This is year 13 of this site.[1] That’s kind of crazy. Over the past maybe year or so I have, for the first time ever, struggled to find things to write about. It’s not because I lack time. I have plenty of that. It’s not that I don’t want to write. That’s still something I feel compelled to do at times. And since I don’t enjoy phone conversations, this site has always been my way of staying in touch with friends who are scattered about the country. That remains a central goal of my writing.
I’ve found that what is missing is those little nuggets of inspirition. Some of that is because I don’t watch nearly as much TV as I used to. A pretty good chunk of my posts in the first 6–7 years of the site were based on things I saw on TV. I don’t have a little notebook full of silly/interesting tidbits I saw on TV anymore.
The bigger change, though, is my kids. Those of you who are parents know that your kids slowly do fewer delightful things as they get older. It’s not that they don’t still do interesting things. They absolutely do, sometimes even more amazing things than when they were little. But these moments come with greater gaps between then. I think it may be easier to share those infant/toddler moments than older moments, too. Everyone loves hearing about a baby rolling over for the first time, saying its first words, taking its first steps, etc. Sharing the brilliance of a fifth grade social studies project has a less universal resonance. Even with three kids, those little moments of must-share brilliance are less common.
I’ve been trying to come up with a way to prime the writing pump. The other night it finally struck me: rather than bundling the links I share into single posts I put up every couple of weeks, I need to use those linked stories as fuel to kick off my own writing.
So that’s my plan. I’ll be sharing links more often, with more of my own thoughts attached. Hopefully this gets me going again, and gives you more enjoyable things to read here more often.
As always, your attention is very much appreciated.
We’ve been lucky through our first two lake weekends of the summer. Excellent weather both times: hot, but not oppressive, and free from rain. Excellent company both times, kids relatively well behaved each weekend.
This past weekend was a little extra special, though. L finally went tubing.
To reset, despite being our most athletic, most daring kid, L has had issues on boats and water. It all goes back to a ride she took on a friend’s boat four years ago. She got a little freaked out by the speed. She was just three at the time, so that was understandable. When we got our boat, she hated even going for slow rides. That first summer she cried almost every time we forced her to go. While she eventually made peace with the boat itself, she wanted nothing to do with tubing. The only time she would tube was if we put her on in the no-wake zone and puttered along at idle speed. We gently pushed her to join a friend or older relative for a fast run, but she always said no.
We figured eventually she would cave, and that finally happened this weekend. Two of our guests were classmates and soccer teammates of hers, so maybe that’s what did the trick. But Saturday, when we were figuring out the order for the older kids, she informed me that she was going, too.
I took it fairly easy on her and her partner. No whipping them outside the wake, or taking the turns fast. Pretty much straight and steady. And she had a great time.
She took it to the next level on Sunday. One of our guests brought a kneeboard for the kids to use. After watching a couple other kids give it a shot, L was ready to try, too. It took four tries for her to get up and stay up, but then she did a complete lap pf the lake with no problems.[1] We’re so happy that she finally broke through this barrier!
She wasn’t the only one to kneeboard. Both M and C took turns and got up immediately. Both boarded exactly to their personalities. M kept the board straight and under control the entire time. She didn’t attempt any daring moves, other than to occasionally let go of the rope with one hand to wave. C was all over the place. The board would shimmy to one side and then the other. We couldn’t tell if she was trying to spin it, or if she was just giggling so much that she couldn’t control it. She aimed it at the wake and then cut back. She looked like she had been boarding for years.
So naturally the girls want us to buy a wake board now.
L also kept catching fish like a fiend. She caught 12 our first weekend of the summer. Last weekend she caught at least 8 more. She even knew what kind of bait to buy. We walked into a store Saturday morning and she told the kid behind the counter that she wanted some nightcrawlers. Obviously her grandfather got to her, because S and I don’t know the first thing about fishing.
Our lake is pretty small, so we’re talking about 10 minutes to make a lap at kneeboard speed. ↩
Time for another entry in one of my favorite things to write about.
It’s been awhile since we spent a night in the basement. We broke that drought last night.
For two days the weather folks had been warning of serious storms Wednesday night into Thursday morning. After a stormy start to Wednesday, the sun popped out, the humidity jumped up, and it felt like the classic June day where the sky would turn black and just dump rain at some point. I kept checking the forecast – because that’s what I do – and it kept saying the overnight hours would be the worst. When I went to bed around 11:30, the storms were projected to hit us between 3:00 and 4:00. I set my mental alarm to wake me at the first clap of thunder.
