SOLSC March 30: Baseball’s Opening Day

            I know, it’s March, too cold for baseball, in the 40s. But the Yankees played San Francisco (interleague already?) in the Bronx this afternoon and won 5–0. Aaron Judge hit a home run, what else is new?

            It’s 77, in Miami where the Mets are playing the Marlins. After four innings, the Mets lead 1–0 on a sacrifice fly. (And I have to leave now to go to a storytelling event in Brooklyn, How to Build a Fire.)

            I love baseball. But I hate the TV ads for gambling apps. I really really really hate them. Their disclaimers about “gambling responsibly” are pure sugar coating. These companies make their profits on irresponsible gambling, on hooking in even smart people. For a book only partially on this topic, I recommend Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American Memoir. You barely notice the hints at gambling until near the end.

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I’m participating in the 16th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 30 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSC 19: Baseball

I spent the afternoon with a bunch of baseball buddies. We are all New York Mets fans. This group has been together for almost 35 years—I joined maybe 32 years ago.

            It started as the fan group for Project Scoresheet, which was the brainchild of baseball historian Bill James. He had created a way to score games that could easily be input into the computer; with groups of 15-20 fans for each team scoring using his scoresheets (we were paid $10 a game) and faxing the completed sheet within 24 hours to a central location, he thought he could then sell the accumulated information to Major League Baseball. For whatever reason, his plan did not work out, but the Elias Sports Bureau refined the idea—and if you’re a baseball fan, you may have heard that name.

            Each fan group of James’s Project had a captain who gathered the group together each March, originally to parcel out which members were responsible for which games during the season. The Mets group’s captain was Dave G., a natural networker, who, after Project Scoresheet was shut down, continued to gather us every March to discuss the previous season, opine on the season to come—and play baseball trivia.

            Except for a couple of sessions, I’ve been the only woman in the group. The younger men seemed fine with that, but initially I felt some coolness from the men close to my age—did they think that I, a female, was intruding on their space? Some years in, I discovered accidentally that one of them belonged to my sister’s church and his wife was one of my sister’s friends. Plus, I hung in there and didn’t always suck at the trivia game. So now I have been accepted.

            Today we met at a sports bar in Stamford, Conn. (everyone but me lives in Connecticut). There were a total of 23 TV screens in the bar, some immense, some very large, some home size. Most screens were showing the NCAA basketball tournament, women’s game on the screen nearest our table, men’s game on the largest screen over the bar. When the UNC/Baylor game tied and went into overtime, the room roared when one side or the other went ahead. (UNC finally won.)

            But our table stuck to baseball, at my end discussing why we hated the designated hitter that has now been imposed on the National League. (Well, accepted by the players in their new labor contract.) But as the noise level increased, it made playing trivia nearly impossible. When our game host read a question, he often had to repeat it as the turn passed from one person to the next—there were ten of us at a long table. I used to keep track of the questions and answers so I could try to remember for the next time, but today I couldn’t remember anything because I could barely hear. I didn’t get a single answer right, though I would have gotten two if I’d trusted my instincts—maybe the noise weakened my confidence.

            Before we left for the day, we each predicted how many games we thought the Mets would win this season, ranging from 83 to 93. I hope we can get together at an actual Mets game this summer to see one of those wins.

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I’m participating in the 15th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 19 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

 

30/30: Golden Shovel poem #14

source: Mets Sweep Doubleheader from Phillies; Stroman Sharp
(shifting to a baseball theme for the day, headline from the Hartford Courant)

She listened to the game between the Mets

and the Phillies, wanting to sweep

her childhood feelings for the Phillies into a double-header

of lies wrapped in sugar candy and cheese steaks, from

the Phillies losing when she was a fan to the Phillies

winning when she stopped. Stroman

wore his zero, threw goose eggs, looking sharp.

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.

SOL March 27: Baseball!

I am a huge baseball fan. It started with Don Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series of 1956. Could someone actually do something that was perfect? Then it wasn’t impossible for me to be perfect in my life.

