Hallucinogenic Toreador

The Literary Life

2010-01-05T13:54:00.002-05:00

This is the dream, I guess. I've always wanted time to focus on fiction, and now I have it. The time, that is. The "focus" is a little more of a challenge.

I'm up to it so far, though. In two days post-CBSSports.com I've completed two short stories. They aren't bad, either. That makes three short stories completed in three-plus weeks. Not a bad pace. I'm building a body of work, and I'm making up for lost time.

Now, I need to keep it up. And I need to start sending these off to contests and magazines. Not that I expect much success right away. These stories are adequate, but my future stories should be better. I'm such a novice at this. I know what's good, and I know what's OK. My stories so far are only OK.

The first one is around 3,700 words and is about the nature of luck and how it can influence our lives. The second one is around 1,400 words and is about an adolescent boy's first close experience with death. The third one is around 1,300 words and is about how social media affects the 21st century dating scene.

They're all pretty good. Simple little stories designed to get my fingers moving on the keyboard.

I think I can write good stories. I think I might even be able to sell them one day. Then, as I begin to find my voice, I can return to the work of novel writing, which is what I've always, always wanted to do.

For now, though, I'll stay patient. And I'll stay busy. Which is, in fact, the dream.

Where There's A Will, There's A Wee-Wee

2009-12-23T13:48:00.005-05:00

The Jaybird wore a green, long-sleeved shirt to daycare on Tuesday. It was cold outside, so long sleeves were called for.

Sometime between the morning dropoff and afternoon nap, he decided he no longer wanted to wear that particular shirt. He informed Miss Betty of that fact. In no uncertain terms, the green shirt had to go. He pointed out, very reasonably, he thought, that Mommy and Daddy had brought a change of clothes that morning and it sat there in his cubby, waiting to be worn.

Miss Betty, very reasonably, she thought, pointed out that the reason Mommy and Daddy brought in a change of clothes was that on Monday, when he was lumped in with the older kids for nap time, the Jaybird had a little ... accident while he slept, and had to wear the way-too-big "house" clothes provided by the school for the rest of the day.

Now, I can almost envision the little wheels spinning in his little mind after Miss Betty's refusal:

Hmm.
I want to change my clothes, but they won't let me.
I got to change yesterday because I went pee-pee on my clothes.
What do I need to do to get my way and change out of this horrible, hand-me-down, too-stupid-for-words green shirt?
Oh. I know!

I'm not sure at what point Miss Betty noticed the wet stain spreading across the Jaybird's pants and shirt. I can only imagine her horror when she realized that the Jaybird had wet himself -- on purpose -- in order to force the much-desired change of clothes. I am sure that she was not at all pleased about the turn of events, and neither were the Jaybird's Mommy and Daddy when we found out that afternoon.

Still ... you have to hand it to the kid. He knew what he wanted, and Miss Betty inadvertantly gave him the means to reach that goal.

There's no way she could have perceived the depths of depravity I evidently have bred into my first-born son. It's not on Miss Betty, by any means. She's used to dealing with normal kids. Kids who actually try NOT to wet themselves.

At least now we know what we're up against. I don't even want to think about what he'll do the first time we refuse his desperate plea for a puppy, or a car of his own, or a mohawk. Or a tattoo. Or a sword.

Santaphobia Rears Its Ugly Head

2009-12-17T11:04:00.005-05:00

We want to think our kids will be different. You know, perfect little angels. Inquisitive, appreciative, calm when other kids go nuts. We are, of course, kidding ourselves.

Take my kids, for example. (No, really. Please. Take them! At least for the afternoon, so I can decompress.) Just don't take them to Disney World. Or to visit Santa Claus.

OK, I know. A 4-year-old and an 18-month-old are going to act like ... well, a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old. Knowing that doesn't make it any less exasperating.

The 4-year-old was a 3-year-old on Monday. Tuesday, his birthday, we took him to the Magic Kingdom. You know, the Happiest Place on Earth?

Ugh.

He rode the Indy cars and the merry-go-round. No Peter Pan. No Small World. No Goofy's airplane roller coaster. No Pirates. No Haunted Mansion. No Dumbo ride. No teacups.

He watched Country Bears Jamboree (after I threw him across my shoulders and carried him in, kicking and screaming), the Tiki birds and a couple of parades. That was it. Did I mention that lunch at the Happiest Place on Earth was the Saddest Meal on Earth? He did not -- DID NOT -- want the chicken nuggets and fries. He ate a couple of sliced up grapes and an oatmeal cookie.