That came right around 1:00. I turned on the TV, saw a radar that was bright red across the entire northern half of the state and dropping our direction. Then I heard the weather folks talking about 100 MPH winds. Then 110 MPH. Then “in excess of 120 MPH.” I was a little groggy, but that snapped me awake. Those winds were at least an hour away, but with dozens of large trees right next to our house, it was time to get everyone into the basement.
I woke S, who woke M and C, and I carried L down to the basement, where we all crashed on our sectional with the TV on to follow the storms’ progress. The girls stayed awake for quite awhile. That first storm, which calmed down a bit and only had 70–80 MPH winds as it passed through our county, completely missed us. But two more were lined up behind it.
Storm #2 produced a small tornado one county away. Between 2:00 and 3:00 we had a solid 15 minutes of heavy, if smallish, hail. The radar kept showing “tornadic rotation” right on top of us, but there was never a tornado warning or sirens. Our basement is completely underground, so the sound of the wind rarely reaches down there. When I popped upstairs to check on things, you could hear it roaring. Or maybe that was just the massive amount of rain that was pouring over the edges of our gutters. Regardless it was loud.
The next round came through around 4:00. The winds died way down, and it was just torrential rain. S went back upstairs around then, and I slept on the couch until about 4:30, when I was sure the threat was past and reasonably sure our power would stay on. The girls ended up staying downstairs until nearly 9:30 this morning.
Our yard and driveway are a mess of leaves and small branches, but nothing major came down. There were reports of large trees blocking a major road not too far away. We seem to have escaped without harm. Ironically I’m getting bids to put a new roof on. I’m glad a tree didn’t crash through our house, but I would not have been sad if we had bigger hail that put our insurance company on the hook for the replacement cost.
The girls and I are headed down to the lake today to take care of some administrative tasks and hopefully get a swim or two in if the weather holds. Seems like the perfect day to clear out the queue of links I’ve hoarded over the past three weeks. We’ll begin with a couple older, and lengthy, pieces I held on to for our Boston trip.
To kick things off, Tom Verducci’s wonderful profile of Vin Scully. It’s become cliche to say it, but Vin is an American treasure and will be missed when he hangs up the mic after this season.
Our kids have played Minecraft occasionally since they got an iPad 18 months ago. When they play, they play a lot. Then they won’t for months. So we only have a small glimpse into the world the game has created. I really enjoyed this deep look at the mechanics of the game and how kids have been sucked into it.
The World War II generation is fading away a little faster each year. I don’t know which is the more interesting fact: that there are still Nazis to be prosecuted, or that we may have just had the final former death camp worker go on trial in Germany. Alison Smale wrote about the trial of Reinhold Hanning for the New York Times.
You always have to take these “I regret how I acted” articles with a large dose of salt, especially when the subject is up for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Still, I found Barry Bonds’ acknowledgement that he was a gigantic prick for most of his career a fascinating read.
One of the odder aspects of my life is how, although I love sports and have written about them for money over the past 7–8 years, I watch a lot less sports than I used to. I still watch a lot of football and basketball, but significantly less than I did a decade ago. I watch/listen to probably 80% of Royals games. But I almost never watch the NBA or golf anymore. So a bit of an odd day yesterday when I watched some of both.
First, the NBA finals. I’ve never been a LeBron hater, but I’ve also never really loved him. Admired him? Yes. Appreciated his game? Yep. Defended him against the doubters? Absolutely. But he’s never been my favorite NBA player, either. While I was pleased when he chose to go back to Cleveland two summers ago, I also fell in love with how the Golden State Warriors played ball. The game had long moved toward the perimeter – witness large, rare talents like LeBron, Kevin Durant, and Carmelo Anthony who were slashers and jump-shooters, not low-post guys – but the Warriors took that idea to a whole other level. So each of the past two Finals I’ve been pulling for the Dubs to win.
Last night’s finish, though, was the capper on LeBron’s career. It wasn’t always pretty; the last 3–4 minutes were ugly all around. But his three-straight massive games, topped off by his iconic block of an Andre Iguodala layup attempt, should end any doubts about LeBron’s place in history. He won a title without Dywane Wade and Chris Bosh next to him. Yeah, Kyrie Irving is pretty incredible at times, and Kevin Love has his moments. But there’s no way you can say LBJ’s supporting cast in Cleveland was superior to what he had in Miami.