            At the time, I was living in a Philadelphia suburb, so of course I became a Phillies fan. Being a Phillies fan in the mid-’50s was good practice for later becoming a Mets fan. But first I had to go through a Yankees phase: when my husband and I were first in New York and lived on the Upper West Side, I thought we must live closer to Yankee Stadium than to the Mets’ Shea Stadium. Then my daughter’s high school offered tickets to a Mets game late in the 1986 season, which turned out to be their World Series year. For the first time, I read the sports pages in the off-season so the new players and the gone players were not a huge surprise come April.

            A few years later I joined a group of Mets fans who had turned their fandom into a bit of money. They were the Mets scorers for Project Scoresheet, started by the baseball historian and statistician Bill James, who had invented a new way to score games that could be computer coded. The scorers only had to watch games, score using the Project Scoresheet system, then fax our completed scoresheets to the computer coders—and get paid $10 per game. Each year, in March, this Mets group of scorers met at a brewpub in New York or southern Connecticut (many of the men, and they were all men, lived in Connecticut), signed up for the games we’d score, talk baseball and play baseball trivia.

            Project Scoresheet failed as a business, replaced by the Elias Sports Bureau, but the Mets group has continued on. Last year our in-person meeting was canceled, but five of us had a watch-party for the Mets’ opening day. That may have been my first zoom ever.

            This year, we zoomed for our preseason gathering. A couple of the men were on grandfather duty, so baby sounds were background. We talked about the Mets’ prospects with their new, super-rich owner; we remembered all the superstars of the past who came to the Mets and didn’t perform; we wondered what had happened to former members of our group; we watched the Mets rather handily beat the Astros. Perhaps we will all go to a game this year—perhaps. It’s an hour subway ride from my home. I hope the positivity rate will have declined by later this summer.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 27 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

Covid Events, Cancellations, and Postponements

(from my datebook—EDITED)

March 10, I attend a performance of Hamilton as a guest of a friend.

March 11, I ride the subway for the last time.

March 13, Gender & Transformation workshop canceled.

March 14, I eat in a restaurant with a friend, for the last time, and shop for groceries, for the last time.

March 15, the funeral of an old colleague of Jack’s is postponed to an indefinite time.

March 15, movie discussion group (Sorry We Missed You) is canceled.

March 18, lunch with a friend canceled.

March 20, book group 2 postponed.

March 22, plans to see Drunk Shakespeare are canceled.

March 23, talk at CUNY by Victoria Phillips on “Women, Power, and Intrigue in Cold War Berlin” is canceled.

March 24, book party for Ann Snitow’s posthumous book, Visitors, and a book by Daniel Goode is canceled.

March 25, Vivien Gornick and Alix Shulman in conversation at the Center for Fiction is canceled.

March 26, Big Words reading on the theme of “Dreams” is canceled.

March 26, opening day for baseball season is canceled.

March 28, the group of Mets fans I was going to join at Bobby V’s bar in Stamford is canceled

March 28, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon meets via Zoom.

March 29, New York Antioch Alumni chapter gathering postponed.

March 30, staged reading of a play by Robin Rice is canceled.

March 31, check-up with my doctor is canceled.

April 1, my women’s group meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 3, book group 2 (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu) meets via Zoom, postponed from March 20.

April 4, New School panel on Ann Snitow’s book Visitors is canceled.

April 4, book group 1 (T.R. Reid's The Healing of America) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 8, dentist appointment is postponed.

April 11, Pauline Olivieros's music meditation via Zoom.

April 12, family meets via Zoom, a new event.

April 14, North Star gala is canceled.

April 15, income tax deadline extended to July 15.

April 16, book group (A Long Petal of the Sea) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 17, Gender & Transformation panel on Ann Snitow’s book Visitors is canceled.

April 17, Publishers Weekly happy hour via Zoom, a new event.

April 18, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon’s 9th anniversary via Zoom, a regularly scheduled event.

April 19, New York Antioch Alumni chapter meets via Zoom, postponed from March 29.

April 19, family meets via Zoom.

April 21, National Gallery writing workshop, via Zoom.

April 24, book group (New York Times special section, "One Nation, Tracked") meets via Zoom, on scheduled day.

