the bottom of the ninth

When losing isn’t

“That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.” – Richard Bach

It was Saturday and I had driven all the way down to Salinas. No offense to anyone who lives in Salinas, but it isn’t on my top ten places to visit list. And if you never listen to another thing I say, listen to this. It shouldn’t be on yours either.

Never the less, there I was sitting on a hard plastic molded seat looking out at a football field that was framed by a cattle yard. It was a cool evening and the sun was going down. The field was dotted with cardinal and gold behemoths smattered around like small plastic army men placed in a random pattern that made no sense to anyone, least of all the person who put them there. There was a faint smell of hotdogs in the air and the smell of cattle. Don’t forget the smell of cattle.

And we were losing. Again.

Losing is never easy. Last year at this time we were un-defeated, as in never lost. Un-defeated. It has a nice ring to it. We had a good team. A great team. A phenomenal team. We were, after all, un-defeated.

This year, however, we were un-victorious. As in no wins. Three games into it and not a single one.

Un-victorious clearly does not have the same ring to it.

After the game I kvetched with the other parents of the cardinal and gold behemoths. Everything was wrong. Everything. They weren’t running fast enough. Or catching the balls. Or looking down field. Or trying hard enough. They just didn’t know, couldn’t know. We were un-defeated last year. Did they not realize that un-victorious was not an option?

I stood outside the locker room waiting for my very own cardinal and gold behemoth. “Well?” I said to the offensive line coach as though he was supposed to say something to me that made it all make sense. “Well?”

“We have a lot of opportunities to grow,” he said and I could swear I saw just the slightest glimmer of a smile as the light from the locker room cut the darkness of the night.

We have a lot of opportunities to grow.

A while back I had the opportunity to interview a basketball coach from a nearby high school. I wanted to know how he used his role as a coach to teach life lessons. The kind of lessons that change you and teach you about yourself and who you can become.

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant,” he said. It was a quote from Horace, an ancient Roman poet. “One of my coaches said that to me many years ago after the team suffered a big loss. It always stuck with me. I try to teach that to the boys I coach.”

Challenges are opportunities to grow.

On Thursday evening, Sandra came into writing group. The hood of her camouflage sweatshirt was pulled up over her head and her eyes were barely visible. “I’m not going to stay,” she said, her voice dripping with pain. “I’ve had a really bad day and I’m just not up to writing tonight.”

“Sit down,” I said. “Tell us what’s going on,” and she proceeded to tell us about receiving an F on a school writing assignment that she had spent hours working on.

Sandra is back in school after a very long time on the streets. She’s a brilliant writer who has written a book that sits unpublished in a plastic grocery bag in her small efficiency apartment. She’s loaded herself up with classes at the local community college and she has dreams of opening a group home for girls who have no one to believe in them. Girls whose lives have been filled with things that should never happen. Girls like her. She is brave and courageous and resilient and this hit her hard.

“I don’t usually cry,” she said as she wiped the tears from her face. “I’m not a crier.”

“It’s OK,” one of the other writers said. “I’ve been there. We’ve all been there.” And after a brief discussion, we wrote.

Yesterdays

“You filled a bowl up with my yesterdays

And told me to eat yesterday’s pain.

The brutal things that I put away so long ago

You placed them there and forced them down my throat.

My failures and my unwanted self destruction,

Running for my life to escape yesterday.

Funny how yesterday caught up to me.

In just the blink of my soul there yesterday sat

And confronted me.

Yesterday never let me get to know tomorrow because of its jealousy.

Some things never really change.

Places and faces, people seldom do.

But yesterday stays the same

That is certainly true.

While I ate yesterday swallowing every spoonful again

I remembered that I ran from yesterday

Skipped tomorrow

And here I stay,

Walking in today.”

She put her pen down and looked around the room at the faces at the table, the faces of the friends that had walked along beside her. “I’m going to talk to her,” she said aloud. “I don’t deserve an F.”

“You don’t,” they said. “You are a brilliant writer.”

The next week she came back to group. “I got a C.” she said her face beaming with pride. “I got a C.” She had spoken to the professor, made her case. “What do I need to learn?” she said. “Help me learn what I need to learn.”

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.”

On the practice field there are changes. Positions are changed, schemes are rehearsed, skills are sharpened. Hard work. There is no grumbling. Getting better is not negotiable. Friday night there is another game, another chance to get better. Another opportunity to grow.

It’s not about the grade or the final score.

Life is full of challenges. Life lessons are everywhere. On the football field, the classroom and all around us, if we only look.

We have, it turns out, lots of opportunities to grow.

Joy in Mudville

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” Rogers Hornsby

There are but 5 more days until it begins again.  Five more days until Dave ‘baby face’ Fleming and the wiley sage, Jon Miller move back in.  The house is clean, the sheets are changed; the beds made.  We are ready.

Five more sleeps until the newspaper earns more than a casual glance of the morning’s headlines.  There will be box scores to read and game recaps, news of one hit shut-outs and shoe string catches.

There will be smells of hotdogs and garlic fries.  Warm sunshine and the chill of evening fog.  Green grass and the crack of the bat and cold, crisp, lemonade. 

There will be scorecards and souvenir caps and the washing of game day jerseys.

In just five days, baseball will be back.  And, at least for a while, all will be right with the world.

Casey at the Bat
By Ernest Lawrence Thayer

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that —
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat;
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped —
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted some one on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

S is for: State Championships, a postscript.

“The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.”  - Viince Lombardi

And then, just like that, it was over.  A journey that began one Father’s Day weekend in June had ended, rather unceremoniously, on the 50-yard line of the Home Depot Center in Carson.

