These baseball years

Posted: July 3, 2012 | Author: pinkunderbelly | Filed under: baseball | Tags: baseball memories, baseball-themed bedroom, First Colony Little League, Little League baseball, post-mastectomy infection, Southern Living magazine, Texas baseball, youth sports | 19 Comments

On my bulletin board I have a faded article from Southern Living magazine titled These Baseball Years. It’s from the June 2003 issue, when my son was four years old and just dipping his toe in the water of what would become a full-fledged baseball obsession. Now, 9 years later and in his last hurrah of Little League, I re-read the article and nodded my head in agreement.

9-year-old All Star

10-year-old All Star

11-year-old All Star

then…

…and now

Baseball has been a constant in our house, and it’s provided me a way to connect with my kid, who tends to be rather quiet and lives in his own head. He’s never been one to come home from school with news of the day’s events, nor does he disclose much under direct questioning. If there were a hall of fame for one-word answers, he’d be in it.

All of that changed, however, when I realized that if I knew something about baseball, especially about his beloved Red Sox, I’d have a direct line into him. Any parenting expert will tell you that if you want to connect with your kids, you have to do it at their level and with their interests in mind.

In the article, author Joe Rada says that “baseball is a grand metaphor for the game of life. Through baseball we explore the weighty issues of winning and losing gracefully; getting along with others; setting goals; playing hard and by the rules; rolling with the punches; the value of physical health and the treacheries of drug abuse.”

He also describes how his son sleeps on baseball-themed sheets under a ceiling fan with baseball-bat blades. Sounds familiar. At the time when I ripped the article out of the magazine, my kid slept on sheets decorated with cars & trucks, but it wasn’t long before we re-did his room with a baseball theme. We chose the neutral brown paint color for his room based on which shade was closest to infield dirt, and the one accent wall we painted red was carefully matched to the Red Sox jerseys. His ceiling fan is regulation, but his lamp and his curtain tie-backs are baseball-themed. As he moved through Little League seasons, we added shelves to hold trophies, and now I’m worried those shelves will collapse under the weight.

This last season of All Stars is the end of an era. We’ve spent as much time in the stands as we have around our dinner table, and we’ve bonded with the other players’ families in a friends-for-life kind of way. We’ve seen each other through job loss, injuries & illness, new babies, and high school graduations. We’ve supported each other through health crises, including my own. The summer I spent in the hospital instead of at the All Star games in 2010 was brutal, but it was made bearable by the love and support that came from the team. The Season of the Pink Sweatbands was the team’s best, and my framed photo of the entire team, including coaches, wearing pink sweatbands and saying “This one’s for you!” sat in each hospital room I occupied that summer. It remains one of my most treasured possessions.

Like Joe Rada, we plan our family vacations around the baseball schedule, delaying as long as possible in hopes that we’ll be making a trip to the State Championship in late July before we take off for two weeks at the beach.

I don’t know why I kept that faded article all these years, but now that my kid is heading toward the end of his Little League career, I’m glad I did. As Rada writes, “Long after my son settles into being whatever kind of man he’ll be, I’ll still see his upturned chin and hear his sweet voice shouting across the backyard, ‘I got it!'” I will, too.

Elizabeth Lloyd: you’re an idiot

Posted: June 27, 2012 | Author: pinkunderbelly | Filed under: baseball | Tags: Elizabeth Lloyd, Little League baseball, micobacterium fortuitum, nosocomial infection, People I Want to Punch in the Throat, post-mastectomy infection, ridiculous lawsuits, the Big Dig | 9 Comments

I’d use a more colorful name but she’d probably sue me. Like she’s suing an 11-year-old boy for throwing a baseball. In a dugout. At a Little League ball field, where presumably baseballs are thrown and sometimes not caught. But wait, if Elizabeth Lloyd has chosen to insert herself into the media, in her money-grubbing way, she’s a public figure, right? So I can call her whatever name I like and she has to take it. Perhaps I need to brush up on my libel knowledge, but in the meantime, I’m going to call her Asshat.

Here’s the story, in case you were paying attention to real news that actually matters and missed it: Asshat was at a Little League game in New Jersey two years ago, watching her son play, and was hit in the face by a ball. She was sitting on top of a picnic table next to the fenced dugout where a catcher, Matthew Migliaccio, was warming up his teammate, the pitcher. Migliaccio overthrew the ball and it hit Asshat in the face. According to the local newspaper, He ran over to her to ask if she was ok, and she told him she was fine. Says Matthew: “I went over to see if she was okay, and she said that she was fine and not to worry about it. About like three weeks after, she came and gave me a hug and she told me that it wasn’t my fault.” Asshat said to Matthew, “I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

However, two years later — just days before the statute of limitations would expire — Asshat decides that errant ball was thrown “intentionally and recklessly” and she needs half a million dollars for it. WTH??

Asshat claims that Matthew assaulted and battered her.

WTH??

This claim is insulting to anyone who has truly been assaulted and/or battered. I’m sick.

