Middle-Aged

            According to the U.S. Census Bureau, I am now officially middle-aged. I can’t say I felt much different last Sunday when I turned 45, but the number does seem a bit daunting. A couple decades ago, I wrote a weekly column for the Staten Island Advance about living through my 20s; one of the columns talked about how old 25 felt. I think back on that and laugh.

Of course, 20 years from now I might reflect on 45 as a young milestone. But while it’s true that age is relative, it’s also true that 45 is a much more definitive marker of aging than 25 was. For instance, I am now older than every athlete on a major American pro sports team. The oldest, NHL right winger Jaromir Jagr, is more than a year younger than me. If I were running for president this year, I’d be considered a “young” candidate, but I’m still five months older than Republican Marco Rubio, and just a few weeks younger than Ted Cruz. In terms of entertainment, I’m in the Matt Damon-Ethan Hawke age range, which is not too bad. But still, I was 23 years old when Justin Bieber was born, easily making me old enough to be his parent.

So yeah, 45 is a bunch of years. But it’s still only halfway to 90, so there’s no reason to panic. Yet there are certain physical signs reminding me that middle age is beginning. The most obvious is the eyesight. When I’m reading a book with my glasses on, the words only look focused when I push the glasses down the bridge of my nose. When I’ve swallowed my pride enough, I will buy reading glasses for the times when I’m wearing contacts. After all, I’m already struggling at school when I reserve a laptop cart and need to open it with a combination lock. My students sit patiently waiting for me to open the cart, while I stare down at the lock and wait for my eyes to slowly begin identifying numbers.

There’s also the height thing. When doctors ask for my height, I proudly say that I’m 6-1, although I know that is no longer the case. The disks between my vertebrae have thinned out, and I’m shorter than I was at 22. I try to combat this with exercise, and I know that yoga would help as well. But even so, the ravages of time and gravity have had their way with my spine. When I spend hours outside shoveling like I did yesterday, my back reminds me of just how cranky it’s getting.

So yes, there are numerical and physical signs of aging. But perhaps the most glaring sign of being middle-aged is in the interactions with people younger than me, and the generation gaps that are now fully apparent. Take the popular mobile app known as Snapchat, for instance. I have had computers in my life ever since I was 12 years old. And yet, I just don’t understand the need for taking dozens of photos and short videos that get sent to friends, who can view them for just a few seconds before they disappear. It seems like an exercise in futility.

As my students prepare for class to begin, many of them stare at their phones, give a little smile, and before I know it they’ve taken a Snapchat photo, to be added to their Snapchat “story” that will be sent to their 200 closest friends later in the day. The same thing happens when I’m driving my older daughter somewhere, and she sits in the back seat posing and taking more pictures than you’d see at a Kate Upton photo shoot. She then begins playing her friends’ Snapchat stories, and I hear quick bursts of shouting or singing, and my daughter laughs at these bite-size forms of communication while I struggle to identify what her friends are even saying.

Generation gaps are as common as diminished eyesight and shrinking spines. And with this particular gap, I am reminded of a skill that I have maintained and improved after four and a half decades, but that I fear my daughter is losing all too early: the ability to pay attention. I am still more interested in placing my photos in an album than in shooting them off for a five-second viewing; I’d rather write a blog like this than fire off a tweet; and I’d prefer to read a story or book than an Instagram caption. I want to spend time with my thoughts and communication, rather than treating them like a series of buttons to be pushed. I worry that younger generations are losing the ability to take time with the interactions that help make a life richer.

There is no way to write this without sounding like an old man, even older than one who can’t read his combination lock. But I think the key to generation gaps is going beyond the recognition of them, and moving into bridging the gaps. Is there something that both generations can learn from each other – something about the Snapchat world that I don’t quite get, and something about the joy of sitting with words and thoughts that my daughter doesn’t understand yet? Were there similar elements at play for me 30 years ago, when my parents were advising me to pay attention to the world beyond Commodore 64 video games and fantasy sports statistics? It would take a degree of patience on both sides to sit, listen and learn, yet I’d be up for doing that. My daughter, who is forever closing her bedroom door behind her in true 14-year-old fashion, is a tougher one to pin down; but there’s no reason to stop trying.

