Nightmare Fuel, Day the Twenty-Fourth - At the Shore

A few nice takes on this image, including a sweet hopeful bit by Kary Gaul, something mythic-feeling from Samantha Dunaway Bryant and a bleak atmospheric thing from Jo Anne Cabrera

I should have made this one about my beloved Mets, or about the upcoming World Series.

I didn't. Enjoy this little bit of post-apocalyptic fantasy.

Image is from the Myths & Legends series, by Jeffrey Alan Love.

At the Shore

It's been a very long time.

Long enough that I barely remember my name, my face. Anything. 

Nothing but the taste of sea, nothing but regret. I tried to do it myself.

I tried my best, it wasn't enough. So here I am on the seafloor. Walking on.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The war has come everywhere, as wars always do. Some days you come to the beach to get away from it, to look over the Atlantic waves. You can still smell the smoke here, but mixed with the fresh salt air of the sea it isn't so bad. At least that's what you tell yourself.

So you sit alone on the dunes, what once was El Salvador behind you, facing the trackless desert of the ocean.


I wander, I meet the creatures of the sea. Those above look down on them as too many looked down on me. I feel kinship, but don't belong here.

I am not home.

I'm not even that surprised when I meet her, a fellow walker here in the depths. And old, old woman, her waterlogged flightclothes from an earlier time, when flight was an adventure. Not like the uniforms I once wore, as a civilian and a soldier.

We walk in companionable silence.

We don't stop walking.


You aren't always alone in this place, but you are often at peace. It's a poor spot for fishing, even if the oceans weren't mostly dead. Like the rest of the world. Those who come are the contemplative sort, the quiet, the loners.

Or perhaps those simply waiting to die, like the rest of the world.

One day you're joined by a very old man wearing a faded ballcap bearing a stylized letter 'P'. As if that matters anymore.

"You know, there's been lots of folk lost at sea. They didn't always find the bodies."

You nod, annoyed at the solitude being broken.

"They say they found his pilot, but not him. Makes a guy wonder, doesn't it? I mean, we can come here and think he'll come back, rolling his neck like he always did, bat on his shoulder. You know he'd do some good in the world."


You stare out over the water and don't say anything. Belief is for children. You don't believe in anything but the water.

After a day, or a week, or an eternity I find myself somewhere near my initial destination, generations ago. My companion has long since left me to go her own way.

That's OK. Sometimes you have to do it by yourself. Sometimes you just need to be a symbol, or a story, or an example.

One foot in front of the other, I walk beneath the sea, whispering to any who might still be listening, who might need me. 

"I'm coming".

After a long time, you turn away from the dunes and the sea and walk inland, in search of shelter and food and all that you need to stay alive. The struggle continues.

Thoughts on the New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs and Donald Trump on the eve of Baseball Season

It's been - for those of us who care about the nation's standing in the world, about civil rights, or simply about civility - a dark time in the world. There is a measure of joy coming around the corner in that we're nearing the eve of baseball season, with pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training just three days from this snowy Friday. So, fear not, I'm here to tarnish the pure joy of the baseball season by dragging politics and sexism into it, as we continue to understand how we elected an unrepentant sexist to the world of baseball.

Baseball and election seasons ended with an interesting statistical footnote from our friends at the 538 blog; on October 30, down three games to one, the forecasters at 538 gave the Cubs the same odds of winning the World Series as they gave Trump of winning the presidency. We all know what happened; the Cubs stunned the world with their first World Series win in over a century before Trump stunned the world again on November ninth. This isn't the part I see as interesting. What I see most interesting reflects something I said moths earlier about the New York Mets, and the ease with which we accept blatant sexism.

At the game, with girls. This is why I'll not cheer
a domestic abuser

For those who don't remember, last summer I wrote about how I booed New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes because of accusations of domestic violence against him - accusations which arguably were the direct cause of his availability to return to the team. It's a small and subtle stand, but still not an easy one to take; in the stadium with him at the bat in a big moment there was tangible excitement in the crowd, the PA system leading the "Jose, JoseJoseJose... Jose, Jose" chant from all those years back when he was a young superstar. It's an easy moment in which to get caught up, and particularly in a big moment, in extra innings, needing a run. I booed, but I was in a minority; the crowd cared more for the orange and blue within the diamond than the actions outside of it.

This brings us to another domestic abuser, Aroldis Chapman of the Chicago Cubs, he of the 105 mile-per-hour fastball. The big, strong arm brought halfway across the country from the struggling New York Yankees after they acquired him at a bargain price because he'd fired an actual gun during a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. When he stepped onto the mound the crowd cheered. Loudly, vociferously. Apparently without reservation. Midway through the season, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs on their way to the first World Series they'd see in over a century. Those of who watched saw over forty-thousand fans at Wrigley Field cheering for a man who missed the first third of the season for firing a gun at his wife. This is a thing we've taught eachother to do: to compartmentalize. To set aside our inner sense of decency and support "our team", right or wrong.

