My Name is Joe. I Work, I do My Part

My Name is Joe. I Work, I do My Part

(Inspired by a Southern Maryland Blue Crabs game, July 20, 2019.)

Some people complain about their lot, their circumstances. I can't complain. Life is going okay, and it will get better. For me, for everyone like me. For all of us. Things will improve when we do our part.

I wasn't born in the best of circumstances, but some have had it a lot worse. I was blessed with a few things. Maybe cursed with a few, but God is better than those negative things. I believe that.

Some people say that the black man is cursed, was given a bad, unfair hand. Sure, much of that is true. In the United States, most of us black kids were born with less than wealthy or educated parents, living in poor neighborhoods with meager schooling opportunities. This was true for me.

But this was the United States, too. Opportunities were there. They are still here, more than ever.

For me it was baseball. And before I get into all that, about me being a moderate success in a sport unique to this land and a few others, let me explain how I see black, and white, and brown. 

Whether we are African-American, Caucasian, or Latino or whatever, we all have to make choices based on the opportunities given us. We all have them. Perhaps some white people have more chances and opportunities to get ahead than us black folk, but that does not mean that I as a black man do not have them. Life is not fair to all, but we have to find our way, no matter what the back ground or circumstance.

I was born one of five poor black kids in Beaumont, Texas. 1970. I was malnourished, undernourished. I think my mom had done some drugs. At least marijuana and alcohol, that was for sure. She died by the time I was four. It was a bullet, but she was going to die of drug overdose anyway, pretty sure.

Those were a lot of her choices. I get it. No one is perfect. My mom made me, and my siblings, but then moved on. The next opportunity was my aunt, who finished raising me. Some people have the audacity to accuse her of being too religious, too unselfish, always giving, always going to church.

What? These were foolish things? Not for me. Those choices and devotions she had saved me. She was not perfect, but she was perfect for me. She did overeat, and died of a heart attack when I was 17.

By that time baseball became a part of my life, because some nice guys at church encouraged me to play. I liked it enough. As a kid from ages 4-17, it was a bright spot. Some times it was a little boring or a little too much heat, or sun, or running or sliding, or late nights and long road trips. But we were in it together. And I showed some promise and talent despite my skinniness. I could never get too much meat on my bones, to be as good as some coaches wanted me. Not enough muscles, according to many. But I could run, and catch, throw and hit. I made it to the junior college on the south side of Houston, and from there Lamar liked me to finish with a four year degree.

Math was something that I tried especially hard in; it made more sense with all the statistics that we learned in baseball. I was drafted in the last round in 1992, and I worked my way up. Not too far up. I played on a triple AAA team in California for half a season. I wasn't good enough, I admit that. 

But making it that far was all I needed to get where I needed to go.

Coaches recognized that I was calm, a good calculator, in some ways better than them. They appreciated my kind yet firm demeanor, that I could empathize and relate to a lot of our prospects that came from difficult circumstances. So After 8 years in the minors, at age 30, in 2002, I began coaching all over the place. In 12 years I coached, and usually just a position specialist, in eight different states. Plus, I traveled to the Caribbean and Mexico and Venezuela. 

I saved money. I did finally get married, we have two kids, married at last in 2005. They will be okay, my two. I was careful how I dealt with ladies. I waited to have children until I knew I was responsible for them, but also with the right woman.

It took us a while, but we ultimately found a stable job in Sugar Land, with the independent league Skeeters. I am only a third base coach for 5 months of the year, then I go back over the winter and I teach at the high school and the junior college. Math. And statistics.

I make decent money year round, I do okay. My wife is all right. She works part time. My kids get a little spoiled, but not that much.

Life is good.

Oh, and I never knew my real dad. I think I may have been in a restaurant bar with him once when I was seventeen. Or fifteen. I had this one step-dad that was abusive, but I did all right by getting away from that time of trial. It was harder that I had to try to defend the younger step-siblings of him, the abuser, of his own flesh and blood.

Sorry to bring up ugly stuff. It happens, for sure.

But back to my original point. I have made good, consistent, smart decisions and I am a success. I have been blessed by God, some call it fortune or luck. Some things have been stacked against me.

Work and good choices and perseverance pays off.

I have savings, I will live to be old most likely because I live healthy, and I love my family.

I work, I do my part. Which means I make wiser and better choices than most, especially those who created me.

And I will leave the next generation better off.

Will you?

How Baseball Got in my Veins, My Waking Hours, My Dreams

How Baseball Got in my Veins, My Waking Hours, My Dreams

Reasons and excuses for liking and following the nation's pastime, baseball. In my 48th summer. 

1. My parents raised me in the United States, in the Midwest where there are no mountains to scale, ocean beaches to traipse, or vast deserts or cities to explore. My hometown was crazy about basketball; that said, the sports mentality pervaded overall. Sports were a wholesome delight to pay attention to.

