Dingy Ninja

Of the four favorite television shows I have, I sure don’t fit the demographic targets of one them.

"Columbo," the 1970s detective show starring Peter Falk, is one that does fit. He, like I, wears wrinkled clothes, appear scatterbrained and is forgetful. When I was a newspaper report I would always call back a source with the obligatory, “Oh, one more question…”

I also love watching “Dateline.” I’ve covered enough murder mysteries during my news career--including one that made it on Dateline--and I enjoy the storytelling techniques the NBC correspondents use to drive the show.

And the other favorite show, “The Twilight Zone”—the older 1960s version on MeTV—is a given. I greatly appreciate the writing of the show and it, like "Columbo," reminds me of earlier, better days when I was a kid.

But one show I make a point to watch is an oddity. Each Monday, I park in front of the TV and stare at “American Ninja Warriors,” the show that features people using their strengths to navigate a hellish obstacle course of balancing while running across rolling beams and small steps, swinging on trapeze-like bars over pools of water, finger-gripping along thin edges while suspended above another pool and running up a 14-foot embanked wall.

By definition of who I am, I’m the least likely to be interested in that program. I’m old and fat. I don’t enjoy getting hot and my fingers get tired typing for long period of time. I’m sure not going to able to inch my way along a ledge with them.

The only way I’d get through that is if they’d put a harness on me and lift me with a helicopter, like you see rescue teams hoisting cattle from South Dakota blizzards.

And those outfits they wear? I think it’s illegal to stuff my fat ass into shorts in at least 27 states.

My idea of an obstacle course is pulling myself up out of the couch I’ve sunken into, weaving around our coffee table in the living room, stepping over the cat that’s stretched out on the kitchen floor and popping open the refrigerator for another Pepsi. The challenge is to do that all during a commercial break so I don’t miss another contestant’s attempt.

The athletes also focus strictly on the course. I, like our friend Columbo, am always somewhat rattled. I spend a lot of time thinking of both the day’s job and future story ideas I can freelance write to the various magazines I file for.  I fret over the light bill, not working my way over a Ferris wheel-looking thing while thousands cheer and family members on video screens make that heart-shaped motion with their hands. I’d be happy with the heart-shaped hand sign for just making the house mortgage on time. Hear that, Wells-Fargo? Oh, right, because of Covid you aren't really dealing with customers much anymore and refer them instead to the automated pay system. 

(Those who are locked into the ball and chain of Wells-Fargo Home Mortgage will get that lame reference. [When I first bought a house, I was in a three-year revolving loan with Wells-Fargo, which meant every year for three years someone with the company would revolve their hand around and slap me in the face.])

American Ninja Warriors? How about American Ninja Worrier?’

So, why do I like this show so much? Maybe it’s because of the stories each contestant has. There are vignettes portrayed for each person; most have some sad story in their past that they overcome. They are tales of hope, and we sure need that now.

Maybe it’s the enthusiasm of the two anchors, Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, when people work their way through the course. These guys make a Game Seven Stanley Cup call by Doc Emrick seem like a quiet reading in a library.

Maybe it’s because the contestants are all rooting for each other and there’s no real competition between them. After watching the rough and tumble Stanley Cup series that included more skirmishes than 10-cent beer night in a Traverse City, Mich., bar last week, it was nice to see calm people.

Maybe it’s that hope. Hope that I could even dream of being healthy enough to be an American Ninja Warrior. 

Like my wife, Holly, said when watching it the other day, she’d get to the first obstacle and say, “Nope. I’m out of here” and then wave and walk off. And she’s healthy. She can get up off the couch without making grunting noises simply by standing up! Me, with my useless knees, have to push off the couch’s arm, and have that momentarily sense of weightlessness, wondering if I’m going to continue on my upward voyage, or if I’ll plop my ass back in the chair.

It’s a bad deal when climbing down that first step of the Ninja stage on the way to the course would tucker you out.

My chances of being a Ninja are Dingy, but come Monday, I’ll still be deeply immersed in the program, and the sunken sofa watching it.

Ball Four, Fifty Years Later

Fifty years ago my aunt bought me Jim Bouton’s classic “Ball Four,” and everything changed.

Bouton’s book chronicled his 1969 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots and, after a trade late in the season, with the Houston Astros. It shocked the baseball establishment by showing what really went on in the locker rooms.

