Cold Case In Ellyson

Well, he did it. I don’t know quite how or more importantly, why, but he did…My 13-year-old son who doesn’t swim laps and hasn’t had a bike since Hurricane Ivan ruined it in 2004 completed a seven-day Iron Man Triathlon challenge. He biked 112 miles, swam 2.4 miles and ran a marathon in a week at the club where we belong. Now since he’s my oldest, I haven’t witnessed the changes of child to man before, but I feel like it must be beginning. He showed a determination and resolve I’ve never seen in him. My hope is that the confidence he feels now will carry over into his football, baseball and schoolwork. Not that he’s ever been a slouch at any of these, but perhaps he’s approaching, step by step, a new level. All challenges begin with a first step. Some of us forget it’s just that easy…

So why did he do it? He can’t articulate the reason. Not for a chick or to get (more) fit…he doesn’t know why. But the thing is, he doesn’t have to.

Forty-something years removed from puzzle solving, you forget the patience it entails. The boys sometimes worked tirelessly forgoing all their electronic devices in the evening just to get a few more pieces together. Of course you start with the perimeter. We found all but one well into our quest and attributed its loss to the moment we heard our dog chewing something under the table. But days later and with loud jubilation, my youngest found the piece among all the others even though we had collectively spent hours in its hunt. Sweet reward!

As it neared completion, there were thoughts of finality to our little dining room adventure. I was both parts relieved and saddened to finish the project we had started as a family. It reminded me that life is rarely all about the destination: it’s the travelling we most enjoy.

My fondest memory of this summer will not be the fabulous trip we did not take, not the idyllic lazy days of pool floating or beach swimming – nope – it will be the summer of the 2,000 piece puzzle. When your son breaks his arm just when summer starts, it changes things, vacation plans, adventures, even simple Florida swimming. Not knowing how to spend all these hot days, I bought a 2,000 piece puzzle featuring the night skyline of Las Vegas. We cleared the dining room table of its formalities and set to work.

Now healthy 13-year-old boys have no time for such childish things, but he, too, was drawn to it. Of course, my one-armed 12-year-old was, too, but what I found most intriguing is that my husband and I spent so much time hunched over with wine glasses celebrating the smallest of finds. An old friend from Finland came to visit us, and amid English curses and giggles, we worked late into the night. (more to come)

who is the commentator the Los Angeles Dodgers. Because their home games start so late, I’m often in bed watching and dozing to his rather monotone yet engaging voice. His breadth of knowledge of the game, the players, their histories, their asides is truly amazing. He’s an encyclopedia of all things baseball. And he’s no young bird..he’s in his early 80s. What a mind to be able to recite so many facts about so many men, especially at that age.

I was looking at some quotes by Scully, and one in particular is most memorable: “Good is not good when better is expected.” How much better could we all be if we strove to improve, not to rest and rely on what we have, but to push for something more and greater than we dare dream. That philosophy can be applied to sports, of course, but relationships, jobs, life…

Tonight I hope to have Sculley with me, reminding me by deed that good doesn’t always get noticed, and that is why he is considered so great.

Someone asked me, why does a fiction writer blog so often about baseball…the answer is elementary…I write what I know and what I see. Yesterday it was baseball, tomorrow it will be football and basketball with tennis sprinkled in between. It’s in my personality – to talk about what moves me, good or bad, and oftentimes what moves me is what I see in competition, mine or my children’s.

My oldest’s hiatus from baseball has taken an intermission. He was asked by another team whom he does not know to play for one more week in an upcoming tournament. After weeks of no ball, he found himself last night scrimmaging with them against an older team. What struck me is how small my son looked. He’s bigger than I am, as big as most of his friends, yet he was downright puny among these man-children. And he played like a child, like a boy I didn’t recognize. Nerves, mental vacation, rusty – I don’t know what it was, but it surely wasn’t pretty… As a rule, I never let my kids quit something once they start. But after the game, I asked him if he wanted to go forward with these people he doesn’t know, recognizing that he had to be embarrassed by his own performance…and he said he wanted to play. It’s what I secretly hoped to hear but wasn’t sure he was big enough to say.

