A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Guest Post

Some early season MLB Rookie of the Year candidates

Full disclosure: This is a paid sponsored post.

Though the baseball season is still relatively young, a few players have started to stand out as MLB Rookies of the Year candidates in each league. It’s impossible to say who will get the honors this year, but these five players have started to emerge as some of the favorites.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Kris Bryant

Kris Bryant is a powerful player with a great chance of winning this honor. During spring training, Bryant hit nine home runs in 40 at-bats. Despite his remarkable performance at spring training, the Chicago Cubs sent Bryant to play with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs.

It didn’t take long for him to be called up as he joined the Major League team in April and had massive coverage. Despite his first game being a little disappointing, he made his mark in May, when he hit his first MLB home run. Bryant has settled in and has seven home runs and is hitting nearly .300. If he can keep this up, he’ll have an excellent chance at Rookie of the Year honors.

Joc Pederson

Pederson might have a tough time competing against the overall performance of Bryant, but the 23-year-old outfielder with the Los Angeles Dodgers has considerable talent offensively and defensively. His power has been shown and he hit his first MLB grand slam on May 1. The 448-foot homer was the longest by a Dodger since 2012. It was also the first grand slam by a Dodger since Yasiel Puig hit one in 2013.

Pederson has 17 homers this year, but his average is in the .230s, well below what some other NL rookies are performing at. In the minors, Pederson was one of the top outfielders. He has excellent defensive skills, so that should help him in his quest to be Rookie of the Year. Fans can keep up to date with the growing competition between Pederson, Bryant and others with daily matchup or prediction reports that some websites offer daily.

Alex Guerrero

Pederson isn’t the only LA Dodger in this discussion. Guerrero, who grew up playing baseball in Cuba, defected from the country and moved to Haiti. He caught the attention of MLB scouts and started with the Dodgers in 2014.

Guerrero has plenty of experience against a diverse group of players. A versatile player, he’s hit 10 home runs this year and is batting .284.

In April, Guerrero was named the NL’s Rookie of the Month. This will definitely put him in the mix for the overall award at the end of the year and should have Dodger fans excited.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Steven Souza

Souza had a memorable career in the minors. Last season, while playing in the Washington Nationals organization, he was a Triple-A All-Star, and was named the Rookie of the Year and MVP for the International League. He was traded to Tampa Bay. He’s been known as a strong hitter through his career. Though struggling with his average, Souza has shown power, including a three-run shot to help Tampa Bay beat the Rangers in early May.

Though Souza may not be mentioned in all the other names between the NL and AL, he’s somebody who could make a push for this award.

Devon Travis

A strong second baseman drafted by Detroit in 2012, Travis joined the Toronto Blue Jays this past fall. He was playing strong with the organization until an injury set him back (and he’s currently on the disabled list), but should he get healthy, there’s no denying his chances at being Rookie of the Year.

His debut game with the Blue Jays featured a solo home run, and he was named the team’s Rookie of the Month for April. Should Travis return to the team healthy, he could make a strong push for the AL’s rookie honors.

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The rookies above are only a handful of those who could contend for Rookie of the Year honors. Others will have time to come into contention as well as the season is still young. Who are your picks at this time for this honor?

Fantasy Baseball: Four facts you should know

Full disclosure: This is a paid sponsored post with affiliate links.

You know baseball. And did you know Major League Baseball’s official historian, John Thorn, author of “Baseball in the Garden of Eden” has stated the honor of inventing the modern game of baseball belongs to Daniel Lucius Adams, Louis Fenn Wadsworth, and William Rufus Wheaten?

You also know fantasy baseball and which players to your roster.

The draft!

The draft!

But did you know that Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), an American author and poet, created a form of fantasy baseball when he was a child, and continued developing and playing the game for most of his life?

In addition to knowing how to play the game, what else do you know about fantasy baseball? Impress your friends with these facts about the history of fantasy baseball, the Rotisserie league, and the keeper league. Then go on to discus some of the funniest or most creative fantasy baseball team names.

History of Fantasy Baseball

Kerouac populated his fantasy baseball league with fictitious statistics and teams — the Pittsburgh Plymouths, New York Chevvies, Boston Grays, and Cincinnati Blacks. He also had made-up players such as Wino Love, Warby Pepper, Heinie Twiett, Phegus Cody, and Zagg Parker.

