Best basketball shot ever

The thing I like best about this amazing, incredible, unbelievable, never-to-be-duplicated basketball shot is that it only happens because an opposing player (our antagonist) is overconfident in his supposed victory and therefore careless with the ball, and our protagonist (and my new hero) never gives up hope even in the face of overwhelming odds and almost certain defeat.

It’s the combination of victory and defeat that I like best.

The triumph of pluck and determination.

The knowledge that the brash and careless have suffered for their arrogance. 

Not to mention it’s the most incredible shot I’ve ever seen.

Football is better than fashion, even if both are inane.

On Sunday night, my wife turned on the television half an hour before the Academy Awards were to begin to watch the fashion on the red carpet.

Less than two minutes later she turned it off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s just so stupid,” she said.

I love her so much.

On Monday morning I criticized the existence of a piece in Slate entitled Oscar Shocker! Movie stars rivet the entire world by wearing stunningly conventional evening gowns and all the Oscar fashion talk in general. On Twitter, I questioned why anyone even cares about this nonsense.

A few people responded, questioning how one’s love for red carpet fashion is any different than my love for sports, and my initial response was that they were correct.

My love for the New England Patriots is illogical and fairly stupid.

The love for red carpet fashion is the same.

The people who questioned me were satisfied with his response.

But I think I’ve changed my mind.

Essentially, these people were arguing that it’s not fair to judge a person’s personal interests. To each his own. Some people like sports, Some people like fashion. Some people like bird watching.

Who’s do say which is better?

But I found myself thinking that some areas of interests and some hobbies have inherently more value than others, and there’s noting wrong with valuing one over another.

Take sports versus fashion, for example.

I attend Patriots home games with friends. I spend a day outdoors in the company of friends. While tailgating prior to the game, we cook and enjoying a meal together, listen to music, engage in conversation and meet new people. Then we enter a stadium and watch world class athletes who have trained for the entire lives compete against other world class athletes on the field of play.

Contrast this to the person who sits in front of the television for two hours before an award’s show begins in order to examine the clothing choices of actors entering a theater. These movie stars answer questions like, “Who are you wearing tonight?” and “Which movie do you think will take home Oscar?” Then the next day these actors and actresses are subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of best and worst dressed photo galleries and glossy magazine covers in a spectacle not unlike high school. Discussion often includes the actor’s weight, nipples, makeup and hair.

Are these two areas of interest really comparable?

If you’re opposed to football because of the violence and sexism that it admittedly embraces, substitute it with tennis. Women’s basketball. Minor league baseball. Soccer. Track and field. The Olympics.  

As a parent, would you prefer that your child become a sports fan or a fashion fan?

Would you prefer your child to read an article about Anne Hathaway’s nipples (of which there are hundreds) or one about the rise of women’s soccer in the United States.

I don’t even think all aspects of fashion are bad. As hesitant as I am to admit this (for the ammunition that it will provide my friends on the golf course), I have watched every season of Project Runway and loved them all. Unlike red carpet fashion, Project Runway is a television show that honors creativity, intelligence, competition and excellence. It is a show about designers who utilize their expertise, wits and problem solving skills to create amazing objects in a short period of time.

This is an aspect of fashion that I can embrace.

Even if you want to argue that fashion is better than football (and I could probably make that argument even though I might not believe it), can’t we at least agree that a hierarchy of value exists when it comes to personal interest? That a day spent reading or painting or listening to music or playing tennis with a friend (or even bird watching) has more inherent value than one spent watching Celebrity Rehab III or playing Farmville on Facebook?

“To each his own” is a valid way of viewing the world, but that does not mean that each choice is equal in terms of value and merit.

Some are just stupider than others.

When it comes to the pre-Academy Award red carpet television show, I’ll defer to my wife:

“It’s just so stupid.”

Three reasons I don’t ski. I also avoid cocaine and Angry Birds for similar reasons.

I don’t ski.

Years ago, a doctor told me to avoid skiing because of the cartilage tears in both of my knees. While I often cite this as the reason for not skiing, I have admittedly never been one to adhere to doctor’s instructions.

