Keeping Score

            My daughter and I sat in a lifeguard chair perched beyond the left-field fence at FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood, N.J. These unique seats offered us a bird’s-eye view of a minor-league baseball game on a sunny Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. And for my 10-year-old and me, it was the perfect setting for what we were about to do.

After all, it wasn’t just a baseball game we were ready to watch. On this day, we had decided to try keeping score together. This antiquated skill, which I had learned as a kid, was going to find its way into the brain of my daughter Chelsea. She said she was ready and wanted to learn. So we gave it a try.

Why bother with keeping score, you might ask? Even for a minor-league game like this, the play-by-play was available online, in real time, along with a running box score and up-to-date statistics for each player. Why bother sitting there with a pencil, circling “2B” if the hitter smacked a double, or writing in “6-3” if he grounded out to the shortstop? It’s a good question, and one my 13-year-old daughter was more than ready to ask as she chose not to participate in our exercise.

But on this day, Chelsea sensed that there was something about tallying your own numbers that seemed worth the effort. There was no algorithm or app involved in the data we were compiling. It was just us, with our trusty pencil and scorebook, keeping track of the game before us. And instead of blindly relying on others to tell us what we needed to know, we could glance at our scorecard and see who was hitting well that day, and who was struggling. Chelsea was particularly intrigued by the backwards “K” that indicates a batter struck out looking, and she was excited to shade in the full baseball diamond to indicate that a batter scored a run.

Of course, this day of keeping score was always about more than just numbers. The game itself was fun, but nothing extraordinary happened on the field. For my daughter and me, the most interesting part of that game took place in that lifeguard chair, when we sat down together and tried something new. Chelsea said it was fun, and I believe her. What I think she really meant, though, was it was fun to spend time with her dad.

No number-crunching or scorecards are needed to understand the importance of that.

The Power of Our Passions

            When people ask me if my girls like baseball as much as I do, I have to be honest – they don’t. But in a lot of ways, that’s not really the point.

            When my brother and I spent our summer days immersed in all things baseball as kids, it wasn’t just the love of a game that we were developing. We were finding a passion, a hobby that we could hold onto for the rest of our lives. That passion would assist us in so many ways during our own personal growth, as passions often do.

When we made friends in school, baseball served as a conversation-starter. When our mother told us to read books over the summer, we often chose baseball biographies. As we discovered our mutual passion for writing, we practiced that skill by scribbling about baseball. And when we were in need of a thought to help divert our minds from a fear, stressor or family crisis, our thoughts bent toward the diamond.

As an adult, I learned that when you have a passion for something, people are energized by your expression of that hobby. My wife has always said that she loves to go to baseball games with me, because she can see the glimmer in my eyes. When I’m talking about baseball, friends and colleagues who know little about the sport will listen intently to my stories. When I’m finished, they often tell me I should write a book about baseball. Sometimes I tell them, yes, I’m doing that. Other times, I just smile and nod and thank them.

My daughters haven’t yet read the full manuscript I’ve written about coming of age with baseball at my side. But they’ve seen the passion, and it rubs off on them a bit. On Father’s Day, when we went to a minor-league game in Lakewood, N.J., my 10-year-old let me teach her how to keep score, and we sat in a big lifeguard chair beyond the left-field fence and tallied the hits and walks and strikeouts in our scorebook. When my wife and I gave our 13-year-old a Brett Gardner T-shirt this spring, she researched the Yankees left fielder on her phone and decided that he was a cutie. When I told her that Gardner had been named to the All-Star team this month, she said she knew that already. She’s keeping tabs on the guy.

So whether or not we pass along the affection we have for a specific hobby, the people around us still get something out of the energy we exude over it. Our 10-year-old may not know much about the Yankees, but Chelsea loves to talk about Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, and she’s finding a newfound interest in tennis. Our 13-year-old might not know who roams the New York outfield with Brett Gardner, but Katie teaches me plenty about pop music, fashion, photography and, yes, social media. When I’m teaching high school English and I describe the Shakespearean complexity of Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez, my students might not care a lot about that particular comparison, but it often helps them to make their own text-to-life connections. Mr. Hynes, how about Tupac Shakur? Or Lance Armstrong? Or Bill Clinton? All good, guys. All good.

So when I think about the role baseball plays in my life, I see it as twofold: There are the personal thoughts and ideas I have while thinking about the game, which have clearly meant a lot to me; and then there are the little sparks of inspiration that others might gain from my enthusiastic discussions of the sport. The people around me will do what they wish with those sparks, but it’s exciting to know that my own spirited love for something has left even the smallest mark on readers, colleagues, friends, students and family – and, yes, even on two particular daughters.

