30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 2 -- Your Earliest

Last month I did a 30-day writing challenge.  I posted about it in my last post.  Writing prompts were given and it made me think of writing in ways I hadn't before.  Some of it was good, some of it not.  Some of it was deeply personal.  I'm going to share some of my favorites.

#2: My Earliest Memory

My earliest memory comes from July of 1983.  I was four and change.  I sat in the bedroom that was partitioned off for my brothers.  We lived in a pre-war apartment building in Brooklyn, so we had the space to cram four boys into half a bedroom.

I was watching WPIX 11, New York's local independent station at the time, and home of the New York Yankees.  Stuff happened that I didn't understand until much later in life.  The game was honestly boring to me.  Then this happened:

 

 

 

 

 

It was weird, like a light went on in my still forming head.  This game was cool. Anything that could make grownups act like this was beyond cool.  And that day, I became a Yankee fan.

 

 

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...

That's right, pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training!  That means Opening Day is around the corner, and summer very shortly after.  Aren't you excited?



I make no secret about my Yankee fandom.  I like to think it's one of my most endearing qualities.  But this isn't a post about being a Yankee fan.  Spring Training also means that softball season is about to start out here, but this isn't a post about that either.

No, this is a post about connection.

Every year, millions of fans of the 30 MLB teams prepare themselves for a summer of various levels of commitment to the idea that their team can win a title.  Some fans will watch every game, most won't.  Some fans will attend every home game, most won't.  But on some level, everyone will have at least some interest in their hometown team.  On some level people care.  And on some level, people hope for the kind of unity victory brings.

I know this is true of all sports, but for some reason, it feels more true about baseball.  And I think I know why.

Football, the players wear masks.  Their careers tend to be short.  And in most of those careers, teams that don't win out don't stay together very long.  Basketball, the average length of time one player stays with one team is about five years.  Baseball, however, teams are kept together for years, decades in some cases, and even the teams that don't stay completely together, there's never a wholesale turnover.  There's continuity.  And while the Yankees win most of the time, most teams spend at least some time being competitive.  And you can always trace a link from one team's great player to its next through less than three degrees of separation.  And it's something you can link directly back to your childhood.  It's something I appreciate more now as I'm now so much closer to 40 than I am to 20.

For instance, one of my favorite players retired a couple of years ago, Derek Jeter.  He came up to the majors in 1996, when I was turning 18 and going to college and drooling over college girls.  1996 was also the first Yankee championship of my lifetime.  The year before Jeter came up, Don Mattingly -- longtime Yankee first baseman and the player I grew up idolizing -- played his final season in a career that started when I was three.  He played most of his career on a team that had all-time base stealing champion Rickey Henderson and fellow Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield.  Winfield was brought to the Yankees in 1981 to anchor an outfield that featured Reggie Jackson, who was a member of the 1978 World Series Championship team that won when I was about two weeks old.  And right there, I've just charted my entire life through one team.  That is not a terribly rare occurrence.

It's a shame that the appreciation for baseball seems to be declining because that connection is declining.  Connection with a home, with a city, with something that's not only bigger than you, but something that you can agree upon with your neighbor at a ballpark regardless of your station in life, your religious beliefs or even your attitudes about race.  Two guys at Yankee Stadium wearing Yankee jerseys are both Yankee fans, and together for the three hours at the ballpark.  They share a drink, they share triumph and defeat, they share opinions on which players suck.  At the end it's over, and they go back to their respective lives, homes and differences of various levels, but in those few hours they were family of a sort.

They say baseball is something that's inherited, that fathers pass on to sons (or mothers to sons, or fathers to daughters, mothers to daughters, whatever).  If I ever have kids and I can pass on an appreciation for baseball and all the commonalities fans have with one another, all the things we share at the ballpark, and how we directly connect one player to the next, and one moment to the next, I will have honestly done my part to make the world a better place.

Unless the little crumb snatcher turns out to be a Red Sox fan.

Adulting

Some days I think Peter Pan got it right.

Screw adulthood.  I want to play and not worry about time.  I want to have all my needs taken care of for me and not have to think about employment or taxes or any of that stuff.  Who needs to think about politics and religion and love and feelings?

It seems the difficult stuff was never in the manual.  Parents would offer vague warnings about savoring our youth and enjoying simplicity without directly stating what about adulthood sucked so much.  All we saw was a life free from stupid rules and chores and stuff.  So many of us were not schooled on the responsibility adulthood carries.  We were told bits and pieces, educated in math and science and history, but we weren't prepared for this life of bill payment and maintenance.  We were told that we were special, that we had something to offer the world.  Who would have thought they were merely referring to our time?

