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.

It’s October. I’ve been thinking …

It’s late October which means baseball is in its crucial weeks. The season always begins in early spring. Even before the final bits of snow have all melted north of the Mason-Dixon Line, pitchers and catchers are already throwing in Florida and Arizona. And spring brings hope, hope for fans in every major league city. “This is our year,” they’ll tell you.
            But spring works its way into summer; and in baseball summer is long. All those spring dreams begin to fade as nine game west coast road trips end two and seven. Your ace needs Tommy John surgery. The free agent savior with a lifetime three hundred average is barely above two-thirty. Dreams begin to die as you see the fade in the standings.

            A few cities meet, maybe even beat, expectations and are in the pennant races. Summer fades into fall and only four are left; then two; finally, one. I get baseball. It is representative of life. You start out young, with dreams, and its spring. But youth fades; life gets tough. If you’re lucky you survive and you make it to fall. You survive and you know the season – your life – was tough, and parts of it didn’t make sense, and you know there’s no explanation why you made it and twenty others didn’t. And you decide no matter what, win or lose, October matters. You will leave it on the field. You will, as Dylan Thomas said, “not go gently into that good night,”

            I’ve been thinking about baseball. October does that to me. I came across a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, “History has proved over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive.” I knew he wasn’t talking about baseball, but somehow I think Dr. King understood the game because he sure understood life.

            Before someone points out that the good doctor referred to “unmerited” suffering – as if there’s a book you can open that points out how much suffering is merited for a particular wrong – I get that. But, I think he was saying life – a lot of times – is about suffering which, quite frankly isn’t fair in our limited way of understanding fairness. You start with the premise that to be human is to screw up (some worse than others), and you look at what people endure in the summers of their lives and you kind of wonder, is God really directing all this?

Every morning I stretch and pray and recite a dozen or so Bible verses I have memorized.

One – Romans 8:28 – goes:

“God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God according to His purposes.”
          
  Almost every day I think about those words and I must confess there are days I believe them a whole lot more than others.

            I’ve been thinking about Bill Buckner. Buckner was the Red Sox first baseman in 1986. He had a lifetime 300 batting average and was a solid fielder. Buckner was a major reason Boston found themselves in the 1986 series against my beloved New York Mets. The Mets. From the moment I saw their grass infield at Shea Stadium in 1968, I loved that team. It was easy early on. Ten years old and ball players like Tom Seaver and Tommy Agee, Cleon Jones, and twenty-two others proved to me miracles happen with their 1969 World Series win. God I knew was a Mets fan. God was fair.

            It didn’t last. Baseball’s business side led the Mets to trade the greatest right hander in the last fifty years – Tom “Terrific.” They barely won even half their games. But I stayed and I watched, and every spring I believed this would be the year. It never was until … until 1986.

            The Mets were the bad boys of baseball. They were brash and they backed their egos up with a 108 win season. Then it got tough. October was tough with a seven game series against the Houston Astros. I watched and agonized through every pitch, every inning, every game. And then there were two.

            The Mets lost games one and two, both at home, to the Red Sox. And Bill Buckner, with knees barely able to hold him up, played, He hit, and he fielded, and Boston went to Fenway halfway to the championship that so long eluded them.

            Baseball is like life. You can give up or you can fight. An elderly Presbyterian minister friend put it this way: “We are commissioned to keep the faith, to fight the good fight …” After three games in Boston, the Mets were still alive taking two of three. And they returned to New York for game six.

            Game six. Every baseball fan knows game six. The Mets, down two runs in the bottom of the tenth inning, down to their last strike with no one on base, and their own scoreboard posting congratulations to “The World Champion Boston Red Sox;” and a hall of fame catcher – Gary Carter – skewered by his own teammates because he was too “nice,” telling the umpire “I’m not making the last fucking out,” because it’s better to go down fighting; and the hits start coming until … until … “The ball gets by Bill Buckner.”

            Miracles. Elation. A twenty-seven year old lawyer standing in his living room telling his twenty-four year old wife “baseball is never over until last out!” And there is Bill Buckner. “Unmerited suffering.”

