In a Sentimental Mood

It is no secret among my readers that my favorite sport and favorite activity (to do while clothed lol) for the majority of my life has been baseball.  My last blog entry told a baseball related story, and I've had a couple conversations in the last few days with former teammates, and so since I've been using this blog as a place for me to write stories relating to my life, I'm going to take a walk through my collective baseball memories.  Non-baseball fans, feel free to click away now!

My first memory is from the late summer when I was 5 (1975).  We had just moved, I had found a new friend (Sean who died in 1981, I've often blogged about this) and we were going to play catch.  My parents hadn't bought a glove for me yet, and I borrowed one of my dad's old gloves.  Ooops, seems I am left handed and this just won't work for me.  That led to my first baseball related Christmas present, a baseball glove for a left-hander.  When I outgrew that glove I gave it to a young boy who spent the summer being watched by the next-door neighbor, he had a similar "I'm left handed and no gloves work for me" moment.  I was now 11 and owner of a brand-new Nolan Ryan autographed Rawlings glove so I had no problem parting with the old glove.  That's the last time an old glove would leave me and I'd be happy about it.

Soon, well, summer of 1976 to be exact, I was spending any time I could out playing catch, either with Sean or my dad.  The next year in the spring I was signed up to play youth baseball (I'm not 100% certain of the years/dates, so this is as best I can remember) in a league, Sean being on the same team as I.  That was a memorable summer, Rod Carew flirted with hitting .400 for the year (ended at .388) and I was able to play in my first games.  I distinctly remember two at-bats, the first two even.  First time up, I had a helmet on that way a little...okay, waaaay too big for me, and when I tried to swing the helmet would flop around on my 7 year old head, covering my eyes and leading to a *gasp* strikeout.  The second time up, I chose a different helmet, this time choosing one that seemed so tight on my head that I never swung the bat, instead moving the helmet around until I was *gasp* out.

Those two years, 1977 and 1978, went by in a flash.  I remember one teammate who, when playing outfield, tried to pick up a ball hit to him and instead kicked it, repeating that a few times, until he was almost at the pitchers mound and another teammate picked up the ball.  I remember finally hitting a ball solidly, and watching with joy as it flew over the shortstop's head and then....the outfielder caught it.

In 1979 my dad had to switch jobs due to a lingering injury, and the resulting job change hurt our family financially, meaning I wasn't able to play organized ball in the same league that year.  Luckily, I was old enough to sign up with the local 4-H club, and they had a team that played other 4-H clubs in softball all summer, with a tournament at the end of summer resulting in a championship game being played at the county fair.  There were two teams, one with kids 14 and under, and one with kids 19 and under.  The coach of the 14 and under team looked at all of us at the first practice and said "If they win the championship I'll take them all out for pizza".

He must not of known good softball talent, or we didn't show it at first, but after a fun season (I remember playing half the time at 3rd base, a rare spot to find a left handed player) we found ourselves in the championship game, and after a back and forth game (the only play I remember is making a catch in foul territory to end an inning) we ending up winning, getting our team picture in the county newspaper (I cannot for the life of me find the clipping my parents cut out) and having a team pizza party.

I stuck with 4-H softball for the next few years, not playing baseball again until 7th grade.  To be honest, since these were co-ed teams, the thing I remember most is being painfully shy around the cute girls on the other teams.  *sigh*


My family, even in tough financial times, always made at least one trip to see the Twins play, this was still when they played at Metropolitan Stadium, which was where the Mall of America is now.  Usually out in the left field bleachers (which may explain why I always tended to play outfield...lol) and twice behind home plate, including a double header just a few rows behind the dugout on the first base side.  You'd think I'd have plenty of memories from that day, but all I remember is when you are 10 a double header is a looooong day, even for a baseball fan.

7th grade offered the chance to play baseball for the Middle school team, and after a blah basketball season I couldn't wait to get started with baseball in the spring!  Of course, in Minnesota spring (and baseball) often starts before the snow is melted, so the first week or so of practices were held in the gym/auditorium/cafeteria. Soon practices moved outside, and being 7th grade boys, we all snickered when coach Hanzlik told us we could keep our hands warm by placing them in the waistband of our pants.  See, you all just snickered too!  Having not played baseball since 3rd grade, I was a little...okay, a lot rusty, and a little...okay, a lot, behind my classmates, and ended up making the 'B' squad, it could have been worse, there was a 'C' squad.  I hadn't hit any growth spurt yet, so I was one of the smallest on the team, but I was fast enough to be made the starting Centerfielder and received a lot of playing time.  My main memory is getting to steal bases.  I had trouble hitting but then again, the pitchers were still erratic so we all walked a lot.  The first time I walked, coach Hanzlik gave the steal sign, and off I went, stealing second barely even needing to slide.  I was hooked!  With the possible exception of running down fly balls in the gap, stealing bases was my best skill all through my middle school and high school playing days, I can't remember how many I stole, even steal home once (that was a thrill too!) and never being thrown out.  Fun times!

