The Tale of Why We Love Baseball

Toward the end of second grade, a bunch of kids at school began talking about this game called baseball.  It was kind of like kickball, except you played with bats and gloves and a much smaller ball.  I wanted to play this game so I asked my Dad if he would buy me the necessary equipment so I could play with the other kids.

Dad was not sure about this at all,   Unbeknownst to me at the age of seven almost eight, this equipment cost money and while I know now that my parents would have been considered the working poor, at that age I had no idea that a bat, a glove, and a ball would be a huge expense for my parents.  I just knew my Dad said he didn't know, and I left for school feeling very sad, but as I ran out the door holding back my tears my Mom yelled, "We'll try to work it out, Mark!"

That day when I got home--voila!--there in the downstairs was a mitt, a bat, and a big white softball.  Mere words cannot explain the joy.  A short while later my Dad tossed me my first ball, I turned my mitt the wrong way, and it bounced off the glove and right into my upper lip, which proceeded to swell to about five times its normal size.  With my Mom watching at my side, I felt no pain at all.

Baseball would eventually become an essential fabric of our lives.  When I played Little League I was an awful hitter and my Dad would take me to the park and throw me pitch after pitch after pitch (to ultimately no avail) while my Mom, my sister, and my younger brother shagged balls.  Eventually I would teach your Uncle Curt to play the game, and as we got older the love for the game would be passed to your older brother and big sister, by your Aunt Susie and Uncle John to all of their kids, by Curt to his son, and eventually from me to you.

And I'm sure you know of our lifetime love affair with the San Francisco Giants....

I note this today because, as you are well aware, we go see the fireworks here in Clarkston every year on the Fourth of July, in the same park, and you and I always spend time on one of the baseball diamonds before the show.  Last night--because you are ten and being self-conscious has not yet caught up to you (and God how I wish it never would)--you hit your first big league home run, ran the bases, and high-fived your imaginary teammates in the dugout.  You struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth inning to clinch another World Series for the Giants.  And last but not least, you set a new record for running the bases--17 seconds from home plate to home plate.

You reminded me--as has the rest of the family so many times--of how much I love baseball.  And your Dad wants you to know that as you ran the bases, as you fielded grounders, as you threw that final strike to win the World Series, you were beautiful.

                                                                The End

The Tale of Halloween Night, 2014

As we drove to spend Halloween trick or treating tonight with your Mother's Aunt Janet, it was snowing, and you asked your Mom and I if we ever remembered it snowing on Halloween before.  I had no idea, though your Mother recalled that it snowed on homecoming night when she was in high school, which would have been in mid to late October.

This post is a reminder for you to tell your kids that, yes, once it did snow on Halloween as you trick or treated, two days after the Giants won their third World Series in five years. A lot of very kind people braved freezing temperatures (and blew up their heating bills) giving you and lots of other kids candy that night.

And that your mother and I walked around with soaking wet feet and frozen hands (even with gloves on), with snowflake streaked glasses and wet hair because you enjoyed the evening so much and we loved you even more.

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The Tale of Your First Dance

When you were little (roughly three years old) you liked to play with the knobs on my stereo.  It wasn't much of a problem until you hit the power switch with the volume cranked to ten, at which time you would scream like a Banshee until either your mother or myself turned it down and comforted your scared little body.

One afternoon, after I'd worked and picked you up from daycare, we were waiting for your Mom to get home.  I was in the bedroom making the bed, and you, as often was your want, were playing with the buttons on my stereo in the living room.  All of a sudden I heard, loudly, the intro to The Hold Steady's "Banging Camp" (which your sister had been so kind to send me as part of a mix CD of the best songs of that year) blaring from our living room.  I dropped everything I was doing, raced to get you, but when I turned the corner, there you stood, your little arms stretched as high as you could get them, your little hands clenched into fists, and you screamed, "DANCE DADA!" as loud as your little voice could muster.  You then proceeded to shimmy and shake until the song was over.

