Ghosts Bark

There are no ghosts.

 

I’ve been slumming with the militant anti-paranormal crowd for quite awhile now, for all the usual reasons.  Paranormal stuff- you know, the vacationing spirits of dead people, telekinesis, stuff like that- always breaks down when subjected to scientific investigation.  Perpetual stage fright, or whatever.  And besides, based on every TV show I’ve ever seen, people who embrace such things are usually inbreds or imbeciles, or, occasionally, both inbreds and imbeciles.

 

There was a time when I spent a considerable amount of energy looking for ghosts, back when Reagan drooled in the White House.   Many of my best friends were inbreds, and to this very day, I’m often mistaken for being a complete imbecile.  If anybody was qualified to be a believer, it was me.

 

We’d hop our bikes, and later- after we’d been issued learner’s permits- ventured out in “borrowed” cars, trespassing abandoned farm houses and decrepit cemeteries.  We snuck around a mansion once owned by a spice baron, and spent the day poking through the abandoned headquarters of a satanic cult, marked by large rock piles, a towering upside-down cross and huge animal bones littered about.  There was also an ash-filled fire pit.

 

Nothing.

 

We also poked around the cornfield where a teenage girl (who’d been living in the house behind ours) was slaughtered by some madman; and cruised the neighborhood where my brother’s classmate hung himself with a dog leash, but never bumped into anything creepy.

 

Well, that’s not entirely true.

 

We bumped into the cops on a couple occasions, and stumbled upon groups of teenage lowlifes, splitting six-packs of warm Schlitz and smoking cigarettes.  Once in awhile, if we were lucky, we’d get chased by these drunken ruffians, which was sort of scary in its own way.

 

But no ghosts.

 

The problem had to do with where I lived.  Every seven or eight years my parents moved us into new homes in new subdivisions, shuffling the seven of us from one side of town to the other. These homes were always brand new: eighteen-hundred square feet of pre-fabricated American Wet Dream, middle class castles situated in neighborhoods carved out of what just twelve months earlier had been an unprofitable soybean field.

 

There are no ghosts in new houses.

 

A bump in the night was just the sump-pump kicking on, and late night voices wafting up through the air vents meant my brother was downstairs whispering on the phone, trying to score some weed.

 

About the same time I started getting laid, I gave up on the paranormal.  Shelved the spook fascination, and moved on with my life.  Fast forward a gazillion years: I’m married with children, losing my hair; the whole, wonderful mid-western disaster.

 

We moved out to the country.  Bought an old Victorian-era Queen Anne in a town time had (mercifully) long-since passed by.  The home was built around 1902 and situated on a leafy corner lot just two blocks from an old cemetery, where dead people lay fenced in by wrought iron gates.

 

We liked the house.  It had a wrap-around porch, big kitchen, and a backyard where our two young children could play.   The Philistines who’d occupied the joint prior to us had managed to strip the home of much of its architectural charm; removing the decorative spindlework and gable ornaments outside, covering the hardwood floors with piss-stained carpeting inside.  The beautiful oak staircase and pocket doors?  Painted dog-shit brown.

 

The windows still had their original glass, but were sealed shut.  With baseboard heating and frozen sills, there was never any air circulation in the home during the four years we lived there.

 

We found the place listed on the internet and drove out to this sleepy little town we’d never heard of.  Unannounced, we stopped in a realtor’s office and found a dumb-struck volunteer to show us the place.   She said a widow lived there.

 

They’d been having trouble showing the place, the plump young lady from the realty office explained, because there was an issue with the lock box.  People were never able to get in.  Insert cliche: the door opened for us on the first try.

 

The next weekend, after several other prospective buyers had once again been stopped short by the faulty front door contraption (of course), my wife and I gained access for a second viewing, unimpeded…

 

We decided to go against our better instincts and buy the neglected place.

 

I’d seen one or two episodes of Bob Vila’s show, and although I’m not really wild about power tools or handiwork, I embraced the silly little challenge.  Translation: We didn’t have enough money to pay people who were actually qualified to do the work.  We ripped out carpeting, stripped and stained the staircase, installed some spindlework outside.  Painted the place from top to bottom, put new flooring in upstairs.  Had the bathroom redone. Worked on the yard.

 

It didn’t take long for me to become totally immersed in the house, in the work.  You got a bunch of half-finished projects and you have no choice but to soldier on.  And it didn’t take long before I started witnessing things I’d never seen in my boyhood homes.  Things like inanimate objects moving on their own.  Doors that slammed in my face.  Footsteps coming up the staircase, although both kids were sleeping in the same room with us.

 

Listen, I’d seen Amityville Horror and all the Stephen King stuff, Freddie Krueger, but this wasn’t anything like that.  This wasn’t really scary, it was just….odd. 

