Bottom of the ninth, Royals down two, bases empty, two out...

"If Willie Wilson could get on ...
And bring George Brett to the plate...
Well...
You could dream a little..."

Rest in peace, Fred White

--Lofflin

Dad

For over five years now my family has been keeping a secret that isn’t a secret at all: anyone who has interacted with my parents during that time knows exactly what it is.

It’s a problem that has come to consume all of our lives. A problem that continues to grow worse. But because that problem reached a breaking point recently, it’s one we feel like we can talk about. These are the words that until now I’ve only been able to say to close family members and the closest of friends:

My father has Alzheimer’s disease.

*****

We first started to notice it six or seven years ago. During the course of a Saturday afternoon, Dad would ask one of us a simple question, something like, “What time do the Royals play tonight?” An hour later, he would ask the same question again. We didn’t think much of it, or at least we didn’t admit it to ourselves.

As his memory got worse, my wife and I whispered about it in bed at night. My brother and I discussed it in secret asides at family get-togethers. We didn’t use the “A” word, not at first.

By the next year, there was no denying Dad’s memory was leaving him. When driving, he would forget the speed limit, and slow down to 35 miles per hour, even if he was on the interstate. If we were eating at an unfamiliar restaurant, Dad would get confused and think we were in a different city. He began “sundowning,” a nightmarish cycle where dementia sufferers experience increased confusion in the evenings, and he never wanted to leave the house after dark, or even if it was approaching nighttime.

By this point, while our immediate family was discussing the situation openly with Dad out of the room, my brave Mom slowly convinced Dad that he should see a doctor about his memory. The doctor asked him a series of simple questions: Who is the president? What year is it? What’s 16 plus 27? My Dad, a 68-year-old, college-educated accountant, couldn’t answer any of the questions.

The official Alzheimer’s diagnosis followed. Dad was placed on a medication called Aricept, which was supposed to slow the symptoms. It didn’t. Dad only got worse. He often would ask the same series of questions 20 times in the span of an hour. Dad would tell a story from his childhood, and as soon as the story came to an end he would start to tell the exact same story over again.

It’s like someone hit the “reset” button on his mind every few minutes.

*****

Imagine you wake up out of a dream you can’t remember. But you’re not in bed. You’re walking through your own living room. Your son is sitting on the couch and you say hello, as though he just arrived for a visit, but he tells you he’s been there for an hour. You ask where his wife is, and he points across the room: she’s standing right there, and she’s been there for an hour too. Confused, you close your eyes.

When you open them, you’re standing in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and you’ve never been there before. You have no idea why you’re there, and you don’t see a familiar face anywhere.

You blink again, and suddenly you’re riding in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. You can tell your family is around you, enjoying a pleasant afternoon drive, but you have no idea where the car is headed and you have no recollection of how you got in the car in the first place.

Blink. You’re in the middle of a conversation with a complete stranger. You don’t know where you are, so you ask. “You’re at the hardware store,” the stranger says, “and that’s the third time you’ve asked me that question.”

Blink. Now you’re in a vast parking lot. You seem to be leaving a store, but you don’t know what kind of store, what’s inside the bag in your hand, and of course you don’t know where you parked. You walk around the parking lot but nothing refreshes your memory. Your search becomes frantic.

It’s getting dark. You’re scared. And you are utterly alone.

This is the very real nightmare that is Alzheimer’s disease.

*****

In the last few years, we began to discover the other symptoms of Alzheimer’s, as if complete short-term memory loss wasn’t enough. Alzheimer’s disease also has a way of enhancing a person’s worst characteristics while destroying the best. Dad became constantly irritable and angry. He hardly ever talked and never wanted to socialize, especially with people outside the immediate family. And inside Dad’s brain, he began to craft elaborate conspiracy theories. One day, he believed he was being imprisoned. The next, he thought that his house, where he had lived for the last 35 years, was a hotel in a different city, and he wanted to know why our family pictures were all over the walls.

And then came the breaking point.

Three weeks ago: Dad developed a particularly nasty conspiracy theory that he wouldn’t let go. He was as angry as I’ve ever seen him, just plain mad at my mother, my brother and I for the situation we had put him in. And Dad began to show signs of violence: he slammed doors, threw things, made threats, and shoved my brother during a confrontation.

Two weeks ago: My brother received a frantic phone call in the middle of the night from Mom; she was scared that Dad would hurt her, and she needed to be picked up. My brother called me on his way over to get her, and my wife and I drove to my brother’s house.