            Buckner had to leave Boston. The boos and the death threats became too much. Boston’s failure to end their World Series drought in 1986 was exemplified by that little red seamed white ball sliding under Bill Buckner’s open mitt as his knees buckled. Buckner, one of the reasons Boston even made it to the series, was alone, exiled, vilified. He didn’t deserve it, but it was as it was.

            Buckner never vented at his enemies. He never fought back. He wore the abuse and the exile and went on. On was a ranch out west, far away from Boston and baseball and failure. Like I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill Buckner. Baseball is a game for boys. It’s a game you have to love to really get. And Buckner had to give all that up; he had to walk away from what he loved, without a fight; he had to give up the dream.

            I remember every detail when I got the letter. I can recite it from memory: “There is no us. I don’t love you and haven’t for a long time.” The divorce was expected. I’d felt it for years. And, I’d fucked up – more than once. Funny what we convince ourselves is ok to do when we’re afraid. And fear and desperation go hand and hand, and disaster will follow.

            The papers arrived. I read them and my heart broke, I wrote her a letter and mailed her my ring. My friend came to see me. He said my letter made her cry. And then I did nothing. I signed everything away, didn’t try and delay the divorce, and died little by little inside. I couldn’t shake that picture in my mind’s eye when I was young, so young, and had my life ahead of me. And she turned and I saw her eyes and fell in love.

            “… unmerited suffering is redemptive.” I wonder if Dr. King ever uttered those words to a convicted felon while he was still behind bars? Did he ever say them to an aging ballplayer that let a ball slip under his glove? I sit here and watch the new boys of October making a living playing a game, a marvelous, wondrous game and I wonder does Bill Buckner ever say “if only.”

            “If only.” Such small words, yet the weight of our lives hang on them so many times. Can you forgive yourself, can you move on, can you put “if only” to rest? A famous preacher was once asked about the pain he experienced following the end of his marriage. “I am filled with sadness every day,” he said. “But,” he added, “I have no regret. You don’t learn or grow from regret.”

            The Red Sox found themselves down three games to none in the American League Championship Series. They had lost games one and two in New York to their arch-enemies, the hated New York Yankees. It was 2004, and Red Sox fans still felt the pain of all those years of collapse and failure. It was the curse of the Babe, Tony Conigliaro, 1967, 1975; it was Bucky “Fuckin’” Dent and the Yankees, and it was Bill Buckner.

            And Boston resigned itself to another year of hopes dashed, of dreams broken, of baseball’s renewal in the spring being left in pieces in the fall. Something was different this year. The players didn’t look back, and baseball – a blessed game I told my sons God created on the seventh day to remind us that it’s never over until the last out is recorded – was redeemed and renewed in Boston. The Red Sox took four straight from the Yankees and marched into the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

            It happened in St. Louis on an October night that Boston buried all the hurt and pain and disappointment from so many seasons. They won. And a city rejoiced … the past was let go.

            The next spring, there on the mound throwing out the ceremonial first pitch with the Red Sox World Championship banner snapping in the crisp April air stood Bill Buckner. With the crowd standing and clapping he threw the pitch and a new season began. I think Dr. King was smiling and nodding his head and whispering “redemption.” And, I think about that moment as I watch this year’s World Series.

 

First Pitch

Yesterday was opening day and it wasn’t lost on me that the first pitch of the first game of the 2013 baseball season occurred the night before, on Easter Sunday. How appropriate. Easter is the day of hope and renewal. It’s the day we Christians consider “the big one.” It’s the day we know God has final say and nothing is bigger, or more permanent than Him. Simply put, Easter says “God is.” He’s life, love and hope.

            The funny thing is, I see baseball in much the same way. Baseball isn’t merely a game. It’s a metaphor for the ups and downs of life and ultimately for the miracle that is God and what took place on Easter. No matter how bleak and dismal things may appear, when I see that cut diamond and the fielders take their positions, when I watch the pitcher wind up and deliver that very first pitch, I know there is a reason to hope.

