Pennant-Race Memories: Handle with Care

                It’s likely that the New York Yankees won’t make the playoffs this year, giving them two straight seasons without a playoff berth since 1992 and ‘93. If the Yankees are your favorite team, as they are for the residents of the Hynes household, this is disappointing. But if you’re paying attention to the full baseball season, you know that several groups of long-suffering fans are getting the chance to see their teams in a pennant race this summer. That is the story of baseball in 2014, and it’s a great one.

You’ve got the Kansas City Royals, absent from the playoffs for 29 years, standing in first place in their division. The Baltimore Orioles, out of the playoffs for 28 of the last 31 years, also in first place. The Milwaukee Brewers, who have made the playoffs just four times in their 45-year existence, holding onto first place. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who last year made the playoffs for the first time in 20 years, in the Wild Card chase. And the Toronto Blue Jays, absent from the playoffs for 21 years, also in the Wild Card hunt. Even the Washington Nationals, trying to bring playoff baseball to the nation’s capital for just the second time in 81 years, in first place.

When you look at this season from the vantage point of long-awaited hope, it gives you reason to worry little about whether usual playoff suspects such as the Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox will make the postseason this year. These teams and their fans certainly will survive. But the Royals! How can you not root for the kids in Kansas City? Even baseball’s two most consistent teams this year, the first-place Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Dodgers, have not won a World Series since Rick Astley, Richard Marx and Gloria Estefan were ruling Billboard’s Top 40.

A few weeks ago, I took a weekend trip with my brother and our friend Neil, to spend some time together and celebrate Eric and Neil both turning 40 this year. When we go away together, the three of us usually travel to baseball stadiums. This time, it was an Orioles game one night, followed by a Nationals game the next. We watched the home teams win their games, and the stadiums were loud and full. We were impressed by how many fans dressed in the colors of their teams – Orioles orange and Nationals red. It also was impressive to see the teams enjoying their own traditions – Orioles fans belting out John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” during the seventh-inning stretch, and Nationals fans cheering wildly for Teddy Roosevelt as he won the nightly race of mascot presidents, beating out Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Taft.

There was a lot of late-summer hope in the voices and eyes of these Mid-Atlantic baseball fans. The same can be heard and seen in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and other mid-size cities around the country, where the local teams are giving their fans reason to avoid thinking about football quite yet. In the end, though, these pennant-race ballgames always mean more than wins and losses. If you’re traveling to a game with your friends or family, you’re going to have time to sit together in the stands and talk, perhaps even about stuff more important than balls and strikes.

I can tell you about a lot of the Yankee games I’ve seen with Eric and Neil, but I also can tell you about many good talks and laughs we’ve had at the ballpark in the Bronx. During our Maryland weekend, we talked a lot of baseball but also caught up on one another’s lives, sharing stories of recent trips, photos of kids, and songs we’ve been enjoying. We took in the games, but also searched for tasty ballpark food together, with Eric raving over the jerk chicken in Nationals Park and Neil savoring his chili dog. I’m sure I can dig up some details of the games from my memory, but none of them come to mind as clearly as the three of us munching on late-night nachos in a pub in Alexandria, Va., or discovering the historic Maine Avenue Fish Market on our walk to the Nationals game, or singing the Traveling Wilburys’ Handle with Care together as Neil drove north on I-295, heading home.

So in this late summer of 2014, those of us in New York will never be Royals. We’re Yankees fans, so we’ll take what we can get. But as the people in Kansas City and Pittsburgh and Baltimore and D.C. get together for an energizing pennant race, we know that their fans will love the baseball. But Eric, Neil and I can tell you that in the end, a great game is really just an invitation to deepen a friendship. Put on those orange or red T-shirts, grab some jerk chicken, and create some memories together.

Everybody’s got somebody to lean on.

Where Bounty Hunters Meet Center Fielders

            

             Like so many kids her age, my 9-year-old daughter has become a Star Wars fanatic. It’s amazing that Star Wars has never become retro; it remains current, be it through the films, the LEGO phenomenon, the action figures or the books. For Chelsea, her immersion happened out of the blue; we were talking about the Star Wars movies, she expressed a desire to watch them, and before you know it we had watched all six films together in the course of a week’s time.