He settled down, though, and once we decided not to abort the mission and just take in the day on his terms, it was a very nice day. He loved the cupcake, so we had that going for us.

Then, today, Santa Claus came to town. The daycare center brought him in for photos. Every other kid in the place jumped on Santa's lap and generally had a jolly good time with the old elf. Not mine.

The 4-year-old refused -- REFUSED -- to sit on Santa's lap for a picture. The 18-month-old took one look at that red costume, that shaggy beard and those awful, nightmarish white gloves and began to bawl.

Sigh.

Other parents and the daycare director tried to comfort me by saying a lot of kids act like that around Santa. It's a form of separation anxiety. Or maybe they just don't like the look of that dude in the red suit. Evidently, there's something shady about that beard, those glasses and that just-too-happy-to-be-for-real countenance.

I didn't see any other kids acting like that, though. Ah, well.

At least now when they're in therapy after college they'll be able to pinpoint the traumatic moment that made their childhoods such a misery.

Happy birthday. Merry Christmas.

Sigh.

Should Crime Dog Take A Bite Out Of Hall?

2009-12-07T15:37:00.006-05:00

The Hall of Fame ballot came in the mail today. This is my second time voting, my second year with the privilege of helping to choose which baseball greats are enshrined at Cooperstown.

I'll never forget the thrill of receiving my first ballot in the mail last year. I've been waiting for this year's since Dec. 1. It was post-marked Nov. 30 out of Long Island, so I'm not sure what took it so long to get here. But it's here now. Let's take a look at the candidates (the guys I voted for last year have an asterisk; I also voted for Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice, but they're not on this year's ballot because they got in; and I voted for Tommy John, but it was his final year of eligibility).

2B Roberto Alomar
P Kevin Appier
OF/DH Harold Baines
P Bert Blyleven*
OF Ellis Burks
OF Andre Dawson
1B Andres Galarraga
P Pat Hentgen
P Mike Jackson
1B Eric Karros
OF Ray Lankford
SS Barry Larkin
DH Edgar Martinez
1B Don Mattingly
1B Fred McGriff
1B Mark McGwire
P Jack Morris
OF Dale Murphy*
OF Dave Parker
OF Tim Raines
P Shane Reynolds
1B/DH David Segui
P Lee Smith*
SS Alan Trammell
3B Robin Ventura
C Todd Zeile

I'll definitely vote for the players I checked last year, and I will not vote for the players who received the required five percent for carryover but did not receive my vote. That means no McGwire, no Morris, no Raines, no Trammell, no Parker, no Mattingly, no Dawson.

That eliminates a good portion of the ballot. I can also say right now that these are the only players I'm considering to join Blyleven, Murphy and Smith on my ballot: Alomar, Larkin, Martinez and McGriff.

I'm not one of those who believe in the concept of "good enough for the Hall, but not great enough to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer." Either a player is a Hall of Famer or he's not. Once I've eliminated that player from consideration, almost nothing will change my mind in subsequent years (assuming I still have a vote next year; the BBWAA membership is a precious thing, and even those of us who've been in it long enough to vote for the HoF aren't guaranteed anything if we're not affiliated with a newspaper or a Web site. So ... anyone out there hiring? No? Didn't think so.) I say almost nothing will change my mind, because if anyone ever proves without a shadow of a doubt that McGwire did not use performance-enhancing drugs during his career, his candidacy will deserve serious consideration. Now, do I have hard evidence that McGwire used steroids or anything else to crack the top eight all-time in homers? That he cheated when he became the first to hit 70 home runs in 1998? Nope. But the guidelines we're given for Hall of Fame voting are important to remember.

What are the guidelines? I am allowed to vote for up to 10 players. I don't have to vote for any. As I did last year, I'll just show you in its entirety my favorite rule for election, 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.

Rule No. 5 means I will not vote for anyone who can't sit before a Congressional hearing and say, unequivocally, that he did not use steroids. (Or for anyone who can't sit before a Congressional hearing and say, honestly, that he did not use steroids. I'm looking at you, Rafael Palmeiro. But you're next year's problem.)

I'll probably send my ballot by fax to secretary-treasurer Jack O'Connell of the BBWAA the final week of December. Meanwhile, I'll review the records of my viable candidates, making liberal use of my favorite Web site for answers to all things MLB: baseball-reference.com.

The candidate I know best, of course, is McGriff. I saw him play nearly every day during the twilight of his career with the Devil Rays. I saw his last home run, No. 493, lifted high down the right-field line at Petco Park and into the little group of seats that juts out into short right, the homer that tied him for 26th all-time with Lou Gehrig. The Crime Dog and the Iron Horse have the most home runs of anyone short of the formerly magic 500 plateau.

