Field of American Dreams

Patty Chang Anker

By Patty Chang Anker
 
My first day in Mr. Weinstein’s fourth grade science class at P.S. 95 in the Bronx, he introduced me as the new student from Toronto.  “So, what do you think of the Blue Jays?” he asked.  I sat at my desk watching the other students watch me, and wondered if it was a trick question.  “They’re terrible,” I replied.  He broke out in a big smile and the rest of the class just about cheered.  Whew.  Right answer.

It was one of many trick questions I got as the new kid, harder than “Hey Chinese girl, can you speak English?”  but a lot easier than “Are you a virgin?” when I had no idea what the word meant.    I was an easy target, an innocent in a sea of street-wise 9-year-olds, but even I knew better than to root against the home team.

We became Yankee fans right away.  My dad, a Chinese immigrant who worked tirelessly to improve his English to improve his job prospects, wanted us to fit in.  He read the New York Times in the morning, watched Walter Cronkite in the evening.  And every chance he could from April to October, he listened to Phil Rizzuto call America’s favorite pastime on the radio. 

He would lie in bed, eyes closed, concentrating on the play-by-play.  My mom, sister and I gave him, the lone man and sports fan in the home, little access to our only television.  Who would, when there was Love Boat to be watched?  But once when we took pity on him and offered a turn, he declined. “I like the radio,” he said. 

I watched him listen to the game. “Here’s the pitch, and the swing and…” and for the moment the ball was in the air he was motionless, at the mercy of the announcer, “and it’s a fly ball to left field.”  Exhale and relax.  Held by a stranger’s voice, both hypnotic and thrilling.

It should have felt like a homecoming for me, moving back to the U.S.  I was born on the fourth of July in Columbia, MO, a Yankee Doodle Dandy.  But my heart belonged to Canada, a place I still associate with fresh air and endless grass, clean snow and smiling people.  When we got to New York the first things I noticed were the gates on the windows of my school, the concrete playgrounds and the many different languages shouted by our neighbors up and down the hall. 

But as dislocated as I felt, there was one tremendous advantage in America.  My birthday. 

Yankee Stadium on July 4 was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.  In the best birthday present of my life, my dad took us to the night game, where everyone was happy to be alive.  “New York crowds are livelier than Toronto crowds,” he observed.  That was an understatement.  The whooping, the rumbling, the music made us grin ear-to-ear.  We got to see the players we’d only heard about, we ate hot dogs and did the 7th inning stretch.  After the game, the fireworks were so close my dad thought sparks might fall on our heads.

My parents always told me that America was a great country, a place where people are free.  Outside the stadium, in the dirty, crime-ridden streets of New York in the early 1980s, it was harder to see.  But inside the stadium, bombs bursting in air, we sang the national anthem with our whole hearts, we cheered for the home team like everyone else.  Go Yankees!  We belonged. 

Last year we treated my dad to a game at Yankee Stadium on his birthday.  We chose a day game so the little ones in our clan could go.  Surrounded by grandchildren, their eyes wide with excitement overlooking the field, he looked as content as could be.  The crowd roared approval.  And grinning ear-to-ear, we did too.

***

Patty Chang Anker is a writer whose work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Huffington Post and iVillage, and the blogger behind Facing Forty Upside Down (www.upside-down-patty.blogspot.com).  She is married to a Mets fan and no longer lives in the Bronx.  Sigh.

I met Patty when she was a student  journalist and I was a guest editor on the staff of a newspaper project at the 1991 annual convention of the Asian American Journalists Association. Earlier this year, we reconnected on Facebook.

Tomorrow: The Situation | Nancy Rommelmann

Some damn good reading

 Jon Huntsman hoisting the hardware at a New Hampshire gun shop.

One of the nice things about finding myself between books is that it gives me a little more time to catch up with magazines and other shorter forms of writing. Here's a quick roundup of what I've read and enjoyed lately:

Republican guy with chance to beat Obama. 
That would be Jon Huntsman, the twice-elected governor of Utah who officially nominated Sarah Palin for vice president in 2008, then served as U.S. ambassador to China. Unlike the rest of the minions scrambling to become the party's nominee in 2012, Huntsman is a rarity: a centrist Republican with legitimate business, political and foreign policy experience. He's fluent in Mandarin Chinese, smart enough to be asked to teach international relations at Penn and, if all the cards fall exactly right, could come out of New Hampshire with enough momentum to surprise Romney, Bachmann and the others.

