Six For The Hall

I've just marked my Hall of Fame ballot. I'll fax it to BBWAA secretary/treasurer Jack O'Connell tomorrow. Of the 23 eligible players, I voted for six. Here they are:

Starting Pitcher Bert Blyleven
Outfielder Rickey Henderson
Starting Pitcher Tommy John
Outfielder Dale Murphy
Outfielder Jim Rice
Relief pitcher Lee Smith


Here are the 17 players I chose not to mark:
Harold Baines, Jay Bell, David Cone, Andre Dawson, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Jessee Orosco, Dave Parker, Dan Plesac, Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams.

Why Blyleven, Henderson, John, Murphy, Rice and Smith? Because they deserve it.

McGwire might also prove to deserve it one day, but there is too much uncertainty about whether he used steroids to mark him this time. If he is cleared, he will certainly be elected.

For all I know, this might be the only time I have the privilege of voting. I'm glad I got to do it at least this once. I'll fax the ballot, rather than mail it, because I want to keep it and show it to my sons and their children.

Voting For Baseball's Next Hall Of Famers

One of my goals when I became a sportswriter in 1986 was to become a voter in baseball's Hall of Fame. In order to become a voter, a sportswriter must maintain membership in the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) for 10 consecutive seasons. I got my decade in this year, which made me eligible to vote for the first time.

My situation was complicated by my layoff from the Tampa Tribune in July. The day after I was let go, I e-mailed BBWAA secretary/treasurer Jack O'Connell, wondering whether the loss of my job affected my status as a Hall of Fame voter. As it turned out, because my dues were paid for this season, I maintain my status as a voter even though I no longer work for the newspaper.

Unfortunately, unless I join another news organization and maintain my membership in the BBWAA, this might be the only year I get to cast a ballot. So, I might only enjoy briefly one of the great privileges afforded members of my chosen profession.

My ballot came in the mail today. It included a letter from Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame; a page showing how last year's voters cast their ballots; a ballot with the 23 eligible players; biographical information on the 23 eligible players; a stamped envelope in which to return my marked ballot; and on the back of Idelson's letter, an explanation of voting rules.

The voting rule that I wrote most about as the steroid era deepened over the past five years was Rule No. 5: "Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

The italics and boldface type were inserted by me. You won't find these qualities included in the rules for election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, the roomful of reporters who elect the NFL's greats each winter are specifically reminded only to consider a player's contributions ON THE FIELD.

We baseball writers have to take the measure of the man, as well as the player. That's a complicated thing. Who are we to judge based on the character of a fellow human being? Still, that's the rule. Character counts. It's a blurred line, though. Was Ty Cobb a good guy? Based on everything we think we know today about the man, not really. Yet, was he a Hall of Famer? You bet.

So, it's time to ponder my vote. Here are the eligible players, in alphabetical order: Harold Baines, Jay Bell, Bert Blyleven, David Cone, Andre Dawson, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Rickey Henderson, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Jesse Orosco, Dave Parker, Dan Plesac, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams.

The only players on the list I did not see play in person were Blyleven, John, Mattingly and Rice. I wrote often about Greg Vaughn, a former Devil Rays outfielder. I followed the career of one, Dale Murphy, as closely as any player I can recall (my cat's name is Murphy because of him). I'll carefully consider the qualifications of each before I mark my ballot. I can vote for no more than 10, and I'm not required to vote for any of them.

Meanwhile, I am open to advice from anyone who cares to weigh in on the merits of any of the 23. I can't promise I'll take that advice, but I will listen and consider everything I hear and read before I send off my ballot in time to meet the deadline of Dec. 31.

More Thankful Than Ever

In the afterglow of a wonderful Thanksgiving trip to New England, I am more able to appreciate what I have in this world. Is it a cliche to be thankful for family? Is it banal to enjoy the company of one's wife and sons and extended relatives? If so, I accept that.

Yet, after all I've been through this year, it would have been easy to roll up in a ball on the floor and let despair take over. Too many people have done just that. And hey, without my family, maybe that would be me, too. Probably not, considering my stubborn streak of deep-seated optimism; but who knows when that streak might break? Sudden unemployment, followed hard by a heart attack, would seem to be a deadly combination, after all.

Here I am, though. Still looking forward. Still refusing to allow despair to seep into my life. And I have to believe that without all the good people in my life -- especially my beautiful wife, Beth -- I just might be one of those for whom the holidays serve only to exacerbate the desperate solitude we all feel at one time or another.

So, thank you everyone. For everything.

Reliving A Football Miracle

I just saw a retrospective on the 30th anniversary of the Miracle at the Meadowlands on ESPN, and it reminded me that I did a story on the 20th anniversary, back when Herman Edwards was coaching defensive backs for the Bucs. Here's the famous play, and here's my story as it ran in the Tampa Tribune 10 years ago:

The Miracle
The images may be fuzzy, but for those who lived it 20 years ago, the memory is as vivid as yesterday.

