Ramblin' with Roger

Sporting News

I went to the local CVS drugstore this week. The clerk asked me if I wanted to contribute a dollar for fighting ALS. I said OK.
The clerk said, “It’s called Lou Garry’s disease.”
I said, “It’s Lou GEHRIG’s disease.” He looked puzzled.
“You know, Lou Gehrig. Played in the greatest number of major league (baseball) games in a row until Cal Ripkin, Jr. broke his record.”
“Who did he play for?”
“The Yankees. Played with Babe Ruth.”
“The Yankees? I HATE the Yankees!”
“But Gehrig was a good guy. Gary Cooper in ‘Pride of the Yankees’: ‘I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.'”
“Yeah, I think I heard of that. But I HATE the Yankees! I think I’ll stop asking (for ALS donations). Hope my manager doesn’t notice.”

Detroit Tigers outfielder Gary Sheffield apparently believes there are more Latin players, and fewer black players, in MLB, because Latinos are more “manageable” than blacks. Some sports writer suggested ed that it was a Don Imus moment. I disagree; I think it was an Al Campanis moment. Campanis was the Los Angeles Dodgers executive who infamously said on Nightline in 1987 that blacks did not have the “necessities” for managing a baseball team. I actually watched that episode of Nightline, in real time – those were the days – and Ted Koppel was gently trying to get Campanis to change his statement. It was a peculiar moment: Koppel, who admittedly knew little about baseball, breaks this big story on a show ostensibly honoring Jackie Robinson. Campanis was soon fired by the Dodgers, and MLB has made an effort to get teams to at least interview minority candidates. The strange thing about the Sheffield incident is that I hadn’t heard about it at all until I read it in the column.

That minor league manager’s meltdown, a big hit on You Tube, is part of a larger story on ABC News Monday night about hot-headed managers. The piece suggests that you not try these tactics at your own job, as tempting as it might be.

ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark notes that “racial issues are front and center for many Americans as (San Francisco Giants outfielder) Barry Bonds chases the all-time home run record.” A recent survey found that 52 percent of fans hope Bonds doesn’t break the record, while 37 percent of fans want him to surpass Hank Aaron’s mark, set in 1974. “However, race plays a unique role. Black fans in the survey are more than twice as likely to want Bonds to break Aaron’s record (74 percent to 28 percent), and 37 percent of black fans think Bonds used steroids, compared to 76 percent of white fans.
“Blacks are nearly twice as likely to think Bonds has been treated unfairly (46 percent to 25 percent). Why? The survey found that 41 percent of black fans think this is due to the steroids issue, 25 percent think it’s because of his race, and 21 percent blame Bonds’ personality. For whites who think Bonds has been treated unfairly, 66 percent blame steroids. Virtually none blame race.”
The Sports Illustrated Box Seat survey yesterday asked: “Are you rooting for Barry Bonds to break Hank Aaron’s Home Run record?” It was an ongoing online tally:
Yes 11.9% 53
No 68.2% 304
Don’t care 20% 89
It’s generally agreed that Barry Bonds is selfish, moody and uncommunicative. I posit that that may be why he’s more popular with some blacks; that he’s selfish, moody and uncommunicative, and doesn’t care what The Man says. In any case, I don’t recall such a disparity over a sports figure since the O.J. murder trial.
All this talk about whether the commissioner of baseball should/will show up at when Barry Bonds hits home run #756, then Bonds goes on a homer drought, and he’s stuck at 746, with one dinger in 51 at-bats. Will he actually break the record, or not?

I don’t really follow NHL hockey, but I was rooting for the Buffalo Sabres; that didn’t take. So now, I’m rooting for their old opponent, the Ottawa Senators. I’ll always pick a cold-weather team over a team named for a Disney movie, the Anaheim Ducks. Naturally, the Stanley Cup goes to California.

I’m also not that hot on NBA basketball, but I’m pulling for Cleveland, even though Lebron James is the only player I can name on the squad. While the San Antonio Spurs have won championships in 1999, 2003, and 2005, the city of Cleveland hasn’t won a title of any kind since 1964, when the Cleveland Browns won the NFL Championship (pre-Super Bowl era). The Cleveland Indians last won the World Series in 1948 and the Cleveland Cavaliers have never won the NBA Finals, or played in them until 2007.

