Learning the Lesson

So I went out to see Moneyball, right?  Fun time; good movie.  The movie talks a lot about taking walks in baseball.  The idea is that a walk is, most of the time, just as good as a hit, since either way you end up on base which is the most important part.  The idea of taking a walk is a strange one, though.  I remember when I was  a little kid I loved taking the walk.  When I was in 3rd grade, I played baseball.  I was a member of the AAA Twins, and I think we were pretty good.  I was the shortest kid on the team, and after just a few weeks I realized that I got on base a lot more often when I didn't swing the bat.  You see, AAA was the first level when the kids pitched for themselves, and it was hard to throw a ball inside the strike zone of a kid that's right around 4 feet tall.  I loved getting on base, because when you were on base you got to run around (and even steal bases!)  As I've mentioned in the past, running was kind of my thing, so I wanted to do whatever it took to let me run.  I didn't really learn much about baseball though.

Flash forward to a couple years ago.  I was umpiring a AAA game for San Ramon Little League.  When I umpire that age group, the strike zone I call is gigantic.  If that kid can hit it, and it isn't at his eyeballs or on the ground, it's probably a strike.  This is to encourage the kids to swing the bat.  The pitchers have fun when they put the ball past the batter, the fielders have fun when they get to field the ball, and kids get to run around.  Everyone wins.  Nonetheless, on my way out, I was barked at by a bitter parent who was questioning the educational value of calling a gigantic strike zone.  I, in turn, questioned the value of sticking the bat on the shoulder and taking a free pass.  I knew I had done it when I was a kid.  I didn't really learn much about baseball though.

I wonder if this shaped my view of baseball at all.  I'm a huge fan of sabermetrics these days, and I know the value of the walk.  To me, it doesn't matter if you try the hardest on the field or if you're the nicest guy; what matters is that you put runs up for your team and stop the other team from doing the same.  I came to this conclusion after reading books like Moneyball and Baseball Prospectus, and through normal rational thought.  The question is, why do I think kids should swing the bat and adults should take the walk?  Is it better that I help the kids have fun rather than get results, and I think the opposite for adults?  At which point do I flip the switch and start taking the walk?  I feel like I haven't really learned much about baseball.

Pickiness and Potatoes

Were you a picky eater when you were a kid?  I was.  Fortunately the pickiness always fleshed itself out in easy to manageable ways.  For instance, when I wanted a sandwich, I wanted bread with mayonnaise and the cheap sliced turkey.  That's it.  If I was really feeling adventurous I might want lettuce.  If you had mayo and turkey, I could live for days.  Sometimes, though, my pickiness had dire consequences.  Let me tell you about mashed potatoes.

Let me say this first off: I like mashed potatoes (now.)  After many years, I grew to like the buttery texture and absorbant flavor, and have realized that my Mom really does make great mashed potatoes.  This was not always the case.  Certainly my Mom always made great mashed potatoes, but I didn't know.  When I was young, all I knew was that mashed potatoes were gross as all heck.  The texture was creepy and the flavor was sickening.  I knew I wanted no part of them.  I was probably five or six years old one day when Mom made the fateful mistake of forcing me to eat them.

It was a family dinner like many others.  The six of us were huddled around the table, and in front of me was a full plate of food, including a heaping helping of potatoes.  I told Mom, quite abruptly, that no mashed potatoes would be eaten that night.  If anyone else wanted to have their fill of the abomination, by all means, I won't stop them.  I, though, refused to eat such filth.  Mom, being the ever wise one, told me I had to eat the potatoes.  I get it now; she just wanted me to get over my irrational fear of potatoes and eat them because they tasted good and were healthy.  Nope.  I refused to cave.  She insisted.

You ever try to go toe to toe in logic with a child?  You know that at any time the child could cave in and do something so unthinkable that it throws the argument out the window.  I had to do that; I resorted to threats.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I meant it, too.  Mom wasn't having any of it.  I reinstated my claim.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I was told, once again, to eat the potatoes.  I was told I'd like them, and I saw my whole family enjoying them.  I had to teach them a lesson.

You probably have two outcomes swirling in your head right now: one where I cave in and enjoy them, and one where I eat them and return them from whence they came.  This, unfortunately, is a story of the latter.  I did eat those potatoes, and I returned them back towards the center of the table in the fastest way possible.  It was a revolting sight.  Nonetheless, Mom insisted on this dance again.  We debated the merits of the potatoes, and I once again consumed/unconsumed them.  From that day on, Mom never forced me to eat anything.

It took me until mid way through High School to enjoy a potato that wasn't French Fried.  I stayed picky, and enjoyed mayonnaise and turkey sandwiches.  Heck, I'll probably eat one of those this afternoon.  The point here is that when you try to match logic with a child incapable of reason, you'll probably get burned.  Mom knew that she had to pick her battles with her kids, and I guess that day she realized that with a possible outcome like that, foods were no longer a worthy battle to fight.

Dad, Still

Most people identify themselves as Morning or Night people.  For whatever reason, people always feel like they get better work done at one extreme or the other.  Me, personally, I feel I'm a night person.  It's almost as if the world has gone to sleep, and I'm finally free to just dump thoughts onto paper.  I need to have a free and clear mind from other work in order to really let it flow.  My Dad, on the other hand, is a morning person.  He claims he wakes up instinctively at 4 AM, sometimes 3, due to habit.  I don't know why we're so different in that regard, but you can't say he didn't try to make me a morning person.

When I was young, I remember waking up early on either Saturday or Sunday morning to play video games with my Dad.  The rest of the family was asleep, so the only ones to wake up were my pseudo-nocturnal Pops and me, the youngest kid in the family.  We'd wake up, drive to Happy Donuts in Belmont (I believe it was called Wild Bill's back then) and grab breakfast before going to play games.  Typically in the beginning we'd go off to my Dad's work, where his tech-savvy co-worker Don had a bunch of computer games stored on his computer.  Old adventure stuff mostly; I remember King's Quest being one of them.  Typically I'd play a game, and Dad would watch.

As an aside, there's something awesome about having your parents just sit and watch you do things.  When I started helping out with Jr. High, I remember I was told that the kids will grow to like you just because at that age it's cool to have an adult care about what you're doing.  I don't know what it is about having people watch and care and encourage you, but when it's an adult you respect (especially a parent) it really means something else.

So anyways, Dad watching me play video games was special.  Eventually the owner of the business (my Grandpa) caught wind of the games, and banned them from the office.  What a curmudgeon.  Anyways, the locale switched to my home.  The weekend gaming took on a new tone at that point; it was gaming in quiet because I wasn't allowed to wake my family.  The quiet was what permeates my thoughts of those days.  My Dad and I didn't always talk a ton.  Well, I should say, I talked a ton, and my Dad listened.  Perhaps the video gaming was a way for my Dad to enjoy my company without having to listen to me yammer on incessantly about Calvin and Hobbes or whatever occupied my six-year-old mind at the time.

There just isn't enough quiet these days.  I still talk too much, I play video games, and I still eat donuts, but I don't have the quiet enough.  Dad always brought the quiet.  When things went wrong, I could count on Dad to come in, bring the quiet, and slow things down to the point that they could be sorted out.  I think of Psalm 46:10.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

 I admire a lot about my Dad, but his ability to be still, quiet, and listen to God is definitely up near the top of the list.  Even in trivial things like playing video games, Dad was always there to be still and just listen to what was going on around him.  I really need to start taking in more of his wisdom.