For years the haters have ranted about LeBron not being cold blooded enough to be great on his own. You have to chalk some of that up to the Hot Take era we live in. People deliberately say stupid stuff to get airtime, page clicks, and occasionally even sell a paper. I’m not convinced all the idiots who have railed on LeBron for over a decade really believe their shtick.
What this year did was both prove that he can be as cold-blooded and single-minded as any other all-time great in leading a team to a title, and also show just how unique he is.
This series was over[1], and LeBron, through the sheer force of his personality and immense talents, somehow pulled the Cavs to three-straight wins against the best regular season team in NBA history. A team that had just pulled off its own epic 1–3 comeback in the conference finals. It was Jordonesque, Kobe-like, Bird-ish. The best player both raised his game and took everyone around him up enough notches to change history.
The uniqueness comes in how he has always been willing to share the spotlight. He’s not egoless; no professional athlete is. But I don’t think there’s ever been an all-timer like him willing to set teammates up, to do the dirty work, to play the occasional supporting role, if it meant his team won. Bird, Magic, Jordan, and Kobe were all taking the biggest shot of the game in their primes. LeBron always seemed comfortable letting someone else take that shot, not because he was afraid of the moment, but because SOMEONE ELSE HAD A BETTER SHOT. It was the ultimate good fundamental basketball view of the game, and people have shit on him for it his entire career. Besides, when LeBron wasn’t taking the game’s biggest shot, he was often setting it up, or making the steal/block/rebound that made the shot possible.
The most impressive aspect of the Cavs win, to me, was the emotion LeBron displayed after the game. I think that was a very genuine display, all the frustrations and baggage of every moment since his infamous “Taking my talents to South Beach” coming out at once. Despite being a long-suffering Royals fan who just unloaded 30 years of angst, I have no special affinity for Cleveland fans. It sucks they waited so long, but I would never pull for a Cleveland team to win just because of some shared, Midwestern, inferiority complex. But I thought LeBron’s reaction was great.
Now I did have a problem with him saying that he always gets the toughest path. They were the #1 seed in the East! They roared through the Eastern Conference bracket! Yes, they fell down three games to one in the Finals. But it’s not like they were the eight seed and had to win a bunch of game sevens on the road just to get to the Finals. And let’s not ignore how he has maneuvered to have the roster built to his liking and had a coach he didn’t like fired.
I still don’t really love LeBron. But I admire him more than I already did after his performance over the last week. I’m sure he has some skeletons that his handlers have kept from going public. But, for the most part, he seems like a pretty solid guy. He cares about winning, but also cares about his teammates and the image he displays. He’s taken some strong social stands where other great players refused to. Of all the great players of my lifetime, I’d probably want my kids to most emulate him simply because I think he understands the need for balance in life, and that as important as winning games can be, there are things beyond that.
And a quick note about LeBron’s coach, one of the few athletes from my high school to go on and do great things at the professional level. Tyronn Lue did not have a great series: the latter part of game four in particular was embarrassing. But he adjusted and did what LeBron said, errrrrrrrrr, empowered his players to believe in themselves to make an epic comeback. My only complaint was that he gave his hometown, Mexico, MO, two shout outs in his postgame interview and had none for good, ol’ Raytown High School.
As for the Warriors, that was an epic collapse. Whether it was panic, the Cavs pressure, or just the grind of the last two seasons, they were often awful in the last three games. To use a tennis term, they had the game seven on their racket late and could not close it out. That happens, though. Especially when you’re facing a force of nature like LeBron. I still love their style and hope we have a few more years of the Splash Brothers inspiring awe.
On to golf. I only casually follow the game anymore. I’ll watch some of the Master’s, Sunday of the US Open, and then bits of the British Open. I read enough to know Dustin Johnson’s story, though. I was watching when he pissed away the US Open last year. I like his outwardly languid approach to the game. He looks like a guy who doesn’t get rattled easily based on the way he carries himself. I hate the whole “Best to never win a major” stamp, because it’s not always up to you whether you win or not. You can go out and shoot five under for the weekend at a major, but if someone else goes –8, that doesn’t matter. But I did think it was cool that Johnson shut his critics up.
