Leaving Home, and Coming Home

                I took a trip back to college this past weekend. It had been awhile – more than a decade, in fact – since I’d set foot in Chapel Hill, N.C. Raising young children can make it difficult to drive 500 miles, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that we’d gone so long without visiting Tar Heel country. But when two friends contacted us with plans for a reunion of former sports writers from my school’s daily newspaper, Amy and I knew it was time to bring the girls down South.

                As we drove down Interstate 95 on our way to North Carolina, I recalled the many trips I’d taken up and down this crowded highway.  I also remembered my dad and other friends asking me if I planned to live in the Research Triangle after college. I was, after all, writing about North Carolina sports for a living back then, which included covering the amazing basketball scene of the Atlantic Coast Conference. I also had unlimited access to dogwoods, sweet tea and barbecue. What could be better?

                I had thoroughly enjoyed the University of North Carolina, I found the sports scene to be truly enthralling, and I had come to meet a lot of great people in Chapel Hill. But ultimately, I wanted to be back north. My reason was simple – there were just too many pieces of New York that felt more like home. I wanted to hop on the No. 4 train, exit at 161^st Street in the South Bronx, and see the mighty gates of Yankee Stadium before me. I wanted to drive eastward along the Pulaski Skyway on a clear night, heading toward the Holland Tunnel and viewing the elegant Empire State Building as it pointed skyward. I wanted to pop over to my old neighborhood in Staten Island for a pizza at Denino’s or Joe & Pat’s and an Italian ice at Ralph’s. When another journalist friend asked me why I was coming home, I told him it was because there was no Yankee Stadium in North Carolina. He said I had a point.

                As we traveled down I-95 on Friday, I was reminded of that Southern longing for New York several times. The signs for Brooklyn Bridge Road in Laurel, Md., called to mind the greatest bridge in America. The exit for Bowling Green, Va., reminded me of the oldest public park in New York, where tourists board Circle Line boats for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The signs for Willis Road in Chesterfield, Va., reminded me of New York Knicks legendary center Willis Reed, and the majestic Madison Square Garden court where he’d filled the paint. Even the highway that brought us into Chapel Hill – Route 54 – holds the same number as Rich “Goose” Gossage, whose blazing fastball closed out so many Yankees games in my childhood.

                New York’s geography and culture are deeply engrained in my self-identity and thoughts. When Amy and I lived in Massachusetts for five years earlier in our marriage, we felt similar longings for a glimpse of the skyline or a taste of the pizza. By the time Amy was pregnant with our second child, we were back in the New York area. By the time our girls were old enough to walk without complaining, they were strolling the High Line, Rockefeller Center and Brooklyn Heights.

                That said, geography does have its limits. This weekend, ultimately, was not at all about New York – no matter how many highway-sign connections my mind could make. Saturday night, we found ourselves in one of the great minor-league baseball stadiums in America, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. As the Bulls ran roughshod over the Buffalo Bisons on the field, I sat in Section 124 beyond the right-field foul pole along with seven former sports writers of The Daily Tar Heel, as well as the paper’s longtime general manager. I hadn’t seen any of them in at least 10 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. As we sat together, we shared stories of work, parenting, family and vacations. We talked about the past, the present and the future. We met one another’s children, and tested one another’s memories. I watched my old friends interact with their sons and daughters, and felt the love that passed between them.

                As I sat with my old friends on this glorious night in early summer, I thought again about home. It’s true that certain places feel more familiar than others, and draw us back to them like magnets. But ultimately, there’s nothing more like home than a day spent with people you care about deeply. I haven’t set foot in North Carolina for almost 12 years. But as I scanned the outfield here in Durham and listened to my friends tell me their stories, there was no place in the world I’d rather have been.

So yes, home is a bridge and a stadium and a pizza pie. But in the end, those New York spots only mean so much to me because I’ve shared them with family and friends. In the same way, Chapel Hill and Durham will always be home, whether I’m living there or not. Because these are places where I’ve connected with others. Back in 1993, we were hunched over computer monitors, scrambling to meet newspaper deadlines. This weekend, we were lounging in the outfield seats, talking and cheering and doing the wave.

            Wherever that kind of connection happens, whenever you feel it, you’re home. No maps or exit signs required. 

Who's Your Daddy? He's a Jock Again

It’s been 22 years since I last wore a jock strap. It was the summer of 1989, and I was playing American Legion baseball with my cousin and a number of other young men at ballfields throughout Staten Island. I was getting ready for college, where I would leave the pitching mound for the sports desk of my school’s newspaper. Before long, I was covering sports on a daily basis.

Twelve years ago, I left daily newspaper work for public-school teaching. At this point, I was no longer interviewing athletes and other individuals during the summer months. Instead, July and August became a time for rest, rejuvenation and reading. Certain summers have also offered time for those medical visits that were put off during the school months. This has been one such summer.

But this year, I didn’t have just any old medical procedure. No, this year was special. This was the summer in which Daddy ensured that he could not become anyone else’s daddy. This was the week that saw a husband trudge through the front door, asking his wife for a pillow and an ice pack. This was the year that found a 40-year-old man wearing a jock strap for the first time since Rick Astley was churning out pop hits and Michael Keaton was Batman.

I haven’t needed the cup, mind you; just the strap, to help ease my way back into manhood. I am learning, as I begin my fifth decade, that there are certain medical procedures that help foster the increased humility that seems to come with age. There are parts of the body that, when prodded, do not leave me feeling like the king of the world, or even of my zip code. This trend, I’m sure, will only increase in scope as the years roll along.

For those of you who would like a little more color to the description, I will give you just this: When the Novocaine wears off a few hours after you leave the urologist, it feels as if you’ve awakened five days after being beaten below the belt with a baseball bat. You never felt the intense pain; just the heavy, please-get-me-some-Tylenol-right-now ache. It subsides, a little each day. But walking is hard. For someone who prefers running four miles to lying in a hammock, it’s probably harder on my state of mind than anything else.

But as I fight the stir-craziness, I’m forced to sit down, relax, and do the things that an on-the-move, to-do-list guy often doesn’t allow himself to do. I have sat down and made playlists for my iPod. I’ve read the newspaper. I’ve watched A League of Their Own with my girls in the backyard, at dusk, while eating ice cream. I’ve read with my girls, and watched them perform G-rated Katy Perry dance routines. I’ve sat down with my wife and planned our summer trips.

It’s not easy being laid up, but there are much more difficult things in life than this. Perhaps the hardest part of all was figuring out how to explain to a 9-year-old why this procedure was even necessary for Daddy. She was too old to just gloss over it, but too young to know everything. So after a brief, scientific discussion about the birds and the bees, she nodded, telling us that all those nature shows we’ve been making her watch make so much more sense now.

So if we got through that dicey discussion, surely I can make it out of this jock strap. It will take some time, I’m sure. But hey, maybe once it’s over I can find myself a men’s baseball or softball league. I’ve got a head start on the equipment already. And you know, as a pitcher, I can even handle it if an opposing team starts to heckle me.

The most creative way to get at a pitcher is to do to him what Yankee fans notoriously did to future Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez in his later years. “Who’s your daddy?” the Yankee faithful shouted to Martinez, ever since the day he lost to the Yankees in September 2004 and told reporters, “I tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy.” New Yorkers jumped all over this, and Pedro smiled all the while as 50,000-plus asked him this rhetorical question every time he entered Yankee Stadium.

