They Say It's Just a Game

On Tuesday, July 10, 2012, I posted the following (now slightly edited) on my Facebook page. It sets the scene for one of those remarkable days when many things converge. In this case it is sport, history, family, and much, much more. My sons Jeff and Brian and daughter-in-law Lyda (the involvement of my two year old and four year old granddaughters as co-conspirators is suspected by me but not confirmed) joined together to make something remarkable happen. I just had to write about it. There was an outpouring of comments by friends and family and once we got to the game we felt like we were accompanied by many folks we've known from many places across the years. 

I have, of course, some reflections to offer, although it's pretty hard to write anything fresh about an All-Star game. Baseball lends itself to some of the best writing in sport, often lyrical, even poetic. But this experience is personal and I guess that's kind of the point. So here are the words that framed the experience. I'll save the rest for another day.

**************

Wow! I can't believe what this day will bring. Last night my two sons, both of them well-bred lads, presented me with two tickets to tonight's MLB All-Star game right here in Kansas City. I was stunned.

Jeff and Grant McMurray, Baseball Geeks

I imagine that those who know me are aware that I am a pretty avid baseball fan. This is probably the last such game I will ever have opportunity to see in my town. (I could bring up the possibility of a World Series, but that gets into a whole different level of discussion.) If I am still occupying space on this earth the next time such an event comes to KC I will undoubtably be living at the Home, rocking on the porch, and drooling onto a strategically placed bib.

 

So this is the time. I do not know how this ticket acquisition was made. Jeff lives in Chicago now so I'm not ruling out Mob connections.

Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri
Home of the Royals, Host of the 2012 All-Star Game

But here's the thing. My family knows what a thrill it will be for me to attend this game and they also know I am a tad frugal. They have other terms to describe it. This is masked as a combination Fathers Day and birthday gift, but it is neither of those. It is an act of love from my sons and daughter-in-law that I will remember all my days. So Brian, Lyda, and Jeff, please know how much it means to me. I love you all in so many ways, some that you cannot even imagine. Thank you for this gift that transcends the gift.

No, it isn't JUST a game

Oh, and can you believe the pitching choices on the National League team? And what a rip that Billy Butler got bumped from the Home Run Derby? And did you hear that Bo Jackson and Reggie Jackson and Amos Otis and Bret Saberhagen are in town? And what about Jeter and..... Wow! This is cool!

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

(A review in brief, first published in Goodreads.com)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had a wonderful experience with this book, but it took a circuitous journey to get me there. John Irving is among my favorite writers and A Prayer for Owen Meany is often considered his most popular and accessible book. It is also a profoundly religious book, although some might say (wrongly, in my view) sacrilegious. It's John Irving after all, so prepare yourself for a dazzling ride into the far corners of Irving's imaginative universe.

Nonetheless, I have tried three or four times to read this book and always got derailed. It just didn't grab me. I loved Garp, Son of the Circus, Cider House Rules and others, but Meany eluded me.

The first sentence of the book is this:

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

Irving says he always writes the last sentence first and once written it never changes. The first sentence, however, changes many times, right up to the final manuscript. He says that the first sentence in Meany is his favorite first sentence in all his books. It is also a sentence that says everything you need to know about the book. Don't worry, however, it is not a spoiler.

I think it is the "wrecked voice" that was the problem. In the book Owen Meany's dialogue is always formatted in all caps. That seemed off-putting to me for some reason. Then I read where someone had listened to the book in audio format (on Audible.com) and the narrator used a high pitched voice when reading Meany's spoken words. It was screechy and annoying, but that is the point, after all. It seemed just perfect.

I now have read A Prayer for Owen Meany with my ears. There are scenes in this book that I will never forget. I don't know yet if I will hear them or see them. More important is whether I will FEEL them, and I am confident I will.


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When the Foul Ball Comes Your Way

Last Saturday afternoon in the bottom of the first inning at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City Royals Outfielder Alex Gordon fouled off a pitch and launched it like a laser beam to Section 215, Row HH, Seat 6, which happened to be where I was sitting.

