The Sonoma Stompers baseball team got lots of national pub for adding two female players to the roster last weekend. Kelsie Whitmore, 17, and Stacy Piagno, 25, both stars of the U.S. National Team, started for the local nine Friday night, making the Stompers the first co-ed professional baseball team since the Negro Leagues in the 1950. The story was picked up by ESPN, Sports Illustrated, MLB.com., The Washington Post, USA Today, Buzzfeed, NPR and a score more media outlets around the country. “We hope this sends a message to the rest of the baseball world that there is room for women and girls in this game, from Little League to the Major Leagues,” said Stompers GM Theo Fightmaster… As darkness fell on Arnold Field Monday night, an oddity befell the team and patrons: the game was called on account of fireworks. The umpires, worried about the effects of the impending sky show, stopped the contest after nine innings, score tied at 3. The game will be continued at a later date.
As Helen of Troy in the local production of “Helen of Egypt,” Anya Cherniss is a queen, a demi-goddess, the most beautiful woman in the world. By day, she works like the other half works, in this case as a barista at Peet’s. Still, it’s bit disconcerting to see the daughter of Zeus taking out the garbage. That’s what you call staying grounded.
Four years ago, the Sonoma City Council lobbied hard for Measure J, which added a one-half of one percent sales tax to transactions within city limits. Described then as a temporary measure to see the City through recessionary times, it passed with big numbers, making each of your lattes since then about two cents more expensive. Included in the-sky-is-falling scenario was a sunset clause – the tax ends without a new vote, this November. The current council has endorsed the ballot measure to protect that once-emergency revenue stream. And heck, it is only 50 cents on your $100 bar tab. But wouldn’t it be refreshing to have the balanced-budget Council end the tax – with or without a thank you for our help getting through some tough years – and come back when the money is critically needed? Of coarse not: over the last five years, that line item has gone from ‘temporary, glad to have it’ to ‘mandatory, can’t live without it.’
During Gay Wine Weekend, B&V Whiskey Bar & Grille’s Carlo Cavallo invented a colorful cocktail — the “Skyy Vodka Rainbow Sherbert” – with proceeds going to the OneOrlando Fund. “We love being supportive of our entire community, and after hearing about the tragedy in Orlando, we knew we wanted to do something special,” said Cavallo. Event producers Gary Saperstein and Mark Vogler of Out in the Vineyard felt it important to continue the celebrations of the annual Gay Wine Weekend, which drew over 600 people to Sonoma Valley this year. “We are a community that has always faced adversity our entire lives,” they said. “The community is not just Orlando; it’s not just LGBT. It’s everyone having so much empathy for the pain that we’re all facing. We want to thank Carlo and his staff for the wonderful evening we had to celebrate together, and for his generous donation to help support Orlando’s victims.”
–Val Robichaud
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