Quit it!

Heard (and I could be wrong) that last night in the Yankee game, Derek Jeter had to actually scold 2 players for spitting water on each other in the dugout!  My goodness, these are grown-a**-men!  Can you believe that?  How embarrassing.  I wouldn’t want to be those 2 when Hankenstein hears of this offense.  And that’s just it with these Yanks too, isn’t it?  Jeter is such a presence; such a captain, that only he dares to enforce the tough dugout laws, like no water spitting.  They wouldn’t be spitting the water under Casey, or Billy, or Torre.

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Arron Heilman just gave up 3 or 4 runs after getting 2 men out.  The first was Vargas’ BB, I’ll grant you, but what the heck is going on with this guy?  I will have to venture to say “tipping his pitches”.  I mean, he has major league stuff, right?  So it must be tipping.

Tipping, to Willie Randolph, is tipping a cabbie or a waiter.  Have you ever seen a big league skipper (with 4 years experience, no less) look more uncomfortable in a press conference than Willy?  If the Mets don’t blow out the other team, Willie can make any question, an excercise in uncomfortable defensiveness.  Pull the plug on Willy and Omar, please!  Bring in a top GM like Jockety and let him bring in his own staff.  Do it yesterday.

***

In the Stop and Shop tonight, trying to find a firm toothbrush under 4 dollars.  None, and none, of course.  Check out your toothbrush aisle, people, and ask yourself why we are forced to pay 4 dollars for a little piece of plastic that probably costs 10 cents!  What?  You think the purple bristles at the end that are a little bit longer are so high tech that they can charge 4 dollars?  It’s a joke.  What about the consumer?  And why can’t I have a firm toothbrush?  Why?  Are they protecting me?  Are they worried about my gums?  Kolchak wouldn’t stand for this, I’ll tell you.  He would find out what the deal was.

TV and your kids

This is Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees, celebrating like an absolute dope.  Showing up his opponents; showing up himself and his profession.  But most of all, showing kids that THIS is what you do.  And so because of lugheads like this on TV, and the breathless db’s like Michael Kay who then run verbal interference for them, kids see this and think that this is what you do on a ball field.

That’s why I had to talk to a kid after he closed the 9U rec game.  I had to talk to him about celebrating.  He got the last out of the game and did the Joba fist pump and let out a war-whoop.  And I’m only an assistant.  The main coach is a nice guy, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything.  The kid is a nice kid and he begged the coach to pitch him and we did and he was truly elated to be getting the side out but the demonstrations have to go.

So there I am telling him that it’s not good to do that and to do it on the side with his teammates but not on the field because you could make the other guys feel bad and it WILL happen to you sometime and you won’t like it and yes, I know that the guys on TV do it (Thanks Joba), but it still isn’t right.

Try telling a kid that their heroes are wrong; that their heroes are jerks.  It’s a hard concept for them.  I couldn’t trot out the old Franz Beckenbauer example, where 30 years ago with the Cosmos, he would score and just trot back with barely a handshake.  I thought that was the height of cool.  You are so blase about scoring that you do LESS celebrating.  But, then again, I didn’t live in the time of ESPN and their systematic desensitization of our kids.  You don’t think TV is a big influence?  You don’t mind the stuff going on in wrestling, for instance?  Hmm…

Kolchak

Here he is: Carl Kolchak, Independent New Service, Chicago, or Las Vegas, or Seattle. He’ll get the story. He’ll try to get it printed. He’s an icon.

Below is a doll of Kolchak. An “Action Figure”, if you will. These were never produced but one enterprising fan bought the action figure from “A Christmas Story” and “modded” it out to be Kolchak. That’s right, he even wove a little Seersucker suit. Hard to believe. Click the link and believe. Believing was what Kolchak was all about.

Click here to open the story of the guy who made his own Kolchak doll in a new window

Here is the nerve center: The INS newsroom, run by Antonio Vincenzo [vin-chen-zo], played by the brilliant Simon Oakland. This guy seems so real and so natural at his part that it’s hard to believe that he didn’t do more in his career. He could act circles around a wimp like Tom Hanks. He plays YOU, while he’s playing his part.

The guy at left is Ron Updike. Note the similarity between Updike and Uptight, which Kolchak frequently called him. It was suggested, all the way back there in 1974, that he was, you know, that way. He was a good antagonist to Kolchak. Miss Emily on his side, Tony and Updike on the other. Great stuff.

