The Middle: Aug 22 - 29

I had made it from one corner of the country to the other. Touring the states -- slipping in and out of cities and towns, reacquainting with old friends and methodically knocking off all the ballparks -- I found myself lulled into losing track of time and place. Homecomings will snap one out of a zone, and the sunshine state was one of sorts. We lugged into Miami and there I was, as far away from Portland and where I had started that I would get. But I was in good hands. Florida is the home of mom and Dennis.

We lived it up: three baseball games, daylong beach excursions, copious sunshine and warmth, fishing for dinner on the Naughty Girl and meal after meal of straight up tastiness (I knew Dennis' kitchen would be a culinary highlight of the trip).  I was also able to get some much needed rest. There is just something incredibly comforting about sleeping in a bed made by your mom.

It was here that I also made my first major diversion from the plan of getting around solely via the train and/or bicycle (previously I decided it was courteous of me to accept an offer for a car ride from time to time). Mom and Dennis live in North Fort Myers, which is about 150 miles from Miami and an hour and a half south of St. Petersburg -- the sites for the next two games. My bicycle was in a barn in Ohio and no trains run to Ft. Myers (or St. Pete for that matter), so I was left with three choices. I could have stayed in a hotel in both cities and had the opportunity to see my parents at the games. Or, I could have   hopped a Greyhound over to N. Ft. Myers and then taken it back for the baseball. But I decided that neither of these options were as good as the offer I received from my mom to be picked up from Miami's train station and to stay in her house for a few days.

By now it would have been disingenuous of me if I didn't question my goal in attempting this trip -- and more specifically, this portion of the trip. The answer, I quickly discovered of and for myself, was that I was battling with competing priorities: being with family on one hand and remaining doggedly resolute in my quest of support for alternative transportation on the other -- each of which I believe are good and valuable things. From this quandary an opportunity for a third personal value to bridge the dilemmatic gap had availed itself to me. I had compromise on the brain.

I thought about the power of compromise while watching a morning news program back in New York. I am consistently floored by the inability of our politicians to compromise. I would extend this notion to the electorate as well. Cooperation is not valued as highly by society as it should be. The instinct of greed and the purity of unbroken ideology get more lip service than acquiescence for the good of the whole. In fact, giving in to one's political rivals is admonished regularly on news programs -- including morning news live from New York City. Of course humans have evolutionary reasons to be greedy and stubborn, but we shouldn't ignore the role cooperation and partnership have played in our ascension up the food chain either. We need to remember that it wasn't the lone hunter-gatherer that survived, it was the tribe.

So, believing that flexibility is just as important as standing strong I was faced with an opportunity to make my wonderful summer adventure even more special. I took it without blinking. Now I am, and forever will be, glad I did.

Of course I couldn't realize it at the time, but this trip to Florida was special for a very important reason. It marked the last time I was able to be with Dennis. Completely out of the blue Dennis suffered a fatal heart attack seven months later. Now I miss his laugh. I miss his blackened sea trout in the cast iron skillet. I miss Dennis. I wish my mom had her husband still. But I am immeasurably fortunate and eternally grateful that I decided to take a trip across the United States and to Florida where I was able to have a very memorable last week with the man who, as my stepfather, became such a big part of my life. Wherever you're at Dennis, cheers.

Post:

Picture Pages IV

Mom mastered Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Tampa Bay with a barely visible Tropicana Field left of center

Dome sweet dome

Everglades

Dennis and I grill pizza. Yes, pizza. It was great.

Mom knits hats for the soldiers in Afghanistan

Games:


August 23: Tropicana Field -- St. Petersburg, FL

Detroit 2
Tampa Bay 1

I learned some things at this game. Among them: that Rays' catcher Kelly Shopach frequently flips the bat haphazardly after swinging at the ball, that Rays' first baseman Casey Kotchman's incredible offensive improvement from last season is primarily due to eye surgery that he had in the off season, and that 86-year olds can be a lot of fun. My grandma Dot accompanied me to this game, along with my mom and stepdad Dennis, and interestingly it was my grandma that taught me everything I mentioned.

Grandma Dot sat right next to me and we chatted the whole game, mostly about baseball. She was born in Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan, and lived most of her adult life in Detroit. Needless to say, she has spent many a year pulling for the Tigers. Because she now lives in St. Pete and watches the Rays games everyday I thought she might be conflicted about who to root for. Nope. For her it was the Rays all the way.

My grandma sure knows an awful lot about the team. Not only was she able to tell me a bunch of interesting little details, but she also had great insight, "Look at David. He's afraid of Miguel and doesn't want to throw him a pitch in the strike zone." Whether we were talking baseball, sharing jalapenos, discussing potential ladyfriends or zipping through the concourse didn't matter. I had a lot of fun with her.

Other mentionables:

- Fans get to play scorecard bingo. Mom really enjoyed this. Every fan receives a preprinted bingo card upon entering the stadium. On the card are a variety of plays written as they're scored (6-3 - Shortstop to First, F8 - Fly out to center, K - strikeout). The first 50 winners get a gift of some kind. Nobody in our group won. However, it was a fun way to get everybody to not only to be very interested in the game, but teach how to score at the same time.

