Baseball, Life, and Other Stuff

More With Nick Arata

We had a chance to see former New Market Rebel Nick Arata play third for the Hagerstown Suns on Saturday night and we visited with him after the Suns' 4-0 victory over Delmarva.  Nick had a tough night at the plate going 0 for 4, but was as friendly and gracious as if he had collected 4 hits.  He recognized me from our first meeting about 6 weeks ago and was happy to meet Al and Jesse.  Nick immediately asked how the Rebels fared in the playoffs and we were delighted to tell him about the victory over Luray.  Nick was happy to hear about that as well.

Nick does not know if he will be playing anywhere this fall, but plans to take classes if he doesn't.

In 86 games with the Suns, Nick is hitting .239 which is a 16 point improvement since July 31 when I last posted about Nick, who at that point had appeared in 66 games.

Good luck, Nick!  The Rebel Faithful continue to root for you.

Friendly Strangers

It's funny who you meet in odd places and at odd times such as running on the C & O Canal on a rainy day.  Last Friday, I heard some folks coming up behind me on bikes, chatting away and sounding happy.  As they passed me, the woman in the lead said, "I bet you heard us coming!"

I did and I appreciated it.  It's much better to hear people at a distance and know they are coming than to have Stealth Biker ride silently on his razor thin tires until he's right behind you and then makes some strange hissing noise, the kind a guy in a raincoat on a dark corner might make who has two pockets full of watches to sell, in order to let you know that he's there.  Yeah, now I know he is there, but it would have been better if he had brayed 50 yards back.  That happened to me recently, too.

Anyway, I caught up to the three bikers at a parking lot while they were taking a break.  We began to talk and their accents were of a deeper Southern variety than from anywhere in nearby Virginia.  It turns out that they are from the Wilmington, NC area.

"People from around here usually head down there this time of year, not the other way around!" I laughed.

As the conversation progressed, the lady in the lead who had spoken as they rode past, introduced herself as Margaret Bishop.  The former Margaret Rudd, she owns Margaret Rudd & Associates, a company that offers vacation rental properties in Oak Island, NC.

"See this mud?" she said, pointing to her legs.  "Remember "mud" and go to www.rudd.com and you'll see my website!"

She, her husband, and another friend and I chatted about Wilmington and Carolina Beach for a while before parting.

If you're looking to rent a beach property in North Carolina, then look up Margaret and tell her the guy in the soaking wet orange tee-shirt sent you.  You won't get any discount, but you're bound to be received with real Southern hospitality . . .

 . . . and if you sneak up on people while they're walking and make them jump 6 feet out of their soaking wet shoes, then you don't deserve to get your business mentioned in a blog!

Get Down Tonight!

Today marks a significant milestone in the annals of the greatest band of in the history of humankind, KC & the Sunshine Band.  That's right, I said it:  Greatest Band Ever.  Thirty-four years ago today, "Get Down Tonight" hit #1 on the Billboard charts, giving KC the first of five #1 songs.  Some may talk about Bach or Sousa or Gershwin or Lennon & McCartney, but no one, and I mean no one tops the compositional genius of Harry Wayne Casey (as in "KC") and his collaborator, Richard Finch.

The great thing about KC & the Sunshine Band is that it was happy music all the time.  Yeah, yeah, people say that KC's music was not socially relevant or meaningful in any way.  Good.  If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church.  If your cat ate your canary, then your cat was in turn eaten by the dog, who then ran into traffic and was flattened by a truck and you then put on a KC & the Sunshine Band record, you'd be happy again in 10 minutes.  After all happy is the goal in life, isn't it?

Anyway, check out the video below from what looks like the stage of The Midnight Special.  Check out the funky dance line about half way through.  Three-quarters of the way through, you'll be dancing, too, and smiling.  You know you will.

The Only Way I Know, by Cal Ripken

Happy Birthday, Cal Ripken!  The Iron Man turns 49 and that makes today a perfect time to review The Only Way I Know, Cal's 1997 autobiography.  This is a fascinating reflection on breaking Lou Gehrig's streak, life in the minors, what really goes on in the majors, and the state of baseball in general.  The reader will definitely hear Cal's voice, which is both the charm and the drawback to this book:  It is conversational in style, but this results in a less polished written word.

Ripken comes across in the book just as he does on television, which is to say a thoughtful person and a regular guy who happens to have Hall of Fame talent.  He is very open about the mistakes that he has made along the way (although you're not going to hear any wilds tales of the road--if there are any) and he writes at some length about his growth and increasing maturity.  He is also very open about his and his family's relationship to the Orioles.  He doesn't carry any grudges about his father's firing as manager at the beginning of the 1988 season for example, but he doesn't gloss over the hurt that he did feel, either.

