For It's Money they Have and Peace They Lack (Yep, Baseball)

Major League Baseball announced the National and American League All-Star Teams this morning. Whoopdeedoo. Two Padres made it as “Player’s Picks”. HoHum. Overpaid “stars” who we’re supposed to revere. I can’t get excited about it anymore.

I like Everth Cabrera though. He’s the Padres new shortstop. A rookie. Never played higher than Class A until this year. The Padres have to keep him on their roster all year because of “Rule 5”. Now he’s the starting shortstop. He plays with joy and abandonment; hustle and pluck. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played.

“Field of Dreams” was on the tube last night. I only watched a few minutes of it after my wife went to bed and then changed it. I watched the “people will come speech” by James Earl Jones. It’s a cool speech. I didn’t want to see the scene which makes us 50-plus guys cry when Costner says “Hey Dad, do you want to have a catch.” I wasn’t in the mood for late Sunday melancholy—life’s enough of a bummer right now.

We need more baseball—real baseball. Played for fun. We need more vacant lots too where “sandlot” games can crop up; where kids can gather with gloves and old bats and balls and bases made of pieces of cardboard. Sandlots where the games last all day until Moms holler for dinner, the sun gets low and kids troop off until tomorrow’s game. That doesn’t happen anymore. The world’s not safe enough.

Like James Earl Jones said in the “people will come speech”: “And the memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.” That’s what I’m doing right now. The 4th of July is over. As a kid and teen, the 4th of July usually meant I was playing baseball somewhere—Little League, Babe Ruth or American Legion. In small town North Dakota, Legion ballgames usually encouraged cars to park around the perimeter of the field, headlights on to supplement the dim lights on the poles. It was tough at times when they would flash high beams at visiting players in the batters box.

I think I was 20 the last time I played catch with my Dad. And, I think I was about 45 the last time I played catch with my daughter. You can’t believe how often I’d just like to go out and throw the ball around.

Loosen up my stiff muscles and joints with the muscle memory of the throwing motion. Hear the smack of a ball in a glove; feel the sting when the ball finds too much of the pocket and not enough of the web. Feel the easy exertion, the slight shoulder twinge and the pressure in my fingertips as the ball leaves on a straight and true flight to my throwing partner. As a kid, when we weren’t playing baseball at a practice or game, we’d be throwing in the back yard. Pitching in our mythical World Series.

But the only time I ever see anything like that anymore is down at the field a block from my house. It’s a baseball field on a school property which is used by the high school JV and by Babe Ruth Leaguers—and which is locked up at all other times. The school is afraid of vandalism. Only occasionally, and rarely, will I see a Dad and kids out there throwing, hitting a bit, having fun and learning the game.

“For it’s money they have, and peace they lack.” I don’t have much money right now and certainly not much peace. And oh but I wish I still had just a little bit of baseball. That would bring just a bit more peace. I bet Everth Cabrera slept like a baby last night dreaming of chasing a grounder into the hole, stabbing it, wheeling and throwing out the batter at first. Lucky guy!

Fourth of July--The Alley Cats Picnic

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin is a terrific place to raise a family. It’s a small city of 9,000 people about 35 miles North East of Green Bay right in the middle of the Door Peninsula.

Green Bay is on one side, Lake Michigan on the other and the city is divided by Sturgeon Bay which because of a ship canal at its south end, connects the 2 bodies of water.

We lived just 3 blocks from downtown in a quiet neighborhood with mature trees, older homes and full of families and kids. This is a story of the “Alley Cats”. I came up with the term Alley Cats because our block featured a paved one-lane alley which ran the length of the block. In our “half” of the block there were 4 families with a total of 8 kids all the same ages.

Four of these plus another “little urchin” who hung out with this bunch all the time were in the same kindergarten class together (something which the school thereafter “banned” because they were such a little group of “hoodlums” who knew how to press one another’s buttons and drive the teacher crazy).

We went from big wheels to training wheels to 2-wheels with this unholy tribe. There’s something about the cacophony of a half dozen big-wheels rumbling down asphalt simultaneously! Our back yard had the biggest open space on it and I could never get grass to grow in major areas of it because of the permanent kick-ball game which seemed to go on pretty much every day.

But I digress. The Fourth of July dawns. A nice, sunny, cool morning. I’m the first up because Michael and Susan sleep in late during summer vacation. It’s a great time for sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Then it’s time to make sure that everything is ready for the Annual Alley Cats Picnic. This is an annual event where all the families get together in a back yard for a pot-luck cookout on the 4th of July. I’m whistling as I go out the back door through the basement to smell the clean air, listen to the birds and scratch our cat Petey behind the ears.

We’ll have burgers and brats, beans and chips, soda and kool-aid, pie and cake, watermelon. The kids can run around and eat what they want, when they want. The adults will talk and laugh and joke watching the kids.

Earlier in the week, I had coordinated with the Dads—each household chipping in a bit of money. Because this morning the Dads are going shopping. For fireworks! Illegal fireworks. The fireworks that will precede the World Championship of AfterDark Kick the Can.

