What a Buzz

The first mosquito dive bombed me the other day while I was replaying the June 7, 1950, baseball game between Brooklyn and Chicago with my APBA game. Initially, the incessant buzzing could have provided a backdrop to the game -- the buzz of the crowd or the vuvuzelas at some sporting contest.

But this was Wrigley Field in 1950 and I'm pretty sure the bleacher bums would have whacked anyone who brought the annoying noise maker to a game.

I continued on with the game, swatting at the pesky insect as it tried to make my arm his dinner.

Soon, another showed up. I had gone outside to toss trash that evening and thought I must have brought a few in with me. I live in Northeast Arkansas. This area is a red light district for amorous mosquitoes; seeing a score of them near doorways is not uncommon. I've seen many hanging around outside, reading newspapers and smoking. When I go outside, I hear them. “Hey, Buzz,” one would say. “We got one comin',” And then they'd swoop.

When I went to bed, several more began buzzing me. I smacked a few, but gave up, ducking under the covers and hoping they'd move along during the night.

They didn't.

When I woke the following morning, there were more perched on the wall. Others were doing holdover patterns above my head, flying reconnaissance missions to see when I would be available to dine upon. Something was wrong.

I soon discovered the problem. I had left the door leading from the kitchen to the garage open all night. The good news was my cat didn't get out. The bad news was 42 billion mosquitoes got in.

The bugs formed a giant arrow, like in the cartoons, and aimed for me. The war began.

I spent the next three days battling them. I charged around the house, clapping at the insects in a frenzied manner, like some addled madman who couldn't keep the proper beat to a Brittney Spears ditty. I didn't have any bug spray so I used Lysol cleaning fluid to knock them down. I employed my vacuum cleaner in an attempt to suck them out of the air. I found an old fly swatter and smacked them, leaving smears of warfare on the walls and ceiling.

It became an obsession. They regrouped after battles in the evening, buzzing me again. APBA games were cancelled because of the infestation.

It was the Civil War, but rather than the smoke of infantry cannon fire, the fog of Deep Woods Off wafted across the battlefield. The Battle of 'Skeeter Ridge was a particularly bloody warfare. I had left a light on in the small bathroom in hope of drawing them in. It worked. For 30 minutes, we fought in the confines of the bathroom. I flailed with the flyswatter and a wadded towel, they continued to bomb me, seeking that last meal before being squished. The Battle of Shower Curtain Run was very horrific.

At about 3 a.m. that night I saw in the bathtub three mosquitoes emerge from the bug spray fog. I think they were playing the drum and fife. The fight hadn't left them. Even as I annihilated them, others continued to swarm, biting, feeding. We were battle-worn. They lay injured, twitching, their tiny proboscises sticking from mangled heaps. I itched as red welts popped up on my arms.

I also worried some. I've written several stories in the past at the newspaper where I work about mosquito-borne diseases. West Nile, malaria and chikungunya — a particularly lovely ailment that creates fever, joint pain, muscle aches and sudden love for the North American Soccer League (the horror, the horror!) I didn't want to become afflicted with any viral infections.

By the third day of battle, the mosquitoes' numbers were dwindling. They had heavy casualties in their ranks. There may have been some army deserters, too. The guy next door to me was barbecuing in his back yard that evening and some of the pesky soldiers may have marched on over to his place.

I pulled back the shower curtain in the bathroom and saw two lone mosquitoes left. As I went in to squish one, the other took off and soon I heard the annoying whine as he (or maybe it was a she; aren't female mosquitoes more of the biting kind?) bore down on me. Smack. One down. Swat. Another gone.

It was over by the third evening. I persevered, waving my fly swatter like confederate Gen. John Sappington Marmaduke brandishing his saber. (I had to look that name up. I was educated in the north where our brief Civil War lessons consisted of “Yeah, we won. Moving along...”) The mosquitos were dead and my life returned to prewar status, albeit, a bit more scratchy. The APBA games resumed with nary a noise.

It's all quiet on the western front of my home; I check the door all the time now to make sure it's closed. Despite the victory, I don't want to have any more of my replay games cancelled. I always hated that vuvuzela noise anyway.

A Walk in the Park, a Year Later

Like most things, this began with a single step. Albeit, it was a hesitant step and a step in a direction I was not sure where it would lead back then.

But now, a year later and 300 miles later, the steps come easier.