A Poem for Summer

There’s a white Chevy ice cream van

playing Greensleeves

                                on my street.

As I mow the lawn I hear

the canned music.

My daughter, her brows pursed,

stops the van

                                and speaks.

“What song is this, who, laid

to rest / on Sandford Ave is beeping?”

The driver is an old Italian guy

selling popsicles.

He looks at my daughter and says,

“You no like-a?

There are two other songs

on this truck.

                                Here they are.”

He plays them.

                My girl winces.

                “You see?” he says.

My daughter tells him

it’s OK. Go on.

                Give us          

                               Christmas in summer.

Give us this mixture of seasons

that flicker

                for a moment

                                and then are gone.

She buys an ice pop

                                and he drives off,

While fireflies, their silent anthems sweet,

                                venture out to play.

When Movies Move Us

            Every year, the number of journalists covering the Academy Awards season seems to increase exponentially. We may have reached a point where more reporters are covering the Oscars than the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. These legions of experts are feeding us loads of predictions, including the not-so-surprising news that the best movie of 2014 may not win the award for Best Picture tonight.

            If that happens, and Richard Linklater’s masterpiece Boyhood fails to grab the award tonight, it will be nothing new. In recent years, it has become commonplace for the best film to lose out due to the peculiarities of Hollywood politics. Lincoln loses to Argo. The Social Network falls to The King’s Speech. Brokeback Mountain is upended by Crash. Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line are beaten by Shakespeare in Love.

            Of course, there is a long line of great films that didn’t win the Oscar; you don’t need that award to be considered a classic. From Goodfellas to Raging Bull, from E.T. to The Graduate, from It’s a Wonderful Life to Citizen Kane, it’s a prestigious list. And that’s not even counting the amazing films that weren’t even nominated (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Singin’ in the Rain, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, just to name a few).

            If you’ve seen Boyhood, you probably walked away from the film rather amazed by Linklater’s depiction of a child’s coming of age from first-grader to college freshman. As a parent whose oldest child’s first 12 years span the same dozen years in which the film was made, I found it even more stunning. And I can’t quite understand the criticism that this film doesn’t have a straight, linear plot. Because in these past 13 years of being a parent, I haven’t ever found our family’s story to ever be a tight, well-defined storyline.

            We do the best we can as parents and as kids, trying to negotiate the different individuals with whom we live, and the different situations we’re faced with in life. Sometimes we make mistakes – big ones, even – and sometimes things work out better than we even deserve. It’s a day-to-day journey, and there’s no telling what tomorrow will bring.

We go to school, and meet new kids. We change jobs or move to new homes. We argue at the dinner table. We hop in the car and go somewhere, and learn more about one another in the process. We dance to pop songs. We head out to baseball games, parties and bowling alleys together. We hold each other close.

            It’s a story, all right, but one that’s told better in snapshots than in structured narrative. It’s the kind of story that Boyhood shows us so beautifully. Give me a few minutes of my girls at each age, and I’ll remember the main themes of our lives together at that point. In fact, those brief moments will probably tell the story more authentically than anything else could.

            If you took a few snapshots of our family right now, you’d see a lot of different images. You’d see two girls hunkered over their homework at the kitchen table. A 42-year-old mom sitting at her laptop to prepare lesson plans for the week. A 44-year-old dad researching map routes for a summer cross-country trip with his family. A teenager fighting through the shifting hormones and anxieties that come with adolescence. A 10-year-old in love with reading, from Harry Potter to Judy Blume. Two sisters on the living room carpet, dancing to Taylor Swift. A husband and wife trying, somehow, to grab a couple of hours alone together – but settling, most of the time, for a half-hour chat while making tomorrow’s lunches in the kitchen.

            None of these images tell the whole story. But put a few of them together, and you’ve got what you need. In truth, there’s no way to tell the whole story of a life. Maybe that’s why Boyhood is so breathtaking – because it actually understands that. It sees the rich narrative in those moments.

In one scene, Ethan Hawke’s character is camping with his son Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane. They’re eating s’mores while talking about Star Wars, and whether there will ever be a seventh film. “Return of the Jedi, it’s over, there’s nothing,” Hawke says. “I mean, what are you going to turn Han Solo into a Sith Lord?” After watching the Star Wars films together, my 10-year-old and I had nearly the same conversation. And I know I’m not the only one. This doesn’t tell you anything specific about either of us, except that we both love Star Wars. But then again, it also tells you that we know how to talk with one another, and hang out, and pay attention to the things that draw us closer.

