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.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Rays' Secret: Fungi-ball
I'm not a "fan" of the Tampa Bay Rays. I spent too many years as a beat writer covering the team to set aside my carefully cultivated sense of objectivity when it comes to wins and losses and that baseball team.
That doesn't mean I'm not excited about the World Series. Nor does it mean I wish them ill against the Phillies. My guess is that the beat writers who cover a team in the Series figure they got this far, so why not win it? That's pretty much how I feel. I can see it as a good story, though, even if they lose.
But on the day of Game One at Tropicana Field, I find myself thinking less about whether they'll win or lose and more about my experiences with some of the folks with a real stake in the outcome. Folks like Andrew Friedman, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Trever Miller, B.J. Upton, Scott Kazmir. Folks I got to know pretty well in a professional capacity, and folks I would like to see perform well on this largest of stages.
Andrew has already performed well, of course. I think about Friedman as I knew him when he was Stu Sternberg's man in the front office, back in the waning months of the Chuck LaMar Era in 2005. It was pretty obvious from the start that Andrew would be in charge once Sternberg took over from Vince Naimoli. At first, I thought of Andrew as a hyper-Moneyball disciple; someone who had read Michael Lewis' book and believed Billy Beane walked on water. I used to have a pretty long drive home from the Trop after games, and I always knew I could reach Andrew on his Blackberry, just to kill time. The guy never slept. And he always wanted to talk baseball. His conversation was littered with words like "fungible," something I attributed to his background in finance with Bear Stearns. It, "fungible," usually was used to refer to guys like Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. It meant easy to replace at a better price.
He was right. Andrew was right about a lot of things. He was right to hire an experienced hand in Gerry Hunsicker, a free-thinking manager in Joe Maddon and all those young "numbers" guys he used to populate his inner sanctum: Chaim Bloom, James Click, Dan Feinstein, etc. He was right about Dioner Navarro and, yes, even Edwin Jackson. But he was right not because of a strict adherence to Moneyball principles. He was right because he was flexible enough to use those principles to form his own style. Call it "Fungi-ball." His strategy? Find the under-valued skills (in this case, defense, middle relief pitching and a strong bench) and emphasize them on the roster. Then, lock down the young, talented players they acquired through the draft to reasonable long-term contracts. Finally, he knew enough not to be afraid to take what appeared to be big chances, such as the Delmon Young trade for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett.
I think what Andrew did will be copied for years in MLB. Thing is, if I know Andrew, he's already thinking ahead to the next under-valued quality and how that might be exploited in order to sustain this incredible success. It's been fun and educational to watch.
So, a prediction. Rays win the Series in six. Simply amazing.
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.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Face. Book.
I went ahead and joined Facebook, even though the idea kind of creeped me out at first. There's something impersonal (and a little desperate-seeming) about all these on-line networking sites. But hey, it's happening, right? Might as well be there when it does.
Speaking of which . . .
I still can't get my mind around the Rays. That they are in the World Series and I am not able to cover it is so galling I can barely breathe.
(Edited to conceal the true depth of my angst.)
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.)
Monday, September 15, 2008
How Did This Happen?
The question I kept coming back to this past Wednesday as I waited in the lobby of a Florida Job Services office was, "How did I come to this point?"
I was there for an orientation session, part of employment counseling that's required for people who collect unemployment insurance. It was a sobering experience. Every time I start to get numb to the fact that all the work I put in during the past 22 years to build my sports writing career was (apparently) for nothing, something like that orientation session smacks me down again.
But ... we got through it. Just like we'll get through all of it. This is a good spot to drop this year's most popular sports cliche: It is what it is.
Now, I look at the morning news shows and the headlines on the news Web sites and I wonder, "How did the nation come to this point?" I wish I'd paid more attention in ECO 1001 class at the University of Florida in 1989, although I'm not sure this kind of utter economic bewilderment was covered.
What happened to the world? Does anyone know how all of this came to be? Lehman Brothers and the rest ... were all those too-smart-to-fart Wall Street geniuses too short-sighted to see this coming? The dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, 9-11, Iraq, increased gas prices, the rise of China, dwindling oil supply ... it all seems to be connected, somehow, but how?
And was all this macro-economic stuff the reason I lost my job with the newspaper? Was there anything I could have done, in that context, to better prepare our family for our own personal economic downturn? Anything I could have done to prevent myself from becoming unceremoniously unemployed?
Was there anything our country's leaders could have done, can do, about what's happening in the world at large? Anything they can do to keep this country from collapsing?
I wish I knew. I wish anyone knew.
Ah, well. At least the Rays and the Red Sox start a three-game series today that could decide the American League East. Should be quite a hoot.
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.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
It's Who You Know
A big part of the ongoing job search is perusing all those Web sites that offer career advice. One of the things I keep coming across is, apparently, job search LAW: To find the job you want, you have to "network."
