Unitas

Greetings all. Most of you know me on the boards from my discussions on football. My screenname would actually suggest that I am a football fan first, but that isn't true. I used the name Unitas, because I opened the CBS account on the first weekend of football season in '06. As a youngster, my heroes were Johnny U., and Mickey Mantle. My screenname would have probably be Mantle had I set the account up in April. While I do love my football, the passion of my life is baseball. Always has been and always will be. I think our country's facination with football comes from the weekly event. It is a total diversion from our normal grind. It has a war aspect to it. Battle (play), plan (huddle), battle and so on. Most of us don't have a misguided opinion that we could do what Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Michael Strahan or Ladanian Tomlinson do. Football fits a need for us to vicariously act out our aggressions, and wish harm to some degree on the enemy/opponent. On the other hand, baseball is a microcosm of life. It happens much slower, and more subtly than football or basketball. Every pitch changes the situation, but only those astute to the small parts of the game would understand those things. Sandy Koufax once said that the most important pitch in baseball is 'Strike One'. The whole world is changed in the baseball circles depending on if the batter has an 0-1 or a 1-0 count. I took a group of managers to an outing at Wrigley Field several years ago. Mark Grace had a 2-0 count on him. I said that 'Grace is one of the best cherry pickers in baseball today'. I was explaining that a cherry picker was a hitter that sits on one pitch in one location because he is ahead in the count. No sooner than I said that, he deposited a pitch onto Sheffield Avenue for a 2 run homer.....knowing the game is to love the game. Why would a Midwestern lad be a fan of the Colts and Yankees? Well, my cousin lived 15 miles from Baltimore. He was 4 years older than me, and I idolized him. His favorite player was Johnny U. Thus, I took on a love of the Colts (much to the chagrin of my parents). Mom was a Packer fan and Dad was a Bear fan. The greatest picture ever taken of me is standing in front of Green Bay's stadium (it wasn't called Lambeau Field in '64) with my arms crossed and pouting because my Mother made me stand there to have my picture taken. Taking on the Yankees as my team was much easier since the only team you ever saw on TV in those days were the Yankees. My first baseball memory was Willie McCovey lining out to Bobby Richardson to end the '62 World Series. My sister and I were jumping for joy, and my parents weren't. Baseball was a huge part of my childhood. My family had the biggest back yard in the neighborhood. Big enough to have a decent baseball game. Since I was one of the youngest kids in the neighborhood, I got to play with lots of older kids. This totally enhance my skill set, and I was much ahead of kids my own age. The only way they could play in our yard was to let me play. Had I not blown my arm out when I was 16, I think I might have pitched collegiately, if not professionally. I coached baseball for over 20 years, taking all my sons through their younger years and followed my youngest until he decided not to play in college. (he also hurt himself his senior year, and was being courted by Ohio State, Indiana, and several small schools in Alabama and Georgia). After the coaching career was over, I turned to umpiring baseball, and do that still. My greatest moment in my athletic career came as a coach. As a kid, I never worked as hard as I should have. I was blessed with enormous skill, but wasted much of it. I always felt I must have a big disappointment to my coaches for my poor work ethic. We were playing in a county wide tournament. We had 64 youth teams in our county, and every year there was a single elimination tournament of the season teams (Not all star teams). We were in the final four, playing a team from our own league. We had lost 14 straight to this team over 4 years. We were down 8-7 in the last inning, and my first two guys got on base. With runners on first and second, my catcher laid down a perfect bunt, moving the runners up to second and third. He was out. But, as he was running off the field, he was pumping his fists like he had just gotten the winning hit in the 7th game of the World Series. The entire dugout was out to congratulate him, and our fans were going crazy. All this for an out? We ultimately won the game and then won the tournament on the next night. That is my greatest moment because I knew that, at that moment, that I had given the gift of baseball to all the kids and parents on that team. We told the kids that little things make champions. Bunting is a little thing that a lot of kids don't like to do, but is necessary to have a great team. That poor work ethic as a player made me a good coach. It also makes me a good umpire. I don't 'waste' my talent anymore. I also know what I left on the table. I really enjoy interacting with the kids. They keep me young. I am old school, and expect them to hustle. But, the know I respect them, too. So, when you are complaining about baseball being boring, remember, baseball is real life. Most guys have spent time thinking that they could hit a home run, make the great catch, or throw that guy out trying to take the extra base. Those who understand and recognize the subtlties of life are the ones who get the greatness of baseball. The eternal hope that comes with the blooming of spring and the beginning of another baseball season, through the raging inferno of summer that bakes your brains out in the middle of the season that you don't think will ever end, and finally the autumn of your life that is found in the end of the season played near fall's frost.... Yes, it is slow, but if you don't pay attention, it's gone. Til next time.....