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. I love baseball. But more emphatically 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. Thanks to a couple of purchases on eBay I now own one from every season since 1962.

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. I was listening on the radio with Bryn 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.

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 (Mets fans) 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 complete-game 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 later crop of hurlers including Jacob DeGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Zach Wheeler I don't know that they will make it happen. deGrom has the potential every time he takes the mound for the Texas Rangers, 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'

The Indy 500

Today is the running of the 109th Indianapolis 500. It promises to be just what the radio announcers refer to as they go into each commercial break, "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing". I have watched nearly every "500" since 1969. It was my introduction to auto racing. Between watching televised open-wheel racing and racing slot cars (Google THAT, youngsters) with my brother Rudy in the cellar of our house, I became a big fan.

It was exciting to think of being a professional race driver at that time. A thought that probably coincided with my love of baseball to the point where I wanted to play third base for the New York Mets. I imagined this vocation until the day I heard of the death Peter Revson in March of 1974. I can still remember going down to the cellar a few hours later and playing with my slot cars by myself, as my brother had moved on to attend Boston University. I had only seen a still photo on the news that afternoon. The same photo appeared in the New York Daily News the following day. I still have that day's paper in my memorabilia collection. I couldn't imagine what had happened in South Africa that caused the death of this driver. Revson wasn't my favorite driver at all, but he was well-known. He was an heir to the Revlon makeup family but chose racing as his choice of a career. After driving my slot cars for about an hour or so, I retreated upstairs to have dinner. While in preparation of our dinner for that evening I told my mother that I'd decided not to become a race driver. Her response was, as often was the case when I'd made such a profound statement was, "Well, at least we got THAT out of the way."  She didn't say it in any sort of dismissive way, but I'm sure that she thought for a moment that she didn't know her 12 year-old son was even considering such an occupation.

I was a huge fan of Mario Andretti, the 1969 Indy 500 winner. His name was almost melodic and for decades his name alone was synonymous with drivers deemed by their friends to be a little too aggressive behind the wheel of their own automobiles. I thought surely that he would win another 500 in his career, but alas this was not the case. He became the first victim of "Andretti Luck" which was all bad and was passed on to other relatives who drove in the race in the future. In 1982 he was an innocent bystander when on the opening lap he was run in to by  a "driver" named Kevin Cogan and was done before the race had even started.  Just three years later in 1985 he had a great ride but was outrun by Danny Sullivan who earlier in the race had actually done a 360 directly in front of him and won anyway. Mario never did win another 500, but he sure looked cool while trying. I actually got to meet Mario while working at the airport. It was the summer of 2001. I was supposed to be inspecting his carry-on bag at the departure gate. It wasn't the most thorough bag check I've ever done. He was much larger in stature to me than the 5'4" gentleman who was standing in front of me that evening. His grandson Marco will start today's race from the 29th position.

I recall as a kid that the Indy 500 was not shown live on television. Yes, you read that correctly. An amazing concept given today's vast array of available channels on television. It was edited after the original running and shown on "ABC's Wide World of Sports" some SIX DAYS LATER. Trying to avoid hearing who the winner was for 6 days was not that easy, but in the era before the internet it WAS possible. I would ask my mom to not give me my copy of Sports Illustrated until I'd seen the race. Starting in 1971 the race was shown on the same day in prime time.  For many years I would avoid all radio and television reports on that Sunday and firmly plant myself in front of our console tv hoping like anything that when the broadcast started at 8:00 p.m. eastern time that I would hear the great Jim McKay's voice accompanied by a gentle guitar version of "Back Home Again in Indiana" and the live shot would be of a darkened Indianapolis Motor Speedway with only the scoring pylon lit in the background. The number of the winning car was unable to be discerned because of tragically-low-definition television that was available in the seventies. Which was okay for me in this circumstance. Some years, however, the race had been postponed due to rain and my excitement would have to wait until the following day.

