"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

O.K. Michael Corleone, I know how you feel.  I have not posted since last May, but I have been sucked back in by the St. Louis Cardinals.  The baseball season came to a close for me and the San Francisco Giants at the end of September, but then I happened to watch the Cardinals, the team I grew up with in St. Louis, as they defeated the Phillies in game five of their National League Division series.  It was a compelling game, a 1-0 victory, and I was hooked watching Chris Carpenter and company.

What can I say.  I am a fair weather fan, but I have been riding this wave with the Cardinals, with Carpenter and "King" Albert Pujols, as well as Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Rafael Furcal, and Alan Craig.  Add Dotel, Rzepczynski, a name I can spell, and Motte.  Add a vegetarian manager. too.  So, I sit in front of the television set, transfixed. I even watch the MLB commentary with Al Leiter giving me insight on pitching.

Oh, it hasn't been easy.  Last night's loss was painful.  Albert struck out at a critical moment on a ninth inning hit and run play and called a hit and run play earlier that ended poorly. Watching on TV is difficult, too, because I cannot abide Joe Buck, and I only tolerate Tim McCarver because he was Bob Gibson's catcher.  Give me Jon Miller,  or even John Smoltz and Ron Darling, who did well in the playoffs.   And still I watch until the final out, enjoying the pleasure of having a team to follow and root for in the World Series.  There's still hope, too, with the team returning to St. Louis for game six.

Win or lose, it's been a great ride, and I have a new explanation for my affliction, thanks to a good friend, Dr. Thomas Singer, who grew up in St. Louis, as I did.  Tom is a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst, and he has explained my attachment to the Cardinals in Jungian terms.  I am caught up in the “urobotic mysticism” of my birthplace, the St. Louis swamp and its baseball team.  Yes, I am caught up in a state of tribal mystical identity symbolized in animal form by the bright red Cardinal.  As Tom says: “The Cardinal red signifies to those of us who participate in its mystery the experience of oneness between ourselves, our souls, our baseball team and our city.”

To understand all this, I suggest you read Tom's excellent article,"Long Live The Fever: Baseball and The Soul of St. Louis," which he wrote a few days ago for the St. Louis Beacon. http://stlbeacon.org/arts-life/neighborhoods/on-the-cardinals/113696-analysis-cardinals-are-essential-part-of-citys-soul

A postscript:  My last posting before this was about Toby, our ancient and esteemed Norwich Terrier.  I must report now with great sadness that the old guy left us several weeks ago, and we all miss him very much.

Nobody Knows You're A Dog On The Internet

Years ago, there was a cartoon in the New Yorker that showed a dog sitting at a desk in front of a computer.  The dog at the computer was talking to another dog, who was lying on the floor next to him, and the caption was something like "Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet.”

That certainly is true. In our household, when we are on-line and a name is requested in situations where we do not want to reveal our actual identity, we use the name of the dog pictured in the photograph above, an ancient Norwich Terrier, named Toby, who receives a great deal of mail and many email messages.  Indeed, Toby has won prizes and even subscribes to magazines.

No, Toby does not write this blog, but he is lying here next to me at my feet, and after finding my blog in the same category as "It's All About The Cats,” I decided to go to the dogs, literally.  I have several animal companions in my household, but Toby has been with us longer than the others, and I thought he deserved some sort of tribute.

Right now, Toby is asleep, as he is much of the day, and he works hard at it.  Barely breathing, he hugs the floor. We got him for one of my daughters when he was a young puppy, a small, barking ball of fur that looked more like a Steiff stuffed animal than a living creature. At the time, we already had a Labrador Retriever, as we do now, but my daughter wanted another dog, “a small dog that would stay small."  My mother-in-law has had Norwich Terriers for many years.  As a result, we were familiar with them, and we obtained Toby from my mother-in-law's breeder.

Now my daughter is twenty years old, and Toby is almost seventeen. He can barely see. He can't hear much, either.  Nonetheless, when he is awake, he still patrols the house as best he can, bumping into walls, tangling himself up in chairs, and getting trapped in corners. Sometimes his hind legs give out, and I give him doses of Tramadol twice a day to help him get around. I carry him up and down the stairs, and outside, too.