Like my brother and me three decades earlier, Chelsea was not content with merely watching the films; she wanted to talk about them in-depth, to the point where we continuously pressed pause on our DVD remote so we could debrief what had just happened. She wanted to know whether the Emperor had really died when Darth Vader threw him down a seemingly endless shaft at the end of Return of the Jedi. She wanted to know why Darth Maul was killed so quickly in The Phantom Menace. She wanted to know what exactly was happening with all the Senate proceedings in Episodes I, II and III (if only I could help her there). Chelsea loved Yoda and R2-D2, sure, but she also was fascinated with Greedo, Lando and, of course, Boba Fett.

I was discussing Chelsea’s Star Wars fascination with my brother, who was my childhood companion in all things Star Wars (Eric even went so far as to leave one of his Han Solo figures outside our house one winter so that Han could be frozen, as he had been in The Empire Strikes Back). My brother was, of course, thrilled with Chelsea’s appreciation for the films, and we got to talking about some of Chelsea’s questions and interests. As gripping as the George Lucas’ Star Wars stories are, there are flaws in the films, and Chelsea’s questions raise some of them. Perhaps none is so obvious, though, as the decision to offhandedly kill Boba Fett at the beginning of Return of the Jedi.

Over the past three decades, Boba Fett has grown into one of the most popular Star Wars characters of all, which is amazing considering how few lines he has, and how marginal he is to the overall plot (his main job is to bring Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, to Jabba the Hutt during The Empire Strikes Back). But Boba looks cool, has a Dirty Harry-like, minimalist swagger to him, and never shows his face beneath his green, red and black mask. And yet, during a fight scene early in Return of the Jedi, Han Solo accidentally knocks into Boba Fett, igniting his jet pack and sending the bounty hunter directly into the mouth of an alien with giant teeth, located inside a desert pit. With that careless move, Boba Fett is gone from the Star Wars saga. As the Walt Disney Company, which now owns Star Wars, prepares for Episode VII, it must do so without Boba Fett and his cult-like following.

Of course, that needn’t stop Disney; there’s already talk of a stand-alone Boba Fett film that would cover more of his life before he wound up in the alien’s mouth. But even so, this character’s story does say something about how important it is to keep your eyes on the ball when crafting a narrative. Sometimes, you have a jewel in your hand and don’t realize it. With the Star Wars saga, George Lucas created a modern-day version of the Greek myths, which has delighted my generation and my daughter’s; but he missed the boat on Boba Fett.

This kind of thing happens all the time, in fact. We’re often so intent on adding one piece to the story that we forget another, perhaps more important piece. Other than Star Wars, the only narrative I’ve had time to watch this summer is the six-month-long epic known as a baseball season. But even here, in Major League Baseball, there are Boba Fetts among us. Several ambitious big-league teams made daring trades on the July 31 trading deadline in an attempt to stockpile enough dominant pitching to win the World Series. But in making these trades, clubs such as the Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals and Oakland A’s traded away players who were important contributors to the clubs they had. By tossing those players into trades, they may have lost themselves a Boba Fett and gained nothing more than another Stormtrooper. When the Tigers traded their leadoff hitter and center fielder Austin Jackson for starting pitcher David Price, Jackson actually had to be removed from the game in the middle of an inning. When the Tigers fans realized what was happening, they gave Jackson a standing ovation.

Austin Jackson is not the best player in baseball; David Price, on the other hand, is among the game’s elite right now. But in order to win, baseball teams must rely heavily on the delicate chemistry of their club. To trade a young, developing player who has done nothing but contribute during his 4½ years in Detroit is risky. The Tigers are a different team now, as their plotline has been altered. They may still win, but it won’t feel the same without Austin Jackson in center.

