The 1981 Mulligan

With the next roll of the APBA dice in my 1981 baseball replay game, I will enter a world that never was. After playing the season for nearly six months now, I’ve reached the games for June 12.

It’s the day in the real baseball world that the games stopped. The players union went on strike that day, canceling hundreds of games and creating a weird, minor league-type scenario when the games resumed in August.

The league split the season; the team that finished first in its division faced the second-half division winner in a precursor to the Wild Card playoffs.

I remember that strike and it was the beginning of a series of disappointments that surfaced in the realm of sports. The 1981 strike, the 1994 strike, Boston coming back from a 3-game deficit to beat the Yankees in 2004, most of the Minnesota Twins’ seasons, the list goes on.

But in APBA, it’s different. I have more control over things and I can correct the wrongs.

I won’t have a strike. I’ll keep the season going as if everyone is in accord and there are no labor disputes and money issues.

And I’ll see what happens. There’s not many chances in life where you can alter the outcome. It’s a mulligan of sorts.

I mentioned here before that 1981 was a transitional year for me. I had broken up with a great girlfriend at the end of 1980 and I was acclimating to life without her. Another ex-girlfriend found me that spring after our breakup of two years prior. She told me about her boyfriend and how great things were. Weird times then. And I fell back on sports as I always do when things get weird.

But the strike happened and we suffered through six weeks or so of no sports.

I am rectifying that now. With the first part of my replayed season completed and upon the brink of going where no 1981 baseball player has ever gone, I reflect on what can happen.

In my replay, Montreal is the best team with a 39-18 record. (There are no rain outs in my APBA replays and the standings reflect all the games scheduled to date). Los Angeles leads the National League West, the Yankees are a half game ahead of Milwaukee in the American League East and California leads Kansas City by a half game.

So, I’ll roll the dice tonight. Baltimore will play Seattle in a game that never was. And then I’ll play more games to see how things turn out. It’s a rare chance to fix things that should never have gone wrong in the first place. I’m looking forward to it.

Two Book Reviews

When I’m not rolling the APBA baseball dice, or working, or dealing with ex-girlfriends and their issues, or watching sports, or contemplating why I turned out the way I did, I’m reading.

I tend to read a lot, too. I read mostly legal fiction, police procedurals, courtroom thrillers. Which is weird, since I cover that in real life as a reporter.

But occasionally, I stray and hit the sports books.

And I’ve found two baseball books recently published that are worth perusing. And I’ll say something that I’ve never said before: One of them is a John Grisham book and it’s not that bad.

So, with that lollygagging preface, here are two book reviews for sports fans.

CALICO JOE, John Grisham

I never have liked Grisham’s writing. It’s too passive and his plot lines are a single string. As I read his stuff, I feel like I’m reading his set up for a larger story. It’s called “backloading” in the news business. He dumps stream of consciousness into the story to set up the payoff. But in most cases, the payoff never comes. Read “The Partner” or “The Broker” to really get an idea of what I’m saying.

Grisham does that single plot line again in Calico Joe, but maybe it’s because I’m a baseball fan that I don’t mind as much. The story is easy: New York Mets pitcher Warren Tracey beans rookie sensation Joe Castle of the Chicago Cubs in 1973. Much of the book is told in the point of view, Paul Tracey, who is Tracey’s son, and it sets up the fact that Warren Tracey is not a good person.

Again, the plot line is simple. The payoff is if Warren Tracey will seek forgiveness for ending Castle’s career with a single pitch.

Castle is called “Calico Joe,” because he hails from Calico Rock, Arkansas, which is a real place. And maybe that’s why I gave Grisham a more lenient pass that I normally do. I lived near Calico Rock as a kid when I first moved to Arkansas. Grisham sprinkles Arkansas towns throughout the book and it made it easier to place scenes and action while reading. Grisham doesn’t do that on his own.

APBA fans will enjoy the book because it incorporates real players and managers into Castle’s brief baseball life. When I do replays of seasons, I become immersed into the teams and the players. The players become alive even though they are only represented on number-filled cards, and I remember their characteristics. Reading about them in a book makes them more three-dimensional.

The book is worth a shot. It’s a quick read, about as long as normal National League baseball game.

PINSTRIPE EMPIRE, Marty Appel

I won’t go into as much detail, simply because I’ve not finished the book. However, with only 120 pages read of the 600-plus page book, I can say that this is an amazing display of research. Appel, the former public relations director for the N.Y. Yankees, has complied a complete history of the Yankees. 

If research were an exercise, Appel would look like one of those sculpted body builders. There are nuggets scattered through the book that any fan would love. In the early 1900s, the Yankees didn’t have the interlocking “N” and “Y” logo. Instead, the letters only adorned their jerseys. In bunting situations, coaches would touch the “Y” for “yes” and “N” for “no.” Appel also wrote about how Ty Cobb ran into the New York stands to fight a fan and was subsequently suspended. His Tiger teammates protested his suspension; that action was credited for later leading to the player’s union.

You don’t have to be a Yankees’ fan to enjoy this book.