It was a little over a year ago I began walking around a park in the town I live with a friend. I wanted to try to get somewhat healthy and lose weight. Too much potato chip chomping and sedimentary life left me, shall we say, “blobby.” The most exercise I was getting was typing news stories at work and rollin' the dice in whatever APBA baseball replay I was engaged with.

So, when a girl who works in the same building as I told me she wanted to walk but was leery of strolling in the park alone, I offered my services. I'm sure she was surprised; I'm sure she thought my idea of exercise was waddling back to the refrigerator for another Pepsi.

But on Aug. 17, 2013, I took that first step. And after about 100 steps I really wondered what I was getting into. The trek was flat, but I felt I had scaled the side of a mountain. I was wheezing, gasping and sweating. I still had three-quarters of the trail left to walk. I forged on, though, and tried not to die.

We made it and returned the following week and looped the trail again.

It became a weekly thing and we logged the miles we hiked. We usually made 5 to 6 miles each time. Sometimes we walked twice in a week, and during the Thanksgiving weekend, we made 22 miles in four days.

As we continued walking in the park, the struggle to take steps lessened and the miles became easier. Walking became easier and was, well, a walk in the park, I guess.

I hit 300 miles earlier this week when I walked a trail by myself. It was the first time I hiked it alone and I spent the two hours thinking of the trees, flora and nature I saw; failed relationships; and the path I had taken in my life. It was a combination of David Thoreau and Cheryl Strayed that day. Well, throw in Curly Stooge to that mix of deep thinkers — I failed to bring water and only had a Diet Pepsi to quench my thirst on a hot, humid Arkansas day.

The best thing: I began losing weight. Lots. This sounds insane and like I made this up, but in the year I've walked, I've lost 100 pounds. I still have another 40 to lose to be where I need to be, but it is a huge accomplishment to me. It's also an indication of just how dang big I was. To lose 100 pounds and still be what doctors refer to as obese fattassicus kind of gives one the impression that I was a tad big. Big as planetary big, big as in my girth needed at least two ZIP codes, big as in blocking the sun and scaring children and dogs.

I also gained a good friend. Walk 300 miles with someone and you get to know that person well. We talked about work, life, sports, writing ideas and whatever else fell out of my brain. She showed great patience, too, with my ramblings and observations — enough patience to make me wonder if the friendship could advance to something more. But, it didn't. Like I said, walk 300 miles with me and you get to know me well.

We're going walking again tomorrow and I'll log the miles when we're finished. I'm stunned I kept at it for a year, but the weight loss has been a big motivator. And the knowledge that a year ago, as I wrote in a previous piece here, getting out of the car winded me. Now, it's just a walk in the park.

20 Years Ago — When Baseball Changed

Twenty years ago today the game ended and I was able to say “I told you so,” to two of my friends.

The 1994 baseball season abruptly stopped on August 12 that year and didn't resume until the following spring, some 232 days later. It was the worst baseball strike; the World Series was cancelled for the first time in 90 years — the contest wasn't played in 1904 because New York Giants' owner John Brush felt his American League opponent, the Boston Red Sox, were “inferior.”

Two weeks earlier, on July 31, 1994, I called it as I and two friends drove around Busch Stadium in an endless loop while the Cardinals played Chicago inside. I begged my pals to go to the game, saying it would be the last chance that year we would have to see them. The Cards were scheduled to hit the road after playing the Cubs, heading to Montreal, Pittsburgh and then Florida. I knew it would be over soon.

They made it to Miami when the game ended.

My friends and I drove up to St. Louis for the day. We stopped at the train station just to the west of the stadium and saw the crowd decked in their Cardinals' wear preparing to head to the last game of the team's home stand.

I asked my friends if we could go, too. We weren't in my car, even though I drove. (One of the Guys Rules is that you do what the owner of the car wants, regardless who is behind the wheel.) They both wouldn't go and they placated me, saying I could go some other time that year. That's when I told them there would be no “other time.” It was either that day, or forget it. The baseball season would soon end. I may have even forecast the cancellation of the World Series.

But they still held back. I went for a more direct approach, asking them if they maybe had a quilting bee they needed to attend then, or some cooking show they wanted to watch. I said they could drop me off and then pick me up a few hours later after they stopped at their favorite dress stores. I asked the guys if their husbands knew they were out.. that sort of thing. You know. Hit 'em where it hurts.

Still, no game.