So tonight, they can give the Oscar to whatever film they want. We’ll fill out our Oscar ballots and enjoy the red carpet, the dresses, the envelopes and the speeches. But we won’t stress over who gets the trophy.

When you see a movie that speaks to you from somewhere deep within, you don’t need an award to validate that. In the end, I’ll take the movies that move me, and hold onto those for the long haul.

Tuning in to the Holidays

            It starts in our house around Halloween. That’s a solid month too soon, in my opinion. But I do not cast the deciding vote.

            You walk into my wife’s car, or into our house, on, say, Oct. 25, and you hear it right away – the jingle of bells, accompanied by a catchy tune about Santa or Frosty or Rudolph. Along with this music you hear the singing voices of three individuals – my wife, my older daughter, and my younger daughter. The dog does not sing along, nor do the guinea pigs. But if they could, I’m sure they would.

            Everyone in our house loves an early start to Christmas music – except for me. Call me crazy, but I prefer to hear my Christmas music during the Christmas season. Of course, the rest of my family reminds me that the season is whatever time period you define it to be. My wife and daughters happen to view it as a two-month advent season; I prefer the more standard, after-Thanksgiving definition.

            The interesting thing is, my definition seems to be the one on its way out. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of holiday-themed radio stations in America, and many of them are switching to this format earlier in November, if not sooner. A recent New York Times article by Ben Sisario identified an Atlantic City, N.J., station that switched to all-holiday music two weeks before Halloween. We’ve always noticed retail stores setting up for Christmas early; now the dials on our car radio are doing the same.

            In our house, we have an agreement that they don’t play Christmas music when I’m in the house until after Veterans Day. Amy and the girls kind of honor that, and I kind of let it go when they forget once in awhile. My reasons for holding off on holiday music are twofold. For one, I find the season to be a whirlwind of both joy and stress, and I prefer to take on that combo for one month instead of two. And second, I really, really like Christmas music – therefore, I don’t want to ruin it by playing those songs too much.

Scrooge said he would keep Christmas in his heart all year long; he didn’t say he would play “Jingle Bells” 24/7. There is a difference, in this man’s opinion. So while I’m always ready for community service, or gift-giving, or time with family, my ideal window for actual holiday songs is after Dec. 10.

And on a day like today – here on the doorstep of Christmas – I’m ready for all the holiday music you’ve got. Give me Mariah, give me those Very Special Christmas albums, give me the Rat Pack and Elvis and Band Aid and Burl Ives. Play it loud today. Jingle those bells. Run, run, Rudolph.

The cool thing about my family’s obsession with this music is that when I am in the mood for the stuff, I have quite the collection of holiday music from which to choose. A few years ago, I even bought Amy an iPod Nano specifically for her Christmas songs. It is completely full. So there’s a bounty of songs at my fingertips.

And there are is a lot of underrated holiday music out there. In terms of holiday albums, some of the best underplayed CDs are Annie Lennox’s A Christmas Cornucopia, Darlene Love’s It’s Christmas, Of Course, and Chris Isaak’s Christmas. In terms of underrated holiday songs, I love Billy Squier’s “Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You,” The Kinks’ “Father Christmas,” Fiona Apple’s version of “Frosty the Snowman,” Louis Armstrong’s “Cool Yule” and Coldplay’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” to name just a few.

I could go on. If you buy the Andy Williams/Johnny Mathis-fueled cliché of it being “the most wonderful time of the year,” you can see why artists would want to write songs about happiness, faith and goodwill. The matching of catchy tunes with joyful hearts creates the perfect setting for uplifting art. We peer into the details of our lives and find it all there for the taking: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, treetops glistening, sleigh bells jingling – a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight.

When you think about how much great holiday music is out there, it almost makes you want to play those songs a little earl – wait a minute. What am I saying? That’s not what I mean – the music’s good, yes, and I honestly could use a good two months to play it all, but do I really want to start it so soon? Wait, do I?

See, that’s the problem with these blog posts – you meander too much and you end up contradicting yourself! Or maybe, as you probe deeper into the issue, you start to recognize your true feelings. Maybe Scrooge does play holiday songs all year. Perhaps that’s the whole point. If these songs are a reminder of who we are at our best, why cap their timeliness?

