Thursday, July 9, 2009
Today I Defer to Professor Pitoniak
Today, Scott remembers a man who helped shape the way Rochesterians follow sports.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Time. Place.
Frozen in time is the black-and-white image of John F. Kennedy, Jr. in his trench coat and shorts saluting his father as the casket carrying his late father and our iconic President crept by in late November, 1963.
Some will argue against this and have railed against the continuous coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, but the sight and sound of Paris Jackson's final sendoff to her father will stand in this writer's mind as one of those moments.
As these children grow-up, and make their own ways, for better or worse, the image of Paris' goodbye to her daddy will be the backdrop of her life, and an everlasting photograph that footnotes a generation.
Say what you want about the King of Pop, his peculiar persona, and the remaining did-he?-didn't-he? questions that will linger indefinitely regardless until someone speaks-up.
Take that side if you will. Or remember him as a world icon, a musical genius and one of the planet's most popular and successful entertainers. That is indisputable.
Pete Townshend, guitarist of The Who, once said, "Yeah, they're your icons, but they were my friends, and they're all dead" when discussing those whom he shared his craft with who left before their supposed time. Tuesday's memorial at Staples Center may have been shared with those who simply idolized a mortal, but it was heartwrenching to watch those who knew him, looking inconsolable despite the embrace of each other's arms.
Like Elvis, Lennon, Dean, Marilyn, Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain and any other legend who never saw grandchildren, nobody will ever get to see Michael Jackson grow-old--even gracefully--like a Sinatra or a DiMaggio.
A son. A baby brother. A friend. A father.
Meanwhile, several of this writer's Facebook friends decided to cast stones, and even rip those who grieved as if icons should only have the maximum three days of mourning reserved for us regular folk. At one point, a prominent Rochester, NY talk show host said that Jackson isn't Jesus.
Yeah. No kidding. Thank you captain obvious. Clearly he'd be moonwalking from the grave by now if he were. The sentiment is understood by most, but can be left unsaid.
In that regard, since nobody is Jesus--God in the flesh--then, nobody deserves a funeral, or to be remembered. And if the host honestly believes in Jesus, then he must also think Jackson has crossed paths with Christ at some point in the last12 days and the Lord has made a decision on his child.
So what's the worry?
Then there were the child molester jokes. Those probably won't be buried, no matter how redundant.
Again, think what you want. Write what you want. Believe what you want. Be that guy.
Given the bizarre circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's death and his astronomical world status, try stopping your own industry (now, thanks to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and text messaging, we're ALL in the loop) from covering the biggest story of the year.
Schadenfruede seems to best describe these thoughts. Meanwhile, watching Jackson's extended family grieve was nearly torture, classified just below waterboarding.
Unless your Chaz Rheingold, nobody enjoys a funeral.
Then again, guess we can't say that anymore, either.
If you've never lost a father, may you never know what Paris Jackson was feeling.
Like her father's timeless images that adorned the backdrop of his memorial service, that feeling never gets old.
Some will argue against this and have railed against the continuous coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, but the sight and sound of Paris Jackson's final sendoff to her father will stand in this writer's mind as one of those moments.
As these children grow-up, and make their own ways, for better or worse, the image of Paris' goodbye to her daddy will be the backdrop of her life, and an everlasting photograph that footnotes a generation.
Say what you want about the King of Pop, his peculiar persona, and the remaining did-he?-didn't-he? questions that will linger indefinitely regardless until someone speaks-up.
Take that side if you will. Or remember him as a world icon, a musical genius and one of the planet's most popular and successful entertainers. That is indisputable.
Pete Townshend, guitarist of The Who, once said, "Yeah, they're your icons, but they were my friends, and they're all dead" when discussing those whom he shared his craft with who left before their supposed time. Tuesday's memorial at Staples Center may have been shared with those who simply idolized a mortal, but it was heartwrenching to watch those who knew him, looking inconsolable despite the embrace of each other's arms.
Like Elvis, Lennon, Dean, Marilyn, Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain and any other legend who never saw grandchildren, nobody will ever get to see Michael Jackson grow-old--even gracefully--like a Sinatra or a DiMaggio.
A son. A baby brother. A friend. A father.
Meanwhile, several of this writer's Facebook friends decided to cast stones, and even rip those who grieved as if icons should only have the maximum three days of mourning reserved for us regular folk. At one point, a prominent Rochester, NY talk show host said that Jackson isn't Jesus.
Yeah. No kidding. Thank you captain obvious. Clearly he'd be moonwalking from the grave by now if he were. The sentiment is understood by most, but can be left unsaid.
In that regard, since nobody is Jesus--God in the flesh--then, nobody deserves a funeral, or to be remembered. And if the host honestly believes in Jesus, then he must also think Jackson has crossed paths with Christ at some point in the last12 days and the Lord has made a decision on his child.
So what's the worry?
Then there were the child molester jokes. Those probably won't be buried, no matter how redundant.
Again, think what you want. Write what you want. Believe what you want. Be that guy.
Given the bizarre circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's death and his astronomical world status, try stopping your own industry (now, thanks to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and text messaging, we're ALL in the loop) from covering the biggest story of the year.
Schadenfruede seems to best describe these thoughts. Meanwhile, watching Jackson's extended family grieve was nearly torture, classified just below waterboarding.
Unless your Chaz Rheingold, nobody enjoys a funeral.
Then again, guess we can't say that anymore, either.
If you've never lost a father, may you never know what Paris Jackson was feeling.
Like her father's timeless images that adorned the backdrop of his memorial service, that feeling never gets old.
The Prodigal's Shortstop
Yankees fans can say what they want about Red Sox Nation. They know their baseball, and have a reverence for their history.
NOTE: Those outside New England who lept upon the the steamroller two or three years into the new century after burning their Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves caps are not included in this conversation.