We stood on the concrete walkway sandwiched between the field below us and the various booths selling t-shirts and sweatshirts and posters of young behemoths dressed in layers of padding and sporting various brightly colored helmets.  The sounds of the next game came drifting up, begging unsuccessfully for our attention and yet, it was eerily quiet.  The parents talked in hushed tones.  We forced a smile as we caught one another’s eye while we waited for our sons to emerge from the locker room.  It was not the outcome we had hoped for.

It took a long time for them to come out.  One by one, arm in arm, their faces betraying the emotion of the moment.  They had played their hearts out.  Done their best.  Given it everything they had.  And it wasn’t enough.

The large, teddy bear of a left tackle came towards us, his face red with emotion.  He lumbered slowly towards his dad, as if every part of his body hurt.  Raising his arms to embrace his son, the father pulled him close, tears streaming down their faces.  If only there was something he could do, some way to take away the pain, but there was not.  It was over. 

It was a day of endings.  The dream of a championship.  The undefeated season.  The seniors had played their last game together.  For many, the last football game they would ever play other than a quick game of two-hand touch on a Thanksgiving afternoon somewhere in the future.

“What if…?” I thought to myself far too many times on that long ride home.  “What if?”  But there was no “what if?”  There was no do-over.  There was no second chance.  The other team was just better than us.  Plain and simple.  It is the nature of competition.  “On any given Sunday”, the saying goes.

It was a long drive home.  There are many lonely miles along the barren expanse of Interstate 5.  The darkness was smothering.  I lay my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes.  It had been a long 6 months.

6 months.  Eleven and a half, really, if you count weight training and spring football, but Father’s Day weekend is when it started in earnest.  Father’s Day weekend when the boys gathered together, helmets, pads, drills, … contact… the stuff that football is made of.

Contact.  And connection.

I found my mind drifting back in time, replaying moments the way one flips through snapshots in a photo album.  New faces.  Smiles and cheers.  Laughter.  And tears.  The face of a worried mother as her son is carried off the field.  A father’s pride as his son catches the winning touchdown.  A picnic in the stands.  A long bus trip to the middle of nowhere. Early morning weight training. Hours spent in the car.  Countless meals of far too much food that always seemed to be just enough.  New friendships.  Strangers becoming family. 

As I stared out into the darkness, these were the images that stared back.  Not wins or losses or missed opportunities or “what ifs” but of the journey that was, of the team that they had become, another chapter in the lives of boys as they become young men.  The tears weren’t about the score. 

The ride had come to an end. 

OK, so I'm bragging just a little bit....

CLAYTON VALLEY VS. CARDINAL NEWMAN - 12/13/2008 from ysn365 on Vimeo.

Hey, what can I say?  I'm first and foremost a proud mama. (#58)  Congratulations to the Cardinal Newman football team for a phenomenal season.  They're headed down south to play in the CIF State Football Championships to be held on Saturday, December 20th.  Cardinal Newman will play St. Bonaventure for the state title and win or lose, it will be the experience of a lifetime for the boys, the families, and the fans that have supported them throughout the year.

So, at this time when we should be baking Christmas cookies, sending out cards, stringing lights and filling the stockings, we're booking hotel reservations and lining up transportation to the Home Depot Center in beautiful Carson, CA.  And the boys?  There was no time to savor the championship of this past weekend.  Between reviewing a semester's worth of Algebra, Chemistry, AP History and English and taking final exams, they'll be back on the football field and in the weight room for one last week with the hope that they can bring home the state championship next Saturday night.

Way to go boys.  Good luck on Saturday! 

Game Day

Game Day.  Showtime.  The day when you put it all on the line.  If you’re a player, it’s what you practice for.  The hours of sweat equity coming to fruition.  For the fan, preparation comes in the form of reading the papers, perusing the websites, reading the blogs full of banter back and forth, all in anticipation of the moment that the clock starts and the competition begins.  And for the mothers of the players... well, suffice it to say that butterflies don't begin to describe the anticipation.  Stampeding elephants are more like it.

At 7:00 tonight, the Cardinals of Cardinal Newman will face the Campolindo Cougars on the football field,  under the lights and before a standing room only crowd, to decide who moves on to the championship for the North Bay League next week.  It’s a culmination of effort that started when the days were long and the temperatures high, when most of their schoolmates were on vacation or at summer jobs or on the beach but the football players for both teams were hard at work, preparing for the season, preparing for the challenges, preparing for game day.

The papers have chronicled the seasons of both teams.  Campolindo, playing in the Diablo Valley League in the east bay is 10-1 and has had an amazing ride.  Newman is undefeated this year, and is in line to make it back to a state bowl game should they win their last two games.   Both teams have worked hard.  Both teams are well qualified.  Both teams believe they can win.

On pdpreps.com, the blog site of the local paper, the fans for both teams have gotten into the act.  Unable to battle it out on the field, they take their battle to the web, challenging each other with critiques of players, games, coaches and schools.  Most of it is in good fun, but every now and then it crosses the line.

Earlier this week I drove through the parking lot at Cardinal Newman.  It was dismissal time and the kids had been released for the day.  Outside the gym, the football players had gathered and an impromptu game of catch began, guys just tossing the football around, laughing, talking, playing…. Being kids.

And that’s when it hits me.  These are kids.

They look so different in their uniforms.  With helmets and shoulder pads and mud-covered pants, you tend to forget.  Sometimes, you sit in the stands and you watch Randy Wright, Newman’s quarterback, lead the team down the field, threading a pass to Wade Amaral or handing the ball off to Joe Ferguson or Jeff Badger, or running around the outside, gaining a crucial 4 yards for a first down and you realize you’re watching something special.  They’re gifted athletes, truly one of a kind and you forget.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting near another “varsity” mom and I commented on how fun it was to watch her son play.  “You must be so proud of him,” I said referencing his athletic accomplishments.

