Hind Catcher

We would be remiss if we didn’t relate our experience as a baseball catcher one day in our teens. Man on second, we call for a fastball with two out in the bottom of the seventh (the inning of decision for kids) and ahead by a run. The young stud at the plate laces the pitch into left center. We throw off our mask and stand astride the plate, all 130 pounds of ourselves. The left fielder picks it up cleanly and fires to us.

The throw is high, we have to jump and catch and apply the tag in one motion. The man on second, a young Pete Rose, barrels in as we tag him on his back as he sends us flying. It is our one moment of glory. Few remain, we suspect.

We never heard a greater compliment than that delivered that day by a young lady with bad teeth, common in those days. “What a brave hind catcher.” We still see her and love her wherever she is. Are there still hill folk who call the catcher a “hind catcher?”

This is why we love this sporting life. The moment of a girl (we can’t divulge her name) telling you at 16 that you are brave has an exhilarating effect. It has lasted a lifetime.

But fear tries to poke its nose beneath the tent. So we are always in awe of the man in the arena, the guy or gal who leaves the tent without a care for battle.


How about the poor son of a gun from Pittsburgh who fouled the Butler fellow on a free throw rebound with a second on the clock and the score tied? He was reacting as all of us would do when we feel an athletic feat is called for.

Hold your head high, young man. We’ve all been there. We dropped a pop foul attempting a basket catch as a hind catcher, allowing the young batsman to get another pitch and drive in the winning run

”It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing." (The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway).

Pick and Choose

The higher power has no power. He is strangely absent from the course of human events. Holy Cow! Perhaps He created us and left us to our own devices, including nuclear power plants, the Declaration of Independence and the National Football League lockout. Not to mention the rise of multi-cellular organisms with the capacity to organize games that defy logic. Why were Colorado, St. Mary’s and Virginia Tech left out of The Dance?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we ask you what hath God wrought?

But this is all palaver. Baseball is a mere two weeks-plus away, and shorts, golf shirts and no socks are on the horizon.

Our picks are chalk, as they say. Philadelphia from the senior circuit and the New England Patriots, oops, we mean the Beantown bloody ankles from the designated hitter heretic league will appear in the fall classic. Expect Phillies winning it all but winning under 97 games in the regular season. Our beloved Redbirds are doomed without 20-game winner Adam Wainwright. It has been our experience that the team with the better players wins. Jeff Capel, the fired coach of the Crimson and Cream, had Blake Griffin and rode this horse to the elite eight just two years ago.

But meanwhile we have young men in baggy shorts putting us into full March Madness Mode. We are going full unchalk in this one. We see San Diego State defeating Florida in the final. This is a lock, so get in while you can. For entertainment purposes only.

Sports, as they are meant to do, distract us from life as it is. Few of us will hit the three-pointer at the buzzer, or the home run in the bottom of the ninth. Fewer of us will encounter the decision to save the elderly and endanger our own lives. But some do. In this sporting life, we face dilemmas greater than point spreads and over-unders.

By the way, take Gonzaga over St. John’s, hold onto Ford Motor Co., love thy neighbor and don’t practice putting.

You Can Smell It

Unconscious Jon Diebler undid us the other day. The young Buckeye poured in threes as easily as teddy bears nestle with toddlers snoring in their beds. It was sleepwalking against the Wisconsin Badgers. Who needed stalwart Jared Sullinger inside when beyond the arc was the comfort zone for the Ohio State University?

As earthly mammals, we all seek comfort even as we strive to overcome our fellow mammal, each of whom is born live with fur and warm blood and the drive to overcome his or her brethren. Winning requires comfort, a condition that requires the ability of holding two opposing ideas in the mind and still function, a daunting task that makes this sporting life fraught with tension.

Want to bet on West Texas Intermediate crude going to $150 a barrel? There is another mammal who would take your action and relish in your loss. How about Ford Motor Co. breaching $20 a share this year? Plenty of short-sellers who’ll go the other way.

We attended our first boxing match the other night, watching young men in blue and gold (for entertainment purposes only) and managed to escape without blood on our jacket, which we considered a victory. A delicious slice of lemon meringue pie and a cup of coffee topped the evening off, and we mused that competition makes liars of us all. Martha Stewart wasn’t convicted of insider trading, but lying to the U.S. government about it.