 

When I saw a potted plant move in my dining room, I remember just staring at it like a monkey, jaw dropped, thinking “C’mon, that’s not really happening- is it?”

 

After awhile, after a series of similar incidents, it was “Oh, ok, that stuff again,” then back to work on whatever.

 

Poltergeists are such needy little bastards, aren’t they?

 

There has to be some logical explanation for these things.  I’m neither a psychologist nor a neurology expert, but there must be something about how our brain distorts stimuli.  How we take the things we hear and see and repackage them into experiences seeming unnatural- or supernatural.  For whatever reason, my brain was distorting things on a fairly regular basis when I lived in the Queen Anne.

 

Maybe it has to do with asbestos or lead paint or whatever.

 

Guests who spent the night at our home would share strange stories from their visits.  My mother-in-law, who was spending the weekend, fell asleep on the couch down in our front parlor.  She awoke in the middle of the night and noticed a young girl in period clothing standing next to a large dog in the middle of the room, just staring at her.

 

Frightened, she rushed upstairs and spent the rest of the evening in our children’s room, but didn’t tell us what had happened for a few weeks, after she was safely back at home in the suburbs.  It was probably just a strange dream, so why bother?

 

A year or so later, my wife and I were at a party outside of town.  It was a country function, where a bunch of denim-clad guys with beards stood around drinking keg beer from plastic cups, talking about snowmobiling and fishing.  During the course of the evening, we met a man who’d grown up across the street from our home.  He told us some harmless stories, and warned us to be careful of gardening in the backyard, as there was an extremely large dog buried out there.

 

A 225-pound St. Bernard.

 

My wife and I just sort of glanced at each other.

 

The next day we called mom and asked her about the strange dream she’d had at our house.  The things she saw a year ago.  We asked her, what kind of dog was it?

 

She said it was big, like those ones you see in cartoons with barrels strapped beneath their chins. 

 

You know… a St. Bernard.

 

Now, fast forward another gazillion years and we’re back in a newer home, in the suburbs.  I haven’t had a door slam in my face or seen any inanimate objects move since we left the old home.  And to the best of my knowledge, there haven’t been any St. Bernards loitering in the family room.

 

 

I actually miss our old house.

 

Before we moved, I stopped by the county’s historical society to do some quick research on the original owners of the home.   Family by the name of Moss.  Turns out they had a teenage daughter who was killed in an automobile accident during the 1920s, having slid on some ice during a cruise with her boyfriend.  Apparently they wrapped their car around a tree, or something.

 

In keeping with the traditional custom of the times, she had been waked in our front parlor.

 

There are no ghosts, trust me.

Satchel- 1933

I know there’s been a lot of baseball nuts sniffing around the blog, looking for something interesting, and I think you’re finally in luck.  I’ve slapped together some Satchel Paige information- focusing on his 1933 season, reconstructed with the help of several sources.  I’ll list those sources at the bottom of the piece, because that kind of stuff is extremely important to 5% of the readership, and extremely cumbersome (and/or useless) to the rest of us.

 

Why 1933?  Why not.  Satchel is 24 or 25 (or 28, 38 years old, whatever) and ascending into his peak.  Here’s one of the greatest pitchers in the country, splitting his time between the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the spring and early summer, then an integrated semi-pro team in North Dakota and finally an all-star, all-black team in the California Winter League.

 

He pitched against the best black players in the country with the Craws, a mix of black, semi-pro and ex-minor leaguers in North Dakota, and finally a mix of high minor league and wintering Major Leaguers in California. The Craws totals will differ slightly from the Shades of Glory source listed below, because I’ve added one relief appearance against a top-notch white semi-pro team.

 

It’s not his best season, but this is Satchel on the rise, circa-1933 (sorry about formatting, I’m still in Blogging Spring Training here, trying to work on my game):

 

TEAM                         W        L          ERA*          IP        H         BB      K         SV 

Crawfords                   5          7          1.85           97        54        12        57        1

North Dakota                   8          0          1.52           77        49        14        136     0

California                          9          1          1.10           90        50        30        129     0

TOTALS                         22        8          1.50          264     153     56        322     1

 *estimates

Oh, he had 30 complete games and 5 shutouts.

 

TEAM                         PITCH COUNTS**          PER IP                  PER 9 IP

Crawfords                              1289                      13.29                     119.5

North Dakota                              1205                      15.65                     140.8

California                               1471                      16.34                     147.1

TOTALS                                3965                      15.02                     135.2

**I’ve used Tangotiger’s basic pitch count estimator

 

The vast majority of his innings pitched (at least 200+) were against quality hitters. One of his North Dakota starts was against a legitimate American Association All-Star team.  He held them to 4 hits, 2 runs and struck out 14. Several of the other North Dakota outings were against all-star teams peppered with disgruntled Negro Leaguers, ex-or-future white minor leaguers, college players.  If you add all this stuff together; the Negro Leaguers, the semi-pros, the wintering Major and Pacific Coast Leaguers in California, this has to be the equivalent of minor league ball.  AAA?  AA?  High A?  What do you think?  And what do you make of the extraordinary pitch counts? What can we learn from that?