Three of us hop in one car—Craig Ostrand, Jeff Harding and I—and we head across the bridge to the other side of the bay (about 5 minutes) to Carl’s Baitshop. Now Carl’s has been there a long time. The owner sells minnows and crawlers and leeches along with some fishing tackle and, in the backroom for a couple of weeks every year, illicit fireworks. The good kind that go way up in the air with lots of color and more than enough noise.

Carl won’t just sell fireworks to just anybody. He has to know you and know that you’re responsible. After all, he was the Assistant Chief of the city’s volunteer fire department. You would be amazed at how much you can get with the $80 you’ve collected from the neighbors—including the female couple next door who run a bed and breakfast and Ted and Katie on the other side of us who both work in social services.

We’ve got a gross of bottle rockets, roman candles (big ones), pop-ups, self-contained star shells, a few strings of small firecrackers and sparklers (enough actually for a couple of nights worth). The kids get to stay up late—after 10 which is late for 5 & 7 year olds. And the adults will do all the shooting to make sure the kids are safe. We’re giggling just a bit as we head back to our block—amazed and tickled by the “stash”, by our “haul” of Independence Day goodies.

The day progresses to the time for the Alley Cats to start gathering. We’ve dragged picnic tables to our yard along with 2 extra grills—one for cooking and one to light a wood fire in. The food comes out and the cooking begins.

To fast forward this whole event—it’s now getting dark. Dessert has been devoured and all the detritus from the picnic has been cleaned up. We’ve had a great time talking and joking. The kids are running around having a good time without the usual squabbling. The can gets tossed in the middle of the yard. Dads take off with their kids to hide and the countdown begins as the Dad/kid “it” gets ready.

This after-dark game of family “tag”—Kick the Can--gets off and rolling full of laughing and running around in the dark like a bunch of banshees. And then “kerplunk” someone manages to “kick the can” and the last group in is the new “it”. Another round of this Alley Cats World Kick the Can Championship begins! It lasts until the Dads are tired or someone cries, whichever occurs first. But it’s the laughing and enjoying the end of the day that counts.

Now it’s time for fireworks! Dads gather the incendiaries. The kids gather around with their Moms, most sitting on the ground a safe distance back. It starts when a string of firecrackers is tossed—pop, pop, popping making the youngest kids cover their ears. Then on to sparklers! Everybody gets one and starts writing in the air, kids supervised to avoid burns. Burnt out sparklers are dropped in a bucket.

Sizzle, pop—ahhhhhhh. A Roman candle starts to let loose its colored balls up in the sky. The kids watch in awe thoroughly amused at this ritual of the Alley Cats. Then pop-bottle rockets followed by bigger rockets shooting up in the air, trailing sparks to crack out a loud report at their highest point. The kids really like these. Who’s having more fun? The kids watching the fireworks? The dads lighting them off, giggling like kids ourselves? The Moms, relegated to spectator status, supervising both the Dads and kids?

But it’s like one, large extended family. You love all the kids, even the ones who are pains in the butt because we’re all Alley Cats! We live together, wandering up and down the alley, visiting, sharing, helping with various projects.

Living just doesn’t get better than that. And that’s what the Alley Cats are all about!

You Have to Love Your Kids; It's Even Better to Like Them!

You don’t have to like your kids, but you do have to love them. I heard that or read that a while ago (maybe it was from John Rosemond but I’m not sure of the source).

Think about it. There’s a lot of time when you don’t really like the little crapperheads based on something they may have done or some quirk of their personality or behavior. But you absolutely have to love them.

I’ve made several postings lately about my children, things in their childhood and small things in their lives which say something about my feelings or which bring on a smile. Today, I’m going to touch on the best thing. The absolute best time I ever had with my kids.


Mike and Susan at Mike's Wedding Rehearsal Dinner

It was 2004. I had been living in Southern California for 6 years and my kids lived in the Midwest. Mike was 22 and Susan 20. Mike lived with his fiancé in Ames, Iowa and Susan 30 miles away in Des Moines, still at home with her Mom.

I had to travel to Detroit for a weeklong training meeting and decided to take a couple of extra days and stop over in Des Moines to see the kids. I was able to spend some time with each of them individually and on Saturday night have dinner with them, with Mike’s fiancé and with Susan’s boyfriend in Ames.

I cooked steaks on the grill at Mike’s apartment and we had dinner together, talking and chatting, getting to know Susan’s boyfriend and getting better acquainted with Mike’s fiancé, Katie. We played some cards and all in all had a terrific evening.

It didn’t dawn on me until the next day when I was flying on to Detroit and thinking on the airplane about my kids and how much I missed them and loved them. This grand epiphany was that I genuinely liked my children. I really liked them as people, not just my kids. I really enjoyed their company, their personalities, their outlook, the way they thought and conversed and laughed. I LIKED them!

And I admired them. I admired the young adults they had become. Self-confident, articulate, responsible adults who you would be proud to call your friend.

It didn’t make any difference in how much I loved them. But I was proud of my kids. And how they had turned out OK without their Father in their everyday lives (obviously their Mother had done a good job).

We all know what a pain in the butt kids can be—particularly teenagers. It perhaps shouldn’t amaze us when they turn into great adults. But, to me it’s fantastic to really like the person that they’ve become and to know that, no matter what, they’re going to be all right.

And, to quote Forrest Gump: “That’s all I’ve got to say about tha-at.”