Even more, it made the current Golden Era of golf, which is just getting going, even more interesting. Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, and Johnson are a pretty good core. Then there are 5–6 guys right behind them that could bust in with their own win at a major. Not sure I’ll watch much more golf, but at least there are plenty of storylines when I do. And they are proving golf can still be interesting, exciting, and entertaining in the post-Tiger age.
It’s becoming habit that I wait well into the new month before I share the list of books I read the previous month. Which, as I always say, makes it hard to write about the books I read six weeks earlier. I’ve been doing this over 10 years, and I still always put off writing my summaries until well after I have finished the book. Old dog, new tricks, etc.
So some quick words about five of my most recent reads, including the book I finished while on vacation in June.
All The Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr. One of my sisters-in-law was reading this over the holidays. I read the jacket blurbs and was intrigued. It takes place before and during World War II. Radio, specifically shortwave radio (one of the great passions of my youth), is integral to the story. And the cover was stamped with the various awards the book garnered, including the Pulitzer. Couldn’t suck, right?
Right. This is a brilliant, gorgeous book. I love how Doerr slowly spins out the stories of his two main characters: a blind girl growing up in France and an orphan in Germany whose genius is being able to understand electronics and math without formal education. On their own, either character could carry a novel. But together, as their lives slowly bend toward each other, touch for a moment, then separate, they turn this into a story worthy of all the hype. Doerr’s language is sumptuous and lyrical. The story is wonderful. This is nearly the perfect book.
The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Endless Season – Barry Svrluga. A quick baseball read by the former Washington Post beat writer for the Washington Nationals. Svrluga’s focus is on “the grind” of the big league season. How the players, players’ families, management staff, scouts handle the rigors of the Major League season, which stretches from spring training in February deep into October.
It’s interesting, but also feels like exactly what it is: a book based on newspaper articles. The chapters read like extended pieces for the Sunday edition of the Post. They hit the high points of the subject, but there’s not a ton of depth to them.
The Only Rule Is It Has To Work – Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller. A much better baseball book. In this one, Lindbergh and Miller, who write and podcast for Baseball Prospectus, took over the Sonoma Stompers, an independent league team, last year in hopes of testing some of their sabermetric theories. While they had the full support of ownership, they did have struggles along the way from the manager and some players, who bristled at the idea of people who had “never played the game” telling them how to construct the roster, the lineup, the rotation, and when to use certain strategic moves.
Lindbergh and Miller take turns writing chapters, which gives the book a nice ebb-and-flow, as they were not always on the same page. Their Effectively Wild podcast is always enlightening and funny, and that spirit carries over to their writing. Even if you don’t give a damn about sabermetrics, this is yet another fantastic, season inside-type baseball book.
A Foreign Country – Charles Cumming. I jumped over to Cumming for my espionage thriller of the month. He’s a Brit, so his books are generally based in Britain and more modern than some of the other authors I’ve read recently. This is no exception.
The new director of MI6 – who is the first woman to earn the post – has disappeared, and an agent that was forced into retirement because of political pressure about the treatment of Afghani prisoners is secretly brought in to track down his old mentor and friend. The agent quickly tracks her down, but stumbles into a hidden element of her past that he must decide whether to share with their colleagues at the risk of ruining her career. And the explanation for her disappearance soon turns into the discovery of a spy war with a quasi-ally that could blow up the war on terror.
This is a good, taut, exciting read.
No Good Men Among the Living – Anand Gopal. Finally, another book that brought home many awards. American reporter Gopal spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan over the past decade. As the country devolved into lawlessness, and with the Taliban making strong gains, he looks into exactly what went wrong with the US mission there that caused this to happen.
He focuses on three people: an ally of the US, a Taliban commander, and a neutral party who just wanted to live her life, along with a few ancillary characters, to show how the country changed following the US invasion in 2001. Conventional wisdom is that Afghanistan fell into chaos after the US had to pull troops out before the Taliban was completely defeated because of the invasion of Iraq.
Gopal argues that the mission failed because of a fundamental American refusal to understand how Afghanistan worked. The Bush administration and the military leadership did not understand how power in Afghanistan is deeply tied to ethnic/regional group membership and that broader political loyalties are extremely fluid and based on pragmatism as much as ideology. The US automatically rejected local leaders who had ties to the Taliban, even if they had only done so to protect their local interests and quickly pledged loyalty to the post-invasion government. The US was also focused on a body count (Not necessarily dead bodies. Prisoners were just as important.) The savvy local leaders picked up on this and accused anyone who was a rival of being Taliban, which often earned them a quick trip to US custody and even Guantanamo.
