Hanley Ramriez

Oh, Hanley, you once were so talented and full of hope and life and the future. The Red Sox shipped your younger self out to Miami with Anibal Sanchez and a few others who don't really figure into 2011 for Josh Beckett. They threw in a few more players because your current team demanded that they eat Mike Lowell's contract, and they said OK. In the end, those guys combined to help Boston to the 2007 World Series over the exhausted Colorado Rockies who had ripped through the end of the 2007 series like a dream.
From September 16 to October 1st, they lost one time. The final game was 13 innings. The game before that was tied 1-1 until the bottom of the 8th, when the Rockies tacked on a 3 spot. In the end, they almost lost that 1 by allowing 2 runs in the 9th, but they won, and then they beat the Phillies 3 straight and the Diamondbacks 4 more games straight. From that point, it was a matter of waiting for the Red Sox to finish up the Indians in 7, and well, bodies get tired, and when streaks end, so does karmic energy that drives a season to something good.
And maybe that's what has happened to Hanley Ramirez who is currently out of the lineup since May 29th (a game he only played for 1 at bat). He's batting .210 for the year and the 4 home runs he hit aren't much. In the end, he is yet another player who once had so much value in serious decline. This is more of a sign of something scarier than The Year of the Pitcher Part 2 (mark my words).
According to Stephania Bell of ESPN (what, a female fantasy baseball player / writer? Can I possibly use this to my advantage to get my wife playing?!!):

Ramirez has been dealing with severe back pain and intermittent sciatica over the past week, and it appears ever more likely that he will make his way onto the DL.

In another blog, she quotes him as saying:

"I feel it doing anything. I can't even put my shoes on. To get up from bed I have to take 10, 15 seconds. I have to do everything slow,' Ramirez said. "That's the worst pain I've ever had in my life, in my career."

 That's not good for him, for Anibal Sanchez's hopes of winning a lot, for the Florida Marlins hopes of competing long term this year, and for the 8 fans of regular season baseball at Sun Life Stadium.
We can only hope that he gets better, and while he gets better, he chooses to come back a team player that we can all like and support again, so that when he eventually takes his 6 year $70million contract somewhere else when the Marlins decide to rebuild from scratch again (as they always do), we can feel good about him being the new shortstop (instead of Marco Scutaro or Jed Lowrie or someone less flashy and worthy of getting a $150million mega contract).

Dan Uggla

Dr. Kevorkian is dead, and while Kurt Vonnegut may want God to bless him, I don't know how I feel. Sometimes, I think that there are too many babies being born into this world, and then I think that my wife was #10 out of 11 kids, and I'm pretty dang happy that her parents kept procreating. But then I go back to Jack, and he's dead, and nothing is going to bring him back. Nothing is going to stop the terminal illnesses of many of his patients, those that wanted or got his help during those times. Nothing is going to help the ones who suffered painfully from the same thing that Lou Gehrig suffered from. And I can't say that I would want to go that way, and I wouldn't want anyone I loved to suffer that way either, but I don't know if I'd want some creepy old dude with a suicide machine setting me up for my final end.

Just press this button and it will release poison into your veins through the IV that I've set up.

And maybe we've gone on in life as a people long past the point where we're truly ripe. Joseph Heller said something about that, too, when he wrote Catch 22 and spilled the secret of Snowden all over the plane. Life is everything. Being able to live and do the things that we want to do before we get too old and too feeble to go to the good places. I think of my dad not wanting to be alive if he can't hunt and fish. I think to myself of all the joy I get through the physical exercise of hiking while experiencing the beauty of the woods and the world around me as my legs carry me to waterfalls, slot canyons, and mountain views. I wouldn't want to live if I was chained to a chair in the living room of my house, rocking into a slumber that seemed to take ages to get to. Somehow, I believe there has to be a point where we fulfill our need, and that's that. We make peace with the universe, and like Allen Ginsburg, we go "toodle loo."
My neighbor's husband died of a prolonged death just recently. We've lived in this house since November of 2009, and we saw him a few times. He never made it to the porch. A couple of times, I went in the house to help move him. He just died slowly, and it was sad watching how much it took out of my neighbor as she witnessed the end of her husband of 50+ years. She never knew it was the end - even when the hospice team came in. He just slipped further and further out of consciousness as his body filled up with toxins, and eventually, that was it. He was gone. Now, she's lost and angry as he isn't there to give her support to do the daily tasks - even though she's done them for ages now. She's trying to fill up her time, and we talk to her for companionship and because she's a good person, but the bitterness of having a person that was so loved gone is hurting her as she spends more time remembering the bad things that were done to him. She still remembers the struggles that they went through and perhaps there is a sense of "looks like we made it," but there's also a sense of we had a hard life.
And some do, but...
The days just get harder and longer, and thoughts of writing out his life's memories are lost to her (the kids aren't interested in this - even if that's now, and you never know what they'll feel years later - I say this as I have stored the memories of ancient times of my own family - 80-90 years ago and those from 70 years or so ago).
And sometimes, it's all about the giving up that seems to be the answer to living. I remember being around my neighbor at times when you could see how much it hurt her to watch the man she loved suffered, and she eluded to feeling like she wanted his suffering to stop - ashamed in part - but still understanding that the man she loved wasn't there any more. But still she held onto his belongings because they were his. She fixed his car up - even though it was old and gone and she really wasn't using it. She still wanted to believe, and she didn't want him to see his life given away before it was gone.
And there is nobility and love and honor in what she did. Now, she just has to move on to accept death and grief. It won't be easy, but it will lead to something good - hopefully.
+++
For the baseball metaphor of all of the things that have gone and are no longer as they were before, we can only look to Dan Uggla. He's hitting .172 with 7 home runs propping up his 37 hits. Sure, 15 of his hits are for extra bases, but he's batting .172! He was killing me for keeping him in the lineup. I bounced between 2nd and 4th place (out of 6 teams), and as soon as I dropped him - acknowledged the end - I went into first place.
It wasn't easy to say goodbye to Uggla. I've liked him. A lot of the players who come up with Florida are really likable and good players, but sometimes, we have to say goodbye. Like Mike Lowell before him... sometimes, the end comes.
The Baseball Project sang of Willie Mays.
There was the sad end of Ken Griffey Jr.
I wasn't the same after the 2001 season of Mark McGwire until the Angels went to championship glory.
Death isn't easy. The cycles of life aren't easy.
I'm not saying that saying goodbye to a loved one is as easy as moving out a fantasy player or bidding goodbye to a favorite player, but in life, all of the things we love, whether human, animal, or larger than life heroes we never see in our daily lives, are important to us. They make us who we are.
They're not easy to put aside, but there comes a time to understand that we have to help them and us when the time comes and to confront things as realistically as possible - whether we want to believe the end is here or not. I wish my neighbor would have seen the signs a little clearer. That would have made this time now a little easier for her.

Buster Posey

Will the rain ever stop falling? As John Fogerty sang before he ever thought about singing about baseball, is there a person that can stop this rain and bring bright sunny skies back?
There is something about believing in the future and being optimistic about the opportunities that are out there, but when it rains, it's hard, and when it rains (as a former scumbag boss once said), it pours. For me, it's been raining since Wednesday night. My wife and I drove to Ohio from eastern Pennsylvania, and at one point, I looked at her and asked if it was getting dark or getting ugly (weatherwise). She stated the latter, and within 5 minutes, the sky was dark as can be, a pitch black furnace of burned coal in the air (and that's not the Cuyohoga to blame, either). Within another 5 minutes, there was rain, and then there was hail, and all the while there was thunder and lightning, and it was a horrid last 4 hours of a drive to get to Toledo to see her family, but alas, we made it in one piece.
And so as we drove into the distance - perhaps it was my wife's choice of playing the Cure, perhaps it was a continuation of so many moments in the job hunt that is my life, but I was wondering if something is on the other side when the sky gets clear again and the bluebirds sing and spring moves into the beauty of summer. Prior to this, we had about a week straight of rain, followed by a little sun, and more rain, and now we're drenched again.
So right here, there is a question that always exists and that's whether or not the world is a metaphor for what is happening outside of the event itself. For instance, is there brightness on the other side of the clouds and rain? If I'm patient, will the good things come to me?
Many people seem to have a take on it. For example, Victor Frankl wrote about a prisoner who he was with at Auschwitz (the story is in Man's Search for Meaning - an amazing book), who had a mysterious dream that he would be rescued by such and such a date. When that didn't happen, the man basically died of a broken heart.
Just recently, Harold Camping tried for the second time to get his Rapture prediction right, but alas, that didn't happen either, and now those people who waited are wondering if it's his math or a God testing their faith or if they were just betrayed. Nevertheless, the waiting and the hoping and the not happening - the rescue from outside - have caused many people to spend their savings and their faith on a pie in the sky dream not too different than my hoping to win Powerball, and yeah... the answer is always internal since we control our own destinies more than external forces do. I'm sure Frankl would agree.
Dr Seuss wrote of the existential darkness in his permanent graduation gift Oh! The Places You'll Go (not quite St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, but... I should say that it is a great gift - don't get me wrong - the good doctor is awesome - St. John, now that was an experience for an undergrad thesis long ago):
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That's not for you!
And hopefully, that's not Buster Posey either. We already hope that it's not Stephen Strasburg, the greatest pitcher that still might ever pitch in the game, but yeah...
There is something about facing setback that creeps into the mind, and for this, we can go a million directions when things don't go our way. Mark Twight, a "punk rock" climber, expresses this in his book Kiss or Kills: Confessions of a Serial Climber when he said:
“Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn’t think enough of themselves to make something of themselves- people who did only what they had to do and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.”