2. Perhaps my dad watched some televised baseball games as I scooted around in diapers, fell asleep in my folk's arms, pushed toy trucks and cars across the floor. Perhaps the summertime lulling poetry of the TV announcers and commentators became medicinal soothing to my unbeknownst ears. Thinking about it further, perhaps I was even exposed to the Boston Red Sox as a babe near my mom's hometown in Hanover, or Newton, or Wellesley, or Wilmington, or Hyannis, or the harborside Quincy or Weymouth of my mom's hard-of-hearing dad and lifelong BoSox fan, Grandpa McWilliams. He lived when they won before the Curse of the Bambino, at the turn of the century into the teens, before World War I. Because of his hard hearing state into his eighties, he probably turned up the sound... TV or radio. All for my non-understanding toddler ears... Yet subliminal messages of early life for returns in the future. Sure, this might make sense. No doubt, I do have genes from this man... Born in 1896, a grey haired, balding octogenarian, with his prominent Coke-bottle glasses and hearing aids, who kept tobacco-produced baseball cards from the turn of the century.

I saw them, these relics of yesteryear, after he had died and my grandma moved into the garage apartment of their son; these antiques colored in printer's ink of an older generation, before photos became ubiquitous, at my uncle Bill's in West Dennis, Cape Cod, when I was around 12. They, these for sure collector's items, were eighty years old then, and worth a pretty penny. Heirlooms from the generations beyond. Some could be folded out to see a player's pose in two different ways, like standing AND crouching.

I never really collected many baseball cards as a kid, but I knew boys like the Murrays down the road, or maybe Jake's brother Zachary, who did this religiously. I appreciated the art and the savvy of it.Oh, yeah, when Jonathan's older brother bounced off the walls when George Brett was hitting .400 in July? What wonder was happening here? The newspaper, a mere box score, brought that much cause for joy and delight?

What was this brew of game and magic?

3. My parents gave me a baseball glove, soft ball, and a baseball cap as a consolation present after having hernia surgery as a four year-old in the Bloomington Hospital. Portents of palliatives to come...

4. We attended a Cincinnati Reds home game against the Pittsburgh Pirates when I was seven (the closest major league team, two hours drive away). It rained, and we left very late. We did get our money's worth, that was a life lesson. This was the Reds, the Big Red Machine, with the remnants of their great teams of the 1970s, like Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. George Foster was heckled close to us, all game. I tracked him for the next few years after joining the Mets; quite the power hitter. He was the last guy to hit at least 50 homers in the 1970s; it would not happen again throughout the entire 80s, the decade that I cared about this game the most.

I witnessed those obnoxious teenagers scream at him that night, without compunction or remorse? Sheer obsessive wicked teen angst? Why? What was the appeal? What was the catch to this phenomenon, keeping little kids up till 1:30 at night? Making older kids shout like crazed loons? The veteran, composed, slugger just standing alone in his sector of the park. He was cool, calm, collected. He embodied the strength and power of what he did. He Foster was great. A celebrity facing vitriol a hate, for the color of a uniform. Weren't those fans Reds home fans? So many ponderous questions at a live sporting event.

5.  By the late 70s the Chicago WGN cable station (channel 9) regularly showed the Cubs, which played all their home games during daylight hours. I would come home from the swimming pool or playing baseball myself and watch and observe the ubiquitous legend, Harry Caray and the more mello Steve Stone cover the lovable losers of the North Side. The Cubs had colorful players with great nicknames, from the Rhino and the Penguin, to the Bull and the Sarge. Caray would sing his seventh inning stretch, and jocularly serenade the no-better-than average catcher, Jody Davis. "Jodeeeee! Jody, Davis! Catcher, without a fear!" The ivy on the back wall, Waveland Avenue, the bleachers, the old, traditional stadium from when my grandparents were small, the north lake shore, the wind blowing out and rain delays. The Phillies beat the Cubs once, maybe 24-22. In nine innings.

What a game! It was fun (nay--incredible!), on an otherwise non-eventful day of the summer of '81 in the heart of the Midwest. 

6. I played bronco league ball in the summers organized; I played with my friends informally. I would play catch with my dad and others, and fantasize with my Wiffle bat that I was a huge superstar in my front living room.

7. At age ten I was electrified by my new found all time favorite player, Tim "Rock" Purple Raines, Senior. I would follow him as closely as I could throughout the 80s, until I left on my mission after the baseball season in 1989. Starting around 1983 I would chronicle his daily stats on sheets of paper that I would measure out columns with straight edges and post his at-bats, hits, and the Expos results. At age 14 my mother took me to St. Louis to see him play against the Cardinals. I loved it. The following summer my dad took me and friend to Indianapolis to see the Expos play an exhibition game against the local triple A affiliate Indians. I saw them play again in 1987. (And '88 and '89).

8. Summers in Massachusetts, I would often be caught in Boston or its suburbs or the Cape, with little else to do but take in the mid-summer classic, the All-Star game. Many times it was Wellesley and I was by myself. One summer, the magic season of 1987, I stayed up late in my aunt's Boston second floor kitchen while my all time favorite Tim Raines came in the 13th inning, hit the game winning triple and earning Most Valuable Player. I fell asleep at 2 or so in the morning like I had won a king's ransom. Dreams were meant to come true, it seemed to me that year.

9. With TV programming in the 1980s I would watch Tim Raines on WGN or TBS when he was playing against the Cubs or the Braves, or on occasion in a featured weekend game on one of the major networks.  I would particularly pay attention to Raines' at bats. I was drawn to his exploits more than anything. What was this odd draw to this player? Why the exclusive attention? By 1986 I observed a youth at church obsessed with the new rookie Wally Joyner; I saw people marvel, shake their heads, and curiously guffaw at his compulsion to share "everything Wally".