April 25, staged reading of Jen Abrams's How to Queer a Stroller, via Zoom.

April 28, New York State primary is postponed.

May 1, Gender & Transformation workshop is canceled.

May 2, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra concert is canceled.

May 2, book group 1 (Homegoing) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

May 3, family meets via Zoom.

May 6, women’s group meets via Zoom.

May 6, dermatologist appointment is postponed.

May 7, book group (The Testament of Mary) meets via Zoom.

May 12, podiatrist appointment is postponed.

June 3, women’s group meets via Zoom.

June 6, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra concert is canceled.

June 23, New York State primary rescheduled is canceled.

July 1, dentist appointment is rescheduled??

July 29, dermatologist appointment is rescheduled??

The future?????

SOL9: Baseball Celebrity Sighting

               Every March I meet with a group of Mets fans to talk over the previous season, guess how many (or few) games the Mets will win this season, and play a sometimes easy, sometimes fiendish game of baseball trivia.  We often meet at a microbrewery as two of our members are beer aficionados or at a sports bar.

               Today, it was at BV’s, in Stamford, owned by Bobby Valentine, a former player and a manager of the Mets for seven years, including their 2000 subway World Series with the Yankees. The eight of us were in the middle of our trivia game, in a Jeopardy-format with an overall theme of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades (I think the only answer I got right was a manager who managed two New York teams, one with World Series in the ‘50s and one with losing seasons in the ‘60s—Casey Stengel) when who should appear at the end of our table but the owner himself. 

               It took me maybe five seconds to realize this was Bobby V himself. He regaled us with stories for more than an hour—he might still be there, but I had to leave to come back to the city to meet friends.

              Here’s one of his stories.  When he heard we were playing trivia, he reported having been at a recent event with Joe Torre, who was managing the Yankees when Bobby V was managing the Mets in 2000. Some “civilian” came up to them and said, “I’ll give you $5,000 if you can tell me who was in the starting Mets lineup in right field in the fifth game of the 2000 World Series.” Even Bobby V couldn’t remember in that moment what player that was. As he told the story, we all began guessing: Benny Agbayani (from Hawaii, and one of 10 known MLB players of Filipino background)? No, he played left field. Timo Perez? No, he was hurt. Mike Kinkade? No, he was hurt, too. The answer: Bubba Trammell, who no one could remember because he was only with the Mets for four months.

               There were many more stories, and it was clear that Bobby V hung out at his own bar so he could find new audiences for the stories of his baseball career.

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I’m participating in the 12th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSC: Baseball!

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            The baseball season opened today—oddly, in the middle of the week, and in late March, not Monday or Sunday night in the first week of April.

            I watched the New York Mets single and double against the St. Louis Cardinals, beating them 9-4. Not one home run, and that’s a good thing. Noah Syndergaard did give up two home runs, but he also struck out 10, including striking out the side in the third inning, which was part of a five-strikeout string.

            It’s not unheard of for the Mets to win on opening day. The team lost its opener its first eight years; in fact, the Mets won the World Series, in 1969, before it won an opening day game. But since 1969, the team has won 35 and lost only 12 of its openers.

            I loved watching all the old familiar players (Yoenis Cespedes, Jay Bruce, Asdrubel Cabrera), young guys (Brendon Nimmo, Amed Rosario), and new ones (Adrian Gonzalez, Todd Frazier) play well together and produce. I do wish they hadn’t left so many runners on base, but they certainly scored enough runs. I’m looking forward to spring, summer, and fall—the long season.

            Are you a baseball fan? Do you go to games?

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I’m participating in the 10th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 29 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

Going to a Yankee Game

Today I went to a Yankee game with my cross-the-hall neighbor. She has a half-season plan and shares the tickets with her various friends and family.

            First, I decided to take the bus, which meant a bus up Riverside Drive, and transferring to a bus across 155th Street into the Bronx, to Yankee Stadium. I used my MTA Bus app to learn when the Riverside bus would get to 112th Street and discovered that it takes just over 3 minutes to get from my apartment to the bus stop. Just missed the bus and had to wait almost 20 minutes for the next one.