Chris Jones, writing in Esquire ("Romney doesn't scare Obama. This guy does.") observes:

It's...hard to look at him and not wonder whether he might be coming along right on time. He'll be called a RINO [Republican In Name Only] and a traitor and a nobody in the coming weeks and months, but he'll also be called reasonable and practical and professorial and electable. Even today, so close to the start of everything, his path is clear. He needs to find a broader Republican base, drawing in those right-leaning voters who presently find themselves without a country, fiscal conservatives who don't much care whether two men get hitched or their candidate's wearing a pin in his lapel. His success or failure will be dictated by just how many people like him have been waiting for the storm of paranoid rhetoric to pass, waiting for the return of a party and a candidate who wants to govern rather than rage.

The enduring appeal of baseball.
For anyone who carries a soft spot for baseball -- despite the exorbitant salaries and the watered-down competition that's come with expansion to 28 major league teams -- this love letter by Joe Posnanski in Sports Illustrated is a satisfying read.

"What keeps the grand game great?" the headline reads. "Everything old is new again..."

In his essay, Posnanski says it's the quality of timelessness that explains the sport's appeal across the decades and our country's changing demographics. "What else but baseball connects us to America of, say, 1891?" he asks.

Here we are, 120 years later, in a very different America, and yes, all the time, we read that baseball can't keep up with the pace of our everyday lives, that television ratings are down, that football long ago took over as the National Pastime. But is that really the surprising part? Or is the surprising part that America still loves and breathes baseball, long after barbershop quartets stopped singing, long after couples stopped waltzing, long after boxers stopped hitting each other with their bare fists.

Why in the heck do so many of us still love baseball?

Sgt. Alan Beaty, Cpl. Patrick Myers, Sgt. Keith Hull, Cpl. Keith Beaty

Our wounded warriors.
A 2008 Rand Corp. study of 1.6 million American veterans who had served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars found that 300,000 suffered from PTSD or major depression. That's nearly one in five. An astounding ratio. And as of 2011, the number of vets from those wars has now surged past the 2 million mark.

So what is anyone doing about it? Meet Alan Beaty, a former U.S. Marine sergeant who lives on the family homestead in Tennessee that was awarded to an ancestor for his service in the Revolutionary War. He's one of those with 100 percent disability and he has turned the spread into an unofficial, unfunded halfway house for fellow vets who've come back from the Middle East with physical and mental disabilities.

There, far away from the scrum of city life, they revive the camaraderie they forged on foreign lands, relive the memories, retell the stories that bond them in ways that civilians find difficult, if not possible, to understand. There, in stints from a few days to several months and even a year or more, they begin to heal.

The place is called "Vetville" and the story of the land and the men who gather there is told in compelling fashion by Mike Sager (yes, in Esquire, again). An excerpt:

Beaty scratches his head, resets his trucker cap. "When they teach you to be a Marine, they teach you to focus, because you can't be emotional in combat. You learn to be able to put things out of your mind. You learn to build walls. We've been trained to just keep functioning, to operate without emotion, without conscience. That's what you need in war. 

"But once you get back to society," Beaty continues, "the walls are still up. It's hard to have an emotional attachment to people. Because in your mind, you've been trained to know that this right here could be your last day on earth. So why allow myself to be connected to this woman? Why allow myself to be connected to my children? Lucky I got an amazing woman therapist now at the VA. It's only in the last few months that I'm learning how to take the walls down."

Politics. Baseball. The casualties of war. Take your pick. It's all good.


Photograph of Jon Huntsman by Peter Yang.
Photograph of U.S. Marines at Vetville by Jonathan Torgovnik.

Rain falls and so do the mighty Mariners

George, Dave, Jack and Bobby

I looked forward to July 17 for several weeks, knowing I'd snagged four tickets to see the Seattle Mariners take on the defending American League champion Texas Rangers during a Sunday afternoon game.

Two friends, Dave and Jack, and Jack's teenage son, Bobby, joined me for the 3 1/2-hour drive from Portland to Seattle, all of us grousing at the cool temperatures and constant rain that we're experiencing in mid-July. Isn't it supposed to be summer? At least, we told ourselves, the game wouldn't be rained out, owing to Safeco Field's retractable proof. It's a marvel of engineering that covers the field and fans, yet allows for open-air views of the sky outside and circulation of fresh air.

We had great seats -- 18 rows back from the field, about halfway between third base and the left field fence -- and high hopes for a competitive game. We should have known better. The Rangers were on a hot streak, with 10 straight wins entering today's game, while the Mariners had lost eight in a row, including two shutouts in their last three games. During last night's loss, Seattle managed to score a single run, ending an scoring drought of 30 (thirty!) innings.

