Season Greetings

Today is a holiday for me - Opening Day. I've never actually been able to go to an Opening Day, but I've had countdowns for as long as I remember, and look forward to it all winter.

I haven't been able to watch for the last few years because I'm always coaching; indeed, it's our Opening Day as well tomorrow, as we play our first official game. However, I'll watch a tape-delayed version of the game on my majorleaguebaseballtv.com tomorrow night, and be very happy.

The Tigers are set to be one of baseball's best teams, and anything less than a World Series victory this year will be a disappointment. With the addition of Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers have baseball's best offense, and perhaps a historic best offense. Still, I worry about the bullpen, and the starting rotation, which needs comebacks from a couple of talented young pitchers who pitched poorly last year - Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman. Our pitching depth is weak, and I fear falling under the crush of high expectations. Still, this season will be an exciting one, and one that I hope ends with a healthy playoff run.

As for the Orioles, I've never been so excited about them, either. I'm admittedly not a longtime fan, but root for them a bit over every team except the Tigers. For the first time ever since I've been in Baltimore (7 years), they seem to be on the right track, though. I still wonder about some of their decisions (their everyday shortstop decision is horrible, there are better shortstops available on the waiver wire right now), but, for the most part, they're doing exactly what they should have done a while ago - trading away their veterans for young stars. I'm excited about watching Adam Jones play; he and Markakis could be the core of the next great Orioles team. So could Adam Loewen and Matt Wieters. The Orioles will probably lose 100 games, but it's better to do that than lose 85 or 90 with a bunch of mediocre veterans. I see the 2008 Orioles like the 2003 Tigers - on the cusp of something good.

Tigers over the Mets in 5.

Vacation recap

I'm back from my vacation. Here's a quick rundown:

Monday: Flew out. Graded all of my juniors' Song of Solomon essays throughout the day, which included a three-hour layover in Miami (a horrible airport). The essays were so bad that I texted my colleage, "The sos essays were so bad i was hoping for the plane to go down and help me escape my misery." And they were bad. It's so frustrating; I feel like they all could have written that same crappy essay they turned in when they first came to me in August. They had gotten better, I swear, and I don't know where the regression came. Thank goodness for the couple that wrote decent essays. I hope to have a few more in my email account to grade.

Anyhow, I made it into Sarasota at around 10:30, and drove my rental into grandma and grandpa's driveway at around 11:30.

Tuesday: Drove to Lakeland, the site of the Detroit Tigers' spring training, where I hung out at Joker Marchant Stadium much of the day. The access to spring training has apparently gone down in the last couple of years, as it's pretty crowded now that the Tigers are good. The fans who were waiting around had baseballs and bats to sign, and most of them were collectors. That's not my scene at all - I could care less about getting an autograph, to be honest - and I eventually just left to a bar after realizing I wouldn't actually be able to watch the team practice until two hours before the game. This was the only reason I went so early.

Tuesday was my big day to see my college roommate, but, unfortunately, Florida's schools don't have spring break the same week we did, so I had to wait for him to get off work, and then drive from Kissimmee to Lakeland. I waited at the bar, then we eventually met up and had a good time watching the game. The best I could do was general admission seats, though, and it was pretty chilly, and we didn't end up staying the whole game. We headed off to Chili's for dinner and beer and that was it.

Wednesday: I wanted to catch the Tigers game in Bradenton that day at 1pm, and needed a way to fill my morning. I ended up going to Eatonville, FL, the setting of Their Eyes Were Watching God (and the first post-Emancipation Proclamation black town), where I visited the Zora Neale Hurston Museum, and walked the street of her tiny hometown. It was a really cool experience, even though the town isn't much for tourists (if I were them, I'd really hit up the tourism angle of the town more than they apparently do).

I texted all my colleagues that I was heading into Eatonville, and, being the smartass English teachers they are, I got three variations on the same joke back to me:
"Don't spend too much time under the pear tree." One of the favorite jokes of our English department is recounting stories of teaching the pear tree scene in the novel, which is a scene in which the teenage Janie is (apparently) masturbating. Hurston hides it behind the metaphor of a bee going in and out of the frothy blossom of the pear tree, with the ecstatic shiver of the flower and later feeling languid (one teacher has taught her students that the word "languish" almost always equals masturbation) and we all giggle immaturely at references to it that appear through the passage. We all also happened to catch our department head - a stately older woman, very southern and proper - reading the passage to her students as we walked down the hall. We thought she was more into it than she needed to be, so we have needled her about it for years, including getting her an assortment of pear-associated gifts. My colleagues, the jokesters. They all decided to make a pear tree reference back to me.

Anyhow, I didn't see any pear trees in Eatonville. But I did buy a Zora Neale Hurston t-shirt.