It was a conversation I had briefly with my sister-in-law on her birthday earlier this week.  Adulthood carries the responsibility of time management, of child rearing, of management of emotions, of deferring happiness for the sake of the bigger picture.  If I had that information at 8 or 9 years old, it would have been a one-way ticket to Neverland.  I'd have taken my chances with the Pirates.  We do grow up though.  It's not a process we can opt out of.  We do what we have to to accomplish what we want to.  Dreams are tailored to fit the reality of the the world around us, the world we wish to change.

If we're lucky, we are either born with or developing the skills we need to affect that change.

***

I never thought I'd live in a world where the Mets, Cubs, and Blue Jays are in the running for a World Series at the same time.  Meanwhile, my beloved Yankees are watching from home.  I'm not okay with this.

***
My grandmother's 96th birthday just passes.  Am I wrong to hope she can double it?

Captain Clutch (short post)

Okay. Wow.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the final season of Derek Jeter, shortstop and captain of the Yankees.  He's the all-time team leader in, well, most offensive categories not already topped by Babe Ruth.  This entire season has been a sort of tribute to the Captain, despite the lackluster performance of the team.  There have been commercials and gifts, fan tributes and the ever-present "De-rek Jee-ter" chants wherever he's gone.

Until tonight, though, there hasn't been a moment.  No flip play.  No Mr. November.

This hasn't been a banner year for the Yankees.  We're not making the playoffs.  Injuries have kicked the hell out of the team.  We score at Mets-like levels.  Our saving grace is that the Red Sox suck worse.  Jeter has had an especially lackluster season.  But -- and I've said this in conversation with friends -- you give me a list of players to have up in a make-or-break situation, if Jeter's name is on it, he's my guy.

Take today, for instance.  In his final game at Yankee Stadium, he came up in three key situations: first inning with the Yankees down 2-0, he bangs an RBI double off the left field wall, and scores one batter later, tying the game; fifth inning with the bases loaded, he slaps an RBI grounder that gets turned into a 2 run error, Yankees up 4-2.

And the big one.

Bottom of the 9th, game tied at 5.  Jeter comes up with a runner on second and his a walk-off RBI single.  In his final at-bat at Yankee Stadium.  With the sold-out crowd expecting magic.  The perfect capper to a charmed career.

That, my friends, is what it means to be clutch.

It is totally en vogue to hate the Yankees; ask any Met fan, and you will hear -- at length -- why the Yankees are an abomination, about how the fans are douchebags, about how we bought all of our championships, and mostly, how Derek Jeter is probably the most overrated player since Yogi Berea or Joe DiMaggio. But I would like to think even the most ardent of haters have to give props to what can only be described as a "Field of Dreams" moment from a guy who seems to have made a Hall of Fame career of big moments.

So I take this time to join in the "Thank You Derek" chant, and raise a glass to salute Derek Jeter for the finest 20 years of my baseball fandom.

And It's Almost Gone...

My girlfriend wrote a lovely essay about summer on her blog.  She mentioned awesome things like sunshine and your favorite ice cream (Peanut Butter Explosion from ColdStone Creamery, if you were wondering).  The point she was trying to make, in my opinion, that for some reason, be it the sunshine or the heat, or the fact that it was ingrained in us since we were all children to do so, is that summer is usually the time we take the foot off the gas and kind of coast.  We're more inspired to do things for ourselves that are geared toward pure joy.  For me, that's always been sports.

Growing up in New York, we may not have had as much access to greenery that my friends in the Northwest do.  We didn't go fishing or swimming in the creek (because honestly, that might kill you), we didn't go hiking through the woods, but what we did was make use of our environment.  Fire escape rungs became makeshift basketball hoops and one-way streets and alleys became makeshift football fields.  Before we were allowed to head to the further out parks where blacktop courts and open meadows became our arenas of play (and even after, on days when we lacked the funds or the time) we dominated our blocks, then took our talents to other blocks in the neighborhood.  And we enjoyed ourselves.

This summer, as I have for the last five summers since I moved out here, I played rec league softball with a team called the Shakrz.  It tends to be the high point of my summer these days, because it brings me back to when I was a teenager and played with my friends.  Am I particularly good?  Hell no!  But it's fun  And I enjoy these people.  We wrapped up our season this past weekend in a tournament where our best moment was a thrilling 14-13 win in extra innings.