We had a class long ago in Hawthorne and Melville, during which, in a discussion of the latter’s “The Confidence Man,” a young man of tender sensibilities actually broke down crying, exclaiming that no one can be trusted and the professor had to go to his side and pat him on the back. We chuckled at the time, but now we wonder if he wasn’t right to despair. Comfort zones are just that -- zones. When the world is turned upside down and we see it for what it is, all the bromides, sweater vests of coaches and protestations of integrity disintegrate.

Now, we are no saint, but Jim Tressel, the pigskin coach of the Ohio State University, keeps trying to be one. C’mon man. There is no comfort zone for a phony unless he wins.

“There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity...You can smell it.” (Tennessee Williams, Cat on Hot tin Roof).

Meanwhile, expect the Crimson and Cream of Cleveland County Indian Territory to cover against the Bears of Waco and the Johnnies of Queens County to cover against the Scarlet Knights of New Brunswick.

Had Ourselves...

…a merry little bowl season. We have our new boxers, pajama bottoms, Christmas tree necktie and cashmere scarf made in China. The boxers came just in time because our laundry is in still in the wash and fold place across the street. Can’t get there because of the Feast of St. Stephen storm that makes walking through unshoveled drifts treacherous. And more to come.

But the three kings came bearing gifts. We thought they were for us. But no! Mr. Dyer of the Auburn War Eagles, Plainsmen, Tigers (pick your nickname) rolled off an Oregon tackler without hitting the ground and was told to run by teammates when he thought he was down.

One is never down, though. The sun comes up, and if one steps gingerly through the havoc of city streets filled with trash and snow, stiff arms and spins he can get drop kicked by Jesus through the goalposts of life.

Mr. Bynum, place kicker for the Auburn side, eschewed the drop kick and let someone hold the ball as he executed his skill. We would never want to be a snapper, holder or kicker. Rather, if we were larger, we would be a right guard buried in the pile and far from scrutiny.

When we were a young slender halfback in a T-formation, the coach called what he called a 32-cross, that is, number 3 back through the number 2 hole. Alas, there was no hole and a man playing boys planted us on our rear end.

One is never down and out, though. We have the National Basketball Association (take Clippers against the points every time), the National Football League (take Seahawks to go all the way), NCAA basketball (take St. Mary’s of California against the points every time).

And never punt, always go for two points, always onside kick and never practice putting.

The Credit

There are missed chances and then there are missed chances.

Aging Mr. Posada fails to glove a pitch and his New York Highlanders fall to the rival bloody ankles of Boston on opening night. Oh well, one hundred and sixty-one games to go, and Mr. Posada will catch again tonight.

Young Mr. Hayward of Butler launches a half-court last-gasp shot that just rims out and the Dukes of Hazard claim the NCAA Division 1 men’s championship. No rematch, but at least the Bulldogs covered the spread (for entertainment purposes only).

It makes one wonder how old and young men handle failure. Mr. Posada has World Series rings galore in his jewelry box and will likely get another. He’ll be fine.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hayward will probably replay that last three seconds in his head to the grave. But he earned a place in sports history.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly,” wrote Teddy Roosevelt (OK, Dick Nixon quoted him, too).

The credit. Raise your head up, young man. Mr. Posada of the Highlanders will catch pitches from Mr. Burnett, who isn’t exactly simpatico with his battery mate, in their second game of the year tonight (take the bloody ankles tonight for entertainment purposes only).

Mr. Hayward, however, will find a cure for cancer, if not the common cold or financial derivatives. Even if he doesn't, he can know he was valiant.

Bow Your Heads in Prayer

We used to think that all things become quaint. Hula hoops to Frisbees to My Mother the Car. Mutual Assured Destruction to Jonathan Livingston Seagull to frosted mugs of A&W root beer. American women who love Mad Men to American men who tuned into Australian Rules Football when ESPN was in its infancy.

But sweet little sixteen, in Chuck Berry’s phrase, resonates every year. The riches of this sporting season embarrass us. Northern Iowa dethroning Kansas. Purdue plodding along without its stalwart. ‘Cuse dominating without its big man. The scholarshipless Cornell winning two to meet mighty Kentucky.

And the greatest moment so far, a Spartan who ducked and gave his teammate the chance to catch and shoot at the buzzer.