The races back then were often called by McKay and former Formula 1 driver Jackie Stewart.  For myself  and a lot of others watching it was the first time we had heard someone from Scotland speak, and in retrospect, it was quite a treat.  In the pits was Chris Economaki, who was great in his role.  Essentially doing the same work that 4-6 pit reporters perform on racing telecasts today. 

The race has had some thrilling finishes, including one which took four months to decide in 1981 when Andretti lost to Bobby Unser even though I thought Andretti had won. Andretti, however, still has the winner's ring from that race. The race has also had more than its fair share of tragedy. There was the infamous 1973 race during which three people died and another was critically injured. Art Pollard was killed in an accident during practice on Pole Day and Salt Walther was critically injured during a multi-car crash on the opening lap. Rain then postponed the race until the following day and during that race Swede Savage was seriously injured when he hit the wall on the front stretch. Amazingly, Savage survived the accident but died some 33 days later from an infection following a blood transfusion. The third death was as a result of a pit crew member being hit by an emergency rescue truck which was responding, amazingly, to the Savage crash. That crew member died on impact with the truck. Why THIS didn't make me want to dismiss a career as a race driver I just don't know. It was probably my first experience of seeing a tragic event on television.

A large number of great drivers have participated in the Indy 500. Only two of them, A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti have won both the Daytona 500 NASCAR race and the Indianapolis 500. There have been five drivers who have driven in the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race on the SAME DAY. Kyle Larson is attempting it today for the third time. The race still has two great traditions. The winning driver drinks milk in the winners circle and has done so since 1956. And more recently the winning driver and pit crew make their way to the start/finish line to kiss the yard of bricks which remain from the original track in 1909. NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Dale Jarrett started that tradition after his win in the 1996 Brickyard 400. 

I certainly look forward to today's  broadcast, but I'm sure I will be reminded of my past history of viewing.  Fox is now the network which telecasts the race. ABC did so until 2018 and NBC broadcast it from 2019-24. It's an amazing event, where humans move on the ground at speeds which they were never supposed to reach. In 1912 the top qualifying car topped out at an average speed of 88.45 mph.  In 2025 the top speed for qualifying was 232.790 mph by a driver who has never driven a race on an oval track until today. Indy has not only brought us great moments and tragic moments but it also brought innovations that have transferred to the cars we use today. Originally, there were two seats in the front of the car. One for the driver, the other for, essentially, a spotter to look around and behind the car for help to see them. This led to the invention of the rear-view mirror in order to get rid of the passenger and make the car lighter. But I shan't bore you with more relatively meaningless trivia about this. I will save THAT for the boredom of my friends, family and co-workers.

After the 2020 race was devoid of spectators due to the pandemic this year's race sold all 350,000 available tickets. The track has grandstand seating for 240,000 and suite and infield space to accommodate the remainder. I hope to be one of them myself next year. Racing is probably the one sport where the absence of fans in attendance least obvious, especially on television. Rare is the time when you could actually hear the crowd cheering above the roar of the engines anyhow. I hope someday to attend "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing" before my time on this earth is done. That'd be kinda cool. No week of avoiding the news. No tape delay telecasts. Not even a television screen at all. Just opening my eyes and seeing it all develop right in front me......and about 350,000 other fans.

May you enjoy the race today, if you are so inclined.

.......I'm just sayin'. 

My World Of Sports

"Sports. It provides the comfortable separation between fantasy and the cruel realities of life."

I wish I could take credit for that quote, but alas I cannot. I heard it spoken by a sports anchor, the late Fred Hickman as he opened an episode of CNN Sports Tonight one night back in the 80's. I liked it so much that I made a point of writing it down immediately. That was nearly 40 years ago and I still have the slip of paper on which I wrote it.