            Baseball. I have an aunt who turns sixty-nine this year; she’s eleven years younger than my dad. They are different as can be. Yet, there my dad and I were in 1968, around my ninth birthday, sitting in Shea Stadium with my aunt watching a young New York Mets pitcher named Tom Seaver face Willie Mays and the San Francisco Giants. Forty-four years later and I can still smell the grass; I can still see Seaver’s wind up. That night, I became a Mets fan. Not a season has gone by that I haven’t believed on opening day that my Mets would win the World Series.

            It was easy back then. A season later, 1969, the Mets shocked the sports world by winning the World Series over the vaunted Baltimore Orioles. Earlier that season, a famous Chicago politician scoffed at the Mets chances of even catching his beloved Cubs. “A man will walk on the moon before the Mets ever win a pennant.” July, 1969, I sat transfixed in my living room as astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered the immortal words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he stepped onto the lunar surface. The mayor of Chicago was never better at predicting the future.

            The Mets won and a ten year old boy had his faith rewarded. There was no heartache, no lost season. There was only joy. I decided then and there that God was a Mets fan.

            Opening days came and went after the miracle of 1969. And there were more lost seasons, more disappointments, than successes. The Mets only made it to the post-season one more time until I was a married man a few years removed from law school. For most of those years – 1970 until the early 1980s, baseball was disappointment and heartache. Great players arrived too late in their careers to lead the Mets to victory, young players didn’t meet expectations; and I saw – as my heroes like Tom Seaver were traded – that baseball was a business, not a passion. Yet every opening day I believed this was the year.

            I vowed when we had children that they too would love baseball. Sure enough, shortly after our older son was born I came home with a Mets sleeper. A dozen pictures were taken of our little man in that orange and blue striped outfit with “Mr. Met” prominently displayed. Nine years later that “onside” was pulled out of a zip-lock bag and put on our second son.

            Dinners were filled with talk of baseball. It was the Mets, always the Mets, in our house. When our younger son was just over three he sat patiently on the couch as I watched the 2000 Mets get first one, then two, and finally three ninth inning outs to beat the Giants and advance in the playoffs. I lofted my young son over my shoulders and ran through the living room yelling “Mets win! Mets win!” His shrieking shouts of glee, “Daddy’s crazy,” rang through the house.

            Baseball mattered in our house. It was a bond between my sons and me. And, it helped define the seasons of our family. Every spring, every opening day, was met with anticipation and hope. Spring turned to summer and trips to games which had been scheduled back in the heady days of spring when we all believed this was “the year” were upon us. Those road trips: to DC or Baltimore, Atlanta or Philadelphia and yes even New York, became part of the family atlas.

            Summer trips to Seattle included a Mariners game. A business trip to Indianapolis included a triple A game. We’d head into Richmond – or Lynchburg – for minor league action. Visits to my folks in Raleigh would mean a Durham Bulls or Zebulon Mud Cats game. Baseball and summer were woven into our family’s DNA.

            Opening day. I began a family tradition with our first son. He was eight and in third grade. I sent a note into his teacher. “I will pick him up at noon;” simple, declarative words. But, it was opening day. We would get hot dogs, popcorn and chips, and set up stadium chairs in the den. We’d rise for the National anthem, baseball hats over our hearts, then watch the first pitch. It would begin, a new season, as we – just father and son – would watch game after game on opening day. Before dark, we’d have a catch.

            Every year, every opening day, ten years through our older son’s teens and then our younger son’s elementary and middle school days, there we were. Opening day was spring. Opening day was family. But opening day couldn’t survive an arrest. I was wrong. I realized, when I told my son baseball mirrors life. Nothing in baseball compares to divorce or imprisonment. Baseball isn’t life. Life is harsh, and unforgiving, and tear filled. Baseball is always about next spring, next opening day.

            Maybe that’s what draws me back each year. Just before Christmas, the reports start filtering in from the mid-winter baseball owners meeting. It’s hot stove league time and trades, contract extensions, and manager hirings run across ESPN’s sports ticker. It’s cold and drizzling outside, the days dreary and gray. But, the sports network breaks into its broadcast with news from Peter Gammons or Buster Olney on a huge signing. The report always begins with “All-star pitcher,” or “MVP runner up …” and I hold my breath and wait, hoping its news on my Mets.

