Players, Personality and Major Fuego for the Game

 

“Hey, Fuego fans, let’s pass the hat for Matt Patrone’s home run,” the PA announcer says amid cheers. I’m certain Patrone’s blast here in Fort Marcy Ballpark, a Pecos League venue, would have been at least a ground rule double in about any major league park (a place no fan passes a hat for home runs after paying what he did to get into the park).

The next hitter lines a pitch out of play toward the parking lot behind the dugout. Hard hitters, these Santa Fe Fuegos.

“That foul ball is brought to you by Discount Glass and Glazing. Just mention Fuego baseball and get a discount on your next purchase.” I love it. This place has personality.

The woman in charge of collecting money for tickets wanders over to me from her top row seat. She’s right on time. We’d made a deal if I liked the place I chose to sit with my dog, Rusty, after two trial innings, she’d only charge $3. Dogs aren’t allowed in the $6 seats behind home plate. Either way, what bargains. I’m glad the Fuegos are in an independent pro baseball league, not even a minors system affiliated with a team in the majors. Think I’d be able to bring my beach chair, let alone dog, into their ballparks?

Sitting behind the Trinidad Triggers dugout, Rusty and I notice a Trigger player come our way. On his walk to the park’s all purpose port-a-potty, he stops to pet Rusty. He even lets me take pictures of the two together. On his return trip to the dugout, he gives Rusty some more love, saying that with so much time on the road, he misses his dogs back home terribly.

Strangely, however, the Trigger player doesn’t go into the dugout, but sits on top of it. In fact, neither the Triggers nor Fuego players sit in their dugouts – they sit around the dugouts.  It must be a Pecos League tradition. Again, what personality.

Out of nowhere, a pop foul comes my way and I catch it! – something I’ve never done in all my years attending crowded major league and AAA games. I feel special, like a kid again. I’d like to think that’s what baseball should be, a special connection directly from pitcher to batter to fan. To continue the link, I give my cherished first ball to a two-year-old who’s apparently already caught baseball fever.

Where else do you bring your own lawn chair to a professional baseball game? Negotiate a price and place to sit with your dog? Have more fun, pay less and see a competitive sporting event?  Switch gears from watching the game on the field to playing catch with a kid and then going back to the game. See players perform for practically nothing just for the love of the game?

Where else is there a meeting on the field of every team member in the bottom of the fifth inning for team unity, spirit and awareness of what this is all about?  Where else is there a pro sporting event where the majority of fans leave their cell phone behind? Fuego baseball is where.

It’s life in the moment for fans and particularly the impressionable young men playing. It’s a spirited, fast game. You have to watch closely. There are no scoreboard replays, let alone bathrooms every fifty feet.

I love the game just the way it is. I’m sorry the season is over. I’ll be back for 2016, connecting this season’s joy with the next.

Crawling Through Summer When I Could Have Backflipped

The YMCA’s summer swim lessons sucked. They’d never compare to lighting firecrackers or jumping off the roof of our back porch for fun. I hated the long, sweaty bike ride to the Y, then quickly getting into my bathing suit, taking a shower, and waiting in the claustrophobic, damp, echo-filled indoor pool for our mean instructor to yell at us.

“In my Tadpoles course, you will learn the crawl stroke. It’s that simple. Anyone who cannot demonstrate strong crawl stroke technique will not pass my class.”

Is he kidding? I’m still shivering from the shower, and I’ve had ten minutes to recover. All I want to do here is swallow as little water as possible and never have to throw up.

For most of our first lesson, the instructor lined us up in the water to learn the leg kick. The following week, he drilled us on the crawl stroke, repeating several times how the arm motion had to work in precise tandem with our breathing.

After obeying his strict guidelines, my attitude changed. Maybe I was ready to put all the components together into one stroke and swim like other kids.

On the third week, I watched four other classmates swim to the other side and back, performing the crawl stroke adequately. It was my turn now. Standing in the water along the wall, I took one last breath and thrust my body forward into the chlorine sea of opportunity.