The majority of this blog is the same as it was when I originally composed it in May of 2014. But in light of the current surreal conditions in which we all live right now, I wanted to add to it just a bit. As the country emerged from the pandemic the NHL hockey and basketball seasons for the NBA and WNBA finished in "bubbles" located in Edmonton, Alberta Canada and Orlando, Florida and Bradenton, Florida respectively. The 2020 World Series was played entirely at a brand new ballpark in Arlington, Texas. Neither of the teams in the series were based IN Arlington, Texas. So, surreal is a huge understatement. 

Those of you who know me know that I love sports.  I grew up in the New York City area and followed five major sports for quite a while.

Baseball has always been my first love and always will be. The orange and blue of the New York Metropolitans (what, you didn't think "Met" was short for something?) have coursed through my veins for as long as I can remember. This was factual even during my time while in the employ of the front office of the Minnesota Twins. They Mets are the team of my past, present and future. I was born approximately 10 hours after and about 25 miles away from the groundbreaking for what was originally known as Flushing Meadow Park. It was later renamed William A. Shea Stadium.  The Mets have not won a championship since 1986, but the fact that I've seen them win two of them in my lifetime means that I am still +1 to any fans of the Chicago Cubs and +2 to fans of six franchises. I could go on endlessly about my love for baseball, but this posting isn't about baseball, as you will soon read. 

I, like many young boys, collected baseball cards. I grew up right next door to a package store (in New England the liquor stores are called "package stores", or "packies") I used the empty boxes which originally contained liquor bottles to keep my cards in. I had one slot for each team. It was easy to figure out which team was represented by their cap logo. Except for one. I often had a hard time remembering which team had an interlocking T and C on their cap. I wondered how they got TC from "Minnesota". But I eventually started remembering it correctly. I actually worked for the Minnesota Twins for thirteen seasons, (1989-2001). The last six of those seasons were as a front office employee. So I at one point went from not knowing what the logo meant to one day designing the letterhead, envelopes and business cards for said major league franchise. I was even the backup mascot for two seasons while I was there. I experienced a World Series championship firsthand  and will never forget that experience. 

Hockey entered my life at about the same time.  I was a fan of the New York Rangers. I still am. Back when I started watching hockey there were only 12 teams.  The schedule was very much balanced throughout the week. I remember watching Ranger road games WOR-TV Channel 9 with Jim Gordon and Bill Chadwick, then listening to home games on Sunday night while doing my homework on WNBC 660 AM with Marv Albert and Sal "Red Light" Messina on the call. Back then you would've thought the NHL to be a foreign country to a young African-American male during the seventies, but I loved all of the aspects of the game. I longed to see the Broadway Blueshirts play at the "World's Most Famous Arena", Madison Square Garden. My first home Ranger game wasn't until October of 1986. I hoped that someday the Rangers would eventually win a Stanley Cup and in 1994 they did just that. Following their Cup win we adopted two dachshunds. One came to be named Rosie, in honor my dear mother who had just passed only 3 months earlier and the other was named Ranger.  Ranger's AKC registered name is "Rangers' Stanley Cup".  I currently have another dachshund named Shea. You can figure that one out on your own, I'm sure.  

I actually followed the New York Knickerbockers (what, you didn't think that "Knick" wasn't short for something?) during their heyday in the '70s.  Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschure, Bill Bradley, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe and Walt "Clyde" Frazier were the Knicks I followed.  I no longer follow the NBA very much as the game has changed so much. Not to say that the other "big three" sports haven't had their share of changes, scandals, etc. But the NBA lost me when they started taking players from college who had only attended college for two or sometimes even ONE year. Then the whole marriage of basketball and rap/hip-hop which has caused the game to go to extremes culturally along with the skill set which players have today and the fact that players are looking to be on the highlights every night on ESPN and the fact that you can see HIGH SCHOOL games on television nationwide is a travesty. Besides, the refs haven't called traveling on anyone since the H.W Bush administration. One footnote, however,  is that I could watch Steph Curry shoot 3-pointers (which were known as "home runs" in the old ABA) all....day...long.

