Tag Archives: sports

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings Potpourri: Travel, Music, Soccer

I’ve taken a couple of weeks off from the blog recently — a week here, a week there. When I came back to the blog after all that happened last year, I chose to do so on my own terms. All things being equal, I would like to post something every week. But I don’t want these essays to become a burden, something I dread doing. And so when I have nothing to say, I keep my virtual mouth shut (a notion I would love to impart to more than a few public figures). And when life gets in the way, I don’t fight it. You all have been incredibly generous with your support and patience. I no longer worry that if I slack off for a week or two there’ll be no one here when I come back. Thank you for that.

The problem is, sometimes — often actually — I want to write, but I have no idea what about. Today is such a day. I would like this post to go somewhere. I’d like an idea to spark in my head and carry me along. I’m still waiting . . . .

It’s a musings post, and my mind is going in a lot of directions right now.

Recent travels:

We are just back from a week-long journey to Mexico City, where we attended the wedding of my nephew to the charming, brilliant, beautiful love of his life. We took part in a wonderful weekend of festivities that included a terrific Sunday afternoon with just the two extended families. Great food, the best mezcal I’ve ever had, a lovely setting, fun conversations, lots of laughter. At one point, I was speaking with the bride’s father, who brought up the old saying (apparently as common in Mexican society as in our own) that we can choose our friends, but our families are ours whether we want them or not. And weren’t we all so fortunate that both families were so great and got along so well? A laudable sentiment, and truly fitting.

Part of the Diego Rivera mural, Mexico City
Part of the Diego Rivera mural, National Palace, Mexico City

Nancy and I were struck again and again by the kindness and generosity of everyone we met in Mexico City. Our Spanish is not very good at all. But people were patient and went out of their way to help us. And we were fortunate to have so many memorable meals, as well as fascinating visits to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia and to the National Palace with its magnificent murals painted by Diego Rivera. My brother and I got in a fun day of birdwatching at the botanical garden of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. A great visit.

Musical Explorations:

I have remarked before that Nancy and I are fairly new to the world of TV streaming. Until just about a year and a half ago, we were still suffering with satellite internet, which was too slow and too limited in terms of bandwidth to allow us to watch all the shows garnering raves from our friends. Well, the same was true of music. My listening was pretty much limited to the music I had on CDs, which I had uploaded to my computer and phone. This year, finally, I subscribed to a music streaming service and I have been exploring artists about whom I had been curious, or to whom I had been introduced by friends and family. (Looking at you, Erin!)

Like who? you ask. Well, as I write this, I am listening to Zac Brown Band, whose music I have come to love. Rockin’ Country music with terrific vocals and a great instrumental sound. Zac Brown plays Taylor guitars, so I was first introduced to his stuff by their promotional materials. And then Erin played a bunch of his songs for me. Now I am hooked.

Lots of friends had told me about Jason Isbell, and I own and love Southeastern, a haunting, powerful album. Now, I’m working my way through the rest of his catalogue, which is excellent as well.

Australian guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel plays an eclectic blend of country, blues, rock, folk, and oldies, and because he’s so good, everyone wants to play with him, so you can find him doing duets with a who’s who of musical royalty. Some of the music is instrumental. Some has vocals. All of it is enormous fun.

Soccer:

Yeah, I know. I’ve written about this before. But Nancy and I are deep into this year’s Premier League (England) season, which is shaping up to be one for the ages. In recent years, one team has dominated, or, if fans are fortunate, two teams have fought for the season title. This year, with ten matches left on everyone’s schedule, three teams, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City are locked in a super-close battle that seems destined to come down to the final week of the campaign. This weekend, Liverpool and Man City played a thrilling, taut, brilliant match that ended in a 1-1 tie.

Yes, I’m sure that sounds like a contradiction — a thrilling 1-1 tie? How can that be? Trust me, it can. End-to-end action, inspired defense, a few moments of almost inconceivable luck that left both of us speechless, and beautiful, precise play throughout. Americans love offense. I get that. That’s why pro football has become something more like flag football than the defense-heavy sport I remember from my youth. It’s why baseball is now all about home runs. But part of the appeal of soccer is that every goal is precious. A single score can change the complexion of everything happening on the pitch. And in a match as important as this weekend’s Liverpool-Man City fixture, each scoring opportunity was crucial. What fun. Can’t wait for next week!

So, yeah. A bit of travel, a bit of music, a bit of sport. Nothing earth-shattering. And that’s okay. There’s lots of really dire, important stuff happening in the world. I’ll get back to those topics at some point. Or not. But sometimes we need to stop and enjoy the little stuff.

Be well, and be kind to one another.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Family, Soccer, and the Women’s World Cup

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about Title IX (which became law a half century ago) and the impact women’s sports have had on our culture, our society, and my family. I received a fair number of comments on that post, most of them from women whose lives had been changed by their own involvement in organized athletics, or from women who completed their schooling before Title IX was enacted, and who regretted missing out on such opportunities.

Erin and AlexMy mind has been on Title IX again over the past month, as Nancy and I (and our daughters, while we were all together in Colorado) watched the Women’s World Cup. Soccer has long been a very big deal in our household. Our daughters grew up playing, first in weekend league soccer and then through middle school and high school. Both of them were accomplished players. Both of them continue to love the sport. And so we all look forward to the World Cup — men’s and women’s — the way we look forward to holidays and birthdays.