The first three strokes went very well. Wow. If I’d already gone halfway across the pool on just three strokes, I’d get to the other side and back with strength to spare.

The fourth and fifth strokes weren’t as spectacular. By the sixth stroke, my head surfaced for air whenever it wanted. My leg strokes took vacations. My arms worked anything but in tandem with my feet or my breaths. Remembering how and when to do all these motions together seemed too hard. My mind had turned to mush. Fortunately, however, I did not throw up.

I hated rules. I hated lessons. They were always complicated. I craved freedom and wanted to have fun like I did on Saturday afternoon family outings at the pool. Don, Doug, Cathy, and Mom would scatter to different areas of the pool to swim, but I’d sink straight to the water’s bottom and sit. Holding my breath for half-minute periods at a time, I’d linger in the clean, sun-warmed water to play with the little rocks on the pool’s bottom that weren’t supposed to be there. I enjoyed life away from lifeguards, swim instructors, and spazzy kids who hovered just above me, not to mention Don, Doug and Cathy who – having made it all the way to the Minnows class echelon – annoyed me with their swimming and diving prowess. They weren’t the type to appreciate things like dangerous tobogganing and jumping off bikes, so we never talked much about sports. In fact, whenever whistled out of the pool for Adult Swim sessions, I sat by the pool’s edge with my siblings in silence, sucking SweetTarts, wondering why adults chose to do grueling laps when instead they could backflip off the high dive and crash in the water back first.

I guess we all know now why adults don’t backflip off the high dive and crash in the water back first. That would hurt.

But nothing like the pain of swim lessons.

The excerpt above is taken from the chapter, “Competition,” in my memoir, “Maybe Boomer.” Check out the “Stories From Maybe Boomer” archives tab for more posts including memoir excerpts. 

 

Its Still About Giving Thanks, Not Knowing When to Take a Drink After Chewing

 

So, how did you score this Thanksgiving? Be honest.

Did you really know what to do with your napkin?
Did you eat soup using a spoon without noise, or did you eat soup with a fork?
Did you use a fork to eat turkey, or a club like our Pilgrims?
Did you eat with lips closed so securely you nearly chewed the inside of your mouth?
Did you talk at the appropriate moment, or with your mouth full of potatoes?
Did you make your holiday meal happy happy happy at all times?
Did you eat neatly without producing a ring of spots on the tablecloth beneath your plate?
Did you refrain from spitting unchewable meat into your napkin?
Did you make sure your kids were dressed in suits?
Did you make sure your kids were dressed in suits and short shorts?
Did your kids have to place napkins over their exposed thighs?
Did your dinner have wine glasses filled with water, not wine, the entire night?
Did you know when to take a drink after chewing, even though it was just water?
Did parents in attendance look like grandparents the entire evening?
Was your Thanksgiving Day good or did you wish for something more? Something in color? Without annoying voice-over narration?

If you scored 100%, congratulations. Did you know man has already landed on the moon? Johnny Carson replaced Jack Parr? Computers have replaced typewriters?

Then, and now – however it’s observed – Thanksgiving is still about giving thanks.

I hope it was a happy Thanksgiving for you. And thanks for checking in on mine.

Screen Test

I was walking a beautiful, chamisa-lined bike trail through my neighborhood the other day – vivid colors, pleasing odors, sounds of soaring birds everywhere.

Cutting across the trail, apparently en route from school to their homes, two young boys wandered together, saying little to each other, listening to the far more important sounds reverberating from the older boy’s handheld electronic device. “Gotta get you some weed / gotta get me some weed” was all I heard the singer rap through background music that sounded no finer than what a Fisher Price keyboard could produce. The youngest boy, about seven, looked up to the twelve-year-old and his video screen often. Both meandered on, heads glued to flashy images, ears attending solely to the song.

Later in the day, strolling through the vibrant Santa Fe Plaza filled with people and activity, I noticed a teen sitting on a bench by herself, immersed in her own world, never looking up from her iPhone screen. It was as if a fifteen foot bubble existed around her, keeping out a world of invaders who might enter her space.