We listened to it eight more times before your Mom got home.

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The Tale of the Lesson in Humility

When I was in college I worked summers in a steel mill (at one time it was called Continental Steel, later became Penn-Dixie Steel, then reverted to the original name before going out of business) to pay for my tuition (Mom and Dad paid for the room and board--much appreciated--as I stayed at home and went to a local campus of Indiana Univesity in Kokomo, IN).  It taught me many lessons--and left me with a few permanent bodily scars--but none quite like the lesson in humility I was taught by an illiterate co-worker.

About halfway through my first summer I drove to work one Friday afternoon to pick up my paycheck.  Back in the day (would have been the summer of '77), they didn't have direct deposit like we do now.  You had to pick up a paper copy of your check and take it to the bank to either cash or desposit it.  We went into a somewhat small office where there were several lines--once you got to the front, you would sign for your check and they'd hand it over to you.  As you might imagine in an organization that employed a couple thousand people, the lines were long, though it didn't take more than about ten minutes or so to get to the front.  As I waited the gentleman in front of me was giving and taking some good natured banter--God only knows what I was thinking about in those days, but I was half paying attention and half daydreaming if memory serves.  When I finally reached the front, I noticed that the gentleman before me had placed an "X" on his signature line.  It struck me as odd, me being in college and all, that in a nation as far advanced as America, we still had people who could not even write their own name.

I worked in the day pool, where we went from department to department doing usually exceptionally menial jobs (picking up scraps of wire, cleaning toilets, tying wire around metal rods), and as fate would have it, I ended up one week in the Rod Mill doing the extremely thrilling job of sweeping (which was Sisyphean task--once you got to one end of the mill, you could look back and see as big of a mess on the floor as when you started).  As I was sweeping I noticed one of the men watching over one of the machines just happened to be the gentleman I noted above who was unable to write his own name.  He'd wave or nod as I pushed my broom past him, and seemed as I noticed in the pay office, a decent fellow.  After my first few hours of tedium, he approached me and asked if I'd like to take a break and play some checkers with him.  I was dying to take a break to do anything to take me away from my boredom, but playing checkers with an illiterate didn't sound much more enticing--how hard could it be to defeat a man at checkers who couldn't even write his own name?  I reluctantly agreed.

And found I could not possibly have been more wrong.  Turns out the guy was like the Bobby Fischer of checkers.  At the end of the first game, I had two of his checkers, and he had all of mine with a board full of his kinged men.  The next several games were no better--he was doing quadruple and quintuple jumps and I was wondering just what the hell good a college degree was going to do for a man who was getting schooled in checkers by Lenny from Of Mice and Men.  As the break wore on I got slightly better--which he encouragingly pointed out when I had four (a whole four!) of his men at the end of one game.  We finally and mercifully went back to work--he wanted to play later in the shift but I begged off because I had to finish sweeping.  I ended up somewhere else in the department for the rest of the week, and never did see him again over the next couple of summers.

He still sticks with me, though--as a reminder that playing checkers with him was the first, though certainly not the last, time I would curse God for teaching me humility the hard way.

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The Tale of The Who

On a late summer evening when you were four, a car drove past us as we played down by the big rock at the old apartment blaring the song "Baba O'Riley" by The Who.  It had been a while since I'd heard it and I had forgotten the sheer joy of the song.  I showed you Pete Townshend's trademark windmill guitar playing, which made you laugh, and you asked to hear the song.  I only had Who's Next on an LP and since we had no record player at the time, I downloaded it from iTunes for you.

You fell in love with it instantly.

And thus began for you a love affair with The Who--and a revival of one for me.  You listened to their songs thousands of times--on your iPod, on my albums, on my CDs, on the countless DVDs we bought for you.  I was amazed  at how even after thousands of listens (unlike, say, Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping") it just never got old (your mother would beg to differ, though).  And how much I loved listening to them even more.