The real reason I don’t ski is because of something I was told back in 1992. I was working at a bank in Stoughton, Massachusetts as a customer service representative. I was helping a man settle an issue with his account, and while I was waiting for the necessary information, I asked him if he had plans for the weekend.

“Skiing,” he said. “Always skiing.”

Having grown up poor, I had never been skiing before, so I mentioned to him that I’d like to try skiing someday.

“Don’t,” he said. “Skiing is exactly like cocaine. It’s expensive, it’s addictive and you will get hurt.”

That sounded about right. So I decided there and then to never ski.

It’s the same reason I have never played Angry Birds or any other game on my iPhone. I know I would like the games a lot, and I know I would waste an enormous amount of time playing them.

Better to avoid them entirely. 

As the man rose to leave my office, he turned, smiled and said, “It’s also all about the quality of the powder.”

Bethany Meyer’s recent 5 Reasons This Family Isn't Skiing is a good list, but I like my former banking customer’s list better.

There is always a reason for an imaginary friend

Someone invented Manti Te’o’s imaginary girlfriend. Whether he was the victim of an elaborate hoax or the perpetrator of the scheme, the fact remains: Te’o professed to loving a woman who did not exist. He had never held her hand, kissed her on the lips, or assured her that she was the best looking woman in the room. How could he? He had never laid eyes on her. Yet Manti Te’o had called Lennay Kekua “the love of my life.” She was an imaginary girlfriend in an imaginary world.

Only in an imaginary world would Te’o’s grandmother and girlfriend die within five hours of each other at the onset of a possible Heisman Trophy winning season. Only in an imaginary world would a star football player skip his girlfriend’s funeral, defeat an arch rival, and dedicate the game ball to her memory. And only in an imaginary world would the captain of a football team use the death of his grandmother and girlfriend to lead his team to an undefeated season and a shot at the national title.

This is the stuff of fiction, the stuff of invention. But it doesn’t come out of nowhere. There is always a reason for an imaginary friend.

I had an imaginary friend as a child. His name was Johnson Johnson. A friend and confidant, Johnson Johnson spent hours riding on my back, whipping his cowboy hat into the air and firing his pistols at traitorous Indians, the Lone Ranger to my loyal Silver. When my parents fought (which happened a lot), Johnson Johnson hid in the basement with me, keeping me company, keeping me safe.

It wasn’t until I was ten that I discovered that he wasn’t real. My parents occasionally took in foster children and I had made what I considered to be a natural assumption—that Johnson Johnson was just another temporary sibling. My mind had created Johnson Johnson and conveniently bestowed upon him all of the attributes that my younger brothers and sisters were lacking. Johnson Johnson didn’t depend on me. He didn’t insist that I wear a house key around my neck every day or that I make sure my siblings boarded the school bus safely. Johnson Johnson was the one person in my life who gave me what I wanted: the opportunity to be a kid. I wanted to ignore my parents’ battles and my siblings’ needs and just think of myself. Johnson Johnson allowed me to be irresponsible, unkind and selfish, and I loved him for it.

There is always a reason for an imaginary friend.

Twenty years ago, I knew a woman I’ll call Nancy. Nancy was a small in stature, high energy, uncommonly tolerant woman who called everyone she met “Honey.” Nancy was also gay and very much in the closet. In order to avoid the inevitable questions about boyfriends and marriage, Nancy invented an imaginary fiancée who had died in a car accident years before. This imaginary, deceased fiancée silenced nosy aunts and well-meaning acquaintances, and gave her a graceful excuse when it came to occasional offers of set-ups and blind dates. Her tragic loss kept the curious at bay.

There is always a reason.

As an elementary school teacher, I’ve known many children with imaginary friends. Some children possess an overactive imagination that requires an outlet. Others have a difficult time making friends and require close companionship. Imaginary friends fit the bill Always present, always supportive, they are allies and accomplices, that safe person to whom a child can always turn.

Imaginary friends serve many needs and they take many forms: small animals, paper dolls, ghosts, spots on the wall. Real children, too. Some of kids have adult-sized imaginary friends. These imaginary adults typically fill the roles of absent fathers and mothers. They’re often dressed in formal wear and carry umbrellas, handbags and briefcases. They’re called Mr. Bruno and Mrs. May—names that suggest authority and a certain order.

