Month: October 2013 (Page 2 of 2)

Kids, Football, And Seeing My Name In Ink

October 15, 2013 / DB

Slapping together some notes while attempting to actually stay awake past halftime of a Monday Night Football game, as the Colts are battling the Chargers. Not sure why I’m bothering. The Colts vs. San Diego has been nothing but bad news for about ten years.

My assignment last Friday was to cover RHS going to play DCHS, the team that lost the 83-78 thriller earlier this year. DCHS came in averaging 56 points and 550 yards per game. Their average gain on running plays this year was 8.5 yards. They had not scored less than 40 points through their first seven games.

So naturally RHS held them scoreless in the first half and won 41-28. It was an impressive, and surprising, performance, and made for a decent story. Although there were so many numbers to deal with – DC held to half their season average in points, lost as many turnovers as they had lost all year, gained 50 yards fewer than their average, etc. – that it was hard to squeeze it all in. But another beautiful night at a stadium.

Since we don’t live in the delivery area for my paper, I’ve only read my stories online. But we were down that way Saturday and I ducked into a gas station to pick up a copy. It was kind of fun to show the girls my name in the paper. Hell, it was cool for me to see it.

Last academic year, we made it all the way to April before any of the girls puked. This year we didn’t even make it to fall break. C. woke up sick Friday night and threw up a couple times Saturday. We learned at soccer Sunday that one of her teammates was also sick that night. At practice Monday we heard of other kids from St. P’s who have been puking. Really hoping this bug doesn’t go through the whole family like that April one did.

I’ve been fighting a cold for a few days. It’s one of those annoying colds that isn’t full-blown, but is worst at nighttime. Trying to sleep my throat gets scratchy, then I can’t breathe, and I spend a couple hours tossing and turning. So I was thoroughly wiped out Sunday night and went to bed when the Red Sox were still being no-hit. Sadly I missed the late-game fireworks. We’ll see if Big Papi’s grand slam was more Kirk Gibson 1988 or Albert Pujols 2005.

Your girls soccer update: L. scored two more goals this week, bringing her total to 12 through four games. Again, not that I’m keeping track. C. struggled with the after-effects of being sick and was not much of a factor in her game. And I missed M.’s game coaching L..

Well, I made it through the entire game. And, as expected, was rewarded with a Colts loss. I wish I knew what it was about the Chargers that makes them the Colts’ kryptonite. But man do I hate losing to them. Well, mostly losing to Philip Rivers, even if he is my fantasy QB.

Bits And Pieces

October 9, 2013 / DB

It’s been a busy and frustrating couple of weeks. And some of it is beginning to catch up with us.

The last two Sundays we’ve had torrential rains, which have wiped out soccer games each week. L. had her first make-up game last night (She scored two early goals, then none after that.) and M. has one tonight. Plus regular practices on top of that has us rushing around even more than normal. Throw in a Daisy Scout meeting, my two shifts at the school library, and this week has absolutely flown by.

I had another quality football game last Friday. I watched FHS win their fifth game of the year, getting an impressive road win over a team they had only beaten three times over the previous 19 years. I had the odd experience of hearing the coach say variations on his post-game comments four times. I caught part of his speech to his team, then listened in as he did a radio interview. I grabbed him next for a few questions for my story. Then, as I was driving home, he called into the state-wide scores and interview show where I heard him talk once more.

The coach is very young and in his first year at FHS. He has them playing good football and is full of enthusiasm. I have a feeling if he can get them winning consistently, he won’t be there very long. It’s kind of cool to get to see him in the early days of what could be a long and very successful career.