Today's result? Rangers 3, Mariners 1.

Two plays early in the game signaled how things would go. In the Mariners' first turn at bat, the lead off hitter drew a walk, only to be promptly erased by a double play ground ball. Meanwhile, a single swing of the bat, a three-run home run in the second inning, gave the Rangers all the runs they would need. It was Seattle's ninth loss in a row, their longest winless streak since 2008. In losing four straight to Texas, they scored a total of two runs.

Safeco Field

A week earlier, I also watched a major league baseball game in San Francisco -- and the entire experience was different in every conceivable way. I rode the light-rail train from suburban Fremont to watch the Giants beat the Mets before a sellout crowd that showered spontaneous cheers and genuine affection on their World Series champions. ("Rockin' it with the Giants")

In Seattle, the crowd was subdued. The "mighty" Mariners were overmatched and have such a punchless lineup that they had only one base runner through the first four innings. They didn't get their first base hit until the fifth inning and didn't score until the eighth, prompting a half-delirious, half-derisive cheer.

The technicians in the sound booth tried to manufacture some crowd noise, with canned music, but the Mariners fell flat. (Quick menu note: Did you know you can get an all-you-can-drink soda at Safeco for $11? Seriously.)

Despite the anemic performance on the field, my buddies and I had a good time. Lots of conversation about baseball, family, politics and work (all three of us are journalists), and no one took the loss hard, given that we all root for different teams anyway. We were just a little disappointed that we couldn't have seen a better -- i.e., more exciting, more competitive -- game.

Rockin' it with the Giants

 Janice, JoElyn (with Buster Posey bobblehead doll) and George

Today is the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game and because I have a work-related meeting to attend this evening, chances are I'll miss seeing all or most of the action. But that's OK because it feels like I've just come from my own All-Star Game.

On Sunday, after making a hurried exit from the first annual Flores Family Reunion (more to come on that later this week), I drove up to Fremont, dropped off my mom and sister, and headed for the BART station to take the light-rail train into San Francisco for a nationally televised 5 p.m. game between the New York Mets and the Giants.

Make that the 2010 World Series Champion Giants because that's all you see anywhere and everywhere on merchandise sold in the stadium and on nearby streets leading to AT&T Park. But, hey, the fans deserve their extended celebration after 55 years of waiting for a championship.

I attended the game with two high school classmates, JoElyn and Janice. Though we knew of each other in high school, we didn't hang out together. So it was a happy coincidence that we just happened to sit at the same table at our 40th class reunion last fall and discovered that we all love baseball. (See previous post "The Big Cuarenta.")

"Baseball" shoes

Janice favors the Oakland A's, as do I, and JoElyn is a hard-core Giants fan, as evidenced by her Giants jacket, game jersey, orange rally towel and baseball-themed socks and shoes. We had a great view from the third base line and I sat between them with a big honkin' pile of Gilroy garlic fries on my lap.

Between bites, we talked about baseball and travel and life in our respective hometowns. I was impressed with their knowledge of the game and its history and their familiarity with the players and their current statistics. They move easily between conversations about the all-time greats (Mays, McCovey, Marichal and Cepeda) and the current cluster of All-Stars (Lincecum, Cain, Wilson and Sandoval).

If their travels ever bring them up this way, it would be nice to attend a Mariners game. Speaking of the Mariners, I'm due to go up to Seattle next weekend to see them play the Texas Rangers. Ironically, they're the team that the Giants defeated to win the World Series.

As for Sunday's game, I nearly forgot to mention...the Giants beat the Mets, 4 to 2, before a sellout crowd of more than 42,000 fans. During the seventh-inning stretch, the crowd sang "God Bless America" and that old chestnut "Take Me Out To The Ball Game." During the eighth inning, the fans tore it up singing "Lights" by Journey, the '80s band from San Francisco that wrote a song about the city by the bay. I include a YouTube clip here for your viewing pleasure so you can relive the magic of last year's World Series.



Following each home victory, it's also a tradition to play Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." I'll let you sing that one on your own.

***
 
A quick note about the All-Star game. Since it marks the halfway point of the season, I'm happy to note my favorite team, the Detroit Tigers, are back in first place in the Central Division of the American League. Would love to see them make it to the World Series.

The punchless A's have lost four games in a row and are mired in last place in the American League West.

And my latest adopted team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, are just one game behind the co-leaders, Milwaukee and St. Louis, in the National League Central. Nice to see that franchise turn it around after18 consecutive losing seasons. Hope to see them next year at PNC Park.