I motored across Florida at 80mph in order to make the Tigers/Pirates spring training game in Bradenton that afternoon. I made it at around the 2nd inning, and, unfortunately, the game was sold out. I was dejected, but asked some random person leaving the game for his stub, and he ended up giving me two behind-home-plate seats. The seats were so good that I sat with scouts and could read the readings on their radar guns. At the 7th inning stretch, I noticed a familiar face in front of me - it was Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski, the man who turned around the franchise. I tried to overhear his conversation, but couldn't; still, I was able to watch him keep score, take notes, and hold conversations with Al Avila the whole rest of the game. At the end, I shook his hand and thanked him.

I headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's that evening.

Thursday, I hung out with them, vising a great aunt and uncle down the way, seeing the beach, and eating lots of food. It was nice to see the grandparents, I got a lot of work done (finished re-reading Frankenstein! wrote my Romeo and Juliet unit!), and I'm feeling fairly refreshed.

Baseball practice tomorrow at noon. I hope to hit the gym and start working off all the pizza and cadbury eggs in the morning.

Season starts

Our season started yesterday, as we played in a tournament out in the county. I became friends with a county coach in one of my Towson graduate courses, and he hooked us up with this tourney. It was a good experience overall, as we were able to get some non-counting games under our belt. Still, we got whomped both games, playing against those county teams. We had our moments of success - our pitching was okay, we had a 1-2-3 inning and a double play, we had a couple of fun offensive innings - but we were just overmatched, and played pretty sloppily to boot. Eight errors in the first game (the other team had four, but we weren't able to capitalize) did us in. At least in the second game, they got their runs a bit more honestly.

This is a young team, raw and unexperienced. I have two good seniors, maybe a third, two or three talented juniors, and two sophomores and a couple 9th graders I'm pretty excited about for the future. But my seniors - one of whom, my team captain, had his cousin shot and killed this week - deserve to have a winning season, something we've accomplished every season so far. We may not reach the heights of last year, when I graduated 13 seniors, four of whom are playing college baseball. But I expect to get this team in shape to have a good season nonetheless.

I will say it was an awful lot of fun to get out there on the baseball field again, at least until around the 3rd inning of each game...

Even with a trip to Florida, I'm holding four practices over spring break, bookending my trip. I'm leaving Monday night and returning Thursday morning, and am having practices Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Should be a fun week.

***

The bus left for the games at 8:30, and we returned to the school after the daylong tournament at around 6. My restaurant was desperate for help during this holiday weekend, so I had agreed to relieve someone who had to go out of town as soon as my games finished. So I made it into work at around 7, took my three tables and $50 (including a table that left a $9 tip on a $75 bill... sometimes, I really hate living on the whims of others. Sorry your chicken kiev was dry. It wasn't my fault. Did you notice how many times I walked up and down the stairs for you?), and went home and slept hard after my 15-hour day. Today, no commitments, thankfully. Got a lot of errands to run, though. I'm out of here.

Make it smooth to the groove like sandwich bread

This was one of my favorite songs back in the day. I'd been hoping to download it off from I-Tunes, but it's not available, and I don't know where to find it. It actually took me quite a while to find it anywhere - I knew one line of lyrics, just remember it was a Prince-sounding song with a female duet partner. But I found it.

I've been pretty obsessed with early nineties hip-hop/pop/R&B lately. That, and Murs. What can I say, except, Shoop, it's my prerogative. I'm just a brother trying hard to make it right.

Here's "Do Anything" by Natural Selection. Talk about a one-hit wonder. Song holds up, though.

Leaks and ditches

My classroom has been leaking since around Thanksgiving. Drip, drip, drip from the science classroom upstairs. I told the building manager and put a bucket underneath. About a month later, a ceiling tile caves in on a student during class. Oops! The leak is getting a bit stronger; my bucket fills up nearly every day. Kids begin to migrate away from that area, and everything else gets bunched up in the room. Still: drip, drip, drip.

The building manager tells me that he's told North Avenue several times to fix it, but because we're in the middle of this huge re-organization, he thinks they're trying to put it off. But, I still remind him every time I see him. Today, though, I decide to move my bookcase, which is near the leak. Underneath, there is a swarm of mushrooms growing. Upon closer inspection, I notice tiny parasites living on the mushrooms.

Gross!

I think there's a pretty good chance my room will be quarantined when I return. It will be the third quarantine in three years in our department. Ah, the joys of having an old building and a school system that likes to wait for gushing before it fixes anything. This is one reason that the re-allocation of monies should be a good thing: we could have handled this in-house and probably saved a lot of damage (you should see the floor and the titles...)

*****

The first baseball game(s) are Saturday, and we're in a tournament. If you missed The Baltimore Sun's Spring Sports Preview, you missed no mention of baseball in Baltimore City. I think there was a little blurb about Dunbar, but otherwise there is not one player to watch in Baltimore City, no pre-season ranking for the teams, nothing. It's the Baltimore Sun preview, yet there are no Baltimore schools mentioned for baseball - except for private schools that have Mike Bordick as their coach. There wasn't even a preview blurb like there usually is. I was a bit bummed out - we had a great season last year, and no one even contacted me about top players or anything like that, like they usually do.