My daughter, of course, doesn’t care about the Detroit Tigers. But she is still excited about Star Wars. She bought some LEGO “microfighter” ships the other day, and she borrowed an armful of Star Wars books from the library as well. As she scanned the book, Chelsea asked me who my favorite character was from all the films. I told her right away: Boba Fett. She nodded, understanding completely. We turned to his page in the Star Wars Character Encyclopedia, tucked in between Bib Fortuna and Boga. “Cool and calculating, Boba Fett is a legendary bounty hunter,” the page begins.

At that point, I should have shown Chelsea the Boba Fett death scene, and compared it with the clip of Austin Jackson jogging off the field in Detroit. But she would have just said I was being weird like English teachers can be sometimes, making all those deep connections. And she’d be right. But it’s also true that some of us have to stand guard over our stories, lest the next bounty hunter – or center fielder – end up in the desert pit.  

The Flying Leap

       

               I’d hit another grounder to the left side of the infield. It was probably going to be an out, I knew. But I was 12 years old and I wanted a hit, so I clenched my teeth and ran as fast as I could toward first base. As I neared first base, my cleats pounding the dirt, I saw the first baseman reaching for the throw. I was about a stride and a half short of the bag, so if I wanted to beat the throw I was going to have to make this stride longer than normal.

                I leapt in the air like a clumsy gazelle, and landed just short of first base as the throw landed softly in the first baseman’s mitt. I was still in hustle mode, though, and recognized that I hadn’t yet touched the base. So as I lifted my right foot, just centimeters in front of the base, I tried to graze the bag with the toe of my cleat.

As I did so, I did more than graze the base; I tripped myself. Before I knew it, I was flying headfirst toward right field. I landed in the dirt and chalk behind first base, and closed my eyes as a cloud of dust surrounded me.

                My parents, brother and mother’s parents attended nearly every game I played. At this game, my mom, brother and grandparents were sitting in the stands right along the first-base line. After my self-tripping belly-flop, there was silence for a moment. And then, I heard it: My family erupted in laughter, much louder than anyone else in the stands or dugouts. I turned my head, and they were standing up, pointing at me, covering their mouths, crying tears of laughter. I think I recall hearing the word “stupid” at least once. I know I heard my grandfather’s contagious laugh, which had a rhythmic wheeze to it.

  

              We all play different roles in families, and sometimes those roles are unhealthy reactions to family dynamics and personal struggles. Other times, those roles are simply a natural part of who we are, and they serve to solidify our familial bonds somehow. In my childhood, I was an athletic kid who also had a knack for being clumsy in dramatic, hilarious fashion.

                There was the time in Wildwood, N.J., when I was on crutches with a broken leg and walked into a restaurant with my parents. I leaned against a curtain, expecting there to be a wall on the other side of it. There was no wall, and I fell to the ground like Danny Kaye doing his best slapstick routine. A waitress rushed over to me, and I smiled at her. “I’m just dropping in,” I said.

                There was the time outside Hershey, Pa., when I had just finished a bumper-boat ride with my brother. I got up to step off the boat, and missed the deck. Next thing I knew, I was underwater, looking up at the inner tubes of these boats, no openings in sight. The attendant pushed the boats aside, reached in and pulled me out before I could panic. I stood there, straightening my glasses, reeking of gasoline, with water dripping off my clothes. My brother, then 8 years old, had already watched too many commercials. He raised my hand and said, “Warren for Pennzoil!”

                The stories go on – the day I tried to teach myself the harmonica and passed out from hyperventilation; the afternoon I was throwing myself fly balls on the front lawn and found myself waking up flat on my back, having missed a ball that briefly knocked me out; the day I was climbing our flagpole and fell, only to find myself hanging in mid-air by the hood of my jacket; and the multiple times I found my Cub Scout self bandaged after trying to learn how to use a pocket knife. It’s no wonder my grandfather nicknamed me “Charlie Brown.”

                When I tell these stories to my daughters, they laugh just as hard every time, and they love to hear them again. It’s almost as if they were there, they know the details so well. My parents and brother seem to enjoy the stories just as much as ever, too. I know there’s something to that. In my adulthood so far, I’ve been a pretty intense, earnest man, who has a tendency to take himself too seriously. As I move into my mid-40s, I’m striving for the joy of the moment more than the stress of perfectionism and to-do lists. Self-deprecating stories seem like a good start.

