Best Baseball Opening Day Ever (Minus the Actual Baseball)

Mets legend Ed Charles, right, assists the author is showing off his 1969 World Series ring.

Spring is here again in the Northeast! It’s time to put away your warm winter clothes and dig out your equally warm but beer-proof Opening Day of Baseball Season clothes!

I’ll be doing that soon in preparation for today's New York Mets home opener, a near-annual ritual for me that includes the near-annual threat of the day being the coldest and/or wettest ever recorded for that date in history.

Maybe that’s why when I look back on all the Opening Days I’ve attended (22 unless my math fails me which it often does because ... writer), one of the most memorable was one where the game wasn’t even being played at the field.

Rite of Spring – The Big Dance Recital

Front and center in 2011

This past weekend was the Perfect Storm of Uncool events: my birthday (not one of note, though my increasingly creaky back says otherwise), Mother’s Day and Li’l Diva’s annual dance recital. I write about the latter in this piece, which first appeared a year ago in Stamford Magazine.

It’s the heart of spring, a special time with weather warming, flora blooming and vacations approaching that ignited me so as a child but as an adult reduces me to ash.

Field trips to Cove Island, to Dorothy Heroy Park and – gasp – to “The City.” School concerts. School plays. Daily rehearsals for said concerts and plays. Little League practices. Little League games. Going back to the Little League field to retrieve a jacket left in the dugout. Funny how perspective changes when you go from kid to your kids’ chauffeur.

Take Me Out to the … Tennis Courts?

My daughter rarely cries.

A week ago, though, after I picked her up from high school tennis practice, she sat in the minivan and sobbed.

She had made the varsity tennis team, not just as a freshman but as a 15-year-old who really had only held a racket in earnest for about six months.

Li’l Diva’s coach just told her she needed to be in uniform and ready to play in the next day’s match. And in the one on Monday. This Monday. As is today.

The Li’l Diva in her orange and black best, ready to hit the courts.

Warming Up for Opening Day

The clickity-tickity-tick of thousands of needles fighting unsuccessfully to stab through the shingled roof over my head woke me around six this morning.

Half-blinded by unfulfilled REMs while blinded the rest of the way by the  nearsightedness I’ve been cursed with since childhood, I groped the nightstand for my glasses before stretching over to reach the window shade.

Even in my bleariness, I clearly recognize winter’s last big ”eff you.”

View from my living room 7 a.m.

Labor of Love for the Game

My father did not bury bodies for the mob. It only looked that way, every spring and summer, based on the contents of the trunk of his sedan.

Shovels. Pick. Soil rake. Gloves. Pull-over galoshes. A thick, crusty layer of dried mud everywhere.

The only DNA a forensics team would recover, though, would be from dad's sweat, blood and popped blisters.

These tools were not of his accounting trade. They were the ones that helped keep me and my teammates playing on the poorly draining baseball infields of my youth.

I don't carry these implements today, even though the minivan I drive could house half a Home Depot. This is because we have a storage shed full of tools and more at our Little League field. My fellow baseball parents and I used them often all this usually cold then usually rainy then usually hot season.

Coaching the Untalented

The dismissal of Rutgers University basketball coach Mike Rice for using gay slurs and firing balls at his players, among other acts of stupidity, started me thinking about the coaches I had while growing up. None I can recall even remotely approached Rice’s level of old-school intimidation techniques though my teammates and I undoubtedly tempted a few of them with our mediocrity.

Take poor Mickey Lione Jr., for example. Lione, one of the most successful and respected coaches in Connecticut let alone his hometown of Stamford, had the misfortune of coaching me on two of his few exceptionally unexceptional high school baseball teams. Our two squads compiled losing records versus the other city high schools, in the county conference and, obviously, overall.

My contribution that first season was that I never played an inning. As the backup to our one bright spot, an all-county catcher named Tony Romeo, I spent the entire spring in the bullpen warming up our perpetually in-demand relief pitchers.

A Day at the Ballpark

This is how the Uncool Family spent Monday, April 1, 2013. Once we made it out of the neighborhood, of course.

Given how low my beloved and beleaguered Mets are predicted to finish this year, the ballpark was not very crowded for Opening Day even though it was allegedly a sellout. As proof, I submit that this was the first and only line I encountered all day at the park.

Gimme a Gatorade, Heavy on the Gator

I survived the Baltimore Running Festival without injury or illness. The same can’t be said of a hundred or so fellow participants I “helped” during my volunteer shift at the finish line.

But first, the non-pandemic news.

As you see in the graphic, I ran my first major 5K in a decent 29 minutes and 8 seconds. This put me squarely in the middle of the pack of people my age (last gasp before the rapid downhill slide) and gender (hmm … yep, still male). Proof you can’t spell “mediocrity” without “me.”

Except for misestimating the location of the finish line three times, my run went down as smoothly as the two free beers the organizers gave us runners afterward. Drinking at 9 a.m. after exercise and almost no breakfast may help explain what happened next …

When Boy Meets 1st Mitt, It’s A True Glove Story

Baseball is as much a game of history as it is of skill. That's why I'm putting Thing 2’s recently retired first mitt in our safe deposit box.

Not that I think Cooperstown will come calling for it. The boy has a fairly live pitching arm for a third grader, but in our Wiffle ball matches he's already displaying serious issues hitting the hard inside breaking stuff and the 23-foot-high moon ball.

