It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve visited a Little League ballpark and yelled “batter, batter, batter swing.”

When our boys hung up their baseball mitts for the last time, I thought those days were over, but I got a chance to sit in a Little League ballpark this week. The game brought back wonderful memories of watching kids play the all-American sport.

Baseball’s been in my family for as long as I can remember. My uncles loved their baseball trading cards, and they’d play wiffle ball in the side yard every Sunday afternoon.

Nieces and nephews joined in and learned early how to hold a bat, run to first and how to round second base.

Our eldest son loved playing baseball, and we started with T-ball at the T.W. Davis YMCA in Richmond. The younger boys would jump around on the playground while their elder brother learned how to bunt, steal a base and catch an infield fly.

His younger brother loved baseball as well, and the parent friends we made on that team remain friends to this day.

Our youngest son enjoyed the guitar more. He was a good sport and seldom complained about heading to the ballpark to watch his brothers play.

There were times I resented packing up the lawn chairs, snacks and gear and driving to the park. I imagined myself sitting home and relaxing instead of sitting outside on either a hot, sticky night or a cold, drag-the-blanket-with-me night.

Years later, I got to sit home, but I realized how much I missed the game when I went to watch my neighbor play ball at George Park in Richmond this week.

The last time I went to George Park, there were a few soccer and softball fields and about four baseball diamonds. Today, there’s fields everywhere, from beginning T-ball teams to parent-pitch to pre-teen teams.

The old wooden bleachers are now actual seats, and the lights shine just like at a high school field. The umps have matching shirts, and sponsor signs line the fence with some of the same businesses when our boys played.

Our neighbor Kyle’s team is the Astros, and those kids were ready to play. One young girl on the opposing team was the catcher, and she didn’t miss a throw. I cheered when she got on base, sliding like a champ into that bag.

Some of the kids struck out, and the coaches talked to them as they came back to the dugout, usually with their arm over the kid’s shoulders, and it was obvious fall baseball is one of learning more than winning.

And just like when my boys were up to bat, when Kyle stepped into the batter’s box, I held my breath.

When a ball came his way, I crossed my fingers as he ran as fast as he could to the fence and threw the ball to the cut-off man in time to make the play.

The sigh of relief I felt so many times came right back as if I’d never left the ballpark.

Some things have changed – there’s electronic scoring instead of a paper book, the bats are all high-end metal sluggers and people in the stands were wearing masks.

What’s the same is the enthusiasm the kids and parents have for one of America’s favorite games. Young girls and boys were learning the value of being on a team where sportsmanship counts and it’s possible to win and lose gracefully.

There’s nothing like baseball.

Kyle’s got a game Friday night.

I wouldn’t miss it for anything.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Achieving the “gotcha” moment seems to be the new level of success.

From presidential and vice-presidential debates to the highest courts in the land, setting a trap for someone and springing it is what now serves as entertainment.

This week, I’m listening to the senate hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. If a senator isn’t showboating for him or herself, they’re grandstanding for their party.

They also spend a lot of their allotted time complaining about everything from voter suppression to Covid-19 precautions.

When they do ask a question, it’s not to get information. It’s to score points for their party and to try and nail Judge Barrett.

The search to find the best judge to sit on the highest court in America shouldn’t come down to party lines. The search should involve asking potential appointees tough, relevant questions about their qualifications and how they view the Supreme Court’s role in America.

But that doesn’t make senators look important.

That doesn’t allow them to score “gotcha” points.

That doesn’t allow them to bully and trip up whoever’s sitting on the hot seat.

Getting the facts apparently doesn’t get good ratings, and these hearings are being broadcast live on television, radio and social media.

 

The Rise of Karens

It’s not just politicians who are taking advantage of a television camera.

Look the popularity of “Karen” videos on the internet. One video of women acting badly has over 2.1 million viewers. That’s over 2 million people who want to see someone acting poorly and getting slapped down.