It's fandom.
It's politics.
It's patriotism.

Some of the same people who would cheer for Reyes or Chapman, for Rothlesberger, for Kobe Bryant, for so many other professional athletes who've mistreated women over the years, these are the people coming to the ballot box. Those who identify with "team elephant" saw the elephant next to Trump and went with the team, even if the man behind the symbol was imperfect.

This might not be overt sexism, but it's hard to read it as anything other than sexist. To support Trump, to cheer for Chapman or Reyes, to ignore those who have in words and deed caused harm to women is, of not hostility, indifference. Indifference may not be the same as active hostility, but it certainly does not represent support for the safety and decent treatment of women.

I've already chosen to no longer cheer for Reyes and his ilk, to speak against him. I'm hoping some of my fellow fans will join me, and my fellow Americans will learn to stop burying our decency beneath our fandom.

On Baseball - My First Time Booing

My wife noticed something interesting about me. I speak of the New York Mets in the first person. WE won last night. We lost a pitcher to injury. We made it to the World Series last year.  This isn't at all unusual among sports fans, and goes with what I've often said about sports being a safe outlet for the tribal instincts so many of us have; it's better to mock-hate eachother for our sports team than our country, religion, or something else important.

A day at the ballpark

Unlike many Mets fans, I don't boo. We've had some bad players on the team, and some good players who struggled mightily, costing the team wins. We've had overpaid players, mediocre talents, and some the fans just don't like. I've never booed any of them, not really seeing the point. If the team is an extension of ourselves, then to boo them is to boo ones one failures. So, I don't boo.

Until now.

Last week I attended the game and didn't only boo, I loudly booed the player who would score the game-tying run, a player who has been an major factor in the team's recent success, a player without whom we (there it is again) would not likely be on the precipice of our second consecutive trip to the playoffs.

Those who know me have likely guessed by now. I booed Jose Reyes.

For those who've forgotten, Reyes is on the team because the Colorado Rockies decided it wasn't worth keeping him around after he served a suspension for domestic violence. This much is clear to me: had Reyes not thrown his wife into a glass door the man would not be on the team. To make matters worse, his apologies after the fact have been of the "I'm sorry for what happened" variety, not the "I'm sorry for what I did" type. When the team was considering bringing him back, I wrote about this. About the message it sends to young men and women watching the game that this act is forgivable. If the team becomes "we" then accepting a domestic abuser makes all of us as fans feel, in a way, complicit. If we reached the World Series, did not we bring an unrepentant domestic abuser into the fold?

What makes it worse for me is that the fans not only ignored the abuse, but embraced Reyes as a returning hero. The "Jose/JoseJoseJose/Jose/Jose" chant returned, lead by the Citi Field PA system. Reyes jerseys started selling again.

Nobody cared what he did or how he came to be here.

For contrast, look across the country, at another sport. Colin Kaepernick is hated, his jersey has been burned in effigy, used as a literal doormat at a sports bar. He is, by some counts, the most hated athlete in America. His crime? Silently protesting racism against African Americans by kneeling during the national anthem. To many Americans, the anthem and flag acquired a near-religious level of import, Kapernick's protest a form of blasphemy.

So, here we have two athletes in two sports in two cities. One is using his voice and his fame to make a statement. One who admitted to using physical violence against his wife. One hated, one beloved.

For a quick digression, here are a list of football players less hated than Kaepernick.

Adrian Peterson. Admitted to beating his four-year old son with a tree branch.

Ben Roethlisberger. Accused of sexual assault multiple times.

Jonathan Dwyer. Arrested for domestic violence against his wife.

Any of the literally dozen athletes arrested for domestic abuse in the last few years.

This is says something about who we are, and about what we value.

The counterargument I've heard from some of my fellow Mets fans is that they separate Reyes the baseball player from Reyes the domestic abuser. While I understand wanting to focus solely on what happens between the lines, I'll respectfully note that Reyes the ballplayer and Reyes who threw his wife into a door are the same person. We celebrate players who participate in charity, even who just seem to play hard with a sense of joy and enthusiasm. I find it unfair to celebrate the good and shrug away the bad. In my eyes, the man on the field stealing second base is the very same man who threw his wife into a glass door. I cannot cheer for that man, nor am I comfortable remaining silent when fans around me are cheering him.

At the park, in silly hats. 