I want to lock up his mitt for a selfish reason: I wish I still had my first ball glove.

That long-gone relic had been given to me the spring I turned 7. My mom passed it to me from a friend whose own child had graduated from wanting to learn to turn the perfect double play to wanting to teach how to turn the perfect pirouette.

Yes, my first mitt was a hand-me-down from a ballet teacher.

Specifically, my sister's ballet teacher.

I had recently followed the light to the Church of Baseball so this was quite the baptismal gift. I accepted it without hesitation, too excited to worry that the cowhide might be a carrier of girl cooties. As a quick study of the game, I was prepared should anyone peer under the wrist strap to discover the name of my glove's original owner. I would say that if Shoeless Joe Jackson could hit .400 with a bat named "Black Betsy" then I could win a Gold Glove with a mitt called "Sheila W."

Most people wouldn't bother with my mitt anyway. The lining of the ring finger turned slightly inside out, causing borrowers to complain about the awkward fit. To me, though, it felt just fine.

We spent many hours together that year. Catching sky-scraping flies my dad threw until his shoulder ached. Snaring imaginary line drives as I lay on the playroom floor listening to Bob Murphy describe the play of another pitiful Mets team. Snagging tennis balls off the wall in my parent’s basement, which today still bears a strike zone I fashioned from masking tape.

Spring turned to summer, summer to autumn. The air turned crisp and others turned to football, but I stayed in my backyard, single-handedly catching all 27 outs to win another imaginary World Series until I was called in for lunch. I dropped my mitt next to the tree serving as the Green Monster and went inside.

That was the last I saw of it.

When I returned 20 or 30 minutes later, ball and glove had vanished.

Since we lived in a town where zoning and woods hamper most contact with civilization, my first thought that desperados, hell bent for third-hand leather, rode though and swiped it while I downed a grilled cheese didn't register. My parents concluded that a never-before- and never-since-seen dog wandered through and took it home as a chew toy. As I grew older, I started suspecting convenient scapegoating to counter an early request I made to Santa for a puppy.

Instead, for Christmas I received another glove and it was good, serving me through Tiny League and my first year in Little League. That one is gone, too, though I suspect it fell as a silent and unmourned victim during a zealous spring cleaning.

Also gone are the baseballs from my only two home runs in organized ball and the one from the night I went 5-for-5 with the game-winning RBI single in a 13-year-old All-Star game. Someone broke into my parents' house several years ago and stole those, along with some of my mom’s costume jewelry, and some other odd items of relatively little value.

Maybe it was not someone. Maybe it was something.

Maybe the same mysterious hellhound who visited our backyard years before made a return visit. Who knows? I just hope those old baseballs and memories eventually found their way to the comforting leather pocket of my old reliable Sheila W.

Technorati Tags: baseball,children,parenting,sports

Pinch Hitter Lacks Power

A bit of the magic went out of Opening Day last week when we had to place Thing 1 on the disabled list.

She woke at 3 a.m., crying and moaning. Fever. Headache. Pain in the pee department and up into the plumbing.

It’s no fun having a urinary track infection as an adult, so I’m sure it was worse for an 11-year-old girl. But there are worse and more embarrassing reasons to go on the DL. Just ask former Mets flop Kaz Matsui, whose “injury” may or may not have given a double meaning to his being a switch hitter.

Not that there’s any thing wrong with that.

It was strange being at my first Opening Day without my baby girl in tow since 1999, but her little brother stepped up his game and was nearly perfect.

No complaining about the cold, damp weather.

No whining that he was bored or that he wanted to go home.

Shut off which ever of the 67 different Pokémon games he has for his Nintendo DS the first time I asked while we waited for lunch, then put it away and never brought it out again until the ride home many hours later after the game finished and we toured the gift shops and Mets Hall of Fame exhibit. (Yeah, yeah -- it was a pretty small  exhibit.)

As we sat watching the rather lackluster play of the Mets, he listened politely as I prattled on about the no-doubles infield defense and seemed genuinely interested as I demonstrated how to make a rally cap when his team stood four runs down in the ninth.

“Dude, we need more than rally caps,” I said to him as our home team batters continued to flail meekly at the Washington Nationals’ pitches. “You need to conjure up all the special Pokémon powers you can to make the Mets score some runs and get them a victory!”

“Dad,” he said back without missing a beat, “I don’t think there’s ANY power for that.”

My First Day of Spring

The “Always Home and Uncool” offices will be closed today for its annual rite of spring – Opening Day of baseball season.

(Technically the season opened 8 days ago, but not at the home field for my beloved and, as usual, beleaguered, New York Mets. I’m all about location, people.)

This will mark my 17th Major League home opener: 8 for the Mets, 7 for the Texas Rangers when we were cast out in the bland Dallas suburbs by corporate America, 1 for the Baltimore Orioles in college (Joan Jett sang the National Anthem, the original President Bush tossed out the first pitch then helicoptered the heck out of there because, hey, Charm City is no Kennebunkport, Mumsy) and 1 – bleech – for the Yankees.

I say that not just because the Yankees are the “ic” in America (greed, sense of entitlement, pinstriped business attire in a park setting and – the real kick in pants – $11 beer) but because, hands down, it was the worst time I’ve ever had at a baseball game. Ever.

