Classic Old Century Baseball Fun

If you believe the calendar and not the actual weather, it is spring, time for baseball (the temple softball league starts this weekend) and tag/yard sales. I should have a bumper sticker on my car proclaiming “I brake for tag sales.” Or, “I turn around for tag sales.”

If you’re a parent or grandparent of small children, how could you not indulge in impulse purchases for the kiddies, particularly when you come across a toy or replica of one that provided countless hours of enjoyment when you wore knickers?

Last fall, as Gilda and I were on our way for a promenade in one of the ritzier ’hoods of Harrison, we passed a sign for a tag sale. I turned around, parked and entered a window of my childhood. What caught my eye was not an antique but rather a reproduction of a Classic Old Century Baseball Pinball Style Game. It was all wood. The tabletop game came with two steel ball bearings that are pitched by a spring. The batter swings a flipper, sending the ball bearing toward preset holes in the ballpark field representing hits or outs. For those interested in seeing a picture of the game, google “classic old century baseball game” 

For a mere $10 the game was mine. That’s mine, not Finley’s or Dagny’s or now Cecilia’s. My interest was pure nostalgia. I didn’t own one of these games as a kid. My best friend Lenny Dorfman did. Lenny lived five houses down, a corner house on Avenue W and East 19th Street in Brooklyn. Ten families lived in attached row houses on our side of the block. Lenny lived on one end, our friend Richie Posner lived at the 18th Street end. My family was in the middle. We always played together. My earliest memories have us playing dump truck in the dirt at the edge of my front lawn, or combining our Lionel trains in Richie’s second floor bedroom when the weather was lousy outside, or playing Classic Baseball on the backyard porch of Lenny’s house.

Baseball was the sport of choice back then. We collected, traded and flipped baseball cards. We played Cadaco’s All-Star Baseball, a game that could be considered the forerunner to today’s fantasy league programs, only All-Star Baseball included current and past players, their tendencies to hit safely determined by a spin of a pointer positioned over an individual player’s historic batting record. Each player had to employ strategy, first in picking a team then setting up a batting order and deciding when to insert pinch hitters. Of course, a lot depended on luck, or maybe some skill, in getting the spinner to land on a hit and avoid pointing to an out.

The Classic Old Century Baseball game has sat on our living room coffee table for some six months. I rarely have pulled back the spring to launch a pitch down the shoot. Gilda has patiently allowed me to indulge my nostalgia. Maybe she senses that as we age we long for traces of our youth. After all, she had me go up to the attic a few months ago to scrounge around for a box of her teenage papers. 

We aren’t trying to relive our past. Our present is quite good, thank you. Yet, it is comforting to reminisce about what our memories tell us were sweet times, simpler times, when we had few concerns and our fortunes—no misfortunes—awaited our journey over the horizon.

A Mix of Messages

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. For most of my professional life I worked this day. It was not included in the 10 authorized holidays my employer observed. It did not share the status of Memorial Day, or the Fourth of July, or even the day after Thanksgiving.

Until, that is, a new vice president of human resources joined our company from Time Warner. She revised the holiday schedule to include MLK Day (unfortunately, the National Retail Federation annual convention usually fell on that day so I had to work, anyhow). As soon as she left the company, MLK Day reverted to its prior status as an official day of work.

Who says one person can’t make a difference? If you haven’t figured it out by now, the VP HR was Afro-American.


Revised Opinion: One month ago I labeled the Boston Red Sox as the team to beat in the American League East. That was even if the NY Yankees could sign Cliff Lee. Of course, they didn’t, so the outlook appeared even bleaker for the boys in pinstripes.

But I’m revising my sense of doom and gloom in light of the Yankees signing of Rafael Soriano, the relief pitching specialist. There’ve been reports he could cause some locker room problems, but his former pitching coach with the Tampa Bay Rays discounts them (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2011/01/16/2011-01-16_rafael_soriano_was_a_good_signing_by_the_yankees_says_tampa_bay_rays_pitching_co.html ). I’m also hoping that under the soothing influence of Mariano Rivera, Soriano will find a kindred soul (both are very religious) and contribute mightily to making the Yankee bullpen the best in the business.

Last year, Soriano recorded 45 saves in 48 attempts. The Yankees plan to pitch him in the eighth inning and leave the ninth to Rivera. Rivera had 33 saves in 38 opportunities last season. In effect, the tandem make a typical nine inning game into a seven inning contest, assuming the Yankees are ahead. Last year the Bronx Bombers led the major leagues in runs scored, so there’s every confidence they can place many a game in the capable hands of the bullpen masters to protect a lead and win.

Naysayers may point to the Achilles Heel of the ball club, the starting pitching. To get to Soriano-Rivera, the starters and middle relievers will have to limit scoring by the opposition. I’m hopeful they’ll be able to do that.

What else am I going to say?


Nature or Nurture: 14-month-old Finley’s been taking advantage of his mobility on two legs, enjoying walking around children’s museums, especially those with a play kitchen set-up. His mom has told us to keep a sharp eye out for kiddie stoves. As a tag sale devotee, I couldn’t wait for Spring.

Lo and behold, while replacing batteries in the smoke detectors in the attic this morning, I found a Care Bears stove/top burner/sink with lots of dishes and utensils. After more than 20 years of accumulated dust from the last time Ellie played with it is cleaned off, the toy kitchen will be ready for Finley. Of course, there are some who might cringe at this less than manly interest by the young fellow, Iron Chefs notwithstanding. But it made Gilda recall a lesson she learned about what’s more dominant in raising a child, nature vs. nurture.