CARTER GADDIS
of The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA — Lo, comes the time to ruminate upon the Miracle at the Meadowlands. Twenty years ago today, defensive back Herman Edwards was touched by the hands of the football gods and victory was bestowed on wings of Eagles.
Know this: We live not in an age of such miracles. Today, when a football team leads by five and time is expiring in the fourth quarter, the quarterback humbly kneels down amid the sheltering safety of his teammates. Game over. Amen.
In that simpler age, long before Edwards undertook his current task of coaching the Bucs' defensive backs, a miracle of stupefying proportions blossomed in the New York Giants' huddle two decades ago.
New York led Edwards' Eagles, 17-12.
The clock ticked down with less than 30 seconds to play.
The Giants Stadium crowd of 70,318 sensed no miracle, only victory for their men in blue.
New York's offense huddled around quarterback Joe Pisarcik, who gazed toward the sideline and sought guidance from Coach John McVay.
And Pisarcik did say, "Pro, up 65."
And the other Giants did say, "What, are you nuts? Just fall on the darn ball."
But Pisarcik would not disobey the all-seeing, all-knowing offensive coordinator in the sky box, Bob Gibson.
The Giants broke their huddle, but not of a single mind. Only Pisarcik knew he planned to run the fatal play, "pro, up 65," a clock-killing handoff to fullback Larry Csonka.
Of such flaws are miracles made.
"In this situation, I'm standing right by [Giants slot back] Doug Kotar, and Doug Kotar and myself are talking," Edwards said. "He's saying, "We're going to kill it.' I'm saying "Good game' and all that. We're talking. It's over.
"The ball's being hiked, and he doesn't even know it's being hiked. The ball's being bobbled already. I kind of step at Kotar, and he's probably thinking I'm just stepping up. And then I see Joe trying to get the ball, and he's kind of fumbling the ball now. Csonka goes through and it's too late, the timing's off. It goes off his hip. The next thing I do, I just arm over Kotar and he's saying, "What are you doing?' It hits the ground on a bounce, and it was just like a layup."
A 26-yard layup for a game-winning touchdown. A 19-17 victory for the Philadelphia Eagles, who went on to make the playoffs for the first time in 18 seasons. A springboard to future success that would lead all the way to Super Bowl XV three years later.
A miraculous finish that forever changed the face of the game. Or, more precisely, the end of the game. A week later, late in a 14-10 victory against the St. Louis Cardinals, Eagles coach Dick Vermeil became the first to institute the "Herman Edwards" formation — a running back lined up well behind the line of scrimmage to guard against mishaps between the quarterback and the center.
The end of the age of miracles.
Fortunately, the final Miracle was captured on film, cinematic proof that such a thing once was possible. Non-believers are easily refuted today because NFL Films veteran shooter Phil Tuckett had the presence of mind to move to the end zone behind the Giants on the off-chance something crazy — something miraculous — might happen.
That's how we know that Edwards, wearing No. 46, swept past Kotar to snatch the ball from the grasp of the flailing Pisarcik. It's how we know the ball actually bounced once and hit Pisarcik in the face mask before finding its way into the hands of the Miracle Man.
It's how we know Eagles rookie linebacker Reggie Wilkes nearly tripped Edwards on the way to the end zone. It's how we know Eagles safety John Sanders was the first to raise his arms in a triumphant signal of touchdown, just before Edwards spiked the ball into the red-painted "A" in GIANTS.
"In all my 25 years of coaching, I've never seen so horrifying a finish to a game," McVay said at the time.
From his less subjective point of view from behind the lens, Tuckett felt the power of the Miracle even then.
"When it was unfolding it was like some kind of dreamscape thing," said Tuckett, now an NFL Films vice president of special projects. "I distinctly remember while he was running there wasn't a sound, wasn't a gasp. ... Sometimes on an incomplete pass you hear that deflation. That day, it was like everybody held their breath."
Edwards, too, was dazed by the significance of the moment.
"It happened so fast. Once the ball hit the ground, I caught it on a good bounce. The next thing I know, I'm in the end zone," Edwards said. "And Giants Stadium, now, is packed. But it's quiet. I mean, it's dead quiet. Everybody's kind of looking around, and I'm kind of looking around going, "Did this really happen?' ... The feeling of that didn't really hit me until the next day."
On that next day, Gibson lost his job. The Giants won only once more that year, and McVay also was fired. Pisarcik lost his starting job, stayed with the Giants for one more season, and played his last four seasons with — of all teams — Philadelphia .
Edwards, a non-drafted free agent signed out of San Diego State in 1977, was with the Eagles for nine years. He started all 135 games he played at defensive back, and still holds the team record for interceptions with 38, including five in the postseason.
He also holds the NFL record for miracles.
"I think the thing that appealed to me most about it was people can get jaded, because miracles don't happen in real life," Tuckett said. "In an athletic event, that's still a possibility, where there's a complete reversal of fortune in an instant like that. This is the one element of life that still has the potential for chance, and a miracle happening right in front of you."

The Heart Attack

My heart attack wasn’t like the heart attacks you see on TV or in movies. You know the scene: The over-worked, over-stressed, hard-smoking, hard-drinking dad or grandfather suddenly grabs his left arm and doubles over in pain as if he were struck in the chest by a knight’s lance. That’s the Hollywood heart attack.

Mine wasn’t like that.

Mine might have started quietly, months before I knew it was happening. There were signs, but the omnipresent fatigue I felt all summer and into the fall could easily be explained by the presence of a newborn baby and a 2-year-old toddler in the house. Or maybe I was so tired all the time because of a mild case of depression brought on by losing my newspaper job of 16 years in a July staff reduction. Perhaps the fatigue was just a natural byproduct of completely ignoring my own physical fitness as I approached age 40. I ate poorly. I didn’t exercise at all. My sleeping habits were atrocious. Maybe the constant, oppressive fatigue I felt was caused by all of the above.

Or, maybe, it was the growing glob of plaque building up in my right coronary artery. A portion of my heart wasn’t receiving the clear, clean flow of blood it needed to function properly. Robbed of the necessary oxygen, my heart sent me signals. Usually it told me to find someplace quiet and comfortable to lie down and sleep for two or three hours after taking care of the boys all day. Sometimes it told me to walk a little slower at Busch Gardens or up the aisle at the grocery store. Sometimes it told me the chores can wait, because it’s much more important to put my feet up on the couch and rest. I did what my heart told me to do, because that’s how I’ve always lived my life.

Beth didn’t like it, and I don’t blame her. For all she knew – for all I knew – I was just being lazy and unwilling to hold up my end of the bargain when it came to household responsibilities. So much was left undone at the end of each day. Dirty dishes piled in the sink. Toys strewn across the family room floor. The lawn uncut and untrimmed for weeks. It wore on Beth’s patience. Who could blame her? She certainly held up her end, working a 5 a.m.-2 p.m. shift and pretty much handling all the household cleaning and laundry in what spare time she had while taking care of the kids after she came home. It wasn’t fair. I knew it. Yet, I had to listen to my heart.

I even decided to go to the doctor for a physical. This is not something I did lightly. I do not like to attend appointments at offices or shops. The dentist, the barber, the primary care physician … it’s all the same. I’ve always felt weird about the process: sign in, find a seat in the waiting room, try not to make eye contact with the other patients or customers (none of whom want to be sitting there WAITING, either), look up hopefully every time the door opens to the mysterious “back rooms” where the magic elixir is distilled, turn back despondently to the five-month-old Sports Illustrated when someone else is (inevitably) called back.

Eventually, I was ushered into the inner sanctum and, long story short, I was healthy. Blood work was assigned (another appointment, another office, another waiting room, another old magazine) and it showed my cholesterol levels within “normal” ranges. A little on the high end of the scale, perhaps, but certainly nothing to trigger an alarm that a 39-year-old, underweight, seemingly healthy man might be on the verge of a heart attack.

So it went. Then, about two weeks before my heart attack, I came down with one of the nastiest colds I’ve had in years. Fever, sore throat, coughing, body chills, the works. It knocked me flat for three days. Heavy doses of Dayquil and Nyquil kept me going until nothing was left but the cough and, of course, fatigue. I was even more useless around the house than usual. I could barely bring myself to leave the house, I was so tired.


Finally, on Oct. 26, a Sunday, we decided it was time for me to get some fresh air and a little exercise. We piled the family into the CRV and took off for Busch Gardens. It was a lovely day and it felt good to be out again. We walked around for two hours, rode the train around the Serengeti Plain and looked at the tigers before grabbing a barbecue lunch at the Stanleyville Smokehouse. Jay ate grapes and watched a roller coaster splash past. I look back now at the photos I took of that little outing and it is chilling to think that, had things gone really bad later that night, those might have been the last photos I ever took of Beth, Jay and Chris.

We came home and for about two hours, I felt fine after the excursion. We had dinner plans that night with some neighbors, and I figured if I just took it easy the rest of the afternoon, I’d be able to last through the evening.

Then I coughed. It was a wracking, deep cough. A different cough from the lingering, nagging cough I developed with the cold. This cough wouldn’t stop. I knew right away that something was wrong, and my first instinct was to get Beth to cancel our dinner plans.
As she made that phone call, the cough deepened. My ears began to ring. My head began to spin. The cough kept coming. I collapsed on the bed and tried to call out to Beth. She was on the phone and didn’t hear me at first. My head was spinning and my ears were ringing and I curled up in a fetal position on the bed as I coughed and coughed. I called for Beth again and she came. At some point I realized that both of my arms had gone numb. There was a tingling sensation from my shoulders to the tips of my fingers in both arms. Then I noticed tightness in my upper chest. No pain, but uncomfortable tightness. I thought I was having a bronchial attack, that maybe that bad cold had developed into pneumonia and I was “drowning” in my own fluids.