There is, of course, another and more important reason I didn’t cheer. The most important reason is that I wasn't at the game alone. In the seat next to me sat my daughter, who knows what Reyes did and knows how conflicted I am about following the team now that he's on it. A girl with whom I am sharing my fandom and the pleasures which it brings to me. What I want her to see - what everyone should see - is that his behavior matters. That violence against women matters more than on-base percentage.

So, yes, this year for the first time in my life I booed a member of my own team. Remember, whatever we choose - to cheer, to boo, to stay silent - our audience is greater than the people on the field. It's those around us.

If there's a lesson in Kaepernick's protest, it is that each of us has a voice.

It's up to all of us to use it for the right reasons.

On Fallen Heroes - Thoughts on Reyes and Wright

I've talked here about Matt Harvey, about the act of watching baseball, and how the game is, in many ways, not merely a story but a part of our uniquely American mythology. In Babe Ruth and Ted Williams and Ty Cobb we have organically grown what L. Frank Baum tried to deliberately create - a uniquely American set of folk stories. Total we'll talk about the left side of the Mets infield, and the fall of two of New York's heroes. Will either have a final act, and what will that act entail? That we don't know yet.

Wright and Reyes. Reyes and Wright. Two young Mets going the team in the early 2000s, full of promise. Reyes was always the spark. Ebullient, enthusiastic, joyous. He ran like the wind, once completing an inside-the-park home run in just over 14 seconds. Reyes of the elaborate post-home-run handshakes, he of the "Learn Spanish with Professor Reyes" vignettes on the big scoreboard. He was youth, he was fun, he was life.

Then Wright. Where Reyes was all twitch and speed and flair, Wright was all business, class, quiet confidence. A smooth swing, an easy smile, a quiet demeanor. He's the closest the Mets had to what the Yankees had all those years in Derek Jeter; a comforting, steady presence both in the line-up and in the clubhouse. He was front and center with a grin after a big win, and front and center again to say the hard things after a loss.

Wright and Reyes. Reyes and Wright. In 2006, as young men, they'd lead the team deep into the post-season, coming one game - one out - even one PITCH from an appearance in a World Series which the Saint Louis Cardinals would eventually win.

Two Thousand six was a long time ago. It felt like the beginning of something grand, although we now know that it wasn't. The years which followed were full of disappointments, struggles. Through it all, Wright and Reyes, Reyes and Wright, until that fateful day after the 2011 season in which Reyes was seduced by riches (and, in fairness, was outside the Mets budget) and took his talents to Miami.

Reyes wandered the wilderness, trading from Miami to distant Toronto after just one season and, when Toronto was finally poised to achieve success, traded again to Colorado.

Wright stayed, remained the one link to 2006, started to grow old before his time, still a Met for his playing life, however long that may be.

Wright and Reyes, Reyes and Wright. Now both at a crossroads, Each fallen in his own way. Wright, laid low by a failing body as he was diagnosed first with spinal stenosis, and now with a herniated disc in his neck. He'll get surgery and may or may not someday return to the field. If he does, it will be as a diminished athlete weakened by the ravages of time - as we all are.

(As an aside, this is my issue with another American mythology: superheroes, especially as portrayed in cinema; we get the beginning of the story, but too rarely the end. Peter Park is always a young man. Bruce Wayne is always donning the cowl for the first time after his parents' murder. Before they can age, mature, move to a different part of their story -- the universe resets and Parker is again bitten by a radioactive spider, Wayne again orphaned. We tell half-stories, never getting to the point in which Sherlock Holmes meets his nemesis at the Reichenbach Falls, or Ajax falling onto his sword after realizing that his time has past. We don't even get Kirk at Veridian III. I'll speak more on that in another post, but I wish we would learn to tell full stories)

Reyes' story could have been a classic - heroic figure leaves, wanders the figurative desert for a time, returns triumphantly. His fall, however, was of a different kind in that he spent fully the first third of this season suspended from baseball under MLB's new domestic violence policy after throwing his wife into a glass door while vacationing in Hawaii. He's since lost his starting job to a young rookie and been essentially cut by the team, who will pay him the remaining nearly forty-million dollars owed on his contract for the service of going away and never being seen there again.

After Reyes' domestic violence incident, the story changes. Now the story becomes not only about a hero whose fall is a moral issue, but it becomes part of a larger societal story about abuse of women in the world of athletics and the lack of repercussions. It's a story that includes Ray Rice initially suspended only two games after hitting his wife. Brock Turner given a minimal sentence after raping an unconscious woman. Aroldis Chapman pitching for the Yankees after firing a gun during a domestic dispute with his wife. Santonio Holmes returning to the gridiron after beating his wife. It's Fransisco Rodriguez continuing to close baseball games after domestic violence, including assaulting his then-girlfriend's father at an actual ball game. 