Who knows? Perhaps this fanaticism fills in for something else lacking in my and other souls, in our heads. Jared turned out okay. I saw him years later after his mission to Scotland I think I have turned out okay as well. But still suffering some aspects of infatuation with aspects of the sport. Among others.

This all occurred prior to my two year mission to Chile, where baseball was seldom thought of. And, changes would happen there in regards to following and thinking of sports, and baseball. Perhaps the distance and attention to it, or lack thereof for two years in South America, made it seem even more alluring as I returned to Indiana and later Utah.

10. Literature about baseball. Daily sports writers in newspapers (and later the Internet), books and some poet laureates lauding the pastoral mystique of the park and its culture, (see A. Bartlett Giamatti), books devoted to the game, quaint sketches and skits like "Casey at the Bat", Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First?", and George Carlin's "Baseball versus Football" keep the whole enterprise artistically and emotionally close to us... Integration has been a calling card to us as Americans, and baseball has displayed our diversity and its strength, instilling the meritorious values of Doctor King to show us that color of skin has no place in deciding our greatness as a people, one people and not many.

Boys Life and Sports Illustrated were magazines that touted and glorified the sport, ones that I read throughout the eighties. The game of baseball in that decade of my formation gave context to the one I originated from, the seventies. And baseball gave more context to the whole 20th century, learning of World War II and Korean War heroes who left the sport to serve their country, the one that I as a loyal Boy Scout saluted and revered. Baseball was part and parcel of being a citizen like me.

11. My cousin Robbie took me out to a local diamond with his friend near his mother's new place in greater Boston, near that apartment where I watched Raines win the All-Star game late that unforgettable night; my cousin was four or five years older, practically an adult. We took turns hitting the ball around, fielding and shanking down the hits, the cans of corn, the long flies, the line drives, the bouncing swirlers. Later, Robbie took me down to the Cape in his convertible; we took swings in batting cages; I was measured as to my throwing speed.  If I guessed the speed on the third pitch I won a prize. I did. I forget what the prize was, but I will never forget predicting that right. Was this the Deep Magic that Aslan referred to in my favorite series, the Chronicles of Narnia? Baseball has it. Ask Kevin Costner, Bob Costas, Lou Gehrig, any number of historians...

12. Then there was the almost pro from Montana. I went to Kalispell, Montana with my dad and sisters right before my freshman year of high school. Out there I met a young man, maybe Canadian from Calgary, that had gone to minor league tryouts. I tossed the ball with him, me still a 14 year-old would-have-been...Still in the throws of my passion for Raines and the exotic Montreal Expos...

13. Allegiances and rivalries. Most people preferred someone. There were loyalties and long suffering loves, very romantic. My extended family (no small crew) lived and breathed the Red Sox. People in books and movies love the Yankees. Go figure. Hemingway like his guys, his numbers.

In Bloomington people tended to like the Reds or the Cubs, regional favorites. Later, Evan Hill's best friend loved the Phillies because his dad was from Philadelphia. The other Hills, like Jonathan, loved Dale Murphy and the Braves. My good friend loved Valenzuela and the Dodgers because... I can't remember why, doesn't matter. That is just the way it was. Meanwhile, he hated Dwight Gooden, all-everything ace pitcher like Valenzuela, and the Mets. I liked the Houston Astros for a while because I thought their uniforms were cool. Eric Samuelson loved and breathed the Giants. His dad was from Norway via Utah, and he was raised in Indiana, like me. It was probably a player that did it for him as a small kid. That could be enough. One amazing instant could create a fan for life. Or maybe one inspirational team, one year, one pennant... Family members oozed these types of cravings. I remember the adult Gregory girl, (Karla), entranced and enthralled at the Kansas City Royals in 1985. The year of the missed call at first that cost the poor Royals the Series.

Ahh, the humanity. This was life. Not always fair, but compensated for the effort. The long enduring painstaking love of the quest for greatness. Even the best came up short, and that was okay.

Everybody knew this attempted thrust at winning, and failing, like striking out, or getting caught at home, was the mutual understanding of the ever deeper code of honor, to strain, sweat, and even bleed to make that next base...

Sometimes it was just one play. Perhaps from 1959. Or, maybe somebody spoke to you or signed a ball... Or it was your memories or your grandparents, or your mom or dad.

14. The unexpected happens. It does. If you watch enough, you will see it. Crazy, unpredictable, wonderful abnormalities, both to delight and at times scare, even sicken. Real stakes, real bodies and lives, are at hand. However, when the nutty stuff does not happen, the norm is the soul food of the warm months. The crowds gather, the national anthems are sung, the opening pitch is delivered, the game is on. Life is good.

15. In the early days of high school I participated with some new friends who were both smart and devoted to the grandeur and minutia of baseball, and we played in a small group of rotisserie league baseball, where we drafted our own players and participated in an earlier version of fantasy league baseball. I admired the smarts and know-how of these young men who knew computer technology and the passion for stats, the modernizing tools that further advance the mystery, the majesty, the homey comfort, and standardized convention of this unique sport.