I remember Beth asking me if I had pain in my left arm. I remember telling her no. But I somehow couldn’t relay to her that I couldn’t feel anything in my left arm, even though the numbness and tingling in my right arm had begun to subside. I think now that I was delirious, perhaps going into shock. It was when I realized that my left arm was still numb and that the tightness in my chest wasn’t going away that I might be having a heart attack. It seemed absurd, and I dismissed the notion, and even now I can’t quite grasp the fact. Yet, there I was on my bed, about to die if nothing was done to prevent it.

Delirious, panicked, I yelled for Beth to get me to the emergency room NOW. She quickly called for a neighbor to come over and watch the kids and we took off for University Community Hospital. The drive to the ER was excruciating, but not because I was in pain. I was delirious and terribly frightened and poor Beth was dragged into my delirium as she drove. The traffic was slow for a Sunday afternoon, and I remember yelling at poor Beth to JUST DRIVE and GET AROUND THIS SLOW BASTARD and I THINK I MIGHT BE DYING and DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW SERIOUS THIS IS??? Eventually, I succeeded in sending Beth into an equally numb and quivering state of shock through my delirious ranting. She said then that if I did die, these were the greatest four-plus years of her life and she wouldn’t have changed a thing. Right about that time, I pulled both my legs up under me in the front passenger seat and just tried not to cough or yell at Beth. I vaguely remember us driving around the hospital complex looking for the ER entrance. We found it, and Beth pulled up to the door to let me out while she found a parking spot.

Inside, I approached the reception desk. Two young women were talking to the receptionist. I remember waiting in line for about five seconds before I said, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think I’m having a heart attack and I need attention now.” I was, in retrospect, far calmer at that moment than I should have been. But then, that was probably the shock talking. In fact, I was so calm that the receptionist didn’t seem to take me seriously. Her first response was to point out that she was busy with these ladies and would I please take a seat in the waiting room.

So … I turned toward the waiting room. As I walked away in a daze, I heard the receptionist ask from a thousand miles away, “Sir, have you been here before?” I didn’t know if she was talking to me and I didn’t care, so I just sat there with my head in my hands and waited for Beth. The receptionist asked me again, “Sir, have you been here before?” At that point, I think, she came over to where I was sitting and Beth arrived at the same moment. They got me into triage, where the blood pressure monitor read 168 over 99 and an initial EKG showed some sort of irregularity.

I don’t remember being checked in or processed; maybe I never really was. I vaguely remember leaving the triage room and sitting for a few minutes in the waiting room before being called back to the chest pain area of the ER. There, in my own curtained-off cubicle, I was made to strip and changed into the standard backless hospital gown. They hooked me up to monitors for BP, heart rate and oxygen intake and ran another EKG while pumping saline fluid through an IV in my left arm. Beth was with me the whole time. In the next cubicle, another chest pain patient made awful noises that sounded horribly like a horse being strangled.

After a while, my symptoms stabilized. I was taken for a chest x-ray, which showed nothing irregular with my lungs. A doctor came and tried to explain what might have happened. He seemed to have come to the initial conclusion that I might have some sort of heart virus. The blood work was inconclusive at that point. He was inclined to send me home.

Something made him order another EKG, though. While the tech set me up for the test, I had another bad coughing spell: the same deep, wracking cough that hit me at home. I couldn’t see the monitors, but Beth later told me my face went white, my blood pressure immediately dropped to something like 60 over 30 and my heart rate fell to about 40. The tech got this panicked look on his face and called for nurses and the doctor. They attached defibrillator pads to my torso and inserted another IV into my right arm, just in case they had to try to revive me with electric shock or some sort of steroid they apparently pump directly to the heart in case it stops beating. They also put me on oxygen. I barely remember much of this moment.

What I do remember is the sudden realization at some point that I might die. And I remember that the only thing that moved me to tears at that point was the thought of my little boy, Jay, growing up without his Daddy. It moves me still. I sent Beth home after a while, and I begged her to read Horton Hears a Who to Jay as a bedtime story. I broke down in tears as I begged her to squeeze him and tell him how much I love him.

Later, the doctor came in and explained that my blood work had revealed a concerning level of troponin, or cardiac enzyme. The measurement was low, he said, around 0.025. That was an indication that I might have myocarditis, which apparently is where he got the idea that I might have a virus in the heart muscle. The way he explained it was that a troponin reading of 1.0 or higher was a clear indication of a heart attack. They’d keep me overnight, take blood at regular intervals and monitor the level of cardiac enzyme to see what was going on. Shortly after that, I was moved to a double room in the hospital’s regular wing (as opposed to the Pepin Heart Hospital there on the grounds). While I was being moved, the nurse pushed my gurney head-first into the elevator. It looked to me like there was barely room for my feet. The nurse actually said, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to amputate your feet.” Which was a pretty bad joke, considering some poor guy a few years ago had the wrong foot amputated at that very hospital. In my new room, I was assigned an overnight nurse named Anthony, whose regular job was working in the heart wing and happened to be assigned to my wing that night. All this happened while Beth was taking care of arrangements for the kids.

Beth returned after a while and helped me get as comfortable as possible. I was strapped onto several monitors and taking constant saline fluid as well as oxygen. Beth went back home to be with the kids after a short visit, and I tried to get some sleep. The uncomfortable tightness in my chest came and went. The cough was pretty persistent, although it never was quite as deep and wracking as it had been earlier. I drifted in and out of consciousness for several hours. Sometimes the discomfort in my chest woke me up. Sometimes it was Anthony checking in on me or taking more blood.

Sometime after midnight, I grew extraordinarily nauseous. At this point, I still didn’t know for sure that I had suffered a heart attack. Irrationally, I began to hope that the whole problem was food poisoning, that the barbecue I had eaten that day at Busch Gardens was trying to take revenge. This theory gained credence when, around 2 a.m., I vomited over the side of my bed. Between gasps and hurls, I remember I cried out, “What the hell is wrong with me?!?” The old guy sharing my room didn’t say a word. In fact, he never even acknowledged my presence. I got the impression he was a little bitter at having to share the room with a raving lunatic who clearly might die at any moment. After Anthony cleaned me up and mopped the floor next to my bed, I presented the food poisoning theory, hoping against hope for some confirmation. He was tactful enough and kind enough not to shatter my hope that Busch Gardens was to blame for my predicament.

After the regurgitation, I settled back in for a fitful attempt at sleep. At 4 a.m., Anthony came back for more blood. I later found out that the midnight and 4 a.m. blood work showed a dramatic increase in troponin levels: around 5.33 at midnight and 7.5 at 4 a.m. The cardiologist, who had scheduled me for a 10:30 a.m. angiogram the next day, was called in early and my procedure was moved up to 7:30 a.m.

Sometime around 6 a.m., the cardiologist, Dr. Vasco Marques, came into my room to explain the angiogram and answer any questions I might have.

Me: “I know the general term for what I had was a heart attack, but what’s the scientific term?”

Cardiologist: “A heart attack.”

