Column by Rick S. Alvord

Sports Editor

There are advantages to being a relic in tennis shoes.

For starters, I get a lot of vacation time. Not an obscene amount, just more than the average coffee barista and less than a school teacher.

Because of the nature of my profession, pretty much all of my vacation must be taken in the summer when high school sports is quiet. In about a month, Longview-Kelso is hosting the Babe Ruth 13-15 World Series, with the all-star squads from both cities competing against the nation’s eight greatest teams Aug. 21-28 at David Story Field.

The start of prep football immediately follows, which means the vacation is over in mid-August.

For someone of my advancing age, having the opportunity to recharge the mental battery means everything. But it hasn’t been all naps and pudding snacks. Here’s what’s happened so far on my summer vacation:

June 8: Made brief contact with my inner self by watching "The View." Elisabeth Hasselbeck is especially annoying. Makes you wonder how Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck — the annoying one’s brother-in-law — can handle those family get-togethers. She must drive our poor QB straight up a plum tree.

One more observation: Barbara Walters isn’t bad looking for a woman in her 90s.

June 10: Spent the afternoon watching Felix Hernandez baffle the Baltimore Orioles in a 4-1 victory at Camden Yards. This guy is blessed. He’s barely old enough to order a martini and the baseball world is at his feet. Let’s hope the Mariners can wrap him up with a long-term contract extension in the near future.

King Felix is making $3.8 million this season — a blue-light special compared to what some of the game’s other dominant pitchers are paid.

June 19: Someone tried to sell me an iPhone. Told me I could get up-to-the-moment scores and highlights from the major leagues, NFL and NBA, as well as college football and basketball. This flashy gadget also included video games, Twitter access and, I’m pretty sure, a pop-up George Foreman grill.

No thanks. If I can remember how to turn my current cell phone on and off every day, it’s cause for back flips. Besides, who in the world needs to know via Twitter that I’m watching "The View?"

June 30: "The View" is a rerun. Instead, it’s an hour with Drew Carey and "The Price Is Right." Between spins of the big wheel for the Showcase Showdown, I come up with a semi-brilliant idea for the major leagues.

What if every club, including the Mariners, were allowed one steroid-infested player? Just one, no more. Of course, the team would have to order a giant cap and a giant uniform for the designated ’roider, and there would be concern over whether he would grow gills and mutate into an alien, then attack fans in the front row.

It certainly would make the game, let’s say, more entertaining.

July 3: Followed a car going 8 mph down Nichols Boulevard. The person inside appeared to be shopping for Lake Sacajawea Fourth of July bargains out of the passenger-side window.

Why can’t I remember to take 30th Avenue?

July 5: Fireworks went off at 1:45 a.m. What kind of slack-jawed idiot lights bottle rockets when 90 percent of his neighbors are sleeping? A guy who spent $450 at the Indian reservation and plans on getting his money’s worth, even if it takes ’til October.

July 13: Watched the All-Star Game’s Home Run Derby from the new Busch Stadium. Is it me, or is Chris Berman’s "back-back-back" home-run call getting a bit worn and tattered?

The event made me reminisce about the only big-league Home Run Derby that I’ve ever covered, held in 2001 at Safeco Field in Seattle. Luis Gonzalez of the Diamondbacks won it, but the one guy I’ll remember most was a steroid-popping (allegedly, yes; but c’mon!) Jason Giambi of the Athletics.

On that sun-splashed Puget Sound evening, he deposited baseballs into all three right-field decks with video-game ease. I think one of his skyscraper taters nearly dented the side of an Alaska Airlines 737 as it prepared for landing into Sea-Tac.

And I’m pretty sure he grew gills afterward.

July 17: Played golf at Mint Valley directly behind a threesome led by Gaston De La Torre, the former Hockinson High School star now playing for New Mexico State University. Gaston, who won the Columbia Ford Open at Mint Valley over the weekend, ripped his drive on the first hole about 310 over the sand traps.

Sickening. Downright sickening.

On the sixth hole, I found one of Gaston’s golf balls resting on the gravel path above the fairway. Instead of asking him to autograph it, just in case he made the PGA Tour some day, I did something incredibly stupid. I gave it back to him.

July 20: Played golf at Three Rivers in a threesome that included Jim Taylor, the 54-year-old Longview man who lost both arms at age 10 when he accidentally came in contact with a 7,300-volt power line on the roof of his grandparents’ home.

There aren’t too many words to choose from to sum up an afternoon of golf with Jim. So I’ll go with a short one: WOW.

The man gripped the golf club with hooks. He made a smooth takeaway, a short backswing and a clean, crisp downward move through the hitting zone. Straight — every single time.

Sickening. Downright sickening.

I had written a story about Jim last summer. But until I played golf with him, I didn’t fully understand how uniquely remarkable his skill was.

July 22: Came to work to write about my summer vacation. Missed "The View." Wonder what that crazy Hasselbeck woman had to say today?

I’m telling you, Matt, avoid your sister-in-law until after January and the Seahawks just might make the Super Bowl.