Imaginary friend exist for a reason, and it’s often a good one. But not always.

In September of last year, American voters watched Clint Eastwood invent an imaginary version of President Obama in order to debate him at the Republican Convention. Speaking to a chair, Eastwood created a stir by posing questions that Imaginary Obama could not answer. Like any good imaginary friend, Imaginary Obama served his master well, refusing to refute any of Eastwood’s claims. He just sat there, invisible and agreeable.

Hardly surprising.

After all, imaginary friends serve their imaginers at all times. That’s their job. They fill the gaps in our lives. The spaces of discomfort. In Eastwood’s case, Imaginary Obama served as the mute prop that he required. Lacking the courage to debate the real President Obama. Eastwood chose a straw man over the real one.

An imaginary president.

In the coming days and weeks, the reason behind the creation of Manti Te’o’s imaginary friend will likely be revealed. For Te’o’s sake, and for the sake of an American public that does not need another sports villain, I am hoping that Manti Te’o was naïve and gullible rather than nefarious and calculating. As tragic and mystifying as it may seem to fall in love with an imaginary girlfriend, at least there is innocence behind this idea. An understanding that we all want to believe in something. Perhaps Manti Te’o simply needed this more than most of us. Perhaps he needed something else.

There is always a reason.

He must be thinking about the upcoming Patriots playoff game

Best use of duct tape ever

I received a gift in the mail last week from a former student. Here it is.

At first I thought that she has simply seen the Patriots logo, been aware of the versatile nature of duct tape and decided it would make the perfect gift.

If this had been the case, I would be have been quite happy with the gift.

But she transformed a great gift into an unforgettable, top-10 of all time gift by adding the following to the accompanying note:

Mr. Dicks, use this to shut the hollering mouths of the Jets, Giants and especially Dolphins fans in your classroom.

The principal informed me that duct taping the aforementioned children’s mouths was not appropriate (something I also suspected), but that’s okay.

When it comes to gift giving, it’s always the thought that counts.

Most unbelievable trade in the history of mankind. This is not hyperbole.

This is nothing more than a few paragraphs lifted from a Wikipedia article about former major league pitcher Fritz Peterson and his teammate, Mike Kekich. It’s so incredible and unbelievable that it required restatement here.

Just try to imagine what it would be like if this happened today.

The world would probably explode. Seriously.

Fritz Peterson may be best remembered today for swapping families with fellow Yankee pitcher Mike Kekich, an arrangement the pair announced at spring training in March 1973. Peterson and Kekich had been inseparable friends since 1969; both families lived in New Jersey, their children were about the same age, and often they all would visit the Bronx Zoo or the shore or enjoy a picnic together. They decided that they would one day trade wives, children, and even dogs.

The affair began in 1972, when the two couples joked on a double date about wife swapping, a phenomenon that caught on in some uninhibited circles during the early 1970s. According to one report, the first swap took place that summer, after a party at the home of New York sportswriter Maury Allen. The couples made the change official in October; Kekich moving in with Marilyn Peterson and Peterson with Susanne Kekich, but no word leaked out until spring of 1973. A light moment came when New York Yankees General Manager Lee MacPhail remarked, "We may have to call off Family Day." The trade worked out better for Peterson than it did for Kekich, as Peterson is still married to the former Susanne Kekich, with whom he has had four children. Kekich and Marilyn Peterson did not remain together very long.

For the consummate Patriots fan

In light of this weekend's Patriot’s victory and their clinching of the AFC East title, I give you the toast.

Patriot’s style. 

Yes, it’s real. Yes, it makes a great gift. And yes, it comes in other team logos, but why would you want anything but the best?

My wife and children are ruining football for me.

I attended the Patriots game on Sunday. The weather was spectacular, the pregame tailgate menu was superb, and most important, the Patriots won.

It was the first game in more than a month for me. I missed both home games in October thanks to my book tour and a wedding.

I was happy to return to Gillette Stadium on Sunday. I love attending Patriots games. When I was young, I made a list of life goals, and one of them was to become a New England Patriots season ticket holder.

I’ve been dreaming about these Sunday afternoons (and occasional Monday nights) for many years.

