Fathers Day 2009

June 21'st was a great day this year. My family
and I returned from a cruise to Vancouver and
met with more family and friends for the Dodgers versus Angels game in Anaheim. It was a wonderful Fathers Day event I enjoyed surrounded by my son Casey, my father Don, my sister Lise', my wife Dannielle and friends. We watched a masterful performance turned in by Clayton Kershaw and the run scoring antics we have come to expect from the Dodgers including a two run homer by James Loney.
That home run is the reason I decided to write this entry. After the umpire ran into right field and signaled Loney to touch them all, play was halted after he had rounded the bases and returned to the dugout. It was anounced on the public address system that the "play was under revue". Instantly I thought I had been struck over the head and had just awakened at an NFL game. Well, first I realized that the Rams now reside in St Louis and there was no pro football anywhere near Anaheim. After about 5 minutes in this surreal atmosphere the home run was pronounced real as the original call stood the scrutiny of video replay. I have to say the impact of that pause left it's mark. There can be no place in our pastime for video revue. The game of baseball is a product of it's own calm flow and cadence only to be broken by an intense exhilaration and excitement brought on by the building tension the games own circumstance brings. When that moment happens, and the crowds emotion bursts forth, the very last thing needed at that moment is for a dull, dead pan announcement "The play is under revue". For well over 100 years we have intrusted umpires to make those calls. The fact that on occasion those calls are wrong only inhance the experience and the never ending conversation / argument that sometimes goes on long after that original call was made. Ok that was just my two cents on the subject.
All in all it was a great day watching the Dodgers win another inter-league game! Inter-league baseball? Sorry but if I start on THAT topic I may not have time for dinner tonight!
I hope you all had as great a Father's Day as I did.

People Will Come Ray, People Will Come.....

I was thinking how cool it is to be able to share my thoughts without worrying about those thoughts being judged. There is an incredible feeling of freedom that comes from it plus the enjoyment I get from the feedback I receive from all of you.

Before long if you read enough of these you'll realize I tend to dwell, a little. How many of you remember the James Earl Jones "Baseball Speech" from the, now, 20 year old film "The Field of Dreams"?

It touches on an incredibly important aspect of Baseball's appeal. Continuity. Something I feel is in grave danger today.

(For Those Who Need a Memory Refreshment)

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

People will come Ray...For reasons they can't even fathom.

They'll walk out to the bleachers and sit in their shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They will find they have reserved seats along one of the baselines.

It will be just like when they were children and cheered their heroes, and they'll watch the game, and it will be as if they were dipped in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they will have to brush them away from their faces...

This field, this game, it's part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Oh, people will come. People will most definitely come".

W.P. Kinsella, "Field of Dreams"

http://new.wavlist.com/movies/079/fd-speech.wav

The memories I feel when I watch a game today comes from that continuity. When I see something on the field it almost automatically conjures comparisons to plays, players or situations of games I've watched before. With interleague play, the Designated Hitter rule, (From that other league), instant replay and tweaking the homefield in the World Series as a result of the All Star Game outcome all eat away at what always was a pure continuous flow from one decade to the next. This is a rant I will be touching on more in the future as time permits but for now I'll just enjoy the games as they play out and hope it doesn't degrade any further in my lifetime.

Families stick together with a common bond

As you may have seen in my profile I have a 7 year old son. Bringing Casey up is probably the most important responsibility I have ever taken on in my life. Well, at least it is the most important one to me. Every time I look at him I realize that nothing I have experienced before even comes close to what he makes me feel. That being said, I pray from the bottom of my heart that he becomes the baseball and sports fan I hope to spend my golden years with.
I chuckle to myself saying that but I have seriously bonded with so much of my family in that way that I'm not sure what it would be like to have my only son not share it with me.
My Grandfather used to sit next to me in my earliest memories telling colorful stories of the 1920's when he sat in bleachers everyday for a quarter watching the Tigers in Detroit. How great were Ty Cobb? Babe Ruth? Tris Speaker? Lefty O'Doul or any of the other American League stars of the day? To me it brought a kind of syymetry to the world. I knew what I saw but also how it connected to those summer days he spent in Tiger Stadium.
My father took me to Oakland Raider games starting when I was only 5 years old and we had season tickets until the Raiders left when I was 26. The memories of those times together are some of the dearest I have and I believe it is the same for him.
My little sister, a mere 12 years my junior, was my first project. I used to drag her on average to 40 plus Oakland A's games a season and to Dodger Giant games whenever I could conive a ride out of our Mom, (Which to her credit was quite often). By the time she was 6 she knew the names of the A's, Dodgers and Boston Red Sox starting teams and loved it whenever George Scott would come to the plate so she could howl "Boooooomer", "Boooooomer". I'll never forget how happy that made her. Well, she is over 40 now and for the last few years I have enjoyed our baseball trips together. This year it was to Arizona to take in the Cactus League action. Last year it was Southern California where our Dad joined us for a Dodgers - Padres game at PETCO Park, a round at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and finally a Braves - Angels match up in Anaheim. 2007 we flew seperately to Chicago where we took in a couple of rounds in the Cubs - Cardinals rivalry and a nightcap at US Cellular Field to take in the rock and roll attitude of the White Sox faithful.
My Grandfather has been gone for some time now but I have him with me everytime I turn on a game. My Dad and sister have relationships stronger than those of most of my friends with their families and we all have sports to thank for it.
Now, if only my son will come around. Guess I will just have to keep taking him out to the ballgames. Keep filling him up on peanuts and Crackerjack.

Is there no justice?

It recently came to my attention, while watching a FOX baseball broadcast, that Maury Wills has not yet been inducted to Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. At first this simply struck me as odd. Then, like a constant drip to my forehead during a dose of Chinese water torture, it began to eat away at me. Maury freakin Wills isn't in the Hall??? How can this be? I asked this question over and over again. In the bat of an eye I could think of one player after another that couldn't possibly have more credentials qualifying them for induction than he.
Take a moment to consider that this is a guy who appeared in 7 All Star games and was voted MVP of the game in 1962. That same year was voted Co-Player of the Year in Major League Baseball, (With Don Drysdale...and oh by the way is inducted into Cooperstown already) and voted the National Leagues Most Valuable Player ahead of Hall of Fame inductees Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Drysdale, Stan Musial, Orlando Cepeda, Frank Robinson and Sandy Koufax amongst others. On top of these honors he was a two time winner of the National League's Gold Glove among shortstops and led the league 5 times in stolen bases. He was baseballs first player to top 100 stolen bases in a single season when he stole a then record 104 in 1962. He appeared in 4 World Series and won 3 of them. All of this as impressive as it seems on the surface pales when you consider what he really did. He changed the way the game is played. Without him I really question whether we would have ever seen Lou Brock or Ricky Henderson blossom into the performers they were. Pitchers and defenses have not been the same since. All because Maury Wills changed the way we looked at baseball. He was a constant threat and the Dodger teams he starred on showed what a team with great pitching and very little power could accomplish. Put simply, World Championships. Because a walk becomes a double, a double becomes a triple and a flyball turnes into a run.
I'm not sure who it is that needs a wake up call but I am positive that whoever they are they need to rectify this situation while Maury is still with us to share in the honor!