Age is both relative and very real; 45 is nothing if not a reminder of that. I’ve downloaded the Snapchat app, but I can’t figure it out yet. And it’s hard to read unless I push down those glasses.

Programming Hope (One Sixty-Two: Day 159)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Fifty-Nine: Brian Matusz, Baltimore Orioles

In the fall of 1984, I learned how to perform basic programming on my Commodore 64 computer. I could craft a program in which users were asked a question, to which they would be asked to type their own response. The program would then give an (A) or (B) answer based on whether or not the user had given the correct response.

For the topic of this program, I chose the 1985 New York Yankees. The fact that I had crafted a computer program about baseball was completely unsurprising to anyone who knew me. But why was I making this program about the following year’s Yankee team? After all, we still had a few more months of ’84 yet to live. The Detroit Tigers had yet to defeat the San Diego Padres handily in the World Series. And Ronald Reagan had yet to defeat Walter Mondale even more handily in the presidential election. Why was this obsessive 13-year-old looking ahead so eagerly?

It was all about the way things were ending in the South Bronx that year; I was excited about the future. The Yankees, who had started miserably that year, finished strong under manager Yogi Berra to the tune of 87 wins. I had seen a lot of young, pinstriped players bloom in the ’84 season. Therefore, my wacky new program asked the user which player he or she thought would start at each position for the Yankees the next year. If you selected the player I agreed with, the program told you so. If I disagreed, it gave you a different answer.

So if you answered the question, “Who do you think will play shortstop for the Yankees next year?” with the answer “Bobby Meacham,” the program responded by telling you that I expected Andre Robertson to start at short instead. If you answered my question about first base with the words “Don Mattingly,” you were greeted with enthusiastic agreement.

Young players like Robertson, Mattingly, Mike Pagliarulo and Joe Cowley had helped the team post a 51-29 record in the season’s second half. Like many kids with “NY” logos on their caps, I was pretty pumped about the year ahead. Most of the other fans could contain their obsession enough to avoid creating Commodore 64 programs about the Yankees. But I guess we all have our passions – and quirks.

This evening, I thought about that autumn of 26 years ago while looking at the standings and noticing how well the Baltimore Orioles have played since Buck Showalter took over as manager. The O’s seemed destined for an utterly miserable season in late July, but the hiring of Showalter on July 29 has given the Maryland faithful a lot of reasons to hope. The former Yankees, Diamondbacks and Rangers manager has steered Baltimore to a 30-22 record over the past two months. Young Orioles pitchers and position players who’ve had the words “potential” stamped on their foreheads for some time have finally started playing quality major-league ball, and they’ve won ballgames as a result. Left-handed pitcher Brian Matusz, for instance, has gone 6-1 with seven quality starts since Showalter took over the reins. A first-round draft pick two years ago, Matusz is the future ace of this club, and he appears ready to fill that role as soon as next season.

So the fans are getting excited in Baltimore again, and Buck Showalter is spoken of glowingly in conversations at Inner Harbor restaurants these days. As for the kids at home, they’ve already started dreaming of a return to the playoffs for the boys in orange and black. I don’t think many of those kids own a Commodore 64, and even if they did I don’t think they’d use it for Orioles starting-lineup quizzes.

But whatever they do, the youngsters who cheer for the Baltimore Orioles have more than a few reasons to think about the spring of 2011. You can’t program a winning season, but you can recognize something good when you see it. Now, Orioles fans, let’s get started – who should Buck start at first base?

Steve Jobs, Willie Mays & My Bathtub

So tomorrow, when Steve Jobs slips on his black turtleneck and steps onstage in San Francisco, the information revolution will kick into yet another gear. The CEO of Apple will apparently be holding some sort of 10-inch tablet device in his hands – a device that might just take computers in a whole new direction, perhaps somewhere in between a laptop and an iPhone. Millions will surely flock to Apple stores, some to play with the thing, and many others to buy it. Countless companies will compete to promote their applications for downloading onto the new tablets.