            On this bus, we waited about five minutes at 135th Street and Broadway for a new driver. Several blocks on, a woman sitting on a stoop waved toward the bus, indicating she wanted to get on. But she didn't walk immediately up to the bus, instead had a conversation with a man near the stoop, so the bus driver closed the door and started to pull away. The woman then came running up, banged on the door and yelled that she wanted to get on.

            Once on the bus, she berated the driver, walked a few feet into the bus, where I could smell strong odor of alcohol (it was about 12:15 p.m.), and continued to harass the driver. After a few more blocks, the driver pulled over next to a police car and ordered the woman to get out. I was glad she was gone, fearing that a look or a wrong move on my part or any of passenger's would set her off into an attack verbal or otherwise on us.

            As we neared 155th Street, I asked the driver where I should get the bus to the Bronx, and he pointed to a bus in the other direction, which I could see was the one I want. By the time I got off, however, the bus had moved on, and when I checked my bus app again, it looked like the next one was more than 20 minutes away. On Google Maps, I looked to see how far the stadium is from Broadway and 155th -- just over a mile. I could walk that, and I did, in 25 minutes.

            There were massive crowds trying to get into Yankee Stadium, and as I walked to the gate I needed, I felt light drops of rain. It took 15 minutes to get through the entrance, then an elevator to the top Grandstand. Stopped to buy a hotdog and water, resisted a large order of fries, texted my neighbor that I was inside (she was still outside waiting for other friends to give them their tix), and found our seats. And discovered the field covered with tarp and the start of the game in rain delay -- more like drizzle delay, because it really wasn't raining hard at all. This meant I wasn't missing the first pitch and would be able to keep score from the beginning.

            Which turned out to be 2:31 instead of 1:05, so the game started out with an 86-minute "rain" delay.

            The game itself was somewhat anticlimactic. Tanaka did give up a run in the first innning, but considering that he gave up three straight hits, getting out with only one run against him was a good sign. Alas, the Yankees could not manage anything against Jordan Zimmerman, leaving 8 runners on base, 6 in scoring position. Very frustrating.

            As the 8th inning was about to start, there was a flash of lightning, followed by thunder and real rain, blowing in on us, even though we were under an overhang. I had brought a plastic hooded rain jacket and quickly got it on. But as the rain intensified -- and the tarp was rolled out on the field again around 4:50 -- my neighbor decided she didn't want to stay, so we got down the stairs, onto the Grandstand concourse, which had no drainage whatsoever -- inches of rain piling up. We were soaked pretty quickly. Walked through the crowds on the ground level, ran for the D train, and got home in a bit over an hour. 

             (BTW, if the game had started at its original time, it would have been over before the thunderstorm struck, and we could all have been home, and dry.)

            Once home, where the rain had stopped, I checked in on the Yankee channel, which was still in rain delay. Once the rain stopped, they periodically showed us the grounds crew rolling up the tarp, squeegying the field, then poking pitchforks into the ground to encourage the accumulated water to be absorbed.

            Finally, the game restarted, at 8:01. Despite Betances throwing an "immaculate inning" (three strikeouts on the minimum of three pitches each), the Yankees could manage only one hit in their last two innings, and no runs. The few hundred people who stuck it out at the stadium, including children, had an adventure: 2 hours and 52 minutes of game time (a quite reasonable game length), and 4 hours and 37 minutes of rain delay.

            While I usually would never leave a game before the end, I didn't mind this time. It was fun to see as much as I did, come home, and see the rest of the game while eating my own dinner.Top of Form

Bottom of Form

#AtoZChallenge: B Is for Baseball, Beisbol, Base-Ball, Puro Yakyu, Yagu, Bangqiu...

            (I don’t know what other languages have a word for baseball, but if you know, please post a comment.)

            Yes, Sunday was opening day for a few teams, but as far as I’m concerned, today is the official Opening Day, and the first game for the New York Mets. The Mets have been my team for the past 30 years. Yes, I became a fan in 1986, the second time they won the World Series.