Red Sox Nation doesn't include those folks, who know who they are. Red Sox Nation is the remaining Red Army whose dearly departed took The Curse to their graves.
They know who Jerry Remy is. They know who Fred Lynn is. They remember Jim Lonborg, know what number Tony Conigliaro wore and can mimmick Bob Stanley's dopey trot from the bullpen during Game Six the 1986 World Series. They remember what number Bucky F'n Dent wore and how Jose Canseco and Mo Vaughn combined to go 0-for-27 during Boston's 1995 ALDS loss to the Indians.
Those same fans are the ones who led the cheers for the return of one of the most instrumental "Saux" Monday night, as Nomar Garciaparra approached the Fenway batters box for the first time since getting shipped to the Chicago Cubs at the trade deadline in 2004.
Yes. Half a decade. And if you remember--because dyed-in-the-hose Red Sox fans do--Nomahhh was the would-be franchise player and cornerstone for the new generation of Sox teams that generations longed to bring a World Series title to Beantown.
And he was. He just wasn't there to enjoy it what he was groomed to deliver.
Instead, the player whose name was in the conversation with the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter among baseball's best shortstops, was traded to baseball's other best-known cursed franchise, the Cubs, in a four-team deal which brought the Sox Nomar's replacement in Orlando Cabrera (from Montreal) and Doug Mientkiewicz (who swapped jerseys in a double-header after playing the first game with the Minnesota Twins), shoring-up their defense for their 2004 championship run.
The two-time AL batting champ sat-out 57 games that year with achilles tendonitis, and was also a noted malcontent in the clubhouse--a thorn in a group that had undertaken the personas of characters like David Ortiz and goofballs like Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar. Even Manny Ramirez fit-in better than Garciaparra, who grew-up in a Red Sox organization with the mentality that the Fenway monster would eventually topple over them.
All that was forgotten last night at Fenway. It was like the Prodigal's Son had returned, much like former traitors such as Roger Clemens who earned a standing ovation in 2003 when all were led to believe he had made his last regular season start at Fenway with the rival Yankees.
Aside from rivalry games, whose atmosphere makes Patriots playoff games look like Wimbledon, real Red Sox fans revere their legends, even several uniforms later. Almost always.
It's too bad it took a World Series win to give Bill Buckner the same welcome back. And not even that could erase 18 years of misery.
Yes, old-time, long-time Sox fans do have something in common with their new bandwagon friends:
Conditions on forgiveness.
NOTE: Those outside New England who lept upon the the steamroller two or three years into the new century after burning their Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves caps are not included in this conversation.
Red Sox Nation doesn't include those folks, who know who they are. Red Sox Nation is the remaining Red Army whose dearly departed took The Curse to their graves.
They know who Jerry Remy is. They know who Fred Lynn is. They remember Jim Lonborg, know what number Tony Conigliaro wore and can mimmick Bob Stanley's dopey trot from the bullpen during Game Six the 1986 World Series. They remember what number Bucky F'n Dent wore and how Jose Canseco and Mo Vaughn combined to go 0-for-27 during Boston's 1995 ALDS loss to the Indians.
Those same fans are the ones who led the cheers for the return of one of the most instrumental "Saux" Monday night, as Nomar Garciaparra approached the Fenway batters box for the first time since getting shipped to the Chicago Cubs at the trade deadline in 2004.
Yes. Half a decade. And if you remember--because dyed-in-the-hose Red Sox fans do--Nomahhh was the would-be franchise player and cornerstone for the new generation of Sox teams that generations longed to bring a World Series title to Beantown.
And he was. He just wasn't there to enjoy it what he was groomed to deliver.
Instead, the player whose name was in the conversation with the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter among baseball's best shortstops, was traded to baseball's other best-known cursed franchise, the Cubs, in a four-team deal which brought the Sox Nomar's replacement in Orlando Cabrera (from Montreal) and Doug Mientkiewicz (who swapped jerseys in a double-header after playing the first game with the Minnesota Twins), shoring-up their defense for their 2004 championship run.
The two-time AL batting champ sat-out 57 games that year with achilles tendonitis, and was also a noted malcontent in the clubhouse--a thorn in a group that had undertaken the personas of characters like David Ortiz and goofballs like Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar. Even Manny Ramirez fit-in better than Garciaparra, who grew-up in a Red Sox organization with the mentality that the Fenway monster would eventually topple over them.
All that was forgotten last night at Fenway. It was like the Prodigal's Son had returned, much like former traitors such as Roger Clemens who earned a standing ovation in 2003 when all were led to believe he had made his last regular season start at Fenway with the rival Yankees.
Aside from rivalry games, whose atmosphere makes Patriots playoff games look like Wimbledon, real Red Sox fans revere their legends, even several uniforms later. Almost always.
It's too bad it took a World Series win to give Bill Buckner the same welcome back. And not even that could erase 18 years of misery.
Yes, old-time, long-time Sox fans do have something in common with their new bandwagon friends:
Conditions on forgiveness.
Monday, July 6, 2009
You Just. Don't. Know.
Just when you thought the world of sports would go unscathed despite death's recent celebrity wave throughout the end of June, comes the tragic story of former NFL quarterback, Steve McNair.
As if we needed a refresher course in athlete-worship after the heels of OJ Simpson and the 15-year anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Many in Nashville, and around the country for that matter, are in mourning having lost a man who meant so much to his community, after doing what his predecessor, Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon, could not do in Houston: bring the Oilers-Titans franchise within one yard short of tying Super Bowl XXXIV in their 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams.
Moon, for all his greatness and Grey Cup titles in Canada, didn't bring the franchise within a game of the Super Bowl.