It’s exciting, and a bit daunting, to see the extraordinary leaps that companies such as Apple and Google keep taking. What’s next? And how does what’s next change the world I’ve come to know? Will I be ready and willing to keep up? Or will I start to feel like my grandparents did when they were watching Bob Hope specials while I was tooling around with my Commodore 64?

I still subscribe to home delivery of two daily newspapers. I know it’s a lot of paper, and I know I could read the stuff on-line. But I like the feel of newsprint in my hands, and I like to turn the pages and find new stories on my own. We have seven bookshelves in our house, filled from top to bottom with hardcovers and paperbacks. I guess I could buy a Kindle or a Sony Reader and just download all those books. But I like attaching my little reading light onto the last 30 pages of my novel, and holding the book in my hands while I read at night. I don’t want my eyes to scan another screen in order to follow Christopher’s adventures as I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I want the kid’s journey in ink and paper, with a publisher’s logo on the back cover.

That’s not to say I can’t embrace technology; I am, after all, writing a blog. But life is always about balance, and I’d prefer to welcome the technology on my own terms. If I want Apps, I’ll get Apps. If I still want to clip my coupons from the Sunday paper, I’ll do that, too.

I think that Mr. Jobs and all the tablet-buyers would appreciate the newspaper we found today. It was uncovered while our bathroom was being demolished in advance of a much-overdue renovation. Somewhere beneath the old, cast-iron tub were a few pages of newsprint: One from the May 27, 1951 New York Times and the other from the May 25, 1951 Plainfield (N.J.) Courier-News. Both bear a yellowish-brown tint, and both are ripped all over.

But oh, there are some gems. We begin with The Times. A headline reads: “Chicken Now Vies with Beef as Food.” Reporter John Stuart tells us that the poultry industry has leapt into “fierce competition” with the beef industry for a place at American dinner tables. “The growth of chicken as such a factor can be illustrated by a few simple statements,” Stuart writes. “Sirloin steak was selling last week in New York retail markets, such as the nationwide chains, at $1.05 a pound. Chicken was 45 cents a pound for fat five-pound birds only twelve weeks old, tender enough to broil or fry and big enough to roast.”

The Times classifieds have some ads that Mr. Jobs might appreciate. One features the headline: “Electronics?” The rest reads: “To investor or organization now in allied field wishing to establish electronics business, we offer experienced technical and managerial personnel and fully developed product with civilian and military applications.” A different kind of app, perhaps, but still looking forward nonetheless.

We move on to the Courier-News. The headline “Bitten by Dog” follows with a brief telling us that “Ten-year-old Carol Adams … was bitten by a dog owned by Michael Lavelle … yesterday afternoon, it was reported to police.” Another brief tells us of a bicycle theft. Beside the brief, an ad encourages readers to convert their 10-inch television sets to 14-, 16- or 19-inch sets at “amazing low cost.”

The movie listings advertise “Kiddie Show” Saturday matinees as well as more adult films, such as “Where Danger Lives” with Robert Mitchum, or “The Bullfighter and the Lady” with Robert Stack. My personal preference is the Walter Reade Theatre, where, in person, “Bonomo’s Magic Clown and His TV Pal Laffy” will be appearing at 10 a.m. tomorrow. And, after the show, why not get something to eat? “Have You Tried Snuffy’s?” an ad asks us. “Tasty! Tempting! Shrimp ‘Caught from Snuffy’s Boat’ Try Them Fried or in a Cocktail.”

It was a different world, all right. And perhaps no story illustrates that better than a short piece in the Courier-News sports section. The headline reads: “Giants Call Up Mays.” It begins: “Willie Mays, 20-year-old Negro centerfielder, is slated to make his big league debut with the New York Giants tonight at Philadelphia. Alarmed by lack of power in his lineup, Manager Leo Durocher brought up Mays from Minneapolis in the American Association where he was hitting .477.” The article explains that Mays had 29 extra-base hits in 35 games at Minneapolis, including eight home runs and eight steals. Mays is, the article says, “reported to be a top flight speedster.”