The year: 1991. Some friends from the newspaper I worked at asked me to the game, which was great because I had never been to the legendary Yankee Stadium and, hey – it was Opening Day!

It was also 38 degrees and damp with a wind that brought what felt like a thousand razor cuts with every gust as we sat with our feet soaking in the puddles in the upper right field deck. 

I missed the top half of the first (and a Robin Ventura home run) waiting in line at the concession for nonexistent hot dogs.

Well, they existed before I got there. Specifically five people before I got there.

Yes, the Yankees – this richest, most fabled sports franchise in baseball – if not all sports – ran out of hot dogs.

On Opening Day.

In the FIRST FREAKIN’ INNING.

(To be fair, this was not the glory days of the Steinbrenner Era. Even if you don’t know a baseball from an avocado, this will give you all you need to know: your manager is named “Stump” and though everyone calls your starting left fielder “Bam Bam," his full name is the less than intimidating Hensley Filemon Acasio Meulens.)

In the third inning I waited in line for coffee. That ran out in the previous inning. Meanwhile, I missed the Yanks rally for 4 runs.

I finally gave up on hot food or beverage and opted for beer. I took it back to my seat and, three sips in, accidentally kicked it over. Luckily, the people in front of us didn’t notice because they had come properly dressed for day in blankets and garbage bags.

Today it will be better.

Today the sun is expected to peek out from behind its winter covers over Flushing, Queens, and show us its its unkempt bed head.

Today whatever they use for mercury these days might reach the mid-50s.

Today I’ll hurry the Things out of school early and into the minivan so we can sit in traffic on the Whitestone Bridge.

Today My Love will again try to teach Thing 1 how to keep score and I’ll try to teach Thing 2 that there is more to going to the ballpark than sucking down tortilla chips covered in glowing orange glop. Undoubtedly, I'll fail again but I won’t care until tomorrow morning.

Because today …

TODAY
Today you'll dig in the closet for your glove and snap a ball into it while sipping your morning coffee.
Today as the toast comes out of the toaster, you'll still remember how to execute a perfect "pop-up" slide.
Today you'll drive to work and admonish yourself to "keep your head down" and your eye on the road.
Today your team will be in first and planning to stay there.
Today you'll end your contract holdout.
Today you'll still be able to turn the double play.
Today you won't lose a business deal in the sun.
Today you'll find yourself rotating your arm around your head to stretch the shoulder and keep it loose.
Today someone asks if you'll be at the meeting and you respond by saying, "Let's play two."
Today you spend an hour in the attic with old baseball cards and dusty Sports Illustrateds.
Today sunflower seeds strangely find their way into your back pocket.
Today you find yourself muttering something about "Bill freakin' Buckner."
Today you'll think of wearing a black suit to match the eye black.
Today you'll have the steal sign.
Today you slip up in a meeting and mention "our sales team ... vs. lefties."
Today a hot dog and peanuts for lunch will sound about right.
Today you tell a co-worker to "warm up."
Today the only strike you'll know about is above the knees and below the armpits.
Today you'll wear your jacket only on your pitching arm.
Today you'll buy two packs of gum and stuff them in the side of your mouth.
Today, during lunch, you'll wonder why Coke doesn't come in a wood can.
Today you'll scratch yourself and spit for no apparent reason.
Today you'll wonder why stirrup socks never caught on.
Today you'll be the rookie looking to make it big.
Today you'll be the wily vet with just a little something left.
Today you'll look for the AM dial on your radio.
Today your glove is hanging off the handlebars of your bike.
Today seems like a good day for an ice cream before you head home.
Today is box scores and "Baseball Tonight."
Today is Donnie Sadler and Keith Osik.
Today is Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.
Today your first coach is cheering. Still.
Today mom's watching.
Today dad's in the backyard -- with his glove.
Today it'll still be a kids' game.
Today you'll be a kid.
Today is Opening Day.

Poem: “Today” -- By Greg Shea, Copyright © 2000 The Closer

* * *

BTW, if you like talkin’ baseball (or just listening to two guys babble in-depth about it), check out “Just Talking to the Cornfield” with my pal B.E. Earl on Sunday night. Sybil Law will be there with booze and gratuitous Dave Grohl photos.

Now, PLAY BALL!

Movember Moustache Resistance, Parts 1 and 2

Things have been getting a bit hairy under my lip of late, so this weekend I outed myself publicly.

(This look lasted all of 5 minutes. That’s how long it took me to steady my hand from the convulsions of laughter I experienced after seeing myself in the mirror.)

“I’m growing a moustache to raise awareness about men’s health issues,” I told the parents of Thing 2’s soccer teammates. I handed them slips of paper with the URL for my Movember donation page because doing things like that help you achieve your goals of:

• Helping raise money for research into prostate and testicular cancer, and
• Preventing people from alerting the authorities that a man with suspicious looking facial hair is hanging around at youth sporting events.

“Are you going to a Movember party at the end of the month?” asked one father.

“Not as of right now. You actually have heard of Movember?” I said.

“Yes. Some guys I know did this last year,” he said.

“How come you’re not growing a ‘stache?”

He eyed a women I suspect to be his wife.

Luckily for him, she had her back to us.

Unluckily, though, for any poor bastards who get cancer of the prostate or the man sack.

+ + +

After setting down my racket bag at my weekly tennis match, I handed my doubles partner one of my Movember cards.