He made it back. Strasburg is slated to be able to come back from Tommy John Surgery as soon as September (let's hope the Nationals take it easy on him and let him come back full fledge in spring training next February). What will Posey do with his 6-8 weeks off for a broken leg (and possibly all season)? Will he adjust if this is the end of catching altogether?

We like to think that our potential and our heart will help us find a way. Here's to recovery and redemption in all of our lives.

Jorge Posada

Normally, and by normally, I mean if I wasn't married to my wife or hoping for a relationship (as was the case for Game 6 of the 2003 World Series - the one where Beckett lights out-ed the Yankees - I did see the end of that one with the pile on celebration after the date sucked), I would be spending the entire weekend draped in a Red Sox jersey over my "certified Yankee hater" shirt, wishing death on the Evil Empire.
Several things have changed this:
1) On December 1, 2007, I met my wife. She's awesome and I'd rather go see Brides maids with her than watch a "relatively meaningless" season game. Granted, it counts in the standings and for the total of wins against each other per year (if we end up tied and have to determine post season home advantage), but alas... it's just not the same as it used to be.
2) In those days before my wife, the Red Sox had won one World Series, and until then, things were even worse. Hell, let's be honest. Things were worse because of the win, but the second win...
3) The year the Yankees didn't even make the playoffs (2008)...
4) The fact that it's hard to be attached to this group of players... many who weren't even around for either team's historic runs... and if they are, they're older than velociraptors...
So yeah...
Here we are in da Bronx and the Red Sox are officially victors in the first 2 games of the series. While the first game got close at the end, the 2nd game was a 6-0 laugher, and well, that's really what it is.
The reality here is not in the box score... it's in the aging of the old guard as Jorge Posada asked out of the lineup as his average rises to .165 after being as low as .125 at the end of April. There are 6 home runs, but in 108 at bats, there are only 18 total hits.
He's not the only one.
Derek Jeter is at .267 with 2 home runs.
Mark Teixeira is at .254 with 9 home runs.
Alex Rodriguez is at .252 with 6 home runs.
Curtis Granderson and his .281, 12, 26 line is the star. Even Robinson Cano isn't leading the team yet. Did I jinx the guy by picking him for fantasy (.279, 9, 25)?
In the beginning, the Red Sox and the Rays were 0-6, but both rebounded. Now, the Rays are in first place and they're cold kicking ass on all opponents. While not as good as Philly or Cleveland (and Cleveland is actually the 2nd best team - by default of playing one less game than the Phillies), we can see that there is a new guard in baseball that isn't including the money teams (well, save Philly, which is somehow moving around Ryan Howard's move to #2 in strikeouts to ride his hits and homers to victory).
For a team that played tough against Texas (4 wins), they lost 2 to Kansas City in the stadium. They've lost 4 of 5 to the Red Sox, and today, they face the Sox with Freddy Garcia on the hill against Jon Lester and a Boston team that is trying desperately to get to .500 (while 19-14 since the 0-6 start of the season, they're below the mark, and frankly, every time they've been getting to .500, they always find a way to phone it in and stay mired below.
Is today the game that they go otherwise? Or is this the continued loss of power from a once great dynasty / stable of big contracts?

Jason Marquis

Britain gave us rounders and cricket, and well, that might have made baseball, but other than that, you can have their royalty. Now, don't get me wrong; I lived in the country for 5.5 years during and after the Air Force, and had things been different, I would have stayed, but in the end, I'm glad I came back to America... to eventually find my wife, slot canyons, waterfalls, flowery gardens, and baseball... all of which are very good things.
Even though we might like big, stately mansions and gardens and pomp & cirumstance, we aren't caught up in this kings and queens stuff that Europe is, and perhaps, that's something that we don't have here. Sure, we had the Kennedys and some would call that American royalty, but Camelot was dead long before I was born.
I never thought much of the Kennedys, and frankly, I never once thought about waking up at 6am to watch the royal wedding. My sleep is too important to me to waste on hearing someone I've never met say "I do" to someone else that I've never met. In addition, I have no interest in hearing "God Save the Queen" - unless it's by the Sex Pistols, and even then, it's a sheer bit of nostalgia for the moments spent growing up and being heavily influenced by alternative music.
So in honor of the royal wedding, we'll celebrate a marquis... not necessarily a noble man, but a man who has been around and done some things that have made a difference through the years.
Jason Marquis, who threw a 5 hit complete game shoutout with 7 strikeouts for the Nationals and defeated Tim Lincecum and the Giants 3-0.
His ERA is now 2.62 (despite being 4.52 for his career). Since 2000, he's been rather pedestrian. In 2004, he had his best season with St. Louis posting a 3.71 ERA and 138 Ks (Dave Duncan can do amazing things). However, the next year, he came back down to Earth - still better than his career ERA (but over 4) and posted 3 additional 4+ seasons and 2 seasons of 6+ ERA. That's not good - even if the guy is an innings eater, but all the same, the sun still shines on a sleeping dog's ass from time to time, and Friday night was just that night for Marquis.
Here's to the good things in life.

Alex Rodriguez

It seems that Lance Berkman is taking criticism from the Houston team and their annoucner (Milo Hamilton) that he left behind as he moves on with his rejuvination in St. Louis (6 HRs, 16 RBIs, .378).
"Why did you think it wasn't necessary to get in shape your last couple of years as an Astro? And now to a team you didn't even know, a manager you didn't play for, you felt it was your responsibility to get in great shape? And it's paying off. ... Lance, I love you. But wouldn't it have been great to have given that same dedication to the Astros and your owner here that you did in two short months to the Cardinals?"
To this, he can only agree, which is a sign of class in his resurrection from the ashes of Houston and the Bronx.
"You kind of want to be a (Craig) Biggio or a Chipper Jones (and) that's kind of how I had it in my mind that I was going to be the same type of guy, my whole career in Texas, one team," Berkman said. "I have to take some responsibility for not still being here. ... We were terrible. I was terrible. And they were ready to move on."
It's not perfect. he's not perfect, but he's trying and he's internalizing the blame, which is the sign of maturity that some athletes just don't have.
Take A-Rod for example.
I hate A-Rod. I really do. I can't think of anything nice to say about him. I don't think fashion models should be baseball players, and it doesn't matter if they're pretty boys making out with themselves in a mirror (A-Rod) or muscleheads posing with shaved and oiled chests (Brady Anderson / Gabe Kaplar). That said, I'm not of the shaved chest persuasion and I don't look good in baby oil. I'm not tanned (though I am farmer tanned from my past 2 days in the sun hiking between work sessions), but yeah... I'm also not sporting a haircut that costs more than some people's wardrobes OR using stuff in my hair (I don't use the P word). So yeah... I really loathe the man. I hated him with Seattle. I see him as sinking the ship in Texas. I absolutely LOATHE him in New York. He'll never be a Yankee. Even Jeter hates him.
They say it best in The Other Guys when referring to Jeter getting shot when it should have been A-Rod... I hear you.
And when he got caught for steroids, he really had the lamest excuses in the world.
"Again, it was such a loosey-goosey era. I'm guilty for a lot of things. I'm guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. And to be quite honest, I don't know exactly what substance I was guilty of using."
And from trying to take things back to Selena Roberts to trashing his "cousin" to all that he did and didn't do, in the end, there was a well scripted apology that was so full of crap that it makes porta potties at the state fair seem nice by comparison. When THEE Peter Gammons wants to save your ass and he can't, something is wrong.
"When you take this gorilla and this monkey off your back, you realize that honesty is the only way. I'm finally beginning to grow up. I'm pretty tired of being stupid and selfish, you know, about myself. The truth needed to come out a long time ago. I'm glad it's coming out today."
No you're not... you want to be inseminating Madonna or smoking your stogies and living the high life. This is just a step between celebrity relationships and all that your life is.
But with that said, yesterday, I broke my relic cherry as a box of cards that my wife got me was all too Alex Rodriguez heavy. It featured a regular Topps graded Rodriguez from 2009. It featured a Masterpieces of the Game Rodriguez with some grand slam that he hit (there was also a Chris Chambliss from that set where he's doing the '76 home run dash - that's already in a place of awesomeness in my collection). There were a lot of interesting cards in small pack combinations (Goudey, Upper Deck variations from the past 4 years), but the highlight was a Baseball Heroes jersey (pictured left 99/200) that I pulled straight out of a pack - I've never done that before, and even though it was A-Rod, I was happy as a pig in the mud at 82 degrees.
Because in the end, baseball cards are about the closed pack and what could be inside. There is a sensation that anything or anyone could be in the pack. It's never been viewed since it was put in there, and for that, the lottery exists, and one could win big with a player he likes or come up with a couple faces that are commons from teams he doesn't know, or he could get a rookie of a no name and win big years from now. Nevertheless, figuring out rookies is all but impossible without a copy of Tuff Stuff, and even then, who knows if it's THEE rookie. But it's a sensation of getting something good, and in the end, any night that features a box of baseball cards that await opening... it's a great day (already made beautiful with sun and flowers and breezes over the water and life is good - as it was today for the same things and some herons and a few painted turtles sunning themselves on logs down from the 20lb snapping turtle just swimming in the water like nothing was doing).
Here's to spring and the good things.

