Midwestern Sensibility Views

An evening of Championship Bingo

2011-12-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

As a holiday treat, Lynne and I took a one-day siesta and decamped to a casino two hours north of home. We didn't have a lot of money to spend but the price was right ($40 for a one night stay) and the drive was wonderful. After a couple of hours of unsuccessful pokering at machines, we took a break and decided to play Bingo.

Little did we know what we were getting into. The Bingo Hall was about the size of a grade school gymnasium. Arriving a half hour before the scheduled start, we discovered nearly chair had been taken up because many folks were engaged in a pre-game game. Those who weren't playing the pre-game game were busy prepping for the Big Show.

We had stepped into the world of Championship Bingo.

It is a world where you no longer buy a card or two for a couple of bucks. Instead, there were packages at a variety of rates from $10 to $75 for an evening's entertainment. Some of these deals included "extra" games, battles that takes place between the regular affairs. You need to use dobbers for the cards. At a buck each, this proved to be the best deal of the night.

Being novices, Lynne and I decided to go somewhere in-between and bought a $10 and a $20 package to share. We scoured around for a few minutes before we discovered two unoccupied seats near the front.

The adventure was just beginning. It turns out we had started the evening by breaking an unwritten rule. Bingo cards are packaged into several sheets. On those sheets, there are often more than one game that will be played. Each player is supposed to be responsible for the sheets you buy. So, when we tore apart part of the $20 package (which had more sheets than the $10 package), we had broken a rule. You're not supposed to buy than you can personally handle. A woman bustling around the place informed us of that but took pity on us and said it was an allowable rookie mistake.

She then asked us what we wanted to buy. As noted above, there are "extra" games that take place as breaks from the regular games. Those games cost a buck or two each to play. We ponied up for most of those games, too. Thus, our $30 bingo adventure had morphed into a figure past the $40 mark before the first ball had been called.

Championship Bingo is no longer just played on cards. No, there are these contraptions available where one puts in a code. The code comes a package you buy. When a number is called, it goes on a big screen and is automatically entered into the system. (It also flashes up on a very glitzy board that looks something like the board at the New York Stock Exchange.) This way, you can buy as many cards as you want and you don't have to keep track.

Championship Bingo had hit the tekkie age.

A woman to our right had one of those toys. She was very nice, telling us which games were coming up in which order, smiling at our naivete as we laid out sheets in front of us. Turned out she is a bingo pro. A while back, she had her daughter had won $50,000 in a bingo coverall. "But we had to share it with two other people," she said with a sigh. "So, we really only won $16,666. After taxes, it was about $14,000. That was a nice win but you have to remember we paid $350 to play."

(A quick math computation revealed 16,666 times 3 is 49,998. The bingo hall keeps the other two bucks. Hey, it a business.)

The pre-game games ended and it was time for the show to begin. The woman calling out the numbers did so in a bored, soft tone. She sounded like a recorded telephone operator. In Championship Bingo, the number that will be called pops up in a camera first. This gives you a head start before it is called.

As we shall shortly discover, this turns out to be an important thing to note.

We were busy dobbing up a storm while our new friend on our right just watched her machine tabulate matters. After a while, I heard a sound from the machine.

"What's that?" I asked.

"The machine is telling me I am one number away," she replied.

Lynne and I were so busy dobbing up the 15 cards in front of us that it took a couple of games before we figured out a system that would allow us time to see if we were close to winning.

As noted earlier, if you watched the monitors, you had a short head start on numbers. This is key because, when you get your winning combination, you must quickly get your hand in the air so the caller knows something is up. As it turns out, the rest of the crowd knows, too because an audible (often disgusted) groan always emanated when a winner emerged.

In my church youth, when a Bingo winner presented him (or her) self, they read off the numbers and verified the success.

Not here. Instead, they read off the computer number on your sheet. The caller pressed a few buttons and -- voila -- the winner's card is shown for everybody to see.
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The caller pauses long enough to catch her breath and ask if there are any other winners. If not, the game is closed and seconds later, we are into the next game.

As it develops, there are all sorts of versions in Championship Bingo. We played the standard game but also added a four corners version. There is the postage stamp (four in one of the corners of the card), a Z version (five across the top and bottom as well as a second G and second B.), an L version (you can go backwards here) and a nine pack version. Near the end of the night, there is the usual coverall battle with a bonus tossed in if you win it in less than 50 numbers called. (One friend who is a regular Bingoer draws a line on her card indicating where the winning diagram needs to go. Championship Bingo requires planning.)

(It didn't happen on this night but we did see this occur at another casino a while back. The winner was a man who appeared to be in his late 50s. He won $25,000. When he raised his hand, he was sitting by himself. Before he put his hand down, he seemed to have acquired several new female admirers. Who needs match.com anyway?)

We didn't win anything (although I came close twice. One game, I was one number away from riches beyond my wildest dreams. Okay, I think I would have won $300. Didn't know for sure because I didn't know what level I was playing at. There are levels in Championship Bingo. But that's another story for another day.) but we had a good time for a 2 1/2 hours. In the end, we probably spent less money than if we had been playing video poker.

A woman named Cindy sitting to our left won two games. Afterwards, she was approached by a person who congratulated her on her haul and then asked "Are you ahead for the week?"

Cindy grunted, "Slightly", and then lit another cigarette. (Championship Bingo players seem to be big smokers.)

Our new friend to our right went home winless but seemed more cheerful about things. "I am picking my daughter up from the airport in the Twin Cities tomorrow," she said. "We're going to Mystic Lake before we come home."

Championship Bingo requires road trips, too.

A Christmas Story

2011-12-24T09:22:00.000-08:00

(Editor's Note: I know. I wrote this tale in 2008. But it deserves repeating this year.)

Once upon a time, there was a 12-year old boy who lived in Detroit and was a big hockey fan. It was the days of the six-team National Hockey League. Although it was a competitive league, the Montreal Canadiens were the gold standard. They won five Stanley Cups in a row from 1956-60 and seriously contended just about every year they didn't win.

The hometown Red Wings? They made the playoffs just about every season but couldn't get over the hump, even losing in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row.

The boy knew all this and a lot more. That’s because he listened to just about every game -- the only way for a youngster to follow the team. At the time, there was no local television of Detroit games. On Saturday nights, when he could convince his mother to switch away from Lawrence Welk (which aired at the same time), he would get to watch “Hockey Night In Canada.” But Detroit games were blacked out. Olympia Stadium, their home rink, was usually sold out. Even if you could find a ticket, the rink was located in a "bad" area of town, a place his mother wouldn't dream of letting her young son visit by himself.

The only time the lad could ever see his favorite team play came when Detroit played a nationally televised Sunday game from Chicago, New York or Boston. That might occur 2-3 times a year.

Christmas 1965 came with the usual trimmings. As per family tradition, the lad and his brothers were allowed to open one gift when the family came home from Midnight Mass. He scouted the horizon in advance for possibilities. There was the usual thin box from Aunt Marcie – handkerchiefs. There were big boxes (toys, he hoped). There were square boxes that he knew from experience were clothes.

Then he spotted something unusual. In the corner of the pile of gifts was an envelope with his name on it. Since it wasn't stamped or addressed, his mind began to race. What kind of gift could be in an envelope?

For some reason, he reached for it as a first choice. His mother stopped him, saying "Save that for Christmas Day.” When you tell a kid that, you drive the interest level up astronomically. Fearing he might miss out on another gift, the boy reluctantly obeyed.

A restless night was spent wondering what could kind of gift could be in an envelope? More importantly, why couldn’t he open that one first?

Morning finally came. When the feast of gifts was nearly complete, the boy was left with the envelope. Go ahead, said his mother. Now you can open it. The boy opened it and stared in disbelief. It was two tickets to see the Red Wings play, Montreal at the Olympia the next night. His older brother Johnny was going to take him to see the players he knew so well but had rarely seen.

His joy was such that the boy never noticed the location of the seats. Later, he saw the tickets were stamped "Standing Room” – a concept he knew nothing about. "Oh, it will be fine," his brother assured him.

For once, Christmas dragged as the boy eagerly waited the next night. The Olympia was a wonderful mystery. The boy knew the building was red on the outside but that was it. Walking in the door, he was struck immediately by the large scoreboard hanging over the center ice. It was an old clock with smaller clocks for the penalties. (Chicago Stadium and Boston Garden had the same type of clocks well into the 1970s. The clock changed colors to signify the final minute of the period. No digital stuff here.)

"Where are we sitting?" he asked his brother.

"We're not," he said. "We have standing room."

"Where's that?"

"Wherever we can find a place. Quit asking questions.”

The two walked around the building for a long time, looking for a place to stand. As game time neared, they still hadn't found a place where they could see the ice very well. The pair wandered into the balcony. At that point, an angel appeared in the form of an usher.

"Where's your seats, boys?" he asked gruffly.

We showed him our tickets. "Can't stand up here," he said. "Standing room is downstairs."

The boy began to cry. "This is my first game ever and I can't see anything," he said.

The usher stopped waving people to their seats. "First game, eh?" he said. "There is one place you can stand but you can't tell anybody I told you about this."

He took the two boys to a corner of the upper deck. There was a small platform with a spotlight – the kind you used to see when the circus came to town. "Stand here," he said. "Nobody will bother you. It's kinda high but you'll see everything from there. I like watching the game from here myself."

The usher was right. The players looked like ants in the far corner of the ice but you really could see everything.

The Red Wings and Canadiens didn't disappoint. It was a terrific hockey game. Detroit attacked Montreal goalie Gump Worsley constantly but couldn't get a goal. Montreal did the same to Detroit's Roger Crozier but couldn't score themselves.

The game was still scoreless when the clock changed colors for the final time. There was no overtime rules, either.

This wasn't possible. How you could you go to your first NHL game and not see a goal?

Then it happened. A shot came from the point that Worsley could only knock down. Alex Delvecchio, a husky center, swooped in and batted the loose puck into the net.

The boy jumped so high he nearly fell out of the alcove. He had no idea how much time was left but it was clear it was the final minute of the game. The Wings ran out the clock and claimed the 1-0 win.

Since that time, the boy has probably seen 1500 hockey games. But he remembers that one as if it happened last night.

Since then, the boy has received many envelopes as gifts. They have contained cash or gift certificates – very good things, indeed. But he still remembers that first envelope. It wasn’t until four decades later he learned the official value of it was four dollars – two dollars per ticket.

To the boy’s way of thinking, however, it was, indeed, priceless.

A final note: 20 years after that game, the boy, now covering the North Stars for UPI, found himself sitting next to Worsley in the press box at Met Center. He said to Worsley, "I know you have probably heard this from a lot of people but you played goal in the first NHL game I ever saw."

Worsley politely nodded. "Really? Where was it?," he replied.

"Night after Christmas at the Olympia. Detroit against Montreal."

Worsley sighed. "Was that the night that (bleep) Delvecchio scored in the final minute? I can still see that one."

The boy guessed it was not such a good memory for the old goalie.

A new gig is exciting, challenging ... and worrisome, too

2011-11-27T08:20:00.001-08:00

In essence, today starts a new adventure for me. Since August 1, I have been filling for my friend Steph Harris as the Sports Information Director at Hamline. It was kind of like when Johnny Carson used to go on vacation and he would have guest hosts. You kept things going until the incumbent returned.

Steph took a three-month family leave to be with her father in Florida, who was battling cancer. Sadly, her dad passed away in late October. Steph has now decided to stay in Florida and help her mm sort through everything that needs to be done. She'll look for work there. In the meantime, the athletic season is in full blast at Hamline and somebody needed to step into the SID role. The Athletic Director, Bob Beeman, a very good man, offered me the job on a full time, interim basis through the end of June (when contracts for nearly everybody expire). I accepted and here I am.

As a fill-in for Steph, I tried to be very careful and not change much of what she had done. After all, if she had decided to return, that would not have been fair to her or the right thing to do.. Besides, she did a terrific job and, truth be told, there was very little reason to change much.

Now that I have the gig (at least until the end of June), I may tweak a few things here and there to suit my comfort zone (just as Steph did when she first got the job). That's the exciting part. The challenging part is figuring out is a proposed change can actually occur. The worrisome part is making sure any change made really is for the betterment of the school and the job.

I have been a SID before but the job has changed considerably since my last shot at it (at Concordia from 1999-2002). There is a lot of internet work to do. Much of the recruiting done by coaches is now via the web. I am not a tekkie but have learned a lot about cyberspace over the years. I need to learn a lot more in a hurry to make our website look snazzy. That's exciting, challenging AND worrisome.

I know the league well so working with the players in it isn't going to be the issue.

No, the problem will be Steph was a lot better at cyberpsace than I can ever hope to be. Being younger (and, sigh, a lot more hipper than me), she has spent more time on computers and, thus, can pick up concepts quicker. If I want to know a trend in that area, I have to ask someone.

But I like dealing with reporters, coaches and officials. I enjoy the stat work. I like our game day personnel. They're not working for the money. They want to and enjoy being at games. I love the MIAC. It stands for what can be very good in college athletics. There may be a Jerry Sandusky somewhere in our Division III midsts. But I doubt it. A fellow like that would stand out and (forgive the term) be exposed a lot earlier than happened at Penn State.

I signed my contract the other day. The gig is now mine and that means the responsibility for everything is now officially on my head. I am no longer the fill-in just keeping a chair warm. Let's hope I know what the hell I am doing. There is one advantage that many others in a similar spot wont have. Steph and I can contact each other easily. She has been wonderfully patient with my many (at times, repetitive) questions. Thanks, girl.

Starting a new adventure at age 58 is not something I expected to do. But such is life.

We have a home mens bb game against UW-Whitewater. A bb game Wednesday. Hockey games Friday and Saturday. Games next week as well. There is a lot to do and it is now incumbent on me to handle it all with no excuses and nobody to saddle with blame if something goes wrong.

Exciting, challenging and worrisome.

But isn't that what life is supposed to be?

Thankful for many things

2011-11-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a helluva run of death lately. My dear friend Steph Harris' dad passed away after a noble fight with cancer. My friend and former colleague Gordy Lee died suddenly. My sister-in-law recently lost her father this week. A longtime family friend lost hers last week. Another good friend's beloved dog died the other day.

I understand death is a part of life. I feel for all my friends and their families. I try to find the words to comfort them. But the reality is you really can't comfort them much. They hurt like hell for their loss. All you can really do is hug them, tell how much you care and let them recover at their pace.

But you also feel very badly for them. You feel as if you aren't really helping their burden. In turn, that depresses you a bit, too.

When that happens, you need something to pep you up. This week, I found it in an unusual way.

I know this young couple slightly. She is the niece of a good friend. He is a pr guy and a strategist for the Dems. They are fun, neat people who are a joy to be around.

This week, they had an addition to their fold-- a baby boy named Emmett. A baby. A new life. Somebody who starts fresh with no baggage and can explore the world in their own way. A fresh face to consider after seeing all the tired old ones around us (I mean the politicians and entertainers, not my friends.)

On top of it all, he has a great old name. I had an Uncle Emmett. He was a feisty character who was tough as a whip. He sired six boys with my dad's only sister. What I remember the most about him was his bushy eyebrows and his gruff demeanor. Like most guys with that kind of demeanor, he had a very soft side, too. He always held doors for women and, while he was tough with his kids, he was always gracious and kind with Aunt Helen, his wife and the other women he ran across. Uncle Emmett may have been a hard-nosed fellow but he was a gentleman in every way. Just thinking of him makes me smile.

So, this Thanksgiving, I am being thankful for a new baby to a couple who I am sure will be great parents. I am grateful for the return of a great old name and hope the youngster lives up to the fine character of previous Emmetts. I am thankful that, although I have several friends and families who have recently suffered personal losses, all of them are surrounded by family and friends who love them and will be there for them whenever they need it.

I am thankful for a loving wife and family and a dog that has a few issues but still brings joy into our lives. I am thankful to be working.

Most of all, I am thankful that I can still find things to make me smile. I hope you, good reader, can do the same.

Remembering a spirited lady fondly

2011-09-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

It's funny how a person you meet only once can sometimes grab your attention and never let go. Eleanor Mondale, who died the other day way too young, was one of those folks.

I met her at, of all places, Midway Stadium. She came to a Saints' game with Neal Karlen, who wrote a book about the Saints. They were friends. I suspect Ms. Mondale knew as much about baseball as I do about pottery. But she came with Neal, who was publicizing his book. Being a good sport, she agreed to pose for a picture wearing a Saints' warmup jacket and with a big. goody grin on her face.

This was a woman whose picture was everywhere at the time. She hung with rock stars. She worked for CBS. Yet she was unnoticed as she walked around Midway Stadium -- a fact that seemed to amuse her to no end. She sat with Neal in the stands, drank some beer and seemed to genuinely enjoy herself ... even she probably had no clue at all what the hell was going on. When Neal introduced her to me, she asked, "How do you remember all that stuff about ballplayers? I can't remember what I had for breakfast." And then she laughed at herself.

She had what the French would like to call "spirit de joivre." Loosely translated, it means she was full of life.

Years later, I would hear her on the radio and instantly see that blond head with the devilish smile. And I would wonder how it was such a person could be the offspring of Walter Mondale, a great man but a fellow with a personality that would make Ben Stern seem like George Gobel.

The gene poll took an unusual turn there.

Many people thought she was a natural for TV. But she was much better on the radio where her personality and her insatiable curiosity could flourish. Try at it might to pretend otherwise, TV news is generally about as imaginative as Latin. There is simply too much money involved. The picture must be perfect at all times.

I suspect perfect was not a word Ms. Mondale used very often. Good choice, too. Even Mary Poppins referred to herself as "practically perfect."

When the word got out she had cancer, I imagined her battling it with considerable strength. People of spirit are, after all, great fighters. I imagined that, while she knew what eventually would happen (cancer has an impressive winning streak), she was damned and determined to go down swinging.

I only had the one brief encounter with her. But it is to Ms. Mondale's credit that she had such personality that I can hear her voice and see her face right now ... even though this meeting happened roughly 15 years ago.

One hopes she has moved on to a place where she can have lively conversation with interesting people. She certainly deserved that for an afterlife because that is what she gave us when she was here.

The 9/11 legacy I would like to see

2011-09-11T07:37:00.001-07:00

There are millions of words being written about this day, the 10th anniversary of one of the darkest days in our country's history. Many of them are heartfelt and sincere. Allow to add these to the list.

The lessons of that day are too complex for any one person to solve. The simple fact is we were attacked by bad guys. But there have always been bad guys -- people bent on destruction and mayhem. They try all the time to wreak havoc. They have been trying this ever since the Declaration Of Independence was signed.

This time, unfortunately, they succeeded.

The sad fact is that, someday, they might again.

But it is important to understand that the current administration is hellbent on making sure this did not happen ... just as all previous administrations were. It wasn't George Bush's fault that 9/11 happened. But it occurred on his watch. So he did what presidents before him have done -- he counseled us the best he could. He went to his advisors and said, in essence, "You get paid a lot of money to handle problems like this. Now get to it and get back to me ASAP with some ideas for the next move."

In the talkie/blogger world, there is constant wish and yearning for rapid response and to assign blame. In the real world, however, it doesn't work that way. It's complicated.

President Bush seemed to understand this concept very well. He understood we needed some kind of symbol that we could get back to our lives while the government worked to find out who was responsible. When he walked to the mound at Yankee Stadium to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, he was walking for all of us in the country.

Only a leftwing zealot could think otherwise.

And that's is what worries me more than anything else. God forbid, but if there is a similar attack of any type this year, I fear the right wing talkies/bloggers will seize on it as a sign this administration is weak and needs to be tossed out. But it wasn't true 10 years ago and it wouldn't be true now. Even worse, such an attitude would be exactly what the enemies of our country want.

You win a war by exploiting weakness.

The legacy I want to see from what happened 10 years ago today is that we remember what those who went before us did. They were fearless yet fearful. They plowed forward with their lives but kept an eye out for potential trouble.

That's not easy to do in a world where it seems everything, ranging from fiscal policy to the BCS selections in college football, is turned into a political statement.

From what I have read about those who died on that day, most of them were able to departmentalize their political views and leave them in a proper place. It didn't affect their work and it didn't affect their play. Shame on all those who try to say otherwise.

We can get to the political machinations later.

The legacy I want to see from that awful day 10 years ago is for us to do what those who died on that day were doing -- going about their lives as best they could.

Baseball in September is fun ... even more so when your team is in the race

2011-09-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

I have always been a big fan of September baseball. In many years, it was our chance to go to the ballpark and sit damn near anywhere we wanted. Both in Detroit (when I was young) and especially here in Minnesota, there were always plenty of seats available at the ballpark for games.

You could usually find a deal to get tickets from someone for less than full price and sit where you normally would not be allowed to -- in the box seats.

In addition, it was a chance to look at and evaluate some new faces as well as reflect on the end of the career of some old favorites. The games tend to move along quicker. It was also a reminder that summer was drawing down and we needed to enjoy the last nice nights we had.

As much fun as that is, September baseball is even better when your team is in a pennant race. The games suddenly take on more importance. The decisions are suddenly sharper. The fans and players are tenser. The relaxed mentality noted above is not around. Instead, there is an anxiousness in the air that is hard to describe but exceedingly real.

Either way, September baseball has always been fun for me.

This year, my hometown Tigers are having a good run. They have a solid lead in the AL Central, and unless they totally fall apart in the next couple of weeks, should make the playoffs for the first time in five years.

Once you are in the playoffs, anything goes. They'll enter with perhaps baseball's best pitcher (Justin Verlander), a goofy but (so far at least) reliable closer in Jose Valverde and a remainder of a pitching staff that is fairly decent. They have some pretty good sticks in the middle of the lineup, a very good catcher, a center fielder who can go get 'em all over the park and, overall, a fairly good fielding team.

In short, they have a nice club -- one that could be a lot of trouble for whoever sees them in the playoffs.

On paper, they would appear to be the weakest of the likely AL playoff teams and, as one national writer sees it, the weakest overall team in the postseason.

No matter. As we have seen in recent years, when your team gets in the postseason, everything really does start over. The old memories don't matter. Reputations are just that ... they have little bearing on what happens between the lines. The team that would appear to have the most talent doesn't always win. (In recent years, that seems even more true.) It's the team that plays the best that triumphs. And when it is your team involved for the first time in a while, you feel an extra bounce in your step as the games unfold.

I don't get to be a fan every often. It's the nature of my jobs that, although I like the teams I work for and want them to do well, I still need to be professional at all times. So, you check your emotions at the door and you do your job.

But this October apparently will be different. For the first time in a while, it appears I will have a team that I can cheer for. It is a team with a fair amount of skill. Although they will likely be underdogs to whoever they face, they will not be in over their heads against any team. It will be fun to watch.

Twins' fans around here are muttering over their team's poor season. Fair enough. In recent years, they always seemed to find a way to get into the playoffs. So, they seemed to assume it was a birthright of sorts and never seemed to enjoy the divisional titles very much.

Probably, this is because, in recent years, Minnesota's playoff time has been brief -- a lot of sweeps and a lot of losses to the Yankees.

However, if they pay attention this year, Twins' fans may find out just how good they have really had it. Watch the unfettered enthusiasm that will come out of the cities that haven't been to the playoffs very often -- Detroit, Milwaukee, Arizona and even Texas.

Those fans have been appreciating September baseball for a different reason for a long time.

Next Year is now for them. It's their turn to enjoy.

I'm back (sort of)

2011-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

So I thought I would check in to see if anybody had made any comment sto my most recent posting -- a small item about the pleasures of walking the dog.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that ... and the other 189 tomes that had been offered since coming into existence, had disappeared into cyberspace. I put it down to a computer malfunction and decided to check back later.

Before I could do so, my good friend Steph Harris (god bless a reader) sent me a note asking where the hell my blog had disappeared to?

Time to move to action.

After some detective work that would have made Sherlock Holmes proud.that Google, the parent organization that, in a way, oversees, these enterprises, had detected some nefarious activity and had temporarily put me out of business. To restore myself, I needed to upgrade my computer with various anti-hacking devices and get a new password.

For the technologically challenged, this takes a little while ... and a lot of patience.

However, I have had years of practice at being patient. After all, I am a loyal watcher of Detroit Lions football games. So, I did what I was asked to do and -- voila!! -- we're back in business.

If I was really gutsy, I would ask if anybody (besides, of course, Steph) missed me.

But, as one also learns when watching Lions' games, being patient is one thing. Being gutsy is something else altogether.

So, I will settle for happily being back in business.

Until we meet again ...

Walking the dog can be an adventure for all concerned

2011-08-20T14:47:00.001-07:00

Normally, Lynne walks The Happy Dog in the morning and I take the night shift. On weekends, however, I usually take at least one morning and Lynne takes the other. So it was that we did our usual jaunt on a fine summer morn. I have always been fascinated in watching Pete on these adventures.

He seems to carefully pick the places he does business. He will walk up to a plant, sniff it and decide it unworthy of his ... er ... attention. He seems to have personal favorite stooping places. There is no rhyme or reason for this I can tell.

We will be going along at a nice clip when he suddenly stop and sniff up a storm at a plant or a tree. I am told they recognize smells of other critters. Whatever the reason, this behavior is often without warning. In the winter, it has sent me flying a few times.

It just makes you wonder what is going on in that head. Dogs are fascinating creatures to me. They seem to be more predictable than cats but, every now and then, they take off without warning. Rex Harrison was lucky he could talk to them.

43 years later, the memory is still strong

2011-08-10T21:50:00.001-07:00

My long-suffering wife said to me one day, "Why is it you can remember old batting averages but forget to take out the garbage?" My response (allegedly) was, "Because I don't have a passion for the trash."

Anniversaries like today are why.

43 years old today, I spent an amazing 9 1/2 hours inside Tiger Stadium. I arrived at 11:30 a.m. and left at about 9:05 p.m. During that time frame, I saw the Tigers sweep the Red Sox in a frantic, frenetic doubleheader before a full house. The first game went 14 innings. Both games ended with Gates Brown, a cult hero of sorts in Detroit, driving in the winning run. In the first game, it was a home run in the 14th inning. In the second game, it was part of a four-run ninth inning rally.

It was a helluva day of baseball.

I remember it all. We got there for batting practice. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Earl Wilson, the Detroit starter, didn't get out of the first inning of Game 1. Boston scored four runs. But the Tigers kept pecking away. Wayne Comer homered at one point (I think it was his only homer of the year). Don Wert tripled to right center to tie the game in the 8th inning. Mickey Lolich pitched five innings of terrific relief. Brown pinch-hit for him and lined a ball that barely got over the right field fence. I remember Ken Harrelson looking in disbelief as the ball barely went in the lower deck in right.

The second game offered more tension. As I recall, Reggie Smith (or maybe George Scott) hit a two-run homer off John Hiller. Norm Cash bombed a two-run shot to tie the game. Boston went ahead with three in the ninth (I think Smith ... or Scott ... homered again). But I can still see the Detroit rally. Five hits in a row ... each one inching a little farther than the previous one. Suddenly, the game was tied and Brown grounded one that somehow snuck through the middle of the infield to win the game.

Bedlam.

In 9 1/2 hours, I think I only left to go to the bathroom or to get a coke between games. I remember taking the Grand River bus home. My mother thought I had been out screwing around and ready to ream me out until my brother Frank came to my rescue by telling her he had listened to the end of the second game and, indeed, it had gone past 9:00 p.m.

I think back to that day now and marvel. 9 1/2 hours at a ballpark? I would have a hard time doing it. But when you are 15 and your club is in the middle of a pennant race, it seemed easy to do. Besides, the Tigers won both games. Is there a better way a 15-year old baseball fan could spend a day?

This all happened 43 years ago today. Yet I can remember it like it was last week. As for taking out the garbage ... you will have to ask my wife if that happened on time.

The joys of West Coast baseball

2011-08-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, the Tigers showed roughly 40 games a year on TV. The Saturday afternoon home games were shown as was a select group of 25-30 away games. There would be midweek night games from eastern and midwest time zones. Occasionally, you might get a whole series from, say, Yankee Stadium.

When the team went to the west coast, however, the only games ever aired were the occasional Sunday afternoon game. Night games were never considered.

That meant we listened to Ernie Harwell describe the action from Oakland, Anaheim and Seattle. Often times, I listened to those games through a tiny transistor radio. It was great fun.

What made it fun was the feeling you were being let in on a secret. By the time the games started, you knew how everybody else had done. You knew if the Tigers needed a win to keep pace or gain ground on their foes. You rarely saw Anaheim or (later) Seattle on TV. That meant the ballpark existed in your mind's eye more than anything else. And when you let your imagination run wild at a ballpark ... well ... that is a very good thing.

Times have changed. Nearly every game is televised locally. National TV doesn't go there very often because of the late starts. (For a while, ESPN used to do some games. They gave up on that a few years back. Pity.)

But there is something about West Coast games that I still like. You feel like you will know a result that may no appear in the morning paper. The players somehow look different. Even if we struggle to stay awake, they look fresh to me. It is almost as if the players are performing in a dream. It's hard to explain, I know.

Staying up until midnight or later to watch baseball is still a thrill. You to get see things the rest of the country know little (or nothing) about.

If you pick up the morning paper in New York or Washington, you might see this line: Minnesota at Los Angeles, late. But I already know that Ervin Santana pitched a wonderful complete game and Mark Trumbo hit a mammoth homer for the Angels in a 5-1 victory.

It may have cost me a little sleep but it was worth it.

Goodbye (sort of) to a very good friend

2011-07-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is leaving town next week. My friend's reasons for leaving are personal and needn't be divulged here. (I was sworn to secrecy. When a friend swears you to secrecy, it is like taking an oath in court, I wouldn't dream of violating it.)

But suffice it to say they are very good reasons and I am totally respect my friend for doing so.

Still, I know this is going to be a difficult thing to deal with.

It's not that we won't stay in contact. In this electronic day and age, staying in contact with another person -- no matter where they are -- isn't as difficult as it used to be. (Besides, the situation is temporary.) But staying in contact either by email, text or another electronic means isn't the same as sitting down in person and talking.

See, the problem is, as we get older, we just don't make real good friends. We have a lot of people we are friendly with -- people we can sit and have a drink or tell a joke with at any time. But true friends -- the type where you can bare your soul to them and know you won't be judged for doing so -- are hard to find as you get older. My friend and I have gone through a lot in our lives in recent years. We have shared in each other's triumphs and consoled each other when needed. (I know my friend -- as do I -- has other people who can say the same thing. Still, each friendship is a little different.)

In short, my friend trusted me with key information about things going on and I did the same. As we get older, we don't do that as easily. We simply don't trust as many people. We do that because we have been burned ourselves and seen other gets burned. And it hurts like hell every time it happens.

What I think I am going to miss the most about my friend leaving town is getting together for a drink on short notice. Planning
to go to an event. Watching my friend interact with family members. See my friend play with The Happy Dog. In other words, the simple pleasures of life. I am going to miss chatting with my friend on a million different subjects. I am going to miss seeing example of my friend's big heart when it comes to helping people (myself included). These are the things we cherish in life as we get older.

