sellouts every night. I was spoiled," said Nixon. "Having the opportunity to win and have a winning record every season, I'm very fortunate. Even when we had our time in the playoffs, the biggest thing you want to do is take some of it in. At times, when we won [in 2004], you didn't take it all in."
"

Trot Returns to Fenway

from the Globe:

According to the watch of Bob Ryan, the standing ovation for Trot Nixon when he stepped the plate in the second inning lasted 40 seconds. Nixon tipped his helmet to all sides of the park before digging in and promptly sending a single into right field for the first hit off Curt Schilling.

Brownies/BRMC

In a few hours will be at BRMC show! First I need to go home and watch N&J at a "bridge cermony" for their Girl SCouts troop, where they will walk across the bridge which symbolizes how they are leaving "Daisy" scouts behind and now are "Brownies". :)

the Queen & the Doctor

This is from a news item at www.outpostgallifrey.com:

"The Queen was left intrigued by the Tardis feature at the Chelsea Flower Show earlier this week.

As reported by Outpost Gallifrey last Friday, the Doctor's time-travelling police box - complete with light and sound effects - is the centrepiece of the display called A Garden In Time, which has been created by Cardiff Council landscape officer Mo Dorken and her team.

It shows the changes in the world since the start of the series in 1963 and includes a 1960s Cardiff rugby shirt and a Doctor Who annual with William Hartnell on the cover.

The Royal Family were exploring the Royal Horticultural Society's annual show on Monday and the Press Association reports that the Queen stopped off to look at the revolving Tardis.

It is in a "void" separating a 1960s urban garden from a modern one based around contemporary gardening ideas and styles, with an emphasis on sustainability, recycling and climate change.

According to PA, Dorken said: "The Queen was asking 'Why is there a Tardis there?'

"I was explaining how we were having a Doctor Who theme and a Sixties part of the garden because it was when the series first started." "

come from behind win

Sox were down 5-0 and won with 6 runs scored in the bottom of the ninth inning!

Crack publicist John Blake, with the assistance of the Elias Sports Bureau, put the comeback in context yesterday:

"It was just the second time in franchise history the Sox have been shut out through the first eight innings, trailed by five or more runs in the ninth, and won. The other time was May 30, 1931, when the Sox, a last-place team, scored six times in the ninth to beat the world champion Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5, in the second game of a doubleheader."

holocaust documents released

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer




AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Diplomats from 11 countries agreed Tuesday to bypass legal obstacles and begin distributing electronic copies of documents from a secretive Nazi archive, making them available to Holocaust researchers for the first time in more than a half century.


The decision was meant to avoid further delays in allowing Holocaust survivors to find their own stories and family histories, and for historians to seek new insights into Europe's darkest period.

The countries governing the archive maintained by the International Tracing Service approved a plan to begin transferring scanned documents as soon as they are ready so that receiving institutions can begin preparing them for public use, said a delegate, requesting anonymity because a formal announcement was due later Tuesday.

The decision circumvents the requirement to withhold the documents until all 11 countries ratify the 2006 treaty amendments that enabled the unsealing of the documents. Ratification is still pending in four countries, and Tuesday's vote was likely to shave several months from the distribution timetable.

Until now, the files maintained in the central German town of Bad Arolsen have been used to track missing people, reunite families, and later to validate restitution claims. The Tracing Service is an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Three countries, the United States, France and Germany, pledged to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to offset costs for preparing and transmitting the papers, said the delegate.

But some U.S. survivors expressed dismay that the documents will remain restricted to a single place — the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington — and that they won't have unfettered access.

"I'm anxious, because 105 people from my immediate family did not make it. I am the only survivor," said David Schaecter, of Miami, Fla. "How do I obtain what I am rightfully entitled to obtain — (to know) what happened to these 105 people," he said.

The archive contains Nazi records on the arrest, transportation, incarceration, forced labor and deaths of millions of people from the year the Nazis built their first concentration camp in 1933 to the end of the war. It also has a vast collection of postwar records from displaced persons camps.

The name index refers to 17.5 million victims, and the documents fill 16 miles of shelves. But the archive is indexed according to names, making it difficult to use them for historical research.

Seized by the Allies from concentration camps and Nazi offices after of the war, the files were closed under a 1955 agreement to protect the privacy of survivors and the reputation of the dead who may have undergone humiliating medical experiments or been falsely accused of crimes.

Last year's amendments to the 1955 accords, reached after years of negotiation and resistance by several members, stipulated that some privacy guarantees remain. A single copy of the documents would be available for each of the 11 member states to be used "on the premises of an appropriate archival repository."

Each government was expected to take into account "the sensitivity of certain information" the files may contain, the new agreement said.

In addition to the United States,Israel and France indicated they also would seek copies.

The seven countries that have ratified the treaty amendments are the United States, Israel, Poland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain. Endorsement was awaited from Luxembourg, Greece, Italy and France.

Blood Diamond

In college when I got my ear pierced, I remember I wanted a diamond stud for it. I never got one, and after watching "Blood Diamond" on dvd last night, I am kind of glad that I never did.

The girls had their soccer practice last night and it was really cool to watch them, J. loves playing defense and N. still has a very powerful kick with her left foot. I love that N. is a lefty.

Mom's visit is good so far, and tomorrow I think we both are going by bus to a parade with N&J.

I have been listening to the new Black Rebel Motorcycle cd lately in my car and it sure does sound good played loud, very bluesy and raw with great guitars.