Other weekend football:
KU.
Ugh. Remember when I threw out the possibility that the Jayhawks could be 4-0 coming into last week’s Texas Tech game with a huge chance to make a statement? So much for that. The offensive line is so bad that it’s really hard to know if the team is better than last year or not. Jake Heaps rarely has time to throw, and when he does his receivers either can’t get open or can’t catch the ball. So I have no idea if he’s good or not.
The weak o-line has rendered KU’s terrific set of running backs nearly useless. And Charlie Weis can’t help himself not to make 3-4 wacky calls a game, always at the worst possible moment. All that keeps putting a defense that has improved on the spot to bail them out. You have to be able to score in the Big 12, no matter how good your defense is. It feels like the defense will make plays in the first half and then get rolled over in the second half for the next two months. But I guess two wins is a doubling of last year’s total, so that’s progress. Right?

All that has made the hype for Wiggins and his pals even more deafening, something I didn’t think was possible.

Colts-Seahawks.
Man, what a game! I was literally shaking for nearly an hour after the game ended from all the adrenaline pumping through me.¹ The Colts just keep making plays, on both sides of the ball, when the result is in question. I’m still not convinced it’s the right thing to go to this balanced offense but I’m being swayed in that direction as it seems to be working. Now, if they can just get Trent Richardson running better. He almost looks too big to me, as if he’s bulked up to survive the NFL and that’s taken half-a-step from him. That trade will be discussed for years, but with Ahmad Bradshaw going out for the season, it makes even more sense.

Finally, I broke my losing streak and won my first fantasy game of the year last week! And I had to make a deal with the devil, picking up Phillip Rivers, to do it. But I won’t go 0-13 and I’m still in the running for the last-place money. Win-win.

There have been some great games in the MLB playoffs. Between all the other things going on, I wasn’t able to watch the quadruple header days in full. ² But still, the Detroit-Oakland series has been incredible. Game three of the Boston-Tampa game was a classic. I hope the LCSes are as much fun as some of these games have been.

Finally, I sent a message to my local Cardinals fan friend just before St. Louis closed out Pittsburgh last night asking if his boys were allowed to stay up and watch. A few minutes later I got a response: a video of his seven-year-old in his baseball pants, a Cards hat, and no shirt, sitting at their keyboard, playing a perfect version of “Charge” on their keyboard. Duh-duh-duh-DUT Dah-dah. Charge! It looked like they were having a good time.

Maybe someday I’ll keep the girls up to watch the Royals close out a playoff series. Then again, since I dropped a big, fat F-bomb in front of them and their Cardinals buddies when Peyton threw his pick six in the Super Bowl three years ago, maybe it would be best to treat a Royals playoff game like an important KU game in March/April: the girls go to one part of the house with S. and I get the basement to myself.

Of course, that could have just been the extra caffeine I poured into myself to fight a nasty migraine. ↩
And we don’t have the MLB Network, although I could have streamed those games. ↩

For Those About To Rock

October 8, 2013 / DB

I recently came across a new classic rock station¹ that has a “Twelve O’Clock Double Shot” lunch show. Which is great, because I pick up L. at 1:00 so while I’m sitting in line waiting for the kids to come out, I get to listen to the last few minutes of the program.

One day last week I lucked into a Motley Crüe block. It was a gorgeous day, so the windows were down. I may have turned the radio up just a hair louder than appropriate for a preschool pick-up line. And I may have been playing air drums a little too demonstrably. But it was “Girls, Girls, Girls,” what the hell was I supposed to do? Just sit there? I think not.

I was snapped out of my reverie when I noticed Father T. walking by. I casually reached up, reduced the volume, and gave him a friendly nod. Fortunately, he was engaged in conversation with someone, so if he heard the Crüe, he did not give me any looks about it. Later I remembered that this was the same priest who quoted the Rolling Stones at L’s baptism,² so while the Crüe might be a little heavy for his tastes, he has an appreciation for good music. I bet he not only heard the music, but he was also playing a little mental air guitar, too.

Well, it’s new to me. It’s a Muncie station, so perhaps it’s always been there but they just upped their power and now they reach Indy. ↩
As usual for me at church, I tuned out his homily. Until I heard him say, “…but as the Rolling Stones said, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’” That I liked. ↩

Of Cold Wars, Nuclear Nightmares, And Safety Dances

October 7, 2013 / DB

Man, it’s like there was some kind of conspiracy to troll the over-energetic part of my brain that is responsible for nostalgia last week.