Her response to me in that moment stuck with me. 

“I am,” she acknowledged, “but what I’m most proud of is that he’s a really kind young man.”

And that about says it all.  Tonight, there will be a winner and a loser on the field.  It’s the nature of sports.  Fans from both sides want it to be their team, and I’m not an exception.  But in the end, these are high school kids playing a game.  Playing hard, playing fair and playing to win.

Here’s to a good game.

K is for: Keep your eyes up

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see." - Henry David Thoreau

You never know from where a lesson will come.

I picked my behemoth son up from football practice the other day.  It was the day before game day, which means "walk through" and team meetings and a hearty, carbohydrate and protein packed meal.  He threw his enormous, over-sized gym bag that always seems to smell like a locker room into the trunk and plopped himself down in the passenger's seat.  Within seconds of contact, the right hand side of the old brown sedan dropped a good 6 inches.

"How was walk through?" I asked, always hopeful that I'll get more than a one-word answer.  I'm determined, if nothing else.

"Fine."  Of course it was.

"What was for dinner?"

"Chicken."

I paused a moment, noticing that this conversation seemed strangely familiar. "Was it good?"

"Yeah."

So much for the warm up act.  What I really wanted to know was what went on in the team meetings.  Having never been inside a football locker room, I am really curious about what goes on behind that big red door.

"What's the plan for the game this week?"  I asked, knowing full well that I was venturing into triple top secret, if-I-tell-you-I-might-have-to-kill-you territory.

He glanced over at me with one of his "your not going to give up, are you?" looks.  I kept my eyes straight ahead as the slightest of smiles crossed my lips.

"Coach told us to 'keep our eyes up'.  This team blitzes a lot.  If we keep our eyes up, we can see what's coming and we’ll know what to do."

My son plays on the offensive line.  They’re a tight knit group, a team within a team.  They’re responsible for protecting the quarterback, allowing him enough time to initiate the play.  They read and react to the situation and their eyes are one of their most important assets.  The offensive line doesn’t get much glory, but if they don’t do their job, believe me, you notice. 

It’s funny how seeing clearly seems to be a life lesson these days.

I never was much for haunted houses.  As a kid spending summers on the boardwalk of the Jersey shore, haunted houses were always a must do.  We'd pile in the tiny cars, pull down the lap bar and sit back as the car took a big jerk and headed into the darkness.  Full of anticipation for what was to come, the screaming would start almost immediately, even before we reached the big metal doors that swung open at the exact second you were about to crash into them.

I ALWAYS closed my eyes.

I didn't like things jumping out at me.  I didn't like not being able to see what was coming.  I was OK if the lights were on, if I could see that the hand that was about to reach out and grab me was really nothing more than a collection of nuts and bolts and wires and plastic wrapped awkwardly on to a piece of PVC pipe, but with the lights off?  Without being able to see clearly?  Nope.  Being in the dark is just not my thing.

Some things never change.

We baptized a friend's baby daughter the other day.  I've been to quite a few baptisms over the course of my life and I am always struck by the baptismal vows, the part where the parents, godparents, and the entire congregation promise to look out for this new little member of the community.  To stand beside her parents and support them in the daunting task of raising a child in this often crazy world of ours.  To watch over them and take care of them.  To guide them and nurture them and support them.  To be a part of their team, protecting them and watching out for them.

To keep our eyes up, so we can see what's coming and know how to react.

And then, after all the baptismal promises were made, we lit a candle.

Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't like the darkness.

F is for: (well of course it is)

Football.

I have often said that I think I should have been born a boy.  Metaphorically, that is.  The truth is, I love sports.  I’m not a makeup, hairstyle, manicure and accessorizing kind of a gal.  Never have been and at just a year shy of 50, likely never will.  I’m a no makeup, un-coiffure-d, plain nails, and overalls wearing kind of a gal who reads the sports page first.  Period.

And God gave me boys who play sports.  Needless to say, He knew what He was doing.

I don’t suppose they had much of a choice in the matter.  When they were infants, their Nana and Grandpa bought them New York Mets “onesies.”   There wasn’t a Christmas that went by without some sort of sports paraphernalia under the tree and when the appropriate time came, we signed them up for t-ball and soccer and they took to it like bees to honey.

And I was happy.

I didn’t quite get soccer.  Despite the fact that my grandfather played soccer on the Italian national team in his youth, soccer didn’t grab me the way baseball did.  I’d drag my canvas folding chair to the soccer games and sit there with all the soccer moms and dads and cheer as my kids ran up and down the field like a school of fish looking for dinner.  And it was fun.

But not as fun as baseball.

Nothing quite beats baseball in my book.  Sitting in the warm sunshine, scorecard in hand.  Watching the pitcher bunt the runner over to second.  Seeing a shoestring catch in the outfield.  Hearing the crack of the bat and cheering as the home team pushes the go-ahead run across the plate.  Pure ecstasy.

A year ago my oldest came home from school and said, “The junior varsity football coach asked me if I had ever thought of playing football.”

Gulp.

“What did you tell him?” I inquired, my anxious resistance bubbling to the surface.

“I told him no, not really.”

Good.

“But he suggested that I come out for spring football and see what I thought.  So I’m going to do that, OK?”

Gulp.  Gulp.  Gulp.

“OK,” I replied, trying to convince myself that it really was.