I won!

Case dismissed, all charges dismissed. Woo-hoo!

The judge dismissed every parking ticket there was in front of me, and I had a feeling he was going to dismiss every other one after me, as well. He began by saying that traffic court - specifically the parking fines division - is the place least desired for judges to be assigned on any given day. He explained some of the problems of city parking (too many cars, not enough spots, too huge of vehicles), then of some of the issues with city parking. He told stories of a homicide cop getting a parking ticket inside a murder investigation, with yellow lines put up and all. He told stories about spearheading a bunch of judges to go discuss matters of parking with city hall, and how they all got parking tickets while there. He told stories of 20,000 old parking tickets put back into the system and immediately put back in the courts, sent to old addresses. When I heard this, I knew this is what happened to mine. He listened to my story for 30 seconds, told a story (he wanted us to spread the word about parking to all our "folks"), and dismissed me. Goodbye, $1092 fine.

An $1100 parking ticket fine

On Tuesday, I have to take off work to go to court. I have to go to court because I have a parking ticket from six years ago that has amassed an $1100 fine. I didn't know about this parking ticket until last August, when I began fighting it; the court date is a culmination of the fight.

See, a long time ago, I used to be really irresponsible about parking tickets. In Michigan, you could get a parking ticket, or a few, and just pay them off when you get your next parking sticker or your next registration. If there were fines, they were minimal and unnoticeable.

I thought the same when I moved to Baltimore. I got a few parking tickets, but just figured I'd pay them when I got my registration renewed. This turned into a huge no-no for me, as my car was eventually booted and towed with an embarassingly huge fine. This was right around the 2003-2004 school year, when there was a huge budget crunch, so it was especially troubling. These were dark days for me.

Since that time, I've been smart about tickets. Not only do I hardly ever get them - maybe once a year - but I pay them right away when I do.

However, in January of 2002, I apparently received a parking ticket on my old car. Now, this car broke down in January of 2002, and I donated it to the Humane Society and purchased my new car that same month. I apparently got this ticket in the transition between cars, like perhaps in the two-week time frame when the car was undriveable and I was awaiting the Humane Society picking it up.

But I didn't just ignore the ticket. According to Baltimore City's records, I wrote a check in February of 2002 that attempted to pay off the ticket. The check cleared and all, but the fine had already been added to the ticket, so it was officially not all the way paid, and thus has amassed a $16/month fine since then.

Because the car was registered back in Michigan, I never got any of the notices about the ticket - if they were indeed sent. It wasn't until this past summer, in August, when Baltimore City hired some law firm to find deliquent tickets, that I received a notice forwarded from my six-year old Michigan address. By then, it had amassed the huge, huge fine and I sure as hell wasn't paying it without a fight.

So I'm going to go in and tell the judge the truth: that I didn't know about the ticket until August of 2007, that I attempted to pay it in February of 2002, and that I received no noticed in between those dates. I will try to work in that I've paid thousands in parking ticket fines with the new car - I fulfill my obligation when it is deserved - but that this is not deserved because the city did not do its part in contacting me. And that I'm a teacher in the city and just can't afford this, not that it'll help.

I don't think I'll be paying the fine either way. I'm not really sure of the legal ramifications, but this seems to be something that can just hurt my credit a little bit, and if I dispute it, maybe it won't matter. My credit isn't so bad these days, but this is certainly on it, so maybe I'll work on getting it expunged rather than paying something that costs more than one paycheck to pay.

It's all so stupid. I hate the way this city deals with parking and parking fines. It makes me want to move, in fact.

Obama and Ferraro and Axelrod

The Barack Obama campaign disappointed me for the first time in the last week. It had to do with Geraldine Ferraro.

Ferraro, as you no doubt have heard, came out about a week ago with some comments that Obama would not be in the place he is if he were a white man or a woman of any color. I am not sure if I agree 100% with her statement. In fact, I think if he were a woman - maybe even a woman of color - than his campaign would even be more tranformative than it is already. However, I do not think her statement is outlandish at all. Part of Obama's appeal - and not most of his appeal, but part of it - is the historic-ness of his candidancy, and part of that has to do with his race(s).

The statement was not racist. I don't even think it was race-baiting. It was a cranky old woman stating something that was pretty much, in my view, a simple fact: part of Obama's success does come as a result of his race. Now, if he were a white man, with the same charisma, the same message of hope, the same guts, would he be that successful? I don't know. Probably. But is it wrong, is it demeaning, is it condescending, to say that his success was partly due to his race? I don't think it was.