Head

“I wear a seven, And you’re out of order
‘Cause I can tell from here, You’re a seven and a quarter”
“Don’t Touch My Hat” by Lyle Lovett

I have a big head. I’m not talking ego here, I’m talking about the fact that I can seldom find a hat or cap that actually fits. Those “one size fits all” things don’t. Most hats sit on top of my head like a crown.

At my high school graduation, they had to pin my size 7 3/4 graduation cap on. Then I had to remove it for the Pledge of Allegiance, and it never did sit right again.

In the winter, it’s not so bad, as I can wear a knit cap. But in the summer, I need protection for my increasingly follicle-less pate. The only cap that has actually fit me I got from the Census Bureau, of all places.

Last weekend, visiting the in-laws, we stopped at several stores with no particular success. Then I found not one, but two hats that fit, and they were on sale so I bought them both, one blue and one white. They are porkpie hats.

My wife says I look retro chic. Definitely retro; others can determine chic. But it’s a matter of function over form.
***
To celebrate Sergeant Pepper’s 40th birthday, The Sun in the UK has given the classic montage a modern-day makeover, by replacing all the people with modern-day celebrities. The Beatles are replaced by their kids, and Bob Dylan is replaced by…Bob Dylan. Fred Hembeck (June 4) also weighs in on the album.
ROG

25 things

Tosy has got me sussed.

1. I’ve come to realize that my last kiss… was probably done perfunctorily.

2. I am listening to… a lot of Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson and the B groups they used to be in.

3. I talk…more often than not with a filter of appropriateness.

4. I want…a couple more hours per day to read and play. I need to play.

5. My best friend(s)…with a few exceptions, don’t live around here, so I see them rarely.

7. The weather is… wet, but pleasantly so.

8. I hate it when people…are inconsiderate. My current pet peeve involves the bus kiosks around two of our hospitals, St. Peter’s and Albany Med. The hospital employees use the kiosks to smoke their cigarettes during their breaks, then go back work.

9. Love is… as strong as death. That’s a lyric in a church anthem, from the Song of Solomon, and it always gets to me.

10. Marriage is… not for the meek.

11. Somewhere, someone is thinking… someone stole my invention. In all likelihood, it didn’t happen.

12. I’ll always… remember the things I should have done more than the things I did do.

13. I have a secret crush on… oh, golly, any number of people. However, I haven’t watched a program because a person was on it since I watched Sisters for Sela Ward.

14. The last time I cried was… watching Flashpoint last week. It was a CBS News special about reporter Kimberly Dozier’s near death experience in Iraq from an IED. Her soundman and cameraman died, as did a soldier and his translator.

15. My cell phone is… missing.

16. When I wake up in the morning… I start ruminating about what needs to be done. Then I end up doing a list of things not on the list at all.

17. Before I go to bed… I often play Internet backgammon.

18. Right now I am thinking about… caffeine.

19. Babies are… statements of optimism in a sometimes miserable world.

20. I go on MySpace… almost never, even though I have a page.

21. Today I… answer a bunch of question about a blog I helped initiate last week.

22. Tonight I… hope to watch one of those episodes from six weeks of Scrubs, Earl or the office. That was on my list LAST week; saw one Earl.

23. Tomorrow I… go play racquetball in the morning, if the three-year old and I get out of the house in time.

24. I really want to… get a massage.

25. Someone who will most likely repost this? I haven’t a clue; Eddie could.
***
Don’t steal beer in Montana
***
“I know I don’t know most celebs in real life, and therefore shouldn’t go throwing haterade at them left and right … but man, I cannot stand Paris Hilton.” – Jen Hubley, About.Com. Haterade – I like that.
ROG

My Back Is Killing Me

On Memorial Day, I was carrying Lydia’s not-so-little red wagon down the back step of the house. I stepped down on what should have been the penultimate step and ended up on my back, the wagon on top of me. I discovered that step was lower on the left side by about an inch and a quarter than it was on the right.