In 1961, IBM engineer John Burgeson wrote software for the IBM 1620 computer to simulate two teams playing each other. Strat-O-Matic, a company founded in 1961, sells a tabletop fantasy baseball game that replicates real statistics as accurately as possible. Players re-create past seasons and see the what happens with their own management decisions.

Rotisserie Baseball

Journalist Daniel Okrent, and other journalists, invented rotisserie-style baseball in 1980. Sometimes called “roto,” the name comes from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Française, where the originators first played the game.

This version of fantasy baseball, where players act as team managers, is more realistic in others in that it uses teams of current Major League Baseball players. Therefore, it simulates real the real decisions needed by managers to make predictions about the performances of their players for the current season.

Keeper Leagues

This method involved rolling over into succeeding years of your fantasy seasons. Keeper leagues allow the game players, or managers, to keep the players they want on their roster from the previous season, as well as having a fantasy draft to acquire new players.

There are variations in rules for different types of keeper leagues. In a salary cap league, an auction process or the player’s real salary will determine the fantasy salary. Another variation is the draft round values system, where a table indexed by the draft round and the player’s selection order determines the value of the player.

If playing in a fantasy league that goes on for years isn’t your thing, you can join a daily league like FanDuel. RotoGrinders.com has your back with FanDuel specials, along with advice to better your fantasy game.

Fantasy team names

Each year, fantasy baseball owners have several important tasks — winning the league is the main one. But the second? Having that clever name.

Giancarlo Ferrari-King, a featured columnist on the Bleacher Report, has compiled his list of his favorite names for the 2015 season. One of his best is The Balking Dead, a combination of a baseball “oops” and a take-off of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” Not only that, it has a great acronym — TBD. If you can’t think of a clever team name of your own, visit Team Names, a website featuring a random team name generator.

Have fun selecting your players, thinking of a clever name, and keeping your stress level down. May the best team win!

Guest post: 10 ways to try and avoid boredom

Guest post by Evan Darcy

One term we’re hearing more frequently in recent years is “time waster.” It might refer to any hobby, or an addictive app or game.

Indeed, it seems like we’re always being presented with new ways to “waste time,” or do away with boredom. So, just for fun, here are 10 different ways to avoid boredom — online and off.

1. Crafting hobbies

Crafting is a broad topic. For some, it might even mean painting, or doing woodwork. Most of us have a creative side and tapping into it gives you a great way to keep a side project going for when you need to waste time.

2. Online quiz sites

There are plenty of category specific quiz options online, all great for a bit of simple leisure, but nothing beats Sporcle. Just be careful not to spend more time than you can afford there!

3. Traditional gaming

Let’s not forget about ordinary gaming! Particularly if you pick up one of the next-gen consoles on the way, this can be a great way to spend an hour or two… or five.

4. Online gaming

Online gaming, in general, is a lot of people’s favorite way to pass an hour or two, but I might suggest taking it up a notch. The Betfair Games site is one option to consider if you’d like something that goes beyond basic, simple arcade play. At this site you basically encounter an entire casino community online — live games, arcade options, and much more, all with real money on the line.

5. E-Reading Samples

A Kindle or Nook gives you a great way to access your favorite books with ease, but one underrated aspect of them is the ability to sample e-books. Just as you might peruse iTunes looking for new music, you can sample five or 10 books in an hour’s time!

6. Reddit 

There are plenty of ways to incorporate social media in an post like this, but I settled for the service that combines the best of it all. If you’re not on Reddit yet and you’re looking for an online “time-waster,” look no further. It’s great for news and entertainment alike.

7. Short-burst workouts

If you want to be productive about your down time, use it for “short-burst” workouts like jumping jacks, push-ups, etc. More and more fitness experts are recommending short, high-intensity bursts for productive workouts, anyway!

8. Plants vs. Zombies 2

Seriously — this one game can keep you occupied on your smartphone as long as all your other games combined.

9. Writing

Again, this is a way to tap into that creative side. Whether it’s poetry, a diary, short stories, blogging, or even song lyrics, having a writing project to turn to when you’re bored can be lovely.

