A Lack of Vision

Looking at baseball cards issued for the 1965 season, I noticed a lot of players wore glasses and while most of the spectacled looked like accountants from a large 1950s firm, at least they could see.

My baseball career was cut short because I wouldn’t wear my glasses at an early age for fear of ridicule. I didn’t realize then that my lack of corrected vision was actually more grounds for poking fun at me than the way I looked had I been wearing the glasses. If I had paid attention to those baseball stars who wore them, I’d probably not have shunned them and done better on the diamond.

There were some good four-eyed players who are in my 1965 APBA replay now. Perhaps the best was Dick Allen, the slugging third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. Denny McLain, the Detroit Tigers pitcher who, three years later won 30 games, had glasses.  Frank Howard, another home run fiend, sported glasses while playing with the Washington Senators. Two Sens’ pitchers that year, Howie Koplitz and Frank Kreutzer, also wore them. Two of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bill Virdon and Bob Veale, also had corrective lenses. And the Twins saw 1965 American League MVP Zolio Versalles wear them, along with third baseman Rich Rollins.

I knew my vision was bad while in first grade at my northern Minnesota elementary school. The school was on the campus of a college where my father taught; it was called the “lab school” and college students often used us grade schoolers in various tests involving education and then some. (I remember once a bizarre class tested us to see if anyone had Extra Sensory Perception. They held up cards and we had to “feel” what symbol was on each card.)

Once, in the early fall of my first grade year, college students lined us up for eye exams. The testers held a large wooden block with the letter “E” on it. They would turn it and we were to tell them which way the “E” was pointing. I knew I was in trouble when I squinted and said “What block?”

I got glasses soon after, but I was embarrassed to wear them. I was pretty much a nerd anyway. Glasses just made it worse, I thought. Looking back now and realizing just how bad my vision was then, it’s a wonder I could play the waffle ball games and shoot baskets with my friend, let alone finding my way back home later.  I did okay, but still, there were the embarrassing moments when I should have just put the glasses on. Once, while at the lake home of a girl I liked from Grand Rapids, Minn., I thought I saw a ball on the floor. I picked it up with the intent of tossing it to her. Rather than a ball, though, I discovered upon closer inspection that it was a chunk of red meat they had given to their dog. It was coated in dog drool and when I quickly dropped it in shock, the girl and her parents laughed at me. They went back to Grand Rapids at the end of that summer and I never saw her again – both figuratively in a relationship sense and in reality in a really poor vision sense.

I tried out for Little League baseball without the glasses when I was 10 or so. During batting practice, the coach lobbed easy pitches to check our swings. When it was my turn, I hefted the bat, swinging it like a seasoned pro. I stepped up, dug in and waited for the pitch.

"Son, you’re facing the wrong way,” the coach said. I turned around to face the pitcher’s mound and began flailing at pitches I thought were near me.

“He swings at all the bad pitches and lets the good ones go by,” another kid said of me. Others made fun of me, criticizing my swing and general appearance. I wanted to tell them that only my vision was affected. My hearing was perfect.

I played in one Little League game before my lack of vision got the best of me. I was stationed in the outfield where the coach presumed no one would hit a ball. Unfortunately, some kid laid into one and sent the ball my way. I looked skyward, hoping to see the ball. I couldn’t spot it and when it made the sickening landing “thud” some 10 feet behind me, I knew I was doomed. The coach screamed at me and took me off the field. I ducked my head in embarrassment and then snuck off the field and went home. Despite the others having good vision, no one seemed to notice me leave.

I wear contact lenses now; I got rid of the glasses in 1976 while in high school. But I’m sure I still can’t hit a baseball. Learning to swing blindly during my formative years didn’t help.

When I roll games in my 1965 APBA replay now, I think of those players who wore glasses and probably had the last laugh at any of the kids who may have made fun of them. Frank Howard must be seeing the ball very well; he has 17 home runs in 45 games in my replay and is on pace for 61 home runs. Rollins, while not known for his slugging, hit one out for the Twins the other day in my replay to keep Minnesota in first place in the American League.

So, the lesson here is: wear your glasses. Don’t worry about how you look. Even if you don’t end up playing baseball in the big leagues, wearing glasses will keep you from picking up dog drool-infested food.

Who Cleans the Confetti and Other Sports Questions

My wife is quite the sports fan, knowing teams and players and understanding the nuances of the games, but there are some limitations and that’s what makes watching them with her an interesting venture.

For example, when we watched the Chicago Cubs dispatch the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016 National League Championship series, Holly noticed Dodger third baseman wearing a large blue protective glove while waiting to bat. “Why is he wearing that oven mitt?” she asked.

Then when some of the batters swung weighted bats while on deck in the same series, she thought the weights looked like erasers. Perhaps they were. The Cubs may have used them to erase Los Angeles’ 2 games to 1 lead and take the next three games to make it to the World Series.

And, as we watched football games on television, on first glimpse, Holly considered if the padded down markers were actually large vacuum cleaners used to clean up confetti after Super Bowls and National Championship games. She wondered who would clean the celebratory mess after the games were over and thought big vacuum cleaners could do the trick. (Just this season, she amended that and thought people should drive large leaf-cleaning Zamboni-type machines to clear the field. Maybe they do.)

She’s questioned why extra points in football contests are worth only one point while field goals, some kicked only a few yards longer than an extra point, are worthy of three points. She’ll root for teams with prettier uniforms and more appealing and nicer names. It’s much more esthetic, say, to root for a Washington Husky than a USC Trojan or a Kentucky Wildcat.