I admit I might be missing something, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I will say this: the media's reaction, as well as the reaction of a lot of people on the left, to the Ferraro comments was the first time all campaign that I've been really disappointed in the Obama campaign. Their takedown of Ferraro - who, let's not forget, is a trailblazer - was politics-as-usual. Her attack could have been part of the kitchen-sink strategy, but I doubt it; it was an old lady being honest. It certainly was not racist. The left's spin on this and inventing meanings for the words smacks of defensiveness.

I like Obama's personal general statement - that the comments were divisive (they were) and ridiculous (some of them were) and not racist.

But to say they are offensive and racist (Axelrod used the word "offensive," but plenty have, quite ridiculously, said "racist"), well, that's going too far. Axelrod shouldn't have gone for Ferraro's head on this one. It made the whole race thing bigger than it was, and was the sort of slice-and-dice politics that Obama usual does so well to criticize, not participate in. Attack ideas, not people.

He says it himself (paraphrasing): "this is the only country where a guy with a funny name and a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas can be a candidate for President." I agree that Ferraro's comments were not politically savvy, and that I hope none of Obama's supporters come out and blatantly say that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be where she was if she weren't the President's wife, even though it's true. But to come out and say they are racist and offensive is just too much.

So, I do disagree with Ferraro's basic point that this couldn't have happened if Obama were a woman. And I would hate to think that this comment was done calculatedly to use race as a wedge issue in the campaign, even though that might be the case. But racist? No. This is why our country is so afraid to talk about race. But I don't disagree that Obama's position as a biracial guy with roots in midwestern white, Hawaiian west, Africa, Immigration, etc, led partially to his success. Again, Obama certainly hasn't veered from this image of himself.

I want the Obama candidancy to mean an escape from trying to add meaning to people's comments that isn't there. When Obama came out and said that Reagan was a politician of ideas, Hillary tried to twist his words and make them into something they weren't. Now, Obama's campaign director seems to be doing the same to Ferraro.

That all being said, I hope the Rev. Wright stuff doesn't get worse. I don't understand judging someone by their pastor's views - this, perhaps, is racist, considering most of the message I heard was one of black pride - and hopefully the "story" stops where it is with Obama's swift condemnation of the comments.

I never know what to do when my principal comes into my classroom.

I have always assumed he wants me to remain teaching, so he can see what is occurring throughout the day in my classroom. I usually just acknowledge him with a little eye contact and a headnod and continue on my way, like in today's lesson about the Shakespearean Sonnet structure during DIDLS analysis of "If We Must Die." But my co-worker pretty much rolls out the welcome mat, inviting him to sit down, prompting students to tell him what they are learning, and, I don't know, serving him lunch or something. I wonder what it is I'm supposed to do. Hmmmm. He only stays two minutes or so and that's it. Today, he introduced me to an alum as "our baseball coach, but, more importantly, an excellent English teacher." I was actually touched.

What a long, long week. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow a little bit. 8am or bust! I think my amped-up schedule and Daylight Savings Time totally wiped out my sleep schedule this past week. No Friday Happy Hour for me tonight... too exhausted. I'm watching Entourage and trying to keep my eyelids open.

Fourteen

I got to school today a little before 8am and left a little after 10pm, after baseball practice and then the school play.

I offered extra credit for attending the school play, and saw several of my 9th graders there. Jonathan caught up with me afterwards, grinning and telling me that it was 10pm and he could not possibly finish his homework for tomorrow. I told him that I didn't have any sympathy, that I was going home and writing his lesson for him.

I just need about five minutes to not think about school, though. I had a bowl of Cinnamon Life for dinner, checked out the Detroit Tigers Forum and MLBTradeRumors.com on the ol' Internets, and now I'm thinking about getting it together. I'm pretty tired, though. I've not been able to sleep lately - last night, I literally just laid there until I gave up and read an entire novel in one sitting in the middle of the night. (Okay, so it was a young adult novel - Black and White by Paul Volponi - and it took me just an hour and a half.) My mind is racing all the time lately; baseball practice and putting the team together has been eating up all my thougth processes, it seems. My classes have been pretty chill this week, so I don't think it's that; I really enjoyed how the miniature literature review we did with criticism of Morrison's Song of Solomon went with my Juniors, and my 9th graders are charming me in different ways every day (except for period 4/5... oy).

Okay, on to my lesson.

Benchmarks @ the Sun blog

Real good stuff at the Baltimore Sun Inside Ed Blog right now, about that subject so near and dear to me - benchmarks.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: these things hurt the kids, at least the way we do them.

Maybe this new thing with more autonomy to the principals and the schools will help that sort of stuff from sliming its way in from North Avenue.

A Snake

"The results of those primaries were fair and they should be honored," Clinton told a breakfast gathering hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation in Washington.

What a snake.

Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan or Florida. How can she with a straight face sit there and say something that is such a complete and utter lie? What a huge bummer. I have such faith in people to do the right thing, but she is just a snake.

I reiterate: I will not vote for this woman if she is nominated. I'll just sit out the election. And, again, I used to genuinely like her.