Spring has sprung

HT: Go BlueBob. Tigers spring training games start today. In tribute to Ernie Harwell...

For lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
~ Song of Solomon 2:11-12

Arrested development: The Mickey Mantle story

It's that time of year when the sports pages are brimming with stories about spring training -- how this or that baseball team hopes to break through this year, how this or that waning star hopes to get a fresh start in a new city.

So it's coincidental that I recently finished a book (a Christmas gift from my oldest son) about what used to be known as America's pastime and one of its biggest stars on its marquee team. I'm talking, of course, about No. 7 -- Mickey Mantle, the Hall of Fame centerfielder for the New York Yankees, and one of the most popular players of the modern era.

"The Last Boy" is an exhaustive biography that purports to tell the story of Mantle and the end of America's childhood. Author Jane Leavy, a former Washington Post reporter and author of a well-received biography of Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax, grew up near Yankee Stadium idolizing Mantle and readily admits to a soft spot for The Mick. Yet over the course of 420 pages, including three appendices, she does an admirable job of distancing herself from the Mantle legend and boring in with deep reporting and clear-eyed commentary.

I'm a Bay Area boy whose introduction to Major League Baseball came in the wind-chilled seats of San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Willie Mays, the Giants' do-it-all centerfielder, was my favorite player as a young boy. I hated the Yankees and still do, especially now in this era of exorbitant spending for free agents. I didn't dislike Mantle but, for me, he was never the Golden Boy as he was for East Coasters or Yankee-lovers across the country.

Leavy writes about The Mick from every conceivable angle -- from the grinding poverty of his childhood in Commerce, Oklahoma, where his dad worked in the zinc and lead mines to the challenge of replacing Joe DiMaggio as a Yankee superstar to the soul-numbing aspects of a post-career routine that saw him travel constantly to autograph shows, golf tournaments and other public appearances.

She spares no detail in chronicling the good -- how he was revered in the Yankee clubhouse as a great teammate, a generous friend and a courageous player who excelled despite frequent injuries; how, as the recipient of a liver transplant, he became a national spokesman for organ donations. And she does the same in reviewing the bad -- lifelong womanizing, excessive drinking that drove him late in life to a stint in rebab, his near-total absence as a husband and father of four boys.

The Mick, 1950s.

Mantle broke in to the major leagues at age 19, fulfilling the dreams of his father Mutt, who died at age 40. Over the course of an 18-year career and the years that followed, he never quit traveling, as if life were a series of games to be played on the road and at home. Unquestionably, there were people all around him who enabled his bad behaviors, including members of the press, who at the time refrained from reporting on athletes' off-the-field antics.

That era is long gone and so, too, is the chance that any modern athlete (or other celebrity, for that matter) would profit from the kind of mythology that built up around Mickey Mantle. We've swung the other way to reporting every brush with the law, along with real or perceived character flaws, and details of gigantic contracts and product endorsements that make LeBron, Kobe, Tiger names and faces that are recognized around the globe.

"The Last Boy" is an enjoyable read. Every now and then, it's good to get away from the seriousness of everyday news and get lost in something of less consequence. I learned a lot -- probably more than I needed to know -- about The Mick that passed me by in my childhood. Had I known him, I probably would admired, detested or tolerated him, depending what stage of life he was in. Thanks to Leavy's meticulous reporting and sharp writing, I can appreciate him as a well-meaning kid from a small town who became a larger-than-life figure for generations of baseball fans...and through it all was a human being with good qualities, unrealized opportunities, and feelings and flaws like anyone else.

Listen to or read a transcript of NPR's interview with Jane Leavy.


Photograph by Bob Olen

Baseball playoffs

The Major League Baseball season came to an end yesterday and it looks like the 2010 playoffs will be one of those years where I have only a mild interest in who wins.

My two favorite teams, the Tigers and the Athletics, faded from the playoff picture in July. Detroit had it going in the early season, but a slew of injuries slowed them down. Oakland made a modest run in September to catch Texas but fell short. They're still too young a team and lack enough hitting to make a serious run. Coincidentally, both teams finished with a record of 81 wins, 81 losses.

So, who to root for? I guess I'll throw in with the Giants. Though I'm from the Bay Area, I rooted for the Dodgers as a kid and then the A's as a teenager. Bottom line: Anyone but the Yankees.

Note: This year I managed to attend just one MLB game. It was early in the season when Nathan and I went up and saw the Mariners beat the Orioles in a battle of last-place teams. Baltimore finished with 96 losses, 30 games out of first place. Seattle was even worse, with 101 losses, 29 games out of first. Next year, I hope to see a game in Pittsburgh assuming we can get out to visit Simone and Kyndall. Yeah, they're a last-place team, too, but they're supposed to have a beautiful ballpark.