Fred McGriff hit exactly the same number of major-league home runs as Lou Gehrig. That's a powerful sentence. A powerful argument.

Of course, home runs are not the only measuring stick. I'll take it all into account: fielding, hitting, character, sportsmanship, etc.

I'll take a gander at the high-brow statistics concocted by the high-brow, smarter-than-me guys who worship at the Church of Bill James.

I'll also listen to anyone who cares to weigh in. So, this is your chance to participate in one of the most hallowed responsibilities a sportswriter can earn. Let me know what you think.

Guidelines For Living Well: Advice For My Sons

2009-08-24T08:44:00.002-04:00

I've begun to compile a list of guidelines to help Jay and Chris navigate life as they grow older. Obviously, it's too soon for them to grasp most of these. But they are the things I've learned about how to live well and be a good person, and I *try* to demonstrate these qualities and make my own life an example for my sons. Key word: try. I don't always succeed, which is why one of the guidelines is to allow yourself only one major regret in life.

Many of these should be familiar. I'm not religious, per se, but religious texts are great sources of moral platitudes. So, a couple of commandments and the Golden Rule are here. One of them I ripped off verbatim from Joseph Campbell: Follow your bliss. Most of these I just picked up over the course of 40 years. I take credit for inventing none of them. I merely observed what seemed to work or what made sense over the years and wrote it down. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Eventually, I'd like to amplify each of these guidelines by listing examples of each behavior and reasons why they are important. For now, I'd like to flesh out the list by calling on others to add to it. So, I welcome any and all additions.

The List (in no particular order):

1. Be honest with yourself.
2. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
3. Tell the truth.
4. Control your response to your emotions.
5. Act out of compassion.
6. Do everything you do as well as you can.
7. Attend to your own physical and mental health.
8. Allow yourself only one major regret in life.
9. Make a smile your default facial expression.
10. Observe carefully and actively with all your physical senses: Listen, look, touch, smell, taste.
11. Look for and appreciate the humor in everything.
12. Give your love carefully, but give it fully.
13. If a hand is good enough to play, raise; if not, fold. Never merely call. (It's OK to check sometimes, though.)
14. Read.
15. Say what you mean, but know your reason for saying it; remember that words are powerful and can carry powerful consequences.
16. Listen to criticism, learn from it; never let it discourage you.
17. Some people will never like you, no matter what you do.
18. Know your strengths and cultivate them.
19. Know your responsibilities and live up to them.
20. Embrace your imagination.
21. Embrace your curiosity.
22. Make a plan and stick to it, but make sure the plan is flexible.
23. Know who you are.
24. Like who you are.
25. Never stop learning.
26. Follow your bliss.
27. When negotiating with an adversary, find out what the adversary wants and determine whether you can provide it. Knowing this will allow you to negotiate from strength.
28. Be willing to compromise, but make sure it's worth it.
29. Learn from everyone you encounter.
30. Have fun.
31. Be kind to animals.
32. Follow instructions.
33. Respect those in authority, especially your parents.
34. Be confident, but don't mistake hubris for confidence.
35. When traveling, determine how long it will take to get where you're going and add a half-hour to account for potential delays.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

2009-05-15T10:51:00.002-04:00

I love Lost. Can't help it. Only one other show, ever, has captured my imagination like this, and that was Northern Exposure. So now, it's Lost. I avoided it for four-plus years, but my neighbor Curt loaned me the first four seasons on DVD and I watched it all in about three days. Not sure whether to thank Curt or curse him. Considering the complicated nature of the show, maybe both courses of action are appropriate.

So, thank you, Curt. And curse you!

I got hooked early because of the literary allusions and direct references to things that interest me. Early on, I liked the idea that Sawyer, the resident con man, was a big reader. And when the first book he read on the show was Watership Down -- one of the books that shaped my literary ambitions as a child -- I was absolutely geeked.

It's been like that throughout, actually. They'll sneak in a subtle reference to a literary work or music and it makes the geek in me glow. This season, Daniel Faraday, the resident mad physicist, played Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu as a kid in a flashback. His mom told him to knock it off, because he was destined to use his mind in other pursuits (like manipulating the space-time continuum). Still, there was my favorite composer, Chopin, smack dab in the middle of my favorite show. Someone on a fan site noticed that the song itself, as played by the young Faraday, picked up at the 1:08 mark. It actually is the beginning of the prettiest segment of the song, my favorite part of the song. Anyone who's watched the show knows the significance of that number (1:08). There is no way it's coincidence that the scene began with Faraday playing the song at that instant, and that's one of the reasons I love this show.