First, Alexander Zaitchik wrote for Salon about how close we may have come to nuclear war in 1983, and how that, along with The Day After, freaked out some of us Gen Xers with nightmares about the nuclear apocalypse. Then Sunday’s American Top 40 was from ’83. And you know how AT40’s mess with my head.

Seriously, people. Stop getting inside my mind.

I’m going to spare you the 3000 words I could easily write about 1983 and just link to the Salon article. But know that I’m doing it with “PYT,” “The Safety Dance,” and “Puttin’ On The Ritz” playing on an endless loop in my head.

By definition, autumn forebodes a coming darkness. Death’s answer to spring, a poet called it. The emotional link between autumn and nuclear fear was forged for the previous generation during the Septembers and Octobers of 1961 and 1962, when back-to-back crises in Berlin and Cuba nearly trip-wired WWIII. Our nuclear autumn was condensed into those three months in 1983, covering a host of landmark Cold War events now at their 30th anniversary mark. If our generations still think about nuclear war, we likely share the expectation that nuclear crisis and war, should it come, will occur during the months of September, October and November.

Inescapable, apocalyptic dread: The terrifying nuclear autumn of 1983

Five

October 3, 2013 / DB

Where were you five years ago? We were at the hospital, greeting daughter #3 into the world. Man, has it gone by fast.

L. has always seemed older than she is, and when we’re reminded of her actual age it’s always a surprise. Recently, as I’ve been thinking about her birthday, I always have to pause for a second and think, “Wait, she’s just now turning five?”

That’s what spending your life chasing after two bigger sisters will do. From day one she’s watched them, processed it all, and when she’s felt the urge, she’s jumped right into whatever they’ve been doing. Every so often she’ll push too far, realize it, and get scared, running to us for safety with tears in her eyes. But that’s always been the exception. Most often she sees no reason not to be doing exactly what M. and C. are doing.

Like everything else, she talked early. And while she’s not quite in M.’s league when it comes to volume of words, she doesn’t have many quiet moments, either. Once she gets comfortable around someone, she has no qualms about chatting them up. I always think of when she was approaching two and I saw our neighbor standing in her backyard, leaning down. After a moment she began laughing, and I wondered what was cracking her up. I peeked around the corner and saw L. there, holding court on some topic or another.

One reminder of her true age is how she talks. She has trouble with and R’s and W’s. She builds “fowts” in the basement. Her friend Maggie is “showt”. Something that is difficult to do is “hawd”. She has favorite, or rather “favowite”, “showts” she wears whenever they are clean. And so on. It’s super cute and makes us laugh, and when we repeat the words back to her, she gets indignant. “Dad, I down’t tawk that way!” Which makes us laugh harder. Remember these moments when she has to go to therapy.

But she also busts out big words all the time. Yesterday, when C. had a friend over while M. was at soccer practice, L. found me and complained, “C. is excluding me!” Well ok then.

As I’ve documented plenty of times, L. is our, self-proclaimed, Tom Boy. She asked for Spider Man web shooters, and Ninja Turtle and Power Rangers stuff. At a friend’s birthday party two weeks ago, nothing made her happier than running around in a Wolverine mask. Every now and then we can get her to wear a skirt or dress to school, but she much prefers either baggy shorts or jeans and a t-shirt. We have had some pretty intense wrestling matches lately, and she’s developed some wicked moves to pin me. I’ve never wished for a son, always completely content with how the chromosomes worked themselves out at conception. But of the three sisters, she’s definitely my little buddy.

As the youngest, her getting older has a different poignancy to it. Where M. is always pushing our family out to the next step, L. is closing the door on things that have been routine since M. was little.¹
At each step we’ve been thrilled to give up diapers and bottles, pull-ups and nap times. But I must say, I’ve loved the 3-4 age range, when kids’ minds are expanding and they’re constantly learning something new but they also require you to be with them through these experiences. There are moments of frustration and annoyance, but those are far out-weighed by the moments of delight. Not that she, and her sisters, won’t still be delightful. But along with giving up the neediness of the toddler/preschool years, we’re also giving up a measure of closeness with them. Snuggling will happen less and less. They’ll want us to watch them do things, rather than join with them. And so on. I must admit I’m already missing some of that stuff.