16. Speaking of smarts, I was very impressed to witness the knowledge of some of the schoolmates of my sister Jenny. Her group of guy friends would recount and debate whole Yankee squads from the 1930s, or even 20s? They would cover the whole infield and move on to the outfield and pitchers. We, crazy youth of the eighties, had the audacity and sheer will of love, passion, or wanton devotion for trivia to be able to dedicate wayward brain cells to such matters. But scholars and poets and historians would do the same! Were we all deluded and nuts? Possibly, but happily so. And in review, why so many intelligent people so dedicated to such mundane or trivial things as home run counts, batting averages, ERAs and stolen base percentages?

17. My paper route in high school delivered to the Indiana University baseball coach. Some of his players went on to the pro leagues. Some friends and cohorts at school were moving ahead with possible baseball futures after high school.

18. Softball was a fun pastime among church goers and us at outdoor activities during the summer. I learned to bat as a switch hitter as a small child, carrying on this tradition into my teenage and adult life. Another reason that Raines embodied everything that I loved about a baseball athlete. Batting is fun! Watching your players do it was a thrill as well. Sometimes moreso.

Baseball meant so many things to me. It was mercurial and mystifying much of the time, but in the end fair and comforting. It was a steady companion when others were not around. I grew to love it, take solace and joy in it. And I knew that I was not alone, that I was joined by past generations like Grandpa McWilliams and other past generations. Their spirits and memories beckoned in every footstep. Every new at bat was reviving them and their lives. Baseball connected me to the universe.

Could I intuit this then? Did I know what this was? Probably not.

Love can be like this.

Un-explainable. Mysterious. Charming. Foreboding. Hopeful. Rousing. Even dull, or drowsy, yet familiar and nurturing. Like art. Unknown. Yet known. Recognizable, but hard to put your finger on, wrap your head around. Exciting. Promising.

Everything. Nothing. Yes, zen, the existence of an unseen power, was found in this game. Merely a game, it was the life and death of your dreams. It was the manna to the taste of mere mortals, young and old. Radio made it alive as well...

Harry Caray's unmistakable, unbridled, unending, effusive, eternal shout of praise and elation at the end of a fortuitous day in the friendly confines:

"Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! Holeeeee Cow!"

This and so many others...

"It might be! It could be... It is! Holy Cow! A home run!"

This was my first two decades in relation to the sport.

Grown men were kids with me, all summer and into the fall.

Where dreams came true or were forestalled.

This was the true trajectory of life, right? Even the legendary Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame Cub who never made it to one World Series, was a true winner, right?

We won for playing, and trying hard. We all won in this game, great and small.

19. I forgot to mention movies...

Baseball movies are classic by nature. Even non-baseball fans like many of them. I will list a few:

The Natural.

Field of Dreams.

The Bad News Bears.

Bull Durham.

Pride of the Yankees.

Jackie Robinson.

The Sandlot.

The Scout.

For Love of the Game.

Mr. 3000.

Moneyball.

Eight Men Out.

The Rookie.

Major League.

A League of their Own.

Some of these films were popular before I left for the mission. Others have done well since.

All these stories portrayed on the silver screen, replayed on television, combined with the real sport, players, fans, and lore to become a part of my childhood. A part of me that will always be accessible to my memories of nostalgia, to reached back to, still alive into my adulthood, in my waking and dormant hours, days and nights.

However, Americana, lots of writers and commentators and some poets, and now a growing international audience, has continued to make the sport more than a sport. It goes deeper.

20. Numbers. Those who really love baseball, and history, love the numbers. Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak, Ted Williams hitting .400, Cal Ripken's playing streak, Rickey Henderson's stolen bases, the current batting champion and home run leader, Ruth, Aaron, Bonds... Clemens, Ryan, Rivera... One of my favorites: Tim Raines led the National League in batting average in 1986, at .336.

21. Baseball allowed for people of all races and walks of life to play on the same field. Blacks rose up from the Negro leagues, like our American shared history of unfairness and pain. Poor Latinos from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Colombia and Venezuela became super stars and heroes. Have you heard of Roberto Clemente? He is everything that is good about baseball and humanity. And then came the Asians... Revering the sport at a new level of understanding.

22.  Poetry in motion. Most of my life I have wanted to know and speak Spanish, or other non-English languages. I have wondered about the reasons for this: my parents had learned foreign languages in Africa? Many people in my church had learned foreign languages? My adopted grandma was from Panama and knew the language? Perhaps because Spanish was so big across the earth, it was a practical way to know a good skill that could come in handy? I wanted to learn it simply because it was cool? I would understand Ricky Ricrdo on I Love Lucy? Perhaps, this draw for this tongue was in the beauty and poetry of the names that I was introduced to in baseball:

Manny Trillo, Ivan DeJesus, Fernando Valenzuela, Pedro Guerrero, Hector Santiago, Tony Pena... What was that exotic squiggly line over the N?

For every anglo Ryne Sanberg, Keith Moreland, Shawon Dunston, Dave Kingman, Dwight Evans,  Jack Clark, Wade Boggs, Pete Rose, aka Charlie Hustle, there was an Andres Galarraga, or from the Big Red Machine alone: Dave Concepcion, Tony Perez, Cesar Geronimo.

The names were musical, magical, and how could Jesus be part of a name? What culture is this? Baseball and this game seemed to be a real life window into other worlds... And later came the Japanese and the Koreans.

All the numbers, the stats live and breathe and combine to create a separate life of its own.