- I've never been a fan of domes. I remember taking in a game with my friend Jack at the Metrodome in Minneapolis once. The game seemed so artificial that we spent most of our time in the concourse talking to a guy that tried out for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers once. We watched a grand total of three innings and didn't even care about missing the Blue Jays hitting back to back to back home runs. The Trop does not escape this judgment, although it's about as good as you can hope for from a dome. The concourses are very nice, the food is excellent (pulled pork nachos), and the climate control is a huge relief from the oppressively humid Florida summer.

- The Tigers and Rays are two good baseball teams and they played a great game. Even though the score was 2-1 we saw a bunch of hits, which made for ample scoring opportunities. Coupled with the close score these opportunities provided plenty of drama. The pitching and defense in these situations was fantastic. The best of all was Evan Longoria's throw home to cut down Tiger base runner Delmon Young at the plate. In the top of the seventh inning, with Tampa Bay leading 1-0, the Tigers had runners on first and third with no outs. Victor Martinez, one of the league's leading batters, came to the plate against David Price. Price, a strong pitcher that hadn't yet allowed a run was able to get two strikes on Martinez before he ripped a ground ball down the third base line. Longoria, the Rays' outstanding third baseman, reacted quite impressively. He deftly stepped to his right and then caught the grounder in his mitt while falling to the ground. From his knees, behind the bag and along the line, Longoria fired a strike to his catcher Kelly Shopach beating Young's dash to home. Seeing that he was not arriving in time, Young attempted to bull over the catcher, but Shoppach was ready and tagged the aggressive runner while avoiding a serious collision. Longoria's play might be the best I've seen on the trip so far.

 

Post:

From Spring Training to Summer Training

So I was tying up this polar bear a couple months ago. Well, maybe I should back up a little and start at the beginning.

I was interviewing for a job with the World Wildlife Fund and really wanted to impress the staff there. I had snooped through some of their records and found a polar bear adoption order for one Kathryn Wrigley and thought to myself, "This is my chance to shine!" So between my fifth and sixth interviews I hightailed it up to Churchill, Manitoba in search of orphaned polar bears. (It is important to note that I was not employed by the WWF. Not for legal purposes, but because I believe that this circumstance is partially responsible for the reason that I was unfamiliar with their adoption policies. In fact I was under the impression that when somebody adopts a human or some other animal that he or she takes it home and provides for it. Much to my chagrin, it wasn't until a couple days later that I learned this is not always the case.)

So there I was, tying the legs of this polar bear together to get it ready for delivery to Vermont, when Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon approached me. "Say there son," evidently he was on some spiritual excursion seeking guidance for the upcoming season from the aurora borealis, "you sure look like you know what you're doing. You tie up polar bears like Millard Fillmore passed legislation...without even thinking about it." A statement that was especially funny to me because I was thinking the exact same thing. "We could use a man like you roaming center field this year. Whaddya say you come on down to Port Charlotte and try out for the team?" I told him that I only wanted to play for the Cubs, but he offered to buy me a grouper sandwich upon my arrived in Florida. So I said sure.

Rays' Manager Joe Maddon

After getting out of the Winnipeg jail I made my way to spring training and actually beat out the new phenom, Desmond Jennings for the starting center fielder position. But Rays' management and I couldn't reach agreement on a suitable contract so I decided to hang up the cleats. However it wasn't a total loss because during my week down there I read several books about trains and decided to tour the country on the rails.

Down in Florida taking some cuts against the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain

Games:


August 24: Sun Life Stadium -- Miami, FL

Cincinnati 5
Florida 6

Cincinnati 3
Florida 2

Two for the price of one! Because of Hurricane Irene the Marlins decided to play a double header on Wednesday, instead of trying to play a game on Thursday. That meant that the first game started at 4:10 and the second would begin a half hour afterwards. Unlike most double headers these days, this was an old-fashioned twin bill where fans can see two games with one ticket. My mom and I paid $10 for each of our tickets.

There was NOBODY there. I thought the game I saw in Oakland was sparsely attended, but that seemed congested by comparison. It felt like we were watching a little league game and it was awesome. You could hear everything, like the ball bouncing on the infield and the chatter coming from the dugouts. The pop of the catcher's mitt echoed loudly off of the hot orange seats and the crack of Joey Votto's bat sounded like a clap of thunder.

Mom and I were worried about the heat and humidity being a problem. After all it was Miami in August. Due to the limited number of fans in the stadium we were able to walk around, talk to some ushers, and choose some nice seats close to the field that were also in the shade. It worked out perfectly. The strong winds that announced the presence of a very large storm's approach circled down through the empty stadium giving us a constant breeze. I couldn't have been happier or more content sitting there with my mom, drinking beer, comfortably watching a major league baseball game with the intimacy of a neighborhood charity event.

Even though the Reds' Joey Votto (the reigning NL MVP) reached base three times and stung the ball for a homer, the Marlins won the first game 6-5. Thanks in large part to Jose Lopez's blast OVER the 435 ft. sign in left-center. Votto continued his hot hitting in game two, homering again and going 3 for 4. Cincinnati won the second game 3-2.

Although I enjoyed the baseball immensely my favorite part was watching my mom dance to all of the Latin and Cuban music that they played over the loud speaker. She couldn't sit still.

Another highlight was seeing 84 year-old Marlins' manager Jack McKeon arguing a check swing call and being ejected from the game.

McKeon heading back after arguing