This is Fantastic

The Memory of Hank Aaron

Baseball and Politics

If you know me, you know that two of my favorite things are baseball and politics. I can't really combine both for this post, but I do have a few opinions I want to put out there.

1. Baseball

For the Braves, the aquisition of Tom Glavine will prove useful, but not in the same way they're hoping. Sure, he might be able to provide 200 innings in 2008, but that won't come with the wins they really want. Glavine himself says that what he can provide will be some stability. Out of a five man rotation, last year you had two rocks in Hudson and Smoltz and three slots that went to marginal pitchers. Now, I do think Chuck James and Buddy Carlyle are coming along, but with Glavine filling that third spot, you have a 60% of the rotation filled with solid veterans. I believe what Glavine really brings back to the Braves is a bit of wisdom and help that Smoltz and Hudson could not provide on their own. Instead of just trying to stay afloat, this pitching staff can now focus on training younger guys, including Jo-Jo Reyes. I believe James and Carlyle will benefit from this the most and hope that they are successful in becoming the 4th and 5th starters on the Braves rotation in 2008.

As per the outfield, Jeff Francouer (a fellow Parkview High School alum) is the only guaranteed starter out there, but I believe that Matt Diaz deserves his spot out in left field. The big question is who will fill Andruw Jones shoes in center field. I had some hope that Francouer might get moved over and one of our prospects could be in right field, but I suppose there's something they want in a center fielder that Jeff doesn't have.

By the way, another PHS fellow, this time someone I know pretty well, Clint Sammons is on the 40 man roster for the Braves for 2008, it seems. Would be exciting to see my old classmate and neighbor from my freshman year be Brian McCann's backup, eh?


2. Politics

I've made no bones about my support for John Edwards in the Presidential campaign. Agreed that he is more conservative in some ways compared to Clinton and Obama, but I believe this makes him a stronger candidate for 2008 than the other two. I believe that if Edwards finishes 2nd in either Iowa or New Hampshire, he'll pick up momentum when hitting the South and West for their primaries. I believe also that Obama will be out after the initial primaries. I think his youthfulness and inexperience (he's not even through his first term in the senate!) will prove to much for primary voters to deal with. Ultimately, I believe they'll go for a more experienced candidate and I think that the kind of experience Clinton has will turn off voters.

No one is a career politician here, but I think it's quite clear that both Obama and Clinton ran for their current jobs with the intention of running for President. Maybe Edwards is no better, but I would like to note that Edwards gave up his senate seat by running for President while neither Obama nor Clinton will have to take that chance. To me, what John Edwards has done in his time off is better than what he did while in office. I think taking time and traveling has really made him a stronger candidate.

My only worry is that he'll drop out too soon...

Notes 10/23

1. Today's Mole Day.

2. Were you aware that I use these Notes posts in order to avoid writing actual posts about things? It's a good catch-all.

3. I'm glad the Red Sox are in the World Series. Sure, they're becoming awfully Yankee-like, but at least they don't have the arrogance that comes with money. I told Jennifer if we ever end up in the New England area, I may end up being a die-hard Sox fan, though I'd never lose my Braves loyalties.

4. Is everyone working on a book? Johannes has his memoir. Valerie Plame is making the talk show rounds with her book. Colbert's freakin' running for President (though I don't think it's terribly serious). Am I writing a book and not even aware of it? Perhaps.

5. I finished watching the film version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and thought that the concept as a whole did not translate well but that over all I was happy with the characters and their portrayal. Daniel Day-Lewis, as usual, was excellent. I was less happy with Binoche and Olin. I thought Binoche began as terribly naive and sheltered and stayed that way throughout the film. Olin just didn't strike me as terribly Sabina-esque.

6. Going to see Dylan tomorrow night. STOKED.

7. We're hosting a small party for the Georgia-Florida game this Saturday. Sick-em!

Reflections on Lightness, Light Poems, Kundera, Chicago, Genesis, My Brother, My Cousin Shruti, Her Family, and Baseball

Ending in the lightness it seems bent on discussing, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a book I have very mixed emotions about. Drawn to it Kundera's views on lightness, Nietzsche's Eternal Return, and of course by the idea of reading a 'Novel of Ideas', I felt incredibly underwhelmed by every piece that did not deal directly with Kundera's narrator and the ideas coming back.


The idea of writing a novel and telling the reader that you're only telling a story because it fits your ideas is a fascinating one, but if felt like nothing new to me. It felt incredibly post modern to me in that its gaze is back upon its self. Not really a mirror, but watching a video or seeing a photograph of yourself. I also did enjoy that Kundera doesn't mind telling the reader these things. The novel feels like it could easily include the phrase, "Let me give you an example..." before going off about Tomas and Tereza, et. al.


I am still thinking about (and will write about further) how it seems that while nothing can ever happen again, in the world of a reader and in the world of the book, there are multiple repetitions of events. Right now, I feel that the idea that nothing can happen again is moot because it can always happen again to the person who lived it, watched it, read it, etc. Sure the Braves 1991 season occurred only once, but in video and memory, we can live it again. Granted, it can't be the exact moment of time again, but it never really goes away, not even necessarily when we do.