But a real test of friendship is what is about happen here. I know my friend is leaving the state to do something that is vitally important. It is being done at a bit of sacrifice and it is being done for the best of possible reasons -- coming to the aid and comfort of another person my friend justifiably holds near and dear to the heart. As much as I personally hate to see my friend go, I know this is the best thing to do. Why do I know that? Because my friend's heart has said so. And you rarely go wrong when you follow your heart.

One of the fascinating things about getting older is discovering who really are your friends and who are acquaintances. This particular person has done me many favors -- some of which cannot be priced out under any circumstances. I hope I have reciprocated to my friend accordingly.

But, unlike politics, friendships are not built on a quid pro quo system. Trust doesn't work that way.

So I must put my own feelings aside, say goodbye (for now) to my friend and offer good wishes and good thoughts on the journey ahead. Before departing, I will state my only real goal for my friend is to be happy and safe.

I hope the wishes my friend has for this trip are fulfilled. I look forward to hearing how things go. And thanks from the bottom of my heart for the friend you have been to me oh these many years ... and for the friend I am sure you will continue to be.

Life at the lake is a necessary change of pace

2011-07-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a lad about this time of year, my mother used to pack us up and head off to Grand Bend, Ontario. Grand Bend was a city that had a population of 500 in the winter and 5000 in the summer. My memories of it are almost all wonderful. I once saw a great rainstorm cut across Lake Huron cast against a full moon. I was about seven or eight at the time and can see the pictures of the rain slapping the waves in my head now.

We ate peanut butter crackers on the beach for breakfast. Once or twice, we would go into the downtown area. It was really a 2-3 block strip that ended at Lake Huron. A block before the end, however, was a wonderful penny arcade that also had Dodge-Em cars. I remember my brothers pouring in coins (probably nickels) into a bowling game to win 37 coupons, the amount needed to win a hot plate for use in our cabin. (Youngsters, ask your parents what a hot plate is. It could be used for an amazing amount of things.)

Nearly 50 years later, I still recall that my brothers and myself ran ragged all day long. What I don't recall is what Mom and her good friend Oleta "Pete" Smith, who came on these trips, usually did. I have no head picture of them all from that era.

But I know now what they did while the Wright boys frollicked.

Not much at all. And enjoyed it immensely.

This is being written on a cloudy Tuesday morning inside Cabin 8 at the Nodak Lodge in Bena, MN. It is the second year in a row we have been here. Some longtime friends of Lynne's have been summer vacationing with another family here for quite a while now. As a town, Bena makes Grand Bend look like Grand Rapids. The official population listed is 110. To the best I can tell, though, the town is simply a gas station/general store, a post office and a bar/restaurant. No arcade here.

Nodak Lodge is a simple place run by simple people. It has cabins, a small receptions area that includes one pool table, a video machine and a small area to congregate in, a swimming pool, a few campground spots and pits for fires, a basketball court and Lake Winnibigosh. Thee is an area to dock a boat if you are so inclined. Or you can rent one or a pontoon to go out on the lake.

That's it.

To a New Yorker, a Chicagoan, or a Los Angelino, that probably sounds pretty damn boring without enough to keep people interested for two days, much less a week.

To us Minnesotans, however, it offers something that is hard to find anywhere else. It is something I suspect Mom and Pete did every day in Grand Bend while the Wright boys ran around and through Lake Huron on our inner tubes and chased Shep, the dog up and down the beach for hours.

It offers serenity.

Life in Minnesota is not considered hectic at all. We're known for our laidback approach to just about every issue. The movie "Fargo" wasn't that far off the mark at all when it came to stereotyping folks around here.

But the simple fact is all that life is hectic and complicated in every city that is not the size of Bena or Grand Bend. You can't avoid it. For example, right now in Minnesota, we in the second week of a statewide shutdown caused by a lack of a state budget. The shutdown is affecting services all over the state. It occurred because the state legislature is much more interested in scoring political principles than in helping constituents.

(The shutdown even affects life at the small general store on Highway 2, roughly 7/10th of a mile from Cabin 8. One of that store's biggest sources of income is lottery sales. The lottery is one of the many state-run industries that closed during this shutdown. "People still have their habits," the clerk told me the other day. "They come in daily and ask things have changed and they can buy tickets.")

At Nodak Lodge, however, nothing has changed much. Roger and Melissa, who run the place, are about as pleasant and accommodating people as one will find in the world. I have no idea of their political or social persuasions. What's more, I don't need to know it. No, I'm here to watch Lake Winnibigosh take turns being peaceful and being majestic. (Last night, it was the latter as whitecaps, seen above, bounced to and fro. Wonderful sight.)

Life here is uncomplicated and peaceful ... and that is why we come. The coffee seems to taste better here. The food on the grill smells better. You get up when you want and you go to bed when you want. During the day, we simply have conversations with our friends, read a book while sunning at the pool, play board or card games, or (on cloudy days like today), hack away at writing. There is a TV available in the cabin if you want it (Lynne gets to catch up on shows she doesn't get to see at home because she is working). A fellow might even go out on the dock with a big cup of coffee or a stiff drink, light up a cigar and simply watch the day or night unfold.

In other words, we get to come and go and eat as we please for a week. That is about as good as it gets.

It is also necessary. You see, we are running ourselves ragged as a country. We are at constant loggerheads politically and socially. St. Paul is no New York or Detroit but, even there, people are snapping at each other over the smallest things. This kind of continual unrest cannot be good for the body or the soul. We need a break -- whether it is something as simple as putting a fishing pole in the water, golfing on a course that nobody has ever heard of or simply sitting by the bay window reading a book or working a crossword puzzle.

When you go on a vacation like this, you do the things that interest you -- not the stuff you feel you have to do. You work at pleasing yourself for a change. At Grand Bend, for example, Mom's one personal pleasure was an annual trip to Stratford to see a Shakespearean play. It was the only thing she seemed to insist on (besides making us wait an hour after eating to return to Lake Huron). And I can see the relaxed smile she had on her face as we sat in the round watching those weird costumes and trying to understand 16th century English.

Time here doesn't stop altogether -- we really don't want it to do that -- but it does go slower. There are occasional outbursts of energetic disagreement "Why did you play that card?" is a common refrain. But about the worst thing you will see is an incident like the one that happened by the pool the other day. A mother yelled at her son for committing the crime of splashing his sister. The lad, about age 9, was sent muttering to a chair for a timeout. This lasted about two minutes until the mother turned to another nearby adult and sighed, "Well, we are on vacation, aren't we?" and released the fellow from custody with the plea "Don't do it so often, please." The fellow jumped happily back in the water and was later actually seen guiding his sister around the pool. Such is the healing power of Nodak Lodge.

There is more than can be said but you get the point. It's time for another cup of barefoot coffee. The new day is dawning and today's placid, tame adventure is about to commence. Which will it be today? Do I return to my book? Do I go for an exploratory walk (Bigfoot is supposed to be around here somewhere.) ? Do we hop in the car and go to the adult version of the old penny arcade -- the casino up the road? Do we wander into Grand Rapids just to see what the hell goes on there in the summer? Or so we just sit and talk a bit about life in general or politics in particular? Or is today's task as simple as watching Mikade, the soon-to-be-three year old son of Lynne's godson Donny, as he takes on his world one pillow and toy car at a time?

At the lake, there are many options. But just about all of them are peaceful and quiet ones. It is not a life that most of us would want for 52 weeks of the year. For one week, however, it is about as heavenly as it gets.

Happy Father's Day, Dad

2011-06-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

There is a picture in our hallway of me bring raise in the air by my father. I must have been only a couple of days (maybe a month or so) old at the time. Unfortunately, that is about as close I ever got to knowing Dad.

By the time I was able to remember things, he was not at the house. My mother, good Catholic that she was, never lied to me about him. She simply said he was sick.

And that was true. The problem was it was a sickness we didn't know much about in the late 50s and early 60s. We didn't know what to do with people who had "personality" disorders. So, we stuck them in a hospital. I am not sure my mother, a nurse, even knew exactly what occurred at the hospital. All I ever knew was we went there to visit him every now and then. At holidays, he would come home for a short time. (Odd. I can't remember if he stayed at home overnight.) I don't remember his voice at all.

But I have been told by my older brothers that, when he was well, he was a terrific fellow. Somewhere, there is a picture of my brother Frank with Dad in New York City. They are riding on elephants. That's right. Elephants in Central Park. Frank said he was seven or eight at the time. Dad's departure because of illness (I am guessing, among other things, it was an early form of Alzheimer's) was tougher on Frank and my oldest brother Johnny because they knew him a bit as a dad. Me? He was simply a guy who came around at times. He was pleasant enough. But I don't recall a single son/dad interaction (like playing catch) with him.

(I was lucky, though. I had a wonderful Big Brother and several other adults who filled in the best they could.)

So, I have to take the word of other people about him. I have been told he had a great sense of humor and he was a kind and caring man. Uncle Cletus, who I lived with from age 2 to 6, never said a bad word about him. Uncle Emmett, who was married to Dad's only sister, praised him, too. Aunt Mary Jane, who was married to Dad's brother, once described him as "impish." At the time, I had no idea what that meant. Now that I do know it, I would like somebody to call me impish just once.

On a day like today, we tend to remember happily and (if they are still with us), spend time with our dads. What I always will remember about Dad is an amazing incident that occurred 42 years ago.

Mom passed away from cancer on May 17, 1969. Two days later, the wake was held. It was a miserable cold, rainy spring day. What I remember at the funeral home is thinking of how strong Dad was that day. How he greeted Mom's old friends and family. I can still see him smiling, shaking hands and hugging everyone. I didn't know how sick he really was. And I was only 15 years old. But I remember being amazed at what I was seeing.

I have never asked my brothers if that is the way it really was. I think we all want to have a good memory of our dads. This one is mine and I don't want to lose it.

Dad slipped badly after Mom died. He suffered a stroke and a loss of memory. I moved on with my life and was in college when he died. I remember going back to that same funeral home when Mom had been. This time, there were only a few people -- my brothers a couple of family friends.. When dad died, there weren't enough people left who remembered him to have pallbearers. My brothers and I helped carry the casket to the hearse.

I felt bad for Dad. I am sure this wasn't the way he planned it out. It was just the way it was. All sons, I suspect, want to do something special for their dad. I had never gotten the chance to do so. The dice just didn't fall that way. There was nothing to do but accept it and move on.

A few years later, though, I was able to finally do something for him. I was in Detroit for business and made a quick trip to the cemetery to visit Mom and Dad's graves. On Dad's marker, I noticed the year of his death had never been etched in. Mom had paid for the stones years in advance. When Dad died, they simply put the marker in. Nobody noticed. Because none of my brothers live in Detroit, they never saw it either.

But it bothered me to no end. I went to the marker place across the street from the cemetery. A kind woman looked up the bill. Nothing had ever been noted about putting the year of his death on the marker. I inquired how much it was. When I got back to town, I mailed them a check immediately. The woman called me back a few days later to say it had been done. Would she like me to send a picture of it. I said that wasn't necessary. But I appreciated the gesture.

A couple of years later, I was back in Detroit for one day. I rented a car and sped to the cemetery. I ran anxiously to the site. The year had been carved in. Whoever did it was a real marksman because it looked to the world as it had actually been done at the time of death ... not 30 years later.

Visiting a cemetery to see your parents' grave is usually a sad experience. This one was, too. But it was tempered by the fact that, at long last, I finally was able to do something for my dad.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Looking forward to sitting down with you one day.

Nice to be among some old-fashioned journalists again

2011-06-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

I just finished two days at my one of my favorite gigs of the year -- the AAA baseball tournament. In Minnesota, we have classes for high school baseball. Howard Voigt, the grand poohbah pr guy of the league, always opts to hang with the Class A schools- the smallest ones -- in Jordan, just south of Minneapolis.

It's a good idea because most of those schools are from out of the Twin Cities. There are always a lot of small town radio stations on hand. I suspect it makes them feel good -- and it should -- that the head guy works with them. The next level -- class AA -- assembles in St. Cloud and are left in the capable PR hands of the folks from St. Cloud State and St. John's. A few TC schools always get there but, again, it is mostly an outstate contingent. This means small dailies, weeklies and small radio stations descend en masse.

The big schools -- most of which are from town -- go to Midway Stadium. There are always a few outstate schools, too. This year, Bemidji and Rochester Century represented the intruders, The other six were from various parts of the area.

As a result, there are usually fewer radio stations, often no TV and only a few reporters. It's a good thing, too. Midway Stadium's press box isn't very big. For some games, I had to dispatch bloggers to a small, covered area just outside the press box. I hated doing that but space issues dictate the folks from the daily papers get first crack at the best seats.

We live in an era where journalists -- in print and on the air -- seem to want to climb over each other to be colorful and controversial. That may work with pro and college teams. But it doesn't usually play well at the prep level.

The three daily reporters who were on hand this time knew exactly what the hell they were doing. They had only one concern -- to write, interesting, accurate stories. The nod to the modern era was they had to provide Twitter and/or Facebook updates and then get something up quickly for their paper's website. This is a departure from the way things used to be. To be honest, it can be a major pain-in-the-rump.

But Ken Hanson (Rochester Post-Bulletin), Amelia Rayno (Star Tribune) and Tim Leighton (Pioneer Press) did so uncomplainingly. In the case of the latter two, they knew their print stories would be chopped down because there was a lot of other big news around town. They weren't covering Ricky Rubio signing with the Timberwolves, the press conference announcing a new Wild coach or the return of Joe Mauer to the adoring multitudes at Target Field.

Perhaps they wished they had one of those plum assignments instead. (I don't know. I didn't ask.) But I was fascinated to watch all of them work. You see, these three knew their duty. They went out and did it without worrying about anything else. They asked for help when they needed it but didn't bury me with unnecessary questions. They appreciated whatever extra info I passed onto them ... even if it was something they didn't really need or would use.

In short, they were professional in their actions ... and their words.

Normally, that would not be cause for comment. But such is the state of journalism these days that it is, indeed, now news when you run across three low-maintenance types. It was a pleasure to be able to not worry about a lot of little things ... and to actually be able to watch and enjoy a few games.

It also restored my faith there are a few solid journalists left out there. After you watch some cable TV and read some of the breathless commentary by columnists on subjects (and people) they know little about, a fellow begins to wonder.

Brightness amid the gloom

2011-06-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's pretty damn easy to get depressed about the state of affairs these days. We have a nationally known politician (the badly named Mr. Weiner) whose activities on Twitter suggest he is either naive, foolish or just plain icky. None of those attributes are positive and reflect well on a fellow who used to have some influence.

Here in Minnesota, we are less than three weeks from a statewide shutdown that will send thousands of employees to the sidelines. If the folks who will be charged with this mess (the state legislature and the governor) are concerned about that fact, they are keeping it a good secret. All the public talk has simply been posturing to their fans. Strangely, they will be allowed to get paychecks while keeping others from theirs.

As Tom Lehrer once put it, "Actions like this make you feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis."

But leave it to some young folks to perform actions that give you hope. There were two separate events 75 miles apart. Neither will change the course of history. But they give me hope nonetheless.

The first happened Thursday night at the state high school girls' softball tournament in Mankato. St. Paul Johnson's team was about to take the field for its game when rain and lightning halted play. The Johnson team repaired to a tent near the press box. I was standing near them watching the rain. After a few minutes of conversation, it became obvious the game would not start for a while. So, this group of 15-16-17-18 year olds simply improvised some sort of singing game. It is hard to describe but it ended up with one girl having to go in the middle and sing or do something to "tag" somebody else. Then that person went into the middle and did the same to another girl. This went on for half an hour or so. The Johnson girls were having a wonderful time, just laughing and riding each other when someone made a mistake or didn't do the ritual right.

Eventually, their game was called and they had to return at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. High school kids are pretty resilient. On a gray, ugly morning, Johnson gave it a good effort, losing 2-1 to end their season. But they played hard to the end and smiled on their way out of the complex. They didn't like losing any more than any other team does. But these kids seem to understand it was just a game and the companionship meant as much as the final result.

The next incident happened this morning at the local playground. I was walking The Happy Dog when I came across 10 kids, who looked roughly 10-12 years old. They were about to start baseball practice. The coach (I presume) said something and the kids sprinted en masse towards a cone in the outfield. The fellow who got there first was beaming as if he had just won the lottery.

The coach walked slowly out there with a tennis racket and a tennis ball. A kid asked him what was the deal. The coach explained he was going to hit them tennis balls because it would the easiest way to learn how to catch flyballs. Besides, if they got by a tennis ball, it's not going to hurt as much. "Don't be afraid of the ball," he said.

The youngsters didn't seem sold on this idea. But then the coach whacked the first ball in the air. A young guy named Mason raced to his left and caught the ball. He then jumped in the air excitedly. When the coach got ready to hit the next ball, there was a rush of candidates. The next two failed in their quest but a fourth guy caught a ball and earned high fives all around. I'm not sure there were any future major leaguers in the bunch. Parents sitting on chairs looked up from their blackberries and put down their coffees to applaud him.

It was a gentle reminder that, when adults seem to be doing their best to screw the world up, kids, with their inherent optimism and enthusiasm, can ride in and still do something that will make you smile.

Of course, some day, those same kids will become adults. They will then have their chance at doing act as stupidly as Anthony Weiner or as stubbornly as our fine legislators are doing here in Minnesota.

For now, though, their world isn't very complicated. Enjoy it while you can, kids.

But thanks for acting your age. It was enough to make this craggy, occasionally cranky adult smile amid the gloom the rest of the world seems to want to impose on us.

Farewell to a WS hero

2011-06-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Every baseball fan has his team. It may not be the first team you knew. But it is the one that really caught your fancy. If you're really lucky, that team ends up a winner.

Mine was the 1968 Detroit Tigers. A few members of that team are gone now. But, with all due to respect to Joe Sparma (who pitched the game that won the pennant), none of the major contributors from that club had left us.

Until today.

Word has come that Jim Northrup has died at age 71. Northup was a left-handed hitting outfielder who filled in nicely that season when longtime star Al Kaline broke his hand.

Although he only hit .264, he seemed to get his hits in bunches. I remember a July 4 game against the Angels when he bombed two home runs in a 13-10 win. One of them (as I recall, off Andy Messersmith) went to left field - a rarity for a pull hitter. Earlier, he hit three grand slam homers in one week. Two of them came on consecutive at-bats in a game at Cleveland. The third came on a rare Saturday night game at Tiger Stadium off a Chicago pitcher name Cisco Carlos. I can still see it -- a line drive that snaked inside the right field foul pole. Later in the same game, Northup just missed hitting another one. It landed in the upper deck but was foul by a couple of inches. That's better than most guys do in a career.

In the World Series, the Tigers looked doomed until they rallied for a dramatic victory in the best baseball game I have ever seen, a stirring 5-3 victory that kept their hopes alive. In Game 6, they buried the Cards early with a 10-run 3rd inning, tying a famous record. Northup capped that rally with ... you guessed it ... a grand slam home run.

Now it came to game 7. Mickey Lolich, on two days' rest, battled the great Bob Gibson on even terms for six innings. In the 7th, Detroit, which had recorded just one hit all day, got back-to-back singles. That brought up Northup, who hit a line drive to center field. Curt Flood saw it late, stumbled slightly and watched hopelessly as it sailed over his head for a two-run triple. The Tigers added two more runs and won the game and the Series.

Northup, who was a tall, handsome left-handed hitter, was the toast of the town.

The man played a dozen seasons, batting .267 with 153 home runs and 610 RBI. Those were numbers a fellow could be very proud of. But, to those of us who reveled in that glorious season of 1968, Jim Northup will always be remembered as the guy who got the big hit that brought the Tigers the World Series.

The stories in the paper noted Northup suffered from Alzheimer's at the end of his life. I hated to hear that. I prefer to remember him as the carefree, smiling guy who had what many players dreamed of -- a magical season capped by a World Series championship. His numbers were not the type that put you in the Hall of Fame ... except in the eyes of a 15-year old who was crazy about baseball.

R.I.P. Jim.

Some thoughts on friends

2011-06-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

My wife and I went out for dinner and drinks with some friends last night. Lynne used to work with one of them and still runs into him in their professional duties. They happen to live near us. Still, we hadn't been together since New Year's Eve.

There was no real reason for this except that we all had busy schedules. Time just got away from us.

That's a pity because we always have fun when we get together -- good food and companionship are in abundance.

While we were out and about, I ran into another old friend, who stopped and joined us for about a half hour. He, too, is a wonderful fellow who I got to know about 25 years ago when we were covering the same games. We see each other 3-4 times a year but we do correspond via email and Facebook.

The point of the above is that watching people's friendships can be interesting. My wife is very lucky. She has a group of friends she has known since she was very young. One group is from the neighborhood where she grew up. Another is from one of her first jobs. In both cases, she got to know these people as they were forming their lives. She was able to grow and adjust with them. I asked her if any of them had changed radically since she first knew them. The answer: no.

I envy her for having groups like that. But, as she points out, she has lived here all her life. Thus, it is easier to stay in contact with these people. (There are exceptions to this. One of the friends from that group moved out of town several years ago. But Lynne has managed to keep in contact with her and visits her in her city when she can.)

When you grow up in one town and go to school in another, it is not so easy to develop those kinds of close relationships. Most of the time, you are meeting people when their personality and traits are already developed. If you meet someone when they are, say, 25 or 35, their tendencies are fairly well in place. But you often don't know what those tendencies are. You find you learn them piece by piece ... as situations come up. You may think you know your new friend well but then they surprise you. For example, they may like a politician or a movie star you can't stand. They may have a social preference that is not the same as yours. If you had known this person all (or most) of your life, you would have already known this. When we catch up to them as adults, there are always a few missing elements. We find them out later.

That's not a bad thing at all. But it does serve as a reminder that friendships that are initiated when the two folks are adults are not and can never be the same as those developed when you are young. It doesn't mean they are better or worse. it just means they are different. In just about every case I know, it is almost impossible to have it develop as deeply as those friendships with people you have known most of your life. I leave to psychologists to tell us why for sure. All I know it is true.

C'est la vie. It just happens that all the friendships I have developed evolved in adulthood. They are wonderful people and I cherish each and every one of them. But I do so knowing that there is probably some aspect about that person that I simply don't know ... because the situation that would let me know that fact has never come up. I am willing to bet I have a friend out there who is deathly afraid of snakes or spiders. But I have never seen that person near one. So how would I know this?

As a result, you discover sometimes to your chagrin that some people just weren't who you thought they were. I can think of one personal case where a person who I thought was a friend made a promise that wasn't kept. It was a promise I was absolutely believed would happen. When it didn't, I was disappointed at myself more than that person. I hadn't done my homework diligently enough. I trusted that person. And I shouldn't have. I didn't know that person as well as I thought I did. This happened a while back. I have moved on but I will never, never forget it.

The flip side happens, too. People surprise the hell out of you with an act of friendship you didn't know they had in them. Those kind of moments are delightful.

In the end, what I am looking for in friends can be boiled down to one word: trust. Trust that I will always attempt to do right by and for you and that you will do the same for me. Trust that if you told me something in confidence, that I won't run home and tell someone the first chance I get. And vice versa.

It is easier to develop these kinds of relationships when you are very young. It does happen in adulthood, too. But not as often.

My goal for the rest of 2011 and beyond is to work on developing my friendships. I suspect I have (quite unintentionally) been slack in this department. It doesn't mean you have to see or talk with them every day or even every week. But it means you must pay attention to them and check in to make sure all is well.

I'm hoping it doesn't take six months for us to get together again for dinner and drinks. I had a ball last night ... and I think they did, too. The simple fact is, as we get older, we have to work a little harder on our friendships. Otherwise, we risk losing them or getting snookered. I didn't mean it so much when I was 8, 18 or even 28 years old. You can still recover quickly from whatever happens and move on. At age 58, however, it is a different story. And, frankly, life is difficult enough without having to deal with that kind of issue, too.

People 2, Buckthorn 0

2011-05-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

Before I became a co-homeowner a decade ago, I didn't know the difference between buckthorn and Buck Owens. However, when you live with it in your backyard, you learn quickly what a vile thing buckthorn really is.

According to the DNR, it is an invasive species that is popular hedging material. There is another less polite word for it. The damn thing is a weed that, given a chance, can take over an area quickly. Once in place, it moves faster than Bob Hayes in his prime.

It is also an ugly thing, given to spreading in several directions at once.

All of which makes today's victory sweet, indeed.

It started as a simple battle. My wife was clearing out an area of weedage in the backyard. A couple of years ago, I had sprayed Round Up all over a bunch of buckthorn stumps and then covered them with old coffee cans. Thus deprived of life, the buck finally stopped there. It didn't get any better but not did it shrink much.

Seeing Lynne in the backyard hacking away at weeds inspired me into action. Before I knew it, I had made it my day's mission to wipe out some of the buckthorn stumps that were trying to hang on to ruin the backyard view.

I chose a smaller member of this insidious tribe as my first victim. I started hacking away only to discover this species has some very deep roots. The little spade I had wasn't up to the task at all. So, I went back to the garage and found every shovel we had. For half an hour, I took battering this immovable object turns with three different shovels, a saw, a clipper, a mallet and a hammer. Finally, I saw a glimmer of hope. There was just one root left to eliminate. I twisted it this way and that and - presto - the root grudgingly gave in.

Victory over a root that was no more than 18 inches in length but had to run at least that long in depth.

Flush with victory, I turned to a nearby stump and declared war on it.

Another half hour of whacking and hacking produced modest effect. At this point, my neighbor Al wandered by with a bemused look on his face. "You're not going to get it that way," he said. "Let me get my pick."

A pick. Isn't that something you use on a guitar?

Well, not exactly. Al swung his pick a few times with limited success. "Let me get my chainsaw," he said. "That'll do it."

Lynne looked up with some concern. I have always wanted a chainsaw. Lynne, however, has always thought this was a bad idea ... perhaps on the ground that I might accidentally lop a limb or leg off in the process. As she would prefer this not to be the case (whether it be mine or somebody else's), it has always been agreed the only type of chainsaw I can use is a toy one I was given by Lynne and her sisters as a Christmas gift a few years back.

Al returned with the chainsaw and I stepped back as far as I dared. Five minutes into this exercise, the stump stayed put. "My blade isn't very good," Al sighed. "I think my brother has been using this thing again."

But we had come a long ways and I wasn't ready to give in. I stared at the stump and got an idea. Using the pick (now that I knew how to do so), I angled underneath one of the connecting roots. The wood finally begin to slowly splinter. But the stump remained. I grabbed an old (non-chain) saw and chipped away at more wood. After a couple of minutes, I heard a crack and knew victory was really at hand. A twist here and there and the thick stump finally left the ground. "I think that thing has been there for about 20 years," Al sighed. "Nice sight, isn't it?"

Lynne, who had decided this was a good time to move her base of operations on the other side of the fence, sighed with satisfaction. Two nasty stumps gone and no limbs, digits or legs lost in the process.

For years, I have heard athletes say the beer always tastes better after their team wins a game.

I know what they mean. The Labatt's tasted damn good.

Two down and another 50 or so to go. I'm in no hurry to go back. But I am encouraged that total victory is possible.

I'll pass on this one

2011-05-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

The word is out that we are soon going to get see pictures of the now late Osama bin Laden. I have little doubt they will become one of the most viewed pictures ever. If I happen to come across it (either via TV or otherwise), I may take a look out of curiosity. But I have no plans to do a search to find the picture.

Why? Because I have no desire to look at something that has been described as gruesome.

If i want to see gruesome, all I need to do is flip on the TV and find a cop show in HD. There is always enough blood and guts to go around for a good fix.

Or I can watch Drew Butera bat for the Twins.

I have no illusions on this one. In a society where we still have cockfighting and dog fighting, can there be any doubt of a desire for a market for this picture? But that doesn't mean I have to join in.

Being in the minority is often painful. But not this time.

Supporting A Friend In Need

2011-04-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

The kerfuffle started about 9:00 a.m. It was a crappy morning outside -- wet and dreary. As per usual, I fed The Happy Dog breakfast and his morning treats. Seeing the wet landscape, I told The Happy Dog we would wait a but before tending to the morning walk.

At first, The Happy Dog seemed to understand this concept. I guess that he, too, could see it was raining cats and ... whatever ... outside.

So I set up the laptop in the dining room and began to delve into the morning emails. Suddenly, I was aware of some flailing feet and low moaning. I walked around the table and, saw, to my horror, The Happy Dog on his side shaking uncontrollably. I yelled at Lynne to get the vet clinic on the phone immediately and rushed to my friend's side.

Many years ago, I worked at a camp where we had kids who were subject to epileptic seizures. I remembered the key to dealing with them was keep them calm and make sure they didn't hurt themselves. So I tried to talk softly to The Happy Dog and petted his back. The seizure continuse. Although they probably only ran for 15-20 seconds, it seemed like minutes. I saw some red liquid shoot out of his mouth. Some foam followed. In all likelihood, he simply bit his tongue. But it was a mess.

In time, The Happy Dog calmed down and looked dazed. He, too, probably wondered what the hell just happened. We got the vet on the phone and the nurse said to get in there right away.

By the time we got there (it's only about 5 minutes away), The Happy Dog appeared to be back to normal. But he had to pee and poop like Secretariat. Even though it was still raining cats and ... well, you know ... the need for a good P & P trumps everything else. THD did his duty and gratefully ran inside the vet clinic.

A nurse came, suggested a room off the lobby with a nice carpet, and gave him some water. Dr. Casey took a look, checked out some vitals and immediately ordered up blood tests. 75 minutes after it had started, The Happy Dog was back home and seems back to normal.

What happened? What caused this aberration? Is this the start of something serious or was this an unusual reaction to the anxiety of not getting out for a walk at the usual time? We may get an answer tomorrow when we get the blood tests back. In the meantime, I now have a brochure as to what to do if a future seizure occurs. And I am suddenly nervous about leaving the house for 90 minutes to have lunch with a (human) friend.

For now, he appears to be fine. It may well have been a one-time only thing, a blip on the health radar. I can relate to that. But I also know that all blips on the health radar run the risk of potential future consequences. We will be watching The Happy Dog a lot closer from now on.

Although we don't think of animals this way often, the incident had to be terrifying for him, too. So, I was happy to be there to calm him down and be at his side in a moment of crisis.

And that's the point. If you saw a friend have a seizure, you would likely rush to help that person. You would comfort that person and his/her family the best you could. You would get them to a doctor or call for an ambulance. And you would not think twice about staying with them as long as you felt necessary.

So it is here. The Happy Dog has been a member of the family for nearly nine years. Frankly, I know he is getting up there in age (he'll be nine in June). There will be a time (hopefully, way down the road) where Lynne and I will likely have to make a difficult decision as to his future wellbeing. But, right up to that moment, he deserves our best level of attention possible.

In other words, we will do for him what we hope someone would do for us if the roles were reversed. Yes, it costs money to go to the vet. And money is tight now. But The Happy Dog has always been loyal to us. Seems to me that (within reason, of course), this is our time to be loyal to him.