In the twilight hours of that night, we decided it was time to act. My brother and I drove to Dad’s house at 3 a.m. By that point he was completely calm and had forgotten about the events that had caused us to come over. We spent the night at his house. But by 7 a.m. the next morning, Dad was furious again, for no reason he could enunciate. We were worried he would hurt himself or one of us.

We decided it was time to act. That day was the hardest of my life. Because of his sudden behavior change, Dad’s doctor recommended we take him to the emergency room for evaluation. Of course, he wouldn’t go willingly. We called 911 and a platoon of squad cars and an ambulance arrived. He went, unwillingly, but without incident.

About one week ago: Dad was transferred from one hospital to another, this one with a special psychiatric unit that treats elderly dementia patients. He is there now. This hospital represents a transition phase. He’ll be there another week or two. And then we will have him transferred to a nursing facility with a secure Alzheimer’s wing.

It’s the only option. We all know it. Dad can’t come back home. But that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. At least a dozen times in the past week, I’ve had doubts about whether we’re doing the right thing. I can’t sleep at night sometimes, worried that we’ve made a terrible mistake.

But every time those doubts surface, I remember two things:

First: At 3 a.m. on Dad’s last day at home, during a lucid moment, he told my brother and I something he’s told us several times since the disease took over: “If I end up going crazy, and you decide it’s time to put me away, just promise me that you’ll do what’s best for your mother.” I know that this course of action is what’s best, not only for her, but for everyone.

Second: As Dad climbed into the ambulance and looked back at his house for perhaps the last time, he told my brother and I that he never wanted to see us again.

The former incident was my Daddy talking, telling us that everything was going to be all right.

The latter incident was the disease talking, telling us that everything we ever loved about our father was gone for good.

We’ve lost Dad, and there’s no getting him back.

We’ve lost him to a disease that takes away, among other things, his ability to remember, so it’s ironic that the best thing we have left of him is our memories.

*****

I remember Saturday mornings with my Dad. When I was little, I always woke up first on the weekends. I would tiptoe to Mom and Dad’s bedroom and I would whisper, “Hey, Dad!” He would joyfully wake up and we would go have an adventure together.

I remember summer family road trips. While my Mom and my brother conspired or napped int he backseat, I rode up front with my Dad and served as his navigator.

I remember the books. Dad loved to read, and he taught my brother and I how to love it as well. He opened up the universe to us in the pages of the vast library in his house.

I remember Dad always left work at the office. He never seemed tired when he got home from work; Dad was overjoyed to see us and spend the evening with us, each and every night.

I remember Dad took us to countless Royals games during hot Kansas City summers, and even if he had to work the next day, he would always let us stay well after the game ended to get autographs from the players.

I remember Dad’s pride at my youthful accomplishments: a good grade, a sports trophy, graduating from high school and college. He was there every step of the way.

I remember that well after dementia had taken over, my brother and his wife had a baby. Dad hadn’t been able to remember anything for years, but the instant he heard the baby boy’s name, Bryce, it became a part of him. To this day he knows his grandson’s name.

I remember Louis Edward Kelsey not by the disease that destroyed his brain and his life, but the man he made me. I remember Louis Edward Kelsey as my Dad.

- Matt Kelsey

A new cap, but not my favorite

NOTE: Since I don't have anything significant to add about the tragic Boston Marathon bombing case, and since that seems to be all you can find online the last few days, a brief diversion...

After work today I drove to the mall.

That's a sentence I thought I would never utter again. I'm too old to be a "mall shopper," and malls aren't what they used to be. But I had a specific purchase in mind, and the mall was the best place to find it.

I wanted to buy a new Kansas City Royals cap.

I own several Royals hats in all styles and colors. I have a cap from Royals Spring Training. I have caps from the 2012 All-Star Game. I have giveaway caps from the ballpark. I even have one, a gift from my brother, that's bright yellow with "Royals" written across the front in a red rock-n-roll font; if you don't look at it closely, you'd assume it said "Aerosmith," or "Macho Man Randy Savage."

But my classic white-KC-on-solid-blue cap was getting a little worse for the wear. So I decided it was time to replace it.

The one I bought, from the mall hat store, is awesome. It's the exact same kind the big leaguers wear: New Era 59-Fifty, hand-stitched, MLB authenticated, fitted size 7 1/2, and, surprisingly, made in the USA. It's a beautiful cap.

But it's not my favorite Royals cap I've ever had. That distinction belongs to a cap I wore a long, long time ago.