Like most of the geeks who've been sucked into this show's vortex of mind-numbing mystery, I have theories. I'm not going to write them here, though. Instead (and this part will be of interest only to those who watch the show), I'll point out what I thought was a huge clue from the season finale.

It occurred as Jacob sat on a park bench in the "real world" off the island, waiting for (the real) John Locke to be pushed out of an eighth-story window by his father. Before we see Locke's body plunge to Earth in the background, Jacob (a moving force -- for good? for evil? -- on the island) is reading Flannery O'Connor's short story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge. The title itself is a pretty big clue, coming as it did from the work of this guy, who basically believed that human existence is a collective striving to cast off the crude, violent nature inherent to the species and "rise" to "converge" into a single, higher level of existence. OK, I found that on a fan site, but as big a geek as I am about these things I had never heard of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin before Wednesday. (And oh, can it be coincidence that one of the main Dharma characters, Dr. Chang, is named Pierre?)

So, the good vs. evil dynamic being played out on the island is actually about Jacob's belief that, despite the apparent brutal nature of human beings, it is possible to ascend to a higher form collectively -- eventually.

Now, what about O'Connor's book? I happen to own it, and when I went back to read the title story, I noticed something astounding. Among the other titles in the collection are these stories: A View of the Woods; the Comforts of Home; the Lame Shall Enter First; Why Do the Heathen Rage?; Revelation; Parker's Back; Judgement (sic) Day.

Wow. It's almost as if the writers of Lost took almost every important theme they've explored for the past five years directly from the titles in O'Connor's collection.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's what this show does to you. It's actually participatory television (if your curiosity is powerful enough) and it makes you want to search deeper into the mystery.

Can't wait for Season Six. In January. Curse you, Curt. And thank you.

Countrywide To Homeowner (me): You're Out Of Luck

2009-02-18T10:06:00.004-05:00

I just got off the phone with a "home retention" representative for Countrywide, the company that holds the 30-year fixed mortgage that my wife and I took out on our house in 2004. It was, to say the least, a frustrating conversation.

The goal of my call was to find out what, if anything, is available to help people (like my family) who have never missed a mortgage payment but whose financial circumstance has shifted so dramatically that making those payments over the coming months will become much more difficult, if not impossible.

I explained that I lost my job in July and, even though we haven't missed any payments, our income has been essentially cut in half and a once-affordable mortgage has, for the time being, become unaffordable. After I explained our circumstance, Lori the Countrywide Phone Drone (CPD) told me in clipped tones that there is no program of aid available for customers whose mortgages are current.

I then told her we're trying to make sure that the mortgage stays current, something that might be impossible with our family income slashed by more than half after my layoff eight months ago. Was there really nothing to be done? Then why do we receive almost daily emails and snail mails from Countrywide inviting us to call and find out what can be done to make the mortgage payment easier to meet? Is all of that just marketing BS and meaningless advertising?

Again, she told me I was basically out of luck.

I asked her if I would be better off, in terms of finding help from Countrywide, if we had missed a few payments. She told me there was no guarantee I would be helped if payments were missed.

Then, helpful soul that I am, I told her that it might be a good idea (and maybe even good for her career) if she were to tell her superiors at Countrywide about our story. I told her I'd be willing to bet there are millions of Countrywide customers in similar circumstances, people who were good customers but had lost their jobs and were in danger of falling behind on payments, and that many millions more were coming down the tracks with all the job loss the nation is suffering now. I told her that if Countrywide was smart, it would do something to help those customers. Otherwise, Countrywide might find itself on the figurative fiscal breadline with other failed financial institutions.

What could they do? Here's one solution:

Create a program that allows good, responsible customers who want to pay their mortgage the opportunity to pay interest only for a year. That would essentially cut the payment by one-third (leaving a substantial monthly escrow payment and whatever the interest would be). In our case, it would save us about $500 a month for a year, giving us a little more breathing room while I continue to search for work. Once the customer's situation improved, or at the end of the year-long suspension of principle payments, the mortgage payment would revert to its previous level.

I tell you what else. The CPD I spoke with could use an attitude adjustment. I was cordial and calm throughout the conversation. She had my payment record in front of her, so she knew she was talking to a responsible customer, someone who ABSOLUTELY WANTS TO DO THE RIGHT THING, but she was rude and short from start to finish. I signed off by informing her, in the pleasantest of voices, that she had been no help whatsoever.