I was born the same year as Pedro. Beyond that small similarity, our baseball skills have nothing in common. He is a legendary hurler; I am a teacher and writer. But I do think I can handle the heckling just as well as he could.

“Who’s your daddy?” you ask? Most definitely not me. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

All I Have to Do is Dream (One Sixty-Two: Day 128)

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 Twenty-Eight: Jason Varitek, Boston Red Sox

I’ve heard a lot of noise in recent days about who should be allowed to worship in what portion of New York City. I’ve also noticed that some very loud individuals have claimed the 47th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement’s March on Washington to put forth their own vision for America.

These voices sound a lot more insular than inclusive, and it was my impression that acceptance and equality were important ideals in this country. So maybe it was my anger at all of this noise that produced my own dream this afternoon as I snatched a rare mid-afternoon nap in the hammock. I did have a dream and, my brothers and sisters, I think I will share it with you.

As so many great dreams do, this one took place in Montclair, N.J. It involved baseball (what a shock!), and a legendary old man. The Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, located on the campus of Montclair State University, currently has an exhibit devoted to New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter. But in my dream, the Jeter exhibit had drawn to a close, and the legendary Yankee for whom this museum is named stood before a podium and announced that he was opening a new exhibit. This one, he said, would be devoted to players in the modern day who had excelled at his position, catcher. And, Yogi said, there would be an entire wall in the exhibit dedicated to Boston Red Sox catcher and captain Jason Varitek.

The response to this announcement was, in a word, bedlam. Yankees fans protested loudly outside the museum, outside Yankee Stadium, and outside the team’s Spring Training base in Tampa, Fla. “This is giving our enemies justification for their existence!” one fan blogged. ““Yogi: It’s Over!” another tweeted. The evening news trucks found a fan who compared this exhibit to opening a Fenway Franks hot dog stand two blocks from Yankee Stadium. Even Newt Gingrich got into the act, speaking about the “historic ignorance of baseball elites.”

But, in my dream, Yogi said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “It’s déjà vu all over again,” Yogi said. “Every time we’re afraid of something, we reject it with so much hatred that we lose our ideals. We’ve been doing it since Salem, Massachusetts, more than 300 years ago. Why can’t we honor a Red Sox player in New York? All it does it bring people together. Plus, that guy Varitek seems like a pretty good man to me.”

So Yogi didn’t back down. And, in my dream, his exhibit ended up being more popular than any in the history of the museum. Once everyone had settled down, it actually became a gathering place for Red Sox and Yankees fans who wanted to talk about baseball without any of those elevated animosities that have plagued the rivalry over the past decade. The exhibit even attracted national attention, and led to plans for a new exhibit at the St. Louis Cardinals Museum honoring Ernie Banks of the Cubs. Exhibits honoring rivals of the past sprang up in museums, schools, churches, temples, mosques, skyscrapers and stadiums across America. A new movement for peace, love and understanding had begun, and Yogi watched with a smile the whole time.

Forty-seven years ago today, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of his own, and he shared it with America. “I have a dream,” he said, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ ” Americans heard Dr. King’s words very clearly that day, and many of us have studied these words over the years. But we haven’t always followed the vision inherent in them as closely as we might like.

“The future ain’t what it used to be,” Yogi Berra once said. For the past nine years, a lot of Americans have felt the same. If we’re going to make that future brighter than our worst nightmares envision it to be, we have to take the bold leap of reaching out to all of our brothers and sisters in the name of peace, even when fear and anger stand in the way. That’s my dream, anyway. You might think there was something delusional in that hammock outside, but I’d rather think of it as a very real, and possible, vision.

Johnny & Jude (One Sixty-Two: Day 116)

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 Sixteen: Johnny Damon, Detroit Tigers

For most of my 5-year-old’s life, she has asked my wife and me to sing her to sleep. It’s one of the most fulfilling moments of our day with Chelsea, as we kneel beside her bed and whisper a lullaby or love song to her. It typically takes just a couple of songs before her eyes close, her breathing grows heavier, and she drifts off into dreamland.

The songs we choose vary: My wife’s favorites include “You Are My Sunshine” as well as Laurie Berkner’s “Moon Moon Moon.” Mine include “Rainbow Connection” and “Oh! Susanna.” While the standards work like a charm for Chelsea, I’ve also incorporated some more modern songs into the bedtime rituals. The Beatles work well with this, as “Here Comes the Sun” and “Hey Jude” fit quite nicely into the mix. Chelsea has responded well to them so far, to her father’s delight.

“Hey Jude” is one of my favorite songs in the world, so it’s been sung and played in our house quite a bit over the years. My 8-year-old, Katie, is well aware of the song. And as you grow older, you remember more of the parts to your parents’ favorite songs. Then, when you’re placed in a bunk bed with your little sister and you hear your dad singing one of those songs to her, there’s a tendency to want to sing along.

This takes us to the evening a few weeks ago when, in the darkness of bedtime, I had reached the famous fade-out coda of “Hey Jude.” In a near whisper, I sang it: “Na na na, na-na na na / Na-na na na, hey Jude,” in the best Beatles-lullaby voice I could muster. But from the top bunk, I suddenly heard Katie chime in with a raspy: “Jude, Jude, a-Judey, Judey, Judey, Judey.”

In Katie’s mind, the song now includes McCartney’s ad-lib vocal fireworks in between the refrain. She has learned the benefits of adding a little sparkle to a song. The refrain is soothing and fun as is, but McCartney’s joyful screams turn a marvelous melody into a dynamic celebration. And really, what’s wrong with that? Even as she drifted off to sleep, Katie still found the energy for a little shout.

Tonight in the South Bronx, the New York Yankees hosted the Detroit Tigers for the first time this season. That’s particularly notable since this year’s Tigers feature a gentleman named Johnny Damon in their lineup. For four years, Damon was the spark inside a button-down Yankees lineup while men such as Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira brought stability and no-nonsense execution to the team. Damon waved to the crowd and bantered with the fans in left field. He gave tons of interviews with reporters and never took the field without a hop in his step. As the team evolved, players such as Nick Swisher and A.J. Burnett brought their own quirkiness to the pinstripes, and the Yankees began to incorporate more of Damon’s fun into all that success. By 2009, they were a pie-in-the-face group of champions.

Johnny Damon didn’t re-sign with the Yankees this past winter; he’s a Tiger now. As he stepped up to bat for the first time tonight, the New York fans gave Damon a warm welcome back to the stadium. They remembered all the spark, and all the “Judeys” he brought to the fade-out. They know that Johnny Damon took a glad song and made it better. So they let him into their hearts, and that hasn’t changed with his new uniform.

You don’t need to know a lot about baseball or music to know joy when you see or hear it. Sometimes, it even makes you sing out loud as you fall asleep.

No One Mourns the Wicked (One Sixty-Two: Day 106)

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-Six: Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox

We’ve solved the mystery, although it took awhile. We know who planted a pair of red socks where they didn’t belong.