He must have seen out of the corner of his eye young Lucious calling for the ball. Looking for an open man, the Michigan State fellow dribbling upcourt fired the rock that way, and the gentleman in the way, rather than reaching for what anyone would have taken for an errant pass, lowered his impressive frame to let the ball zip by into the hands of his intrepid teammate, who took a bounce of the ball and drilled it. String music.

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” as a Tammany Hall lieutenant said in the 19th century.

As the world turns (some say the earth has tilted a couple of inches off its axis because of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti), the better part of valor is to decline so that another may insure success for the clan.

Competition is a constant. We think it’s what Einstein was looking for to complete his unified field theory. We continue to miss the moment in space and time when a young man bows his head so that his brother might succeed.

Nothing quaint about that.

Second Acts

As Big Daddy said in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” the odor of mendacity is powerful, sister girl.

Louisville basketball maestro Rick Pitino, “success book” author and motivational speaker, is revealed as less than the man he pretended to be. Who made “six years ago” the statute of limitations?

The bloody ankles’ David Ortiz, “big poppie” and lovable slugger, says somebody slipped him a performance-enhancing mickey in his blueberry-banana smoothie. Who put the lemonade in my lemonade?

And now Michael Vick, who gets $1.3 million this year as long as he stays away from your poodles, is working overtime at the Philadelphia Eagles training camp. Who let the dogs out?

There are plenty of second acts in American sporting life, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.

But the checkered past can never be repealed. It can only be repeated (the definition of insanity) or addressed by excuses and apologies to allow one to limp along, the latter option not as good as a time machine, but the best that the real world offers.

Pitino will never sell another “how to be like me” book. Ortiz may be done, too, not because he is a bad guy but because he can’t turn on the inside pitch. Vick, however, will go to the Super Bowl (write it down), not because he’s a super guy, though he might turn out to be. The premise of Christianity, my preferred religion, is to deny the power of Satan, who whispers seductively that you can’t change.

Can’t repeat the past? Of course, you can, old sport, Gatsby confidently told Nick Carraway. But who would want to?

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, Men Have Named You

There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here.

Hoping to redeem my last place finish in my group’s bracket challenge and 1,009,587th finish over all, I took the Michigan State Spartans and the points against the Tar Heels of North Carolina. It was the equivalent of rejecting momentum investing for the contrarian pick. The outcome is one more reason that Wall Street coined the phrase, “Don’t fight the tape.”

But I still have issues. Why does NC have a ram as a mascot instead of a guy in a black foot suit? And why does Alabama, the Crimson Tide, have an elephant as a mascot emblem instead of a surfer riding a wave, back lit by a blood-red sunset? These and other weighty matters bother me while re-tooling my golf swing to the stack and tilt and licking my handicapping wounds.

I suppose I could google the answers, but I resist. I prefer to ponder these mysteries as Plato or Thomas Aquinas or some other deep thinker of yore would have done, without the benefit of instant access to all sources for all things. I want to have someone whose grandfather told them tell me, a much more satisfying path to knowledge than the digital crutch that makes experts of everyone and every blog a newspaper.

Though my mind is distracted by these imponderables, hail to the sticky footprints of Chapel Hill and the tarred toe of Ty Lawson. This was no bear market rally, which is the debate Miss Market is moderating now. Which team will win? Miss Market is giving us a Mona Lisa smile, impossible to interpret. Come hither or You fool?

F, PALM and AMD have been good to us so far. Taking profits would be forgiven. But I’m sticking with them and avoiding financial names.

One Mona Lisa I think I do know is C.C. Sabathia. If he would put his hat on straight, he might get someone out.

Lenin Is Relevant

Of course, many unpredictable things can happen, but straws in the wind suggest that life goes on -- existing and new home sales data, bullish talk from chastened banks, Obama's grace under pressure, inflation rising.

The short sellers and Rush Limbaughs cheering for failure might have to return to shouting about the nation's moral shortcomings and forget the apocalyptic economic rants.

I know, perhaps instead of straws in the wind, I am grasping at straws. After all, I once thought the market bottom was in November! So my imagination may be just that.

However, optimist that I am, I prefer to believe that the next shot is hitting the green from 200 yards out and putting for birdie. I base this on the evidence that stimulus in the pipeline and the economic data point to earnings gains and higher equity prices this year.