Baseball is more than a sport, more than numbers, more than history, more than the locations.

It is life played out, ever slow and ever fast. It is a dream and a fantasy, it is real and tangible, it is hard and soft. Heartbreak and hope, played on grass, dirt, surrounded by those that watch to love and hate. 

Baseball is a bit like our life on this planet earth. The heavens observe us toil and play, succeed and fail, break out our bats and fold them away. We open days awake and close nights to sleep; we hope to lace up our shoes and run the bases and go home, a winner.

Under the sun and the stars, we live to play again tomorrow.

Baseball and Endless Life Trickling On...

Baseball and Endless Life Trickling On...

When you get to my age, which might be "half-way there" or a lot less, there is a bit to reflect on. And, please let me add, there is a bit to look forward to. Maybe another 50 years? Maybe only another 50 days... Or even less.

No guarantees.

Like baseball. There are no guarantees in baseball, as in life.

Well, some things we can be assured of, usually. Balls and strikes, fast runners and power hitters, umpires who try their best and fans who care, or at least show up. Some people are simply klutzes and careless, and many are by definition apathetic and do not care.

Some get paid a lot, some get paid for nothing.

A lot of people play, a lot of people watch. 

There is a lot of baseball going on, all the time. Like life.

Life and things and people that you were not aware of, is going on.

In the North American winter times, this outside sport is played in warmer climes: Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, maybe. I am not sure about East Asia, maybe in the south like Taiwan and Okinawa.

Perhaps in the colder winter months of North America there are games going on in other southern climes and continents. Do they play a bit in Australia? New Zealand? South Africa? Argentina, Brazil?

Meanwhile (Stephen Colbert, you devil, get out of my head), they are playing another game with a bat and wickets all over warm places like India and Pakistan, in Africa and parts of the South Pacific, and maybe South America. Cricket.  According to some it is bigger than soccer. I doubt that, always have since suggested in Balkh Province in 2012. 

Soccer is the biggest, futebol. Worldwide, it is those nets that frame things across the countries and villages. Even in China, with the most souls. But baseball may have its in roads there as well...

This baseball thing continues to grow. It is entrenched psychically in the United States, parts of Canada, Mexico, most of the Caribbean. What else can bring us so close to Cuba? Not just the food and music...

Baseball is king of the Caribbean. Too bad the Jamaicans have not embraced it more. Or the Haitians. It would help them, no?

The Summer Pastime has entrenched itself in Japan. To a degree in South Korea and Taiwan.

In Nippon, that great organized group of humanity, the Japanese have perfected parts of it, and their superior athletes, samurai-like, continue to cross to the Mecca of the sport, inserting themselves in World Series regularly. The Fall Classic has become an international event, like it or not. Dozens of countries are now  represented. Come aboard India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Nigeria.

Come learn and ingest the game of humanity. It involves this diamond and ninety degree angles. 9 innings, usually.

True, another sport has overtaken all parts and corners with a hard surface, and some places none: basketball requires less equipment and space, less care. It lends itself to urban landscapes, the 21st century eventuality. But enough of the peach basket game of James Naismith...

We are discussing and contemplating Abner Doubleday's baseball! Russia and Central Asia and the Middle-East: get on board!

Here in the Grand Ole USA we are turning out in droves to see it and play it. My boys finished their seasons before the end of the school year. We should practice some more, they need it.

Today is Bastille Day; we world citizens celebrate different political and social traditions, advances in humanity related to the great French and what they and us became.

There once was a French exchange student in my home in the early 1980s who seemed curious enough to get a baseball bat. This Western Hemisphere abstraction, like to us North Americans the weird paddle of the cricketers... 

This Louisville slugger is overtaking the planet, I say.

We have our summer strong major league teams, 30 strong, then the minors at every level, the independent leagues, and college amateur leagues. They add up into the hundreds across every city and state. We are baseball, that is who the U.S. is still, growing since the late 1800s.

It continues: Dutch and Italians learn it, play it, bridging the oceans and continents. More nations will learn it. Could the great African masses learn its order and beauty? Did the Cubans leave enough behind in Angola?

Life and gravity continue, baseball marches on, that field of dirt, paint, and grass.

Balls and strikes, runs and pitches, and tag outs and slides.

My Washington Nationals have never been to a World Series.

They could this year. Life finds a way.

The never been to the World Series and Seattle Mariners. And my Montreal Expos.

The others that have never won at the highest, "world" level? (Yes, it is an international event now...Koreans, Japanese, South Americans have among the best players, and their fan bases watch all season, especially in October.)

The San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies.

Six to go, and then mankind can rest. Forget Cleveland, they have done it. These perennial losers, these forlorn lovers, will have their days in sun.

Humanity trickles on and on; we tend to the fields. We draw new lines in the sand, a father brings his sons and daughters to the diamond in the neighboring park. He tosses and throws, catches and shows them how and perhaps not enough why as to how come this is done.

This is life.

My oldest is now an adult; I did not play enough catch with her. I think I have not done enough with any of my little ones. More with some than others. Never enough. Never enough life, never enough time.

Funny side note, or maybe a sad one: once on a diamond when maybe she was 13 or 14 she pleaded that I not hit it hard at her. I assured her that the ball off my bat would not target her. But it did! She stopped it, but both of us was scared. She vindicated in her voiced fear, me chagrined in my nonchalance. Sorry, mija! I love ya!

