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Welcome to the new home of Tommy TwoStep. (T2S) This is a vision I am expounding on. You probably notice the logo for my mythical character at the top of the page. No face, hat on crooked, and a suit shirt and tie. You wonder what he is thinking, or I, the creator the Tommy TwoStep is thinking. Well, frankly I don't know. The sketch came to me during my many hours of daydreaming and doodling in my notebook trying to make it through another collegiate class. You can read the entire behind the scenes, in-depth story behind my creation on my T2S story page. What has sprung from my brainstorming ideas, is to go to press with creative designs with slang, logos, and quirks on them that will be popular among many audiences. Most of the slang has come from myself and my close friends as we spend numerous hours jawing back and forth the weirdest stuff sometimes it seems. I don't want to call it Ellwood City slang but when I travel out of town, no one else seems to get it. Maybe I'm on to something, maybe I'm not. Anyways, enjoy the site and why you gotta blow the horn like that? -------------------- September 24, 2008: An article published on ESPN.com is based on Yankees falling dynasty, but notice the chart at the bottom of the article showing the number of position players and pitchers drafted by each franchise and the amount of at-bats and innings pitched. The Pirates show up middle of the road on # of position players drafted, but the Pirates have the sixth fewest number of major league at bats from the 18 position players drafted and groomed into MLB talent since 1997. Amazingly, just this year McLouth and Dome Piece probably have contributed over one-eighth of those 7,533 major league at-bats.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=nflrankings/1-10/080917 Your Pittsburgh Steelers franchise: ranked #2, barely behind the Dallas Cowboys. But back to baseball (at least until the season is over), I got to witness my first "Manny being Manny" moment at the Pirates/Dodgers game yesterday from me and my fathers seats two rows behind the Dodgers dugout. Play summary: a pop up is hit to shallow left field. Manny practically walks (jogs) in from his position, but not nearly in enough time, shortstop Angel Berrora makes a ridiculous over the shoulder backhanded catch 20 feet into left field for the third out of the inning. Trotting off the field Manny is laughing hysterically. It was perfect.
September 18, 2008: I'm excited to be attending a mid-September, afternoon baseball game between the lowly Pirates and the now surging Los Angeles Dodger. I am excited to be able to take in Manny Ramirez who is punishing National League pitching at a close to .400 clip. (NOTE: to go along with his over .500 OBP and .700 slugging percentage). I am keeping my fingers crossed that Manny is in the lineup for the 12:35pm game the day after a night game. I am equally excited to watch Dodger starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw, a 20-year old drafted three slots behind the Pirates' Brad Lincoln (#6 overall) in the first round of the 2006 MLB draft. Kershaw is currently the youngest player in the majors and has 88 strikeouts in his first 96 innings pitched. A quick Wikipedia search of the 2006 draft class reveals Tim Lincecum (#10 overall) and Max Scherzer (#11 overall) as young, promising pitching prospects who are now pitching in the majors. Both pitchers, along with today's starter Kershaw, were drafted after Brad Lincoln. *sigh* August 6, 2008: Ok. It's official. It's been a looooong time between postings, but it's official: Is it football season yet?. The Pirates are on a four game skid, eleven games under .500, and with the Steeler preseason opening up this Friday against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Bucs are more and more on the backburner into the dog days of summer. Now I could completely jump on the Steeler preseason bandwagon and watch the Steeler-Eagles game, but instead I am traveling across state to meet a buddy in Philadelphia and take in a Pirates-Phillies game Friday Night. Call me stupid or call me a baseball fan.