So I took a notebook with me to Chicago, not intending to fill it with new poems by any means, but at least to write something down over the course of three days away from Iowa City. I wrote one poem, and to me, it doesn't necessarily exhibit what I have been wanting to do, but I felt like I'd taken something away from my quest for light poems. I think perhaps I'm done with the tiny/light poem phase, but hope that I've learned something from it.

The lightness of Kundera, Calvino, etc. is not my lightness. It is the lightness of wit and manner, not necessarily of style. I wanted lightness of form, not lightness of context. I want a lightness of words and not humor.

****

In Chicago, I saw my brother who has recently moved from Atlanta to Cincinnati. He seems do be doing well, but with more flecks of gray in his hair. We saw Genesis on Thursday night, which was an amazing show. The crowd was really into it and the band was too. The thing I loved the most was that there were only a few songs between us that we could think of that they didn't play. Other than that, Genesis played all of their hits, early 70s through early 90s.

****

We went to my cousin's house and saw her new baby. We went to dinner with her and her husband as well as my aunt and uncle. We spent a little while at my Uncle's condo in Skokie also. He seemed to be very happy to have us to talk with.

****

Chicago was quiet on the baseball front while I was around. They were excited Thursday evening at the possibility of winning. Alas, it was not to be.

Notes 9/23

1. We saw Lewis Black last night at Hancher. Not only was he totally awesome, he was also very polite when we met him after and got his autograph, which I will scan and post soon. I told him I'd seen him a few years ago at Georgia Tech (hissssssssssss) and he thanked me for being supportive. I told Jennifer that he's so great that I hope I can continue to see him for years to come. Did you all know he's 59?!

2. We got tickets for Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello, who are coming to Iowa City on October 24. We are STOKED. Johannes: eat your heart out!

3. Each Friday afternoon, I have been going to the International Writing Program's Translation Workshop. I was told to come down despite the fact that it is a class for which people are signed up. I am, obviously, not taking the class, despite the fact that I am going to end up doing a lot of the work for it. This includes being assigned a writer who has traveled from elsewhere (in my case, I am working with Aziz Shakir-Tash of Bulgaria), working on some translations with him and then having a day where we present his work. Obviously, because I'm not being graded, I am not too worried about it, I just want to have fun, meet people, and get much needed intellectual stimulation. My other goal, of course, is to help Aziz brush up his poetry to the best of my ability.

4. I've been writing poems of late myself. Not all of them are golden, of course, but some of them I've been quite happy with. Talking with Matthew Henriksen and François of late, I realized I have not submitted any poems in quite a long while, but it seems like no one is reading right now either! Strange....

5. Speaking of Matt Henriksen, Typo 10 is out and about with some awesome folks in it. Awesome poems by awesome folks in an awesome publication- whoda thunk? Foust, Tost, Hart, etc.

6. It occurs to me I'll be applying to grad school again in a year or so. It's nice not worrying about this year, though I'm not completely without thoughts on next year. For example, I think I can get two people to write letters for me (right, Johannes?) but who will three be? If only there were some demand to write letters for me, I could start a reality show.

7. Also, since I will have worked here nearly four years by the time we're ready to leave Iowa City in the summer of 2009, I will get to leave at the same time a student I have worked with since I started here. Greg and I will go out together in a blaze of glory, no doubt. During baseball season to boot!

8. Sigh, the Braves are done for and have been for some time.

Your Own Personal Jesus

"Your twenties suck," my friend Jackson told me once. I thought maybe he was bitter, or just cynical, but it turns out that your twenties, in some way, really suck.

Regular readers know why my twenties aren't fun yet. On top of career issues, it's a time when you kind of find out that not everything is quite so simple. There's not always a mapped out path. Fuck, sometimes there are no roads at all!

People, in times of difficulty, turn to various things: drugs/alcohol, religion, friends, family. They find help filling the gaps they feel are missing in their lives. I think this is where people who go the religion route end up in that "Born-again" area. Scary stuff.

I too, however, have, in my own way, become "Born again". Something I thought I had fallen away from in my youth that now, finding it again, I feel somehow comforted. I feel more complete with it than without. It hugs me when I'm down and celebrates with me when I'm up.

I'm talking, of course, about baseball.

I'd grown tired of it as a pre-teen. I simply couldn't continue watching people who walked away from a game they supposedly loved over more money than the average American will ever see in their lifetime.

But something brought me back. Some enjoyment that I had forgotten about came flooding back at the end of last season, and while I passed it off initially, at the beginning of this season, I eagerly awaited each game and to read about baseball. Jennifer bought some books for me last Christmas, and as I have read them, the spark has grown.

And so I am with you now, baseball. Who could have guessed I would be welcomed back by baseball so easily? It's as if I never left at all.

