What Ever Happened to...Manners??

If a nation’s sporting events are simply a reflection of it’s underlying societal evolution, yesterday wasn’t a very good look for the United States of America.

This morning’s sports pages are dominated by three big stories:

The Dodger win over the Brewers, the melee which occurred on the field during warmups of the Michigan v. Michigan State game, and this:

At this point I should keep in mind that if I’m not careful, this blog could quickly turn in to one of those...Get off my lawn!!...old gent rants. Maybe it already has, and if so...sorry/not sorry.

First, baseball. Ok, I’m not a purist on the subject of displaying emotion after a big hit or a big strike out in a pressure packed moment. In the old days, this was strictly forbidden, one of the maddening number of baseball’s unwritten rules. You hit a home run? Run quickly around the bases and get back into the dugout. Don’t stand and stare at your work or flip your bat. But, like everything else in this world, this slice of sportsmanship and decorum is being discarded in favor of a whatever floats your boat attitude. Indeed, MLB has been relentlessly promoting this new freak flag-flying showboating in their ads during this postseason. Enough talk, let the kids play, intones Ken Griffey Jr. in one particularly annoying ad which is always followed by some hip hop act asking us...Is you ready?? So, when I say I’m not a purist what I mean is, I’m ok with a relaxing of some of these old school ways. Baseball is, after all, a joyful game, and I see nothing wrong with a fist pump or an eruption of emotion from players. But, last night, the Los Angeles Dodgers got caught up in an outbreak of hysteria, their collective ids running rampant all over the place. Some guy, I forget who, got a single and looked back into his dugout and made the suck it gesture to his gleeful teammates. Another, after homering, pointed to his biceps while trotting around the bases. By the time Yasiel Puig hit his three run bomb late to seal the victory, I have no idea what they were doing...lewd gestures, wild, unhinged gesticulations, a full fledged dance party broke out in front of the dugout. Sorry...too much, too soon. It’s like professional baseball players have suddenly lost all impulse control. I mean, I tune in to watch a baseball game, and a political protest broke out!!

The Michigan v. Michigan State thing was just more of what has become routine...college football players putting on sportsmanship clinics, as in...Here’s an example of horrible sportsmanship. One team marches, lock-armed across a field that is occupied by members of the opposing team. A game of chicken breaks out. Which team is going to stop first? When neither team does, somebody gets too close to somebody else and before you know it, some player who isn’t even in uniform because of an injury goes full bats**t crazy and starts tearing up the Logo at the 50 yard line. At least these guys have the excuse that they are kids, not fully grown adults. (Think of how stupid you were in college).

Finally, we have the basketball brawl at the Staples Center. This was LeBron James’ home debut with his new team, the Lakers. We are told that the NBA is the most progressive of the major sports in America. We are told that basketball is the sport with the cultural power, and LeBron James is everywhere worshipped as some sort of Demi-god. Well, last night at his latest coronation, someone allegedly spit on someone else prompting a melee of wild punches and scrums...in game two of the regular season of a sport which has the most meaningless regular season in the history of organized sports. But, isn’t this just a reflection of...us? Any provocation, real or imagined is cause for a fight, right? Wait...is that a politician I don’t like eating dinner with his wife over there? That cannot stand!!! Wait...is that politician a left of center Democrat? Obviously she wants to turn us into the next Venezuela!! To the barricades!!!!

Here’s what I think when I watch sports...this is what happens when you come to believe that simple manners are a bourgeois straightjacket meant to stifle your individuality. Treating others with simple grace and dignity has morphed into a sign of weakness. 

And now...even baseball isn’t exempt.

Found a Great Restaurant

So, last night, I walk up to Pam and say...I feel like Italian. I can’t explain why really. I just had a hankering. If you live in Short Pump, the World headquarters for chain restaurants, there are lots of options...Carrabba’s, Olive Garden, all the usual suspects. However, I don’t know about you, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to resent National chains. Not resent, really...that’s too strong a term for it. It’s more like that when I see a chain restaurant I know that ultimately the profits from that chain go someplace else. Yes, I know they supply jobs to local people, etc.. but chains are a local manifestation of some far flung enterprise that benefits it’s corporate owners who wouldn’t know a Short Pump from a long one. Maybe when I see what a hash our government in Washington is making of the country, something in me feels the need to withdraw from that faraway place, to more closely identify with our state...our town...our Italian restaurant. So, what did I do? I did what every red blooded American does...I googled....Italian joints near me.