Then it was time to sign waivers and read about angioplasty and have my groin area shaved to clear the way for the insertion of the tube that would snake its way through my body and into my heart. Anthony came in and insisted on prepping me, even though his shift had technically ended an hour earlier. He was kind and very good at his job. I thanked him for watching over me through the night.

Among the papers I had to sign was something that gave the surgical team clearance to open me up in case emergency bypass surgery was necessary. The angiogram would reveal what was wrong, and they hoped to be able to solve the problem with angioplasty: suctioning out the clotted blood and accumulated plaque and inserting a mesh stent to keep the area open in the future. They were prepared for the worst-case scenario.

I called Beth and my mom and dad to let them know what was going on. Beth was busy trying to get the kids settled and wouldn’t be able to make it to the hospital before I went into surgery. I called my friend Chris Anderson and left a message. Then it was time to be rolled into the operating room.

I remember feeling a little giddy as the surgical team prepared around me. They introduced themselves by name, one at a time, casually, as if we all were about to sit down to a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I asked only one question: “When will you apply the anesthesia?” And I think I meant to the groin area, where they would be inserting the tube. But there was another level of anesthesia, some kind of IV Benadryl, and once they pumped that into my system I was out of it entirely. I don’t know if I ever completely lost consciousness, but I do have a vivid memory of closing my eyes and thinking, “Will I ever open them again?” I tried to think of my family as my faculties began to drift away.

Less than two hours later, I came to on the table and asked if we were done. Someone told me yes. I asked what it was they found. Someone said it was a 100 percent blockage of the right coronary artery, and that it was completely fixed and everything was fine. Someone also said I had tried to lift my head several times during the procedure and they were a little concerned that a hematoma had formed around the insertion point in my groin but that there was no real cause for concern.

They wheeled me back to my new room in the Pepin Heart Hospital wing (a private room) and I waited a while for Beth to get there. I called Chris and my parents. When Beth got there, I was awake. I felt good, considering I’d had a heart attack less than 24 hours earlier. Beth stayed with me as much as she could during the day. A neighbor, Cam Caudle, came by to visit. Chris came by in the morning, and he came back that night to watch Game 5 of the Rays-Phillies World Series. He stayed until the game was postponed by rain. I called Beth to say goodnight and slept very, very soundly.

They let me go the next afternoon. I was prescribed a battalion of new medicine to take every day for the rest of my life, including aspirin. I was warned not to pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds or drive for the next two days. In fact, I did neither until my follow-up appointment with Dr. Marques two weeks later.

Beth’s mom and dad came down from Massachusetts to help us during the first week. My mom and dad came down from North Carolina the second week. Drew Carnahan, who is married to my brother’s wife’s sister, swooped in and was our guardian angel for the week after my mom and dad went home.

I felt better, physically, than I had in months. Yet, Beth and I settled into a terrible pattern of bickering, usually at night. The strain of so much mental and emotional pain this year had finally gotten to us both. I really believe that I remained in shock for at least two weeks after I had my heart attack, and Beth was so overwhelmed emotionally that she could barely function. How we held it together for that horrible time after the heart attack, I don’t really know. What I do know is that we stuck together through the most difficult time in either of our lives.

The follow-up appointment with Dr. Marques brought only good news. “No restrictions. No worries.” He spent a lot of time answering our questions and setting our minds at ease. He told us that the normal person has 60 percent functionality of the heart, and that after my procedure, I had 62 percent functionality. He cautioned that I must always take my medicine, eat well and exercise, but that I should otherwise be 100 percent fine.

Can it be that I actually had a heart attack? It must have been inevitable, because they attributed it to genetics; my maternal grandfather had his first heart attack at age 41. But come on … a HEART ATTACK? Me? I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe that I nearly died on Oct. 26, 2008. I still can’t grasp the enormity of it, even though I went through it with a (fairly) clear mind. Maybe if it ever happens again, I’ll be convinced. Or not.

Uncle

Uncle, OK? This year has defeated us. I, for one, will be dragged from under my comforter by appointment or divine intervention only until 2009 at the earliest.

How does one react to a year like this?

A year in which our newborn son spent eight days in the neo-natal intensive care unit and had his little life jeopardized when he was inadvertently given another mother's breast milk by a nurse.

A year in which I was laid off from my job of 16 years three weeks after that new son was born.

A year in which I suffered, at age 39, an actual, full-blown heart attack. Five days later, I still can't get my mind around that, by the way. I wonder if I ever will.

Who am I, Job all of a sudden? I'm not going to pull a Job, though. I'm not going to try to find some theocratic reason for all of this apparent misfortune. I'm not going to NOT blame God, or the Fates, or the Furies, or Media General. Even to grant a sanctimonious reprieve to those entities (or non-entities, as the case may be) would give them more credit than they deserve.

After all, what was the lesson of Job (which I re-read today just for the literary fulfillment of it)? As far as I could tell, the long and the short of the Book of Job was that good things happen even to bad people, bad things happen even to good people and no people, bad or good, are smart enough to know why. It just is what it is.

Yet, how does one respond? I'm not entirely sure, actually. I do know what I won't do, and what I won't accept from anyone who knows me or cares to know me. There will be no pity, self- or otherwise. Concern? Sure. I had a 100 percent blockage of my right coronary artery, after all, and I have no idea how I'm going to draw a paycheck in the future. Kind of worrisome, no?

But Chris is 100 percent healthy and the smilingest little 4-month-old you'll ever see. Jay, his big brother, is almost 3 and smarter and more beautiful than anyone I've ever known. Beth and I still have our home. We have our families in Massachusetts, North Carolina and points beyond.

We also carry within us a shared sense of optimism that will not be shattered by even the most daunting challenges life can throw at us.

I guess that's how we respond. We're still alive, OK? What else you got? Bring it on.

Only, please, please, please wait until 2009. After a year like this, we could really use a break.

The Rays' Secret: Fungi-ball

I'm not a "fan" of the Tampa Bay Rays. I spent too many years as a beat writer covering the team to set aside my carefully cultivated sense of objectivity when it comes to wins and losses and that baseball team.

That doesn't mean I'm not excited about the World Series. Nor does it mean I wish them ill against the Phillies. My guess is that the beat writers who cover a team in the Series figure they got this far, so why not win it? That's pretty much how I feel. I can see it as a good story, though, even if they lose.

But on the day of Game One at Tropicana Field, I find myself thinking less about whether they'll win or lose and more about my experiences with some of the folks with a real stake in the outcome. Folks like Andrew Friedman, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Trever Miller, B.J. Upton, Scott Kazmir. Folks I got to know pretty well in a professional capacity, and folks I would like to see perform well on this largest of stages.

Andrew has already performed well, of course. I think about Friedman as I knew him when he was Stu Sternberg's man in the front office, back in the waning months of the Chuck LaMar Era in 2005. It was pretty obvious from the start that Andrew would be in charge once Sternberg took over from Vince Naimoli. At first, I thought of Andrew as a hyper-Moneyball disciple; someone who had read Michael Lewis' book and believed Billy Beane walked on water. I used to have a pretty long drive home from the Trop after games, and I always knew I could reach Andrew on his Blackberry, just to kill time. The guy never slept. And he always wanted to talk baseball. His conversation was littered with words like "fungible," something I attributed to his background in finance with Bear Stearns. It, "fungible," usually was used to refer to guys like Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. It meant easy to replace at a better price.