While attending these games often means the loss of an entire Sunday, there are only eight home games a season (six for me this year), so it isn’t too big a burden.

 

Except now I have a wife and a daughter and a son who inexplicably continue to do fun and cute and memorable things while I am away at the game. Rather than placing themselves in suspended animation or parking themselves on the couch, anxiously awaiting my arrival, they do stuff that I want to do, too. They continue to exist, and I find part of me wanting to exist alongside them.

I miss them, damn it. It’s so annoying.  

Five years ago a day spent at the Patriots game was pure bliss for me.

Now I miss stuff like this, making the games slightly bittersweet. 

  

The three day, three month, three year test

Last year the New England Patriots played the Kansas City Chiefs on a Monday night in Foxboro. My fellow season ticket holder could not attend the game for less than acceptable reasons, and I could not find a soul who was willing to attend the game with me.

The freezing temperatures and the probability of arriving back home in Connecticut well after 2:00 in the morning (if we were lucky) deterred anyone from wanting to take the extra ticket and join me.

I hemmed and hawed all day about going to the game alone, knowing that if I went, I would be driving home from the game in the dead of night by myself. I’d also be watching the game from the icy confines of Gillette Stadium without the benefit of a friend’s companionship or a pre-game tailgate party.

In the end, I chose to remain home.

Last week I planned on attending a Moth StorySLAM in Manhattan. I had a story prepared and was ready to make the trip on my own (again, no one was willing to join me), but at the last minute, I chose to stay home. I had spent 5 of the last 6 days on the road, camping with my fifth graders, attending the Patriots home opener and traveling to Troy, NY for a book signing. With so much time spent on the road, I decided that I would be better off staying at home rather than enduring another long, late night drive on my own.

In the past two years, these two decisions represent two of my greatest regrets. I’m completely annoyed with myself for each decision, and I cannot foresee a time when I will not feel this way.

When it comes to making decisions like these, I use a “three day, three month, three year” test.

As difficult as it might be to travel to and from Gillette Stadium or New York City on my own, late at night, will I regret my decision three days later? Though I may be tired or even exhausted the next day, how will I feel about my decision three days from now, when I am well rested? Will I regret not having chosen the more difficult road?

What about three months later? When I look back on the missed opportunity, will that restful evening at home come close to matching what could have been? Will I even remember what I did on the night that I could have spent watching Monday Night Football or telling a story on a Moth stage?

What about three years later? What will mean more to me?

A forgotten evening at home amidst a thousand other evenings at home or the memories from a rare Monday Night football game?

Or the missed opportunity of taking the stage at a Moth StorySLAM and entertaining an audience of strangers with a story from my life? Perhaps even winning the StorySLAM and earning the right to perform in another GrandSLAM?

I am not implying that an evening spent at home with my wife and children is a forgettable, wasteful experience. Those evenings are some of the most cherished moments of my life. But I also believe that we must take advantage of the considerably less frequent opportunities like a Monday Night Football game or a Moth StorySLAM when they present themselves. The time we spend with our families and friends creates the fabric of our lives, but those moments we spend doing things that so many do not punctuate our lives and create the bright, specific memories that last a lifetime. We cannot allow a few hours of lost sleep or chilly temperatures or the promise of a bleary-eyed day at work prevent us from doing those things that so many people skip in favor of an evening in front of the television or surfing the Internet.

When making a decision about whether or not to do something that is hard, we cannot allow the subsequent 24 hours to dictate our decision. We must look ahead, three days, three months and three years, to see how we might then feel about our decision.

Perspective is a powerful tool in decision-making. While we can never know for certain how we will feel, we can predict how hindsight might make us feel. This is what I do when deciding between something that is easy and something that is difficult.

Tomorrow doesn’t matter. I can always survive tomorrow.

Will I regret this decision in three days, three months or three years time?

In terms of last years Monday Night Football game and last week’s StorySLAM, the answer is decidedly affirmative.  

We won that game three separate times, and then we lost.