Still, the old guy keeps on going. He has been a good companion to me and my family, and he is an inspiration to all of us, although his aging has challenged us, for Toby is sometimes incontinent. As a result, he wears what we call a blue denim "man band," in which we place a disposible adult diaper. He doesn't seem to mind that, but he does appear to be troubled, even embarrassed when on occasion he also will leave deposits around the house that require us to watch our step as we move about.

Cleaning up after Toby is annoying, but it is difficult to be upset when he presses up against me with his muzzle, as he often does now.  He seems to want the physical contact much more now than he did as a younger dog.  He likes to be held much more, too, and when I bring him up onto a couch next to me, he burrows into the cushions and leans against me as he sleeps.  It's the least I can do for the old guy, who has given so much to me and my family over the years.

Back Again And Then Gone To The Dogs

Yes, I said I was back and then I disappeared again for almost two months.  And, yes, I know that if you are going to maintain a blog you must post regularly. With renewed determination, I begin again today, but I must admit that I do so with some hesitation.  I wonder if anyone reads this thing and ask myself why they would, because when I check my blog I sometimes click on the option of going to the next blog, and usually I get some ancient family posting from 2010 about granddad's visit,  a long story about the Lego part that the baby swallowed, or a description of what someone had for breakfast yesterday. Then I find myself moving on to bedroom decorating, perhaps, and my excitement grows when I find myself reading a blog about, say, “canning crunchy dilly beans.”  Once I hit the jackpot; I actually got two baseball blogs, "Twin Geeks," and "Blue Heaven.”  Today, I did it again, starting off with "When I Fell In Love With Sports," and "Keys To The Game." That made me feel a bit better, but clicking on "Next Blog" is something like Russian roulette for me. I never know what I'm going to get, and after "Keys to the Game,” I pressed my luck.  I doubled down and landed on "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now,""Grace Design," and "Mama T Keeps You In Stitches." I ask myself how do I fit into this category of blog? What algorithm is used?  Is it the title?  Several times I have ended up at "It's All About Cats."  Maybe I should start posting photographs of my dogs.

Baseball Is Back And So Am I

            Yes, baseball is back. Today is opening day for the World Champion San Francisco Giants. Tim Lincecum starts against Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers this afternoon in Los Angeles, and I am excited.  But baseball already has lifted my spirits for a few weeks now, not just today.  While I have watched events in Libya and the sad, horrific situation in Japan, I have had the solace of Jon Miller's soothing voice on the radio as the Giants finished up the spring training season in Arizona, and played the A's back in San Francisco and Oakland.  

            There is something reassuring and comforting about having major league baseball once again on the radio as part of one’s everyday life.  Even as background noise that fades in and out of one’s attention, the sound of the game on the radio or even broadcast on television is a constant that makes life better, as it evokes memories of the past and stirs up hopes for the future, especially at the beginning of the season. 

             Of course, baseball also is back with the ongoing trial of Barry Bonds for perjury and obstruction of justice, but I prefer to think about Brandon Belt, the Giants’ rookie first baseman, who has not been sent back down to the minors and will start this afternoon. Instead of Bonds and his shrinking body parts, I also will think about Barry Zito’s unfortunate moustache and automobile accident, switch hitter Andres Torres starting in centerfield, Pablo Sandoval’s “weight loss,” the aging Miguel Tejada at shortstop, and the crossword puzzle prowess of Brian Wilson, who is the "answer" for the Giants as 30-Down in today’s New York Times puzzle.  Like Wilson, I am a devotee of the Times daily puzzle, and I am delighted by his appearance in the puzzle on opening day, although the gimmicks in the Thursday crosswords often annoy me.

            Yes, Baseball is back, and I must add that several weeks ago, while out for a long bike ride in West Marin, I happened upon the opening day game of the Little League season in the town of Nicasio.  I had pulled off the road for a break in my ride, next to the beautifully manicured ballpark in the center of town, across the street from the local church and the Rancho Nicasio, a popular roadhouse, bar and restaurant, that turned out to be the sponsor of one of the teams on the field. (“Rancho Nicasio” was inscribed on the back of one team's uniforms.) The backstop and the stands had been decorated with red, white, and blue bunting for the occasion, and there was a small but enthusiastic crowd of family and friends cheering the young kids on.  My intention had been to just glance at the game for a minute or two, but I stood there for several innings, watching these kids, who were not yet even teenagers, take their swings at the plate, throw strikes, make some good fielding plays, and run around the bases in their crisp, new, brightly colored uniforms.  I was enjoying the slow pace of the game, the warm sunshine, and the beautiful symmetry of the diamond.  It was as if time was standing still.  