Football. New York Jets? New York Football Giants? New England Patriots? None of the above. I grew up as a fan of the Minnesota Vikings. I know, I know. How does this happen to a young man in Connecticut? Well, the Jets had won a championship in 1969 but had gone back to mediocrity. The Giants had no appeal either. As a matter of fact during the decade of the 70s neither team had the talent to qualify for the playoffs. But the Vikings always seemed to be in the playoffs, they had great players, especially on defense, and they had what I considered to be the coolest uniforms in the league at the time. And so it was. I thought that they would have given Viking fans a Super Bowl win by now, but we seem to get close once a decade, so we aren't too far away from another chance. The NFC Championship game loss to the Saints was tough, but the loss to the Falcons in 1998 is STILL the one which "chaps my hide" the most.  That may have been the best team this franchise ever had.

I actually followed and played soccer in high school and during the 1980s.  The New York Cosmos were my team during the first invasion of soccer.  Players like Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and the incredible Brazilian, Edson Orantes do Nascimento (you may know him better as Pelé) led the charge and won three NASL championships in 1977, 1978 and 1980.  But the thrill of those wins was nothing like it would've been had it been for any of my other favorite teams.

While I still follow the Rangers in New York, there is again an NHL team in my immediate vicinity. When I moved to Minnesota the North Stars played their home games less than six miles away from my home. But that would prove to be short-lived and too goo to be true. In April of 1993 the North Stars moved due south to Dallas, Texas. That was a bitter pill to swallow, but not as tough for me as it was for so many fans who had followed them for a quarter century. I had only followed them for the previous five seasons. The NHL tried to appease us by sending us "neutral site" games for awhile. The IHL sent us something called the Minnesota Moose. It was hockey in the sense that it wasn't lacrosse. The Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup in their sixth season in the Lone Star State. 

In 2000 the Minnesota Wild joined the NHL. My wife and I bought season tickets so early that my original season ticket holder number was 199 out of 18,000. The Wild (horrible name for a sports team) gave us a false sense of what was to come by advancing to the Western Conference Finals as the #6 seed in only their third season. That's the furthest they have advanced in their history. In their first 19 seasons they have made it to the second round just three times. I'm probably in the top 100 remaining season ticket holders at this time. The wait for Lord Stanley to come to Minnesota continues. Currently the Wild are "two years away from being two years away" from contending for that holiest of sports grails.

Sports fans, for the most part, don't ask for a great deal.  We want to believe that our favorite team's players are giving their all, are playing within the rules, and want to win as much as we want them to. We hope that they stay off of the suspended list for PEDs, the police blotter and the sports department at TMZ. We hope that our owners genuinely are trying to make personnel moves that improve our team's productivity. We buy jerseys with names of our favorite players on the back, hoping that they don't embarrass us is into moving them to the back of the closet. I, personally, have never purchased a jersey with a player's name and number on the back. I simply buy jerseys and then have them customized with my own last name and my favorite number, 11, on the back. I know that unless something goes incredibly wrong, that I'm not going to get traded and so the jersey is always current. Jerry Seinfeld once said, "You're actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it. You know what I mean? You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt; they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!"

Jerry was right.

I always have a hard time with people who "jump on the bandwagon" of a team late in the season or even during the playoffs.  How these people can take any true satisfaction from a short-term, non-committal relationship with a team is beyond me. Wait, I think I just described the quintessential "no-strings attached" relationship. The great thing about having your team win a championship after you've followed them all season is the sense that your emotional, financial, and time investments have all paid off. Anything else pretty much amounts to the sports version of a one-night stand. It might feel good for about 3-4 hours, but when the sun comes up, what do you have?  