That's probably too mushy for some people. For others, it probably sounds ridiculous. But, to animal owners and lovers, it makes sense. The Happy Dog may not be a friend in the same sense as the old pal I am meeting for lunch today. But he is a friend. And I was taught years ago to come to an aid of a friend no matter what kind of help is needed. And that does make sense to me.

"The King's Speech" is a great movie ... and more

2011-04-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Just got around to watching "The King's Speech" yesterday. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to. It is an important story that is very well told. We tend to mock royalty these days. Most of the reason for that is, here is the lower 48, the concept of royalty seems odd to us.

But it doesn't to the Brits. The men and women who have taken on those roles may, indeed, have all the money a person will never need at his/her disposal. But they also carry a burden - namely, that every action they take is subject to a country's scrutiny. That means if you have any sort of handicap (and I think we can agree being a stutterer is a handicap), you will be subject to considerable ridicule.

The movie has great acting ... and is worth seeing just for that fact alone. But it also is a triumph of will, guile and plain old-fashioned guts. At some point in our lives, we all have had to reach out for help. More times than not, that helps come from an unlikely source. (In this case, a commoner who wasn't even a doctor.)

My favorite moment of the movie comes at the end. It is when the King is done with his important speech. On his way out to greet his subjects, he stops to simply say, "Thank you" to the man who stood by his side during what was likely the biggest personal crisis in the King's life. It would have been easy to forget to do so. But great men get that way by not forgetting the little things.

Farewell, MISTER Bertoia

2011-04-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

It was during the first week of the 1968 school year. I had transferred into Assumption High School as a sophomore. I was trying to impress my new comrades in the back row at the start of History Class. So I told them some joke I had heard. There were several guffaws, which got the attention of The History Teacher, who stopped his writing on the blackboard.

"Perhaps you might want to tell us all what is so funny, Mr. Wright," said The History Teacher.

I stammered a bit and repeated the joke. The silence in the classroom was deafening. The History Teacher looked at me quietly and said, "That wasn't worth the time, Mr. Wright." And then he proceeded to start the lesson.

After class, The History Teacher pulled me aside, saying "Tomorrow, we start over, okay? We all have bad days."

The History Teacher was Reno Bertoia, a gentle soul who passed away the other day at age 76. What I didn't know then was he was a man of many talents who saw things in kids they didn't see in themselves. Most of us simply knew him as Mr. Bertoia, the fellow who assisted Father Cullen with the baseball team and taught a crackerjack, lively history class. What most of us didn't know was he was a rarity, a native of Italy who played 10 seasons in the major league. And he was no run-of-the-mill assistant baseball coach. No, Mr. Bertoia knew the game inside out and chose to teach us baseball the way he learned it -- one lesson at a time.

That fall of 1968 was a memorable one. The Detroit Tigers, who served as Mr. Bertoia's main major league employer (7 of his 10 seasons were as a semi-regular third baseman) had rolled over the American League field to win their first pennant in 23 years. They clinched the pennant on a Tuesday night. The next day, they got rained out so they had to play a makeup game on Thursday against the Yankees. Mr. Bertoia marched into class and asked who would like to go to the Tiger game that afternoon. The codicil was we had to behave ourselves or we would regret it forever. Half a dozen or so went with Mr. Bertoia. I learned as much baseball during that meaningless afternoon game as I had during my whole life.

This was the famous game when Denny McLain, cruising to his 31st victory, gave Mickey Mantle a meatball for a pitch that was hammered into the upper deck in right field. Mr. Bertoia said he didn't like the idea but, considering the score (Detroit led 6-1) and all that Mantle had done for the game (this was his last game in Detroit), an exception could be made. "You have to respect the guys who made the game great," he said. "He did a lot for the game. I guess it was time the game did something for him he'll always remember."

The next day in class, Mr. Bertoia then ordered all of us who had been there at the game to write down everything we remembered about it. It was my first lesson in reporting. "You guys saw history yesterday," he said. "Now put it down in words."

A couple of weeks later, Detroit was playing St. Louis in the World Series. We watched the games either in Mr. Bertoia's or Father Cullen's classroom. But they wanted more than you to be fans. They wanted you to remember what you had watched. So, there were questions asked each day about the previous game. Good teachers use different methods to get kids to think.

The following spring, I decided to tryout for the baseball team. After watching about three swings, Mr. Bertoia pulled me aside. "If you are going to have that slow of a bat, you better learn how to bunt," he said. I never did learn how to hit but I could bunt with the best of them.

In time, we got to know each other better. He knew I had spent a lot of time as a youth with my uncle in Dayton, Ohio. My uncle had been my first baseball instructor. By 1970, he was retired but he was still a big Cincinnati Reds fan. Mr. Bertoia came up with two prime tickets for Game 2 of the 1970 World Series between Baltimore and Cincinnati. A drawing was held. Amazingly, the fellow who had a distant cousin play for the Reds was able to take his uncle to see his first World Series game. I have always suspected the raffle was akin to the famous one in the initial episode of M*A*S*H. (The one where Father Mulcahy is declared the winner of a date with a nurse).

All Mr. Bertoia said was, "I better get a written report on the entire day." He did. Later that year, he pulled me aside again. "Do you have a summer job yet," he asked. I told I hadn't. "Good," he said. "I suggest you spend the summer at Columbus Boys' Camp as a counselor. It will be a great experience." CBC was a camp in Orillia, Ontario run for kids from the Toronto area who would not have gotten a vacation otherwise. It was such a great job that I came back for four more years, including two as Evening Entertainment Director. It was the most rewarding job I ever had ... even though my top pay was something like $600 for the summer.

Fast forward two more years. I was considering colleges. I had received some information about a small school called St. Thomas in a far-off place called St. Paul, Mn. One day, Mr. Bertoia found me in the hallway. "Hey, I just thought you should know that some of the nicest people I ever met were during the two months I played in Minnesota," he said. "It's a great place and they will treat you well." What I didn't know was he called the hockey coach there (Gus Schwartz) and recommended I get hired as a manager/public address announcer. (I had been doing Assumption's games at Windsor Arena.) I also didn't know he called the head of the school's burgeoning Journalism Department to give me a recommendation as a student "with potential. But he needs to get his butt kicked occasionally." Father Whalen, who founded the department, agreed ... at least with the latter idea.

Last year, I gratefully acknowledged his help in inspiring my book on the Twins "162-0." I sent him an inscribed copy as a thank you. He sent a note back saying he appreciated getting the book, adding "Hope your joketelling is now as good as your writing." Man never forgot, did he? But he did forgive.

We all have high school teachers in our lives who made a big difference, I only took one class from Mr. Bertoia. Truth be told, our paths didn't cross all that often afterwards. But I always remembered the little lessons he taught me. And I wasn't alone. A few years ago, I was in Windsor for a couple of days. My wife and I went out to dinner at a place that had a piano player. During one of the player's breaks, we were chatting. I told him where I had went to school. "You're one of Reno's boys, aren't you?", the piano player said. "Isn't he a great man?"

Yes, he was. To me, however, he will always be MISTER Bertoia. May he rest in peace.

Indeed, Time (or at least Spring) begins on Opening Day

2011-03-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that a friend of mine, a non-baseball person, struggles with the most. Today is the official start of the 2011 baseball season. There are a half dozen games on tap across the land. People will smile a little more today. I can't tell you why for sure. It just is.

In theory, this should be no big deal. After all, the season lasts 162 games. What's one game against that backdrop? But what my friend doesn't realize is that Opening Day is like the bear waking up from his winter snooze to go outside his cave again. Even if we head to the ballpark in a parka, we know that we soon won't need them anymore. We know that everybody from the world champ Phillies to their obscure neighbors the Pirates start even today.

Opening Day is about hope more than anything else.

I only went to one OD at Tiger Stadium. In retrospect, it was a rather tame, unmemorable affair. The Yankees beat Detroit, 3-0. As was his wont, Mickey Lolich pitched the whole game but his teammates offered tepid support. I sat in the upper deck behind home plate and remember it was cold but sunny.

But, as often happens, there were some unusual happenings. Gary Sutherland, a foot soldier who managed to play a dozen years in the bigs despite hitting only .248, had four hits that afternoon. Roy White, who was a helluva good outfielder for years for the Yankees, was the dh for the first time in his career. (I looked it up. White played 1600+ games in his career and only DHed about 100 times.) It was also the last Opening Day for Detroit's peerless Al Kaline, a once great right fielder who was now a fulltime dh.

I don't remember many games I went to at Tiger Stadium when the locals lost but I will always remember that one.

Upon arriving here for college, I went to a couple of Opening Days at Met Stadium. On one of them, Nolan Ryan pitched for the Angels. There was snow stacked up outside the stadium and only 13,909 attended the game. Ryan threw rockets past most of the Twins on a day when it couldn't have been 45 degrees. I remember Glenn Borgmann, of all people, drilled a bases-loaded double off the center field fence. But that was it. Angels won (7-3, as I recall). We wore parkas but still had a blast of a good time. it was just fun to be outside after a long winter.

Opening Day IS a big deal. Indeed, The Voice Of The Turtle can be heard (or at least imagined) again. The sun will stay out a little longer. People will smile a little more than usual. I feel bad for folks who -- even the non-baseball fans -- who don't get this concept. I don't claim to understand all of the reasons why Opening Day is special. I simply know it is.

Small town bb is fun

2011-03-24T18:38:00.001-07:00

My friend Tom Elliott, who covers preps for the St. Cloud Times, threw me an accosting look yesterday. "Your sports blog has been headed in different directions lately," he said.

I started to protest that I said in the first effort that a lot of what goes on here would not have a lot to do with sports. But there are times where it is time to return to one's roots.

So, Tom, I hope you read this one. This is one of those times.

About a month ago, I rhapsodized about the pleasures that come with section hockey week. Today is another happy missive. This time, the subject is the MSHSL Class A boys' basketball tournament.

For the first 57 years of its existence, Minnesota had a one-class BB tournament. In 1970, it went to a two-class event. 25 years later, it was expanded to a 16-team event. Two years after that, they went to the current four-class format. While the majority of games are played at Target Center, 10 first round games are played at creaky Williams Arena, the home of the University of Minnesota basketball teams since 1921.

The Class A teams play their quarterfinal games here. The last several years, I have been assigned the p.a. duties for two of those games. It is about as much fun as you can have for four hours on a spring afternoon.

When I walked in, a team called MACRAY, an amalgamation based in Clara City in southwest Minnesota, was in the process of taking apart a local school. A skinny 6-7 senior named Seth Hinrichs, who is headed for Lafayette on a hoop scholarship, was busy making shots from everywhere. (I wonder how Lafayette, which came one game from going to the NCAA tournament this year, found him. The small school is located in Easton, PA - not exactly on any beaten path from Minnesota.)

As this happened, the crowd of 3,000 or so seemed to be coming out of their socks with joy. MACCRAY eventually won and will be staying in town for the weekend.

Now it was my turn to go to work. In the first game, Chisholm, a small town in northern Minnesota, took on Fosston. The Chisholm coach is a fellow named Bob McDonald, who has only been on the job 56 years. Chatting with him before the game, one might have thought he was in his first year. "You never know how kids are going to react, do you?", he said. "We played well in the sections. I don;t have a feel for whether we will do so today."

McDonald's kids all look the same -- young, lean with short hair. If you didn't know better, you might have thought you were watching a scene from the movie "Hoosiers." They call officials "sir" and, when asked, go back to their benches to wait to report in as a sub. But these kids are no rubes. Adam Vake, a 6-3 forward with a very nice touch and a huge hunk of a center named Sioka Latu were simply too much for Fosston to handle. The Bluestreaks played some nasty defense and won solidly, 51-39.

It was a fun game but it paled compared to the second game which pitted Springfield against Upsala. Springfield, located in the southwest corner of the state, boasts a population of 2,215. That makes it a booming metropolis compared to Upsala, which listed a total of 424 residents in the 2000 census.

"But it has a barbershop, a post office, a bar, a gas station and a grocery store. They also have a new gym," Elliot informed me. (The hamlet is in the SC Times coverage area.)

Both schools had marching bands that would be right at home in the Rose Bowl Parade. Just about Class A school has one like that. At Williams, we sit below the crowd. So, the bands sounds as if they are coming out of the skies. Trying to talk over them is trying to talk over the women of "The View." After a while, you simply give up trying and learn to wait them out.

There appeared to be nobody left in either town by gametime. The Springfield section behind me made a constant racket. I was distracted early by a fellow who seemed to believe the officials (none of whom came from anywhere near either city) were engaged in some sort of criminal conspiracy against his Tigers. At one point, he hollered, "You guys owe us eight calls." This would establish a new record for even upness.

As it develops, the enthusiasm occasionally went overboard. The first Upsala free throw of the afternoon was greeted with a shrieking airhorn, a definite no-no at prep games. The conspirator, however, must have been given a hint. He did it once but never repeated it. At halftime, a security guard told me he knew where the general direction where the perpetrator was hiding. Apparently one nasty look is enough at these games.

These may be small schools but everybody, it seems, has some big boys on it. Springfield's big fella is Tyler Marx, who is 6-8 and is built like a mountain. At one point, he simply glared at an Upsala shooter, who decided it was time for a pass instead of a shot.

The Cardinals may come from a small town but they made some very big plays to keep the game close for a long time. A freshman named Christian Pekarek caught my eye early. He dove for a loose ball and ended up off the raised court out of view from all of us. He emerged seconds later smiling. Later in the first half, he dove for a ball and crashed directly into the on-court possession clock, making a dent in it that looked like it had been hit by a baseball bat. He landed on top of me and Ron Cadwell, who was helping handle the official scoring. He also flattened a water bottle that drenched the official scorebook. Fortunately for your Mr. Pekarek, I was able to brace his fall and keep him from bouncing off a railing behind me. Ron and Kingsley Wilson, the official scorer, were not so lucky. Ron spent the rest of the game with ice on his hand and Kingsley needed a bandage to close his wound.

The small school kids play for keeps here. (Don't take my word for it. Go to the Friday St. Cloud Times website and check out the pictures from the game. Great stuff.)

Pekarek was not done. Later, he ended up in a pile behind the Springfield bench and nearly landed in the band section at the end of the court. While on the court, he made some great passes and a a few good steals. "If he lives to be a senior, he'll be a helluva player," one guy noted. My own view was there must be no walls in the Upsala gym.

The action wasn't always highly skilled. But it was always highly intense. Bodies flew everywhere all game. "We had more guys fly off the court in this game than we have seen all season in college games," said one Williams worker. At one point, I spotted Upsala coach Vern Capelle, who has only been on the job for 25 years, jumping high in the air to get his team's attention to call a timeout. (In case you're wondering, Class A coaches do not have show contracts. I remember a few years ago one head coach stopping in the middle of his timeout discussion to tie his shoe. He got up and said "Now where was I? Oh, yes, now you have to cover ...")

There was one point in the second half where, with the game still in doubt, the entire Springfield bench closed their eyes as Upsala took a free throw attempt. They only opened them when the crowd roared behind them the shot was missed.

Later, I recorded another bb first. Cody Milbrath, perhaps Springfield's best player, had to depart the game at one point because he somehow managed to get blood on his back. It required him to change jerseys with Shawn Anderson, a sophomore who apparently wasn't going to see the light of day. I've seen a lot of blood on players but never a cut on the back. Have no idea how that could have happened.

On the court, Upsala hung in there as long as it could. But Springfield was a little bigger and, frankly, a little better. A 5-9 guard named Jesse Kieper nicely complimented Milbrath, who is 6-5 and the aforementioned Marz. Eventually, this wore the Cardinals down for a 10-point win. But such is the small town pride that, when, as part of the post-game ritual, it was announced that Upsala ended the year with a 25-4 mark, their crowd stood up and cheered one last time.

Everything moves to Target Center from here. That's somewhat understandable. After all, playing in a NBA arena has to be a juicing experience.

But there is something magic about the Class A games at Williams. Granted, the winners would probably get waxed if they played Hopkins, the big school power who is favored to win another AAAA crown Saturday night. There were some awkward moments near the rim and a few three-point attempts that were better left untried.

But that's off the point. High school athletics is, in part, about the chase. In this case, you have small towns who often face an opponent they know nothing about. (In many cases, it is a town they never heard of.) So they simply go about and run the plays they have done all year The fans yell their lungs off (even if they do make idiots of themselves on occasion.)

It is not always artistic basketball. But it is fun to watch and very intensely played.

That's what it is supposed to be about, right?

Goodbye, Lefty

2011-03-22T10:49:00.001-07:00

This getting older business has its good and bad sides. One of the good is the older you get, the quicker you are to recognize nonsense when you see and hear it. Yes, we still get fooled by people on occasion. But it is not as often as when, say, you are 25 years old.

The bad is you have to say goodbye forever to a lot of people you liked very much ... even if you didn't know them all that well. I noted last week the passing of one of those guys, Glenn Gostick. Today, it saddens me even more to note the passing of Dan Carey.

Not that this was unexpected. No, we knew this day was coming for 13 months ... even since it was discovered (via a CT scan) that Dan had a brain tumor.

But I hoped against hope this new treatment Dan was undergoing would somehow produce a miracle and we could resume our friendly discussions about baseball and life in general.

Like Gos, I didn't know Dan that well. (For example, I never knew his nickname was "Moose" until he went into the hospital.) I would run into him most of the time at St. Thomas athletic events (he was a professor there). We talked often about his days as a Mets minor league farmhand. Since he had been a left-handed hurler himself, Dan was very knowledgable about what made (and did not make) a good pitcher. Occasionally, the conversations drifted into other areas but, for the most part, baseball was our topics.

But there was something else about Dan that I found quite remarkable. He had the amazing ability to disagree with you on a subject without being disagreeable himself. I discovered he was a fellow who despised conflict. He thought it was basically unnecessary. Most disagreements could be reasoned or discussed out. I only saw him upset once. A student who thought he deserved a better grade had come into Dan's office and yelled at him long and hard about it. Dan was genuinely puzzled as to how the student could really think this would get him to reconsider his decision. To Dan, you could have strong opinions -- even sharp disagreements -- without turning into one of the screaming folks you often see on cable television. It didn't make sense to him at all.

There are those who knew Dan Carey much better than I did. I am sure they probably feel a deeper sense of personal loss than I ever could. But I found myself in church Sunday lighting a candle to him and saying a silent prayer. And I will go to the funeral home tonight and pay my respects ... even I don't recognize a single person there (I know he had a couple of siblings. But I have never met them.). Fact is, Dan Carey was one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met in my 57 years, 10 months and one day on this earth. It is a pleasure to say so publicly.

I find myself hoping that Dan knew I (and many others) felt this way about him and whether that was a comfort to him in his final days. I want to think so.

But it makes a fellow wonder, though. Is there anybody out there who feels that way about me? If so, what did I do to deserve such high praise? If not, is there anything I can do to change people's opinions?

The one ... and only Gos

2011-03-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

"K is for Keeler,
As fresh as green paint,
The fastest and mostest
To hit where they ain't."

That is one of the verses of Ogden Nash's 1949 poem: "Line-up for yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals." Glenn Gostick, who was found dead in an apartment in Colorado yesterday, used be recite that stanza ... and the 25 others in Nash's poem by heart.

Gos was 83 and, I suspect, went out with a smile on his face. I hadn't seen him for many years but I am still a bit saddened by his passing. You see, Gos was one of last of a dying breed. He was an American original who did things his way.

He had no phone at his house in Minneapolis. I am not sure he drove a car. Yet he was one of the most informed people I ever knew. He had one of the best baseball memories of anybody I ever knew. I had been told this was the case when I met him. I decided to give him a test.

"Arlo Brunsberg," I offered tentatively.

"One of the very few Minnesotans who made his debut in home state," Gostick replied with annoyance. "Lined out to shortstop off Mudcat Grant. Went 1-for-3 in his career."

I only knew this because Brunsberg's brief career was with the Tigers. Indeed, Brunsberg, who was born in Fertile, MN only appeared in one more big league game, getting a hit off Paul Lindblad in the bottom of the ninth inning in the last game of the 1966 season. Had I asked, I am quite sure Gos would have told me that fact, too.

I didn't know very well. But I was always charmed by him. He umpired baseball well into his 70s, running a brisk game in which he expected players to be respectful and hustle.

For a while. he served as an official scorer for Twins' games. But that didn't last long because Gos expected major leaguers to make major league plays. A half-assed effort on a ground ball earned you an error in Gos' book. The big leaguers didn't cotton to that much and Gos was soon back umpiring and poring over statistics.

Their loss, he figured. He was right on that one, too.

He was adamant in his view that most sacrifice bunts were a waste of an out, offering up a study a Yale professor did in the early 1960s as evidence. He had equally strong views on Hall of Famers. He definitely thought Don Drysdale, for example, was undeserving of the honor and rode in on his charming personality and the fact he followed Sandy Koufax to the mound for several years.

To Gos, it was always about the numbers. They told the stories of most baseball games.

He was a trainer for years, working with Dick Siebert and the U of M baseball team and later, the WHA Fighting Saints' hockey team. he took the job seriously, often leading the charges on runs himself. Gos did nothing at half-speed. He liked it that way and couldn't understand that others didn't. (Or at least he pretended he didn't understand.)

The bottom line was simple: here was a man who, in Sinatra's words, did it his way all the time. How many of us get to say that today?

Welcome back, Conny's!

2011-03-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

When I was a youngster, there were several places you could meet your neighbors.

If we were rummaging for, say, a Paul Foytack or Charley Maxwell baseball card or just in need of a Brown Cow on a hot summer afternoon (Kids, ask your parents what Brown Cow is. Yummers), we would go to Schnelbach's Drug Store on about four blocks from home.

If you were hungry, you might head the other way on Grand River Ave to the Daly Drive-In, which advertised its 1/4 pound hamburgers as "The Biggest in Detroit."

If Mom sent you shopping for something that was needed to fix dinner, you might see a neighbor at Bill's Beer and Wine. It was a little convenience store that seemed to have everything. (No, I wasn't sent to buy beer or wine.)

If it was Saturday, I might find somebody I knew at Ray Guetschoff's butcher shop. We all had our weekend tasks. Mine often included treks to Guetschoff's. (Ray often sent me home with a bone for Shep, our collie. I still love the smell of a good butcher shop.)

That was then.

Now there are very few neighborhood places left. Fortunately, in our little part of the world, there is Conny's Creamy Cone. Even though there is still snow on the ground, Conny's opened for business for the year last Monday. My wife and I stopped there late in the afternoon to enjoy the first of many culinary delights. We sat in the sun and slowly enjoyed every good slurp.

Like a good neighborhood saloon, Conny's is a place where the nonsense that passes for bad news in the world is usually ignored and rarely discussed. One stands in line and often finds a friendly face nearby. Then, it is time to catch up on the kids and see who has a new dog. (Conny is a longtime friend who runs her place for about seven months of the year. She hires the local kids to work the counter. I don't know many of their names but I have seen their faces for years.)

There are two things great about her opening this week.

1) It means that spring is really on the way.
2) It means Pete, The Happy Dog can resume one of his favorite pasttimes. The vet said we could bring him down to Conny's once a week for a dish of vanilla ice cream. The Happy Dog is considered a regular customer. He is so much of one that the kids know instantly what to get for him. Watching him work his way through the ice cream is a sight many neighbors like to watch with fascination. (Apparently, dog don't get freezer burn on their brain. Out ice cream in front of The Happy Dog and he rarely stops to take a breath.)

Conny's is Switzerland, a truly neutral country. Our neighborhood has its share of punks. But even punks like ice cream. When they come to Conny's, they are always on their best behavior. It is an unspoken rule that was also true at the neighborhood places we frequented as youths. You don't screw around there or you will be invited not to return. It really is that simple.

So, welcome back, Conny. Your timing couldn't have been better. Frankly, we needed our little spot where we can convene and enjoy ourselves before sighing and getting back to the real world. There just aren't a lot of places like this left.

Pity.

Living up to expectations

2011-03-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

Turned out to be a helluva good week of hockey at the Coliseum. The Section semis were solidly played, including one OT game. The three section finals in the last two days were all one-goal affairs. Both games last night, pitting longtime rivals against each other, went overtime with the lower seed getting the winning goal.

Lot of tears (of joy and despair) all around.

In hindsight, however, there was something even more satisfying about the last two nights.

The current political discourse of "you are either with us or against society in general" has spilled into layers of athletics. However, I am pleased to say that this is still not the case in high school athletics.

Oh, there were plenty of hardnose cheering (and some borderline taunts) going back and forth from fans in the stands. But, when the games were over, people seemed to understand they were still watching kids play a game. The fans whose teams lost applauded their guys for a solid effort. The winners were, of course, overjoyed but respectful. But the most heartening sight of them all came from the players themselves.

There is an old hockey tradition that has spread to other sports. At the end of each Stanley Cup series, the teams line up and shake hands. This morphed into prep athletics years ago. The last two nights, however, there was more than handshaking. Each player in the title game -- win or lose -- gets a medal. And each time I called out a name, a player from the other side skated over for another handshake. In many cases, there were hugs and a few words of whispered support as well. In one case, two players from opposing schools paused to pose for a picture together before they left the ice. The player from the losing team managed a smile for the camera and seemed to have no problem putting his arm around the shoulder of a guy from a team that had just ripped his competitive heart out.

It was a gentle reminder of why we play games ... and why we enjoy watching others play them.

Look, I understand professional athletics is different. There, the players are trying to take bread off the other guy's table. So, you don't apologize for occasionally stepping over the line. That is the way it works in the non-athletic world as well.

But high school and college (at least in the D-III world where I work) should be different. It doesn't mean the games aren't taken seriously and are played at a top competitive level. (Indeed, White Bear Lake and Hill-Murray probably tossed more hard checks last night than I have seen all season combined.) But it does mean that those players know (better than some adults, as it turns out) the meaning of the word "perspective".

I imagine the losing teams are still hurting today. I know that next week, at the boys' hockey tournament, I will see many faces who will stare at the ice and wonder what might have been if that shot hadn't bounced off the post or if that damned puck hadn't deflected off the guy's skate and thus prevented a breakaway that could have ended the tie game. Those looks are part of why they play the game.

But I suspect (and, indeed, hope) that, for most of the guys I saw the last two nights, the sting of defeat will go away and what they will remember is the roar of the crowd and the thrill they must have felt when they the hit the ice to try to make the play that would send their team to the state tournament. I hope they will remember looking up and seeing the old Coliseum full.

The fact is that damn near every guy I see in the games I work will never get paid to play a sport. In many ways, however, they are more professional in their behavior than the guys who do.

The best ... and hardest ... time of the year

2011-03-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

This is the busy season for me. Last week, I was fortunate enough to be one of the public address announcers for the state girls' high school hockey tournament during the day and some terrific college playoff games at night. This week, the focus turns to boys' sectional play at Warner Coliseum.

In one sense, it is the best week of the year. The winner of the sections head to the state boys' tournament next week. They will play in front of huge crowds (Xcel will be packed to capacity for the AA games. The Class A games are now filling up the lower bowl of the building -- 7-9,000 seats.) Even after doing this 25 years, the vigor and excitement of a section final still amazes me. I will work a section final doubleheader Friday night at Warner Coliseum and the place will absolutely rock.

It's a wonderful sight.

The flip side, however, is the loss in a section final is the hardest thing to watch.

If you get to the state tournament and lose, it stings. But you got there. You had your TV moment. You got your name announced over the p.a. system. You heard the roar of the crowd. You are often playing a school you know little about. You know only one team gets to win the whole thing. Oh, it hurts but you an usually deal with it.

But the section tournament is different. Often, you are playing a team that is a season-long rival. Most of the time, you played during the regular season. Or, at the very least, you know who your opponent is. When you lose in the section final, you often feel as if all that effort you put in went for naught. It is the hardest loss to handle.

I feel badly for the coaches and the players on the losing side. I have been doing this long enough now that I know several of these coaches well. I went to college with some of them. I like a lot of them personally. I can see the hurt in their eyes when I hand them the scoresheet. I also know they have the tough job of walking in and comforting their kids. I usually make a quick exit and let them do what they need to.

The flip side, however, is the unbridled joy you see in the winners. It never gets old for coaches. Each team has a different personality to it. Even for schools like Hill-Murray, each title represents a conquest of a different type of challenge. And when you see a team that has come close in the past finally get to the top of the mountain, it is a beautiful sight, indeed.

I have been working section games for more than two decades now. It never gets old. When this week approaches, I always recall a happenstance that occurred a few years ago. It reminds me why this is the best week of the year.

I was sitting at a bar at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas about 2 a.m. A guy comes up to me and says, "You are the p.a. announcer at the Coliseum, right?" I was a bit taken aback but said it was so.

"You did my game when I played for Harding," he said.

I looked up surprised. "Harding? They didn't come in very often."

He quickly came back to me, saying, "We played in the section final against South St. Paul."

"I remember that. You lost 2-1, right? The only thing I can remember about the game is a Harding guy got a breakaway late and the goalie stopped him cold."

The fellow brightened up more. "That was me who had the breakaway," he said.

I felt about six inches tall but tried to recover. "Goalie made a helluva save," I lamely offered in rebuttal.

The guy kept smiling, though. "I guess so but it doesn't matter much. It was just a blast being there. I'll never forget it. Thanks for being part of it." And then he went on his way, happy at the memory.

Since then, I have probably had another half dozen similar meetings. In talking to these folks, I have tried not to stick my foot down my throat again. But I have discovered that even if I do, the person who initiated the conversation doesn't seem to care. No, all he remembers is playing in a section game in front of a big crowd. If his team lost, he's over it. It is now a great memory for him. (The fact that he remembers a voice always amazes me. But isn't that the way it is with flashbacks? You recall the damnedest things sometimes.)

This is Christmas in March for a lot of people this week. The list includes those of us who are lucky enough to work the games, too.

A 51-year old movie offers a lesson is still very pertinent today

2011-02-20T09:12:00.001-08:00

For moviewatchers, this is the best time of the year. With the Oscars coming up in a week, there are a slew of wonderful, rarely seen movies on the cable airwaves. TCM offers some particular treats this month -- movies that, in some shape or form, were nominated for or won Oscars. Yesterday morning, it was "Inherit The Wind", the 1960 version of the story written based on the famous Scopes Monkey trials held in Tennessee in 1925.

In addition to watching some great actors chew up the scenery (who knew Gene Kelly could play such a hardass, cynical reporter? Or that Dick York could play such a serious, thoughtful role? And it is always fun to see Spencer Tracy and Fredric March strut their stuff.), the story offered up a moral tale that is still very relevant today.

The basis of the movie is York teaching a high school class about Darwin's theory of evolution. That is an issue for another day of discussion, however. The key here is what happens when York is put on trial for even offering the idea as a theory. Tracy has the Clarence Darrow role of being his defense attorney. He isn't any more sure that Darwin got it right than anybody else. But he will defend to the death the idea that the theory should not be squashed out of hand. It can be debated and decided.

