The Carlton Dance

I'm old.  Sometimes I'm older than I believe I am.  Disregard the fact that people often tell me that I don't appear to be aging as quickly as anyone else.  Back in the summer of 2014 I had been noticing photos with text beginning with "TBT". I couldn't figure out what it stood for until someone told me it turned out to be "Turn Back Thursday".  

I was intrigued as I thought of what I may be able to post on a random Thursday.  I began to think of what photos I may have which would be entertaining to anyone but myself.  

My first entry into this realm of "hipness" came on the first Thursday of June of 2014. The photos I uploaded on Facebook were of myself and some photos from my season of coaching the 2001 Burnsville (MN) traveling fastpitch softball team.

I remember that season quite fondly.  I had coached various teams, both in-house and traveling, in Burnsville, MN. I love the game of baseball and I love coaching/teaching the game at different age levels.  I would typically move from team to team as I have no children of my own, attempting to make the program better at all stops.

On the day that I first met my team that year I had decided that I would make an entrance which was "different".  I had the players show up at the high school on a Saturday afternoon.  At the time that our meeting was supposed to start, the team was greeted by Minnesota Twins mascot, T.C. Bear.  The bear visited for a few minutes and then came to get me in the parking lot and show me where the team was.  I made my way up to the field and asked why everyone looked so perplexed when I arrived. The looks on the players' faces were priceless.  And so the 2001 season was underway.

We had a good team. We had "bit players" who were able to fill in where we needed them.  I was quickly told that one of my best players had been injured just prior to the start of the traveling season.  This made no real difference to me because I wanted to make this team great on its own merit.  

My assistant coach was a very nice gentleman named Larry Yandle, who always got me enthused when he would shout, "C'mon'! C'mon, now!" in his great Carolina-based accent.  Larry's daughter was my third baseman and Larry was a great asset to the team.  

I told many tales to the girls during the season, but they were most intrigued by the fact that I was in the employ of the front office with the Minnesota Twins.  My third baseman had a huge crush on Twins' first baseman, Doug Mientkliewicz. I used to call her "Mientkiewicz" when we played.  For those of you who do not know how to pronounce that name, phonetically it would look like "Mint-kaay-vitch". 

One of the favorite stories they enjoyed was one which involved Twins then-cathcer A.J. Pierzynski. A.J.played for the Twins from 1998-2003 and played 18 years for seven different teams, winning a World Series with the White Sox in 2005.  A.J. was along with me on a winter promotional tour in January 2001 called "Twins Caravan".  We started in Winnipeg, Manitoba and then made our way back toward the Twin Cites over a four-day period.  One of my favorite moments of the trip was on the last night of the Caravan we left Duluth and ended up stopping in Hinckley at a restaurant called Tobie's.  I had dinner with A.J. and hall-of-gamer Harmon Killebrew. On the way back to the cities we discussed a wide range of subjects including baseball superstitions and the like. 

But on the night first night of Caravan we were at a night club which was the site of an autograph session.  As the night got later on, the tunes being played by the deejay got more and more contemporary.  It was a good mix as the songs moved through the decades.  But at about 1:30 a.m. the group decided it was about time to hit the road for the hotel.  But on the way our of the club, I made a fatal faux pas.  The song playing on the way out was a little ditty called "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin. My error? I was singing along with the song, not missing any words, within earshot of Mr. Pierzynski.  As we got into the car, along with third baseman Corey Koskie, and headed for the local Burger King for some late-night grease, A.J. overheard me and says to me, "No! You do NOT know the words to this song?! You didn't even recognize the last Destiny's Child song! You are the whitest brother I know. I'm just gonna call you Carlton." And so it was born. My nickname for the promotional week had been established.  

I told the players that story and they thought it to be incredibly amusing.  They immediately wanted me to perform the Carlton Dance, performed by the tv character Carlton Banks, played by Alfonzo Ribeiro on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  I told them that I would do so sometime during the season.  

We had a tournament in Rochester in August of 2001 and on the Saturday of that weekend we played a few games in the morning but were not scheduled to play again for about 5 hours until our late game. It was decided to take the ladies to the movies in order to get out of the 100-degree weather.  The only film playing at the time at the theatre near the complex was "Jurassic Park 3."  An epic motion picture...........would NOT be used in the description of this movie.  I enjoyed the original and even liked the sequel, but this is one of those pics that would've been better of not being made. But it did serve the primary intended purpose. We started the game rather slowly that evening and we found ourselves down by three runs to our opponents with only two at bats remaining. I gathered them around and told them that if they were to string together a rally and we could pull this game out, I would do the dance on the mound at the end of the game. 