My parents have a metal sign hanging on the fence in their driveway reading “Yankee Fans Parking / Red Sox Fans Go Home.” Sometime during the week, an individual slapped a magnet on this sign. It was a pair of red socks – the unmistakable logo of Boston’s Red Sox.

No longer was it a lazy beach week; someone had declared war. Where will he strike next?

Tonight, my 8-year-old daughter and her 10-year-old cousin performed songs from the musical Wicked for the family, lip-synching to “Popular” and “Defying Gravity” with plenty of energy and emotional gravitas. While Katie and Megan have not seen Wicked on Broadway, they understand the theme to this story – that sometimes it’s hard in life to tell just who the evil people are around us. Is green-faced Elphaba the wicked witch we’ve always known her to be, or is perky Glinda the one with true wickedness inside her? Are there times when a person chooses a questionable path largely because of the ways she’s been mistreated by others? In that case, who’s the real wicked one?

Tonight they meet again: the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have begun a four-game series in the South Bronx with the Red Sox needing wins to keep their season alive. For years, the fans in New England have called New York the “Evil Empire” owing to the seemingly unlimited cash that the Yankees have to spend. But are the Yankees really the evil ones? After all, didn’t this whole string of 27 championships begin because Boston’s owner wanted to sell New York a guy named Babe Ruth? Was that the Yankees’ fault? And how can you blame the Yankees when Mike Torrez helped pitch them to a World Series title in 1977, but then switched to Boston the following year and gave up the division-clinching homer to New York’s Bucky Dent? Didn’t both teams have the guy, after all?

My brother and I didn’t spend our summers lip-synching to show tunes, as my girls have done this year. We were more the baseball and Star Wars-figure types. If we weren’t playing ball outside, we were probably creating stories with our Han Solos and Luke Skywalkers. Sometimes, we’d even mix the two, creating a baseball diamond on the living-room carpet and placing a Star Wars figure at each position. We’d use one of the Ewoks’ cannonballs for a ball, and create a semblance of baseball using Gamorrean guards and Cantina bar customers. Somehow, it all worked.

It was rare that a member of the Evil Empire wound up on top in our fictional ballgames. The guys with the force usually won out. And when we played our baseball games outside, it was always New York sending Boston home with a loss.

And yet, some 250 miles north, it was surely the opposite every day. From Connecticut to Maine, it was the Yankees who secured the Dark Side; those magnetic red socks were a sign of goodness and northeast-American unity.

So really, who’s the wicked one? And how should we feel about the guys on the other side? Should New York fans be cheering because Boston first baseman (and sometime Yankee antagonizer) Kevin Youkilis is out for the season with a torn muscle in his thumb? No one mourns the wicked, right?

Or should we feel sympathy for those on the other side, and search for a way to finally get along? After all, Darth Vader did come back to the Jedis in the end, right?

Yeah, but Elphaba didn’t get all Goodie Two Shoes up on her broom, even if Dorothy did do her in. Rivalries are too much fun to give up, whether you’re battling through ballgames, musicals or action figures.

Oh, and those mysterious magnetic socks? My niece, the one who played Glinda tonight, has a dad who likes to joke around. He confessed to planting the dreaded logo on my parents’ sign. It took days before he came forward, but we finally got his story.

So, Glinda, when you and your family drive home from your vacation tomorrow, look to the western sky as you pass through New York City. You’ll surely see a blimp up there somewhere, defying gravity in order to photograph Yankee Stadium for a nationally televised New York-Boston game. Who, you might ask, is the wicked one on that field?

It depends on how you read my parents’ driveway sign, I guess.

Rapid Force (One Sixty-Two: Day 103)

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-Three: Kevin Gregg, Toronto Blue Jays

“Daddy, I have a new favorite word,” Katie said yesterday.

“What’s that, Sweetie?” I asked my 8-year-old.

“Rapid force,” she said. I write it as two words, but perhaps Katie envisioned this as one really cool word: Rapid-force, with an artful hyphen, or even the more direct Rapidforce.

Caught by surprise, I asked where she’d gotten this phrase. She shrugged. My wife said that Katie had started using the word earlier in the day to describe the waves that had tossed her body and hair around the beach. She had loved the bodysurfing and boogie-boarding, and she seems to be developing a healthy respect for the ocean. This, of course, means playing with the rapid force without straying too far from the shore.

So it was a powerful day, one that left an 8-year-old content yet exhausted by day’s end. As Katie settled off to sleep, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Kevin Gregg was delivering his own brand of rapid force to the New York Yankees. There are 30 men appointed to the job of “closer” on Opening Day of each big-league season, and at least one-third of those men lose their jobs at some point over the 162-game slate. Kevin Gregg has taken over the closer’s job in the midst of a season twice – once in 2007, with the Florida Marlins, and again this year with the Blue Jays. For a man who was used solely as a middle reliever in his first four seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, Gregg’s 108 saves over the past four years is quite impressive.

Gregg stands on the pitcher’s mound wearing tight-fitting sports goggles, which make his demeanor all the more menacing atop 10 inches of dirt. His pitches aren’t the fastest in baseball, but they have traveled quickly enough to land him 481 strikeouts in just over 500 innings of career work. Last night, Gregg notched his 24th save of the season despite allowing one run.

Inside Yankee Stadium, the New York fans tried to will their team past Gregg with waves of vocal support. But the power of those pinstripe-clad swingers was not equal to the rapid force of the man in goggles. The Yankees had washed ashore, and Gregg made sure they stayed there.

A-Rod Gaga (One Sixty-Two: Day 101)

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-One: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Jon Caramanica wrote a thoughtful essay on the proliferation of spectacle in modern women’s pop music. The essay, titled “Pure Gaga,” contrasts the ubiquitous Lady Gaga of 2010 with the equally popular Madonna of the 1980s and ‘90s. While both singers loved to dress up and shake up pop society, Caramanica writes that there is a difference: Madonna, he says, “was a savvy pop trickster, using outrageous imagery as a distraction while smuggling ideas about religion and social politics into her music.” In contrast, he writes, Lady Gaga and her contemporaries are “interested in distraction as an end in itself.”

I happen to enjoy Lady Gaga’s music, but I, too, am waiting to see if there’s any substance behind the Mardi Gras outfits. Is Gaga going to use the images in her videos to deliver messages that push the boundaries of society in exciting, progressive ways? Or will she focus first and foremost on creating just enough dazzle to impact the Billboard charts, without an attempt at using her status to make us think?

The great ones always give us more than the art. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley – all took the initiative to bring thoughtful ideas into their music. It’s the same way with athletes. There have been thousands of brilliant athletes in the history of sports, but the truly great ones used their popularity as an opportunity to speak out or act out on issues extending beyond the sports arena – Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Martina Navratilova, to name a few.

The coverage in New York this past week has focused around the pending 600th home run of Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees’ third baseman will eventually hit his 600th homer, although it’s taking awhile. A few years after that, he will hit his 700th, and perhaps a few years later he’ll break all the records en route to No. 800. That will be interesting to see.

But it won’t bring tears to the eyes of this writer. I am always fascinated by the magnificence of Rodriguez’s skills. But there are a lot of magnificent athletes out there. What brings you to your knees is watching an athlete combine his or her talents with a thoughtful entry into society’s conversations. It’s one thing to help build a three-run lead; it’s quite another to help build a better world. When Curtis Granderson belts a home run in Yankee Stadium, I watch him round the bases with the knowledge that he is also using his success and notoriety to benefit the lives of young people throughout the nation through his own community-service activities.