“I’m growing a moustache to raise awareness about men’s health issues,” I said to him, a man in possession of some form of facial growth for the 20-plus years I’ve known him. I expected some compassion, some understanding, and definitely some sympathy for my nascent soup strainer.

Instead …

“AWARENESS OF MEN’S HEALTH ISSUES?!! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! ALL THESE HEALTH STUDIES ARE DONE ON MEN! WE NEED MORE AWARENESS OF WOMEN’S HEALTH ISSUES!!”

(Capital letters alone do not do justice to the volume and air of shock in his voice. Or to the looks from the people on the court next to us.)

“Um, we did just spent an entire month in a world painted pink for breast cancer awareness.,” I said. “That campaign is pretty pervasive, so …”

“BAH! MEN’S HEALTH ISSUES! LIKE WHAT!!”

“Uh, prostate cancer. Men are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than women are to be diagnosed with …”

“PROSTATE CANCER! THAT’S SO TREATABLE. C’MON!”

Now, I was not about to be sucked into a debate over the merits of one cancer versus another (as if cancer has merits – it all sucks, for cryin’ out loud – it’s CANCER!). So I listened to him go on more about biases in medical research toward men’s issues, how Major League Baseball had raised money for prostate cancer research this year and the like, and tried to figure out why this was a point of contention with him outside of the fact – and it is a fact evident if you knew this guy for 20 minutes, let alone 20 years – that my doubles partner will argue with any one over any thing any time.

“OK, fine,” I said. “Then don’t donate and just ignore all my on-court scratching today.”

We then proceeded to beat the other team 6-0, 6-2.

My moustache may not stop cancer, but it kills my tennis opponents’ rallies.

+ + +

Don’t forget to donate, even if it’s just a $5, to me and my DadCentric mates as we grow ‘em this Movember!

Technorati Tags: Movember,moustaches,cancer,men's health,prostate cancer

I’ll Take a Mulligan

My pinpoint accuracy in golf is legendary.

If by “accuracy” you mean my ability to inadvertently hit objects that I am not aiming for but would be pretty impressive to nail if I actually was.

Anyone can hit a tree or a golf cart or even another golfer (sorry about that random middle-age guy circa 1985 in Pound Ridge, N.Y.), but hitting small man-made objects from takes a certain talent. These include:

A divot repair box.

Fairway yardage markers.

Golf cart directional signs.

My specialty, however, is tee markers. These are placed at the start of a hole to show you where you must tee up your ball depending on your ability. Below is an example of the white tees that most courses use to show where the average male golfer (me) should hit from: 
 
Some yards in front of these are usually a set of red markers. These are where the average female golfer tees off from and those are the ones that, roughly once a year, I hit with a low errant drive. As the ball skims the grass, you can almost hear the worms scream in terror.

In 2010, I have been very good about avoiding the ladies’ tee markers. Then I took a three-day golf weekend with some friends the other day.

Oh, I avoided the ladies’ tee markers just fine.

It was the mens’ markers – the ones I hit from – I failed to avoid.

And, as you can tell from the way the man is lined up in the above photo, that is a pretty hard feat to accomplish when the markers are not in front of you, but AT A 90-DEGREE ANGLE TO YOUR SIDE.

Since the tee markers were made of granite and solidly set and our tee box was elevated above the previous hole, this what happened:



I’m not expecting to be invited to next year’s outing.

Are We Raising Kids to be Winners or Participants?

I saw the green ribbon, all imitation silk and faux gold-leaf lettering, buried on a cluttered table. It had the telltale crinkles and creases of surviving amid the worksheets, Pokémon cards and snack wrappers in my son's backpack. It bore, in capital letters, a single word that would wound any serious athlete: "PARTICIPANT."

"How'd field day go yesterday," I asked my son. "Not so good?"

The potato sacks were too small for his extra-tall frame, he said. The tire he had to roll around an orange traffic cone went wobbly and out of control.

"So you didn't win any events, huh?" I said, bracing myself for tears but hoping for a flash of determination followed by a vow to chase chickens and chug raw eggs Rocky-style to get ready for next year's three-legged races and water-balloon tosses.

"No, our class beat three others in the tug of war," he said. "We were really gooooood."

However, there would be neither blue ribbons nor empty hands. Every second-grader would leave the playing field an equal -- a green-ribboned member of the indistinct middle. In a few days, my son’s ribbon had disappeared without a trace and without any saddness on his part.

I'm not a subscriber to the Vince Lombardi-isms about winning being the only thing. But I do sometimes wonder if we do right by handing prizes to our children for simply showing up rather than actually excelling. How can they learn the value hard work and practice bring to success when results are irrelevant to reward? Has modern society's focus on preventing our children from ever feeling inadequate bred out the competitive gene by instilling a sense of entitlement for just being?

"It's psychotic!" I kept hearing the superhero father say during The Incredibles movie. "They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity ..."

I prepared many weeks in advance for my first field day when I was a fifth-grader (yes, son, back when dinosaurs and imitation wood-paneled station wagons still roamed the Earth). My event -- the softball throw. I spent hours heaving the one cement-hard gray softball we owned back and forth across our yard. Victory, I knew in my bones, could be mine with practice, attitude and stalling for a good gust of wind at my back.