I never seem to have witty words instantly come out of my mouth like in the movies, and I’m usually so flabbergasted I don’t even think about getting my phone out.

Instead, I bolt up in bed in the middle of the night, slap myself on the forehead and mutter “I should’ve said that.”

We’re not stopping to consider how these women got to the point where they’re almost incoherent and in a rage. They probably believe they’re retaliating in the only way they know how.      The best way comes courtesy of Christian Cooper, an expert bird watcher in New York City. He was confronted by an out-of-control white woman who called the police and said an African-American man was threatening her and her dog.

For her “Karen” attitude, she was fired from her job and ridiculed on social media. Mr. Cooper refused to press charges, saying Ms. Cooper had been punished enough and she apologized for her rude and offensive behavior.

He’s one of the few people to refuse grabbing for the gotcha moment. Instead, he turned to compassion and understanding.

We don’t have to be a Karen to remember how to handle a situation where we want to blow up. My former neighbor, Helen, had a distinct flair for knowing how to act dignified in any situation.

She had a fabulous wardrobe, but my favorite item in her closet was a dark purple cape. Not a cape like a superhero would wear, but a fashionable shawl she wore to stay warm in restaurants.

Helen went to visit her husband at his office, and the two had a disagreement. She described what happened.

“When I’d said my piece,” she told me, “I stood up, took another puff off my cigarette, rubbed it out in the ashtray and stood up.”

And then the crowning moment.

“I looked at him straight in the eye and said ‘Don’t come home until you have a better attitude.’ I took my cape and flipped it over my shoulder. And then I walked out of his office without looking back.”

All I could do was look at her with my mouth open. Helen didn’t call her husband names. She didn’t throw anything at him or belittle him. She stood up for herself in a dignified way.

They made up that evening, but, as far as I knew, he never picked a fight with her in his office again.

“Gotcha” might get a lot of likes on YouTube and raise the ratings on a news program. But nothing will ever take the place of common courtesy and positive assertiveness.

And walking away with your head held high and a cape tossed over your shoulder.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a teenager, going to high school football games was the highlight of the week.

I was in the pep squad, and we cheered on the Baker Buffaloes from wooden stands on Friday nights. We memorized hand signals and cheers and erupted into screaming applause when one of our players made a huge play.

As an added bonus, whenever we made a touchdown, the buffalo on the wooden scoreboard would snort smoke from its nose. Yes, football in a small town was exciting and memorable.

Later, we had season tickets to Louisiana State University football games, and those games are as clear to me today as they were 30 years ago.

Charles “Charlie Mac” McClendon was the head coach, and we all held our breath when the “Golden Band from Tigerland” marched on the field before every game, snapped their instruments into place and played four notes.

Instantly, thousands of fans were on their feet, cheering the Tigers, sticking with them through thick and thin.

The LSU stadium is nicknamed “Death Valley” although I thought the name “Deaf Valley” was a better one. The cheers were so loud, you couldn’t hear the person next to you, even if they screamed into your ear.

I learned the different penalty signals and grew to appreciate a collective “boo” whenever the refs made a bad call. For LSU fans, that was every single time the Tigers received a penalty.

Their rivalries with Ole Miss and Alabama remain legendary, and I vividly remember one match up against Alabama when we got drenched but stayed the whole time because the game was so exciting.

I thought about those days while watching Monday Night Football with my eldest son. He and his brother have Fantasy Football teams, and they watch games differently than we did back in the days of the Steelers.

The internet defines fantasy football as “selecting real players to create fake teams that earn points based on real players’ performances on the field. If your fake team scores more points than other people’s fake team, you win (and get to rub it in their face on Tuesday morning).”

That definition comes nowhere close to how complicated fantasy football is. Even after numerous explanations, I’m still not sure how it works except one doesn’t cheer for a team. You bet on individual players.

My son tried to explain the process, and he probably thought he was watching the game with a first-grader.

“So what team are you pulling for,” I asked as I sat down.