My family had a close family friend when I was growing up, a gentleman named Ralph Lynch, who was my dad's co-worker. I could write post after post about Ralph, who passed away a decade ago. Besides my dad and my brother, Ralph was the greatest man I ever knew. Both of my grandfathers passed away before I was born, so Ralph was like a grandpa to me.

He was a Royals fan, too. One of my earliest memories is watching the 1985 World Series from the carpet of our living room next to my big brother. My mom, dad and Ralph were seated behind us. When George Brett embraced Bret Saberhagen on the mound after the final out of Game Seven, my brother and I pounded our fists on the carpets and screamed until our throats were raw.

Not long after the '85 series, Ralph was over at our house one Saturday. He and my dad were sitting on the back deck drinking Pabst, and my brother and I were pretending to be Star Wars figures or something like that. Ralph was wearing a Royals cap that day, and for some reason he decided it had outlived its usefulness - Ralph was unsentimental, and if something needed to be replaced, by god, he replaced it. Ralph took the cap off and threw it in the trash can.

But I didn't have a Royals cap at the time. So I dug Ralph's old hat right out of the trash. And I wore it.

Every day.

For years.

That was the best cap I ever owned.

Lift the black cloud ... the old order is just clinging by its fingernails and the cultural glacier moves on. Someday we'll laugh at this silliness. Gun craziness. Gay marriage bans. Maybe not today... but someday

"Do you mean to tell me women couldn’t vote in America before 1920? Why, that was just 93 years ago."

"You’re not serious. Really? Blacks were once counted as only three-fifths a whole person? In America?"

"What? Coca Cola once contained cocaine? That’s crazy."

Not so crazy, actually. All true. And, this morning allow me to use those three hard-to-imagine ideas to lift the black cloud of recent events from my head.

We live in interesting times. Since the early 1960s, we have lived in a world in the midst of great cultural upheaval, not unlike the vast political, geographic and economic upheaval of the industrial revolution. Real change, real revolution is slow. The 1960s did more than introduce the world to Muddy Waters and end the Vietnam War. They began the glacial movement of the centerpoint of American culture that we are today finally able to measure.

The centerpoint will continue to move across our landscape. You can’t hold it back or turn it around any more than you could hold back a glacier once it is in motion. The game is still being played but the outcome is decided.

So, what we see in these final machinations of the political and cultural machine are the last ditch efforts of the past to hold back the future. It is that thought with which I comfort myself this morning.

Someday, I propose, somebody will say to somebody else:

‘You’re kidding. You could buy a gun at a gun show or on the Internet without a background check? That’s crazy.’

‘You mean to tell me in those days a person could keep an arsenal fit only for war in the closet of his home?’

‘That’s wild. People actually argued for fewer restrictions on the rights of people who are mentally ill to have guns? Guns?’

‘Man, what a crazy time. The government kept track of who bought cold medicine but not machine guns?’

'Really. Are you serious? A guy actually shot his wife by accident in a restaurant when the gun in his pocket went off? In his pocket? In a restaurant?'

'A teenage kid. A nine-millimeter in the pocket of his hoodie? Went off accidentally and shot a child??'

‘Are you serious? The Missouri legislature spent time debating a law about chili suppers when all this was happening?’

‘Really. Investment bankers actually got away with that shit in those days? That's highway robbery!’

'Do you mean to tell me they didn't have universal health care back then? How could that be? What happened if you got sick?'

And, of course:

‘The government actually restricted who could be married to whom? Really? If you were gay you couldn't marry? They actually said marriage is defined as one woman, one man? They said that?’

These changes are inevitable. They have already happened. Nowhere was Bob Dylan more prescient than 50 years ago when he wrote “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

“Come senators, congressmen 

Please heed the call 

Don’t stand in the doorway 

Don’t block up the hall 

For he who gets hurt 

Will be he who has stalled 

There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’ 

It’ll soon shake your windows 

And rattle your walls 

For the times they are a-changin’..."

Way back in 1963, Mr. Dylan just about nailed what happened in Congress and the rest of the world yesterday. As he so eloquently put it: “The order is rapidly fadin…’ Indeed, it is, though on some days it may not look like it.

--Lofflin

Drone Reporting 101... journalism education atwitter again as technology drives innovative storytelling and shoe leather -- shoe rubber actually -- becomes obsolete

Tony Botello's new awesome unmanned tipster

OMG!

Drone Reporting 101.

We’re falling behind again. It is just impossible to keep up with the technological curve in the field of journalism.