So, I drove around the stadium several times, peering inside in hopes of catching even a slight glimpse of baseball. Eventually, we left downtown, went to some inane mall and headed home, defeated, dejected and depressed.

And baseball changed. When the players returned in April 1995, attendance dropped by 20 percent, according to U.S Bureau of Statistics. Regardless of who was wrong in causing the strike, fans stayed away. It took the 1998 baseball home race between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire to bring them back. And then we learned those home runs were aided by steroids and, perhaps, baseball commissioner Bud Selig may have turned a blind eye toward PED usage in an effort to garner more fan support.

I, like a lot of people 20 years ago today, lost a part of the love of baseball I had since I was a kid. As we get older, we lose trust in lots of things, but we shouldn't lose it in the sport that is supposed to keep us young. I still embrace the history of baseball and that's where our APBA games come in. We can replay seasons of ago that still maintain that trust and, if we want, we can replay the 1994 season and ignore the strike and keep it going like it should have done.

Rolling the dice in our APBA game — sure beats driving around a stadium all day.

Update, June 1, 1950

After some delays and distractions, I've returned full steam to the 1950 APBA baseball replay I'm doing and it's well worth it. And, although I'm only about 25 percent finished with this replay, this season is shaping up as one of the best and closest replays I've ever done.

I slowed down a bit when life butted in. I helped a friend move over a period of a few weeks, I dealt with some weird medical deal that left me tired and I bought the APBA hockey season which pulled me away from the baseball game a bit. But, I chugged on, rolling a few of the hardball games just to keep the replay active.

And now I've reached June 1, 1950, in the replay and the personalities that we see in every replay we do are taking shape in this one.

In the National League, St. Louis has won six of seven and is now tied for first place with Pittsburgh. The Boston Braves are 1.5 games behind and New York, which has its own hot streak of winning nine of its last 10, is 2 games out of first place.

The Phillies, which won the National League in the real season, are mired in sixth place in my replay and are one of the more frustrating teams to play with. Eddie Waitkus leads Philadelphia with a batting average of .333 (I've not updated my stats in a bit, so the numbers aren't current). Maybe Waitkus is still reeling from being shot a year earlier by an obsessed fan at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. He did receive the Associated Press' “Comeback Player of the Year” after the 1950 season, however, and there's still 75 percent of the season left for him to help kick the Phillies into gear.

Brooklyn is also a frustrating team to play. The Dodgers hit plenty of home runs. They've clouted 56 in 42 games, and Don Newcombe is the best pitcher in the majors with an 8-0 record as of June 1. But the rest of the team is dismal. Jackie Robinson is batting an anemic .289 and Gil Hodges has an average of .234.

In the American League, three teams are vying for the lead. Detroit, led by George Kell's 14 doubles and Art Houtteman's 8-1 record, are in first place by 1.5 games over the Yankees and 2.5 over the Red Sox.

Just as I deemed the Philadelphia A's American League team as the worst one I've ever replayed, they reel off six wins in a row, including a three-game sweep of the Yankees.

So, it's good to get back into the swing. The hockey replay I began can wait a bit. Baseball takes precedence again. And, as is the mantra all of us APBA replayers say, “There's never enough time to do it all.” We have to make time and the 1950 season is priority for now.

Here's the standings:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Detroit        29   11   -

New York   28   13   1.5

Boston        29   16   2.5

Cleveland   22   20   8

Washington 18  24  12

St. Louis     16   26  14

Chicago      14   29  16.5

Philadelphia 13 30  17.5

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Pittsburgh     24   18    -

St. Louis       24   18   -

Boston          23   20  1.5

New York     22   20   2

Brooklyn       20  22  4

Chicago        18   21  4.5

Philadelphia 19   25   6

Cincinnati    17    23  6

Games on tap include a three-game series between Detroit and Philadelphia. Can the Tigers cool off the hot As? Boston travels to Pittsburgh for three games to begin the month of June in a clash of two over-achievers and Brooklyn heads to old rival St. Louis for three games as well.

It's a good replay, and well worth making time to keep on rolling the games.

Excuses, Excuses

My excuses for not rolling the APBA games much lately are endless:

•I helped a friend move to a new town over the past few weeks and didn't have as much time for rolling games. 

•My blood pressure shot up recently. I ended up at the doctor and am waiting for test results to see what's going on. 

•I changed my hours at work a bit and that minor shift has kept me from playing game in the mornings.