So I will watch Alex Rodriguez’s 600th home run when it happens, and it will be nice to see him smile about it. But I am still waiting, patiently, to see if there’s more to Alex Rodriguez than the long fly balls and the throws to first base. I’m looking for more to A-Rod than a splash of Gaga. The clock is ticking.

Tough Love (One Sixty-Two: Day 90)

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 Ninety: Maicer Izturis, Los Angeles Angels

A few things happen when you, a New York Yankees pitcher, give up a two-run home run to a weak-hitting shortstop in your own ballpark. First of all, you get to watch the 5-foot-8 singles-hitter jog around the bases – something he rarely gets to do. Then you see him greeted eagerly by his teammates in the visitors’ dugout. As he slips into the dugout, you see that one of the fans in the right-field seats has given up his or her souvenir by throwing the ball back onto the field. Finally, you hear a cascade of boos raining down upon you from all corners of the park.

Even if you’re an All-Star, this is the way it goes.

Phil Hughes has won 11 games so far this year as a starter for the New York Yankees, and his relief work last season was an invaluable part of New York’s championship run. However, Hughes has given up five or more runs in four of his last six starts. Yankees fans notice this, and they let you know. So as Maicer Izturis, who has 27 career home runs in seven big-league seasons, rounded third after his homer last night in Yankee Stadium, Hughes heard the Bronx cheer loud and clear.

It’s not as if Yankees fans suddenly despise Phil Hughes. They’d ask for his autograph in a second if they met him outside the ballpark, and they’d offer him all kinds of advice on how to get back on track. But in the moment, on that mound in a place where championships are expected, Hughes has no choice but to endure the boos. Yankee fans see it as their responsibility to let players know where they stand.

I can recall a game in the old Yankee Stadium during the early 1990s, when a surging Cleveland Indians club demolished what was at the time a struggling Yankees ballclub. At one point, an Indians hitter lined a shot off the leg of Yankees starting pitcher Mike Witt, who had been hearing the boos for quite awhile in this game. As the team chose to remove Witt from the game with an injury, the stadium crowd suddenly roared its approval to Witt’s departure from the game. As if the line drive hadn’t hurt enough, the sarcasm of this applause surely stung twice as hard.

Again, no personal offense was intended. It’s just a part of the atmosphere in the South Bronx. I was in the stadium when Mike Witt hobbled off that mound nearly 20 years ago, and I was in the stadium last night when Phil Hughes took his long walk to the showers in the sixth inning. Hughes may have nine inches and 70 pounds on Maicer Izturis, but he was the one knocked to the canvas last night. And until he can pull himself up and land some clean jabs again, Hughes will not hear much affection from the home fans. It’s just the way they do things here, on the field of tough love and trophy-hunting.

Old-Timers as Teachers (One Sixty-Two: Day 86)

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 Eighty-Six: Chase Headley, San Diego Padres (via Jerry Coleman)

I read with deep sorrow the news today that former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith is suffering from memory loss. Smith, 79, is one of the giants in college basketball history, and he did it the right way, winning nearly 900 games while also graduating more than 96 percent of his players. While Smith has always been a very private man, those who’ve met him have had the chance to learn so much about life and about basketball.

It seemed somewhat fitting that this news was released today as the New York Yankees held their 64th annual Old-Timers Day at Yankee Stadium. In the same way that countless young basketball players have had the chance to learn from conversations with Dean Smith, the Yankees and Rays players had an opportunity today to learn from nearly 50 retired Yankees players who were honored during a ceremony before the game between New York and Tampa Bay. As the ceremony took place, the cameras showed current Yankees players chatting it up with men much older – and, in many cases, much wiser – than they.

It makes no sense to me that the Yankees stand alone in holding a baseball ceremony of this sort. We read so often of young ballplayers who lack perspective, maturity, and a true appreciation for the game and its history. What better opportunity than to walk into your clubhouse and find 50 former players right there, ready and willing to talk baseball and life with you?

In addition to honoring retired players from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s, the Yankees also celebrated the 60th anniversary of their 1950 championship team today with a handful of surviving members from that great team. Among those present today was Jerry Coleman, a former infielder for New York who had his best season in 1950. Coleman is now 85, but he’s still announcing San Diego Padres games on the radio. Coleman began working as an announcer in 1960, and he only stopped for the one year in which the Padres hired him to manage the team.

Those Yankees who chatted with Coleman today could have asked him about a lot of things. They could have asked how it felt to win five straight championships, and what it was like to turn a double play with Phil Rizzuto. They could have asked about his transition from the playing field to broadcasting booth, and how he handled that. They also could have asked Coleman about his service in the United States Marine Corps during both World War II and the Korean War. They could have asked him which of his accomplishments he’s most proud of, and what it all means as he looks back on nearly 86 years of living, playing, serving and talking.

Out in San Diego, the Padres players are incredibly lucky to have a guy like Coleman around them. A young infielder like Chase Headley can learn from his team’s announcer – learn a bit about the game of baseball, or learn even more about the game of life. This past week, with the deaths of Bob Sheppard and George Steinbrenner, Yankees players were reminded that no one stays around forever. And the North Carolina Tar Heel family has been reminded that as we age, our minds don’t always stay as sharp.

The seniors among us have so much to share. All we have to do is ask. Schools across the nation are constantly bringing youngsters together with older folks to learn from one another. Baseball can surely do more of the same. Old-Timers games are more than a chance for the old gang to get together again while they’re well enough to do so. These ceremonies allow generations to connect. You can’t go wrong with that.

When the Boss Listened (One Sixty-Two: Day 82)

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 Eighty-Two: Andy Pettitte, New York Yankees (via George Steinbrenner)

What is strong leadership? Is it getting the job done, no matter what the cost? Is it setting a standard for dignity and effort, with the knowledge that others will watch and follow your example? Must a successful leader rule by fear and intimidation, or is it possible instead to lead more effectively through quiet determination and clear communication?

As dozens of baseball players, managers, executives and media types commented today on the death of New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner, they said many kind words about a man who was driven to win. But as they spoke of Steinbrenner, the underlying discussion these folks were having was one on leadership. Was Steinbrenner a positive leader, one to be honored for all time? Or was he a pushy, overly involved boss who instilled more trepidation in his employees than trust?

I’ve followed the New York Yankees closely for 33 years, and in my formative years I watched Steinbrenner blow through managers, third-base coaches and front-office executives like a fussy homemaker ever dissatisfied with his living-room furniture. What’s more, Steinbrenner would constantly trade young prospects for veterans past their prime, and he would publicly berate his players time and time again.

This came to a head in 1990, when Steinbrenner was found to have paid a gambler in order to try and find incriminating information about his own player, outfielder Dave Winfield. Fay Vincent, who was commissioner of baseball at the time, banned Steinbrenner from the game for two years.