Excluding Super Bowl losses and a playoff loss to the New York Jets a couple years ago, yesterday’s Patriots loss to the Arizona Cardinals might have been the most difficult loss to bear in my entire life, for the following reasons:

1. It broke a home opener winning streak which began ten years ago with a miracle comeback victory against Buffalo that I watched from within the confines of Gillette Stadium. It was one of only three times that my friend has ever been willing to hug me.

2. It was a perfect day for a football game, and home openers are always special. Troy Brown was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame and Drew Bledsoe threw him one more pass on the turf of Gillette Stadium. Military jets soared overhead as the national anthem concluded. The sky was blue, the air was warm and the bacon-wrapped chicken chunks were a thing of beauty. The steak was cooked to perfection. It was a day fitting of a victory. A blowout, even.

 

2. The Patriots lost to the Arizona Cardinals at home. The Cardinals are not a good team.

3. The Patriot were not outrun, out passed or out tackled yesterday. They did not play well, but they were beaten by a blocked punt, a tipped ball that resulted in an interception, a phantom holding call and a phantom false start. Though the Patriots certainly deserved to lose the game, they lost the game thanks to a handful of unusual and somewhat freakish plays.

4. Worst of all, I thought the Patriots had won three separate times.

First, there was the fumble with two minutes to go that gave the Patriots the ball back within field goal range, down by two. Though it was foolish to begin celebrating the victory at this moment, we did.

Next was Danny Woodhead’s touchdown run which would have put us ahead by 5 with less than a minute on the clock, only to be called back by the aforementioned phantom holding call. We had already been celebrating victory for a full 30 seconds before we even saw the flag.

Finally, there was a the missed field goal, which looked good from our angle in the stadium, prompting us to begin celebrating victory again only to learn 10 seconds into our leaps and screams and high-fives that the kick went wide left.

The kicker had already made four field goals that day with ease. Two were over 50 yards. He had successfully kicked 24 consecutive fourth quarter field goals up until that point.

Then he missed a 42-yard field goal with one second left on the clock.

It was a series of emotional swings over a five minute period of time like few I have experienced in my life, and it left me empty and exhausted.    

My former students have said that I can be surly and demanding the day after a Patriots loss. My current batch of kids should count their lucky stars that we have the day off for Rosh Hashanah.

Perhaps I will feel a little better tomorrow.  

The Internet makes it a very small world

Yesterday I wrote about Erin DiMeglio, the first girl to play quarterback in a Florida high school football game. Uncertain about how I would react if my daughter asked to play football, I wrote a post parsing out some of my feelings on the subject.

Later that evening, Erin DiMeglio’s coach, Doug Gatewood, commented on the post and his wife, Bethany Gatewood, contacted me via Facebook.

An hour later Doug also contacted me via Facebook, asking to steal a line from the post for use with his football team this year.

I told him I’d be honored.

It an excellent reminder of the power of the Internet. Less than fifteen years ago, it would have been almost impossible for Doug Gatewood and I to exchange words. I would have read about Erin DiMeglio in the New York Times, wondered about how I would feel if she had been my daughter, conversed with my wife and perhaps some friends on the subject and moved on with life.

Today I am able to express my thoughts on the subject on a network connected to every other computer in the world, including Doug and Bethany Gatewood’s computer.

Presumably Erin DiMeglio’s computer as well.

Presumably as a result of a Google search or a Google Alert, Doug and his wife were able to find my post on the Internet and access social media to converse with me.

We sometimes forget how incredible this technology really is. It feels as if we have been living with the Internet forever, but not so very long ago, this type of communication would have been unimaginable.

It’s also a good lesson for me to bring back to my students. As we begin to live more and more of our lives online, we must remember how truly public our words are. While I have never been afraid of criticizing people when I disagree with their words or actions, this evening’s exchange with Doug and Bethany Gatewood serve as a reminder that the words we write can easily land in the laps of our subjects and often do.

I am not suggestions that criticism is wrong. Even harsh criticism is warranted at times. But it should be measured carefully before one sends it out into the world. For all intents and purposes, Erin DiMeglio, Doug Gatewood and Bethany Gatewood are sitting over my shoulder as a write,  capable of reading my every word.

Last night Doug and Bethany Gatewood did just that, and their words in response to mine meant a great deal to me. As a writer, there is nothing better than learning that my words have meant something to a person.