We, I, need to toss the ball with my young ones more and not just watch it on television, listen to it on the radio, chronicle it online.  Read about it on my phone, where I track it incessantly and perhaps obsessively. They, my children, deserve more of me in the flesh. The flesh is weak.

Perhaps they, my offspring, my legacies, my children or my surviving wife and siblings and nieces and nephews (and grandchildren?) will see some baseball world series someday in the near or distant future, maybe played in Montreal, or Mexico City, or Santo Domingo or San Juan, or even Seattle or the Capital (D.C), and find that in viewing it they are sharing time with me, their dad, their husband, their uncle, their grandpa.

"Dad would be watching this," says one.

"Dad is watching this [game]," quips another.

"He loved the Expos as a kid."

"Yeah. Go 'Spos! Love ya, Dad!"

My body might be laying to rest in some hidden corner of a memorial in California, or Pennsylvania, or who knows where? So many greats laid rest in Virginia... Kunduz or Angol, some place where some part of me and life was pursued and spent, somewhere where my dreams in some way congealed or came to fruition, a recalled but mostly forgotten place.

Why is Dad buried there?

"Because he remembers losing a soldier there when he was overseas."

"Because he remembers baptizing some people into the Church that he feels like became lost after he left, even when he went back and tried to find and help them years later. He wants their kids to somehow connect that."

"Because he wanted to buried where not so many others are visited frequently, be out of their shadows."

"Because he had a 100 year old veteran uncle who is buried there."

"Because Jennifer's Papa was buried there, and California was as good a place as any seal his legacy to."

"Because his spirit wishes to advance the game of baseball there."

"What?" in unison from the others.

"Yeah, dad thought that his mother Ruth was buried in Odin, Daviess County, to be a pioneer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the souls in that forgotten part of southwest Indiana. In a similar way dad thinks that he can pitch the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to the restless souls around there."

"Wow! South Georgia is so isolated and cold!"

"Right, and it is a historical jumping off point to Antarctica. Dad thinks baseball will fly on the South Pole."

"Dad, what a dreaming Quixotic visionary."

"Yeah." "He even contemplated dividing his body into burial spots on all the southern hemisphere ocean islands, the forgotten ones, and then thought about the Arctic, too, and realized that was not very sane, and too ambitious and vane. It would have taught us some geography, something that he was always trying to do."

"Trying to make the last point, get in the last word."

"Quijote and him had a few things in common."

"Sure, just no Sancho Panza. Only a bunch of of Dulcineas."

Baseball is one of my Dulcineas.

She exists, but I see her through different lenses.

Like the Don Quijote of the Mancha, she is the dream that never ends. Eternal in hope, despite the odds...

Baseball will be played, for fun and battles between the young and old, of all generations, out among the windmills and the endless fields of our consciousnesses...

Look it up. The history is there. Baseball.

Wild Pigs in the Forgotten Parrish, A Child's Tale

Wild Pigs in the Forgotten Parrish, A Child's Tale

Vernon Parrish

The feral pigs wandered around the thickets and the brambles of the back woods of Vernon Parrish, keeping their distance from the humans and the crazy noisy vehicles that they drove. These loud, boisterous, yet ever sneaky bipeds would wind their machines across the back roads and the gravel and dirt paths of their land. They, this small hovel of porkers, filial swine that stayed together always, not wandering too far from Momma and Papa, kept tight and secure. Juicy was almost full sized, and might look to run with another pack soon enough. But that was not this summer. Not till at least next spring. After the cold and the frost, a long way from now.

Now it was hot; the longest days of the year provided bugs and food that made it easier to find sustenance. Easier to find still, with the human trash and offal that those noisy bipeds leaving behind where ever they moved.  If they stuck together, these feral pigs--hogs by another name--would be fine. Happy and foraging. Every night more food.

The three little ones always had trouble staying close to the Big Ones. This posed problems for everybody's survival. Threats lay everywhere. There were snakes and worse: alligators in the few lakes that were stuck between the Louisiana rolling hills and ridges of the parrish.

Louisiana, if you did not know, did not have counties like all the other states in the lower 48. The Roman Catholic tradition had created units called parrishes, named after church groups and congregations. Vernon was rather isolated, making it pretty ideal for foraging swine as these.

The hogs and their little hoglets didn't care. They all, big and small, worried more about food and roaming.

Juicy was so big, he seemed untouchable; however, all the hogs were timorous and trembling when it came to humans and gators. Most snakes and other critters were afraid of them, these roaming wild pigs: serpents made for good eating, as did the dead vermin like rats and possums.

The little ones were Juan, Paco, and Ruiz. They were cute, but they didn't know it. Cuteness and and beauty did not matter in their world.

Sleeping by day was of a premium. A cool, quiet spot was always best. They had a few dozen.

The humans were overall the scariest to feral pigs, making big scary noises with the whirlybirds in the skies and the landing pads, the huge trucks and the various metal sticks and poles that made explosions and bangs of all kinds, day and night.

Sometimes the humans would run through the forest and fields at night, with no lights and little warning.

One summer it was particularly dry and a lot of fish and bugs had died. Food was scarce; hard to come by.

The pigs were doing pretty well because of all the trash the humans would dump all around.