For those of you who are not fans of soccer — “the beautiful game,” as it is called in other parts of the world — this year’s Cup matches were played in venues all around Australia and New Zealand, the co-hosts of the tournament. And with the exception of a few blow-outs in the earliest stages of the competition, the matches were incredibly competitive and exciting, and were played with all the skill and artistry one would expect from some of the best athletes and finest footballers on the planet.

AlexWorld Cup soccer — men’s and women’s — begins with what is called group play. The field of thirty-two is divided into eight groups of four. Each group plays among themselves, three matches for each team, and they get three points for a win, one point for a draw, and none for a loss. The two teams with the best record from each group advance to the knockout stage, so called because there are no ties, and the loser of each match is knocked out of the competition.

Yes, the U.S. Women’s team, four-time winners of the Cup, two-time defending champions, and, historically speaking, the traditional powerhouse of women’s soccer, was knocked out of the tournament in the round of sixteen, after just barely making it through group play. And after that, American media and, no doubt, many American fans stopped watching the Cup. We were disappointed in our household, too, but we kept watching, because the play in match after match was just that good.

The fact is, the Americans were not the only favorite to make an early exit. Germany, another perennial contender, who have twice won the cup and are ranked second in the world after the U.S., didn’t make it out of group play. Neither did Brazil, ranked eighth in the world, Canada, ranked seventh, or France, ranked fifth. Instead, teams like Colombia and Australia made historic runs deep into the tournament, and several teams — Jamaica, Morocco, and South Africa — made their first trips ever to the knockout stage. Ultimately, the tournament was won by another long-time power in women’s soccer, Spain who won a taut, action-filled, at times frenetic final against England by a score of 1-0. But any of the four teams that made the semi-finals — Sweden, Australia, Spain, or England — would have been first-time winners of the Women’s World Cup. That hadn’t happened since the very first women’s tournament in 1991.

ErinDespite American disappointment, these developments actually constitute incredibly good news for women’s soccer around the world. Title IX paved the way for the U.S. women to become a dominant team, and in many European nations, where traditional football is THE sport, women’s teams have access to facilities and funding. But in other places this is simply not the case. The Jamaican woman faced so many financial hardships in their preparation for this year’s Cup that they literally had to rely on crowdfunding in order to participate.

Tournament success for teams that have previously had little to celebrate can only boost support for women’s soccer, and women’s sports in general, all across the globe. And while sports may seem trivial given the challenges and dangers woman face the world over, anything that increases opportunity, that builds confidence, that unites people in community, that shines a spotlight on the glories of strength and resilience, diversity and teamwork, aspiration and freedom, can only benefit women and girls everywhere.

The U.S. team will recover from this year’s disappointing performance. (And by the way, the team’s early exit had NOTHING to do with being “woke” as some buffoons on the right have suggested. It had everything to do with the team being relatively young and inexperienced, with the coach being timid and uncertain, and with the front line failing to capitalize on scoring opportunities. The U.S. women were “woke” in 2019, when they won. They were “woke” in 2015 when they won. Just sayin’.) They will win other World Cups and other Olympic gold medals. But their path to victory is only going to get harder, because the competition is only going to get tougher. That’s as it should be. As women’s athletics gains greater and greater attention, as the financial obstacles they face diminish over time, teams in sports like soccer will move toward worldwide parity. Which is also as it should be.

In the meantime, I am already looking forward to Olympic soccer next year — men’s and women’s. And before then, I have Premier League games to watch!

Have a great week!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Title IX, Soccer, and My Family

This past weekend, Nancy and I went up to Nashville to see the U.S. women’s national soccer team play Japan in a group stage match of the She Believes Cup. The tickets were a gift to us from our younger daughter, who knows how much we love soccer, who shares that passion with us, and who has, since she was tiny, loved, loved, loved the U.S. women’s team.

When our daughters were nine and five years old, we took them to Birmingham, Alabama to see the women’s team play a “friendly” against Brazil. The teams have been arch-rivals forever and no game between them is ever actually friendly, but we’ll leave that for another day. Both girls has already been following the U.S. team for a while. They idolized the stars on that team — Julie Foudy, Abby Wambach, and, of course, the incomparable Mia Hamm. In fact, both girls played youth-league soccer in their respective age groups, and both girls wore number 9, which was Hamm’s number. They would both continue to wear number 9 through middle school and high school.

That day in Birmingham, they were in for a treat. We’d told them they would be seeing the U.S. women’s team, but somehow they had convinced themselves and each other that we were going somewhere to watch them on a big screen, or something. Honestly, Nancy and I weren’t certain what they thought. But when we got to the stadium, and they saw their heroes right there! — On the pitch! In the flesh! — they kind of freaked out.

The women won that game against Brazil 5-1. Mia Hamm assisted on three of the goals (including two by Wambach) and scored one herself. The girls were in heaven.

I bring all of this up by way of getting to the main point, which is this: Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 turned fifty years old last year. Title IX is a broad, wide-ranging law that prevents sexual discrimination in any and all private and public educational institutions, at any level, that receive federal funds. The law is designed to prevent harassment and violence, as well as discrimination, and it provides for mechanisms to combat these things. But for much of its history, Title IX has been most well-known — and, at times, most controversial — for its impact on school athletics.