That this ball hit me in the face is not in question--I am married to an eyewitness and she has volunteered this information to several people who then looked at me with what I interpreted as admiration, although pity might be a possibility. Usually they wanted to know if I got the ball. Personally, I thought the question of whether I was blind in my right eye was more pertinent but there is no accounting for the priorities of baseball fans.

The answer to the question about the frigging ball is that I did not get it, primarily because it was hit so hard that it bounced off my thick skull and landed in what was undoubtedly at least four sections away. Certainly in the upper deck. Possibly in the parking lot. It is probably now owned by some wuss who doesn't understand the grand tradition of recovering baseballs hit into the stands.

All of this requires a little context.

This year Kansas City is the host of the Major League Baseball All Star Game and it has caused quite the buzz in town. I had a special interest in this weekend's game between the Royals and Oakland A's, largely because it was commemorating the year 1960, when the All Star Game was hosted by Kansas City, whose major league team at that time was the Kansas City Athletics. (The A's moved their team to Oakland after the 1967 season and a new expansion team, the Royals, was established in Kansas City, beginning play for the 1969 season. But I digress...)

I had a more personal reason for attending this game and that is because 1960 is the year I became a baseball fan. (That's another story involving a third baseman named Ed Charles stealing home in the bottom of the ninth while I, a 13 year old recently moved from Canada to the States, was listening on the radio. Been a baseball fan ever since. But I digress...)

The promotion also provided that each fan entering the game received a nice vintage cap with the year 1960 and the Royals logo on it. (It also has a rather obtrusive Taco Bell logo on it. I checked and Taco Bell was founded in 1962 so I'm willing to give it a pass. But I digress...)

It was the cap that saved me.

Anyone familiar with baseball knows that fans carry a secret hope that they'll catch a foul ball. Kids bring baseball gloves, sometimes their dad's tattered variety and sometimes a brand new shiny thing made in China and sold by Wal-Mart. Most of all they carry the vain hope that the foul ball will come their way. They dream that the line drive will be a couple of feet over their head and they will leap and spear it, resulting in an explosion of cheers as it is documented in high definition on a gigantic scoreboard. If the ball bounces nearby there is a scramble involving people of all ages and once the ball is retrieved there is often a drama between some husky college kid working on his third beer and a tearful eight year old learning the injustice of life.

I'm not saying that any of that was on my mind as Alex Gordon approached the plate in the bottom of the first. In fact, I know my head was down for some reason--getting the food properly balanced on my lap, getting my bum knees into a position where I can flex them now and then, or whatever else one does to get settled in for the ball game. But then within a nanosecond or so I heard the crack of a bat and a sudden rush of air, a gasp from people around me, and then a thud followed by a cacophony of ball-smacking, people-scrambling, voices-calling. The sounds were immediately conjoined with tactile sensations--a cap askew, eye glasses knocked off my nose, and a general feeling that my head hurt a bit, not horrible pain but not pleasant either.

I was immediately surrounded by ushers and other Royals staffers, probably a few lawyers working undercover. I declined their offer to have a medic take me somewhere to ice my forehead. I'd suffered enough humiliation in one day.

The foul ball had come my way and I wasn't looking.

I don't think I've ever carried my glove to a ball game. I've not been obsessive about getting a foul ball. They've kind of ruined it these days anyway. Any ball that makes it to the field, whether through base hits or player warmups or any other method, usually gets tossed back into the stands for the kids. So you see, they don't have to earn it like I did on Saturday, looking downward at my nachos and then taking the darn foul ball right on the chops.

Which takes me back to the cap and how it saved me. I've thought about it and I'm positive the ball hit me on the brim of the hat, knocking it downward so as to change its trajectory sufficiently to minimize the impact while still giving me a jolt and knocking my glasses to my lap. This is kind of like the soldiers who tell stories of putting their small Bibles in their shirt pocket, subsequently repelling the bullet that would otherwise have penetrated their heart. I'm left uncertain as to whether to claim this as a spiritual experience. Some would. I probably won't.