I do wonder, however, how much damage this is doing to the party. I know I, for one, went from being somewhat non-committal about Hillary (I used to wonder just how she was qualified to be a President, but thought she was a smart and decent lady) to outright hating her. I don't think any Hillary supporters (who I admittedly just don't get) have become bigger fans of Obama in recent weeks, either. The damage being done to the party could be irreversible. An embarassment of riches could turn into an embarassment. If the Democrats somehow lose this election, I'll blame Hillary only, though - she's tearing down Obama and siding with McCain and that's just intolerable.

Coaching and teaching

The opening week of coaching was great, but the second week has lost some of its sheen. The kids are off "try out" mode and doing a bit of grumbling every now and then. They are also getting listless. I always struggle with what to do with the rest of the kids during batting practice - it gets boring out there. I have a young, young team - the youngest I have ever taken to varsity (5 seniors, 5 juniors, 10 sophomores and freshmen) - and I will have to really stay on them this year.

Luckily, I have help. And one thing about my coaching - and I'm always wondering about it, because it's something that comes less naturally to me than other things - is that today I looked around me and saw three former players helping out. One is a graduate of Georgetown, who I coached when I was an assistant coach six years ago, so he's a bit older. One is a sophomore at Duke University, playing football. And one is a freshman at a small east coast college, where he is playing college baseball. All three were helping out with practice today, and it made me think about legacy a little bit - having former players come back and coach and help out makes me think things are working somehow.

(By the way, four of my players from last year are playing college baseball this year. One is the first two-sport athlete at his school, while another received a four-year scholarship from a local college to play ball. Hopefully I'll be seeing a bunch more of them back to help out.)

I'm starting to get exhausted, though. I come home and sink into my chair. I am currently trying to put together a lesson that has students look at critical essays of Morrison's Song of Solomon, and have been researching using my Towson Library ID, but have found only about five of them that I think are suitable. I want to get the class into groups of 2-3, but unless I find six or seven more, I'll have to increase my group sizes. Then, I have to figure out what exactly I want the students to do with the critical essays. Something that will take just about two days of class time. Something that requires them to identify the thesis of the critical essay, and construct some sort of a response to it, then talk about it with the class. Hmmm. I'm not really sure. I need to think some more about it, but my head is hurting from exhaustion.

Ready for the week

In many ways, coaching baseball is more challenging than teaching English - I meticulously plan 2.5-hour practices every day, while charged with fostering some sort of "team" feeling among the players. I am under scrutiny and have to win some games. In other ways, it's much easier - the learners are motivated, I can cut them if they don't follow along, and it's active and fun. I'm always fascinated this time of year with how much work it is to do well, and how rewarding that work is, and how much I should bring the same attitude to teaching in my own classroom. Remember last year, when I was wondering about the whole coaching thing? I think that was just a product of coaching the same great group of kids for four years. I had used up my tricks. I think the same would be true if I had to teach the same group of kids for four years - things inevitably get stale, I'm sure. But this past ten days have reminded me that coaching takes real work and research to do well, and I'm not sure how people with families are able to do it. Heck, it's hard to grade papers even, though I am maintaining good lessons every day (right now, things are going great with the 9th graders, as we're writing our first real essay, and the 11th graders are in the middle of presentations).

I worked 82 hours this week: 14 hours a day on Mon-Thurs, another 10 on Friday, then 16 combined in two shifts at the restaurant this weekend. I'm exhausted. This entry started out as a whiny entry, one about the man who left me a $7 tip on a $72 bill this evening, how his bitchy wife wouldn't even look at me on their way out, about how the table made me so mad that I wrote down the guy's name from his credit card so I could google it, and how I considered writing him up on Bitter Waitress. But I didn't. He was a jerk, jerks happen, and I did quite well for myself tonight otherwise. I spent way too much money yesterday - 30 pairs of fancy baseball socks for the baseball team, a plane ticket to Florida, a coaching DVD on coaching catchers, my Verizon phone bill - and tonight's tips pretty much covered it all (well, not the plane ticket. About half of it, though.) So, life is good. As long as I get some sleep tonight.

spring break plans

I went to Costa Rica last year for spring break, and this year knew I needed to something cheaper. I decided a while ago that because this is one of those fairly rare years that our spring break falls during spring training, that I should take the opportunity to head down to Lakeland and see some spring training games, plus visit with the grandparents and my college roommate. I figured this would be much cheaper than traveling somewhere internationally.

$400 later (plane ticket was $355 plus fees, the cheapest after hours of searching), I'm not so sure. Still, I'm excited and will be spending time with watching baseball and chillaxing. I need it - two more weeks like this one, full of 14-hour days - before it hits.