But enough of that. L. is five today. Showing how she’s her own girl, she requested Chinese food for dinner. We have cake and ice cream lined up. And she’s got some pretty cool presents coming her way. I just hope we don’t end up regretting the web shooters…

C., as the middle kid, keeps us grounded, the center around which M. and L.’s changes rotate. ↩

Books

October 2, 2013 / DB

Whoops. It looks like, between our early September travels and the various changes I made to the site last month, I never posted my list of August books. My bad. Here they are, to be followed shortly by my September list.

30 – VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave – Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn with Gavin Edwards.
I knew before reading this, from the reviews, that it wasn’t considered to be nearly as good as I Want My MTV, the oral history of the glory days of MTV I read last year. But that didn’t mean I was going to skip this oral history of and by four of the five the original MTV VJ’s.¹

It’s not nearly as complete as I Want My MTV, is a much quicker read, and at times comes across as self-serving. But there’s plenty of good trivia and anecdotes in it. Summer’s over, but this would be a fine book for a 40-something to think of next summer when the pools are open again.

31 – NOS4A2 – Joe Hill.
I’ve read no author more in my life than Stephen King². A quick glance tells me I’ve read at least 26 of his books over the years. Despite my love for King’s work, I’ve never sampled the output of the rest of his family. His wife Tabitha and his sons Owen King and Joe Hill are each novelists. Nothing about their work ever drew me to it. Until I heard the buzz for Hill’s novel NOS4A2 over the summer. The word on the street was that Hill captured the spirit of some of his dad’s classic works, so I jumped in.

Good move. NOS4A2 indeed resembles some of Papa King’s most creepy novels. There are the kids with special powers. There are portals to parallel worlds, or at least through time to different places in our world. There are incidents of gory violence. And it all gets combined into a quest. Oh, and it’s a big, fat book that will keep you turning pages.

But Hill does all this without ripping his dad off. There are certainly elements of his writing that feel familiar. But the voice is just different enough, tweaked slightly from his father’s, that Hill can stand on his own. He’s not as polished as his dad, but the book is quite good.

The thing that really struck me about the book was reading it as a parent. I read most of King’s creepier books back when I was in college, or shortly thereafter. The creepy characters who preyed on kids were just creepy. But reading that kind of story as a father is a different experience. It was tough to make it through some sections without thinking about it being my girls who were threatened rather than some abstract, imaginary characters. Unsettling to be sure, but I think that’s kind of the point of horror writing: to sneak up behind you, yell “BOO!” and scare you a bit.

32 – The Orphan Master’s Son – Adam Johnson.

Each time I open a new book, whether it came recommended by someone else, I read glowing reviews of it online, or I just skimmed the back cover and it seemed interesting, I’m hoping I’ll be diving into an unforgettable book. One that I will love as I’m reading it, not want to end, and recall fondly after I’m done with it. Being entertained is the primary goal. But I always want it to be a classic.

And here we have a classic. It is a book that, in many, many ways, reminded me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, one of my all-time favorites. Like Kavaier and Clay it is sprawling, both in time and in the range of its main character’s life. It centers on Pak Jun Do, a North Korean boy who believes that, unlike the other boys at his orphanage, he has a father, the master of the orphanage. That belief gives him the power to escape the home that grinds up so many of the boys he grows up with until they die.