March is the William Jennings Bryan character. He believes the Bible has to be taken literally. And that means that no theory that even hints against anything in the Bible can be allowed into the public forum. In theory, he wins because York is indeed convicted in court. (The state law forbid the teaching of evolution) But, when the time comes for the sentence, the judge (Harry Morgan had fun in this role) doesn't waste any time to hear arguments on sentencing. He fines York $100 instead of sending him to jail and skedaddles. Tracy, of course, says, he will appeal because his client has done nothing wrong. March, who had been waiting for his big moment to give a dramatic speech, is stunned. He gets up to give his speech anyway as the courtroom begins to clear. Nobody is listening to him anymore. It is too much for him to handle. He has a heart attack and dies.

Tracy, who had been a longtime friend, is sympathetic. When Kelly presses him to say something mean (and this very newsworthy), he refuses. Instead, he says simply, "He was a great man. He just got lost at the end."

How is this pertinent today? Well, look at what is going in Wisconsin. In theory, this is a battle between two vastly differing fiscal views. The governor says he simply wants to balance a budget and that he is not interested in how it happens. But nothing is that easy. If we don't sit down and listen to each other (and only listen to people who agree with us), we are doomed as a country. Yes, there are laws that need to be obeyed and followed. That has never changed.

But we got to be a great country by admitting that past actions weren't always correct or needed to be altered to fit into today's times. There was a time where slavery seemed like a reasonable idea. Today, or course, we know better. There was a time where women couldn't vote. Again, we corrected a mistake.

And we got there because somebody was willing to listen to the other side.

That isn't happening in Wisconsin. The governor has said he won't negotiate on anything. From this distance, he sounds like the March character in the movie. In essence, he is saying, "I know what I believe. No fact or reasoning can get me to change my mind. So, this is my decision and to hell with everybody else.'

That kind of attitude plays well with the base and looks good on television. (In this case, it is the right wing. But it could just as easily have been the other way.) But we get things done in the real world by working together. We may never agree with them but, if we don't at least consider their point of view, we are truly lost. In the end, that is what happens to March in the movie. He got caught up in his own fire and fury. If TV had been around in the 1920s, they would have been berserk with joy promoting one point of the view or the other. But it would have offered nothing to the debate and would only have inspired the other side to be meaner and nastier.

That's why this movie is so important and should be watched by everybody. We need to see what happens when you can't see the forest for the trees. Simply put, we need more Spencer Tracys and fewer Frederic Marchs in this world.

But the talkies and bloggers don't want that. They want controversy and they don't care if there is collateral damage along the way.

There is a great moment at the end of the movie. WGN radio had placed a microphone in the courtroom to get the verdict live. After the judge does so, the technician starts to put things away. The microphone is disconnected. March's speech simply is wild yelling into the air with nobody in the courtroom ... or across the country ... listening. It is sad to watch. But it reminded me of many people I see on cable TV these days. They are simply babbling talking points but they have no idea what many of those points actually mean. In that way, they are already dead in the head.

Battling an unseen enemy is ... well ... really hard

2011-02-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

Like all good attackers, this one slipped in during the dead of night. It was a week ago in the middle of the night when the enemy invaded. It came in slowly, infiltrating my system while I slept.

A week ago, I called it a night feeling hale and hearty. Woke up the next morning with a stuffed nose.

As it turned out, it was the initial move in an all-out assault that succeeded. Within two days, I was a composite of cold, water and medicine. I fought the intruders with nearly tool available -- aspirin, cough syrup, honey, tea, warm water and various tablets supposed to contain good stuff in it -- but a cold is an opponent with a track record that would make any sports team blush with envy.

On Thursday, I could feel what the late Steve Cannon used to call "the aliens invading my body" making their move. The cold began to take up residence in my head and then moved south to claim more territory. By Friday afternoon, my voice began to sound like the little girl in the movie "The Exorcist." The bad voice soon gave way to sneezing fits that polluted half of Ramsey County.

I managed to work a hockey game Friday night and a basketball game Saturday afternoon before giving way to unconditional surrender. By Saturday night, the enemy claimed complete victory as temp soared to 102.5. You could have held a weiner roast on my ears. A hot bath provided a temporary balm. By late in the evening, the fever was in fine fettle, running up and down by my body with unrequited glee.

When that happens, you simple feel helpless. We can understand when we are felled by the flu or something like pneumonia. They may be intangibles but they sound forceful. You tell someone you have the flu and they understand you are going to be on your back for a couple of days. But tell them you have a cold and they expect you to take a cough drop or a pill and quit hacking.

If it was only this easy.

I managed to get out for a brunch Sunday afternoon but still felt in a fog. That is the worst part of having a bad cold -- it makes everything else around you seem an out of body experience.

The new week brought some welcome relief. My temp finally went down to double digits and stayed there. I'm down to only one new handkerchief per 24 hours. The coughing is a little less each hour. After ingesting four bottles of cough syrup, a dozen Advils and half a dozen Mucinexes, I can actually taste food again. My nose is still in rugged shape but I can now breathe in and out and not sound like the old Bob-Lo boat as it was leaving for its daily trip past Amherstburg. (Ask an old Detroiter about that one.) Life isn't great. But it is a helluva lot better than it was a week ago at this time.

Unfortunately, this rosy scenario is only true for one member in our household. Being a good, supportive, sharing spouse, I think I passed on my condition to my unsuspecting wife.

She ended up missing two days of work this week with various difficulties. In this case, it was probably better to receive and not give back. Sorry, dear.

Amazingly, the dog managed to avoid being infected (or is that affected?). Just what do they know we don't?

Remembering what was is not a bad thing

2011-01-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

Sergeant Shriver died the other day at age 95. He was an honorable fellow who took on many unpleasant but noble government-type duties in the 1960s and 1970s. President Kennedy tapped him to start and run the Peace Corps. He did great work for President Johnson, too. Later, he ran for Vice President. All in all, a very good man.

For the last several years of his life, he battled Alzheimer's disease. Understandably, on the few occasions he was seen in public, he didn't look anything like the handsome man I remembered as a kid. I shuddered when I saw those pictures.

The other day, most of the pics ran in accordance with stories about his life, were from the 1960s and 1970s. But one network (I can't remember which) ran a terrible shot taken a few years ago. His hair was messy and he looked confused. It is, sadly, what often happens with patients who suffer from Alzheimer's. I had that old feeling. Wy do this to a good man? Did we really need to see this picture? Of the literally thousands of pictures of this public man, what was gained by running one that showed him in a less than complimentary light.

A year ago, Lynne and I were in California for a few days. One morning, we drove up to see an old woman who was a longtime friend of Lynne's family. She lived by herself near Yucaipa. She seemed to be doing okay for a woman of her age. We had a wonderful visit. I asked Lynne if she wanted to take a picture with the woman to bring home to show to her sisters. Lynne sighed and said no. She had a good picture of her already that she was taking home with her. The woman we were looking at now was not the woman she knew as a kid. She preferred to remember her that way.

It was a kind and thoughtful gesture. We are entitled to remember things our way.

The fact is we will grow older. We will not look as good as we did when were younger. Fine. But we are also entitled to our dignity. And when (or if) the time comes when we don't look so good, well. we can only hope folks with cameras will be judicious in their choices of pictures.

In my mind's eye, for example, Rocky Colavito, a terrific ballplayer for Detroit in the 1960s, will always be a sleek fellow with a full head of coal black hair who had a great arm and swung a solid bat. He will always be 30 years old.

Colavito is now 77 years old. A little part of me would love to sit and talk with him about his days in Detroit (and Cleveland). However, another part of me has no desire to see a current picture of him ... or worse, see him in person. I am afraid to discover he has a pot belly, is bald and wears coke-type glasses.

If so, it would be too heartbreaking to know.

Like my wife wishes to remember her old family friend, I want the Colavito in my mind's eye.

Anybody think that is a bad thing?

Thanks, Jon. That was well said.

2011-01-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

It has been three days since our nation's sensibilities were shaken ... again. The terrible business that occurred last Saturday in Tucson still seemed unreal ... even to those of us who have gone through a series of assassinations that robbed us of some of the country's brightest and best.

What happened in that store was bad enough. What happened next -- the bad reporting and the sadly predictable blaming of each side for the acts of a madman -- probably surprised no one.

Take the reporting first. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon -- when the TV version of the backup catchers were on duty. That still doesn't excuse the cable folks who reported people were dead when they weren't. I could only imagine Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkhite and all the brilliant journalism teacher (like my college prof, Father Whalen) shaking their heads in disbelief as they watched from above. TV cable news offers little journalism these days. Instead, they are entertainers with political points of view ... and those points of view seem to always come first and foremost before giving us the facts.

As for the blame game, what did we expect? Did we really think that Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would miss a chance to nail those who disagree with them with a form of blame? Did we really think that a gasbag like Ed Schultz or the many bloggers who lean left would resist the urge to blame this on the wild, biased rhetoric Fox spins out? The answer, of course, is no. Most of today's talkers are interested in only one thing -- getting attention for themselves. Getting attention gets them ratings. Ratings translate into money. The rest of it is simply collateral damage ... something they can find a way to ignore.

It is likely most of the talkers wouldn't know Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who was shot, from Frank Gifford, the former football player. (Well, some of them might know Frank is married to Kathie Lee.) Nor would it matter to them. The names are interchangeable. It is the policy and the ideas -- whether they be conservative or liberal -- that seem to matter most.

Because this happened on a Saturday afternoon, it took a while to get the network anchors in action. When they got on the job, a form of sanity returned to the airwaves. There is a reason why guys like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the cable bombthrowers don't work for ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. (Some of them used to.)

Their shtick wouldn't pass muster there.

Ironically, it was Jon Stewart, who works for Comedy Central, who offered the proper perspective n how we should view this situation. His opening monologue on Monday was one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. (The link is here: http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting.) It ranks up there with Ronald Reagan's speech the day of the Challenger disaster and Bobby Kennedy's speech the day after Martin Luther King was killed.

Stewart came out and said what many of us felt. The time has come to simply admit madmen were just that ... nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, there have been madmen before and there will be madmen in our future. We simply cannot escape them.

But we can do something to limit their access. We can quit using rhetoric that gives them ideas. We can have civil dissent, dammit. It's isn't sexy and it doesn't produce ratings. More than ever, however, it is what we need to do these days.

Thanks, Jon, for injecting a note of common sense. After two days of bluster and blame, his should be the only cable comment we should be listening to.

Farewell, Foul Ball King

2011-01-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

It was a small story neat the bottom of the page. "Ex-Manager, Player Steve Boros dies."

Sigh. Another blast from the past was no more.

Viewed in the overall scheme of things, Boros was no big deal. He only played a couple of seasons. His career batting average .242 was no great shakes. He hit a mere 22 home runs in 422 MLB games. He was an adequate fielder but nothing special.

But you never forget your first great love. And my first great baseball love was the 1961 Detroit Tigers. I remember them all -- from batting champ Norm Cash to sub Dick Gernert (whose only hit that season with the team was a pinch-hit home run against the Angels). The Tigers kept pace with the mighty Yankees most of the season, finally giving way in the last two weeks of the year. They finished the season with a gaudy total of 101 victories but eight games out of first place. Today, that would earn you a playoff spot and a chance at redemption. In 1961, all it got you was a handshake and a sincere wish to win more games next year.

Boros was the regular third baseman on that team. He was justifiably overlooked on a team that had two superb starting pitchers (Frank Lary, Jim Bunning), a dependable third wheel in Don Mossi and a solid finisher in Terry Fox. The outfield of Rocky Colavito, Billy Bruton and Al Kaline was top notch. (Charley Maxwell, the first backup flychaser, was no slouch, either.)

The infield was Cash, speedy Jake Wood at second base, the erratic but exciting Chico Fernandez at shortstop and the plodding Boros at third base.

Of all those players, Boros seemed to be the one who was cursed with the most dreaded of all baseball ailments.

He had potential.

He looked bigger than his listed height of six feet. He seemed to have broad shoulders. He was not a fast runner. But he didn't strike out much and drew a surprisingly high total of walks.

Oddly, I can't remember any of his hits that season. What I do remember, however, was that he hit some of the longest foul balls I have ever seen.

I can't place the date but I distinctly remember a Saturday afternoon that year when he hit three balls that went all the way over the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. Naturally, they were slightly left of the foul pole and counted for nothing more than a loud strike. It may be 49 years ago but I can still see Boros simply sigh and resolve to do better next time. My memory is he didn't get a hit after any of those mighty blows. (In the 87-year history of the old ballpark, only three balls ever went over the left field roof in fair territory. Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard and Cecil Fielder did the honors.)

To the unerring eye of a rabid eight-year old baseball know-it-all, it seemed that Boros was on the verge of joining Colavito as a 40-home run man. If only he could straighten a few of those balls out, the Tigers could catch Mantle, Maris, Whitey Ford and the rest of those hated varmints from the big city Yankees.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way. Boros only hit five home runs the entire season and finished with a .270 batting average. The next year, he showed more power (16 home runs) but the batting average fell to .228. (By then, I was 10 years old and infinitely more knowledgeable about baseball. I simply knew Boros was never going to amount to much. I suspect I said so to anyone who asked me ... or even if they didn't ask.)

Accordingly, no one was particularly upset when the Tigers shipped him to the Chicago Cubs and inserted a shopworn fellow named Bubba Phillips at third base. (Later that year, they called up a rookie named Don Wert. By the end of the season, he was the regular third baseman. He stayed in that role for the next seven seasons and is best remembered around town as the guy who singled in the winning run the night the Tigers won the 1968 pennant.)

But our first loves always stand tall in our memory. They will always be 25 years old or so. They will always have a smile on their face.

So it is that Rocky Colavito will always be the original Italian Stallion, a limber hitter with a gun for an arm in left field. Al Kaline will always be the mechanically sound fellow who ate fast balls for lunch and missed nothing in right field. Norm Cash will always seem to be lunging off balance as he swatted a ball into the upper deck in center field. Jim Bunning will always seem to be falling into the third base dugout as he threw a nasty curve ball past a hitter for strike three.

And Steve Boros will always seem to be standing tall and resolute as he walked back to the batter's box, determined that the next time he hit the ball, it would go three feet to the right of the foul pole for a home run.

That is the way I saw it in 1961.

50 years later, nothing has happened to make me change my mind.

R.I.P. Big Steve

A Christmas story

2010-12-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a 12-year old boy who lived in Detroit and was a big hockey fan. It was the days of the six-team National Hockey League. Although it was a competitive league, the Montreal Canadiens were the gold standard. They won five Stanley Cups in a row from 1956-60 and seriously contended just about every year they didn't win.

The hometown Red Wings? They made the playoffs just about every season but couldn't get over the hump, even losing in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row.

The boy knew all this and a lot more. That’s because he listened to just about every game -- the only way for a youngster to follow the team. At the time, there was no local television of Detroit games. On Saturday nights, when he could convince his mother to switch away from Lawrence Welk (which aired at the same time), he would get to watch “Hockey Night In Canada.” But Detroit games were blacked out. (Playoff games were televised on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. Try explaining that one to your mother.) Olympia Stadium, their home rink, was usually sold out. Even if he could find a ticket, the rink was located in a "bad" area of town, a place his mother wouldn't dream of letting her young son visit.

The only time the lad ever saw his favorite team play came when Detroit played a nationally televised Sunday afternoon game from Chicago, New York or Boston.

Christmas, 1965 came with the usual trimmings. As was house tradition, the lad and his brothers were allowed to open one gift when the family came home from Midnight Mass. He scouted the horizon in advance for possibilities. There was the usual thin box from Aunt Marcie – handkerchiefs. There were big boxes (toys, he hoped). There were square boxes that he knew from experience were clothes.

Then he spotted something unusual. In the corner of the pile of gifts was an envelope with his name on it. Since it wasn't stamped or addressed, his mind began to race. What kind of gift could be in an envelope?

For some reason, he reached for it as a first choice. His mother stopped him, saying "Save that for Christmas Day.” When you tell a kid that at the holidays, you drive the interest level up astronomically. Fearing he might miss out on another gift, the boy reluctantly obeyed.

A restless night was spent wondering what could kind of gift could be in an envelope? Why couldn’t he open that one first?

Morning finally came. When the feast of gifts was nearly complete, the boy was left with the envelope. Go ahead, said his mother. Now you can open it. The boy opened it and stared in disbelief. It was two tickets to see the Red Wings play, of all teams, Montreal at the Olympia the next night. His older brother Johnny was going to take him to see the players he knew so well but had rarely seen.

His joy was such that the boy never noticed the location of the seats. The tickets were stamped "Standing Room” – a concept he knew nothing about. "Oh, it will be fine," his brother assured him.

For once, Christmas dragged as he eagerly waited the next night. The Olympia was a wonderful mystery. The boy knew the building was red on the outside but that was it. Walking in the door, he was struck immediately by the large scoreboard hanging over the center ice. It was an old clock with smaller clocks for the penalties. In the final minute of play, it changed colors (green to red is the way the lad remembers it.)

"Where are we sitting?" the boy asked his brother.

"We're not," he said. "We have standing room."

"Where's that?"

"Wherever we can find a place. Quit asking questions.”

The two walked around the building for a long time, looking for a place to stand. As game time neared, they still hadn't found a place where they could see the ice very well. The pair wandered into the balcony. At that point, an angel appeared in the form of an usher.

"Where's your seats, boys?" he asked gruffly.

We showed him our tickets. "Can't stand up here," he said. "Standing room is downstairs."

The boy began to cry. "This is my first game ever and I can't see anything," he said.

The usher stopped waving people to their seats. "First game, eh?" he said. "There is one place you can stand but you can't tell anybody I told you about this."

He took the two boys to a corner of the upper deck. There was a small platform with a spotlight – the kind you used to see when the circus came to town. "Stand here," he said. "Nobody will bother you. It's kinda high but you'll see everything from there. I like watching the game from here myself."

The usher was right. The players looked like ants in the far corner of the ice but you could see everything.

The Red Wings and Canadiens didn't disappoint. It was a terrific hockey game. Detroit attacked Montreal goalie Gump Worsley constantly but couldn't get a goal. Montreal did the same to Detroit's Roger Crozier but couldn't score themselves.

The game was still scoreless in the third period. The clock changed colors for the final time.

This wasn't possible. How you could you go to a NHL game and not see a goal?

Then it happened. A shot came from the point that Worsley could only knock down. Alex Delvecchio swooped in and batted the loose puck into the net.

The boy jumped so high he nearly fell out of the alcove. He had no idea how much time was left but it was clear it was the final minute of the game. The Wings ran out the clock and took the 1-0 win.

The boy has probably seen 1500 hockey games in his lifetime. But he remembers that one as if it happened last night.

Since then, the boy has received many envelopes as gifts. They have contained cash or gift certificates – very good things, indeed. But he still cherishes the memory of that first envelope. It wasn’t until four decades later he learned the official value of it was four dollars – two dollars per ticket.

To the boy’s way of thinking, however, it was, indeed, priceless.

Starting over (happily)

2010-12-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

It was the phone call I had been waiting to hear for the past 26 months.

"You start Monday at 8:30 a.m," the voice said. "Minnesota Department of Education in Roseville. You need directions?"

I told the voice I would happily look up how to get there. Turns out to be about 10 minutes from the house.

Since October 2008, I have been semi-employed. I made phone calls. I sent emails. I sent letters. I sent resumes. I sent updated resumes. Sometimes you got a form email saying they had received your stuff and was reviewing it. Many times, I simply never heard from the company. I would call and sometimes get a real person to tell me they had my information. Much of the time, however, the best I could do was leave a message that would never get returned.

I had come close a few times to getting back to fulltime work -- been a finalist at least twice that I knew of. But something always seem to happen.

I would get a phone call, a letter or an email saying somebody else had the job. Sometimes I got a reason. Most of the time I did not. Didn't matter, though. The result was the same as when nobody called at all.

I understood this wasn't personal. I understood why someone with less experience would get hired for a job. I would listen to the great thinkers and talkers of our time opine that anybody who really wants a job can get one. The people saying this were usually folks with nice, comfy gigs already. They hadn't sent out the letters I (and many others) had sent. They may even believed what they were saying.

I worked at staying positive. (Most days, I was.) I worked at being creative. I worked at part-time gigs. I prayed. I asked friends and family to keep an eye out for me and let me know of any openings they heard of. To the many people who did just that, I say "Thank You" for your kindness and patience with me.

I was told early last week the MDE was getting ready to hire for an open position and that I had a real good shot at it. For two days after, I stared at the phone every time it rang. On Thursday, the call finally came. I felt like someone who just snagged a prom date with their dream queen (or king).

Now comes the hard part. When you have been off for 2+ years, you eventually lose an edge. Your skills get a little rusty. Oh, I have done plenty of writing. I think I know what they need and feel confident I can provide it for them. But it will require getting back on the horse. It will require getting used to the routine of getting up early, cleaning up and getting into the office by 8:30 a.m. five days a week. It will require discipline, getting to know new people and a new job.

That is all easier said than done. Bad habits are easy to make. They are also hard to break.

There is one last thing: I am thrilled (and grateful) beyond words to be back working again. Some people I don't really know that well are putting a lot of trust in me. I am flattered by that and anxious to prove them right. The new job starts in 9 1/4 hours. So now I need to get some restful sleep.

I hope I remember how to do that.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed

2010-11-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

The weather folks have been in an uproar lately. Last Saturday, we got socked with an unexpected ice storm that reduced highways and byways to large skating rinks. Took me damn near two hours to negotiate the short distance from the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Como area estate.

Thanksgiving is on us tomorrow. The Voices of doom and gloom are howling about an expected 1-3 inches of snow around town tonight. 1-3 inches? As a kid growing up in Detroit, we prayed for 1-3 inches of snow on Thanksgiving Day. (Rarely got our wish. It was usually either cold rain or a brisk sunny day.)

So we have a (mini) snowstorm descending upon us. We are approaching our third Thanksgiving without fulltime, gainful employment. My neck is stiff today. The Detroit Lions only have two wins. The Republicans, giddy over winning most fo the election races earlier this month, are promising to roll back everything any Dem ever accomplished because ... they can. Seems like a perfect time to say, "Bah, Humbug" and move into the prenatal position on the couch with remote in hand.

Except that there is a helluva lot to be thankful this year. When people say "Well, you got your health," they ain't kidding. A longtime friend of my wife passed away late last night. He was 59 years old. The cancer was first spotted less than a year ago. A good friend of mine -- a fellow of similar age -- has cancer in his eye. Had a setback recently. Another family friend is spending Thanksgiving Eve at the Mayo Clinic trying to find out just what the hell is wrong anyway.

There are other stories like this, too. And so it goes.

But the fact is there really is a lot to be thankful this year. When one goes through trials and tribulations, one learns that little victories count just as much as big victories. So, when you sell a small, satiric article to MinnPost.com (as I did the other day. it was a casual about the Vikings, who got hammered on Sunday and fired their coach the next day, slipping down to the level of the Lions. Read it. I thought it sang.), you enjoy it. When you get a fair settlement for your car being stolen and you are able to buy a good used car from a person you trust, you smile a bit longer. When you learn a friend was really able to pull a big surprise off and visit her parents in another state, you are happy for them. When the family dog greets you like he really is happy to see you, you can't help but smile and rub his ears. And when you have a kid in a class you are teaching who has been nothing but trouble for you suddenly relax and be civil in a place where you never expected him to, you are filled with goodwill.

It's all in what you make of it. There are plenty of big things in life that need attention. Recovering from heart stents and getting a fulltime job ranks high on that list.

But we tend to focus on the little problems and often make a big deal out of something that is small potatoes. So, when your partner in a football pool changes a pick and that costs you a possible win for the week, you shrug and just be happy that you have such a friend. You have a drink together. You laughingly tell her never to do it again. And then you move on.

You look forward to such events as Thanksgiving dinner at your sister-in-law's place. Not only is she a helluva cook, she is terrific company and a great, giving, caring human being. Yes, it's not the same without her mom being around. But the last thing Colleen would want is for anybody to mope. There's simply too much living and laughing to be done.

I guess what this means is we all can find things to grumble about. Some of them are even legitimate gripes. But tomorrow is the one day of the year where we are supposed to forget about that crap and reflect on the things we are truly grateful for. At least that is my intention.

After all, there are 362 other days (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day get passes, too) to mull over those problems.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Moving on ... slowly

2010-11-09T11:29:00.001-08:00

The car adventure is about to come to an end. Naturally, there were a few last bumps in the road but the end is clearly in sight.

After 3 1/2 weeks, the 2003 Alero was officially declared MIA. Farmer's told me the amount they were willing to give me for it. It was a fair figure and I accepted accordingly. The check was headed in the mail when the fun really began.

The day the check was due, I got a phone call. Seems the car had been found and was now residing the City of St. Paul police impound lot. Ironically, this call came on the same day I was due to have lunch with my wife Lynne and our friend Steph. It was supposed to be a celebration of sorts, an official acknowledgment my short personal nightmare was ending.

But there was the matter of the lost sheep. After lunch, Lynne and I headed to the police impound lot, one of the most depressing places I have ever visited. It is out on the edge of downtown. You take a few back roads that twist to and fro and you suddenly come across the place. There is no parking lot. You find a spot and hike to a back door. Then you have to climb up a set of stairs that reminded me of the movie "Psycho". Once upstairs, there is a guy behind a glass window so think a tank couldn't pierce it.

When we arrived, the poor fellow was catching hell from a fellow whose car had been towed there. The fellow was none too happy about it but whipped out his checkbook. The clerk informed him that this is a cash or charge place - no checks allowed. The guy threw a charge card at him, scribbled his name on a slip, and, after invoking the deity in a rather uncomplimentary fashion, stormed out.

We explained our presence there. We just wanted to look at the car. Hell, I didn't even have the keys anymore. They had been mailed back to Oklahoma City. After the clerk behind the tankproof window figured out I was serious about this mission, he sent me in the car's direction. There it was, lying in a ditch of sorts. There were scrapes on its head and toe. It was clear the miscreants who took it had tried to take the wheel coverings. Fortunately, they were not proficient in their field. Their efforts yielded only a few bruises. For some reason, they had apparently tried to take out the front window. They failed there, too ... unless you count the fact the rubber that holds everything together was no longer solidly in place.

The inside looked unchanged. Whatever they tried to do, they drove it as was and apparently didn't touch a thing.

I noted all this and called Farmers back. Tyler, my claims rep, listened in a state of disbelief. "I think this is the only the second time I have ever run across this," he said. "It's your choice. You can have the car back or keep the check and move on."

I pondered for a second. I loved that car. But god knows what these people did to it and god knows what may happen down the line. The devil you don't know is a scary thing. I took the money and ran.

Well, that settled one half of the problem. No I had to go another car. We checked out a couple of places. Lynne's cousin, a helluva good guy, worked at one of them. He had a couple of used cars that would be OK. I would have liked to make a deal for a new one but working part-time the past two years had not helped my credit history much. I could make a deal but the payment would have been ghastly.

My neighbor, also a good guy, opened a car place a while back. We went out there. I drove a car I instantly liked - a 2011 Malibu. But I was wary of what the financial terms might be. I haven't closed the door on that one yet but it is looking doubtful.

As it turned out, my new vehicle was almost within eyesight the whole time. A former boss of Lynne's lived on the street behind us. This woman has also been a longtime friend. As part of a new job, she also got a nifty company car. It mean her previous vehicle, a 2002 Escape, sat unused. She was willing to sell it to me if I wanted it. I had never driven anything that size on a regular basis. Took it for a spin and liked it but wanted to check out my options a little more.

While I am thinking about it, Lynne's friend said I could borrow it for a week as long as I behaved myself and gassed it up. Fair enough.

I went over late in the day to drive the car the one block trip home. Unfortunately, it took an hour and half to do so. You see, there is a ridge in her driveway that goes up three feet or so. When I backed up the car, I sent the tires dangling over the ridge. The car could neither go to or fro. It was in no danger of going anywhere in fact. 3 second after I had taken possession of the car, I was unable to drive it.

This is not a good start, I thought.

Sighing, I called AAA. The woman was polite but took some convincing this actually happened in the middle of the city and I wasn't hanging on for deal life on a country road somewhere. When the tow truck guy came, he suppressed a smile and went about his business. It took some moving of wood planks back and forth but the car was extricated from the mess I had placed it in.

Lynne's friend arrived home to this scene. She smiled, too. She told me I wasn't the first person to perform this feat. Lynne called, too, to see how things were going. I tried to explain it over the phone to her. She, too, was disbelieving. "I'm coming home right now," she said and hung up the phone.

When she got over to her friend's house, the rescue operation was going great guns. Lynne's friend took her inside and said it really was no big deal - it could happen to anybody.

My wife is a good, strong woman. She understood this could happen to anybody, She just wished I wasn't the anybody involved.

The AAA guy, however, knew his stuff. He expertly guided onto his back. The car was duly lowered into the street. I tipped him generously and roared off the block needed to get the car home.

And this is where we stand at the moment. I am leaning towards the 2002 Escape and will likely decide in a day or so. After our interesting start, however, I wonder what is up next.

It's over

2010-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Three weeks after the drama started, it's over. Got word from the insurance company today that a check is being cut for the cost of the stolen car. Now comes the hard part, finding a replacement. The top two candidates are a 2002 Escape and a 2000 Intrepid. Am not sure which way to go yet.

It was only a car ... wasn't it?

2010-10-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

This happened a week ago today and I am still a little stunned by it all. I had been invited to speak to a group of retired coaches, educators, officials and writers about my book "162-0" at a luncheon at DeGidios, a nifty restaurant on the edge of downtown St. Paul. I knew this was a friendly crowd. In fact, I had worked games at one time or another with several people in there.

When I had arrived at DeGidios, the parking lot was full. That's unusual but not unprecedented. Douglas St next to the restaurant looked fairly open. So were the side streets. I could park there and have just a short walk in and back from the restaurant.

I parked on Douglas and walked in. No problem so far.

The lunch was terrific. The speech seemed to go well. I sold several books afterwards.

I walked back outside thinking life was pretty good.

Until ...

I walked up on Douglas and couldn't find my car. I thought for a second. Didn't I park here by this big tree? Or did I decide to go back on the side street? I walked back and forth. No gray 2003 Alero could be seen. What the hell happened?

Or, as the youth of today are wont to text, OMG.

I walked slowly up Douglas pondering what to do. Then I saw a sign I had missed before. It was behind a hanging tree branch but it was clear as day "NO PARKING 6 a.m. - 6 p.m."

Nuts. I parked in the wrong area. Damn thing got towed.

I sighed and called the general police number. After a couple of false starts, I finally got to somebody who could help me. She checked their lists and told me, "No, we didn't ticket or tow you." Just in case, though, she gave me the impound number. I called that number. No, they didn't have my car, either.

Now what? I thought of Joe, my insurance guy ,but couldn't remember his number. I didn't have it among my cell phone regular calls. I walked back into DeGidios and asked the bartender for a phone book. She looked at me incredulously, saying"Oh, we throw all those away. Sorry."

I sighed. I called my wife, my sister-in-law and a friend to see if they could look up his number on the internet for me.

No luck. None of them were in their office.

So I gritted my teeth and called Directory Assistance from my cell phone. The first woman sent me in a direction I knew was wrong. I knew Joe's phone number started with a 6. I tried again and this time, got the correct number. Talked to Joe and he gave me a few numbers to call to get the ball rolling. he then told me to call the police back and get a report started.