The Pirates have a promoted Steve Pearce in right field batting .208 in nine MLB games, (and losing time to Jason Michaels!?!?), two injured LaRoches at the corner infield positions, including Andy who is 2-16 since his trade to the Pirates, and finally Brandon Moss who is quietly hitting .313 in his five games as a Bucco. I like to bitch. I am a Pirates fan. Dome Piece Update: Ryan Doumit is raking! Doumit leads all MLB catchers (minimum of 250 at bats) in Batting Average, Slugging Percentage, and On-base Plus Slugging. He ranks ahead of Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, and that bitch Soto for the Cubbies. Plus Doumit unofficially leads in my books in the attempts to stretch singles into double but getting thrown out category. Ouch. -------------------- April 22, 2008:
Even more interesting is the below AIM conversation: LittleThieve: not one starter has
touched the seventh inning all year
My fixation with Pittsburgh Pirate centerfield Nate McLouth has just moved to a man crush. He has been absolutely amazing for the Pirates so far in this young season. After last nights ninth inning, two out, three-run, game winning homerun to boost the visiting Pirates (now 7-6 baby!) over the Los Angeles Dodgers I went researching and starting jotting down some McLouth statistics like a young school girl doodling about her high school crush. McLouth is garnering a thirteen-game hitting streak, at least one hit in every game, to go with his .383 average, and has a team-high 14 RBIs out of the leadoff spot for the Buccos. The 26-year old has a 13 game hitting streak and leads Major League Baseball with 23 hits. This coming from a MLB leading 60 ABs out of that leadoff spot for the Pirates who have suddenly won 4 straight on the strength of some good pitching and timely hitting. Out of McLouth's MLB leading 23 hits, eight have gone for doubles, tying him for 2nd in the MLB in that category. McLouth is tied for 3rd in the MLB with 11 runs scored. All these eye-popping statistics result in McLouth being one of only 14 NL players, and one of 21 MLB players, with a OPS (On-Base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage) of over 1.000. McLouth can now be spoken in the same breath as other leadoff batters as Ramirez and Furcal and sluggers PuJols, Berkman, Utley, Holliday and Chipper Jones. Oh yeah, add Pirate rightfielder Xavier Nady to that list of +1.000 OPS sluggers. -------------------- March 16, 2008: What a weekend. Pitt runs the table as a 7 seed in the Big East Tournament and captures its second Big East Championship in the past eight years Saturday night. That is something I could only imagine Jared ranting and raving about around the office, on the phone, making coffee, and on and on, as he was probably one of the biggest Pitt basketball fans I knew. Also something that would of got JB going, the Pittsburgh Penguins continued their strong play in abusing the Philadelphia Flyers (Failures) 7-1 Sunday afternoon. What good memories. One year after the unexpected death (3/15/07) of my good friend Jared I still have empty moments thinking of how much Jared would be enjoying these Pittsburgh sport moments. I can still remember last year around this time when Jared was making his quick picks in the NCAA tournament bracket. I think its only fitting that Coach Bobby Knight picked #4 Pittsburgh to win the entire bracket during the ESPN Backetology show Sunday night. RIP Jared Boone. "You down with E-R-C? Yeah, me and JB. You down with E-R-C? Yeah, me and EV." -------------------- February 20, 2008: Notice in the picture on the index page -- Smitty and I each have shirts on from high school senior projects. Smitty is wearing a shirt from a baseball camp and my shirt is from a 3-on-3 basketball tournament I held for my senior project. The First (and only) Annual V Classic. That seems like forever ago and I have since lost the shirt. Man the dorm life at Slippery Rock was a life altering experience. You meet new people, new friends, including Michael Pruss (pictured) who would randomly stop in your room and try to snuggle with Smitty amongst other things, including the mangina and wet dog trick he would pull off with his manhood. All this was something Smitty warmed up to and played along with, but as you can see from the picture -- kinda freaked me out. Anyways, Pruss was/is a good friend from my years at college and Smitty, well, we were roommates for one semester and -- god damn it -- it was a great semester in the dorms. P.S. Yeah, I spelled Slippery wrong in the image on the index page. Goes to show the valued education I got from the university. Plus, I didn't save the editable document, so I can't go back and make the simple text change. Oh well. -------------------- January 12, 2008:
TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS December 26, 2007: What better way to get into the holiday season than rock out some vintage, Goodwill store found Christmas sweaters. Unfortunately we couldn't rock them out to bowling league night until the day after Christmas, but the idea was still there. Team uniforms baby! It actually paid off. Our team bowled rather well and we had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. The blurry picture is compliments of my whacked out camera-phone and my whacked out brother.
-------------------- December 21, 2007: HAPPY HOLIDAYS! With the Steelers, Penguins, and Panthers all playing Thursday Night, it was an all around good night for Pittsburgh sports -- all three teams won. In dramatic fashion the Panthers won on a last second three point field goal to defeat previously undefeated Duke, the Penguins eeked out a shootout win over the Bruins after blowing a four goal lead, and the Steelers basically blew out the Rams but unfortunately lost Willie Parker to injury. I can't even begin to imagine how much of a chatterbox JB would be right about now. His head would be so inflated with pro-Pittsburgh material, not even his broad shoulders would be able to support it.