Frank McCourt

Today is my sister's 36th birthday, and with that, family is a good thing. Having people who care about you is a good thing, and in the words of Neil Young, "love and only love will endure." Whether it's a passion / hobby, friends who make a difference, family who is always there for you, or the love of a significant other, love is a good thing. I've come to realize that there are a few things that matter, and love is number 1.
Doing things that show pride in accomplishment is another thing that makes a difference. I would take this further and say that impressing other people whose opinion means something to us is another good thing. Finally, experiencing the good things in life, be they curve balls that drop 12 to 6 and make a batter look stupid, a stolen base that just gets in under the defensive glove that is trying to put an end to the offensive threat, a catcher picking a careless runner off of first base, a majestic home run, deep secluded waterfalls, twisting and turning slot canyons, sunsets by Crayola's 96 crayon box, endless mountains, or blossoming flowers (or whatever it is that makes you happy, the only things that matter are the things that make us happy (and don't hurt other people).
For this, it's sad to see that there is no love in the McCourt house any more. There hasn't been for a while, but as Major League Baseball takes over the Dodgers with promise of a lawsuit from Frank to keep their fingers and his now hated ex-wife's grubby paws off of his team, let it be said that there is no love lost out in Chavez Ravine. There's also no love lost for an ex-wife who was fired from her position with the Dodgers because of allegations of having an affair with her bodyguard, but alas... it's all in the perks of the position. I guess.
However, as a team that moved from a historic love when they played in Brooklyn and moved from loser status to second best status as Jackie Robinson led his team to runner up against the Yankees for the better part of a decade when they finally won it all in 1955. And then they moved to Los Angeles, and so began West Coast baseball...
But now... they look to be sold for a sense of better baseball management due to a $30million loan from Fox to make the team run in light of things not running because of the McCourt divorce.
It's a shame. There are great young pitchers. A Rhianna-less Matt Kemp is surging. Don Mattingly is making the team function to 3rd place .500 ball. The future is there, but alas...
When love goes wrong, nothing is good.

Ryne Sandberg

I was watching The Wizard of Oz last night. I can't remember ever having watched it before, but then again, I give myself no credit for anything that I've done before turning 18. Simply put, I remember very little of it, and some is for good reason - being a teenager is an awkward time that I'd rather forget about (and a pre-pubescent, and a kid, and...), but alas... I know that I've seen bits and pieces of it, and I get its populist message that lurks underneath the childhood story, but more than anything (and somewhere beyond Dorothy's annoying moans - man, how do people appreciate Judy Garland when her 2 most important offspring - being Judy and Liza frickin' Minelli - just grate all that we are, but nevertheless, before I start getting hate mail, let me just say, I was laying in bed thinking about how there really is no place like home. 15 years ago, I was living in England, and it was rapidly coming to the point that I was heading home. I had no desire to go home at that point. England was my adopted home, and I was clinging to it with a fierce tenacity that wouldn't give way to the fact that the relationship I was in had to dissolve so that the both of us could go on to happiness (we've both since married and are doing reasonably well with our lives), and I had no concept of what America or life was meant to be - just that I was going to soon go back home and live with my parents while I went to school and got my life together (on July 8, 1996, that reality finally happened). It took a while. The first year was hard. I still had a lot of England left in me - not least of all the idea that I would go back and be with my ex-gal friend (when you're older than high school, you can't really be a girl), but alas, that didn't happen, and it was a long dark winter that was finally punctuated with a few trips to California to see another friend. For the first trip, I bought a baseball preview guide with Derek Jeter on the cover. I didn't know who he was or hate the Yankees at the time (that was in 1998 with the story of Roger Maris and accentuated with the pickup of Roger Clemens), but it was that which brought baseball back. Sure, there were moments like watching the Braves dominate in 1996 while working at an Air Force sports bar in England, or watching the Phillies lose in 1993 when the Blue Jays smacked them around (thank you Paul Molitor), but through it all, there was nothing other than the memory of Ryne Sandberg... a guy who played for the Reading Phillies, but was later traded to the Chicago Cubs where he went on to have Hall of Fame stats. And he was right there waiting for me when I returned home, and for that, I am eternally grateful. His career wasn't like it was in the 1980s, and while I still have his rookie card, it isn't the value that I'd like it to be. Then again, neither are the cards that my wife bought me the other night that sit smack dab in the middle of this era (1990ish). It was a great gift for a player, and there's something about looking through cards - even of players we don't necessarily know. There are still favorites from my childhood, guys left over to adulthood, and marquee players that will always be known. In the end, there were a few cards that stood out. Curt Schilling 1990 Topps - not THE rookie, but a first Topps card. Sammy Sosa 1990 Topps - if only it was 1998... I'd be sitting pretty. While not the Upper Deck Griffey Jr., there was the regular set Topps marked rookie of Ken Griffey Jr. Most of these are now selling for $1. Juan Gonzalez? Joey (Albert) Belle? Names of once great, but fallen stars. Jose Canseco? You can't even give his rookie away, but there was a 1990 Canseco - when he still sort of kind of mattered. But there were the guys from this era... the ones that were still left... the Ryne Sandbergs... the million dollar contract trail blazers who used to name names and define the era... And they're largely forgotten in modern baseball history, but they're still a part of my childhood history, which I see myself going back to more and more (also, the Disney Pixar movies and brainless comedies)... and I know that's not such a bad thing. It's made me the man that I am, and it's made my American home (in the middle of Amish Paradise) such a great place to be and to sit on the backyard furniture while watching my firepit and looking over my wife's garden and just being. That's really what home is all about. That sense of mellow Americana and nostalgia for a time past in a time now... Even if that time never really was.

Derek Jeter

I know... I know... I've said it before about a great many things: A) I'm a Red Sox fan and a "Certified Yankee Hater" (I've got the t-shirt to prove it).

B) Derek Jeter's flip play is the most over-rated play this side of Willie Mays' backward catch (great play, but Mays was well known for losing his hat to make plays more theatrical and that yard was really deep - players today would watch a homer rather than get a chance to duplicate the feat) in the history of baseball.

C) Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty was a great book and an even greater feeling (though we wouldn't know for sure until the Angels in 2002 and the Marlins in 2003; Detroit in 2006 was just the icing on the cake) to know it was over... yeah!

D) I didn't watch the original single of the Luis Gonzalez game winner. All of my talk about Mariano Rivera being over-rated was shown for what it really was - knowing the truth as I went to bed after the end of the 8th inning. I did celebrate the next day, but it would be ages before I saw the video of the whole inning.

E) I have come to grudgingly respect Joe Torre since Tom Verducci's excellent Yankee Years book. In fact, some of my greatest dreams (and worst experience in the last 5 years of teaching) came from Mike Mussina and Jeter rallying the troops together in 2005 and thinking that giving my students a motivational push would make them want to do the same for me. Fat chance of that, but it's still a nice dream for a Mr. Holland moment.

F) Since the Yankees didn't make the playoffs in 2008 and since the Red Sox won in 2007, I have lost some of my hatred for the Yankees. Well, that and the fact that I don't watch full Yankees / Red Sox games religiously since I spend more time with my wife (we met at the end of 2007).

That being said...

On Saturday, I watched Nine Innings from Ground Zero, which is actually an HBO production, and let me just say...

