A Tale of Two Cities

The dichotomy was apparent. During the same weekend; from the same city, great joy and pride and terrible heartache and loss. Chicago. Summer in Chicago. And like so many other summers in that mid-western city, the blood of its youth spills too easily. Black children lying dead. Teenagers gunned down by gun-toting Black teenagers shouting gang slogans. A three year old shoots himself in the head with a gun his paroled felon father – a gun he should not have because of his criminal record – carelessly left out. Five dead. All children. Another weekend in Chicago and it barely registers a mention on the news.

Pennsylvania. Baseball; little league baseball. An all-black team from the Southside of Chicago, “the baddest part of town.” They win the American draw, beating a team from Nevada who five days earlier had knocked them around. It’s Williamsport – idyllic, rural Pennsylvania – where every summer young baseball players from around the world gather and play the greatest game on fields of green grass and manicured infields. Baseball and Pennsylvania are a million miles from Chicago.

For months the talking heads on Sports TV have decried the absence of Black big leaguers. And, by the numbers they are right. Growing up, I remember Mays and Aaron, and Gibson. I wanted to be Willie Mays. Today, less than one in ten ball players are African American. The pundits have a dozen theories. But, I listened as the coach of the all-black squad from Chicago, from the almost all-black “Jackie Robinson Little League” answered the question:

“Baseball is a game passed down by your father. In our league we still have a lot of fathers. It’s not that way for everyone.”

Jackie Robinson. Perhaps no single man’s courage and self-control mattered more in the country’s slow march toward integration than he did. Jackie Robinson, a great man, a hero. And yet today, more young black kids in Chicago can tell you about Jay Z than Jackie. Who really matters? What really matters?

Missouri. Over four thousand people gather for the funeral of a young black man gunned down by a white police officer. No one yet knows what happened. I don’t presume to know what was in the officer’s heart before firing those fateful shots and I choose to believe he is distraught because blood has been spilled. Too many – on both sides – use this tragedy for their own political ends. Blood spilled and a family mourns a son gone too young. And, another family lives with the repercussions.

Here’s what I wonder, how many black children have to die in the street of Chicago at the hands of other black children before someone stands up and says “enough!” Where is the national outrage and national dialog as we watch thousands of young kids turning to gangs and killing each other? Why is “Ferguson” the issue and not just a symptom of something so much larger? And why are we not watching – and listening – to the mothers and fathers of those ballplayers?

A young man I know in here from Richmond told me about the shootings that regularly took place near his home. He was raised in a home with a mom too young to care for herself, let alone three young kids. So “Gramma” became their refuge. “Gramma” fed them, even when it was just mayonnaise on white bread. “Gramma” was responsible. Mom? She was in and out; Dad? He was at “state farm” (Powhatan to those not “in the know” on Virginia’s prisons).

And summers in Richmond, summers in the city’s notorious Gilpin Court, were filled with robberies and drug deals and killings. My young friend whom I tutor in English and Excel and any other class which comes our way, tells me when he was six he was sitting on the front stoop with his brother and sister. “It was loud, like a firecracker. Pop, pop, pop. Then, people across the street started running and that’s when I saw him … bleeding as he fell in the street.” His first seen “body.” Man shot across the street staggers and dies yards from him. And his six-year-old eyes see it all.

A few moments later, the police and an ambulance arrive. The neighbors stand all around but nobody “saw anything,” at least not in Gilpin Court. An ice cream truck approaches and Gramma gets the three kids popsicles, “Red, white, and blue rockets,” he tells me. They stand with the others behind the yellow tape, licking their popsicles as the dead man is loaded up and carted off and the blood, pooled on the ground remains. Gilpin Court, Richmond. Another dead black young man.

I can’t watch the news about Ferguson, Missouri anymore. It seems almost ghoulish and undignified. And, no matter what that young man may – or may not – have done, I can’t help but think it could have been avoided. There are too many dying too young and they look like so many of the young men I care about in here.

I confront race every day in this place. Early on, in my first few weeks in jail when my life was in a complete tailspin, I realized how little I really knew about being black in America. Every opinion I held as fact came from a life almost completely devoid of blackness. Then again, almost every opinion I held as fact came from a life almost completely devoid of contact with poverty, poor education, ignorance, and a whole lot more. My opinions were all forged from my own privileged life. I knew, I soon realized almost nothing about living – and dying – in America. Dylan wrote about such things in “License to Kill,”

Now all he believes are his eyes

And his eyes they just tell him lies

But there’s a woman on my block

Who sits there as the night grows still

She says who’s gonna take away his license to kill?

