Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Bad Haircuts
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Little League
When I was ten, I was the starting centerfielder for the Athens Medics, a Little League team that was the most amazing team anyone had seen in that town in a long time--certainly more successful than the Ohio University sports teams were in the late sixties. We were undefeated for the three years I was on the team, though I had very little to do with our success during the first two.
I first joined the team when I was eight. It was supposed to be the last year of PeeWee baseball, but you could take a test and if you were skilled enough, you could be drafted up to the next level. You had to score 50% to be eligible for the draft, and the scoring was, as I recall, pretty subjective. They watched you hit, throw, run, slide, and catch, and gave numerical scores. I scored 51%, but I’ve always suspected that I got a break due to the fact that several of the judges were my father’s friends.
Anyway, I was drafted by the Medics, and I was thrilled. They were the Yankees of the Little League in Athens. The coach was a decent, religious man who never yelled, never allowed us to yell, and who drilled us constantly, teaching skills patiently, holding practices much more often than other coaches did. The team had a few ringers on it—a fireballing lefty who was the coach’s son, who was taller then me by half. I idolized this kid, who was three years older than me and seemed much, much older. He was a nice guy, who didn’t abuse the “rookies” like some kids did. His cousin, though, another lefthanded pitcher who came from Indiana for the summers to stay with the coach, was another matter. He was an arrogant, aggressive jerk, and no one on the team liked him, though he was talented. He picked on me a little at first, when his uncle wasn’t looking, but soon he just ignored me, completely ignored me, as if I weren’t worthy of his abuse any longer.
For the first two years of my tenure on the team, I was that sub you have to bring in because the rules dictate everyone gets to play. We usually had the games sewed up by the time I was put in the game. I was always stuck in right field, the position of dreamers and misfits, the place where you were least likely to hurt the team. And I always batted last. And I always struck out. Always. A personal victory could be counted if I actually made contact with the ball and fouled it back. But the coach was always supportive, and patient, and seemed to like me. I was a pretty sensitive kid, easily hurt, and after a while dreaded going to the games, because I knew I was going to fail, and my jock dad would be disappointed.
In the spring of my last year, something changed. I had a growth spurt, and my eye/hand coordination improved dramatically. My father tells me he immediately noticed something was different the first day he and I played catch that spring. I started throwing the ball overhand, instead of the sidearm style most often employed by weaker kids. I could also, all of a sudden, really fire the ball, with a lot of mustard on it. And I caught everything that was thrown my way. I didn’t seem to be afraid of the ball anymore, and most importantly, I was swinging the bat with authority, and made contact.
When practices began, the coach too noticed I was a different player than the timid boy of the previous year. He tried me out at third base, and when I took my first grounder and threw it across the diamond to the first baseman, it sailed five feet over his head and into the far dugout. The coach laughed and said, “ Been throwing with your dad, huh?” My dad was 6’3”.
By the time the season began, I was the starting centerfielder, because I had the strongest arm on the team. I also would play third base when our regular kid was out. I batted sixth, and ended the season with a .502 batting average, and most importantly to me, was the only kid on the team to never strike out all season.
The coach awarded me the Most Improved Player Trophy at the end of season banquet, and put his arm around me, and told the crowd I was an amazing kid, and most hardworking one he’d ever seen. But by the time of the banquet, I never wanted to see him again.
A week before the banquet we were playing the final game of the season, against the second best team. We were undefeated, as were they, and for once we weren’t rolling over the opposing team. Usually we had a 10 run cushion by the final inning (this was before the “mercy rule”), but this game was tight. As I recall, we were leading by one run in the bottom of the seventh inning (the final one in Little League), but the other team was at bat and had a runner on second base with two outs. Unfortunately for the other team, the “everybody plays” rule came into effect for them, and they had to let one of their lowly scrubs bat in this most crucial of moments.
He was a chubby little guy, and as I looked at him standing at the plate, his eyes looked huge, and I could see the fear in them from where I stood covering the third base line. Our coach stood up from the bench, walked halfway to the mound, and began clapping his hands, and repeating to his son, the pitcher. “ It’s OK, Scotty, it’s OK…he’s only a substitute…ONLY A SUBSTITUTE!”
I saw the look in the batters eyes. To this day I can’t describe it accurately. From 40 years away they look hurt, the pressure from a strange grownup, belittling him in front of everyone, his own parents included. I had been that kid for the previous two years. I looked at my coach, and I don’t think I was ever so disillusioned in my life. To think he’d preached these rules about respect and sportsmanship, wouldn’t even let us say, “ Hey batter batter batter” because it was razzing the other team, and we were supposed to be better than that, you don’t razz people, you support your own guys, but here, when the game was on the line, and the chips were down, he stood in front of the world and announced that this little kid was a loser, and nothing to be worried about.