That was the year the Twins moved to the Metrodome, and we were able to get tickets for one game, and it was....lousy.  Bad seating angles, no sun outside to bask in, a horrible team that year.  We wouldn't return until the 1985 season.

More lousy things happened, a week or so before practice was to start for my 8th grade baseball season, late winter of 1983, at a school outing to Buck Hill (famous for being the place Lindsey Vonn learned to ski) trying to avoid a classmate that fell right in front of me, I caught a ski tip and heard "pop pop pop" from my right knee as I fell.  Strained ligaments was the diagnosis, I was on crutches for a few weeks and by the time I was fully healed, school was out and no baseball that year.

9th grade came, high school, more kids in my class, there were over 600 9th graders, and so trying to make a baseball team became even more competitive.  I was fully healed, had grown a lot since 7th grade, and was one of the fastest kids in my class.  While tougher schoolwork led to the decision to not play basketball that winter, I was really eager for baseball to start.  It turned out to be a frustrating year.  While I expected trouble hitting since I had missed a year and was already behind my peers experience-wise, it was even worse.  I think I got one hit all year.  Something was amiss, and what was worse, after years of judging fly balls coming so naturally, it seemed I was always a second late determining where the ball was going, and my increased speed over 7th grade was my saving grace, otherwise I would have let too many balls hit the grass.

It wasn't fun that year.  I worked and worked and seemingly received no benefit from it.  Next year there wouldn't be 2 9th grade teams to give me a spot, there would only be Varsity and Junior Varsity.  So I did what seemed the unthinkable.  I didn't play in 10th grade.

I wasn't planning on playing in 11th grade either.  I had a part time job and a heavy slate of advanced classes, my days filled up with things other than the thoughts of baseball.  But two events changed that.  The first I didn't even realize would be a factor in my baseball ability.  In math class in 10th grade, I was having trouble reading the white board.  A visit to the eye doctor resulted in....yes, glasses.  I wear them to this day, not ever trying contacts and still leery of laser eye surgery.  I thought the only benefit was I could read the board in class better.  I would soon realize my failing vision had put a huge damper on my baseball abilities.

The second was, well, I'll just tell the story.  The team had fundraised and took an early spring trip to Arizona to play some games in decent weather, see some exhibition Major League baseball games, and for half of them, drink and get caught and get kicked off the baseball team.  Open roster spots, and a second round of try-outs were held, and I went.  After a brief adjustment period to the glasses (especially figuring out how to keep them from bouncing all over my face while running - now I see why women joggers want a good sports bra) it was like I was a new player.  My outfielding prowess was back, (my favorite memory of this was a mom of a fellow teammate coming up to me after a game and telling me "It is like you know where the ball is going before it leaves the bat") and I made the varsity, albeit in a back-up role.  I'd be in this role for both my Junior and Senior years, and while I still struggled at the plate (bad habits from years of softball, bad vision, and not enough repetitions) I did hit one home-run, a breaking ball that didn't left over the outer third of the plate.  I can still hear the crack of the....okay, the ping of the aluminum bat if I shut my eyes.

The fall of my senior year was a fun time to be a Twins fan as well.  Once I got my drivers license I'd go to a few games with friends, the Metrodome having grown on us and the team playing a little better.  But in 1987 they went to and won the World Series, and I was able to go with three classmates to a playoff game and with my good friend Vince (who I still see about once a month) and his sister and a friend of hers to Game 7 of the World Series.  I screamed myself hoarse watching the Twins (and a Minnesota sports franchise) finally win it all.