Look, I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking for help from a mortgage company to prevent yet another mortgage from becoming a "toxic asset." I'm asking for breathing room while my family adjusts to its new financial situation. I'm asking for time to find a job, at which point we'll gladly pay the mortgage as it's written. I'm asking for common sense from a company with everything to lose if the millions of others in my situation suddenly can't make their payments.

I'm asking myself whether there is a solution at all, especially with people like Lori the Countrywide Phone Drone (and the mindless corporation she represents) holding the keys.

Cut The Crap, Geithner

2009-02-11T12:09:00.004-05:00

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was as uninspiring as a pile of dead leaves and as informative as a homeowners association newsletter. I know very little about the machinations of macroeconomics, but somehow I know even less today than I knew before Geithner's disastrous "unveiling" of the Obama administration's plan for the remaining $350 billion of TARP money.

I, like Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and the rest of MSNBC's talking heads, am left feeling a bit disgruntled with our economic leaders. These are the people who are supposed to get us out of this mess? Well then, good luck to all of us.

Contrast Geithner's pathetic performance with Obama's in Fort Myers on Monday. He is a communicator of the highest order. He exudes confidence. He oozes empathy. When he walked over and kissed the homeless woman who asked, "Please help," Obama struck exactly the right emotional tone.

Very nice. Very touching. But . . .

I still have many, many questions. As an accomplished professional sports journalist who has been out of work since July, I have yet to see any real progress. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's more difficult today to get a job than it was six months ago. Six months from now, it will probably be more difficult still.

My family is quintessentially middle class. The difference between us and most? We aren't saddled with thousands of dollars of credit card debt. With help from generous relatives, we have done things the right way.

We didn't overspend on our house, and we financed it with a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. We did get a second mortgage, but we used that money to pay off both of our cars and what credit card debt we had remaining. We hardly ever use credit cards, and when we do, we pay them off as quickly as possible. We don't spend to excess, but we do pay all of our bills on time -- including the first and second mortgages.

I'm looking for work. I've found that I'm utterly unqualified for the few jobs that actually are available, and all this talk of millions of new "green" jobs seems geared toward people who already have degrees in ecology or environmental engineering. I always thought I'd be able to work at a book store or somewhere similar if things got really rough, but that option won't be there now, either. I'm trying to write fiction, but trying to make a living doing that is like trying to make a living playing the lottery, even in the best of times.

These are not the best of times.

We are the face of these times. My wife and I worked hard to build our careers. We proved ourselves competent in our work. We had a nice, steady income and a nice home in a clean, safe neighborhood. We thought we had prepared the way for our two young sons to grow up happy, healthy and with the promise of a better life than Beth and I have had. Now? Because of matters that seemed to have been beyond our control, we've had to cash in my retirement fund and hope something ... anything ... comes along for me before that money runs out.

I wish President Obama and Timothy Geithner could hear my story. Then again, would it even register? Obama has spoken glowingly of his devotion to the middle class. Well, here we are, Mr. President. Struggling to survive. Worried about the future. Still willing to do things the right way, but unsure anymore if that will be enough.

So, cut the crap, Geithner. Quit approaching your job like some wide-eyed doctoral candidate who thinks he can scrape by with vague generalities and high-sounding diction.

For God's sake, DO something.

Make 'em take lie detector tests

2009-02-10T12:10:00.003-05:00

I wrote this almost three years ago, but it's just as relevant today. Especially in light of the Alex Rodriguez admission of steroid use.