            Even when it’s not (after all, the Mets owner, Fred Wilpon, with millions owed to the Bernie Madoff trustee, has begun the process of cutting salary and rebuilding the franchise with young ball players), I still listen intently calculating the relative merits of the move. I look at my calendar and smile. I know there are only sixty-one days until pitchers and catchers report, only sixty-one days until the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues rebud into existence.

            Five World Series have come and gone since my life unalterably changed that hot August day in 2008. Five opening days followed each winter. And each time, as each opening day approached, I began to feel more hopeful. That’s opening day, that’s the first pitch; I knew it: hope.

            I used to tell my sons baseball was a metaphor for life. I forgot so much of my rationale for that philosophy as I struggled with the heartbreak of separation and divorce, and the daily battles inside prison as I tried to negotiate my way around violence, ignorance, and filth. Then, spring would draw near. Days would lengthen, Lent would begin and somehow each day my thoughts would go back, back to earlier springs, earlier opening days, earlier first pitches. I hear the words from Psalm 27 about waiting, waiting for the Lord, or Micah telling anyone who would listen he would be lifted out of the darkness. In my mind’s eye I smelled it, the fresh grass from the infield.

            I wasn’t so far off when I told my boys that on the seventh day God created baseball. After all, it’s about hope, and miracles, perseverance and faith. And, it’s about renewal every spring.

            I saw the first pitch yesterday and I knew, this is the year.

This is our Year

Last night, the New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals in playoff game 7.  It reminded me of an incident years ago, an incident I’ll never forget.

I’m a sports nut and I find many life lessons, shall we say, in sports.  With the exception of football, I am a New York fan through and through.  And that is tough at times; especially when your baseball team (the Mets) can count only two World Series Championships, your basketball team hasn’t won since 1973, and your hockey team, well. . .

Patience.  I think about that word, that virtue a great deal.  I’m not a patient man.  And yet, with my teams, I have the patience of Job.  Every spring I prepare for baseball knowing “this is our year”.  And every year – except for two – my heart is broken by October.  And still, as winter rolls in I say “wait ‘til spring.  We’ll get em next year.”

And then there’s hockey and the New York Rangers.  I discovered hockey as a little boy, eight or nine years old.  Ironically, I can’t even skate.  But watching those guys fly around the ice, I was transfixed.  And the Rangers?  They played at Madison Square Garden; their jerseys were red, white and blue; and they were New York’s team.  It was then I learned of the curse.  “Rangers haven’t won since 1940”, I was told.  It didn’t matter.   I knew they’d win.

And year in and year out they wouldn’t.  Not in the ‘60’s, or the ‘70’s, or the ‘80’s.  Years would come and go and the Rangers wouldn’t win.  Not once in all those years did I give up on the team.  “That’s what a fan does”, I’d tell myself.  And I’d always know there was next year.

Time moved ahead to 1994.  We were living in Virginia.  It was spring and the Rangers had the best record in hockey.  A future hall of famer – Mark Messier – had signed with the Rangers at the beginning of the season and he had promised “the cup” would come to New York.  All season it seemed that way.  The Rangers were unstoppable.

We only had one son at that point.  He turned six during the hockey season and he was a “little Larry”.  Every night, as we sat down to dinner, we’d talk sports.  I’d tell him about memories of baseball, football, basketball and hockey games.  And I’d tell him “this is the year the curse is lifted . . . the Rangers are gonna win.”

The playoffs began and it looked as though once again the Rangers would break my heart.  More than once they faced elimination; more than once Messier would come out and “guarantee” a victory.  Sudden-death overtime games, it didn’t matter.  Somehow the Rangers survived and lived to play one more day.

I would sit up late into the night and watch every second of every game and then the next day replay it for our son who’d sit spellbound as I described yet another improbable win.

And then it came down to game 7, in the Garden, for the Cup.  Our six year old was fast asleep but I’d promised him “I’ll wake you when we win”.  The clock ticked down, so slowly it seemed.  And then there was just thirty seconds left.  “What are you doing?” my wife asked as I ran up the stairs to lift our sleeping son in my arms.  “I promised him.  He needs to see this,” I said and I held him close as the clock clicked down, “10, 9. . .”  They panned the arena and old men, men from the era of World War II and Korea; large lumbering construction workers, wept with joy.  Fifty four years and the Rangers finally won!

