Life and Death During the Pandemic Era

The last several years I've written annual recap blog posts sharing things from the past year that inspired me (places I traveled, books I read, pieces I wrote, music I loved, etc), but up until now I couldn't bring myself to do so about this past year because, well, fuck 2020. 

Mixtape in Memoriam of Kobe

From its humble inception 11 years ago this blog began with me showing love for the beauty of Kobe Bryant's jump shot, so now since today would have been Kobe's 42nd birthday I'd like to share some thoughts on the late Lakers legend, plus post a mixtape of choice clips of the Black Mamba. 

While I was never a Lakers fan and was usually rooting against Kobe as a Knicks fan (or as a fan of Allen Iverson or Tracy McGrady or Vince Carter as they went up against Kobe), he was such an amazingly talented, flashy, dynamic, high-flying and insanely competitive player it was impossible not to be entertained by his game even as he was kicking your team's ass. Dude was an absolute legend. During the latter half of his career I spent some time living in Southern California and got to watch a lot of Lakers games on local cable. In those days I also had a friend who was a huge Lakers fan and we'd argue about Kobe's place among the all-time greats. 

Prior to his tragic death early this year, the most recent memories I had of Kobe, the events that stuck in my head as I-remember-where-I-was-when-that-happened kinda moments, were how bad I felt for him the night he tore his Achilles and how happy I was for him watching his unforgettable final NBA game when he dropped 60 in a win against Utah. And I remember seeing that video of Kobe and Gianna, the father teaching his attentive daughter as they sat courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game, a month before the accident that took their lives. 

Looking back on it, the horrible death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash on January 26th stands out as a harbinger of the unthinkably dark and depressing months to come. Strangely, that period of grieving and binge-watching Kobe videos, watching the memorial they held at Staples Center, that was actually the final period of normalcy we had before the world we knew suddenly collapsed. I remember I was at work, on a lunch break when I caught Michael Jordan's eulogy for Kobe at his memorial. (My office would soon be closed indefinitely.) The Staples Center that day was filled with the gods of basketball lore all gathered together in the arena Kobe called home, all mourning a fallen star. Everybody packed together in Los Angeles and just one month later all public gatherings would be banned, NBA's season indefinitely shut down, America's confrontation with the coronavirus escalating. 

I remember that Sunday afternoon hearing the news about Kobe and Gianna and it was a gut punch. That shit hurt for a while. I was shocked how hard it hit me. Just seeing headlines with the words The Death of Kobe Bryant just looked surreal, bizarre, fake or unthinkable like The Death of Superman. I kept talking to friends about it, trying to process it with anyone who understood the impact of the death of Kobe, and at night I'd get lost in watching every YouTube video of Kobe I could find, reliving his greatest highlights and reliving my history as a basketball fan, commiserating with every commentator on the loss of Kobe from late night talk show hosts and retired NBA greats to Randy Moss and Jason Alexander and anybody who felt or understood the impact of the death of Kobe. The shock was well captured by Jon Batiste talking to Stephen Colbert, describing that viscerally painful realization that "even the mighty among us, those who seem like they'll live forever, the immortal ones could be gone (snap) just like that."

After the death of Kobe I felt like something inside me broke. To heal it I had to binge watch Kobe videos. I was trying to keep my memories of Kobe alive, everything I had ever loved and been inspired by about Kobe, I was trying to bring it all back to life. Having had a while to think about it now, what made me love Kobe so much, besides the entertainment value of his game was his drive, his inspiration, his internal push to achieve greatness. He was born with gifts, the son of pro basketball player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant whose hoop genes he surely inherited, but Kobe was never complacent, he famously had an ethic to work as hard as he possibly could to get the most out of his gifts. He was notoriously an asshole in his competitive excesses but he was driven to be the absolute best to ever play the game of basketball, determined to outdo his idol Michael Jordan. There was a great scene in the ESPN Jordan documentary where you hear Jordan in the locker room before an All-Star game talking about the "little Laker boy" whose cockiness would get the best of him. Kobe/Jordan battles evolved sharply over the years until the torch was officially passed to the Black Mamba who reached his scoring peaks around when Jordan finished his twilight years with the Wizards. Seeing Jordan pour his heart out in mourning his little brother at the Kobe memorial, it felt extra heart-wrenching that young Kobe was being laid to rest while the older Jordan was delivering his eulogy. The whole thing brought to the forefront for me the unyielding passage of time, the inescapableness of death, and the cold reality of our loneliness as human beings who are, despite all of our impacts and connections, born alone and who die alone.  