When field day came, I was ready. Unfortunately, so was Millard. Millard was an impossibly tall classmate whose preference for unbuttoned cardigan sweaters optically enhanced his vertical superiority over not only the entire student population but also most of our teachers. Legend was he had stayed back a year. Or three. Reality was that on that spring day, he threw a softball clear across the entire asphalt back lot, the orb nearly clipping the metal backboard at the far end before hitting dirt on the edge of the woods.

My throw that day proved only good enough for third place. However, I came home with a yellow ribbon, proud I had showed given the missile launch I had witnessed. The ribbon hung on the corner of my bedroom mirror, holding a place of honor for more than a dozen years before I packed up my childhood for adult pastures.

A few days later, while searching some boxes in our basement, I came across that yellow ribbon, all imitation silk and faux gold-leaf lettering. "THIRD" screamed its front. On a cardboard tag on the back someone had written my name and my not-quite-winning event (and I quote), the "softball through."

This reminded me about the upcoming second-grade spelling bee my son had been prepping for lately. I found his vocabulary lists and the note the school had stapled atop them about the bee.

It concludes: "We will be handing out prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners!"

Maybe the competitive gene hasn't been bred out. Maybe we're just making it more selective.

* * *

Postscript: To the best of my knowledge, Millard, the softball-throwing machine of my youth, is dead. He was stabbed or shot while he robbed someone or was being robbing himself. He was in his 20s. I cut the article out of my hometown newspaper many years ago and tucked it away because I knew one day I would need to write about him. It was while searching for this clipping (which I still haven’t found) that I happened upon the ribbon I won that day. Winning isn’t everything or the only thing. Sometimes it’s just a flash that leaves a ghostly imprint you see when you close your eyes.

And who finished second in the fifth grade softball toss of 1979? Hey, Ms. Picket: I could be wrong, but you might want to check with The Kid.

Today’s post is brought to by Fatherhood Fridays at Dad-Blogs.com.

Click the logo and check out some other fatherly words.

Technorati Tags: parenting,fathers,sports,kids

It’s Opening Day, Baby!

The Always Home and Uncool office is closed for what should be a national holiday. The following first appeared 10 years ago on our family’s old AOL Hometown Web site. Enjoy and may your home team win … unless you root for the flippin’ Florida Marlins. Let’s go, Mets!

* * *

On April 3 (2000, Thing 1) made her Major League debut at the Texas Rangers' Opening Day in Arlington, Texas. It was actually more like Opening Day back at Shea with the Mets – chilly, windy and the home team won. We only made it through seven innings, but she handled it well, sleeping through most of the game.

If you plan on taking your 6-week-old baby to a game, here's what you need to know:

• Get to the game early. Feed baby right before going inside. Burp well. Repeat if necessary.
• Bring diapers. Hope the stadium has baby-changing tables in the restrooms or else plan on changing your kid on top of a garbage can, which isn’t too bad if only it makes diaper disposal that much easier.
• Put baby in one of those holders that you strap to your chest. Saves wear and tear on your arms, makes her and you feel secure. Also, frees your hands for beer drinking and scorekeeping, plus you don't have to pay for an extra ticket.
• OK, your hands are mostly free. Until baby falls asleep, leaning on your chest, you must support baby's neck. This makes keeping score quite a feat (really, a knee -- which supports baby's neck while you grip scorebook and pencil), but eating and drinking are doable. It helps if you are adept at shelling peanuts one-handed. Or enjoy eating peanuts in the shell.
• Yes, drinking with baby in tow is acceptable also long as you are not breastfeeding (or at least, the breast feeder) but only in moderation. Not only don't you want to get sloshed with a child strapped on your chest, you want to limit your own bathroom trips ... for obvious reasons.
• Having baby at a ball game makes you a chick magnet. Drunken groupies, girlfriends dragged to the stadium, ice-cream vendors -- they all love you and the baby. Heck, it’ll even makes a few guys teary eyed.

TODAY
by Greg Shea

Today you'll dig in the closet for your glove 
    and snap a ball into it while sipping your morning coffee.
Today as the toast comes out of the toaster,
    you'll still remember how to execute a perfect "pop-up" slide.
Today you'll drive to work and admonish yourself
    to "keep your head down" and your eye on the road.
Today your team will be in first and planning to stay there.
Today you'll end your contract holdout.
Today you'll still be able to turn the double play.
Today you won't lose a business deal in the sun.
Today you'll find yourself rotating your arm around your head
    to stretch the shoulder and keep it loose.
Today someone asks if you'll be at the meeting
    and you respond by saying, "Let's play two."
Today you spend an hour in the attic
    with old baseball cards and dusty Sports Illustrateds.
Today sunflower seeds strangely find their way into your back pocket.
Today you find yourself muttering something about "Bill freakin' Buckner."
Today you'll think of wearing a black suit to match the eye black.
Today you'll have the steal sign.
Today you slip up in a meeting and mention "our sales team ... vs. lefties."
Today a hot dog and peanuts for lunch will sound about right.
Today you tell a co-worker to "warm up."
Today the only strike you'll know about
    is above the knees and below the armpits.
Today you'll wear your jacket only on your pitching arm.
Today you'll buy two packs of gum
    and stuff them in the side of your mouth.
Today, during lunch, you'll wonder why Coke doesn't come in a wood can.
Today you'll scratch yourself and spit for no apparent reason.
Today you'll wonder why stirrup socks never caught on.
Today you'll be the rookie looking to make it big.
Today you'll be the wily vet with just a little something left.
Today you'll look for the AM dial on your radio.
Today your glove is hanging off the handlebars of your bike.
Today seems like a good day for an ice cream before you head home.
Today is box scores and Baseball Tonight.
Today is Donnie Sadler and Keith Osik.
Today is Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.
Today your first coach is cheering. Still.
Today Mom's watching.
Today Dad's in the backyard -- with his glove.
Today it'll still be a kids' game.
Today you'll be a kid.
Today is Opening Day.
Copyright © 2000 The Closer