It was the best documentary this side of Ken Burns Baseball. However, I don't think I would or even could watch it twice. Yes, there are scenes that stand out (the aforementioned flip, the George Bush first pitch, and Brielle Saracini), and those can be watched again, but even those are super emotional - especially Saracini.

When you watch Saracini, she's a tween reading a letter about being bummed out over the events of 9/11, but she's writing it to Derek Jeter and asking if he can cheer her up with a phone call. Not knowing who she is or isn't, it's at that moment that they reveal that her father was Victor Saracini, the pilot of Flight 175, which was horrifically slammed into the World Trade Center on that September morning, killing everyone aboard (for a total of 2,819 victims). And it's at this moment that the emotion of the rest of the film truly hits - it's human lives lost, stopped, and completely eliminated. It's survivers that don't know how to make sense of it. Looking at the link to all of the dead and what the stats mean (the lives, the money, the city, our America), it's just catastrophic and over-whelming and completely emotional.

I was a blubbering wreck.

Watching Jeter 10 minutes before tell Bush to throw from the mound or face being booed while giving him advice to throw a strike brings it all home... as my friend Dale said, to not include that on Ken Burns' The 10th Inning, wasn't right. It is our game and what our game can do. For all of the pro Yankee sentiment that they should have won (and while I wouldn't have wanted them to win ANY of the other 5 World Series they won since my rebirth interest in baseball after the Air Force, I don't think I would have minded that one for all of these reasons in hindsight). To understand that there was a visible presence of anti-Arizona sentiment for what this win would mean for New York... it just said everything. But we forget that... and we forget that the Mets almost went to the playoffs that year before folding as America cheered for them, too - from the moment of Mike Piazza's game winner to their last hurrah in that elongated month of baseball.

And it goes back to the event of the flip... fat ass Jeremy Giambi chugging around the base path on a shot to the corner, and somehow, some idiot decision allowed him to move around third even though he had to be gasping for air, and if only he wasn't Jeremy Giambi, but rather, someone who didn't look like a softball player from a beer league, he would have made it a half step sooner or slid to avoid the tag... but he didn't.

And for that, he was out and the New York comeback was in motion and that was it for Oakland. It was finished. Seattle was soon to be history, and it was all because some force of nature compelled Jeter to be a superhero that post season. His game winning home run in the World Series against Byung-Hyun Kim, perhaps the worst reliever this side of Joe Nathan and Rod Beck, and the set up for the second comeback the next night against Kim... it all made it seem like he really did save the day...

And then Rivera folded like an ironing board being put into storage, and it was all over. And for this new perspective... it's really there and understandable in truth and reality and perspective and sadness and nostalgia from the Yankees, their fans, and Rudy Giuliani. And perhaps, there is a lot of anti-Yankee hate in some of the Amazon reviews... and perhaps there is some for Rudy and Bush, too, but politics aside, they were the men of the hour. Bush was at his finest in that pitch and with the bullhorn. After all, this is 2 years before Iraq and in a time when people wore anti-Osama Bin Laden shirts... a time before we all took the following statement from Condoleeza Rice (as taken from CNN): Still, she disclosed that the U.S. intelligence community had intercepted communications from al Qaeda suspects during the summer of 2001 that included these words: "Unbelievable news in the coming weeks;" "Big event ... There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar;" and "There will be attacks in the near future." Rice described these interceptions as "troubling, yes." But she added, "They don't tell us when; they don't tell us where; they don't tell us who; and they don't tell us how."

to mean that America was somehow complicit in the act of 9/11 because we didn't know enough to stop it. And for this partisanship, perhaps, it's the ultimate treason in America to believe that we did this (even Bill Clinton condemned the attitude of blaming our own country for this radical act of jihad).

But alas, we have forgotten so much about that day. I remember one time in teaching 9/11, I had a video of the events from Youtube, which played the news clips and people left the room in tears. They had literally never seen it before or it was personal to them (we never know who in the room has lost a friend, neighbor, or relative), and I felt truly bad for daring to show a video so that I could make them understand the statistics and events that they were to try to write about (in part because many of their comments weren't grounded in reality - through no fault of their own, but based on how they were caught in a post Iraq / Afghanistan uprising attitude of the media and the world around them).

And yet, I knew why I did it. This was our history, and the same tears I felt at MANY times in the video were something that makes me realize that we should never forget.

And it was something that says no amount of understanding what America could have done to make someone hate us so much that they would plan out a heinous attack on this level WOULD EVER JUSTIFY their having done what they did or even TO ALLOW US TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO KEEP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. And while I don't claim that America is innocent or totally happy go lucky nice to the whole world, I don't see that search for WHY as being worthwhile - only WHAT can we do to eliminate this evil from the world and make sure it never comes back again. For that, I have come to wonder that if by doing anything so rational as hunting for understanding, we are in a sense enabling the evil in the world that would seek to destroy us, and for that, I have changed from the 30 year old man that stood in front of a room slack jawed as the building came down while 9th graders looked to me for understanding and I had none - only an all too wrong idea that the only thing that mattered after 9/11 was maintaining our lives and rights as normal - when in reality, we were changing for always and needed to adjust to winning a war that we would quickly be forced into.

But all of this detracts from what is good with America, and the end result of that is baseball (amongst other things). For anything that gives us happiness in its entertainment and sense of pleasure while making our day brighter is good, and this isn't something that a cornered dog lashing out with 19 of his minions to devastate the true sense of normalcy and the world that we live in some sense of jihad purpose would ever be able to understand.

And if there are rights and truths in the nearly 10 years since this day they are that anyone can offer something, even something insignificant to a large part of the world, to make the world a better place.

For that, I love baseball, slot canyons, waterfalls, Christmas, music, the history and culture of the country I live in, my family, and especially my wife.

And for that same reason, I despise tyranny and blind partisan hatred and agression.

Ramon Hernandez

So what's the story of the first day of the MLB season? Is it the fact that Mark Reynolds hasn't whiffed yet? Maybe that's only because he hasn't come to the plate yet. When he does, the bird on his shirt won't change the luck he had with the snake in the desert. He'll have his 215 whiffs and Camden yards will be crying over giving any money to him because no amount of home runs can justify just how bad that low batting average and high amount of strikeouts truly is. So with that being said, is it Jason Heyward connecting on a long fly ball souvenier for his first at bat the second year running? Is it Mariano Rivera converting a save to preserve a Texeria and Granderson home run in a victory over the Tigers? Is it Albert Pujols going 0-5 with 3 GIDdynotuPs that pretty much caused St. Louis to not win (take away all talk of that $300million contract immediately!)? And no, it's not April Fools Day - even if it is April 1, 2011. Or is it a pair of home runs in the first 2 at bats of the season by Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez that were effectively released by a Brewers bullpen melt down in the 9th that saw Ramon Hernandez, a 12 year vet with a lot of part time seasons that never really excelled, but that sure was awesome when it needed to be... 9th inning... 2 on, 2 down, and a hot bat that can swat a long fly ball to keep steroids rehab poster boy Edinson Volquez from getting stapled to a loss in his first game in over a year. And isn't that how a year should start out... so much hope. In the words of Lou Boudrea... "all future and no past." The sky is the limit on everything as a guy who never hit .300 is now batting .800. And with that magnificent moment for a journeyman player, the Cincinnati Reds are winning one to come back from the hell of 2010's end that saw their promise vanish in a Roy Halladay no hitter to start the playoffs in dramatic fashion. Doctober never recommenced from there, but it was a Don Larsen moment for my generation. Halladay is supposed to take the mound today, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The ground was covered in snow this morning. It wasn't much, but it wasn't pretty. It made me feel like Ozzie Guillen ranting about going to Cleveland to start the season with those lake breezes and nasty Lake Erie weather, something that I am starting to learn about as we often go to visit my wife's family in Port Clinton, Ohio. And baseball is back and life is good. And I got home to a couple of stacks of early 90s, late 80s baseball card commons. There were a few better players... Curt Schilling comes to mind as do some Jimmy Dean cards with guys like Griffey and Biggio on them. They were a present from my wife, and a nice touch on a day that saw me working on my resume and attending a teaching fair that really didn't have a lot of schools close enough to where I live to bother trying for too many of them. Even with the few that I went to, it was all about budget, not knowing the amount of positions open, and trying to shy away from people with Masters Degrees (me). So alas, there are other job fairs more promising... such as the one the day before regarding the VA hospital patient processing center that is opening near us. Unfortunately, I'm not a situational left handed reliever like I hope my future son will be (if I ever have a future son). I'm just me, for better or for worse. I'm not a free swinging 3rd baseman making way too much money or even a pitcher who arrived in the nick of time to show my stuff. I'm not a contract year mirage. And no matte who any of us are... there is still a possibility that it's going to be a good year for all of us.