I mentioned that I wanted to get that cap because 1960 was the year I became a baseball fan. My family moved from Canada to the U.S. in 1959 and I was all about hockey. But it was a late night game on my radio in 1960, I thought, that won me over to baseball. Ed Charles stole home in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. I'll never forget. I was 13 years old.

But yesterday, just on a whim, I looked it up and it seems that Ed Charles was traded to the Kansas City Athletics on December 15, 1961 and was traded away from the A's on May 10, 1967. I dug a little deeper and I'll be darned if I didn't find the newspaper clipping of the very game I have carried around in my youthful memories. Ed Charles stole home in the bottom of the ninth inning on August 8, 1962, defeating the Minnesota Twins 4-3.

Ed Charles did not play in Kansas City in 1960, which kind of messes up the significance of the cap. I now have to date my love of baseball as beginning in 1962 when I was 15 years old. This is not a life-changing piece of information, to be sure, but still a tad unsettling. It means I've been a baseball fan two years less than I thought. It took a whack on the head to get my facts straight.

As for the cap, well it put its brim between my eye and Alex Gordon's line drive. It will at least give me a pretty good story to tell about what happened in Kauffman Stadium back in 2012 when the foul ball came my way.

Stumbling Toward Truth

The events of this week surrounding same-sex marriage will be pounced on by pundits, acclaimed by supporters, decried by critics, and seared by comics. I hope there will also be time and place for it to be savored for the extraordinary slice of life it is.

Yes, it is something to be celebrated by advocates of social justice. It will be analyzed by historians and political scientists and students of American culture. But there is something else here, something serendipitous, perhaps even bewitching.

Over a few days two of the most powerful men in the world came to a nexus of decision on one of the most conflicted issues of our time. It occurred in the home of a family hosting the Vice President of the United States. And, according to the leader of the free world, it occurred at his own dinner table talking to his kids.

Cynics, stand back. Do not deny the country this moment, whatever your own sense of justice may be. There is an eternal truth here, one even more powerful than the issue of marriage, if we allow ourselves to seek it.

On Sunday I listened to Vice President Biden's interview on Meet the Press. I was charmed by his response to David Gregory's very direct questioning. Biden, often described as a "loose cannon" for his sometimes blunt or politically incorrect locution, framed the issue in an entirely new and remarkable way. The question, Biden said, is "Who do you love?" He illustrated the point by describing his reception by two children at the residence of a family in which the parents were of the same gender. Biden seemed to be truly taken by the love he saw in that home. The experience may not rise to the level of epiphany, but it sounds like it came pretty close.

Some media reports described Biden's comments as another "gaffe" and the initial response of the White House minions was to minimize the statement as wholly consistent with current policy. Well, they're wrong. By defining the issue as being about love, Biden changed the landscape and the policy wonks were suddenly out of their element.

You've got to love this guy Biden. He's smart and tough and experienced, but he also has one heck of a big heart and he can't seem to disconnect that heart from his mouth. Good for him. And good for us.

A few days after Biden's comments President Barack Obama had a stunning interview with ABC News in which he declared his support for same-sex marriage, the first American president in history to do so. He had long been criticized by his liberal base for a position that supported civil unions but stopped short of marriage. For some time he described his position as "evolving."

But change was on the way, and he explained it to Robin Roberts thusly, just as he said it before the copy editors cleaned it up:

You know, Malia and Sasha, they've got friends whose parents are same-sex couples. And I-- you know, there have been times where Michelle and I have been sittin' around the dinner table. And we've been talkin' and-- about their friends and their parents. And Malia and Sasha would-- it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently. It doesn't make sense to them. And-- and frankly-- that's the kind of thing that prompts-- a change of perspective. You know, not wanting to somehow explain to your child why somebody should be treated-- differently, when it comes to-- the eyes of the law.