I always loved the art deco/film noir feel of the INS newsroom. I could spend some time there.

Clutch (The Yin & Yang of the Universe)

My nephew is 8 and doesn’t turn 9 until September. He plays on the town travel team for 9U. He’s the youngest guy on the team and it’s quite competitive as there was a real cutdown this year. We have been playing every week. He got a new bat that was 2 inches longer and yet only a half ounce heavier. That has radically altered his hitting; adding power and giving him reach, middle out. He’s now attacking high ball and tomahawking them and just killing everything. Last week he lined out twice and was bummed. The last time up, he pressed and had a rare strikeout, off a kid he can normally handle. He got passed over on a game ball on the day he hit his 2 bombs and he was hurt by that. He has been benched on defense more and more and he has been hurt by that.

So yesterday, in a tight ballgame with Upper Saddle River, his uncle, the 3rd base coach, sends a kid home in a tie game and gets the kid thrown out by 10 feet. Hole crawling time. Game stays tied 2 more innings into the bottom of the 6th–the last inning.

They walk our best kid. He steals second. Our other best kid K’s. He’s the cleanup hitter. His grandpa had died that morning and we didn’t expect him to play but he did and he pitched a great inning in the scoreless duel. He’s the only 9 year old I’ve ever seen hit a ball over the fence in a game (last week) and yet he K’s.

The 5 hitter is a good little hitter with a fast bat but he K’s against their left handed close. More and more I’m seeing coaches save one good kid to pitch the 6th. You’re likely to see their weakest guys in the 3rd, 4th and 5th innings and then see a dominant kid again, late. This was the deal.

I don’t dare steal the kid on second down to 3rd and get him thrown out, and thank God that there haven’t really been any passed balls where I’d have to sweat. Now my nephew is up. 2 outs. Winning run on second. He drove in one of our 4 runs in the first, being the only kid to square up the fast kid who started the game.

He takes a ball. Takes a nice strike. 1-1. While I don’t like him letting a good pitch go, I don’t like the first ball hitting he’s been doing lately, so I’m ok. I’m just praying for no passed balls, because I don’t want to have to try a steal of third. And the 9 year old on second is aggressive and may try it on his own (he has in the past).

Ball in the dirt. 2-1. Ball over his head, no swing. 3-1. I have a hunch now that the kid is going to get one over. I’ve told my nephew to get angry in the big spot. Not to get shy. Use the frustration of the coach passing you over for a game ball or mention; use the frustration of the benchings and the lineouts; use it to get mad and take it out on the ball. “You’re in control”, I say, “but you’re mad too and you’re quick”.

He gets the bat head out on the next swing and hits a line drive over third. I watch it for 20 feet before deciding that it’s well over the 3rd baseman’s head and I start yelling and windmilling for Phil on 2nd to score. He’s motoring. The ball was down the line but I knew off the bat it’d be just fair and it was. It lands down 20 feet past third. The winning run is easily plated and my nephew cruises into 2nd with a double and immediately comes off the bag as he knows it’s a walk-off. The ump then signals that as well and the kids mob him and he gets his game ball, no question. The coach even picks him up at one point, which is quite out of character. My little buddy cracked open the game with 2 outs in the last inning! Awesome.

His dad was in the hospital earlier in the week, but got out and attended the game, as did his mom. His dad took camcorder footage of it and we got pizza and took it back to grandma’s house and watched it over and over. Here he is taking a still photo of a paused frame of “the moment”. Well have to figure out how to upload this to the pc and perhaps I can post it.

Here’s my still photo of the TV and that moment, frozen in time. That’s me making like Leo Durocher coaching 3rd, just under the pause (captain’s bars) at the top right. My nephew has just connected and the ball is rebounding off his bat. You know, watching the kid’s swing last night made me realize just what a nice swing he has. He’s picture perfect. Level and hips turning at the right moment and everything. Thank God for all of it.

And you know, it isn’t lost on me and it wasn’t lost on my nephew that if I hadn’t have sent the kid and gotten him thrown out at home, the whole situation wouldn’t have come up.  We wouldn’t have batted in the home 6th.  So you can look at it two ways: He got me off the hook with the base hit; or I inadvertently set the whole thing in motion with my blunder.  There was a beautiful yin and yang to the baseball universe (and the bigger one) yesterday.  Someone was looking out for us.