Mark McGwire

While sitting with my teacher friend Dale, the subject of great baseball players is always bound to come. He’s in his early forties and I’m in my late thirties, so it wouldn’t be wrong to think that we would tend to reflect on the 1970s and 1980s as the glory days of baseball, but for the most part, you would be wrong since the greatest games for us were the ones that we weren’t even alive to see. In no small part, we owe a mega burst of gratitude to Ken Burns for his contributions to the history of baseball because it’s clear to see that Major League Baseball has no respect for the history of its game unless it’s for its fan to buy the latest current slab of what happened this year as a DVD at the end of the season.
If they had any foresight at all, they would instead be focusing on the ability to post lots of historic video of the past online for all generations to see. The fact that any time anything really cool happens, let’s say Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home off of Andy Pettite two years ago, it’s up for a day or so on Youtube and then the backwards thinking bastards that be choose to have it pulled down out of copy right protection concerns. Now, I’m not saying that it has to stay on Youtube, but couldn’t MLB start a pay per view library service so that any time I want to watch something great happen, say watching Albert Pujols jack a Brad Lidge pitch into the wall of Minute Maid Park to keep the Cardinals alive for one more game, I can salivate over the memories of the past?
However, this is impossible, and other than the history of baseball up until 1990, I can’t watch any of the real great players of history focused upon. Thus, to dream about Brooks Robinson throwing deep to first from deep in the corner, I have to go to the third greatest gift that my wife ever gave me, and watch the celluloid footage of that World Series game to see what the heroes of the past were truly like. What will the kids of today have to do in order to watch Dustin Pedroia and Matt Holliday star for the Red Sox and Cardinals? How will these youngsters know why Adrian Gonzalez is or isn’t worth mortgaging the future for in an offseason trade that is supposed to tip the balance of all things?
Simply, they won’t - at least until ESPN or MLBTV say it's so OVER and OVER and OVER again.
And for the same reason that MLB has no concern for its history, we won’t know how “great” the steroids era players were because it’s easy to say that the media was duped into reporting how great they were to make up for the fact that baseball went on strike and killed the World Series in 1994, and their apologies are word enough for the rest of the impressionable youngsters of today to throw away their parents’ baseball card collections, but to still retain hopes in the present - especially that somehow Whiff King Ryan Howard isn’t tainted, and even though Alex Rodriguez is slightly dented, his “apology” and “great play” in the 2009 World Series makes up for everything – unlike Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire who will forever wear their scarlet letters for eternity and then some.
However, for those people willing to look back on baseball history, they would see that Major League Baseball did memorialize Race for the Record on VHS, which is still available for $1.99 on E-bay. Nevertheless, I have my copy and have cherished it since the fall of 1998 when it first came out. I don’t make apologies for owning it. Mark McGwire was and still is my favorite player of all time. Steroids or not, the summer of 1998 was a magical moment that made me who I am. For that, it’s as important to a baseball story in 2011 as it was to a baseball story in that magical summer of a dozen years ago.
And while I liked other players from that time period when I was younger and more concerned about this sport than anything around me, I find the moments of that season to be almost (but not quite) as special as the moments of my marriage and courtship, which took place over the last few years. In that, there was a day that I would have went into a winter of depression having seen the Yankees win, but frankly, I didn’t feel more than a slight sting for what had transpired against Philadelphia’s weak pitching staff (sorry Cliff Lee and game 2 Pedro, you tried) and sorry ass strikeout king (sorry Chase Utley, at least you tried unlike your counterpart) because of the perspective that I have for where my life is with my beautiful wife besides me.
And it's great to have Tim Lincecum take down Cliff Lee, but it's not the same as spending vacations and time in general with my wife. Five years ago, that would have been something, but now there is adult and the memories of the great games of youth that still drive me back to the game for a well-placed second place in my life.
So before this gets all soppy, I should get back to baseball, and say that like Dale, I find it hard to find interest in players the same way that I did when I was younger. Maybe it’s being married and redoing a house and contemplating children and the Arizona / Utah border vacation that I want to get back to for some summer week that keeps me from thinking of some of these players in the way that I did when I was younger, but in part, I don’t find them as magical. Their interviews are generic. The plays were done better by other players in the past, and I’m not ready to believe in anyone new, other than Albert Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki in the way that I once believed in Ryne Sandberg, Paul Molitor, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and David Ortiz. The play of the past few years and the less than believability that is associated with Dominican birth certificates has come to take its toll on me. For that, this blog is an exercise to getting back to the great players of the past and comparing their deeds to those of the current crop of players that seems to be changing incredibly from what it was even five years ago. Will Tim Lincecum and Jon Lester become the next Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, or Bob Feller? One can only hope.
As the Ramones sang about their own existential void, probably not the one that wonders if Joe Mauer will ever be the next Josh Gibson and which anonymous rookie could be the next Roger Maris, Honus Wagner, Satchell Paige, or Ted Williams, but the wonder about another time where it feels as good as the magical moments of the past, “Nothing makes any sense, but I still try my hardest. Take my hand. Please help me man. 'Cause I'm looking for something to believe in.”
And for that, I leave you with the words from Eureka, Nevada, my unfinished first novel:

"I woke up and walked to the newspaper, looking at the Sunday sports headlines that said that Mark Mcgwire had been thrown out for disputing a called third strike the day before. The fans were irate and with good cause. The call was rotten and just like the media who were doing there best to put a damper on Big Mac’s quest for 62, the umpires weren’t cutting him any slack either.
Mcgwire’s angst was justifiable. He had been forced to endure the what he did, what he didn’t do and the will he break the record as he stood out as the sole highlight on a horrible St. Louis team. All the while, Sammy Sosa was hitting his homeruns, deferring the questions to Mcgwire and watching his Cubs fight for the division title.
I was tired of the drive. I was tired of the wait. I wanted to be in St. Louis, and that was where I was heading at the moment. I packed up and was off, though I found out that it was an evening game rather than a day game, so I would be driving in slower than I thought that I would be.

If only I was a little farther down the road, then life now would make more sense. At that moment it was all just a highway that took me to St. Louis, a game that would change my life, a perfect moment filled with more positive emotional content than an entire yearlong relationship would leave me. I was destined to be in St. Louis that evening, but first I was off to Mark Twain Lake and museum, which was somewhere in the empty middle of Missouri’s rolling forest land. I walked around, admired the sights, and thought of baseball. I was killing time.
A few hours later, I was at the game. I parked the car and ran up towards Busch Stadium and a sea of red shirts and signs.
“Go Mark Go.”
“Make it a great 1998.”
Even before I got to the game, there were signs such as the Billboard above Highway 70 that listed Mcgwire’s homerun total at the moment. St. Louis was alive with Mcgwire at the moment. The Braves, despite their perennial power in the East Divison of the National League were in town, but their fans were non-existent. This was St. Louis, home of the Cardinals and a special place that was filled with something that couldn’t be described, but rather could be felt in some special way, through some special sense. We were all a part of it and as I walked inside of the Mecca that was Busch Stadium, I knew I was in the presence of something.
Realizing the game was on ESPN that evening, I called my dad, begged him to tape it, and we talked about the trip, the Cardinals and what I was going to do after the game was over. It was a whirlwind of explanations, but only one mattered – get the game on video. I hung up, read my program and waited to watch the game.