He was right. Andrew was right about a lot of things. He was right to hire an experienced hand in Gerry Hunsicker, a free-thinking manager in Joe Maddon and all those young "numbers" guys he used to populate his inner sanctum: Chaim Bloom, James Click, Dan Feinstein, etc. He was right about Dioner Navarro and, yes, even Edwin Jackson. But he was right not because of a strict adherence to Moneyball principles. He was right because he was flexible enough to use those principles to form his own style. Call it "Fungi-ball." His strategy? Find the under-valued skills (in this case, defense, middle relief pitching and a strong bench) and emphasize them on the roster. Then, lock down the young, talented players they acquired through the draft to reasonable long-term contracts. Finally, he knew enough not to be afraid to take what appeared to be big chances, such as the Delmon Young trade for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett.

I think what Andrew did will be copied for years in MLB. Thing is, if I know Andrew, he's already thinking ahead to the next under-valued quality and how that might be exploited in order to sustain this incredible success. It's been fun and educational to watch.

So, a prediction. Rays win the Series in six. Simply amazing.

Face. Book.

I went ahead and joined Facebook, even though the idea kind of creeped me out at first. There's something impersonal (and a little desperate-seeming) about all these on-line networking sites. But hey, it's happening, right? Might as well be there when it does.

Speaking of which . . .

I still can't get my mind around the Rays. That they are in the World Series and I am not able to cover it is so galling I can barely breathe.

(Edited to conceal the true depth of my angst.)

How Did This Happen?

The question I kept coming back to this past Wednesday as I waited in the lobby of a Florida Job Services office was, "How did I come to this point?"

I was there for an orientation session, part of employment counseling that's required for people who collect unemployment insurance. It was a sobering experience. Every time I start to get numb to the fact that all the work I put in during the past 22 years to build my sports writing career was (apparently) for nothing, something like that orientation session smacks me down again.

But ... we got through it. Just like we'll get through all of it. This is a good spot to drop this year's most popular sports cliche: It is what it is.

Now, I look at the morning news shows and the headlines on the news Web sites and I wonder, "How did the nation come to this point?" I wish I'd paid more attention in ECO 1001 class at the University of Florida in 1989, although I'm not sure this kind of utter economic bewilderment was covered.

What happened to the world? Does anyone know how all of this came to be? Lehman Brothers and the rest ... were all those too-smart-to-fart Wall Street geniuses too short-sighted to see this coming? The dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, 9-11, Iraq, increased gas prices, the rise of China, dwindling oil supply ... it all seems to be connected, somehow, but how?

And was all this macro-economic stuff the reason I lost my job with the newspaper? Was there anything I could have done, in that context, to better prepare our family for our own personal economic downturn? Anything I could have done to prevent myself from becoming unceremoniously unemployed?

Was there anything our country's leaders could have done, can do, about what's happening in the world at large? Anything they can do to keep this country from collapsing?

I wish I knew. I wish anyone knew.

Ah, well. At least the Rays and the Red Sox start a three-game series today that could decide the American League East. Should be quite a hoot.

It's Who You Know

A big part of the ongoing job search is perusing all those Web sites that offer career advice. One of the things I keep coming across is, apparently, job search LAW: To find the job you want, you have to "network."

Now, I understand the truth behind that. I've experienced it. Other than my first job in journalism, a part-time gig with the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 22 years ago, every meaningful job I've had came to me as a result of a phone call from someone I knew. Of course, the only meaningful job I've had since then was with the Tribune. I got that job when a guy named Ernest Hooper called me and asked if I wanted to apply. Hooper had seen my work with the St. Pete Times and thought I'd be a good fit at the Trib. A month after I was hired at the Trib, we bid a fond farewell to Hooper ... who jumped ship for the Times.

OK. So, I know from experience it's not what you know, it's who you know. Yet, with every fiber of my being I detest that unfortunate truism. It SHOULD NOT be about who you know. It should be ALL ABOUT how well you could perform the tasks inherent to the position in question. Of course, I understand that in order to acquire the position, the candidate must acquire a level of trust from the person doing the hiring. And who do we trust? The people we know.

But that kind of cronyism limits the field, does it not? If I were a hiring manager, I wouldn't want to trim the field based on whether a candidate once went out for beers with me or was a groomsman or bride's maid at the assistant editor's wedding. I'd want the best person I could find. I'd want someone with a proven background of accomplishment. Someone who had demonstrated a high aptitude for the type of work in question.

In other words, the best person available.

That's not how it works, though. If I don't send out e-mails and make phone calls and have lunches with people who might be able to help me land the kind of job I need to support my family, I don't stand a chance in hell of landing that job. I'd rather apply for a position and be allowed to sell myself as the best candidate based on my qualifications, not based on whether I went to school with the executive vice president's nephew.

So, anyway ... I guess I'd better get going on these novels I'm supposed to be writing.

'I Get High On Baby Hugs'

Don't think I'd attend one of this guy's concerts if I happened to be in L.A., but this video is awesome.

My favorite line:
"I'm a stay-at-home dad;
"And I don't take drugs.
"I'm a stay-at-home dad;
"I get high on baby hugs."

Here's the link: Stay At Home Dad rap

Brush With Biden

Last August, during a Rays road trip to Boston, I popped into the Borders bookstore at the busy corner of Washington and School streets around lunchtime. One of the things I love about downtown Boston at lunchtime in the later summer or early fall is the bustle. There's a lot of energy, and not the mechanical, got-to-get-where-I'm-going-RIGHT-NOW kind of directed energy you find at, say, Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street in New York. Boston, especially the old, winding streets bisected by the Freedom Trail, is more like a visit to an outdoor art festival, where the pedestrians wander casually from stall to stall, poking their heads in to see what's cooking.

So, I popped into the Borders on my way to Quincy Market, where I like to cruise the half-mile-long food court and decide between the fresh, boiled lobster and the North End pizza joint (no Sbarro's at Quincy Market). The Borders in the heart of that pedestrian district off Washington Street is larger than most. Not as big, perhaps, as the Borders next to the Water Tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, but huge, nonetheless. I browsed my way back to the history section, taking my time; I wouldn't need to be at Fenway Park until three o'clock.

At the back of the store, where the history books are kept, a line of suit-clad bibliophiles stretched from the rear entrance, where a table and chair were set up for what clearly was a book-signing event. The line actually blocked the aisle I wanted to browse, so I remember being a little annoyed. But I found another aisle and tried to ignore the suits.

Then, the line began to move. The author was there. Now, it wasn't a big line. Maybe 30 or 40 people, tops. It didn't take long for the aisle I originally wanted to browse to become accessible again. As I rounded the end of the aisle, I glanced over to see who was signing a book that day. Sitting there, framed by the rear entrance (this old building apparently used to be a bank; next to the rear entrance is an old, round vault door) was Senator (and, at the time, presidential candidate) Joe Biden of Delaware.

My first thought, after taking in the two or three suit-clad security guards (Secret Service?) and the eight or ten suit-clad staff members who milled around so casually was this: This guy's running for president, and the most he can pull to a book signing is 30 or 40 people? There's no way he's getting the nomination. My second reaction was to call Mama Bird back home. She thought Biden was an interesting candidate and considered supporting him early in the campaign. She thought it was cool.