It’s a question best left to each individual. For now, it’s December 24, and that’s as good a day for Christmas music as any. So soak it up, and sing it out. Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime.

The Final Out

            The evening chill has added its November bite, the jack-o’-lanterns are starting to sag, and the darkness is upon us an hour earlier. This can mean only one thing: Another baseball season has ended. Indeed, the parade has already been held in San Francisco, where the Giants are world champions once again. And a season-ending celebration has taken place in Kansas City, where the Royals took pride in going from also-rans for 29 straight years to World Series runners-up in 2014.

            For all who follow baseball, though, the end of a season is sad no matter which team you follow. The odyssey that began with Spring Training in mid-February has wound its way through a six-month, 162-game regular season, followed by another month of Wild Card games and three full rounds of playoff series. And now it’s over.

            The bitter chill arrives. Bundle up, and bake some cookies.

            While the season’s end brings a kind of mourning for many of us, it’s also a time of more poignant regret for those who made their teams’ final out of the year. Those players have the added bonus of reliving a moment of failure again and again, wondering what might have happened had they taken a different swing, or managed their at-bat differently. Salvador Perez of the Royals will see his ninth-inning pop-up to Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval on repeat in his mind, wishing he had just made better contact. But he didn’t, and he can’t get that moment back again.

           

            In our family, we’ve got a ballplayer who made her team’s final out of the year. Chelsea, our 9-year-old, enjoyed her travel team’s fall season very much, and she clubbed her share of hits for her team, the Wolves. But on a drizzly Monday evening a few weeks ago, Chelsea found herself up at bat with her team trailing in the last inning of a single-elimination playoff game. The Wolves were down by three runs, the bases were loaded, and there were two outs. As her team cheered her on, Chelsea smacked a shot toward second base. And then … the ball landed right in the glove of the opposing team’s second baseman.

            As the teams congratulated each other and the winning club celebrated, Chelsea felt the tears begin to stream down her cheeks. Her coaches assured her that there was nothing to feel sorry about, that she had done a great job all year. But Chelsea had wanted to win, and she felt embarrassed that she had made the last out.

           

            When we got home that night, I told Chelsea that some of the best hitters in baseball history have made the final out in playoff games. I showed her the line drive that Hall of Famer Willie McCovey hit to second base to end Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. I showed her Bob Welch’s strikeout of Reggie Jackson to end Game 2 of the 1978 World Series. This at-bat is one of the more electrifying playoff encounters you’ll ever see, and Chelsea found herself captivated by the competitive fire of that moment.

This week, I shared with her the news that another player had made his team’s last out. Perez popped up to third with the tying run on third base, 90 feet away. Perez was an All-Star this year, and he started more games at catcher in one season than any player in Major League history. He had been hit in the knee with a pitch earlier in Game 7, making it difficult for him to stride at full strength. Perez’s season was anything but a failure. And yet, here he was, making that dreaded last out – just as Mike Trout, baseball’s best player, had done two weeks earlier against Perez’s Royals in the Division Series.

The best thing about baseball is that there is always another season ahead, another set of games to play. But for a few dark months between November and March, there is no baseball. And that is sadder than any final out – the reality that balls and strikes and pitches and swings are gone for now.

Chelsea has her uniform ready for the spring softball season. She wants her glove to be oiled some more, and she’d love a new softball bag. The final out was a sad one for her, but it was also a motivator. She’ll keep practicing. And somewhere out there, beyond the darkness, spring awaits. There will be more games, and more chances. Whether you’re the Royals or the Wolves, you know it’s true. Baseball never dies.

The American Dream: A Shortstop with Standards

            When Derek Jeter made his Major League Baseball debut in the spring and summer of 1995, it was a busy time in America. An act of domestic terrorism had recently struck Oklahoma City, and the Unabomber was on the loose. The United States Congress was at sharp odds with the president. Acts of savage cruelty abroad had led the U.S. to take military action in Bosnia. Extreme heat waves in the Midwest had many wondering what was happening to our climate. A trial in Manhattan was under way for the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. A Brooklyn man had recently been sent to prison for life after shooting and killing several people on a Long Island train. And a certain former NFL running back was on trial for murder in Los Angeles.
            There were a lot of frightening things happening, and it was hard sometimes to find your footing in what felt like an uneven world. But one September evening, a baseball shortstop helped us remember how inspiring humans can be when they’re at their best. Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. had been playing his position every day for nearly 14 years without missing a single game. On September 6, he broke the record that many had thought to be untouchable – Lou Gehrig’s mark for consecutive games played. When the 2,131^st game of Ripken’s career became official, his teammates encouraged him to jog around Oriole Park at Camden Yards, shaking hands and slapping high-fives with fans. As millions of people watched Ripken on TV, they shared a moment that was clearly about much more than baseball.