All this combined to turn many local leaders who could have been valuable allies to the US into true Taliban sympathizers.
The book also paints a bleak picture of the future of the country, as corruption is rampant in the national government and there is little hope of changing those patterns.
The US was successful in driving Al Queda from Afghanistan and removing the Taliban from power. By those measures, our invasion was a success. But everything that came after has been a disaster.
The girls swim season is off to a solid start. L moved up an age group this year, and is now swimming full, 25-yard lengths of the pool instead of the 6-and-under, 12-yard lengths. It’s been a good challenge for her. We were especially proud of her last night. The team we were swimming against has a family that we’ve had a minor conflict with over the years. Nothing serious, silly neighbor stuff, but they’re also not a family we want to spend any time with. L was matched up with their daughter, who coincidentally was born on the exact same day, in the backstroke. And L freaking smoked her! It was probably L’s best backstroke swim ever; she only hit the lane divider once and that didn’t slow her down at all. And she scored one for the family in the process!
C and M are both doing fine. They’re in the age groups where the kids who swim year-round really begin to separate themselves. So the only time our girls swim in heat one is in relays if there aren’t enough girls for two heats. But they’re having fun.
Euro 2016
I didn’t get to start watching games until Monday, but I’m enjoying having soccer on ESPN all day. This triple-header stuff during the group phase is fantastic. I watched every minute of Belgium-Italy and was thrilled with how the Azzurri played. Just a fantastic effort in taking out one of the tournament favorites in a year not much was expected from the Italians.
I was able to watch a good chunk of Iceland-Portugal yesterday before swimming. It was magical watching the Iceland fans sing their national anthem. Those were some happy folks! They got even happier when their side tied the heavy favorites in the second half on a beautiful goal by Birkir Bjarnason. Even better was noted ass Christiano Ronaldo complaing about the Icelanders celebration after the game. Some folks have suggested that he’s doing a Kobe and playing up his image as the villain. I don’t buy it. I think he’s genuinely a selfish, shallow person who was bothered that a country playing in its first-ever major tournament were excited about earning a draw against one of the best teams in the world.
Speaking of magical, former German national and Arsenal goaltender Jens Lehmann posted this video from Paris.
What a magic! I’m saying that constantly for the next month.
I’m very much looking forward to the ancestral battle tomorrow, as Wales battle England. When it comes to my ancestry, I’m pretty watered-down. I believe most of Northern Europe is in my blood. If I did an exhaustive tracing of my roots, I have a feeling I might be more French than anything else. Which is terrible to consider. But my last name came from Wales, so I generally call myself Welsh.[1] Since I generally dislike the English national team, I’ll be rooting extra hard against them tomorrow.
Big Events
A couple huge world events have passed without any comment from me. The first, the death of Muhammad Ali, came while we were on vacation. Because of that, I missed much of the coverage that followed. I did learn of his death in the most old school manner possible: the next morning I went for a walk around the Fenway area and, passing through our hotel lobby, saw the complimentary copies of the Boston Globe that had the new written in huge typeface above the fold. I had shut down the old Twitter machine roughly 15 minutes before the news broke the previous night.
Anyway, I did not grow up loving Ali. I had an odd, contrarian streak in me even as a very young kid. If things seemed to be loved by all, I went the opposite way. I hated the Beatles growing up because my parents and all their friends loved them. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I finally acknowledged the Beatles are the best band ever.[2]
My dislike of Ali came later, as my parents weren’t big boxing fans. I just remember when I first learned about him hearing how he was “The Champ,” was aging, and that a lot of people thought he shouldn’t be fighting anymore. So I decided I didn’t like him, without knowing anything about him. I remember waking up and hearing that he had lost to Leon Spinks in 1978. This was huge news where we lived, in southeast Missouri, since Spinks was from the St. Louis area. I was thrilled that a local kid had topped the aging icon.
Over the years, I slowly learned more about Ali and came to admire him. But he wasn’t like a big part of my life or anything. This was a moment that was obviously coming based on his age and his disease, so it wasn’t much of a shock. If anything, it came as a relief, as Parkinson’s is a mutherfucker.
Like so many public figures, Ali was a complex dude. For every thing I admire about him, there are also aspects of his life that make me cringe. But I’ve always measured people on the concept of balance. I think Ali did more good and worthy of praise than bad and worthy of scorn.