So is Matthew. Poor baby was minding his own business, probably playing MW3 on the Playstation like the 13-year-old boy who lives at my house, when the doorbell rings and he is served papers. A 13-year-old child was served papers. Matthew said, “I think it’s pretty mean to sue someone after you told them that you knew it wasn’t their fault.”

Pretty mean indeed.

Matthew’s attorney, Anthony Pagano, says the case is bogus and the family will not settle with Asshat. “What are we gonna do, take his bike? He’s 11,” Pagano said.

Does this look like a malicious person intent on inflicting injury? Not hardly.

Fact: 11-year-old kids overthrow balls. Fact: 11-year-old kids do not always catch overthrown balls. Fact: Elizabeth Lloyd is an asshat.

The overthrown ball traveled more than 60 feet before it hit Asshat, who was sitting 5 feet from the fenced bullpen. Reports conclude that while Matthew is an avid gamer, playing on 3 different teams, he was 11 years old at the time of the “assault” and didn’t exactly have a cannon of an arm like one sees in the major league. Matthew’s father says ”It’s absurd to expect every 11-year-old to throw the ball on target. Everyone knows you’ve got to watch out. You assume some risk when you go out to a field. That’s just part of being at a game.”

Hear hear. Guess what, Asshat — life is risky; get a helmet.

Apparently Asshat’s husband is an asshat, too, and he’s also suing Matthew, for the loss of “services, society, and consortium” of his wife. I guess that means he’s a shameless money-grubber, too, and Mr & Mrs Asshat are demanding a jury trial. The suit claims Matthew’s actions were negligent and careless through ”engaging in inappropriate physical and/or sporting activity” near Mrs Asshat. She claims she continues to suffer “pain and anguish, incur medical expenses and has been unable to carry out her usual duties and activities.”

I’d like to show Mrs Asshat some pictures of the hole in my chest wall after a post-mastectomy infection wreaked havoc on my body. I’d like to explain to her what real pain and anguish is all about. I’d like to enumerate the ways in which a month of hospitalization from that infection screwed up my life and prevented me from being able to carry out my usual duties and activities. I’d like to tell her what it feels like to be on powerful, gut-wrenching antibiotics for nearly one full year, so that she gains a scintilla of an idea of what it means to really suffer. I’d like to lament the fact that that damned infection caused me to undergo a heinous reconstruction that will likely never achieve the results I want and deserve, despite everyone’s best efforts. I’d like to show her what it means to live the rest of one’s life scarred, scared, and dissatisfied. I’m pretty sure there would be a long line of cancer victims with similar stories to share. But do we sue the hospital for contracting infections? Do we sue the doctors because something went wrong? Do we sue the hospital personnel for not better protecting us from possible harm? Do we sue cancer for afflicting us? Nope, we chalk it up to rotten luck, wrong-place-wrong-time, shit happens and get on with our lives.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Little League ball fields in the last 8 years since my kid started playing. I’ve been hit by a baseball and I’ve been nailed by a tennis ball hit by a grown-up. It hurts, but you get over it and move on. You don’t sue the kid who threw the ball. Sheesh. Even an Asshat should know that.

Maybe Matthew’s family should sue Mr & Mrs Asshat because she intentionally put her face in the way of his ball. Or maybe they should sue the Asshats because she was willfully and intentionally misusing the picnic table. Asshat’s ass should have been on the bench, not on the table. She was asking for it, really.

My blogging idol at People I Want to Punch in the Throat wrote an open letter to Asshat. Read it. She’s much more adept than I at saying what she really thinks (I know, shocking, right, that someone would write more openly and with less of a filter than I?). I hope Mr & Mrs Asshat read it, too.

Lucky 13!

Posted: May 3, 2012 | Author: pinkunderbelly | Filed under: baseball, kids | Tags: 13th birthday, All Stars, baseball fanatic, becoming a teenager, cute puppies, Fenway Park, First Colony Little League, first day of kindergarten, happy birthday to my son, Little League baseball, Red Sox Nation | 38 Comments

My firstborn turns 13 today.

A watershed event.

The last of “The Gerber Gang” becomes a teen. The Gang was our very first playgroup. Six babies (3 girls, 3 boys), all born within 6 weeks of each other. My guy was the youngest of The Gang, and now they’re all teenagers.

Lots of things have changed since days of The Gang. No more strollers, no more diapers.

Some things remain the same, however, despite the passage of time and the achievements of milestones.

My boy still loves to read.

I’m proud of him for a lot of reasons, but being a lover of books is on the top 10 list, for sure.

He still loves animals.

Baseball remains his all-consuming passion. He’s always been reliable at the plate, and this past summer during All Stars was known as “The Doubles Machine.” He knows how to keep the line moving.

Little League has been a constant every year since he was old enough to play.

His very first season, as a kindergartener, was the start of some exciting time spent at the ballpark.

This is his last season of Little League. While it won’t be the end of baseball for him, there’s something special about Little League, and the innocence and purity of the game up to the age of 12.