Yankee Stadium was a lonely place in 1990, as the home team was baseball’s worst franchise and fans could constantly be heard chanting “Steinbrenner Sucks” from the stands. I can recall feeling as though the suspension of Steinbrenner had given my team new hope. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened: The team’s front office executives worked to develop talented young players such as Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada. When these players matured, they were not traded, as had been the Steinbrenner way. Instead, they were inserted into the New York lineup.

By the time Steinbrenner returned, he could see that this plan was working. And so he did something that all good leaders do: He listened to his employees’ plan, accepted it, and changed his ways. By 1996, his Yankees were world champions again. Last year, New York won its fifth title in the past 14 years, three more than any other team has won in that time span.

In the early 2000s, Steinbrenner had one more relapse into his blustery ways, deciding strangely that Andy Pettitte – clearly his most reliable pitcher from 1995-2003 – was not worth signing anymore. He also went on to sign a few more of those big-name stars who looked good on paper but didn’t quite fit the Yankee mold. After he’d gotten Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson out of his system and seen no titles as a result of it, Steinbrenner again listened as his general manager laid out a blueprint for developing from within and signing free-agent players who suited the Yankees’ needs. Again he listened, and agreed. So players such as Robinson Cano and Phil Hughes were not traded, and instead became All-Stars. Players such as CC Sabathia and, yes, Andy Pettitte were signed to free-agent contracts. Last year’s Yankees gave Steinbrenner one more championship – his seventh since buying the Yankees in 1973. Pettitte pitched the clinching game in all three rounds of the playoffs.

Today, as news of Steinbrenner’s passing spread throughout the country, Cano and Hughes and Sabathia and Pettitte all were in Anaheim to represent the Yankees as American League All-Stars. The plan is working, even if the Boss is not there to see it through anymore. I never met the man, so I can’t chime in on his character. But I think the sight of Andy Pettitte cruising through Inning 3 of tonight’s All-Star Game says something about this mercurial owner: He slowed down, shifted gears, and tried a new approach. He even stopped firing so many managers and coaches.

Ironically, early-21st century media have brought a reality-TV culture that thrives on intimidation, dismissed contestants and the words “You’re fired.” In the South Bronx, that’s so 1985. George Steinbrenner, dead at 80, learned patience. In doing so, he taught us all a lesson in leadership: It’s never too late to change.

The Voice (One Sixty-Two: Day 80)

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 Eighty: Derek Jeter, New York Yankees (via Bob Sheppard)

Now batting, number two, Derek Jeter. Number two.

His voice echoed throughout the vast stadium, bouncing off the façade and into your bones. “Every time you heard it, you got chills,” Derek Jeter said. Truer words were never said.

The man with the voice was Bob Sheppard, and he served as the most famous and most accomplished public-address announcer in America. His booming, eloquent delivery of names and numbers filled Yankee Stadium from 1951-2007, introducing players from DiMaggio to Mantle to Jackson to Mattingly to Jeter. He also worked New York Giants games for 50 years, as well as a host of other teams, from St. John’s University to the New York Cosmos. On Sunday, Sheppard died at home at the age of 99.

There will never be another voice like Bob Sheppard’s, but sadly there are very few stadiums today willing to allow a public-address announcer’s voice to be the dominant sound effect in the park. Most baseball teams have a sound-effects employee who pushes buttons in between each pitch to give us a recording of some pop-culture sound, such as the clapping intro to “We Will Rock You” when the bases are loaded or the sound of a window shattering when a foul ball lands outside the stadium.

We are a short-attention-span nation, and we don’t listen nearly as well or as attentively as we once did. The imagination can do a lot with a perfectly enunciated name – you can hear those names in your head when you’re playing in the backyard, and they can add considerable drama and excitement to the Wiffle ball you’re about to throw.

"A voice that you hear in your dreams, in your sleep," Chipper Jones of the Braves told a reporter when asked about Sheppard.

Our imaginations need these voices, much more than they need the cheap sound effects. When the voices talk to us, they take us places we never thought we’d go. They give us chills.

Every time Derek Jeter walks to the plate at Yankee Stadium, a recording of Bob Sheppard’s voice is played. Every time at bat in the ballpark, Jeter is introduced by this man. Close your eyes, and listen. It’s still magical. Still the stuff of dreams.

The Valley of Ashes (One Sixty-Two: Day 69)

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 Sixty-Nine: Cliff Lee, Seattle Mariners

As the No. 4 train pulled up to 161st Street last night, I wondered what state of disassembly the old Yankee Stadium was in, 21 months after it last hosted a baseball game. I wasn’t aware that the ballpark was gone entirely, that the cranes and pulleys had torn the stadium apart already. So as the elevated train crawled to its stop, I had trouble believing my eyes.

I looked west and saw a vast, empty lot the size of three city blocks. The lot was coated with a ghost-gray dirt cover and surrounded by a makeshift blue fence. Instead of looking like the House That Ruth Built, this looked more like the Valley of Ashes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As I walked down the stairs from the train tracks, I stopped and took another look. This dirt pile over here was right field; that one was left field. Only my imagination could help me see the old stadium that had framed my childhood. Out toward 157th Street, beyond the lot, I could see the old, 138-foot-tall replica of a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. This was where I would meet my brother or friends when we were arriving separately for a game. It was the only remnant left.

Of course, as I descended the stairs, I walked across 161st Street and into Jay Gatsby’s house itself. This monstrous hulk of a stadium now houses all the Yankee home games. It was a beautiful early-summer’s evening, and the pinstriped club was hosting the Seattle Mariners. The fans had filled this mansion up, as they do every night. They were walking around the open concourse, shopping in the souvenir shops (they even have a women’s-specialty store, with lots of Yankee pink), and eating at the Hard Rock Café. I was fortunate enough to sit for a few hours with my brother, Eric, and our dear friend, Neil. They had an extra ticket and had invited me. As we sat in our upper-deck seats, we took it all in – the 101-foot-long video screen, the groundskeepers dancing to the Village People’s “YMCA,” and the cascading levels of seats, running all the way down to the “premium” seats at field level, where one seat costs more than the per-capita income of about 50 countries. In those box seats, Gatsby comes over and serves you dinner.

Out in centerfield, I could barely see the monuments and retired Yankees’ numbers beneath the giant, black-tinted Mohegan Sun Sports Bar. Over in right field, I could see the No. 4 train pass through the small opening between the bleachers and upper deck. But the train now passes that spot after it departs, northbound, from the 161st Street stop. So if you’re riding that train from Manhattan, you don’t get that breathtaking, momentary view of the green field while pulling up to the platform. It’s a view that defined the magic of this place. But times have changed.

Seattle’s ace pitcher, Cliff Lee, shut down New York with a complete-game victory last night. The home team rallied in the ninth, then folded. After saying goodbye to Eric and Neil, I crossed the street on my way back to the train station. As I walked up 161st, that blue wall was beside me again. When the makeshift wooden planks offered a slight opening, I caught a glimpse of the Valley once more. Gray, and barren. On the wall, the words “Post No Bills” were printed in white stencil. A man with a saxophone played a slow blues tune in front of the old park. A funeral hymn, perhaps.

I reached the station, and climbed aboard the No. 4. It had been another grand party at Gatsby’s house, with lots of new money all around. I had enjoyed the company and the entertainment.

The atmosphere, though, had left me empty. It always does in this place.