•I also bought the APBA hockey game three weeks ago and have spent more of my free time tossing contests for the 2013-14 season replay I began.

But none of the excuses is good enough (actually, they are APBAthetic) and I find I'm missing the baseball game. So, I resolved to get back on track, resume the 1950 replay I'm doing and enjoy the game as it's meant to be.

I haven't compiled the stats lately for the season; I'm about 100 games behind, and that will take a while to tally those numbers. I've not written any season updates here, either. And the season does deserve to be noted. The National League is pretty tight after each team has played between 35-40 games. Only seven games separate league leader Pittsburgh from cellar dweller Chicago. And the fourth place team, the New York Giants, is only 4.5 games out of first. Parity rules in the 1950 NL replay.

There's a bit more range in the 1950 American League replay I'm doing. However, the top four teams — Detroit, New York, Boston and Cleveland are within 6 games of each other. The Philadelphia As have solidified last place, some 17.5 games out already, and may go down as the worst replay team I've ever seen.

So, there are good story lines with this replay, as there are always in any replay. And I've missed them.

No more excuses. I'm hitting the games more frequently and I'll post updates as I go along. This is a good game and there shouldn't be any excuses not to play it.

Uniformly Speaking

I saw former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer the other day under the table at a Southaven, Miss., Applebees. He was wearing his No. 9 black and orange uniform with the tiger-striped sleeves and his name emblazoned on the back. I would have asked for his autograph, but his parents were helping him in locating the crayon he dropped while coloring the children's menu.

A few weeks earlier in Memphis where I attended the Grizzles vs. Miami Heat NBA game, I saw LeBron James in his No. 6 jersey sitting near where I was in the upper deck. I had never seen James in person before and didn't realize he was only about four and a half feet tall and about 10 years old. Didn't know he was white, either. I guess television distorts those things.

Come to think of it, I saw a lot of James in the FedEx Forum that night. He was standing in line to use the restroom in the concourse and pushing through the crowd on the stairway leading to inside the arena and buying a large foam finger. I even saw him eating a huge tray of nachos, which I thought was odd just before game time.

Sports jerseys are everywhere and I'm sure it's a way to show support for your team. Forbes reports that sales of jerseys are booming. Johnny Manziel's Cleveland Browns uniform is the best-selling football uniform this year — and he's not thrown a pass yet. The Manziel shirt surpassed those worn by Payton Manning, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick. Of course, Derek Jeter's No. 2 Yankees shirt is the hottest commodity in baseball, according to Forbes.

But, since I'm a becoming a curmudgeon type person in my old age I feel the desire to complain about something. Uniforms are in my sights today. I support my doctor, but I don't wear scrubs when I go in for check ups and I don't throw on a green shirt and cashier apron on visits to my favorite grocery store. And, although I've been accused as such, I don't dress like a clown when I go to a circus.

I wonder what the real players think when they see some old, short, out of shape dumpy guy balancing a drink tray and four hot dogs on his massive belly, all the while wearing that player's shirt.

A year or so after Mark McGwire's steroid-assisted home run “record” barrage of 1998, I took my former father-in-law to see a Cardinals' game in St. Louis. We saw more people wearing McGwire jerseys in the stands than people who live in some of the towns we drove through en route to the game. Some of the McGwire-clad fans couldn't hit a towering home run, let alone climb the towering steps to their seat in the third deck.

Maybe people put on the jerseys and have the Walter Mitty dream of that player getting injured in a game and he or she can step in and fill the player's position. I mean, baseball managers wear uniforms; some have taken a few at bats during games — think Pete Rose, Rogers Hornsby and Frank Robinson. Although, I don't think seeing Tommy Lasorda, bedecked in a Dodgers uniform, fielding a hot grounder to third would encourage a continued love of the game.

Other coaches don't wear jerseys. Can you imagine Gregg Popovich roaming the sidelines of a San Antonio Spurs game while wearing the black and gray shorts with the star-jangled spur on the sides? I'm not ready to see St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock fire a five-hole slapshot during a 2-on-one breakaway, either.