 

Now for those pesky sources.  All the North Dakota data was compiled by me, using the Bismarck Tribune game accounts.  Negro League data was culled from the book Shades of Glory, by Lawrence Hogan, plus the Pittsburgh Courier. The California data is from the book, California Winter League, America’s First Integrated Professional Baseball League, by William F. McNeil.   As previously mentioned, I’ve used Tangotiger’s Basic Pitch Count Estimator.

Don’t Look Back…

something might be gaining on you.

Fine, we’ll look forward.  Stop by in a couple days, I’m going to have some new stuff here; including original material on Satchel Paige and a story about….ghosts!  ooooooh, scary!  See you soon.

Interview: Roel Torres

Roel Torres, traveling the world as host of a popular TV show a few years back.

In my post of October 20, I introduced you to Roel Torres, featured columnist at the premiere baseball site, www.billjamesonline.com. In an online baseball world flooded with Bill James-clones, peddling second-rate stat-based writing and analysis, Torres is a fresh, human voice amongst a mass of androids.  His deftly-crafted columns feature a personal, literary approach to the game.  Bill James himself- demonstrating once again he’s still one step ahead of the imitators- plucked Torres from relative obscurity and convinced him to be a columnist at his aforementioned web site.  Turns out Torres has had a remarkable journey, and the Harvard grad was kind enough to share his story…

 

Roel, you’ve certainly taken an interesting path to get where you’re at today.  Can you tell me a little bit about your background and where you’re from? 

 

I was born in Boston, MA in 1972.  My parents are both Filipino, but they were in Boston finishing up their medical studies at the time.  My brother and I were both born in the States, and that made us American citizens.  We went back to live in the Philippines when I was three.  That was 1975.

 

I grew up in the Philippines. It was a Third-World country, with a dictator who had appointed himself President For Life, Ferdinand Marcos, and we operated under a national state of Martial Law.  During this time period, a psychologically imbalanced woman who was sleeping with my father and had strong ties to the government issued death threats against me and my family.  So my mom, my brother, and I moved to the United States.  That was 1981.  I was nine.

 

As you know from our previous conversations Roel, my mother-in-law came to this country from the Phillipines under similar circumstances back in 1970.  She’d been a journalist in Manila and found herself on one of Marcos’ shit lists and had to quickly pack up her things and flee the country.  Although she was several months pregnant at the time (with my future wife), and had to leave her husband behind for over a year, she had a relatively smooth transition to citizenship here.  What was the transition like for your family?  

 

Yeah, your family’s history with the Marcos dictatorship is one of the reasons why I find it easier to discuss this kind of material with you.  Unfortunately, for people who have lived through these circumstances, the stories are all too familiar, all too predictable…

 

Well, to answer the question, the transition wasn’t exactly smooth.  My mom was still an illegal alien immigrant.  The US government spent years and years trying to deport her back to the Philippines.  She asked for Amnesty, but the American government refused to grant it because they did not officially consider the Filipino government to be a dictatorship.  Ferdinand Marcos was considered an important military ally by the Reagan administration, and it would have been awkward to recognize him as a dictator (note: when the Marcos family fled the Philippines, they went to stay with the Reagans.) 

 

My mom told the immigration agents: “My sons were born in Boston, they are American citizens, and they have a legal right to be in the country.  You can send me back, but you will be splitting up a family because I’m leaving my kids in the States.  I won’t bring them back to the Philippines to be executed by the government.”  Our family’s legal conflicts lasted for years.  Eventually, the Marcos administration was overthrown by a people’s revolution, Reagan left office, and the atrocious human rights violations in the Philippines were acknowledged.  My mom gained citizenship and the US government finally left us alone. Like I said, my family went through this for years.

 

Now, you wound up back in the Boston area, right?

 

Closer to Central Mass.  We settled in Worcester, MA. 

 

Okay, Denis Leary is from there.  Robert Benchley, Abbie Hoffman, Mark Fidrych and John Adams, too.  A rather eclectic group.  I’m from the Midwest, what kind of place is Worcester?  What was it like growing up there?

 

Worcester is a big city.  It’s the second largest city in the state, next to Boston.  It has a lot of resources, and you have access to all the advantages of a big city.  Good libraries, museums, colleges, major concert events.  So all these things are true.