The story or Reyes can become part of another myth - the myth of professional athletics and the import of success on the field. The story that the safety and health of the women surrounding athletes are less important than success on the field. A story we tell every time Chapman dons the Yankee pinstripes and which Reyes would tell if again wore the orange and blue. This is why - after years of missing his on-field ebullience - I'd be furious to see Reyes again don a Mets uniform.

Is what he did forgivable, and can he have a path to redemption? Perhaps. That forgiveness cannot takes place on the baseball diamond, lest we reinforce the message that women are less important than sport. That we cannot do.

And of Wright's future? He's in pain. He's played in pain all year, and all year last year. IT takes hours for him to prep his injured back before each game. Later? After neck surgery? Perhaps he'll be able to come back and the story will be that of overcoming hardship. Perhaps not and the story will be about how time finally defeated him. As it does everyone. 

Wright and Reyes. Reyes and Wright. Two stars, beloved by Mets fans from their youngest days. Neither on the field at present. Wright's story is in its last pages. Reyes' - at least for me - is over. I won't watch him again, won't cheer for him again. 

One may never play again due to age and injury. One should never play again for the message his return would send.

 It's not the way any of us wanted or expected either story to end. 

Achilles and Icarus - Matt Harvey and Why We Watch Baseball

Last night Mets pitcher Matt Harvey had another disasterous start in what has, thus far, been a nightmare season for him. As much as it pains me to see him struggling, I do have to take a half-step back and remember that this is why we watch sports - this is, as frustrating as it is, sports fandom at its best. Why? Because the Matt Harvey saga is, at its heart, a classic story. He is the best kind of hero - one whose strengths and flaws mirror the city in which he lives and the fans who wish to love him. He has been at times beloved and maddening, a hero and an anti-hero. Perhaps even, for a moment, the villain. He is why we watch sports.

How it Began

In 2013, a twenty-four year old Matthew Edward Harvey was the undeniable star of a struggling New York Mets pitching staff. After the departure of fan-favorite RA Dickey, it was pretty easy to stand out in the remaining crowd, and stand out Harvey did. Fans greeted each of his starts as "Harvey Day" as he collected strikeouts, earned an all-star game appearance, and took his place in the pantheon of great Mets pitchers. He was a relection of our city - brash and proud, but able to back it up. He felt bigger than the team. He enjoyed the nightlife. He talked himself up on Twitter. He posed nude in GQ. In a near-anonymous starting rotation, he was a rising superstar, replacing the quirkier and more intellectual Dickey. 

Then, as the 2013 season ended, he suffered an elbow injury which would keep him out of baseball for a full year recovering from Tommy John surgery.

A Triumphant Return, and a Plot Twist
After a year away, he returned and returned strong, though sometime wasn't quite the same. Young fireballer Noah Syndergaard joined the team, and "Happy Harvey Day" gave way to "Happy Thorsday" (for his resemblance to the comic-book version of the Norse thundergod). Still, he pitched magnificently, helping carry the team to a national league penant, with sudden hope for a championship. That is where the story gets interesting. This is why we watch. 

In the final weeks of the season Harvey, through his agent Scott Boras, expressed concern about the number of innings he was pitching. Nobody had ever thrown so many the year after surgery, and Boras expressed concern for his client's long-term health. The playoffs beckoned, with what felt like the first real chance at a championship the team had seen in nearly a decade. Here was Harvey, the returning hero, threatening to withdraw to his tent, leaving his comrades in arms overmatched for the battle ahead. It was a moment which crystallized the changes which had been brewing all year: the contrast between the brash, loud, prideful Harvey and the more humble, "aw shucks" Texas kid with the overpowering fastball. We still loved Harvey, but he wasn't the only story.

A Storybook Moment 
After weeks of debate, Harvey's pride won out. He took the ball every fifth day, through the end of the season and into the playoffs, right up until a perfect storybook moment: with the Mets down three games to one in the best of seven series, Harvey was pitching to keep the season and the Mets increasingly slim hopes alive. He did his job, pitching eight shutout innings, preserving a slim lead which Mets manager Terry Collins could then hand to ace reliever Jeurys Familia. This is another moment in which we see pride - his tragic flaw - at work. Harvey demanded that he be given the ball to start the ninth inning. It was, after all, the perfect ending - after injury and absence, anger and controversy the returning hero was on the field of play. It was as a scene from a movie, but better than a movie. It was real. 

The crowd was chanting his name.

The manager handed him the ball for one final inning. 

He was determined.

He was strong.

He was Matt Harvey. 

And he failed, allowing two baserunners who would eventually score, sending the trophy to Kansas City, and sending the Mets home. Defeated.