Just to be clear.  I like football as much as the next guy (or gal, as the case may be).   I was the drum major of the marching band, for goodness sakes.  Friday night football games were a staple of my high school career and many a Sunday afternoon was spent watching Joe and Steve and Jerry and Ronnie dazzle us with more Superbowl performances than any team should be allowed to have.  Football is great fun, no doubt about it.  I enjoy watching people play it.  Other people.  Not my people.

And I was happy that my people didn’t play football. 

Until one day they did.

“But football is so dangerous,” I lamented to my unsympathetic husband who was weaned on the Green Bay Packers. 

“He’ll be fine.  Besides, he’s playing on the line.  Offensive linemen don’t tend to get hurt too much.  It’s the skill position players you have to worry about.”

“Are you saying our kid doesn’t need skill to play football?” I queried.  He just rolled his eyes.

“Mom, you so don’t get it,” shot back the football player to be.  “The skill position players are the ones that handle the ball.  I block.  That’s what linemen do.”

Got it.

Last night was the season opener.  I sat in the passenger seat as he maneuvered the car northward to the school to attend pre-game adjustments, walk through and last minute preparations.  “Are you nervous?” I asked him.

“A little bit,” he admitted.  “I don’t suppose I should be.  I mean, there’s only going to be thousands of people there and video cameras and the newspapers and …,” his voice trailed off, lost for a moment in the magnitude of it all.  “When you play a baseball game, you just get there about an hour before and get ready to play.  This is so much more…”

“You’re going to be fine.  Just focus on what is in front of you.  Don’t worry about the rest of it.”

And whatever you do… don’t get hurt.

He didn’t.

It was a great game and he did everything that was asked of him.  He blocked, because that, after all, is what linemen do and he did it well. 

And I sat in the stands, surrounded by moms and dads and brothers and sisters and grandmas and grandpas and even a newspaper person or two and did what I was supposed to do.  I cheered.  Loudly.

And it was great fun.

No, nothing quite beats baseball.  But watching my kid play football sure comes close.

B is for: Be a part of something that is bigger than you

"Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." -  Vince Lombardi

Three years ago, my youngest son was chosen to be on the local Little League All Star team for 11 year olds.

Little League All Star selection can be a bit of a hornet’s nest.  It never fails that there are kids who are left off the team that belong there and kids who make the team that probably shouldn’t have. But in the end, it’s 12 kids playing baseball, dreaming about winning a championship.

The kids know who belongs there.  They’re pretty wise that way.  They look around the infield on that first day of practice and mentally review the resumes of the players to their right and left.  “Alex is a home run hitter,” he might think to himself.  “He had 7 home runs this year” or “Nate has a mean fastball.  He’s going to win us games with his arm.”   As each player stands shoulder to shoulder with his new teammate, his individual talent is measured and compared to the other 11 guys who stand beside him.  A pecking order is established.  There are the “big guns” and then there are the “other guys” and it’s the big guns that you want at the plate when the game’s on the line because those are the guys who win games for you. 

And sometimes they do.

But baseball is a team sport and a pitcher is only as good as the fielders who play behind him and a batter can only drive in a run if the other guys on the team get on base in front of him.  In baseball it is the team that competes, not the individual athlete.  There is no one player who is more important than the whole.  Teams win together and they lose, together.

The All Star season starts in early July, sometime around the 4th of July weekend.  It’s played as a tournament.  Teams are eliminated after their second loss.  Once they lose once, they head into a “loser’s bracket” and have to keep winning to stay alive.  In the end, only one team survives.

My son’s team lost their very first game that year.  It was a disappointing loss, but not entirely unexpected.  Historically, the teams from their league had never done particularly well.  The boys took it in stride and came out the next day ready to play again.

They won that day and surprisingly, the next day too.  And again and again until they met the team they had played to begin with.  The team they had lost to.  The team that was favored to win the whole thing.  The team with the biggest and brightest and most talked about players in town.  And they beat them too.

What was amazing about this experience was not that they had won.  There were, after all, some really good players on that team.  Rather, it was HOW they had won.  It wasn’t the “big guns” who had carried them.  Sure, they had made their impact.  They had pitched and hit and fielded just as everyone had expected them too.

But it was the “little guys” who surprised me.  The guys off the bench.  The kid who went in as a substitution.   The coach’s afterthought.  The kid who often got just an inning or two of play.    It was those kids that made the impact.  The kid that blooped the ball over the third baseman’s head, or who stole second on a passed ball or lay down a sacrafice bunt to score the lead runner.  They weren’t the biggest or the strongest or the fastest.  They weren’t the go-to kids on the top of the coaches rolodex.  These were the kids who would do whatever their coach asked of them.  And don’t think for a moment that they other players didn’t notice.  They did.

They won that first series and the next one too.  When the last out was recorded, the kids rushed onto the field and there, right in front of family and friends, they jumped into each other’s arms and collapsed in ecstasy right there on the dirt of the pitcher’s mound.   There was no more pecking order, no player who was more important than the other.  By the end of that series something amazing had happened.  That group of 12 boys had become a team.

That unlikely team of 11 year olds made it all the way to the semi-finals of the regional state championship that year.  On the wall of my son’s bedroom hangs a memory box from that wonderful season.  His jersey, medals and a souvenir bat all sit inside.  But his favorite piece of memorabilia is the team photo that was taken after one of those amazing wins.  It is a reminder to him of a magical moment in time and a lasting remembrance of what can happen when we belong to something that is bigger than ourself.

When the I becomes we.

Look for contact

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” – Yogi Berra

So it was the top of the seventh and we were down by 8 runs.

“There are some days you just shouldn’t play baseball,” I said to the manager’s wife who was sitting next to me on the well worn green bleachers.  We were sitting very still, trying hard not to get splinters.  That, in and of itself, was going to be a challenge.

Today was one of those days.