At the same time, in the aftermath of the death of Kobe I felt the reality of the idea espoused in the works of James Joyce which essentially amounts to: in death, absence can become the greatest form of presence. I thought about Kobe more in the wake of his passing that I had in many years. Kobe was on my mind constantly for weeks. I know that was the case for a lot of people. Jordan captured that in his eulogy, describing how we all feel like some part of us died when Kobe died. I'm still thinking about and feeling some feelings about Kobe Bryant today on his 42nd birthday. 

And so in honoring his memory, here is a mixtape of some of my favorite videos that capture what made Kobe Bryant such an iconic and inspiring figure.

Pennant Picks

Baseball events often serve as a time marker for me. I can look back at past exciting or historic events happening in baseball games and recall where I was at the time, what was going on in my life or in the world at large.

I watched the first game of the Yankees-Mets Subway Series in 2000 on a little portable television in the back of a car while my dad drove me and some friends home from a Saturday evening hockey game in Long Island. When the Yanks and Red Sox started their marathon Game 7 in 2003 (eventually won by Aaron Boone's walkoff homer) I was playing a roller hockey game for my college team at an outdoor rink in Chelsea Piers. I saw the White Sox win the World Series in 2005 at Mickey Mantle's restaurant near Central Park while on a date with a girl from Italy. 

The last two Octobers I watched from the living room of my San Diego apartment and now I've witnessed the excitement of this year's pennant chase here in Austin. The classic deciding game Friday night between the Phillies and Cardinals will forever be etched in my memory as I watched it unfold in amazement while eating baked ziti and sipping beer at an overpriced bar/restaurant down the road. (I attempted to watch the first game of that series at another restaurant last week but once the Texas Longhorns game started, every television in the bar was switched to that crappy meaningless game against Iowa State and I was screwed. Will certainly always remember that, too.)

I wasn't alive in the late 1960s but from watching Ken Burns' baseball documentary over and over again, I've come to associate the baseball events going at that time with the social upheavals and global events going on at the same time. In that documentary series, each decade gets its own lengthy treatment and the 60s is by far my favorite. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the assassination of JFK (and RFK, Malcolm X, and MLK) aren't ignored, in fact they are perfectly weaved in to the baseball events in that decade as Bob Gibson's Cardinals dominated the era, Carl Yastrzemski carried the Sox in '67, the Orioles built a powerhouse and Washington DC nearly burnt to the ground after rioting in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Protesters burned their draft cards and choppers flew over the jungles of Saigon.

As incredible as the crescendo of this baseball season has been, it will always be associated in my mind with the movement springing up in downtown Manhattan (my former stomping grounds) and spreading across the nation, the peaceful uprising and dissent against oppressive oligarchy and austerity measures. I confess to being a severe baseball addict, but as exciting and engaging as it has all been this year, the Occupy Wall Street news has been competing for my attention since it began in mid-September. The baseball games have often absorbed me in transfixion but at the same time my thoughts are constantly with the people out sleeping on the cement in the cold New York autumn.

Now, on to the baseball...

It seemed like nothing could touch the melodrama and excitement of the regular season's conclusion, but then we witnessed a Divison Series that featured four tightly fought matchups, three of which went down to the final game, and two of which saw huge upsets. The Rays series only lasted four games but the last three of those were all nail-biters. Now the smoke has cleared and we're left with just four teams in matchups that look to be just as competitive and entertaining as anything we've seen all year. Here are some thoughts on the two series we will watch over the next week.

National League Championship Series
Cardinals (90-72) vs. Brewers (96-66)

The Brewers were a popular World Series pick but I don't think anybody imagined they would be in this position, facing their sworn enemies for the NL pennant. The Cardinals don't belong here. They lost their best pitcher before the season began, were written off as a contender in Spring Training, and were trailing the final playoff spot by 9 games in early September. When they managed to climb all the way back into it and win on the final day, that only guaranteed them a match against the best team in the major leagues, the 102-win Phillies. Well, they've slayed yet another dragon and here they are.

