All About Thom

The Facebook game goes like this. Someone gives you a number and you have to list that many interesting, but generally unknown, facts about yourself. While the interestingness is debatable, my responses were a bit long. How lucky you are to get a glimpse into the mind of Thom!  

1.       I often have dreams that I can fly. Not Superman flying. There are 2 types of dreams. Sometimes I concentrate & levitate up and then take off.  Other times I am while running, my strides get longer and higher until I am flying. It seems so real that when I wake up, I still think I can do it.

2.       We pride ourselves in that we have been to so many places. I believe that I could move to and be happy living in any of them. We have never lived in a downtown urban area & that is something that I’d like to do.

3. The three women who have come closest to the American Presidency are Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, & Sarah Palin. I have seen them all in person (met two). All within 20 miles of our home. If you knew where I live, you’d be amazed.

4.       Two baseball/softball injuries plagued me for years. First, a bad hamstring ( hamstrung by a hamstring? ) and couldn’t throw a baseball without shoulder pain for years. But both were seemingly cured after only a few weeks of yoga.  

5.       Despite the aforementioned pains and the fact that I am overweight, I am worried that for the most part, I’ve been pretty healthy my whole life. I’ve never been the one looking up from the hospital bed and I am not looking forward to it.

6.       I’ve been to a lot of places, but tops on my list of places that I have yet to see is St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow and the Parthenon in Athens.  Those are lifelong dreams.

7.       If Jennie & I had started having children sooner, we’d probably have 5. When accounting for our kids, I’ll see all three, but still think I’m missing some.

8.       I’m a church going Catholic, but in my view, the message is infinitely more important that the messenger. I really don’t think Jesus minds, but I am sure there are plenty of Christians that would.

9.      I feel passionately about things and the way I think our country should be. But my views are tainted by pragmatism, so I focus on what I think is possible. I feel like I have to sacrifice for progress, but that makes me feel like I’m giving up on what I believe.

10.       I rarely drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t even like coffee. But I need soda. I really do. Diet or regular matters not as long as it is caffeinated and carbonated.  We don’t keep it in the house, so I get little bits at a time. Out to eat or a bottle at work. If I go a couple days without it, on comes the DT’s.  

11.   Smell is a very important thing to me. Not turned off by bad smells as much as enjoying good ones. I always smell my food. I love the scents of the seasons. The smell of perfume or shampoo when a woman passes by or even the smell of cigars & beer that always takes me back to Wrigley Field.
 

 

 

Can We Get a Another Curse Back Here?

As a baseball fan, and a St. Louis Cardinal fan, dealing with the limited viewing choices of the late '70s & early '80s, most of my time was spent watching the Chicago Cubs on WGN. The Cubs were, at best, mediocre, but their leader & best player was Bill Buckner. If they needed  a clutch hit or defensive play, Bucker was The Man. He was the go to guy. So, that is why I have always felt bad for him being considered the goat of the 1986 World Series and for a while, the bearer of The Curse.

For those of you who may not be baseball people, it was believed that the Red Sox sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees netted the Sox not only cash, but also a curse that would keep them from winning a World Series ever again. Boston had been a dominant team in the early years of baseball. After their owner's fire sale of players, done to finance his Broadway shows, the Red Sox turned into perennial also-rans. When they finally did make it back to championship caliber play, in the big games, Boston came up short. They didn't just lose. They'd lose in some sort of humiliating fashion.

Half an inning away from winning the World Series in 1986, a ball rolled through Bill Buckner's legs, allowing the winning run to cross the plate. The New York Mets scored three times in that inning, sending the Series to game 7 and an eventual Met championship. Of course, the entire Red Sox team was to blame. Every runner left on base, every pitcher's blown save, every missed opportunity in each of their four losses was somebody's fault. In baseball, it is everybody's fault. But Bill Bucker got the blame for the whole thing. He had to take one for the entire team.

Having my Cardinals lose to the once lowly Red Sox in the World Series twice in 10 years makes me kind of miss the curse. Most of my cursing was saved for my own team in the 2013 edition of the baseball Twilight Zone that suddenly had the Red Sox winning. The Cardinals out hit the damn Sox right up until they got men in scoring position.

Four times the Cardinals have played the Red Sox in the World Series. Two wins a piece. Why the hell did I have to be alive for the Cardinal's losses?

What gets me is, I don't hate the Red Sox. I usually don't anyway. They sit somewhere in the upper middle of my baseball team hierarchy. If they were playing someone else like the Dodgers or the Phillies, or certainly against the Yankees, I'd be rooting for Boston. It is hard to wipe away first impressions. Despite their now 3 World Series victories, I still think of the Sox as losers. And who doesn't root for the losers?

Instead, I'm here frustrated and angry, thinking about this disgusting Boston team, known for their long bearded faces like some backwoods creepy red necks. And not the charming Duck Dynasty rednecks. I'm thinking Deliverance. I just want to go through their locker room with a can of Barbasol and some Schick razors. Or maybe a weed eater.  I want to sink their stupid duck boats.

I want a curse!

How glorious would it have been to have David Ortiz bat .700 in a Boston Series loss? Or for the Cardinals, dead in the water, to pop just two or three more hits in the 7th inning of game 6 to turn a sure Boston victory into a stunning loss. AT HOME! Now that would have been a wonderful way to lose!  Baseball gods of fate! Why have you forsaken me?

But for now, a curse is too little, too late. I turn on ESPN or the MLB Network and I get Red Sox talk and clips of their victory parade.  I'm not ready for that. Fine. You won. Congratulations.

For now, I find solace in the internet. And here I thank Yankee fans, now kindred spirits in our mutual disgust for the American League team in Boston. Those wonderful Yankees fans have put lots of images and video of the Sox past failures for people to enjoy. Players in their Boston uniforms with heads hung. Stunned looks of pain on their faces. Fans crying.

And a ball rolling through a first baseman's legs. That makes me feel better. Avenged. And kind of warm and snuggly inside.

Sorry, Billy Buck. You have to take one for the team.