For the record, here are some things Title IX does NOT do. It doesn’t require that men and women’s sports in various schools be identical, or even that they have the exact same budgets. It doesn’t require that women have a football team if the men do, or anything of the sort. Rather, it demands proportional equity. If men playing football have access to state-of-the-art safety equipment, then women playing field hockey must have access to the same. If both men and women are playing soccer at a certain school, then yes, the teams should have access to equal facilities and equipment.

It is, contrary to what many critics have said over the years, a fantastic law, one that has empowered generations of girls and young women with athletic ambitions. Like the stars on the U.S. women’s soccer team, and the stars in the Women’s National Basketball Association, and female U.S. Olympians in just about any sport. And like my daughters.

My sister, Liz, whose birthday it is today, was always a terrific athlete. She LOVED baseball as a kid and still does to this day. By the time Title IX became law, she had graduated from high school. She missed out on playing organized sports during her school years, and she wasn’t allowed to play Little League. If she had been, she would have been a star player in our small town. Title IX changed not only the rules surrounding educational institutions, but also our culture at large.

My daughters grew up playing soccer and also swimming competitively. Erin played volleyball for a while in middle school. Both girls were accomplished athletes (something they got from their mother, not me). But more than that, thanks to their involvement in team sports, both girls grew more confident, more resilient, more community-minded. Athletics made them into their better selves.

Nancy and I grew up in the early years of Title IX, when schools across the country were scrambling to catch up with the requirements of the new law. Nancy probably would have been more active in team sports as a high-schooler had the law come along a few years earlier.

Which might have been why last year she presided, as acting president of her university, over a singular celebration of Title IX’s 50th anniversary. At the university athletic hall of fame induction ceremony, her school recognized women sports pioneers — women whose matriculation preceded the passage of Title IX, but who nevertheless fought for inclusion in university athletics. Many of them trained with the men’s teams in various sports, and organized unofficial competitions with like-minded women from other schools. They had no official statistics with which to establish their credentials for the school hall of fame, so Nancy and others at the school involved current undergraduates in an oral history project that was designed to enshrine the stories of these women in the annals of university lore. What a worthy endeavor.

Title IX has done wonders for our educational institutions in many ways — preventing discrimination, addressing incidents of harassment and assault that years ago would have gone unnoticed or unacknowledged. And yes, we need to make far more progress in this regard. But the law has had an impact.

And with regard to women’s sports, it has inspired and enabled and drawn national, even global, attention to the athletic achievements of so many deserving women. I know from personal experience that in households like ours across the country it has enriched the lives of young athletes and of the parents who cheer for them.

By the way, at this weekend’s tournament, we watched the U.S. beat Japan 1-0, in a hard-fought match. We also saw the first half of the Canada v. Brazil match, which Canada won 2-0.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: What Matters? Part V — Frivolity and the Importance of Things That Don’t Matter

For all of January, I have been writing about “what matters” and what doesn’t. I’ve written about this in terms of our personal lives and our professional ones. And I fear I have left readers with the impression that, in my opinion, all they do should be geared toward those things we decide do matter, that when it comes to allocating our personal time, our emotional energy, our intellectual focus, “what matters?” should guide all of our choices.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

“What matters?” is, I believe, a useful question to ask ourselves. I remember back when I was in college, sitting on the green of Brown’s campus, talking to a friend, and thinking to myself, “I really have a shit-ton of work to do. Should I be here, or should I be in the library?” And yes, there were times when I realized the conversation I was having didn’t rate in terms of importance. In those moments, I confessed to having a lot to do, and went off to my lonely carrel in the library. At other times, though, I recall answering that silent question differently, certain that the conversation I was having mattered more than work did at the given moment. The work would get done, I knew. My friend needed me. Or I needed them.

And in the same vein, I know beyond doubt that sometimes the things that matter are, in fact, the things of little or no importance. An oxymoron? Maybe. But you know I’m right.

Yes, family and friends matter. Work matters. We should make time for those pursuits that enrich our lives and feed our souls or our bodies: photography, music, gardening, knitting, exercising, hiking, birdwatching, reading, dancing, attending theater or movies or concerts. We all have our interests and passions.

But we can also find value and entertainment and even peace is less lofty activities. Sometimes what we need is an hour or two of mindless television, or a good game (baseball, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, whatever) to watch and cheer. Sometimes spending a half hour absorbed in a ridiculous video game is just the thing to clear our thoughts.

If we spend every minute of every day worrying about what matters and doing the things that are most important, we will burn ourselves out. At no time in the past several weeks, as I have written about the things that matter, have I meant to imply otherwise. As in all endeavors, we must find balance. I work daily. I devote time to my family, marriage, my parenting. I try to do the things I love, to make good use of as much of my time as I can. But I also know that some of that “good use” can be put to silly, meaningless stuff that I enjoy.

I have games on my phone that I play daily. (No, I won’t tell you which ones. That would be embarrassing . . . .) I listen to music, not because it enriches me (though it often does) but because it’s fun. Nancy and I have shows we love to watch, and yes, part of the joy lies in watching together. But part of the joy is also just losing ourselves in storylines that are amusing, or suspenseful, or exciting, or even trashy. (Looking at you, creators of The Crown . . . .) I love watching sports on television. Baseball, soccer, basketball — I can lose myself in a good game even if I don’t care too much about either team. I like watching golf, too, mostly because it takes me back to my youth, when I watched with my dad and he taught me all he knew about the game.

