I'm No Eskimo: April 2011

I wouldn't have lasted five minutes as an Eskimo.

The tribal elders would have wished me the best and banished me to an ice floe right off the bat.

For one thing, I hate sinew. Never cared for it. In the fourth grade, my social studies curriculum was all about Baffin Island, somewhere up there in the Arctic. We learned all about the Eskimos diligently chewing seal and walrus sinew. The purpose for all this masticating has long since been forgotten, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't be one of the chewy volunteers.

But in this type of society, everyone has to pull his/her weight so I guess that would leave kayaking. Prior to last Saturday, I would have thought that pulling kayak duty was a pretty good deal. After all, a person could do a lot worse than skillfully skimming past the icebergs in search of the odd polar bear, porpoise, or puffin. I had had one brief, disastrous fling with the sport of kayaking about 35 years ago at Camp Androscoggin in Maine. At that time I was the tennis director of this grand old boys' camp. One of the kayak instructors was eager to trade some tennis lessons for some kayaking lessons. I enthusiastically agreed and, after a few successful tennis lessons, Nigel (he was British) had me out on the lake squeezing my more than ample bottom into an impossibly small opening in the middle of a sleek, fiberglass kayak. He informed me that the first lesson was how to escape from the kayak in the event that I was turned upside down underwater.

"Why would I want to be upside down underwater?" I asked.

"You wouldn't want to be, but that sometimes happens," Nigel replied.

"Dumb sport," I replied.

At which point Nigel told me in great detail the technique I should use to plop myself out of the impossibly tiny opening so as not to drown during my first lesson. After several panic-stricken lake-swallowing attempts, I was able to master the escape technique and we moved on to paddling. I remember going out for a few kayak paddles but quickly deciding that it was a lot of work and that I much preferred the idea of a dinner cruise on a larger vessel.

Despite that checkered history, motivated by some kind of primal urge to get closer to nature, last Saturday I asked Kate if she would like to go out for a little kayak exploration here at Sandestin. Because we have rented our place from the "official" Sandestin realty company, we are entitled to a few amenities, including the free use of kayaks that are available at the marina which is located on Choctahwatchee Bay, a beautiful body of water teeming with all kinds of bird and marine life, as well as people from Alabama. Kate thought that sounded like a good idea so on a gorgeous spring afternoon with temperatures in the mid-70's, surrounded by gentle breezes, we headed down to the marina.

We were saddened to discover that all of the kayaks were already out in the Bay.

"Just wait here, folks," said the marina guy. "Most people don't last 15 minutes."

Kate and I looked at each other a bit puzzled. After all, why wouldn't a person or a couple want to stay out on the Bay for an entire afternoon, freely paddling into all the little nooks, crannies, and marshy areas, getting up close and personal with nature and experiencing the kind of exhilaration that those wonderful Baffin Islanders must have experienced back when I was in the fourth grade?

Sure enough, after about ten minutes a couple of hardy kayakists pulled up to the shore. They didn't have to "plop" out of the kayak because these babies were more "resorty" and less authentic. One's lower body was out in the open, not cocooned inside a fiberglass enclosure, making one's escape from the kayak quite easy. The couple leaving the kayak did not look happy and I couldn't help but notice that rather than being exhilarated by their brush with nature, they looked, well, devastated.

Kate noticed it too, and she flashed me a look that said, "Sometimes that which seems like a good idea in theory becomes a complete disaster in reality."

The attendant moved our kayak into position and instructed us on how to enter and exit the kayak. Basically, all one had to do was sit one's bottom on the designated area and roll one's legs up into the leg area. Couldn't be simpler. We managed to do this seamlessly with barely any water splashing into our craft. I started to get that feeling I get whenever I take on a new activity: "Wow, I get this. I can see all the nuances and intricacies of this sport. I just may be a brilliant kayaker. Hey Kate, after we conquer Choctahwatchee Bay, let's kayak across the Pacific to the South Seas. Let's kayak to Bali, Kate, waddaya say?"

One last word of advice from the attendant and we were on our way: "Remember to sit upright. Don't lean back. Have fun. See you in about 15 minutes."

And we were off, paddling in perfect synchronicity, gliding into the Bay, off on our kayak adventure. About 45 seconds into our adventure I couldn't help but notice a searing pain shooting across my lower back, abdomen, and hips. Kate, experiencing the same agony, had abandoned her official upright kayak position and was lying back in the damn boat looking up at the sky.

"Kate," I chided, "how are you going to paddle like that?"

"Get me back to shore, Nanook, and pronto. This is worse than surgery"

Thus ended our little kayak expedition on the shores of Choctahwatchee Bay in the Sandestin Resort.

We smiled knowingly at the couple who were eagerly awaiting our return and happily waddled over to the marina bar where we would attempt to limber up.