For a while, journalism educators were all atwitter about teaching students to tweet their stories. This doesn’t make much sense, in practice, because students already know more about tweeting than even the most thumb adept professor. Most of the students can tweet with ease but can’t write a simple declarative sentence to save their souls. Come to think of it, being able to write a simple subject-verb sentence may be the most important skill a tweeting reporter needs to learn.

Some educators have been intrigued by video games designed to teach journalism.  Others are falling all over themselves to teach Facebook journalism. Of course, cell phone journalism is passé. Ipad journalism is teetering on the edge of passé. Four square anyone? Not your father’s playground.

Technology isn’t new to journalism. Reporters have always made nearly instant use of whatever tools they could. The job demands it.

My own career spans tools from the old Associated Press teletype to Google search. I nearly got fired over a teletype machine. The old machine had bells to tell you how important a story crossing the wire was. When Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation crossed the wire, the machine sounded four bells. Having never heard four bells I rushed to see what was being transmitted. When I saw the news I let out a hoot.

My boss, unfortunately, was a died-in-the-wool Republican. He was not amused.

I also got into trouble with a phony story I cooked up with another reporter on one of the first generation newsroom computers… but I’ll save that tale of nearly career-fatal obscenity for another time. Our pioneering mini-computer system was fragile, to say the least. One morning I was picking out my readheaded Afro in front of the screen and the static electricity turned everything to Zs, including the page I had spent an hour building.

Later, as computers moved to the desktop, I bought an early IBM PC to be able to transmit stories to New York without having to go through the rigmarole of Western Union. The first day the $3,000 machine was on my desk at home I got frustrated because I couldn’t get the dial-up modem to work. Not that I knew what a dial up modem was. I just knew the damned thing would not connect to New York, or any place else. I went to the bookstore and got a book on Basic thinking something must be wrong with the programming. Within a half-day of freeing the computer from the box, I had done something irreparable to the system. From that day until the day I finally retired the machine six years later, the second message on the screen every time it booted up read: “Unrecognized command in config system.”

I don't know to this day what that message actually means, but to me it says, "Think before you tinker, you idiot."

And, now, I am to be turned loose with a drone to do my reporting. All day I’ve been trying to figure out how I would use it -- as the Kansas City Star writers put it – to tell stories. I assume the primary use for the Lofflin-Bot will be research, not actually storytelling. I can’t see the advantage of hovering it over the keyboard, but, with technology, you never know. Maybe it could watch me type and edit my work in real time.

I can see how it might be good for interviewing. I could sit home in my pajamas and interview over the phone while sending the L-Bot through the door of the subject’s workplace to provide environmental elements for the lede.

Or, in the case of a corporate interview, the L-Bot could be unleashed to read the notes the PR guy is slipping to the CEO while he's talking to me on the phone. Intriguing.

Of course, I understand I couldn't send it into the women’s shower at the health club, but if I turned off the video couldn't I use it to eavesdrop on women council members in the powder room? Some interesting ethical issues arise. In some cities, three or four women council members might actually be a quorum and, thus, a meeting. Sunshine laws might apply.

I like the idea of sending L-Bot to city council and school board meetings instead of young reporters who are easily bored and eternally distracted. L-Bot suffers neither malady and, when the council or the board decides to hide out in executive session L-Bot might well slip through the door in pursuit of government transparency. I can see the headline: "From bathroom to backroom, we seek the truth."

I can see how useful it would be to cover fires. Ernest Hemmingway complained in a letter to his brother at the turn of the last century that covering a Kansas City fire had put holes in his cashmere overcoat and the Star had been too cheap to pay for the damage. Always be ready for the worst, he warned. The L-Bot, naturally, will eliminate this danger.

Speaking of heat, next time the temperature tops 110-degrees and we need to send someone out to fry an egg on the sidewalk – I did, actually, try this once and to no avail – we’ll send L-Bot instead and stay cool in the newsroom.

Note to students: Be warned. We’ll have a 10-point piloting quiz on Monday. I won’t be there, however. The university has decided to jump right into the unmanned classroom craze. Don’t be late because L-Bot will only call roll once.

--Lofflin – wondering after watching a few minutes of the ACM awards on television tonight, what the C stands for.

OK, a ray of hope on Opening Day in KC: My wife didn't give me up for lent, the Royals might be kinda good, and the Weather Braintrust has taken snow out of the forecast... for now

It would be macabre if it were anyone else – any other couple – in any other city. But in Kansas City, it seems somehow natural that Ewing and Muriel Kauffman would build their own graveyard in the middle of the city, plant it to 7,000 varieties of flowers, herbs, trees and scrubs – from lemon trees to orchids – then open it to the public and one very fat cat…. of the pure feline variety.