I did so. The woman at the desk was a bit incredulous but agreed (reluctantly, it seemed to me) to send a car out. I walked back and forth on Douglas, hoping my car would re-appear.

No luck. In due time, the officer came and took down my stuff. She was very nice and comforting. Turned out we had a mutual acquaintance. Turned out further we both had tickets to the Twins' game the next night. We took a quick tour around the area to see if the car had simply been moved to another area and abandoned.

No luck. She gave a ride home, causing quite a stir in the hood. My neighbor told his wife, "Either he has been in an accident or somebody stole his car." Smart man.

I called the insurance people. First things first, They arranged to get me a rental car and told me I could keep it for up the three weeks. I was then asked what of value was in my now-gone car.

I thought for a second. "Not much. Just a few cds," I said. But then I thought some more. I had bought new tires in March. There were a couple of books in the trunk. There was an autographed baseball as well. Fortunately, I had taken my golf clubs out a day or two before. Sometimes I leave my checkbook in there, But this wasn't one of those days. Still, the losses added up a bit.

Then I remembered something else. Before I went to lunch, I had purchased a lottery ticket and placed it in the visor. The bastards not only had my car but they might have riches beyond their (and mine) wildest dreams. If true, how cold I prove otherwise?

Tyler, my national contact, laughed when I told him that. "That's a new one for me," he said. But then he told me not to worry. I could always go back to the store where it was bought to prove where it came from. Now where was that again ...? (Proved not to be so. At least not a big one.)

Tyler sent me a lot of forms, though and I went to work filling them out. He told me I had to wait a week to file things. That's today so the paperwork express is now in full gear.

What happens from here is fairly straightforward. The insurance company declares the car was worth a certain amount of money. They buy it from me and we move on. The car has probably been chopped to pieces already. I may have seen parts of my car go by me the last couple of days and not even know it.

Of course, the car can and will be replaced. But the fact is I liked that car very much. It was the first brand new car I had ever purchased. (Had 40 miles on it when I bought it.) It had been reliable in winter and summer. The MPG was very good. It was comfortable. As the saying goes, they don't make 'me like that anymore. (Absolutely true. Aleros are no longer built.) I will miss that car a lot.

I can buy more CDs. It will be costly and irritating but it can be done. I can get more books. The material things can and will be replaced.

Life will go on.

But there is still this terrible realization. Somebody now knows where I live. They know my taste in music. They will probably discover a receipt or two I had forgotten about. So they know where I like to go to eat and drink. This information is not that hard to find. But I would prefer to be the one who gives that info out.

There is a SOB (or DOB - sadly, such thievery is not restricted by gender) who stole a part of my life last week. Worse, I can't do a damn thing about it. Family and friends have remarked how well I have taken this intrusion. Turns out I may have faking it fairly well. Fact is, I am really ticked off about this. It was an uncivil, unkind and simply unfair thing to do. I think I hate the person who did this and really do wish him (her) ill will.

As crimes, I understand this is small potatoes compared to murders, assaults and robberies. I am not trying to overstate the loss or make a bad comparison.

But I can't help saying something that I thought I would never say this about a material item.

I feel violated.

So just what are they thinking away?

2010-09-29T11:17:00.001-07:00

The other day, I heard Sammy Davis' song "Talk to the Animals" on the radio. The song is nonsense, of course. But I found myself wondering if they could talk, what would animals say?

Take this morning, for example. The Happy Dog and I were taking our usual stroll through the neighborhood. The colors are turning quickly this week. That means leaves are falling, too. When that happens, The Happy Dog's nose goes into overdrive. He was sniffing, pooping and peeing up a storm this morning. I found myself wondering just what the hell is going on in that mind of his anyway. At one point, he suddenly veered off the sidewalk into the street to smell what looked like a tiny leaf. The Happy Dog checked it out from all angles before he was satisfied. We resumed walking for about 10 feet when he suddenly stopped and headed back to the leaf. After sniffing it again, he fired and scored a direct hit.

Question: Why did he return?

Answer: He didn't say. But he sure looked happy about it.

As we continued enjoying the sun, I was suddenly aware of a noise in front of me. It was a squirrel chattering excitedly. Nobody else was around. I saw no nests anywhere. The Happy Dog looked up in surprise and growled under his breath. I had the impression they were having some type of conversation about something. But it reminded me of high school Latin class. I had no idea what the hell was going on.

I would have liked to ask The Happy Dog to explain himself a bit when he does such things. There are other curiosities I wish I understood. One of my favorites is the Phantom Pee. In the winter (when there is snow on the ground), he gets busted on this. Now I can only suspect why he stopped, lifted his leg and nothing appears to come out.

There were other oddities today. We have a small woodpecker who makes cameo appearances in the neighborhood. This morning, he was perched on a telephone pole. But he wasn't pecking. He seemed to be staring at something. When I went a little farther, I saw it was a squirrel in a nearby tree. I can't imagine he envisioned this as his breakfast. I wish I knew what was going on there.

As we were finishing our stroll, I was suddenly aware of rustling in a nearby yard. I looked in surprise to see a rabbit (at least I THINK it was a rabbit) in hot pursuit of a cat. I had never seen such a thing before. I wondered whether the cat grabbed something the rabbit had found because (in my brief glance) it seemed like something was sticking out of the edge of his mouth. The cat streaked past us and shot across Grotto St. at warp speed. The rabbit suddenly stopped on the sidewalk as if to watch out for cars. By the time (s) he looked up again, the cat was long gone. At this juncture, The Happy Dog suddenly spotted the rabbit and was interested in joining the chase. I grabbed the leash as hard as I could to stop this idea and received a nasty, angry look in return. The rabbit, not taking any chances, bolted into a nearby yard and was gone in a flash. The Happy Dog was not thrilled with me and promptly sat down on the sidewalk. He needed a solid reminder to get moving again.

Once home, he didn't even stay for his customary treat. Instead, he zipped to the back door and wanted to get back outside. Again, I would have loved to ask him what was the problem.

Like kids, our animals seem to forget their woes easily. The Happy Dog returned to form an hour later when out friend Steph came by to drop some stuff off. The Happy Dog knows Steph loves him but doesn't like dog kisses. Still, he tries to sneak one in when he can. Normally, it doesn't work. Today, however, he slipped one in and then romped happily into the back yard. I suspect he was quite pleased with himself.

Sammy had it right. I wish we could converse with our animals. I suspect we might not like everything we hear. But we would learn some things.

Farewell to summer

2010-09-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

It was so cold Sunday morning that I was forced to turn on the heat for a couple of hours. By mid-day, however, the sun was shining brightly and it was time to open all the windows. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. I was in the midst of my final battle of the summer with a longtime foe/rival/comrade -- the golf course.

For reasons I can't exactly say, I enjoy playing golf. It is a mysterious game in many ways. I know some guys who look very unathletic but can hit a ball 300 yards and not break a sweat. I also know some folks who are superb athletes who couldn't make a three-foot putt if their life depended on it.

I am basically in the latter category ... minus the superb athlete part.

If I break 100 for 18 holes (or 50 for nine), it is a terrific day in North America. Most days start out like yesterday. I was playing in a tournament organized by my neighbor. The format is unique. He makes four level of players. The A level are the guys with the lowest handicaps, followed by B, C and D players. Us 30 handicapper types take out seats at the back of the bus. Then he does a draw to make sure each four-player team has one guy from each level.

Out we go to do battle. Unlike a lot of tournaments where it is either a scramble (everybody hits shots but you only keep one score) or a best-ball format, we keep the top three scores on each hold here. What inevitably happens is that a hack like me will find water in the desert at some point. After several holes of miserable drives, horrendous chips and laughably bad putts, I suddenly found a rhythm.

Okay, it wasn't exactly the type of stuff you see on network TV. It was only a bogey instead of a double bogey. Later, I strung together a hot run of bogey-par-bogey-par-bogey. My timing was good. One of the pars came on a hole when our A player dumped a ball into a forest. My rare moment of mediocrity saved the score for the hole. (Unable to stand prosperity, I reverted to form and contributed a snowman -- that's an 8 for non-golfers -- down the stretch. Fortunately, my partners were up to the cause on that hole and my score -- complete with a four putt effort from 10 feet away -- was dutifully ignored.)

When all was said and done, we had managed to team up at the right time and ended up winning the tournament. My final score of 102 was perfectly within my usual standards. There were a lot of people who scored better and even a few who scored worse.

In the end, I have to remind myself that scoring isn't the most important thing when on the golf course. Oh, we all have out competitive moments. Yesterday, I stared disgustedly and muttered "Sacre bleu" (or some such thing) after a second consecutive two-foot putt curved away from the hole. My mood improved considerably on the next hole when I rolled in a nifty 15-footer to save a par. It's that kind of game.

No, what golf is to me is simply an extension of summer. I am not a fan of winter play. I don't have a desire to wear a parka when I am putting. I am simply not good enough to put up with trying to hit a drive 200 yards while wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Golf is spending time away from your troubles. It is blanking out cell phones and not worrying about when you are going to cut the lawn. It is walking and chatting with friends and enjoying sunshine. It is a spa without the hot water circling around you.

As we head towards October here in the heartland, the time has come to put the clubs in their winter home. If we lived in Las Vegas, I might be a better golfer because I would probably play more. But I don't necessarily know if I would enjoy it more.

When I got up yesterday morning and saw frost on the windshield, I wasn't at all sure that playing golf was a good idea. My first three or four holes were dreadful and extremely unfun to play. Then I remembered why I was there. I simply relaxed, enjoyed making jokes and telling stories with my partners, and (not uncoincidentally) played a little better. I began to enjoy what may be the last great weather Sunday of the year around these parts. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend it.

But now that it is done, I am okay with putting the weapons away and moving on. The memory of the sunny Sunday is enough to get me through the next six months.

At least I hope so.

I meet myself

2010-09-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

I write what is supposed to be the sports column for the Villager newspaper in St. Paul. Most of the time, I deal with games and the people who play them. Every now and then, however, my editor gives me a little leeway to veer off base a bit. This is one of those times.

This is the column I will be running next week. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had.

One of Rod Serling’s best efforts in the old “Twilight Zone” series was a tale about a fellow returning to the city where he grew up. In the show, Gig Young played an unhappy New York City ad executive who said he just needed to get away from the hubbub of the big city and return to the town where he grew up. He finds himself at a gas station about a mile away and decides to walk to his old town. As only Serling could present it, Young finds himself transported back in time to when he was a boy. At one point, he sees himself as a 10-year old carving his name into a post.

It has long been considered one of Serling’s top literary efforts but it clearly was intended as a fantasy. At least I thought so until the other day. Now I am not so sure.

Read on and decide for yourself.

It started on a sunny Saturday in Stillwater. I was there for a booksigning of my tome “162-0”, the historical fantasy of how the Minnesota Twins mange a perfect season. A young fellow sat down on the chair opposite me with a book in hand.

“Would you like to me autograph that for you?” I asked.

He nodded his head shyly.

“What’s your name?” I asked.“Ari,” he replied softly. After a couple of hard seconds of thought, he added, “I am a baseball fan.”

Turned out Ari was slightly more than a baseball fan. He is a pitcher and a first baseman for a team called the Minneapolis Millers. “I’m better at pitching, though,” he said. “I’m not that good of a hitter.”

“Do you want to be a ballplayer when you grow up?” I asked. “Either that or an announcer. That’s where some guys go when they aren’t good enough to play anymore,” he said.

“Do you have a favorite pitcher?” I asked, expecting to hear him say Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn or some other members of the Twins’ staff.

“Jon Lester,” came the reply. “I’m lefthanded like he is. But the real reason I like him is because he has beaten back cancer.” The idea that a young boy knew would even use the term “beaten back cancer” threw me a bit. The fact that this fellow knew this was even more surprising. Ari, however, was just warming up. “I’m a Red Sox fan,” he said proudly. “I like the way they play the game.”

And so it went for the next half hour or so. Ari allowed that he also liked the way the Twins play. “They’re ahead 4-2 today,” he informed me. “Valencia hit a home run.” That particular fact had occurred roughly five minutes before I entered the store.

There was only one way Ari could have known this. “So your mom lets you listen to ballgames on the radio in the car,” I said.
Ari nodded. “We have a deal,” he explained. “When my sister and I are in the car with mom, I get to listen to the ball game one way and she gets to hear her music the other way.”

“How is it you got to listen to the game coming out here today?” I asked.

“My sister didn’t realize the game will be over by the time we get back to the car,” Ari replied.

Later in the conversation, Ari showed himself to be a true Red Sox fan. “I don’t like the way the Yankees always buy their players,” he said. “But what about (Derek) Jeter, (Jorge) Posada and (Mariano) Rivera?” I protested. “They came up through their system.”Ari fixed an evil eye in return. “That was a long time ago,” he replied. “They stopped doing that.”

The conversation continued. “What do you think of the Twins’ playoff chances this year?” I asked. Ari pondered this for a minute. “They’ll do fine if they can get a lead into the seventh innings. They have enough closers to take them home from there. I’m not sure about some of those starters, though. They got enough hitting, though.”

Now it was Ari’s turn to ask questions. “Do you think Gonzalez will win the Triple Crown?” he asked. I looked up in surprise. There may not be 500 people in Minnesota who know who the hell Carlos Gonzalez is or the fact he plays for the Colorado Rockies. But this kid not only knew that but he was aware he has an outside chance to become the first National League in 73 years to win the batting, home run and RBI titles.

“I don’t think he can catch (Albert) Pujols for the home run lead,” I said. (At the time, Pujols led him by six.) Ari conceded the point. “Probably not,” he said. “He is striking out more than before.”

I looked it up. Gonzalez already 25 more whiffs than last year. This kid is pretty good.

I decided to try one last gambit. “My wife and her sister are going to Las Vegas next week,” I said. “Who should they bet on?”
The reply came back rapidfire. “The Phillies probably have the best club (in the National League) but Cincinnati is a good bet,” my new-found sage said.

“Who do you like in the American League?” I asked. Ari made a face. “Well, the Yankees have the most talent,” he sighed. Looking directly at my sister-in-law, he added, “But you’ll get better odds on the Twins. And they could win it if their pitching holds up.”

I wondered how in the world this boy, who said he was 10, showed more wisdom than some adults I know. I resolved to find out why. “Ari, when I was a kid, I used to scan the boxscores in the paper for all the games,” I said. “Do you do that?”
“No,” he said. “I go online to mlb.com every day.” (Silently, I thought to myself it was a good thing the internet and cable TV wasn’t around when I was his age. My mother might have lost her mind.)

A tall woman suddenly stood behind Ari’s chair. It was his mother, who signaled it was time to move on. “You have a terrific son,” I said to her. “We’ve been having a lot of fun talking baseball.” Ari’s mom smiled, “He has a lot of passion.”

I told her that my wife once asked me how was it that I could name the starting lineup of the 1961 Detroit Tigers but would forget to take out the trash. My reply wasn’t very helpful: “I don’t have a passion for the trash.”

Ari said his goodbyes. I told him if he ever wrote a book to let me know. I wanted an autographed copy. His mother smiled again. “He’ll remember,” she said. “He remembers everything about baseball.” As Ari walked out the door, I found myself flashing back to the memory of a young boy who once patiently explained to his mother why the Detroit Tigers were nuts to trade away Charley Maxwell for a guy named Bob Farley.

I turned to my sister-in-law, who had watched this conversation with appropriate bemusement. “I think I just met myself at age 10,” I said, somewhat in awe.

My sister-in-law smiled, “I hope you were that polite. Did you notice how he looked you in the eye when he talked?” I sighed in response, “My mother used to tell me to do that. Come to think of it, your sister tells me to do that now. Glad to see I’m getting better at it.”

Lion legacy lives on

2010-09-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was attending an afternoon dinner at Mancini's when I got a text from my friend Steph.

"Your team just got robbed."

I wandered out to the bar where the NFL games were being shown. The poor Detroit Lions -- my longtime, long-suffering home team had been putting up a stiff fight in their season opener at Chicago, a game that was being shown on local television. Something awful must have happened to them at the end to cause somebody to send me a text like that.

But the TV showed the Packers playing at Philadelphia. I approached the bartender. "How did the Lion game end up?", I asked. The bartender made a face. "It was awful - maybe the worst thing I have ever seen."

Back story:

In their history, the Lions have lost games in just about every way possible. There was a game when Errol Mann missed seven field goals in a three-point loss to the Vikings. On another occasion, the Lions seemed poised to record a rare win at Met Stadium against the Vikings. All Mann had to do was hit a short field goal on the last play of the game. Instead, the kick was blocked.

Another loss on the books.

There was that dreary day in New Orleans in 1970 when Tom Dempsey -- he of the half right foot, kicked a NFL record 63-yard field goal on the last play of the game. Curses. Foiled again.

(Somehow, that Lion team made the playoffs. They held a very good Dallas team to one field goal all game. Unfortunately, they never scored themselves and gave up a safety for a weird 5-0 loss.)

The next year, real tragedy struck. Chuck Hughes, a rarely used wide receiver, had caught a pass as part of a late rally against the Bears. Then, he ran a pattern on a play he wasn't involved in. He suddenly fell at the feet of Dick Butkus, the monster linebacker for the Bears.

Dead. Heart attack at age 26. The doctor who did the autopsy said he had the heart of a 70-year old man. Unbelievable.

So what could have possibly happened this time? Nobody could quite describe it at Mancini's. The best I got was Detroit had a TD taken away in the final minute.

An hour later, my wife and I headed to out favorite local saloon to meet friends.

"You better sit down first," Steph said.

"You're not going to believe this one," said Billy Leitner, the genial proprietor of the place.

"You're going to need a Grand Marnier," said Sharon Kelly, the best waitserver in town who works at O'Gara's and Billy's place and is my partner in a weekly pool.

Slowly, the story began to emerge. Turns out Matthew Stafford, the QB who was given a ton of cash and was starting to show stuff, went out with an injury in the first half. Despite that (and being outgained by nearly 300 yards), it appeared Detroit had finally stole a game on the road when Calvin Johnson made a terrific catch in the corner of the end zone with seconds remaining.

Alas, after falling to the ground, Johnson rolled over and the ball came out of his hand. After a lengthy review, it was decided this really was not a catch because, the referee said " He didn't finish the process."

What the hell did that mean? Steph, Billy and Sharon tried mightily to explain it to me. As one of only two Lions fans they know, they did their best to comfort me. After three drinks, however, the explanations made less and less sense. The only logical thing seemed to me to go home and find this play on line somewhere.

We did just that. After viewing it a few dozen times, I have decided the following:

1) The referee's explanation was (at the time, and still is) utter nonsense. Johnson caught the ball. After doing so, he falls on his butt and his knees. It was roughly 3-4 seconds later that the ball did come out of Johnson's hand. Had this play happened at midfield, nobody would have ever said a word.

2) The NFL simply doesn't give a rip about teams that don't help them much. This is a league based on marketing first and foremost. That means the glamor teams get the spotlight and the majority of the calls. This isn't a conspiracy rant. It is a simple fact. The NFL is only interested in the teams that will get them big ratings on TV and, hence, more money down the line from the networks. Clubs like the Lions are simply collateral material to the league.

3) Had this play occurred to, say, the Cowboys or Patriots, the league would have simply gulped hard and moved on. Yes, the NFL knows the Cowboys will lose occasionally as happened last night. (Yes, there was a key penalty at the end of last night's game on Dallas. But the foul was so flagrant that Ray Charles would have called it.)

4) The Lions are definitely the most cursed team in the NFL. This play simply couldn't have occurred to anybody else.

A day later, all a fellow can do is shake his head, sigh and move on. The word today is that Stafford has a shoulder injury and may be out of action for several weeks.

Can't imagine what will happen to them next week.

Doing battle with a weedwhacker

2010-09-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

It sounded like a simple task. My wife asked to go get a line installed for our weedwhacker. Instead of getting down on my hands and knees and clipping the loose grass strains, I would simply install the line into something we already had (but rarely used) and let nature take its course.

Our friend Steph reported great success using it when she stayed at our house a while back.

What could be simpler?

Getting right kind of wire for the Black and Decker Grass Hog Type 3 (its formal name) was no problem. The thing uses something that is slightly stronger and a little thicker than fishing line. Price was okay ($4.99) and the nice man at the hardware store showed how to unscrew the lid and install the wire.

Alas, I didn't get around to actually doing it until some 21 hours later. By then, I had forgotten a few things.

First, the good news. I did manage to get the lid off.

Then, it was a matter of placing the wire through a tiny slot and then wrapping it around the small wheel. I remembered the guy at the hardware store said not to use too much wire - just enough for 3 or 4 rotations. Only problem was that was a little hard to gauge. I ended up with enough wire for five or six rotations. But since I didn't want to waste any wire, I used it all.

When you have big fingers, threading a wire through a narrow hole isn't easy to do. After about a dozen false tries, however, success was achieved. The next problem was wrapping the wire around the spool. Easier said than done. Seems the wire is pretty stiff and simply wouldn't stay in place.

No problem, I thought. I would simply bend it under the first trip around the dial. Well, that worked wonderfully until ... I discovered I had wrapped the wire so tight that I could not place it through the tiny eyesocket so it actually could whack grass.

One broken fingernail later, I had undone what my first effort. I repeated the procedure but left enough wire to easily get through the eyesocket.

I went to work clipping grass at a glorious, brisk pace ... for about 15 seconds. That is all it took for the line to evaporate into thin air.

You see, the line was simply supposed to basically let itself out when needed -- much like what happens with a fishing reel.. But it can't do that when the guy who put it together wrapped the line tightly under another strand. When I unscrewed the cap to check this problem out, the whole thing - line, wheel and the mechanism holding it all together -- popped out. This surprised me so much I also dropped the whacker. Pete, the Happy Dog, was watching closely.

Damn near too closely.

Whacker missed him by about a foot. (Granted, the thing is made out of plastic. Still, that would have hurt.) Pete wisely bolted for the back of the yard and stayed there for 10 minutes or so.

Fortunately, plastic doesn't break easily. I was able to put everything back together. Cut some more line, gave it enough slack around the wheel and confidently place a new line in the eyesocket. Started things up and went back to work.

We have a series of rocks that line our backyard. Getting between them to extinguish strands of grass the mower missed requires deft, patience and agility. On this day, I was only lacking three of those qualities. The line kept bouncing off the rocks and missing its target. In an attempt to get closer and hit just the right angle, I stepped on the long cord that had been plugged in to get my whacker its needed juice. (it's an electric thing)

Cord went one way. I went another and the whacker headed in a third direction. Fortunately, Pete had retreated to a different corner to watch the proceedings.

We gathered everything up and tried to restart. Only I had stepped on the cord so hard that I bent the plug. Couldn't bend it back with my hands so I tried a pliers. That helped but it still couldn't fit the hole. So I went in the garage and got a hammer. One good whack later, the plug was as straight as ever and we proceeded back to work.

This time, things fared better. The line worked like a charm. I stayed away from stepping on the cord. Shortly thereafter, mission accomplished.

All in all, I spent about 75 minutes on this project. Roughly 10 of those minutes were used to do the actual cutting of the loose grass.

Can't wait until I try to use the snow blower.

The great state fair

2010-08-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

My first visit was on my first night at college ... nearly 40 years ago. They bundled a bunch of freshmen into a bus and dropped us off at the Minnesota State Fair. In three hours, they said they would pick us up again.

That's all it took -- three hours to fall in love.

Damn near every state has a fair of some sort. It is an uniquely American tradition. (My friend Steph Harris says the county fair near where she grew up in northern New York is actually bigger and better than the state fair in Syracuse.)

The Minnesota fair isn't far from our house. It is a marvel to see. Think of the oddest food you can name -- something that would never appear in a grocery store (like elephant ears) and you'll find it here. It has the usual elements - a fun Midway, a place called Ye Olde Mill where couples can ride a canoe in (for the most part) the dark for a few minutes, animal exhibits, arcades, fun houses, a rollercoaster, etc.

But where this fair makes its mark is the many unusual exhibits - such as a Butterfly House and Machinery Hill - where people get to check out tractors, motorcycles and fireplaces.

On a day like today (high 70s and sunny), the place will be packed to the brim.

They used to run horse and car races here. They stopped that a while back but they have great outdoor concerts at a big venue (Tim McGraw tonite) and smaller ones with groups like the great Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at others.

But the biggest thing is the people watching. It is the one place where people seem to go to forget their troubles. Oh, politicians have their booths here. But none of them seem to do a booming business. People go to the fair to forget about that sort of stuff. They want to eat mini-doughnuts and cheese curds at their own pace. They want to simply walk outside and enjoy the last days of summer before school starts.

The most amazing thing to me about the fair is that, even though 100,000 plus people walk through the gates every day and the place is huge, you still manage to run into an astounding amount of people you know. Old classmates, old workmates, old girlfriends. You tend to forget your past issues and complaints. You simply smile, walk at your own pace and enjoy the sights and sounds of the place.

In this fast-moving complicated world with cellphones, dvd players, computers, etc., it is a nice break.

Frankly, we need more of these diversions. But this one will do nicely for now.

A heckuva night at the ballpark

2010-08-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

As noted earlier, I recently celebrated my 50-year anniversary of attending major league baseball games. With the White Sox in town and the pennant race afoot, it seemed like a good time to start on year 51. Accordingly, I was at Target Field last night with a dear friend and former co-worker whose only known drawback is being an Avowed Yankee Fan. (Being a New York native, she gets a pass, though, on this one.)

Neither one of us are Twins' types but we know and appreciate good baseball when we see it. A little over three hours after we arrived, we left somewhat exhausted after a rollicking affair that ended with a bombastic home run in the 10th inning.

Although most of the media buzz around town was the news that a certain elderly, gray-haired quarterback was spotted entering the Vikings' digs in Eden Prairie, there were 40,000 of us who were on hand for one of the most rousing ballgames I have seen in years.

As the AYF noted, more people than usual were in their seats at the start of the game. Good thing, too. The locals started fast with a pair of home runs in the first inning en route to a 4-0 lead. The White Sox, three games behind in the standings and skidding fast, snapped back with three quick runs to tighten the game. And we were off and running the rest of the night.

Baseball doesn't often go like this. When it does, the game can become a whirling dervish and players sometimes amaze themselves. Take Minnesota OF Jason Kubel, for example.. On many occasions, Kubel looks at fly balls like a man fighting bees. In the 3rd inning on this night, however, he took off immediately in hot pursuit of a shot up the alley. Not only did he make a great catch, he quickly flipped the ball to CF Denard Span and nearly nailed Chicago's speedy Juan Pierre scampering back to first.

In the bottom of that inning, Jim Thome, a lumbering sort was standing on first base with two out when Danny Valencia launched a ball high off the wall in right field. Thomas runs like an out of control moose and headed home at what qualifies for him as full blast. But the Sox executed a perfect relay and nailed him for the final out of the inning. Have you ever heard 40,000 people go quiet at once? It's weird.

Chicago tied it up in the fourth but Minnesota's Delmon Young, in the midst of a terrific season, untied matters with a line shot into the left field seats.

It was still 5-4 in the 8th. Young was on third with one out when J.J. Hardy rapped a ground ball to second, Young broke for the plate but seemed out by 10 feet. No matter. He stiffarmed Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, causing another roar from the stands. For some reason, Pierzynski, who started his career with the Twins, gets booed unmercifully every time he is here. The crowd may have been puzzled as to Young's motives but they liked the idea anyway. (They may think otherwise later. Players have long memories. There will be a moment down the line when a game is out of hand and Mr. Young will get a chance to see the logo of a baseball quite closely. Let's note ahead of time that he will deserve this visit.)

It was still 5-4 when we began a memorable 9th inning. Matt Capps, the closer acquired from Washington a month ago, entered to save the night for the locals. Alexei Ramirez silenced the majority of the crowd instantly when he hit a laser shot into the left field seats. It might be the hardest line drive home run I have ever seen. At first, I thought it hit somebody in the head and bounced back into play. But, no, it was a fan who picked up the ball and nearly threw it from the left field bleachers to shortstop in disgust.

It looked like the Sox might win it right there when they loaded the bases with one out and their best hitter, Paul Konerko, at the plate. But Capps induced the big man to hit into a double play to end the threat.

At this point, the AYF observed something both of us had missed. It was roughly 10:00 p.m., normally the time when many Twins fans get up and leave no matter what the score. Not this time, though. They seemed to sense we were about to witness something memorable.

They were right.

The 10th inning was really something. With one out and nobody on, we suddenly saw a young boy, age 12 or so, sprint from his seat near the left field line out towards Young. The kid stopped short, got on his knees, waved his arms back and forth and bowed down a couple of times. He then ran back to his seat, which was only a section and a few rows from us. The security guards weren't fooled. They ran over to him and informed the lad he had witnessed his last pitch in person. The really weird part is it looked like he was there with his mother and a couple of siblings. They seem puzzled this intrusion wasn't appreciated by the guards ... although the crowd around us roared with pleasure.

I asked the AYF what would have happened if, as a youth attending games at Yankee Stadium, she would have done such an action. I can't remember the particulars of the answer but the general impression was there might be some horsewhipping involved.

This interruption may have inspired the Sox, who promptly pieced together three straight singles for a 6-5 lead. For all the world, it looked like the visitors were about to make a huge statement that the AL Central race was really up for grabs after all. Considering the hullabaloo caused by the visit of the grey-haired gentleman at Vikings' HQ, the AYF and I agreed that, if the school held, this game might end up on page 5 of the sports section today.

I still had this thought when Young led off the bottom of the 10th with a single. Thome strode to the plate. On the first pitch, the lumberjack took a mighty swing ... and missed the ball by a foot. Undaunted, he repeated this gesture and nearly knocked the ball into 4th St. for a game-winning home run.

The grey- haired fellow who garnered most of the headlines in the papers today (and, likely, for weeks to come) should only hope he ever gets cheered this loudly this year. Five minutes after the game, people were still yelling. The AYF and I agreed that it was one of the most astounding things we have ever seen on a diamond... even though our personal teams were not involved at all.

It may be tough to top that one. But the beauty of baseball is there is always another day.

A truly golden anniversary

2010-08-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, I celebrate a golden anniversary. It will be 50 years ago that I attended my first major league baseball game. it was a twi-night doubleheader between the Milwaukee Braves and the Cincinnati Reds at wonderful old Crosley Field.

Even a hardcore like me can't remember too many of the details. Thanks to a wonderful site called retrosheet.org, I can report I witnessed the first of hard throwing Jim Maloney's 134 major league wins in a 5-3 decision in the opener. I did remember that my distant cousin Wally Post hit a home run and knocked in four runs. (Guess who the Reds' second baseman was? None other than the volatile Billy Martin.)

I remembered Cincinnati won both games. But I confess I didn't call Bob Purkey, who was a pretty good pitcher for a dozen years or so, tossing a rarity -- a 11-hit shutout in a 4-0 second game win.

(I was only seven years old and would like to think I stayed until the end. My suspicion, however, is Aunt Ida convinced Uncle Cletus that we needed to go home before it was all over. But I digress.)