Natalie Merchant’s song “These Are the Days” played on the Garden sound system and Messier and his teammates skated around the rink with the Stanley Cup above their heads and I, I held my son close and whispered over and over “I told you they’d win.  You always have to believe.”

That message resonates with me.  Sometimes it sounds like a tired cliché, but the truth is, you have to be patient and believe.  It’s a sports metaphor, but I’ve come to understand through this experience, it’s also a definition of faith.  “Be patient and believe.”

Last night, the Rangers won another Game 7 playoff game.  I couldn’t help but think of 1994 and wonder, with so much facing me, could this be the year?

Ten Years After

As I watched the Mets-Phillies game last night the news broke that Navy SEALS had killed Osama Bin Laden. There are dates we just remember in great detail. For most Americans, 911 was one of those collective dates seared into the nation’s conscience. My life is so much different today from that beautiful September day. Ten years, a lifetime of change.



On September 11th I went to work early as I did any other day. I was conducting a training program in a conference room on the third floor of our corporate offices. It was about 10:00 am; we’d been meeting since 8:00. The conference room door opened and a coworker, a friend, walked in. Ashen faced, she said “planes flew into the World Trade Center. One of the towers collapsed.”


I looked at her for a moment. Her words weren’t registering. Just four months earlier to the day (May 11th), I had been on the observation deck of the towers with my older son, serving as a chaperone to his “TAG” (talented and gifted) class trip to New York City. There was no conceivable way, I thought, that those towers could collapse.


I cancelled the remainder of our training program and headed back to my first floor office. The building was silent. Everyone was glued to their computer screens watching the tragedy unfold.


My voicemail light was flashing. It was my wife. She knew I was scheduled to go to DC later that week and, in her immediate reaction to the attack, couldn’t remember if I’d already left. Her message was simple and very emotional. “Honey, there’s been an attack on New York and Washington. I don’t know where you are. Please call me. I love you. “


I called her and assured her I was fine. I also kept that message. Up until my arrest and removal from my office that message stayed on my voicemail. So many times after that day as my life spiraled out of control, I would return to that message just to hear her say “I love you”.


That night, we had a quiet family dinner. Our older boy was thirteen. He loved hearing about and discussing politics and history. He also had his personal memories of being on top of the trade centers. The attack had a noticeable effect on him. Our younger son was four. He knew things weren’t right, knew something “bad” had happened. But, he was with this mommy and daddy and brother. His world was secure.


Later, my wife and I sat close to each other on our couch. She wept and told me the world our sons were living in would never be the same. “There’ll be war and a draft and “D” is so close to that age. We won’t be able to travel”, she sobbed.


I, on the other hand, was pissed. I hated militant Islam. I was sick of appeasement. I wanted payback. And, I was convinced justice would be done.


Later that night as the emotions of the day poured over us, we made love. In many ways, my wife and I were closer that day than at almost any time in our twenty years together. That day also marked the beginning of the collapse of our relationship. Things began to change between us after 911. Like the towers, our strength, our bond, could not survive the intense heat of what was coming.


Between 1998 and September 2001, I had embezzled less than $150,000; after 911 until my arrest in August 2008, I stole almost $2 million. There was a connection. For a long time I denied it, but there was. I became convinced that we had to destroy evil while I ignored my own misdeeds. She worried about loss of life and lifestyle. She lost respect for me. I became angry with her that she was so quick to dismiss my views.


Then, there was the travel, the gifts, the new everything. I was proving to her that no terrorist, no war could stop us from being happy, having our dreams met. She accepted everything. Our friends accepted my extravagant largesse. But, inside I knew.


I could tell how she felt about me. I never heard “I love you” the way I heard it on the voicemail message. It drove me crazy. What I wanted more than anything was to be told “I love you”. The world was falling apart with anthrax, war, terror attacks. My life was falling apart. Still, I made lamb and crab legs and filets. We ate, drank and were merry while the world, while my life, went to hell.