The alligators were hungrier than ever. Their supplies were low, their bellies were tight, and their moods became frenzied.

The biggest one at the airstrip lake, known in some animal circles as Big Ziggy, crawled up from his muddy hole late one night at the end of that dry, dusty June. He was mean and hungry, much more willing to travel from the water than normal. Maybe Big Ziggy was a she, true; but either way she was huge and deadly.

Some people are not sure how alligators, or crocodiles in Africa, detect their prey if not by movement and noise. Could they sense their potential food by heat or by smell?

Big Ziggy was determined to find something, yes, someone that night, while the moon splayed brightly across the upper tree line of the lake toward the human plane airstrip where all the humans had gathered. The humans had their places, and the wild swine of Mama and Papa had theirs.

Big Ziggy crawled and slithered up the hill, a steeper rise from the lake surface than most of the terrain for miles and miles.  Maybe it was the steepest hill in all of Vernon Parrish, which made for more and deeper water in Ziggy's swampy, scummy lair.

The climb did not deter him. He was then weighing perhaps 300 pounds. In fatter seasons he/she was a mammoth 400 pounder. Most humans did not believe the rumors about this killer monster, but it was true. Most alligators in Vernon Parrish would top off at 200 pounds, big enough to scare off fishermen and would-be hikers. And of course struck terror in the pigs and other crawling creatures of the parrish. Deep into the long, hot, and this time, dry, Deep South summer.

Ruiz woke up first, sniffling about to his left and believing he had heard something.

Was it a human coming around to relieve itself of their liquids as they did so late at night? Or maybe sneaking off to smoke that sweet tobacco?  Too late! The little black pig found itself inside the smelly, warm, toothy yet sticky and pungently mushy jaws of the reptile, a modern day dinosaur monster. And it was moving...

SSSSQEEEEEEEEEL !!!

WEEE !!! WEEEE !!! WEEE!

Ruiz cried in bloody murder.

The rest of the family nearby awoke, half running in every direction, but the mother and father instinctively hearing the muffled and pained cries of their little one.

They both grunted in short staccato unison, knowing they had made up their minds.

They were going to strike back at this threat.

Big Ziggy was already lumbering back down the brambles and thickets of the slope of the lake. He hit a log, and a trunk, stopped in his downward shambling and gravitational pull to the brackish water of the night, then reflected under the western moonlight above the multitude of endless trees.

Momma and Papa, joined by a resurgent hyper-energized Juicy, cornered this behemoth. They all hit it at the same time. With all their might they charged with their heads and hooves, blasting what they they could reach of this monster.

Incredibly and without a clue, Big Ziggy coughed up little Ruiz, now bleeding and cut from the bite hold the gator had upon him for those infinite seconds of whirling, swirling, awful captivity.

But he was free! Big Ziggy turned to bear down on the nearest attacker, which was Juicy, he being a hog of some 100 pounds; the reptile did not see the simultaneous cross attack of the two parents, and...

WHAM !! jolted from both sides about his head and neck by these over-adrenalized parents, Big Ziggy now realized that he needed to retreat to the dark depths of his lair as soon as possible, frustrated to not get his feed but at least to survive for another day, albeit famished.

The pigs, quickly recovering their little piglet, regrouped and headed up the hill, away from the lake, closer to the humans and their trucks and tents. They then headed north and off hill and dale, finding pre-discovered routes that lead them deeper into the thickets of protection and security that they had known all their lives.

They licked little bloody and whimpering Ruiz and smeared mud and pine thistles on his wounds. He was sore but would survive. He had his hooves and snout, and he sucked the life-blood milk from Momma for the next two hours. 

After falling asleep, Juan, Paco, Juicy and the rest found their courage and peace, and drowsed off for the rest of the pre-dawn, by now the moon setting to the southwest.

This was a different night than most in the Louisiana parrish, but the little black pigs gratefully slept together, dreaming of foraging among the moon filled nights long into that endless summer, fattening up for the rains and chills of the shorter days long distant from that piercing night of wailing terror. 

Such was the life of the little black pig clan of Vernon Parrish.

If you look out upon the summer moon on warm sleepless nights, perhaps you will think of Papa, Momma, Juicy, and Juan, Paco, and Ruiz. The summers will not be this dry and dusty, but you will know the terrain by the roads and brambles, the lakes and ridges...

And, you might think of Big Ziggy. She is not waiting for you, poor human, but she does get pretty sorely hungry every now and again.

Many people have never heard of Vernon Parrish. Some may have heard of it in passing, and then forgotten all about it.

Will you forget about that night of squeals and fright?

Should you? Like the wolf who met his fate against the three little pigs, remember this tale of the pig clan of Vernon Parrish.

THE END

Or is it?

Citizenship Leads to Value, Worth

Citizenship Leads to Value, Worth

Being an American, a citizen of the United States, has rights and privileges that many people in the world seek. Beyond the political and civil rights that we enjoy, we have military and economic powers and authorities that few others have access to. We gain these collectively and individually.

Germans, French, British, Canadians, Australians, Japanese, and others compete for the same privileges. First worlders have their benefits.

The United States and its membership is like being a member of a premium insurance company. We pay our dues in different ways and we are backed up, supported, by many institutions and economic structures that buoy us.