The summer after I graduated I probably went to a dozen Twins games, so while they didn't repeat as champs it was still a fun summer, and then I was off to college.  That fall I played on a co-rec intermural softball team that was, well, frankly horrible.  I remember three things about that team, first, we didn't win a game.  Second, in a game a ball was hit in the air high enough that I ran past the nearest fielder to it to catch it, and the time Amy (mmmm, Amy) sat on my lap as we drove from one campus to the other for a game.  She transfered the next year, and I ran into her about 4 years later in Stillwater at a bar and we ended up going out a few times before she realized I was boring...lol

That spring I tried out for the baseball team, being a Division 3 college nobody had sports scholarships and I figured I'd give it a try.  Just like high school, I barely made the team, my defensive abilities being my saving grace, and unlike high school where I'd get in a game once in a while, I never played in a conference game and just once during the non-conference part of the schedule.  With even more difficult classes and a steady girlfriend for the first time in my life (i.e. lots of sex...lol) I didn't go out for baseball my Sophomore year.

With my transfer to the University of Minnesota following my Sophomore year, I was able to pick up with a slow pitch softball team.  They were lousy, probably worse than they should have been, and after one year (I've told this story in a previous blog entry) I was able to catch on with an established team, my second cousin David being my in.  I played with this group of guys for the next few years, always finishing in the top 3 in our league, often advancing to district and state tournaments.  We all, well most of us, got married during these years and started having kids and that is what in the end broke this team up.  This group of guys and this team is what I miss the most when I say I miss playing softball.  Sure, we were a good team, but the bonds of friendship and families getting together were even better.  But as life happens, you drift away from the groups you hung with pre-kids and even in the early years of having kids to now barely keeping up with them on Facebook.  Well, some of them, the others I keep up with their wives as they don't have accounts.

It was in 1991 that the Twins went to the World Series again, and like I said earlier after I graduated I went to about a dozen Twins games a year.  This year my family was able to get 2 tickets for each World Series game.  My parents went to the first game, my brother and sister to the second, my second cousin David and I dropping them off, we then walked several blocks to a sports bar near the University of Minnesota campus to watch the game.  After the Twins won we walked back to the Metrodome, getting to the gate at the same time my brother and sister were walking out.  David and I then went to game 6, which became the "Kirby Puckett show" as Kirby made a fantastic catch against the outfield wall and then hit the game winning home run in the 11th inning to send the series into game 7.  Our seats were only a few rows in front of the Jumbotron waaaaay out in left field, but it didn't matter, you wanted to be part of the electric crowd for that event.  My parents went the next night to see the epic 10 inning complete game shut-out by Jack Morris and the Twins winning the Series for the second time in 5 years.  They haven't been back since.

I started playing two men's leagues in 1993, as well as a church league.  Soon I was dating a softball player, unlike me she was a star in high school, setting and last time we checked still holding a few hitting records, and added a co-rec league and then in 1995 two of them.  Unlike baseball where my bad swing habits (now gone - after years of coaching I finally have an excellent baseball swing, too late to do me any good except to teach others) caused me frustration hitting, slow pitch softball forgives bad swing habits, even rewards some of them, like a long looping swing.  I was able to hit to all parts of the field with line drives, occasionally drive the ball over the fence, and rarely make an out.  If I could have hit like this in baseball I'd be getting Pujols money!

But it wasn't all fun and games.  My son was born and I started to back off the number of nights I played.  Gone was one co-rec league and the church league.  Then I started to develop pain on my right hand every time I hit the ball, near the wrist on the thumb side of the back of my hand.  I stopped hitting the ball hard, it ended up hurting even when I tried to turn a door handle, and probably a few months too late, maybe even a year too late, I went to the Doctor and found out it was a metacarpal boss.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpometacarpal_bossing)  A surgery where the Doctor shaved down the bone in that area and 44 days later (I remember that because my uniform number of choice these years was 44) I was able to play again, pain free for the first time in a few years.

When my daughter was born in 1999 I found myself backing down to just one league, and with a team of younger players (younger brothers of former teammates and friends who didn't have kids yet) that wasn't nearly as competitive, and a few years later, I ended up stopping playing with them as I was starting to coach my kids.  I found a church team at the church my wife belonged to and played a year with them, taking second in our league and going to the Class B Men's Church state tournament (who knew there was such a thing) where we won, lost, won, and lost and took 7th place out of 16 teams.

After playing for years, coaching would seem to be easy, right?  Well.....no.  Not even close.  First, you have 12 kindergarten aged boys.  Not known for long term attention paying.  Then you have a large amount of new skills to teach.  Throwing doesn't come natural for all, catching even less so, and you'd think that placing a ball on a tee would be easy to hit, but the majority would blast the tee, knocking it over, with the ball harmlessly falling to the ground.  Next, and even more difficult, was me trying to remember how exactly you do something that you've done over and over for nearly 30 years to the point where you don't have to think about it at all.  "The first step to catching a fly ball is......."  ummmm, yeah Brian, what is it?  You've only done it a hundred thousand times or so, why are you drawing a blank.