 

But the city had an industrial history, and I don’t think it’s ever moved past that.  There are large sections of Worcester that are gritty and seedy and dangerous.  You didn’t want to let your guard down.  And it wasn’t a good idea to go downtown at night.  In the wrong club, or the wrong pool hall, you ran the risk of being shot.  Everyone was well aware of that reality.

 

Still, I was largely sheltered and insulated from all that.  After moving from the Philippines, my mom bought us a house in the suburbs, in a Jewish retirement community, with a synagogue down the street and the Orthodox Jewish community walking around the neighborhood most weekends.  And I went to private school.  It was almost all white.  The number of black kids in our entire high school did not break double digits.  Not even close.

 

You’ve said that writing has always been a big part of your life.  When did you notice you had a talent for it?

 

Pretty much from the start, I guess.  I was an avid reader growing up.  I like storytelling.  I’ve always liked to write.  In school, very early on, my teachers indicated I had a natural talent for it and they were always very supportive.  Every year, I would have a new teacher and they would tell me that I was one of the best student writers they had ever taught.  These were career educators who would take me aside and give me unsolicited pep talks about my potential.  That seed was planted in my head even as a kid, and in some ways, it’s never stopped.

 

And that encouragement continued in high school, at the private school?

 

Yeah. As a teenager, I started winning some National Writing Awards and got some recognition as one of the better young writers in my age group.  That helped me get into Harvard. 

 

What did you study at Harvard?

 

I was an English and American Literature concentrator, with an emphasis on Creative Writing.  I completed my undergrad studies at Harvard University, graduating with Honors (Cum Laude) in three years. 

 

One of your first writing jobs was with a travel show, right?

 

That’s right.  That was a good time, man.  Writing travel documentaries was a blast!  I loved it.  Millions of people saw them, and they were broadcast to 128 countries around the world.  I was paid six figures to travel to exotic locations while cameras filmed everything I did, and at the end of the process, they would put me on global TV.  I was getting recognized in the street, receiving fan mail, and getting autograph requests.  And – I was writing for a living.  That was great.  I would recommend it for anybody if they’re lucky enough to get a chance.  But in the end, it was a very lonely life.  I was living in Asia, and I missed all my friends, my family, and my girlfriend at the time.  When the Board of Directors offered me a long-term contract to keep working on the show for another four years, I turned it down cold.  No interest.  It was an amazing experience while it lasted, but it was time to move on to other things.

 

What’s your day job today?

 

I work at Harvard with the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), doing Financial Analysis.  IQSS is a multi-disciplinary center that lets the top minds at Harvard collaborate to try and solve the major global social problems (poverty, racism, starvation, homelessness, and so on.)  Our faculty list is like a Who’s Who of Harvard professors.  We have rock star professors from the fields of Gov, Economic, Statistics, Pysch, and so on.  It’s a really impressive group.  Intellectually, we can hold our own with anyone.  My primary responsibility is to maintain the financial integrity of our programs.  The work we do is a little difficult to summarize neatly, but if anyone is actually interested in learning more, they are welcome to visit our helpful and informative website, www.iq.harvard.edu.  It’s a pretty thorough resource. 

 

Now, what were your earliest experiences with baseball? 

 

My brother and I both played on the same Little League team, Wachusett Molding in the Worcester Jesse Burkett league.  It’s actually a very strong and competitive league that has teams making deep runs at Williamsport on a regular basis.  I didn’t know that at the time, mind you.  But now, when I follow the Little League World Series, I have a keen interest in Worcester Jesse Burkett.  There is a small sense of pride there.

 

When I first signed up for Little League, I had never played baseball before.  I was the worst player on my team, but I didn’t know it.  They hid me at second base, because that was the only throw I could make.  I didn’t care, man.  I was ten years old, I got a uniform, my mom bought me a glove, I had teammates, and we played organized games.  I was in heaven.  I had no awareness of how I was doing.  I just enjoyed the opportunity to participate.  I was just happy to play.

 

And did you stick with the game?

 

Of course.  I played Little League until my eligibility ran out.  As I got old for the league, I developed into a first baseman with a good bat.  I hit in the middle of the order and got named to the league All-Star team.  It was only one year, but it was a good year.  At that point, I was like Keith Hernandez, Mark Grace, Will Clark. 

 

It was a fun childhood.  I enjoyed it.  My brother and I spent the vast majority of our time with three really good friends.  And – Scott, you’ll appreciate this next piece of information – we spent years and years of our lives playing baseball simulations.  That’s how we spent our teenage years.  Micro League baseball for the PC.  Then Earl Weaver baseball.  We were addicted.  Drafting teams, making trades, setting rotations, choosing lineups, bunting, stealing, pitching out, warming up relievers, sending in lefty pinch-hitters, designing ballpark configurations, calling players up from the minors.  The works.  It appealed to us on almost every level.  We were hooked.  We kept stats for all of it, handed out a trophy at the end of the play-offs.  Year after year, we stayed out of trouble.  We weren’t drinking or smoking or partying.  We would spend hours shooting hoop, then we would go inside and compete against each other in simulated baseball.  It was an awesome way to grow up, and I was very lucky to have such a good crew by my side.