-------------------- November 29, 2007: I finally posted by artwork on the beach picture seen on the index page. Two weeks ago I visited Top Sail, North Carolina and stayed at a beach house for a weekend with my family. As a rather quiet beach, there wasn't much to do on a lazy Saturday, with the college football games being a bore, and the ocean water tooooo cold to tip-toe in, I found myself wondering the beach property drawing in the sand. What again began as a couple of lines quickly morphed into a 20 foot Tommy Two Step logo drawn in the sand. What a feat! HERE's YOUR AD. As afternoon quickly turned into a colder night, the tides rose and the Atlantic Ocean waters snatched Tommy TwoStep's iconic top hat from his head and soon took most of, if not, the entire logo back. WHERE'S YOUR HEAD AT? The end of November also marks the approximate one-year anniversary of my own website. It began very bare with mininal text, logo, and pictures, but as many find out... one year makes a huge difference. For me though, not much has changed... I'm still the wild, sporatic guy you see in most of the pictures and the hopeless, empty-hearted romantic looking for a date on the weekend...
-------------------- November 8, 2007:
Well, I guess we can't rock the Philly Failures t-shirts two years in a row. After suffering a 3-1 defeat to the Flyers last night, the Pens dropped to 7-7 while the Flyers climbed into first place in the division (early-on). Last year the Flyers were the laughing stock of the Eastern Conference, finishing in last place, and the Penguins swept all eight games from them prompting T2S to press the Philly Failures t-shirt in which I wore to their eighth and final meeting last March (p.s. RIP JB -- I will never forget we rocked the shirts to the game and then after the game, in the parking lot, I sold Jared's nacho stained XXL shirt for $10). I guess we will have to find a new team to pick on this year. New Jersey Devils anyone? Nah, its gots to be the Failures The middle of November also marks the one year anniversary of tommytwostep.com. You can visit Page 2 and scroll back to all my old posts from last winter and I look forward to making new posts and memories this winter.
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-------------------- October 11, 2007: After quickly scanning ESPN.com during my lunch break at work and finding an interesting list of the top 50 moments in League Championship History. I send a quick email over to my two buddies with the link and quick note informing them to scroll down to the number 1 moment. A quick reply back from one of my buddies included a single statement: Already read it... and cried. The number 1 moment in LCS history was, of course, Franciso Cabrera's GW single, Game 7, 1992 (Braves vs. Pirates). The description: The most ultimate do-or-die situation in baseball history. The little-used Cabrera (only 10 at-bats in the regular season) pinch-hit with two outs, the bases loaded and Atlanta trailing 2-1. His single to left off Stan Belinda scored David Justice and the sloth-footed Sid Bream, who just beat the throw from Barry Bonds, capping the Braves' three-run rally. For the Pirates, it was the hit that destroyed a franchise: It was their third straight defeat in the NLCS and they haven't finished above .500 since. Is there another Pirate moment in the top 50? Nope and again everyone points to this defining moment in Pirate franchise baseball that put them into a (current) 15 years of losing curse. Red Sox had the curse of the Bambino. Cubs have the curse of the Billy Goat, Steve Bartman, etc. (probably tons more because they are crybabies). The White Sox had the curse of Shoeless Joe Jackson. Of course these went on for well over 60 years, but at some point this LCS #1 moment is going to have to gain recognition into something that absolutely demoralized, jinxed, or as ESPN called it - destroyed a franchise - for a decade and a half. It needs to have a cool curse name associated with it. The end of that season snowballed into Barry Bonds, amongst others, high-tailing out of Pittsburgh, led to the resignation of Jim Leyland, led to absolutely horrible baseball moves made by management and ownership that has put the franchise in the current state it is in. -------------------- October 9, 2007:
... "dot US" -------------------- September 22 - 25, 2007:
New York City, New York:
Yankees Baseball Game More text coming soon...
-------------------- August 30, 2007: Happy Birthday Jared Boone. Never forget the JB Mentality.
-------------------- August 27, 2007: (Note: Not the greatest URL for a wedding website, but it's gonna have to work. It was an old URL that I have registered and it might as well be used for something.) Page will be under construction until further notice. New terminology was discovered Sunday while golfing with my brother and cousin. SUSSY. (n.) A sucker and a sissy combined. "Man I hit that ball like a sussy." Yeah, that's right, that sentence came out of my mouth after a smashed a 4-iron like 20 yards. My brother's reaction? "What's a sussy?" It's my new terminology biotch! Now leave me alone my golf game is all whacked out too.
-------------------- August 22, 2007:
Finally got around to posting the ridiculous Ultimate Lookaway: Volume Two (for Volume One scroll down to March 26). I labeled this one organized chaos because, well, there was chaos at my brother's house a week ago for Amanda's birthday. Attempting to get seven chicks to pose for a picture should be any guy's dream, but when their combined attention span is oh look, a butterfly, wheee!!! Anyways, I had a great time trying to get some kind of organized picture together, but of course the best photos are those where NO ONE IS LOOKING AT THE CAMERA. And, when there is a creepy looking guy standing behind all the girls. Thanks Ryan!