This looks to be an extremely close and exciting series. These two teams genuinely don't like each other, they had some bean ball incidents this summer, lots of trash talk, and they represent two different poles on the spectrum---the Cards are the gritty, scrappy veterans and the Brewers are young, loud-mouthed and here for the first time. The Cardinals have been doing this for a good 12 years now, this is their 6th appearance in an LCS during that span while the Brewers organization had not won a playoff series since 1982. At that time they were still in the American League, led by manager Harvey Keunn, they were known as "Harvey's Wallbangers" and they went all the way to the World Series where they lost to... the Cardinals! (Dan Okrent's great book 9 Innings covers those Brewers at length.)

On the field, the teams are closely matched in the rotation, bullpen, defense, and lineup. While the Brewers boast a superb top-three starting pitchers in Yovani Gallardo, Zack Grienke, and Shaun Marcum, the Cardinals' top-three are no slouches and perfectly capable of matching up against the much more heralded Milwaukee trio. Chris Carpenter leads the St. Louis bunch with his alliterative appellation and strike zone carving repertoire, young lefty Jaime Garcia put up basically the same numbers as Carpenter in fewer innings, and Edwin Jackson is capable of matching zeroes with anybody the Brewers have. Both teams run deep in the bullpen, too.

Both teams pack high-octane offenses mostly led, again, by superior trios. For Milwaukee it's Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks in the heart of the lineup while St. Louis relies on Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, and Lance Berkman. Combined, those trios match up pretty well although maybe the Cards have a very slight edge. Outside of those, the role players seem to tilt in the Cardinals' favor. Third baseman David Freese would be a household name by now if he could ever stay healthy because the boy can hit. Yadier Molina emerged as one of the better hitting catchers in baseball this year, shortstop Rafael Furcal has looked like his old self in this postseason, and the Cardinals even boast a pretty strong bench (that micromanager Tony LaRussa loves to employ).

In comparison, the Brewers have a few more liabilities on offense. Guys like Casey McGehee, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Jonathan Lucroy can pop out a homerun every now and then but they had poor seasons overall. Neither team is any good defensively, although I think analysts are sometimes a bit too overzealous in dismissing the Brewers in that respect.

Really, the teams are so closely matched that there's no way to pinpoint a particular weakness that will decide the series. It should be one for the ages, perhaps the best LCS since the Red Sox and Yankees in 2004. I prefer to see the Brewers win and they are my pick because they have homefield advantage but I think it will go all 7 games and feature plenty of fireworks.

American League Championship Series
Tigers (95-67) vs. Rangers (96-66)

This matchup, to me, looks closer than it really is. The Rangers are a far superior team, in fact, they were probably the best team in all of baseball this year (Baseball Prospectus has a rather complicated extraction that bears this out). Jon Daniels deserves a lot of credit, he was the youngest general manager in baseball history when he stepped into the role for the Rangers in 2005 at the age of 28, and he has built this team into a well-rounded, deep powerhouse.

Let me get this out of the way: I live in Texas right now and the team Daniels has assembled is an admirable one, but I'm not a fan of this team at all. Eric over at Pitchers & Poets recently wrote a nice piece about why he's pulling for the Rangers despite their shady associations (George W. Bush being the most prominent one) but I'm not falling for it. I'd certainly like to root for this team because of a guy like Jon Daniels and what he's done here, but I've been to the ballpark, I've watched this team for years as an Oakland A's fan and I just don't like them.

As I wrote earlier this year, the Detroit Tigers are a team that I can root for. They represent a decrepit, broken down and demoralized city that has hosted baseball since the beginning of the American League. Detroit is a rich sports town with a great baseball history. Texas? I couldn't watch a Texas Rangers playoff game at a bar because a fucking Texas-Iowa State college football game was on. I can't root for that kind of stupidity. Anywho...

The Rangers are an all-around powerhouse that can beat up any team and their dad. Adrian Beltre blasted three homeruns in one game the other day and he's probably the third-best hitter on this team (behind Mike Napoli and Josh Hamilton). The lineup is absolutely scary. If there's one thing that might be in the Tigers' favor here, it's that there are so many right-handed hitters in the lineup and Detroit has an all-righty pitching staff but the Rangers don't seem to care what hand the pitcher throws with. They'll blast off against anybody. The Detroit offense can put up runs too, most of them will come from Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez. Jhonny Peralta is an interesting player not just because of the misplaced "h" in his name but because he seemingly resurrected his career in the Motor City and renewed his status as an offensive threat. Alex Avila, the rookie catcher, had a spectacular season at the plate but so far in the playoffs he hasn't shown up (just 1 hit in 16 at-bats).