From the stadium, you could see the St. Louis skyline. Several hotels and the great Arch line the Mississippi river, which lies off in the distance from Left Field. I took several photos, watched batting practice, and then the Star Spangled Banner played as 44,000 fans took to their feet in a mix of patriotism and a feeling that everything was right again with the national pastime after a horrible strike took out the 1994 season and World Series.
Today, the Cardinals were taking on Kevin Millwood, a hot young pitcher who was bolstered by a strong Atlanta offense that saw 2 homeruns by Andres Galarraga bring their team out to an early lead. I was dejected and angry, but still I watched, un-swayed by the lead that had arisen, and crossed my fingers and prayed to the Baseball God that everything would be made right in the universe.
On Mcgwire’s first at bat, he walked. The second at bat was a single, keeping his day perfect, and then came a double in the third plate appearance. Big Mac was 2 for 2.
When Mark Mcgwire stepped to the plate in the 7th inning, the sky was dark and the flashbulbs exploded as the crowd got to their feet to signal that now was the time. There were 2 men on and the cards were down 7-5. Millwood had been removed, and Dennis Martinez, one of the most dominant Latino pitchers of the time stepped to the mound knowing that he had never let up a hit to the man. His fate was sealed with that announcement on the Busch scoreboard.
After this, the at bat is a haze. I don’t remember what happened prior to it, but Martinez threw, Mcgwire swung and took the ball deep. I was on my feet as was everyone else and we were willing it to go. I didn’t want to believe it would go because it was hit long, since I wasn’t one of those people who ooh at every single long fly ball to centerfield. I was silent in that all of my energy was in my stomach, bottled down, unable to come up, I was breathless and I was focused on that moment, when the ball cleared the fence and I was still silent as I stopped to gather in the fact that my boy had launched a 501-foot blast off of Dennis Martinez to straight away centerfield. This 3 run shot, number 55 on his quest to 70 for the year, a mark that would shatter Roger Maris’ 37 year old record, left ever single one of the 44,051 fans on their feet.
Everything came out and I was screaming in complete jubilation at the moment. For lack of a better word though my mom would understand, it felt orgasmic. It felt like an eternity that the fans cheered and screamed, jumped up and down, gave high fives to each other and hugged. And there I was, hugging and cheering and high fiving strangers as I stood in the magic of a moment that was meant to last for an eternity, but vanished beneath a cloud of sorrow as even this mighty record was forced to give way to another. Yet at that moment, Barry Bonds didn’t matter, since every time I think of that laser beam, I think of my goose bumps and how I wasn’t sure if it was gone, but it was. It was a culmination of a summer spent rooting for heroes, questing for gold and finding it just as Mark did. The tragedies of Roger Maris and my later years wouldn’t and didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except being there in the middle of section 240 and the post-game fireworks as all of the fans scuttled down to the parking lot and drove out, knowing full well that we would be unable to sleep. This was one of those moments in time, and for me, it was so much more.
It was and is the greatest moment of my life, a culmination of a summer, a trip across America in search of all that was and could be, and it was America to me on that late August night."

Manny Ramirez

If the whole Lady Gaga thing wasn't already on overload and annoying as hell (because let's be honest, short of one song - "Speechless" - that she actually plays on, she's a much less talented rip off of Madonna)... we now get Baby Gaga, which is actually breast milk ice cream.
Lady Gaga has threatened to sue the British manufacturers over the flavor of ice cream.
Whether she will be successful or not, the Brits seized the ice cream and tested it to make sure that it was OK for human consumption and found that it is.
In addition, the store owner Matt O' Connor has fired back: "She claims we have 'ridden the coattails' of her reputation. As someone who has plagiarised and recycled on an industrial scale, the entire back catalogue of pop-culture to create her look, music and videos, she might want to re-consider this allegation."
We can only hope that something sane comes of this, but until then, we'll let anyone who wants to pay $22 for this "delicacy" to keep on keeping on. We'll go back to our own lives and contemplate weirdness on terms that we can relate to...
Manny Ramirez being Manny Ramirez.
In this, Manny has already been definitively studied (Bill Simmons did that), but let us say that since he has a new home - Tampa Bay - we have to wish him the best.
Since his days of getting ostracized by my wife for not paying his child support (back at the Jake in Cleveland when he was a member of the Indians), he went on to massive success unparalleled in Boston. He was a grand slam machine (tied with A-Rod for 2nd to Lou Gehrig all time). He was instrumental in winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007. He was David "Big Sluggi" Ortiz's lovable and idiotic sidekick with those really bad dreadlocks. He would blow easy plays in the outfield while making difficult plays. He would urinate inside the Fenway Park scoreboard during a game. He would demand trades, and then, he finally got traded to the Dodgers, who he managed to convince that he could be great... until he got injured and got nailed for steroids and then he basically quit on them, too, after getting $40million for 2 years (and they were basically bidding against themselves for his services), so off he went to the White Sox where he really and truly sucked, but he was still Manny being Manny without the offense - just being offensive.
So now, he's back with the other idiot - Johnny Damon - in Tampa Bay as they both look to resuscitate their careers that pretty much dried up after the glory days of the first decade of the 21st century.
And while there is hope... it's really going to be a case of too little too late unless he breaks the grand slam record or hits .350, and at this point in his career... without sexual enhancers or whatever it it was that he used when and Big Sluggi both seemed to get fingered on the Mitchell Report, there is not going to be a career resuscitation and while Tampa Bay can hope for the best in the year that Carl Crawford walked and they had to bring up rookies and a few older names at league minimum value to keep the few fans that they do have attending, but the reality is...
The weirdness just isn't lovable without production.
I can't wait until the world wakes up to that realization about Lady Gaga as well.

Terence Mann

It's a recognized fact that Kevin Costner became a baseball star at some point in his movie career. There was the great Bull Durham. There was the ok For Love of the Game. And there was Field of Dreams. People tend to gravitate more to Bull Durham or Field of Dreams depending on who they are. For me, I'm more about the love story of Bull Durham than I am about the science fiction of Field of Dreams, but I still like it. It's just not the greatest movie of all time in the way that Bull Durham is, but that said, it does have its moments.
For instance, there is no annoying wife in Bull Durham. Sure, there's Millie, and she needs to be fed to the sharks, but she can catch Nuke and let the religious guy do whatever he wants to her, but other than her daddy donating the scoreboard, she's probably replaceable. But getting back to the annoying wife and her incredibly annoying take on no censorship, perhaps Amy Madigan is the one character that really keeps me from truly enjoying Field of Dreams. She wasn't good for John Candy's Uncle Buck, and frankly, she's no poetic muse adjunct English teacher at a junior college for Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella either. For in comparison to all of Madigan's annoyingness, Annie was still lovable (despite her sleeping with a different ball player every season)... even if she did end up hooking up with Tim Robbins' Nuke Laloosh for half of the season (and over 15 years of real seasons).
But it's more than just the leading woman, for there is also no James Earl Jones and his Darth Vadar voice in Bull Durham. There's no trip across country to follow the directions of the voice that is coming from afar to rescue him from a life of being angry at the world. There is no inner and outer journey for Costner's Ray Kinsella to go and ease their (the Black Sox) pain. There is no need to eventually create a field for Archibald Moonlight Graham to play out his only at bat (before he messes with Marcellus Wallace's suitcase and gets himself killed). There is no hokey injury to the daughter that can only be saved by Graham.
And moving back to James Earl Jones, in Bull Durham, there is no angry 60s radical that needs to find meaning in baseball again (in that, there is no speech: Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
And I get that the speech is the key to the movie. My one friend is very nostalgic to the memories of his father and wanting to have the game of catch again. I understand what that means... but to me, the real speech is at the end of Bull Durham: I got a lotta time to hear your theories and I wanta hear every damn one of 'em...but right now I'm tired and I don't wanta think about baseball and I don't wanta think about Quantum Physics... I don't wanta think about nothing... Right now, I just wanta be.
And Annie can do that, too, and that's the answer because there are all the things that we believe in and the greatness of the game and there are the beautiful moments in life. Perhaps catch is a beautiful moment... if that's your memory, but sitting on the porch after the rain and just smelling the summer air and looking forward to the good life that will come when you're with the one that you love...
That's a good thing.
And for the way it makes me feel... to think about being with my wife in the Siesta Zone and enjoying life as it comes... it's all good.

Troy Maxson

February is African American history month, and for that, one has to look at the black experience to see what baseball has been (the segregation of an entire race since Moses Fleetwood Walker), what it had to go through (the discrimination and resistance to Jackie Robinson), what it was possible that it could achieve (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Bob Gibson, to name a few), and to what it is becoming (a shift to the NBA and NFL save some really great young talent like Jason Heyward, CC Sabathia, and Ryan Howard).
We have gone from the days of teams being worried about fielding an all black outfield to teams that can't field African American players (Houston's 2005 World Series team is a perfect example). And while there is color on the skin, it's from darker skinned players that hail from the countries that lie south of the American border. And while Martin Dihigo represents a somewhat similar and somewhat different experience, his Cuban heritage lacks resonance with the African American world of today.
For that, we go to the dramatic works of August Wilson to find Fences, the tale of Troy Maxson, a former Negro Leaguer who hit home runs like nobody other than Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson, but who was unable to play because of his skin color. Where Buck O' Neil felt that he was right on time, Maxson is spiteful for coming along way too early. He has gone so far as to push his son Cody out of a football scholarship so that sports can never do to him what they did to Troy, and for that and many other misguided things that he did, he's a larger than life idiot. He cheats on his wife and knocks up his mistress, who later dies in childbirth, leaving Troy's 2nd wife Rose to care for the baby and live in a loveless marriage. He fights for the right to drive a garbage truck despite not having a license and figures that nothing will ever become of it because it's so easy.
And for this, it's impossible to like him as a person. I felt the same way about Satchel Paige after reading the tales of his womanizing. The man could pitch like a machine, but I don't have to like the man off the field (in fact, his kids came to hate him as well). But alas, such is the biography that Mark Ribowsky wrote and that I came to sluggishly move my way through (Don't Look Back).
But with the August Wilson experience, the pain is all eventually gone and the mother makes the son go to the funeral, thus paying his last respects to his father and hopefully burying him instead of carrying him on his back forever.
And for that, perhaps there is meaning, but I can't say that it moved me the way that I hoped it would save a few lines such as:
She asked me when I met her if I had gotten all that foolishness out of my system. And I told her "Baby, it's you and baseball all what count with me." You hear me, Bono? I meant it too. She say, "Which one comes first?" I told her, "Baby, ain't no doubt it's baseball... but you stick and get old with me and we'll both outlive this baseball."
And with that, I think of my wife and how she "puts up with" my baseball infatuation and how lucky I am to have her, and it makes me realize that there are good things in life and they're more than just a game, but the game is nice.
I think about what it means to be a hero or a role model and I realize that if we don't have the ability to care for other people and treat them well, then we might be a good enterainer, but we're not much else.
It's just a shame that so many people, historically in reality and in fiction, can't do the same. Perhaps, it's time to focus more on the real than on the fake and get in the real game.