I guess I must've missed the big moment of that particular book signing. I kind of wish I had seen him speak. Especially now that he's been named Barack Obama's running mate.

And as for that, how about the timing of the mass text message announcement? The story I read this morning said it was released by the campaign after the news leaked late Friday night to some news outlet. So, out the texts went, right around ... 3 a.m. I'd like to think it was planned that way all along. Kind of a not-so-subtle way of saying, Take that, Clinton folks!

So, here it all comes: Democratic convention, McCain VP announcement, Republican convention, debates, debates, debates. After all those years of covering sports for a living, politics became my "sports." This is gonna be good.

I've Think I've Forgotten How To Write

Well, it's official. I have no idea how to write. And now that I mention it, I wonder if I ever really knew how.

Right now, I'm at my laptop in the nursery/writing cave. I sit at a half-sized card table ($34.95 at Target; much cheaper than office space or the monthly on-line fees at Barnes&Noble). The table is pushed up against the window. The crib sits behind me to my left. Directly behind me against the opposite wall is the table/dresser where we change our kids' dirty diapers. The blinds are half-open. Through the slats of the blinds I can see the top of the front-yard palm tree blowing around in the baby breezes produced by Tropical Storm Fay on the other side of the state.

To my left are two stacks of books. They include Stephen King's On Writing; the Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing; the Modern Library Writer's Workshop by Stephen Koch; a Writer's Guide to Character Traits; Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces; Gary Mormino's Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams (a social history of Florida); and a fantasy football magazine (my draft is Saturday; I inherited a team in a neighborhood keeper league and already have Peyton Manning at QB). To my right is Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, an absolute gold mine for story ideas, plots, characters and themes. Also to my right is an open, spiral-bound notebook that contains the outline of a novel based on college life in the early 1990s and notes for several short stories. A capped rollerball pen (Uni-ball Vision Elite) sits on top of the open notebook.

Quite a literary little setup I've got here, eh? Nothing to keep me from, as some writer somewhere (Raymond Carver, maybe?) once wrote, "opening a vein and letting the story bleed out of me."

OK. So, why don't I write? Either I forgot (or never knew) how, or I'm lazy.

Or, hey. Why not both?

I'm going to go take another gander at journalismjobs.com. I haven't sent out any resume packages to be ignored during the past couple of days.

Is this writer's block? I never knew it really existed. Eh. It's not so bad. It's kind of like trying to mow the lawn with an unsharpened mower blade. You know you've got the right tool, it's just a matter of honing it.

Mimi's Garden

A little boy named Jay lived in Florida. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was two years old. Jay loved to swim in the pool with his Mommy and go for bicycle rides with his Daddy. He liked to chase his cats, Murphy and Luna, all around the house. And he loved to tickle his baby brother, Chris, on the chin.

Jay especially loved to visit Mimi and Granddaddy at their big, white farm house in North Carolina. Mimi always had new toys for Jay to play with, like a talking drum and a little guitar that played real music. Granddaddy would sit in the parlor and play his real guitar and sing while Jay played with his new toys.

One time, after Granddaddy finished singing, Jay left his toys and looked through the glass of the front door at Mimi’s garden. There were so many flowers! Jay wanted to go outside and see the flowers up close. Jay ran to the kitchen and found Mimi, who was just slipping on her garden gloves.

“Mimi?” Jay said. “Go outside? Flowers outside?”

“Of course we can, little Jay Bird” Mimi said. “Do you want to see the flowers?”

“Yes, I want flowers,” Jay said, and reached for Mimi’s hand. “C’mon, Mimi.”

“Wait, Jay,” Mimi said, pulling off her gloves. “We have to find the magic net.”

Jay, who had turned to run back to the front door, stopped and looked back at Mimi.

“Magic net?” he said.

“Yes,” said Mimi. “It’s the net we use to catch butterflies!”

“I want … I want … I want butterflies!” said Jay, waving his arms. “Catch butterflies?”

“Yes,” said Mimi. “But we have to use a special, magic net, so we don’t hurt them.”

Mimi went to the back porch to get the net. Jay was waiting at the front door when she came.

“I want magic net,” said Jay as he reached for the net.

“Here you go, Jay Bird,” Mimi said. “I’ll carry the butterfly bucket, and we can go catch butterflies together.”

Out they went, onto the front porch, into the front yard and down to the ring of flowers that encircled the lawn. Jay saw yellow daffodils and purple crocus and lots of other pink and gold and orange flowers but he did not know their names. Then he saw a giant yellow flower, taller than all the rest, hanging from the end of a long, green stalk.

“Sunflower!” Jay said.

“That’s right,” Mimi said. “And look! There’s a pretty blue butterfly fluttering in for a landing!”

“Blue butterfly?” Jay said. “I get him.”

Jay ran to the sunflower and swung the net as hard as he could at the butterfly. But the blue butterfly flew away from the net. Jay swung again and again. Each time, the butterfly flew just far away enough to stay out of Jay’s net. Each time Jay missed, the butterfly fluttered back to the face of the sunflower and landed safely. Jay began to get frustrated.

“Jay Bird, do you want Mimi to help?” Mimi said.

“Yes, thank you,” Jay said. “Mimi help?”

So, Mimi and Jay held the net together. They snuck up to the sunflower on tiptoe. Mimi helped Jay move the net very slowly over the butterfly. When the butterfly tried to fly away, it fluttered right into the magic net! Mimi pulled the net closed, and the butterfly was caught.

“I got it!” Jay said.

“Let’s put him in the butterfly bucket and get a closer look,” Mimi said.

Mimi opened the clear plastic lid of the butterfly bucket and held the net over the top. The butterfly dropped down into the bucket and Mimi plopped the lid back on.

“Look, Jay Bird,” Mimi said. “You can see the blue butterfly through the top. It’s a magnifying glass, so he looks bigger than real life.”

“Magnifying glass?” Jay said, and looked inside the bucket.

The butterfly gripped the side of the bucket with its legs. It had two blue wings with black spots and black lines on them. It had two eyes and two long sticks, antennae, coming out of its head. It opened and closed its wings very slowly. Jay looked up at Mimi and smiled.

“Big blue butterfly.” Jay said. “I caught him!”

“Yes,” Mimi said. “You caught him. “But now it’s time to let him go. He needs to go back to his sunflower and eat his supper.”

“Eat supper, right,” Jay said.

Mimi smiled and opened the bucket’s lid. The butterfly hesitated, then fluttered out of the bucket and back toward the ring of flowers.

“Bye bye, butterfly!” Jay said. “I eat supper, too?”

“Yes, it’s supper time for Jay Birds, too,” Mimi said.

They climbed the steps and went back inside to tell Mommy, Daddy and Granddaddy all about the big blue butterfly who lived in Mimi’s garden.

A Good Start To The 'Debates'

Mama Bird and I took in most of the Rick Warren question and answer sessions with Barack Obama and John McCain. We concluded that the format was superb. It allowed both candidates to take center stage without the annoying red lights and interruptions from the Wolf Blitzers of the pundit world.

Obama? Smooth, thoughtful, considered in his responses. McCain? Decisive and surprisingly poignant.