So it is with Kauffman Gardens on the east end of the Country Club Plaza in a fine green space the city has somehow managed to preserve smack between the two ends of its economic spectrum. Well… it wasn’t the city who preserved this green space, it was Mr. Kauffman – the same way he preserved baseball here. Except for the pests – wedding photographers mostly – his garden has turned into a peaceful oasis for city dwellers to collect thoughts, lament the end of the summer of green and growth, and, especially, to welcome the rebirth of spring.

Which is why I was there in mid-March with a film camera and a hopeful heart. Hopeful, for one, the snows were over.

Hope soon, and dramatically, dashed.

I was also there hopeful about the prospects for Mr. Kauffman’s home nine. Every city is hopeful for the home nine in spring – visions of pennants spring to mind like crocuses in the backyard. But, in this city, at least, hope is always tempered by reality. In my case, hope is always tempered by the reality of rooting for the home nine since the mid-1950s. If you look at the history of baseball in Kansas City across that half-century, you understand why tempered takes on the full meaning a blacksmith would apply.

The combined wins for the Kansas City A’s and the Kansas City Royals since 1955 total 4,182, stacked against 4,860 losses. That’s a winning percentage of just .462, which would be the lowest winning percentage of any team in the era if the names hadn't changed.

I have a friend who became an atheist for two reasons. First, in high school, his best friend gave him up for lent. And, second, when he was younger yet, he prayed in church every Sunday morning across the summer the home nine would win the afternoon doubleheader and they usually dropped both games. He came to the conclusion there could be no God.

So I don’t come by baseball hope easily or in quantity. Yet, on this trip to the Gardens I found myself standing at the foot of Mr. Kauffman’s grave, which is tucked in around a corner nearly hidden in summer by trailing vines, speaking words that even surprised me.

Mostly, I have stood there in September and apologized. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kauffman. This season was horrible. I’m glad you can’t see what they've done to your team. The brain trust… I can’t really explain except to say it’s obvious they don’t give a damn… they only want to do just enough to make a profit.”

Something like that with variations, and I’m reluctant to admit on Easter morning, obscenities.

But this March, I stood at the feet of the great man and couldn't believe my ears. “Maybe," I said, "just maybe, I have something good to report. This spring, there may be hope. They may just have figured this out. Time will tell, but I’m thinking they could be pretty good this year.  There are a lot of ifs… but it’s possible they could actually be kinda good.”

Embarrassed by this outburst and thankful no one other than my extremely tolerant bride could hear, I moved on quickly. But as I finished the first aisle, I silently went over all the caveats – the third baseman and first baseman have to prove they are what the scouts think they are, the centerfielder has to stay healthy and prove he can hit the curveball, something surprising has to happen in right field … The pitching has to be way better than its collective history... the second basemen-- … I’ve been through all of this before. But I didn't want to bother the great man with caveats. It was after all, the first week of spring and more snow was just a rumor.

--Lofflin

Here is an image of some orchids at the Gardens from a visit last summer for your reading pleasure:

Lofflin 2012

I don't give a damn about the weather; spring has sprung... just listen to it

I remember the day my wife gave me cardinals. Not the St. Louis Cardinals. Not a St. Louis Cardinals' baseball cap. Not even a single cardinal held captive in a bird cage.

Cardinals, plural. All cardinals. Forever.

That was the day she gave me the words to their song. Pretty...pretty...pretty....pretty...

That's all. Just the words. Since then, I've owned them. Thing is, they were always there. I just didn't know it. They were just part of the static of the city, along with the dump trucks, police sirens, tree saws, car doors banging, kids squealing, and the ringing in my ears.

Now, at this moment, I hear them as clearly as if they are calling my name. And, I'm ready. Ready to fly. Ready to put this long late winter to rest.

--Lofflin

Matchups

Just like most Royals fans, I've had my doubts about General Manager Dayton Moore's decision to send super prospect Wil Myers and a few others packing for starter James Shields and a few others. But today I saw something that gave me a better snapshot of how Moore's purpose this offseason - to build a pitching rotation - should make the team a whole lot better.

And I believe he has done that. Today I saw the potential matchups for the Royals' first three games this season. The Royals open up the year on the road against the Chicago White Sox, a team that has been a consistent contender for most of the past decade. This year should be no exception.