Technorati Tags: opening day,baseball,babies,parenting

I Ski, You Ski, We All Scream When the Credit Card Bill Arrives

Just before that first time we reached the mountain, we drove past two cemeteries. That's some potentially heavy-handed foreshadowing when your family has just decided to take up skiing.

Turns out, I misinterpreted this sign. The burial grounds we skirted en route to Ski Sundown (there it was again!) in New Hartford, a year ago weren't a harbinger of physical demise to come on the slopes. They were a warning that this hobby could lead to a pauper's grave.

This clarification came a few days ago after having survived my first full winter's skiing with minimal near-death experiences and one huge escape from blowing half a million dollars on a weekend hideaway in Vermont.

The near-fatal fiscal buildup came gradually. The previous summer, we wisely invested in helmets, goggles and arctic wear at mega-low online, off-season rates. Our family of four, still sporting shorts and sandals at the time, visited a local ski shop to be fit for a long winter's rental of skis, boots and poles – all at a pre-snowflake discount.

When December finally came, we hit the slopes. The slopes hit back at our bank account.

Gas. Lift tickets, which resorts upsell with movie-theater concession ingenuity ("Only $5 more for the all-day versus the half-day even though in reality I'll only ski an extra 45 minutes? What a deal!"). Lunch and post-run adult beverages to revive numb feet and soothe sore thighs. Repeated every few weekends and we're talking credit card bills of Swiss Alps proportion.

However, I figured that as long as My Love stayed employed, Wall Street didn't tank again and I avoided hospital expenses by managing to continue to weave around the snowboarders who randomly chill in the middle of every flippin' trail I take, we'd survive.

Then my wife started visiting real estate Web sites.

Although she grew up in the eastern Great Plains where the closest one comes to skiing is sliding down the stadium steps at a Nebraska Cornhuskers game after one too many tomato juice tainted Budweisers, My Love spent many hours swooshing down the Colorado Rockies while on road trips in college and even more so after shed moved to Denver the day she graduated. She gave this up when the company she worked for shipped her East and she meet me, a man committed to always avoiding situations that could land me in a full-body cast. This winter, though, she was in her glory because not only me but also the Things reveled in one of her former passions.

My Love read aloud the descriptions of this potential second home in the heart of the Vermont ski country. Four thousand square feet, 2.1 acres of land, stream teeming with trout, hot tub and just minutes from the slopes of Stratton Mountain.

"We're going to be near there when we stay at my friend's house this weekend," she said last Thursday, sounding even more upbeat than usual. "Let's check it out."

We had talked for years about investing in a property we could use as an occasional getaway and rental unit, but it never happened for several reasons. The biggest, as far as I was concerned, was a poor Schlep Ratio.

Schlep Ratio (SR) is expense and travel time multiplied by the weight and square footage of your luggage added to onsite, non-relaxation time (cleaning your vacation home, waiting in a lift line, etc.) divided by time spent actually enjoying the destination minus sleep but excluding naps. Weekend ski trips to central Vermont from southwestern Connecticut (it’s that little tail part that wags the rest of the state) have very high SR. This means acceptability on an infrequent basis and only if you're staying at someone's place for free.

However, I’ve learned over our 17 years together to never express these kinds of Doubting Thomas opinions directly to My Love. She’s the can-do dreamer; I’m the cynic who tries to disguise his fears as practicality. My negativity only makes her want to work harder to prove me wrong and she succeeds far too much at this for what remains of my ego.

Luckily for me, by the time we reached this mountainside dream home she was drooling over online, it was nearly four hours and a minivan full of kids, a kenneled dog and a ton of ski equipment later, My Love had already done some mental calculations of the Schlep Ratio on her own.

We looked through the car windows, nodded and left.

Somewhere safely down the highway, she started talking aloud – more to herself, really, than me. We’d need to get a third car, a 4x4, because the minivan only has front wheel drive. We’d have to hire someone to maintain the yard during the summer and plow the quarter-mile long driveway in the winter. She didn’t want to spend the weekend’s there cleaning so someone would need to come in at least monthly to do that. And four hours, even without traffic, now that’s a schlep.

It went on and on. I sat there and tried not to agree too enthusiastically.

"Looks like we'll be putting our money in the kids' college fund this spring," she said once we were many many mile down the highway.

For her sake, though, I'm going to start seeding the Things’ little minds about the importance of winning a ski team scholarship.

Technorati Tags: skiiing,real estate investment,Vermont,real estate

Ran Out of Excuses

My Love has been trying to persuade me to take up jogging since shortly after we first met which, I feel compelled to point out, was at a keg party.