                I eventually got up from the dirt beyond first base, and kept playing that game. My team probably lost – we lost most of the games that year – and I probably begged my mom for a soda and knish from the refreshment stand afterward. But those are just guesses – I honestly don’t remember anything else from that game except my flying leap. There really isn’t anything else that matters as much. It’s funny how the sound of your family laughing at you in public can feel so much like love. 

A Homemade Mess

It’s been quite a stretch. The Christmas and New Year holidays were followed quickly by the punishing onslaught of snow and freezing temperatures. Then, just as March revealed a possible light at the end of the wintry tunnel, our household fell into illness mode, from the sinus infections that struck us all to the mysterious ailment that slammed my wife, landing her in bed for 10 days. As we turned the corner into April, everyone finally started feeling a bit better. Now, as our Spring Break begins, there’s the task of catching up on all the work that needs to be completed, from grading papers to drafting lesson plans to completing free-lance writing assignments.

            All of which leaves very little time to address the house in which I live. So as I work at home this weekend with my wife and girls away for the weekend with family, I push the laptop away for a second and glance around me. And I must admit, what I see is not pretty. It’s something we’ve all witnessed at one time or another. It’s just, well, it’s what you’d call a mess. A mess that, in its own way, chronicles the four punishing months that have ensued since we were singing Christmas carols and decking those halls back in December.

            I begin in our sunroom, which seems to be inviting all seasons as it sits between our kitchen and backyard. I see the softball-sized, red-and-green Christmas balls that were used on our front lawn (for what, I’m still not sure), and the extension cord that lit our evergreen in the backyard for the holidays. It took two months for the snow to uncover that cord before we could retrieve it in March, and it might take another two before the cord goes back in the basement tool closet. Next to that cord, I see leftover lawn and leaf bags, unused bottles of liquid bubbles, metal marshmallow roasters, a pair of winter gloves, and softball equipment. On the table out there is an Easter egg-dyeing kit, and beneath that table is a gingerbread village kit, and beside the gingerbread village is something called a “Flower Pot Cupcake Baking Kit.”

            Things have to get better in the other rooms; it can’t be that bad all around. And it’s true, the rest of our house is more liveable. But wow, how things accumulate. In the kitchen, our daughters’ January birthday napkins sit beside our younger daughter’s first-communion certificate from March. In the living room, a stack of birthday cards (also from January) lie beneath the winter-themed travel tissue packets, which themselves lie beneath the never-to-be-used-Target-impulse-purchase Easter lights.

In our study, which doubles as the girls’ playroom, a three-month-old “Super Size Crystals” experiment sits on yet another hutch, while a magnetic bulletin board holds pieces of paper that read “St. Patrick’s Day” and “Sale! Come Now,” followed by a reminder to those playing a long-forgotten game of make-believe store that “Whoever is the first to spend 6 dollars or more will get the mystery item!”

            I think we’ve all won that promotion, girls, as this house is nothing if not a harbor for mystery items. A jar full of mushy green goo (more “Super Size Crystals,” perhaps?) A new doorknob, to replace the one I had to break down when my older daughter accidentally locked herself in her bedroom a few months ago. A pair of ice skates beside a pair of shorts beside a hand-cranked flashlight beside a magnifying glass beside a CD copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

It is just too much. At the landing beneath the stairs to my daughters’ upstairs bedrooms, a pink pig Pillow Pet sits beside a board game titled “Pop the Pig.” It’s a fitting pair for this time of year, when families like mine feel like we’ve been living in pigsties for just too long.

I guess that’s why they call it “Spring Cleaning.” I’ll get to it one of these days.

Creativity's Fate

                Earlier this month, Laura Pappano wrote a story for The New York Times about the increase in creative studies programs at colleges and universities. With the workforce demanding more ingenuity from workers, colleges are teaching students how to think more creatively and seek out resourceful solutions to the problems of an ever-changing world.

