Short Relief: Protecting Home
8/09At some point, I stopped locking the front door. Death is not the only disease. It’s the obvious one, though, especially at times like Tuesday night. Felix Hernandez threw the change-up, Robinson Chirinos reached out his wrist to meet it, and then both men winced in pain. One man healed. The metaphor is unavoidable, as...
Short Relief: Being Above It and Beneath It All
8/08Hey guys, Wow. Twenty years already! The time really flew by, didn’t it? Feels like just yesterday we were watching me invent the Jeter Jump Throw to nail Travis Fryman in the ALCS, laughing with each individual member of the press (never understood why people thought the writers were so prickly!!) and then hitting the...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Take Only Memories, Leave Only Language
8/07The old hiker’s adage “take only memories, leave only footprints” is a nice idea in principle, albeit impossible in practice. We are constantly leaving pieces of us behind: flakes of skin, errant hairs, clothing fibers, all things ready to leap overboard at the slightest bit of contact. “Every contact leaves a trace,” states Locard’s Exchange...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Keeping One’s Eyes on the Ball
8/06On Monday morning, I’ll be at my annual optometrist appointment, trying not to blink at the little puff of air during the first stage of the glaucoma test, trying not to squint against the lights bright and brighter, trying to decide which of the two lens options really is better in the series of minute...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Remembering and Correcting the Past
8/03I don’t remember the name of the bar. I do remember it was late, though, and I also remember not really wanting to be in Clackamas with coworkers on a Saturday night. But funny things happen when you are in your mid-20s working a job that seems designed to suck out all your bone marrow...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: The Children are Our Future
8/02If the motion of time crests and recedes, raising some to greatness while obscuring the greatness of others like the second deadball era did to Jimmy Wynn, then I was born at the right time in terms of photography. I’ll admit it: I am awful when it comes to taking pictures. I have no eye...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: A House Full of Plans and Stuff
8/01Yesterday, I left my home of two years. Like any move, this one was physically and mentally draining. That we scheduled our departure for the hottest weekend of the summer didn’t help. The emotional toll proved even more taxing. This was a house where I grew immensely as an adult. It was here that I...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Is It Too Late Now to Say Sorry?
7/31Reading through the number of apologies issued by players and organizations these past few weeks has reminded me of sitting down with a stack of students’ papers to grade. They’re filled with errors, products of players who have never had to apologize for anything, just as students litter papers with common errors, each the mark...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: The Least True Outcome
7/301. The crows complaining from the maple tree outside the window sound enough like that one row of fans in Philadelphia in 2006, Mike Lieberthal at the plate in the second game of the September 3 double-header against Atlanta, the one that isn’t the one where Ryan Howard hit three home runs. Lieberthal stands in...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Fantasy Pitches
7/27Anthony Rizzo: Okay, it’s a workplace sitcom but everyone works at, like, a furniture store. Business is bad, but this millennial comes in and tries to change everything. The well-meaning store owner, you could get someone like the dad from Family Ties, keeps going at odds with this new hire, a girl out of college....
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightLong Relief: Asking for Nothing
7/26All across baseball, teams are deciding how to direct the season’s water, and some riverbeds we know are going to be parched.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Waste Not
7/25A crow sits on a traffic pole ahead of you. You are walking slowly. The sun is too harsh to move any faster. It doesn’t matter how fast you walk, anyway; you have nowhere to go this time. You are not going to be out of the sun, not until it sets. Then you will...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Rank and File
7/24For many fans, to love baseball is to love it unconditionally. It doesn’t matter how bad one’s team is or how many disagreements one has with the minutiae of the game. There will always be the next game, the next season, the next great draft pick to root for. But loving baseball is not an...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: A Star is Reborn
7/23So you’re thinking of marketing your MLB star? Great! You’ve taken the first step on a profitable and rewarding journey. First, a few questions: Is your MLB star good at baseball? If the answer is no, perhaps reconsider this exercise, as ironic admiration, or really any level of irony at all, has not made its...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Let’s Play Two (Eventually)
7/20Years ago, like, 25 years ago, I saw a cartoon of unknown origin and date. I don’t remember the name, but it stuck with me. The cartoon was about a (young???) baseball manager who wanted to bring in a relief pitcher. An older man, presumably a Gene Lamont-style bench coach, handed the man statistics on...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightShort Relief: Telling Tales & Keeping Quiet
7/19From a fragment discovered in the dust of the Vatican library: Hostilities ceased annually for four days. One of those days was set aside for celebration and spectacle, when combatants gathered for friendly competition to the cheers of the common people. Lancers rode out onto a bright green field, gaily garbed in white and grey...
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