The fact that Doug and Bethany play an important role in the subject of my post made it even more meaningful. One of those moments I hope to never forget.   

My little girl playing football?

Have you heard about Erin DiMeglio, the first girl to play quarterback in a Florida high school football game? DeMeglio is the third string quarterback on a roster is filled with college prospects. “The star running back has committed to Miami, and its starting quarterback has offers from Navy and Air Force.”

She apparently has a cannon for an arm and has earned the respect of her teammates because of her skill and poise on the field .

DiMeglio had proved herself to the other players during spring and summer workouts, so when she officially joined the team, it was met with a respectful shrug. She has her own changing area in the girls’ locker room, and at the seven-on-seven camp last summer, she shared a room with the cheerleading coach. Otherwise, she is one of the guys, and they are protective of her.

As a father of a three year old girl, I read this story and had two divergent thoughts:

1. Based upon the way I played tackle football and my frequent attempts to inflict bodily harm on my opponents, I would not want my little girl playing the game with a bunch of boys who are larger and stronger than she.
2. I can’t imagine the pride that a father must feel upon learning that his little girl possesses the courage and inner fortitude required to play a game normally reserved for boys and men.

As the two opposing thoughts waged battle in my mind, I tried to imagine what I might say if Clara ever came to me and expressed a desire to play high school football.

Presuming she had the skills to play, it would be a tough call.

While I might attempt to steer her in the direction of a sport where her competition would consist of  fellow females, I can’t imagine stopping her from trying something that few people have ever attempted before.

That’s the thing about courage:  It cannot exist without risk.

If we protect our children from danger at every turn, we deny them the opportunity to be brave.

So no, I would not want my little girl to play on a boy’s football team, and yes, I would be bursting with pride if she did so.

Best race of 2012 without exception

Wouldn’t it be great if the Paralympics received the same amount of attention as the Olympics? Races like this are thrilling and inspiring beyond belief, yet so few of us will ever see something like them.

I’ll be showing my students this clip today in hopes of inspiring them to do great things despite any obstacles placed before them.  

Impromptu driving range

For someone who loves golf and entrepreneurism as much as me, I thought this was impressive:

While waiting in line for a Moth StorySLAM last week in SoHo, I watched a man set up a driving range in an alley between two building. Using real golf clubs and crushed milk cartons, he charged people for the opportunity to hit the milk cartons down the alley and into a green, plastic bin.

I was standing there for more than 30 minutes and he was never without a customer. 

I don’t think the man is getting rich off his idea, nor do I think it’s scalable to a larger market, but anyone that can bring golf to the city and make a buck at the same time is alright in my book.

   

Cardboard Tube Fighting

Cardboard tube fighting, the game that I played with my brothers and sisters when we were kids, is now a thing.

There is even a Cardboard Tube Fighting League.

The CTFL hosts tournaments and battles where cardboard tube fighters go head-to-head in an attempt to break their opponent's tube without breaking their own.

I expected to find the formalization of this game a little silly, but it turns out that I love the league’s three core beliefs:

• People need more ways to play and take themselves less seriously.
• Events can be fun without alcohol.
• Cardboard sword fighting is fun.

It’s hard to disagree with any of them.

It’s disappointing that can’t actually strike your opponent with the cardboard tube (the goal is to break your opponent’s tube by striking it), but I suspect that the founders of The Cardboard Tube Fighting League have taken the same approach to their sport that I take with football:

If I tell my friends that we are playing tackle, no one will play with me.

If I tell my friends that we are playing flag football, at least a few of them are game.

The Cardboard Tube Fighting League was probably interested in getting lots of people to play rather than getting lots of people hurt.

Disappointing but understandable.

Difficulty staying Faithful

I finished reading Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan, and while I enjoyed the bo0k, I have a few quibbles with it as well.

As a Yankees fan, I knew that reading the book would be difficult. The 2004 baseball season was the worst in Yankees history. After taking a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the battle for the pennant, the Yankees became the only team in baseball history to lose the next four games and thus lose the series.

This would be heart wrenching regardless of the opponent, but the fact that it was the Red Sox made it exponentially worse.