Not wanting to typecast our daughter with just girlie interests, Gilda decided Ellie would play with generic toys as a toddler. Blocks. Legos. Balls. Cars and trucks. Stuffed animals. Nothing feminine. No dolls.

Ellie was a contented child, but not very enthusiastic. Finally, for Ellie’s third birthday, Gilda’s friends could take it no more. They gave Ellie several dolls and other “gender appropriate” gifts, including a baby doll stroller and the aforementioned Care Bears kitchen set. She immediately radiated excitement, took the presents to her room and played with them for hours.

So much for trying to control development. No one who knows Ellie today would suggest she is anything but feminine. She’s not into organized sports, though she enjoys camping, hiking, mountain climbing, canoeing and other “manly” activities. For Ellie, nature most assuredly won out.

Games, Songs, Films and Sales

World Cup Update: No, not the soccer, er, football, matches in South Africa. I’m talking Ultimate Frisbee Club Championships in Prague! Dan’s team, Ironside, is one of five representing the U.S. at the quadrennial competition featuring 48 squads from 29 countries in the Open Club division (overall, there are 136 teams from 37 countries participating in four classes: Open, Women’s, Mixed, and Masters).

Five of the top six Open teams are from the United States. Ironside is seeded fourth in the world, behind two U.S. teams and one from Japan. In the preliminary round, Ironside has vanquished its three opponents, teams from France, Germany and Slovakia. Tuesday’s foes include a team from Great Britain and another from Germany, on Wednesday it will be Australia and Finland, followed by another team from Down Under on Thursday.

Keep checking for updates, or, if you’re really into Ultimate, here’s the web site: http://wucc2010.com/node.


Felipe Melo, I feel your pain: For those who don’t know who Felipe Melo is, he’s a star midfielder on the Brazilian World Cup soccer team who accidentally headed a ball into his own net in a loss to The Netherlands last Friday. Although upon further review the benevolent soccer gods credited a Dutchman with the goal, Melo and everyone else in Brazil and around the world know his mistake in letting a shot glance off his head cost his team a goal. When you lose 2-1, that really hurts.

I made the same mistake when playing intramural soccer back in college, but in a much more lopsided loss (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/06/goooooooooooooooooallllllllll.html). Felipe, don’t worry, you get over it in, say, 30-40 years. At least that’s the time span for intramural play. Heaven knows what the recuperatory period is for World Cup f---ups!


Born in the USA: Gilda and I went to the White Plains fireworks extravaganza at the high school last Thursday. A local band did a lot of covers of Bruce Springsteen songs, capping their performance with "Born in the USA" as the fireworks started exploding. This anthem to working class values and a search for connection to the government and family pulsates with the title refrain. It’s transcended any meaning Springsteen might have had for the song into a form of national anthem.

I couldn’t stop wondering as "Born in the USA" reverberated in my ears—what does it say about immigration policy? Is only someone “born in the USA” kosher, capable of feeling the patriotism devotees of the song have adopted? I can’t believe Springsteen would want his song co-opted by anyone who believes, as they do in Arizona, that illegal immigrants are deliberately causing crashes on state highways; that they are beheading people and leaving corpses in the desert; and that they are all “mules” carrying illegal drugs across the border.

I am glad, I am blessed, that I and the rest of my family were born in the USA, that my parents were allowed to emigrate here. “Born in the USA” should be a mindset, not a requirement for citizenship. It should be a reminder that we are a nation of immigrants, that tolerance has distinguished our country from all others.


Prescient Quote: Flipping through TV channels a week ago I stopped momentarily on the movie The Wind and the Lion. It’s a rousing tale based on a true incident in 1904 when Berber chieftain Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli (the lion) kidnaps an American and President Teddy Roosevelt (the wind) sends a rescue mission to Morocco. In real life, Raisuli took a man and his son into custody. For the Hollywood version, Raisuli, played by Sean Connery, kidnapped Eden Perdicaris (Candice Bergen) and her two children.

During the course of the film, Raisuli and Perdicaris develop an understanding relationship. But it starts out, as might be expected, rather strained. Riasuli, after all, did kidnap her and her children, in the process killing many of her servants and a guest while trashing her home. Moreover, at their first stop after fleeing the city, a well owned by Raisuli, he summarily executes two of four men who drew water without his permission.

In explaining his actions, Raisuli says, “You see the man at the well (one of his loyal band). When one bucket empties, the other fills. It is so with the world. At present, you (meaning the Western countries) are full of power, but you are spilling it wastefully and Islam is lapping up the drops as they spill from your bucket.”

Hearing that matter-of-fact explanation of global transformation curdled my brain. How easily the dialogue could have come from Osama bin Laden. How prescient of the screenwriters. Keep in mind, The Wind and the Lion came out in 1975!


I brake for...tag sales. I am regressing, going back to the years when our children were young and we stocked their playpens with cheap finds at garage sales. The fountain of youth is a grandchild, at least as far as backyard commerce goes.

This past weekend I scored major finds, several Fisher Price/Sesame Street trucks, a Play and Speak animal sounds toy, plus a riding front loader, all for just $5. Also, a huge wooden pick-up truck for $3. I was in a feeding frenzy. I would have bought more, but calmer minds (Gilda, in other words) prevailed.