But despite that, sports have been part of our lives since we first got together. Within two weeks of us first talking by telephone in the summer of 2015, I called her to give her the play-by-play of Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter against the Dodgers. She couldn’t get the game on her television and heard about Arrieta’s feat.

And there’s more: The following season, we watched the Cubs embark on their 2016 World Series run, catching their first home game of the season on a television set in a Waukegan, Ill., laundromat while we washed large quilts.  She’d ask me how the Cubs were doing during the season and when the playoffs began she was a fixture in front of the television whenever Chicago played.

When we made the long drives from Arkansas to north Chicago, to pass the time, I’d say cities and she’d offer team names. I was stunned when she knew Ottawa’s hockey team is called the Senators. She even knew San Jose’s hockey team.

Still, there are those moments. We missed much of the first half of the 2016 Super Bowl because we were in a Gurnee, Ill., convenience store looking for fingernail polish rather than parked in front of a television set. And I didn’t watch the 2021 NBA All-Star game – although, I had no interest in watching it anyway – because Oprah was interviewing the royal Harry and Meghan and that was must-see TV at our home that night.

The sports thoughts carry over to APBA as well when Holly would roll some games for the Cubs in my replays. Chicago was pretty bad in that replay. Once, she helped roll a Cubs game in which they were getting pounded. By the seventh inning, she thought the APBA-carded Cubs players should quit the game, go back in their envelopes and “call it a day.” She also questioned why I’d pull pitchers and bring in relievers during APBA games.

“Because their arms are tired,” I said.

“They’re not real players,” she said. “These are virtual arms. They can’t really get tired.”

So, it is an adventure watching sports with her. We’ll fill out the brackets for the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament and chances are she’ll beat me like she has in the past. If there was a team named the “Chipmunks” she’d probably root for them to make it to the finals based only on the cuteness of the name. Meanwhile, I analyze stats and trends and try to figure out point spreads only to have my bracket destroyed by the Sweet 16 round.

And when the 2021 basketball champion is crowned and the stadium dumps the confetti on the court, I will wonder who cleans up the mess.

 

Getting Older

I don’t like interleague play in baseball and I’m not a big fan of the designated hitter.  I still consider Henry Aaron the home run king and I liked the era when relief pitchers went two or three innings for the save, rather than facing only one or batters now as “specialists.”

 Whenever I heard the song, “We Are Family,” I immediately think of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and I know who Gene Tenace, Tom House and Roland Office were and the teams they played for.

I wouldn’t have known who the singer “Bad Bunny” was if he bit me and stole my carrot until I watched Saturday Night Live the other week. In fact, I’ve not really liked Saturday Night Live since John Belushi left the show.

I feel all this because I am old. I know this for a fact because I was reminded of it the other day while standing in line at the pharmacy. The cashier asks customers for their birthdates before giving them their medicine as a way of identifying them. A woman in front of me said she was born in 1995. 1995! By that year, I had lived in six states, earned a master’ degree in communication, held 11 jobs and was well versed in the concept that life isn’t all fun and games and it doesn’t turn out like you had hoped.

The pharmacy cashier noticed my look and asked me about it, and when I told her I was old, being born in 1960, she laughed and said I wasn’t that old.

“I’ll tell you how old I am,” said, “I’m getting this medication.” I pointed to the bottle she was bagging of generic Flomax, the pill that helps guy’s have, well, a max in their flow when going to the bathroom.

“It’s not just for older people,” she said. “It’s for kidney stones and other things.”

I’ll give her that. I’ve had a kidney infection issue since 2016 that’s not really age-related. But my age surfaced when I realized I was excited about getting the medication and couldn’t wait until I could refill my Tramadol for the insistent pain I always have.

I know I’m not that old. Yet. There are always others out there who, when hearing my age, say, “Oh, you’re still young.” Those who say that are way older than I am. Eventually, I’ll be the one saying that to 60-year-olds.

Age is a state of mind for the most part. Sure, there are the aches and pains that come with aging. When I get up off the floor from playing with the cat, my knees sing two arias from Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.” But I’m still young at heart, as they say, and I have a hard time believing I am as old as I am, at least mentally.

But age and the experiences that come with being this old have a large part in defining who I am now. I listen to music popular when I was a kid – Fleetwood Mac, U2, Joe Cocker – and I have no idea who today’s musicians and entertainers are. I’ve found myself watching the old television program “Columbo” on MeTV on Sundays because it brings back memories of living in youthful times.

And that’s why, I think, we all play the APBA games. I’m really enjoying replaying the 1965 baseball season, more so than other replays of seasons when I wasn’t alive. I was barely conscious of baseball in 1965, but I do remember Henry Aaron and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle when I was a lad of 5 years old that year.

It’s a way to grasp on our youth by doing these seasons. And the interesting thing about APBA is that most of us began playing it when we were kids. We’ve all done replays of seasons we lived through. I’ve got 1972 on tap to play which was one of the most pivotal and important seasons that made me a huge baseball fan. I remember as a kid growing up in northern Minnesota watching the Twins on television with the names of Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, Rich Rollins and Jim Kaat becoming part of our normal vocabulary.

I can name the starting lineup of the 1965 San Francisco Giants, but I can’t name three players on the 2021 Giants’ team.  Part of that is because the pandemic we’re enduring took the heart out of baseball and all sports. The other part is that 1965 was more a part of my learning years than now.

The APBA game is a way to keep us more young at heart and a way, I venture, to deal with our own mortality. In 50 years, when I’m gone, hopefully there’ll be someone my age rolling games for the 2021 season and fondly remembering his or her youth.