Human Society's hidden camera in California slaughterhouse

When I was a sophomore in high school, I got a job at a butcher shop. It was a family-owned butcher shop, and I still visit them to say hi when I am home, and I harbor no ill will about the place. I cleaned up after the slaughter of animals, I made hot dogs, I cleaned meat grinders, I seasoned and hung hams and bacons (the place won best bacon in the country year after year), and I cleaned meat saws and bloody white cutting boards. It was kind of gross at times but I worked there for four or five years, including during summers when I was home from college.

Still after a few months working there, I stopped eating beef and pork. I just couldn't stomach it after a while. The smell, the blood, the sounds of the animals. I mean, I have lots of pretty gross stories, like how the cows continue to move around on the meat hooks for a few hours after they are slaughtered, or how pigs smelled so bad after they are slaughtered that I sometimes vomited. So, from 1993 on, it was just poultry for me.

When I returned after my first year of college, my job became cleaning out the chicken pans. I was still eating chicken at the point, but these nasty birds became just too much for me. So, I became a strict vegetarian in 1996. It was actually a New Year's Resolution, but it wasn't a big deal because I was eating so little chicken by that point anyway. But I haven't eaten meat since 1996.

My reasons were only partly because of animal rights, if at all - mostly I just thought meat was gross. I mean, I read a few books and did some research about the treatment of animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, but the decision had already been made. I never was big on meat (heck, I remember putting ketchup on steak when I was little, and smothering hamburgers with mustard), then saw the process of making it was gross, and decided I didn't want to be a part of it anymore.

Most people who know me don't even know I'm a vegetarian. (I'm not a real one anymore, though - I've eaten fish for a few years. Because I feel like they have no soul.) I am not judgemental about it, and while I passionately believe that I shouldn't be eating meat, I know it does no good to try to force these beliefs - especially since they go against such ingrained customs - on others.


But I have always thought that everyone who eats meat should spend some time in a slaughterhouse. Now, it looks like we have a chance. This is horrible, and makes me really glad I'm not a part of it. It's not a radical group like PETA, but the Human Society... and this is the hidden camera that led to the beef recall in CA. These guys should all be locked up just like Michael Vick:

Practice, Day 4

I'm really, really loving coaching right now - working my butt off and having the kids do the same. I have a young team that listens. I have help. I am planning very involved practices that look like this and the planning is working well (although we usually go until 6:30 or so):

Equipment
Bucket #1: Johnny
Bucket #2: Sammy
Catcher Equipment: Willie
Bases (set them up): Randy
Bag with Bats: Jimmy
L-Screen: Trey
Blue Screens: Chris

Warmup Leaders
Initial Run: Jack (Leave promptly at 3:35. Check with coach about daily run.)
Arm Stretches: Marcus (Windmills, Rotator Cuff/Shoulder, Tricep)
Leg Stretches: Dominic (Hamstrings, Groin/Butterflies, Quadriceps, Ankles)
Calisthenics: Ben (Pushups, etc)
Core Work: Jaquian (Abdominal Exercises, etc)
Sprints: Millard (3, including backward jogs)

Practice Schedule
3:35-3:40: Run
3:40-3:50: Stretch Circle
3:50-4:05: Playing Catch
4:05-4:20: Position Drills
4:20-5:00: Whole Defense Drills
5:00-6:00: Offense Drills

Playing Catch
1) Infield catches with infield, outfield with outfield, catchers with different pitchers
2) Positions are next to each other
3) Be professional. Cal Ripken: “If you give me two teams and show them playing catch, I’ll be able to tell you which team wins by how they’re doing it.”
4) Space far apart
5) First 1/3: Concentrate on footwork and quick glove/hand transfer – no lazy tosses
6) Second 1/3: Back up. Increase intensity
a. Infield: Make plays, tags – work with slow rollers, with turning your body different ways
b. Outfield: Work on pop-ups, with coming up with the ball on a grounder and quickly coming up with the throw
c. Catcher/Pitches: Work on footwork for pickoffs, throwing baserunners out
7) Last 1/3: You should be backed way up by now, doing 100-120 foot throws. Maintain intensity. Work on throws right at the chest.

Infield Defense Drill
Double plays and throws to first:
Milhouse: SS (10 feet behind)
Bart: 2B (10 feet behind)
Jason: 1B (10 feet beyond)
Travis: Feeding Milhouse and Bart grounders from behind mound
Catcher Stealing
Joshua: On mound, throwing to Bubba, Tom, Darien
Two catchers not working at moment: one at 2nd base, one at 3rd base
Third base bunt attempts:
Mike and Mark: 3B (10 feet to right)
Kanye: Feeding Miles and Darrien bunts that they must charge. Stand ten feet up the line
Jim: Taking throws at first base

Outfield Defense Drill
Doing the “8 Ball” drill in CF. Work quickly and maintain game intensity. Rotate.