Early on in this series of posts, I wrote about managing our days, and looking for ways to maximize the time we spend on those things we deem important. I don’t mean to contradict that earlier post. I mean merely to counter it with a simple reality: We can’t allocate every moment to weighty endeavors. Life demands that we slow down now and then and give ourselves a break, whatever that might mean.

And so, as I wind down my series of “What matters?” posts, I urge you to ask the question when it seems appropriate, but also to give yourself a break now and again. Being directed is great. And on occasion, so is being frivolous. Because ultimately, what matters is that we’re well and whole.

Wishing you all the best, and a very fine week to come.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Why I Love Soccer, and You Should Too

Unless you’ve been in a food coma for the last two weeks, or have been so mesmerized by the constant influx of sales emails coming from every vendor under the sun that you can think of nothing else, you probably know that professional soccer’s World Cup is currently being played in Qatar. And unless you’re one of the relatively few soccer fans in the U.S., you probably don’t care.

I am here to tell you that you should.

Soccer — football, as it is known most everywhere else on the globe — is far and away the most popular sport in the world. It’s not close. Those who study these things estimate that association football has 3.5 BILLION fans worldwide. For the sake of comparison, American football and rugby, as played in Europe, Oceania, and South Africa, have a combined fandom of about 410 MILLION. (The closest sports to soccer are cricket, at 2.5 billion fans, and basketball, at 2.2 billion.)

As popular as association football is around the world, that’s how unpopular it is in the United States, at least as measured in television and in-person viewership. Yes, people, particularly young people, love to play it. But that growing passion has yet to translate into viewership fandom on the levels of American football, basketball, baseball, or even hockey. And there are reasons for this.

Soccer is a game of athleticism, of speed, of power and grace and mind-boggling skill. It is also a game of nuance and subtlety, of creativity and strategy, of patience and scarcity. In most matches, goals come at a premium. Look at the final results from a typical week in England’s Premier League, of which Nancy and I are devoted fans, and you’ll see lots of 1-0, 2-1, 1-1, 0-0 scores. 3-0 is a blowout. 4-2 constitutes an offensive explosion.

Americans tend to like sports with lots of offense and/or lots of violence. It makes sense that American football, which has plenty of both, is our most popular sport. Baseball, once our National Pastime, had too little of either to remain the nation’s favorite. It’s no coincidence that in the last quarter century, baseball was at its most popular during the Steroid Era, when home runs were flying out of stadiums in record numbers.

As it happens, I still love baseball, and I love soccer for many of the same reasons. And here’s why. Every soccer match is like a pitchers’ duel in baseball. A single goal — like a single run — can change everything. Two can put a match beyond reach. The tension is intense and magical, the demand for near perfection is utterly compelling.

Why are goals so rare? It’s not as though the goal itself is small — quite the opposite. A standard goal is 24 feet wide and eight feet high. The pitch (soccer-speak for the field) is longer and wider than an American football field. The playing surface is large enough and the teams small enough (eleven per side) to allow for wide-ranging play. There is plenty of room for offense. So why isn’t there more?

The key to understanding soccer is the offside rule. At it’s simplest, the rule is this: At the time a pass is kicked, the intended receiver of the pass has to have at least one defender (in addition to the goalie) between themselves and the goal. In other words, an offensive player can’t just hang out by the goal waiting for a pass from a teammate. They have to make certain at least one defender is positioned nearer the goal. Until the pass is kicked. As soon as the ball is airborne, they can sprint to the goal. The timing of the player’s run has to be perfect — late enough to remain onside, early enough to beat the defender to the ball.

My description of the offside rule doesn’t do justice to its intricacy and its impact on every element of the game. There are so many permutations of what can be allowed and what can’t — its complexity feeds the drama of each match. The rule needs to be seen in action, again and again, under match conditions, to be understood and appreciated fully.

The other element of the game that I like is the lack of violence. Don’t get me wrong: Soccer matches can be rough. Challenges are physical and occur at speed. But there are penalties — free kicks — for unnecessary or gratuitous contact, and there are sanctions for repeated offenses. A player deemed to have made a dangerous challenge or too many rough plays is given a yellow card. A second yellow card means ejection from the game without replacement. The team will finish the game with only ten players instead of eleven. And a red card, given for excessively rough or reckless play, means automatic ejection, again, without replacement.

Sadly, the best American male athletes tend to go into American football, basketball, or baseball. That’s where the money is professionally, and so that’s where high school and college athletes try to make their reputations. Female athletes don’t have football or baseball as an option, but they do have soccer and basketball (both my daughters played varsity soccer in high school). In those sports, on the women’s side, the U.S. consistently fields the finest national teams in the world.

Maybe soccer isn’t for you. That’s fine, of course. But maybe you haven’t yet given it a chance. As it happens, the finest male players in the world are on display right now in the World Cup. Watch a match or two. Yes, the games might end without much scoring, but I guarantee you’ll be impressed with the level of play, the incredible athleticism (position players run an average of 7-10 miles per game!!), and the passion of those fans lucky enough to attend the games. And perhaps you’ll find yourself drawn to what many refer to as “the beautiful game.”

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Some Hard Truths About Me

I don’t do well with change. You know how little kids have trouble with transitions, how you need to warn them about impending shifts in circumstance? “Sweetie, I know it’s been fun visiting Grandma and Grandpa, but in a few minutes we’re going to have to say goodbye, okay?” Sometimes even fair warning can’t stave off a complete meltdown, but it’s the only tool we have, right?