This is Vinny’s, less than a mile from my front door off of Lauderdale. If this place looks familiar it’s because it probably reminds you of another famous Italian restaurant in the Bronx where Michael Corleone killed the two dirty cops...

But, I digress.

So, we walk into the place and are greeted by a grandmotherly woman with a thick Italian accent. Nice. Pam notices that there is a special on the chalkboard beside the front door...something-something with pancetta and Asiago cream sauce. There’s a nice crowd, mostly families, not so loud that you have to shout, but not so quiet that you have to whisper. Our waitress greets us with a cheerful smile. She is young, pretty, with an even thicker Italian accent. Even nicer. I ask her for her professional opinion...What’s the most delicious entree on this menu? She doesn’t hesitate. The name of the dish rolls off her tongue with beautiful flair. She points to it and I see the word sausage in the description and I’m all in. 

Our waitress, who we have discovered has just moved from Sicily eight months ago with her husband, and who’s mother was the one who greeted us when we arrived and is just here for a visit but didn’t want to spend a minute apart from her daughter so volunteered to be the hostess, brings me a frozen glass mug for my beer, then seems thrilled when Pam orders the special and I take her advice on the sausage thing. Soon, a basket of garlic bread appears, and fresh, cold salads.

Ok, my dish was amazing. The delicious sounding name for it is Tortellini Campagnola. It looked like this...only with a lot more sausage!!

Pam’s dish was the special, and as such there was no picture on the menu. However, I am here to bare witness to the fact that it was the finest thing I have placed in my mouth inside of any restaurant in years. The tortellini was homemade, the pancetta was exquisite and the Asiago cream sauce tasted like some sort of diabolical plot cooked up by a cabal of Mafiosos determined to turn me into a 300 pound couch potato. The minute that sauce splashes over the tastebuds, you realize that you are powerless to resist it. Maybe if the choice was...eat more of this or save your children...you might be able to put down the fork, but beyond that, it would be hopeless. It was just that good. Pam couldn’t finish it, so there’s a styrofoam container in our refrigerator with the remains. I am currently plotting a way to trick Pam into letting me eat it for breakfast.

So, we are thrilled to have found Vinny’s Italian Grill. It’s local, run by real Italians, and is five minutes from my house.

Go ye, and do likewise.

 

Good News, Bad News

Good news...New York City just enjoyed its first shooting-free weekend in over 25 years.

Bad news...According to the iron clad law of averages, this coming weekend promises to be a bloodbath.

Good news...The Federal Government has collected a record amount of income taxes in 2018.

Bad news... The budget deficit has ballooned to its highest point in 6 years.

Good news...China has informed the world that it’s extensive series of Muslim internment camps are actually free vocational training centers.

Bad news...The most popular vocational class seems to involve learning to chant slogans like...Thank the Party! Thank the Motherland!..while on a strict diet of bread and water.

Good news... Donald Trump has already raised over 100 million dollars for his 2020 re-election campaign.

Bad news... Donald Trump has already raised over 100 million dollars for his 2020 re-election campaign.

More Bad news...100 million won’t be nearly enough...

Something Worth Conserving

As someone who considers himself a conservative, I generally am of the conviction that there exist things worth conserving. Accordingly, I reject the idea that everything that is proclaimed as progress...is, in fact, an improvement over what it replaced. Take the game of baseball, for example. Regular readers of this blog are fully aware of my abiding love and devotion to the game, and many of you have endured more than one of my love songs to the game that used to be our national pastime. But, after watching the first four games of the League Championship Series, I am here to tell you that something is dreadfully wrong with the game that I love. If this constitutes progress, I demand a refund.

Baseball finds itself in the grasp of an army of sabermetrics nerds, who believe that by applying high tech computerized statistical analysis, they can come up with match up strategies that can predict outcomes better than the gut instincts of grizzled old baseball managers. Apparently, there’s an algorithm for that. The result of all of this statistical analysis is as follows:

In the four games played in the latest round of the post season, there have been 47 pitchers used. The average length of the four games has been 3 hours and 52 minutes. Many times, a pitcher is brought in to face one batter, then another pitcher is employed. Each pitching change takes a while. There are other reasons for the marathon length of these games...replays, and the ridiculous amount of times batters step out of the box to adjust their batting gloves...but mostly, it’s all these pitching changes. A couple of nights ago, after a painfully long half inning, I found myself doing a little research. This is not how I remember baseball being played in my youth. Turns out, I was right.