So, APBA fans, if the wrist is tired from rolling the game dice, take a break and read a baseball book. These two books won’t disappoint you.

A Glove Story

While everyone I knew as a child had baseball gloves with the stamped autographs of Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, my first glove — and only glove — was emblazoned with the signature of Dave Boswell.

Boswell, as some fans may remember, was a Minnesota Twins pitcher who in 1969 gained notoriety for being punched by then-Twins manager Billy Martin.

It stands to reason that my glove was endorsed by a player more know for taking a hit than for keeping batters from hitting his pitches. While I was proud of the glove, it didn’t make me proud of my fielding prowess. My ability to grab a hot grounder was much like Boswell’s ability to duck a punch. It just didn’t happen.

My parents bought the glove in the basement of a grocery store in northern Minnesota. It was the same place we bought hockey sticks and had our ice skates sharpened in the fall. In the summer, baseballs lined the shelves. In the winter, pucks replaced them.

I don’t remember the year I got the glove, but I know it was before 1969. I know my glove was already  worn in when Boswell was hit; my glove became a brief sensation amongst my playmates when Boswell's fight with Martin happened.

Boswell wasn’t that bad of a pitcher. In 1969, he won 20 games for the Twins. He also pitched in for Minnesota in the 1965 World Series.

I remember the glove was crisp and needed to be broken in properly. I would fold the glove and then place it under the rear tire of my dad’s car, waiting for him to back up and create a good crease in the pocket. I also dragged the glove behind me on a bike, rolling through puddles in the street, hoping that would loosen the stiff faux leather.

I treated that glove horribly, but I loved it. I slept with it and I often put it to my face, peering through the holes in the glove and taking in its scent. It had a home on the handle bars of my bicycle as I peddled to my friend’s back yard where we always played whiffle ball.

It was a good glove.

It served me in my brief Little League career. I played left field for our team, the Twins. In my only game, I misjudged a fly ball and the sickening “plop” of the ball behind me sent the coach into a tirade. He yelled at me in the field and took me out of the game. I pouted for a while and then walked home, never to play organized ball again.

Later, as I grew, basketball became more the sport we played and the baseball glove was not as prominent in my world. I still played catch with myself sometimes, throwing a rubber baseball against a netted pitch-back or against a wall.

But the glove was no longer a vital part of my youth.

Now, nearly half a century later, I have no idea where the glove is. Obviously, I couldn’t cram my adult-sized hand into the child-sized glove if I had it. But it would be nice to see it and to hold it and to remember it. It’d be nice to see Boswell’s autograph and to see the wear on it.

And it’d be nice to put it up to my face once again to peer through the holes in the pocket and hope to catch a faint scent of youth.

Bart Starr's autograph

In the fall of 1970, as a small child just becoming aware of football and its players, I wrote a letter seeking Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr’s autograph.

Although I was a Minnesota Vikings fan then, I admired Starr and I told him so. In my 10-year-old handwriting, I told him he was my favorite player, but I liked the Vikings the best of all. Looking back, I realize that was like someone writing New York Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio and telling him that his favorite team was the Red Sox.

It was blaspheme, I know. But I was a kid. And maybe that was what inspired him to write back. I guess the collectors’ craze wasn’t what it is today; people weren’t begging for autographs just to sell them later and make a small profit. He knew the request was from a real kid. An adult wouldn’t have been that stupid to tell Starr that his favorite team was Starr’s bitter rival.

I included a small 5x7 index card and a stamped envelope with my address on it and sent it off, hoping.

I’d forgotten about the letter that winter. Spring came and, as the snow melted from the northern Minnesota landscape, our thoughts turned to baseball.

Then one day in late July, the postman slid several letters through our mail slot. I recognized the handwriting on one letter. It was mine. It was the envelope with my printed scrawl that I had included when writing him.

Bart Starr wrote back.

He signed the index card and added a “thank you” on a separate piece of paper.

I placed the card by the Packer’s page in my 1971 NFL Official Record Book that my father bought for me. and I looked at it throughout the 1971 season.

In 1998, my mother passed away suddenly and in the aftermath of cleaning out her house, I found a box full of my old sports books that had been there for years. I sorted through them and found the 1971 NFL Official Record Book.

“Surely not,” I thought as I opened the book and turned to the Green Bay page.

But there, between the Detroit and Green Bay pages, was the card. It remained pressed, preserved in that book for 27 years. The card was more ivory now than white, aged over time.

But the name was legible and crisp.

By 1998, autograph collecting had become more of a business than an innocent child’s enjoyment and hope. I don’t think I could write to players now, at least those with the star caliber of a Starr, and expect an autograph in return.

I saw in a collector’s magazine several years ago that a Starr autograph sold for $35. It was projected to raise to $60 if he died and I was saddened. There are people out there who are waiting for Bart Starr to die so their autographs will gain value. I also realized that the art of writing to players and asking for autographs is over. It would be futile now in a world that hopes for Hall of Famers’ deaths merely to make a few more bucks.