Rickie "Wild Thing" Vaughn

Every night, my wife and I watch what she refers to as way too much TV. I'm home first, so if I'm downstairs, the first thing on is usually Seinfeld, which is still a classic show despite the fact that the earlier seasons featured some really AWFUL fashion. Not that I'm a fashion guy - I could care less. Give me a T-shirt and a pair of loose fitting pants, and life is good, but I get all of these memories of the early nineties watching that show, and I just think back to how bad the late eighties through the early nineties (until grunge hit big) really were - even if Jason Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld were one of the greatest duos in comedy ever. Personally, I found some of Michael Richards to be amusing, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was a good fit, it's not like they ran the show the way that Jerry and Jason did. Call it the show of the time, and the TV stations do since it lives on in syndication forever and ever and ever.
This is a period that I often refer to as the dead era of American pop culture. For my last years of high school and the time afterward when I was in the Air Force in Europe, I missed a lot of popular shows like Quantum Leap and the Wonder Years. I've seen the latter, but never the former, and for some reason, the stations don't syndicate Fred Savage the way that they do other shows that have been on for WAY too long.
Somehow, that period of time still seems to leave a lot of things in our lives in 2011. Most of them aren't as good as the original Die Hard, which was truly a classic movie of our lives, or even the grand daddy baseball movie of them all (Bull Durham) and its twin (Field of Dreams), but at least we're not constantly bombarded with Steel Magnolias, Sister Act or Ghost. Sure, we get Roadhouse, but that's different since who doesn't want to watch Patrick Swayze kicking ass (dancing, not so much, but beating the crap out of thugs - oh, hell yeah).
From the completely opposite end of the spectrum, The Cosby Show is even better in reruns than it was when it first came out. That's the thing about great reruns... you can watch them over and over and over from the start and just flow with it. I've gone through periods of time in the last 15 years where I saw every episode of The Simpsons, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Scrubs. Reruns seem to work better as comedic half hour shows. Most of these shows weren't hits FOR ME right away in prime time, or at least I wasn't watching them in prime time slots. That's the joy of reruns... you can get addicted to something and watch it over and over again every night of the week. Good shows survive and we get to see them and enjoy them for all times sake.
In the eighties, there was Different Strokes, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, and classic fare like Gilligan's Island, What's Happening, Leave it to Beaver, and The Brady Bunch. They all served a purpose in making the time go by and connecting us to different times throughout history. Besides, who can forget Rerun asking, "Which Doobie do you be?" However, now it's a world different. Now, we're stuck with hours and hours a day of Two and a Half Men because television has been reduced to a world of crappy reality TV that doesn't play well in syndication. Things aren't going to get better, so we just get more crap like TMZ or multiple episodes of bad comedies (to include the last 12 years of the Simpsons, which can be funny, but mostly is just a special guest or a "Treehouse of Horror" episode). Thus, I get Two and a Half Men, and every time it comes on, I can't help but think the same thing...
I HATE CHARLIE SHEEN.
He's just a piece of crap. Let's be honest. Somewhere in all of the repeated life problems and porn star obsession, he makes the same mistake over and over, and with it, he just inspires serious amounts of loathing and hatred. It's gotten to the point where I can't even watch Major League because he's in it, and that's a shame because some of the other actors make the movie as enjoyable as it is.
For example, Dennis Haysbert is a great actor. Whether it's as Pedro Cerrano or as President Palmer or even the All State guy, he's just charismatic and entertaining. Even middle aged dead wood like Corbin Bernson work well. Tom Berenger plays a good lead role, which works well as he always plays solid in stuff like Betrayed and Born on the Fourth of July. I've never been a Rene Russo fan, but she's ok. Wesley Snipes may be a tax cheat, but he's not keeping me from watching that movie. Hell, if he gets annoying, I can imagine Ice-T saying that he wants to kick the tar out of him so badly that his "dick is getting hard." If you haven't seen that, you really need to re-watch that other classic early nineties movie New Jack City.
And throughout it all, there's Bob Uecker... how can you go wrong with Bob Uecker?
But all the same, there's Charlie Sheen, and I hate Charlie Sheen. I really do. I wish he would just vanish and take his stupid show with Duckie and vanish into the Bermuda Triangle, I really do.
And I haven't even started to get into how much they ruined the little kid from the Rookie, which may be the ultimate crime in all of that show's many transgressions against humanity.
Charlie Sheen... I hate you. Phillies fans should hate you. Your nickname became the name of Mitch Williams who imploded in 1993. Defense attorneys hate you.
Only prostitutes, high class drug dealers, and porn stars like you.
That's not good company.
Just take your sorry ass and leave.
Yeah... Charlie... I'm hating on you.

Dizzy and Paul Dean

My wife is obsessed with American Pickers. There's no getting around it. We watch that and Pawn Stars on a regular basis, which to be honest are some of the only shows that we watch.
Last night, they picked up a much rougher version of this poster, which was more faded, and to be honest with you, it looked a hell of a lot better than the colorized version that is on the left.
That said, I was salivating despite the fact that I know that I can't afford it, and even if I did, I wouldn't have much of a place to put it without upsetting the delicate balance of the house that is decorated rather nicely, but all in all, is not geared much for antique baseball posters - no matter how great the subjects are, and let me just say one more time that this poster really is nice.
That being said, I have managed to weasel my way into having some of my baseball memorabilia in the main part of the house that isn't my office. For instance, my Mark McGwire McFarland figures in the living room. The first one is common, but the second one is unique in that he posed for it and then retired, so Todd McFarland left the prototype in my cousin David's office (he takes pictures of the figures for the website, or at least he did at the time - I would assume he still does) until he gave it to me. When he did, I was orgasmic. That's pretty much what happens when you get a baseball card that you need... though a real orgasm is better than that. Well, at least that's what my mom told me when I was in 6th grade. There's something about collecting baseball stuff that makes boys of men. My friend that I work with purposely drives himself crazy not opening too many packs of baseball cards at one time in order to leave him more surprises for later. I fall asleep and dream of opening cards. I don't collect regularly, but as happened the other night, I still dream of wax packs.
When I open cards, I always want my favorites. That's obvious. I can't say as I'm obsessed with all of the players on all of my teams, but more often than not, the Cardinals and Red Sox come up solid. In that, a part of me has always been a St. Louis Cardinals fan. Granted, I wasn't alive for the Gashouse Gang when Dizzy Dean was winning 150 games and posting a 3.02 career ERA despite World War 2 and injuries putting an end to his better days. Nevertheless, he is officially the final National League pitcher EVER to win 30 games (because unless a pitcher is uninjured and unbeaten, it will never happen again. Hell, 25 is damn near impossible enough). Granted, his brother Daffy, well Paul by birth certificate, was more pedestrian, but they were St. Louis in the same way that guys like Ozzie Smith and Mark McGwire were in their day and ages and in the same way that Albert Pujols is now.
And maybe as a Cardinals fan, I should just lay this on the line: If there be any doubt, the town of St. Louis and the state of Missouri should start collecting taxes to save the baseball club before anyone does anything stupid like deciding not to make the contract work. Albert is the Cardinals. If Matt Holliday got a contract for $120 million, Albert deserves at least $240 million. At least. And don't even get me started on Ryan Howard's laughable contract (because if it's a new day, it's a new opportunity to dis on Mighty Ryan).
Such is the state of life and baseball, but with 25 days to go until the deal must be done, the deal must be done. Oh yes...