And, I did stupid things and ordinary things and occasionally courageous things, all in the name of getting my life, my self-respect back. I was so sure what the future held on 911 as I sat in my home comforting the woman I loved more than my own life. I was so sure, yet I was so wrong about almost everything.


I greeted the news this morning with a high degree of ambivalence. In many respects, justice was carried out by the raid in Pakistan. If anyone deserved to die it certainly was Bin Laden. But as I watched the coverage, I couldn’t help but think about my Bible reading this morning.


“Teacher, what is the most important commandment? There are two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” I wondered what Jesus would say about the precision strike that toppled public enemy number one.


Like this wonderful country, 911 was a watershed event in my life. Like this country, in the name of right and good (and love), I did a lot of wrong things in the aftermath of that horrendous day. And those decisions had repercussions I couldn’t anticipate.


I lost the woman I loved after 911. It wasn’t her fault. Things could have been different between us, but they are what they are. If she’s happy, then I can be at peace.


And me? This morning I read Exodus 14. The Israelites were at the waters edge. The Egyptian army was bearing down on them. They were afraid and wanted to go back, back to where they came from. Moses called out to God. And God said, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the people to move forward.”


Move forward. Can’t change what’s happened. Can’t go back. Just trust and move forward. And the sea was parted.

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.

Thinking About Roger

They indicted Roger Clemens this week for lying under oath to Congress about using steroids. I must confess, I can’t stand Roger Clemens. I’m a life long New York Mets fan. When Clemens deliberately beaned Mike Piazza – a great Met – I went ballistic. I still recall my wife reacting in horror as I led our then 3 year old son in prayers:



“Dear God, please make Roger Clemens’ arm fall off. May he choke and die, O Lord.”


Yeah, that was wrong-funny, but wrong (apparently praying for your husband to die in jail is OK though). So, yes I hate Roger Clemens.


But, lying about steroids? Give me a break. If Roger Clemens wants to shoot his butt full of steroids, so be it. If baseball wants to punish him, that’s their business. Clemens isn’t in trouble for using steroids. He’s in trouble for lying about using steroids.


I’ve got a definite opinion about lying. Lying to my wife hurt us more than anything. I couldn’t – or so I thought – tell her everything that was going on. Instead, I made everything seem perfect. Need more love and affection? Overwhelm her with gifts to prove my love and desire for her.


Fear is a terrible emotion. And, fear of failure, fear of loss, can lead you to do horrendous, self-destructive things. You finally realize that when it’s too late. I did. I decided to come clean when I was confronted about a questionable $30,000.00 check. My employer offered to suspend me with pay. I decided to tell the truth, the whole painful truth. What’d I get? A six count indictment and a 30 year sentence (with suspended time and good time I get out in 2020!).


The truth also led to my divorce and finding out the woman I loved hadn’t loved me for years. The truth sucks, right? Wrong. The truth made me free! (I wish I had coined that expression).


Which brings me back to Roger Clemens. It was reported they offered Clemens a plea bargain; no jail time if he admitted he used steroids. Clemens turned the deal down. He’s either innocent (which I highly doubt given that his former trainer kept incriminating evidence against Clemens “just in case”), or he’s scared to death what baseball people – fans, sportswriters, hall of famers – will think if he admits he used.


Fear is a terrible thing. So is the absolute, unlimited power of the Federal Government to prosecute you. The government will spend whatever it deems necessary to prosecute you, even if it’s only over a needle in your ass or a loudmouth Illinois Governor trying to auction off our incompetent President’s former senate seat.


Here’s my advice, Roger. I still can’t sand you, but I want to help. I’ve discovered during my time locked up that most incarcerated guys can’t be honest with themselves. They can’t come out and say either “I really screwed up. This is my fault; I’m responsible” or “Yeah, I did it.” Either way, they’d at least be honest about the circumstances that put them here.


This country – in spite of our current asinine judicial system – does forgive and give second, third, even fourth chances (isn’t that right Robert Downey Jr. and Marion Barry).


FDR was right. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Tell everybody you used. You wanted to pitch well into your 40’s. Your body was aging and you needed the edge.


As much as I can’t stand you, I don’t want you in prison blues.