I randomly picked the World Series games from 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995. I wanted to know how long the games were, how many pitchers were used in those games..etc. what I found was amazing.

1965 was a seven game series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins. In the seven game series, a total of 31 pitchers were used. There were 7 complete games pitched. Most astonishing was the average time of the seven games...2 hours and 20 minutes.

1975 was also a seven game series ( Boston Red Sox vs. the Cincinnati Reds). 42 pitchers used, 2 complete games thrown, with an average game time of 2 hours and 30 minutes.

1985...7 game series, 38 pitchers used, 4 complete games, with a game time of 2 hours and 48 minutes.

1995...5 games, 33 pitchers, 1 complete game, average time...2 hours and 48 minutes.

So far this year through only 4 games...47 pitchers, no complete games, average game time...3 hours and 52 minutes.

This isn’t even close to progress. This is more like information overload, analytical constipation, competition-interuptus on a grand scale. If Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale were on the mound and some batter stepped out and pranced around adjusting his batting gloves for two minutes after taking a pitch, the next pitch would be a 95 mph heater right in his ear hole...and that would be that. 

So, no...everything that is new and labeled progressive or cutting edge, is an improvement.

...unless you actually enjoy watching relief pitchers warming up in the bullpen.

How Did This Happen??

I suppose if you attend enough weddings eventual it will happen, but nothing can prepare you for it. There we were, having a perfectly delightful time, when we found ourselves summoned to the dance floor for the obligatory married couples dance...

DJ: Ok, I need all of you married couples and only married couples on the dance floor now!!

(Actually, in today’s social and moral climate, such bourgeois distinctions seem quaint.)

After a nice slow dance to some Lionel Richie song, the DJ revealed what game was afoot...

DJ: All couples who have been married less than a year, please exit the dance floor!!

Ahh, yes. It was the famous last couple standing game, whereby the couple who has been married the longest receives tepid applause and is then asked to impart words of wisdom to the doe-eyed groom and blushing bride. This is a staple of the American nuptial experience, and usually results in a picture worthy image of some elegant grandparently blue-hairs advising the newlyweds to remember to pray together, or eat breakfast together, and always include bran flakes in the diet.

I look around the dance floor and picked out the likely winners, an adorable elderly pair across the way. Now it was Frank Sinatra smoothly complimenting my wife on the way you look tonight, as the DJ says, thirty years...all couples married less than thirty years, sit down!!

To my shock and horror, there we were, swaying sweetly to Frank’s tender version of this Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields classic, alongside the adorable old couple! A sinking feeling instantly overtook me. There’s no way we are going to win this thing, I reasoned. I mean...look at them! 

DJ: Look at this, everyone! It’s down to two couples! Who’s it gonna be??

Then, out of nowhere, my competitive instinct takes over. Bizarrely, I’m suddenly all in on winning this thing, no matter the existential ramifications. 

DJ: Thirty five years??!!

Both of us begin to walk off the floor...

The DJ then stops us, turns to the obvious winners and asked them how many years they had survived matrimony. The timid answer tumbled forth from the old man’s lips...Thirty two years..I let loose a mental fistpump right before the tragic news hit me...Pam and I had been married longer (34 years) than anyone in the building.

The next thing I know, there’s a microphone in our faces along with flashing cameras. I hear Pam saying something about how it’s the differences between us that ultimately become our strengths. It was so intelligently stated, so well phrased, it was as if she instinctively knew we were going to be in this position and had planned accordingly. I also felt that maybe it was one of those backhanded compliments...that’s right folks, I’m the exact opposite of this big lug, thank God! Then it was my turn...Never speak ill of your wife in public.  The DJ seemed impressed...Wow. That is such wise advice!

No kidding, pal!

So, there you have it. Pam and I have won our first Longest Married Couple Dance-Off. 

How, in the name of all that is holy, did this happen? It just can’t possibly be true. It feels like just last month, we were playing house in our cute little two bedroom apartment, where it took 45 minutes to clean the entire place on Saturday mornings, after which we would have brunch while exchanging kisses across the little kitchen table by the balcony. Then Pam would clip coupons out of the Richmond News Leader’s Weekend Edition, while I flipped through the sports page looking for the box scores.

...and now we are dispensing marriage advice in the middle of a dance floor at the Dominion Club.

Wow.

A Little Help?

I seldom do this sort of thing. I’ve always been turned off by the entire concept of GoFundMe, which has always seemed like high tech panhandling. 