McNair left Division I-AA Alcorn State with high praise, despite question marks on whether a quarterback from a "lesser" division of college football had what it took to be a franchise player on a team that just relocated its franchise after playing before empty seats in the Astrodome.
McNair left his mark, proving that he could play in the NFL, and continued the legacy of players like Moon, creating more opportunities for African-American quarterbacks and became only the second black quarterback to start pro football's greatest contest.
Aside from McNair's untimely and shocking death comes questions on why this happened. The Nashville police department has ruled his death a homicide, while the demise of the young lady found dead in the same condo has yet to be classified. And as more and more details are revealed, McNair's innocence in death becomes overshadowed by the actions that may have led to it.
McNair, a married man with four kids reportedly co-registered a Cadillac Escalade with Sahel Kazem, a birthday present for the 20 year-old mistress.
If this isn't a good lesson in keeping athletes in their place as just athletes and not gods or role models, then fans will forever be disappointed.
Everyone can be a great guy, on paper and through television interviews and generosity through public philanthropy. But nobody really knows the truth about anyone else--not even your neighbors--let alone those whose jerseys we wear.
Perhaps McNair and his wife were going to get divorced. Nobody knows when or how their marital woes began, if they had any at all. Nobody really knows what Mrs. McNair may or may not have been doing, if everybody involved was perfectly happy the way things were until July 4th, or what led the former quarterback to pursue a "gumar" on the side.
A person can do whatever he or she wants in this life, and the consequences are his or her business. But if the police aren't pursuing any suspects, haven't ruled on the death of Kazem, found a pistol under her body which she reportedly purchased, have countless pictures of the couple together, and now have reports from the Nashville Post of a different woman confronting McNair at a bar that night, accusing him of slipping her "roofies" once upon a time, then it doesn't take Inspector Gadget to figure out what the consequences of his actions ultimately became.
Steve McNair was a great quarterback. Either painstaking or poor public relations work can create an image, but from afar, it's pretty simple.
Pro athletes are just great athletes. For all our sakes, nothing more, nothing less.
Now the body of this great athlete lays lifeless, while his most important job on this planet as a husband and father now lies vacant.
This isn't to judge McNair. We're all human. We all have choices. We all make them. It's our business and nobody else's until we each find our ways to the box or the urn. Maybe McNair's wife had no issues with his double-life. Maybe she did.
At the end of each day, and at the end of our lives, we all have to answer this question, regarding the circumstances that dictate the life we lead or leave:
Was it worth it?
As if we needed a refresher course in athlete-worship after the heels of OJ Simpson and the 15-year anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Many in Nashville, and around the country for that matter, are in mourning having lost a man who meant so much to his community, after doing what his predecessor, Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon, could not do in Houston: bring the Oilers-Titans franchise within one yard short of tying Super Bowl XXXIV in their 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams.
Moon, for all his greatness and Grey Cup titles in Canada, didn't bring the franchise within a game of the Super Bowl.
McNair left Division I-AA Alcorn State with high praise, despite question marks on whether a quarterback from a "lesser" division of college football had what it took to be a franchise player on a team that just relocated its franchise after playing before empty seats in the Astrodome.
McNair left his mark, proving that he could play in the NFL, and continued the legacy of players like Moon, creating more opportunities for African-American quarterbacks and became only the second black quarterback to start pro football's greatest contest.
Aside from McNair's untimely and shocking death comes questions on why this happened. The Nashville police department has ruled his death a homicide, while the demise of the young lady found dead in the same condo has yet to be classified. And as more and more details are revealed, McNair's innocence in death becomes overshadowed by the actions that may have led to it.
McNair, a married man with four kids reportedly co-registered a Cadillac Escalade with Sahel Kazem, a birthday present for the 20 year-old mistress.
If this isn't a good lesson in keeping athletes in their place as just athletes and not gods or role models, then fans will forever be disappointed.
Everyone can be a great guy, on paper and through television interviews and generosity through public philanthropy. But nobody really knows the truth about anyone else--not even your neighbors--let alone those whose jerseys we wear.
Perhaps McNair and his wife were going to get divorced. Nobody knows when or how their marital woes began, if they had any at all. Nobody really knows what Mrs. McNair may or may not have been doing, if everybody involved was perfectly happy the way things were until July 4th, or what led the former quarterback to pursue a "gumar" on the side.
A person can do whatever he or she wants in this life, and the consequences are his or her business. But if the police aren't pursuing any suspects, haven't ruled on the death of Kazem, found a pistol under her body which she reportedly purchased, have countless pictures of the couple together, and now have reports from the Nashville Post of a different woman confronting McNair at a bar that night, accusing him of slipping her "roofies" once upon a time, then it doesn't take Inspector Gadget to figure out what the consequences of his actions ultimately became.
Steve McNair was a great quarterback. Either painstaking or poor public relations work can create an image, but from afar, it's pretty simple.
Pro athletes are just great athletes. For all our sakes, nothing more, nothing less.
Now the body of this great athlete lays lifeless, while his most important job on this planet as a husband and father now lies vacant.
This isn't to judge McNair. We're all human. We all have choices. We all make them. It's our business and nobody else's until we each find our ways to the box or the urn. Maybe McNair's wife had no issues with his double-life. Maybe she did.
At the end of each day, and at the end of our lives, we all have to answer this question, regarding the circumstances that dictate the life we lead or leave:
Was it worth it?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
All Apologies. (As If You're Really Reading.)
Sorry I haven't written in a while.
Actually, sorry I haven't posted anything HERE in a while.
I've actually been continuing my column for the Dunkirk, NY OBSERVER every Tuesday, or whenever they decide the have enough space to publish it.
There have been a few problems posting stuff here:
* If I blog here, I have to blog on my two work websites, wcmf.com and sportsradio950espn.com. But then, the company wants the "intellectual property" solely on those sites. Hence, I can't publish them here.