When the story of this week is told by media critics, historians, and politicians it will undoubtedly be referred to from a policy making perspective as bumbling and undisciplined. As of now, no one knows what the political consequences will be. From the ABC interview it appears that the president wasn't thrilled with the timing of Biden's statement. As for Obama, some find his admission of an evolving point of view to be a sign of weakness or lack of conviction.

As for me, I rejoice in a week in which powerful men come to life-changing decisions because they looked at two people and saw love, or sat around their kitchen table wondering how they could explain to their children that they supported something that even they knew was unfair. If Joe Biden disrupted a political timeline because his heart overflowed with love, so be it. If Barack Obama is willing to admit that he's evolving, that he's not sure about something, then we're all better off. Even those of us who don't ride around in stretch limos understand all too well that certitude is difficult to catch and usually wrong once we've caught it.

I love this stumbling, bumbling week. Somehow a convergence of gaffes and uncertainties, seasoned with a dash of love, got us a little closer to truth.

All it needed was my granddaughter's magic wand--I can only imagine what a sprinkling of Ashley's angel dust might have added to this already mystical week in May.

Mortality and Other Annoyances

The Aging Process, a photo by reign 60 on Flick

They tell me that I'm going through the "aging process." I always thought of that as something that can be fixed with a pad of steel wool and a can of Rust-Oleum. I'm now informed that it is far more cosmic than that--something I had begun to suspect a few years ago after a round of doctors appointments to check on a few maladies of seeming little consequence.

What I discovered is that the "aging process" is a default disease. Floaters in your eye? Just part of the aging process. Ringing in your ear? Yeah, that just goes with age. Bladder not fulfilling its part of the deal? Growing old has its issues.

The thing is that while there may be a default diagnosis there is no default treatment. While I am a reluctant pill popper, I figured that surely something as universal as this "aging process disease" could be annihilated by a fat pill, white in color, with letters like 6YTK inscribed on them. Far from it. Turns out that everything requires a different pill and each one costs something like $357.62, unless you inquire about a generic version, in which case it costs $4.98. Glad I asked.

I'm starting to get annoyed, however. It's the little things. I'm always happy to get those 10% senior discounts; my longstanding reputation as a good steward (which my kids translate as "cheap") overcomes admitting that I am old enough to be worthy of this act of benevolence on the part of the local merchants. But just once it would be good to have them inquire as to my eligibility rather than have it assumed. I want to be carded when ordering Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast.

It may be that part of this is punishment from beyond. I used to travel a lot and that put me sitting across many hundreds of tables accompanied by many more hundreds of people, often seniors. Most of these dear folk seemed able to talk only about the side effects of their various prescriptions, the bedside manner of their physicians, and the latest Medicare loophole to exploit. I know my eyes glazed over. I know I muttered silently something to the effect of "Dear God, why oh why me?" I'm now wondering if this is the Medicare version of the Myth of Sisyphus, whereby one is sentenced for all eternity to push a Tylenol up a long  hill with the tip of his nose, only to reach the peak and watch helplessly as it rolls back down again? 

Is that it? Am I now to be known by my ailments rather than my accomplishments, meager as they may be? Will I be remembered as that guy with all those problems he talked about at dinner--ear-ringing, shoulder-aching, back-tightening, eyes-matting, knee-throbbing, belly-expanding, mouth-drying, Parkinsons-pending, arthritis-invading, libido-impairing, memory-fleeting, weight-adding, bladder-misbehaving, hair-thinning, skin-splotching, and on and on?

If that is all that remains, the living of a life seems kind of trivial. I will have to acknowledge that this rant is a cover-up of sorts, allowing me to use my aches and pains as a way to avoid thinking critically about my own life, distilling from it the kind of insights that could be ennobling as well as disappointing. 

Somerset Maugham called it The Summing Up. Frederick Buechner described it as his sacred journey. Dean Acheson immodestly referred to his life as a Cold War diplomat as being Present at the Creation. Maybe we all need to revisit the path over which we have traveled, letting it speak to us in new ways. 

Now, if only i could find the damn thing. Where are my glasses?