Like every other part of this team, the Texas pitching staff runs deep. If five starters were needed in a playoff series, they could throw out five great ones, but they only need four so Alexi Ogando was put into the bullpen and we all saw what he's capable of last night (97 mph fastballs at the corners). This very interesting rotation boasts three tough lefties and a righty who remade himself after a stint in Japan. The Japanese league guy seems to be the only liability here as Colby Lewis followed up his superb 2010 campaign with an up-and-down season this year (he pitched fine, just gave up way too many homers). Detroit depends on their workhorse Justin Verlander, the easy Cy Young choice this season, but he seems to be losing steam this past month or so. They'll need him to pick it up and possibly pitch 3 times in this series if they hope to win. I predicted Max Scherzer would have a huge year for Detroit before the season, but he didn't. He pitched well with plenty of strikeouts but, like Colby Lewis, he surrendered a bunch of homeruns. I worried about that coming into the playoffs but Scherzer pitched great against the Yankees in two appearances so look for him to be a big part of this series.

Joaquin Benoit basically became a national hero with his heroic relief effort for Detroit against the Yankees to seal their demise in the previous round, and the Tigers do have a nice bullpen. But nothing comes close to this Rangers relief group. As I mentioned, they brought Alexi Ogando out of the pen in Game 1 yesterday and he was nearly untouchable. They also have two of the best relievers in baseball over the last few years, Mike Adams and Koeji Uehara, at their disposal and then flame-throwing Neftali Feliz as the final piece. Even their middle-relief or platoon pitching options are solid. It's gonna be really tough to score against the group late in the game.

I really don't like the Rangers but there's no denying how strong they are as a team. While I will be rooting hard for the underdog Detroit to knock them out, I don't realistically see it happening. My pick: Rangers in six.

Warmups: Stadium Stories

Baseball season is on its way. Opening Day is a week from tomorrow and, before I start posting my previews for each division, I'd like to first get a little warmed up for baseball writing with a few posts on various things related to baseball. First up is an inventory of all the major league ballparks I've ever been to.

Doubtless, there are better places to spend summer days, summer nights, than in ballparks. Doubtless.
Nevertheless, decades after a person has stopped collecting bubble-gum cards, he can still discover himself collecting ballparks. And not just the stadiums, but their surrounding neighborhoods, their smells, their special seasons and moods.--Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates the World Series

1. Yankee Stadium
It was here that I attended my first baseball game ever on July 21, 1995. My brother John brought me to a game as a birthday present (it was a few days after my 10th birthday) and the annual outing to Yankee Stadium would become a birthday staple over the next few years until I defiantly renounced my Yankee fanhood right around the same time everybody started jumping on the bandwagon. My favorite player growing up was Jim Leyrtiz, the bat-spinning back-up catcher and first baseman (who was obscure in those days but went on to become a World Series hero). Each year, John would choose the perfect game to attend, somehow always knowing which games Leyritz would be starting. That first game in '95 Leyritz actually started at first base against the Texas Rangers' lefty Kenny Rogers (Leyritz was replaced by Don Mattingly later in the game). The Yanks won 8-3 and the winning pitcher was Dave Eiland who went on to become the Yankees' pitching coach for these last three years.

I saw a bunch of games here over the years with various people: John and I went to Game 1 of the World Series in 1996 when the Yanks got shellacked by the Braves (though I got to see Jim Leyritz catch the whole game); during the summer of my first job in 1999, working as a messenger for the company both my mom and John worked for in lower Manhattan, a co-worker named Lou decided one day that we should skip work and go watch an afternoon Yanks-Blue Jays game from the bleachers; Baseball Prospectus writer Jay Jaffe brought me along to an ALDS game against the Tigers in 2006; and I got to say my last goodbyes in an early season game against the Rays in 2008, right before moving to San Diego (that was the Yankees' last season in the old stadium).

2. Veterans Stadium
My Aunt Jeanie brought my brother Billy and I to a game here in '95 or '96. It was Billy's first game ever and it was the Phillies against the San Diego Padres, an interesting augur because ten years later Billy would take up residence across the country in San Diego (which led to me moving out there too). That night, Billy caught a foul ball in his hat (!) that was lined off the bat of Pads' outfielder Melvin Nieves. I remember the stadium was enormous and imposing.