I hear about my young friend’s life in Richmond, I watch as more families weep over the loss of children cut down for no good reason and I wonder who will take away our license to kill? When will we see beyond color or economic status and mourn, really mourn the incredible waste of life and vow to do better? It seems as if it will overwhelm us, destroy us, condemn us. And then, twenty young black kids in yellow shirts with white pants run across the infield and I see hope.

Two cities. You can take all the pain and death and despair of Chicago, and Ferguson, and Richmond together and weep and lose hope until you see Williamsport, Pennsylvania and grass, and smiles, and baseball. 

You know what gives hope? When all you see and hear is death and anger and you look around your prison housing unit and almost every TV is turned to a team of little leaguers from Chicago and guys, hardened by life and crime and death are pulling for these kids as they play … a game.

There isn’t a black and white; there’s green and there is the sound of a ball coming off a bat and there’s joy. 

Ralph & Henry

This isn’t a prison blog. Then again, everything I think about, everything I experience, everything I remember is felt through the prism of this place.

            Last week baseball Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner died at the age of 91. Between 1946 and 1952 no ballplayer hit more homeruns than Kiner. Seven straight years he led the National league in homeruns. No other player – not Ruth, Bonds, no one – ever did that. For a time he was the highest paid player in baseball. Then, a back injury (which eventually cut short his career) “weakened” him to only 22 homeruns in 1954. The next season Kiner agreed to sign with the Cleveland Indians only after requiring them to cut his salary 25%. You don’t see many men willing to ask for that.

            Kiner played before my time, but he became the voice of my beloved New York Mets. Every game he’d have the star on after the last out and talk baseball – real baseball, not this talking head clap trap that passes for analysis today – on “Kiner’s Korner.” Most of what I know about this amazing game came from listening to Ralph Kiner.

            Even at 91, after Bell’s palsy and strokes slowed him and slurred his speech he went to the ballpark and talked baseball. He wasn’t as successful at marriage (4; of course, in his prime he dated Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh), but he lived life to the fullest.

            Every time one of these guys leaves here I simply tell them “You have years ahead of you. Lead a beautiful life.” I thought about those words and smiled when I thought of that amazing ballplayer Ralph Kiner.

            And then there is Henry Aaron. A few weeks ago an oil painting of Aaron was dedicated at the National Portrait Gallery. I’m not sure we truly appreciate the likes of the Henry Aarons of the world. He grew up in Alabama at a time when his mother would yell to the children at 4:30 a.m. to “hide under the bed!” because the KKK was marching through. That was America back then. I shudder when I hear people say those were the “good old days.” There was nothing good about the violence and degradation black Americans lived through in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, even into the ‘60s.

            Aaron was one of the five greatest ballplayers in history yet for years wasn’t allowed to stay in certain hotels or eat in certain restaurants with his teammates; countless indignities were piled on this remarkable athlete. Yet, he never faltered. He never surrendered his pride, he never sacrificed the lesson his mother told him when he was a boy, “remember the Golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Even when box loads of death threats came in when he was chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record Aaron never changed.

            Young guys in here spend a lot of time trying to emulate rappers; I always tell them they’d be better off being a little bit more like Mr. Aaron. Of course we all would.

Play Ball !

It’s almost Spring.  In here, the seasons are controlled by the equipment on the rec yard.  You always know when summer turns to fall when the rec yard workers come out to install the soccer goals.   Soccer – at this prison anyway – is a fall and winter sport.

And Spring?  Spring arrives the day the yard workers come out on the field, take down those same goals and then drag the infield.  That’s right, just like outside, you know its Spring when you hear the sound of balls pinging off aluminum bats, you see guys playing long toss in the outfield and infield practice begins.  Spring hit last Sunday.  It’s time to play ball.

Our dorm is putting together a softball team – two teams actually.  Because our IT college students (40 guys) have night classes at least two nights a week and our day students (44 guys) have classes at least one night a week, we’ve built two teams.  I’m head coach, a role I’m excited about because I love baseball.  Baseball, you see, always reminds me that there’s hope.  No matter what happened the season before, Spring arrives and you start over.  It’s a new season, a new game, a new chance.

I thought about that the other night as I looked over our list of players:  twenty-two guys spanning the age and “bid time” brackets.  A fair number of our “players” will be heading home at the end of summer, their sentences completed.  For them, this Spring really is a new beginning.