            

Another Word From Our Sponsor

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My Mother and Von McDaniel

       This past weekend I was in St. Louis for a memorial service for my mother, who died at the age of 88 this past November, and although I have been reluctant to do so, I have been persuaded to post my eulogy for her in its entirety:

        

       Von McDaniel.  I want to talk about Von McDaniel. We are here today to honor the memory and celebrate the life of my mother, Mary Gendler Zorensky, and when I think of her now the name Von McDaniel comes to mind.

       Of course, as we know, my mother was a beautiful woman, whose great beauty did not diminish with age.  Her beauty was matched by her intelligence, too, and the gentle, sweet quality of her temperament.  Moreover, as we have heard, she was a woman who devoted herself not just to her family but to the many philanthropic and charitable causes that she held dear, including the Jewish Federation, various institutions of the City of Saint Louis, and this university. 

     But I do not want to talk about my mother’s many accomplishments and honors.  I want to talk about Von McDaniel, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals back in 1957.  I want to talk about Von McDaniel because I still remember the experience of riding in the car with my mother and all my siblings on a warm night in June, back in 1957, when I was twelve years old.  We sat in the car,  listening to Harry Caray on the radio, as the Cardinals played the Brooklyn Dodgers, the defending National League champions, and Von McDaniel, a young 18-year-old kid, just out of high school, a $50,000 bonus baby, was brought in as a relief pitcher in the late innings of a very close game.

       In those days, my mother often would pack all of us in a pale blue Ford Country Squire station wagon for long car rides on hot summer evenings, while our father was working late at the office.  First, we would go out for a quick dinner and ice cream.  Then, in the long twilight of early summer, my mother would drive west, taking us on meandering routes with no specific destination.  There was no air conditioning in the car, no satellite radio, not even a cassette player, just melting ice cream, five restless, sweaty, squabbling kids, my mother at the wheel, and Harry Caray’s beer-soaked play-by-play voice on KMOX.

       My mother would drive at a steady pace on winding roads, away from the main highways.  She was a very good driver, too.  Actually better, I think, than our father, in spite of his great love of the automobile.   She handled the car well, and there we were, all packed in the Country Squire, with no idea where we were going, gazing out at the passing farmland as the sun slowly set on a hot summer night. 

       I am not sure all my siblings were giving as much attention to the game on the radio as I was, but I remember sitting in the front seat next to my mother.  She had her eyes on the road ahead, but from the concerned look on her face I could see that she was caught up in the tense drama of the moment along with me.

       It was the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Cardinals had a one-run lead, but the Dodgers had a man on base, and Duke Snider, Brooklyn’s great slugger, a mighty hitter whose baseball card I cherished, was coming to the plate to face this new kid, Von McDaniel.  Yes, Von McDaniel, who was making only his second major league appearance after coming straight out of high school.

       I was excited because McDaniel was pitching his fourth inning of shutout relief, and he actually was on the way to his first major league victory, but at that moment, as Duke Snider stepped into the batter’s box, both my mother and I feared the worst.

       Of course, even then I knew about Von’s brother, Lindy, who already was an established Cardinal pitcher, and who with Von would eventually lead the Cardinals to a second-place finish in 1957.  My mother knew who Lindy was, too.  Indeed, she already had become an ardent fan of the Cardinals that year, with a considerable knowledge of the team, because she had been forced to listen to Cardinals games on the radio whenever my brother and I were around. 

       Perhaps, I shouldn’t say, “forced.”  In truth, my mother chose to listen to the games because she knew it was something her sons cared about very much, and she became an enthusiastic Cardinal fan with an interest in baseball that stayed that with her for the rest of her life.

       Yes, even in her later years, with all her children grown up, she still would watch the Cardinals play on television. But it isn’t just her appreciation of baseball that I want to talk about today. 

       There I was on that summer evening in 1957, anxiously listening as Duke Snider came to the plate, and my mother was there, too.  She was present, caught up in the moment with me, as she always was when I needed her, and that really is the point of all this. 