3. Shea Stadium

Shea Stadium in 2003

Although I can't recall my very first visit to this lovable old dump, it was here that I would watch more games than anyplace else over the years. After the Yankees started throwing money around (and dumping players like my old fave Jim Leyritz who went on to lead the Padres to the World Series) I grew sick of them and jumped on the bandwagon of my father's team: the Mets. This was during the years of Mike Piazza and Robin Ventura so it was a fun team to follow. I've been a diehard Mets fan ever since and I get maudlin and misty-eyed thinking about this place because, even though the building was a dump, I had so many great memories here. A few that stick out in my mind are these:

• A Saturday night interleague game against the Angels (John's favorite team) in which the Mets rallied twice in the late innings and won. Marlon Anderson tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with an inside-the-park homerun (!) against current Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez. After surrendering a run in the top of the 10th, the Mets put two guys on base with their best hitters, Carlos Beltran and Piazza, coming up. They both struck out. It was all up to Cliff Floyd. He worked a full count, fouled off about a hundred pitches, then struck a monster homerun to win the game. Floyd was hurt so much in his career and is retired now but he provided a bunch of great evenings for Mets fans during a two year stretch. This was probably the most exciting game I've ever witnessed in person. I was sitting with John and his wife Kristina in one of my favorite spots in Shea: near the foul pole in fair territory out in left field.
• A Friday night game against the Phillies that was rain-delayed for about 3 or 4 hours before getting under way. I was at the game with John, Kristina, and my little sister Emily. John and Kristina left early because it was late, wet, and freezing. Me and Em stayed til the bitter end and got to see Carlos Beltran launch a walk-off bomb which had us jumping up and down and screaming with our cheap ponchos on.
• Witnessed the last two games in Montreal Expos history as they played two meaningless matches against the Mets on the last weekend of the season at Shea. The Mets and Expos both stunk that year and I lucked into having tickets to both of the last two games fall into my lap. For the final game, I remember Todd Zeile started at catcher for the Mets in his own last game before retirement. I watched that last game with three of my siblings on a crisp, sunny October afternoon as the Mets won 8-1 and the Montreal squad tossed a bunch of memorabilia to a group of devoted fans gathered above their dugout.

4. Stade Olympique
When it first looked like the Montreal Expos were going to be no more (the league was seriously talking about cutting two teams, they'd eventually settle for moving the Expos to Washington), my brother John, ever ambitious to go on a baseball trip (a trait he instilled in me, thankfully) drove us up to Montreal for a weekend set against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Expos were a pretty good team in those days and we saw two entertaining games in that funky old stadium including a Sunday afternoon battle won on a walk-off smite by the 'Spos.

5. Toronto's SkyDome *
I'll use a * to indicate the stadiums I visited without getting to see a game there. My old Staten Island pal Joe and his mom brought me up to Toronto and Niagra Falls one year and we stayed in the hotel inside of the Blue Jays' home stadium. It was the offseason, though, so nothing was going on but we did sleep within the stadium and could see everything just outside our window.

6. Turner Field
Went to a game here while visiting my sister Laurie in Atlanta years back. I don't remember much about the game except that we sat in dead center, right next to the Braves bullpen (which has three mounds) and a few relievers, Paul Byrd chiefly among them, threw unopened sunflower seed packs to me and Billy after the game.

7. PNC Park

Another weekend baseball roadtrip with brother John. It was a beautiful, scenic drive through Pennsylvania and the stadium is one of the nicest I've ever seen, situated right at the intersection of Pittsburgh's three rivers. The Pirates played the Dodgers in a couple of forgettable games but the beauty of the stadium and the city sticks out in my mind the most. After the first game there was a fireworks show that was surreal---it incorporated not only the three yellow bridges beyond the outfield wall, but even the skyscrapers across the river. Best fireworks show I've ever seen.

8. Citizens Bank Park
When it first opened I took the train one day by myself (I was 18) and watched a game between the Phils and Tigers. The Tigers were atrocious in those days and the Phillies killed them. Over the years, I went to a handful of games here with my brother James and his three sons. In a homerun derby type of game against the Brewers, the guy sitting directly next to us caught a homerun on a line-drive (and we were in the second deck).