We watched countless youtube performances and I learned how good they were live (I had seen them twice, both times after the death of Keith Moon--enjoyable, but not as good as the Moon days).  I learned that they had a charitable foundation through which they had funneled millions of dollars.  I learned that Pete Townshend was the first to make his rhythm section more than just a rhythm section--"Baba O'Riley" is the perfect embodiment of this, but to watch and listen to other songs you can see again and again what an integral part of the band John Entwistle and Keith Moon were.  And how much better they made the music.  I watched them age (and you learned what aging was after seeing them on the Super Bowl halftime show when they were in their sixties and at Kilbourn when they were in their thirties).  I learned that Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey may not have always seen eye to eye (or even fist to eye), but as they aged you could see them enjoy each other's talents more so than ever.

You heard things I'd never noticed--the snippet of "Pure and Easy" in "The Song Is Over," Townshend playing the tambourine on "Baba O'Riley," the hand claps in "Who Are You."  I saw how diverse their music really was, heard so many songs for the hundredth time like they were brand new.

But most of all, thanks to your love for them, I learned that The Who are, in my humble opinion, without a doubt the greatest rock band to ever walk the face of this earth.

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The Tale of the Best Meal Ever

At the time of this tale, my father would have been nine, my Uncle Bob around seven, and my Aunt Petie (it's either that or her given name, Pearl Ann) about five.  Unlike you and me, they were not fortunate to have a mother who had their best interest at heart.  As my father often said, his mother was "paid on Friday and broke on Saturday."

As it happened, the three of them found themselves at home alone (not a good sign at that age) with no food and no money.  They had not eaten for a couple of days and were beside themselves with hunger.  My Dad and my Uncle Bob devised a plan.

Now back when your Granddad was a wee lad, people had milk delivered to their homes by milkmen.  Once people had finished their bottles of milk, they placed their empty bottles on their porches for which they would be given a deposit.  As you might have guessed, my Dad and Uncle Bob's plan was to steal milk bottles from the porches of their neighbors, get the money from the store, and buy some food.

They were able to carry enough bottles in their still young arms to the grocery store to purchase a loaf of bread, a can of peas, and ironically enough, a quart of milk.  When they got home they warmed the peas and dunked the bread in the milk.  And they ate like it was a feast.

My Dad was in his late thirties when he told me this tale of his life, and even then, he swore it was still the best meal he had ever eaten.

I believed him.

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The Tale of the Late Night Woodstock Viewing

Many years ago (your sister would have been about five-years-old at the time) I had a night when I was having trouble sleeping.  I got out of bed and went into our family room (it would have been in our home in Belleville, IL) and turned on the TV.  I flipped channels for a while until I came upon the film from the legendary concert at Woodstock in 1969.  It's a bit dated (you'll know what I mean if you ever see it), but the music is really good and I figured it was a good way to relax until I was tired enough to go back to bed.

A short while after I began watching, Peanut awoke and came out and joined me.  I suppose many Dads would have taken her little hand and led her back to bed, but she cuddled up next to me and God knows I worked so many hours that I never got enough time with her (or your brother).

We watched mostly in silence for a few minutes--the movie has alternating scenes of the musicians playing and the antics of the people in attendance.  We watched a scene with people talking about how "groovy" it was, and "far out, man." 

Peanut turned to me and said, "Daddy, these people are weird."

We watched a while longer and came upon another scene with people bathing in a pond.  Again Peanut turned to me and said, "Daddy, these people are really weird."

We watched a bit more--a few songs, some other scenes.  Once more Peanut looked at me, but this time she said, "Daddy, these people are really weird but they sure look like they're having a lot of fun."

I relate this story about your sister because I think it captures her spirit perfectly, even to this day.  She often does find life to be very strange--but realizes that that strangeness also makes it a whole hell of a lot of fun.

And being a journalist is like having a front row seat.

                                                                The End