Fun moment with the team.  Photo by Amy Hill.

And just like that, we look up and the summer is almost over.  God, that sucks.  You look up and smile as you realize the roses smelled sweet, the heat that licked your skin left its indelible mark, and that there was never enough sunblock.  You think of the sand between your toes and the picnic blanket you have in your trunk and you smile wistfully as fall approaches.  You keep in mind one thing that will get you through the cold dark months ahead.

Summer is coming.

Jan's Paperbacks Event (7/26/2014)

This past weekend combined a road trip, an author event, and hanging out with some very cool people, old friends and new.  See why I love what I do?

After a 12-hour shift I was asked to do last minute, I made a solo drive to Beaverton, OR for an afternoon at Jan's Paperbacks.  The staff there was welcoming and fun (those ladies were actually incredibly awesome).  I was paired with an author much more local to the area than I was, one Anne Riley, author of Aerie.  I picked up a copy that day to check out.

Aside from the cookies and the charming customers that came in pretty steadily throughout the day, it was  also great to pick Anne's brain about writing and self-publishing, give our opinions about Amazon (short version, CreateSpace is awesome, but indie bookstores won't touch Amazon with a ten-foot pole).

I'm gonna take this very brief post to thank Shari, Debbie, Jody and Anne for a wonderful afternoon! I am going to definitely make them a part of my next project's promotional tour!

Stay-cation Daze

I don't usually take vacations.

Don't get me wrong, I take time to go places.  I take time to be sick.  I go back to New York at least once a year.  But very rarely do I ever unplug, go off the grid like I have the last couple of weeks.  I mean, I was still connected at my father's funeral last year.

The last couple of weeks, I've been off.  No day job, no writing, very little in the way of shameless self-promotion.  I needed a break.  It's not even like I went anywhere of importance: I rediscovered my liver, and went on a local boat cruise; went to Pike Place Market with my girlfriend; sat on my butt and watched the All-Star Game.  There was a fun picnic and a beach day where I had an unfortunate skin reaction to lake water (itchy, itchy, itchy!!!).  And I have to say, there's definitely something to this whole vacation thing.

The last time I took this much time off, I went to the Dominican Republic for a week or so and had a blast.  There's a story in there about how my brothers and I were mistaken for members of the 2012 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, which I will happily recount another day.  I can't begin to tell you how relaxed I felt afterwards, except that I feel the same way now.

There is something to be said about recharging your batteries, putting yourself on airplane mode, so to speak.  A couple of weeks away and I'm ready to get back to the grind of the paying job and the fun of writing.  I'm ready to get the rest of this year going.

I'm back.

Summer in the City

It's no secret: I'm a big fan of summer.  All my favorite things are summer things.  All my favorite activities are summer activities.  And not just any summer, either.  City summer, the kind I haven't been a part of in half a decade.  Once the weather gets warm, everything about life I find worthwhile starts to happen.

Back home, summer meant kids.  After June 22, schools were out and all the kids in the city ran rampant around town.  To some that means playing in creeks and woods and what have you.  To me, it was no curfew, football in the streets (I had a mean arm once) until you couldn't see the ball.  It was basketball from noon 'til dusk, or later if the court was near a streetlamp.  It meant movie hopping from one summer flick to another, sneaking around ushers and cameras to turn a matinee ticket into an all-day film festival.

It meant the Mister Softer Ice Cream trucks, whose distinct jingle could be heard from blocks away like an approaching T-Rex.  On the hottest of those summer days, that jingle meant relief was coming and sprinkles were free.  It meant the Spanish dude selling Icees on the corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues, and how with a little hustle and the guts to stand the heat, you could turn a 20-pound block of ice and some syrups into shaved ice treats, happy kids, and money.

It meant baseball, and who didn't love baseball? It was the middle of the season and the pennant races were either really starting to get interesting, or really getting out of hand (I'm a Yankee fan, guess which end I usually saw?), and we waited in anticipation of the Home Run Derby.  It meant work for some, play for others.

As adolescence set in, summer meant exposed midriffs and cut-off shorts.  It meant teased hair and bikinis.  It meant sundresses.  It meant sweat making every inch of fabric, no matter how thin, stick strategically to bronzed skin.  It meant girls in their late teens and early 20's knowing full well they had me and my hormones in the palms of their hands.  As an adult summer meant late nights chasing women and thrills, fueled by drink and dance.  It meant that even if the temperature cooled slightly, the streets were just as hot as they were in the daytime.  It meant watching the transformation as women traded in their business wear for outfits that were less confining to their bodies and attitudes.