Still, I wanted to read this book. I’ve read everything else that Stephen King has ever written, and I adore the man.

While I haven’t quite read everything Stuart O’Nan has written yet, I like what I’ve read so far. More importantly, he was my professor for a writing class at Trinity College, so I got to know him a little bit and liked him a lot.

Even though I knew it would be hard to listen to these men describe the events of that 2004 postseason, I thought that I would be happy for them as well. As a native New Englander who grew up near Boston, I understand the suffering the Sox fans had endured. They deserved to win. At least this is what I had convinced myself of when I dove into the book.

I have three complaints about the book, and they all pertain to O’Nan.

First and most surprising, O’Nan engages in conspiracy mongering several times in the book, implying with all seriousness that baseball might be fixed. A remarkable confluence of events seem (in his mind) to be too dramatic and convenient to be anything but orchestrated, and he says as much more than once. King actually dismisses these claims at one point in the book, and rightly so. Like King, I find this kind of conspiracy theory nonsense to be exactly that:

Nonsense. But I know there is a small but vocal minority of sports fans who feel this way.

Yet when the long haired, loose-lipped Cowboy-up Red Sox of 2004 overcome a 3-0 deficit against a corporate team with twice the payroll that has embraced the moniker of the Evil Empire with enthusiasm, there is not a single mention of conspiracy theories to be found.

This annoyed me. If you’re going to imply that the fix is in several times over the course of the baseball season, you can’t ignore what would seem like one of the most orchestrated moments in the last 100 years of baseball.

Second, O’Nan is less than magnanimous when it comes to the Yankees. King has no love for my beloved team, but he is not mean-spirited about the team, either, He does not call them cheaters or question their character. O’Nan does so repeatedly, and it is not necessary.

Lastly, the nicknames that O’Nan uses when discussing the Red Sox players in the book made me bonkers. Nicknames have always been a part of baseball, but O’Nan takes it to an entirely new and truly bizarre level. Most of my friends are Red Sox fans, but I never heard them refer to Mark Bellhorn as Marky Mark, Pedro Martinez as Petey or David Ortiz as El Hefe (especially since Ortiz already has the often-used nickname Big Papi). It makes no sense. Was O’Nan inventing these nicknames himself, or did he hear some inebriated bleacher creature use these names and co-opted them for the book.

A good nickname is a thing of beauty. Naming your utility infielder after a former Boston-based hip hop musician turned serious actor is an act of stupidity.

Then again, I’m a diehard fan of the New York Yankees who died hard in October of 2004, so perhaps I am biased.  

I hate the Red Sox, but I love these guys

I’m listening to the book Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan. It’s essentially a double-entry journal that chronicles the Red Sox for one season. It’s full of traditional journal entries, email exchanges, summaries of phone calls between the two men, and recollections of games they attended alone and together.

Even though I am a Yankees fan, I’m enjoying the book a lot, though I suspect I will enjoy it much less once I reach the postseason entries. By some stroke of genius, King and O’Nan chose to work on this book during the season in which the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918.

Lucky bastards.

But having grown up in Massachusetts, I spent a lot of time around Red Sox fans, so listening to what King and O’Nan have to say about the team and the game of baseball is a little bit like going home.

I also like both writers a lot.

O’Nan taught at creative writing at Trinity College during my time there, and I was fortunate enough to squeeze in one class with him before he left. I’ve heard him speak a few times since then, and I’ve read several of his books, including most recently LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER. Years ago I read his nonfiction account of the Hartford Circus Fire, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Stephen King has become a bit of a hero to me, for several reasons.

Growing up without very few books in my home, it wasn’t until I was granted my own library card that I really began reading and falling in love with books, and many of those first books were written by Stephen King. NIGHT SHIFT, DIFFERENT SEASONS, THE SHINING, and CUJO were just a few of the novels I read that first summer, and I loved every one of them.

Eventually I would go on to read all of King’s work, including IT, which I have read at least a dozen times, and his Dark Tower series, which I consider a genuine masterpiece.