Like anything in life, you get better the more you do it, and coaching became something I was okay at, I could teach skills and share my love of the game and while a team I coached never won the end of the year tournament or a big trophy, each kid had a good time and finished the year knowing more about the game.  I consider that a job well done.  To this day I have kids that I haven't coached or even seen in 6 years remembering me as "coach Brian".

With Monday through Thursday taken up with coaching, in 2004 the men's church team folded, but there was a Sunday co-rec league that my wife and I joined with other softball loving couples from her church and put together a team.  We had trouble getting enough players each Sunday afternoon, and most weeks we split the two games (you played the same team twice, once as home and once as visitor) and ended up in 4th place.  The championship team couldn't take the state tournament bid, so the highest placing team in the year end tournament among the top 4 teams would go instead.  We had our full team  (except for two key players, but I digress) for the first time all season and played two strong games winning the tournament and the trip to the state tournament....in the next town down Highway 61.  We didn't have our full team for this tournament and lost both games we played, the first one going down to the last at-bat of the game, score two runs with the bases loaded and one of our best hitters up to win, but we didn't.

Twins games were few and far between during these years, little kids can do that to you.  When they got a little older, my son (showing signs of his yet-diagnosed Aspergers) hated being at the Metrodome.  So even less desire to spend all that money and have him start acting up to go home after an inning.

2005 and 2006 resulted in fun and sometimes drama filled seasons, my spouse often being part of that, and each time we were able to make the state tournament, in 2005 it was in Walker, MN which resulted in grandparents watching the kids and having to share a hotel room with another couple because rooms were lacking.  In 2006 it was in Monticello, MN but my wife had reinjured an old knee injury and couldn't play, resulting in more drama, and the following season when two teams combined into one "super team" (ala the Miami Heat...lol) we weren't asked to play.

I haven't played on a team since.  I've filled in once and played in a coaches tournament once, but otherwise, nothing.  The last Twins game I was to was in April of 2009 when my daughter's Elementary school choir sung the national anthem before the game.  (If you've ever chatted with me on Yahoo messenger a picture of her on the Jumbotron is my chat picture).  I haven't been out to see the new outdoor stadium.  I've threatened to join a league but always find I'm still busy with coaching or this last year when I didn't coach, going to my daughter's games.  With my busy life I only get to watch a few innings on TV while doing the dishes or something else mundane.

But I can still go down memory lane.  Remember things like hitting a home run against my sister's co-rec team.  Having my brother in law hit his first career home run on the last night of the fall season, only to show him up by hitting one later that night so he couldn't brag at Thanksgiving that he hit a more recent home run than I did.  A diving catch to end an inning and stop a rally during a tournament game when I was asked to sub.  Playing first base at a tournament and having the shortstop be someone who would go on to win a Super Bowl ring (Jeff Christy, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2003).  Hitting a home run from both sides of the plate in a church league game.  Sure, the right field fence was a little short, but still....lol.  Hitting a ball into the teeth of a fierce wind and having it land on the warning track and being compared to Jeff Bagwell.  Running under a sharply hit fly ball and catching it just as I get to the warning track, being compared to Torii Hunter.  I'm nothing like them as a player but I can still let my ego swell....lol.  Catching a ball before it went over the fence, winning the game that clenched first place for us. The complete sadness after leaving your trusty Nolan Ryan signed glove at a tournament and never finding it again, having to break in a new glove for the first time in 18 years.  The feeling of a well hit ball leaving your bat.

Going for pizza after the game with the guys and all the girlfriends.

Getting some dirt on your uniform (or T-shirt), grass stains on your pants.

Getting up knowing that night you'd be under the lights and it may just be softball in a suburb of the Twin Cities and nobody outside of the handful of family members that show up to watch care, but putting on your glove and running out into the outfield, vowing no ball will hit the grass while I'm out here, or stepping up to bat and hitting a ball so far it disappears into the night air over the fence, well, for me, that is a feeling that is hard to top.

Thanks to those of you that read this far for going down memory lane with me.

 About the music:

"In a Sentimental Mood" is a composition by Duke Ellington, this version was recorded by John Coltrane and Duke Ellington on the 1962 release "Duke Ellington and John Coltrane".