       As the mother of five children, she had many demands placed on her and, in those days, not always a great deal of help.  But somehow she managed.  She was not an absentee parent. She was always there. Certainly, it was not always easy.  She was a woman married to a very strong-willed man, a woman who tried to remain loyal to both her husband and her children when it was sometimes difficult to do so. But she did the best she could, and when I was a young boy growing up, she always was there for me, and for my siblings, as well. 

       She picked us up from school, helped us with our homework, tucked us in at night, and tried to amuse us on hot summer nights when our father was working.   But she did much more than that.  She also was genuinely eager to share our interests, like baseball, and to support us in our efforts to reach our goals.  It was not always easy for her, but she was always there, listening to our hopes, helping us with our problems, cheering us on when we were successful, and commiserating with us when we were not. 

       That’s all I want to say.  My mother was there -- a constant presence I could rely on when I was growing up, and back in June of 1957, when Von McDaniel faced Duke Snider and got him to ground out, she sighed with relief, as I did. 

       I still remember the look on her face at that moment.  She smiled at me and nodded. It was a smile I will not forget. 

       

Peace Corps Daze

As a former volunteer, I found myself pausing for a moment to reflect on my past, when I heard that Sargent Shriver, the founding director of the Peace Corps, had died last week.  He was no longer head of the Peace Corps when I graduated from Yale in 1968 and went overseas to Togo as a volunteer, but he had set the tone and inspired many of us with his passionate, always good-spirited dedication to the mission of the Peace Corps. Indeed, as a public servant, working with such programs as the War On Poverty and Legal Services, he set an example for all of us throughout his life. (Yes, he was a Yale graduate, too, even chairman of the Yale Daily News -- additional reasons to admire him, as if there was any need.) And I was particularly moved by Bill Clinton's eulogy for Sargent Shriver, because the former president touched upon how “tough” and “cynical” the late sixties and early seventies were in this country, torn apart by assassinations and the bitter division of the Vietnam war, and how, in spite of all this, Sargent Shriver’s unshakeable idealism and his indomitable commitment to helping others to a better life still guided so many of us, disaffected as we were.  I was going to say more about this disaffection and alienation during the Vietnam war, about the inequities of the draft, about the death of Robert Kennedy in 1968, and about Richard Milhous Nixon, who granted me a presidential deferment as a Peace Corps volunteer, but I would rather smile and think about Sargent Shriver.  Excerpts from President Clinton’s remarks can be found at the following link:  

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/01/22/funeral.clinton.shriver.pool.

"The Longest Silence...."

         Where was I?  Bonefishing, that was it, and with apologies to Tom McGuane, a fine writer, who has given us so many wonderful fishing essays and stories, I would like to share another story about my holiday encounters with Albula Vulpes.  No, I am not talking about the elusive Permit that McGuane wrote about so well in his piece, “The Longest Silence.” But as he stated in that essay: “What is most emphatic in angling is made so by the long silences – the unproductive periods.”  And that was certainly true for me when I went out for an unproductive morning of bonefishing with the only guide on the island, a big, taciturn man, who seldom spoke to me, and left me to contemplate in silence the beauty of my surroundings as well as the art and challenge of sightcasting to bonefish.

         Upon arrival at the dock, I had introduced myself to this stern fellow, a Turks and Caicos “belonger,” and he had eyed my flyrod with scepticism as he stowed it below.        

         “There’s fishing and catching,” he said, beginning his longest discourse of the morning.  “I like to catch fish.  Last man I took out with a rod like that couldn’t put it out more than three feet.”

         “Well, I hope I can do better,” I offered, confident enough that I could, but concerned, certainly, that we were not off to a good start on my half-day charter.

         My guide, whom I will call "Mr. J.,” did not respond but quickly cast off and pulled away from the dock. I knew where we were going, the same shallow flats on the windward side of the island that I already had fished by myself, and we quickly arrived at our destination, where Mr. J. dropped anchor and started to climb over the side with a small spinning rod in his hand.

         “We gonna wade,” he said, pointing with his rod.  “This way.”

         And so we started out.  We were one hour into the rising tide, an ideal time, but the wind was beginning to pick up behind us and the water was choppy.  It was an overcast day, too.  Visibility was limited as the sun slipped in and out of the clouds from time to time.

