Don’t be a Hot Dog

It was a classic early 60’s, New York Little League game with the parents screaming at the Ump and coaches and the kids jagging around in the field, talking trash to the batter, ‘batter, batter, swing batter’. 

 

The field was wedged between the small woods behind my house and the new Waldbaum’s shopping center, old Schwarting Elementary School and the dilapidated basketball courts.  Noisey suburban parkways encircled the area and the constant hum was palatable and we could smell and taste the sea, not five miles away.  The batter swings and slices a high pop-up to the first base foul territory. 

        Last year we picked a great coach and went 2-22 and had a great time.  This year we were 22-2 and hated it because the new coach was a dick and he just wanted to win.  His son Gary was the star pitcher and not a bad guy, and the catcher was a back-stop kid named Bobby Baccarella who would let nothing get behind him and had a bazooka to Second base.  The outfield was an afterthought with midget miscreants that didn’t care, but we had an all-star infield. 

We had Albert Stein on Third; a short, dark, funny Jewish kid with a rocket arm and a chip on his shoulder.  Little Kenny White was at Short; he was a Palooka kid who could catch any ground ball and throw strikes to First, like a mini-Bud Harrelson.  His dad purportedly pulled the overloaded breaker-switch for Con Edison in 1963 that put Manhattan in a black out and saved the eastern seaboard.  Gabe Martinez was at Second and was a Mexican who looked Asian with a cherub, baby face and a wry smile but was so naturally athletic and likable that all the girls loved him.  I even had an inexplicable boy crush on him.

I was on First, with my specialized, lobster, first baseman’s mitt, long hair and white shoes, just like Joe Namath - who had a fur coat and Joe Pepitone - who had a hair dryer in his locker.  I couldn’t hit or field, maybe because I couldn’t see and wouldn’t wear glasses, but I could catch anything thrown at me, by watching who threw it and how It was thrown.  I drifted into foul territory after the pop fly, sweeping the crowd aside with my waving arms and deep baritone, 10-year-old voice – ‘I got it.’ 

I wound up near my dad who had come to his first, and las, Little League game ever, and he moved out of my way, slightly.  He was as confident as I was since we would play catch with a ball 2-3 days a week after he came home from work and had a cocktail.  He knew I could catch anything if I kept my eye on it, moved my feet and didn’t try to short arm it to look cool.  He hated that.

The foul ball drifted high in the midafternoon wind, obscured slightly by the urban  haze and the clouds.  ‘Man, that guy must have hit that ball a ton to go so high,’ I thought in my ADD, dyslexic - spectrum brain.  ‘I wonder if Patty O’Rouke is at this game’?  She was keen on Gabe but I was keen on her.’  ‘She wore her uniform dresses way up high at school and free form outfits even higher at church on Sunday’. 

 

‘That Gabe was so cool; he taught me to play hockey last winter and made me a stick out of a metal pipe and lent me some skates’. ‘Gabe taught me that an assist was better than a goal’.   ‘Joey Giordano was there that subzero day and brought cigarettes and a gun his Wise Guy brother lent him, but he could not skate and he thankfully left early.’  ‘We didn’t want to have that much fun.’  ‘We stayed till dark and dragged our frozen assess home in time for dinner and to watch the Jets win the Super Bowl’.  ‘Looking back, that was fun.’  ‘Wow, here is a 747 lined up to land at the newly named JFK airport!’  ‘I wonder if I have math homework tonight or if they will let me watch those new hippy shows, The Monkeys and Laugh-In.’

‘Focus’ I told myself, ‘be in the moment’.  Dad had taught me that the ball would be accelerating down a non-intuitive, ‘32 feet per second – per second, the change of the change calculus,’ whatever that means, but it would be fast.  I backed up but then had to run in, across someone’s blanket with beers, a dog and a baby on it.  Everybody was yelling, including my team and the other team.  It was slow motion pandemonium.  Gabe, Gary and Bobby came over to back me up and Bobby had his catcher’s mitt upside down to poach the catch but Gabe gave him the ‘back off’ look and he held his ground. The Ump joined the melee to make the call, and just for the fun of it.  Finally, the ball came down and hit my mitt just above my head, where I couldn’t see it.  It bounced out and hit the ground.  The crowed moaned in disbelief.  I was mortified.  My eyes welled with tears as I assumed my position on the field and Gabe patted me on the back.  My dad looked at me and said with a wink, ‘don’t be a hot dog, Junior’. 