Friends (One Sixty-Two: Day 14)

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 Fourteen: Robinson Cano, New York Yankees

Everyone’s been talking about Robinson Cano lately – the Yankees second baseman is finally blossoming into the hitting star so many scouts predicted he’d become. So far this season, there has been no better hitter in baseball. Today, though, Cano is on my mind for a different reason.

It was September of 2006, and Cano had one of his best games yet as a Yankee. He hit a homer and drove in five runs as New York defeated Tampa Bay. I don’t remember a lot of details from that game, except that I was sitting in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium, and that I went to the game with Ron.

It was nothing new to be attending a Yankee game with Ron – this was our second time going that year, and probably our 20th or so together at the stadium since our parents first permitted us to drive from Staten Island to the Bronx. Add in the ballgames we’d seen in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Reading, Trenton, New Haven, and Frederick, Md., and you’ve got a lot of hours spent watching baseball side by side.

Because Ron and I both loved baseball, the games provided us with a place to relax, talk, and share a mutual passion. We’d discuss the teams and the games a bit, but mostly we’d talk about life – our jobs, homes, relationships, friends. Some people have these conversations over dinner; Ron and I had them from the upper deck. It felt right, for so many reasons. Weren’t we, after all, the nerdy seventh-graders who got Yankees players’ names and numbers screen-printed onto the backs of T-shirts years before teams even began selling those uniform tees? And weren’t we the ones collecting day-after newspapers from every New York publication after each Yankee title? Didn’t we also use baseball players’ names to help us remember the titles of paintings for our AP Art History tests?

It’s been more than three years since I last saw Ron. It’s hard to say why friends lose touch – often, it’s not anybody’s fault. Our lives take different turns, circumstances change, and suddenly we’ve fallen out of contact. It’s never fun, but it is human nature.

Today is Ron’s birthday, and so I’m thinking of him. I’ll send him an e-mail, wishing him the very best, and hoping we can meet up again soon. You can always go to another ballgame, and catch another Robinson Cano home run. But you don’t always get to do it with your friends. When you lose touch with that friend, you realize how much you took for granted. You want to sit in the upper deck and talk with him.

The Out-of-Towner (One Sixty-Two: Day Four)

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 Four: Javier Vazquez, New York Yankees

Every time a victorious third out is made in the top of the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium, more than 50,000 people stand up and begin a mass sing-a-long. As they slap high-fives and file out, the pinstriped faithful croon along with Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York.” Some stand in place to sing, others sing while making a dash for the subway, and still others link arms and do a Rockettes kickline.

As they sing loud and clear, the Yankee fans come to a line they all know well:

If I can make it there / I’m gonna make it anywhere

As you walk out of the gates and onto River Avenue, another New York victory in the books and the buzz of humanity around you, it kind of feels as though you’ve made it in the big city, no matter where you’re headed after this game. It’s one of the heady, fleeting thrills of a ballgame in the city, and it emboldens Yankee fans to ask for more of their players the next time around.

Occasionally, however, a player will arrive in New York and have a tough go of it. If that player has succeeded on other teams, the news reporters will inevitably begin asking if this guy is choking under the pressure of playing for the Yankees. It’s such a pressure-packed situation, they write, and it appears that so-and-so just can’t hack it in New York.

The last time Javier Vazquez was pitching for the Yankees, he helped put an exclamation point on one of the lowest moments in New York history, when he served up a grand slam to Johnny Damon in the seventh and deciding game of the 2004 American League Championship Series. The Boston Red Sox went on to dominate that game en route to their historic comeback from three games down. Vazquez had pitched terribly for New York that season, and he was quickly shipped off the Arizona in a trade that brought Randy Johnson to the Yankees.

For every other team that he has played for, Vazquez has been a reliable pitcher – never the league’s best, but the kind of guy who will give you seven innings, give up no more than four runs, and strike out almost a batter an inning. Vazquez has been incredibly durable, and he’s got nearly 2,300 strikeouts. He’s pitched in Chicago, Phoenix, Montreal and Atlanta, and dominated many batters along the way.

When Vazquez left New York after the ’04 season, one wondered if he’d ever get a chance to pitch on the biggest stage again. This past December, the Yankees gave him that chance, trading for him and planting him directly in their rotation once more.

As April concludes, Vazquez’s 2010 numbers are very hard to look at: one win, three losses, and a run given up per inning. He’s having trouble even getting to the fifth inning. This is not the player who plowed through the National League last year with Atlanta. The New York papers are already pouring ink into the Vazquez story.

So, Mr. Sinatra, what do you think? Is this a man who can’t “make it” here? And if so, what should that mean to his reputation? Must every ballplayer prove himself on the biggest stage to be considered a success? Aren’t there people all over America who are more comfortable working in, say, Memphis or Little Rock or Fargo than they are in New York? What if you don’t really have little town blues, but actually enjoy a slightly slower pulse than that of the city that never sleeps?

It is OK, and always will be, to prefer something other than New York. For some, it’s a great place to visit, and that’s all. I’m not sure where Javier Vazquez stands on this. Maybe his struggles as a Yankee have more to do with arm mechanics, location, or the speed of his fastball. Maybe he’ll right his ship this spring and help the Yanks return to the “top of the heap.”

But if Vazquez is feeling too much pressure here in New York, I’m sure he’ll be sent elsewhere soon enough. He’ll hear the cascades of boos, and the papers will run him out of town. It’ll be a high-profile departure, but it won’t be the first of its kind. They won’t be cheering for Vazquez when they sing “New York, New York.” But that doesn’t make him a failure. Just an out-of-towner.

The Snow is Always Whiter

You know you’re in the deepest bowels of winter when you’ve got blizzards in Virginia. As January slithers out the door, it’s making sure to leave the wind howling, the clouds covering up a full moon, and plenty of snow falling all over these United States. Those of us who don’t live in Miami and San Diego are dealing with the bleak midwinter as best we can – turning up the thermostat, pulling on the gloves, sipping some hot chocolate, and cuddling beneath a blanket with a good movie on the TV.

This weekend, we decided to visit my parents in their home on the Jersey Shore, and so far we’re at 8 inches of snow and counting. Even here on the coast, there is no mercy. There are photos all over the house of family members in bathing suits and deep tans. You look at them and it feels like they’re all laughing at you, knowing that you couldn’t be further from what they were experiencing at that moment. Smooth sand between the toes, dolphins out there in the ocean, a good book in hand. Oh, if only ….

This morning, before the white stuff fell, I went for a jog out here in this wintry ghost town. The empty driveways and streets, the barren beaches, the gray skies – it seemed like a scene straight out of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. As my shoes pounded the lonely pavement and the wind smacked me in the face, my mind began searching desperately for something better to think about. So I started doing some quick math. OK, in two days it’ll be February, and that’s the shortest month. In 30 days it’ll be March, and when it’s March that means I can buy some baseball preview magazines. They’ll have spring training games by early March, and I can watch a few on TV.

In about 50 days, spring will officially begin. That week, I’ll do a couple of fantasy baseball drafts, and there might even be a few days above 50 degrees. April is about 60 days away, and April means ballgames. Real ones. By then, we might even see a few crocuses on some lawns. And my parents will be tooling around in their backyard down here, getting ready for springtime visits from their friends (who apparently choose their weekends away much better than I do).

