what's new with me, you ask?

(when it is obvious you watch too much baseball)

a man I work with has learned to stop loving the Detroit lions. I have learned how to stop loving, but not stop caring. but this is about baseball.

I have been a tigers fan since I was born. I think my abuelito anointed me with the old English d at my baptism. which explains why I feel closer, at times, to jim Leyland than to god. or at least understand him (as opposed to Him).

but it hasn't been easy. yes, there was the glory of 1984, but I was so young/it was so early on in the loving them, it almost feels too long ago to be real. I see the pictures and can't imagine alan trammel playing with lou Whitaker, can't remember the specific way lance parrish crouched, kirk Gibson in anything but an abrasive yellow suit calling ball games those few years, and so on. and since then, what's it been? mostly disappointments. the one return to the playoffs (that I remember, there may have been more) and the corollary success of tigers who'd moved on (gibby). oh, and bobby Higginson.

then there's the faith, or "keeping the faith". there's the feeling that you have to love your team as close to unconditionally as possible, even when they overpay juan "my toe hurts" Gonzales, trade todd jones (back when he was can't-miss), and fire phil garner (aka jim Leyland version 1.0). but you have to forgive, or do the thing that approximates forgiveness: attempt to forget.

and then, after years upon years of defending your love of the tigers to friends, family, "they're coming around", "things are going to change, I can feel it", after the lies ("juan encarnacrion is going to be the next Griffey jr.") and the inability to follow through even on setting the record for most losses in a season, there's what seems like an epiphanic reward: a trip to the world fucking series.

you're proud. you have earned it. you watched every game, afternoon and night, for years. I mean YEARS. before carlos guillen signed, before pudge signed, before verlander was even a draft pick. and now, look, there's your Brandon inge (high knee socks and all) over at third! you knew he could do it! he could be AN EVERYDAY PLAYER! you feel vindicated, right? like you showed them all wrong.

until they degenerate into self-destructive behavior: being impatient at the plate. not setting one's feet before throwing to first. even something which some would call cheating: pine tar on the hand. and they lose. and you lose.

the signs were all there, right? the cheating (but would you have called it cheating if you'd ended up with a [world series] ring?), the lying, the disappointments, the you-always-being-the-one-to-forgive-and-forget, the you always compromising (baseball over hockey, baseball over everything), you always trying harder to make it better (as though your practice swings in the jolly road batting cages would really help) but being so acutely aware of all signs pointed to an impending implosion:

inge's strikeouts rise, the pitchers have no control, bodies break down, and on and on. you feel it. 2007 was going to be great, right? a few good months and you had it in the bag.

but no. but no. but no.

how many years are you going to let the roof cave in before you move? how many bad trades, lies, suspected incidences of cheating (where there's a smudge, there's fire) is it going to take? how many times do they drag you through the fire before you stop?

that's what it's like now. I can't imagine going back now, because I'm always waiting for the sky to fall. there's always that great month (june! no one can beat us!) and then the slowly telegraphed collapse: you say you're going to the YMCA, but you come home smelling like beer. you say the hot bartender is just a friend, yet you hide her name in your phone by pretending she is your sister. you lie about more and more, and the truth percentage is lower than Brandon inge's worst ever batting average. but at least there's someone there to call a hit, right?

and I realize you don't love me even close to the way I deserve, or have earned. you don't love me the way I love the tigers. you don't even love the tigers, you just watch or say you want to watch when you want to go out to the bar (by yourself). you don't know what it means to protect the plate. you'd rather have the glory of a homerun than the grit of the drag bunt.

there's at least hope with the tigers. there's no hope left here. and that's sad. that's awful. I carried that hope around for both of us, like your bat boy. I did everything you asked. I took so many for the team my thighs have permanent bruises and I swear they look like the back of your jersey.

but the tigers didn't say they loved me. you did. the tigers didn't say "I really do love you", "please forgive me", "I will never do that to you again". they put their helmets on and went back to work. and the tigers weren't there for our daughter's birth (can you imagine how nervous todd jones would be?) and they didn't run and hide and dodge…they stayed. in Detroit. where it's hard.

because they want to win, they believe they can win.

but I can't play with you anymore. at least the tigers aren't lying anymore. they're not leading Brandon inge on, they're not telling me Miguel Cabrera is "just a friend who wants to see what third base would be like…you know, I'm not shopping for a new third baseman".

find someone else to carry your torch, your bat bag, your jock strap. I'm done. cancel my contract, lose my agent's phone number, I am cleaning out my locker and I won't ever see you in Lakeland again.

the democratic party as the detroit lions

great bob herbert op-ed in the sunday new york times:

Road Map to Defeat - New York Times

The Democrats have become so psychologically battered by these many
decades in the leadership wilderness that they consider the Clinton
years, during which the president was impeached and they lost control
of both houses of Congress, to have been a period of triumph.