         For half an hour we walked slowly without sighting a fish.   My guide did not speak but moved across the sand with long, slow, steady strides, and I stayed in step with him, stopping and starting when he did.

         Finally, he spotted something and spoke up.

.         “Over there,” he said, pointing in front of us. 

         “How far?” I asked. 

         “There.”

         It was difficult to see, and wearing progressive lenses, I am sure this 65-year-old could not match Mr. J. in an eye exam. I could get my line out but I could not see the fish.

         “About eleven o’clock?” I asked.

         “There” he repeated sternly, but I did not give up.

          “Ten o’clock?” I said.

         “There.”

         That was it. 

         Undeterred, I tried, at first, to loosen my guide’s tongue with friendly conversation, but my efforts only produced a few grunts as Mr. J. remained focused on the water in front of us.  For two long hours we continued wading at this spot near his boat, and while he spotted fish four more times, each sighting was marked by the same dialogue.

         “Over there,” he would say, and then there was an emphatic silence, broken only by the sound of the lapping water, the wind, and our footsteps as we moved in unison across the flats.

         Oh, once I got “Keep stripin’!”  That almost made my day, and once I even managed to hook up, but it was really a matter of chance because I did not see the fish Mr. J. had spotted.  I was casting on blind faith.  And, yes, I lost the fish when it swam right at me. 

         On we went, and there was another surprising break in the silence when my guide stopped suddenly and pointed to our right.

         “There,” he said as he flicked a line out with his spinning rod.  “Boxfish.”

         Mr. J. did not catch the boxfish and with a disappointed air turned and led me back to the boat.

         “Where we goin’? I asked. 

          “Over there,” he said pointing to another little island or cay, not far away.

         This time I was able to make out what he was pointing at, and as we approached and dropped anchor, I could see that it looked like a good spot, another shallow flat leading to a deep drop off.          

         With renewed optimism and boldness, I dared to ask another question.  “Do you think I should try a different fly?” I said as I opened my flybox.

         “Pink,” he said, pointing to a Crazy Charlie.

         I changed the fly as he dropped anchor.  Again we began to wade and suddenly my guide became quite vocal.

         “Big fish,” he said, pointing to my left.  “Over there.”

         I didn’t bother to ask for more specifics, but turning to follow Mr. J.’s arm, I did see a sudden ripple in the water.

         Mr. J. shook his head.  “He’s gone,” he announced as he started moving forward once more, and again I followed.  It was becoming more and more difficult to see anything, but I threw a few random casts blindly into the area along the drop off.  

         “This looks like a good spot,” I offered as a small sand shark swam past.

         “Catch a lot of fish here” was the thunderous response.

         Then after another twenty minutes of silence, we headed back to the boat.  I could see by my watch that it was lunch time and I did not bother to ask where we were going.

         En route, my guide said nothing.  When we reached the dock, I tried to be positive as another islander who worked at the hotel greeted me with a friendly wave and asked about the fishing. 

         “Well, it’s a beautiful spot,” I offered. “No fish but I always like being out on the water.”

         Mr. J. said nothing, and as I climbed up onto the dock I wondered if his silence was an indication of his disapproval or disappointment. But all this silence was making me crazy, and I even asked myself if my guide’s refusal to speak was actually a sensitive concern about interfering with my appreciation of the setting and the long silence that often is such a part of the bonefishing experience. 

         But then he gave me an answer with a final outburst that shattered the silence once more.

         “You got to see ‘em to catch ‘em,” he said as he pulled away again from the dock.  

                 

"I Am Not A Fish....Eh!"

If you have bothered to check out this blog in the new year, I welcome you with my best wishes for 2011 and with a promise to keep up my posting on a more regular basis.  I am back from the Caribbean, where I spent the holidays with my family, and I want to begin with a fishing story of sorts.  Yes, I did encounter Albula Vulpes,  but the story I want to tell is not really about bonefishing.

One sunny afternoon, I was searching for sand dollars in the surf with my family on a deserted beach with a group of others including several young Italian women who were staying at our hotel.  We had been dropped off by boat for a beach excursion at a place called Fort George Cay, an uninhabited island originally settled by British loyalists who left the new United States after the Revolutionary War.    