Surely, issues of race led many sports fans of 1951 to overlook prospects such as Willie Mays, who would go on to become one of the best ballplayers in the history of the sport. But beyond that, it is amazing to see, six decades later, a news report so fuzzy on the details of a rookie who was hitting .477 in the minor leagues! In our world today, if a minor-league player were hitting for that average he’d be drafted in every fantasy baseball league imaginable, and he’d be blogged about and tweeted about every minute of every day.

But that was a different era, one old enough to sit beneath a New Jersey bathtub for three generations. My older daughter says she wants to take the newspapers with her to school tomorrow. I hope she does. And as she grows up and buys her Kindles and iPhones and – yes, Mr. Jobs – her tablets, I hope she’ll also remember the road that led her there. It's a Wi-Fi road now, but it was paved with newsprint.

Fretting Over Fantasy

To a certain extent, I’ve had it with fantasy baseball. I’m tired of checking to see who the hottest rookie call-up is, tired of comparing the WHIPs of relief pitchers, tired of figuring out which shortstop will tally the most extra-base hits. I’ve been playing fantasy baseball for four years, and by this time of year I’ve often had enough of the daily and weekly grind of trying to improve my team.

And yet, on the other hand, I love fantasy baseball. Baseball statistics are part of the neurological programming in my brain, as I’ve been memorizing and analyzing them since I was six years old. At age 9, I was playing hand-held computer baseball games with the small, plastic Entex game in one hand and a scorecard in the other. The little red dots that beeped and danced around the tiny screen would land on “single,” “double,” “triple,” “home run” or “out,” and I’d fill in the appropriate box for my make-believe matchup between the 1980 Astros and the 1980 Mets. When I was hit by a car and unable to walk without crutches for a few months, I sat down on my backyard patio and threw a racquetball against our chimney, and created an imaginary scheme of bounces and high flies that led to hits and outs. Again, the scorecard gave me stats. As my brother and I grew into our teen years, our parents bought us a Commodore 64 computer, and we quickly found a game called “MicroLeague Baseball.” When we put the floppy-disk software to this game into our computer, the Commodore let us play games featuring real baseball lineups, and the stats were kept for us, right there on the screen. Entire summer days were spent in this statistical heaven.

In high school, Eric and I joined a “rotisserie league,” as fantasy baseball was commonly called at the time, and had a blast as our friend compiled the league stats by hand. College brought me into the world of sports journalism, and I chose to devote nearly all of my free time to writing. It wasn’t until three years ago, at age 34, that I tried out fantasy baseball in its 21st-century incarnation. Fantasy sports are quite the pastime today, with many millions participating around the world in a variety of sports ranging from football to golf to auto racing. I find it fascinating that so many are turned on by the lure of statistical speculation – so much that even Michael Phelps said in a news conference that he had to refrain from opening an e-mail about fantasy football during the Olympics, to keep from getting distracted.

And yet it is that distraction that concerns me, especially when I have spent enough time at my computer already during the day and what I really need is to go for a run, hang out with my wife or play a game with my kids. I don’t want fantasy sports, of all things, to play a role in keeping me away from what I want to do most with my precious time and energy.

So as I finish this fourth year of fantasy baseball (currently in sixth place in both my leagues, by the way), I wonder about whether to go further. Isn’t it perfectly acceptable for me to spend a few minutes doing something that I truly enjoy? Yet, if my free time is limited, isn’t it silly to spend any of it playing a make-believe game?

I’ve talked this over with my wife, kids, brother and best friend, and I think I’ve found a solution. The solution lies with the aspect of fantasy sports I enjoy most of all – the opportunity it affords for keeping in touch with friends and family members – in some cases with people I haven’t seen in quite some time. The sense of community that fantasy baseball provides is something I simply don’t want to give up now. Keeping in touch with friends is hard enough as it is, and if fantasy sports give me a chance to do so, then it’s worth my time.

How much time, though? That’s the key question, and after much deliberation with my 6-year-old, we’ve come up with a solution. When Daddy wakes up on a day off from work and wants to check his fantasy baseball, we’ll set the oven timer to 15 minutes, and leave him alone for that time. When the timer rings, he’s done, and we move on to the rest of our lives.

Sounds like a good deal: A chance to have some fun and keep in touch, but with some clear boundaries that prevent it all from becoming an obsession.

Let’s see if I can pull it off.