* Second, same goes for the OBSERVER columns, even though the sports department picks and chooses which pieces make the online edition based solely on their mood that evening.
* Third, I usually write these from my e-mail so I have a saved copy of everything I write. However, this blogger.com layout isn't always compatible with Hotmail, so no matter how many different ways I try to publish here, either the last four words of every sentence gets chopped-off, or the paragraphs look like jigsaw puzzles.
So, I'm just writing here, right now, just reminding everyone:
...I'm still on Rochester's (and Western New York's) best, brightest, most interactive and funniest morning show, The Break Room, on 96.5 WCMF-FM (Streaming UNCENSORED at wcmf.com).
...I'm still doing morning sports updates twice an hour on SportsRadio 950 ESPN (WROC-AM 950).
...I'm STILL singing in my band Digglers Bridge, though I am 40-pounds lighter than the pictures on the blog.
I'll have to update.
Just like I'll have to update this page.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Jesus, Mary and Santa
There's a myth about Santa Claus. No, not that one--the one you avoid revealing to your kiddies until that ripe, sarcastic age where they discover an excuse to rummage throughout the house for their PlayStation III. Rather, the one about Santa living at the North Pole.
Technically, the North Pole was actually mistaken for a magnetic field buried near the Yukon Territory. Since Santa's been around since the 1800's before that little faux-pas was made, Santa would be Canadian. But if you hear Santa's hearty ho-ho-ho, you'd never detect an "ah-boot" in Santa's tone. Go to the mall and listen to Santa. That can't be accurate.
Meanwhile, Santa is supposed to know everything. Thus, the real Santa knows where the North Pole is, so a mistake by an explorer would hardly throw Santa off, especially since he signed Rudolph to lead the slay, way back when.
The thing about Santa, though, is that he's the playful American dream of everything people want God to be. And that's sad. Santa will even tell you that. People go to Santa for everything they want, with a list. Much like they pray to God: with a list!
Santa is not omnipresent, though he knows when you are sleeping. Santa is not omnipotent, though he knows when you're awake. Santa's list isn't written in the Lamb's Book of Life, though Santa does most often know when you've been bad or good. At least until you get a license.
Santa, like the Guy Whose designated birthday Christmas was named for, is forgiving. No, you can't sin against Santa, according to the Bible at least; there is no mention of Santa in the King James (the Apocrypha perhaps?). There's nobody named St. Nicholas (Nicodemus would be the closest) in the Great Book, or Chris Cringle. But Santa always came through for the Borrello children every Christmas, despite our mother's stern warnings while we misbehaved.
Santa's forgiveness in my family was shown every Christmas, despite countless threats from our beloved mother, whom promised to give each of her children all the stuff we broke in her house as wedding presents.
Every year, everything we asked for was under the tree. And we'd stick it in our mother's face every Christmas, after 365 days of threats as we broke closet doors and roughhoused. Santa always came through no matter how much and how often we tortured our blessed mother, much like Christ forgiving His children for all the times we've sinned.
Our poor mother. On countless occasions she would use the S-word to get us to behave. (Santa. Not...) And Christmas after Christmas, we would tell, in other words, that she should just relax and be more like Santa.
"Santa's cool, Mom. Why can't you be more like Santa?"
"You threaten us every year, and every year Santa gets us our stuff."
"Santa is a forgiving Santa, much like Jesus. Right mom?"
Great. She had to have Santa AND church thrown back into her face while we tore the house apart while re-enacting Wrestlemania III.
As I got older (seven), I started having second thoughts about Santa. Not that Santa wasn't real. God forbid! That thought never entered my head.
Nah, they had more to do with our father telling us Santa was NOT like Jesus. That, while Santa may know when you sleep, when you're awake, when you've been bad, or good, and somehow when you've gone days without bathing, that Santa doesn't know EVERYTHING. And since Jesus was God, and Dad was loud and wore a scary mustache for years, we believed him. Just like the way (he said) he scared his co-workers at Al Tech. But then, like all smart children, we exploited he idea.
We figured that while Santa had an idea of how we behaved, Santa couldn't possibly see everything, so we just went on our usual housewrecking ways with our tiny digits crossed hoping that Santa was paying more attention to those evil Commie kids over in the Soviet Union.
Not to mention, like people who only attend church twice a year, we thought the few good deeds we broadcast to every grown-up we knew would wipe out the millions of problem-child antics that gave our mother gray hair as early as her late twenties. And since Sissie and I told everyone about the few times we did something good for someone else, the parents in the neighborhood must have thought Butch and Mary Borrello of Alfred Heights had the most rotten children in Silver Creek.
At least that's what Mom said.
Like with today's Birthday Boy, you can't just be nice as often as Bills playoff appearances and expect everything to be all right. There are consequences. Like the opinions of relatives and neighbors. But those meant more to our parents than us kids, so we proceeded to be little brats.
But, of course, Santa is cool. Santa is loving. And despite badly behaved year after badly behaved year, Santa still delivered on-time like UPS.
What was odd about Santa though is that unlike most people Sissie and I knew, Santa didn't wrap our presents. Santa just threw them under the tree. Of course, Santa was smart enough to know the surprise wasn't inside the wasted paper that kills more trees every winter than the pines people cut down for their living rooms. The surprise was the shock every year that our naughtiness had not caught up with us for another Christmas morning. Fear only dawned on us on Christmas Eve.
That didn't stop our father, however, from running out of the bedroom after waking-up to the rattling of remote control cars and Sissy voicing her new Barbies around 12:27 am, December 25, 1987. Dressed only his (we'll spare him posthumous embarrassment and say...) boxers and going "Jurassic Park" on us, Papa threatened to call Santa back and give our new stuff to those "starving kids you see on TV."