         
One member of our party, Tex, had brought a fly rod along to try fishing further down the beach on the shallow flats, a short distance away.  He had no success and really had expected nothing but was pleased to have the opportunity to smoke a cigar.  As we regrouped on the beach to await the return of our boat, he approached with his rod in hand. We struck up a conversation and began planning a bonefishing expedition for the next day. 

Still puffing on his cigar, Tex made a few false casts toward the water in front of us as he spoke but he stopped suddenly when one of the Italians, a very attractive woman, tan and fit in a revealing bikini, approached and walked in front of us. 

        

We could see that she was heading toward the water for a quick swim, and as she passed she caught our eye.  Turning to face us, she stopped. She knew she had our complete attention and with a dazzling smile she pushed back an unruly mane of dark hair and shook her head. 

        
 “I am not a fish.... Eh!” she declared and then ran into the surf. 

If I had not been hooked already, her wonderful Italian "eh" got me.  I still don't know whether to punctuate it with an exclamation point or a question mark.  And if she had been a fish, not me, I don’t know what fly I could have used to catch her, but I must admit that I did not take my eyes off her as she plunged into the beautiful turquoise water. 

.       

Bonefish On the Brain

Here I am with another apology for failure to keep up my posting.  After all, what is a blog for?  I have observed too many blogs that lapse into inactivity and I am determined to be more regular in my posting during the upcoming year.  But now I am off to the Bahamas with my family.   It's been a long time since I have published a post, and it's been a long time since I have gone bonefishing.  My mind is filled with the wisdom of Lefty Kreh, Dick Brown, Stanley Babson, Randall Kaufmann, Chico Fernandez, and Tom McGuane.   I have bonefish on the brain as I prepare to leave today for the Turks and Caicos, but I'll be back.

A Word From Our Sponsor...

It's been far too long since I have composed another posting for my blog. But now I am back and I must begin with a reminder of what prompted me to begin this blog in the first place. It was the publication of my ebook, Safe On Third, and my desire to promote it that led to the creation of this blog.  Safe was published in July of this year, and now, to reward those of you who have been kind enough to read this blog, I would like to offer a half-price coupon for the purchase of my book at smashwords.com.  Simply use the following code, SH84W (not case sensitive), which you enter prior to completing checkout. As a result, you will only have to pay $5.00 for Safe On Third.  At Smashwords, you have a choice of formats for downloading the book.  They are set out below.

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Giants Win and Fox Sports Loses: A Geography Lesson

In recent posts I have described myself as “exhausted.”  That is not the case today.  This morning I am in a celebratory mood, still enjoying the Monday night victory of the San Francisco Giants in the World Series.  Yes, I am still savoring the pitching of Tim Lincecum in the fifth and final game against the Texas Rangers, along with Aubrey Huff’s sacrifice bunt, Brian Wilson’s ninth inning finish, and the wonderful home run hit by Edgar Renteria that won the Series for the Giants.  

Unfortunately, I had no choice but to watch the fifth and final game on Fox Sports, burdened with the painful commentary of Buck and McCarver, but even that did not spoil my enjoyment of the action on the field, and I remain amused, too, by the Fox graphic, shown during one of the later innings, which was about the year 1954, when the Giants last won the World Series.  According to this Fox Sports graphic, a gallon of gas was 21 cents that year. The U.S. President was Eisenhower.  I Love Lucy was the #1 TV show, and there were “NO MLB TEAMS WEST OF MISSISSIPPI.”    

Talk about Eastern Bias or maybe myopia.  When I saw this graphic, I almost fell out of my chair.  My geography may not be very good, but I grew up in St. Louis as a Cardinals fan and I always thought the city was west of the ”Big Muddy.”  Of course, that was a long time ago, and I may be confused, although I remember a big river on the east side of the city that is the home of the baseball team that has won more World Series Championships than any other NL team.  Yes, difficult as it might be to believe, the midwestern city of St. Louis is the home of the team that first won the World Series in 1926, defeating the East Coast's New York Yankees.  I wonder, too, where the lowly St. Louis Browns of the American League played before they went to Baltimore after the 1953 season.  Maybe Sportsman’s Park was really in East St. Louis.  That would explain everything.  But what do I know, anyway?  After all, I was just a kid growing up in the suburbs.

The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!