10. Read posts/articles like this one

Ever wonder why sites like Buzzfeed are so popular? List-style articles and “top-10s” are always entertaining, and give you a reliable way to pass time!

Evan Darcy is a freelance writer and blogger on a range of topics relating to entertainment.

Guest post: ‘Royal Flush’ shows rejection isn’t bad

(Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is by Scott Bartlett, the author of Royal Flush. This is a book I’ll be reviewing in the future. He’s doing a blog tour this month and today he’s visiting us. Enjoy!)

Good day, readers of A ‘lil HooHaa. I come to you not only to complete today’s stop on the blog tour for my humor novel Royal Flush, but also to psychoanalyze myself, and figure out what it is that caused me to write a book of this nature.

Royal Flush, you see, is about a man known only as the King — an incredibly incompetent man, who is morally bankrupt and who endures repeated romantic failures, one after another.

Some of my friends have suggested that the King is based on me.

Scott Bartlett (not the King!)

I object to that interpretation, for obvious reasons. I truly don’t think the King is me, or that I’m the King (something you may be relieved to hear). But I do think the King’s hilarious ineptness when it comes to ladies stems from real frustration.

Let me begin again. Royal Flush is a novel that asks the question: can a man who throws his dates in a dungeon succeed romantically?

It’s divided into four parts, and in each one the King fails spectacularly with yet another girl. (Whether this happens in the last part is something I can not, of course, divulge here.)

He is a man of astounding depravity. At one point, he must defend his castle against a siege with only his royal fiddler, while trying to steal his royal fiddler’s girlfriend.

I’ve wanted to be a fiction writer since I was 15. Back then, I tried to write a novel, but gave up halfway through the third chapter. I tried again in high school, but I still had a major problem: what the hell was I going to write about?

I wrote a terrible science fiction novel, which no one is allowed to read and which I will never do anything with. And once I got to university, I still had the same problem—an utter lack of experience.

But wait. There was one thing I had ample experience in doing — getting rejected repeatedly by beautiful women!

Yes, I realized, I had plenty of romantic rejection stories — both of the short, blunt kind and the drawn-out, brutal kind.

I didn’t base the King’s experiences directly on these stories, just as I didn’t base the King directly on me. (I swear!) But I’d been rejected so many times that I started to become amused at the consistency. Throughout high school, I was unable to secure even one date!

Being a helpless egomaniac, my self-esteem was still robust. But I decided to write a book about the sort of character who would be universally rejected by women. Simply being a jerk was not enough — plenty of jerks get girls. This man would have to be utterly debauched, and completely moronic.

I repeat: the King = NOT ME!

You know what? All that rejection was good for me. As a writer, an immunity to repeated rejection has served me well. In this field, you have to get used to your manuscripts constantly getting turned down by agents, publishers, and competition judges.

Also, being okay with rejection has come in handy as a person who seeks romance, which I have found and lost a few times since writing Royal Flush. I’m confident I’ll find it again, though — and I know how to go about doing it.

Scott Bartlett has been writing fiction since he was 15. His recently released novel, Royal Flush, is a recipient of the H. R. (Bill) Percy Prize. Feel free to follow Scott on Twitter. You can find the book on Amazon (Kindle/Paperback)

Holga Challenge – Your Town: Kuwait City, Kuwait

This is what your regular Kuwaiti suburb looks like. I pass by this street every day on my way to uni. I’d normally hate it, except for the fact that both of my grandparents’ houses are across this street. I could always make a stop there if I didn’t feel like going to class. They don’t mind!

Note: This is the fifth in a series of six stories that are being done by participants of the HooHaa Holga Challenge. The rest will run through Friday. See information for the rest at the bottom of this post.

By Nada AlMarshad

My love for medium format photography began when I purchased my Holga back in early 2009.

I didn’t know much about film photography back then, and getting a toy camera felt right at the time. I instantly fell in love with this camera the minute I held it in my hands, and grew to appreciate it even more since then.

Each Tuesday, our local supermarket has sales on the fruit and vegetables section. Finding a parking spot on a Monday morning is almost always impossible. According to mom, either you go very early in the morning, or don’t bother going at all.

All of my favorite photos that I have taken over the years had one thing in common — they were taken with a Holga! The nature of this camera gave me room to experiment with film and techniques without being afraid to ruin it.