But you know what? When it comes to starting pitchers, the Royals are just as good, if not a little better, than the Sox. And that's something we haven't been able to say for a while. Let's take a look at the probable matchups for the Royals' first three games this season, as well as who started the first three games for the Royals just one year ago:

Game 1, April 1, 2013
Royals: James Shields
White Sox: Chris Sale
Last year's Game 1 starter for Kansas City: Bruce Chen

This is a matchup of Shields, the Royals' centerpiece offseason acquisition and a perennial Cy Young contender, versus Sale, a young starter who had a great year last season but still has a lot to prove. I'll take Shields any day of the week. Chen, last year's Game 1 starter, is now the No. 5 starter for the team. That's pretty telling.


Game 2, April 3, 2013
Royals: Ervin Santana
White Sox: Jake Peavy
Last year's Game 2 starter for Kansas City: Luke Hochevar

Striking similarities between these two starters: Both Santana and Peavy were once viewed as among the best pitchers in the league and with huge upside. But both fell on hard times and a couple difficult seasons. Peavy had a better season last year, so I'll give him the edge here. But I like Santana, and I'm excited to see him pitch for the Royals this year. Last year's Game 2 starter is nothing short of a laughing stock in KC and has been relegated to bullpen duty this year. Meanwhile, the Royals appear to be doing everything they can to get rid of Hochevar through a trade (but of course, nobody else wants him).


Game 3, April 4, 2013
Royals: Jeremy Guthrie
White Sox: Gavin Floyd
Last year's Game 3 starter for Kansas City: Jonathan Freakin' Sanchez

After bouncing between the majors and the minors earlier in his career, Gavin Floyd has been a fairly reliable starter for the White Sox the last couple years. But if Guthrie can even come close to matching his success with the Royals last year - after he was traded from Colorado for Sanchez - then the Royals will have a terrific No. 3 starter. Sanchez was just plain awful for Kansas City last year and ended up on the D.L. before long for Colorado. (Ironically, Sanchez won his first game for the Royals in 2012 against the Angels. Their starter in that game? Ervin Santana.)

*****

After those three, the Royals still have Wade Davis and Bruce Chen to follow up. Davis could be a starter on just about any team in the league. And Chen? Well, the good news is, Felipe Paulino and Danny Duffy will probably be battling to replace him after they recover from Tommy John surgery come this summer.

Seven days until Opening Day!

Make Puerto Rico the 51st state now so Americans can cheer the finals of the World Baseball Classic tomorrow, and Americans can remain exceptional

Time has come
to make Puerto Rico the 51st state, whether the Puerto Ricans like it or not.

Then, of course, we could say USA baseball is still alive in the World Baseball Classic. USA baseball, would, in fact, be preparing for the world finals tomorrow.

Instead… Well, the millionaire USA baseball players are back to their Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, preparing for another high-priced season.

But, you argue, Puerto Rico’s baseball team is American baseball. And, in a way, you are right. Many of Puerto Rico’s players are Major League ballplayers; some are even big time stars of American baseball. They may not be Americans by citizenship – though some are – but they are Americans by paycheck.

If you buy the paycheck argument, you can rest easy because American baseball beat Japanese baseball yesterday. The Japanese nine sported no American major league players.

What a relief, eh? After the ‘pure’ major league team was ousted in the semi-finals, it is nice to know a team of American major leaguers – not, perhaps, the white bread players you had in mind, unfortunately – but major leaguers nonetheless – beat the Japanese.

This World Baseball Classic is tough on American chauvinists. We grasp at straws.

The world, our times, our reality, is kind of hard these days on American Exceptionalism. I grew up with this idea. It was everywhere – books, movies, television, the stories your father told. It was Cold War driven, but its roots were much, much older… in fact as old as the republic. And the idea wasn’t always the exclusive province of Sarah Palin conservatives. It was in the poetry of Carl Sandburg and the music of Woody Guthrie. It was deep seated in the notion of ‘The People.’ The People, who despite their crude, often uneducated, always rebellious ways, knew more than the snot nose aristocracy, worked harder, and always prevailed.

Yes, the aristocracy was never – until very recently – the object of American exceptionalism. It was an idea reserved for "The People." It took Palin and Rove and the other conservatives to contort it to include the likes of Trump and Goldman Sachs. They managed to twist the idea into the view that doing anything to limit the excesses of American Millionaires and Billionaires was tantamount to limiting American Exceptionalism. Maybe the millionaire American ballplayers fit that new idea of American exceptionalism – if someone is willing to pay you $100-plus million dollars to play the game you must be exceptional. How could you possibly be out-hit by the relatively impoverished Italians or out-pitched by minor league, or never-been, Puerto Ricans?