 

Who was your favorite Major League player growing up?

 

The first time I met Bill James a couple of months ago, he asked me who my favorite baseball player was growing up.  I said, “Marty Barrett.”  When the answer came out of my mouth, it surprised even me.  I didn’t expect that.  Barrett was a smart and useful second baseman for the Red Sox in the eighties.  Apparently he left an impression on my sub-conscious.

 

And I was smitten with Eric Davis when he first broke out in the Majors.  I even wrote about it in my very first essay for Bill James Online.  The guy seemed superhuman.  Bill developed a Power/Speed calculation that measured a player’s combined skills.  At the age of 25, Eric Davis set the Major League record for Power/Speed number, at 42.53. (Since then, A-Rod has set the new record.)  But when I was fifteen, there had never been a player in Major League history as dynamic as Eric Davis. 

 

I remember feeling the same way about Eric Davis.  I was a teenager at the time, thinking- here’s our generation’s Willie Mays.  One of the guys in the Negro League All-Star set that I’m working on for Strat-O-Matic, Rap Dixon, is a lot like Eric Davis.  Same skill set, even looks like him a little bit.  Wiry, strong, fast, with a good arm and power.  And like Davis, Dixon got bogged down with physical problems right when he should have been entering his peak, curtailing what would have been a phenomenal career. 

 

So we’ve got a bunch of things going on here: the Phillipines, Harvard, a well-known Travel show, Little League, how in the heck did you wind up writing for the Bill James website?

 

A couple of months ago, Rob Neyer posted a notice on ESPN.com that Bill James was looking for five new writers to work with.  I lit up when I read that.  Bill James has been a personal hero of mine for over two decades.  I shot Bill an email asking him what type of writing he was looking for.  I feel comfortable with statistical analysis, but I don’t think it’s my strength.  I have a literary background, not a statistical one.  He told me that he wanted the applicants to write to the best of their ability.  I sent him a handful of sample essays that didn’t focus on numbers, but looked at the emotional component of sports.  They were very personal essays, and they were surprisingly scarce in baseball content.  It was a risky approach, but I felt like it was the only way for me to stand out in the pack.

 

I guess it worked, because I made the cut and he chose me as one of his five new contributing writers.

 

Care to elaborate on your personal writing style?

 

I think it’s pretty clear that my writing is very personal.  Maybe too personal, sometimes.  And it’s one of these balancing acts that I’m constantly struggling with.  I need to make sure that there’s enough baseball content in there to justify the personal material.  I took a recent break from posting essays because I couldn’t get the balance right.  I was going through a rough period in my life, and everything I wrote felt completely self-indulgent.  It was an emotional train-wreck.  I wasn’t happy with any of it.  Hopefully, I’ve worked my way though that little crisis in confidence.  We’ll see.   

 

Basically, I feel like I need to include a personal aspect to my writing, because it’s really the only unique thing I have to offer.  It’s all I’ve got.  I’m not a good statistical analyst.  I’m not a scout.  I never played baseball at an advanced level.  If I don’t put some of myself into the work, I don’t see what else I have to contribute.

 

With your personal approach, how do you think your Filipino-American background impacts your columns?

 

I think that when I write about myself and my feelings for the game, I can’t help but be influenced by the fact that I am a Filipino-American, and that I am the son of an illegal alien immigrant.  I can’t avoid it.  It’s a major part of who I am.  Not just in the way I see baseball, but the way I see everything.

 

Off the top of your head, what are some of your favorite sports memories?

 

The Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 ending the 86 year curse and coming back from three games down to the Yankees stands out.

 

I was in Fenway the night the Sox clinched the AL East last year.  My brother got me tickets for my birthday.  It was surreal.  The game ended, and they put the Orioles/Yankees game on the giant video screen in centerfield.  My brother, his fiancée, my buddy Tarn, and I all hung around for a couple of hours after the end of the Sox game, watching Baltimore and New York go into extra innings.  When the Yanks lost and the Sox clinched, all the people left in the park started celebrating.  The team came back out on the field, and Papelbon started dancing around in his underwear.  That was some night.

 

Let’s see…  What else?  Adam Vinatieri kicking a last second field goal against the Rams in 2001 to win the Super Bowl was an unexpected joy.  I also won $950 from Vegas that year when I bet on the Pats to cover the 10 point spread against the Steelers in the AFC Championship game.  I remember that one pretty well.