Well, don'tcha know what happened next. The focus that these players had after that was kinda frightening. We hit like we had invented the game for those two innings and we scored 5 runs to go ahead. We closed out the win and I was shown to the pitching circle where I then proceeded to do the dance as the players sang the song aloud. 

The season quickly drew to a close and I decided to give the team a party in a suite at the Metrodome.  We were on the field and they met many of their favorite players.  I believe we were playing Cleveland and my shortstop Jenny got a chance to meet one of her favorite players, Omar Vizquel. We had a great time that evening to be sure.  

I pretty much knew when the season started that I was going to be relieved of my duties as coach of this team at season's end. I had no children in the program and there were fathers who were chomping at the bit to coach the team who would be an early-season favorite to win a championship in 2002. That's how it works in traveling sports. It's even worse now than it was back then. I took the "dismissal" with mixed emotions. Politics and too much parental involvement in traveling youth sports is such a huge issue that I was probably going to be better off getting out of the program with a hearty handshake from the people who gave me the chance to coach the team in the first place.

I've actually gotten in touch with a number of players from my 2001 team via something called facespace or mybook or instafart or something like that. They are all nearing their 35th birthdays and a scary fact, to say the least. A few of them have gotten married and started families of their own by now. But all have turned into beautiful women and I am so pleased to have reconnected with them in a small way.  

We had a lot of fun and I will always remember that season for many reasons. I  probably didn't have the chance to thank them back then, because 18-year old girls aren't usually interested all that much in what 40-year old guys who aren't their fathers have to say. Even those who ARE their fathers for that matter.

Well, that's my story. I think I hear Tom Jones singing "It's Not Unusual" faintly in the background. Maybe he'll do "What's New Pussycat" next. One can only hope.

.....I'm just saying'.

The New York Rangers

There was a time when the National Hockey League did not consist of teams in every time zone in North America.  There was not anything like NHL Center Ice on DirecTv.  There was no satellite radio to follow your favorite team.  Finding a score was not as easy as just logging onto the internet and getting an update.  But if you worked at it, you could get it done.

I was a fan of the New York Rangers when I grew up.  There were only 14 teams in the NHL when I picked up the hockey bug.  I grew to know and love players like Vic Hadfield, Pete Stemkowski, Ron Greschner, Bill Fairbairn, Walt Tkaczuk, Brad Park, Ed Giacomin, Gilles Villemure and two of my favorites Rod Gilbert, who shared a first name with myself and my favorite player Jean Ratelle.  Those were my original Broadway Blueshirts.  

The schedule was much more balanced than it is today. On a typical week the Rangers would be on television on WOR Channel 9 in New York, which was close enough for me to see from my bedroom in Stamford, Connecticut.  Jim Gordon and Bill "The Big Whistle" Chadwick on the call on Saturday nights on the road.  Often the between-period interviews were with people I had never heard of like Punch Imlach, King Clancy and a man who STILL terrorizes Canadians on Hockey Night in Canada, one Don Cherry.  If you've never seen Don Cherry, his sport coats make those belonging to Lindsay Nelson or Craig Sager look like they're wearing Members Only jackets.  Chadwick had been a referee in is previous vocation and was incredibly enthusiastic towards the Rangers.  I enjoyed him a great deal. 

That was how I spent my Saturday nights.  Even into high school, that was my Saturdays.  I didn't date in high school and my Fridays nights were usually spent hanging out with my best friend Allen Kramer, usually bowling  in Greenwich and eating too many frosty desserts at Wendy's.  Sunday nights were more subdued as games were not available on television so I would tune in the games on the radio for the call by the wonderful Marv Albert along with his sidekick Sal Messina.  It was a great way to end the weekend, as I did my homework, which I should probably have completed on Friday afternoon after school.  Marv was also calling Knicks games at that time too.  He sounded just as great then, maybe better, than he does even today.  

In the spring of my senior year of high school the Rangers made it to the Stanley Cup finals against the Montreal Canadiens.  I really thought that they would win their first cup in my lifetime and for the first time in 39 years.  They actually won game one at the Montreal Forum and then darkness fell.  It was over in five and the Rangers would not advance to the Finals for another 15 years.  