'You mean those starving kids with Sally Strothers? Yeah dad, we know.'
A few days after Christmas, we'd wander down to the basement and find the boxes our gifts were packaged in. The thing is, they weren't in packages Christmas morning, unlike our birthdays, where everything was wrapped, and then mis-assembled by my dad, who eschewed instructions booklets. Again, since Santa was Santa, everything appeared under the tree the way it should. Thus, Santa had to be real.
Right?
And then the wheels started turning. Why would Santa conveniently leave the broken toy boxes in the basement, when Santa was environmentally friendly enough not to wrap our toys before leaving them under the tree?
Sissie's theory was that Rudolph got tired, and didn't want to take all that trash back to the North Pole with him. But I, always the smartest of Butch's and Mary's (then) three children remembered both of his grandmothers telling him that Santa had arrived early at their houses to bring toys before. So clearly, Santa could make extra trips if he had to. I mean, does a child need a well-thought explanation at 7 years-old? It's Santa for cryin' out loud! He can do anything.
Except do everything Jesus did. Yes, Dad, we know! Thanks for not letting us receive chocolate for Easter until we were in our teens. We got the message!!!
But then, more wheels started turning. Why couldn't Santa take his trash with him? In fact, if Santa made the toys, why did he need boxes with pricetags from Hills on them in the first place?
Again, Sissie referenced the "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" movie and said that the toys Santa made were "looked old." That, and it didn't look like Santa had enough elves.
But this child's mind kept wandering and thinking that Santa was better than that. But, I suspended reality for another year until trash downstairs returned the following Christmas. Meanwhile, the Easter Bunny never existed, which then posed some curiosity that has crossed the minds of millions of American kiddies: How is Santa real, but the Easter Bunny not real?
Papa had a simple answer: because bunnies can't talk.
Good enough.
As long as he could justify Santa a little longer to his kids who would be crushed if they learned otherwise, and as long as the kids still believed the someone in a red suit, who lived on top of a frozen ocean, who flew around in a sleigh led by reindeer and somehow sneaked into a house without a chimney without having the cops called (once without a chimney), he was OK with it.
Eventually though, we learned the truth about Santa Claus.
Every year, like most children, we left cookies and milk out for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. One whole carrot for nine animals. Brilliant. Perhaps Santa would try that loaves and fishes trick, except, he's not Jesus.
And each year, Santa left us a note. Only in 1989, the handwriting on the note looked hauntingly like the cursive notes I brought to my teachers after my annual battles with tonsillitis.
The wheels in my head finally stopped. I realized I had seen Santa every day of my life. And since the milk was always gone every year, and Dad never drank milk, Santa could only be one other person.
But in that note, Santa also left us a message.
That Santa is real. And forgiving. And loving. And knew when we were sleeping and awake, and most often when we were bad or good, albeit mostly bad.
Because Santa never lived at the North Pole after all. Either North Pole. Santa lived with us. Santa taught us all about life and the most important reason behind Christmas--Jesus Christ Himself.
Santa made sure we were well fed, brushed our teeth, and threw us in the tub once in a while as we screamed bloody child abuse against it while our hands collected magic marker stains like Henna tattoos.
Another myth about Santa was that Santa never had kids. But oh, Santa did. At least five that I know of.
See in my family, dad got most of the attention because he was larger than life. He was a legend. He was the guy with the stories, the famous temper, the great laugh, the counselor, the guy everyone looked up to.
But it someone else in the family who kept everything together. And like Jesus, never held our trespasses against us, even as we mocked her as she warned us of Santa's watchful eye.
That same someone who made sure the presents were unwrapped, that the tree looked spectacular, and that everything underneath it looked like Santa had magically placed the presents there.
And Santa did place them there. The only Santa I've ever known.
This year, my mother said all she wanted for Christmas was for me to write her a story. But this writer doesn't do fiction.
For once, I'm going to give Santa the present she deserves for putting-up with rambunctious children for almost 30 years.
Merry Christmas, Mom.
Or, Santa.
Technically, the North Pole was actually mistaken for a magnetic field buried near the Yukon Territory. Since Santa's been around since the 1800's before that little faux-pas was made, Santa would be Canadian. But if you hear Santa's hearty ho-ho-ho, you'd never detect an "ah-boot" in Santa's tone. Go to the mall and listen to Santa. That can't be accurate.
Meanwhile, Santa is supposed to know everything. Thus, the real Santa knows where the North Pole is, so a mistake by an explorer would hardly throw Santa off, especially since he signed Rudolph to lead the slay, way back when.
The thing about Santa, though, is that he's the playful American dream of everything people want God to be. And that's sad. Santa will even tell you that. People go to Santa for everything they want, with a list. Much like they pray to God: with a list!
Santa is not omnipresent, though he knows when you are sleeping. Santa is not omnipotent, though he knows when you're awake. Santa's list isn't written in the Lamb's Book of Life, though Santa does most often know when you've been bad or good. At least until you get a license.
Santa, like the Guy Whose designated birthday Christmas was named for, is forgiving. No, you can't sin against Santa, according to the Bible at least; there is no mention of Santa in the King James (the Apocrypha perhaps?). There's nobody named St. Nicholas (Nicodemus would be the closest) in the Great Book, or Chris Cringle. But Santa always came through for the Borrello children every Christmas, despite our mother's stern warnings while we misbehaved.
Santa's forgiveness in my family was shown every Christmas, despite countless threats from our beloved mother, whom promised to give each of her children all the stuff we broke in her house as wedding presents.
Every year, everything we asked for was under the tree. And we'd stick it in our mother's face every Christmas, after 365 days of threats as we broke closet doors and roughhoused. Santa always came through no matter how much and how often we tortured our blessed mother, much like Christ forgiving His children for all the times we've sinned.