Well, here we are, baseball once again a mirror for the reality of its times. But I think for tonight and tomorrow night, I’ll put these silly political ideas away and just enjoy this fascinating world of baseball, in the broadest sense of the word. The passion of the World players in infectious; it is the polar opposite of the American millionaires going through the paces wrapped in cotton by their corporate owners, in the lackadaisical sun of spring training. There, winning is meaningless. In San Francisco tonight and tomorrow night, winning will be everything.

--Lofflin

The US squeezes into the second round of the World Baseball Classic begging the question: Is our World Series really a 'world' series? or is it a presumptuous public relations gimmick?

Win or lose, the World Baseball Classic begs the question: Do Americans still play the best baseball on the planet -- or do they just play the most expensive?

Let me lead off here with a caveat. I do not root for the home team in the World Baseball Classic. I tend to root for Cuba because Cuba is the biggest underdog in the world. Not the biggest baseball underdog, by any means, but certainly the biggest political underdog. This tiny country, hidden in our massive shadow, has suffered under terrible sanctions since 1960. That's 53 years of Cold War retribution, because any notion that sanctions lead to regime change have certainly been wiped away by Cuban history. Why a 53-year blockade? The best answer anyone can mount is that the Cuban economic system is socialist and the government has a record of cruelty to its own citizens. Seems to me we have a few major trading partners, at whose feet we tend to genuflect, who sport the same attributes but against whom sanctions are unthinkable.

A knee-jerk political action 53 years ago, in the midst of the 'Cuban Spring,' has persisted through several enlightened presidents who simply did not have the guts to stand up and say Basta! The Cubans are more like us than different. Nowhere is this reality more evident than between the white lines of a baseball field. How crazy, how out-of-date, how far from reality, are these sanctions? Think of the Cuban Democracy Act this way: Imagine black Americans are still banned, in 2013, from Major League Baseball.

If that were the case, the whole world would look on Americans as idiots.

OK, I didn't intend a political rant. I root for the Cubans because they're underdogs and because they play a stylish brand of baseball. I also root for the Netherlands because in baseball they're even greater underdogs. When the Cubans play the Netherlanders Monday morning at 5 a.m., I'll root for the Netherlanders. It's a simple calculus.

Back to the World Baseball Classic where the home team took a terrible drubbing at the hands of the Mexican team Friday which created much hand-wringing among self-identified patriots. If Ryan Braun and company had lost to the miraculous Italians Saturday, they would have been back to their Grapefruit and Cactus League games tomorrow. But they pulled out the Italian game on one swing of the bat Saturday and finally took the lead over Canada in the eighth Sunday. The television talker wondered aloud why so many teams had given up on the Canadian pitchers, since the big league "all-stars" were handcuffed by them most of the night. He was watching American all-stars handcuffed by 10-year minor league pitchers -- at best. The Americans (North, that is) have not won the World Baseball Classic in two tries.

Don't bring the argument in here about how the Classic happens at an awkward time for American baseball players. If they wanted to win, they'd have started conditioning earlier and brought their A-games to field of play. So far, they haven't.

And don't even think about arguing this isn't a real all-star team. First of all, a real all-star team would consist of many players on other World Baseball squads. Second, and this is what boggles the mind, these players are drawn from an enormous pool of talent -- talent paid in multiples of millions in major league cities and future millionaire prospects in minor league cities. The chauvinist in me asks, how can they not dominate the World Baseball Classic?

Look at the competition. World teams are cobbled together from current major leaguers, former major leaguers, major league nevers, players from major leagues around the globe, players from industrial leagues, minor league prospects, local heroes, and comeback hopefuls. In some places they are just learning the game. I read a comment from a coach in the Netherlands who said when he first handed a baseball to a kid on a practice field, the kid dropped the ball on the ground and kicked it.

Either they want it more, their style of play is better suited to winning, or... they're better players.

All three of which lead to the inevitable question. Is the World Series really a world series or it is a public relations gimmick? Is it really a world series, or is it a pretension, a big fat presumption born of 1900s ethnocentrism which has persisted, like the Cuban Democracy Act of 1960, well past the time when it made sense, if it ever made sense?

Let's just call our end-of-the-season tournament the Fall Classic and get everything back into perspective. A World Series it obviously is not.

--Lofflin

Open Letter to Bill James... because I don't have his address and need to know a number

Dear Mr. James,

As a fan and a player fifty years past his prime, I'm looking for a stat I haven't seen before.