Hey! We can’t afford the down payment on this great new 3,000 square foot house, so whatever you could spare would be greatly appreciated!! 

When we got back from our two week Carribean cruise we discovered that our house had flooded, badly damaging our movie room surround sound system. Please consider a donation to help us cover our insurance deductible!

But, every once in a while, something happens that justifies the effort...

This is part of what remains of Mexico Beach, Florida after hurricane Michael roared through yesterday.

Just outside of Panama City is Tyndall Air Force base, which now looks like this.

We happen to know two young people who lived on that base, an Air Force Officer, his wife and their two little boys...

Meet Chris and Katie Plume. Chris was my son in law’s best man. Katie was my daughter’s college roommate and most valuable bridesmaid in her wedding. The two of them are responsible for introducing Kaitlin and Jon, a matchmaking operation for which our entire family is eternally grateful. Now, they have been rendered homeless. They were ordered to evacuate the base and have been told that may not be able to return for at least a month. All of their belongings were most likely destroyed.

When something like this happens it is always a tragedy, but when it happens to someone who has devoted his life to serving our country, it seems even more unfair for some reason. While many of their contemporaries are now on their second house and third new car, Chris and Katie are living in military base housing, and now that’s been destroyed. Yes...the military will ultimately take care of them. But in the meantime, while the bureaucratic wheels grind slowly, they will need clothes to wear and other life essentials.

So, if you are able, please consider visiting the GoFundMe page my daughter has set up for this purpose. I have included a link to it on my Facebook page. Any money raised will go to the Plumes immediately. It is our hope that the money will not only help with the real world practicalities of this situation, but will also let Chris and Katie know that they are loved, thought of, and that their service to the country is appreciated.

Thanks for your consideration.

A Glorious New Day

This morning, the air feels cleaner, the birds sing sweeter, the sunrise ushers in a day of serendipitous possibilities...all because last night, just before midnight, Gotham was vanquished.

The Boston Red Sox followed up their ecstatic game three 16-1 thrashing of the forces of evil, with a 4-3 victory to win the series. The fact that this two game ass-kicking took place in Yankee Stadium, that hideous concrete and steel knockoff moneygrab ie..The House That Greed Built...makes it even sweeter. Watching 49,000 entitled, pompously obnoxious Yankee fans slouching out, crestfallen, back into the five boroughs from which they had crawled, was a moment of delicious schadenfreude. I can only hope that George Steinbrenner’s hot corner suite in hell has a TV. Wouldn’t have wanted for him to miss it.

As soon as the Houston Astros won the World Series last year, the baseball press began the drumbeat about how dominate the Yankees were going to be in 2018. Once Giancarlo Stanton was signed, ESPN began their drooling, fawning coverage of these new, kinder, gentler Baby Bombers. Why, between Stanton and Judge, they might combine for 150 homeruns!! Instead, Stanton stuck out over 200 times, and had Judge not missed 50 games with an injury, he would have struck out even more than Stanton. Something went awry on the way to the coronation. So now, ESPN’s dreams lie in ashes, the Steinbrenner spawn have been sent back to the drawing board, and John Sterling is left trying to figure out a new insipid homerun call for Giancarlo that doesn’t rhyme with choke.

For me, the remainder of the baseball post season will be a delight, now that the evil empire has been defeated. I can sit back and watch the games, marveling at the masterful pitching, the clutch hitting and brilliant defense that will be on display. I will be rooting for the Sox, naturally, but even if they lose, I will still rejoice until the final out of the year, no matter who wins. Because the Yankees are gone, a rapturous feeling has returned to October baseball, not unlike the palpable relief that fills the house when a baby’s fever breaks, or the joy that comes after grandma miraculously recovers from a long illness. Watching the transmission of the Yankee team bus fall onto the interstate has to be close to how the beleaguered pioneers out west felt when they saw the cavalry come over the hill rescuing them from marauding Sioux warriors. The Bastards of Bastone couldn’t possibly have felt a greater sense of relief upon hearing the first roar of Patton’s tanks than I felt last night when the umpires gave the out call after their ridiculous review of the last play of the game. Now. Finally. At long last...our children can once again play in the streets. Life is sweet again. The specter of death has been removed from the land. We have stared into the eyes of darkness and seen a new light!!

While reading this, some of you might think that this is a little over the top, a touch melodramatic, and maybe a bit overblown. If so, now you know exactly how I feel when I read your political posts on Facebook.