           The only reason I hadn’t been a Mets fan before is that I thought they were too far away from where I live. We’d been going to Yankee games for about eight years, and though we had to go downtown to get to the Bronx, which is uptown, Queens seemed so far away. Until my daughter started high school in 1986, and her school had a block of seats at Shea Stadium in mid-September. Of course we went, that is, my husband and I went. Our daughter wasn’t all that interested. And it didn’t take much longer to get to Shea than it did to get to Yankee Stadium. And no only were the Mets contending, but they were playing real baseball – that is, baseball without the designated hitter.

            I’ve been an off-and-on baseball fan since childhood. Well, sort of. In 1949, I lived in Brooklyn and was in the second grade. A classmate asked me whether I was for the Dodgers or the Yankees. I had never heard of the Dodgers (surprising, because my lefty parents surely knew about Jackie Robinson), but our downstairs babysitter had mentioned the Yankees, so I said I was for the Yankees. “You live in Brooklyn, so you gotta be for da Dodgers,” my classmate said, in strong Brooklynese. You can’t tell me who to be for, I thought, and instantly conceived a (somewhat) lifelong hatred of the Dodgers: it waned somewhat when they moved to L.A., then returned when they beat the Mets in playoffs in 1988.

            As a teen, I lived in Philadelphia suburbs, so became a fan of the Phillies, the lowly Phillies, last in the National League when there only 16 teams in the two leagues combined, so the Phillies were last of eight. Sometimes they’d end in seventh place. I kept a residual allegiance to the Yankees, since they could be sure to win and balance out my fandom for the underdog.

            I think this is enough about baseball for today. Except to add that the Mets won today, their 36 opening day win against only 12 losses since 1970 (they lost their first eight opening day games). And it was a pretty interesting game, a pitcher’s duel through six, then the Braves’ bullpen fell apart.

SOLSC 25: Baseball Season Coming Up

            Opening day is just over a week away. So today I took the train to Connecticut to meet a group of New York Mets fans that has been meeting just before the season starts for almost 35 years. The group started as part of a Bill James initiative called Project Scoresheet.* The Project organized groups of fans for each major league team to score games with its computer database, and those groups met just before the season started to divvy up who would score which games. I joined the group in 1990, shortly before Project Scoresheet disbanded. But our group captain was a sociable organizer, and the group continued to meet every March, to discuss baseball and the fate of the Mets, and play baseball trivia.

            I’m not great at baseball trivia. I don’t remember who pitched, or even won, the first game I ever saw. I can’t tell you the lineups, positions, or numbers of every player on the New York Mets since their creation. But I know enough to guess that it was Tom Seaver who made 11 opening day starts for the Mets. I know that Terry Pendleton of the Cardinals hit a home run that dashed the Mets hopes for winning the NL East for a second year in a row (I was there). I know just enough not to make a fool of myself in a friendly baseball trivia game.

            Today we met at the Cask Republic, a bar/restaurant serving a multitude of craft beers. Everyone but me lives in Connecticut, so South Norwalk is a central location. These occasions are the only time I drink beer, but today I went for a very exotic sangria mix (it included coconut rum). In between eating, entering the Mets 2017 wins pool, and playing trivia (I came in last), we watched the UConn women beat UCLA.

            I donated Jack’s two Mets hooded sweatshirts – too big to fit me – as prizes, and showed around the rookie baseball card for Darryl Strawberry that I was given while in California, by a friend of a friend’s husband who happened to have been Strawberry’s high school Government teacher. When he learned I was a big Mets fan, he gave me the laminated card.

            There was still hulking piles of dirty snow here and there in Norwalk.

But the train station had some very interesting historic artwork, characteristic figures of many eras, from a Civil War soldier (right) to civil rights marchers (left).

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*Bill James is a baseball historian and statistician, and Project Scoresheet was a method of scoring games for computer input and collecting the information to sell to fans and teams. It was supplanted by Stats Inc. and the Elias Sports Bureau. I love this scoring method because it counts balls and strikes.)

PAD 3: Baseball

Baseball

Life begins on opening day.