Thoughts and a story run through my mind

Tomorrow begins the second attempt at couples therapy.  The first try ended with me being the one that went, while very little effort was made by the spouse to go.

It was my first year back from St. John's University, I had transfered to the University of Minnesota after my sophomore year, closer to home (and work), cheaper, and where I planned to go after my junior year.

I have invested 18 years of my life into this relationship, through ups and downs, the good times and the bad times, the formative years of my kids lives spent with the two of us as their main caretakers.

I had given up any dreams of playing college baseball, and settled for the comforting arms of slow pitch softball.  I found a team made up of recent graduates of my high school, most were a year or two younger than I was, but I either knew them or knew of them.  It was fun playing without any pressure, just for the joy of the game.

I've been around the block enough to know that in every relationship there will be rough patches, times where you feel like throwing your hands in the air and quitting.  Times when you wonder why you ever started this relationship.  But tomorrow is always another day.

The season was off to a horrible start, losses in the first 4 games, not even a single one a close game.  People were shuffled around in positions, batting lineups jostled around, but to no avail, 2 more losses brought us into the month of June.

One always wonders when they are doing something in vain.  When all your efforts will never pay off, when you are the giver and give and give and nothing gets better, nothing changes, even on that "tomorrow".

One more player joined us in the second game in June, he had been away at college and was back to play on the team, his brother having played with us all year.  He filled the pitcher role, a place where that team had been struggling, but yet two more games and two more losses, bringing us to 0-9.

One often wonders, it's human nature after all, if you should just trash the whole thing, even with all the years you've invested into it, and move on.  If a business had a bad location they'd move across town.  If you have a bad experience with a car you trade it in for another.  But people aren't businesses or cars, and so you keep working with the relationship you are in.

On a weekend in the middle of June I was invited by my second cousin (and neighbor, and now Godfather to my son) to fill in on the team he was playing on, seems one of their players wife was due to have their first baby any second and he decided not to go to the tournament.  I started the day batting last and playing right field and by the end (championship game in which we lost) I was batting 5th and playing left center.  A good team and they knew what they were doing in switching positions around,  not like the team I was on.  They told me the position would be mine if I wanted it, but I declined, I was committed to another team and this team played on the same night and same league as that team, in fact, in two weeks we'd be playing each other.

I've always been one to give the people in my life the benefit of the doubt, one extra chance even if not really deserved.  So while things are rocky and not getting much better unless I put maximum effort into the relationship and not get much of anything in return, I will give this round of therapy my best effort.  I won't be happy with myself unless I do, regardless, right now, of the effort I see in return.

My now 0-10 team faces my second cousins team, it's not a pretty game, they are in first or second in the league, and outside of knowing the guys on the team and playing well, it's another bummer of a night at the ballfield.  Once again I'm asked to fill in on their team for the remainder of the year (3 games left) but again I thank them for the offer, but chose to honor my committment to this team.

I know my spouse, with all her medical maladies, cannot match the effort level I can put into a relationship, or more accurately fixing one, but I do want to at least see some effort on her part, if she's not going to try, why should I put in what I see as maximum effort for no reward?

Most people on the team had given up by now, they'd take games off to do who knows what, and there was talk of not coming back as a team next year.  Second to last game of the year, staring a 0-14 record in the face, we are in a close game, in fact, top of the last inning and we are tied 2-2, a very low scoring game for that league.  I'm batting second and after the first hitter makes an out, I am able to drive the ball into the gap, easily pulling into second for a double.  I know the next few hitters are horrible, one was playing for the first time all year and barely made contact, so when the next batter hits a weak grounder to the second baseman (when the ball is hit behind you generally you can take the next base) for the second out, I take off for third, but never even consider stopping, even though the third base coach was telling me to stop.  I slide into home with time to spare, and we take a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the inning, and hold on to win our first game.  The next game was back to nobody caring or trying, and we finished that year with a 1-13 record.  They did come back as a team the following year.

So the next few months will play the story of my marriage out.  Is she serious that she wants me to stay and wants a healthy as possible under our circumstances marriage?  Or is she just interested in me staying because I'll put in all the effort to make the marriage work and be her caretaker with nothing given back to me?

I did not return with the team.  I started playing with the team my second cousin was on, we went to 3 state tournaments and I played with them until the team broke up because we were all having kids and didn't have the time anymore.

Because I will stay with a bad situation that I've made a promise to, but, if I don't see everyone in the situation trying to make it better, I'll eventually find the time to make a change.

Brian AKA Whip 007   Minnesota, 12/4/2011