 

Randy Couture came out of retirement to crush Tim Sylvia for the UFC Heavyweight Championship of the world.  I enjoyed that immensely.

 

My junior year playing varsity soccer in high school was a great ride.  I started every game at right fullback, and we made the playoffs.  We had a good team.  We could play.  Same deal for our senior year, but our goalkeeping wasn’t as strong that season.

 

The US Men’s National Soccer Team provided a couple of cool moments for me.  I was in Foxboro when the team clinched their berth in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.  That was fun.  Then when the World Cup started, I woke up at an absurdly early hour to watch midfielder John O’Brien score an opening goal against Portugal.  The US held on to complete that improbable upset which helped them advance to the next round.

 

And after my mom passed away in 2004, my brother, my buddies Drew and Tarn, and I went to a Lowell Spinners minor league game, which is low Single-A.  I basically needed something to cheer me up.  That game did the trick.  It was three hours of pure joy.  That was a beautiful, cathartic moment for me.  I’ll probably remember that one longer than any of the other moments.

 

Obviously you write about things other than baseball.  We’ve talked about your novel, would you care to share any information with the blog readers about the book?

 

Sure.  It’s literary fiction, it’s 330 pages long, it’s gone through five drafts, it contains some of the best work I’ve ever done, and it will probably never see the light of day.  How’s that?

 

What’s the subject? The theme?

 

The novel is about growing up in the Philippines.  It’s about a father and a son who don’t know how to communicate with each other.  It’s about being a decadent, hedonistic young man growing up without a sense of direction, and trying to find meaning in life.  I don’t know.  I think it’s a good novel.  I like it.  But that doesn’t mean someone would be willing to pay me money for the right to publish it.

 

Do you have an agent?

 

At one point, I had a great literary agent.  She’s had several books hit the New York Times bestseller list.  Better yet, she was a great agent but an even better human being, which is a rare combination.  I worked with her for years, made revisions based on all of her agency’s suggestions, and then we hit a point where she told me she could not sell my manuscript.  Fair enough.  I accept that.  If she can’t sell my novel, then she can’t sell it.

 

What’s the next step?

 

I’ve come to the realization that I might not have the proper personality to shop my book around to literary agents.  I don’t like trying to pitch myself or my work.  So that’s a sticking point.  Right now, the manuscript is sitting at the bottom of my desk drawer.  I suspect that it’s a lost cause.  That’s okay.  I’m writing for Bill James Online.  I’m writing for The Hardball Times, both online and in their Annual.  So it’s not like I’ve been sucked down some dark abyss, never to be seen again.  In life, some opportunities work out, some run into brick walls.  You play the hand that’s dealt.

 

There’s always the self-publishing route for the novel, but I haven’t really done any research on that option.  And I should mention here that when I met with Bill, he was kind enough to offer his help in getting my book published.  “We can do that,” he said.  So that was very generous on his part.  We’ll see, I guess.

 

Where are we going to see Roel Torres in ten years?

 

I would love to have an answer for that question and not to be evasive, but I can barely see ahead into next week.  I really can’t do it.  I’ve never been very lucky at it.  The opportunity to write travel documentaries and have my own show broadcast to 128 countries around the world fell into my lap without any forethought or planning.  The same is true for my opportunity to work with Bill James.  I didn’t see either of those coming until they happened.  Then, at that point, I was busy counting my blessings and thanking my lucky stars, just lost in the surreal wonder of it all.

 

I think this much is true – I was writing ten years ago, and I was writing ten years before that.  I’m writing now.  So I imagine I will still be writing ten years down the road.  In what form, for what audience – I don’t know. 

 

I’ve been lucky so far.  Insanely lucky.  It’s been a great ride.  And I guess that I’m as curious as anyone to see how it plays out.

 

Thanks Roel.  Through your columns at Bill James online, I have a feeling a number of us are going to be sharing that ride with you over the next couple years.  Check out Roel Torres’ work at http://www.billjamesonline.com

Torres on the other side of the world, missing Marty Barrett and the Red Sox

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rookie

Roel Torres

A couple years back there was a warm, feel good movie about a guy named Jim Morris.  It was called “The Rookie,” featuring Dennis Quaid in the lead role, and told the story of an obscure, 35-year-old high school teacher who had jumped from coaching teenagers in Smalltown, Texas, USA, to pitching in the Major Leagues. The guy hadn’t played any organized baseball in over ten years or whatever, and on a bet from his gambling-addicted students, he tried out for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

 

Okay, okay.  So it was the 1999 Devil Rays (69-93 .426), but they did play AGAINST Major League teams.