No, it's not 1951, although Russ Hodges's famous call of Bobby Thomson's pennant winning home run comes to mind. But with a called third strike on Ryan Howard, the 2010 Giants have won the pennant after a series of very tense, dramatic play-off games with a superior team, the Phillies, and I am exhausted. As a result, I have let things slip here and, with the World Series starting in San Francisco tomorrow, I don't know how soon I will be back on track. I will not grow a beard and dye it black. Nor will I wear a rally thong, but I have caught Giants Fever.  I am in a state of delirium that makes it difficult to concentrate on anything other than baseball, and so Bobo Newsom and Safe On Third will have to be put aside for now, while I follow the exploits of Posey, Lincecum, Cain, Lopez, Wilson, Sanchez (Freddie and Jonathan), Bumgarner, Uribe, Torres, Burrell, Huff, and Cody Ross.

More Baseball In A Purple Haze

Baseball is still very much on my mind, and I had intended to provide a few anecdotes about Bobo Newsom in my post today, but my plan was sidetracked after I went to see Robin Williams perform his stand-up act live last night before a sold-out crowd at the Berkeley Repertory Theater.  It was an exhausting experience for I spent two hours laughing, and it's hard to even remember all the topics that were covered because Robin Williams's mind is so quick, his wit so sharp, and his energy seemingly unlimited, as he keeps moving quickly from one subject to the next.  I do recall, however, that he did describe in wonderful detail what it must have been like for the late Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates, when he pitched a no-hitter while hallucinating on LSD.  Intrigued by this story, I decided to save Bobo Newsom for another day. I did a little research and found that, indeed, it was on June 12, 1970, that Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. While high on LSD. Ellis walked eight batters and hit one during this game. In a 2008 interview that was excerpted on the Public Radio Program, Weekend America, Ellis explained in great detail what he actually had experienced in his "purple haze." He said that he took Benzedrine to try to even things out right before he warmed up, that sometimes he saw his catcher. Jerry May, and sometimes he didn't, that the ball kept changing in size and weight, that for much of the game he had no idea what the score was, and that he had no interest in holding runners on base. For more about this see  Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s  by Dan Epstein, published by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press, LLC. Also check out a wonderful animated short made by James Blagden,"Dock Ellis & the LSD No-No." This film uses parts of the soundtrack of the Ellis interview of 2008.  The URL is www.dockshort.com/dockshort/.

Go Giants!!!

Baseball is very much on my mind these days, because the San Francisco Giants are up, two games to one, in their division playoff series with the Atlanta Braves.  It's an exciting time for Giants fans like myself, hoping that the team's fine pitching by Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez, will lead them to the National League Championship Series against the Phillies and, perhaps, beyond to the World Series.

Of course, in my novel, Safe On Third, baseball also plays an important part.  Percy, one of the central characters is a sportswriter who covered the New York Giants of the Polo Grounds and John McGraw for many years, and several scenes are actually set at ballgames in 1940, including a spring training game and an opening day game at Griffith Stadium, with President Roosevelt in attendance along with the main fictional characters in the book, as the Senators play the Red Sox.

Yes, I like baseball very much, and in an earlier, unedited version of Safe On Third, I indulged myself by following closely the American League pennant race in 1940 on a parallel track with the presidential campaign.  That 1940 race was quite exciting.  The Yankees were favorites.  They had won four straight pennants and four consecutive World Series titles.  Cleveland and Detroit traded the lead back and forth with the Yankees right behind them, and finally the Tigers, who had finished fifth the year before, won the American League championship. Thanks to the hitting of Hank Greenberg and Rudy York, along with the pitching of Bobo Newsom, Tommy Bridges, and Schoolboy Rowe, Detroit won the pennant and went on to face the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

There are still references to Newsom in Safe On Third, but in earlier versions of the novel, Bobo Newsom played a larger role, actually appearing in several chapters. He was an interesting “character,” and he comes to mind now, because we are once again in the midst of exciting October Baseball, and I am reminded that October 8th was the 70th anniversary of the Detroit Tigers' 2-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds in the seventh game of the 1940 World Series.  Bobo was the losing pitcher that day, starting on only one day of rest, after winning the first and fifth games for the Tigers. (After his first Series victory, Newsom's father died that same night, and Bobo went on to win the fifth game, a shutout for his dad, before losing game seven.)