Want to know who's using? Hook 'em all up to a polygraph.
Want to know who's lying? Strap 'em all to a lie detector.
If Major League Baseball wants to clean up its act, there's a way. It might be flawed, but even the result of a scientifically debatable polygraph is better than having to take these guys at their word ever again.
If the notoriously overprotective players union wants to clear the collective name of its constituency, it will voluntarily waive the players' right to hide behind the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, which states (in part):
"An employer engaged in commerce ... cannot, in any manner or for any reason, have an employee or prospective employee submit to a polygraph test."
Give up that right, and make a show of it. Bring everything into the light. Right now.
Do it before any more IRS investigators break down the door of [name redacted] or that other suspected steroid/HGH user, [name redacted].
Want the scandal to go away? Forget about financing a virtually hopeless study at UCLA in a quest for a urine test that reliably detects human growth hormone (a substance that is extremely difficult to detect even in a blood test).
Work out a deal with the American Polygraph Association - whose business is truth, a strong dose of which baseball could use - and set up an independent board to administer, monitor and analyze the results.
Do it every year, to major-leaguers and to minor-leaguers. Make it a standard part of reporting to spring training, an annual ritual, like the preseason physical or daily pitchers fielding practice.
Pop the polygraph on 'em at random times during the season. Keep 'em on their toes.
Make every result public. Players who admit during the test to having used performance-enhancing substances should receive reduced penalties, an acknowledgment that for once, they told the truth.
Players who lie about it should be fined, suspended and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
They have done this to themselves. Jason Grimsley has done it to himself. But it's not only Grimsley, or the six names redacted from the now-infamous affidavit that brought to light the most celebrated IRS investigation this side of Al Capone.
It's Grimsley, it's the six blacked-out names he named, it's every name of every player of every organization for the past 15 years - and maybe before. That includes this year, Year Two of MLB's supposedly tough-as-nails but really soft-as-cotton policy governing the use of performance enhancers.
They're all under the same blanket now, the blanket of suspicion. No one is above it.
Is that fair?
Not to the players who have spent their careers legally squeezing every ounce of ability out of their unenhanced bodies and minds. Fair or not, it is what the current culture of baseball dictates.
Speculation. Whispers. Suspicion.
Who now can watch a pitcher throw 98 mph and not wonder? Who now can watch a batter slug a baseball 450 feet and not suspect?
Want to know for sure? Read the printout after the polygraph. Those jagged lines don't lie.
Not that it will ever happen. For one thing, as reliable as polygraphs are, there always is that element of uncertainty - just as there are Web sites selling synthetic HGH, there are Web sites out there that teach you how to beat a lie detector.
Besides, union leader Don Fehr fought tooth and nail against steroid testing, on the grounds that testing "without cause" would violate the players' civil rights. To think that he would submit to a solution as admittedly drastic as across-the-board lie detector tests is ludicrous.
Nor would Commissioner Bud Selig ever stoop to such draconian methods.
So, what? Believe [name redacted] when he says he's clean? Take it on faith that the same players who pass the toothless MLB drug test aren't using something else?
That's hard to do now. And maybe it always will be.

I wonder just how united we really are

2009-01-21T09:04:00.004-05:00

I was moved, as I'd like to think most people were, by the events of Tuesday in Washington. It wasn't President Obama's best speech, but he said what he had to say and hit on all the themes that needed to be hit on.

The networks gushed all day and into the night about how now we can move forward together "as one." I want to feel that way, but anecdotal evidence suggests it's just not so.

At this Yahoo! baseball blog, a cute examination of Obama's connection to his beloved White Sox devolved into a back-and-forth snipe fest among the commenters at the bottom. This is only one example; on my Facebook account, mixed among all the expressions of joy, I saw comments from friends that were cheap shots at Michele Obama's gold outfit and frank expressions of fear of Obama's policies. Why are people afraid? Why do people feel the need to belittle the First Couple already?

It's no surprise, though. The people who spewed such hate at the Palin and McCain rallies during the campaign aren't going to change their hearts just because 52 percent of the country says they should. They are who they are, and this country is what it is: still split along Rovian lines, still a Red America and a Blue America.

I have as much cause as anyone to feel disenchanted with the economic future of this country. Yet, my natural sense of optimism (blind optimism?) is in keeping with Obama's message. That's enough for me today.

What I hope Obama will say in his inauguration address tomorrow

2009-01-19T17:49:00.003-05:00

Fellow Americans: I stand before you today on the steps of this hallowed building, humbled by the enormous responsibility we share. Humbled, but determined. Determined to stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us in order to meet the enormous challenges of our generation. Our mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, and generation upon generation of Americans have risen up in the way most appropriate to their times to overcome the great problems of their age. The citizen patriots of the Revolutionary War, who gave birth to our great nation; the abolitionist voices in the wilderness in the first half of the 19th century, who recognized and dared to speak out against the evils of slavery; the men, women and children of the age of Lincoln, who waged a brutal war and died by the hundreds of thousands to secure the sanctity of the United States of America and to give freedom to the unjustly chained; the children of the Great Depression, who, even as their empty stomachs rumbled, never lost faith in the promise of our nation; the men and women of the Greatest Generation, who partnered with the forces of good in the world to strike down tyranny and preserve the rights of human beings everywhere; the marchers of Selma, Ala., risking life and limb to transform Dr. King’s dream into reality; all of these people, all of these Americans, helped nourish the ideals of a young and burgeoning nation by not only weathering the change inherent to a life of freedom, but by becoming themselves the very agents of change.