Perhaps she was actually trying to connect, not disconnect from the world. It’s the way it’s done now, through a text, a Facebook message, a tweet, a whatever. In the act of finger digit communication, however, it seems everyone who is making these connections is alone while doing it. And perhaps the boys I saw walking through my neighborhood earlier were good friends. Yet, in their wordless comradeship, electronic images and words – some entertaining, some very dangerous – were bombarding their young existence.

And here I am right now, and have been for many hours, writing in the privacy of my own room. I have the convenience of my laptop to connect with my website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, sending my thoughts out to the entire world of people. Not only that, but I’m connected to my bank and a myriad of businesses, making my life easier to manage. Who really needs face time, anyway?

I had fifty years of non-tech living, fifty years of making contact “the old-fashioned” way through one-to-one friendships and relationships, assisted only by a telephone to call someone about getting together later. Call me a betweener, a man sandwiched like a floppy disc between toast and tablet, but I am concerned for those who have used modern technology their entire adult lives; even more the kids who have been raised on it. Electronic devices at first seem to expand, if not improve, connection with others. But kids and teens are all over these devices and I wonder about the quality of their connections made.

What  a mess kids of techie parents must be. Electronic gadgets will be all those kids ever know, right? And what about the Steve Jobs of the world? Their kids must have every gadget imaginable to use.

Not true. Steve Jobs didn’t help invent the most amazing technological devices because he was stupid. In a recent revealing New York Times article, author Nick Bilton writes how Jobs and other tech CEOs put serious restrictions on their kid’s use of technology, not vice versa. These entrepreneurs say they’ve seen the dangers of technology firsthand – the bullying from other kids, pornography, and kids becoming addicted to their devices. The CEOs agree children under ten are the most susceptible to addiction. Some CEOs don’t allow their children any gadgets during the week. Some don’t allow screens in the bedroom. Some allow unlimited gadget use so long as their kids are in the living room, but that’s all. And, perhaps not surprising at all, Jobs said he made it a point that every evening the family ate dinner together to discuss “books and a variety of things. No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer.” The tech industry giants have been smart enough to realize not only the rewards from technology, but the danger they present to kids and adults alike. But what about all those who not only use devices daily but rely on them for business as well as social and deeply human needs?

My downfall from electronic advancements was television. To this day, I wonder if I’ve learned just as much about life from watching characters and stories presented on a screen than I have from real life experiences. I’ve logged a lot of home television and movie house screen time. For the same reason today’s kids love to focus on a screen, so did I. So perhaps it’s only suitable I use an example from a movie to help amplify the issue of tech devices in our world.

Catching me totally off guard when I saw it five years ago, I was blown away by the film, “Disconnect.” It’s about kids and adults who are all attached to their cell phones and gadgets and can’t find the time to communicate with their families. There’s a couple who’s drawn into a dangerous situation when their secrets are exposed online. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. With so much technology at their fingertips to connect in today’s wired world, they are still strangers, all whose stories collide with explosive and sometimes tragic result.

This week, I feel I’ve witnessed a hollowness that real flesh and blood people in my very own neighborhood are feeling. In my gut, something feels wrong to me. I’m torn between two worlds, yet cling to the one I know best, the old-fashioned variety, all while realizing I’m writing tonight in the comfort – and isolation – of my private world, relying 100% on technology to get my message out.

Using a word check to review this writing, I’ve just been alerted I’ve used the word “connection” far too many times. But that’s not surprising. Human connection is, and always be, one of the greatest needs we have, in whatever form it takes. Yet, even in our modern world, it’s difficult to avoid fuzzy connections, both electronic and interpersonal.

Remember This? Splendiferous Summer Camping and the Family Ties That Bound

One Friday morning in August of ‘65, we packed all our clothes and gear into the Plymouth station wagon to head off to Thurmont, Maryland, and a camping area in the mountains called Crow’s Nest Lodge.

