Know That Owner: Ralph Bedwell

We're rolling out our updated blog with a new feature: Know That Owner. Brief bios of Mordecai owners so we can put some real people to those WIS usernames. I'll start!

As some of you know around these parts, I'm Ralph Bedwell, or rbedwell on WIS. To the right you can see me during Spring Training with Dover Diamonds' slugger Dude Perez (I'm the one in the sunglasses); now that I look at it, I can see why so many other teams have said, "That Perez is a monster!" As you can tell by all the gray hair, I'm an old guy. I always tell my students that I'm 112 -- which sadly some of them believe -- but actually I'm 54. What you'd notice first thing about me is that I'm 6'3" and weigh in at around 250.

When not engrossed in HBDland, I teach tenth grade English at Kennedy High School in Richmond, CA. It's your typical inner city school, with gang violence, poverty, high dropout rate, a busy childcare center, etc. Teaching at JFK is a big challenge, but the kids there need good teachers a lot more than the kids in the 'burbs, which is what keeps me plugging through the day-to-day frustrations.

Family is the biggest thing in my life, though. Despite being a near-Methuselah, my wife and I have three young kids, daughters aged 5 and 9, and a 12-year-old son. My wife just turned 40 herself, so I have to stay young to keep up with all of them! We love going places as a pack -- museums, parks, zoos, aquariums, science centers, libraries, parks, hiking trails, book sales, etc.

Somehow I've managed to become over-educated. I have a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and two M.S. degrees from C.S.U. East Bay. For years, my secret goal has been to become a college instructor, but those jobs are hard to come by in the S.F. Bay Area, so no-go so far.

Sim baseball has been a hobby since I was a kid. I made up a dice game, sort of a crude APBA, that I played for years, then eventually got engrossed in the Bill James Classic Game, which was sort of like WIS sim baseball except it was played by telephone and snail mail (which was delivered by the Pony Express, of course). HBD is the best one yet, slam dunk. See ya'll on the virtual field!

If you're into Facebook, look me up and add me as a friend.