It wasn’t always the Pollyanna view of All-American boys playing the game. Instead, it portrayed the players as real. Mickey Mantle was truly a turd. Pitcher Mike Marshall was an intellectual. Coaches were often seen as dumb louts who epitomized the concept of double standard.

But it wasn’t just a baseball book. It was so much more. Although Bouton’s work contained a lot of curse words (Manager Joe Schultz used many in alternating combinations) and it may not have been deemed suitable for a kid, like me, of 11 years old, it was a training primer in life, a glimpse into how the real world worked and how there were so many personalities we’d meet along the way.

It was on July 4, 1971, when I spotted the book in a rack at the Itasca State Park gift shop between Park Rapids and Bemidji, Minn., where I lived. My aunt and uncle were visiting us from Arizona that week – a trip to coincide with my June 29 birthday and the Fourth of July—and we went to the park for the day.

The paperback book was the first one showing in the rack; others were behind it. It had a simple cover. “Jim Bouton” was in bold black letters at the top, above a larger green font “Ball Four.” Below was a simple photograph of a right hand holding a baseball in the grip of a knuckleball.

Published by Dell, the book cost $1.25.

My tattered copy of 
Ball Four from 1971

My parents objected to my want of the book. But my aunt stepped in and bought it for a late birthday present.

It was a fitting metaphor to buy the book at the Headwaters of the Mississippi River. The 2,318-mile long river begins there and makes it journey south, much like I did. Life, like the river, has its curves, currents and changes. The book, bought near the trickle of the start of that river, began my own journey that probably defined a lot of who I am.

That night, we sat on the shore of Lake Bemidji and watched fireworks. One of the displays featured the spelling of “Hello” in the sky. Each firework, when exploding, spelled a letter in smoke. The “O” faded quicker than the rest and we were left with “Hell” drifting overhead for a moment. The crowd laughed.  And I, having seen that word in “Ball Four” on the way home, along with several other words I filed in my ‘do not use in front of adults ‘ mental cabinet, felt like I was in on the joke like the adults were.

I entered sixth grade that fall. While the rest of the kids were using words like “fart blossom” and “butthead,” I was firing off zingers I gleaned from the book. 

But I also watched people more closely, learning that maybe all adults weren’t always right. Maybe they didn’t know the answers all the time. I also watched myself more closely and, in a sense, became a tad paranoid and saw myself from outside myself and through others’ eyes.

We moved to Arkansas three years later. The book, of course, came with me. In defiance of the southern culture and in honor of the book, I refrained from using the drawled out “BS” word that all the classmates used and deferred instead to the version that used the “horse” word.

Seattle pitcher Marty Pattin used that word when describing Pilot outfielder Steve Hovely’s hair in Bouton’s June 28 offering. Look it up if you want.

I remember once I left the book in my eighth grade English class when we changed classes. I was shy and tried to be invisible; coming from the north with an accent akin to characters on the movie “Fargo,” I wanted to stay quiet in the land of twang. Even though his name is pronounced “Bow-ton,” like taking a bow in front of an audience, I said it with my northern accent as “Boo-ton.”

The next class was in session when I realized my book was in that classroom. I boldly got up from the next class’ seat, told the teacher I left something and strode into English class, disrupting it and finding my book. It was that important to me.

The book’s been with me since. After I got the book, I moved about 23 times in my life. I know where “Ball Four” is at all times now. I’ve also bought the anniversary copy “Ball Four Plus Ball Five,” and a friend found a softback of the book at a used book shop and bought it for me recently.

Years later, I found Bouton’s phone number online somewhere and called his home. His wife answered the phone and nervously, I asked to speak with him. This was 1998, so he was 59. He came on and I simply thanked him for writing the book, taking the criticism that followed its publication and making me think so much differently than I had before.

I’m sure he got calls like that often. But he was polite, thanking me for the compliment and saying he had no idea how the reception of the book would be years later.

Now, 50 years later, I still use phrases from the book like the drawn out “Yeah, sure,” the Alvin Dark comment, “Take a hike, son” and  “well, it doesn’t make me a bad person,” whenever anyone criticizes something I do.

Bouton died on July 10, 2019. His book lives on, though, and every few years I pull one of the copies off the shelf and read it again. I’ve probably read it 20 times now—yeah sure--and have memorized most of it, but it is still impacting.

In the comments below, fell free to share your impressions of the book. It is a classic that all sports fans have read over and over, I’m sure.