And some of the other guys?  For “old heads” like DC and Saleem – and even Mike, down 19 years (though he’s only 34) – there will be parole hearings.  Those three are still part of the “old law”, pre-1995 when parole existed and inmates could earn “30 for 30”, meaning you only did – usually – 50% of your sentence (assuming you earned good time at the max level).  And they try not to think about the disingenuousness of the current parole board’s practices.  It’s Spring.  They each, deep down, carry hope that they will be part of the select few, 2% last year, who will be paroled.

Me?  This July 1^st I can petition the Governor for a conditional release, converting the rest of my time to supervised probation or house arrest.  And I have hope.  No matter how unlikely it appears, I have to have hope. I have to believe.  After all, it’s Spring.  It’s time to play ball.

The other morning the paper reported that Governor McDonnell was on pace to restore more voting rights to convicted felons than any of his recent predecessors.  The article also noted he granted medical releases to two inmates.  I smiled when I read the short description of the older inmate from Salem who was pardoned after being diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bile duct.  See, that was the inmate whom I helped.  I drafted his petition.  He was able to pass away at home with his family beside him and I was part of that.  It’s Spring and things that didn’t make much sense during those long, cold winter days suddenly make sense.  There’s a reason – and a season – for everything.

A few weeks ago Lent began.  In my old life, my “free” life, I never gave much thought to Lent.  I didn’t “give up” anything.  I just went on as I was.  “AC” – after confinement – I took a different look at Lent.  Renewal, I figured, could come through sacrifice and discipline.  So each Spring (for the past four seasons of Lent) I’ve fasted, meditated and given something I enjoy up.  This year it’s been coffee and chips, my two favorite commissary purchases.

And giving them up has been fairly easy, just like engaging in 36 hour fasts.  It’s because I know Spring is here and Spring brings renewal, hope and life.

Our ball teams are excited about getting the season underway.  It’ll be a nice break from the three-a-day classes the guys have, a chance to get out in the fresh air and run and playball.  And all those things matter in here.  It all matters because time is the most painful part of prison and Spring brings hope and hope eases the pain of time.

Sometimes the Truth

I struggle every week with what I disclose in these pages. It’s become a running joke among the guys. Anything that is said or happens around me is fair game for the blog. Still, on more than one occasion I have been asked by well meaning people to keep “something to myself”. “I’m not sure how [insert name here] will feel about that story.”



Two letters the past week and a couple of guys comments in here lead me to explain why I write what I do. Why do I tell everything, good and bad, that happens in here? Why do I spill my guts about my life and the emotions I’m going through with my broken relations? Two reasons: it’s the truth and like love, it matters.


The two letters. I have a relative who was a big part of my life growing up. But as adults sometimes do, we get hung up on our own lives and, feeling snug and self-righteous, we are quick to pass judgment when troubles arise in someone else’s life. This woman took me to Shea Stadium in 1968 and I saw the New York Mets play baseball for the first time. I fell in love with the Mets that day. As a ten year old I watched the ’69 Mets do the impossible. As a 27 year old I learned God was a Mets fan when I stood in my living room during game six of the 1986 World Series and knew, yes I knew, the Mets would win.


So this woman, who gave me my love of baseball, announced to the family one day she was divorcing her husband. My reaction? She was a failure. “Successful people” don’t quit relationships. We still communicated, but there was a distance.


Then I came to prison and out of the blue she wrote. Funny how things roll around. I thought I had the “perfect” wife who loved me, no matter what (if I really believed that, why was I constantly afraid she didn’t love me?), I had a “great” life (so great I thought I had to make people happy for them to accept me). Then I got arrested, got convicted and in short order my “perfect” wife announced (1) she hadn’t loved me for a long time (2) my kids broke off contact with me (3) my friends (some right away, others recently) abandoned me (4) my wife divorced me, then embarked on relationships with a couple of men, one of whom is now hanging out with my younger son at the house I gave my wife to protect her and our kids while I was trying to make this right. I said funny. That is really damn hilarious!


Anyway, my aunt began writing and it reminded me how cool it was when we talked about baseball and how wrong it was for me to have not even listened to her. The other day she wrote again. The letter was full of baseball stuff and this: “You are more honest in one blog than most people are in their lifetime.” I took those words to heart.


