Classic card of the week

Kurt Miller, 1991 Upper Deck

I’m not a superstitious person. At least I try not to be. But I married into an Italian family, and there are many, shall we say, quirks involved, of which I must abide lest I be blamed for an unfortunate occurrence. Among these not-quite-superstitious-based obligations: no shoes on the table, walk through the same door you came in, and, of course, when forced to mingle with an untrustworthy person—wear red underwear.

These are all important, obviously, but the most important obligation of all is this: never get ahead of yourself when speaking. In other words, the future is uncertain, no matter what things may seem, and never assume that this is not so. My wife and in-laws tend to take things a small step further with the notion that if you do happen to speak positively about something that is actually happening right here and now, your very words have just prevented this positive thing from moving forward. “Jinx” is an ugly, superstitious word, so let’s just say, in this case, you’ve (other word for “jinx”)ed it. Thus, if something good is happening, never acknowledge it until it is so over that you are safely removed from the risk of being personally held responsible for ending it.

A prime example, and one in which I am perpetually the victim-slash-perpetrator: If our daughter is behaving well for a sustained amount of time—rare, but it happens—I will often say something like, “Wow, she’s being so go—“ and at this point, my wife and mother-in-law will simultaneously shush me, dramatically roll their eyes in each other’s direction, and haphazardly prepare for an onslaught of bad behavior. Should our daughter, immediately after this, so much as faintly verbalize any sort of frustration or confusion, most likely as a result of the spontaneous and inexplicable reaction she has just witnessed, I will be outcasted to a different room and no one will speak to me for at least the next three hours.

So, I try not to get ahead of myself, so much so, that when I witness other people do it, it bothers me. As an example … Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that a person is speaking about a young pitcher, and this person, who is speaking about this pitcher, and ignoring the immense physical strain of pitching in general and also the random circumstances that can frequently cause unfortunate injuries, virtually guarantees, based only on the pitcher’s smooth delivery, that this pitcher will never get injured, and in making this point as emphatically as possible, uses a horrific example of something that, though seemingly improbable, could happen and which, if it did happen, would not only injure this pitcher but also kill him instantly.

Yes, something like that would bother me.



“He has a perfect delivery,” one scout said. “The only way he’s going to hurt his arm is if he’s run over by a semi.”

I spent way, way, WAY too much time on the Internet searching for “Kurt Miller injury,” and there is just so little information about him minus straight baseball statistics. So, I’m not sure if he ever got injured—if anybody knows, holla—but I will say that from ’97 through ’99, one season removed from throwing 46.1 innings, he threw a combined 14.1 innings.

More importantly, according to Wikipedia, unless they simply forgot to mention it, he was never—as of this date, as I would like to express my sincerest hope that this never, ever happens to him or anyone, ever—run over by a tractor trailer.

Did you know?
The anonymous scout quoted here once said of Tiger Woods, “Only way that guy doesn’t win 30 majors is if his personal life spirals out of control via an exposed extramarital history involving porn stars, initiated by a pre-Thanksgiving car accident.”

Classic card of the week

Mike Scioscia, 1989 Topps

Does anybody remember the movie Field of Dreams? It was a movie about baseball starring the guy from Thirtysomething and also the guy from Waterworld and also Darth Vadar. It is about ghosts, too. No? You should Netflix it.

Anyway, there’s a rather poignant scene where the main character, what’s-his-face, finally gets to meet his dad, who is a ghost. They never really had a great relationship when both were humans because when the son was playing Major League Baseball, and he hit his first triple, his dad wasn’t there to see it. This caused a lot of resentment, as you can imagine, because every son who grows up to become a major leaguer dreams of the day he will hit his first triple and his dad will be there, cheering him on from the stands.

In one of the last scenes in the movie, before the dramatic explosion, the son reenacts his first triple, but this time ghost dad is there, and when the son reaches third base, his dad is there to hug him. It is very emotional. I cried. Oh, ummm, I forgot—SPOILER ALERT!

Luckily for Mike Scioscia, he did not have to build a baseball field in a cornfield and alienate his neighbors and skeptical brother-in-law in order to recapture the love of his father.




Mike’s first major league Triple

The first Triple is so crucial to the father-son bond that it is always capitalized. I did not capitalize it earlier because I forgot.

occurred at Philadelphia, 5-3-80 while his father was in attendance.

What an amazing story! I am tearing up again. Let’s move on before I break down completely.

Here’s what I really want to know—how did Mike Scioscia become the Dodgers everyday catcher? Was it hard work? Scrappiness? Grittiness? Hustle? Throwbackedness? Something else? Let’s ask Wikipedia.