9. U.S. Cellular Field (aka new Comiskey Park)
When my brother Billy finished Navy bootcamp in June 2006, my whole family went over to Chicago for the graduation ceremony. After seeing him for a very short time, we had the whole night to ourselves in Chicago. Of course, I wanted to go see a baseball game and the Dodgers were in town for an interleague game with the Sox. Unfortunately, nobody in my family would join me but I took up my dad's offer to drop me off in the South Side and went to the game by myself. It was a lovely June evening and they were commemorating the 1959 World Series between the Sox and Dodgers. The Pale Hose won behind a great game from Mark Buehrle and I somehow ended up with a White Sox towel and then a White Sox credit card which I used for a few years.


10. Wrigley Field *
The next day after the White Sox game, my dad and I went to Wrigley and took a guided tour of the whole stadium. Great experience and, interestingly enough, the Cubbies were in New York playing the Yankees at the time. When I passed through Chicago on my way to California in the summer of '08, my brother Billy and I walked a lap or two around the outside of the stadium while the Cubbies were playing in...San Diego.

11. Petco Park

Oh Petco, how I love thee. After my first visit in 2006 (a memorably explosive game against the Braves) for my 21st birthday, I saw probably 25 games there over the next four years. I absolutely love this place and have so many good memories from there. Thankfully, many of them are preserved on this very blog but I really, really miss going to games there and hopefully will be back in San Diego one day. When I first moved there I got to live my dream: I was living in a rinky-dink studio apartment only two miles from the stadium so, on more than one occasion, I walked from my house to a baseball game. I could go on forever about this place but I'll stop now.

12. Fenway Park
First, did a stadium tour in the summer of 2007 while in Boston for my cousin Mary's wedding. Then, less than a year later, spent a weekend with Mary and her husband and they took me to a game. We sat out in the bleachers and watched the Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers trade bombs all day. The Sox won 11-7. I've been itching to get back there ever since.

13. Miller Park
During the 2008 cross-country road trip, one of the main stops was in Milwaukee so we could see a baseball game. They played the Arizona Diamondbacks with the roof closed (it was raining outside) and smoked 'em. After the game, Billy and I got to walk along the field because it was Senior Citizens Day and the elderly couple seated next to us said "come with us, you can pretend we're your parents." The people of Milwaukee are great.

14. AT&T Park

Another blurry photo from my clunky old camera.

In August of 2008 I visited San Francisco to look at a grad school I planned to attend, the California Institute of Integral Studies. The school was nice although far too expensive for me but I did get to go see a game while up there. It was an absolutely frigid, cloudy night in August and the Giants played the Braves in a meaningless game when both teams were out of the race. Yet, the stadium was packed and rowdy. This was a rare instance where I didn't stay for the entire game because I was just too cold, didn't prepare for winter weather in August.


15. Citi Field *
Got to do a full tour of the stadium, including dugout and clubhouses while the teams were present. Even spoke to Howard Johnson while he was on an elliptical machine. Did it all while posing as an electrician, hard hat and everything. Amazing and memorable experience, though I won't reveal how I ended up having the opportunity. Don't want to get anyone in trouble.


16. Angel Stadium
Fun, rowdy place. Went there this past summer with my girlfriend for my 25th birthday. Fun time though it was sweltering until the sun finally went down. We sat in the absolute last row of the stadium along the first base line and yet the view of the field was actually pretty good. Our view of the mountain range beyond the stadium was even better.

17. Dodger Stadium

An absolutely gorgeous stadium that seems like it was plopped down in the middle of a dense verdant forest. Went with bro Billy for a September matchup between the classic old New York rivals, the Giants and Dodgers. Sat very close to the field but was annoyed most of the people around us didn't seem to care that much about the game. When the game was over we got to walk right onto the outfield grass and watch a fireworks show, though.

Now that I've listed everything, I realize that during my three years living in California I went to every major league baseball stadium in the state except the Coliseum in Oakland. It's known as one of the worst facilities in professional sports but still, the A's are one of my favorite teams. All the more reason to go back there.

I'm currently situated in the middle of Texas, at least three hours from a pro baseball team but, as a diehard seamhead, I will definitely be taking the long drive to both Houston and Arlington to add those to my list.

World Trade Center Memories

Yesterday I took part in my second (official) fantasy football draft in nine years. The first one had been back in September of 2001. I was 16 years old and my brother John had invited me to join a fantasy football league with his friends, the draft to take place at one of their apartments in lower Manhattan. On Saturday night, September 8th, we gathered in the living room of a relatively small but nice apartment and had our draft. I was by far the youngest person in the group. We put our names in a hat and chose randomly to determine the draft order. Somehow, I ended up with the #1 pick. I took Rams running back and all-around superstar Marshall Faulk. He would end up winning the league for me that year, bringing home a pot of almost a thousand dollars.