Years later I was in a high school wrestling match.  I was wrestling Varsity as a Freshman because I weighed 98 pounds after dieting and dehydrating myself into a coma.  The team was all older guys and I would get pinned regularly, but they didn’t expect much and were generally sympathetic.  My dad showed up for once and sat in the front row.  Being an old football player he didn’t know much about this wrestling stuff but since I weighed 98 pounds, I didn’t play football or hoops and I sill sucked at baseball.  It was my way in.

When it was my turn, Dad gave me the thumbs up and I went and shook hands with the bad ass guy from The City across from me.  I was exhausted by the time the guy finished shaking my hand a hundred different ways.  I could hear this guy’s big father deep voice booming in the back ‘grab the left nut Jerome.’  The guy on our team that went before me had his eyeball ripped out and left the gym bleeding and howling.  I prepared to guard my left nut, at all cost. 

We started dancing around and wrestling and this guy was manic, fast and strong.  ‘Pace yourself dude’ I thought, ‘it’s a long match’.  I paced myself but after the first two minutes we went completely anerobic, sucking for breath.  The second two minutes our muscles worked to exhaustive failure and we started to flop around like a tuna fish, clutching, grabbing and stalling big time.  The third period was a blur as I slowly lost my sight, competitive spirit for self and team, and will to live.  I was hammered, knackered, kaput.  But slowly, seemingly out of nowhere, came an inner strength and miraculous second wind.  I could breath and I got stronger.  My vision and will to win returned.  I was an athlete, in his prime, going for the victory.

‘It’s probably from all the killer practices we had each day from 6-9 pm’, I told myself, ‘after the JV basketball practice and study hall, in the back gym, wearing rubber sweats and sweatshirts, with wind sprints and neck bridges, spin drills and the dreaded up-and-downs’.    After that was the cold-shower-wet winter rides home in the back of a friends pickup, listening to American Pie, and home in time to do my mandatory three hours of homework and get some shut eye and do it again a 6am’.  ‘I’m thirteen, I’m supposed to gain weight and not lose it and get 10 hours of sleep for my growing mind.’  Nope, this was the culture of wrestling I chose to endure, to be a contender. Since there was no diving, skiing or hockey team yet’.   ‘Bring it’ I thought gamely as I began to dominate the match for the first time.

The crowd energized, as I did, or maybe we just became aware.  I looked to see if my gal Sally Snowshoes was in the stands but the faces were just an expectant blur.  ‘Man, I can’t wait to get an ice cream float after the match with the boys, sleep on the bus and finish my homework tonight so I can go to the Giants game tomorrow unencumbered’.  ‘Focus.’  My opponent was fading and my coach was yelling for me to DO IT.  DO WHAT, I thought, until I realized that was our code word for the secret, killer Half Nelson move. 

So, I DID IT and rolled the guy over until he stopped resisting.  I thought about checking on him since last week I slammed a guy on the mat and he went limp and I told the Ref.  We stopped and he got help and came back with a vengeance to pin me, with me looking up at the roof lights and the banners and hearing the crowd groan.  My coach was furious and told me next time to pin him first and then tell the Ref.  So, I did.  I checked my left nut and rolled this guy over and 1-2-3 BOOM - pinned.  I jumped up and raised my hands in the air, as is the custom.  We shook hands and the Ref raised my am in victory and my coach and teammate came out to shake my hand and tassel my hair.  Returning to the bench with a big grin on my face, I passed my Dad, who smiling slyly said to me, ‘don’t be a hot dog, son.’ 

Finally, in the one college Lacrosse game my Dad attended, I was running down the left midfield wing with the ball thinking typically about girls and work, homework and spring break.  ‘The Golden Dome on the Admin building and Cross on the Cathedral was shining over our training field.  On separate days, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan visited our practice filed while running for President’.  ‘Win one for the Gipper’ Ron said ironically.  ‘I shouldn’t be playing Lacrosse, since Engineering was hard, and I had a job, a girlfriend, a dog, a car, a mini fridge full of beer and a hole in my heart that made me uninsurable, but I was going for it.  It was just a club sport at that time and pretty casual but we had to go to Chicago or Florida usually to find another club to play’.  Now they play for the national championship yearly and recruit most of their stars out of my prep-school.  I like to think I was a trend setter but it was just happenstance.  Quantum coincidence.