The game started out rough.  The kid who was pitching for us couldn’t throw a strike.  Nope.  Not a single one.  After not too much time and without a single hit, the other team had a run on the board.  There were no outs and the bases were loaded.  The manager slowly walked out to the mound, his eyes fixed on the tops of his shoes.   He took the ball, patted his player on the back and motioned to the good-looking young man standing at third.  (Never trust a mother to be objective.)

It was here that we entered a good news/bad news situation.  The good news was, sonny boy was throwing strikes.  The bad news was that all of a sudden the team went into a sort of baseball amnesia and forgot how to field.  And catch.  And throw.  This was not good.  At the end of the first inning we were down 5-0.  It was going to be a long night.

“No worries,” we lied as the kids came off the field.  “Time to hit.”

Except we didn’t.

Sonny boy pitched for a few innings.  It was more of the same.  They scored.  We did not.  This was not looking good.

By the time the seventh inning rolled around, we managed to scrape together 2 runs.  However, while our boys were scraping and clawing their way to those two measly little runs, the boys in green put another 6 runs on the board.  It was our last at bat.  The first two guys made outs without much fanfare.  The third kid had two strikes on him.  Mrs. Manager stood up and readied herself to collect the uniforms.  The season was over.

And then something happened.  With two strikes on him, the kid made contact.

Big deal, you might say.  So he got a hit.  One lousy hit.  I mean, everyone gets a hit now and then.  The odds are if you hang in there long enough, your bat is bound to find the ball eventually.  It’s still only one hit.  What’s the big deal?

The big deal is this.  Sometimes, when things seem hopeless, all it takes is one action, one seemingly small, meaningless action that opens the door to another possibility.  When things are at their darkest, when you are sure that you’re at the end of the road, resist the temptation to pack up the uniforms and go home.  Look for contact.

That one little hit was followed by another.  And another and another and maybe there was a walk or two in there too, but you get the idea.  With two outs and two strikes on the final batter of the game, the very absolutely last chance batter of the game, something changed.  Call it luck.  Call it kismet.  Call it karma.  Call it whatever you want to call it, but all of a sudden the clouds parted, the angels began to sing and we began a comeback.  (OK, so I made up the part about the clouds and the angels.)

Mrs. Manager sat down.  The uniform collection would have to wait until another day.  We were not going home tonight.  After the last pitch was thrown, the last out recorded, eleven runs had scored.  Our left for dead team had won, 13 – 11.

It was the most amazing comeback anyone could remember.

Apparently, Yogi Berra knew what he was talking about. 

The Legend of the Seawolf

"A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are." - Ara Parasheghian

What the heck is a Seawolf anyway? *(answer at the bottom of this post.)

It was getting late and we were getting a bit punchy.  We were huddled around the faint glow of the Macintosh G5.  It was 11:30 at night.  A school night for the boys.  A work night for me.  A night where we had no business still being up but we couldn’t go to bed; couldn’t pull ourselves away.  We were listening to a college baseball game that was being played halfway across the country.

Let’s back up a few months.  I had an opportunity to interview John Goelz, the baseball coach at Sonoma State University, for a book project I’m working on. Goelz is legendary around the area.  He’s been at Sonoma State for 23 years and has a reputation of putting successful teams on the field year after year. He's had offers to leave, to bigger schools, pro teams.  He's chosen to stay.  He loves what he does.  When he agreed to sit down with me and let me interview him, I jumped at the chance.

He is an incredibly engaging guy who sleeps, eats and breathes baseball.  We hit it off right away and it wasn’t hard to figure out why he was so successful.  Despite an very small university budget and a lack of scholarship money, he has managed to rack up enough wins to earn him the recognition of being the winningest coach in Sonoma State history and the 13th winningest active coach in all Division II schools.  (Is winningest a word?)

I sat at the feet of the master as he told stories of games and players and coaching moments that were the stuff memories are made of.  A little over an hour later, I packed up my digital recorder and headed home.  The time had gone by so quickly.  I was in heaven.

So when the baseball season came around, I was more than a little bit interested.  I was a convert and as the saying goes, converts are the worst.  I checked the box scores and memorized the lineup, read the stories and celebrated their good fortune.  And they did well.  Really well.

So well in fact, that this week they played in the Division II College World Series.  It was the first time a team from Sonoma State had ever been there.   Last week they boarded a plane for Sauget, Illinois to play with the best of the best from all around the country.  Goelz and his boys from Sonoma had made the big time.

So on Monday night, with the score tied 4-4, there was no way I was going to bed.   I got on this train and I was going to ride it out.  My sons and I watched as the play by play flashed across the screen.  Inning after inning went by.  10, 11, 12, 13… the number kept rising.  We watched as Sonoma State would bat in the bottom of the inning, hoping for the run that would not come.  We held our collective breath as Central Missouri would put runners on in their half of the inning and then cheer as the zero would flash on the screen.  We got out of the jam, again.

Somewhere in the 16th inning, the announcer let out a sigh.  “Why do I always get these games?” he asked rhetorically.  No one was complaining.  It was now tomorrow in the booming metropolis of Sauget where the game was being played, a game that had started at 6:00 p.m., the previous evening.  No one was going home any time soon. 

It was 2:30 a.m. local time when the Seawolves managed to push what turned out to be the winning run across the plate.  They had been at it for over 6½ hours.  It was a game for the ages.  Sitting in the dim glow of the computer screen, I pumped my fist and let out a yelp.  We had done it.