Mom – setting civilized rules from the get go – declared dried fruit as the official family snack food for the weekend. Oh, great. Flatulence City. Steadily munching on dried apricots in a vehicle that had no air conditioning would be suicide.

Well, ha! Talk about eating her words. Mom barfed all her dried fruit snacks only an hour into the drive.

By the time we’d set up our gear at the site, I’d already begun to see what it meant to live in the wild outdoors.

With camping, Mom now had the beauty of nature in which to feed the family, do the dishes, pick things up, and take care of the kids. Similarly, Dad could set up the tent and go straight to reading the newspaper to the sound of bucolic bees and whippoorwill. It was beautiful to watch both my parents unwind in the out-of-doors, particularly Mom, who got away from unnecessary modern conveniences like pillows, clothes washers, chairs with backs, and flush toilets to become one with our forefather’s bygone days of outhouse living.

Dad was a natural in the outdoors with his talent for knowing just how to erect the two-hundred-twenty pound quarter-inch-thick canvas army-style six-man box tent that when fully constructed looked strikingly like a cinder block.
And I noticed how Mom brought the same cooking skills with her from home to the campsite. At dinner Friday night, her meals cooked over the Coleman camp stove were as brittle and overdone as ones charred on our electric range at home. I picked at my food, trying to separate the blackened parts from areas that still retained some semblance of color.

To truly scar my first camping experience, I discovered I was a high maintenance sleeper who repelled a sleeping bag at night – I actually woke up Saturday morning bound by rope. What? Maybe I did wiggle a bit, but rope? I was too sleepy to remember this rodeo, but come daylight, the memory of Dad sloughing it off by saying it was all part of roughing it in the wild rang a little hollow.

Then, after Saturday night’s dinner of Mom’s Crow’s Nest special of very baked beans and scorched franks, I filled up on real food – Jiffy Pop. It was not only satisfying, but shaking the aluminum encased platter of corn kernels over an open flame was a metaphysical experience for me. By ten o’clock, I was still there, igniting everything short of the picnic table. Eventually, with all wood articles incinerated, I burned wax, Play-Doh, foil and anything I could get my hands on, all as if I could burn my varied anxieties away.

Sunday morning, loosening myself from rope once more, I heard raindrops hit the tent roof. Scrambling to get out of the tent as fast as I could, I saw how the entire campsite had been protected from soggy wetness by a huge tarp that completely covered it.

Hallelujah. I knew Dad had to be good for something someday.

As the rain fell harder, the tarp began to leak. Drops of water plopped into the bowl of milk that had already drenched my cornflake breakfast. Everyone ate, but no one talked. Just plop, plop, dink, plop, plop.

When my sister, Cathy, couldn’t take the silence anymore, she turned on her transistor radio. As Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” screamed out, Mom frantically spun the dial for relief, finding the only other audible, stable voice – the local weatherman.

“The National Weather Service has just announced a severe weather bulletin for Thurmont and the surrounding area…. ”

Mom flipped off the radio and, along with Dad, decided it was time we pack up all of our belongings into the Plymouth and head home.

During the long, lackluster drive back, I reminisced the weekend experience.

Camping wasn’t fun. I hated rain. I hated commodes. And I hated our tent, the biggest six ring circus on Earth. Not only was there my rope fiasco, but the tent had been too small for everyone’s sleeping bags, blow-up mattresses, and clothes left strewn all over the musty floor. The only thing that was remarkable about the weekend was how each of us tiptoed through every one of these articles and managed to never touch them or another Andberg for two entire days.

I felt an inexplicable but strong urge to strike back, as if to swing in the air at everything but hit nothing. That’s because there was nothing solid to hit. Everything lurked somewhere below the surface in my world. In venturing out into the wilds of dangerous woodland with basically only tents, flashlights and Jiffy Pop, I’d been afraid of change. As it turned out, camping wasn’t any different than being at home. In fact, the saddest thing of all was that there was no change.