50 years later, however, I do remember some things as if it were yesterday. I remember the excitement when I saw the lights of the ballpark from I-75 (Oldtimers might remember it as the Millcreek Expressway). I remember the sign for the exit for Crosley Field and damn near peeing my pants as we got close to the park.

Uncle Cletus worked for the Dayton Daily News for years. He had wrangled some great seats -- a couple of rows behind third base. As luck would have it, I had a great view for what happened in the seventh inning. Frank Robinson - perhaps the best player I ever personally play - hit a booming shot that bounced off the big scoreboard in center field. Robinson could really run and, seeing the ball bounce away from Hank Aaron in center field (yes, he was a center fielder that night), decided to take a shot at an inside the park home run. As he got around third base, his feet got tangled up with Braves 3B Eddie Matthews and he fell to the ground. The throw came in and Robinson was tagged out.

That was not the end of the action. Robinson must have thought Matthews tripped him because he came up swinging. I remember it being a pretty good fight. I seem to recall Matthews got the better of it. No matter. Both of them got kicked out of the game. For a seven-year old to see something like that in his first big league game was really something.

Until I went to Retrosheet, I didn't remember Purkey pitching the nightcap but I can see Robinson's home run to left field (off Carlton Willey) like it just happened. It was a high, majestic drive that easily cleared the big screen in left field and may have landed in the front window of the old laundry that was just across the freeway. It's still one of the longest home runs I have ever seen. My only other memory is Robinson absolutely glared at Matthews as he rounded third base. This time, however, there were no punches thrown.

It was the start of a love affair at the ballpark that hasn't gone away to this day. Even if I am going to a day game, I still get excited when I see the lights of my destination. That means I am close to going back into another shrine. It doesn't matter if it a truly historic place like Yankee Stadium (I got to see one game there) or a bland place like the late, unlamented Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. They are all places where a person can put their troubles aside for a few hours and just enjoy baseball.

I recently passed another anniversary. On August 11, 1968, I entered Tiger Stadium at 11:30 a.m. to watch batting practice prior to a key twinbill between the Tigers and the Red Sox. I left nine hours and 35 minutes later, exhausted after seeing Detroit rally for a 14-inning win in the opener and a four-run ninth inning gamewinning rally in the second game. I am not sure I could last that long today but it sure was fun that day.

My wife summarized my feelings about baseball neatly a while back. She says this conversation happened early in our marriage. I don't remember it but I believe it to be true.

She: "How come you can remember baseball games you went to when you were a kid but you can't remember to take out the garbage?"

Me: "Because I don't have a passion for the garbage."

In case she (or anybody else is wondering), here is the answer for how long this has been going. Come Sunday, it will be exactly 50 years. Not every game was a classic. Not every game had a great fight to it or a memorable finish. But I enjoyed seeing all of them ... and am looking forward to what is ahead in the next 50 years.

Farewell to a mentor

2010-07-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

One of the detriments of getting older is the sad realization that people who were (or still are) important to you in your life eventually pass away. On the day I headed north for a week at a lodge in northern Minnesota, the man who perhaps did more to save me from heading down life's wrong paths, passed away in his sleep.

Fr. Cullen was 94 and lost his sight a couple of years ago. He would probably be the first to say he was ready to go. he certainly had earned the right to rest forever.

Still, I couldn't help but feed a little sad at his passing.

Fr. Cullen ran the Residence Hall at Assumption when I was in high school. The boarders came from all over the place. There were guys like myself, a Detroiter who had been sent there to get disciplined in my studies. There were guys like Marc Boisvert, a wonderful hockey player who hailed from the tiny fishing village of Chapleau, Ontario. And there were a ton of guys in-between.

Running that group alone would be more than enough work. But Fr. Cullen also was the head of the English Department at Assumption. He was also the head coach for hockey and baseball while I was there. No man ever ran his team with a tougher but fairer stick.

The stories are, of course, endless and could fill up a rainy week.

Today, though, I prefer to remember what the man did for me. He pushed me hard in the areas he knew I had skill in. He gingerly guided me away from things I liked but either didn't know how to do or simply wasn't very good at.

I wanted to play hockey in the worst way. Unfortunately, that is exactly how I played the game. My wife met Fr. Cullen once and asked him what kind of player I was. He smiled and said, "He meant well."

But he saw that there was a way I could contribute to the team. So, he made me the team manager. When we started playing games in the old Windsor Arena, he told me that I could run the clock and do the public address work. He gave me no direct instructions as how to do this, though. (His only advice: "Listen to that guy who does the games at Maple Leaf Gardens. Be that precise." It's advice I have never forgotten and try to emulate to this day.)

That was Fr. Cullen's genius. He wanted you to figure stuff out for yourself.

As a coach, he ran his team hard. As early as 1970, we taped games. I remember one day going in to watch the tape of a 6-0 win over rival Brennan High School. Fr. Cullen kept stopping the tape and pointing out plays that could have gone wrong. The fact that they didn't wasn't important. He wanted his team to get a little better every game.

After a tough loss, he never berated anybody. He understood this wasn't the time or place. I remember a playoff game at Galt. Tom Morse, our goalie, misplayed a puck and turned what should have been an icing into a goal. We eventually lost, 4-3. There was no need to rip Tom a new one. Later on (after we could smile about it) he simply said to Tom, "I bet you will never make that mistake again." I'm betting Tom never did.

He was a man of sharp opinions and could tear your head off is you screwed up. At the same time, he could be gentle. One fine Friday in May, he pulled me out of a classroom. He told me I needed to go home right now. Bob Spillard, a neighbor and a family friend (who, ironically, had attended Assumption himself), was there. He would tell me what was going on. As I was getting into the car, I heard Father say to Bob, "Don't bring him back until you think he is ready."

My mom was dying in a hospital. I went there for one last visit. She passed away early the next morning. When I returned to school a week later, Father simply pulled me aside and said, "If you feel the need to break down, go to your room to do so." At the time, I thought it was callous. Later, I realized he said this because (at least this was true in 1969) high school boys simply don't like to see other boys cry.

The man was often ahead of his time.

I stayed at Assumption the rest of my high school career. When it was time to pick a college, Father knew of a small school in Minnesota I had never heard of. He had a friend who was Dean of Admissions there. It had an up and coming Journalism department. To deal the deal, he sent me to Reno Bertoia, a History teacher at our school who had played baseball in Minnesota in 1961. (Want to win a bar bet? Ask somebody to name the Twins' original third baseman. Throw in the hint he homered off Whitey Ford in the first game in team history. The answer, of course, is Reno Bertoia.)

Mr. Bertoia told me some of the nicest people he had ever met were in Minnesota.

End of deal. I have basically lived in Minnesota ever since.

There is more I can and probably should say about how much Fr, Cullen did for me. I wasn't alone. Thousands of kids at Assumption were guided one way or the other by him.

We'll save more remembrances for another day.

I am grateful I was able to get back a few times to thank him in person. I am grateful he was able to know I acknowledged him in my book on the Twins ... and that he was told about it.

Which leads me to one last thought. The last time I saw Fr. Cullen I thanked him for all he did for me. He gave me a genuine smile in return, a firm handshake and said, "You're welcome." I will remember that sequence forever.

Do the same thing for someone who helped you along the way. They will appreciate it and you will cherish their look back at you.

At the Lake

2010-07-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee (and, later, not so wee) lad, Mom used to take us for a week's vacation to Grand Bend, Ontario. It was a wonderful hamlet that had a population of 500 in the winter but 5,000 in the summer. For a week, we would stay in a cabin that looked out on Lake Huron. As I recall, we didn't actually DO much. We usually went over to Stratford for a Shakespearean play. We did a little fishing and golfing. We swam in Lake Huron. Our meals consisted of such things as a healthy breakfast of peanut butter crackers.

If we were feeling particularly ambitious, we would go into town.

Downtown Grand Bend only stretched three blocks or so. But it included an area that various games such as SkeeBall and the old bumper cars. I remember my brother Frank (I think brother John may have helped him) won 37 tickets at SkeeBall so he could get a hotplate that Mom used in the cabin.

I can't tell you how big the cabin was but I remember it had a big picture window. One night, I saw am amazing sight. The moon was shining but a storm was rolling across the lake. I can still see the vision of the rain coming in from the right while the moon shone brightly on the left. It was a visual that, even if we had captured it on video (or film in those days) would not have done it justice. It was a sight meant for eyes only.

I mention all this because my wife and I are at a cabin on Lake Winnibigosh in the metropolis of Bena, MN this week. Bena's population is listed as 110. I think that includes the folks who work here, at the general store down the road and perhaps a few dogs I have seen around.

Although it is only a four-hour ride from St. Paul, you feel as is you are million miles away. As a result, the pace of life is ... well ... different. You get up when you want to and go to bed at whatever time seems right. Boy, do you really sleep well, though - even the other night when a rainstorm swept through here. You shave if you feel like it. (Some things have changed at the lake. For example, they now have satellite TV so you can keep up with the world.As this missive shows, Wi-Fi exists ... even in the woods of Bena.)

You grill anything you can. You sit on picnic tables and watch the lake. You play card games. You go out in a boat and fish. You read books. You simply stare at the lake in wonderment. This morning, I am going golfing with the son of an old family friend and two people I met for the first time the other day.

It is such a peaceful feeling here. The pace is so much slower. The folks I am golfing with today are friends of our family friends. The two families have been going to lakes for (depending you talk to) anywhere from 22-24 years. The actual number doesn't matter. The feeling of calm for all of them, however, does.

It is, like the picture of that rainstorm years ago, something meant for the eyes, ears, nose and personal memory bank only.

I understand this type of lifestyle is, for most people, a temporary respite from the real world. To those who don't get to experience it, however, I say "Too Bad." Sometimes, simply moving slowly (or not at all) beats the hell out of racing to the next appointment to make the Deal Of The Century.

A day to remember

2010-07-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

Today is a national holiday. Oh, not here in the good ol' Aux Etats-Unis. I mean in my former stomping grounds.

It's Canada Day - their version of Independence Day. To my old Canadian comrades, have a good day, eh?

I always remember this day with fondness for another reason. In another life, I worked at a wonderful place called Columbus Boys' Camp. It was located in Orillia, a small hamlet about 100 miles north of Toronto better known as the birthplace of Gordon Lightfoot. I worked as a counselor there for three years before moving to the Senior Staff as Evening Entertainment Director.

I have said this to other people but I need to do it again: Although the most money I ever made there was $500, it was the best job I have ever had.

July 1 was always the start of the first session. You would get to camp a week or two in advance to get the place ready. We would put the dock in Lake Simcoe (amazing how cold the lake could be at that time of year.) Then you painted the cabins (if they needed them) and cleaned up everything. There would be a day or two of prep and getting to know your new co-workers. There was usually a night in town where you would discovered there were two places a fellow could get a drink. One was the local Chinese restaurant (you had to order some food to do it) and the other was a small bar down the street. They often had music there.

(For some reason, the only band I can remember is Jeremiah Peabody and His Funky Little Three-Piece Band. They had a blond chanteuse who was ... well ... hot. But I digress.)

Back to today, though. There was always an extra air of excitement and nervousness as the first group of campers came. (It was often said that the first group dictated how the summer would go. I have no idea if that proved out to be true. Sounded good, though.) You would stand there with new guys you barely knew, getting ready to greet kids who were, for the most part, cutting loose for the only vacation they would have all summer. The first group would arrive and it was like opening the doors to a Justin Bieber concert. Kids poured out from buses everywhere. Getting them to go sit under the big tree where the camp director (Leo Campbell and Don McLeod) would start to give them the drill for their 10 days there was difficult. The pent-up energy of the kids was exciting but nervewracking to watch.

Somehow, the kids would get shephered into their cabins and we were off and running. For whatever reason, I was assigned a lot of Papoose cabins. Most of the kids were seven or eight. They were squirrelly because they wanted to take off and investigate the whole camp in, say, 10 minutes. Getting them to put their stuff away, find a bunck bed to their liking and then listen to us counselors go through our routine was exhausting.

Dinner couldn't come fast enough. Later that first night, there would be another entire camp meeting for a Campfire. There was the usual sorts of entertainment and storytelling. July 1 in Orillia is often a bit brisk. There was something special about a fire set against the backdrop of Lake Simcoe on a chilly night. By the time we headed back, the lads were ready for sleep.

But there was one more task left for counselors and staff. Often, we had a late first night meeting (sometimes at what was left of the fire) to give first impressions of our new cabins. We would trade names of past campers we had been with for the benefit of others. Truth be told, we were probably more tired than the campers. But there was such an adrenalin rush that sleep was still impossible.

The next day, we were hit the ground running for the 10-day adventure.

I think of CBC often. Although it has been nearly 40 years since I was there, I remember the wonderful nights there. I remember sitting with other Americans listening to George McGovern's acceptance speech at the 1972 Dem convention on a transistor radio ... at 3 in the morning. We sat by the flag pole in the middle of the camp to get the best reception.

I remember a few kids' names here and there ... and some of the adventures we had with them. I remember fellow counselors and the great priests and novices that taught me so much about life.

But what I always will remember the most about CBC was an intangible - a feeling that the world could really be a peaceful, simple place at times. We were far enough away from civilization that all the nastiness that was out there really did seem to be in another world. I understand this type of Xanadu can't last. We only get one childhood per customer. On every July 1, however, it is nice to sit back and remember a time when about the biggest care in the world you really had was making sure the kids in your cabin know where City Hall was (you went there to pay your taxes).

Trying to understood the world of dogs

2010-06-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

So the Happy Dog and I were taking a stroll this morning, After several days of rain, we had a gorgeous sunny morn. The Happy Dog went along at his usual pace - sometimes plodding, sometimes brisk. One of the fascinating things to watch when dogs are out for a walk is how they pick out places to do their business.

The Happy Dog has a few favorite trees and lawns he likes to visit. When we take a route we haven't traveled for a while, he seems to study areas before deciding which is worthy of a deposit.

The theory is that dogs like to pick spot where they discover a familiar smell. I am not positive of this but I saw The Happy Dog hesitate a couple of times this morning before firing. On one occasion, he seems ready to ... er ... unload when he suddenly changed his mind, and started walking a lot faster towards an inviting tree. I have no idea why he changed his mind and deemed this spot unattractive.

Later, we were walking along when The Happy Dog veered towards a bush, stuck his head into the middle of it and fired. He then had to shake his head free of branches when he came out.

Suffice it to say that when us humans so nature's call, it is not nearly such an adventure.

For years, us pet owners have tried to figure the odd world of cats. You would see them staring at an empty wall and wonder just what the hell they are looking at. I have now decided dogs are equally wacky in their own way.

On the other hand, maybe it is I who am a little nuts for considering these weighty issues.

It's never too late to learn a lesson

2010-06-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

It’s the most famous imperfect game in major league history. Three days ago, only baseball fans in Detroit (and probably not that many of them) could tell you who the hell Armando Galarraga was.

Thanks to the wonders of TV (and the internet), he … and an unfortunate umpire named Jim Joyce … have become household words.

For the non-baseball fan in the house, here is a précis of what happened Wedneday night in Detroit. After 26 outs, Galarraga, who had just returned from a sojourn in the minor leagues, had a perfect game going against the Cleveland Indians. His team led 3-0 and he was on top of the world.

Then came Jason Donald’s grounder. 1B Miguel Cabrera fielded it and tossed to Galarraga, who touched first base well ahead of Donald for what appeared to be the first perfect game in the 109-year history of the Detroit franchise.

Unfortunately, Joyce didn’t see it that way. He called Donald safe. Galarraga had a bemused look of disbelief on his face. Tiger manager Jim Leyland took off like a bottle rocket to object.

The call stood. Galarraga sighed and induced one more groundout. The game was over and the arguments resumed.After a while, Joyce got to the clubhouse and saw what the world already knew that he missed the call … badly.

The lessons we learn in hindsight are often the most important ones. Faced with incontrovertible evidence, Joyce did something rarely seen in sports … or real life these days. He fell on his sword. All he could say was “I’m sorry. I kicked the (expletive) out of the play. I cost the kid a perfect game.”

The “kid” chose to be gracious, telling reporters, “I thought he made a mistake but nobody’s perfect.” When he heard how upset Joyce was, Leyland, a veteran baseball man, went from breathing fire over a missed perfect game to concern for a veteran who had made a simple mistake. He went down to the umpires room, telling Joyce it was time to have a beer and forget about it.

After all, there would be a game the next afternoon.

As expected, reaction around the country has been mixed. An old Minneapolis writer named Sid Hartman went on a verbal rampage, calling Joyce a “stupid imbecile.” Others, like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, pleaded with commissioner Bud Selig to change the ruling and award Galarraga the perfect game. (Interestingly, neither Leyland or Galarraga made the same plea.)
Bud Selig didn’t get his job by stepping out on a limb. He prefers to stay the course whenever possible and duck controversy.

Unsurprisingly, he said the call stands. End of discussion.

This time, however, he got it right.

If we head down the path of making exceptions to every rule, we will soon be out of rules. The line of missed MLB calls at key moments starts at the left.

A couple of hours after Joyce’s muffed call, another umpire – Dale Scott – missed an out at second base that would have sent the Twins into the 11th inning against Seattle. Instead, Seattle had a 2-1 win. Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire ranted afterwards about this miscarriage of justice. As he did so, I am sure he had forgotten that his team was the beneficiary of a similar mistake in a game in April that sent Kansas City muttering to the locker room.

It’s sports. Stuff happens.

Thanks to the Joyce call, arguments for instant replay in baseball will start anew. There will be committee meetings galore. The pundits will be able to weigh in with deep, insightful observations about how the game should … or should not change.
We’ll save that for another day.

The most important lesson here came 15 ½ hours after Wednesday’s game. Galarraga, who looks younger than his actual age of 28, ambled out to home plate to deliver the lineup card for that day’s game to Joyce, who looked a lot older than his actual age of 54. (Ironically, he was scheduled to work the plate.) Galarraga shook hands with Joyce and patted him on the shoulder as if to say, “Hey, that was yesterday’s battle. Today is a new day.” Joyce returned the gesture, grabbed his facemask and went to work.

Both men seemed to understand a very simple concept: as long as imperfect people are hired to officiate games played by imperfect people, mistakes will happen. You hope they don’t but you know they will.

It’s really that simple.

How is this possible?

2010-05-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Granted, you expect to see almost anything when you come to Las Vegas. But I saw something yesterday is one of the most disturbing (and certainly one of the most unsanitary) things I have ever witnessed in now 57 years on this planet.

I went into a men's room at the Palace Station Casino. The three stalls were being used. So I waited. Presently, a young guy (he looked early 20s) exited a stall with an apple in one hand and a banana in the other. He walked past the wash basins and back in the casino.

Fortunately, I had already eaten breakfast. Otherwise, I might have put off my feed for a very long time.

I found myself wondering what made this fellow to think such behavior is acceptable. Skip the bit about not washing hands for a second. Yes, it's appalling but we do see that all the time. But who in their right mind brings fruit into a public men's room?

I hope this was an "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" moment.

A day later, I am still grossed out thinking about it.

LA kind of game

2010-05-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

I hadn't been to Dodger Stadium for 35 years. But it seems to me the place never changes. And that is a compliment.

The Dodgers beat the Tigers, 6-4. But that seems also insignificant compared to everything else that goes on at this palace.

Granted, it is not the easiest place in the world to get to. The best I can figure it, there are only two ways into the place ... and one way out. It is advisable to have a GPS system that can guide you around the inevitable LA road construction projects to get you there.

Once you figure out how to get in, though, it is worth the effort. The ballpark is 48 years old and looks as fresh as it did in 1962. The seats are comfortable, the sightlines are great and the music does not offense anybody's sensibilities. It is as easy ballpark to walk around as I have ever been in and the p.a. announcer doesn't sound like he is auditioning to be the next announcer for "The Price Is Right."

It's not perfect. There is a bit too much Dodger Blue for my taste and some of the prices are ... well ... high.

But if you want to go to a ballpark where the game seems to be the most important thing going, this is your place.

The voice of summer is silenced

2010-05-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most remarkable part of all that has been written about Ernie Harwell in the last 36 hours is where the plaudits have come from.

It is understandable that those of you who grew up listening to Ernie describe the Tigers in the 60s and 70s felt sad when we heard of his death Tuesday night. But the amount of lofty prose written by publications all over the country is truly staggering.

The national writers got to meet Ernie when the Tigers came to their town ... or they visited Detroit. In some way, I suspect they envied us who had him for 162 games a year. It didn't seem to matter if it was the World Series champs of 1968 and 1984, the teams that nearly got there in 1967, 1972 and 1987 or the rough years in the mid 1970s when the team regularly lost 90-100 games a season. Ernie stayed the same, telling the tales of the ball club in his warm, southern, gentle style.

Funny what you remember. In 1970, Detroit had a SS named Ken Szotkiewicz. He had a brief, undistinguished career, finishing with a not-very-lofty .107 career batting average. But I have a vivid memory of one night when he hit drilled one into the seats against the A's at Tiger Stadium. "Socko lived up to his name on that one," Harwell said, describing a ball that went into the lower deck in right field.

I remember another night in the fabled year of 1968. The Tigers trailed Baltimore in the bottom of the ninth by a run with a runner on base and two outs when Tom Matchick, another weak-hitting shortstop, lofted a fly ball to deep right. Harwell pauses as the ball is in flight (probably wondering himself if the ball was really going to reach the stands) and then breaks into as excited a tone as you would ever hear out of him as he says, "And it is a home run for Matchick and the Tigers win the game." It is the greatest home run call I have ever heard.

Another night, Gates Brown capped a wild four-run, ninth inning rally for a doubleheader sweep of Boston. Ernie simply said, "What a mad mob it is here tonight."

He was a man of few words. But he made them all count. Perhaps that is why so many non-Detroiters loved him so much. Ernie knew that less is sometimes more. You didn't need to go into detail why it was a bad play to go to third base on a ground ball to shortstop. You just needed to tell us what happened. He did so without damning the miscreant. That's a real gift.

As I wrote in a piece on MinnPost.com, the beauty of growing up on Tiger games was the feeling Ernie was personally broadcasting the game to you. He didn't try to sugarcoat bad baseball. He also didn't overdo it when the team was going great. No, he felt he was lucky to be at the ballpark telling us what was going on. And it showed.

So, I don't necessarily mourn his passing. Ernie had told us he was ready to go and take on his next challenge. But I am not worried he will handle it. After all, anybody can handle calling the games of the 1996 Tigers (who went a miserable 53-109) can take on anything.

A smell to remember triggers a few thoughts

2010-04-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee lad, we all had tasks we had to do at home on Saturday. One of mine was to walk half a dozen to Ray Guetschoff's butcher shop. A half a century later, I still enjoy going to these places to get meat and other goodies. Like the great smell of fresh bread, there is something about the aroma of the meat market that is reassuring and pleasurable to me. In our little part of the world, there are two places I go to regularly for such stuff. One has a meat area in the back of a small grocery store. There, Jim knows exactly what kind of cut of pork chop I want and offers suggestions for other delectable items, His suggestion for a turkey that was grilled last Thanksgiving was on the nose ... and went down the gullet easily. I also like the fact they have dog bones I can take home for Pete. His nose goes beserk at the smell of one of these. If there is such as a clean bone club (the animal equivalent of the clean plate club), Pete would graduate magna cum laude.

I was at the other place this morning - a true butcher shop about 10 miles from our house. What I like about this place is the variety of meats as well as some nifty homemade spices that add taste to the various meats. Based on a recipe I had read, I had an idea for a sandwich this morning that I took to these guys. After some consultation, we changed it up a bit. But I think I have a potential winner now. We'll see when I spring it on my wife and whoever else happens to wander through the house in the near future.

As I get older, I find I am more attracted to simple, uncomplicated foods. I admire good cooking and wish I was better at it. My wife and her sisters are superb cooks. (Interestingly, they differ in technique but the result is always the same: great, tasty but not particularly exotic eats. Kathy found a recipe for shrimp on the barbecue the other night that was c'est magnifique.)

I can't match that. So I settle for finding different ways to get most of whatever meat we buy - whether it be on the grill, the oven or even the toaster oven. And if the latest idea doesn't work as well as hoped for ... well, one just heads back to the butcher shop for another try. There are worse things in life.

Another simple pleasure: working with the ballgame on in the background

2010-04-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

So I am working at home today and wanted some background noise for company. Instead of opting for music, I have been given a great bonus a rare morning baseball game I can have on the television.

In this case, it is Tampa Bay and Boston in the annual Patriot's Day game at Fenway Park.

To say it is a treat is an understatement.

All games at Fenway are fun -- even games like this one with Tampa Bay leading 8-0 in the 6th inning.

What is even more fun is the Red Sox announcers - Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy - are very good at their job. Anybody can make a 3-2 thriller decided by a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth fun. But it takes a real pro to keep a lopsided affair interesting. This pair offers good insights, info on the players involved in the game and excellent back and forth discussion in a calm, reason manner.

Early, Remy noted that home plate umpire Angel Campos was all over the pace with his strike zone and had managed to get both sides upset with him. When TB's Ben Zobrist kicked about strike two, Remy observed the next pitch would likely be a strike, too. The pitch looked a foot outside but Campos sent Zobrist packing anyway. Remy then noted Campos eyed Zobrist carefully all the way to the dugout, perhaps hoping to get an ejection.

Later, Orsillo noted that, although the Red Sox are generally successful at Fenway, they dropped their first two series there this season. He added that playing the Yankees and the Rays - two excellent teams - might have had something to do with this depressing (to Boston fans) stat.

Baseball as background stuff is wonderful. Sure, the game moves slowly at times. But in the hands of good announcers, it doesn't seem that way. The Red Sox are off to a rough start (4-8 at this writing) and this pair made no attempt to hide that fact. But they didn't dwell on it much ... nor did they make excuses for the locals. It sounded like two old friends chatting away while the game unfolded. I didn't need to look up often to know what was going on.

In an era where TV is full of screamers, it is simply wonderful to have a game on in a relaxed but fun background.

Another simple pleasure renewed: browsing through bookstores

2010-04-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

One of the things I have learned quickly in this book business is you must keep hustling. So it was that I found myself out and about the other day talking to various book store owners, extolling the wisdom of getting copies of my book so the currently rabid Twins' fans could learn more about the team's past.

Two of my stops the other day had an ulterior benefit: it allowed me the pleasure of rummaging through old fashioned, independent bookstores.

Micawber's, tucked into a residential neighborhood, is near my house. From the outside, it has a musty look. Inside, it is as clean as can be and simply stacked with books of all shapes, sizes and titles.

When I wander through bookstores, I rarely have a specific title in mind. It is my version of a scavenger hunt - you never know what treasure you will find. In this case, it was a copy of hundreds of letters written by the great E.B. White, longtime editor-writer at the New Yorker in its heyday. Even if you don't know some of the people he is writing to (or about), you can appreciate precise English and nifty turns of phrases. John Updike, no literary slouch himself, edited the book and added commentary when needed. I'm looking forward to a long, casual read.

Later, I found myself at Common Good Books, which is located in a busy area near downtown St. Paul. This is a place in the downstairs of a bustling coffee shop. Garrison Keillor opened it a few years ago and it has treasures galore in it. ( I had a lot of choices but settled for an oldie but a goodie: Roger Angell's first baseball book: Five Seasons. I have read it before but lost my copy of it. The stories are about baseball from 1962-71, an era when I was young and impressionable. I attended (or watched) several of these games. After reading Angell's observations, I discover I missed a lot.

Memo to self: pay attention to everything this summer when watching games.

Seeing my little treatise among these gems is flattering but the real bonus is getting to spend time choosing which book to take on next. You can never have too much peanut butter.

Simple pleasures are still the best

2010-04-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Don't tell anybody at the St. Paul Police Department this but I broke a law this morning.

I think anybody saw me do it. But I gladly confess my sin here because it was worth it to see the result.

Basically, Pete, The Happy Dog (scroll to the end to see a picture) has a good life here. He gets fed twice a day and goes on (at least) two good walks as well. He has the run of the house and, when the weather turns better, has the run of the backyard as well. Although we don't feed him from the table, he gets plenty of treats, including runs to the local ice cream place six blocks away. All in all, it's a pretty good dog's life.

Every now and then, however, one just gets the urge to extend the pleasure a bit. It is a law in St. Paul (and, I presume, most other places) that your dog has to be on a leash when he is being walked. There is a playground a couple of blocks from our house. It has a baseball field and a couple of softball fields that turn into soccer pitches in the fall. We go by it often during our daily treks through the neighborhood. Occasionally, we'll walk through it. As you enter it, however, there is a sign warning dog owners to get their pets leashed.

For reasons I can't explain, I decided to go rogue this morning. Nobody was around when we entered the playground. After whispering in his ear to come back when called, I let Pete loose in left field. Mon cur didn't need any encouragement. He shot quickly along the fence, sniffing delightedly. He zigzagged across center field like Willie Mays catching Vic Wertz's ball at the Polo Grounds. I wandered over by second base, called his name and he came tearing to me at top speed.

Then we romped around the bases of the baseball field. Although I encouraged him to slide in safely at home, there is a limit to dog understanding. He prefers to go in standing but with a smile on his face.

He trotted over to a softball field and, in classic doggie fashion, paid his respects.

All in all, we were probably on the field for 5-7 minutes. In that time, however, I saw a seven-year old dog revert to puppyhood again. He ran joyously but came back upon request. As we left the playground, he graciously accepted going back on the collar and we headed home.

Once back at the house, he got his standard treat for a job well done and headed to his regular backyard post to sleep it off -- hopefully, dreaming happily about running free for a while.

I'm not sure who enjoyed the scene more - Pete or myself. There is something so basic but pleasurable about seeing a happy dog running full blast untethered. I guess we all have the urge to run free on occasion because, most of the time, we rarely get to do so. When we see another (in this case, a dog) rock and roll alone, we watch and enjoy from afar.

Indeed, as the old soup song goes, simple pleasures are sometimes the best.

Movin' on up

2010-04-07T08:47:00.001-07:00

Just checked the latest B & N standings. Our humble little book is up to 83,462nd on their overall selling list. We have leapfrogged ahead of the Yankees (105,602) and have left the Red Sox in the dust (at 220,611). Onward and upward.

Thanks, folks.

Now comes the really hard part

2010-03-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

My book is officially out in bookstores and is available online. Just checked with Barnes and Noble. It is ranked No. 526,894 in sales. Bet you didn't know there were 526,894 books out there, did you?

We had our first book signing 10 days ago at a small neighborhood saloon. It went very well. Sold damn near 100 books. Had a great party. The owner made a lot more than he usually would on a Sunday and we made some money. I think all who came had a blast. Terrific day all in all.

But the book business is a lot like the politics or the major league baseball business - what have your done for us lately? We are just starting to hit the hustings - I am doing a pair of radio interviews this week and have a book signing set for April 10. To truly make the book a success for Triumph (the company that printed it.), we need to sell at least 3,000 books. To my knowledge, we have sold roughly 125.

Got a little work to do, don't we?