Coach Goelz and the Sonoma State Seawolves made it to the semifinal game where they finally fell to Ouachita Baptist on Friday night.  It had been an amazing season, the best in the 38 year history of the program.  They had put the little program from Rohnert Park, California on the national map.   And like that epic 19-inning game on Monday night, one that will soon become another of the amazing stories Coach Goelz will tell.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

*The Sonoma State mascot is Lobo the Seawolf, lobo being Spanish for ‘wolf’. The mascot is derived from the Jack London novel entitled The Sea-Wolf in which the protagonist is pressed into service aboard a boat captained by a man named “Wolf”. The mascot was taken from the book for London’s ties with Sonoma County, specifically the nearby town of Glen Ellen.

Make Me Smile

Music was my refuge.  I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.  ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am a former flute/piccolo player turned drum major.  In fact, I am a former drum major of this band.  Not this band exactly, but one like it, from this very high school, a long time ago. Before the invention of plastic, when instruments were made of wood, when they had to be hollowed out of felled trees.  In the days, as I like to tell my children, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  And sometimes it seems like yesterday.

It doesn't take much.  A drum cadence.  The brassy blare of a trumpet.  Driving past a football field on a Friday night.  Not much at all and I am there.

When I think about high school, those challenging, fun, nerve wracking, angst filled years, band is right there, the anchor in my stormy adolescent sea.  It gave me definition.  It gave me purpose.  It gave me pride.  It gave me a sense of belonging. 

I think about Mr. Scanella, our wonderful Italian band teacher from Branchburg Central School.  If I close my eyes for a moment, there he is, dressed in his tuxedo and holding his baton on the night of the concert, smiling at us just moments before the first note is played.  I can still see the twinkle in his eye as he winks to us.  We are one.  We play as one.  He was a master gardener, planting the seeds of music in all who sat in his band room.  He was our Mr. Holland's Opus and we learned to love music and love performing because he did.

We sit in the gymnasium and listen to the local high school band play.  We watch the smiles on the faces of the members of the drum line as they pound out a cadence.  In the bleachers a group of young girls bop back and forth to an arrangement of the 80's hit "Funkytown" performed to perfection by teenagers who weren't even alive when it topped the charts.  Music makes you happy.

It isn't for everyone.  Some find their way through those years on a football field or baseball diamond, with a golf club or in a pool.  Or maybe it's on stage or behind the screen of a computer, typing out the stories for the school newspaper.  If they're lucky they find something.  Or someone.  Someone who inspires them and shows them what can be.  What they can be.

42

“Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.”  – Jackie Robinson

It was April 15, 1947.  From all accounts, it was a bright, sunshine filled day in Brooklyn, New York.  In many ways, it was a day just like any other day.  As the Ebbets field stands filled up with people, I wonder if they knew that they were about to witness an event that would change history forever.

The story of Robinson’s entrance into the Major Leagues has been well chronicled and is the subject of a book by Jonathon Eig entitled Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season.  His relationships with Branch Rickey, the general manager and president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, his teammates such as Carl Erskine and Pee Wee Reese, and his wife Rachel Robinson who, at 85 is one of the more eloquent people you will ever hear speak, are diligently researched and beautifully told.

That was 61 years ago.  My Mom and Dad were 10 and 11 years old respectively on that day.  Growing up in Brooklyn, they were diehard Dodger fans.  That was when baseball was the biggest sport in America, when the players lived in the communities where they played and greed and steroids hadn’t almost ruined the game. Robinson was a legend.  In his rookie year, he played in 151 games, hit .297, led the National League in stolen bases and won the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award, all while earning a salary of $5,000, the league minimum.   

But the story of Jackie Robinson transcends baseball. This is a story about courage, the courage of a man who stood up for what he believed in.  He challenged segregation.  As a young man, he was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a military bus, more than ten years prior to the now famous Rosa Parks incident.  Throughout his baseball career he worked hard, lived proudly and gave of himself to his community, his team and his nation.

Share Your Socks

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

Life lessons are never easy.

It had been a spectacular evening.  A great, albeit infrequent win by the hometown San Francisco Giants and a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner performed by our very own junior high non-marching band had us all in a great mood.  The Bonds-less Giants pitched, hit and ran the bases well and despite the fact that there was a Candlestick-like sized crowd in the park, the Thursday night with friends under the starry skies was a winner.

“Great job.” I said to my youngest as we wound our way down the ramps of the stadium.

A mother can always tell when something is wrong. 

“Mom, you’re not going to believe what happened to me,” he replied.

He was right.

Talking Ball

“What is both surprising and delightful is that spectators are allowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game.... There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.”  ~George Bernard Shaw

For the baseball fan, there are only two seasons.  One of them is baseball season.  The other is not.  Baseball season is sunshine, warm weather, lazy days at the ballpark and catching a foul ball.  It’s hot dogs with mustard and sunflower seeds and remembering a pencil to keep score.  It’s home runs and strikeouts and the seventh inning stretch when everyone, whether they can sing or not, sings “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at the top of their lungs, even though they’re already there.  But baseball is not a “spectator sport”, at least for the diehard fan.  With the holiest of days just around the corner, the true gamer is working hard to get into shape to be ready for Opening Day. 

With two kids on the field, I’ve already had a chance to get into game shape. Sure, there’s the schlepping of things like water and chairs and half eaten bags of sunflower seeds and the baseball bags that take up the whole backseat, busting open with well worn mitts and crusty batting gloves and muddy cleats that smell so bad you have to drive with the windows open.  That goes with the territory.  But it’s the participation side of which I speak.

It’s funny how quickly it begins.  You arrive at the field for the game.  Smiling, you greet the other parents as they come in, dragging their coolers and blankets and sunscreen.  Finding a sunny spot, you take a seat and begin to politely chat about everything and nothing.  “How was your weekend? and “Isn’t this lovely weather we’re having?” and then all of a sudden the umpire says “Play Ball” and without warning, it starts.

