Okay, I know this is premature, as the baseball season will not start for a few more weeks, but, anyway, what is it with baseball players? To my knowledge, no other athlete considers it necessary to spew projectile saliva to the ground before each and every activity. Well, those of us who know our history will be aware that back at the turn of the century just about all baseball players chewed tobacco while playing the game. This, no doubt, got the ball rolling for the spitting tradition, so to speak. In fact, Seth Livingston of USA Today tells us that the term “bullpen” was derived from Bull Durham tobacco. This product was first produced in 1860 by the Blackwell Tobacco Company and was a favorite among baseball players who, reportedly, chewed tobacco in order to produce saliva while on dusty infields. Saliva generated from “chew” also provided the lubricant of choice for the infamous spitball. There must have been a lot of brown baseballs back in those days, at least in comparison to today, when an umpire will summarily eject any baseball that has ever come into contact with anything other than a little sweat and leather.

Continue “C’mon, spit it out!”

I was clicking through TV stations a couple of weekends ago leading up to the Daytona 500 when I stumbled upon a NASCAR race in progress. I watched the action for a bit as the cars careened around the track at nearly 200 miles per hour while, for the most part, remaining only inches apart–something which I more or less do each morning on my way to work. Thus, in short order, I found the whole affair pretty boring. First of all, there are exactly four corners on that track, so it quickly became apparent that any real excitement was most likely to occur just as the pack was entering or leaving a turn (or, in my case, an amber traffic light). In between, of course, there was the rapid increase in speed on the straight-aways, and then braking for a turn. And so on. And so on. In circles, unending.

Continue “Going in circles”

I am a southern-fried Yankee. As you know by now, I was born and raised in the Midwest, but have spent most of my adult life residing south of the Mason-Dixon line. (Not being a history buff, I am not sure what that is, but, on the other hand, I am pretty sure it’s north of where I live.) As I have mentioned in some of my earlier ruminations, this came about following my enlistment in the Coast Guard, as my first duty station was Hawaii. My experience in Hawaii is reminiscent of an experience my wife and I had with a cocker spaniel we once owned named “Scooter.” When Scooter was just a pup we found that we could open the front door of our home on any given Saturday morning and the little guy would dash out to the driveway, ears a-flopping, pick up the newspaper, which was almost as big as he was, and bring it right into the house.

How cute.

Continue “Yanks and rebs”

Humility, of course, is a noun derived from the word “humiliation.” Generally, one has to have a good solid dose of the latter in order gain the virtues of the former. I have had my share. In fact, one of the challenges in writing this rather lengthy essay was to select only two of scores of such experiences to share with you.

One of my earliest memories of humiliating myself in full view of all my friends and peers occurred in the eighth grade. I considered myself a pretty good speller back in those days. So, on this particular morning in Mr. Decker’s science class, the students were asked how to spell “vacuum.” Having a perennial “D” average throughout most of my school years, I was excited to have the rare chance to show everyone how smart I really was, even though I never did any homework whatsoever.

Hand up! Hand up! Me! Me! I know! I know!

“Okay, okay, Skip, please spell vacuum for the class.”

“Yessir, it is spelled v-a-c-u-m-e,” I said, quite pleased with myself, actually.

Continue “Humility”

Someone once said that there is a thin line between fishing and doing nothing. I have written of the sport of fishing in the past, and those of you who may have read those pieces no doubt understand that I prefer fishing activities that might be better described as the latter than the former.

Anyway, I have an old wooden fishing bobber sticking up out of the corner of a little cane basket I keep on my side-counter in the kitchen. This basket is basically a back-up to my more traditional junk drawer (more on that another time), except the various odds-and-ends in there are more likely to have some actual utility in the near term – with the exception of that bobber. So, one might wonder, why have I not relegated it to the junk drawer? Funny you should ask. Actually, I am not sure. But I think it might be because it reminds me of a great fishing trip I once took with my son Jay and how much fun we had.

Continue “Gator bait”