I hope Bart Starr never dies. I don’t care about the increase in value of my autograph. Finding that card in the box of books in 1998 was worth more than any monetary value. 

I have the book sitting by me now. I’m looking at the card and now, 41 years after receiving it, the value of it means so much more than money. 

The Game as a Diversion

The APBA  baseball game dice came out quicker than usual when I got home each night last week. They rolled with more of a fervor and the importance of the results of those rolls were heightened.

But it provided a focal point away from what I saw that week and it returned me to an innocence I have long lost.

I am a reporter for a daily newspaper in Arkansas and I’ve been covering a capital murder retrial in the northeast part of the state. I know the details of this case well. And they are horrific details.

A family of four was killed in 1998 in what prosecutors said was retaliation for the theft of the defendant’s drugs. The killings were brutal. The father was shot. He had it easy. A knife and both ends of a tire tool were used on the others. Two children died.

This is the second time the defendant is being tried. He was convicted in 2004, but the state Supreme Court overturned that conviction and ordered a new trial.

It was a senseless crime and, while the brutality and the photographs displayed in court were rough, the simple disregard for life was even more acute.

It bothered me. I’ve been in news for 30 years and have become, for the most part, immune to the depravity of life. I’ve seen what happens when humanity breaks down and after much exposure it, I’m generally unmoved.

But this was bad. This, and the 1998 school shootings at Westside Middle School, will haunt me.

So, when I came home each night from covering the trial and filing the stories, the APBA baseball replay of 1981 took more of an importance than usual.

I replayed the June 3, 1981, game of California and Toronto on Thursday — a game that, while perhaps entertaining, wouldn’t usually keep me up late at night to see what happens. Like I said before, it wouldn’t be the NBC Game of the Week.

But last week, that game and others became the focal point of the evening and it provided an escape. The APBA game may seem like a child’s game and a quick diversion, but there’s much more to it. Minnesota played Texas, Boston faced Cleveland, the Cubs battled Pittsburgh. And I went away. Back to 1981, back to a time when I had yet to find my way into news and back to a time when I didn’t really know what humans were capable of and what the embodiment of evil really was.

The trial resumes again this week. On Monday, I’ll return to the court to listen to the defendant’s attorneys outline why he didn’t commit the crimes. When it’s over, I’ll interview attorneys for both sides and talk to family members of the deceased.

At night, I’ll come home, bring out the APBA cards, roll the dice and forget what I do for a while.

Why I Am a Twins Fan

I looked at the baseball standings in today’s paper and saw that the team I grew up with, the team that taught me what fandom really is, the team that showed me the highs and lows that are mirrored in all aspects of life, is doing really badly.

The Minnesota Twins are not only the worst team in the American League Central, they are the worst team in the American League and, alas, the worst team in baseball.

But that’s okay. I’m still rooting for them, as any good fan would do. I’ve been through the glory years of 1987 and 1991 with the Twins and the lean years of the mid 70s and 80s. You don’t dump a team when they are besieged in trouble. And you don’t jump on the bandwagon and root for them if they win, unless you're a Red Sox fan.

The Twins were the first team I became conscious of  when I learned of baseball. My family moved to northern Minnesota in 1966, a year after the Twins lost to the L.A. Dodgers in the seven-game World Series. I was a mere child of six when I became interested in the game.

I was entranced by the Twins’ old logo of two big baseball playing guys shaking hands across the Mississippi River. The guys represented Minneapolis and St. Paul, but I recognized the shape of the state in the logo and knew I lived near the notch in the northern edge.

My father and I watched Twins’ games on television and I learned both the strategy of baseball and the characteristics of the players. I loved Harmon Killebrew for his home run power, but also because his initials are the inverse of mine and we share the same birthday.

I lived in Minnesota for only eight years before my family moved to Arkansas. I stayed in the state for less than 20 percent of my life, but it stayed in me. I learned to speak there and carried the “You betcha” Fargo-like accent for years. I still say words differently at times; I catch myself saying “oot” for “out.”

Maybe the fandom comes from being a Minnesota native. There’s the subdued emotions, the muted evaluations of everything. The Twins win the World Series in 1991, which many consider the best Series ever, and the true Minnesotan will say, ‘Yeah, that was a pretty good one, there.”

So, maybe the attraction for the Twins comes from a deeper love to the state, or to my upbringing there. And the support I still have for the team is also an acknowledgment of the appreciation of how Minnesota helped shape me.

And maybe fans of other teams, say, Cleveland, Detroit, Seattle, feel the same way for their teams. Do we root for a team because we like the players or because it was such an integral part of our growing up?

My Minnesota years are remembered by my grade school friends, the college where my dad taught, the winters and of watching the Twins on television in the summer.

So, the Twins are doing pretty poorly this year. But the lesson here is that you hang on to your team through good and bad. You grasp onto the deeper meaning of what being a fan is. It’s not just wins and losses. It’s the meaning of growing up.

The Twins will back again. Remember in 1990, they were the second worst team in the league. A year later they won the World Series.

Oh, they’ll be back, you betcha.