I'm not immune to not wearing jerseys. Or at least I wasn't. I wore my Twins' tee-shirt to Game 5 of the World Series in St. Louis in 1987. Because St. Louis is one of the kinder cities in the Midwest, I wasn't murdered during the game. I once wore a Boston Celtics green nylon jacket while strolling the streets of Philadelphia. A friend told me to leave the jacket in the car unless I wanted to be assaulted. (Reminds me of that old joke: Guy leaves his Celtics jacket in the back seat of his car. He returns to the car later to find someone had broken into the car by smashing out the windows. Police ask him if anything was taken. The guy says, “No, but there's another Celtics jacket in the back seat.”)

When I was a kid in Minnesota in the late 1960s, I wore a Vikings' jersey. It was former linebacker Roy Winston's No. 60 shirt. Most kids wore the jerseys of No. 10 Fran Tarkenton, No. 44 Chuck Foreman or No. 84 Gene Washington. I, keeping in tradition with the northern Minnesota humbleness, had the more obscure guy.

My dad also bought me a Notre Dame Fighting Irish shirt when I was very young. I looked more like the team's leprechaun mascot than some behemoth player.

But because of my athletic inabilities, I realized me wearing some sports shirt was akin to me donning a surgeon's outfit or an auto mechanic's garb. The two just don't fit.

Maybe jerseys are a good clothing alternative and maybe I'm just being a grump. I'd probably wear a St. Louis Blues jersey to support them, but since I'm so fat, people would probably mistake me for the Blues' logo-bedecked Zamboni machine instead of T.J. Oshie.

Eight Years Later

An open letter to my wife who died July 14, 2006

Eight years ago today you passed away; you said you weren't feeling well and I promised we'd go to the doctor that morning to see what was troubling you. A few hours later, I found you gone.

It's been eight years now and I wanted to give you an update on how things have been. This won't be some maudlin “woe is me" thing. I'm passed that. I don't know if you've seen that; I don't know how that Heaven stuff works. Maybe you are watching, maybe not.

The point is, I've soldiered on and you'd be surprised at some of the things I've done. Survival happens when you have to. Since you've been gone I refinanced our house. I know, me? Shocking. I couldn't figure out how to roll coins in those wrappers when you were alive and then I bluff a finance company into helping me after our friends at Wells Fargo raised the mortgage three months after you died.

I bought a new car and it's paid for. Again with the shock, I know!

I also filed bankruptcy the spring of 2009. Those medical bills were too much and, you know, I work for a newspaper, and, because of its economic instability, it's the dumbest financial planning move I could have done. But I came out of that last month and things are picking up.

And, get this: A bad storm ripped up the roof on the house last month and I got an insurance adjuster to tell me I need a new roof. These things are simple for most people, but I didn't realize I relied so much on you back then. The roofer should be here soon.

I've lost over 100 pounds in the last year, too. The depression I felt after what happened tore me up and I ate and drank pretty heavily. I used to pour energy drinks down my gullet and I had a doctor tell me I wouldn't make it to 50 if I kept that up. On the eve of my 50^th birthday, I guzzled energy drinks so I could stay up past midnight to prove him wrong.

But then I met someone at work who has helped me. We walk around a lake and park every Saturday, logging 3-6 miles. That helps. I don't look like the Shoney's Big Boy anymore, and for the first time in a while, I actually care that I'm alive.

So, I've done okay when I had to.

I've gone out with a few girls, but those have crashed. Once, I took a girl to dinner and I knew it was a disaster before the main course was served. I was waving for the check with one hand and a white flag of surrender with the other.

Some have since asked me if I knew your kidneys would begin failing six months after we got married would I still have gotten married? The last three years of your life were tough, but I am glad we went through that together. I learned more about myself in those three years than any other time of my life. I learned what love really was and no matter how much I cut myself down about everything else, I know I was one of the best husbands there was. I hold on to that.

I still read a lot. I still try writing. I still play the APBA games. A lot. I roll games almost every day. The game helps; it still provides a great escape.

So, now, eight years later, I wanted to give you an update. I've not done anything stupid lately. That winter after you were gone, I actually sat on my bed with a loaded .38 pointed at my head. It got that bad then. But I persevered. And now it's better. That won't happen again. I still miss you. I will always miss you more than anything.

But I'm doing okay.

Eight years. It seems like such a long time, but then it also seems like it was just the other day. I can't get my mind around that passage of time very well. The counsellors always indicate getting past certain landmark years is the measure of success. The first year, the fifth year, the seventh year.

I'm at eight now. And next year it will be nine and in 2017, it'll be 10. I take it each year at a time.

I just wanted you to know how things were going and tell you not to worry. I think I'll be okay.