It meant thunderstorms.  It meant that just before one would hit, the air would be heavy with a certain energy, thick with humidity and heavy with expectation.  When it was over, the air was cool and light and if you were outside,  you were happily drenched and enjoyed a powerful lightshow full of sound and fury.

It meant Coney Island and the rides that, even though you had been on them a million times, you still once in a while ponied up that $5 for one more go at the Cyclone or the Zipper. 

It meant not having a backyard pool, but having a fire hydrant and a hollowed out tin can.  It meant skelly in the streets, and if you're from Brooklyn or the Bronx and I have to explain that to you, you need to put the video games down, son, and get out more.  (For my Canadian friends, think curling, only with bottlecaps on asphalt.)

Summertime was eight short weeks of wide open possibility, that always seemed to last forever until it was almost over.  And even though as a working man I never had summers off, there's still a conditioned mind-shift that you anticipate in late May, starts in earnest late June, winds down around Labor Day and ends around the first day of school.

I still love Summer.  Let the games begin.

The Final Season

Now for something less angry and more... bittersweet.

A legend of my own time has announced this is his final go-round with the Yankees.

Derek Jeter, shortstop, #2, Yankee captain has announced that this is his final season, that he rides off into the sunset (and likely the Hall of Fame) after the 2014 season.  I'm sad, I admit it.  Jeter may not be the flashiest player, or the one with the biggest power numbers, but what he did on the field, what he has meant for baseball, echoes something that the last 20 or so years have meant in my life.

Consistency.

Every season you could pencil Derek Jeter in for a batting average at or near .300, between 10 and 20 home runs, 70-90 RBIs, and 185-200 hits.  Every year.  Like clockwork.  These are not easy numbers to achieve, and yet he did it with such quiet regularity that when it didn't happen, and he had an average ballplayer's year, the sky was falling, and reporters heralded his demise as eminent.

Jeter was -- is -- a winner.  And beyond that, he's smart enough to understand what it means to be a star.  It's why you've heard nothing negative about him off the field.  Arrive, play the game, go home, repeat.  On top of that, he did it with the biggest media draw in the biggest media market.  New York is a baseball-crazy city to the point where even the most ignorant to the sport has a cursory knowledge at least of what's going on.  New York is a celebrity driven media market to the point where we know which restaurants certain stars will dine in.  And Derek Jeter has consistently remained in the spotlight but not of the spotlight.  An ESPN reporter described this feat as like "surviving in Chernobyl, and then emerging as the healthiest person to have ever lived."

Consistency.

I turned 18 the year Derek Jeter won the AL Rookie of the Year in 1996.  It was the first championship I had the pleasure of enjoying (I was only a few days old in '78 when the Yanks won.  The Mets in '86? Well, they're the Mets, it doesn't count.) and really kicked off my formative years.  My twenties were played out with Yankee championships in the backdrop, and I enjoyed the wonders of the twenties: youth and awareness being at equal levels for the only time in your life.  I equate the career of this man, the one great player whose career I had the pleasure of closely following as a fan, as a link to those wonderful days of being young and dumb, energetic and impetuous, and the championships as a metaphor for my own perceived invincibility.  I loved being in my 20's in New York City.  I loved my life.  The only person I would have traded with at the time is Derek Jeter.  After all, as fun as it was for me, I didn't date supermodels, nor did I have multiple millions in the bank.

As that link to my young adulthood fades off, I find that I'm suddenly facing the realization that I'm not 20 something anymore.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my age, my life and so on, but that time is gone forever, and only exists as memories -- stories that through retelling are elevated to legend.

Much like the career of one Derek Jeter.

So as this nascent baseball season gets underway, I thank Mr. Jeter, much like I thanked his teammate Mariano Rivera last year, for providing an excellent backdrop to an awesome story.

Sidebar:  I want to be in my hometown for Jeter's final home game at Yankee Stadium, I don't care if I have to Kickstarter that thing...

'Tis the Season

I'm a die-hard fan.

I love baseball, football and basketball, and more than I love the sports I love my
hometown teams -- the Yankees, the Knicks, the Giants, and the Jets.  Hell, the Nets
even snuck in this year with the novelty of being from Brooklyn.  But as the NBA season
winds to a close and my New York Knicks yet again robbed unjustly of a chance to hoist
a championship banner to the rafters at Madison Square Garden, I turn my attention to
my equally beloved Yankees.  The Knicks did better this year than they have in almost
15, so I've only been peripherally paying attention to baseball.  I heard the Yanks
were dealing with some injuries, and there was this while A-Rod steroid thing
happening, but it was April and May.  I mean baseball in April and May might as well be
Spring Training.  Nothing interesting happens in baseball in April and May, right?