In The Only Way I Know, Cal narrates his career chronologically and while I found the story of his minor league days interesting, the book really picks up speed in the last third when an older Cal reflects on his consecutive games played streak and the state of major league baseball.  He certainly has the best explanation that I've yet read for the difference between Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium and the new Camden Yards:  "I do think you can say with some validity that Camden Yards represents the modern game of baseball as entertainment, while Memorial Stadium represented the game of baseball as just that--the game of baseball, take it or leave it."

Honest and sincere, The Only Way I Know is a must read for all Ripken fans, any Oriole fans, and baseball fans in general who are interested in the insights of one of the game's most iconic players.

The Red Horde

Remember the first tomato from your garden this summer?  That first, bright red beefsteak that you picked, and lovingly carried into the house with much pomp and ceremony.  You and your family admired it, walking around it to gaze upon it in its entirety, any blemish excused because it was The First Tomato of the Year.

By now, there are so many tomatoes in your refrigerator and on your windowsills and filling baskets on your kitchen island that you don't even give one a second glance.  At this point, you pitch into the compost any tomato with fewer blemishes than that First One had.

How can one little vegetable pack that you bought in May produce so many tomatoes?  Heck, at this point in the year, if you pick 4 one evening and set them on your kitchen counter, you will come down in the morning to find 8.  These things aren't tomatoes, they are rabbitomatoes.  Yeah, they'll sit there on your counter and look all innocent as if nothing happened during the night, but obviously these aren't better boys and early girls, they are bad boys and easy girls.

And don't try that ploy of giving them to your neighbor with no garden.  Your neighbor has received so many from all the other people she knows with gardens that she has tomatoes multiplying on her kitchen counter, too.  Don't bother taking them into work, either, because everyone there is trying to dump their tomatoes, as well.

Of course, you could do something exotic such as make tomato juice and peel and puree and sweat for four hours at which point you will have bottled 8 ounces of the stuff.  You can go to the store and buy half a gallon for about three bucks.  Counting labor, your tomato juice has the equivlalent value of some rare vintage Chardonnay.   And whose going to clean the kitchen, now?  Those four buckets of tomatoes still in the garage?  Not likely.

Furthermore, tomatoes obviously destroy memory cells.  Otherwise, there is no explaining the fact that next May we will again rush to plant another crop, and count down the days until the First Tomato of the Year appears once more, wonderfully oblivious of the red horde to come.

The Soundtrack of My Summer

If you have ever experienced a strong emotion or witnessed a particularly striking scene only to have the exactly appropriate song begin to play on the car radio or some other source, you know that can be an interesting, even eerie feeling.  It's as if your life has suddenly become a movie and you're listening to the soundtrack.

This happened to me as I was leaving New Market on the morning of August 8th, after seeing the last few players turn in their uniforms and saying a final good-bye to Vic Moyers, the Rebels' bus driver.

The song was Paul Anka's "Times of Your Life."  It begins . . .

Good morning, yesterday.
You wake up and time has slipped away.
And suddenly it's hard to find
The memories you've left behind
Do you remember the times of your life?

 . . . and ends with,

Gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life.

You know, you can't make up that kind of stuff.

I already have this odd sense, that this past summer, was a dream.  It was too wonderful to have really happened, but then I look at the photos from Al Smith and Melissa Dodge and Anna Kipps and I realize that it must have been real.  I mean, after all, there I am, in some of those pictures.

I told the players the first evening that they met as a team on May 31st that my goal was to write a book that they would be happy to pull off the shelf 50 years from now and read to their grandchildren about one of the best times of their lives.  Turns out that gathering their moments was one of the best times of my life.

Photo courtesy of Melissa Dodge
Must have been real:  There I am at the Old-Timers' Workout.

Shoeless Joe

As the Valley Baseball League has now conluded, it seems most appropriate to review, at this time, one of the great literary works featuring the game of baseball:  W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (1982).  The movie version of this novel, Field of Dreams, is better known to most people but as with  most movies based on books,the book is better.  That's saying something in this case because Field of Dreams was an excellent movie and certainly did justice to the spirit of Kinsella's work.

There are some definite differences between the two media.  In the book, Ray Kinsella kidnaps and then befriends actual author J. D. Salinger.  W. P. Kinsella and Salinger are long-time friends.  Also, in the novel, Ray has a twin brother, Richard, a character who further symbolizes one of the main themes of the novel which is the connection that we all share with one another.  For me, the most striking omission from the movie is the character of Eddie Scissions, an old man who lives near Ray and claims to be the oldest living Chicago Cub.  He is not,as a simple check of the Baseball Encyclopedia reveals, but no one robs the old man of his pretense.  Finally, Scissions is allowed to take the field with the "ghost" players as a pitcher.  Despite getting shelled, he earns the respect of the players and the final scene in which he appears is worth the entire read in and of itself.  Indeed, an entire chapter is devoted to Scissions' character and none of this material shows up in the film.