Now, I understand the truth behind that. I've experienced it. Other than my first job in journalism, a part-time gig with the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 22 years ago, every meaningful job I've had came to me as a result of a phone call from someone I knew. Of course, the only meaningful job I've had since then was with the Tribune. I got that job when a guy named Ernest Hooper called me and asked if I wanted to apply. Hooper had seen my work with the St. Pete Times and thought I'd be a good fit at the Trib. A month after I was hired at the Trib, we bid a fond farewell to Hooper ... who jumped ship for the Times.
OK. So, I know from experience it's not what you know, it's who you know. Yet, with every fiber of my being I detest that unfortunate truism. It SHOULD NOT be about who you know. It should be ALL ABOUT how well you could perform the tasks inherent to the position in question. Of course, I understand that in order to acquire the position, the candidate must acquire a level of trust from the person doing the hiring. And who do we trust? The people we know.
But that kind of cronyism limits the field, does it not? If I were a hiring manager, I wouldn't want to trim the field based on whether a candidate once went out for beers with me or was a groomsman or bride's maid at the assistant editor's wedding. I'd want the best person I could find. I'd want someone with a proven background of accomplishment. Someone who had demonstrated a high aptitude for the type of work in question.
In other words, the best person available.
That's not how it works, though. If I don't send out e-mails and make phone calls and have lunches with people who might be able to help me land the kind of job I need to support my family, I don't stand a chance in hell of landing that job. I'd rather apply for a position and be allowed to sell myself as the best candidate based on my qualifications, not based on whether I went to school with the executive vice president's nephew.
So, anyway ... I guess I'd better get going on these novels I'm supposed to be writing.
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.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
'I Get High On Baby Hugs'
Don't think I'd attend one of this guy's concerts if I happened to be in L.A., but this video is awesome.
My favorite line:
"I'm a stay-at-home dad;
"And I don't take drugs.
"I'm a stay-at-home dad;
"I get high on baby hugs."
Here's the link: Stay At Home Dad rap
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
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Brush With Biden
Last August, during a Rays road trip to Boston, I popped into the Borders bookstore at the busy corner of Washington and School streets around lunchtime. One of the things I love about downtown Boston at lunchtime in the later summer or early fall is the bustle. There's a lot of energy, and not the mechanical, got-to-get-where-I'm-going-RIGHT-NOW kind of directed energy you find at, say, Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street in New York. Boston, especially the old, winding streets bisected by the Freedom Trail, is more like a visit to an outdoor art festival, where the pedestrians wander casually from stall to stall, poking their heads in to see what's cooking.
So, I popped into the Borders on my way to Quincy Market, where I like to cruise the half-mile-long food court and decide between the fresh, boiled lobster and the North End pizza joint (no Sbarro's at Quincy Market). The Borders in the heart of that pedestrian district off Washington Street is larger than most. Not as big, perhaps, as the Borders next to the Water Tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, but huge, nonetheless. I browsed my way back to the history section, taking my time; I wouldn't need to be at Fenway Park until three o'clock.
At the back of the store, where the history books are kept, a line of suit-clad bibliophiles stretched from the rear entrance, where a table and chair were set up for what clearly was a book-signing event. The line actually blocked the aisle I wanted to browse, so I remember being a little annoyed. But I found another aisle and tried to ignore the suits.
Then, the line began to move. The author was there. Now, it wasn't a big line. Maybe 30 or 40 people, tops. It didn't take long for the aisle I originally wanted to browse to become accessible again. As I rounded the end of the aisle, I glanced over to see who was signing a book that day. Sitting there, framed by the rear entrance (this old building apparently used to be a bank; next to the rear entrance is an old, round vault door) was Senator (and, at the time, presidential candidate) Joe Biden of Delaware.
My first thought, after taking in the two or three suit-clad security guards (Secret Service?) and the eight or ten suit-clad staff members who milled around so casually was this: This guy's running for president, and the most he can pull to a book signing is 30 or 40 people? There's no way he's getting the nomination. My second reaction was to call Mama Bird back home. She thought Biden was an interesting candidate and considered supporting him early in the campaign. She thought it was cool.
I guess I must've missed the big moment of that particular book signing. I kind of wish I had seen him speak. Especially now that he's been named Barack Obama's running mate.
And as for that, how about the timing of the mass text message announcement? The story I read this morning said it was released by the campaign after the news leaked late Friday night to some news outlet. So, out the texts went, right around ... 3 a.m. I'd like to think it was planned that way all along. Kind of a not-so-subtle way of saying, Take that, Clinton folks!
So, here it all comes: Democratic convention, McCain VP announcement, Republican convention, debates, debates, debates. After all those years of covering sports for a living, politics became my "sports." This is gonna be good.
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.
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