Onward to today
It's a new year, and something in Harvey seems broken. He's been unable to pitch past the fifth inning, losing control and losing command. There were rumors and whispers that after his LAST bad start he was given the option to skip his next turn. To work on fixing what was wrong. To get stronger. To rest his arm. 

Harvey's fatal flaw is still hubris; nobody who has paid any attention would expect him to willingly skip a start. So he took the ball, against the Washington team who had humiliated him just a week prior.
And he lost.

Again.

This is where the story stands. Harvey is, as I said, like the city in which he lives. Strong, brash, proud, and flawed. He's perhaps reached a crossroad at which he will confront his demons, face whatever weakness has sapped his strength, and return better than ever.

Or not. 

Why do I watch sports? THIS is why I watch sports. For the story, and because I don't know what the next act will bring. Is it the tale of the brash young hero who overcomes his darkest moment, to arise phoenix-like and again become the hero we expect Matt Harvey to be? Or will he be a modern Icarus, who for one glorious moment soared overhead, almost reaching the sun itself before falling to earth, never to fly again?

Loving Baseball as a Writer

Two greats of American literature
at a Red Sox game.

As we enter the last few weeks of the baseball season, I'd like to share my appreciation of the game with you as well as some thoughts of why baseball is, in many ways, the most literary of sports. With one hundred sixty-two games over a few short months, baseball is part of the rhythm of the summer, faceless voices on the radio painting a word-picture as background music to accompany yardwork, days at the beach, or just a Sunday drive. It can be more than that; like a great novel a baseball season rewards a bit of focus and attentiveness to detail. There's a richness and complexity which, as a teller of stories, I find quite appealing.

One bit of writing advice which stuck with me is that anything you include in a novel needs to serve at least two purposes, be that to advance the plot, help set a tone, develop characters, illuminate a relationship, give background information, or something else. If all one worries about is plot, then one ends up with a flat, single-dimensional book. What does this have to do with baseball? While a baseball game might be a story, the bigger story is the entire season with choices made day-by-day having ripple effects for weeks if not the entire summer. Picture a scene: my beloved Mets are trailing by one run in the sixth inning. It's late May, the bottom of the sixth inning  with the pitcher coming up to bat. Not a very dramatic moment, is it? Not bases loaded, 2 outs, bottom of the ninth in October. What I love about baseball is that the choice here matters, not just for today, but for tomorrow and the next tomorrow and, in a way, the whole season. What happens next?

Does the pitcher take his at bat, perhaps strike out? He'll have to pitch the next inning and, if the team is limiting his innings to prevent injury he might have to exit a late-season game earlier. In the shorter story of the single game, the opposing batters have all seen him a few times now and might have a better chance of getting a hit, especially as he is tiring.

Do we pinch-hit and go to a relief pitcher? Who? Carlos Torres again? He's been the most  consistent reliever, but he's pitched three times already this week. If we run him out there again today, will he be available tomorrow? is he a rubber-armed wonder, or will he eventually go from being our best reliever to an afterthought as over-work begins to renders him ineffective? (this arguably happened this year; Torres went from the first choice to something farther back as he was, quite likely, overworked over the first months of the season). If we pinch hit, who is it? Is there a bench player who needs another at bat or two to avoid getting a bit rusty, or have the part-time players given most of what they can?

It takes attentiveness to see how choosing a given player for a given role makes a difference long-term, but the connections are there for those who watch closely and attentively. Compare, say, a football game in which each week's game is in many ways an isolated event. The best players will play this week, the best players will play next week. There's far less managing a season and more managing a single game. A baseball season is serial; if you want to compare to a TV show it's a serial show in which a larger story builds over the course of a season - and beyond.

Through the magic of the internet, those of us who are serious and semi-serious fans can follow the team's minor league prospects. Two years ago, for example, the Mets traded Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey for, amongst others, catcher Travis d'Arnaud and pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard in particular became quite the story as he moved up the organization, perhaps struggled a bit, and took a whole year before arriving in the big leagues. When we first saw him it was the final act in a play that had opened two years prior, his name and fame preceding him. It was for this reason - and this story - that I attended Syndergaard's first home game at Citi Field.

Taking advantage of a quiet moment to learn the lost
art of scorekeeping

And, sometimes, we get a personal story. This year the Mets famously almost traded their starting second basement Wilmer Flores. When the deal was announced during a game, Flores was given a warm ovation by the crowd. Whether by the crowd response, the reality of being traded from the only team he ever knew, or some combination of the two, Flores was literally brought to tears on the field. The trade, as we now know, fell through. Flores got another standing ovation from the home crowd his next game and, in a moment too cliched for me to even consider putting it in actual fiction, drove in the game winning run in extra innings. It was a great moment much greater for those who've followed the whole story from Flores' initial signing at the age of 16 to his time in the minor leagues to his sometimes struggles to play various infield positions for the sake of the team. I find great joy in following stories like this for a bad team with unsuccessful seasons while carrying the hope that things will turn around and get better. When the team starts winning (as my beloved Mets are now) it feels that, as a fan, I've earned the joy in seeing their success by sticking with them for the years of struggle.