This man used to take me to church with his family, and invited me once to go on a picnic at a local lake with his family. He was a deacon in his church, and a swell guy. And I learned a bitter lesson about people under pressure, how most times the best intentions crumble under adversity. He was a great coach, the best teacher of skills I ever saw, and unwittingly he taught me a lesson about character I’ve never forgotten.
I’d like to be able to tell you the chubby little substitute struck gold, and caught a break and hammered a ball down the left field line, and slide into home for the winning run. That’s the Hollywood ending, the one we want rather than the one we ought to have. No, he struck out on three pitches, the Medics won again, and years later, the substitute could well be writing an essay just like this one, about the time an opposing coach humiliated him in front of the world, and it was that moment that was in his mind right before he chopped up his whole family.
But that’s, as they say, another story. But I will give you a Hollywood ending that’s a true. About fifteen years later, Randy, the jerk from Indiana who used to pick on me, had relocated to Athens permanently, and was playing in a softball league, and got into a violent argument with the umpire, so violent that the umpire was fearful for his safety, and the Athens Police was called to escort Randy from the ballpark, and yours truly, by then one of Athens Finest, got to drag his beer sodden ass off the field and into my cruiser. Life, my dear Dr. Jan, can be sweet sometimes.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Fatal Glass of Beer 1
In honor of all the snow we've had--which looks a lot like the snow in this film--I thought I'd post this. I have very fond memories of watching this with my father years ago, and the two of us laughing so hard we couldn't catch our breaths. I seem to remember every movie or TV show I ever laughed at with my dad, which includes all the Pink Panther movies, and Charlie Brown's Halloween show...
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Movie Titles With Colons in Them: Bad Idea
Monday, February 8, 2010
Our Wedding Dog
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
10 Addictive Bad Movies
1. Demolition Man--Stallone, Snipes, Bullock--I can't help it, I am powerless before this movie...
2. Oscar--Stallone (again), an attempt at a 30's style screwball comedy, and Tim Curry in his second campiest role...add these together and you have 90 minutes you'll never get back--every damn time it's on...
3. That Thing You Do!--I have been threatened with death if I ever so much as pause for 2 seconds on this film, while surfing...
4. Starship Troopers--again, powerless before it...
5. The Band Wagon--Fred Astaire, the goddess that is Cyd Charisse--this actually is a pretty good film, until it decides it has spent way too much time on plot and story, and just ends in about 150 musical numbers in a row ...TCM has been playing it a lot lately, and I am down with it every time...I even have it DVR'd, but that doesn't seem to make a difference...
6. Idiocracy--about 1/2 brilliance, 1/2 dreck, but if its a choice between this film and The English Patient on the next channel, you know where my surfing stops...
7. Anything with Elvis in it--what can I say--I am not proud of it...
8. Field of Dreams--this is actually a fine movie, but I have watched it so many times, and will watch it countless more times, that my darling wife actually has a seizure when she sees it on the TV-- it is a male chick flick, I get that--" People will come, Ray, people will most definitely come...and watch this speech over and over and over and over again...and sob every time...
9. Natural Born Killers--below-average acting, Oliver Stone at his most self-indulgent, pretentious and obvious in its ...oh, let's call it "theme"...but, Micky and Mallory, if you are on, I am right there with you, hating myself every .4 second shot length along the way...
10. The Matrix--Before you can say anything--NO! It is not a good movie--the acting is either terrible or non-existent, the actors mostly just pose-- the dialogue reads like it was written by a fanboy who had to write an extra-credit project for his remedial english class--the logic of the universe they've created breaks down completely if you let yourself think about it for more than 5 seconds (which is 4 more than it deserves)-- Keanu Reeves-- way too much slow motion-- far more than their fair share of sunglasses ( the next three movies that studio put out had no sunglasses in them at all, because the Matrix took em all...true story--Carrie Ann Moss looks like Keanu Reeve's mother, or at least his hot math hot teacher--Joe Pantoliano--ok, that thing I said about using up all the sunglasses? OK, that wasn't a true story, but consider this: what if it was?--all this stuff is on the negative side. And what's on the positive side, you ask? Well, after some 107 viewings, I've yet to find something, but I will, I promise, just give me a few more years of viewing...