            In the 19 years since that summer, you can argue that a lot has changed in this world and this country, but that an awful lot has also stayed the same. There are still too many people out there engaged in activities that we struggle to understand, from terrorism to domestic shootings to governmental infighting to ignorance of global warming. We read more of our news online these days than we did in 1995, but we often hesitate to scan the headlines, sometimes because we just don’t want to hear about another crisis.

            Derek Jeter has been working at his job in the Bronx during every one of these past 19 years, often excelling at his job during our most frightful collective moments. He led the New York Yankees to 125 wins in 1998, when the Clinton-Lewinski scandal held Americans’ attention. He won the World Series MVP award in 2000, leading the Yanks past the cross-town Mets a few days before the American presidential electoral process entered a state of chaos. He made two of the most extraordinary plays in playoff history during the fall of 2001, just weeks after the attacks of September 11. He led the Yankees to their 27^th championship in 2009, one day before the Fort Hood shootings. He led the American League in hits in 2012 at age 38, with the Yankees finishing their postseason run a few days before Hurricane Sandy hit. During these moments, Jeter didn’t ask for the applause, nor did he view himself as larger than life. He just said he was living his dream, playing for his favorite team, and wanted only to win. His modesty, maximum effort and grace under pressure were all we needed to feel that maybe things were not so bad out there as they seemed.

            Human nature being what it is, we can be sure that individuals will continue making decisions that frighten, confuse and worry us in the days and years ahead. Even in the world of sports, we have seen a whole host of poor decisions, from steroid use among baseball players to off-the-field violence among football players to neglect of head injuries in several sports. But in spite of this constant turmoil, there are always individuals out there who inspire us. Some of them are artists, others are teachers, and others are just people we love who serve as our personal role models. And, yes, there are also athletes. Since Cal Ripken’s moment 19 years ago, other sports stars have stepped forward and provided more examples of excellence on and off the field. Athletes such as Tim Duncan, Peyton Manning, Mariano Rivera and Grant Hill have gained such respect within and beyond the world of sports because of the way they’ve carried themselves day in and day out. When young athletes arrive in the pros saying they idolized Manning or Hill while growing up, you know it’s not just because of how great these players were in action. It’s also because of the class they showed while playing the game.

Before I knew the name Derek Jeter, I was covering the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team as a college senior in Chapel Hill. I had just written dozens of stories chronicling the team’s second national championship under Coach Dean Smith in 1993, and I was invited to the program’s year-end dinner. As I sat in the arena named for Smith and listened to him speak, I was struck by the tears this often-stoic coach shed while speaking of his players. He cared just as much for the walk-on bench player as he did the leading scorer, and he spoke more about players’ grades and post-college plans than their basketball accomplishments. That evening, I sat next to the late Doug Marlette, whose editorial cartoons had won him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize. Marlette, who lived in a nearby town, was a big Tar Heels fan. When I asked why he loved UNC basketball, Marlette began speaking of Smith. “He has such standards,” Marlette said, explaining that when you set such high goals for yourself and those you lead, you tend to win – and win with integrity.

Three years later, I was watching Derek Jeter celebrate his first championship with the Yankees, and I heard him speak reverently of the Yankees’ manager, Joe Torre. I saw him embrace his parents, and refrain from even the slightest boast. This, you could tell, was a man with standards. It’s hard to believe that he’s already 40 now, and that his career will end this weekend in Boston. Last night, in his final game at Yankee Stadium, Jeter heard more than 48,000 people cheer his name for more than three hours straight. He said he nearly cried several times, and felt it was he who should be thanking the fans. Again, the modesty.

The highlight reels can show you all the clutch hits, diving catches and great throws in Jeter’s career. But really, that’s just part of the story. You needed to hear those fans last night, chanting “Thank you, Derek,” just as you needed to see Cal Ripken take his lap around Camden Yards. These were gifted, millionaire athletes, on the receiving end of adulation that seemed at odds with a harsh, cynical world. We’ve taken a lot of hits over the past two decades. But somehow, we keep finding the sparks of light. Sometimes those sparks are standing at shortstop. Only in moments like these can you see just how ready and willing we are to applaud those who hold onto standards in this crazy world of ours.