Finally, on a note of personal taste, baseball is a slow-paced game of pregnant pauses, anticipation, white-space framing the action. It's slow enough that one can think about and digest all of these small moments. It's a fandom which I often try to communicate, but with some difficulty; watching a single game can be a pleasant enough experience, but without the larger picture it is missing - at least to me - a measure of the richness which makes it special. 

Flash Fiction Tuesday - Play Ball!

It's your twice-weekly dose of flash fiction! Please, no biographical fallacies here: the only similarity between myself and the character in the story is my complete and utter inability to throw a baseball. Well, that and sometimes achy knees. 

"Play Ball"

by Leonard C Suskin

"My father never taught me how to throw a baseball."

"And do you want to be your father? Do you want him to be you?"

We were looking out the big bay window towards the lawn across the street, watching Eddy, our oldest son, with the neighborhood kids. At five he was't the youngest, but not quite the oldest either. When he caught the ball - or, more accurately, picked a dropped ball up from the ground, his throw was weak and awkward, stiff-wristed, all arm and no body.

It was Sunday afternoon.

I didn't answer her last comment. There wasn't much to say. She looked from the game to me. "You watch enough baseball. Don't you see how they throw?"

"I know it isn't like that. I don't know enough to teach."

With a quiet "hrmph" noise she turned back to the window.

The modern world is a miraculous place; we carry the answers to nearly any question literally in our pockets. How to patch drywall. How often to water the lawn. What to expect in couples' therapy. How to get rid of gypsy moth caterpillars. How to tell fortunes. The many names of god, and of the devil. And, of course, how to throw a baseball.

Those sidearm, jumping, half-spinning throws you see from a major league shortstop fielding a hard grounder in the hole? That's not how you learn. Everyone on the internet seems to agree: grip, comfortably across the seams, hold the ball chest high. You don't throw with your arm and your shoulder. You throw with your wrist, your hands, your elbow, your shoulder, your hips, your legs. It's two steps of a dance; grip position on the upbeat,  pivotstepreachrelease on the downbeat.

It isn't an easy step. And I'm not a good dancer.

The previous owner had installed outdoor floodlights in the backyard. The kind with the bluewhite glare that make sit look unnatural, not artificial daylight but an oversaturated, paintedover night. I had a hard rubber ball, the side of the house. A YouTube "How To" on my phone.

Grip,lift, turnpivotthrow, thunk.
Grip,lift, turnpivotthrow, thunk.
grip, lift, turnpivotthrow, thunk.

The smack of rubber on brick played counterpoint to the voices on the AM radio, painting a word-picture of a young local kid pitching a gem for the home team.

Grip,lift, turnpivotthrow, thunk.

The blue rubber ball blackish in the nighttime light. Perhaps someday I'll watch Eddy pitching on the radio? 
I come to bed after she's fallen asleep, silently slipping under the sheets beside her.

It was Tuesday.

I awake to a dull ache in my shoulder, a persistent throbbing in my hip. Callouses on the inside of my fingers. I'm not accustomed to this. Not one bit.

In the floodlight, I chalk a square on the back of the house. Chest-high, three feet across.  Sometimes I hit it, but not many.  Again, the word picture on the radio accompanies me. The home-team's pitcher is a veteran, nearly my age. Too old to be pitching in the big leagues, really. Way too old to be starting out.

He leads the team to a win, 2-0. I catch the edge of the target, sending puffs of chalkdust into the air.

She's up watching a late movie when I come to bed, but I'm too tired to talk. I drift to sleep to the flashing lights and whispered dialog of the TV.

It was Wednesday.

Thursday is a travel day for the big league club, a late day at work for me.

Friday I get home early. It's one of those nice early summer days before it's too hot to be outside. I take Eddy out into the backyard, show him the target on the wall. It looks different in the daylight. Sharper, more real. As if the place I practiced at night was from a movie, or a dream.

I demonstrate once, and it's my best throw yet. Arms, hips, legs together, and a perfect strike in the middle of the target.

His eyes are wide and eager.

"How'd you learn to do that? Did your daddy teach you?"

I ignore the stabbing in my knees as I kneel beside him, bend my lips into a smile. "Yeah. And now it's your turn. Let me show you what he showed me."

I take his hand in mine and wrap his fingers around the ball, fingers across the seams.