 

As detailed in the movie, the dangerously handsome chemistry teacher hit 98-mph on the radar gun several times during the workout, prompting the desperate Tampa Bay scouts to wave a contract in his face. In two years service at the Major League level, Morris became the most famous left-hander in baseball history to finish his Major League career with an 0-0 record, 0 saves, and a 4.80 era.

 

Turns out Morris had been a prospect at one point in time, playing Class A baseball for a couple seasons before his inability to throw strikes and arm trouble ended his initial baseball journey.  Fast forward about a decade, to the high school ballplayers goading the old man into taking one more shot at accomplishing his life-long, boyhood dream of one day struggling with his control at the big league level; then landing a book deal, selling the movie rights and filling up his calendar with motivational speaking engagements. 

 

Morris walked 9 men in his 15 big league innings.

 

Dreams do, indeed, come true.

 

Now let me introduce you to a guy named Roel Torres. Like Morris, Torres is getting an unexpected shot at pursuing his baseball dreams in his mid-30s, but it’s not happening on the ballfield.  Torres is a writer who recently got a call from the big leagues of hardball blogs, and now works as a featured columnist at a premiere baseball site called www.billjamesonline.com  

 

Bill James is, of course, one of the most influential baseball writers of the past twenty-five years, and is credited with coining the term “sabermetrics,” as well as founding the Jeff Bagwell International Fan Club.  James now works as a statistical-special-agent-guru- thing-a-ma-bob-person for the Boston Red Sox, and also runs the aforementioned web site where Torres plies his trade.

 

Unlike Jim Morris, whose so-so story has been manufactured into an inspiring, melodramatic cottage industry thanks to the creative prowess of Disney screen writers, Roel Torres’ journey is one of genuine substance.    

 

The son of illegal immigrants from the Phillipines, Torres had to fight to stay in this country.  Blacklisted by the Marcos regime, his family feared imprisonment or possible execution if they returned to the islands.  After years of legal wrangling, Torres’ family earned the right to stay here, settling in the Boston area, where Roel enjoyed a typical American childhood of baseball, hot dogs and straight A grades at a private school.

 

Okay, he did well in school.  Very, very well….and I’m a little bit jealous.

 

Although English was his second language, Roel demonstrated early on that he possessed a natural gift for composition, which caught the attention of his teachers, and helped him win first place in several National Writing Contests.  Encouraged, Torres chased his academic pursuits, in between playing Little League and rooting for the Marty Barrett-led Boston Red Sox.

 

This young man, whose family was nearly kicked out of this country and fed to the wolves running Manila, wound up attending Harvard, where he graduated with honors (Cum Laude) in only three years.

 

Roel Torres was kind enough to sit down with me (1011 miles apart) via the super-magnetic-inter-highway.  We traded emails back and forth, discussing his fascinating journey around the bases, and how the hell he wound up writing for Bill James.  I’m going to publish the interview in a couple days.  If you’d like to read Roel’s columns,go to www.billjamesonline.com.  Believe me, it’s time well spent.

The Limo Life

DIVAS

 

I worked as a chauffeur for a few years. Yes, I rubbed elbows with a couple famous people during my tour of duty, but not too many.  I drove a Lincoln Town Car, and most famous people don’t want to ride around in Town Cars- they want stretch limos or Escalades or whatever.  They want something fabulous with booze and ice; where they can relax, smoke pot and get blowjobs. 

 

Most of my old friends, the ones who drove the big cars for a living, agree on a few things. The first time Queen Latifah throws a temper tantrum and breaks a window in your car it’s a curiosity, a war story to be shared with friends and family over drinks.  By the second or third time, it’s gotten old.  By the fourth time, you’re desperately scanning the want ads for new jobs.  By the fifth time- another coked-up nut job calls you an idiot or something, breaks your DVD player, stiffs you on the tip- you’re seriously considering homicide.

 

These days, with escalating fuel costs and price cutters flooding the industry, most limo drivers work around 70 hours per week and take home maybe $8 or $10 per hour.

 

With no health care benefits.

 

Guy I knew- in the midst of another lousy day behind the wheel- pulled his stretch into a McDonald’s parking lot, got out, tossed the keys into some bushes and walked home.  The passengers were still in the back of the car, relaxing, smoking pot and getting blowjobs.

 

The job sucks. 

 

THE OTHER HALF

 

CEOs and old money people are different.  They want Town Cars.  They don’t want anything ostentatious.   Because I spoke fluent English, showered on a semi-regular basis and knew my way around Chicago, I drove a lot of these people over the years.  I wore deodorant, and CEOs want a chauffeur who smells good. 

 

They’d pay me $50 an hour to drive them around town.  I got to know some of the most important people in international business on a first name basis.  Met their wives, eavesdropped on their conversations, and rifled through their stuff while they were in meetings. I picked up dry cleaning for them and drove the kids to school or soccer.  Became friendly with their body guards.