The other letter was from my older friend who provides me spiritual insight. During those terrible recent days I wrote her and a local friend asking for guidance as I dealt with still more turmoil involving my ex. My local friend never responded. She, however, did and she told me things about her life, her struggles, that floored me. After reading her letter and praying I knew what I had to do, how I needed to move forward.


Sometimes what I write about is difficult to read. I’m sure there are some who wish I’d just not discuss “certain things”. But, it’s the truth and I don’t write anything out of anger or resentment. Fact is, I write what I do out of a sense of gratitude for God giving me this opportunity to see and endure this and because some of the people I write about I love more deeply now than I ever did.


The other reason I write what I do is because of the people I’ve met along the way. Every week guys ask me what I’m writing about. Every week guys will say “do you really think anybody cares?” I always tell them somebody does, in fact, care and it matters. Because the truth matters. What happens in these men’s lives matter.


Whether I write about her or not isn’t going to make my ex-wife suddenly remember what existed between us and make her come to see me or write me the kind of letter I long to receive. It won’t make my sons open up to me or my friends remember what friendship means. It won’t change DOC or make the Governor put his faith in action. Then again, maybe it will. Sometimes the truth can do miraculous things.

Opening Day and More

Thursday was Opening Day for this year’s baseball season. It was also my older son’s 23rd birthday. Opening Day was always a big deal to my sons and me. I love baseball and turned them into fans. Every year on Opening Day, I’d pick my sons up early from school. We’d grill bratwurst, make burgers, popcorn, nachos, you name it and watch games on ESPN. At some point in the afternoon we’d head outside for a game of catch. During the late afternoon seventh inning stretch, we’d get up and stretch. My kids looked forward to Opening Day almost as much as I did.



I love baseball. I think on the seventh day when God rested, He actually planned the game out. It is a perfect game, mathematically precise, statistically in-depth, artistically beautiful. It is a game played by men who remember when they were boys. Opening Day symbolizes hope. It’s a new season and anyone can win.


Thursday, as the first pitch was being thrown out, Opie was called to medical. Two weeks ago he had been hospitalized for three days with a severe respiratory infection. He came back to the building about ten pounds lighter and weaker, but after a few days of rec and weights, he looked back to normal. Opie’s a big, muscular, healthy kid - 6’1” about 205 lbs. As I’ve written before, he was raised in prison. He’s been in and out of prison (including juvenile detention) since he was ten.


Anyway, he went down to medical not knowing why he’d been called (normally you get a pass the night before). Fifteen minutes later he was back. He had tears in his eyes. Opie is a product of prison. He knows you don’t show emotion in here. This was serious. This was something you don’t hold tears back.


Opie found out he has a serious illness. I’m not putting the disease out there, but it was enough for me to stop and pray for him. The doctor in this dump just told him. No counselor was available. Just, inmate ________, you have ________.


As I sat and prayed about Opie, I thought about my older son. He and Opie are the same age. My son lived a privileged life. He had everything handed to him. He had parents who loved him. He took part in every school opportunity. He saw the world and went to an exclusive four year college that cost close to $200,000.


Opie grew up with a crack addict father in housing projects in Milwaukee. He was the only white kid in his class and was regularly picked on and beaten up. He started committing crimes when he was seven. He’s had more fights than everyone I know on the outside combined.


But, Opie is a sweet kid. What little he has I’ve seen him share it all. I’ve seen this “incorrigible” felon give the last of his food away to a guy he barely knew who was hungry. I don’t know if I would do that. I’m not sure my sons would do that.


I’ve learned through knowing Opie that you can’t be too quick to judge someone else. When you least expect it, humanity is present.


I don’t understand God. Opie has had a lousy life. He doesn’t deserve this. As I said, I don’t understand God. But, I trust Him. Those of us close to him rallied around him. He called his grandmother. He went out in the sun.


I was worried when he first got the news how he’d handle it. I should have known better. As I said earlier, you can’t be too quick to judge.


This morning E decided to get his back tattoo done. A few days ago he went into the other building to get the outline done. Two nights ago another guy was busted in the wrong building getting his back tattoo.


E spent the morning in 4B getting his work done. After noon count, he went back. He got caught. They packed E up and sent him to the hole. He’ll be there a minimum of five days.


What did the tattoo cost? $325. It will also cost E his job as a maintenance employee. He may be thrown out of college (you can’t stay in college with a conviction).


Big S and I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. He has half a Chinese dragon on his back. He lost money. He’s probably lost his job and maybe lost his schooling.


I miss Opening Day with my boys. I’ll never forget the start of this baseball season.