I moved to Florida to follow an education in Tampa and quickly discovered that hockey did not exist in the Sunshine State.  I was once visiting my parents one weekend in Bradenton and listening to WKXY-AM radio.  The deejay gave the sports scores but got to the hockey scores and actually said, "Eh, it's hockey. We're in Florida.  Nobody cares."  So when I arrived at my parents' home I called the station and told said deejay that there WERE some people in the state who were from the northern climbs and we would appreciate giving ALL of the evening's scores.  He gave the hockey scores at the next break from the tunes he was spinning for us on the Mighty 930 AM. (I didn't have FM radio in my car for another few years).

1994 was a magic season with magical players.  Former adversaries Kevin Lowe and Jeff Beukeboom, Steve Larmer, Adam Graves, home-grown Brian Leetch and the ultimate former adversary, one Mark Messier put together a monster season which followed a player strike which cut the season to 48 games.  With playoff series wins over the Islanders, Capitals, Devils and then over the Vancouver Canucks the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in my lifetime.  Talk about something I never thought I would see.

The Rangers have struggled along for two decades now and are less than 24 hours away from the opening game of the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals.  Their opponents are the Los Angeles Kings, a team born from the 1967 NHL expansion.  They have won a Cup since the Rangers last have, and as far as I'm concerned that's enough.  The last time I really paid attention to the Kings was when they wore these gaudy uniforms which looked like the Minnesota Vikings on ice, with players named Rogie Vachon and Marcel Dionne.  They played at a place called the Forum and they weren't very good.  

One of my greatest thrills at a sporting event was starting the "Let's Go Rangers" chant at a game at Madison Square Garden a number of seasons ago.  I had done it in my bedroom as a teen and there I was, at the World's Most Famous Arena, starting 17,000+ fans on my own.  Tomorrow I will start it again in my man cave.  Join me, won't you? Apparently game one is at a large office supply store in Los Angeles.  

I'm just saying'..........

The Mets and June 1st

If you've read most or all of my blogs to this point, you know one very important thing about me. 

I love bacon.  

Now, as truthful as that statement is, I haven't mentioned that fact in any of my blogs........yet. But what I meant to say was that I love the New......York......Mets. I grew up a Met fan in Stamford, Connecticut. Watching them on WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York with my aunt Bea (yes, just like Opie Taylor) in her apartment which was downstairs from the floor where my family lived. We would shake our heads un unison at some of the many faux pas they would make and marvel when they made plays that looked like they'd actually gone to rehearsal recently. She collected every Mets yearbook, including the original issue in 1962, and handed them over to me to continue the tradition. This year I completed the set and now have a copy of every one of them. 

I would listen to the games on my Radio Shack transistor radio (Google THAT, kids) under my pillow at night on school nights, falling asleep to the voices of Lindsay Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner. Sometimes I would turn my black & white tv on and turn the brightness control down in order to keep the room dark as to not tip off my mom by having any light showing from under the door.  Some of you may not even know what a brightness control on a television is or that at one time they had them at all. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the IQ of the user of the television.

Bea was in the stands at Shea Stadium in October of 1969 on the afternoon of game 5 when they won their first World Championship and I was in New York on the night they won their second in 1986. They should've won another by now. 1988 comes to mind first off. They lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS 4 games to 3 after dominating them during the regular season, winning 10 of their 11 meetings. But then we wouldn't have had the whole Kirk Gibson/Roy Hobbs moment in game one and all that came after that, would we? 

They should've gone to the Series in 2006, but alas, the Cardinals and Yadier Molina got in our way that year. Endy Chavez's phenomenal catch had us all thinking that it was a done deal. Just before Adam Wainwright went into his windup before the final pitch of game 7 I uttered two words out loud. "Curve ball" crossed my lips as though I'd found the solution to the ending of a movie like "Inception" but was powerless to make it worth anything because I was in Minneapolis and Carlos Beltran was in Flushing, New York. Howie Rose told me the outcome through my car's speakers and the Cards were off to the World Series to beat up on the Tigers. How did I know what the pitch would be? Especially since I couldn't see Molina's signs over the radio waves? Because I knew that Beltran was looking for a fastball and Wainwright wasn't gonna bring it. I didn't want to be right about that, I just was. 

The orange and blue have frustrated me extensively for many years since that night, but on one glorious late-spring evening it all went away, just for a moment. 