What I remember most about that evening was the drive home. As we curled around from the West Side Highway to the Battery Tunnel entrance, I stared upwards out the window at the enormous gold-lit glistening towers that hovered above.

*   *   *

My grandfather started his own business, a customs brokerage firm, at the old Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House back in 1968. The same building is now the National Museum of the American Indian. I remember it most for its role in Ghostbusters 2 where the ghostbusting crew defeated the terrible ghost Vigo the Carpathian. Vigo was a ghost from the 17th Century trapped inside of a menacing-looking painting. That movie came out when I was 4 years old and occupied a major role in my life for years to come. Every time I would pass by that old Custom House building I'd remember how my mom and my brother John used to tell me they'd seen the camera crews filming scenes there, especially the scene where they covered the entire building with pink slime---which was in reality one big plastic bag.

 *   *   *
When construction on the Twin Towers was completed in 1972, my grandfather moved his business into an office space on the 21st floor of the North Tower. The business remained there for the next twenty years. Both my mother and my brother John took jobs with his company and I have great memories, some of my earliest memories in fact, of spending time in that office, staring out the narrow windows in my mom's office at the people on the ground who looked like ants. I perfectly remember the lunch room which had chairs like movie director chairs. My grandfather's office was mostly dark green rug and leather seats. His desk was made of dark shiny wood and it was always covered with huge stacks of papers. And I'll always remember Phil. Phil Jackson. A smooth-talking, funny, tall lanky black man, Phil was the office messenger and he always wore a baseball hat and always entertained my siblings and me whenever my mom brought us to work.

*   *   *
When my grandfather died, he left the business to his greedy second wife and a rift split apart my family from the business. My mom and brother John (and a few other folks from the old company) started working with a new company located a bit further downtown, right on Battery Place, just a block or two away from the old U.S. Customs House building. With the new company, my mom (who held a pretty prominent managerial position) had maintained a working relationship with another business that was on the 89th floor of the North Tower. When I'd go in to work with her we would sometimes walk over to the World Trade Center and I'd get to see the amazing view from that 89th floor office. The guy in charge was Albert, a super nice man with a warm personality. Behind his desk was a large set of windows that overlooked the sprawl of Manhattan. It was absolutely stunning. Whenever I'd go up there and see that view I had chills and an experience of what I now realize was "sublime." Awe-inspiring. It was almost too much to behold. It felt as though you could reach out and touch the Empire State Building which was really about 3 miles north.

During the summer that I turned 14, my mom hired me for my first job ever: messenger. My old pal Phil Jackson, who was part of the crew that had moved to this new company, showed me the ropes for about a week. My job was to take documents from the office on Battery Place and walk around downtown Manhattan bringing the documents to their destinations. One of those destinations, a daily regular, was Albert's office on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center. You had to take two elevators to get up to the 89th floor and in between there was a sky lobby with a stunning view and I'd often stare out the window for a while. Since I'd usually bring their documents around lunch time, I would really milk the time (I was working for my mom after all) and explore, hang out, go to Borders bookstore, look for new Wu-Tang cds at the Sam Goody in the underground mall, and sometimes just roam amidst the buildings. I can remember days when I'd sit in that beautiful plaza in between the towers, I'd peoplewatch and write down stories in a marble notebook. I always ate pizza at Bari's Pizza on Greenwich Street, played chess in Zuccotti Park, bought comic books from the street vendors on Church Street. It was really a beautiful time in my life and I have great memories of it. Unfortunately (maybe because I was basically being paid to roam the streets everyday) I was never hired back after that summer.

But on my last day of work that summer (it was 1999), my dad came in to the city from Staten Island to meet my mom and me after work and we all went up to the observation deck atop the South Tower. Afterwards we ate pizza for dinner at Bari's.

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My last job before moving to San Diego was an accounting position in Piscataway, New Jersey. The exit I got off at to go to work was the same as the one for Rutgers University. At the time, Rutgers had a superstar running back leading their football team back to respectability after over a decade of losing seasons. His name was Ray Rice and in April 2008, just two months before I would leave my Piscataway job, he was selected by the Ravens in the NFL Draft.

Now, Rice is one of the best running backs in the NFL and I was coveting him in my draft yesterday. I got him with my #1 pick.