Full Team Defense
1B:
2B:
SS:
3B:
C:
RF:
CF:
LF:

Hitting
Ten Teams of 2
1. Kyle & Ben
2. Max & Barre
3. Ken & Jermel
4. Darrien & Miles
5. Broadnax & JD
6. Thomas & Trevor
7. Kevin R. & Donnell
8. Kevin G. & Cristian
9. Bubba & Red
10. Tre & Quintez

Three stations:
Station #1: Soft-toss (Think: Loose hands, quick bat)
Station #2: Tee (Think: Successful Weight Transfer)
Station #3: Live Pitching
6 swings, switch, 3 swings, switch


and the planning is working.

A day

I'm feeling punchy today, as obviated by all the comments in the last entry. I'm going to take a break, though, to write about why. I mean, a big part of my mood had to do with the election results, particularly from Ohio, which is a state that borders my homestate - and it's the bordering state that we actually like. When I drive through the state on the way home, I feel like I'm home already. I have a lot of friends who are from there, too, so Obama's loss there was personally disappointing.

Then comes a barrage of crap I don't want to deal with.

Here's the scoop:

"Johnny" is a nice kid who is not a good student. I taught him as a 9th grader and he always struggled. He has an IEP for ADHD and something else and is constantly in motion. He is generally well-behaved and respectful, but, as a 9th grader, he was not a fun kid to teach.

As a sophomore, he made Varsity baseball and he was a pleasure to coach. He is one of those kids that, although he doesn't get that hard work will get him ahead in the classroom, does understand that it does happen on the athletic field, and he works really hard. He is immensably coachable even if he's not the greatest athlete or player in the world. Johnny also has a strong desire to be a leader. He leads the teams in exercises and constantly wants more to do, and constantly is saying things like "We've got to show more heart!" to his teammates. In short, he is a wonderful kid to coach.

So, yesterday, I discover that Johnny is ineligible. I was unsure of eligibility rules because, frankly, we started a new schedule a couple of years ago and I've never had anything close to an eligibility issue yet with my team in any year. I always just submit my names to the AD, and he checks to make sure they are academically eligible, and that's it. Well, I found out that two of my players are ineligible yesterday, including Johnny.

I pull the kids' records, hoping there is a mistake. One kid has two 59% grades for the semester in the first semester. That sucks. Johnny has a 59% grade and a 51% grade. This sucks, too.

I look closer at the grades, though. Johnny received the 59 in English class for the semester. In the first quarter (August-October), he received a 40%. After those grades came out, his mother pulled him from the football team halfway through the season and would not let him try out for wrestling. Johnny worked hard, and brought his grade up to a 76% in English for the 2nd quarter. He passed his midterm, barely, but all three grades averaged together to make a 59.

Still, that's how the cookie crumbles. I'm still upset about it, though, because (a) we are told not to give grades lower than a 50, which is something that I don't even always follow, but it's clearly the 40% in the first quarter that - perhaps unnaturally - lowered his grade so much for the semester; (b) the kid screwed up, bad, in the first quarter, but he suffered the consequences by being pulled from two teams; and (c) the kid suffered the consequences, but, according to the transcript, learned from his mistakes, bringing his grade up 36 points in the 2nd quarter, yet he still can't play a spring sport because of a first quarter screwup. (And, by the way, first quarter screw up had a lot to do with not completing summer reading, which is a completely other argument but still a valid one.)

So I talk with the kid, tell him he can come out once report cards come out and he's passing the classes, but he asks me if I think a letter to the teacher will do any good. I doubt it, and actually don't even think it's legal to change a grade after a certain number of days, but think it might be a good exercise for him to do anyway, so I tell him to do it. I say I'm not going to get involved in the situation at all otherwise, that it's between him and the teacher (who also happens to be a good friend of mine, but this is his battle). A little bit later in the evening, he is talking about Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child with another kid in the class, and they both have loved the book but thought the ending was weird. I tell them about the sequel to the book - Ben in the World - and say, "Hey, maybe Ms. Smith will offer that for extra credit over spring break."

So, fast-forward to today. Johnny has written Ms. Smith a two-page letter in which he begs for the one point on his transcript so he can play baseball. He (apparently, I haven't read it) uses baseball metaphors throughout, and also mentions the novel Ben in the World by name.

I get reamed, accused of putting him up to this (it was his idea, though I didn't dissuade), accused of telling him to put that novel name in there (untrue), accused of writing it with him (untrue), and accused of proofreading it (untrue).

Let me back up a second: for the last few years, many have accused the school of a shift from a focus on academics to a focus on sports. Sports are big in the building now. Particularly during football season, but also during basketball season, teachers are constantly asked about the progress of athletes. We are asked to give athletes extra credit, to hold special athlete coach classes, and to make certain other concessions that I won't get into.

Several members of the faculty are mad about this.

Today, I became the scapegoat for that. Someone actually made the accusation that I was just like them, just caring about winning and not the kids.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Johnny is not a star player and I genuinely care about the kid. Being a part of a team, seeing something through, being rewarded for hard work... these are all things that will be good for him. He is a good kid who has been punished enough for this mistake.