***

yes! isn't that it? doesn't it feel the same as watching the lions staff call 5 wins, or 6, an encouraging sign? or the michigan state football team celebrating their bowl game appearance, an honor only bestowed because they were slightly above mediocre and because there are so many companies willing to sponsor a meaningless bowl game? (seriously: the outback bowl? the music city bowl? doesn't every D1 school host one of these silly "inter-league-post-season" fiascoes?)

so much for that feeling in november of 06, having taken majorities, thinking the war would end and bush would be stymied a bit. even after the bush administration handed the dems the virtual heads of karl rove and donald rumsfield on a silver platter: nothing.

i want so badly for this country, and the dems, to get it together, to make some type of advance. to stop bleeding money, warmongering, pork-barrel projects, propping up failing industry (after all, if capitalism is supposed to work, why does the gov't have to help it so often?) and giving safe exit to corporations who bankrupt their workforce and yet manage to pay their ceo's tens of millions of dollars for "successfully navigating bankruptcy".

it's the same old song: if you want to win, you have to be serious. i see too many progressive-minded folk treating their work and lives as though they don't need to be held accountable--to schedules, being in the office to answer the phone and do the shitty work, being organized, and then celebrating the bullshit little things instead of not wasting the time and charging full steam ahead--when what they are supposed to be doing is holding other people accountable to existing laws or creating new ones.

a hilarious man named don wolcott once said "being on time is not a right-wing conspiracy", and i think it is a point well taken. do you want to know why the republicans are always winning? they are organized, more so than the progressives who like to invoke the grassroots ideal of organizing. they have a 5, 10, 20, probably even 300 year plan. they have an agenda. they are on time. their offices are always staffed. they show up for meetings.

if we will take aim at republicans for their obvious hypocrisies--voting against gay rights when they are gay, etc--then shouldn't we work to minimize our own? shouldn't we make ourselves as unassailable as possible? you know, not breaking laws, even if you don't think the laws are fair? because my bet is a lot of corporations don't think it is fair to provide health insurance, or retirement benefits, or consider their workers above their profits. but isn't that what we want them to do?

there's no excuse. perhaps i am becoming a moral absolutist as i age, or believe too strongly in the 'doctrine of correspondence'; the outside should match the inside.

as mr. herbert points out, the people of this country are practically begging for the dems to step up and (my words here) just fucking accomplish something. so do it.

because i am feeling very catholic right now

from http://saints.sqpn.com/saintado.htm:

Saint Albert of Montecorvino

Memorial

5 April

Profile

Taken to Montecorvino in Apulia, Italy as a child. Bishop. He became blind in later years, but was known to his visions, and as a miracle worker.

Born

in Normandy

Died

1127 at Montecorvino, Apulia, Italy

Print References

Dictionary of Saints, by John Delaney

Translate

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anyhow, i am fascinated by the "profile" section--april 5th was the day evie had her stick/eye incident.

maggie, maybe per our conversation last night, this is less coincidence?

in other news, i have lit every one of my saint's candles which will still light, and i have an almost uncontrollable urge to go to church.

the scariest day of my life

we went to the dog park today. evie was playing along the edge of the path, where there are trees, sticks, and some "stick up" sort of branches or small trees that have snapped off over the winter.

she's three feet away, and i see her fall. she screams, cries--i grab her and when she pulls her hand away from her eye i see a bunch of scratches across her face, mostly in that path of flesh where we get dark undereye circles. jeremy and i check out what she'll let us see and think, for a moment, it's okay.

then she lets me pull her eyelid back, and i see blood. jeremy takes off running to get the car, i take off running with evie. people are staring, i assume they think some dog bit her.

the whole time, our little one is saying she doesn't want to go, she doesn't want to see the doctor, etc. i'm running with her and telling her we trust the doctor, they will make it okay. the minute i saw the blood i though she had damaged her eye, would be blind, all the horrible things you'd imagine. i thought all my internal organs fell through my pelvis, i really wanted to cry.

i jumped in the seat, held evie and tried to strap us both in. jeremy drove nascar-style to the hospital.

thank god for sparrow hospital. i ran into the er and said she took a stick to the eye 10 minutes ago. they got us right in, and after only a few minutes determined there was no damage to the eye. an hour or so of different eye exams followed to make sure, and the doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, etc were amazing. spectacular. they even kept her stocked with popsicles, showed her everything they'd do before they did it, and played silly games with her.

the doctor told us we were really good parents. it's nice to get a compliment like that, esp. given the situation.

i have never been so terrified. sometimes being a parent can be so frustrating or mundane that you forget how lucky you are, how blessed. holding her on my lap with a sock pressed over her eye, running with her thru the park--it was like having her born all over again, that fright and wait and oh-god-what-if-something-is-really-wrong.

it looks like the stick (which i suspect was a small tree, snapped off at its base) went through her skin, then scratched her lower inner eyelid. i cannot believe how lucky we were, how lucky she is. the doctors tell us the human body will always reflexively find a way to protect the eyeball from injury--as such, they haven't seen more than a handful of direct eye injuries in the decades they've been there.

i think i'll be lighting my saint's candles in the morning, and saying my thank you prayers, if not walking down to the catholic church here.

i can't believe how lucky we are, but i am so grateful for it. evie is our heart and our soul, and seeing her in any kind of pain (though she took it better than i can imagine myself taking it) just made me feel like everything had left my body.

so for the next seven days we will apply ointment to her wound, give her some really strong oral antibiotics, and give her carte blanche to have as many popsicles, as much ice cream, watch as many movies, as she wants. i was so relieved, i told her i felt like buying her a (non-conflict) diamond.

so do me a favor and say a little thanks to whomever you like to say such things to. i'll be saying mine, and saying another to maggie and ben, who rescued our dog from the hot car while we were in with evie.