It was not easy. Throughout our nation’s history, change has upended lives, shattered dreams, shaken us to our very foundation. In the darkest hours of our history, when the days and nights were fraught with grief and uncertainty, all that remained was hope. Hope for a better future for ourselves, for our children, for our children’s children. But hope we had then, and hope we have today. Yet, hope without action is one cruel moment removed from despair. We must hope, but we must do more than hope. Our sense of ourselves as a people, as a nation, demands that even as we gather to our hearts the glimmer of hope in the darkness of our age, we act upon our impulse toward that shining beacon of the promise of a better life.

Where else, but the United States of America, can a people reach back into their collective history to seek for such a clear course for the future? Where else, but the United States of America, could the disjointed rhythm of history propel a Hawaiian-born son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother into the highest office in the land? Where else, but the United States of America, have the lessons of the past proven so eloquently that, as Benjamin Franklin warned his fellow Founding Fathers, “We must all hang together, or we will surely hang separately?” The path forward, while not smooth, is thoroughly known and eminently passable if we merely listen to the message cast down through history by those who came before us.

We might ask, as President Kennedy urged 48 years ago, “What can I do for my country?” In asking this, we must ponder the purpose of the question: simply, to engender a stronger, more vital America, where anyone who works hard and wants a better life has a fair chance to achieve it. It is our sacred duty as a people to continue the work begun by those citizen patriots of the late 1700s and to honor the hard work and sacrifice endured by the generations that followed. Only by doing so, by mirroring the example of our forefathers, can we ensure generations to come will have their chance to pursue the American dream. What we do for our country today, we also do for your children, for my daughters, for our children’s children.

It will not be easy. High-minded questions and philosophical answers will not alone soothe the fears of the unemployed factory worker in Ohio or Michigan; the retiree whose life savings has been devastated by the worst economic climate since the Great Depression; the young college graduate, burdened with student debt and unable to find a job; the lifelong journalist, out of work as the newspaper industry crumbles; the soldier back from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, ready to return to private life, only to find his or her civilian job no longer exists. These and millions of their fellow Americans are, and by right should be, the agents of change. Confronted with the reality of a sick economy, worried about how to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads, they seek answers.

These answers will not surface quickly, but surface they will. For the one constant in our nation’s history has been our resolve as a people not only to confront change, but to embrace it and mold it to our present and future needs. Change, while painful, is the only way to grow. And, to paraphrase Dr. Franklin, if we do not grow together, we will surely grow apart.

And so, fellow Americans, I stand before you today and echo the call to action of President Kennedy, who understood the truth about the deeply independent spirit of his fellow countrymen. He understood then and we understand today that together, we the people of the United States of America CAN overcome all obstacles, CAN rise to new heights, CAN live by the example of our ancestors, CAN help our children’s children live a better life, CAN transform the smallest glimmer of hope into the towering promise of a future brimming with optimism, a future worthy of our great nation. Together, we can. Together, we will.

Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

Not The Professors' Fault

2009-01-14T09:40:00.003-05:00

In my last post, I complained about the lack of vision I witnessed from the University of Florida and University of South Florida journalism schools in the early 1990s. The kind of vision that might have better prepared that era's burgeoning writers (and today's laid off journalists) for the changes that were coming in the way the public received its news.

Let me be clear about one thing, here: I don't put it on the professors at all. With few exceptions, the teachers I had at UF and USF were outstanding. A couple, in particular -- USF's Randy Miller and Rick Wilber -- became mentors to me and I consider them friends, still. Miller provided the inspiration for me to finally graduate, and Wilber gave me moral support and the occasional verbal kick in the butt that I needed back then.

The skills they and others taught are just as relevant now as they were then. It will always be vitally important to know how to report and write well, regardless of the medium used to present the information.

There are multi-media graduate degrees now at USF. One of the first (if not the first) graduate of that program now works for tbo.com. Ironically, I gave the good folks in the Tribune/tbo heirarchy a glowing report on this guy before he was hired (he had interviewed me for a baseball project he did, and I thought he came off as very professional and competent). I don't know how much (if any) that influenced the decision to hire him, but the fact remains he works there now and I don't. So, was this a simple case of "out with the old" (me) and "in with the new" (him)? Eh. Maybe. I certainly don't begrudge that guy his job; anyone who can cling to a position with a media company in this era has my full support. I do have to wonder, though: If USF had offered that program in 1991, with an eye toward the future of the business, and if I had chosen to participate (and actually graduated), would I still have my job today?

That's what I meant in the previous post. I wish I had had that choice way back when.

Should Journalism Schools Have Known This Was Coming?

2009-01-11T16:03:00.005-05:00

In 1999, 12 years after I graduated from high school and seven years after I was hired by the Tampa Tribune, I received my degree in mass communications from the University of South Florida. When I stopped being a full-time student in 1993, I needed only a few credits to graduate. But I had a job; I figured the degree would only be a redundancy I could not afford (financially). I was a poor student, in more ways than one.