When the opposing defender slammed me for not looking up, I crashed to the ground but saw our center streaking for the cage.  He was a tall guy so I mystically threw it high to him, with my last effort.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach high for the pass and simultaneously get folded in two by the big burley crease defenseman, but not before deflecting the ball into the net, high – stick side.  We all celebrated each other and he wheezed, ‘don’t ever do that again’ as we headed to the bench.  As we trotted victoriously past my Dad, he murmured to me with a wry smile, ‘don’t be a hot dog, Matthew’.  Which was nice.

 

The Apple and the Tree

Both my parents worked so they never had much time or interest in our organized games, and it was kind of our own, independent kid thing.  All they ever said was, ‘be home at 6 for dinner.’  Parents didn’t helicopter-hover over their kids back then and let them fail, get in trouble and make mistakes like Dr Spock advised them to do.  One time though, the parents and coaches were riding the young Ump, who was a good friend of mine at school, so badly that all the kids walked off the field and went home.  So did the Ump.  My dad didn’t like that crap.  So, he seldom showed, not because he didn’t like me or care, but it was not his world and he would rather have a beer and mow the lawn.

Dad had an aversion to haughty hubris since, when he was a kid, he didn’t get into our exclusive, private prep-school where his friends went.  They eventually became wise guy, Wall Street men that womanized, drank too much and sent themselves to early graves.  He went to the local public school that kept him grounded and humble.  They won the football championship and his best friend kissed his ass in the middle of Long Beach Boulevard when Dad surprisingly graduated, as payment for a long-term bet.  He tried to marry his sweetheart but was sent to Korea, instead of jail, for a misunderstanding with the cops.  She didn’t wait for him.  But my mom did and encouraged him to move from faming-carpenter to Building Inspector to a proud and successful Superintendent of Water Works in a small, rich, north shore town.  I followed him into hydrology and hydraulics.

He didn’t criticize meanly or maliciously at all but realized early-on that I was a wise guy, smart ass, show off and a hot dog.  My favorite sports were skiing and diving, showy sports where you keep your legs together, squeeze your ass, and style counts.  He was a simple, honest, hardworking man where; what-you-see-is-what- you-get and deprecating humor ruled the roost in our family home.  He knew that his job was to keep me humble, grounded and prevent my head from getting too big.  ‘Be more, appear less’ was the motto.  ‘You are neither as good nor as bad as you think you are’.  Things like that.  Some of it took and some of it didn’t.  I like to think that he was proud of me, loved me as a son and liked me as a person.  What else is there?

For every fancy trophy school I attended he would warn that I would fail out and go to the local occupational high school or the community college.  I showed him.  When I was trying out for the football team he asked what position I was going for.  I said wide receiver since I could catch anything.  He told me I was a gumshoe with small hands and I weighed 98 pounds so that wouldn’t work.  I was devastated until he said that I was a smart kid and knew the game, so I should play QB.  I got cut in the first round.

I passed these lessons to my stepson who played football for me vicariously and hockey for himself innately.  He is natural, confident but humble.  He passes before being hit, skates behind every charging defenseman and makes everyone on the ice a better player.  He reluctantly followed some of my advice and his own passion into aviation and married a woman who makes him want to be a better man. 

Recently, I found Dad’s Hydraulics Handbook and realized that we had an aptitude, acumen and a love for fluids and hydrology in common in our family.   My stepson even named his dog Hydro.  Dad’s text was a short and simple old book that he paid $1.94 for in the ‘50s.  I looked at my old hydro textbook and it was calculus based and complicated version that cost me $8.40 in the ‘70s.  When I found our stepsons hydraulics book, it was all about jets and aviation and cost him $105.00    I guess the apple does not fall far from the tree but the lessons get harder and more expensive. 

Perhaps personality traits vary sinusoidally and skip a generation, and some don’t.  It is nice that we have multi-generational influence to keep us connected and balanced and tall shoulders to stand on for beer vision and perspective.  In an alternative universe, I catch that Little League foul ball and Dad says ‘good job’ but I become a completely different person in a different world.  We are all affected by each other, if we are humble enough to listen and learn.  Be like Dad.  Don’t be a hot dog.