Mr. Geithner, the Treasury secretary is wrong, saying today the market cannot handle the crisis. No, the market will solve the problem. What he really means is the market's terrible swift sword would tear such gaping holes in the social fabric that a world lit only by fire would result.

Distasteful as it may be in some quarters, government must intervene aggressively to keep those who would let the market work its "magic" from losing their shirts, not to mention their heads. It's called saving capitalism from itself. Joseph Schumpeter (the economist of "creative destruction" fame) thought it couldn't survive.

Lenin's strategy of accentuating contradictions, i.e., things must get worse before they get better, works for Bolsheviks, but it only leads to dropping those who have the most to lose on the ash heap not only of history but a foreclosed McMansion.

Sticking with PALM, AMD and F, despite the Sooners' demise (OU held the Tar Heels to well below their average point total but still couldn't score themselves!). Oh well, it's just a game and I'm aiming for the green and replicating Woods' miraculous touch with the putter.

Here on Gilligan's Island

To men of a certain age, the only true enduring philosophical question isn’t whether life is worth living, as Camus asserted. No, Sisyphus can push his rock up the hill all he wants and watch it roll down again as the gods assigned him to do through eternity. For me it’s Ginger vs. Mary Ann.

I have oscillated through the years. Mary Ann is cute as heck, mother of your children and safely in cash, but, gosh, I long for Ginger and the glamour of riches and a bull market. She woos me still, much as I try to resist. Bless me, father, for I have sinned. I’m just a man.

Miss Market, mischievous changeling that she is, has for the time being doffed her leather bodice and spiked hair for one of come-hither Ginger’s mermaid-like cocktail gowns and auburn bangs, not the gingham “at-the-hop” skirt and pig tails favored by perky Mary Ann.

Feckless Gilligan that I am, my heart is torn. Take what pleasures Ginger has showered on me for a day and retreat to the hut with Mary Ann, or stick with Ginger whose siren song promises more nights of greater passion on the beach?

The market’s impressive rally Tuesday has me inhaling great gulps of Ginger’s perfume. But, alas, I had abandoned Ginger on Monday, getting rid of every share of Citigroup at $1.05 only to see it rocket 38% the next day. The mean old Republican senators on the talk shows Sunday spooked me into thinking nationalization and the wipe-out of shareholders was only a matter of time.

Ben Bernanke scotched that idea Tuesday, and Vikram Pandit said Citibank was “profitable” the first two months of the year (albeit with taxpayers’ capital). Hey, if it’s so profitable why couldn’t it fling a few bucks to ESPN (owned by Disney) to get the early rounds of the Big East tournament on the tube, er, flat screen? Guess its sports sponsorship for the year is tied up with the New York Metropolitans baseball club.

Well, as we all acknowledge, life is not fair and every Irishman knows the world will break your heart sooner or later. I just hope Ginger is kind for a while. Otherwise, this Gilligan will revert to Maynard G. Krebs, cringing at the word “WORK!”

Ouch, Babe

Miss Market's bite is not playful.

I feel like the flabbergasted bulldog in Coolidge's poker-playing dogs painting, "Poker Sympathy." The poor son-of-a gun's four aces are spilling off the felt table and he is falling off his chair as some terrier with his front paws placed squarely behind his straight flush roars with derision as the collies, spaniels and labs seated around the men's club den yelp with tongues hanging out.

Citigroup is now a penny stock. Texas Tech soundly beat Kansas, which I thought was the peaking power in the Big 12, for crying out loud.

Is capitulation kaput? A bull since the November low, I bailed on several names last week, thinking this would be a sure sign that the market had bottomed and was poised to rise. But, as my college buddies will remember from a game we used to play when our senses were reeling from excess and much laughter, I have pulled a double-reverse dupe on myself and the rest of the American investing public, for which I apologize.

So I'm buying tomorrow in the hope that it resolves this mess once and for all. But in this bizarro world, look for payroll numbers to be better than expected and further stock market declines -- or maybe the opposite. In other words, I admit I don't have a clue, so I'm confining my bets to college basketball, about which I have nary a clue, as well, it turns out.

Sticking with PALM and AMD, taking the Musketeers of Xavier (love the nickname) at home against Dayton and giving the points.