In those days, she'd arise at an hour still better suited for last call than lacing up one's Sauconys and by the time the sun had even considered peeping out from under its earthly covers, she would have already logged half a dozen miles. Not an attractive trait in my book of love, but I admit that I did admire the dividends her regimen paid in other -- ahem -- areas that grabbed my attention during the early stages of the mating ritual.

In the 17 years we've know each other since, she's run marathons in Honolulu, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City and half marathons elsewhere. To me, these are all certifiable acts of insanity or, at the very least, signs she needs a more stimulating and purposeful hobby. Re-grouting bathroom tile, for example, also has a clear starting and ending point, offers great emotional and physical satisfaction upon completion and results in very similar aches and pains in the lower extremities.

I have tried jogging before. My Love and some co-workers conned me into running a 5K many years back. After only a few practice runs, it felt as though John Daly had lined a tee shot directly into the side of my left knee. I eventually ran the race, but my knee stayed cranky for months afterward and that's where my running career hit the wall.

(This is the point when whenever I tell this story that My Love shakes her head and calls me something endearing like "wuss." Running, it is clear, does not build one's empathy toward the lame.)

Sometime early last year, though, I found myself forced into an occasional run that for once had nothing to do about the urgency to reach an unoccupied bathroom.

I blame our dog, Murphy.

While on our walks, our 3-year-old Labrador retriever, sometimes decides he'd rather be going in a different direction if not going at all. When these moments hit, he simply locks all four legs in "park" or just lies down all together. Since modern dog training methods frown on yanking a dog into mobility and physically lifting Murphy, who weighs about 75 pounds, offers only a solution for the literal short haul, an alternative had to be found.

This is when I'd take a treat, hold it inches from his snout then pull it back while uttering the words I never thought I'd say aloud, with any sense of enthusiasm, to man or beast:

"OK -- let's go for a run!"

These were short burst semi-sprints: a few dozen feet to maybe a few dozen yards at a time. During the winter, when the golf course by our neighborhood lay deserted except for northern winds and rotting snow, Murphy's leash would be detached and we'd run the odd fairway or two.

When I mentioned this to My Love, her face brightened like a child on Christmas morning. I told her not to get carried away by this. I said it again after my subsequent decision to purchase a pair of running shoes for it could just be a passing phase like that time I was fascinated by mutton chop sideburns.

Spring, summer and fall went by without anything more than my occasional run to jumpstart the pup. Then three weeks ago, in the dead of New England winter, I did it. I hopped onto our treadmill in the toasty basement and put in a little more than a mile.

Twice.

I did it again last week.

Once I even did a mile and a half, picking up the pace so it was less of a brisk walk and more of a vague approximation of an ungainly trot.

I can't say I loved it, but I definitely didn't loathe it, either.

Hallelujah! I've achieved indifference!

That's the same as an endorphin high, right?

Technorati Tags: running,health,sports

Grand Theft Zamboni

Today’s guest in this week’s “When ‘Always Home’ Leaves His Home” series is the mysterious man from the north, Homemaker Man. He writes the fresh guffaw-fest Musings From The Big Pink, which I highly recommend to everyone in this fair land and points elsewhere.

Like me, Homemaker is an at-home dad with two kids and blog. However, he is cooler than me by miles – literally and figuratively -- as he drives a Zamboni.

Well, he used to drive a Zamboni. I’ll let him explain.

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There is no easy way to put this. The day I met Always Home and Uncool was the day I lost something special.

“Homemaker, I’m gone, it’s all you. Should be a slow night,” my boss yelled as he departed through the throng of arriving hockey parents. Dick.

I drive a Zamboni, you see. Or, I did.

Zamboni Driver is one part driver, one part night supervisor, one part mechanic and five parts Ice Cowboy. That’s eight parts -- over a whole of seven.

Zamboni driving is hairy. Improper fraction hairy. When I wasn’t whizzing around the ice at top speed, making it possible for youth league skaters to get berated by their lunatic parents, I was cleaning and maintaining the ol’ beauty.

Otherwise, I was (and still am) a stay-at-home-dad. This, of course, is a gateway drug to blogging.

So, I blogged it up a little. No big whoop. Along the way, I met the above mentioned character, A.H.A.U., online.

He’s another stay-at-home-dad. Real amicable, clever sort. Nice wife. Nice kids. Nice guy? Nice try.

He Google Buzzes me late one night, “I’ve always wanted to ride on a Zamboni.”

“Oh yeah?” I type.

“Yeah. I think it’d be awesome!”

“Well, Zambonis are tools, not toys. The things are two tons of moving belts and giant augers. They reach speeds upwards of 10 miles an hour.”

“Yeah, YEAH!” he buzzes back.

“Besides,” I type back, “you’re name is Always Home and blah blah blah. You’ll never come up here.”

“I’ll be there in two hours. Don’t make freakin’ ice with out me.”

“Whoa, watch the language,” I tap in but he never answers back. He’s in the minivan and on the way.

I figured what the hell. I’d take him out to make one ice, he’d be happy, the end. He was pretty amped up. I should’ve known what was coming.

He showed up about 2 hours later. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts, an oversized American Girl T-shirt and a white ball cap. In February. He was shivering, but I don’t think it was the cold. He reeked of hops and barley.

“You ready? “ I said.

“Frickin’ A!” he howled.

“All right, settle down George Carlin.”

We headed out to the Zamboni room. There she stood, silent -- but alert -- like a great cat. A great, rectangular, yellow cat that needs to be charged 3 times a day and runs on hydraulics.

