ShoreTel, the Giants and yes, the Blue Jays - Right Place, Right Time

I haven't blogged about baseball in a while, but that doesn't mean I'm not following it. If I didn't have to work for a living, I'd be doing that all day long, along with writing about cooking, music, cinema and culture. Otherwise, I'm happy to steer you to my previous posts - just scan the Boston Red Sox category, listed in the sidebar of the homepage of this blog.

Those who know me well  know that baseball is a major passion, and a few threads have come together this week that call for a quick post.

First, of course, is the World Series. Really, who thought the Giants would be here? Still hard to believe, but they sure made it look easy in Game 1. Different path, but same result last night. WHY did they try to score Fielder in the 2nd? Dumb move. Slowest guy on the team - hold him up and you have 1st and 3rd with no outs - I'll take those odds any day to plate at least 1 run in that inning. That could have been enough to win. The throw even missed the cutoff man, and they still threw him out - yeesh.

Giants have the mojo again this year - plain and simple. Detroit needs a parade so bad - I really feel for them. If the NHL lockout continues, there may not be a Winter Classic, and guess where that's supposed to be? Yup. U of M Stadium, Ann Arbor - Wings and Leafs. I've been there - now, that's a big crowd.

Oh, and speaking of the stars not lining up, the Giants are a decent team, but how cool would a Tigers-Cardinals WS have been? If you're old enough to remember 1968, you'll likely agree with me that's right up there for all-time great finals, especially if you like pitching. Bob Gibson and Mickey Lolich EACH pitched 3 complete games - it's just so unthinkable by today's pitch-count driven standards. Al Kaline is one of my all time faves - he fell 1 HR short of 400, but got 3,007 hits - how criminal is that? Only 8 players ever got 400 HR and 3000 RBI - soooo close to being #9. At least he got his WS ring in '68 - there is some justice in Tiger-land.

Back to 2012 - and some telecom too. Watching the opener on Wed, I just had to smile and think back to March, when I attended ShoreTel's analyst day, where they shared their initial roadmap for how the M5 Networks acquisition was going to tie in with their business.

Well, they hosted the event at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Naturally, it was a dreary, rainy day, but that didn't spoil our fun during the stadium tour. I included a few photos of the park on my blog post about the event, and if you're a fan of their stadium, you'll like this. You'll like it even more if you want to see what complexity looks like in terms of the telephony infrastructure that ShoreTel has replaced there.

I didn't think much of it then, but it was really cool to wander freely about an empty ballpark, and needless to say, I took a lot more photos. Thought I'd share a couple of shots that you're not likely to see anywhere else.

Behind home plate - how often do you ever see an ungroomed baseball field - no base paths, no mound, no plate area. Well, you have now!

The view deep and low in the right field corner - cool, huh?

Enough said and shown. Here we are, 7 months later, and the ballpark is a lot busier! Thanks for the event, ShoreTel, and kudos for making a big splash with M5 the same year as the Giants being here, in both of your home towns. Not to mention both of you having the same color schemes - that's good marketing - brilliantly simple, right?

This alone is enough for a nice baseball post, but there's more! Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of the Toronto Blue Jays first of back-to-back World Series wins. That was pretty cool, especially being the first WS title won outside of the U.S. It was also special for me, not just being in Toronto, but also because my first son - Max, whom many of you know - was born on that date. So, he's also 20 - wow - where did the time go?