Well, I’m not much different from a toddler in this respect. I don’t like transitions. The way I see it, I’m close to sixty years old and at this point I have set up my life pretty much the way I want it to be. So, change equals bad.

In the last two months, my dentist and my general practitioner have both announced that they are leaving their practices, and my therapist has told me that due to the fact she’s about to have her first child (truthfully, I am very, very happy for her and her partner), she will be stepping back from her practice for the next half year or so.

It’s me, isn’t it? This is not mere coincidence. I don’t know what I did, but clearly I did something. I shower. I brush my teeth. And even if I didn’t do these things, my therapist and I do tele-therapy sessions, so she wouldn’t know.

All kidding aside, I have been with my GP for close to twenty years, my dentist for more than ten. Relationships like those are not easily replaced. And I really don’t do well with change . . . .

This is one of those Monday posts that’s going to bounce around a lot. It’s not that I have nothing on my mind, nothing to write about. It’s that I have too many things, and some of them are best left unsaid, at least in a public forum. I’m not very good at keeping my mouth shut, figuratively or literally. When I’m pissed off, I tend to say so, and I don’t hesitate to call people out for bad behavior. This sounds admirable in some ways. Really it’s not. It gets me in trouble far more often than not. It rarely makes any situation better.

And so this week, I am looking for things to write and I have lots of ideas. But each one bumps up against my (admittedly underdeveloped) sense of discretion.

In order to avoid creating problems closer to home, I have considered writing about the Yankees and the Mets, my two beloved baseball teams, who are both in the process of blowing massive leads they enjoyed in their respective divisions not so very long ago. But I complain about such things just about every year. If I’m not complaining about them blowing a lead, I’m complaining about them not having a lead. If I’m not complaining about the Yankees, I’m complaining about the Mets. It’s actually a rare season in which I can complain legitimately about both, so I suppose I should be grateful. But let’s be honest: no one wants to read my complaints about two privileged but poorly run New York teams who can’t get their shit together. So, moving on . . . .

I have also considered writing about the upcoming midterm elections, which are looking far better for the progressive-minded today than they were a few months ago. But let’s be honest, midterms usually hurt the party in power, and with inflation high, gas prices still above normal, and the country polarized, things don’t look great. I won’t get into who is to blame for what, except to say that inflation and gas prices are high everywhere, all over the world. The U.S. is hardly an outlier in this regard. In fact, things are better here than in most places.

The problem is, though, politics these days is one of the things that sets off my anxiety in a big way. And since my therapist will soon be unavailable (please refer back to paragraph 3), well, focusing on the midterms is probably not the best idea from a mental health perspective. I used to be able to manage my political anxiety. But the perils faced by our system of government have grown so frightening, so violent, so persistent, that whenever I dive into the topic and confront the existential threat to what I once believed was a stable republic, I kind of freak out. So, I think I’ll move on again.

I am not alone in any of this, I know. Anticipating the many kind comments this post is likely to prompt, I will say that I really am okay. The doctors thing? I’ll find new practitioners, and they will be fine. Better than fine, most likely. The Yankees and Mets? Many of us grow a bit irrational about our sports loyalties. For some it’s soccer, for some it’s basketball, for some it’s American football at either the pro or college level. For me it’s baseball. I’ll get over it. I do every season. And the politics? We are all under threat. We are all invested in the stability of our republic, regardless of ideology or party affiliation. And at some point, I believe, both sides will recognize the threat and turn down the temperature a bit. We will get through this.

But now you know a bit more about me. Not the prettiest of pictures. At least I’m honest, though, right?

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Roger Angell, 1920-2022

If you are not a baseball fan, and not a reader of The New Yorker, chances are the news of Roger Angell’s passing, at the age of 101, had little significance for you. But if you are familiar with his work, then you know we have lost a brilliant essayist, a keen observer of the human condition, and the greatest chronicler of baseball in the game’s history.

Angell’s achievements are legion, and others writing tributes to him can do a better job than I in summarizing his magnificent career. It is worth noting that he was the stepson of E.B. White, that he published articles and stories in the The New Yorker for a span of 76 years (that’s not a typo), and was for more than two decades the fiction editor at that august magazine. He was a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame AND the American Academy of Arts of Letters. No other writer — no other person — can claim membership in both.

He was, in short, far, far more than a baseball writer.

And yet, for me, his legacy will always be tied firmly to the game.

The Summer Game, by Roger AngellBeginning in 1962, and continuing through most of the next sixty years, Angell wrote about baseball, contributing articles to The New Yorker a couple of times each season, usually once during spring training, and once at the end of the World Series. Some seasons he added a mid-season essay. His articles were later collected in volumes — The Summer Game (1972), Five Seasons (1977), Late Innings (1982), Season Ticket (1988), and Once More Around the Park (1991). I own all of them, and have read them multiple times.

My mother was a dedicated subscriber to The New Yorker, and always had piles of them on her night table, because she could never quite keep up with all the reading. But whenever she received an issue containing a Roger Angell article, she would read it immediately so she could send it on to me, to my oldest brother, and to our sister. My father usually stole the magazine long enough to read the article as well. The appearance of an Angell piece was a family affair.

It wasn’t just that he wrote about a game we all loved. It was that he did so with poetry, with humor, and with the giddy appreciation of baseball’s unique grace only a fan can harbor and no writer, no matter how talented, can fake.