Ain't life grand?
J

The Sawx: April 2011

In a desperate effort to exorcise the demons that have recently invaded the bodies of the fellas who play for the Boston Red Sox, I have decided to blog about baseball, Fenway Pahk, and my beloved Sawx.

Rarely if ever has a baseball season been more eagerly anticipated than this one. After all, the Sawx had boldly signed Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez while shoring up a weak bullpen with the likes of Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler. These additions combined with a very solid everyday lineup and starting pitching foretold of a "Sweet Caroline" summer for the Nation. It was this feeling of optimism that prompted me to buy tickets for a Sox-Rays game in Tampa in mid-June. I was looking forward to showing Kate how much fun it is to watch the Sawx on the road with their traveling fans on hand to represent the Nation.

I made similar mistakes in the stock market.

You see, they actually make you play the games and the Sawx are in a...well...it's been a bad patch. I can't reveal my sources, but I was able to get hold of an American League scout's official report on the Sawx after the recent Tampa Bay series. This is how he characterized the team:

LF Crawford: sucks
2B Pedroia: good
1B Gonzalez: ok
3B Youkilis: sucks
DH Ortiz: sucks
RF Drew: sucks
C Saltalamacchia: really sucks
SS Scutaro: sucks
CF Ellsbury: sucks

SP Lackey: completely sucks
Bullpen: sucks
Outside vendors: good
Parking: sucks

Folks, that's a whole lot of sucks!

Of course, are we to assume that the suckage will continue through the summer and fall? No. Baseball has always been a game of numbers and statistics and 100 years of baseball history say that sooner or later Carl Crawford will get a hit and John Lackey will hold a lead. That has been their history and they will return to that history before too long.

Unless they just suck, in which case they will just suck.

The Sawx haven't sucked in a long time. Since 1967, with very few exceptions, they have been at least competitive if not riveting. Anybody who is 45 or younger has really never seen them suck. That's quite remarkable when you think about it. On the other hand, if you're in your 50's or older, you probably have vivid memories of complete seasons of suck. I know I do.

I guess you could say that from the Korean War to the beginning of the War in Vietnam, the Sawx really sucked. When I first got hooked on Sawx baseball, I had the dubious distinction of following the double play combination of Buddin to Gernert to Zauchin. Not an Ozzie Smith in the bunch. Malzone was pretty good at third and the outfield of Himself in left, Piersall in center, and Jensen in right was fine, but it was the starting pitching that was truly disastrous. Outside of Mel Parnell, there wasn't a single pitcher that anyone would pay money (even the 75 cents it cost to sit in the bleachers) to see. Occasionally a young flamethrower like Dave Moorhead would excite folks for a while, but they never really panned out and we were stuck with the likes of Bob Porterfield, Frank Sullivan, Willard Nixon and the immortal Ike Delock.

Going to Fenway in the late 50's and early 60's was a cozy, relaxed affair. No need to buy tickets in advance; you could always get good seats the day of the game. You could even buy a "general admission" grandstand ticket and then scout out a better seat in the boxes. If you weren't obnoxious about it, the ushers would "look the other way." Of course this begs the question: Is it better to watch an awful team close up or from afar? The next Republican National Convention will pose a similar problem.

I make a little joke.

In those days, you would take your seat and spread out. You could put your jacket on the seat beside you and your lunch on the other side. You could have a pleasant baseball conversation with the old-timer behind you without having the PA system blaring every 30 seconds with loud music or sponsor announcements: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the next time a Red Sox player hits into a double play, redeem your ticket for some refreshing Doublemint Gum; due to the large demand, only one stick per customer." That old timer would regale you with stories about young Ted Williams or old Babe Ruth or how much the Red Sox sucked in the 30's. Vendors worked much harder in those days. With fewer people in the ballpark, they had fewer potential sales and fewer people to pass the goodies to the customer. A bad deal all around. In those days a leather-lunged fan could really make himself heard and not be drowned out by the din of the throng around him. With the team going as badly as it did in those days, some of the verbal assaults were not very kind, as I'm sure Pumpsie Green or Earl Wilson could attest.

They had actual scheduled doubleheaders in those days which meant on certain Sundays you could spend about 7 hours in a row watching your team suck. Of course the idea of being there to watch Himself get 8 at-bats was more than enough to offset the other 64 or so futile attempts. No matter how lopsided the score was, people stayed to watch Ted come to bat. That definitely didn't suck, especially for a certain chubby left-handed kid from Dorchester. No, that didn't suck at all.

Come to think of it, most of us in Red Sox nation survived a long period of suckiness before and we will do it again if we have to. We're a resilient lot and, well, a little Sawx suckage now and again is ok.

As long as the Yankees suck too.

Ain't baseball grand?
J