Holy crap.

The Yankees started out the season missing Mark Teixiera, Curtis Granderson, Derek
Jeter and Alex Rodriguez?  What the... that's the two through six hitters in our
lineup!  Kevin Youkilis got hurt?  Wait... you mean the Red Sox guy?!  When did we get
the Red Sox guy?  Who the hell is Reid Brignac?  Why is Jayson Nix playing?  And didn't
Vernon Wells retire?  You step away from the game for one minute and all hell breaks
loose!

More bizarre?  With everything I just said, the Yankees are only a game and a half out
in the East.

It's going to be one hell of a summer.

Public Service Announcement

This is a message in two parts.  Part one is positive.  Part two is a call to arms.

We are all possessed of something special.  We all have something that sets us apart.  It's not necessarily physical, although some of us are athletic, or tall, or beautiful.  It is not necessarily mental, even though some of us are intelligent or creative.  It is not necessarily social, although some of us are funny, charming or charismatic.  It may be all of these things or none.  But we all have the ability to change the world.

At the lowest common denominator, life is made of impact ripples.  One thing impacts another, which impacts another and more until we inexorably feel the impact, big or small in return.  It's a greasy frictionless pool table with no pockets.  And everyone -- EVERYONE -- is capable of setting something in motion.  Everyone is special.  Whether you impact one person or a thousand, you make an impact.  And because of your existence, your direct or indirect impact, someone's life has been altered.  We would all do well to keep this in mind when we question our place in the world.

Part two.

I am not alone in thinking that I am not meant to be simply a cog in the great machine.  I am not just a little part who keeps spinning until worn to nothing, then replaced and discarded.  I am not alone in this.

We have the power, you, me, all of us, to remove ourselves from the machine, to become more than just parts.  We have the ability to do it ourselves and/or with others.  We have passions that will elevate us from the machine, even if we are not entirely sure what they are or how to properly use them.

I encourage you, writers, thinkers, creators, artists, athletes... step outside the machine.  Let us create our own machine.  Let us fulfill our destinies.

First days of Fall/Black dude singing country

Okay, I hate to admit it, but I was the weirdo that absolutely loved the first day of school.

Back home, the air had a certain smell to it.  Leaves started to change colors, and the big yellow cheese buses rolled by with much more frequency.  Early-morning and late afternoon chatter of children seemed to highlight the weekdays.  My favorite season was rolling in, and it was in this in-between time during the first few weeks of school that I absolutely loved life.  I mean, sure homework got old before the calendar turned to October, but the first few weeks of September always had and always will have a sensation of newness to it.

And then there's baseball.

Over the last decade and change, I've come to view playoff baseball as my natural-born right, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, the Yankees are once again poised for an October run (eat it, Mets fans!).  The years in which the Yanks go deep into the playoffs always seem shorter than the ones in which the get sent home from the dance early.  No matter when it's over, the first few days of fall always seem to gear up that sense of anticipation in me.

I anticipate good things for the rest of this year for my friends, my family, and myself.  It seems like that last barrier that a lot of people that surround me have is about to break.  I can feel it for others because I see it coming for me as well.  Let's make this Fall a classic, shall we?

***

The other night, I reminded myself why I stopped drinking.

Monday night was karaoke night in a local bar, and for some god-unknown reason I felt it was appropriate to make my singing debut.

Thankfully, though, due to the fact that there was no appropriate recording device, I will not post the video evidence of my interpretation of "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy."

Either my best friend was looking out for me, or he wasn't.

Peace.

The Grindstone/DJ3K

I've been way out of the game for way too long. I'm sorry.

I've been dealing with personal stuff that has simply gotten in the way of the things I've wanted to do, like writing. Who needs that noise?

The idea in place is to put my nose to the grindstone and do what I like to do, which is this.

***

Props to my boy, Derek Jeter. Number 2 on the scorecards, the Yankee shortstop has been my favorite ballplayer for almost half my life. Yesterday in the midst of a career day, he reached a milestone that is the benchmark for consistent excellence -- 3000 hits. Considering that the Home Run King Barry Bonds, with 762 steroid pumped homers doesn't have 3000 hits, this is a big deal.