So long, Beavers

After work last night, I decided to head down to PGE Park to catch the Portland Beavers one last time before the Triple-A franchise leaves town. The Beavers are bailing because they were unable to find a site for a new stadium after their owner bought the Portland Timbers and the Major League Soccer czars decreed that you couldn't use the same stadium for soccer and baseball.

Honestly, I don't have any great emotional attachment to the Beavs, even though I've seen a handful or two of games over the years. During that time, they've been affiliated with the Pirates, Phillies, Rockies and Padres -- none of them my favorite major league teams -- and the only bonafide star I've seen was former Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.

But back to last night. It was the opening game of their final four-game homestand and by the time I arrived in the fifth inning, the Beavers were trailing, 6-0. They wound up losing, 9-2, but what I took away from the experience is the same as if they'd won by the same score. And that is ... an appreciation for the timeless qualities and universal behaviors that come with the sport when it's played at this level.

Consider these snippets:

-- Kids in their Little League jerseys. My favorite: a little guy with a green T-shirt that said "JOEY" on the back, above the number 5.
-- Grandpas in their vintage Portland Beavers caps and jerseys, their ample bellies straining against the fabric.
-- Young families, some with kids in strollers, out for a night of wholesome entertainment.
-- Young women in dresses and heels, out for a night of entertainment.
-- A red-headed teenager, leaning into his dad, maybe too old to be doing so but not embarrassed in the slightest.
-- A row of guys in front of me, wearing tattered baseball caps and swilling beer from plastic cups. One of them leading the ubiquitous cheer, "Let's go, Beavers, let's go! Let's go, Beavers, let's go!"
-- A row of young ladies behind me, chatting about boyfriends and relationships, suburban vs. city schools, jobs and homeownership.
-- Mid-inning entertainment that included the obligatory T-shirt toss to the crowd and a Frisbee giveaway. When a couple of fans tossed theirs onto the field, they were roundly booed for causing the umpires to halt play. (Now that's a sign of an intelligent baseball crowd.)

I didn't stick around for the post-game fireworks. But I did leave with a sense of satisfaction, glad that I went, but also a sense of loss. People go to the ballpark for a good time -- to yell at the umpires, to cheer a good play, to root for the home team (even when they're mired in last place), to scarf down a bratwurst and a brewski. In today's culture, when we communicate with tweets and texts and entertain ourselves with "reality" shows and viral videos, it's nice to find a common ground that brings together people of all ages and income brackets, united in watching young athletes throwing, hitting and fielding a hard, white ball.

Baseball in August

Portland is about to lose its Triple-A team, the Beavers, after this season. Major League Baseball is in Seattle, a three-hour drive north. But who wants to watch the Mariners anyway as they plod through a dismal season?

Thank goodness there's another option for professional baseball: Class-A baseball, just 45 minutes south, at the home of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. I attended Monday night's game with a longtime friend who lives in Salem.

Thankfully, the August heat had pretty much dissipated by the time the game got under way at 6:35 p.m. We had terrific seats directly behind home plate, but we also moved to a pair of seats down the first-base line, just for a different view. The opposing team, Spokane, scored three runs immediately  but the Volcanoes got a run in the first and two more in the third, on a home run that set off the "erupting" volcano beyond the left-field fence. The 3-3 tie didn't last long. Spokane's first five batters in the fourth inning all reached base -- including two home runs -- and sent the home team to an 11-3 loss.

But, hey, who cares if the Volcanoes lost (or if they'd won) by eight runs? It was fun just to kick back and soak up the whole scene. Lush natural grass. Great diving stops and strong throws by infielders. Long fly balls that sailed over the fence or clanked off the wall. A close play at home that nailed a Spokane runner and kicked up a cloud of dust. On-field activities (relay races and hula hoop contests) for giddy Little Leaguers who came dressed in their game uniforms. 

The whole experience was made all the better by trading stories of major league games we'd seen and memories of our own exploits. My friend said he always took pride in being able to lay down a good bunt and hit to all fields. I recalled the line-drive single I got as a 15-year-old off future Oakland A's Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley -- and the one home run I gave up as a pitcher on a hanging curve ball that got pounded over the left-center field fence. (I'm over it now, though. Really.)

In the news

From The Sunday Oregonian...