Field of Dreams certainly illustrates themes of redemption, salvation, and faith, but these themes are more definite and striking in Shoeless Joe.  Indeed, Shoeless Joe is a religious novel, whose plot happens to involve--deeply--baseball.  I taught this novel years ago and had my students record all the religious references and biblical illusions that they found.  Most came up with 70 or so, from a paperback novel 224 pages long.  Baseball is after all, a game of faith as has been detailed in this blog before.

I heartily recommend Shoeless Joe, but fans may want to wait until the fall or winter to read it. Shoeless Joe will bring back the summer and all its magic and you'll find yourself staring out your window thinking to yourself, "If I just believe hard enough . . ."

Even the Shouting is Over

The 2009 Valley League season is now complete as Haymarket defeated Covington for the Jim Lineweaver Cup on Wednesday night.  Congratulations to Haymarket, a team that went an impressive 7-1 during the playoffs.  There is nothing now for us VBL fans to do but read John Leonard's post-season awards and wait for the countdown-to-Opening Day clocks to appear on the websites of various teams.

Of course, I'll be reliving the 2009 season as I complete and edit, Safe at Home:  A Season in the Valley which is scheduled for a December 1st release.  Many people have told me that they can't wait to read my book.  Me neither! 

I have often used the analogy that writing this book is like dry-stacking a stone wall:  You just gather up plenty of stones and then start fitting them together.  In those terms, the length and height of the book is complete.  I have only a couple of stones to set in a few spots and then it will be time to chink it; that is, fill in little pieces here and there.  After that the wall inspectors, which is to say, editors, will do their thing.

I will continue to post updates on Safe at Home's progress as many folks have asked for them.  In the meantime, I have posted a photo below that summarizes almost 25% of the season.

Photo courtesy of Al Smith
That's right:  There were 9 regular season rain-outs and one rain-out in the playoffs.  Two games were suspended for rain and fog, respectively, and the resumption of one of the suspended games was itself rained out.

The Black and White Time Machine

One of the things that Charlie Dodge and I discovered that we had in common during the New Market Rebels' season besides wonderful wives, a love of baseball, and the ability to manufacture excellent reasons to take a day off from teaching, is a love of old movies.  One night after a Rebels' game we watched Alibi Ike, which Charlie had DVRed.  This 1935 baseball movie stars Joe E. Brown and, of all people, Olivia de Havilland.  We not only enjoyed the light-hearted comedy, we also enjoyed seeing the old baseball footage, the old cars, the old telephones--in short, we enjoyed seeing anything in the background that isn't seen any more.

I recently watched Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Mickey Rooney.  That's quite a line up of talent for a movie most people have never heard of.  This film marked the first time that Powell and Loy appeared together on screen.  Manhattan Melodrama also has the distinction of being the film that John Dillinger watched before exiting the Biograph Theater in Chicago at which point he was gunned down by Federal agents.

The debonair, but self-effacing William Powell and the beautiful Myrna Loy star in The Thin Man series, movies that both Charlie and I enjoy.  The original trailer for Another Thin Man appears below.  The second in the series, it co-stars a very young James Stewart.  Look for the deluxe ice box (or maybe it's a deluxe refrigerator--I can't tell) towards the end of the clip.

So many of these old movies actually feature people talking to one another, often saying witty things.  This is opposed to many modern movies in which the characters are witless and blow each other up.  Watch an old movie and take in the detail and the dialogue and you will find that you have spent a pleasant evening in the company of interesting characters.

I personally recommend most anything with the Marx Brothers, or You Can't Take It With You, with Jimmy Stewart, or any of The Thin Man movies as a good place to start your time travel.

Of course, I once had a student who told me he couldn't understand what was happening in A Tale of Two Cities because the film was in black and white.  Hopefully, the McDonald's instructional video on assembling Big Macs is in color.  In any case, I know that my faithful readers are a rather sophisticated bunch, or at least literate, and therefore, I know that you will enjoy these old films.

Everybody Loves Somebody

Forty-five years ago yesterday, the Beatles finally fell from #1 on the Billboard charts.  Beatlemania was at its zenith in 1964, but the record that knocked the first super group from the top was "Everybody Loves Somebody" by Dean Martin.  Written in 1947 and recorded by many artists including Frank Sinatra, Martin had actually boasted to his son that he would knock the Beatles from the top, according to Wikipedia.  And he did.

Dean Martin was, to use an old-fashioned phrase, a man's man.  He was self-confident and self-effacing.  Suave, cool, and classy, he was what so many of today's entertainers are not.  And unlike many of today's singers, Dean could actually sing.  Enjoy the video that accompanies this entry which features a montage of wonderful photographs and enjoy the smooth stylings of Dean Martin.  Take the next 2 minutes and 46 seconds and hold in your heart and mind the one you love.