Do What You Love/Love What You Do

"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
—    Ralph Waldo Emerson

He spoke slowly, measuredly, the tears streaming down his face.  “All good things come to an end,” he said, pausing, trying to hold on to the moment, unable to complete the sentence.  “I've given everything I possibly can give…to the game of football, and I don't think I've got anything left to give, and that's it. I know I can play, but I don't think I want to. And that's really what it comes down to.” 

“It was never about the money or fame or records, and I hear people talk about your accomplishments and things ... It was never my accomplishments, it was our accomplishments, the teammates that I've played with, and I can name so many. It was never about me, it was about everybody else.”

And with that, he was gone.

Yesterday, Brett Favre retired from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL after 17 years of doing what he loved, playing the game of football.  For those of us who have watched Favre play, it was hard to ignore the passion with which he played the game.  A brilliant athlete, he played the game with the enthusiasm of a kid playing a game of pick up on the school yard, running, laughing and cheering his teammates from a place so deep within him it was contagious. You couldn’t help but smile along. He was truly amazing.

And lucky. 

A friend of mine came to speak to my class yesterday about her work with Hospice.  The students sat quietly as she spoke about the work; helping people as they go through the final stages of their life.  A young man raised his hand.  “How do you do it?” he asked.  “How do you watch people die every day?”

The Sounds of Spring(Training)

“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”  ~Jim Bouton

Few things affect me like the sweet sound of baseball on the radio. 

Heading over to the university to teach this morning, the unmistakable signs of spring were all around me.  The plum trees bursting with cotton candy colored pink tufts, the carpets of wild mustard in the vineyards and the chartreuse buds on the trees are all reminders that the cold, wet, days of winter will soon give way to warm sunshine.  And yet, despite the natural splendor that surrounded me, there was something else that awoke that visceral sense that spring is on the way. 

I turned on the radio and heard the wonderfully deep melodic tones of Jon Miller and Duane Kuiper calling the Giants first Cactus League game. The effect was immediate. 

It’s an interesting phenomenon, sensory memory.  With just one sound I was transported back to a time when life seemed simpler; when the only thing that mattered was who was coming up to bat, who was warming up in the bullpen and where, oh where, was the guy with the hot dogs?

For a brief moment it was 1969.  I was sitting beside my grandpa watching our beloved New York Mets, my glove in hand.  I heard the sound of planes pierce the air above Shea Stadium.  The hot dog vendors shouted out their wares in thick New York accents. “Hey, hot dawgs heeeeah.”   Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda and Tommie Agee warm up in the outfield.  In the infield, Ed Kranpool, Ken Boswell, Wayne Garrett and Grandpa’s favorite, Bud Harrelson, play catch.  With Tom “Terrific” on the mound and Jerry Grote behind the dish, all was right with the world.

Puppy Love

“I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love.  For me they are the role models for being alive.” ~ Gilda Radner

Sometimes when you are not looking, life gives you a reminder, ever so gently, of something you must know.  It is a little pearl of wisdom or a tiny gift from someone you were least expecting, an 'aha' moment when everything clicks and all at once you see something that makes your heart skip a beat and you feel warm and fuzzy all over.

I awoke to the sound of choking.  It was  dark and it took a few moments for my sleepy eyes to adjust to the blackness around me.  Our 14-year old dog Shadow was on his feet, fumbling around and making the most awful sound, a distressing sound, a sound that dogs are not supposed to make.

I called out to him, still unable to locate that black wooly ball of fur in the darkness that filled the room.  He couldn’t hear me.  He’s mostly deaf and struggling with cataracts that make it hard for him to find his way.  “Getting old is not for sissies,” my Dad used to say.

When my eyes finally caught up, I saw the most amazing sight.  Our 5-year old rescue dog Katie, who has been with us for less than a year was at his side, her head cocked in a curious sort of way, checking to see if Shadow was OK.  She wandered around the room with him, licking him lovingly, letting him know that she was there if he needed her.  After a while, the choking would stop and both dogs would go back to bed.

Moments later, it started again.  The scene repeated itself several times.  Each time Katie got up and went to his side.  Each time she tenderly licked his face.  Each time she stayed next to him until the episode stopped. 

Liar, Liar

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” – Sir Walter Scott, Scottish author and novelist, 1771-1831.

“Do you smell it?” Steve Young to Ronnie Lott as they walked out for the coin toss at the Super Bowl, February 4, 2008.

Something stinks on Capital Hill.  Forget the issue about whether our lawmakers should be spending their time trying to straighten out our national pastime, the testimony of Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee before Congress this morning with regards to Clemen’s alleged steroid use was good theatre.

“Let me be clear when I say that when I told Senator Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance enhancing drugs (steroids), I told the truth.” said Brian McNamee, former trainer of Roger Clemens to Congress, February 13, 2008.

I’ve never been a huge Clemen’s fan.  His talent is indisputable, but so is his arrogance, his “hired gun” history and one small fact, he pitched for the Yankees.  I grew up hating the Yankees.  We were Mets fans and you couldn’t be both.  In fact, so strong was our hatred of the Yankees that I am convinced that my parents (who were died in the wool Brooklyn Dodger fans) took an oath similar to the promise they made to raise their kids Catholic.  Their children would not be Yankee fans.  But alas, I digress.

“Andy Pettitte misremembered.” – Roger Clemens, pitcher, to Congress, February 13, 2008.

Somebody is lying.  I’m putting my money on Clemens.  After all, what reason does McNamee have to lie?  His career is in ruins, he’s being sued by Clemens and his private, family life has been opened up for all to see thanks to the “despicable act” of the Clemen’s camp playing a secretly tape recorded conversation that Clemen’s had with McNamee.  Wow.  Interesting behavior from those who some view as heroes.