Baseball season has ended for my sons and not on a high note. Both participated in a World Series – my oldest’s team without heart and my youngest’s with soul. As an adult, you can see it – a team that gives up with the first thing goes wrong, a lack of mental toughness to carry them through difficulties – no heart…and a team that is stronger on the field, but lacks a sense of unity with or concern for each other – no soul. I don’t know which is worse…but I don’t think any team can be successful on the playing field without both.

My youngest gets this, without even knowing it…he suffered a season-ending and summer-changing injury on the mound. With a fellow teammate who wasn’t there, he had the following text exchange:

Connor: Did you hear what happened to me?
Friend: Yeah, that suxs.
Connor: Yep, but forget me. We (the team) are doing well…

Yep, there’s no “i” in team.

Today I had my first real book signing…our local Starbucks hosted the event, and it came on the heels of an article in our local paper about me, my book and its award. Those who came to the signing fell into three groups: readers with no relation to me, old family friends, or the people closest to me. Of the strangers, the best were three women from the small town where I was a police officer, about an hour’s drive away. The arrived just before the end, breathless, worried they were too late. They represented three generations and were so Southernly sweet. Of the old family friends, a couple, friends of my parents, shuffled through the door, a small, frail twosome. After exchanging pleasantrles, the wife told me she would have to read the book out loud because her husband could no longer see well enough…so Southernly sweet. And of my closest friends, just taking time out of their day to stop by and check, well, that too, is so Southernly sweet.

I live in the right place, where the old still remember and the new never forget, and they all are truly so Southernly sweet.

I’m an artist, but I can’t paint a picture, sculpt a head, or draw a circle. My art is writing, but there’s an art to baseball too. There’s a certain grace to fielding a hard, bouncing ball, delicately capturing it in a leather glove, step, step and hurling it across a diamond as if on a string…yes, there’s beauty there, too.

As with all art, soley depending on the viewer, it is good or it is not good. There is no objective measurement of art. There are as many conflicting views of what constitutes art as there are forms. You know the saying: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. It cannot be measured by success or money or admirers. And our definitions of art can change over time. Five years ago, I never would have considered a sport an art form, but when baseball’s played well, it is as beautiful to me as Michelangelo’s David in motion.

Jim Joyce – maybe a name you don’t knew, or perhaps only learned of recently…he’s the umpire who’s incorrect call blew Detroit Tiger’s Armando Galarraga’s perfect game. Rather than berate, cajole, spit, kick or punch, Galarraga did the unexpected – he graciously accepted Joyce’s apology without anger or malice. Remind me again, when do you see that in baseball? Uh…almost never…Perfection is so rare in this game, but the record books will never reflect this event. Yet so many of us will. Joyce was quick to apologize, with tears, Galarraga was quick to accept it, and they both conducted themselves like the gentlemen they are. So, then, what was imperfect became perfect after all.

“Stinkin’ thinkin’.” You know just what I’m talking about. For me, it would mean walking onto the tennis court thinking I didn’t have a shot to win. Or my sons walking to the pitchers mound thinking “this guy’s going to jack me.” But for those of you who have quit believing, I have a solution – read a book.

I ordered a couple of books on mental toughness, not for myself because I am, but for the boys to read. One of them is Mind Gym: An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence. I had them both read the first four chapters last night, and I won’t soon forget their response: “It’s the best book I’ve ever read” – hearty words from a 12 and 13-year old. Sometimes as parents we don’t know the right words to impart to our kids, or maybe because we’re parents we’re just heard less…So I don’t know that these books will solve their woes of late on the field, but I do know that they’re paying attention to the fact that sports are not just physical tests because until the head is right, the body never will be.