            It’s rather stunning, as an educator, to see an article like this. For most of my teaching career, the focus of our national education dialogue has been on standardized testing – on ensuring that no child is left behind in mastering the essential skills. I’ve seen many teachers work very hard at ensuring that those skills are met. I’ve also watched teachers find wonderful ways to teach those skills while also incorporating creativity into their lesson plans. But still, it’s confounding to hear so much talk for so long about mastering the skills, and then hear calls for a shift of sorts.

            Of course, our strongest thinkers offer a balance of critical and creative thinking. They plan ahead, then figure out how to improvise. They analyze the reading or solve the equation, while also imagining new ways to see the text or the equation. To use a baseball analogy, they strive to be the Derek Jeters of the world. The New York Yankees shortstop, who prepares for his final season in 2014, has always worked hard to master the fundamentals. But, at the same time, Jeter has always known when to create – his flip toss in the 2001 Division Series against the Oakland A’s standing as perhaps the best improvisational play in the history of baseball.

            Most educators would suggest that we strive for that balance. But they might also warn us to be careful that we don’t push the concrete so hard that the creativity seems undervalued. It’s a lesson demonstrated beautifully in The LEGO Movie, the latest children’s film to feature a powerful message for kids and adults alike. Without spoiling the plot, let’s just say that the film’s final half-hour makes a very strong case against stifling the creativity of our children. As the film winds to an end, we are reminded of those moments in our early years when we sat with LEGOs or Star Wars figures or Barbie dolls or erector sets, and the world was ours to shape.

Times have changed, and we can talk all we want about the needs of our high-tech world. But we also have a long history in our country of honoring and valuing the innovators. In my classroom, I keep some old Apple publicity posters featuring famous artists and leaders, with that simple slogan “Think Different” next to the photos of Jim Henson, Pablo Picasso, Amelia Earhart, and others. Whether we’re parents, educators, filmmakers, or shortstops, we all share the responsibility to nurture the creativity in our kids. It’s a no-brainer.

February 1989: The New Girl

                She was in the back seat and I was in the passenger’s seat. We were sitting in a sedan, driving from the Staten Island Ferry terminal to my church in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. I hadn’t really known this girl before the day began, but I knew her now. She was, in fact, all I could think about as our chaperone’s car cruised along Crystal Avenue and the radio station played Debbie Gibson’s latest song.

                It’s funny how the smallest of decisions can change a life or two. My church’s youth group was taking a February field trip to the Statue of Liberty and South Street Seaport. My brother and I, along with several other teens, were among those taking the trip on this Sunday. One of my fellow 12^th-graders, a girl named Erica, had asked a school friend of hers if she wanted to go along. The friend had said yes, and she joined us in the crowd of teens traveling by cars and ferryboats to our destination.

This new girl chatted with me during the Circle Line ferry ride to Liberty Island, where our conversation was interrupted by a then-immature younger brother of mine, who was playing a game of “punch your brother in the crotch.” Somehow, the girl and I were able to ignore this painful distraction, and before long our voices and eyes became more flirtatious. By the time we were walking up the stairs of Lady Liberty, the new girl was massaging my shoulder. On the ferry back to Manhattan, she was snuggling up against me for warmth amid the chill of New York Harbor. At South Street Seaport, we ate pizza together, and I realized that my 18-year-old hormones were fully engaged.

So, on the walk back to South Ferry, we drifted to the back of the line and, when the moment was right, we stopped and let the others walk ahead. I knew little more than her name, the sing-song melody of her voice, her strawberry blonde hair and the high cheekbones that framed her face. But after turning toward the new girl, I now knew the taste of her lips. It was clear that this might lead somewhere.

In that car ride back, Debbie Gibson was singing her monster hit of the moment, “Lost in Your Eyes.” The new girl told me later that as she listened to that song, she thought about my brown eyes and the song felt right, in a mix-tape kind of way. When the girl told me later that she had a boyfriend, I said I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that, but to keep me posted. Two days later – on Valentine’s Day, no less – the girl broke up with her boyfriend. The next day, I asked her out. She said yes.