The math, the thoughts of baseball, and the crocuses (or is it croci?) helped for a while. But soon enough, it was back to reality. The mini-golf courses and the ice cream shops were closed up for obvious reasons. The restaurants were getting ready to open for lunch, then close early on account of too much snow. The “Summer Rental” signs on folks’ lawns were flapping helplessly in the wind. I finished my run, took off my two layers of gloves, and stood for a moment in my parents’ Florida room.

This Christmas, we gave my mom a frame containing four photos from a Yankee game she’d treated us all to last summer. She and my dad have hung it up in this room, next to a recliner. There we are, sitting in the upper deck, six of us enjoying a weekday matinee game against the Orioles. Chelsea’s got a tank top on, we’re all wearing shorts, and you can see from the perspiration on our faces that it’s a hot one in the city.

As I looked at the photos, I remembered that it was so warm that day that we … well, we kind of complained a little about the weather. Grumbled to each other about how hot it was. Walked around the ballpark and stood in the bleachers at the end, where the full force of that afternoon’s sun planted itself on our reddening faces. I remember being a little happy when the game was over because there would be some air-conditioning on the subway. I recall Chelsea crying that she was too hot to walk anymore.

I can’t see the grass outside right now, beneath the half-foot of snow and all. But, you know, what they say is true. It is always greener …

The Tragedy of Alex, King of Ballparks

Next month, I’ll teach Hamlet to my seniors, as I always do this time of year. We’ll start by talking about Shakespeare, and what made him so profound a writer. Some of the kids will groan at the mention of his name, but then I’ll catch their attention by comparing Shakespeare to P. Diddy – both of them artists who figured out ways to make money several times over through their own work. I’ll also tell them that Shakespeare, like P. Diddy or any rapper, knew how to sample – in Will’s case, he used allusions to other works of literature and history to make his points clearer.

As we start reading, we’ll talk about the ways in which Shakespeare took well-known stories and turned them into masterpieces. We’ll watch him tap into the essence of human nature like no one else has ever done. We’ll read Hamlet and the kids will realize that the young man in this play is, in many ways, just like them – he’s struggling with adult figures, with love, with family, with future plans and, most of all, with himself. They’ll work through the difficult words and find a reason to remember the themes of this play for a long time.

At some point, I’ll ask them to tell me what Shakespeare would be doing were he alive today. Some will place him in L.A., others in Greenwich Village. Some will have him writing screenplays, and others will see him as a quiet poet. When it’s my chance to share, I’ll talk about the people I think he’d be writing about today. I’ll tell them that I don’t think Shakespeare would be pulling his material from the royalty of years gone by. No, not in 2009. There is simply too much complexity and drama within the life of the modern-day celebrity. Shakespeare would get his inspiration simply by reading the tabloids.

And nowhere else is there a riper Shakespearean drama right now than in the Bronx, N.Y., right around 161st Street, somewhere in the immediate vicinity of third base. Were the Bard alive and well in 2009, he would turn his attention to one Alex Rodriguez.

Glorious gifts are bestowed upon a young man. His early success is astounding, with overwhelming talk of unmatched potential. Fabulous riches are handed to him. The world is at his feet. And yet …

And yet, deep inside, he feels a need to soar even higher. To ensure that no one surpasses him. To protect his legacy from all others. So he turns, quietly, to Macbeth’s witches. They offer him a potion that will make his muscles stronger, without adding bulk. He thinks about it, and decides to seize the opportunity.

He dominates his game even more, smashing hundreds of home runs and earning even greater fame and wealth. And yet, when the tempest of postseason play swirls around him, he tenses up, and hits small ground balls to the pitcher. He hears the boos. Many question his ability to focus under pressure, and to excel in the chill of October. Like Hamlet, the gifted man is unable to get out of his own head.

He vows to improve. But those who watch him speak of his envy toward the young Romeo at shortstop, whom everyone adores for his clutch hitting, classy demeanor and dashing looks. The slugger strives to gain the level of acceptance that Romeo has found, but many see his desire for appreciation as yet another accomplishment, rather than as a genuine desire to be liked. His green eyes are filled with jealousy for that Romeo, and like Othello he comes to feel insecure far too easily for a man of his stature.

Alex Rodriguez, a man of Shakespearean complexity. The tabloids do their best to document the drama, with headlines like “A-Roid” and “A-Hole.” The columnists shine the spotlight on Rodriguez’s moments of hypocrisy and cast their piercing judgment. But in the end, they just scratch the surface. This story needs a Bard to pull its pieces together and help us see the true human story embedded within those pinstripes.

Shakespeare’s gift was in taking a tale whose plot looked like something out of Jerry Springer, then turning it into a multi-layered mirror. As we peer into that mirror, we find ourselves looking deeply at our own flaws, and perpending our own human nature. As Alex Rodriguez prepares to meet the bevy of reporters tomorrow in Tampa, and as we all prepare to pass our own judgment, we pine for a writer who can put the pieces together in a deeply human manner. Were he there, creating his own version of the Alex Rodriguez story, Shakespeare would, no doubt, lead us to think about the complex flaws we hold in common with Number 13, and just what we want to do about it.

A Wag of the Tail

We bought her in September of 1997, and carried her up the stairs to our tiny apartment on Staten Island. During her first week at the house, I can recall trying to potty-train her while hosting a house full of friends and family for Game 1 of the Yankees-Indians Division Series. During those early days of house-breaking, she’d get so excited when company arrived that she’d pee on their sneakers and leather shoes while greeting them at the door.

We named her Pumpkin – not a bad moniker for a golden retriever with plenty of orange-colored fur. We hoped she’d enjoy us, and perhaps even teach us a thing or two about parenting in advance of the real thing. We didn’t expect her to become a subject of devotion for four generations worth of family members. But that’s just what she did. She became a therapy dog of sorts for my grandparents, going for long walks with them in their final years of activity and allowing them to pet her for hours after the walks. She was an invaluable companion to all of our parents, staying with them when we went away and greedily munching on the treats they fed her. When Amy and I had kids of our own, Pumpkin even went away for “vacations” of her own with our parents, so she could be treated like the only kid in the house for a few days, and our folks could feel her warm body at their feet while sitting on the couch at night.

And, of course, she was an ever-present companion to Amy and to me. Whether it was a jaunt to the park, a gallop through the backyard snow, or just a lazy day around the house, she always had a way of making you feel as though she needed you and adored you for the care you gave her. Even when my own kids tried to ride her like a horse, she hung in there, trusting that we’d keep her safe. As she grew older, she lounged more, but always wagged that tail when we greeted her, and never failed to let us know when it was time for her meals. Even when we ignored her for too long in the midst of our hectic days, she never complained, and leaned her back toward us when we finally sat down to pet her. She never, ever gave up on us.

Last week, they found a mass on her spleen, the size of a softball. We talked it over, and decided that we would have the surgery done. She got through the operation well on Tuesday, but then there were some heart troubles on Wednesday. These seemed to subside, yet the following day her body began to fail her. Amy got to the hospital in time, and sat with her in her final moments last night. She told her that my grandparents were up there waiting for her, ready for another brisk walk – maybe this time through the clouds.