The Mets had come close to ho-hitters in the past, most notably the Tom Seaver gem in 1969 against the Cubs when he had a perfect game broken up by Jimmy Qualls. I, like most Met fans, pretty much got comfortable with the notion that the team would NEVER have a pitcher throw a no-hitter.  Going into 2012 the San Diego Padres were the only other team to not have had a no-hitter thrown for them.

I've been lucky enough to see two no-hitters in person.  Both were at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.  The first was by Scott Erickson on April 27, 1994 and the second by Eric Milton on September 11, 1999.

But on June 1, 2012 the Mets hosted the Cardinals at New Shea. It says CitiField on the tickets and on the signs and virtually everything else.  But those of us who are real Met fans know better.  The Cardinals were the defending World Champs.  But on this night Johan was "on".  There were two crucial moments during the game.  In the sixth inning former-Met Carlos Beltran led off and hit a scorcher down the third base line.  The ball he hit actually did hit the foul line but umpire Adrian Johnson missed the call. If replay had been in use at that time the call would no doubt have been reversed and the no-hitter would've been over at that exact moment. Then again, if there had been replay the Cardinals would've been World Series champions in 1985 and Don Denkinger's name would be known only in his own home.

In the seventh inning with one out, Yadier Molina (yes, him again) hit a ball into the left centerfield alley which was run down and caught by outfielder Mike Baxter, who grew up only 10 minutes away from the ballpark.

With those heart-stoping moments behind him Santana honed-in on his goal and on his 134th pitch of the game he struck out David Freese to close it out and the Mets had their first ho-hitter as a franchise.  As I heard Gary Cohen, the tv voice of the Mets report the event as I watched, I thought about the fact that I never thought this would happen. Keith Hernandez asked Cohen if he ever thought this would happen. Without skipping a beat Cohen answered "No." I also realized that I was shedding a few tears of happiness.  My wife and converted Met fan Bryn looked at me and said, "Are you...crying?" And while slowly shaking my head from side to side and in a quiet partly-cracking voice I said, "You don't understand. This was something we knew would never actually happen." I did not anticipate this at all.  But it stands to reason.  When you feel as passionately about a team as I do about the Mets, an event which you never anticipated will touch you in just such a way.

Like I said, Johan threw 134 pitches that night and, basically, was never the same after that.  Talk about "leaving it all on the field".  Johan was paid a large amount of money to come to New York.  I had seen him pitch locally for the Twins and dreamt of their rotation having someone like him to roll out every fifth game. And then they made the deal happen.  His arm basically resbounded from the effort and even though he missed the entire 2011 season, his 2012 season was essentially done and he then missed all of the 2013-2015 seasons.  Johan had hoped to return one more time. He wanted to pitch once again for his son to see him do so and for that I applaud his effort. I ran into Johan at Twinsfest in January 2020 but he knew me from my Twins employment days. He had no idea that the Met fan was who had greeted him so warmly that evening. 

The Mets may never have another no-hitter thrown in their history, or at least in my lifetime.  Goodness knows they've had a wealth of talent on the mound whom we all thought would've done it. Tom Seaver (who threw one for the Reds),  David Cone (who later threw a PERFECT GAME for the Yankees),  Jerry Koosman, Dwight Gooden (who later threw one for the Yankees), Nolan Ryan (who threw SEVEN for other teams in his career), Ron Darling, and the man I thought would do it first, Sid Fernandez. Even with the current crop of hurlers including Jacob DeGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Marcus Stroman I don't know that they will make it happen. deGrom has the potential every time he takes the mound, that's for sure.

.........I'm just sayin'.

P.S.- I composed this blog a few years ago and a couple of things have transpired since then.


In 2015 the Mets went on a monumental playoff run starting in early-August.  They went on to win the Eastern Division title, clinching in Cincinnati in late September.  I actually flew to Columbus and drove to the Queen City to see the last five innings in person at Great American Ballpark.  I was behind the dugout when the players came out postgame and even got champagne sprayed on my jacket by Terry Collins when he emerged. 

They edged past the Dodgers in five games and eviscerated the Cubs in four.  The Royals of Kansas City were more than formidable and the magical run came to an end in five games.  For THIS Met fan it was quite a fine October as I my team played a game on my birthday, October 28th, for the first time ever. I was proud to sport my orange and blue for weeks afterward.

Early January 2016 saw the passing of my aunt Bea, the person who started me down this path over 40 years ago.  I know that she shared my enjoyment as the team moved through the postseason.  She has passed the torch to me and I will take it from here......to the next no-hitter and beyond.

............I'm just sayin'