-------------------- July 2, 2007: Ellwood City Ledger 10k Race Results I am not a runner. Cross this off my list of things to do before I die. Running in a 10K marathon. Fits snuggly in with tandem skydiving as the closest I’ve ever felt to dieing in my life. Hell, I’m not a conditioned runner let alone a marathon runner. I mean, I enjoy going for a short jog after lifting weights to break a nice cardio sweat you know, but 6.2 miles? I don’t think so. UPDATE! (read full blog here)
-------------------- June 8, 2007:
Ocean City, Maryland -- June 11-17 Tommy TwoStep will be sporting the board shorts, sandles, and T2S shirts for a full week on the beaches of Ocean City, Maryland. Temperatures call for low 80s all week long which is actually a bit cooler than temperatures in Ellwood City, but guess what, Ellwood City ain't got no beach! Plenty of time will be spent on the sand, both sulking in the sunlight as well as humiliating myself in front of ladies with plenty of "What's G'Up" moments that hopefully bear repeating at a later date. (We'll see how burnt I get... in more ways than one...)
-------------------- May 21, 2007:
Welcome to Preakness 2007 -- welcome to twelve hours of tailgating and partying before a horse race. That's right... a horse race. The Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore, Maryland. Saturday, May 19, 2007. The twelfth and final race of the day took place around 6:00 pm and for those of you at home doing the math, twelve hours earlier in the day is 6:00 am, which is exactly when we got to the race track. The three-point stance in the picture to the right is courtesy of my good pal and fellow Preakness-goer, Walnuts. [Note: Yeah, I had to go and update the rolling flash pictures at the top of the homepage with some random Preakness pictures from this past weekend. I got tired of seeing picture of myself from three years ago.]
-------------------- April 16, 2007:
"Tuesday's Coming" is actually a lyric to the O.A.R. song Dareh Meyod, one of my favorite jams. I lucked out. I posted the song on my webpage weeks ago, and they actually played the song Friday night. Their set list was quite strong and included some new songs that they are prepping for their new CD release sometime this summer. (What is Mine, What Ever Happened, and See You Cry) Personally, I don't like the new songs. I am a fan of the old songs, having been a fan for close to five years. Their older songs have deeper meaning and aren't written mainly for popular radio play which seems to be the route O.A.R is now taking. O.A.R. has been touring a lot with musician Michael Paris, who plays on the keyboard for the band. He is simply amazing. The sound he adds to the O.A.R. experience is great. He had a ridiculous piano solo Friday night to About Mr. Brown and also threw a wrench into the set list plans late in the show. Lead singer Marc Roeberg started to play a song, but the band wasn't all on the same page. It led to some minor confusion on stage, some restlessness in the audience, but in the end Marc finally solved the problem and preached: "Fuck it, let's play City on Down" and started jamming out the tune. Seconds into the song Michael is playing the keys, smiling, and pointing into the crowd. If I read his lips correctly, he was saying "You owe me." to someone in the crowd. See, the song City on Down wasn't on the initial set-list, but Michael Paris got the guys to play the song anyways. Concert = Awesome.
-------------------- April 1, 2007:
It is officially April, which means April Fool's Day, Easter, and the beginning of the Major League Baseball season! April also signifies the end of the Thought Process/Tommy TwoStep retail cart at the Beaver Valley Mall. [Note: see Thoughts page] The above comedic one-liner is courtesy of the late comedian, Mitch Hedberg. -------------------- If you can't see anything besides text on this website, click here and download Macromedia Flash Player. That way you will be able to look at the pictures and see vivid content posted above. Teace.
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It is also official,
Jason Bay and Xavier Nady are tearing the American League a new a-hole. 
So far in 2008 the Pirates starting
pitchers have yielded BAA/OBP/SLG/OPS splits of .302/.377/.459/.836
(not including Monday nights disastrous 10-4 defeat), Easily dead last in
the MLB in three of the four categories, only next to last to Houston
Astros in one. To put in perspective how well Pirate pitching is
letting its opponents badger them we will look at the offensive equivalent
of that for say, last year, the 2007 season. Who falls in line with those
offensive numbers? Try Derek Jeter at .322/.388/.452/.840.
So pretty much every time a Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher takes the mound,
they are pitching against a lineup of Derek Jeters. Those are
numbers I can feel confident hanging my hat on. How many rings does Jeter
have again? Interesting enough, a close second place with splits
equivalent to how bad the Pirate pitching staff blows this year -- turning
in '07 numbers of of .304/.343/.442/.784 -- current Bucco Freddy Sanchez.
April 15, 2008:
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