When I made Mike the No. 1 catcher, the writers came to me and said, "[Competing catcher] Steve Yeager said you made Scioscia the No. 1 catcher because he's Italian." I said, "That's a lie. I made him the No. 1 catcher because I'm Italian."
—Tommy Lasorda

Tommy Lasorda, everybody! Playing on the old stereotype that all Italians … ummm, are able to uh, name their catcher whoever they darn please? And if that catcher happens to also be Italian, pure coincidence! Ha, ha … what? I don’t know. Pretty safe to say that no favoritism was involved here though. Move along everybody. You too, Steve Yeager, with your lack of animated hand gestures and distaste for olives. You disgust me.

Did you know?
When Tommy Lasorda drafted Mike Piazza in the 62nd round of the 1988 MLB Draft, he was mistakenly under the impression that Piazza was German and not the son of a longtime family friend.

On being the victim of circumstance and the after-hours HVAC market

Note: This column appears in the 8/19 issue of The Glendale Star and the 8/20 issue of the Peoria Times

I am a reasonable fellow. I am neither, I don’t think, cheap or lavish, falling somewhere in between Costanza and Trump. Like most people I prefer to know the price of something before I purchase it. Occasionally however, there are those transactions in life where the urgency of the matter dissuades price from becoming an issue and, as a result, price becomes an issue. I do not like these occasions.

First let me say that there are others more well versed than I in making any transaction a casual one, and these people I have come to know, mostly, as Italian. An example I have used before is going to a fine Italian restaurant with my father-in-law –- one where you won’t see a price on the menu –- and watching the dynamic work between him and the waiter. Without words, my father-in-law says, “I am willing to pay for a good meal, but you better not screw me over,” and the waiter acknowledges, without words, “Indeed, I will not.”

On occasion I have attempted this on my own while out with my wife. “I’ll have the fish special, sir…market price!” Then I spend the rest of the meal on edge, wondering how drastically the fish market has fluctuated, only to eventually discover that my tilapia is $75.

But these situations are self-imposed and avoidable. It’s the unavoidable situations that irk me, as you are at the mercy of the other party. For example…

Last week our air conditioner conked out right as we were putting our daughter to bed. When you live in Arizona, in August, having the A/C go out, from an urgency standpoint, is the equivalent of having to go to the emergency room. Should you research other emergency rooms first? Can you wait until tomorrow? Maybe. If you are a masochist. As a result, you don’t think about price.

Well, you do. I do. But not out loud. I called the company listed on our thermostat because they installed the unit, which was under warranty, and they sent someone out within the hour.

Granted, I was willfully ignorant throughout the process. Price wasn’t mentioned over the phone or upon the technician’s arrival, and I didn’t ask. Mostly because I didn’t want to know, plus even if I did know, I figured, what am I going to do? In formulating the potential cost in my head I even factored in their inevitable explanation as to why, in fact, our unit was not under warranty.

Turned out the part that needed fixing was under warranty. Great! So, it would only cost…$330. Market price.

Because we called “after hours” –- we called at 6pm -- we incurred an additional cost for both the service call and the labor. (I always enjoyed those being two separate costs by the way – as if the technician will come to our house and instead of fixing our A/C, we’ll watch a baseball game together.) I am now arguing the cost with the company, a process by which I inevitably come across as cheap and stupid. Fun times. But I am willing to sacrifice my dignity for a greater good, and fight those who take advantage of unfortunate circumstances and the willfully ignorant!

I will lose, of course. I am a reasonable fellow.

My dreams of being tanner fade to white

Note: This column appears in the 6/3 issue of The Glendale Star and the 6/4 issue of the Peoria Times

I have this complex that makes me feel that, because I live in Arizona, I should always be tan.

Even as we planned to move here, I envisioned myself living the life of a perpetually tan person. Ah yes, when people came to visit us, or when we made trips home, my skin tone would match that of George Hamilton, and I would regale stories to loved ones about how we go hiking all the time, and how we enjoy lounging by the pool, and -- am I really that tan? Wow, I hadn’t even noticed.

Of course, my tan plan hasn’t always worked to perfection. Plus I’ve come to realize that I was not the only person who planned on me being a darker shade of Caucasian. When we traveled back east last fall, my wife’s aunt, upon seeing me for the first time in like a year, said, “What happened? I thought you’d be tanner, living in Arizona.” To this I was tempted to respond, “Yes, I do live in Arizona. But I’m not a lifeguard. I work in an office. And five months out of the year I cannot venture outside for more than three minutes lest I melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Also, I was a little tan yesterday, but lost it when the plane experienced turbulence. But thank you for noticing.” I get a little defensive.

You see, I am Irish. My natural skin tone resembles that of a seventeenth-century British aristocrat. It doesn’t help that my lovely wife is Italian –- her olive complexion in direct contrast to mine. But upon moving to the Valley of the Sun, I planned to compensate by soaking up as much of that sun as possible.

