Just my opinion...

The movie “Field of Dreams” has nothing to do with baseball but uses baseball as it’s backdrop – but I was sitting watching the movie recently, when it dawned on me that I have genuine and deep sympathy for anyone who isn’t a fan of baseball.

I know it’s not a fast moving game like basketball, hockey, football,  etc.  I know to some, professional baseball’s reputation is poor because of strikes and scandals.  But the game is still a wonderful game.

I can’t recall the writer or commentator who said that baseball is a game of beautiful pauses but I agree.  If you’ve ever faced a genuinely good pitcher, you feel one of these pauses as you watch the pitcher peer over his left shoulder, looking your teammate back to first.  His focus shifts from you and to the edge of of his eyes…  There it is…  The pause.  In the silence of that pause, there’s poetry.

A frozen moment of anticipation.  I loved that moment as a batter.  The pitcher could lazily throw to first to let the runner know he’s watching.  Snap a throw to first in an attempt to “pick off” the runner.  Step off the “rubber” to halt all the action and reset.  Or…  His eyes shift back to me, his knee lifts as he begins his kick, the ball remaining hidden in his glove so I can’t read his finger position.  Now he’s committed to delivering the ball to the catcher and I watch his arm coming over the top so I can acquire the ball as early as possible and possibly see how his fingers are positioned on the ball.

He releases the ball and it’s on its way to me now.  Are the laces turning?  Which direction?  How fast?  The ball is coming “high and tight”, the laces are rolling forward and inside, curve ball…  “It’ll break, don’t take your head out of the box.”  My torso starts the swing, arms and hands follow, eyes still on the ball, “Turn into the swing; runner on first – pull this ball.  Stay ahead of it.”  My swing is good.  There’s a pop as the ball strikes the catcher’s mitt.  Strike.

We all reset and start the ritual again.  It all happened in less than a second.  All preceded by that pause.  Every game has many of these pauses and if you never played, the pauses bore you.  If you played you feel each of them.

Had I hit the ball, that wonderful crack of the bat and ball would sing out, there’d have been a coordinated effort in the field to stop the ball, every member of the opposing team would be moving.  My teammate and I running.  And THAT feeling when I made contact…  As a kid it was pure joy. 

I watched both my sons play and watched as each hit the ball and saw one of them sail a ball or two out of the park for that great trot around the bases.  I was grateful that I knew what my boys were feeling in those moments.

If you never played baseball, you have no idea what any of what I just described feels like.  I wish you did – it’s great and I feel sorry that you don’t know about it.  Your life is slightly poorer.  You don’t know but I do and it makes me a bit sad for you.  I’m certainly not condescending to anyone, many have experiences I can’t share and my life is poorer because I missed what you have felt.  Baseball is just one experience that I have had.

I’m not a religious guy – but maybe “Field of Dreams” has it right…  Heaven has a baseball diamond nearby.

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand
Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away

It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is slurring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

“On The Turning Away”
Pink Floyd

My conservative friends actually look upon me with derision for thinking and feeling any of the emotion evoked by this song.  You know…  Being a bleeding-heart liberal and all.

I haven’t been posting much lately because my dad was sick and unfortunately passed away on October 15th.

Losing your dad is pretty horrible no matter how it happens but, at least,  I got to have “the conversation” with him that many folks aren’t afforded an opportunity to have.  Dad had been sick for quite some time and knew that the prognosis wasn’t good.  He was stoic and matter-of-fact about it until the end.

When my very calm and self-controlled brother, Chris, called me to say I should drive back home, I knew the situation was very serious.  When I got to Dad’s hospital room he was still able to communicate although slowly.  I was able to ask him if he remembered the conversation he and I had when I told him I was proud to be his son and why.  He said he did.  From that point forward I felt a level of acceptance of what was coming that I never thought would be there when this time came.  The content of that conversation will remain private between Dad and me but here’s just one reason why I was so proud he was my dad.

If you haven’t told your parents how you feel lately, go do it now.  I promise you, there will be a moment later on where you will find great peace that you did.

To the many friends that helped my family through this time and expressed warm wishes, I thank you and Dad thanks you.