So say many baseball fans and writers.

Baseball leads into spring,

Round white balls promising

white crocuses.

Green fields brightening

the eyes.

Opening day without my partner

darkens the spring day.

No one to share a cheer

for the strikeout.

No one to share a groan

at the left-fielder’s error.

But I can imagine

his agreement,

his argument,

his “it’s only a game”

reassurance,

as I imagine tulips,

daffodils, lilies

sprouting in tree wells,

in parks, brightening

the city with color.

SOLSC Day 19: Baseball’s Coming

Today I took the train up to Connecticut to meet with a group of New York Mets for our annual preseason lunch, craft beer, and trivia.

            The warmup to trivia was a heated discussion about who on the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot should be in voted in. Personally, I cannot get excited about these arguments, but at a table full of those who are, I will have opinions. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire all raise the question of whether players who took steroids should be in the Hall, and opinions were mixed. I suggested the Hall of Fame have a separate Steroid Wing. And no Hall for players who were designated hitters most of their careers; they were playing only half of the game.

            The trivia contest has always been created by D.G., our group’s convenor for the past 33 years — I’ve only been a member since 1991. Today’s was fiendish. Set up like a Jeopardy game, the categories were minor league teams from 1949, 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1985, with a softball category called Batting Practice for those 90 years old (one of us), and women (that would be me). We were assured that every answer was a Major Leaguer we would all know, but no one liked this game. The clues were too obscure, and starting with the name of the player’s minor league appearances was disorienting.

            If you’re not a baseball fan, this probably sounds pretty silly, but we had a great time — and hope to see a Mets game together sometime in the summer.

Slice of Life Tuesday

An Ordinary Day

            This was one of those days when not a lot happens, but it feels like I’ve been very busy.

            First, I had to rebandage my husband’s leg (a minor problem, but a great inconvenience, and a little too gross to go into).

            Next I had a lot of to-dos: e-mails to arrange our annual family holiday dinner with nieces and nephews; e-mail to a friend I’ve been out of touch with; e-mail to set up my next women’s meeting. Then Facebook posts on news events (a baseball story, a story about a high school student in South Carolina body-slammed to the floor by a school police officer).

            Lunch.

            An appointment at the Apple Store to untangle my iPad, where it took 20 minutes to update the iOS.

            Shopped for dinner on my way home, but before I could start I needed to rebandage my husband’s leg – and when I wanted to take a photo of my husband’s leg to show his doctor, I realized I’d left my iPad in the store (I hope). Yes, it was there, lucky again (I’d lost the iPad, just weeks after getting it, in a park in Hawaii, and found it lying on the grass), and I rushed back home.

            Made honey-Dijon salmon from a Food Network recipe.

            And now settled in watching the first game of the World Series with my Mets against Kansas City. It’s tied 3-3 in the 7th inning right now. Anything could happen.

Update: Alas, after 5 hours, 9 minutes, the Mets lost. They came from behind, then went ahead after being tied. But after being tied again, they lost in the 14th inning, 5-4.

Slice of Life Tuesday

Do Men Have a Better Sense of Humor, 
or Just a Weirder One?

            Recently my husband and I were discussing what makes something funny, and whether something being funny could ever be offensive. He thought that if something was truly funny, it couldn’t be offensive, and someone who thought it wasn’t funny had no sense of humor. I thought that it always depended on where one was in relation to the object of the joke.

            Came a case study today. My husband tells me the following joke someone told him once.

            Mickey Mantle takes his teammates Whitey Ford and Billy Martin hunting in his home state of Oklahoma. Mickey thinks the best hunting will be on his friend’s land, so they go to the friend’s house, where Mickey says he should go in and ask  permission, as a courtesy, since he knows the friend will say yes, while Whitey and Billy stay outside.

            Mickey and his friend exchange greetings, and the friend says that of course they can hunt on his property. But Mickey could do him a favor. The friend’s favorite horse is old and sick, and really should be put down, but he just doesn’t have the heart to shoot him himself. Could Mickey shoot the horse for him? Of course, Mickey says.