Through talent, circumstance, luck, and simple twist of fate, he zig-zags through life, graduating from the orphanage to digging tunnels to South Korea. Then, he is recruited to kidnap unsuspecting civilians from isolated Japanese beaches. Next, he moves on to work as an intelligence officer, monitoring the world’s radio bands from a fishing trawler. After earning Hero of the State status on the boat, he joins a diplomatic mission to the United States, where he meets with CIA operatives and a US Senator. When that mission fails to bring home what Dear Leader Kim Jong Il requires, he is sent to North Korea’s most notorious labor camp. But there he bests Kim Jong Il’s chief rival in combat, escapes, and takes his vanquished’s identity, wife and children as his own. Finally, he sacrifices his own freedom and life so that others can be free.

There’s nothing small about the book. But as Michael Chabon did with Kavalier and Clay, Johnson makes every bit of The Orphan Master’s Son engaging and memorable. It’s brilliantly written. Setting the story in a closed society is both a blessing and a curse. Johnson is free to make his North Korea however he wishes, since we know next to nothing about what goes on there. But the highly militarized, regimented, and pathetically poor society also makes it difficult to go too big when creating the fictional North Korea. I love Johnson’s choices, though. Much of the book has a lightness which was unexpected. And the characters don’t talk like stilted, stereotypical Asians. They talk just as we Westerners do. These are normal people who are sarcastic, cynical, understand the world they live in, and full of life. And I love the three narrator approach, especially the one which is a serialization of key elements of our story that are being broadcast to every North Korean.

This is a beautiful, funny, heart-breaking, and absolutely brilliant book. It is no wonder that it won the Pulitzer Price for best fiction. It’s now in my pantheon of favorite books.

J.J. Jackson died in 2004. His voice is here, though, through pulls from interviews he did before his death. ↩
OK, Dr. Seus might top King. And maybe Franklin W. Dixon. But I’m talking about adult novelists here. ↩

Fall Links

October 1, 2013 / DB

The leaves have begun to fall in our yard. The corn fields around the corner are in the process of being harvested. Which means it’s the perfect time to recycle these two classics.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal.

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

Mr. Fall, who sources speculate loves Thanksgiving, butternut squash soup, homecoming parades, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” apple-picking, and haunted hayrides, emerges reliably every year around this time in his traditional uniform, sometimes alternating his iconic sweater with a fleece vest or pullover.

Mr. Autumn Man Walking Down Street With Cup Of Coffee, Wearing Sweater Over Plaid Collared Shirt

R’s Wrap Up / Playoff Predictions

October 1, 2013 / DB

I sit here on a lovely autumn evening, windows open, Upland Oktoberfest in a glass, watching MLB game #163. Not a bad way to spend a night, especially with David Price doing David Price things in the early going.

Since I can’t make full playoff predictions until this game is resolved, some final thoughts on the Royals’ season.

As I said last week, I’ve decided to milk the good from this season. 86 wins. Eric Hosmer finally figuring it out, having a monster second half, and ready to establish himself as a true star next year. James Shields was everything the Royals wanted/needed him to be after The Trade. Alex Gordon continued his quiet excellence. Danny Duffy tantalized after his return. Yordano Ventura was stellar in his first two big league starts. Greg Holland was the best closer in the majors, and most of the rest of the bullpen was outstanding as well. And then there were dozens of unforgettable moments, especially in the second half.

All of that was great. It took far too long for a Royals team do all that; it better not be another decade-plus before the next good Royals team comes along.

With that said, there is plenty to complain about. Where Hosmer figured it out, Mike Moustakas continued to look completely lost at the plate. His defense is good enough that he doesn’t need to hit .270+. But he does need to find a way to harness his massive power and hit close to 30 home runs while getting on base 30% of the time, at bare minimum. If he could become an Adam Dunn-type hitter, that would be great. Or even 2/3 an Adam Dunn. There are questions all over the Royals lineup, and Moustakas is the most likely spot where the answer is in place, if he can just figure it out.

We can pick apart Ned Yost all day. I’m in the camp that thinks he hurts the Royals if they’re going to contend for a playoff spot. But, with all the other warts on the team, I don’t think it’s fair to say he cost them a playoff spot. I don’t want him back, which sadly it seems he will be, but you can’t put missing the playoffs this year solely on him.