Salad-Dodger

This is major league reliever Bobby Jenks of the Chicago Whitesox.  The red Spezio beard was for a Mother’s Day Breast Cancer deal I think so you can discount the goofiness of that.  But you can’t get past the sheer girth of the man.  My goodness.  I’d like to see Larry F. Bowa TRY and turn over a clubhouse spread in front of that man.

And I know it’s just gum; I know it.  But that gum sure does make you think “tooth”, and that just makes it worse, doesn’t it?  You know how a lot of sports guys think they are going to be in the movies?  Vinny Jones, Eric Cantona, Beckham etc?  You know this guy has a career as the big doofus sherriff of Starkeville, Mississippi.  I mean, it’s right out of central casting.  It’s too easy.

And what’s with the tat on the INSIDE of the arm.  That’s a tat that says, “…while I’m a bad enough dood to get the tat; I ain’t bad enough to really put it out there.”  The whole look?  Well, that just says that, “…I shop at Walmart in bulk and I supersize.

Dave Wells?  Cecil Fielder?  Sabbathia?  Terry Forster?  Wilbur Wood?  Mickey Lolich?  Fatso Fogerty?  They are ametuers.  They have nothing on this guy.

Cherry Nation

Those green orbs you see are CHERRIES!  Cherries.  Year 2 and I have cherries on my Rainier tree already!  Wow.  The Rainier is not self-fertile so I had to take a paintbrush out there and transfer pollen by hand, from the White Gold tree to the Rainier.  I did the work of many bees and apparently, I did it well.  Now the war with the squirrels and birds can begin.

The cattle book said that I could see a small yield in year 3.  Well, here it is year 2 and thank you very much.  I’ve also added a 4th tree out in back: One of the new “Gold” cherry trees on the Gisela-5 rootstock.  The thing is so new and experimental, it is called simply “518 New York” on the band.  The Gold will produce cherries that have absolutely NO red in them whatsoever.  That way, the birds tend to leave them alone.

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Been watching my boxed set of “The Night Stalker” before bed lately.  Great show with Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland.  Those two had such great chemistry.  McGavin is my favorite actor.  Nobody like him.  He could take ordinary lines and deliver them and make you believe that he was just speaking off the cuff.  He could act.  You bought it.

The shows are pretty bad though.  The monster budget was not so big.  And every hokey monster in the world, always seemed to show up right where Kolchak did his thing.  Big TV coincidence.  Chris Carter said that Kokchak inspired the dopey x-files.  The show had no plot and no conclusion but the fans loved it because Mulder and Scully MIGHT kiss one day: just imagine.  It was hard to watch.  There was never a payoff to the viewer.  Give me Carl Kochak, INS, anytime.

Cafe Oak (no joke)

Click here to read about Cafe Oak in a new window

You know, I didn’t have time to really get the lowdown on this but I’m throwing it out there because we have some foodies in our audience and even a longtime employee of the Television Food Network will drop in now and then.  This is a link to a story that the TFN is putting together a cooking show with toughguy Charles Oakley as the host and cook, I guess.  Astounding.  And quite possibly, brilliantly sublime.  Who could resist Charles Oakley serving up the facial?
***

In other news, I have been enjoying Dave Cone doing the Yankee broadcasts recently.  He’s like Hernandez for pitchers.  Total inside stuff and totally frank.  He doesn’t treat you like a dope like all announcers do.  And he doesn’t do the Al-Yankqazeera stuff that dopey Yankee fans just seem to eat up.  That’s what Michael Kay is for.

Last night, they are getting into tipping pitches and looking at closeups of Rafael Betancourt’s hands and Flaherty and Coney are doing the topic some justice and Kay is riding along.  Funny how they never broached the fact that Andy Pettite (genuflect) was tipping his pitches in Arizona in Game 6 in 2001and got lit up and chased in the 2nd.  That would have been a great time to get into that, boys.  But, alas, I guess the Yankees don’t make mistakes.  Or at least Andy Pettite.  Mistakes like taking the HGH and then lying about it and coming out and admitting that your dad got stuff for you and you took it more than the 2 times you told George Mitchell’s boys.  Mistakes like trying to protect your friend Roger Clemens and then at the press conference, telling everyone that you aren’t going to talk about Clemens and the “misremembering” he has you doing.  Great.  Wrap yourselves in the flags, guys.  –Fog

How much acid can one man take?

Yesterday, after work, my boss and I again shagged balls at the Westchester Community College Girls Softball field.  It is a fantastic field and it isn’t always unlocked.  The Hyaluronic acid is still working it’s wonderful, lovely, magic on my knees and I am pain free and running my sprints almost daily now.  I could be 35…almost.