The NFL is currently having issues with teams and players testing positive for COVID-19. Games have been moved to different dates, including one game recently which was played on a Tuesday night. The NFL received incredible tv ratings for the draft televised by ESPN. I remember the days when the draft took place in the afternoon on a nondescript  Tuesday in April. I just found out about, believe it or not, a marble racing league which can be seen on youTube. (YouTube, a website that is a direct result of the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake wardrobe malfunction at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. You could look it up). 

Lastly, I also follow NASCAR. I originally followed Indy-car racing until the league split and forced some drivers to choose sides. I still watch the Indy 500 each year, but in the late 70s I started following NASCAR. I attended my first NASCAR race in 2003. My first "favorite driver" was Rusty Wallace. Rusty was pretty much on the back end of his career by the time I chose him to be my guy. He'd won a championship in 1989 but I didn't really get into the sport until after he'd won that. Rusty's Last Ride" was in 2005 and I needed to find a new driver to hitch my fan wagon to. Also in 2005 a Federal Express was the primary sponsor of a car driven by the late Jason Leffler. He didn't produce well and mid-season was replaced by a young Denny Hamlin. I was at the November race in Phoenix and he won his first pole position that day. He drove the #11 car, and 11 is my favorite number. I figured, "Why not Denny?" And so I became a fan of Denny Hamlin. I have followed the 11 car in a major way for 15 seasons. I've seen him come close to winning a championship in 2010. That was tough. But I've seen him win in person 5 times, which is a huge thrill. I have scads of merchandise and clothing with the number 11 on it in purple, orange and white. Last November I purchased a ticket to the Phoenix race. Then I flew from Minneapolis the morning of the race. I rented a car and drove to Avondale. I watched Denny win the race, got back on a return flight to Minny and watched the replay of the race on tv as I went to sleep. It was a good day. Hamlin has a chance to win his first championship this Sunday in Phoenix. I had a ticket for this race, but due to COVID-19 I wasn't fortunate enough to be one of the fans who will be allowed to attend the race. I'll have my swag on during my viewing on NBC, that is for sure. 

What I have learned over the past 4 decades is that if you're going to hitch your wagon to a sports team be prepared to have your heart broken.  Your team will lose games they should have won but they will also win win games they should've lost.  Your team may be found to have cheated to win. (See Bobby Thompson's Shot Heard 'Round the World or 2017 Houston Astros). You will lose sleep over them.  You will develop superstitions based on their performance.  You will spend money you don't have on them. You will name your pets or children after favorite player, team name or stadium, as I have a son named Shea.  You will be ridiculed by your friends because of your passion for them, especially when they are in their "lean" periods.  If you find yourself in a "sketchy" area of a city you might even have your health and well-being threatened. You will find that the phrase "Losing feels worse than winning feels good" really IS true. But above all else, before you can call yourself a "true fan", you must be prepared for all of these things. Because if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

I'm just sayin'.

October 27th

October 27th.  It's NOT my birthday. It's the day PRIOR to my birthday. But in my time on this earth it has a fairly major significance. Especially since this year it falls on a Sunday as it did 33 years ago.

On this date in 1986 the New York Mets won their second World Series championship.  I was in New York City at the time and attended the ticker tape parade on the 28th. I attended that parade and had my photo taken on top of the World Trade Center on my 25th birthday. What a present that was! 

One would think that would be a great experience and it certainly was. But I got lucky again only five years later.  On this date in 1991 I was ON THE FIELD when the World Series ended as the Minnesota Twins won game 7 against the Atlanta Braves. How a baseball fanatic like myself could not be awed by such things is beyond comprehension.

On October 26, 1991 I was behind the wall next to the Braves bullpen in the bottom of the ninth. Kirby Puckett led off that half inning and I was standing in front of the large pin which held that portion of the wall in place.  When the ball was hit I knew from the sound that it was a home run. I pulled the pin up and headed out onto the field to assist the in-house law enforcement officials in making sure that no one ran onto the field. I paused, for one frightening moment as I crossed the foul line, thinking "what if it doesn't clear the wall?"  I was the first person on the field, not knowing if anyone else had followed me. I could be the "lone fool" on the field.  But, alas, it cleared and the place went crazy. I took my position on the third base bag until the grounds crew came out for it as the players celebrated in the dugout in front of me.