On Wire Management, Flyball pitchers, and an awkward-looking shortstop

I recall a mathematics professor using an HL Mencken quote to describe a particularly intractable physics puzzle:

"Explanations exist. They have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong."

(I'm certain that the abovementioned professor paraphrased Mencken, but thanks to the power of the internet we can get the quote right).

Three discussions I had over the past week brought this idea to mind, and have me reflecting on the limits of intuition and of statistics, both professionally and recreationally:

1. A discussion of the defensive ability of New York Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores
2. Predictions on future success of Mets pitcher Carlos Torres
3. A discussion on the AV Installation Nightmares Facebook group on the merits of plastic cable ties as opposed to hook-and-loop straps to bundle category cable.

What do the above have in common? All are, to some of us, important questions. None are within our ability to intuitively answer. What it comes down to, in the end, is almost a question of epistemology: how does one know that an assertion is true?

A Data Driven World - When Statistics are the Answer
We know things today. Gathering data is a skill at which we have become quite adept. One high-profile example of this is in election predictions: there has always been a great deal of polling and data gathering before elections. In recent years it's become possible - even easy - to gather data from wide areas over years, make comparisons, and see which correlations appear stable over time. This lead, for example, to several statistics-based analysts (ie, Nate Silver of "538" and Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium) to predict the last Presidential and midterm election with nearly frightening accuracy. More traditional pundits relying on fewer numbers but more experience and intuition ran into one of Mencken's neat, plausible, and wrong explanations.

Warmups at CitiField, Queens NY

The key is in knowing what one knows and how to leverage that knowledge. This brings us to the discussion of Carlos Torres, relief pitcher for the New York Mets. In a discussion on the Amazing Avenue blog, one commenter asserted that based on statistical analysis, Torres' early success was based largely on luck. A more "traditional" view would be to look at simple statitics such as "earned run average" - the number of runs allowed per nine innings - or "batting average against" - how often opposing batters hit safely. Looking more deeply, Torres had a greater number of walks per nine innings pitched than expected, and possibly a lower "batting average for balls in play"; looking at these statistics, it appears more apparent that his success is a bit of a statistical anomaly.

What fascinated me is that that didn't end the discussion. Another poster - a young man going by the handle "noahmets" who is about to begin an internship with baseball analysis website Harball Times. Noah's contention is that one can look at a set of statistics called  "Pitch f(x)" which give details of the exact location, result (ie, swing and miss, put in play, pitch taken) and even spin-rate of each thrown ball. This data is available via sensors which have been installed in every major league ballpark since 2006. Having this extra data lets us see more and, hopefully, derive stats which are more stable over time. He was able to add a dizzying alphabet soup of pitching statistics which control for ballpark and other variables. What was once conjecture can now become predictive.

A similar discussion about shortstop Wilmer Flores eventually went nowhere; to the more "visually oriented" fans he looks awkward and appears to have limited range. To the statistically-oriented fans his numbers look just fine. The problem with the statistical argument is that he's played very few games at shortstop thus far, and those numbers have fluctuated wildly over this time. Statistics can only give an answer with a workable statistical model and sufficient data; in the case of defensive range, I'm not convinced that we have either.

How does any of this relate to AV? In the abovementioned install nightmares group, somebody posted a picture of an AV rack mid-wiring. In what was meant to be playful teasing, I "tsk tsk'd" him for using plastic cable ties on category cable. What followed was a discussion on why one should use hook-and-eye (ie, velcro) straps instead of cable ties, IF one should do so, if it even makes a difference. My arguments against plastic ties:

1. Ties fastened too tightly can deform the precisely-manufactured cable, increasing crosstalk between pairs
2. It's very easy to accidentally overtighten, especially if fastening many of them
3. BICCSI standards recomment against using nylon or plastic cable ties
4. A white paper from Valens Semiconductor (maker of the chipset at the heart of HDBaseT transport systems) recommends hook-and-eye straps.

AV professional William Bloomquist had what looked like a data-driven argument against. His point:

1. Many people use nylon ties without a problem.
2. There are no failure statistics detailing how many failures are caused by compression caused by overtightened cable ties.

Do you see the key difference between this analysis and the above discussion on relief pitchers? We can very precisely analyze pitching because we have very precise data; Pitch f(x) is in all major league ballparks and measures every single pitch in every major league game. THis is not so for cable failures; if video doesn't pass on one cable it gets re-terminated, re-re-terminated, and perhaps replaced without anybody performing a post-mortem or a root-cause analysis on the failure. There's no pitch f(x) database listing all of the cable failures  across the industry on which we can perform analysis, no decades of polling.

Hook-and-eye cable straps, detail.