Our poor mother. On countless occasions she would use the S-word to get us to behave. (Santa. Not...) And Christmas after Christmas, we would tell, in other words, that she should just relax and be more like Santa.
"Santa's cool, Mom. Why can't you be more like Santa?"
"You threaten us every year, and every year Santa gets us our stuff."
"Santa is a forgiving Santa, much like Jesus. Right mom?"
Great. She had to have Santa AND church thrown back into her face while we tore the house apart while re-enacting Wrestlemania III.
As I got older (seven), I started having second thoughts about Santa. Not that Santa wasn't real. God forbid! That thought never entered my head.
Nah, they had more to do with our father telling us Santa was NOT like Jesus. That, while Santa may know when you sleep, when you're awake, when you've been bad, or good, and somehow when you've gone days without bathing, that Santa doesn't know EVERYTHING. And since Jesus was God, and Dad was loud and wore a scary mustache for years, we believed him. Just like the way (he said) he scared his co-workers at Al Tech. But then, like all smart children, we exploited he idea.
We figured that while Santa had an idea of how we behaved, Santa couldn't possibly see everything, so we just went on our usual housewrecking ways with our tiny digits crossed hoping that Santa was paying more attention to those evil Commie kids over in the Soviet Union.
Not to mention, like people who only attend church twice a year, we thought the few good deeds we broadcast to every grown-up we knew would wipe out the millions of problem-child antics that gave our mother gray hair as early as her late twenties. And since Sissie and I told everyone about the few times we did something good for someone else, the parents in the neighborhood must have thought Butch and Mary Borrello of Alfred Heights had the most rotten children in Silver Creek.
At least that's what Mom said.
Like with today's Birthday Boy, you can't just be nice as often as Bills playoff appearances and expect everything to be all right. There are consequences. Like the opinions of relatives and neighbors. But those meant more to our parents than us kids, so we proceeded to be little brats.
But, of course, Santa is cool. Santa is loving. And despite badly behaved year after badly behaved year, Santa still delivered on-time like UPS.
What was odd about Santa though is that unlike most people Sissie and I knew, Santa didn't wrap our presents. Santa just threw them under the tree. Of course, Santa was smart enough to know the surprise wasn't inside the wasted paper that kills more trees every winter than the pines people cut down for their living rooms. The surprise was the shock every year that our naughtiness had not caught up with us for another Christmas morning. Fear only dawned on us on Christmas Eve.
That didn't stop our father, however, from running out of the bedroom after waking-up to the rattling of remote control cars and Sissy voicing her new Barbies around 12:27 am, December 25, 1987. Dressed only his (we'll spare him posthumous embarrassment and say...) boxers and going "Jurassic Park" on us, Papa threatened to call Santa back and give our new stuff to those "starving kids you see on TV."
'You mean those starving kids with Sally Strothers? Yeah dad, we know.'
A few days after Christmas, we'd wander down to the basement and find the boxes our gifts were packaged in. The thing is, they weren't in packages Christmas morning, unlike our birthdays, where everything was wrapped, and then mis-assembled by my dad, who eschewed instructions booklets. Again, since Santa was Santa, everything appeared under the tree the way it should. Thus, Santa had to be real.
Right?
And then the wheels started turning. Why would Santa conveniently leave the broken toy boxes in the basement, when Santa was environmentally friendly enough not to wrap our toys before leaving them under the tree?
Sissie's theory was that Rudolph got tired, and didn't want to take all that trash back to the North Pole with him. But I, always the smartest of Butch's and Mary's (then) three children remembered both of his grandmothers telling him that Santa had arrived early at their houses to bring toys before. So clearly, Santa could make extra trips if he had to. I mean, does a child need a well-thought explanation at 7 years-old? It's Santa for cryin' out loud! He can do anything.
Except do everything Jesus did. Yes, Dad, we know! Thanks for not letting us receive chocolate for Easter until we were in our teens. We got the message!!!
But then, more wheels started turning. Why couldn't Santa take his trash with him? In fact, if Santa made the toys, why did he need boxes with pricetags from Hills on them in the first place?
Again, Sissie referenced the "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" movie and said that the toys Santa made were "looked old." That, and it didn't look like Santa had enough elves.
But this child's mind kept wandering and thinking that Santa was better than that. But, I suspended reality for another year until trash downstairs returned the following Christmas. Meanwhile, the Easter Bunny never existed, which then posed some curiosity that has crossed the minds of millions of American kiddies: How is Santa real, but the Easter Bunny not real?
Papa had a simple answer: because bunnies can't talk.
Good enough.
As long as he could justify Santa a little longer to his kids who would be crushed if they learned otherwise, and as long as the kids still believed the someone in a red suit, who lived on top of a frozen ocean, who flew around in a sleigh led by reindeer and somehow sneaked into a house without a chimney without having the cops called (once without a chimney), he was OK with it.
Eventually though, we learned the truth about Santa Claus.
Every year, like most children, we left cookies and milk out for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. One whole carrot for nine animals. Brilliant. Perhaps Santa would try that loaves and fishes trick, except, he's not Jesus.
And each year, Santa left us a note. Only in 1989, the handwriting on the note looked hauntingly like the cursive notes I brought to my teachers after my annual battles with tonsillitis.
The wheels in my head finally stopped. I realized I had seen Santa every day of my life. And since the milk was always gone every year, and Dad never drank milk, Santa could only be one other person.
But in that note, Santa also left us a message.
That Santa is real. And forgiving. And loving. And knew when we were sleeping and awake, and most often when we were bad or good, albeit mostly bad.
Because Santa never lived at the North Pole after all. Either North Pole. Santa lived with us. Santa taught us all about life and the most important reason behind Christmas--Jesus Christ Himself.