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton

Ain’t that the truth.  If this whole steroid scandal has shown us anything, it’s how difficult it is to choose the right path in the face of temptation.  No wonder Eve handed Adam the apple.  Will we do anything to get ahead?  Is there no moral compass with which to guide our behavior?  And then, when caught, what about standing up and admitting the truth.  What about taking it as an opportunity to grow, to change, to learn?

"Mr. Clemens, what uniform do you plan to wear into the Hall of Fame." - The Honorable Rep. Clay, Democrat from the great state of Missouri.

Are you kidding me?  Now those are our tax dollars at work.

Let's be clear.  Cheating is not new behavior.  Not in sports, not in politics, not in life. There will always be some who feel that they are above the law.  But this goes beyond the laws of the land.  This is about the laws of humanity.  This is about honesty, decency and the truth.  The bigger truth, not the legal truth.  Truth with a capital “T”.

What a sad statement about the human condition.   

super BOWL sunday

There are few things more important for an Italian than food.  Family, I guess, but in the Italian culture family and food are so intermingled that it’s hard to have one without the other.  In fact, despite sitting at my computer for a good 10 minutes preparing to write this, I can’t think of a single thing that even comes close. 

It must be genetic.  There must be a food gene that gets passed down from Italian mamas to their Italian babies that predisposes them to be food focused.  We think about food all the time.  It’s a bit of an obsession, to be honest but because of that darn food gene, it’s truly beyond our control. We literally look for ways to incorporate eating into everything we do.

Super Bowl Sunday is no exception.

I know what your thinking.   Everyone eats during the Super Bowl.  In fact, there are entire parties that are thrown around the Super Bowl.  Spicy barbeque chicken wings, creamy 5 layer dip and lots of cheese and crackers will grace many a coffee table tomorrow afternoon.

But here’s the difference.  For those without that darned genetic predisposition, the focus will be on the game.

My friend Steve is a closet Italian.  Actually, he’s Jewish, which in many ways is close enough, but Steve also possesses the food gene.  I have rarely met anyone who thinks about food as much as I do, but Steve comes close.

“What are we going to eat on Sunday?” I asked him during the week.

“Who’s playing?” he asked me.

Now you might think that an odd question, but truthfully, it wasn’t that weird to me.  We had watched the playoffs together just two weeks ago but we were also eating barbeque beef sandwiches and coleslaw and I guarantee he remembered that.  Remember, it’s not about the teams, it’s about inspiration for the menu.

“New England and New York,” I replied and we launched into a discussion of foods from the region that might be suitable for tomorrow’s gathering.  Would we go traditional or ethnic?  Street food or classic restaurant style?  Meat or seafood?  And the million dollar question… what would we have for dessert?

“What time should we come over?” he asked after we had sorted out the menu. 

“Kick off is at 3:30,” I informed him as if it really mattered.  After all, to those afflicted with this genetic disorder, the game time is inconsequential.

What he really wanted to know was, what time do we want to eat?

Front Paige

The weather might try to tell us otherwise, but baseball season is right around the corner.  In just about 20 days, pitchers and catchers will report to spring training and begin the 2008 season and I for one, can’t wait.  For a baseball fan, the off-season seems like an eternity and opening day can’t come too soon.

For Paige Dumont, February 28th is that day.

We wandered into the University of Sports Batting Cages early this afternoon for my oldest’s lesson with his hitting instructor Michael Paul.  Mike’s worked with him since he was 12 so over the years we’ve clocked a lot of time at “the cages”.  Spending so much time there, I’ve gotten to know the staff pretty well and spent more than my fair share of time talking “ball”.

Today, a new face greeted us when we walked in the door.

“Who’s the guy behind the counter?” I asked Coach Paul.

“That’s Paige,” he replied.  “He plays for the Phillies.”

“How do you like playing in the big leagues?” I asked him, trying to sound nonchalant.

“It’s incredible,” he replied with a smile that lit up his whole face.

Paige is a local talent.  He pitched at Santa Rosa Junior College and then for Coach John Goelz at Sonoma State so, as he says, he was an “old guy” by the time he reached the big leagues a year ago.  While the other guys were out partying and having fun, he was working out, trying to get better.

“I did all that stuff already,” he would tell the other guys.  “ I went to college.  I’m here to play ball."  And play ball he did, rising up through the first three levels of rookie ball in his first season.  This year he will report to the Single A team, probably in Florida.

“I played much of the year last year in New Jersey.  Those East Coast fans really love their baseball.”

No kidding.

“It didn’t matter if you were on their team or not,” he recalled.  “If you were having a bad game, you heard about it.”

Yup.

“Tell me about steroids,” I asked him.  “What’s it like?  Is there really pressure to do them, even in the minors?”

Sadly, the answer was yes.  He recalled talking to Damon Bruce, the night host on KNBR and telling him what his experience was as a player.

“Have you every used steroids?” the host asked him.

“I can’t lie,” he answered.  “There was a point when I thought about it, but I talked to my parents and they let me know under no uncertain terms to stay away from it or there would be serious consequences.” 

He’s glad he listened.

“If you knew that you could make it up to the big club, would you use them?” the host shot back.

“No.”  Dumont replied.  “I’ve worked too hard to get this far.  I’d rather know that I’d made it on my own through hard work and if I didn’t make it, well then, at least I knew I gave it my all.”

Paige Dumont reports for the beginning of his season on February 28th. Let’s hope that someday, with a little luck and continued hard work, we’ll see him on the roster when the Phillies come to town.

Guaranteed, there will be more than a few Giants fans cheering for him.