But that only made it necessary for game 7 to be played the next night. I started the night by working at the press gate. By the eighth inning of game 7 I was back in my position, behind the wall next to the Braves 'pen. (This was because we all agreed to stand in the same places as we had late in game 6. Baseball players, and fans for that matter, are quite superstitious at times). 

The game was tied at 0-0 through 8. I couldn't actually watch the Braves at bats, simply relying on crowd reaction and organist Ronnie Newman to keep me apprised of defensive outs. I turned and watched the Twins when they batted, however.  In the ninth they had a chance to win, but the rally ended on a Paul Sorrento strikeout.  Once again I turned away from the action while Jack Morris turned away the Braves in the top of the tenth.  

The bottom of the tenth started with Dan Gladden turning a single into a double, much to the surprise of myself who watched the play develop and thought it was a mistake.  But the high bounce of the turf came into play and the inning was off to a great start.  The inning progressed to the point where the bases were loaded for pinch hitter Gene Larkin. Larkin hit the first pitch into the alley, over the shallow outfield, and Gladden scored the only run of the game. I pulled the pin yet again and made my sprint onto the field as the decibel level rose to  an incredible level.  I had decided to forego ear plugs as to not miss any of the sounds from that evening.  

As I ran onto the field and got to the stripe which marks the beginning of the outfield, I raised my head just in time to barely miss running over Braves' second baseman Mark Lemke, who was walking off slowly with his head down. How much of an insult would it have been had I blind-sided him after his team had just lost one of the greatest World Series ever played?

I made my way to third base as the Metrodome was "up for grabs".  The players burst out onto the field as we ran past each other in opposite directions.  It was an incredibly surreal moment which I will never forget. It was 11:01 pm, CENTRAL time. I was born in Connecticut which meant it was now the 28th. I remember thinking, "what a great birthday gift this is....again!"

It was a misty evening/morning that night and a few hours later, after having a fairly large quantity of champagne poured over my head, I was in the concourse awaiting the first of the players to make their way up the stairs. The first player out was Gene Larkin. "How's it feel real, Gene?", I said to him. "Rod, NOTHING feels real right now!", was his response.  

I remember driving home. I had a Hyundai Excel and I had the sunroof and the front windows open. With Queen's "We are the Champions" on virtually every station I hit the crosstown around 5:45 a.m.  I arrived at home around 6:05.  The paper was in front of my garage and I recall picking it up to make sure that I was indeed not dreaming.  I wasn't.

Some people never see their team win a championship. I've been lucky to have seen TWO of mine win championships plus been involved in a third. The New York Rangers in 1994 and the New York Mets in 1969 and 1986. 

I've been a lucky sports fan, to be honest.  

Minnesota Vikings.......are you listening????

I'm just sayin'.

A Love Lost, A Love Found........

A Love Lost, A Love Found.......

Love is a strange thing. Any of you who have experienced it know what I'm talking about. It's not always about another person. It can also pertain to an inanimate object. Some objects aren't as inanimate as others. This is a story about one of those objects. 

I started playing over-35 baseball in the summer of 2012. I hadn't played in a competitive baseball league in over 30 years. I had forgotten how fast the ball moves when one is standing in the batter's box. I was so hyped when I started our season opener. We were playing at Memorial Park in the town of Prior Lake, Minnesota. I'd last been there as a legion baseball coach in 1996. I anticipated having my name announced in the lineup on the public address system, being in uniform, being in the dugout with my new teammates, standing on the foul line for the national anthem. They are all things which made game 1 of my 51st year incredibly memorable. 