That, to a great extent, is the beauty of baseball. "The one constant throughout the years," writes Kinsella, "is baseball". The nation has changed, and sure, baseball has too, but mostly, the game is the same as it ever was.

And so I have come to the top of the moutain, my friends, or better yet, the hill. "The Hill" at UGA was where you could see the baseball games and drink beer overlooking the game.

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou
emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

-Tagore

In All Its Glory

The video footage, posted by Greg of the Media Services crew. Thanks for posting this!

My original post on the Hrbek/Gant Incident

One of Life's Great Questions Answered By Two Person Panel

Please note that at present, no video footage of what I'm about to talk about exists online. However, I assume that if you're going to keep reading, you either know what I'm talking about, or are in some way curious about it. If anyone has knowledge of online footage, please let me know. Soon, I might be able to provide footage myself.

The 1991 Atlanta Braves season started off like many others with two quick losses to our NL West (back when we were in the NL West) rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But after that, any Atlanta fan could tell you that something was different. Sure, a chunk of the team was made up of players that had been with the Braves for a few seasons. Our untested pitching staff, consisting of future Cy Young winners Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery was backed up by others like Ron Gant, David Justice, Jeff Blauser, and a very tiny Mark Lemke, who back in 1991, would easily fit in your Levi 501 jeans side pockets.

Looking over a simple statistic in 1991, the number of games they were behind (or ahead) in first place in the NL West Division, it's easy to see why Atlantans were watching with one eyebrow raised.

From May 7th through June 15th, the Braves were never more than 2.5 games out of first place, either tied for first or a close second to the Dodgers. On May 12th and 13th, in fact, they were up one game, which is to say they were in first place by themselves.

But as the season wore on, the old Braves started to come back. The Braves that were selling tickets at the local Kroger buy one/get one free during the 1980s. Between July 2nd and July 4th, they were 8.5 games out of first place, reaching the bottom on July 7th at 9.5 games out.

Braves fans hadn't given up. The summer was hot like every other summer in Georgia, and Braves fans were hard to find. On July 8th, when the Braves returned from L.A., Fulton County Stadium hosted the St. Louis Cardinals and a mere 17,060 ticket holders showed up.

However, this is where the Braves came back. By August 13th, the Braves were a mere half game out of first place. Between August 27th and September 21st, the Braves had more days either tied for first place or in the lead. Something was up.

The important thing I really want to express here is how much this was unexpected for Atlanta, but why we were all so excited. And why our parents let us stay up late to watch the games that went until midnight or 1am.

At season's end, the Braves came out ahead of the Dodgers and went on to the NLCS and then, for the first time since the Milwaukee Braves did it in 1958, the Braves went to the World Series.

Wikipedia entry

One of the students who works under me, named Greg, was raised a Twins fan. If you haven't guessed, I was raised a Braves fan. Being that Greg is a few years younger than me, he was not fully aware of the play at first base back in 1991. However, being a Twins fan, he could not assume that Kent Hrbek really would have pulled Ron Gant off base.

So we argued, debated, and generally made fun of one another. After the 1991 season, places in Atlanta were selling a VHS tape that highlighted the entire year. My hope was that my parents still had it at their home in Stone Mountain and that they would bring it up on a recent trip.

My Mom couldn't find the tape, but when Greg was home this past weekend, he found that his Dad had an entire set of World Series tapes, including the infamous 1991 series.

So Greg and I rigged up a TV/VCR combo and sat to watch the hour long tape. As we approached the inning in game two, I had Greg make sure he was ready with remote in hand. We had agreed prior to starting the tape that we would remain impartial and be honest with one another. If Gant was truly out, I would agree to it. If Hrbek pulled Gant off base, then Greg would admit he'd been wrong.

Upon viewing the play (which I would show here if there was somewhere online to find it) Greg and I decided that, to an extent, we were both right. And both wrong.

I agreed that Gant's momentum might have carried him past the base. Greg, however, countered that Gant would certainly have stayed on the base, if Hrbek (and this is VERY CLEAR on the tape) had not had BOTH ARMS wrapped around Gant's leg, literally pulling him off first. What the umpire saw, I'm not sure, but Greg and I clearly saw that Kent Hrbek had a hold of Gant and was pulling him.

In a more exact way, I was right and Greg was wrong :).

However, we're talking about something 16 years ago, when I was 8 and Greg was maybe 3 or 4 (?). Neither of us was expected to know, but the discovery of the answer to this question which had long plagued us could finally allow some peace.

The Braves are playing the Twins this week in Minneapolis. They are certain to get crushed, and it makes me sad.

Two things:

1. If I ever meet Kent Hrbek, I'm going to sock him.

2. If I ever meet Bobby Cox, I'm going to ask him "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PUT LEIBRANDT IN TO PITCH TO PUCKETT IN GAME SIX???"

Happy Birthday to Three of the Best

May 21- Bobby Cox, manager of the Braves - age 66

May 22- Dino Trivedi, my father- age 66

May 24- Bob Dylan, Bob fucking Dylan- age 66


What a week in 1941, huh?