            When he joins Whitey and Billy, however, he decides to play a little joke on them. “That son of a bitch,” he reports, “he won’t let us hunt here. I don’t know why he’s being such a shit. I’ve got to get even with him.”

            He points to the old horse in the paddock next to the house. “That’s his favorite horse. I’ve got a good mind to shoot him.”

            “Don’t do that,” Whitey says. “We can go hunt somewhere else.”

            “No,” Mickey insists. “I’m going to shoot his horse.” And while he and Whitey continue to argue over whether Mickey will shoot the horse, they hear gunshots. Billy is shooting the friend’s cattle.

            I grimaced. How stupid, I thought. Yet my husband was laughing. “Of course,” I said, “that is only funny if you think men are really stupid.” Yes, my husband said, still chuckling.

            “And what’s really crazy,” I continued, “is that men tell this joke about each other, and they think it’s funny!” My husband laughed even more, since apparently what I’d said was really funny

An April First (not Fool's) Poem

It's April, National Poetry Month. I want to keep writing here, and maybe  I'll write a poem occasionally, but I don't think I'm a poet. I did sign up for a poetry class through the University of Iowa's International Writing Program's MOOC that was supposed to start a week ago, so I thought I would have some lessons that I could be practicing this month. Then the class was delayed. So today I will cheat a bit and post someone else's poem: Ogden Nash on baseball, which starts up for real next week.

You Can't Kill an Oriole 

Wee Willie Keeler
Runs through the town,
All along Charles Street,
In his nightgown.
Belling like a hound dog,
Gathering the pack:
Hey, Wilbert Robinson,
The Orioles are back!
Hey, Hughie Jennings!
Hey, John McGraw!
I got fire in my eye
And tobacco in my jaw!
Hughie, hold my halo.
I'm sick of being a saint:
Got to teach youngsters
To hit 'em where they ain't.

--Ogden Nash

Slice of Life, #21

Part I. The Afternoon

            I met with a group of New York Mets fans who have been gathering before the season starts for 30 years -- I joined five years in. Three of the original members are still in it, all trivia mavens and sabrmetricians (people fascinated by baseball stats, from the Society for American Baseball Research), and they have real lives as well. We meet to talk about the team, its recent past, and, hopefully, better season this year, and then play a round of baseball Jeopardy. This year's categories were "Rogers" (players whose first or last name was Roger or Rogers); Mickey, Willie, and the Duke; Mets Hall of Famers; the Roaring '20s; and Cy Old (pitchers who won the Cy Young award when they were old -- by baseball standards). I won last year's pool for how many games the Mets would win: 79.

            We met at a beer connoisseur's bar/restaurant called the Ginger Man in Connecticut, where we commandeered a section of couches and banquettes, making a cozy spot for conversation. Being the only woman in the group made me a little nervous the first few years, but the organizer of this group is very welcoming and all I had to do was show knowledge of the game and the previous seasons. (How I came by my baseball knowledge and fandom is a long story, possibly for posts starting in April, when baseball starts up again; Thomas Boswell once wrote a book titled Why Time Begins on Opening Day).

Part II. The Evening

            A friend valiantly stood in line for standby tickets for Hamilton, the hip-hop musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Public Theater. She was successful, so we got to see the best play of the season. It’s a history lesson, and a hip-hop concert. It’s a love story, and a civics lesson. In hip-hop vernacular and rhythms, we see the American Revolution in action and the rivalries, political as well as personal, among Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, and Madison. A Cabinet meeting in Washington's administration is introduced to the audience as though Washington is an MC, inviting us to a performance. It is long, but it  packs in a tremendous amount of history in an immensely entertaining and informative way. I'm told that Dick and Lynne Cheney saw it recently, and I can hardly wait to see their reaction. The play is both patriotic and subversive, with almost all of the characters played by people of color.

            The shows at the Public are sold out through May 3 (but there are those standby seats if you are willing to stand in line). it moves to Broadway in July, and preview tickets are already on sale. They ought to offer discounts to high school classes; tickets are over $151 and $131. I think students would love it.