One of my favorite comedians is Dana Gould.  I’ve always found him particularly funny with an ability to capture an idea almost poetically.  Recently he’s done some political commentary and has appeared on “Real Time with Bill Mahr“.  In a bit he did for the show, he covered some health care town halls.  He made an observation that I’ve been trying to put into words for a while.  When asked about an under-class in the United States he remarked that what he saw was a permanent “anger-class”.  Most of the members of the anger-class are what he then referred to as “conservative fundamentalists” who believed that President Ronald Reagan was a political diety and that everything that fell out of President Reagan’s mouth was their gospel.  Anytime our country deviates from this gospel they go ape-shit.  (To be clear, I don’t mean these people.)  Since Reagan’s utopia doesn’t coincide with reality, our country continues to move away from the Reagan years, so the anger-class is destined to just get more pissed off.  Most will probably carry that anger until the end of their lives.

Since the election of President Obama the anger-class has been in an snot-bubble-crying fit of rage.  Their current gripe is that he’s tyring to reform health care.  Most of them go on and on about how specifics of this plan are affronts to freedom and liberty.  Worse is that profit would be removed from the health care system.  This is how the right has beaten health care reform as well – the argument that everything should be for profit.  I disagree but my voice is pretty small.

The observation I’ve made is that the anger-class is orders of magnitude more upset since this last election than any other post-election reaction I know of.  I didn’t like President Clinton but after he was elected, I calmed down and got back to my life in like an hour.  I really didn’t like President George W. Bush but I went on with my life…  Twice.  The anger-class is still chest pounding and foot stomping all over the country nearly 9 months after he took office.  Not just that typical political commentary and disagreement but a vitriolic language normally reserved for personal hatred.  It appears that it’s getting worse not better.  I desperately hope that I’m wrong but given the mentality of some of the grass-roots base of the now decimated “right” I fear an attempt on the president’s life at some point in his term.  Again, I want to be wrong but folks the anger-class is accelerating the rhetoric and whipping that still disappointed base into a frenzy.

I wish there was something that could be said to calm them down.  I now find myself in the position of having lots of friends who I know for a fact are reasonable folks but are in the anger-class now.  How they got sucked into it is beyond me.  I overhear their conversations and read their articles and I know that I can’t engage them in conversation on an intellectual level about the topics because what I’m hearing is anger and rage.  I’ve attempted to engage a couple of them once or twice only to get shouted down.

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to write this down…  Maybe I’m hoping some of my conservative friends will see it and understand why I won’t talk with them about anything more substantive than the weather lately.

And honestly, I don’t know why they’re so worried.  Democrats have control of the House and the Senate with a Democratic President and they still can’t pass anything.  The Democrats are pussies.  Until the anger-class realizes this, I’m providing them the following quick link.

A good friend of mine, Greg, appeared as a guest speaker on a local radio talk show this week.  Greg is a bit more conservative than I am and does not share my appreciation for President Obama but…  He worked in a plug for Haskell!!!  How strong is that?

Oh, and since I’m talking about Greg being a geek that can speak – I’m giving him this plug.  Look at what he wrote for his daughter.  Makes me proud to be a geek sometimes when I get to call guys like that friends.

A long time friend and I have had a long-term discussion of sorts about mathematics.  He and I were Computer Science majors together in college and worked in the same lab during graduate school.  My first major as an undergraduate was physics so I had to have considerably more math than he did.  While an incredibly smart guy, he loathed math while I saw math as essential.

His issues with math were how it was taught, he recently sent me this article, “A Mathematician’s Lament“.  It’s a long article so don’t think you’ll breeze through it in 2 minutes but it’s worth reading.

I’d love to hear some feedback from others on this.

Making and maintaining friendships is relatively high on my priority list.  After, 43 years of life so far, you’d think I’d have figured out that not everyone I consider a friend thinks the same of me.  Not that I’m the easiest guy in the world to be friends with; I’m consistently abrasive (albeit mostly in jest) and have a flaring temper with a fairly moody side.  I’m not “Mr. Jovial”.  I don’t think I’m 100% asshole either.

Don’t get me wrong, I have genuine long-term friends.  I know I can go to certain people (outside my family) and they’re gonna be there if I need’em.  But, it’s when I drop the mental-ball and get it wrong that I’m reminded that if I disappeared without a trace, my absence wouldn’t leave a hole for someone I was thinking was a buddy.  Invitations consistently turned down, calls and emails un-responded to…  “I wonder why so-and-so isn’t returning my…  Uh-oh.”   That snap, back into reality, is a bit embarrassing.

I know we’ve all experienced it and I’m guessing that my reaction to it is similar to most.  (You know, binge drinking and crying snot-bubbles.  No, no…  I don’t do that.  I key their car.)  I’m determined that the next time it happens, I’m not going to be as surprised.