I used to be an avid photographer, always trying different styles of photography until I found the ones that suited me best. That was until I started university in late 2009.

I enrolled in Kuwait University’s civil engineering program, a very demanding major that requires a lot of hard work and dedication (even sleepless nights at times!) School took most, if not all, of my time.

Two years went by and I felt like I wasn’t improving as a photographer. I started to lose interest in photography all together, until the end of 2011. I read a quote by Henri Cartier-Bresson (my hero!) and it stuck with me forever.

Sharq seafront promenade. A cool place to chill and read a book (but definitely not in the summer, unless you fancy a sunburn!) For some reason, I always find myself coming to this place whenever I get a new camera and want to shoot a test roll. I shot my first Holga film at location three years ago.

He said, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

It all made sense to me.

I made it my goal to challenge myself as a photographer this year, and take whatever opportunity presented to me to try something new, and just keep taking pictures. Naturally, this challenge was perfect to me. Another reason I decided to do this challenge is to re-discover the beauty of my own town, something that I desperately needed in the midst of the political chaos my country is going through.

I’m mostly used to taking photos when I’m abroad, since it’s easier to snap pictures of people when you’re a tourist. Carrying my Holga with me wherever I go and taking it out whenever I see something interesting and worth capturing was a challenge by itself, since people here are a tiny bit sensitive about having their pictures taken by a complete stranger, which I totally understand.

A very popular fishing spot. These kids were very camera shy at first, but after I talked to them, they didn’t mind me taking pictures. The building in the background is a huge fish market.

Another one of the difficulties was using 400ISO film. I usually work with either 100, 160, or 200 ISO film. Fast films (+400 ISO) will always result in overly-exposed frames, since it’s almost always sunny outside.

Now, back to my home town.

Kuwait City is the heart of this country. All together, Kuwait is roughly about the size of the state of New Jersey — 17,820 km to be precise.

Kuwait City occupies about 200 km of the area. That’s about 1.12% of the country, so you can imagine how tiny it is!

More fishing.

From the famous Kuwait Towers, to the Seif Palace, to theNational Museum, to the tallest sculpted tower in the world (Al Hamra Tower, that is), Kuwait City is home to most of the country’s landmarks.

What I love most about Kuwait City is the mix of the old and the new, which is greatly reflected in the architecture.

You have high-rise buildings at one side of the city, and the old souks at the other, and somehow the two blend so well together.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them, even though I know they won’t do this beautiful city any justice.

More images from Nada’s challenge are below:

The Kuwaiti parliament, or as they call it, Majlis AlUmmah (House of the Nation). I absolutely love the exterior of this building (not so much a fan of what’s going *inside* though). Anyway, the building was designed by the great Danish architect ?Jørn Utzon? sometime in the 70’s. (Same guy who did the Sydney House of Opera. Awesome, isn’t?)

Since the temperature can reach up to 52C during the summer, it’s very common to see ice cream vendors roaming the streets. (And if you happen to catch one, always go for Barrid Lulu! Best ice-cream .150 fils could buy)

One of the alleys of Souq AlMubarkeya. Kuwait’s oldest, and largest traditional market. You can find pretty much everything at reasonable price there if you are good at bargaining. Beside the shops, the souk includes a fish market, farmers markets for fresh fruits and vegetables, and a gold market. Interesting combination, I know. Also, if you happen to be a street photographer, this place is excellent for you.

Dalag Suhail, a restaurant in Souk AlMubarkeya, where they specialize in serving traditional dishes. It’s usually packed during the winter, when they serve the tea kettle on a coal plate.

Restaurants in Souq Almubarkeya.

The front of a Bisht* store. The sign on the left reads “Worn by the grandparents. Inherited by the grandchildren. Made from the finest wool.” (*Bisht: a traditional Arabic men’s cloak popular in Arabia and some Arab countries. Mainly worn for special occasions.)

Marina Mall, the second largest shopping mall in Kuwait. Between all the shopping malls in Kuwait City (not complaining since I’m a bit of a shopaholic), this, by far, id the quietest.

See  more of Nada on the web:

HooHaa Holga Challenge:

Day six of the HooHaa Holga Challenge is Thursday, with P.J. and Delhi, N.Y.