My team took batting practice just before the introductions. The batting cage was located behind our dugout. I was thrilled by the fact that one of my teammates was a guy whom I had coached when he was in high school, some TWENTY-TWO YEARS EARLIER. 

I made my way to the plate for my first at bat and proceeded to strike out. It mattered little. I was back playing the game I loved. I played at first base and even though we lost it was a fantastic night.

Two days later we were scheduled to have practice. I began to repack my equipment bag when I realized that I was missing one of my gloves. Now for those of you who aren't knowledgeable on such things, baseball gloves come in many different types. There are "fielders gloves" which are worn by 7 of the 9 defensive players on the field. The catcher and first basemen wear gloves known as "mitts", which give them an advantage on picking the ball up on a short hop off the ground.  

I played first base in the opening game, so my fielder's glove was not used that night. I realized that the last place I had seen the glove was at the field before the first game. I called the opposing team's coach to ask if anyone had turned the glove into lost and found, but no luck. I had to resign myself to the fact that my "gamer' was now gone from my possession. 

My "gamer" had probably been my primary glove for at least a decade. It felt almost like an extension of my own hand at times. I was still primarily a third baseman for the vast majority of that time and a pretty good one defensively at that. I used to refer my "gamer" glove as "the place where base hits go to die." I loved that glove. With it I felt like most balls hit my way could be fielded and turned into outs.

Now came the hunt for a new glove. I found one quickly and worked to get it "broken in" as soon as possible. I played through the remainder of my baseball and softball seasons with my new glove. Ironically, my softball team won two summer league championships and a fall league championship in the ensuing 15 months. But I still lamented the loss of my "gamer."

Players get attached to their "gamers". When it's not there to be used players can sometimes feel uncomfortable. I see players do things like actually spit into the palm of their glove. I could NEVER do this. I don't even know why THEY do it. I've never inquired and I don't want to know, because no reason could be good enough to justify it. I may be a bit of a germaphobe. But I will admit to touching the manufacturer's logo patch to my bottom lip before nearly every pitch when in the "ready" position just prior to the pitch. It's part of the focusing process before the pitch is thrown. 

Fast forward to some three years after I lost my "gamer". I'm playing in a tournament about 150 miles from my home in the town of Alexandria. During the pre game, moments before one of the games, I was walking through the dugout and looked down on the bench. That's when I saw it. Yes, it was my "gamer." 

What are the odds of this happening? I wondered who was currently using this piece of leather. I didn't wish to confront the player who had brought it with him. I picked it up and looked into the pocket, thinking that I never thought it would be on my left hand again. I took it off and set it on the bench before the new owner saw me wearing it. I made the quick decision that I wouldn't ask the new owner how he had come to acquire my old friend. I felt okay with the fact that it was still being used at all, rather than lying around gathering dust. The glove's new owner was actually the starting pitcher for my team in that game, so I saw it in action during that game. 

I came away from the experience with a sense of being lucky enough to even SEE the glove again. The odds were incredibly high. The team I was playing on that night was a hybrid team made up of players from two different teams. The new owner plays for a team located 30 miles from my own team. I just happened to be on THAT team for THAT game.

So, my former "gamer" is now someone else's "gamer". Destined to keep recording outs for another few years.  

I used its predecessor for a few years. Never quite getting the feel that I was "at one" with it, but somehow it coincided with three championships which will always make me thankful for its partnership with me.

By the end of the decade the time had come to purchase one more first baseman's glove to probably use until my playing days are through. So I ordered a customized Rawlings model in royal blue- the primary color of my softball team and of my New York Mets. The accent colors are pink in remembrance of my mother who passed away at the age of 65 from breast cancer. The second color is orange in honor of my wife Bryn who was my biggest fan until she lost her battle with COPD in 2022.  She saw me use it a bunch of times after i got it. But the plan is for it to be my "gamer" until I can no longer "pick it" on the field. It....has become my next true love....on the baseball field.

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