It’s a sweet and corny little high school romance story, and many of us have something like it. The difference here, I guess, is where this went afterward. While most of my peers waited to find their life partners much later, this girl and I couldn’t shake each other. In fact, we’ve been together ever since. Her name is Amy, and we’ve been married for 18 years. Tomorrow, it will be 25 years since I first asked her out.

Growing up together was not always easy, and I wouldn’t suggest this path for my daughters. But I guess we’re living proof that when it feels right, and the girl you see beneath the glitter of the Brooklyn Bridge looks like everything you’ve ever wanted, you might want to kiss her then and there. You never know where it might take you. The Debbie Gibson song is nostalgia now, but the girl is still new to me in all the right ways, every day.

Cinematic Soul

                Last night, my wife and I sat with our daughters to watch the Super Bowl together. We savored Amy’s chicken chili, laughed at Stephen Colbert’s pistachio commercials, and admired the Seahawks’ championship defense. But to be honest, Amy and I were thinking about something else on Sunday; we were mourning the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

            For more than 20 years, we’ve been astounded, time and time again, by Hoffman’s acting. Whenever you thought you’d seen the depths of human emotion plumbed as far as possible, another Hoffman film would surface, and you’d find him exploring the human soul even further. His obituaries do a fine job of listing the films, but picking your favorite Hoffman movie moment is about as difficult as choosing your favorite novel or dessert. Even my 12-year-old daughter, who recently saw Hoffman in Catching Fire, had become a fan.

            In my 12^th-grade English classes, we recently watched Hoffman in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Truman Capote, after we’d finished reading In Cold Blood. We used the film Capote to close out a unit on how true nonfiction really is, and whatever students thought of the movie or Capote’s book, they had nothing but praise for this actor who had managed to re-create the mannerisms and moods of a man who had died more than 20 years before the film’s release.

            The thing I found most fascinating about Hoffman as an actor was his ability to bring dignity and accuracy to his roles, whatever they were: a music critic, a political hack, a spiritual leader, a boarding-school student, even a shy, gay boom operator. I’m no film critic, so I’ll be careful not to try and act like one here. But when I think of all the Hoffman movies I’ve seen, perhaps no role impressed me as much as his portrayal of a home-care nurse in Magnolia. In that film, Hoffman’s character, Phil, does little more than listen to the stories of a dying man, his trophy wife and estranged son. But as these characters share their pain with Phil, he feels their struggles deeply, even to the point of weeping. Hoffman’s character shows us that being present and compassionate is in many ways the essence of life.

            My brother, who is a film critic, saw Hoffman at the Sundance Film Festival last month. He, like many others who live in New York City, had also seen Hoffman many times in Greenwich Village with his family, just living an ordinary life. Of course, addiction often does not announce itself on the ski slopes of Utah or the streets of Manhattan. It’s often a solitary and dismal experience, one to which Hoffman succumbed yesterday. There’s no way to gauge the loss to this 46-year-old man’s family and friends, let alone to movie fans like Amy and me – it’s just deeply sad in every way.

            As a parent, Hoffman brought his family down to Cape May Point, just a few miles from my parents’ home. When I’d go out for jogs in that area, I’d keep an eye out for a blond-haired, bespectacled man, likely wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and shorts. If I had seen Hoffman taking out the garbage or helping his kids ride their bikes, I know I would have just nodded the same way I did for anyone else I passed on the roads there. That, I figured, was the ultimate respect I could have given to an actor who had achieved much fame and fortune, but who had never tried to present himself as anything more than the rest of us.

            I never saw Hoffman in Cape May. I’ll be back down there in a few months, and I’ll go out for more jogs. This time, I won’t be looking for my favorite actor. But when I’m passing through Cape May Point, I’ll think of Phil the nurse, or Scotty the boom operator, or Capote. The greatest gift an artist or craftsman gives us is a body of work that lives longer than he does. Hoffman has done this with astounding success, and his films serve to remind us of all that he offered in his brief time here, while also connecting us with the complex emotions we feel, hide, express and share.