A couple of things stood out, and both came during the McCain hour. First, I hadn't heard that a $7,000 tax credit for each child was a part of his platform. That's huge. Possibly even mind-changingly huge. He might not know much about the economy, and his archaic stances on most social issues are either pandering to his Republican base or an alarming display of just how out of touch he is with what's actually happening in U.S. society.

But that $14,000 Mama Bird and I would receive (assuming it passed through Congress) would be ... well, huge. It would go a long way toward paying daycare expenses, something the current $2,500 credit barely effects.

The other thing was McCain's story about a Vietnamese prison guard loosening torture ropes on McCain's body, then, at Christmas, using a foot to draw a cross in the dirt in front of McCain during a rare moment outdoors. I'm not a Christian, but that story was a stirring example of two human beings connecting in even an outrageously inhuman circumstance.

Still, though, McCain got me going when he started talking about irresponsible government spending over the past eight years. The most irresponsible expense we as a nation bear at the moment is the Iraq war. He supports it, therefore he supports spending billions of dollars a week in that enterprise. Bottom line? An extra $9,000 in tax savings would be nice, but the Bird and the Mouse would be much better served in the long run by not having to foot the bill for today's political mistakes. Like Iraq.

Oh, and the big number for the evening was 14. That was how many times I counted McCain using his favorite rhetorical crutch: "My friends ..."

One Month Ago Today ...

Everything changed. I am now a man of leisure, thanks to the incompetence of the caretakers of the venerable industry that once produced and inspired men like William Randolph Hearst and women like Katherine Graham.

Newspapers aren't dying. They're dead. Everything that's happening now is decomposition.

And thank God for that, right? If not for the self-destruction of the newspaper industry, what an author (to paraphrase Nero, of all people), the world would have lost in me.

That's right. It's time. If Ace Atkins and Tim Dorsey can do it, so can I.

So, if you ever knew me or are related to me or ran across me even for a moment over the past 39 years, watch out. You're fair game. Who knows? I might make you immortal in prose. Doug Fernandes? I'm pointing right at you.

That goes especially for you, Sebring. See? I knew those two years of purgatory would some day pay off. What a gold mine that town will be as I explore the boundaries (self-imposed?) of what I have always (rather arrogantly) believed to be a prodigious artistic talent.

Here we go. Let the rejections begin!

Former Sportswriter

(Note: This was the final entry for my previous blog, Future Former Sportswriter. I now begin the exciting post-journalism phase of my career with a whole new blog, Hallucinogenic Toreador, named for a Salvador Dali painting that was created the year I was born. It also was the name of my column when I wrote for the USF student daily, the Oracle.)

I was laid off on Monday, 12 days after "surviving" Black Wednesday. My friend Scott Carter was laid off that day. I sat by my phone all that day, waiting for the call. Every time it rang, my heart leaped into my throat. By about 3:30, Mama Bird and I figured we were safe.

It was the second day at home for the new Little Mouse in the family. He's 100 percent healthy after a mind-numbing, eight-day stay in the NICU at University Community Hospital. Jaundice complications, breathing issues, etc. He was by far the biggest and healthiest baby in the NICU, which is packed with tiny, tiny preemies. He and big brother Bird are unbelievable. Mama Bird is good, too.

Me? I'm out of a job for the first time since 1984 and out of newspapers for the first time since 1986.

I've just gone over the entries I wrote a couple of months ago. They were, I think, right on the money. Except for this: After "surviving" Black Wednesday, they called me as I was on my way to work after a two-week absence (baby stuff) on Monday morning. I didn't even get out of my neighborhood before the cell phone rang. It was an assistant managing editor informing me that I needed to meet him and the managing editor in HR at 11 a.m. I said, "I'll be derned, I thought they were done with all that." He said something to the effect of, "No, we wanted to wait until your baby was out of the hospital." What he meant to say, of course, was that they didn't want it said of them that they laid off a long-time employee of good standing while his second child was in the NICU at University Community Hospital.

So, off I went after my swift kick in the gut. But first, a quick U-turn for home to break the news to Mama Bird. Heartbreak.

All that survivor's guilt I was feeling about Scott getting the ax? Now, it's empathy. The difference is, at least I had a plan (however far-fetched) before I thought I was in the clear. So, we reverted back to the plan in order to help absorb the shock.

That's still happening, by the way. Absorbing the shock, I mean. I'm typing on my brand-new laptop, a necessary new element to the plan; nothing like spending $1,000 at Best Buy to create a little peace of mind.

Anyway, the name of this blog obviously no longer applies. I'll figure something out about that later. Meanwhile, I need to get going on my unemployment application. Maybe if Scott and I pool our resources, we'll be able to afford tickets to a Rays game some weekend.

A Gift

We're told now that the layoffs won't happen until late June or early July. That's when my second son is due. Perfect. Out with the old (job), in with the new (life).

The most difficult thing now is waiting for it to happen. The longer this goes, the more convinced I am that I will be laid off. And the longer it goes, the more I begin to hope I'm laid off.

Why? Why would I actually choose the kind of uncertainty (dread, really) that comes with losing a once-trusted source of income? Two reasons. One, this is going to happen to this company again. Soon. Just because you survive this round, don't think you'll be so lucky next time. And next time? There might be no severance package/six-month parachute.

More than that, though, is the feeling that this chapter of my professional life is coming to an end. And, more to the point, should come to an end. My enjoyment of the actual work is down because of the poisonous atmosphere. Without that joy, this becomes just another job. Only worse, because I don't know if I'll even have this job in four-six weeks.

So, it's time for a change. If I'm ever going to write fiction, now is the time. I'll keep looking for a "real" job, certainly. But Mama Bird is right: When again will I ever have the opportunity to, essentially, get paid to pursue my dream? That's what the severance package is; the equivalent of an advance on the fiction I'll write, hopefully for publication. It'll allow us to pay our bills while I try to find my voice as an artist.

That's a gift. And if this layoff happens, I'll tear into that gift like a 2-year-old on Christmas morning. (A 2-year-old who knows how to write.)

A Story I Should Have Written

Been doing a lot of contemplating lately. I'm writing this piece on Steve Garvey, and it amazed me to realize that when he was going through his serial relationship stage in 1988-89, he was my age. At the time, he was quoted as saying something to the effect of "most people have a mid-life crisis; I had a mid-life catastrophe."

So, I've been mentally looking back at my career. I've been fortunate. There are so many things I've done, people I've met and places I've seen that never would have been possible without the job. I've written some good stuff, but not all of it. I've missed some stories, too.

One of those happened when I was the newspaper's bowling writer in the early '90s. There was this guy, Noel Bostick, who taught bowling classes at a center in Tampa. After he lost his IT job, he started hanging around the alley during the day. He noticed a high school class one day and saw a big, linebacker type fire an eight-pound ball down the lane -- with predictable results.

So, old Noel wandered over and said, "Want some help?" By the end of the day, he'd helped every kid in the class. The manager hired him to teach that day.

Noel's teaching technique was pretty cool; he was an accomplished trick bowler, and as he'd stand holding a ball facing the group with his back to the lane, in mid-sentence he would flip the ball (without looking back) between his legs and roll a strike. So, he was a bit of a showoff, but the method was effective; it got kids interested in the game.

