I remember an evening in a warm cafe in Toronto, sitting with Ben, a United Church pastor. We had become friends after I persuaded his church to give sanctuary to a refugee named Ibrahim. We didn’t know that a Holocaust survivor lived nearby, and that Ibrahim’s presence near her home triggered old and dreadful fears….
Chanukah starts Sunday night. Growing up, I always hated it when Chanukah started this early. The beginning evening (Jewish holidays start at sunset) for Chanukah and other Jewish holidays is set by a lunisolar calendar that sometimes seems like a random number generator. Chanukah begins on the evening of the 24th day of the month…
Whatever is a baseball writer to do? Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich each took home MVP awards last night. The night before, Blake Snell and Jacob deGrom took home Cy Young honors. And earlier this week Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña were rewarded with Rookie of the Year awards. These choices are all…good? Look, I’m…
There was a lot going on, verbally, yesterday in baseball. The offseason bell was rung in the traditional fashion, with the ceremonial sad Rays-Mariners trade, and every GM gazed upon the dozens of thirtysomething second baseman that comprise the free agent market. Fans and reporters, meanwhile, girded themselves for another long winter, suffering from baseball’s…
Major League Baseball used to take the whole “don’t break news during the postseason” pretty seriously. Calvin Griffith, for instance, was once beaten with a sack of oranges for announcing he was going to explore paying his players in company scrip in 1983.* *Do not fact-check this. But times change. Recently, the Commissioner has politely…
We do not each have our own true purpose, Albert Camus theorized in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was happy because he had a specific purpose and fulfilled it, and that’s the end of the list of folks who can find pleasure down that avenue. But that is okay! Now you know. Folks are…
In the old days, autumn was about the stifling, unsurvivable humidity of summer giving way to the brisk breeze of October, which blew gusts of school supplies and various gourds down the streets of our cities, while we cowered inside of our homes, comforted only by the terror and passion of postseason baseball flickering on…
The closest I ever got to possessing a baseball used in a major league setting was PNC Park in 2001. Some Arizona Diamondbacks player drilled a batting practice ball almost to the seats. I was in the outfield first row and reached to grab it. Some player instead caught it right under me, then turned…
With the end of the Major League Baseball regular season coming on Sunday, this may be my last chance to write about Joe Mauer as an active player (and get paid to do it). As a lifelong Twins fan (who appreciates monetary compensation), I would be a fool not to. But what is there to…
I am a 40-year-old man who still plays video games. I say that (both parts of that, actually) with a not-insignificant amount of shame. I know I thought, at several points in my adult life, that I should probably give them up, but then I also discovered a level of disposable income, occasional free time…
I remember when the adults told me we might run out of bananas. Of note: the first-person plural, the inclusion of blame — we might — as if a six-year-old boy was complicit in the extinction of a breakfast staple. I don’t know if they explained why, but I imagined a world just eating too many…
Short Relief is taking the probably necessary measure of keeping a source anonymous as it details its involvement in the longstanding cold war between announcer Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen, which boiled over in a physical altercation. The source wished to be identified as an office chair with close ties to the announcing crew….
On August 26, Ruben Alaniz was called upon to finish the ninth inning for his Durham Bulls against the Norfolk Tides. It was a four-run lead, so it wasn’t a save situation, and therefore not too much pressure. His catcher, Andrew Moore, a major league veteran for parts of nine seasons, dug in to start…
I didn’t stay to see them close the roof. Not like those first years, inchoate, with open mouth and wide eyes. It was a ritual at the end of each and every game: Strauss’ theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey would begin to echo over a crowd whispering their oohs and ahhs, and then once…
My brother-in-law Tom Stofka was gentle and kind. He loved the outdoors, earning an advanced degree in forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tom probably should have spent his life climbing trees, but somehow he wound up working for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. By the time of his untimely death,…
I don’t talk about myself with as much vivacity as my fellow Short Relievers because, well, I just don’t. Keeping retaining walls around myself is part defense mechanism, part security blanket, formed from years of Being Online. But Monday I had a bad day at work. Because… well, no reason to get into it! I…