I had never had a pet before, and had no real idea what to expect from Pumpkin. I now know that an animal can ground you and give you a truer understanding of unconditional love – of what it takes to never waver in your dedication to family, even when they walk right past you or step on your tail. She taught me that it takes patience to love another fully, and that by simply being there for those you love, you can make their world so much more complete.

Caring for Pumpkin this week cost as much money as some of those pricey tickets for Sunday’s final ballgame at Yankee Stadium. I won’t be in the South Bronx on Sunday –I’ll be at home instead, watching the game on TV. It’s a week for goodbyes, I suppose.

Money is money – it comes and goes. Ballparks – even the great ones – reach an end, too.

Dogs die as well.

But love lives on forever. Pumpkin could have told you that, with one wag of the tail.

Ballparks and Brothers

I’ve been to Yankee Stadium dozens of times over the past 31 years. Ever since my first game – Bat Day in 1977, when I was handed a wooden Adirondack with the name “Thurman Munson” engraved on the barrel – I have felt so alive every time I’ve visited this ballpark. It is, without question, the greatest arena for sports that I have ever experienced. I have stood in the upper deck during playoff games and felt the electric pulse of 55,000 trying to will the Yankees to victory, the entire level shaking beneath our feet. I’ve sat in the lower deck during the lean years, watching Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly and Mike Pagliarulo lace frozen ropes into the gap before 20,000 intensely faithful fans. I’ve walked reverently through Monument Park, roared blissfully with the bleacher creatures, and stood on the field singing along with Billy Joel.

Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Camden Yards are more aesthetically beautiful than Yankee Stadium ever was. But the beauty of this ballpark in the Bronx goes beyond anything the eye can see. The magic of Yankee Stadium rests in the way this place feels, and the passion its fans provide. It’s the kind of atmosphere that gives you 50,000 people roaring deliriously for a former Yankee who’s just lost his job with another team, as took place a few days ago during Old-Timer’s Day. As Willie Randolph jogged onto the field to wave his cap, he watched an entire stadium stand to its feet to welcome him home and nearly bring him to tears. Yankee fans often realize what a player needs before the player knows it himself, and that is where the mystique and aura lie. When the playoffs begin, Yankee fans know that they need to take their job of cheering to another level, and they do; it is for this reason that they love players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte so much, for these three have also known how to find that extra level of intensity come October.

It’s difficult to imagine this place closing for business in a few weeks. But it will, and it is with this in mind that I checked out the prices on StubHub recently, to see if there was a chance I could say goodbye myself. I found ticket prices well into the hundreds, even thousands of dollars, for the remaining games played in the stadium this year. I guess the old place has earned this kind of price tag. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come next year in the new park.

For now, though, I’ve got plenty of memories of my own moments in the big park: Ken Griffey Sr. soaring over the seats in left field to take a home run away from the Red Sox; Jerry Mumphrey smashing an upper-deck, walk-off home run against the Angels before those things were ever called “walk-offs”; Mattingly roping a double into the right-field corner to wrest the league batting title away from Winfield on the season’s last day; Ron Guidry striking out a dozen or so on Old-Timers’ Day, shortly before he himself became a retiree; Paul O’Neill drilling home runs on his way to a batting title; David Wells baffling the Rangers, then Indians, in the playoffs en route to the 125-win season of 1998; and the home crowd standing for Cal Ripken on one of his last games in the Bronx.

Much more than the players, though, I will remember the people I sat with at these games. My mom, my dad, my grandparents, best friends, college friends, teaching colleagues, fellow journalists. I’ll remember the games with my wife, the two of us holding hands as she let me fill her ears with useless stats. I’ll remember the game with my oldest daughter, her eyes opening wide as she looked down on the vast field of green. And most of all, I’ll remember the games I attended with my brother. My passion for this game leads me always to him, to our days playing, watching, and talking about this game. We have laughed, debated, high-fived and, yes, even argued in this ballpark. We’ve talked about nearly every aspect of our lives in the hours spent watching ballgames here. Add it all up and we’ve lived several days in this park, eating pretzels and hot dogs side by side in the upper deck. As we’ve grown older, the stadium has helped provide a place and time for making each other a priority, even when work and family demands are intense.

We’ll meet up for games in the new park, I’m sure. But just as the beautiful home our parents retired to doesn’t feel like the little ranch we grew up in, the new Yankee Stadium won’t feel quite like home, either. But we’ll have to adjust. Life is like that. In the end, it’ll be fine – so long as we’re there together.

Manny Being Mannered

I don’t spend my time in baseball locker rooms, so I can’t speak to the character of any player in Major League baseball. I don’t know what they’re really like, only what I get through the filter of news media outlets. Many reporters are superb at what they do, but their medium does not have the space to tell us everything about the athletes they cover. Skepticism should be a natural instinct we carry with us when following coverage of such “heroes” whom we have never had the chance to speak with in person.

So I can’t say that Manny Ramirez is a jerk any more than I can say that he’s a prince of a guy. I have absolutely no concrete evidence on which to support either statement. For every off-hand comment he makes, he may be giving tons of money to charity for all I know. One thing I can say for sure is that he’s interesting. And I’d love to chat with him sometime and see what he’s like one-on-one.

But from a distance, there are still some lessons I think I can pass along to my kids from watching Manny Ramirez play ball and talk to the media. He is giving a clinic on workplace behavior right now, in the midst of the cameras and the doubles off the wall. The lessons are plentiful. Here are a few:

1. Burning bridges has a price: No matter what your employer may have done to slight you, there is a cost to leaving them on bad terms. Saying that you’d rather play ball in Iraq when that employer has paid you more than $150 million is going to leave a sour taste in the mouths of many, no matter what led you to that place of anger. You never know where you’ll meet that employer again, and there’s no reason to make life more uncomfortable than it already is.

2. Hustle, always: There is never an excuse for jogging to first base on a ground ball, just as there’s never an excuse for “mailing in” a day’s work in any field. There are always people watching you and learning from your body language. Most important, there are young people who can learn something from you about the importance of giving your best and feeling pride in yourself.

3. Dress well: Tuck in your shirt. Wear pants that fit your body. Model a sense of self-worth and maturity to those who are looking up to you and those looking out for you.

4. Show humility in public: No matter how good you are at what you do, it’s so important to speak with gratitude for what you’ve been given and with humility about the things you’ve accomplished. There are too many people suffering in this world, and for every star athlete who spends a ton of time talking about himself, there is inevitably less media coverage being given to those in need. Athletes would do well to spend more time ducking the spotlight, for that is often the best way to earn respect.

5. Love what you do: Find a career that lights you up, and enjoy it every day. Find a job that makes you smile, and relish the chance to do what you love. I list this final point not as a criticism of Manny Ramirez, but as a compliment. No matter what the situation, he always seems to be hugging a teammate and having fun.

I will not miss the unnecessary “Manny’s Moody” headlines that covered far too much of the media in recent days. But I will miss watching Manny Ramirez play ball on a regular basis. I last saw him live in April, at Yankee Stadium. He crushed two home runs with effortless grace, his instincts finding that perfect place where bat meets ball in the sweet spot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better pure hitter than this man. He is a master of his art. I hope one day he can find a way to use the news media well and become a better ambassador of the game he loves so much.