I'd been looking for a way to expand the dialogue in the Sunday Opinion section beyond the polarization that characterizes the mere mention of immigration. Some people immediately starting seeing red -- the conversation immediately veers to illegal immigration -- and the shouting begins, both online and in print.

So I was pleased to attend a recent roundtable discussion with the mayor sponsored by the nonprofit Latino Network. Much as I expected, education and economic development topped the list of concerns of people around the table. I wrote about it for yesterday's editions: "Latino equity: Opening conversation awaits follow-through"

From The New York Times...

Two weeks from today, I'm driving down to Salem to visit an old friend, Jon, so we can have dinner and watch a Class A minor league baseball game, the bottom rung of professional baseball. Only die-hard fans, I'm sure, have heard of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes or their manager, Tom Trebelborn, a Portland native and former high school teacher who managed the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs for several years.

So imagine my surprise when I turned to an inside page of Sunday's New York Times sports section and came across a lengthy feature about the Volcanoes and their 62-year-old manager: "Feeling Right at Home Back Where He Started." It may be the first time any article in the Times has begun with a "Keizer, Ore." dateline.

Looking forward to the game.

Photo of Tom Trebelhorn, far right, by Leah Nash for The New York Times.

Take me out to the ball game

Buy me some peanuts and garlic fries...

One of the few drawbacks about Portland is that it doesn't have a Major League Baseball team. That partly explains the city's love affair with its one professional sports franchise (Go, Blazers!) and it also means you've got to make a three-hour trek to Seattle if you want to see MLB.

So when the opportunity came up to make an early-season getaway with my oldest son, Nathan, I grabbed it. Rather than put my old VW bug through the stress of travel on I-5, we traveled by Amtrak (a quiet, comfortable ride with cushy seats and ample leg room) and arrived mid-afternoon, which gave me enough time for a pre-game run through downtown Seattle, all the way up to the Belltown district.

We engaged in the friendly banter of negotiations with scalpers trying to unload their tickets, knowing we held the upper hand. I mean, come on. It's a Monday night game vs. the last-place Baltimore Orioles -- a far cry from trying to score some tickets for a weekend Yankees or Red Sox series. We wound up in the lower deck, 30 rows up from the Mariners dugout, and paid about one-third of the face value for the pair. (Turns out the crowd of 14,528 was the smallest in Safeco Field history.)

I'd hoped we'd have time for a nice sitdown meal to avoid most of the rich, greasy food at the ballpark but we ran a little short on time and settled for happy hour at a sushi bar with a make-your-own-art on the walls decor and some Japanese music videos playing silently near the front door.

As I write this, Nathan is still asleep so I've got to run upstairs and get him up for breakfast. It's great having father-son time like this. Totally relaxing and a nice change of pace for both of us. Did I mention we're staying at a hotel literally across the street from the ballpark? Thanks to hotels.com, we got a good deal on the room, too.

As for those garlic fries, they've become the most popular item at major league ballparks. I first had them a few years ago at San Francisco's PacBell Park -- fitting because the world's garlic capital is in Gilroy, about 80 miles south of SF. They've become a must-have item for us here at Safeco.

Oh, final score: Mariners 8, Orioles 2.

The World Series...20 years ago

So I'm cleaning out some old stuff today and I come upon a very dusty official program from the 1989 World Series. Can it be 20 years since I flew down from Portland to join my Mom at the only World Series games I've ever attended?

Wow. I guess so.

Funny thing. Here I am on a late Sunday, sitting down to write and I honestly don't know who won Game 4 of this year's Series between the Yankees and Phillies, assuming they even played today, given the wet weather on the East Coast these past few days.

Twenty years ago, I had a lot more invested in who was playing and who I was rooting for. The 1989 Series was memorable for two things: 1. It was called the "Bay Bridge Series" that year because it pitted the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics -- the two teams I grew up watching as a boy. 2. It was the year that a devastating earthquake caused extensive damage in the Bay Area and forced a suspension of the Series after the first two games had been played.

As fate would have it, I attended the first two games on a Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 14 and 15, and flew home the next day to Portland -- just ahead of the quake that struck on Tuesday as the teams were warming up for Game 3. The Loma Prieta earthquake opened a gash on the Bay Bridge, the main artery between San Francisco and Oakland; flattened sections of Interstate 880, the freeway I traveled countless times between my hometown, Fremont, and Oakland; and generally wreaked havoc throughout the region. To say I was lucky to have left town when I did is to state the obvious. There's no telling what complications might have ensued if I'd stuck around even a day longer.

How did I come to attend the Series?