You might think 1.25 inches isn’t much, but when you can’t actually SEE the steps, it’s like a chasm. Falling down these stairs, at least in this case, is somewhat like sliding into second base. One starts vertically, and ends up horizontal. The difference is intentionality; I didn’t plan to land on my backside carrying the wagon. (Also, no one in Major League Baseball seems to slide feet first anymore.)

Immediately after the fall, I thought, “I need to sue the landlord.” Then I had that annoying realization: I AM the landlord. When you’ve lived in housing owned by others for the vast majority of your life, home ownership, even after eight years, is still a bit of a foreign concept.

The house I grew up in was owned by my maternal grandmother, which, as I think back on it, may have contributed to the tension between her and my father. My parents didn’t buy their own place until shortly after I went to college.

So, I’ve been a renter most of my life. This means I’ve moved a number of times, some number north of 20, maybe as many as 30; I forget. Given the fact that I didn’t move from the time I was six months old until I went to college, that meant about once a year in my adulthood prior to being a homeowner. Since I stayed some places longer than a year, other places were much shorter. 1977, e.g., I was in Charlotte, NYC and New Paltz. In 1978, I was at three different addresses in Schenectady, four if you count the four days I spent at one location.

But the rate of change has slowed, I spent 4.5 years in one apartment before I got married. One year in the house Carol bought before we met, and now seven years here.

The downside of moving so often are that it’s harder to peg time. “Oh, that happened when I was living on Madison Avenue; must have been ’82 or ’83.” the other downside is that the ability for stuff to clutter up certain rooms is so much easier. But I’ll deal.

Oh, and the back is still sore, as is my left knee, which I seem to have hyperextended. I say “seem” because I haven’t gone to the doctor, yet. I will if it isn’t better soon.
***
And speaking of stuff, we have an overstuffed chair and a pull-out sofa bed that we’ve been trying to get rid of (i.e., give away if someone would just haul it off) for weeks. The chair’s going on the curb this week, the sofa next. The street entrepreneurs, I hope, will pick them up before they end up in the landfill. I’ve tired of having two stuffed chairs and two sofas in the living room.
***
Things I like about June: music on PBS. Alison Krauss live and also a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald on Wednesday. Later in the month, the Gershwin Award to Paul Simon, with a whole bunch of folks singing Simon songs.
ROG

Dateline: Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi

June 3: Today, long-time residents of this delta town recall the mysterious death of Billie Joe MacAllister, who jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. No reason was ever established for the suicide, although some witnesses alleged that young MacAllister and a young woman were seen earlier tossing something off the bridge.

Every year on this date, I almost always remember Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry, which came out 40 years ago this fall. I even own the LP named after the song, which I believe I got from the Capitol Records Club via the “negative option”; i.e., I failed to mail in the refusal card in time. The meaning of the song has been long dissected. I think as one person wrote, it was ancient the day it came out. It said a lot by saying so little. What WAS thrown off the bridge? I remember the local radio station near Binghamton, WENE, running a contest about that, in the day. The winning entry was a diamond ring. Most theorists, though, had more sinister theories.

There was a 1976 movie, directed by Max Baer, Jr., Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies, which as I recall, was awful AND offensive, and came up with a theory for Billy Joe’s death that was a preposterous leap from the evidence given in the song. BTW, the name was spelled Billie Joe on the album, but most lyrics cite it as Billy Joe.

The tune, which rivaled only American Pie five years later in that era for discussions of the true meaning of the song, was never really clarified by songwriter Gentry. The song was parodied by Dylan in Clothesline Saga. But my favorite piece of trivia about the song is that it can be sung to the tune of Prince’s 1999. It’s not a perfect fit, but pretty close!

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay.
And at dinner time we stopped, and we walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered at the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet.”
And then she said she got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
“Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please.”
“There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow.”
Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge,
And now Billy Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billy Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don’t seem right.
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge,
And now you tell me Billy Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

Mama said to me “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?
I’ve been cookin’ all morning and you haven’t touched a single bite.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today,
Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday. Oh, by the way,
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

A year has come ‘n’ gone since we heard the news ’bout Billy Joe.
Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going ’round, papa caught it and he died last spring,
And now mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

LISTEN to Ode to Billie Joe by Bobby Gentry HERE or HERE.