 

Yes, some of them have body guards, but they’re called “Personal Assistants” or something like that.  Personal Assistants with backgrounds in the FBI or other areas of law enforcement. Personal Assistants who carry guns.

 

Some of my old clients are names you might recognize.  They ran companies we’ve all patronized at some point in our lives. Some of these people are still in positions of power, while others have retired to France or Barbados or wherever.  Some of the people I used to drive around town for $50 an hour are currently locked up in jail.

 

THE LIMO LIFE

 

I can’t imagine anybody really cares, but I figured I’d make a short list of things you might not know about being a chauffeur, anyway.  Feel free to use any of these little factoids in the course of your everyday conversations, like after church or at the grocery store.

 

1. Almost every chauffeur has crapped in their pants at least once while on the job.

 

2. Almost every chauffeur has had a client crap in their car at one point or another.

 

3.  Driving a limousine is a really crappy job.

 

I don’t miss it too much.

 

 

The Hit Kings: Rennie Stennett and Me

Rennie Stennett set the modern day record with 7 hits in one game. Yesterday I had 49.

This “blog” thing is starting to get out of hand! 

 

There were forty-nine “visits” to my site yesterday, and we’ve only had this puppy up and running for a couple days.  Now, forty-four of those “hits” were actually me, logging in anonymously to see if anybody else had showed up.  But still… 49 hits is a lot, right?  Of the five random visits- one was the wife, checking in to make sure I wasn’t embarrassing the family.  The other four were people who had gotten lost on the internet and stopped inside to ask for directions.  They were looking for something interesting to read, so I suggested a couple sites and sent them on their way. 

 

I think I’m going to start selling cigarettes and cold beverages here, in the event other wayward travelers stop by.

 

Might call in sick to work tomorrow to see if we can crack the big Five-O!

 

Rennie Stennett, where are you?

Strat-O-Matic

Old School Strat-o-Matic card, when Pete Rose was skinny, had a crew cut, and hadn’t yet bet on baseball.

Every once in awhile I’d get up from my desk, walk outside to the back patio and make sure the salmon hadn’t caught on fire.  I’d push the bratwursts around, flip the burgers with a spatula- maybe toss of couple slices of cheddar on top- then go back inside to the computer.  There was a tall stack of papers on my desk, waiting for their data to be entered.

 

My desk sits in the middle of a rec room, between our couch and the stairway leading to the second floor.  Every so often, little kids with big voices came barreling down the steps, headed outside.  And every once in awhile the big people, the ones holding glasses of Pinot Grigio or bottles of Stella Artois, would stumble over to chat me up for a couple minutes, maybe ask again (for the third time), exactly what it was I was working on. And, um, exactly why did I have to do it tonight?

 

I’m afraid I didn’t do a really good job this past summer articulating how spending 16 hours in front of a computer screen doing data entry was actually, um, a dream come true for me.  Sixteen hours on a Saturday.  Eight hours on a Sunday.  Forty-plus hours each week, above and beyond my regular full-time job, for four straight months.  Twenty-plus hours per week for close to four years.

 

I’d tell them I was almost done, I had an important deadline I needed to meet.  My corporate friends understood this part.  Important deadlines are things which strike a chord.

 

TYPICAL CONVERSATION

 

Now, those numbers you’re typing into the excel sheet, they’re for a baseball game, right?

 

Yeah, it’s called Strat-O-Matic.   Been around since the early 1960s.  They have a board game and a really awesome text-based computer product.

 

Cool…

 

So what I’m doing here is going through box scores from the 1920s and 30s, and then I…

 

Hey- You know what, Scott-  I’m gonna run outside for another beer. Want one? I’ll be back in a little bit.

 

Uh, okay- whatever.  Can you check on the salmon for me?

 

STRAT-O-MATIC

 

I don’t think I’ll do any better explaining the game today.  But here’s a link www.strat-o-matic.com, if you want some additional information.   It really IS an amazing game.  When the Negro League All Star set comes out in a few months, buy a couple sets for the baseball fans in your life. They’re going to love it!

Ground Control to Major Tom…

I just wanted to let my friends know I’ll be reentering the earth’s atmosphere any day now.

Bring the noise!

Hi, my name is Scott Simkus and I live outside Chicago.  If you happen to know me personally, you have my condolences.  For those who’ve never heard of me- it’s probably best to keep our distance, we’ll get along much better that way.  I’m a writer and researcher with an irrational affection for baseball history.  You’re going to see a lot of baseball stuff here.  Oh, there’ll be other posts: non-baseball things, hopefully “funny” or entertaining enough to keep you coming back— all free of charge.  I promise to keep the narcissistic, opinion-based pieces to a minimum, because most of my opinions really suck.