“OmygodOMYGOD,” he said. He immediately stuck his arm in the giant ice-grinding auger and yelled, “Hit it!” I ignored him. I got him safely stowed on board and off we went.

It was on our third loop around the ice. The rink was quiet. All we could hear was the quiet spray of the water, the scraping of the blade against ice, and the 100-decibel growl and whine of two tons of 30-year-old electric ice-making equipment.

“Let’s steal it,” he staged whispered.

“What?” I pretended.

“Let’s steal it!”

Crazy bastard. It can’t be done

“OK!” I agreed.

We careened off the ice and made for the doors, digging up an eight-foot-wide swath of rubber skating rink floor as we went and replacing it with a sweet, sweeeeeet quarter-inch layer of ice.

We hit the doors at a full 10 mph. We stopped dead. Her bulk strained; willing, but not quite able.

He jumped off, got the doors open, and off we went.

It was amazing. The breeze tousled our hair as we opened her up full throttle. The blade ripped sparks from the asphalt and we set off to cover my entire city in a thin, glassy-smooth sheet of ice.

We got further than you might think. The cops came after us, but they couldn’t handle the ice. Even at full throttle that machine laid ice so pure and righteous that cop tires couldn’t stick to it.

They finally caught us. Four blocks later. The Zamboni’s charge had run out.

He was still laughing as the cops dragged him away. “It was frickin’ worth it!” He screamed.

Me. I never made ice again. Crazy son-of-a-bitch cost me that.

God, I miss him.

What Me, Blacklisted?

If you read my post at DadCentric Tuesday, you know that I overexerted myself a bit the other week at my kids' soccer practices. (If you didn't read it, click over to "Kids are a Pain" now. I'll wait.)

The irony of this is that I'm not supposed to be coaching soccer at all this season. I was blacklisted by the league.

My crime? Verbal abuse of the referees? Climbing into the stands to hit a parent? Putting steroids in the halftime juice boxes?

Nope. I had a few choice exchanges with the league's directors last year and I used some inappropriate words.

They were "50 percent refund."

Three of the seven games my daughter's team played one season were won by forfeit because the other team didn't have enough players show. The eighth game, for the championship, was canceled because the league assigned someone else to our field. So, being the accountant's son that I am, I asked the league to give my team's parents half their money back.

I e-mailed them three times with my request before someone finally responded. That was only after I might have casually mentioned calling the city parks department and team sponsors about reconsidering their support for the league.

Anyway, six minutes after I hit the "send" button on the third missive, my phone rang.

It was an enlightening discussion that went something like this:

LEAGUE BIGWIG: We don't refund money to players. They're children.

ME: Good thing. They'd probably spend it on cheap whiskey, angel dust and chicken nuggets. That's why I requested you refund my players' parents. It's in the e-mail. All three of them.

LEAGUE BIGWIG: You said your last game was a playoff. That age bracket isn't supposed to have playoffs.

ME: I don't care what you call it. It was a game on the schedule you gave us that wasn't played because of your scheduling mistake.

LEAGUE BIGWIG: But it wasn't a playoff. That league is not supposed to have playoffs.

ME: Whatever. I had one parent cut a weekend trip short to bring their kid to a game that didn't occur because a schedule you issued us three months ago was wrong.

LEAGUE BIGWIG: But it wasn't a playoff.

My favorite part of this whole conversation (apart from some inevitable cussing on my part because, alas, I can only stand so much stupid) was being lectured about this being a not-for-profit league run by volunteers and the importance of being involved, not just as a mere coach of two teams (as I was) but as a league commissioner, an executive director or eventually the head of ACORN.

This came right before Bigwig told me I was NOT invited to attend the board meeting at which my request was being discussed.

I volunteered to show up anyway. He couldn't see the irony past his iron fist.

As expected, my request was denied. So, I let it drop and moved on, coaching two teams for another season without incident.

Then, when the league issued its autumn rosters, the Things received their team assignments but I was not a coach for either team even though I volunteered (remember that word) to run one team and assist with the other.

I figured maybe they actually had enough coaches, though that would have been a first in my two years in the league. Call me skeptical. I made a few calls just to be sure.

"Man, I didn't want to tell you this," said my assistant from a previous season. "They called me and drafted me to run a team. I told them I was only planning on being your assistant again this year. Then they said you weren't being allowed to coach a team this year because of some incident you had over the winter."

My response to this. I volunteered. Directly -- to both my kids' coaches. They both welcomed the added help. In fact, I "officially" was promoted to co-coach of one team because the other coach travels for business frequently.

Part of my new coaching duties is to introduce myself to the refs before every game, make small talk with them and compliment their outstanding officiating skills. By doing this, they always come to me when the game ends and hand me a special slip of paper.

It's their pay sheet for the league.

I make certain I print and sign my name in very large, legible bold letters.

Bear with Me

Two weeks back, some friends and I took a golf weekend in the hills of northern New Jersey.

I played my three best rounds of the entire year and was the big winner, collecting $2.25 from my friends in our friendly waging.

I lost only 10 golf balls and never my temper.

The beverage cart managed to find me every four or five holes. Mmm, frosty Yuengling on the links.

And not only did I make this putt ...

... but also the 300-pound black bear crossing the fairway behind me didn't eat my sorry, saddle-shoed ass.