So we’re hitting a little while and a kid (to us) of about 25 comes up and asks if he can go out in the outfield and field balls.  “Ahh, sure”, I said, and added, “you sure?”.  So out he goes and he tracks the ball well and has a good arm and my boss hits and I hit a few and we invite this guy in to hit and he’s running me around out there.  I’m going back on the ball pretty well and loving the practice of getting jumps on flies.  Then I hit my boss some grounders and this guy takes first and lets my boss throw through on each one.  He’s got good hands and we do this until we’re shot~about an hour and a half.  He’s helping us throw the balls into the milk crate and I tell him that we work at the nursing home right through the woods and blah blah.

He tells me that he doesn’t even go to Westchester Community College and that he is just visiting to pick up his girlfriend, who goes there.  But he’s been playing ball with us for an hour and a half.  So I give him my best Jack Benny and say, “Well you better go, you don’t want to be late~!”

Hooray for Hyaluronic Acid

Click here to read about Hyaluronic Acid in a new window

Since baseball season has started, I have been playing softball and coaching two kids’ teams.  Needless to say, I have been sore.  Without Alleve (Naproxin), which can give you ulcers in large doses/long, continuous usage, I would not be able to function by Sunday night.  I would be hobbling around on my aching knees.  In the first kids’ practice of the year, I heard and felt a snap in the front of my right knee as I pitched to the kids.  This knee has been hurting so much that I have been limping at work during the week and considering going to an ortho Dr. to get scoped or MRI’d or whatever it is they do there.  I hate Doctoring, I might add.  I don’t want to get caught up in the “victim-mentality” of over-doctoring.  It’s a vortex.  It can take over your life.  I realize and accept that as we age, we will be uncomfortable.  I also realize and accept that our time here is limited and we need to wade into life and make the most of it for ourselves and to teach and help others (ie kids).  So I plug on just like any other forty-something year old.  Some days I feel 35.  Some days I feel 50.  Gotta get out there.

Well this weekend, I was making fun of my dad for all the vitamins and supplements he is taking.  I picked up a bottle out of his drawer of stuff and said, “…what is this stuff?  Hyaluronic Acid?  Huh?”.  Now dad is not an easily influenced guy, but he did cure his macular degeneration with vitamins.  It’s one of the very curable maladies if you take the right stuff.  So that led into his buying catalogs and trying a lot of other supplements, I suppose.  That’s natural.  So he said to me that the hyaluronic acid was found in abundance in children, but that older folks lose it somehow.  It is related to connective tissue.  “Ok”, I said, and I popped one.  He then gave me 5 or 6 more to take home, as his were running low.

I forgot about it.  I didn’t put any stock into it.  That day, I had stayed after work and shagged balls with my boss.  I hit him grounders at 3rd, and he hit me some OF flies.  He left and I ran sprints.  I went hard.  I SHOULD have been a zombie the next day from that.  But I felt like superman.  My knee, for the first time in weeks, was not giving me any trouble.  It was as if the clock was turned back 5 years.  Am I just getting into shape and it all gelled on Saturday morning, all at once?  Possibly, sure.  But I am taking (and ordering more) Hyaluronic Acid for the forseable future.

Dykstra: Somehow, you knew (for you, Tom)

Click here to read the story in a new window

The whole Lenny Dykstra chugging coffee and day-trading on a laptop on the back of his car in a golf course parking lot was a little too good to be true.  I read the piece in the New Yorker and I couldn’t help wondering, “…WHAT, is his business plan?”.  They just kept referring to this grandiose scheme of what amounted to a magazine for pro-athletes.  I mean, here was Lenny spending all this cash and the money was just going to come rolling in from…magazine subscriptions?  That it?  Ok, let’s say that 700 MLB’ers subscribe to the magazine.  Ok, you want to be generous, multiply that by 5 for Hockey, Basketball (stifled laughter), and football.  That gives him a subscription base of 3,500 as a rosy scenario.

Am I investing?  No.  There will be more on this one, you can be sure.  And really, this is helping to cinch the 1993 Phillies as the weirdest bunch of characters ever assembled on a ballfield.  Daulton says he travels time or some such thing.  Kruk is Kruk.  Lenny is Lenny.  Mitch WIlliams…do I have to go on?  Schilling?  As a matter of fact, I believe that Curt Schilling is the last active ‘93 Philly playing.  What a team that was.  –Fog