People want this, it is natural. Some Mexicans want it. Most Salvadorans and Hondurans wish to have these powers.

People in war torn countries like Syria, Somalia, and Yemen wish to have these protections and rights, an insurance that provides for so much.

It makes sense that people come to the United States and plead asylum. Health and life insurance push us to do so much.

Our value as human beings pushes and pulls us to act, and to be acted upon.

This is no game with "hit points" or face cards.

This is life.

We value certain national citizenship more than others.

That is how things flow, more or less, on a planet of 7 billion plus world citizens.

Being American, 2019

Being American, 2019

"Made in America." Nationalistic and economic in its intention to assure of of our supposed continued greatness, we all (U.S. citizens) know and hear it, this phrase and mantra, in the United States and abroad. Made in the USA.

"Help our own." "Buy American".

We are strong and proud, the wealthiest and strongest in the world.

At what price? What does the hubris and even arrogance cost us?


At age 48 I can muse a bit on what it is to be a citizen of our fine land. Who we are, who we think we are, and what we do, how we posit ourselves in the world...

Are we bullies? Are we protectors?

We are something in between. Yes. We are red, white, and blue, patriotic, and grey.

We are a mix of many things.

Mexico Before Calderon (2006)

Mexico Before Calderon (elected 2006)

[I write this on U.S. Independence Day, 2019.]

I was trying to write a book about Mexico, based on thoughts and impressions of walking, literally and metaphorically, in the country since I was eleven (1982). The time was the early 2000s, a time after my new wife and I witnessed the pivotal election of July 2000 when Vicente Fox won the presidency, overturning the then longest running political party in the world, the PRI. The Institutional Revolutionary Party. We were on a nice honeymoon, summer before the turn of the century and the millennium. We observed some world history. Fitting?

The ideas and hopes of historical heroic Mexican presidents, now barely mentioned or known outside of Mexico, tried to help the state of Mexico like Benito Juarez and other legendary characters of the country for the people and nation to advance. Perhaps they succeeded? Poverty was the pickle.

Arguably, the PRI had done many good things in 71 years. Hence, they were re-elected repeatedly.

However, in the summer of 2000 the Mexican people were ready for a change. And it happened to many people's delight and satisfaction. It made me happy as an American observer, personally, a person who had delved in the world if Latin America a bit academically and intellectually, if I dared to presume, then or now. If at the end of the end of the day, the totality of my pursuits towards Mexico and the region were only anecdotal, I will accept that charge and assessment.

Anecdotes at least can lead to higher analysis and thought. Hence my book, my memoirs.

"An Itinerant Journey".

End of 2004

I took my pregnant wife and small daughter to Mexico: the idea was to drive as far south in a week with comfortable time to return. I was a church minister administrating in Spanish with Spanish speaking immigrants of all hues. In very Latino southern California. This type of searching for Latino themes thing was in me, more less, already. This inborn curiosity or hunger to explore, to observe, to look and listen, to speak and dialog with the "Other", the language of my non-native birth that had become more a part of my conscious and subconscious reality and imagination.

I thought, prayed, joked, dreamed, cajoled, preached, cried peoples to repentance, and many other things in Spanish. I felt the need to hear and see, smell and taste more. To feel more Latin America, and Mexico was right there.

Times were better, in retrospect. At least, times were safer: the tourists and everyday Mexican was safer from wanton violence, as it is now opposite 14 years later. Whole Mexican presidencies later.

Felipe Calderon was elected in 2006, the six year term after Fox.

The war on drugs became a war, and has been ever since. I began working on cases and seeing close up instances in 2010. I see it now. I try to analyze it. Times have changed. China and India now are part of the drug flow, the competition, making times and prices steeper in Sinaloa and every where the illicit drugs flow. It is deadlier than ever.

Brutal. Mexico has become brutalized, a war zone across the map.

We see more Central Americans fleeing the violence and destitution now, the drugs and the trafficking.

2005 was a safer, sweeter time. Acapulco, which I had visited in 2000-2001, was a safe place before Calderon. No longer. Sonora and Sinaloa were open for my Ford Taurus and my small family and me at the end of 2004.

We stayed the night on the Arizona side, Nogales. No frills hotel, a little isolated. I am sure I watched television. Did I watch Mexican? Perhaps. The border lands. It's its own place, really. 

Then Hermosillo, Sonora. Desert town, not bad. My neighbors in the hotel were the worst. What a terrible night of sleep. I considered sending them a note under the door or calling the front desk.

I should have blasted the TV, in retrospect. Yeah.

Next stop, the coast. Down the way from Guaymas, on an isolated beach, no-no frills. Roaming dogs on the windswept beach and small boat fishermen. This was just after the winter solstice. Not particularly warm, but not freezing. This was probably the outskirts of Los Mochis.

The next night we stayed at a nice hotel in Guasave, I got a hair cut down the street.

Then on to Mazatlan, the beach in the Mexican, i.e. cheaper zone.

I drove on (without the ladies on the beach) to Nayarit and the border of Jalisco, towards Guadalajara.

And then returned.

Free to move, only to be yelled at on occasion (see casa de cobro in Jalisco), no threats of violence or brutality.

Made it back by new years. 2005.

Safer, kinder, different Mexico.

May it be that way again.

Eduardo,

Fourth of July, 2019. 7:03 am