Friends of mine who are authors tell me this is the way it is in the book business. You need to hustle the product all the time. It's kind of job hunting - it's a fulltime job in addition to your duties.

I'm not griping - I signed up for this duty and am embracing it fully. And there are some things that should help sales coming up - the MLB season opens up next week. Mother's Day and Father's Day is around the corner. Now that local lad Joe Mauer has been signed and the team's new home, Target Field, is open for business, there is a lot of enthusiasm for the Twins around these parts.

So I have high hopes of advancing past position No. 526,894 soon. But there is some heavy lifting ahead. Finding somebody who would write a terrific review of the book would help immensely. Anybody know Jon Miller's phone number?

Some dreams do come true

2010-03-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

We all have a little Walter Mitty in us. Walter Mitty was the fictional character created by James Thurber who had a series of daydreams about achieving greatness. Whereas Mitty was dreaming about this stuff to escape what he considered a mundane existence, most of us dream (or at least imagine) doing something that might be considered out of reach. In high school or college, it might have been something as simply as getting the cute blond girl in the third row of your Algebra class to go on a date with you Saturday night.

Later, it might be something shooting 69 on the golf course. It might be getting that cabin up north you always wanted. The field is always wide-open for dreamers.

For me, it was always writing a book. I have been a fan of reading since I was kid poring over every Chip Hilton and Hardy Boys mystery I could find in St. Francis' library. How did these guys find the time to put such a project together? Did I have the patience (and the verbiage) to put a book together?

When I found myself gainfully unemployed a year and a half ago, I decided the time was right to take the plunge. I had an idea for a book that I thought might work. The thought was the easy part. Getting somebody to publish it ... to say nothing of writing the damn thing ... was the tough part.

After a couple of false starts, I found somebody who thought my idea was a good one. I got the contract and then had to really go to work. It's one thing to have an idea for a book. It's another altogether to execute it.

I wrote the first part of it and turned it over to a trusted friend for editing comments. The first reviews were, to be mild, unkind. After a few helpful hints about style and phraseology, I got on track and the copy started to flow better. By the end of the book, the editing comments were down to a few. (I worried this was because my editor was getting bored. She said that wasn't the case. She said I had found my voice.) The book went to the publisher, who made a few changes (none that I really quibbled with).

A year after I started, the project is now finished. Yesterday, it arrived at my house in finished condition. Thus it is that "162-0: The Greatest Wins In Twins History" is now a reality.

To many, it will be considered a light tome. The concept is the Minnesota Twins have a perfect season by via their best win in their history on April 11, May 16, July 4, etc. The games go back to 1961 and run through the end of last season. There are four World Series wins kicked in for good measure.

Okay, so it is now War and Peace. Tolstoy has his niche. Mine is simply in a different direction.

Triumph Books is putting the book out. As of tomorrow (March 17), it is available online at www.amazon.com.

It is exciting, humbling and a little frightening to actually think this idea, which was a concept a little more than a year ago, is done and in print. Little ol' me now has a small spot in the LIbrary of Congress (all books are registered there) with Hemingway, Updike and even Jesse Ventura. Move over, Clair Bee (who wrote the Chip Hilton books). You've got company.

Writing a book is one thing. Writing a successful book is another matter. I have modest hopes folks will find it entertaining enough that I can make a case to the publisher to write a second one.

That is next week's battle. For now, excuse me if I take a second to enjoy (and marvel) at this one.

This Olympic loss doesn't hurt as much

2010-02-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

As this is written, it has been a little over two hours since the great game ended. Canada nudged the USA, 3-2, in overtime in the Gold Medal Game in the Olympics before a roaring, adoring crowd in Vancouver. As so happens in these cases, the winning play was a bit of a fluke. A puck bounced an official's skate right to a Canadian player, who forwarded it to Sidney Crosby, who has the fastest wrists since Hank Aaron's heyday. Crosby did what he does best ... and the party was on.

But some losses don't hurt too much. Oh, it would have been grand if the USA, a huge underdog that dumped the Canadians fair and square a week ago, had won the game. They made a noble comeback, stunning the hometowners with a goal in the final minute of play to force OT.

But the beauty of this sport is the game wasn't going to end in a tie. You play to win and the locals made the right play. There was nothing the Americans could do but shake the winner's hand, wish them well and head home.

Hockey is a misunderstood sport by many because, at times, it is played crudely. Then there are times -- and this game was one of them -- where its majesty is there for all to see. Both goalies were superb today. The passing was excellent, the hits were solid and clean and the defenses were stout. There was constant plays and counterplays. Canada's early 2-0 lead looked safe and shaky at the same time. And just when the hometown crowd thought they could exhale their breath, the Americans made a remarkable play to force bonus overtime.

In the end, the sport may turn out to be the biggest winner. When the game is played as it was today, even the nonfans stopped what they were doing to watch. Losing is ... well ... disappointing and frustrating. But today was the rare game when the losing team had no reason whatsoever to question anything they did. They did everything they could but win. Deep down inside, one suspects most of the players probably know this already. But it needed to be said publicly anyway.

Nothing to cheer about here

2010-02-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

We had some very sad news in our little part of the world yesterday. Two longtime Catholic schools - St. Bernard's High School and Holy Childhood Grade School - announced they will close for good at the end of the school year. St. Bernard's served the Rice Street area of St. Paul for 119 years. It was always a small school ... and that is what probably did it in. But it kept a lot of kids on the straight and narrow path while not trying to beat anybody over the head with a Catholic message. I did the p.a. for their football games for years. They rarely had good teams but they always played hard and fair.

I have a lot of friends who graduated from there and who work there. They are fine people, credits to society.

We need schools like this and Holy Childhood to keep some sanity in the world.

Last night, I was working a hockey game involving Como Park, a public school that has always been a big athletic rival of St. Bernard's. To a man, the CP people were shaking their heads in disbelief and sorrow at the news.

I am sure the decision by the archdiocese was a sound one based solely on the financial situation of the school ... and the parish. All I can say is the decisions hurts like hell.

It's the little things you miss

2010-02-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I made the final step to recovery from my little heart episode. Dr. Kravitz removed the penicillin PICK that has been in my right arm for five weeks. Now I can take a shower without a bag on my arm and I am no longer dragging a bowling ball around with me.

It's amazing the little things you miss.

From what I read and heard, it sounds like President Clinton's problem yesterday was very similar. Great bodies think alike. Hope he doesn't end up with a PICK, too.

Welcome to our world

2010-02-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

There is much ado being made tonight about a big snowstorm in the Washington, DC area. Word is anywhere from 1-2 feet of snow is going to fall in a span of roughly 30 hours.

That's a lot of white stuff. Being a glass half-full guy, I see a bright light in their troubles. The next time we grumble to them about weather difficulties, those folks might be a bit more sympathetic to our plight.

One can only hope.

Scoops can be risky business

2010-02-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

It used to be that it was a big deal to get a scoop that would run in the next day's paper. Such, sadly, is no longer the case. Today's scoop gets on the internet in a matter of seconds. By the time a paper writes it, half the world knows the story ... if it turns out to be true.

There was a big hullabaloo here yesterday when Mark Rosen, a longtime TV sports guy here, reported that Joe Mauer, the Twins' catcher, had an agreement for a 10-year contract. You could hear the sighs of relief from Bagley to Yankton because catchers who can hit and throw like Mauer are rare commodities, indeed. The fear was that if Mauer, who can become a free agent after the 2010 season, ever got on the market, the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers would offer him more money than the combined GNP of, say, Canada.

But the signs of content have turned to worry again. Seems Mr. Rosen has had to backpedal a bit on his claim the deal was done. By the time the 10 p.m. report came around, he was offering up the idea that the "framework" for such a deal is in place.

In short, the pen has not come out and the deal is not done.

This is what happens in a competitive society where TV guys double up on radio and want to scoop everybody else. In the past, a TV guy could make an outrageous claim and, if it wasn't in the papers, it would be forgotten a day later.

No longer.

I know Mark a bit. He is a good guy. I am sure he thought he had enough to break a story. But TV guys often misunderstand what print guys know: that a card laid is a card played. Even if the story turns out to be true down the line (say, tomorrow or even a week from now), it was not correct when he said it. In the newspaper biz, your butt gets in a lot of trouble for making that sort of mistake. In TV, if your ratings are good enough, such a mistake tends to get forgotten.

Those who do remember, however, will keep it in mind the next time they hear a "scoop" come from Mark.

TV sports guys used to have 2 or 3 shows to do in a day. Total time on the air: roughly 10 minutes. Not a lot of time to get in trouble.

But it is different now. With updates, radio shows, tweets and facebook info, the chance for mistakes are much higher. Losing your credibility is a bit like your virginity. You never get it back totally.

Hope there are some budding TV journalists out there who are paying attention.

It was just a football game

2010-01-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Two friends of mine told me that last Monday had been declared the most depressing day of the year. I figured it was because folks around these parts were in mourning over the Vikings' sudden demise in the NFC title game he day before. I was wrong. This had been so declared by somebody of importance. (Neither could remember who said it.)

But it might as well been over the football game.

I work in athletics and I understand games can be emotional things. But when I see a guy on TV who is claiming he can offer therapy to folks who were traumatized over a close, exasperating loss in a football game, I truly begin to wonder if folks have lost their collective minds.

Then I read that another guy has publicly put his athletic allegiance up for auction ... and some idiotic news outlet is running with the story.

The great, late Red Smith used to refer to covering athletics like working in the Toys and Games Department of a department store. He was, of course, correct. My neighbor Kenny is about as diehard a Viking fan as there is. He wears a jersey when he watches games and shouts advice at the TV at the local saloon where we watch such events.

But when I saw him the next day, he merely shrugged and said it was a fun run. He had moved on.

Listening to talk shows (and the hosts), it is clear, however, that others have not. A pity.

Don't misunderstand. Memories - good and bad - are a great part of athletics. I have never forgotten that Jack Reed hit the only home run of his major league careerin the 22nd inning to defeat the Tigers one day in 1962. Or that Hank Aguirre threw to the wrong base at a key moment in what proved to be a key loss to the Angels in the wild 1967 pennant race.

But the sun still came up the next day and life goes on. The difference here, I suppose, is that after losing that game the other day, Vike fans woke up here to a gray sky and the usual January chill.

To those folks, I offer this bit of sunny therapy: spring training begins in less than a month.

When saying you're sorry isn't good enough

2010-01-13T07:50:00.001-08:00

This is one of the reasons why I entitled this little enterprise "Midwestern Sensibility Views." Us folks in flyover country know a copout when we see one ... and we don't like to allow people to get away with it.

Which is why many people in my neck of the woods are snickering at Mark McGwire suddenly admitting what everybody had suspected for more than a decade -- that he used steroids during his halcyon home run days in the 90s.

You may recall that McGwire basically took the 5th amendment in front of a Senate committee investigating steroids. That may have got him off the hook there but the folks who vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame took notice. As a result, he has never come close to induction into the hallways of Cooperstown.

Now that he has admitted his sins, his fans in St. Louis and elsewhere are reacting that this should change everything.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Confession may be good for the soul but a sin is still a sin. And there is no denying that anything McGwire achieved in his career has a stigma attached to it. As a result, it is now impossible to say whether his career figure of 583 home runs is more impressive than, say, Harmon Killebrew (573) or Willie McCovey (521) , two strongmen who, by all reports, did it the old fashioned way. (Milkshakes, hamburgers and perhaps a few beers.) It doesn't elevate you back in status. It just clarifies the situation.

Carl Pavano, a victim of McGwire's while pitching for Montreal, came out yesterday and said he should be in the Hall Of Fame now, In essence, Pavano said the past is the past and all previous mistakes can be forgiven. This might be the way it works in the non-real world. But in the hardscrabble world of the Midwest, we tend to look at things differently. True, a lot of mistakes are just that. They can be corrected, forgiven and we move on.

But some - ranging from the real world violence of shooting somebody in the back to the play world status of a baseball player shooting up to be able to hit a 95 mph fastball - are past that range.

And it helps if you own up to your screwup right away ... instead of 10 years later when your brother is about to come out with a book that basically nails you to the wall.

McGwire was a good player who decided he needed an edge to become better than good. For more than decade, he ducked and weaved his way around the truth. It is more than fair to give him good marks for finally coming out and admitting it. But it doesn't excuse him. He has a scarlet letter of his own making. Where I live, you don't get those sort of things easily because we like to give the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.

It doesn't mean he can't be forgiven. But it can't be forgotten. Like Pete Rose (who was banned for his gambling exploits), McGwire deserves to stay on the outside looking in forever.

Home Sweet Home indeed!

2010-01-10T09:10:00.001-08:00

Got released St. Joe's yesterday after three days and never was so happy to be on Cottage Avenue again.

Two things happened.

1) The doctor cleaned up the at the site where the stents were put in. It was pretty messy for a few days but we are done to a gauze pad and an oversized bandage that covers the area. There are some movement restrictions (no lifting of anything over 10 pounds, no snow shoveling, no walking the dog until there is no ice on the sidewalks, etc.) but otherwise things are fine.

2) Somewhere in the last week, I developed a staph infection. We don't where I encountered this nasty thing. Could have been in the doctor's office. Could have been at SPA the weekend before. Could have been at church on Friday for all we know. But the little bugger got into the blood and that is all that really matters. Quite often, these things can be handled by oral medications. However, because of the recent stents put into me, Dr. Kravitz felt he could take no chances. So, I have a new companion for the next 4-6 weeks, a portable penicillin unit. It comes in a carrying case that can be put around your waist like a fanny pack.

I have to take it with me everywhere except the shower. And, yes, I can already seen carrying this baggage everywhere I go (even to bed) has the potential to become a pain-in-the-rump. But I can pretty much go as I please and certainly can get around the house with no issues. I will be able to do some minor chores, such as laundry and the dishes.

It definitely beats the hell out of the alternatives.

There are things that still need to be done. I am learning how to change the penicillin. (It must be done on a daily basis.) I will have to adjust to the fact there will be home visits by nurses a couple times a week to during my time with my new companion. They need to draw blood, change dressings and the other duties home nurses do.

My brother Paul, who is a doctor, gave me a great piece of advice. He told me I have every right to be mad and frustrated over what happened. After I am done with that, I simply have to move on. It's hard advice but it's correct. So I have to work at not obsessing over how this happened and simply work on getting healthier so I can rid myself of this device.

My friend Steph Harris (and others) told me I will simply have to slow down a bit. If I didn't do so, she (and others, such as my wife and her sisters) promised to kick my butt. That is what I believed is known as tough love. I may not like that message a lot. But I love the messengers for saying i.

One other observation. When something like this happens to you, you learn a lot about yourself ... and other people. We all have people we consider good friends but times like this remind you how good they really are and how much you really cherish them.

But what amazes you sometimes is when other people you know call or text you to wish you well and ask if there is anything they can do for you. What also astounds you is when your comrades at your favorite saloon band together and tell your wife to call if there is anything they can do - even to do somewhat so basic as getting groceries or walking the dog. That makes you feel warm and is the type of encouragement you need.

The real bottom line is this is, as my vascular doctor said, a bump in the road. A serious bump perhaps. But there are people in a helluva worse mental, spiritual and physical shape than I am in today. Do me a favor, will ya? If you know one of these folks, lend them a hand in whatever way works best for you and them.

I know what people have done for me and can anticipate what some folks might have to do down the line. In this forum, all I can say is a public thanks to one and all and a personal promise to pay it forward at some point down the like.

Privately, I am looking forward to telling each and every one of them how grateful I am.

An interesting 24 hours

2010-01-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

Very few recoveries from surgical intrusions go perfectly. There is always some complication in some way, shape or form.

So, when a blood clot developed near the spot where my stents were inserted, I wasn't too concerned. I would be a bit inconvenienced but we would simply find the right kind of medications to handle the problem and move on.

Guess again.

The adventure started when I went in for what I thought was a routine ultrasound at my cardiologist's office. What was supposed to be a 10-15 minute procedure started to go bit long. Tracy, the woman running the machine, looked puzzled. Eventually, she called a doctor from St. Joe's. He came in, looked at the results and scratched his head a few times.

This is never a re-assuring trend. They were looking for a PSA - an aneurysm - but what they saw didn't look like a PSA.

There were several hushed conversations while I lay on my back, wondering what the hell was going on.

The cardiologist, who, at times, has the air of an absent-minded professor, came in to give his view. His view was he didn't like what he was seeing and was sending me back to St. Joe's. "We'll find who the vascular surgeon is today and get you in to see him." He added what happened to me occurs in less than one percent on of all stent cases. That is not how I wanted to be unique.

Instead of going home, I felt like I was going to prison.

And we were just getting warmed up.

At St Joe's, they quickly checked me in. A half hour later, Dr. Miller came in for a looksee. I am told he is one of the best around in this field. He took one look and said, "We have you scheduled for surgery tomorrow but I think we can handle this right now."

In conversation, he told me he was a St. John's grad. When I told him I was a UST grad, he smiled. "Placebo, please," he said to a young nurse named Dani, who had simply been entering my info on a computer and had been pressed into service as an emergency assistant.

Next thing I knew, Dr. Miller was poking, scraping and cutting at the infected area. A couple of times, he paused to warn me this "might" hurt.

"Might" was right in this case. The procedure didn't take long but it was intense.

Dr. Miller packed the area tightly, said he thought this might work out alright and went home.

So, right about the time I thought I was going to be heading to work a bb game, I was stuck in a hospital bed, getting dressings changed every 2 hours or so. Dr. Miller had said this would be the case but eventually things might start clotting.

It has never occurred to me blood clots could be a good thing but medicine is a mysterious thing at times.

To be safe, Dr. Miller kept the original surgery on the calendar. But the cardiologist just came in to say there will be no surgery today for sure. That's good news in one way - means I can finally eat something. But I still don't know where I stand (or don't stand.)

In theory, my odd day had one good by-product. By all reports, it is absolutely miserable outside with snow and wind flailing all over the place. So, while people are freezing their butts off and struggling to drive, I am warm, safe, sound and indoors.

But a little part of me (the part that isn't covered in blood) is really looking forward to getting back to be a part of such weather.

A helluva way to end the year

2009-12-31T18:13:00.001-08:00

I had finished working a solid day of talking -- four high school basketball games. So when I headed home after stopping for a burger and a couple of drinks, I thought nothing of the fact that I felt a little tired and a little sore.

Turned out there was more than fatigue involved.

A lot more.

Within an hour of getting home, I was en route to St. Joe's Hospital. My wife had called paramedics I told her I was "feeling very uncomfortable."

Next thing I knew, I was being wheeled into an ER ward. A doctor quickly looked at me and said I had suffered an "incident."

I was feeling better and wanted to go home but knew this wasn't going to happen. In a short order, I underwent a battery of tests and suddenly found myself in Room 4012 with little idea how I got there.

If your head is whirling trying to digest all this, imagine how I felt.

From there, things got more complicated. There were EKGs and blood tests. Needles were placed at various strategic angles. Every couple hours, a nurse took my blood pressure and wrote the results down with a grave face. I am no expert on these things but 165 over 109 works better as a stock quote than your blood pressure figure.

A severe looking doctor named Schuchard came in to tell me I had two basic choices: take a stress test and possible find out what the hell was wrong with me or undergo an angiogram and find out for sure. I liked the first idea because I might get out of the hospital in one day. However, my wife and my sister-in-law (who suffered a heart attack a decade ago) quietly joined the doctor in suggesting to take the other route.

Turned out to be the best idea of the year.

The angiogram showed a 95 percent blockage in one artery and 75 percent in another. The severe-looking doctor performed his magic, inserted two new stents and, 36 hours after this adventure started, I was headed back home.

A day later, it still seems a bit surreal. But it makes a fellow grateful to be able to welcome in the new year in a couple of hours.

I have some new suggestions about diet, a bevy of medications and some simple rules I must follow. If I take care of those items, the new year (which starts 150 minutes from now as I type this) should be a good one.

Accordingly, I have this wish for everyone for 2010: may it be quieter and more peaceful for you than this week has been.

Quiet holidays are okay, too

2009-12-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

It was a very different Christmas this year. Lynne, Pete and I spent Christmas Eve and over half of Christmas Day at her sister Kathy's house in the northern suburbs.

There was no massive tearing apart of gifts. Instead, at the suggestion of sister Shari, we went outside, sitting and standing around an excellent fire ... as a heavy snowstorm swirled around us.

It was surreal in a way -- having quiet, adult-like conversations outside at 7 p.m. In another way, however, it was wonderfully peaceful and pleasant. The drinks flowed as freely as desired. Kathy is an amazingly good chef who concocted a meal the likes of which I could only imagine seeing at the Ritz in New York City.

There we sat for hours discussing serious (and not so serious) topics and laughing over past foibles.

We went to bed when we wanted to and got up when we were awake. There was some terrific coffee and, later, a stupendous breakfast consisting of an egg dish, hungarian bacon and half a Cinnabon and more conversation.

In reflecting upon the 24 hours, it was probably the quietest Christmas holiday I have ever experienced.

It was also one of the best ever - adults enjoying each other's company and conversation. It seemed exactly the tonic all of us after a hectic (and, at times, traumatic) year. As a kid, I would never have imagined spending such a day. As an adult, I cherished every moment of it.

So my hope for you this holiday season is you find whatever it is you think you need the most of. The holiday we spent isn't for everybody. But it fit our needs perfectly ... even if most of us didn't know it in advance.

Next year at this time, I may find myself on a beach in the Bahamas, a casino in Las Vegas or perhaps in front of that fire again at Kathy's house. I won't know that for some time.

Christmas 2009 was a reminder that it is a holiday where one must end up with something that makes you happy. When I was 10, that would have been a baseball glove or maybe a train set. At 56, it was simply being with people I love and cherish dearly. All in all, it was one of the better Christmas gifts I have ever received.

Farewell to a St. Paul landmark

2009-12-19T14:23:00.000-08:00

Although we all knew the end was near, it was still a sad piece of news. Such is the way it is when the news comes that an old friend is gone.

I cannot count the hours the spent at Lendways, an oasis among the battleground that is the Frogtown area of St. Paul. But I can say for certain that just about every one of them were joyful ones

Although it was hardly known for this sort of thing, I met both my wife and ex-wife there. They were among the legions of folks who came in for simple but good food and simple but good drinks.

It was a place where folks like Calvin Griffith, the ex-owner of the Minnesota Twins, could come in with friends and have dinner without being disturbed. I remember walking in one night and seeing the man at the round table near the back. People walked by, waved hello at the man who brought major baseball to Minnesota and went on their way. Can you imagine that happening anywhere else in the country?

Calvin knew the owner of the place, the loquacious Ignatius Theisen. Iggy was an old friend of Jim Rantz, the Twins' longtime farm director who still works for the team to this day. Partially as a result of that friendship, a bevy of media types used to come in for hours of uninterrupted socialization.

For years, Lendways was next to a strip club. The dancers thought nothing of coming in to get meals to go before they would be due up for their number. The regulars thought nothing of it, either and never bothered them.

Later, when the morals police took over the area, the strip club became a police station. Such was the respect for the way Iggy and his son David ran the place that the cops often caught people who shouldn't be behind the wheel and returned them to the bar. The warning would always be the same. "I know where your car is and I better not see you behind the wheel for 24 hours. Now call somebody and get a ride home," the cop would say. If nobody was at home, a person who was sober was designated the driver for the miscreant. Kevin Kelly, a longtime bartender there, or David would assure the driver his drink would be waiting for him when he came back.

It probably couldn't happen today. And I am fairly sure MADD would not approve. But nobody got hurt.

When the Capitol was in session, Lendways became the local answer to Switzerland. Many a political deal was crafted in the back room over lunch. Some lawmakers stayed in the small apartments over the bar during the session. It was understood they could come and go without being harassed over the day's activities down the street.

Again, that is something that could probably not happen today. And I often wonder if we are the better for that fact.

This was one of the very sports bars around town, running busses out to the old Met Stadium and then to the Metrodome for Twins and Vikings' games. For years, Iggy always took Sundays off. Then a few of his regulars suggested it would be a good idea to have a place the boys could go to watch a Vikings' game. Sharon Kelly, a longtime worker there, offered to run the bar. Fairly soon, the Sunday afternoon business began to boom. It was never advertised but it didn't have to be. Good news often travels fast.

Like all good things, however, it had to come to an end. Iggy saw the trend in the area and figured the time had come to get out. Five years ago, he decided it was time to pull the plug. The place's last official night at a bar was a gala affair. My best memory of it is coming out of the bar into the parking lot to see my wife and ex-wife engaged in pleasant conversation. As I approached with drinks for both of them, I heard one say to the other, "Oh, I hate it when he does that." To this day, I have never found out what "that" was. It was one of the many secrets told in the old place.

Lendways gave way to a rib restaurant that was only open a day or two a week. I am told the ribs were quite good. But I could never bring myself to go in there. It just wouldn't have seemed right.

Then the word came the city wanted the land for itself. The cop shop closed a while back. The rib place closed down a month ago. Several of us drove by a few times shaking our heads in dismay. None of us who spent time there wanted to see the final blows fall. We had lost our place years ago.

The regulars have long split up, found new homes and made new friends. But every now and then, a story comes up and somebody would say, "Remember the time at Lendways ..."

A bulldozer can't take away that memory.

Gene Barry will always be cool!

2009-12-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

There was an item in the paper today that Gene Barry passed away at ago 90. For those who don't remember, he was Bat Masterson and, later Amos Burke in the series "Burke's Law." There never was anybody cooler or more suave than those two characters. The article said he suffered from Alzheimer's in later years. If so, I am glad thje last picture I saw of him was over a decade ago.

I understand we all go some day. And if we live to age 90, our looks are going to undergo a serious change. But it pains me to think of somebody that sharp not being able to keep up with the world anymore.

So I will comfort myself that, in his heyday, Gene Barry was about the coolest cat around. One hopes he rode in through the front gates in a fancy stagecoach or a limo. He should come into his next gig the way he did in the past.

Victory at last

2009-11-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it is the little triumphs that matter most. Along that lines, I am proud to announce that I have completed my first-ever puzzle without any help. Okay, it was the smaller of the two that run in our local newspaper. (And I am sure it is the easier one.)

And I am aware that Monday's puzzle is usually the easiest one of the week. But I have probably tried my hand at a thousand of these with no previous success. It took some serious memory work (I finally remembered that Winnie the Pooh's buddy was Piglet not Piggly) but, as the Detroit Lions would note, a win is a win.

My only regret is that it is only noon - a bit too early to open the Grand Marnier for a celebration.

Something to be truly thankful for

2009-11-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

In many ways, this turned out to be one of the best of the 56 Thanksgivings I have been around for. The turkey on the grill experiment worked out fine. I learned a few things for future consumption and a couple little parts of the bird got singed too much. My cutting of the turkey left a lot to be desired. But it was very tasty turkey.

My wife made her killer fruit salad and contributed a pea dish from a recipe she had seen in a newspaper as well as supervising all the other nifty side dishes that go with a Thanksgiving meal. Our friend Steph came up with some yummy potatoes and a nifty stuffing dish with a nice kick to it. Our friend Sharon came with yams - something I had never had before. Our friend James brought some wonderful wine.

Steph invited one of the assistant basketball coaches at Hamline, a fellow I didn't know very well before today. Chris proved to be a delightful fellow, pitching right in to help with the turkey and even broadened his horizons a bit by having the ultimate in ginger ale, Vernors.

But what made this such a special day was the general feeling of good will that persisted all day in the house. People, including some who didn't know each other very well until today, got together for good food, repast, conversation and left with doggy bags of food for the next several days. For one afternoon, there were no arguments over about how stupid this politician is for his or her view on an issue. People spent the time smiling and listening to each other's stories - even if they didn't always understand the subjects.

At night, one of my favorite feel-good movies "Love Actually" was on. Finally (at about 11 p.m.), Pete, the Happy Dog (who had a good day, too - lots of attention and a turkey treat at dinner) and I took a late night stroll on a wonderfully crisp night -- the type where the air feels sharp ... and wonderful.

There are plenty of days to point fingers, scream about perceived injustices and yell at people. Thankfully, today was not one of them.

But here is what I will always remember about Thanksgiving 2009 on Cottage Avenue: at the end of the day, six people parted in a happy, contented state.

When is the last time you could say that?

Embarking on a new adventure

2009-11-19T08:10:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be in the Como Park area of St. Paul next Thursday and see smoke billowing in an unusual fashion, don't be dismayed. It might mean a great experiment didn't work out so well.

After years of being the guest, I am taking my first crack at cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving. There will be only 3 or 4 of us present but that doesn't matter. It's the idea that counts, right?

Everything I have read says cooking a turkey is the easiest thing in the world. You simply clean out the crap inside it, wash it, pat it dry, place it in a pan (so the drippings will be there for gravy) and put it on the grill.

Four hours or so later, you take it off, carve it up into edible portions and gobble down to your heart's (and stomach's) content.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?

But I have had a few misadventures over the years with what was supposed to be easy food projects. My ex-wife can tell you about one with a grill (smaller than the one we will use next week) that nearly set part of Farrington Ave. on fire. There was an adventure with Easter Eggs one year that didn't work out so well for her sons. On another occasion, my 12-year old niece (now an ex-niece) politely had to instruct me how to make mashed potatoes.

Amazingly, I still get along wonderfully (at least, I think I do) with all of these people.

I admit to being excited about taking on this challenge. I ordered the bird from our favorite butcher the other day. We're making a list of the other important implements needed (meat thermometer that works, a little rack for the pan, etc.)

There should be plenty of leftovers, a critical part of the Thanksgiving feast. My wife and our friend Steph are consulting on the other parts of the menu (dressing, bread, etc.) There will be dressing, salad, bread, and pies.

Just in case the weather is too crappy to even walk to the grill -- a journey of roughly 20 steps -- (In Minnesota, this is very possible.), the oven will be on standby status. It should be a grand feast and a memorable day. (It would be even more memorable if the Detroit Lions beat up on the Green Bay Packers but that is out of my control.)

Just in case, I made one other stop after visiting the butcher the other day. I purchased a bottle of Chianti and added offerings of Paul Newman's Cabernet Sauvignon, Bella Sera's Pinot Noir and Archery Summit Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley area of Oregon.

One can never have enough backup plans.

11 is a significant number, after all

2009-11-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

According to a website I ran across, the proper gift for a 11th wedding anniversary is ... steel?

Didn't sound very romantic to me.

My wife and I celebrated our 11th anniversary last Saturday in a slightly more traditional way. We had dinner at a local steak house we like and then met a close friend for a couple of drinks.

11 is an odd number in more ways than one.

Outside of a craps table (and football coaches), it doesn't mean much to most people. It doesn't stand for much else. But it does seem to me a milestone of sorts. It means you are now well into the second decade - a threshold that a lot of relationships don't reach. As in all such relationships, we have had our ups and downs. But when you march into a second decade, it tells me that we trust and love each other to such an extent that we can allow for disagreements to occur without becoming unbalanced. That, too, isn't very romantic. But it is something to be proud of.