Writing in 1962, as the brand-new New York Mets franchise stumbled to one of the worst seasons in baseball history, he ruminated about their die-hard, stadium-filling fans:

It seemed statistically unlikely that there could be, even in New York, a forty- or fifty-thousand-man [sic] audience made up exclusively of born losers — leftover Landon voters, collectors of mongrel puppies, owners of stock in played-out gold mines — who had been waiting years for a suitably hopeless cause…
…This was the losing cheer, the gallant yell for a good try — antimatter to the sounds of Yankee Stadium. This was a new recognition that perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman, and that a stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming. Most of all, perhaps, these exultant yells for the Mets were also yells for ourselves, and came from a wry, half-understood recognition that there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us.

He described the daring base-running of the wonderful Willie Mays (“the best ballplayer anywhere”) this way:

He runs low to the ground, his shoulders swinging to his huge strides, his spikes digging up great chunks of infield dirt; the cap flies off at second, he cuts the base like a racing car, looking back over his shoulder at the ball, and lopes grandly into third, and everyone who has watched him finds himself laughing with excitement and shared delight.

Wit, lyricism, and a fundamental understanding not just of how the game is played, but what it means to those of us who lack the talent to play at that level, but still identify with beloved teams and admired stars. Angell’s writing did more than reflect back at me my own passion for baseball. It deepened my understanding of the nuances of the sport.

More important in the long run, his work taught me about the craft to which I would devote the bulk of my life. His observations and descriptions challenged my preconceptions. I thought I knew baseball — I was a fanatic about the sport from an early age. But the game Angell described was more beautiful than the one I had seen up until that point. He made me look at it again, not as a fan, but as a storyteller. He inspired me to think like a writer, about baseball at first, but later about so much more. I read his first book when I was in junior high. His second when I was in high school. His third after I finished college. I grew up on his writing. The lessons I gleaned from his essays shaped my voice, even though I wasn’t writing about baseball at all.

Angell was born in 1920. He saw Ruth play, and Gehrig. He saw Mays and Aaron, Koufax and Gibson, Seaver and Jeter. He lived a long life filled with achievement and also with tragedy. And he wrote about it all. He continued to write pretty much to the end of his life, and I will miss his essays the way I miss watching Willie run. But his words remain, and if you are unfamiliar with his work, now is the perfect time to dive in.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Baseball, Opening Day, and Childhood Dreams

Baseball season opens this week. That might not seem like a big deal to you. And in truth, it’s far less of a big deal for me now than it used to be.

But once upon a time, Opening Day was Christmas morning and my birthday all rolled into one. It was the best day of the year that didn’t involve me getting presents. It was a day of possibility, of dreams deferred finally having their day in the sun. And, yes, quite often, it was also the day those dreams and possibilities were doused with icy water.

When I was a kid, baseball was everything to me. Sure, I had other interests, but I lived and died with the Yankees (mostly died, for the first twelve years of my life) and I dreamed of being a major league baseball player. I remember a first grade class assignment in which we were supposed to draw a picture of ourselves in whatever job we expected to do when we grew up, and then write a few sentences about that job. I drew myself playing center field for the Yankees.

I should pause here to say that I must have been truly delusional. I was a TERRIBLE baseball player as a kid. I was terrified of getting hit by the baseball. My little league at-bats were panic-inducing affairs that saw me swinging at any pitch within four or five feet of the plate so that I could strike out more quickly. The strikeout itself was a foregone conclusion, right? So why prolong the encounter and risk devastating physical injury? Every once in a while, I would screw up the courage NOT to swing and would manage a walk.

And as I trotted down to first base, marveling at the mere fact that I was still alive, my father would clap from the stands, calling “Nice going, Charlie [his nickname for me — he did, in fact, know my real name]! Walk’s as good as a hit!”

Kind, but untrue. Walks are great — on average, players who walk a lot help their teams far more than players who walk infrequently. Still, hits are better. There are stats to back this up. But I digress . . .

What about my fielding, you might ask. Well, I was already a birdwatcher by the time I was playing little league, and I spent a lot of time out in right field, watching for interesting fly-overs, and running after hit balls that were safely on the ground and decelerating, and therefore far less of a threat . . .

[I did get a little better as I grew older. I spent three summers at sleepaway camp when I was eleven, twelve, and thirteen, and during my last year there had a pretty good season. I batted over .300 — yes, I kept track; yes, I still remember — fielded well, and generally acquitted myself quite well. But I should also say that this was a camp for well-to-do Jewish kids. Not exactly the training ground for future Major Leaguers. The pitchers I faced were more likely to wind up as orthodontists than as professional athletes.]

And still, I insisted year after year that I would someday play for the Yankees. And not just at any position. I would play center field. The realm of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. As I said: delusional. My parents tried, gently, to steer me away from this dream, pointing out that baseball players — and most professional athletes — had certain skills and attributes that I lacked. Like hand-eye coordination. And height.

Joe Morgan, 1974 Topps“Aha!!” I was able to reply. “What about Joe Morgan? Two time Most Valuable Player, perennial All-Star, World Series champion. He’s five foot seven!” Besides, I assured them. I didn’t expect or need to be six feet tall. I would be perfectly happy with five foot ten, like my hero, Roy White.

Amazingly, it was this statement that my father couldn’t abide. God bless him, he was willing to put up with my elephantine blind spot when it came to my playing ability. But me growing to be five foot ten? No. This was the bridge too far. “Charlie, I’m sorry. But you are never, ever going to be five foot ten . . .”