I know now how important it was to actually finish school. It wasn't so much about what I was learning in the classes as it was about making a plan for my education and seeing it to fruition. I learned most of what I know about journalism from hands-on experience, but I learned most of what I know about myself during my haphazard college career.

And somewhere in the recesses of my time-addled brain, I seem to recall the softest of warnings being sounded in the course of my college career. This was the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the Internet had become so prevalent and before many folks outside of Microsoft's offices in Redmond, Wash., had any inkling of the meanings of acronyms like HTML, SEO or SERP. Words like "blog" and "iTunes" and "podcast" had not been invented. Yet, some professors spoke of the changing nature of journalism. They spoke of it as an eventuality, something relatively far in the future to ponder while mastering the soon-to-be-antiquated skills being taught in J-school. I mean, think about this: In 1991, I took a required class in photography, wherein we learned the art of film development. When's the last time you developed film? Or even used film?

The point is this: While there was a vague uneasiness at the academic level regarding the future of journalism, nothing was done about it in the early 1990s -- when it would have mattered to so many thousands of future journalists.

Should someone have known? Should some bold, visionary dean of a J-school somewhere in the land have shaken the system and forged a new way of learning? For all I know, that might have been happening at top-flight places like Missouri and North Carolina. But at the two J-schools I attended, Florida and South Florida, there was very little in the way of useful, practical vision. There was solid, fundamentally grounded education, but it was based on a model that, before its students would reach their 40s, would become as irrelevant as vinyl records.

Now, would some new way of learning about the practice of journalism have changed the disastrous business model that was the real reason newspapers died in 2008? I doubt that; publishers and owners made too much money on newspapers for too many years to let the old way of doing business give way gracefully to some new, perhaps less-profitable paradigm. So, the profession died, and our society must live with the consequences of a government under the so-so scrutiny of a terribly weakened watch dog.

Would knowing in 1991 what I know now about the way readers/viewers/listeners/Web surfers receive their news have made me a better writer? No. But it might have allowed me and the thousands of other out-of-work writers to better position ourselves in our chosen fields. Was it the University of Florida and the University of South Florida's responsibility to prepare me for a future in journalism? You bet it was, at least in part. The responsibility also rested with me, and with all journalism students whose careers stretched out so promisingly before them in the early '90s.

That was an empty promise. I confess, I had no idea it would happen in my lifetime. If I had, I would have followed my fellow high school nitwits to law school. Instead, I'll continue to scramble to find a way to make the skills I learned and honed for 22 years relevant. Perhaps it's not too late, but it sure would have been nice to have received a meaningful warning all those years ago.

Resolved

2009-01-02T08:43:00.002-05:00

Is it too late? Can I still make my New Year's resolutions on Jan. 2? I'll start with this: I resolve to procrastinate less. (Although, to be fair to myself, deadlines never have been an issue for me.)

I also resolve this year to not have another heart attack, to not get laid off from another job and to not spend eight days in the neonatal intensive care unit with my newborn son.

I resolve to be more resolute after overcoming so many obstacles in 2008.

Oh, and here's a big one: I resolve to forgive and (try to) forget.

I resolve to turn off the TV.

I resolve to write.

I resolve to get a job.

If I fail in the latter, I resolve to throw myself whole-heartedly into the former.

I resolve to be the person I know I should be. A better husband. A better father. A better son. A better brother. A better son-in-law. A better neighbor. A better friend. A better homeowner (that persistent patch of clover in the back yard is doomed).

A better everything.

Six For The Hall

2008-12-29T19:57:00.004-05:00

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

2008-12-01T17:46:00.007-05:00

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

2008-11-30T09:19:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-19T09:52:00.004-05:00

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

2008-11-14T23:08:00.008-05:00

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

2008-10-30T16:05:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-22T08:32:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-10-20T10:09:00.005-04:00

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?

2008-09-15T08:09:00.004-04:00

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

2008-09-02T23:36:00.004-04:00

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'

2008-08-27T12:10:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-23T08:05:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-21T15:16:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-19T07:51:00.005-04:00

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'

2008-08-16T22:32:00.003-04:00

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 ...

2008-08-14T17:28:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-15T16:35:00.003-04:00

(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

2008-05-18T19:37:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-08T12:10:00.002-04:00

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?

2008-05-04T17:45:00.005-04:00

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

2008-04-22T09:26:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-19T12:23:00.011-04:00

(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.