The Red Sox game I attended was the day after his death, and the team offered a moment of silence in Ali’s honor. In the brief accounting of his life, the PA announcer pointed out that Ali rose from the streets of Louisville to the most recognizable man in the world. That’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?
Second, Orlando. There is no correct word to use to describe my reaction, or feelings. Because we’ve used them all before. Like the “thoughts and prayers” our elected leaders keep offering after mass shootings, saying I’m shocked, devastated, furious, depressed, etc by the latest one does nothing.
We keep being shocked, devastated, furious, depressed, and offering thoughts and prayers, but nothing changes. This will happen again in a week. Or month if we’re lucky. But this is the world we’ve chosen. This is what happens when guns are not viewed as a symbol of freedom, but as freedom itself. This is what happens when a minority of the country views a document written before the discovery of electricity, before radio and TV, before we landed on the moon, hell, before we freed the slaves, as something that can not be altered. A document written when our weapons were slow to load, difficult to aim, and unreliable. Not when weapons spit out highly accurate, incredibly destructive ammunition at the rate of dozens per minute.
It is possible to have reasonable conversations about guns. I don’t like guns, but I don’t think that people who have been trained to use them shouldn’t have access to handguns or hunting rifles. But there is no reasonable argument for allowing the general public to have weapons created for the sole purpose of killing or wounding the greatest number of enemy soldiers as quickly as possible. Not one. Yet suggesting that we get rid of assault rifles and ban ammunition designed for warfare is seen as an idea that will cripple the core concepts our country is formed on by enough people in power to keep it from ever happening. If Sandy Hook didn’t change anything, nothing ever will.
Which, I should point out, I – and much of my family – thought we were actually German until the 1990s, when an uncle did some research and discovered our family came from Wales rather than Germany. I’ve also got Irish and Danish blood in me. ↩
Please note not my favorite. That would be the Clash. But the Beatles are in my top 5. ↩
The first lake weekend of the summer was a success. It was just about a perfect weekend, weather-wise. It was up in the high 80s, low 90s both days without being too sticky. The water was still surprisingly cool, but was refreshing given the air temp. Saturday night was clear and beautiful.
We had three families from St. P’s down, so nine kids total. They were all pretty well behaved for the most part. Only one of all those kids was fired up about tubing fast. Somehow over the winter both M and C lost their love of jumping waves and going fast. They preferred to ride with other kids that wanted me to keep it fairly straight and gentle. The one wild kid kept begging me to “go so fast that you kill me.” I didn’t set any speed records, but on her final trip of the weekend, I did get her airborne and sent her flying, which she absolutely loved. It was really good to be out in the boat again.
L still has no desire to get in a tube. But she got a new fishing rod a couple weeks back, and one of our guests loves to fish. So those two spent hours fishing. On Sunday they took our little peddle boat across the cove to a nice, deep, sheltered spot and spent well over an hour casting and catching. I think L ended up catching 12 fish for the weekend.
The dads all closed out Saturday night sitting by the lake, drinking bourbon, and smoking cigars until well after midnight. I don’t think I had smoked a cigar in a decade? A dozen years? Since my bachelor party? It had been awhile.
We jump into the first full week of summer at home with both feet. M is volunteering at St. P’s VBS all week to earn her first middle school service hours. We have two swim meets and practices the other two days. And a long list of household chores and errands to knock out.
Summer got off to a quick start for us. The girls wrapped up school last Wednesday. Thursday afternoon we were flying to Boston for our summer trip.
This was my third trip to Boston, but first one that I would be spending most of my time in the city proper. Overall, we had a fantastic vacation filled with several firsts and lots of great memories.
The first first of the trip was our family’s first Uber ride. Pretty exciting, huh? We Uber-ed it from Logan to our hotel, which was a block down the street from Fenway Park. The Sox were in Baltimore on the night we flew in, so the park was dark and the area fairly deserted.
My first fun experience of the trip came shortly after our arrival at our hotel. We ordered food from a place down the street and I walked to pick it up. The man who helped me looked as if he had been born in West Africa, or perhaps the Caribbean. When he spoke, though, he sounded like your average Irish dude from Southy. It was a jarring, stereotype-crusher of a moment. I loved it! I really wanted to take my phone out and video him speaking to other customers.