I have always felt they got it kinda backwards in "Love Story," Love means wanting to say "I'm sorry" when you really feel that way. After 11 years, I still want to say that to Lynne.

Happy Anniversary, dear. Looking forward to the next 11 years as well.

What the Yankees' win really meant

2009-11-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

The baseball season is over. The team that played the best ball down the stretch and in the playoffs -- the New York Yankees -- won the World Series last night. That is as it should be but it hurts nonetheless.

Next to the closing of Conny's Creamy Cone down the street, this was the saddest night of the year because it means baseball is over. The good news is spring training is only a little over three months away and hope does spring eternal.

I have no problem with the Yankees themselves winning the title. They are an admirable group of veterans who may not get another chance. It is not a popular notion in my part of the world but Derek Jeter would be a perfectly good MVP choice. Every day, he made all the plays he should have (and a few he had no business making)and hit like a sonofagun. My suspicion is Minnesota's Joe Mauer, who missed a month but still won the batting title and was a superb defensive catcher all year, will win it.

But if Jeter does win, it is not a miscarriage of justice. (Now if CC Sabathia sneaks in as the Cy Young winner ahead of Kansas City's Zack Greinke, that would be a travesty of justice. But I digress.)

No, the problem with New York's win is a little more basic. It is very clear that the commissioner - along with his broadcast partners Fox, ESPN and TBS, had a vested interest and openly rooted for New York to succeed. The reason is the oldest one in the world - money. New York is still the financial epicenter of the country. A Yankee post-season appearance gets bigger ratings. Bigger ratings mean more money for everybody. When you are getting paid $17 million a year (as is Bud Selig's current per annum salary), you best be producing some big bucks for somebody.

So I am sure there were sighs of a different sort -- the relief type -- when US Steel won the World Series last night. The local comptrollers at MLB and the networks can get out the calculators and get to work.

I won't go as far as to suggest the conspiracy went down to the level of the umpires. However, it was an astonishing coincidence that NY got several breaks from obviously incorrect calls in the postseason.

What Mr. Selig and the network boys forget every year is the country cares more about good baseball than the actual teams playing it. In 1991, Atlanta and Minnesota -- hardly major TV markets produced boffo ratings because the games were wonderful. It is not necessary the Yankees, Red Sox or a LA team playing to have good, interesting baseball. But when those teams are not on the air, you can tell the networks are basically bored and only doing the games because they have to. If given their druthers, the network execs and MLB give me the impression they would rather be at '21' having a martini.

Major League Baseball was so disinterested in the playoff game for the AL Central title between Detroit and Minnesota that they refused to schedule it for prime time and assigned a home plate umpire who shouldn't be working in Little League. Turned out to be a hellacious 12-inning game that ended up going into prime time anyway. Served them right.

Granted, the above rant is not particularly fair to the Yankees or their fans. Regardless of the fact the Yankee roster's combined income could help reduce the national debt, they won the games they had to. For that, they deserve all the congrats and the city should celebrate accordingly.

But it would serve the commissioner and the networks well to remember the fans in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Seattle and San Francisco are just as rabid about winning and root just as hard for their teams as do the denizens who come to Yankee Stadium.

They do so knowing in advance their chances of post-season success are slim. But the beauty of baseball is hope does spring eternal and perhaps next year will be better. And if they get to the post-season, the commissioner and the networks have to show up ... even if they end up wearing snowsuits because the final games are played in November.

An enjoyable duty

2009-11-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Today is Election Day. In St. Paul, we have a mildly competitive mayor's race, a School Board race (those are always interesting - people fighting madly for a job that pays $11,000 a year but has enormous power over kids' education) and a referendum about IRV - a voting procedure where you list your top three picks in the order you prefer them.

It's a not a full plate but it's more than enough to get your attention.

I enjoy voting and see it as more than just an offshoot of living in a free country. It's a duty - an enjoyable one - but a duty nonetheless.

The Senate race we had in Minnesota a year ago proves the value of each vote. Al Franken ended up winning by a razor-thin margin. If 313 people in Minnesota had said "To hell with it, my vote doesn't matter", Norm Coleman would still be a senator here. That's 313 people in a state with an estimated population of 5,167,101. According to my calculator, that's a percentage of .0000605.

Pretty slim margin, I'd say.

I understand that today's politics can wear a person out. There are only so many ads you can watch before you want to upchuck. But an active democracy demands participation. So it is incumbent to make some time to get to your polling place. If you don't do so, any arguments you make about the people you could have voted out lack steam. Unlike what some of the TV talkies try to tell us, we always have a chance to have our say in this country. Today is that day.

I remember taking my dear late mother-in-law Colleen to her polling place one voting Tuesday. It was snowing and blowing as only it can here. The building she was voting was barely visible from the street. But she was damned and determined to cast her ballot and called to make sure I was coming at the appointed time. She was, as Hubert Humphrey used to say, pleased as punch to cast her vote.

If she was still alive today, I know she would have cast her vote for whatever was on the ballot in Falcon Heights - even if it was only a race for a seat on The Sewer Board.

That kind of determination and pride is really what this country was founded on. It's up to us to keep the spirit going.

A very unhappy anniversary

2009-10-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today is the 20-year anniversary of something that still haunts us in Minnesota ... including the millions of people who never met Jacob Wetterling.

20 years ago tonight, Jacob, 11 years old at the time, was abducted outside a store in St. Joseph, about 80 miles north of the Twin Cities. There has never been any real tangible clues as to what happened. The two kids who were with him at the time were allowed to escape. It has haunted them to this day.

Jacob's parents have remained rock solid. They are still holding out hope that some way, somehow, Jacob will walk through their front door. I met Patty, his mother, a year after it happened. She is an amazingly strong woman.

Jacob is out there somewhere. There are god knows how many more like him. Tonight, one hopes we can curtail some of the political fire in this country and take a second to think of the Wetterlings and the many other families living through this nightmare.

The ol' home town strikes out again

2009-10-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have a longtime friend who is a diehard Boston Red Sox fan. Even though his team has now won two World Series titles after a long drought, there is still one man who is a villain of the peace. He has been so for three decades and he will be so long after he is gone from this mortal coil.

New Englanders know him simply as Bucky bleeping Dent, the weak-hitting shortstop who hit a home run to give the Yankees a victory in a one-game playoff at Fenway Park in 1978.

There is a new villain in Detroit this morning - Alexi bleeping Casilla. The backup infielder singled home the winning run in the 12th inning last night to lift the Twins past the Tigers, 6-5, in a terrific game that decided the AL Central title.

Never mind the fact the Twins now have to face the Evil Empire Yankees in New York less than 24 hours later. You take 'em where you can get 'em.

Tom Hanks was right. There is no crying in baseball. As a guy who is writing a Twins book that will be out next spring, I am overjoyed there is an extra chapter that can be added. It's a great story - the team and the ballpark that refuses to go away.

I have a friend (a former colleague) who works for the Tigers in marketing and I know his heart is broken today. Oh, he will go to work and start thinking about marking plans for the winter and the 2010 season. But he is also a fan. Like all fans, he will find himself wondering how it was that home plate umpire Randy Marsh missed the obvious hit-by-pitch call in the top of the 12th inning that would have given the Tigers the lead. But since he works in the game, he will merely grit his teeth and move on.

I am also a Detroiter at heart. I hear the snide jokes about my hometown all the time. Most of them are old but they still hurt. Even though I haven't lived there for 40 years, I am still a native who knows Detroit is a better city than it is given credit for. I know it is a good baseball town - one that is hurting badly today.

But there is no way around facts. And today's fact is, despite a terrific run, the Tigers fell on their face at the worst possible moment. In high school and college ball, you can pat them on the back and say, "Good try. Get 'em next time."

In pro sports, you don't get that option. You either win or you don't. So it is that my poor home town will have all winter with the haunting memory of Alexi bleeping Casilla.

There is only one thought that gives them hope today - spring training is just four months away.

"Jersey Boys" worth a visit

2009-09-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee lad, I used to go with my mother for her visits to the Fisher Theater in Detroit. She loved plays and, since I was the youngest (and least likely to object to such things), I was usually assigned the job of being her escort. It turned out to be great duty. We would usually have a good dinner followed by an ice cream sundae. I remember seeing Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway, two extraordinary talents, in "Hello, Dolly" and Richard Kiley do his great turn in "Man Of La Mancha."

There is nothing like live theater. I don't get to see it very often any more. But my wife and I did go last night to see "Jersey Boys", the story about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, here in Las Vegas. It was a treat to witness and I cannot recommend it enough.

The music is contagiously fun. If you are of my age bracket, you will damn near every one of the 34 songs played word for word. The stories behind some of those songs were tales I didn't know. Now the songs make more sense (and, with it, some sadness as well) than ever before. The language is a bit rough at times but my eastern buddies say that that is the f------ way Jersey people talk.

The actors in this crew are all fairly anonymous (at least to me) but it didn't matter. They sang and danced their hearts out for two hours. About a year ago, I heard Valli in concert. After hearing this show, it is a little harder to tell who sounds better -- the guy who played him here (Travis Cloer) or the old guy himself.

It is worth the effort to find out.

Once a hero, always a hero

2009-09-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be Ernie Harwell. I thought he had the greatest job in the world. For four decades, he was the radio (and occasionally) TV voice of the Detroit Tigers. Many of those teams weren't very good. But it didn't matter. He got to be there every night, telling us about the "man from Ishpeming" who was taking home a foul ball tonight. When Ernie told you "he stood there like the house by the side of the road", you knew the batter had just taken strike three.

He had a wonderful southern twang to his voice. It was warm and personal. I once heard an interview in which he described his technique. "My father was an invalid who loved to listen to baseball games," he said. "When I started out, I pretended I was talking to him and telling him the story of the game."

Catching him do spring training games was always a treat. His sunny voice told you the cold winter was basically over. (He used to start the first spring training game with The Song of Solomon that refers to just that thing.)

One Sunday afternoon, we were coming back from a trip to Mackinac Island. It's a long drive and my mother, wishing to get some harmony in the car, flipped on the radio to the baseball game. With pit stops to let young boys go out and do what young boys need to do, it was about a seven-hour jaunt. As it turned out, we had Harwell (and, I think, George Kell) for company all the way.

The game lasted seven hours (22 innings) and ended as we were going up Patton Avenue to our house.

Harwell is 91 years old now. He retired from the booth in 2002 but has been back for occasional work here and there. I happened to catch him do an inning when the Tigers were in the World Series a few years ago. He sounded almost the same as he did 40 years ago.

Remarkable.

Recently, it was revealed he has terminal cancer. What would most of us if given such a jolt? Let's hope we don't find out.

Harwell didn't seem too fazed by the whole thing, He seems to be facing the inevitable conclusion the way he told us about the Tigers - with a little humor and a lot of practicality, referring to his cancer as "a new adventure." Oddly, this was basically the way he described things when the late Bo Schembechler, who had been hired as the president of the Tigers, ran him out of the broadcast booth in the early 90s. (That unwise decision was quickly reversed. He was back a year later.)

In the Bible, we are told that all life is basically circular - from ashes to ashes. Harwell, a devoutly religious guy, seems to have taken this adage to heart. What else could he do?

So it is that, at age 56, I find myself (for a radically different reason) wanting to be Ernie Harwell.

Again.

A fair way to spend a day

2009-09-01T06:42:00.001-07:00

The Minnesota State Fair is one of the most unique events in the entire country. Just about every state has a fair of some way, shape or form. But people come from all over to this extravaganza. What makes this fun is not just the carnies ... who are basically no different than anywhere else in the country.

It's the odd combo of foods (even beer on a stick) and people-watching, a sport that is still very strong in our little part of the world.

Yesterday, I did an eight-hour shift in a small tent selling beer, pop, burgers, etc. It was for a group that uses the proceeds to benefit playgrounds in St. Paul. And, like a lot of volunteer experiences, I got more out of it than the people I served.

When you stand on the same corner for nearly eight hours and watch the world go by, you tend to see things in a different light. You see the same people pass by two or three times with their kids. When they go by the first time, the adults seem full of energy. By the third pass, most of them are dragging a bit while the kids continue to skip at a merry pace.

Business was steady at our little tent. We had folks who said they had been coming to this spot for 30 years, young couples on first or second dates and people who were just hungry and knew a good deal when they saw one (2 bucks a hamburger, a quarter more for cheese.)

One of my favorites was a big guy who wanted a Triple Hamburger. "A triple?", I asked. (We had Doubles on the boatrd but no Triples listed.)

"They did it for me here yesterday," he said by way of explanation. "They just charged me 50 more cents."

"Who am I to argue with history?", I replied. "A triple it is."

The woman cooking gave me a funny look as I wrote this order down but merely smiled.
So did the gentleman as he ate it deliberately with great enjoyment.

There were a surprising amount of moms who stopped for ... er ... refreshment while pushing baby carts. My favorite was a young woman about age 30 who had a baby in a stroller and another young 'un clinging to her leg.

"What's your largest size beer?" she asked. When informed it was 20 ounces, she asked "Is that it?" But she gladly bought two of them and said she would be back later when she found "him."

Apparently, she did find "him" because she returned alone an hour later for a refill. This beer was drank slowly and seem to be cherished with the fervor of a jeweler looking at the Hope Diamond. "Is it okay if I just sit here for a while?" she asked. "Take all the time you need," I responded. I think she was stationary for 15 minutes.

There was another couple who looked to be in their early 60s who wandered by.

"What can I do for you?", I asked.

Before the male half of this happy pair could utter a sound, the female half jumped in. "We'll have a large Pepsi," she said. This option seemed to disappoint the male half of the party considerably. But he merely sighed and, upon a non-verbal command, handed over the dollar and a half as they went on their merry way.

And so it went nearly all day. Only one person got upset at how a beer was poured and insisted on a do-over. Women who were 30 years old and were asked for their ID anyway did so with a grateful smile. Young guys who recently entered the legal age (one of them was only a month past his 21st birthday) didn't object to being carded. A couple of folks had Passports instead of Driver Licenses for ID. I was a bit quizzical the first time I saw this. "I left it at his house," the young woman said, nodding to her escort. He grinned knowingly.

After watching weeks of allegedly angry people on TV yelling about health care, the damn Democrats, the damn Republicans, the damn Yankees, etc., it was refreshing to see happy (or at least not unhappy) faces again.

I love going to the fair, strolling the Midway, seeing some new exhibits and eating anything from Tom Thumb Donuts to Sweet Martha's Cookies along the way. After spending a day somewhat on the inside, I have a new and healthy respect for the folks who work it for 10 days. I am not sure I am made of strong enough stuff to do that. But an eight-hour shift there does wonders for the soul. It was nice to see people smiling again.

Nirvana is a wonderful place

2009-07-25T15:01:00.001-07:00

It was a weekend to get away from the rat race. And what better place to do so than in one of Minnesota's little havens of heaven? My brother Frank and his wife Peggy live in Lanesboro, a tiny town of 800 people a couple hours south of the Twin Cities. My brother Paul and his wife Pam happened to be at a seminar of sorts in nearby Rochester so it was the perfect time for a mini-family reunion.

But Lanesboro is more than that. Whether it is hanging out at the market in town, going to yard sales (where I bought a book on hunting and the outdoors authored by former president Grover Cleveland, attending a terrific play at the Commonweal Theater or just sitting on the porch, there is a serenity here that is much needed.

I am not sure I could live in a town like Lanesboro full time. But I know my soul feels better every time I visit and I am always reluctant to leave.

I understand a bit better what Kevin Costner talked about in "Fields of Dreams" about heaven in Iowa. We all need this every now and then.

One for the ages

2009-07-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

As I write this, Tom Watson, at age 59, is leading the British Open Golf tournament. Tiger Woods, a mere 26 years younger, didn't make the cut.

I heard some ESPN guys yesterday bemoaning this fact because it didn't fit the pattern most people thought would happen.

One of the biggest problems we have in athletics today is many people go into events with a pre-set idea of what will happen. When the predicted result goes askew, they are aghast and ask why. In some ways, ESPN has been the worst thing to ever happen to athletics because it does a lot of predicting and not nearly as much anticipating.

The idea of playing a game (or a sport) is everybody starts at zero and then you see what happens. My mother-in-law, at age 80, was still a very formidable Scrabble player. That may not be the same thing as golf but it is the same concept.

The sooner we go back to simply showing up and playing or watching to see what happens, the better off we will be.

In the meantime, go Tom Watson. Good golf, whether it is played by a talented 33-year old or a crafty 59-year old, is still fun to watch.

Where did we get so much stuff?

2009-07-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

There is a young woman down the street who is going on a trip to Tanzania with her church in a month. She put out a flyer saying she was looking to make some money doing whatever tasks somebody needed done. We put her to work today with a massive job - cleaning out the garage.

We don't quite know how this happened but our garage is not a haven for cars. It is a haven for everything else from old records to birdseed to actual tools to empty boxes. There are war zones that are less cluttered.

We are deeply grateful to her for tacking this job. We do this every year -- clean and sweep the garage out and then placing things back nice and neatly. In about two weeks, it returns to looking like a war zone.

My question today is simple: how in the world did we get so much stuff? And are we the only people who go through this routine every year?

Bewitched, bothered, bewildered and befuddled about Bejeweled

2009-07-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

There is a game on Facebook called Bejeweled Blitz. In a nutshell, it involves moving characters around so you can get at least three running consecutively in any direction. When you do that, they dissolved and a new list of items go onto the screen.

It is a frustrating and ... very addictive game. I had seen this evil invention on the internet before but had forgotten about it until it was called to my attention recently.

I became a quick convert. The Facebook game is a timed one - you have a minute to get these things in line. If you can morph four or five in line, you get more points. After several tries, I have managed to get up to 65,000 points. This sounds good but two friends of mine are well over 100,000. Either they have smaller, more nimble fingers are simply a helluva smarter than I am. (I choose to believe the first idea.)

What is really maddening about this game is I tend to see combos a second too late. I move a green gob into position for a three spot and then notice that if I had moved it the other way, I would have gotten a four or five spotter. Arrggh.

These games are supposed to bring you relaxation. In a way, I suppose they do. But what happens is you find yourself suddenly being very competitive because a young friend of yours has 116,000 points and you "only" have 65,000. I don't like playing golf for a buck a round and I find myself playing this game by the hour just to improve my score to get ahead of somebody ... for no money. That says something about me. The problem is I don't exactly know if it is a good something.

Happy Birthday, Happy Dog!

2009-06-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

This may seem weird to some people. But we celebrated the Happy Dog's seventh birthday this week. He got an ice cream treat @ the greatest ice cream place in town, Conny's and also got a bath and a haircut.

I think he apprciated it ... even if he didn't exactly know the reason why.

Dogs are often our friends. They cheer us up when we are down and they support us almost all the time. So why not celebrate their big day?

All hail the surgeon ... I mean the repairman

2009-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Granted, it was not hot by the standards of, say, Las Vegas, where it is over 100 degrees on a daily basis this time of year.

But it was damned muggy the other night here. My wife and I spent a restless night with the windows open hoping to get any kind of breeze going. Eventually, morning came and I was on the phone as soon as possible asking the company that put in our air conditioner last year to get the hell over here and fix it. It had gone out the night before and we couldn't possibly be expected to live in two nights of 70 degree agony.

I was told a guy would come between 1 and 5 p.m. Usually that means they arrive at 4:59 but this time, Jerry showed up at 1:30. He was a big fellow and Pete, the Happy Dog who had turned sour because of no air conditioning, was suspicious of him for a long time. But Jerry won him over and was soon allowed to proceed to cooling down everybody.

It turned out now to be as easy as it sounded. We bought the air conditioning unit a year ago and had hardly used it. I figured it was a freon problem or some such thing. The guy would fill up what was needed and be gone in 20 minutes.

Didn't happen that way. Instead, I could hear him doing a lot of sighing and puzzled grunts as he worked downstairs. In time, he came up to report that a motor of some sort was no longer working in the furnace area. Naturally, this was an item that was probably not covered under warranty. But he would call and check and give me a price. Jerry spent some time in the truck, came back with a small box and headed back downstairs.

More sighs and puzzled grunts were heard. 20 minutes later, he came upstairs again.

"I have good news and bad news for you," he said. "The good news is the motor I told you about is covered under warranty so you won't have to pay $410 for it. The bad news is the end motor also isn't working and that is not covered under warranty. That will cost $465 and I am not sure I even have one in my truck. I haven't replaced one of those in a few months."

Back to the truck he went. 15 minutes later, he emerged with another box. By now, he had entered and left the house so many times that Pete didn't even get up to check him out. The thermostat in the dining room read 80 degrees and the dog wasn't going anywhere any more. It was too damn hot outside and it was too damn hot inside.

Jerry returned to the basement. 10 minutes later, I heard the most wondrous noise - a purring sound that resembled a large cat that had drank a bowl of milk. Pete's ears perked up. The noise went off for a few minutes and then returned.

Fairly soon, Jerry came upstairs to report the happy news the end motor was working just fine. The operation was a success and the doctor seems pleased with the result. I looked at the thermostat. It was down to 79 degrees already. Cooler heads were about to prevail again.

This whole performance only took about two hours overall. But it seemed like an eternity.

We are a country that likes our comfort. I am not a big air conditioner guy when you are a little hot, your spouse is hot and your dog is hot, not having the machine available for your use when needed is damn near an emergency.

Jerry didn't look like the kind of doctor you see on TV. But he performed a surgery that, in its own way, had as much value as many operations you hear about. The results are really noticeable today. It is 90 degrees outside and a nice 73 inside. And I hope Jerry makes somebody else (and their dog) equally happy today.

Farewell to a grand lady

2009-06-08T11:31:00.001-07:00

My wife's mother passed away Sunday. She was that rarest of souls - a person who didn't publicly judge people - and managed to keep a great perspective on just about everything.

Colleen was a person of great surprises. For example, she was an avid, hardnosed Scrabble player. My track record against her was roughly the same as the Detroit Lions against the Minnesota Vikings.

After her husband George died, she quietly went out and took classes to get her driver's license. Her kids had no idea until one day she announced she needed a ride to go take her road test. She didn't drive a lot but liked the fact she could.

We took her to a baseball game at the Metrodome one night and she startled my wife (and, I admit, myself) by keeping a perfect, neat scorecard. We knew she was a good fan but never saw this coming.

She had some strong political opinions but generally settled for everybody else battling it out publicly. But she felt strongly about voting and took pride in knowing all the issues before making a decision.

In the end, she was ready to go. The quality of life she once knew had diminished and she was sick of hospitals. As her body wore down, however, her strong heart kept firing to the end. I used to kid her that I knew where kids got their stubbornness gene from.

As Robert Sherwood once noted, dying is easy. All of us will achieve that. Living, however, is the trick. Colleen Larkin had a great run in life and had earned the right to leave on her own terms. Not many of us can say that.

We (myself, friends and family) will miss her greatly but feel fortunate to have known her as long as we did. In the end, that's all one really needs to say about somebody.

Humor is always helpful

2009-06-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

I wasn't necessarily looking forward to a 90-minute to Mankato .. even though Highway 169 is a nice drive. But getting through traffic in the Twin Cities to get to 169 -- even in mid-afternoon -- takes patience, grit and a lot of perseverence. Fortunately, I had the perfect sedative for such a journey.

Tom Lehrer was a satirist in the late 1950s and 1960s. He only made a couple of records (that are now on CDs) but the humor seems as a fresh now as it did then. Oh, it helps to be old enough to remember and understand jokes about people like George Murphy and Hubert Humphrey. I hardly noticed the idiot who made a left hand turn without a blinker and the guy who stopped in the middle of the highway to grab a cellphone that had apparently fallen out of his hand.

I merely listened to Mr. Lehrer's humor and moved on.

We live in parlous times. We all have a lot on our plates these days. It seems that no matter where you turn, somebody is unhappy and can't wait to tell the world about it. When you have enough of that, all that is left is to listen to somebody who makes you smile.

The 90 minutes fairly flew by. Now I am in a hotel with a dozen high school girls softball teams. What possibly can go wrong now?

A disturbing scene

2009-05-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

I was standing outside the Golden Nugget Hotel in downtown Las Vegas waiting for the bus to take us back to the airport for the return trek home. Leaving Las Vegas is always a melancholy time. But what happened while I was waiting jarred me quickly back to reality.

A man who appeared to be my age was walking toward the hotel pushing a shopping cart that has a couple of taped plastic bags in it. He wasn't shabbily dressed but he wasn't wearing a tux either.

Suddenly, he stopped and peered into a garbage can. He reached in, grabbed a Coke cup and appeared to drink its remnants. Then he walked along past us to the end of the block, snooping into garbage cans. His "luck" ran out at the end of the street because he encountered a hotel security person, who quietly and efficiently sent him around the corner.

We've all seen the people on the edge of freeways with their signs "Will work for food" and the like. But we can breeze past them in our cars and manage to forget them quickly.

But it is a different story when you watch a guy slowly walk past you pushing a cart with what is probably his entire worldly belongings in it. The guy didn't say anything to us as he walked by and he wasn't bothering anybody.

But I don't think I will forget the scene for some time to come. The next time I hear a politician or a pundit tell me we are not a country with problems, I am sure I will see the picture of this fellow in my mind. I only wish they could see him too.

Less is sometimes more costly

2009-05-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

I realize I am not the wisest business person around. But perhaps somebody who knows business well can explain the following to me?

This morning, I stopped at Burger King (or as Clem Haskins once called it, Burgers King) for a quick breakfast. I chose No. 2, a Biscuit with sausage and egg, tater tots and coffee. List price: $3.69.

The guy at the counter then asks the standard question: "Would you a large version of this?" I said no.

He then asked if I wanted a small or large coffee. I told him a small would do nicely.

He rings up the bill and says this will now cost $5.31. Seems that it costs a buck or so more if you order a small coffee instead of the medium you usually get.

I told him to forget the small coffee and go back to the original order. That meant he had to get a manager to void one order and start all over.

I leave it to smarter people than I to explain why this is so.

What a sunny day can do for a person

2009-05-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

When I first came to college in Minnesota a few years ago, my roommate told me, "If you don't like the weather in Minnesota, wait a minute."

Wise fellow.

It was 97 degrees here yesterday. With it came some glorious sun and equally glorious wind. It made a fellow feel like he was in, say, Aruba.

And it was amazing what it did to people's moods. There were a lot more smiles yesterday than there had been when it was 50 and overcast (as it was Saturday).

Girls who had been waiting patiently for months to wear tanktops and sun dresses brought them out proudly. Guys dragged out the first pair of shorts they could find.

Even the Happy Dog, who is not a big fan of summer, enjoyed it ... once he got under a tree.

A fellow who somehow hurt his heel a week ago and had been hobbling ever since hardly felt it as he made his rounds. (It might have been because of that yummy Hot Fudge Sundae he had at Conny's Creamy Cone. But I digress.)

Even the cranky neighbor down the street smiled and waved at the Happy Dog as he peed on his front lawn.

Life simply was a lot better than it had been the day before.

I suspect this is because we don't get a lot of these days in our little part of the world. And we sure as hell don't expect to get them in the middle of May. (The temp broke the old record by eight degrees.)

We know this won't last. It is supposed to rain tomorrow. But, at least for a couple of days, all is bright and beautiful in the world.

With all the turmoil around us these days, this little break couldn't have come at a better time.

Thanks, God.

Proud of my hometown

2009-05-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day for many native Detroiters. I’m not referring to the backers of the baseball Tigers, who hammered the Twins 9-0 the night before. For every one of those games, there is a loss by a similar score waiting in the wings.

No, it was a terrific day for my hometown for a different reason. Dave Bing, a guy who came to Detroit 40 years ago to play basketball and then stayed in town as a businessman, was elected the city’s new mayor.

Granted, this is only a temporary gig. He is only filling the seat until the end of the year and must run again in an August primary and a November election. To this native, however, Bing’s election gives hopes that a city that has taken a pounding in recent years can hold its head high again.

Consider what has happened to my hometown in recent years.

1) The previously elected mayor – Kwame Kilpatrick – committed a serious of acts so stupid that he ended up going to jail. The list is too long to enumerate here. But it includes a pair of whistleblower settlements that cost the city roughly $16 million. In addition, there were allegations of a wild party with strippers held at the mayor’s mansion (one of the dancers later was found dead by suspicious means) and rumors of an extra-marital affair between the mayor and his chief of staff. The latter case really exploded with the revelation of some 14,000 text messages between the mayor and the woman in question that led to another trial for, among other things, perjury. While that trial was going on, Kilpatrick managed to acquire more charges of assault, obstruction and, in a particularly silly move, committed a bail violation by going across the border to Windsor, Ontario without asking permission. When all was said and done, Kilpatrick was forced to resign and ended up in jail for four months.

2) The auto industry problems. Is there much that needs to be added to this story? Let’s put it this way: How would folks around here like it if country western singer John Rich went on national TV and sang, “Let’s shut down St. Paul" or "Let's Shut Down New York?"

3) The Detroit Lions going 0-16 in 2008. You may have noticed Brett Favre didn’t ask for a secret meeting with them.

You get the idea. The city has had some very tough times lately.

Enter Bing. He had a reputation of being an honest, hardworking player during a 12-year career with the NBA Pistons, Bullets and Celtics. When his playing days ended, Bing returned to Detroit as a businessman. He had his dissenters (who of us doesn’t?). Generally, however, Bing was held in high esteem around town, reminding folks of Jimmy Cannon’s famous quote regarding another Detroiter, Joe Louis: “He was a credit to his race – the human race.”

In the election, Bing was matched against Ken Cockrel, Jr., who moved up from City Council president to mayor when Kilpatrick left for a new home. As usual, there were missteps along the way. In the February primary, both candidates were cited for being too close to polling sites. Bing exaggerated his academic credentials from Syracuse. Cockrel wore a campaign T-shirt inside his voting booth, a possible violation.

The race was intense but surprisingly free of the usual political mudslinging. Most folks expected Cockrel, a longtime political fixture on the Detroit scene, to win a close race. But Bing, who left his gated suburban community to move into Detroit and ran as the candidate of change, won by four points. Whether he can achieve some of that change remains to be seen. Cobo Exposition Center, where Bing plied his trade as a NBA player, is more than 50 years old and is in drastic need of a facelift or it may lose the auto shows and conventions that has been its lifeblood. And that is just one of many financial issues facing the city.

But a city that drew headlines for mayoral misconduct and one of its main industries needing federal bailout help needed something positive to happen. Talk radio might not think so but you can only beat up people so long before they eventually lose their will to compete. For now, Detroiters – those who live there and those of us who were born there – can smile.

I know little of Bing’s overall politics. I don’t even know if he is going to run in the primary or the main election. If he does run, I don’t know if he would be the best person for the job.

It may turn out that, after a month or two in the job, he may decide there are better ways for a 66-year old to spend his time. It may turn out that he isn’t very good at the job. We’ll find that out in due time.

But I know this: my hometown has been the butt of too many jokes – many of them snide – in recent years. It has hurt to hear them. But Detroiters have good reason to feel good today. They decided on their political leader the way we used to do it – with a hard-fought, clean election based on the issues and the candidates.

Wouldn’t it be a kick if Detroit started another American trend?