Spoiler alert: He was right.

I did eventually get over my baseball-playing dreams. Mostly. But baseball’s Opening Day still elicits from me a different sort of dream. “This is the year!” I tell myself, literally every year. “This is the year the Yankees will dominate the American League. The Mets will dominate the National League. The two will meet in an epic seven game World Series! I won’t even care which team wins!”

So maybe I’m still delusional.

But did you know that in 1991, when the Minnesota Twins faced the Atlanta Braves in the World Series, both teams were just one year removed from last-place finishes in their respective divisions? True story. In 1969, the Miracle Mets won 100 games and the World Series, after spending their first seven years of existence at or near the basement of the National League.

And while we’re at it, did you know that Freddie Patek, shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals, three time All-Star, was only five foot five??

Anything can happen!

And that really is the point.

Look, baseball is no longer the game I worshiped as a child. Games have gotten too long and boring. Batters swing for the fences in every at-bat. Pitchers try to strike out every batter they face. The nuance and strategy that I loved — it all seems to be gone. And yet, with Opening Day approaching, I find myself dreaming of a season in which smart baseball returns, in which the obsession with power-hitting and power-pitching fades, and this amazing game returns to the subtle brilliance I remember so fondly.

Call me delusional.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Invasives, LonTobyn Chronicle, Writing

Monday Musings: My Favorite Things!

We are in the midst of a rainy-soon-to-be-snowy weekend here, and I am thinking about my Monday Musings post, looking for something fun and cheery to write about. There are always world issues to address, and I have been up front about emotional matters in recent months. But the truth is, I am tired of being Mr. Serious-Guy. So for today, something completely different.

I’ve thought of writing posts about a few of my favorite things (cue Sound of Music soundtrack), but none of them would actually fill a full post. Well, most wouldn’t. But how about a list of my favorite things from random categories? Kind of a Favorite Things Lightning Round. Sound fun? Here we go:

Favorite Single Malt Scotch: Starting with the hootch! Yeah, I love single malt, and we have several different kinds. I sometimes enjoy a peaty Scotch, and will also drink some specialty Scotches aged in port or rum casks (Balvenie has a great one, as does Glenmorangie). But mostly I like Speysides, which tend to be less smoky and somewhat sweeter. For my money, the best of these is the Dalwhinnie 15 year-old “Highland” Scotch. They call it a Highland, but it is technically a Speyside, and it is just lovely. I drink it neat, with just a splash of cool water. In fact, I’m feeling a little parched right now…

Favorite Jazz Album: This one is easy, and I’m really not going out on a limb at all. Miles Davis’s 1959 classic Kind of Blue, is an entry point for many who are just getting into jazz, and it was exactly that for me some 40+ years ago. Thing is, this is an album of which I never tire. Each time I listen to it I love it more. By turns haunting, toe-tapping, introspective, and dynamic, it features a who’s who of jazz superstars: Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on saxophone, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. It is brilliant. If you’ve always wanted to listen to jazz, but didn’t know where to start, this is your answer.

Favorite Jazz Album You’ve Never Heard Of: This one is a little harder, but I have to go with Sphere’s Flight Plan. Sphere is a jazz quartet that originally included Kenny Barron on piano, Charlie Rouse on saxophone, Buster Williams on bass, and Ben Riley on drums. They released Flight Plan, their second album, in 1983. It has since gone out of print, and is very hard to find. But my God, it is SO good. Like Kind of Blue, it covers a range of moods, but it is consistently excellent and utterly addictive.

Favorite Sport to Watch: I’m a lifetime baseball fan, and I still count baseball as my favorite sport, though mostly for sentimental reasons. A great baseball game remains a joy-inducing treat, and I love watching games live, at spring training venues or at the nearby Double A stadium in Chattanooga. But the truth is, today’s iteration of baseball bugs the hell out of me. Too many strikeouts and home runs, not enough nuance and strategy. Few games, even during the postseason, rise to the level of “great.” Which is why my favorite sport to watch is now soccer, specifically Premier League soccer on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Nancy and I watch a lot of soccer. It is a beautiful sport to watch. It has nearly nonstop action, and demands tremendous athleticism of its players, but it is also precise, thoughtful, steeped in strategy, and mindful of both defense and offense. Nancy roots for Tottenham. I root for Chelsea.

The Outlanders, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Favorite of My Books: The most recent one I’ve written, almost always. Which is a copout, I know. Invasives, the second Radiants book, comes out in February, so it is the most recent I’ve written, and it is my current favorite. But in another way, my favorite is probably The Outlanders, the second book in my LonTobyn Chronicle, and my second novel overall. Why? Simple. When I began my career, I knew I had one book in me, but I didn’t know if I could write for a living. Upon finishing The Outlanders, I realized it was better than my first book, Children of Amarid, a book of which I was quite proud. It was much better, in fact. And I understood then that I was not just a guy who wrote a book. I was an author. I could make a career of this.

Favorite Bird: I’ve seen close to a thousand species of bird worldwide, and I love so many of them. But one bird is what my brother Jim, who got me into birding in the first place, calls my trigger bird, the one that made me fall in love with bird watching. As it happens, he and I have the same trigger bird. Canada Warbler. Google it. I’ll wait… Beautiful, right? Sure, there are others that are even more striking, more majestic, fiercer, cooler. Whatever. This is the one that opened up the world of birds to me. I see it nearly every spring during migration. And each time the sighting leaves me smiling for the rest of the day.