Friday began with out second first: we hopped on the T to meet my in-laws, who flew in with us, and S’s brother, his wife, and their one-year-old for a Duck Boat ride. The girls were pretty excited to get on the T; it was their first-ever subway experience. They had a great time, even on the trips when they had to squeeze into one seat together because of crowds.
The Duck Boat trip itself was awesome. I had always heard that was a must-do part of any trip to Boston, but I had no idea how cool it would be. It was a 90-minute trip around the Back Bay, the Cambridge River, and downtown proper. You’re right in the midst of all the must-see sites of the city. Our driver was excellent, too. He was a 50-something guy who sounded like a Boston native. He had all the requisite history down pat, and shared plenty of his own views along the way.
“Right there is a stop for the Boston T, the oldest subway in the country. Just try it, you’ll see.”
“The Pilgrims fled England because they were not allowed the freedom to practice their own religion there. Upon their arrival in America, they proceeded to not allow anyone else to practice their own religion here.”
“That building right there is a wonderful assisted living facility. It’s the Boston city jail.”
It may seem cliche, but I highly recommend the Duck Boat tour of Boston.
We headed back to the hotel to freshen up then jumped onto the T again to head to S’s brother and sister-in-law’s home, which is across the river. This time we had to switch trains, which was a breeze. There was never a moment when we didn’t see terrible traffic everywhere, so riding the T was a great way to avoid all that mess. Even with hot, crowded cars, and some confusing routes, it was way better than fighting traffic in a taxi. Part of the dinner spread were our first lobstah rolls of the trip.
Saturday was our busy day. We took the T first to Cambridge, where we did a quick tour of the Harvard campus. After that, it was back on the T to hit the North End for lunch. We walked through the Holocaust Memorial, the farmer’s market, and many of the amazing streets of the North End before having a tasty, family-style, Italian lunch. We topped it off with cannoli from Mike’s bakery.
The girls headed home but I did not stay at the hotel. My brother-in-law and I crossed the street for the Red Sox – Blue Jays game. Our seats were way out in right field, amongst lots of drunken, yet happy, Canadians. I wore a Royals shirt, but really wished I had worn a Lorenzo Cain jersey.[1] The day began hot in Cambridge, was breezy and perfect in the North End, and turned into a steamy one when the harbor breezes were blocked in Fenway. It was only maybe 80 or so, but the sun was brutally right in our faces the entire time. But, hey, I was in Fenway! And the Sox beat the Jays, which I enjoyed.
Sunday it was rainy, so we spent the day at the Museum of Science.
Monday was our first departure day. I hit the T to head into town to pick up a rental that we and the in-laws were taking to Cape Cod. It was early, so I figured I would have to fight big crowds on the T. Little did I know…
When I hit Kenmore Station, they were unloading a completely full train and taking it out of service. I waited as two totally packed trains came through the station but I had no chance of getting on either one. So I walked. It was only a mile-and-a-half or so, but it was another steamy morning and I was a little sweaty when I reached the rental office.
Off we were to the Cape, with a stop in Plymouth along the way to look at Plymouth Rock and eat more lobstah rolls for lunch. The girls had their first-ever real clam chowdah. L especially loved it. She said it’s her new favorite food. Shame we can’t get chowdah that good here at home. We also just missed the arrival of the Mayflower II, which was returning that afternoon after its winter stay in Connecticut.
We were staying in Hyannis, right in the middle of the upper arm of the Cape. After the girls had a swim, we went to the Cape Cod chips factory, stopped by the JFK Memorial – which we had visited 11 years ago – and the girls dipped their toes in the ocean. M screamed and said, “Dad! It is literally ice cold!” Literally.
Tuesday was another day of driving. We headed toward Provincetown at the far end of the Cape, with the obligatory stop at a lighthouse along the way. P-town is full of interesting people and sites. The girls still aren’t quite old enough to pick up on the gay-friendly vibe of the town. Or at least I think they aren’t. I never heard them giggling when two men or two women walked by holding hands. As we did 11 years ago, we had lunch at the Lobster Pot, which is another near-obligatory trip.
Then yesterday we had a near-perfect day of travel. Not too much traffic between the Cape and Logan, through security in 10 minutes, an on-time flight, our bags waiting for us at the carousel, and only brief slowdowns as we drove home through Indy’s rush hour.
This was my third trip to Boston, but really the first time I spent any real time in the city. I loved it. It reminds me in some ways of San Francisco, just because so much is packed into such a small space. It’s a pretty easy city to do on foot and with public transit. I love the diversity, the history, and the energy of the city. And I love doing my faux-Boston accent whenever possible.