My Mom has always loved baseball -- whether it was showing up to my Little League games, watching her beloved A's on TV or, for several years while her health permitted it, attending in person as a season-ticket holder. The A's were in their glory years in the late '80s and they were my team as well. (For some reason, I never took a liking to the Giants, despite growing up in the era of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and the rest. In fact, it drove my Dad nuts that I rooted for the L.A. Dodgers, fantasizing that I'd someday replace Maury Wills as the team's shortstop and premier base-stealer.)

As a season-ticket holder (even for part of the season), my Mom had the opportunity to buy World Series tickets for the first two games being played in Oakland. She invited me down and we sat along the first-base line. I still remember having my hand on a potential souvenir, for a split second during a mad scramble for a foul ball, and looking up in bewilderment to see a kid emerge from a pack of adults with a big smile and a gleaming white baseball.

As I flip through the official program of the so-called Fall Baseball Classic, I'm gratified to see that I hung onto the two scorecards for the games I saw. (Here's where it's probably too much information for non-baseball fans but hey...) In Saturday's game, Dave Stewart pitched a five-hit shutout and Dave Parker and Walt Weiss hit home runs as the A's won, 5-0.

In Sunday's game, the A's won again, 5-1, as leadoff hitter Rickey Henderson (my favorite player) tripled, singled twice, walked and stole a base. Relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, whom I played against in 13-to-15-year-old Fremont Pony League baseball, came in to get the last two outs.

The A's were a real powerhouse then, with future Hall of Famers Henderson and Eckersley, plus sluggers Parker, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, and Manager Tony LaRussa. Who knew Canseco and McGwire, the so-called Bash Brothers, were doing steroids then? (Barry Bonds hadn't yet joined the Giants, btw.)

Anyway, when the Series resumed after a 10-day delay, the A's went to San Francisco and won two more games there for a 4-0 sweep. Meanwhile, I was back in Portland, helping assign and edit stories about the quake and its human and physical toll for The Oregonian. I hadn't thought much about the weird circumstances that defined the 1989 Series -- at least, not lately. It hadn't dawned on me that two full decades had passed since experiencing the highs of seeing the A's and the lows of helping to convey the dimensions of the natural disaster that wound up killing 62 people, including 42 in the collapse of the Cypress Viaduct on I-880.

My Mom's now 82 and coming up to Medford in three weeks for Jordan's wedding. I think she'd be pleased to see I still have the $5.00 official program, two ticket stubs and fond memories of the Bay Bridge Series.

Quick (and very random) Takes

Only a few hours left in this month of September, so it's time to wrap up this month with a few utterly disconnected thoughts and observations:

1. Pop quiz. What's the official Oregon state bird?
a. Great blue heron; b. Western meadowlark; c. Stellar's jay.

Correct answer: b.

So how odd was it that I saw my very first Western meadowlark, with its distinctive V-like marking on its yellow breast,* perched on a wire fence in a meadow in Klickitat County in Washington state?

*Copyright photo: Kendall W. Brown
http://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/BirdsS-Z/WesternMeadowlark.htm


2. Have a nice day! Not...

Around Portland, I'm used to seeing the bumper sticker "Coexist." I didn't think twice when I spotted it on a nondescript compact car (I think it was a Toyota) bearing New Mexico license plates. What did set me back was the other bumper sticker: "How about a nice cup of shut the f*** up?"

Whoa. Made me wonder what would prompt a person to essentially raise a middle finger to the world in that way. Was he trying to be funny? Is he really that crass? Just another sign of the eroding civility in this country. Made me think back to the guy in front of me in line at the grocery store. When he bent over to pick up something he'd dropped, his T-shirt rode up and there, on his lower back, in elegant script were these words: "F*** the world." Yeah, you too, buddy.

3. I've got the TV tuned to ESPN and I'm watching with glee as the Detroit Tigers are pounding the Minnesota Twins -- 7-2 in the seventh inning -- and taking another step closer to the American League's Central Division title. Given all that Michigan's largest city has been through in recent decades -- race riots, crime, illiteracy, civic corruption, horrible schools and, now, collapse of the auto industry -- it would be nice if the Tigers could bring a ray of sunshine to their beleaguered fans. Of course, even if they make the playoffs, they'll need to get past the dreaded and colossally overpaid Yankees.

I saw the Tigers in '84, the year they won their last World Series title, and have been a fan ever since. Go, Detroit!

"A gift from Africa"

And now for something totally different...

If you like baseball -- heck, even if you don't -- and you appreciate great writing, dig into this inspiring piece by Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated. It's the most unlikely tale: an impoverished black teenager from South Africa, where cricket and soccer are the traditional pastimes, chasing his dream of playing major league baseball.

