Sideline SquawkBox

Week 4...It's still on!!

Well, it's still attached. I wake up every morning with the thought that maybe--just maybe--it vanished overnight. But it's always there, biting down on my lower limb like a steel bear trap.

BLOGGING BY THE NUMBERS...

115: number of days since I posted anything on this blog

2760.5 : number of hours since I posted anything on this blog

31: percentage of a year the above referenced time frame represents

20: current average 'hits' per day for this website

16: number of hits that originate from my computer

92,400,000: approximate number of web pages I've perused in the above referenced time period

91,000,000: the number that were porn related

0: total number of blogging ideas that I've come up with since I lasted posted

0: percent interest I have in the current political climate

about a million to 1: odds I will have anything interesting to blog about in the forseeable future

6,701,361,251 and counting: approximate human beings now populating the earth

0: number of the above who are concerned about my recent bout of writer's block

100,436,751 to 1: odds that this current post will get a Glenn Reynolds-style Instalanche

about even: the odds that someone reading this will at least get a momentary chuckle

BUYING A BAT IN THE HIGH TECH AGE

When I was kid growing up in the Bronx, buying a baseball bat was a real simple thing: you didn't--ever. If you played on a Little League team, a baseball bat was one of those pieces of equipment that simply came along with the team--like the catcher's gear or the helmets. It wasn't something you had to worry about as a kid. Besides, a bat was a luxury you just couldn't afford to buy anyway. It was bad enough you had to spring for the glove. A glove, which, if you were like the average Joe back in the day, was most likely still on your hand at your first kegger softball game in college.

No, personal ownership of a baseball bat is a relatively new phenomena--chalk it up to the affluence of a new generation. The only exception to having your very own bat when I was kid was going to Yankee Stadium and getting one for free on Bat Day. Growing up, I lived just six subway stops--a short twenty minute ride away, from the House that Ruth Built. From the time I was 8 years old through high school, my Dad and I always made the trip down to the stadium to get next season's bat.

Of course, the first one I got naturally became my favorite. It was the "Herman Munster" bat--so dubbed because it was signed by some player I didn't really know at the time with a really strange name-- "Thurman Munson"--which I mistakenly thought was that green, square-headed giant on the Munsters. When the usher at the gate handed it to me, I thought to myself--Crap! I wanted Graig Nettles...and immediately sought out a trade. Apparantly, the rest of the screaming 30,000 brats wanted a Nettles bat, too--so I was stuck with the Herman Munster bat. Eventually, I took the Munster bat to a Little League game and got a few hits with it--and voila!--instant favorite bat! That's all it takes, really. Even with today's bats. You can lay out 200 bucks on the latest carbon-fiber, nanotech flex-tube airfilled wonder bat and if the kid strikes out with it on his first at bat, well then you're out 200 large my friend. So sorry. Give that same kid a tree branch and if he manages to eek out a hit with it he'll sleep with that tree branch under his pillow the rest of the baseball season. The baseball gods are a strange bunch.

I had that Munster bat--and a good number of other 'free' Bat Day bats--for well over twenty years. Had I known they were going to invent eBay, I might've kept 'em a little longer, too, and not agreed to throw them away when it came time to move in with the new bride...(curses! why is it always our stuff that's gotta go?) I also used the bat at each and every game, piling up hit after hit. I had no idea what length it was, or how many ounces it was, or what the barrel diameter was. I had no concern (nor would I have had the foggiest idea) what it's 'core flex ratio' or 'barrel to handle balance proportion' was. Technology in those days was reserved for episodes of Star Trek--not baseball. When the Munster bat began to splinter from being left out in the rain too many times, I simply taped-up the handle with black electrical tape. In those days, we taped all of our equipment with electric tape. We used to get spare rolls from the Con Ed utility trucks working in the neighborhood. We'd tape the ends of our hockey sticks, stickball bats, baseball bats--we'd even tape the toe-ends of our hockey skates with the stuff to keep them from wearing down. When the tape roll was almost used up, it was the perfect size to use as a street puck for roller hockey.

The point I'm trying to make is, things had a more durable quality about them in those days--they lasted. Or, at least, we made them last. We weren't such a 'throw-away' society back then.

Fast forward to the present. I just finished purchasing both of my sons bats for the upcoming summer baseball tournament season. This has got to be, what, the third or fourth bat I've bought for each of them--they're 11 & 9 years old. Oh, how times have changed! But the competition has changed, too. This is not exactly sandlot ball they're playing--and with the cost of college quickly approaching the GNP of most third-world nations, a baseball scholarship would be nice, wouldn't it?

Shopping for a baseball bat these days is a lot like shopping for a car: lots of spiffy sounding features (which you don't really understand) accompanied by sticker shock. It's hard to believe that a 30" piece of aluminum (er, pardon me, a 30" piece of graphite alluminum alloy) could be so expensive. Oh, but come now... Don't be so alarmed--silly person! This one! This one is packed--PACKED I tell you with technology! Come! Just look at this baby! Can't you see? Our patented design  lengthens the sweet spot by increasing the barrel flex towards the contour end of the bat to provide maximum performance along the entire length of the composite barrel! Do you not see? The CNT Carbon Nanotube Technology strengthens the composite structures, optimizing designs for maximum performance! And if all of this was not enough, we utilize Integrated MatriX technology to optimize the relationship between materials, design technologies and manufacturing process, thus, delivering the hitter with the ultimate in bat performance and durability.!

Whew! Ok, ok--I'll take it--but for 200 beans, he better not strike out with it, or I swear I'll come over there and break the Carbon Nanotube over your head, and then it's back to the tree branch for the little bugger...

INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

It's been a while since I posted anything about the continuing saga of my wretched rehab on this blog. Come to think of it, it's really been a while since I posted anything at all on this blog (several of you dear readers have reminded me of this, thank you very much). In fact, were it not for this rather innocent little post over two years ago (ok, so it's NOT so innocent), I honestly suspect traffic on this blog would rapidly be approaching nil, the posting has been so sporadic. By the by--why are people still searching for this pixelated pixie? Does she even have a recording contract any more? I mean, it's a great photo and all--but it was two years ago fer chrissakes!! But I digress...

Back to the point. Me not posting. I'm about to. And it's the personal stuff again. Feel free to bail now. If you need catching up, check out the Personal archives. There's just too many links to individual articles for me to list them all here. Mostly, it's a whole lot of stories about accidents (yes, plural) and rehabs, personal struggles-- where I've been and where I'm going. Good stuff in there--I promise. Now, on to the latest...

IN MEMORIAM...

A year ago this day, my Dad passed away. To honor his memory, I'm posting this Irish Funeral Prayer--a prayer I originally included in his eulogy:

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Everything remains as it was.
The old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no sorrow in your tone.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting, when we meet again...

Not a day goes by that I don't think of my father. He has touched my life in ways that words simply cannot express. Rest in peace, Finbar. See you on the other side.