One day, I went out to the center to talk to Noel about his teaching methods. I got a nice, little column out of it, and he agreed to provide weekly bowling tips based on his classes. But I missed the real story, and it still bothers me 15 years later.

When I was done with the interview that day, Noel insisted on walking me out to the parking lot. He wanted to show me something, something very important to him. His whole demeanor changed as he left the dark interior of the center and walked into the sunlight toward a huge, beat-up, mid-'70s station wagon. His car.

He opened the hatch and pulled aside a blanket, revealing a big wooden board hand-painted on both sides with the words: My Daughter Was Killed By A Drunk Driver. Noel pulled it out and showed me how it attached to the top of his car. On weekend nights, he said, after the bowling alley closed down he would attach the sign to the top of his car and drive, slowly, up and down Dale Mabry Highway in the vicinity of bars and restaurants. It was his way, he said, of warning people what could happen if they weren't responsible. It was his way, he said, of honoring his daughter's memory.

Missed that one. Should have written it then. I think he'd make a good character in a short story, though. Maybe it's just as well I never wrote it for the newspaper. Maybe I'll do it better now.

What About Scotland?

I actually checked the real estate listings for rentals in Edinburgh, Scotland yesterday. I mean, what if I get laid off and we sell the house and move to Scotland? It was a fleeting thought, less serious even than the passing notion of selling the house and moving to Mama Bird's extended family's farm in Southwest Ireland to raise sheep and cattle.

I checked the New Town first, because I figured it was a more fashionable section of Scotland's capital. It's about 1,500 pounds per month for a decent flat; far more for something with any kind of living space. The Old Town wasn't much cheaper. Eh. It would be kind of cool to live in Scotland for a while, but I can write anywhere in the world. Maybe if I get paid for my books I can visit Edinburgh again and head up to the Highlands for a day or two. I know we'll take the Bird and the future Baby Bird to Ireland one day; maybe a quick shot over to Scotland will do us good.

It's been a few days since my most recent post, and I must say the anxiety has diminished. I'm at the point that if it happens, I'm fine. If it doesn't happen, I'm fine, too. The waiting is a pain, but it's bearable. We know there are going to be many people out of work when this whole process is done. We know, too, that the "fortunate" ones who get to remain employed will have to work twice as hard (three times as hard for some) and the way things are going, they'll get their turn on the unemployment line soon enough.

So, as I wait to find out whether I'm valuable enough to stay aboard the sinking ship of print journalism, I and Mama Bird plan and live our lives. We spent Saturday and part of Sunday outside with the Bird, even though he's got a bit of a nasty cough and wasn't fit to go far from the house. Mama Bird got him a Dora slip 'n' slide, and he loved it (as you might guess from the above photo).

It's Dora the Explorer, because that's what they had at Publix for $10 and they didn't have Lightning McQueen or Backyardigans. Dora is, perhaps, the most obnoxious kids character since Barney. Her saucer eyes and nonsensical "missions" (fraught with peril delivered by a kleptomaniac fox named Swiper) are too annoying by half for anyone old enough to remember the Smurfs. Give me the Backyardigans, the Wonder Pets, Curious George and Little Einsteins. That's quality TV-as-babysitter material.

What's Important

OK, I was wrong. It's not that easy. Knowing that a month from now I more than likely will no longer have a job is weighing on me, more than a little bit.

It's particularly difficult being in the office, where almost everyone is going through the same range of emotions as me. Almost everyone. See, there are a few fortunate folks who can rest assured that the company will not let them go this time around, the ones who have been given subtle (not verbal) notice not to worry, that their places are secure for now. I am not one of those people.

You know the toughest part? Hearing laughter rise from one of the nearby cubicles, where the bosses hold whispered conversations with the fortunate few. It irks me, but it's not their fault. It's just self pity trying to swallow me, and I won't let that happen. For one thing, I'm too busy working to really let it get to me.

What's important is this: Mama Bird, the Little Bird and the soon-to-arrive new Baby Bird. I know that. I also know that, in a way, the end of my career at this newspaper will present an opportunity I've never had, which is to spend at least half a year still getting paid (severance!) while doing my own writing. If I'm ever going to fulfill this dream of becoming a fiction writer, now seems to be the time. It's a gift, as is my family.

What's bothering me is this: It's not my choice. After all the sacrifice, all the years of giving of myself to this irksome, thankless profession, the appreciation I receive if I'm laid off is essentially ... nothing. Oh, I've seen and done things I never would have done without the job, and for that I am thankful. I'll write about some of those things later. But nothing will replace the time spent away from home. Nothing about this is a rightful payoff for the the holidays worked, the illnesses worked through, the indignities suffered. Still, if (when) it happens, the best I can do is greet it smiling, with dignity and grace. I'll do that for myself and for my family.

Then I'll turn my attention to the important things.

In My End Is My Beginning

(Mary, Queen of Scots embroidered that headline onto her cloth of state during her imprisonment in England. She was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle on Feb. 9, 1587. So, all you nervous newspaper copy editors out there ... it could always, always be worse. And now ... the blog.)

This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the end. My only friend, the end.

The Doors. There must be a lot of sportswriters out there who like the Doors. You go to sportsjournalists.com and check the message boards; lots of frightened, confused, bitter future former sportswriters are quoting Jim Morrison's ode to death. Or REM (It's the end of the world as we ... blah ... blah ... feel fine, etc.).

The end, eh? Yes, newspapers as we know them are coming to an end. But you know what? I feel fine.

Certainly, I'm anxious. We all are. It's not only the newspaper I've worked at for 16 years, which is facing massive layoffs soon if not enough employees accept buyouts. It's industry wide. Apparently (and here's where my extensive background in business comes into play), newspapers everywhere aren't making enough money to survive.

We are scared. Most of us won't be able to afford our mortgages or even pay the cable bill if we lose our jobs. Did I say if? More like when. Those who survive this round of RIF (autocratic shorthand for Reduction In Force; it's not coincidence that I almost accidently typed RIP instead) can more than likely look forward to another round in the not-too-distant future.

You want scary? How about the prospect of losing a job about a month before a second baby is due to be born? That's almost too frightening to think about. Yet, ignoring the possibility, the way the newspaper industry seems to have ignored its incremental demise over the past decade, is only an exercise in avoidance. It ain't healthy for anyone, except for ulcers.

So, how to handle this? How to process the anxiety as we anachronistic newspaper people prepare to receive a small, 21st-century taste of what the Great Depression must have been like for so many millions of our grandparents almost 80 years ago?

First, feel the anxiety. Soak in it like a tub of tepid bathwater. Don't reject it. Go ahead. Be afraid.

Now, think. What does the anxiety make you want to do? Cry? Scream? Pound your fists on the keyboard? Crawl between the covers and sleep through Halloween? Blame someone? Blame everyone? Blame yourself? Fine. Of course you want to do those things, or worse. But will you? No.

You won't do those things, because you will choose your response. You will allow yourself to feel whatever you're feeling, but you won't do so without thinking about it and thinking about the most productive way to channel the energy those emotions generate. You won't melt into a puddle of self-pity or angst, because that's not productive.

What I did was start this blog.

You want to know why "the end" was Morrison's only friend? Because without it, there would be no beginning.