Allow me to explain that Louis Norman "Bobo" Newsom was a big, burly, undisciplined righthander from Hartsville, South Carolina, who won twenty games three times and led the league in losses four times over the course of his 20-year major league career. Newsom was an eccentric, flamboyant, superstitious, and boastful workhorse, not always friendly, not gifted or eloquent, who changed teams sixteen times. Newsom liked to talk about himself in the third person. He addressed everyone as "Bobo," and adopted that as his own nickname. His best season was 1940, when his record was 21-5, and his ERA was 2.83, the second lowest in the American League that year.

I have more to add about Bobo Newsom.  I would like to share some anecdotes and background information about him that I had to remove from Safe On Third, and I shall do so in my next post.   

Go Giants!!!

Too Much History?

I began this blog in conjunction with the publication of my “historical” thriller, Safe On Third, as a Smashwords ebook, and at the time I submitted the manuscript to Kirkus Discoveries, which reviews works by self-published and independent authors.  It’s been several weeks since I received my Kirkus review.  It contains a number of positive comments, but I have been stewing over it, and because I want to discuss it, I am now presenting it here, in its entirety:

            Zorensky’s debut is a meticulous historical novel set during the 1940 U.S. presidential campaign.

           As Franklin Roosevelt begins his run for an unprecedented third term and Nazi agents prepare schemes to sway the electorate, British-American sportswriter Percy Brown finds himself caught up in a dangerous spy game. A recent recruit of British intelligence, Percy serves as liaison between the beautiful Elsa—a German-American double agent keeping tabs on dour Nazi spy Karl Mueller—and impatiently irascible SIS operative Nigel Dunderdale. But as Elsa gets closer to discovering the extent of Karl’s ties to a ring of German saboteurs, Percy gets increasingly in over his head. The care with which Zorensky painstakingly recreates the physical, cultural and political world of 1940 is plainly evident; his characters drive on the same roads, walk the same streets and visit the same sites (including a downtown Manhattan gun shop) that flesh-and-blood people of the period would have. Zorensky makes good use of historical cameos, too, peppering the text with visits from the likes of Charles Lindbergh, labor leader John L. Lewis and a few dozen professional baseball figures. Indeed, if Zorensky errs in any direction with regard to historical accuracy, it would be in making the work almost slavishly adherent to it; his plot and characters often feel yoked to the chain of factual events—including the New York World’s fair bombing and an explosion at a New Jersey powder factory—and are given too few chances to breathe on their own. Zorensky’s passion for sharing interesting details—both historical and drawn from his character’s rich back stories—is sometimes too apparent, and often results in unfortunate digressions of exposition that stop the plot cold, as characters spend whole chapters telling each other things they already know rather than cutting to the chase. A fun, melodramatic and authentic spy thriller is contained in the text, but is yet to be carved out by a final, brutal edit.

           A mighty swing, but out at home.

“A mighty swing, but out at home.”  Ouch!  I thought the Kirkus reviewer must have enjoyed that last line, that it was a predictable play on the title, too easy, too clever by half, and certainly unnecessary.  But more troubling to me was the reviewer’s specific, underlying objection to “making the work almost slavishly adherent” to history.  After all, the book is an “historical” novel.  It is not an alternative history; the fictional characters are acting within the framework of actual events in 1940.  I regard this as a positive element of the book, and I make no apology for being passionate about the historical details, which make Safe On Third more than a simple thriller.

     
Still, the review suggests that all this history stops the plot cold, and that while “(a) fun, melodramatic and authentic spy thriller is contained in the text, Safe On Third needs a “final, brutal edit.”  I am not sure how to react to this, because the book already has received such an edit from an independent, “consulting editor,” Alan Rinzler, an extremely intelligent and experienced individual, who for many years was an acquisitions and developmental editor at major publishing houses and has edited many New York Times Best Sellers, including thrillers by Clive Cussler and Robert Ludlum.  With Alan’s capable guidance, I streamlined the manuscript, reducing it in size by half and eliminating many historical elements, including a subplot that followed the American League pennant race of the Detroit Tigers on a parallel track with the presidential campaign. 

      
Perhaps it is just a matter of taste.  Is there too much history in Safe On Third? We know what a Kirkus reviewer thinks, so be forewarned.  But I leave the final decision to each reader.