“Neither one,” he said, his phone in his hand. “I’ve got players on both sides.”

He showed me this complicated table on his phone with percentages, numbers and names.

My mind wandered and I remembered becoming a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers back in the 1970s.

There was a young, brash Terry Bradshaw who broke all the conventional rules. The Steelers had the powerful Franco Harris and “Mean Joe” Greene. They were unstoppable, and it didn’t matter that we lived in Louisiana. The Steelers were my team, and that team won the Super Bowl.

I know fantasy football is complicated fun and perhaps the individual is more important than the team these days.

But…

I wouldn’t trade one minute of sitting in Death Stadium, one hour of cheering on the Baker Buffaloes or the love I still have for the Steelers for all the digital numbers on an iPhone.

For me, it’s all about the team.

I still believe in the Texans, the Cowboys – yes, you can like both – and I pray LSU beats Alabama until the end of time.

For this football fan, the team is ultimately more important than the individual.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

One wrong turn.

A missed exit off I-10 near Lake Charles, La. was all it took for me to find myself where I didn’t want to be – smack in the middle of where Hurricane Laura blasted through Louisiana.

I meant to take a road further north of Lake Charles to make my way through the state, but I somehow missed that exit and unexpectedly found myself in downtown Sulphur, one of Laura’s hardest hit areas.

Sulphur was the fast-food exit along I-10. One could stop there and choose from a dozen fast-food joints before heading into Lake Charles and heavy traffic.

I never ventured past the first half mile off the interstate, but on a gray, rainy day, I found myself looking at what a small town looks like exactly a month after a Category 4 hurricane comes through.

The destruction was unbelievable.

At the end of every driveway, both businesses and residential, piles of debris and water-logged furniture, wood and sheetrock were stacked up so high, it was hard to see past them.

Sheets of metal roofing waited at dozens of curbs like curling ribbon on a birthday present.

Businesses were demolished. Most of the roofs were gone from the front of the store to the back. Where plate glass once gave shoppers a view of what was inside, now there was only a vacant room with insulation and wires hanging from the ceiling.

Some brave businesses had hand-lettered signs out front stating they were open for limited hours, but most were dark and vacant.

Giant live-oak trees, some as big around as a hotel fountain, were lying on the ground as if a pro wrestler had picked them up and slammed them down. Most trees were ripped in half and the leaves had been blown off those that remained.

There were dozens of utility trucks on the roadways with hard-hat topped workers at the top of utility poles, attaching new wires to the new poles, to get power back to people who are still in the dark.

A school was boarded up with empty yellow buses filling the parking lot. Chunks of the building were gone, tarps and wood covering the openings.

The school sign flashed a message for students to remember they’re loved and to finish classes online because there was no way the school could open in the foreseeable future.

At first, all I could see was the sad destruction, the devastation and the overwhelming work as I wondered how people could pull themselves out of a hole that wide and that deep.

But people were going about the business of rebuilding. They were hauling debris and waving at each other as cars and trucks passed their homes. Those waves were accompanied by a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless.

And then I smelled a distinctly Louisiana fragrance – cayenne pepper. A food truck was operating in a parking lot with a hand-lettered sign stating they were selling boiled shrimp and crawfish.

That’s a way of life most have known for generations, and no hurricane was going to stop them from enjoying a semblance of civilization, of family and of home.

Little by little, month by month and probably year by year, Louisiana will rebuild, just as these Cajuns did after Betsy and Camille, Katrina and Rita and Ike and Carmen.

I realized Sulphur’s more than a one-stop town off the interstate. It’s home to over 20,000 people who’ve survived floods, economic downturns, Covid and now this hurricane. There is no way they won’t rebuild, no matter how long that rebuilding takes.

The saying “laissez les bons temps roulez” will ring through the bayous again.

Cajuns are resilient and nothing, not even a Class 4 hurricane, will ever stop them from “letting the good times roll.”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.