But the traffic is a nightmare, it’s a city that shows its age in many poor ways, and I’m not sure I could deal with the constant crowds. At (almost) 45, Boston is a great city for me to visit, but not one I could see myself living in. I need my Midwestern space.
Since we rushed out of town right after school began, today kind of felt like the first real day of summer. The girls all slept in. We have nowhere to be before their swim meet tonight. The trip was a lot of fun, but it’s nice to be home and taking a breath for a moment.
I realized last week that I hadn’t documented my thoughts on the Royals season since early April. Which isn’t much of a surprise given it took me awhile to get into this season. There was missing the first week of the season while we were on spring break. There was the coming home to four nights a week of practices and games, which meant the girls stayed up a little later than normal, which meant some nights I flat forgot to turn the game on. And then there was that dreadful stretch of baseball in late April when the Royals looked a lot like the Royals of the bad old days rather than the defending World Series champs.
I began to put some thoughts together in my head, but didn’t get around to actually entering them into a text file. Which was a good thing, because last weekend was one of the crazier regular-season weekends in Royals history: three-straight come-from-behind wins over the Chicago White Sox – who entered the series in first place – including an epic, seven-run ninth inning comeback on Saturday. Of course, I missed watching any of those games thanks to MLB’s blackout rules. I listened to Friday’s game and missed Sunday’s game while we were on the water. But I was listening Saturday. Well, I was for awhile. But the Royals couldn’t get anything going, kept giving up runs, and it seemed like a better use of my afternoon to read a book instead of listening. Fortunately I checked Twitter during the bottom of the ninth, and was able to turn the game back on just in time to hear Brett Eibner’s game-winning hit. What a day.
A couple big innings Monday and Tuesday and the TV crew is beginning to make comments they were making a year ago: “For the first time this year, the Royals are now seven games above .500,” and “The Royals have now won six-straight series.” Those comments make me happy.
One of my favorite things about the early part of this season is how packed Kaufman Stadium has been this year. There were chilly Tuesdays in April where there were well over 30,000 in the house. Now that the Royals are hot again, you can feel the magic in the stadium, even on the MLB.TV stream.
Another great thing about this year has been the blossoming of Eric Hosmer. He’s gotten a little better each year of his big league career. But we’re finally starting to see the consistent talent that we heard so much about when he was coming up trough the minors. He’s on the verge of superstardom, and it’s a joy to watch. He’s become a very good hitter who just destroys mistakes. He’s good situationally, and he’s fantastic in the clutch. His previous years have been hampered by lengthy cold stretches. He just had a mini-slump, which could be a sign that he is hitting his peak. No one escapes slumps in baseball. But the superstars find ways to limit them to a week or so. He’s turned into the guy who can carry a team whether everyone else is hitting or not.
The big bummer of the year has been the rash of injuries the Royals have suffered. As I type this on Tuesday night, two more Royals have suffered injuries tonight. It looks like one could be serious, and hopefully the other seems minor.[1] Of course the worst injury was the disastrous foul ball in Chicago a week ago that took out Alex Gordon for at least a month and Mike Moustakas for the year. Then Salvador Perez went down in another foul-ball collision on Saturday. It felt like the Baseball Gods were saying, “OK, enough. You’ve had your two years of success. We’re stepping in to put you back in your proper place.” Only the Royals keep finding ways to overcome these loses.
The Moose injury was especially tough as it looked like he had finally figured things out. After a fantastic 2015, he appeared to be adding his natural power back into the new approach he used last year. It looked like he might be turning into the player he was hyped to be: a guy that hits .270–280, hits about 30 home runs, and grabs everything hit his way at third.
With all those injuries, all guys who have struggled at the plate this year, all the inconsistency from the rotation, it’s kind of crazy that they are in first place by two games as we flip the schedule to June. All those issues make me think this could be a roller coaster of the summer, as the team careens between hot stretches and cold stretches. But with no one else in AL Central looking all that great through the first two months, that might be enough.
But it’s too early to worry about that. I’m going to hope the hot streak keeps going, the injured guys get healthy, the slumping bats wake, and enjoy June baseball.
Hopefully it’s not one of those “looked minor when it happened, then the pain lingered, and three days later an x-ray showed a fracture” type of injuries. ↩