This often involved little to no protection. When I originally ventured out here with my father-in-law –- also, coincidentally, Italian -– to look at houses, we spent some down time by the pool. Not realizing who I was, he purchased SPF 4 tanning oil for the both of us. Wanting to embark on my future as a tan person, I didn’t argue. Somebody who did want to argue however was my wife, upon our return home, with me, as a result of my pinkish hue and the full body aloe bath that I now required.

And I only kind of learned my lesson there. My wife forces me to use SPF 70 sun block, which actually makes me paler than before I went outside. So sometimes -– if I’m just going outside for, ya’ know, five minutes –- I will skip the lotion. Inevitably my wife will notice my bright red “tan” lines later and say, “Hmmm, did you put on sun block before?” And I will say, sheepishly, “Yes?” And she will nod her head in disappointment.

This is of course shamefully egotistical and very dangerous. I should take a cue from my own father –- also, coincidentally, Irish. He has to see a dermatologist once a week and he’s only allowed to go outside 10 days per year, and when he does he has to coat himself in medicated paint. He’s like a vampire now. (Side note: He can still drink though!)

So I’m starting to realize that I will never be George Hamilton, who is a wrinkled shade of orange now, by the way. So be it. This is me America –- I am pale, and hairy, and require SPF 70 just to get the mail. Besides, living in Arizona and being darker aren’t exactly a match made in heaven these days.

Good night everyone!


"A great beach-read!"
-- George Hamilton

The inexplicable reality of bad service in a bad economy

Note: This column appears in the 10/1 issue of The Glendale Star and the 10/2 issue of the Peoria Times

How fresh is the fish?

This is the question my wife asked to our server during our first night out together in forever, by Westgate, at an establishment that shall remain nameless to protect the identity of the incompetent.

We had waited about twenty minutes to ask this question, and were only graced with our waitress’ presence after she had apparently lost an argument with another server as to who was going to wait on our table, an ordeal that I was fortunate enough to capture out of the corner of my eye. As a result, she was forced to introduce herself, and did so thusly, with eyes to the ground and speaking quickly and softly so as to add to the general awkwardness: Hi my name is (unintelligible) and I’ll be your waitress do you know what you want?

No, miss –- the pleasure is all ours, I assure you! It was at this point when my wife asked the aforementioned question.

Now, this is a legitimate question. My wife is Italian, and we are both from back east. Being privy to the inner-workings of both Italian and east coast culture, I understand that there are no boundaries on fish-related inquiries. To ask the question “How fresh is the fish?” to a decent or Italian server is to establish a level of trust. You are in essence saying this: I have a general awareness of fish freshness, so don’t try and give me the week-old halibut you’re trying to get rid of. Your server, in return, now understands you mean business, and will treat you with the class, service and fish-freshness that you deserve.

Believe me I have been at many a restaurant where my father-in-law has asked this very question. How fresh is the sea bass? Many times the server will simply say: No. You don't want that fish. Don't you worry about it, I'll take care of you. There are no additional questions needed. The trust has been established. Sure enough my father-in-law will be served a flounder that was caught and gutted as recently as five minutes ago. This is, as I have come to understand it, the essence of being Italian.

So if asking this question in Brooklyn is appropriate, then asking it in a non-Italian restaurant you have never been to before that is contained within a landlocked state of hunters and carnivores is certainly appropriate. Expecting an appropriate response is quite another matter.

Our waitress’ initial response to this question was a blank stare that said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I am going to stare at you until you elaborate.” My wife stared back. It was a stare-off! Eventually my wife relented, and simply repeated herself: How fresh is the fresh?

“Oh,” said our waitress. “It’s, ummm (looking around on the walls, for evidence of the restaurant’s fish policies, I presume)…fresh. They cook it right when you order it.”

Oh, really? So it wasn’t prepared this morning and left sitting under a hot lamp all day, as if we had just ordered a cod sandwich at Arby's? Fantastic! We’ll have the salad.

What amazed me was not the fact that she associated the promptness with which a fish is cooked with its freshness. (I wasn’t even sure this girl knew what day it was, much less what time the salmon arrived.) Nor was it the fact that she charged us $1 for more bread (!), or the generally awful service.

Because I was able to observe a lot during the lulls when our waitress was m.i.a., I was left amazed that a restaurant in one of the most popular and up-and-coming areas of the Valley, in this terrible economy, chose to operate so indifferently and carelessly. Believe me that this place will not be around in three months.

Another lease up for grabs. One less stop for the fish delivery truck. But don’t blame the economy –- hey, we paid our extra $1 –- blame incompetence.