Santa made sure we were well fed, brushed our teeth, and threw us in the tub once in a while as we screamed bloody child abuse against it while our hands collected magic marker stains like Henna tattoos.
Another myth about Santa was that Santa never had kids. But oh, Santa did. At least five that I know of.
See in my family, dad got most of the attention because he was larger than life. He was a legend. He was the guy with the stories, the famous temper, the great laugh, the counselor, the guy everyone looked up to.
But it someone else in the family who kept everything together. And like Jesus, never held our trespasses against us, even as we mocked her as she warned us of Santa's watchful eye.
That same someone who made sure the presents were unwrapped, that the tree looked spectacular, and that everything underneath it looked like Santa had magically placed the presents there.
And Santa did place them there. The only Santa I've ever known.
This year, my mother said all she wanted for Christmas was for me to write her a story. But this writer doesn't do fiction.
For once, I'm going to give Santa the present she deserves for putting-up with rambunctious children for almost 30 years.
Merry Christmas, Mom.
Or, Santa.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Team of Last Century
New York Yankees fans received another scare over the weekend.
And if they're thinkers and not followers, it should haunt each one of them well beyond Halloween.It was news from Tampa, of course, but not of those idiotic post-season pow-wows led by Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, the Veruca Salts of Major League Baseball.
It wasn't Joba Chamberlain's arrest for suspicion of D.U.I, less than a day the Brothers Duh decreed Chamberlain a front-runner for next season's rotation. And no doubt, this lapse in Lincoln, Neb. will be forgotten as Chamberlain's legend grows like that of Michael Phelps, whose 16 medals (14 gold) have all but erased his same mistake.
It wasn't news the Yankees can't sell memorabilia from the "old" stadium at Picasso prices, the cancelation of one last bash, the planting of new sod across the street at the same address, the pinstriped futures of Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte, or the clubhouse backlash of manager, Joe Girardi.
It was their future flashing before their eyes. A future as bleak as the past of the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays.In 1920, the Yankees acquired Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox, and for the next 85 seasons (no, those aren't typos -- 1918 was the last Red Sox championship and 1920 was the Bambino's first season in pinstripes, which equals 85 years), that was the defining moment of both franchises. Then, the Red Sox came back from three games down and three outs away from an 87th season of futility, and took Boston off the map of cursed sports cities.
What the New York Yankees didn't expect was another Red Sox comeback in 2007, down three games-to-one to the Cleveland Indians in that year's ALCS, compiling seven straight wins en route to another World Championship. And last Friday morning, at 12:16 am, five years to the minute Aaron Boone added another year to The Curse, JD Drew's game winning RBI single sent the ALCS back to Tampa.
Saturday night's BoSox win made Yankee fans think even harder about a team that has looked more like Bizarro Sox since 2004, compared to the ones that came up short in 1946, '67, '75, '78, '86 and 2003, and all the years in-between. Sure, names like Williams, Pesky, Cronin, Doerr, Lomborg, Rice, Fisk, Lynn, Yaz, Lee, Boggs, Buckner, and Garciaparra hold special places in Sox history. But names like Schilling, Ortiz, Ramirez, Veritek, "Youk", Lowell, Beckett, Mill-ahhh, Pedro and Theo hold rings.
Some of them two.Shortly after the babes of Red Sox Nation--who know not the anguish of their parents--were sent to bed for one last dream of another dream ending, the Rays ended the ALCS with a 3-1 win in Game Seven. It was a brief sigh of relief for Yankee fans; it that lasted as long as the relief of Ambosol on a root canal.
Tampa Bay has been a last place team throughout its existence until this season's 200-to-1 World Series surprise, and even a second-place team in its own town, evacuating the city every February while the Yankees blew through like a hurricane. Now, they're only four wins away from capturing not only baseball's biggest prize, but a city championship as well. The Bronx Bombers may start next season in a new stadium, Band-Aid their problems like a federal bailout, and always have enough folks in Bristol, CT convince you they'll be the team to beat. The fact is, the hapless Rays have left their past behind with the Devil, the Red Sox have changed the culture of New England baseball to a new generation, and the Toronto Blue Jays finally inked best free agent manager of the last decade, who led them to a 51-27 record.
This Yankee fan remembers his late father warning him during one of the last games we shared.
"Danny Boy," he said shaking his head, "it looks like that curse may be going the other way."
Butch Borrello said these words much like a father telling one of those not-in-my-lifetime-but-yours stories with the same conviction he told this twenty-something how he'll eventually learn the truth of President Kennedy's assassination, and the consequences of American excess, headphone-enduced deafness and backwards-hat-patterned baldness.
Get used to this idea, Yankee fans: your team has been replaced. Until a 27th trophy gets presented to another Steinbrenner, the Boston Red Sox will be this century's version of the never-say-die, Bernie Williams-Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez-Derek Jeter-Scott Brosius-Mariano Rivera-Andy Pettitte-David Cone-El Duque-Jim Leyritz-Joe Girardi New York Yankees.
Tampa Bay still has time and the lack of pricing power to become this year's and next year's 2003-04 Florida Marlins, or the '07-'08 Colorado Rockies. The difference, however, is they seem to have more youngsters on the way, starting with Game Seven closer, David Price.
Ninety-six combined years of tears in Beantown and Tampa-Saint Pete are not only over, but they've evaporated as if God himself wiped the sniffles away. The Red Sox and Rays have emerged as new creatures boldly claiming what the Yankees--Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, and Jorge Posada notwithstanding--have expected to be their inheritance, long after they've been evicted from the paper Promised Land.
Go ahead, Hank. Sign C.C. Sebathia. Sign A.J. Burnett. Trade for Jake Peavy. Bring Joba into the rotation. Grab Mark Teixeira. Sign the Red Sox castoffs. It won't matter.