Two decades later, it would be another one of King’s books, ON WRITING, that would inspire me to continue writing when the possibility of a writing career felt impossible and hopeless. The first half of ON WRITING is an autobiographical account of King’s life as a writer, including his very humble beginnings as a short story writer for men’s magazines.  The image of Stephen King siting in the laundry room of his trailer, shoved against the washing machine, unable to afford medicine for his sick children, sent me back to the laptop ready and willing to conquer the beast.

At the age of ten, Stephen King opened my mind to the world of books and reading, and thirty years later, I have now joined his fraternity. It’s an incredible feeling. Sort of like idolizing a ballplayer as a kid and then finding yourself playing alongside that same player someday.

In reading FAITHFUL, I’ve learned a few things about King that I did not know, specifically in terms of his approach to time management. It turns out that he and I have a lot in common in this regard.

While watching the Red Sox game, King has a book in his lap, and in between innings, he will read. He estimates that he can read about 40 pages during the average baseball game.

I have also been known to do this, in addition to spending commercial breaks listening to audiobooks and podcasts or pounding away at the laptop. From time to time I’ve also been known to listen to an audiobook while watching television, especially when the show is somewhat mindless and predictable.

Even more impressive, King writes about how he will listen to the ballgame on his car radio but switch over to an audiobook in between innings, timing the two minute commercial break with his wrist watch.

Similarly, I can be found at the gym with two sets of headphones when running on the elliptical. One is a wireless pair connected to my iPhone, through which I am undoubtedly listening to an audiobook or podcast. The second pair is attached to the machine so I can listen to the television affixed to it. I will switch between these two headphones during a workout in order to take advantage of commercial breaks, which has caused more than one fellow gym rat to stare at me in confusion. Yesterday, for example, I was watching the replay of the Yankees game from the day before as I worked out, and similar to King, I would switch headphones between innings and listen to my book, which happened to be King and O’Nan discussing the Red Sox “June swoon.”

Fear not, boys. Things will turn around for the Sox soon enough.

I’ve often thought that if Stephen King and I had the chance to get to know one another, we would be fast friends. While this is unlikely to ever happen, I do hope that he reads one of my books someday, which isn’t asking much considering the number of books the man reads on a yearly basis. I wouldn't even need to know if he liked the book or not. Just knowing that the author who inspired a ten year old boy to read and a thirty year old man to write picked up one of my novels would be enough for me.

Exposing the lunatic Little League coaches for who they really are.

Here’s an idea I’m considering: Write a blog that examines the youth baseball culture in my town and/or  neighboring towns, with specific emphasis on assessing and critiquing the coaching style and the overall effectiveness and efficacy of the adults involved.

It’s recently come to my attention that although most of the coaches and parent volunteers involved in these organized baseball leagues are skillful at their jobs, a small percentage of coaches should not be working with young people. These are the coaches who take their team’s win-loss record personally and treat this childhood game as if it were their own version of professional ball. They are the screamers and the demeanors: the men who believe that a child will hit a ball more frequently and farther if he or she is made to feel rotten about each and every strike out.

It occurred to me that parents might want to know who these coaches are. They may want to know which coach berates his players on a regular basis and which coach circumvents the league rules in order to play only his best players in the playoffs.

Apparently there are also a number of backroom deals taking place at the beginning of each season that allows for certain teams to be stocked with the league’s best players year after year while other teams are comprised almost exclusively of less inexperienced, less effective ballplayers.

Not only would this be good information for parents to possess before deciding if their child should join a league or team, but I would love the opportunity to explore the motives behind a man who is willing to manipulate the system in order to ensure that his team of twelve-year old boys competes for the championship each year.

I’d also very much like to expose these jerks for who they really are.

But is this something that parents would bother to read before deciding upon leagues and teams?

While I’m at it, I might also want to address the behavior of umpires working in these leagues, at least if the umpire in the video below in any indication of the kind of men umpiring Little League games. If it were my son who had just struck out and been greeted by this umpire’s third strike call, it would’ve taken all my self control to not walk over to home plate and punch the guy in the face.

My new hero: A six year old boy

A six-ear old makes an unassisted triple play, and it’s not a silly, chase-the-runner-around–the-diamond situation. It’s fairly legit, requiring fielding skill, quick thinking and excellent reflexes.

It’s something you might see happen on a MLB diamond.