Smith is, by some accounts, the best sportswriter in the country and I've read enough of his work over the years to hold him in high esteem. So let me get out of the way and hope these first few paragraphs draw you in as they did me. (FYI, "Bucco black-and-gold" refers to the colors of the Pittsburgh Pirates. "Pirate City" is the name of the team's spring training facility.)

Word came down from above: Make the kid feel at home. Sure, said the clubbie ... but the clubbie always said sure. He bled Bucco black-and-gold, Pat Hagerty's superiors raved in reviews of his work as the Pirates' minor league clubhouse and equipment manager. He was master of a million chores, the guy who kept the radar guns juiced, the resin bags dry, the coaches' coffee hot, the lint out of the players' jocks and the alligators out of the pond at the team's complex in Bradenton, Fla. But then he paused and pondered: How the hell does a white-haired 48-year-old Irish Catholic clubbie from Steubenville, Ohio, make an 18-year-old Sotho tribesman from Africa feel at home?

The tribeman walked into Pirate City wearing a thick bush of black hair and a hoodie studded with stars. No, he didn't walk. He hopped. He skipped; sometimes he danced. He could outleap, out-ululate and outlast all the other Sotho in the dawn-to-dark dancing ceremonies around their ancestors' tombstones back home.

His head swiveled, absorbing all the dorm rooms, all the emerald fields, all the bats, all the balls; more more than he had witnessed in his life. He headed toward the clubhouse, chafing to bust out his blue-and-red glove and get cracking on his dream of becoming the first African ever to play major league baseball.

The clubbie exited the laundry room that morning last October. What language, he wondered, would a black South African speak? Even if they could communicate, what would a Pat Hagerty and a Mpho Ngoepe have to talk about?

The kid extended his hand and flashed a glittering smile. "Hello, sir!" he sang out to the clubbie. "My name is Gift!"

Read the rest of the piece here or in the Aug. 10 issue of S.I.
Photo: Trev Stair's photostream on Flickr

Back into the fray

After a totally relaxing five days away from the office, it's back to the mines.

Well, hardly.

An air-conditioned office will be a nice oasis, given a predicted high of 99 today and tomorrow, spiking at 103 Tuesday. Geez, what is this? Phoenix? Sure felt like it on the drive home from Orcas yesterday.

Things started off reasonably. Of course, it's going to be cooler if you're up and about by 6 a.m. I got up early to make sure I caught the 9:20 a.m. ferry back to Anacortes. On a summer weekend, it's always a good idea to arrive 90 minutes before your scheduled departure time. And so I did.

Yesterday was the first time in the four years or so that we've owned our cabin that things worked out where I could see a Mariners baseball game either on the way up or way back. I rolled into Seattle about 12:45, found a parking spot roughly half a mile from the stadium (even on the weekend, the lots charge too much), haggled a bit with a scalper for a field-level seat and found myself in place for the first batter at 1:10. A good thing, too, because he hit a home run and, just like that, Cleveland was en route to a 12-3 walloping of the home team.

It was 11-2 by the time I left in the seventh inning; Cleveland had already hit four home runs, including a grand slam. I was in the sun the whole time in 90-plus degree weather. But it didn't feel any cooler in the car on the way home -- a borrowed Honda Del Sol, by the way, a two-seater with makes 75 mph feel like 55. And there was no respite once I crossed the threshold into our home, despite Lori's best efforts with fans. Thank goodness for the A/C unit upstairs.

My last day on the island -- Saturday -- was as relaxing as the previous three. I pulled more weeds in the morning, took another four-mile run (this time from Obstruction Pass State Park, which offered some much appreciated shade), spent some time at the Saturday Farmers Market, bought myself a root beer float and headed off on a leisurely drive around the island. I consciously embraced the stereotype: middle-aged guy in a red convertible, with the Best of Led Zeppelin on the CD player as I zipped from Eastsound to Deer Harbor to Orcas Village and back to Eagle Lake.

I got back with enough time to take a shower and hustle down to the lake for the weekly potluck among Eagle Lake residents, most of whom are seasonal, like us. I met a handful of new people, ate well and, unlike most others, reveled in the surprise thunder-and-lightning show that resulted in a steady rain on the surface of an otherwise placid lake. It was so refreshing after the non-stop sunshine of the past few days.

Well, time to get dressed for work and have some breakfast. The mines await. May Rough and Rede's readers find themselves a million diamonds or, at least, a thousand rubies...