Manny Ramirez

Ok, let's get this straight. Even Manny Ramirez gets a fourth chance.
In a sign that $2million a year for a formerly $20million a year player in free agency is a bargain, the Rays decided that giving Manny (who according to my wife didn't pay his child support when she went to a Cleveland Indians game way back when and heckled him for such) that money was nothing but upside.
If he screws up, it couldn't be worse than giving an outfielder with $2million value the money for 1 year (no incentives either!). If he's productive and healthy (because not being injured and cantankerous is pretty much everything), well then it's everything that Mannywood was supposed to be in Los Angeles except it's in the Tropicana and it's all comeback against the Red Sox who let him slip away.
It's hard to say everything about Manny that truly needs said. Something about using steroids and trying to blame it on sexual performance enhancers didn't have us believing. Hell, he's not on my short list of people who I would bat an eyelash over:
1. Cal Ripken Jr.
2. Derek Jeter
3. Ichiro Suzuki
4. Albert Pujols
5. Mariano Rivera
6. Curt Schilling
This is especially true when both he and Big Sluggi - the hitter formerly known as David "Big Papi" Ortiz, who is now just hanging around Boston for no good reason and past memories (but we do remember the good things and I've got your jersey to prove it) were nailed for the PEDs. I can literally remember being with my friend Dale sitting in the restaurant of an off track wagering place watching the news come up on a television screen. Oh... big sluggers nailed for steroids... hmm...
Hell, most things that Manny did had us wanting to ship him out as soon as possible. The Bill Simmons column on him explains everything in such vivid detail, you should just read that.
Two years in LA. Lots of money coming his way. The future is wide open, only it's not.
From 19 home runs in LA in 2009 to 9 home runs in LA and Chi-Town in all of 2010 in just over 270 at bats (those pesky injuries)... it's a curse... something like that. The year of the pitcher... or not. Not that 350 at bats the year before was much better. That's over $40million well spent.
So perhaps that's why Johnny Damon is getting more and the offer of incentives... potential upside (whereas Manny is all hope).
Manny turning it all around... it's a nice story. We want to write it. Really.
Scott Boras and Manny really want us to write it.
Will we?
Time will tell.

Derek Jeter

Back in the day, I never got Will Ferrell. He was the moron who did Saturday Night Live skits like the cheerleaders and the lovers, and I just found him to be horribly annoying. I saw Old School when it first came out and I didn't like it at all, but in hindsight, I was just on a really bad Match Dot Com date, and I have since watched it again and again, and I really liked it, but that was a gap in time, and I'm getting ahead of myself. Before that and somewhere in being made to watch Anchorman twice, I found some of it amusing, but by the end, I was bored again, and I refused to watch him for the longest time.
Then, I met my wife and she made me watch Elf, which may be the greatest Christmas movie ever. Christmas is finally here when I get to watch Buddy the Elf make his way to New York City to find his dad and have snowball fights and Christmas decorating extravaganzas and shower room singing with Zooey Deschanel (and who doesn't want that?).
Megamind, which was the best animation movie of 2010 - easily - featured the existential dilemma of being an arch villain to Brad Pitt's Metroman, who ended up not being able to be a villain because his dastardly plans to kill him finally succeeded. Somehow, he fell in love with Tina Fey's Roxanne Ritchie who fell back in love with him and got loved by the world after he defeated Jonah Hill (is that guy everywhere, or is it me?). As a lover of animated and PIXAR movies, I have to say I was rolling on the floor more than the bevy of nieces and nephews that we took to the movies that day.
And there are good movies and there are animated voices and there are bit parts and there are movies that are phoned in, and perhaps nowhere is that more noticeable than in The Other Guys, which also stars Mark Wahlberg, a great actor who also phones in the movie - save the part with Derek Jeter. If you don't want the part given away, read no further, but to see the cameo of Wahlberg as a former superstar cop being groomed for homicide who now rides a desk because he shot Jeter in a dark hallway before Game 7 of the World Series is perhaps the funniest scene imaginable. Afterward, the running gag of Wahlberg having shot Jeter and how that plays out is more than enough to make the movie worth your while, but it just isn't something worth owning.
That being said, once again, Derek Jeter, the hated Yankee that he is, plays his personality and star perfectly and does nothing wrong ("he's a bi-racial angel") unlike his arch nemesis on his right side of the infield ("it should have been A-Rod") stands as the potential of all things that a sports star can be - especially in New York.
After reading how Roger Maris was treated during his playing career and the majority of his life until George Steinbrenner of all people made every sincere gesture of respect and resuscitation to pull Maris out of the obscure doghouse of the past to bring him to Yankee Stadium and Monument Park, where he belonged is quite a powerful image. Jeter was handled perfectly and he handled himself perfectly.
For as much as I hate the Yankees (and I do), I find it harder and harder to hate Jeter - especially after he took that shot to the face catching the foul ball that beat the Red Sox in a meaningless all or nothing mid summer "classic." Sure, I'll hate on him in the playoffs, but I have had him on my fantasy team. Is that me going soft? Is it something only marriage could do? Marrying my wife still wouldn't have me wear a Yankees hat or shirt. Hell, I'd rather fall down a flight of stairs than ever go through that horrible scenario, but alas... I digress.
Somewhere in the image of Jeter rolling on the tunnel floor and calling Mark Wahlberg a dick, there is a hilarious moment that represents this generation of baseball perfectly. Who would have thought that all it would take to make it happen was a Will Ferrell movie?

Roger Maris

Waking up yesterday morning to a story in the New York Times about how the U.S. and Israel worked together to release a worm into the Iranian nuclear program so that it couldn't get up and running has me contemplating exactly what is the point of the media. On one hand, I have to ask myself if this is something above "no duh." I mean really. Why on Earth WOULD WE NOT try to take out a hostile country's nuclear program that could hurt us or our friends? On the other hand, I have to ask myself if this is about some kind of attack on the U.S. as a whole. I mean, if this is top secret, and we'll assume that it is, what business does this have playing out in the media?
But alas, this is a baseball site, not a political outlet, and I use media attacks to lead into Roger Maris and the transition from the media loving players to attacking them viciously. Sure, there was Ted Williams before him, but was there ever an attack as concentrated and individually damaging as that, which was perpetrated against Roger for being "boring" (at least compared to Babe Ruth) and unable to stomach stupid questions (considering many NASCAR guys give the same kind of F U response as Roger and Cee Lo Green) and just unwilling to provide a day in day out story while pursuing the home run record that he was deemed unworthy of.
Currently, I am reading Roger Maris: Baseball's Reluctant Hero, and overall, it's pretty good. You can skip the first few chapters about how his grandparents moved to America from Europe and how his parents relationship started out in dysfunction (it ends in divorce - so it goes) and start about 30 pages into the book at chapter 4.
I've always been a Roger Maris fan since I first heard his story in 1998 as Mark McGwire pursued his record. It was sad to hear about the asterisk and the total devastation of what should have been a joyous race between Maris and Mantle (who had been hated in many circles for not being Joe DiMaggio - at least until Roger came along). Maybe the media made up for this with the race between McGwire and Sosa (and maybe the Curse of Not Being Babe Ruth made the media feel inclined to destroy them and everyone else who got close to Babe Ruth in a way that wasn't worthy - steroids be just a cover story).
But in the end, Roger took a pitch deep on the final day of the season and was branded forever with the asterisk that was there despite it's never been typed into the official record books and for 37 years he suffered in pain despite a momentary stay with the St. Louis Cardinals in 67 and 68. He then retired and died in 1985, a tragic end to a great human being. I wish I would have known his story sooner, but the fact that I do is a story I will continue to tell throughout the course of this blog.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Maris or baseball. I've been reading it nightly in sight of a teddy bear that belongs to my wife. More than anything else, that bear reminds me of her, and when I think about it and her, I think about how wonderful she is to me. For our wedding, she knew that gifts are given between husband and wife (I didn't, so if you're reading, take note), and she gave me the Roger Maris PSA8 rookie that I always joked she would buy me if she truly loved me. When I took it out of the box, I was shaking, and I had no idea what to say. I felt like such a fool for not knowing that I had to get her a gift as well (we ended up putting a lot of money towards the things that she wanted for our home that we bought a few months later). I ran all over Toledo looking for something worthy of her and feeling totally freaked out on the night before our wedding.
Even now, I don't know if I feel worthy of such a great gift. I'll occasionally open the locked box and pull Roger out of his protective cloth bag - not all the way mind you - and look on his visage and think of all that his family went through in 98, all that he went through from 1961 until he left baseball a completely broken man, and how his wife came through for him above and beyond the call of duty (something completely left out of Tom Clavin and Danny Peary's aforementioned book).
Maybe Roger was the best way to give me a physical gift that came through to me, but to be honest, nowhere am I happier in the gift I was given than the "I do." And perhaps that's hokey, but alas... it is what makes me happy in life.
And that thought and her presence is what keeps me from feeling the news of the world in a way that makes me sad as I wait for spring and new life and no more snow - just warmth and good times.