No, what cost them a playoff spot was the month of May. Throw out that brutal month, when the offense was horrid and the pitching spotty, and the team played at 99-win pace. Maybe that is on Ned, as a team good enough to play at division-winning pace for five months should not have a sixth month that poor. I put more blame on the players.

However, I mostly blame Dayton Moore. He put together a team that still ran Frenchy out most nights in May and Chris Getz most of the time when he was healthy. Most of Moore’s moves last off-season made the Royals better in 2013. But he still left too many holes and the team was far too prone to go on extended streaks where they would score 1, 2, 3 runs and get beat. Everyone understands that the Royals operate under financial constraints because of their market and owner. But for all the work Moore did to built a rotation around Shields, Santana, and Guthrie, he failed to find cheap parts that could have made a difference in a handful of games during their three long losing streaks. Find three more wins in May, one during their 0-5 run before the All-Star break, and two during their 2-10 run in August and the Royals would be playing a 163rd game, at minimum. And as hard as those last five wins are to get, I think smarter management makes them possible this season.

What would I do to put the 2014 Royals in a better position to make the playoffs? Find a serviceable second baseman, someone who has a decent glove but can get on base on a consistent basis. Offer Ervin Santana a two-year contract, but no more. Let him walk if he demands a 3-4 year deal. Do your damndest to find another quality arm in the free agent market, even if it is only a one-year deal. Move hell and high water to get one more legitimate bat, even if that means a package of a current position player, multiple arms from the pen, and a decent prospect.

The Royals are close. But not close enough that they can stand pat or rely on a couple bodies from the minors to fill in the gaps. They need to be aggressive and smart this off-season.

OK, Tampa closed out Texas, so prediction time

American League

Cleveland over Tampa.

Each fall in the stat-head community there is discussion over whether there is such thing as September momentum that carries over to the playoffs. The numbers seem to point to no, but when a team like the 2011 Cardinals comes along, it’s hard not to believe the answer is yes. Cleveland roared through September. That momentum gets them at least through Wednesday’s game.

Oakland over Detroit.

I would have picked different a month ago, before Miguel Cabrera got banged up. Unless Max Scherzer can pitch every game, I think Oakland shocks the Tigers.

Boston over Cleveland.

For as well as the Indians played in September, the only good team they played during their run was the Royals, who took four of six from them. Cleveland is confident and damn near caught the Tigers. But that won’t be enough to get past Boston.

Boston over Oakland.

These teams have played a memorable series or two over the decades. This one won’t be, as the Sox win easily.

National League

Pittsburgh over Cincinnati.

For whatever the Wild Card adds to baseball, when both Wild Card teams come from the same division, and those teams were hot on the heels of the division winner until the final weekend of the season, it ends up taking away from the pennant excitement. How great would the NL Central race have been if only one team got into the playoffs, not all three? Anyway, Pittsburgh deserves this, as much as I hate saying a team or city or fan base ever deserves anything.

LA over Atlanta.

I have no real feel for this series. I know the Dodgers were one of the hottest teams in the history of baseball in July and August, then fell off a bit. But the Braves seem like a bunch of douches with all their dumb protestations of violations of baseball’s unwritten rules. I hope Yasiel Puig hits seven home runs and stares at them for hours.

St. Louis over Pittsburgh.

I’ll be pulling for Pittsburgh, though. The team that gave hope to the Royals that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.

St. Louis over LA.

Man, it’s been awhile since Cards fans had anything to cheer about, hasn’t it?

World Series

Remember back in 2004, after those two thrilling LCSes that resulted in a St. Louis-Boston World Series, and everyone kept going on-and-on about how even the teams were and how it was clearly going at least six games? Then the Sox swept the Cards.

Similar theme this year. The two most complete, and best, teams in baseball. Terrific rotations. Great arms at the back of the bullpen. The difference will be the Red Sox bats. Man, those dudes can just hit. They’re somewhat reminiscent of the ’03 and ’04 Sox, who had a couple superstars and then a bunch of no-namers who all hit like .305 and 25 homers.