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The Tampa Bay Rays win the pennant on my birthday.

The day before my ninth birthday my dad called me into his room and pulled a present out from beneath the mattress.  It was a new Wilson baseball glove with “George Brett” written across the palm.  He was getting a head start on breaking it in for me.  He had some glove conditioner ready to go, and we branded it on the stove, which was our way of distinguishing our equipment from anyone else’s.

I was as enthusiastic about baseball then as I have ever been in my life.  My dad and I played catch every evening until it was too dark to see the ball.  We lived 400 miles from the closest major league baseball team, but I thought about the sport constantly.  I played little league ball in a park right on the shore of Old Tampa Bay, and at night it was refreshing to be by the water.  The park is still there, but the baseball diamond is long gone.  I played several different positions, but I remember being in the outfield mostly.  I usually could make contact with the ball, even if I wasn’t an especially powerful batter.  I remember a kid on my team hit a homerun over the fence once and I was amazed.  It seemed like it went a mile, though I am sure it wasn’t more than 200 feet.

When I was little I did manage to see a few major league games at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta.  I distinctly remember seeing the Cubs vs. Braves ca. 1985.  And I got to see lots of spring training and minor league games close to home.  My dad would get us box seats, and we’d watch the Reds at Al Lopez Field in Tampa (here’s a neat film of that park from 1984); the Phillies at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater; the Blue Jays at Grant Field in Dunedin; and, best of all, the Cardinals at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg.  It wasn’t expensive, and you could get close to the action.  Plus, since the crowds were sparser, you could sometimes snag a foul ball that landed in your vicinity.

When I was young I didn’t have much hope that a major league team would move to our area for regular season play.  Every few years there would be talk that an existing team would move to St. Petersburg or Tampa, but the truth was that these teams were really just using us to get leverage in their home towns to get new stadiums.  Then, in the late 1980s, St. Pete, against the advice of MLB, built a dome.  I remember going on opening day, March 3, 1990, when it was called the Florida Suncoast Dome.  There was then no indication that baseball would come to town.  It took eight years before the Devil Rays took the field.  Even then, the dome required extensive renovations.  I remember there being a good deal of outrage that a park built for baseball was so unsuited for the sport.  It was very poorly designed. But I have been to several games at what is now called Tropicana Field, and though the building is soulless–like a giant warehouse–it’s comfortable and clean.  Wrigley Field is magical, but it’s small and you are really crowded in there.  When somebody in your row needs to get out you have to stand up. That happens every minute and a half. And The Trop is a good value.  When I went last season, tickets were $5 and parking was free.  You were even allowed to bring certain outside food, though I opted for the concession stand.  It was just depressing to see such small crowds.

But now we are in a new age.  Tonight the Rays will face the Red Sox for the American League title.  I am nervous, of course, but hopeful.  The Rays have played so well, and if they get off on the right foot, Boston won’t get the energy from the fans like they would at Fenway, and will be less likely to stage a big comeback like they did on Thursday night.

So, the boy who never thought there’d be big league ball in his town will tonight watch his home team take on a storied and favored opponent.  (I know the Red Sox are favored by the radio and television and newspaper covereage this series has received.)  I’ll watch the game on TV, of course, but if I could be there I’d look a lot like the other boys in the bleachers:  I’d have a wide-eyed expression of amazement at being witness to the most perfect sport, and I’d be wearing the baseball glove that my father gave me 23 years ago today.

There aren’t many dates before I met Miriam where I can be certain what each of us were doing separately; June 6th, 1994 is one of the few.

On that day, the 50th anniversary of the allied invasion of Europe, Miriam was in Normandy on a class trip.

It was the last day of my junior year of high school. I distinctly recall my English teacher, Mr. Marks, writing “D-Day” on the chalk board. I also remember one of the jocks in the class casually calling me “a freak”. I had never thought of myself as being different from anyone else. I also recall that the girl with whom I was obsessed (and over whom had suffered considerable angst) asked a guy I considered a close friend whether he and I would be hanging out over the summer. My feelings were hurt when, without hesitation and sounding almost offended, he said, “no!” I had never felt less popular.

We’re just back from dinner out, celebrating our third anniversary. May 28, 2005 was the happiest day of my life. Well, that may not be exactly true: the following three days were pretty excellent, and much less stressful.

Sandi and Jeff took this brief video, as you can tell by the random cobra at the end. I am very glad to see any portion of that day, though if anyone had a complete video of the ceremony it’d be a dream come true.

The ceremony was my favorite part of the whole affair. That actually holds true for all weddings I attend. I just like ceremonies better than receptions. And Uncle Tom did it perfect; he was the best decision we made (and, really it was a no-brainer, since we didn’t even consider an alternative). I distinctly remember sitting with him and my Dad (the best best man) in my hotel room before hand, going through the very traditional text I wanted to use. That’s why you hear him say, “I pronounce that they are husband and wife together.” That’s my favorite part. I was so happy we did our vows and rites so formally and traditionally. I know a lot of people like to make up things to say to each other, and I know some preachers or officiants like crackin’ jokes or making off-the-cuff remarks. But that’s not for me. I wanted it a particular way, and Uncle Tom did it totally straight, in spite of the emotional nature of the occasion. We were all on the verge of crying the entire time, and, in fact, at the pause in the video, before he says, “those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”, he had to gather himself, too, and quietly said to Miriam and me, “okay, here we go….” It’s something I will never forget as long as I live.

So, Miriam and I enter our fourth year of marriage extraordinarily blessed with good health and good fortune, beloved family and good friends. Hard times come again no more.

In 1987, when the most garish aesthetic elements of that decade had only just reached their zenith, my father took me to a store on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa called Paragon Music, where I got a close look at electric guitars for really the first time in my life. I have a vivid recollection of a wall of pointy instruments in obnoxious neon and florescent colors. Not long before, Don Johnson had had a popular music video for a song called “Heartbeat”. At Paragon I saw the same bright green guitar that appears in the video (at about :10). I thought it was the epitome of cool. I do not remember if I was able to actually touch any guitars that day, but my desire to have one of my own was suddenly awakened.

I was only ten years old in 1987, and I certainly had no friends who played guitars, or any instruments, really. But I wanted one so bad that I probably annoyed a lot of people in my lobbying to procure one. That Christmas morning, the only one we spent at Scott Court, I didn’t see an electric guitar under the tree. Remembering that when I was a child, the true meaning of Christmas lay in the receiving of gifts, I was sad. But taking the torn and crumpled paper that had wrapped an assortment of seemingly lesser gifts out to the garbage in the garage I found a small tube amplifier–an Alamo Embassy–and a cardboard box which held an Electra 2253w guitar. I was ecstatic.

Later that morning, before we headed off to see the rest of the family in Dade City, my Dad and I posed for a picture. Twenty Christmases later, at my Grandmother’s house in St. Petersburg, we recreated that historic photograph, with all of us looking a little bit worse for the wear I suppose, including the Electra, which has lost a pickup and sits unstrung in a closet these days. Still, as I lately obsess over white blonde Telecasters, and candy green Stratocasters, I have that old Japanese Fender copy as a tangible reminder of where my interest in playing music–however unaccomplished–began, twenty years ago.