And I'm pissed off at the whole thing - at the kid for getting a freaking 59, at the rules which seemed to, in this case, not reward improvement, at the accusation that I don't care about the kids, at freaking Ohio and Texas. Saying I'm spitting mad is probably an understatement right now.

Luckily, three hours out on the muddy baseball field today helped. What a great day out there! And great lessons in the classroom, too... Ironically, coaching makes me a better teacher. I'm more careful with my time, more clear and confident with the students, and the minute-by-minute coaching plans I make for practices remind me that lessons should be that exact (luckily, if a player does something I don't expect, I can just yell, though, and when a student does the same, I've got to roll with the punches a bit more...)

Can we secede Ohio from the union please?

There have been several time this election cycle when I have thought to myself, "You know, even if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nod, I might not vote for her." Generally, her views support my views, so this is a strong statement, but I have been so unhappy with her unethical campaign that I just don't think I can do it. But then she impresses me again with her issue knowledge or I hear yet another sexist barb against her, and I get ready to support her again (should, of course, she be the nominee - Obama's my man).

Ohio was such a disappointment, because, the midwest, they're my people. How can Hillary get such a pass from all the folks who lost jobs because of NAFTA? How can her ethics-less campaign be rewarded? How can they fall for that 3am ad? How can any Democrat vote for her after she does this kind of damage to the part: “McCain’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

But I think that after I saw this, that I'm done with any possibility I'll vote her. This sort of weasel-y racism, I just can't stand it:

The whole story is here. But, basically, she darkened him in an ad:

Practice with the team, day one

It was a long, hard, but ultimately satisfying day.

Cuts are hard. I hate doing it. I got cut from the baseball team as a 10th grader, and it's one of those memories that still stings. I posted the list of players who made the team, and tried to catch any kid who didn't make it. I caught almost all of them, and will continue talking. The hardest was a kid in my Junior English class. He has a lot of heart, and he is a great kid, but he is not a baseball player.

A little later in the day, I discovered that two of my players are academically ineligible, including one who I give a ride home to every practice. He is a great athlete and one of the most likable, coachable kids you would ever want to meet. I taught him as a 9th grader, and I know he is a bit of a nightmare there, but even there he is earnest and thoughtful. He received a 59 in one of his classes, a class that he had remarkably improved from the 1st to the 2nd quarter (a 40 to a 76, but the numbers with his midterm averaged into a 59), so he is ineligible to play this season. He is the kind of kid who talked about baseball all year with me, wants some leadership (so much that I texted him last night telling him that he was in charge of calisthenics during the stretch circle, and to work up a routine).

I took him and another guy out to dinner at Red Robin tonight on the way home from practice, because I felt so mad and sad about it, and because we were all really, really hungry. During dinner, I felt a little bit like a spy - this is what the world of a teenager is like. Both of them have a colleague of mine as a teacher, and to hear them talk about her was just hilarious:

"Yo, do you notice how every time we read a book, she starts acting like whatever her favorite character is?"

"All I want from life is to make it through one day when she don't roll her eyes at me."

"You in her 8/9? She tells us that's the worst class she's had in her whole career."

"She hates us but we do all her work. She's not that smart with us either."

"That's because she's too tired to be smart at the end of the day."

And it goes on and on, never disrespectful, just funny. I was not involved, just laughing and observing while I ate my salmon burger. I can't wait to return to my colleague with the findings...

For the next two months, my life will be a blur.

3rd day of tryouts. I will make cuts tonight. I will post the list tomorrow. It will be much harder than it has been than in previous years. I am keeping 20 players. The last 2 or 3 were tough.

The weather was tough on Saturday, but beautiful today and tomorrow. I hear storms are coming, but I feel like I'm living in a vaccuum, just going day by day. If storms are here tomorrow, we'll be inside.

My lips are chapped worse than they ever have been before. I can barely open my mouth.

Why coaching makes me want to be a better man

For some reason, being a coach makes me want to be a better person than just being a teacher does. I remember my first year of coaching, a while ago now, and whenever I felt like doing anything wrong - having a few too many drinks, for example - I would always imagine my players' faces, and their eyes, looking at me. There was one kid (I'm not sure why, because he was kinda bad), and I would actually think to myself, "Oh, what would Emmanuel Jackson think of you right now?" whenever I felt like doing something that wasn't something I would, say, want them to be doing. And, often, I didn't do it, or I felt guilty about it if I did.

I guess it's because I get to know the kids on a much different level. Today, for example, I've received six cell phone calls from students, and my text-message inbox is full of students' messages. Or maybe it's because I'm tougher on them than my regular students. Something. It's kind of a good feeling, I have to admit.

Today was the first day of tryouts. It was cold as hell. I was happy with the four pleasant surprises. There is no JV team. I will have to make cuts.