Favorite TV Show We’re Binging Right Now: You have to understand, Nancy and I only got decent internet — decent enough to stream — about six months ago. So we are new to the binging thing and we love it. We are currently in the middle of The Great British Baking Show, The Crown, Madame Secretary, and our favorite, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s funny and smart, the performances are excellent, and the writing is great. What’s not to love?

Bloodroot and Dew Drop, by David B. CoeFavorite of My Photos: This is a hard one — even harder than choosing my favorite of my books, if for no other reason than sheer numbers: I’ve written about 26 books. I’ve taken thousands of photos. And as with my books, my favorite photo changes as I capture new images and add them to my collection. But one in particular has stood out for some time now, because with it I accomplished in a technical sense precisely what I wanted to. The photo is a macro shot of a single drop of water hanging from a Bloodroot leaf. And it works because I managed to position the drop in the optimal spot in the image, and I got the depth of field (the balance between what is in focus and what is blurred) just right. Here it is (click on the image for a larger version). Enjoy!

I might return to this “Favorites” theme again this year. I have lots of possible categories left.

For now, though, have a great week!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Sports and COVID

Last year, on the weekend of the Super Bowl, I wrote a post for that following Monday about the power of sports in our culture. In it, I noted that the Big Game was one of the few truly shared experiences in our national culture, an event of vast reach that crossed many of the demographic boundaries that usually divide us as a nation. I also might have voiced some disdain for the hype, the glitz, the obscene expenditures on everything from the halftime show to the half-minute advertising spots.

What a difference a year makes.

When I wrote that post, of course, COVID-19 was not yet on our radar. Sports, among so many other things, had not yet been taken away from us.

I have missed sports far more than I thought I would. And I have found COVID-restricted sports less satisfying than I might have hoped. Usually while watching sports on television I begrudge the crowd reaction shots, the panning of packed stands, the background chants and shouts and, in the case of the Premier League, singing. I realize now, though, that those things meant something to me. I suppose, unwittingly, I got a vicarious thrill out of knowing there were thousands of people attending the game, reveling in the excitement of being there.

I don’t like the cardboard cutouts that have been placed in stadiums and arenas. I understand why they’re there, but I find it creepy and unsettling — a reminder, as if we need it, of all that is absent from our lives right now. I’m not crazy about the prerecorded crowd noise either, although, again, I understand why some venues use it. I’ll even admit that some Premier League venues (Nancy and I probably watch more Premier League soccer than we do any other sport) have done a really great job of simulating crowd reactions to play on the pitch.

Nevertheless, what I love about sports — about the entire spectacle: the game, the interaction of the players, the crowd response, even the cheesy organ playing and sound effects that still infect baseball games — is the organic nature of each event. Over the course of my life, I have watched — in person or on television — literally hundreds upon hundreds of baseball games, football games, basketball games. We’re getting there with soccer games. I have watched a ton of golf tournaments (yes, that’s right — deal with it), swim competitions, track and field meets… I could go on, but you get my point. I love sports and have watched a lot. And I have never seen any two games or meets or tournaments that were exactly alike. That may seem self-evident, but to my mind it speaks to the power of sports.

Every inning, every play, every trip down the court or assault on the opposing team’s goal is a moment of possibility. Anything can happen. Yes, the environment is controlled — action is guided by rules and confined by the field of play, but that actually enhances the experience. There is a certain level of safety in the unpredictability of sports (unlike the unpredictability of life itself, which is anything but safe).

Sports blends the thrill of the possible with the suspense of the unknown and the exploration of human potential and frailty. We watch athletes who are among the best in the world at what they do, pit themselves against one another in full view of thousands, sometimes millions. Will they fold under the pressure? Will they thrive? Will someone unexpected emerge as a hero? Will the most revered among them fail in a key moment, forever changing the way history views them?

Yes, some people will say “Who cares? It’s just sports. None of this matters.”

And they’re right. I won’t go so far as to say that the nerve-wracking suspense of a tight game, the excruciating progression of a key at-bat, has no long-term consequence. I’m merely a fan, and yet there are still sports moments that haunt me, the pain of a devastating loss as raw now as the day it happened. But the fate of the world isn’t at stake. And isn’t that exactly what we need right now?

Sadly, though, the version of sports we’re getting currently is lacking. The players and coaches are doing their best — I have no doubt of that. And I also don’t wish to be misunderstood: I welcome any sports we can have, and I have no desire to see anyone — athlete or fan — put at risk. I’ll take what I can get. Let’s be honest, though. These games are not the same. They can’t be. Playing before hordes of screaming fans has to have an effect on player performance. Yes, the greats claim that they can block out all awareness of the crowd. I don’t believe it. Do you? I haven’t seen stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that in these COVID leagues, home field advantage has declined markedly. How could it not?

Okay, I just did a quick search online, and home-field advantage has, in fact, diminished in a number of sports. So, yeah.

Look, having any sports at all is great — far better than having none. But I long for the day when stadiums can be filled to capacity. I look forward to going to games myself, to attending spring training again with my daughter, to seeing minor league baseball in the cities near us.

Sports matter, not just to those of us who love them, but to society at large. And having people in the stands makes a huge difference as well. Don’t believe me? Consider whether Jackie Robinson’s arrival in the Major Leagues would have had the impact on America that it did if the seats in Ebbets Field been empty.