What we're left with are best practices designed to minimize failure. When I write  a bid specification, I'll include hook-and-eye fasteners for category cable because I know that that will eliminate one potential source of technician error and, ultimately, failure. Absent statistical proof, we're with the scouts evaluating shortstops based on experience and hands-on analysis. In short, with no real-world statistics and without my own laboratory, I'm left with what other experts have measured and presented. Whitepaper from Valens. Whitepapers from cable manufacturers. Best practices from those organizations in the IT industry whose job it is to know what they're talking about. 

I applaud people like Bloomquist for being prudent and insisting on statistics to back up our choices. Sometimes one needs to take a step back to understand which data is available and the limits of real-world statistical analysis. This has given me food for thought, but at the end of the day I'll still be requesting hook-and-eye straps to bundle category cable

Instant Replay, Microphones, and when it's wrong to be right

How is instant replay like a gooseneck microphone?

As some of you might know, I'm a dedicated baseball fan - specifically of the New York Mets. In recent years, Major League Baseball has added an  instant replay system in which a dedicated team in a remote location are available to review close plays if a manager challenges them. Today, however, we're not talking about the technical aspects of replay, but about how a play reviewed yesterday made me think of discussions I've had about gooseneck, ceiling, and boundary microphones.

The Play 
This was a close play at home plate - one of the more exciting moments in a ballgame. The Mets were leading by a single run when Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki tried to score from third base on a sharp ground ball. A quick throw to the play just beat him, and he was tagged out by Mets catcher Travis d'Arnaud, preserving the Mets lead.

Or was he?

The Marlins challenged the call, and the TV audience got to watch almost six minutes of the officiating crew listening for an answer on the phone while we watched the same replay over and over and over again. Five minutes and 45 seconds later, the officials gave the final answer: d'Arnaud's tag had just missed Ichiro on his way to the plate, and the second tag attempt was a heartbeat too late. He was safe, the score was tied (don't worry - there is a happy ending. The Mets scored again and went on to win).

There was some anger from Mets fans over what might be a bad call, some relief that "we" won anyway. What do I think? ANd what does this have to do with a gooseneck microphone? Before I answer, watch the play at full speed. Don't watch the replays. Forget what I just said.

Was he safe or out? The truth is that in real-time it happened so quickly that you could tell me either and I'd believe you. Watch five minutes of instant replays -- and we can still debated it. Perhaps we're a bit more likely to have the right answer.  Either way, however, it is not so egregious an error as to hurt my enjoyment of the game. I'd argue that my enjoyment was hurt more by having to wait for the results. Replay made the game more "fair" but less "fun".

Microphones and Microphones and Microphones
We AV professionals are often in conflict with the interiors part of design teams regarding microphones, speakers, and any other AV elements which might have to be more visible than would be ideal for aesthetics. What makes matters worse is that the best solutions from an audio perspective are often the most problematic aesthetically.  Recently I had a discussion with the manufacturer of a "delegate system" consisting of free-standing little boxes with gooseneck microphones and some simple controls. Their argument is that it made a better solution than a boundary mic or a ceiling mic. I agreed, but pointed out that whenever I propose such a thing in a high-profile boardroom with expensive furniture the architect would most certainly complain. The response:

"I hope you set them straight."

This is a problem some of us in the industry have. Like the well-meaning baseball executives who insist on making sure the calls are right, we can become obsessed with finding the best solutions. At best, this leads to excellent performance. At worst, it creates a kind of tunnel vision in which the enjoyment of a space is harmed by a lack of attention to overall experience (which includes how a space looks).

The truth is that for simple conferencing applications boundary or even ceiling microphones are adequate. They're the experienced umpire's best judgement at game-speed. A 12-inch gooseneck? That's a team in a control room with five minutes to view super-slow-motion from multiple angles.

Last year I posted about a mad-science experiment in which several mics were compared for use with a soft-codec. This is something about which I've been thinking more - especially as expectations have shifted.

Sliding Expectations

Not many years ago, if you said "videoconference" to an executive, they would think of a dedicated conference room, with integrated microphones, a DSP capable of being tuned for the specific room conditions, and possibly acoustic treatments to maximize performance. The idea would be a space built and designed for that function.

Now if you say "videoconfernce" most people will think of the Google Hangouts or Apple Facetime app on their phone. Does a room system need to be better than this to accommodate a dozen or more people? Absolutely. Is the expectation an immersive experience with the best-quality audio and video? Only in the most specialized spaces.

I'm no longer in the business of setting anybody straight; I do educated, I do try to guide clients to the right answer.

What I've learned is that sometimes the right answer is to let the call on the field stand to preserve the flow and experience of the game, even at the expense of some measure of accuracy.

IT's good to be right, but sometimes being right is not enough.

Sometimes it's even wrong.