Not when the Red Sox and Rays continue to out-draft you and out-develop youngsters.
Not when you award your GM a three-year extension based on what happened between 1998-2000, after you let your previous manager walk after 12 straight postseasons, ten division titles, six pennants, and four titles before taking the LA Dodgers to the NLCS for the first time in two decades.
Not when your players hate his replacement.
Not when you embarass your father's organization everytime you see a microphone.
The Yankees are playing in a brave new baseball world, and those old tricks don't work like they did in your father's century.
And if they're thinkers and not followers, it should haunt each one of them well beyond Halloween.It was news from Tampa, of course, but not of those idiotic post-season pow-wows led by Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, the Veruca Salts of Major League Baseball.
It wasn't Joba Chamberlain's arrest for suspicion of D.U.I, less than a day the Brothers Duh decreed Chamberlain a front-runner for next season's rotation. And no doubt, this lapse in Lincoln, Neb. will be forgotten as Chamberlain's legend grows like that of Michael Phelps, whose 16 medals (14 gold) have all but erased his same mistake.
It wasn't news the Yankees can't sell memorabilia from the "old" stadium at Picasso prices, the cancelation of one last bash, the planting of new sod across the street at the same address, the pinstriped futures of Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte, or the clubhouse backlash of manager, Joe Girardi.
It was their future flashing before their eyes. A future as bleak as the past of the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays.In 1920, the Yankees acquired Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox, and for the next 85 seasons (no, those aren't typos -- 1918 was the last Red Sox championship and 1920 was the Bambino's first season in pinstripes, which equals 85 years), that was the defining moment of both franchises. Then, the Red Sox came back from three games down and three outs away from an 87th season of futility, and took Boston off the map of cursed sports cities.
What the New York Yankees didn't expect was another Red Sox comeback in 2007, down three games-to-one to the Cleveland Indians in that year's ALCS, compiling seven straight wins en route to another World Championship. And last Friday morning, at 12:16 am, five years to the minute Aaron Boone added another year to The Curse, JD Drew's game winning RBI single sent the ALCS back to Tampa.
Saturday night's BoSox win made Yankee fans think even harder about a team that has looked more like Bizarro Sox since 2004, compared to the ones that came up short in 1946, '67, '75, '78, '86 and 2003, and all the years in-between. Sure, names like Williams, Pesky, Cronin, Doerr, Lomborg, Rice, Fisk, Lynn, Yaz, Lee, Boggs, Buckner, and Garciaparra hold special places in Sox history. But names like Schilling, Ortiz, Ramirez, Veritek, "Youk", Lowell, Beckett, Mill-ahhh, Pedro and Theo hold rings.
Some of them two.Shortly after the babes of Red Sox Nation--who know not the anguish of their parents--were sent to bed for one last dream of another dream ending, the Rays ended the ALCS with a 3-1 win in Game Seven. It was a brief sigh of relief for Yankee fans; it that lasted as long as the relief of Ambosol on a root canal.
Tampa Bay has been a last place team throughout its existence until this season's 200-to-1 World Series surprise, and even a second-place team in its own town, evacuating the city every February while the Yankees blew through like a hurricane. Now, they're only four wins away from capturing not only baseball's biggest prize, but a city championship as well. The Bronx Bombers may start next season in a new stadium, Band-Aid their problems like a federal bailout, and always have enough folks in Bristol, CT convince you they'll be the team to beat. The fact is, the hapless Rays have left their past behind with the Devil, the Red Sox have changed the culture of New England baseball to a new generation, and the Toronto Blue Jays finally inked best free agent manager of the last decade, who led them to a 51-27 record.
This Yankee fan remembers his late father warning him during one of the last games we shared.
"Danny Boy," he said shaking his head, "it looks like that curse may be going the other way."
Butch Borrello said these words much like a father telling one of those not-in-my-lifetime-but-yours stories with the same conviction he told this twenty-something how he'll eventually learn the truth of President Kennedy's assassination, and the consequences of American excess, headphone-enduced deafness and backwards-hat-patterned baldness.
Get used to this idea, Yankee fans: your team has been replaced. Until a 27th trophy gets presented to another Steinbrenner, the Boston Red Sox will be this century's version of the never-say-die, Bernie Williams-Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez-Derek Jeter-Scott Brosius-Mariano Rivera-Andy Pettitte-David Cone-El Duque-Jim Leyritz-Joe Girardi New York Yankees.
Tampa Bay still has time and the lack of pricing power to become this year's and next year's 2003-04 Florida Marlins, or the '07-'08 Colorado Rockies. The difference, however, is they seem to have more youngsters on the way, starting with Game Seven closer, David Price.
Ninety-six combined years of tears in Beantown and Tampa-Saint Pete are not only over, but they've evaporated as if God himself wiped the sniffles away. The Red Sox and Rays have emerged as new creatures boldly claiming what the Yankees--Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, and Jorge Posada notwithstanding--have expected to be their inheritance, long after they've been evicted from the paper Promised Land.
Go ahead, Hank. Sign C.C. Sebathia. Sign A.J. Burnett. Trade for Jake Peavy. Bring Joba into the rotation. Grab Mark Teixeira. Sign the Red Sox castoffs. It won't matter.
Not when the Red Sox and Rays continue to out-draft you and out-develop youngsters.
Not when you award your GM a three-year extension based on what happened between 1998-2000, after you let your previous manager walk after 12 straight postseasons, ten division titles, six pennants, and four titles before taking the LA Dodgers to the NLCS for the first time in two decades.
Not when your players hate his replacement.
Not when you embarass your father's organization everytime you see a microphone.
The Yankees are playing in a brave new baseball world, and those old tricks don't work like they did in your father's century.
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