I understand the problems with Runs-Batted-In as a measure of a hitter. The arbitrariness of it is obvious, especially if you are blessed with a home team that doesn't get on base a lot, doesn't advance runners, doesn't steal bases consistently, doesn't hit and run and frequently stumbles rounding the bag at third.

As a player, I'm always looking for ways to keep track of value to the team. When you get to my age, you worry about just taking up space.

When I come to the plate and see a couple of fifty-five year old runners on base, I feel an innate duty to get a hit.

So, what I want to know about a player is what proportion of the time he contributes a hit in that situation.

This seems like a better way to get at the value earlier generations sought in runs-batted-in. And, it seems like an essential test of a hitter. We know the negative value of an out in this circumstance. The outcome statistics seem to capture that. And, we know the positive value of a hit.

So, I'm looking for individual values related to this. Phrased as questions: What is the correlation between batting average and hits with runners on? If the two correlate -- which my guess is they should -- are some players more likely than their batting averages suggest to get a hit with runners on base? And, are some less likely? It seems to me this is something good to know and for an individual player to track.

Along with on-base-percentage, how often a player contributes a hit with runners on base seems like a good measure of value to wins while eliminating the complicating factor of how clumsy those runners are. And, since hits contribute slightly more than walks, this seems like a better measure of value.

I put my friend, sabremagician Kevin Scobee, on it. He said go to  FanGraphs.com, but be aware you might never come out. I know what he means because I heard a Fangraphs guy talk at a conference put on by I-70 Baseball's Bill Ivy once and my head was spinning for days.

But, I thought, why not just go to the well. So, I am.

--Lofflin


By the way: I played tabletop baseball at The Ballpark on Iowa Street in Lawrence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. You were probably there one of those long afternoons, right?

Pray they're wrong about the snow and right about the Royals... A sober look on a snowy day at the Burpee catalogue and the Royals in 2013...

With more snow on the way thoughts naturally turn to spring and baseball. The second question most people ask after, “Have you ever seen anything like this snow?” is “How do you think the Royals will do this year?”

Of course, it’s February, spring training has just begun, so the question is full of hope.  It’s part of the rhythm of our lives, the way humans have learned to cope with the seasons, as long as they insist on populating these ridiculous climates. It’s the same with gardening. You look in the seed catalogue and all you see is potential.

The Burpee Ultra Big Boy. Yields bushels of 8 to 10-pound redder-than-red fruits with tender flesh, all meat, no seeds, perfect for slicing, canning, cooking, salads, salsa… stores for months… disease resistant, deer resistant, cat resistant, heat resistant, snow resistant, never needs water… utterly foolproof.

You pore over the seed catalogue in February and all you see is potential. You don’t see wilt or bugs or drought, or your own inability to control the urge to water, water, water. You don’t see the weeds, the dead plants, the bottom end rot. You see bushels of 10-pound ultra tomatoes and big flat slices on big fat hamburger patties.

It’s the same with baseball in February. All Aristotelian potential.

The Royals? Well, let me offer a simple, sober, admittedly one-dimensional, analysis of the situation.

Baseball is a hard game. It’s every bit as hard as growing Rutgers tomatoes through a Kansas City summer. Because its statistics are accumulated across a huge number of events, and because the game is so difficult, its numbers are pretty consistent, pretty sober, indicators.

We don’t like to think of life in these terms. We like the idea of improvement. We like to imagine a breakthrough is just around the corner for us, just 100 more situps away. We like to believe – we have to believe – this will be the summer the garden flourishes, the tomatoes are all perfect, the beans don’t dry up, the squash bugs don’t appear.

So, I’d say in a nutshell the Royals of 2013 are all potential. In baseball, that ain’t ever good because the numbers rarely lie.

To be competitive, the Royals need their first baseman, third baseman, second baseman, centerfielder and right fielder to hit significantly better than they did in 2012. Significantly better.

In the case of the right fielder and the second baseman, two of the five potentials, that would mean accomplishing something their significantly large body of work suggests is out of reach.

Because the first and third baseman have logged far fewer at-bats, their respective ceilings are pure speculation. Scouts think their ceilings are pretty high. For the Royals to be competitive this summer, the scouts will have to be right and the two players will have to accomplish breakout years.

The center fielder is a question mark because both his small body of work and the scouting reports are modest in their estimates. And, he will have to stay healthy, which is the one worrisome trait emerging from his brief time in the major leagues. So, three of the five will have to realize a good deal of their potential  right now for the team to be competitive and the other two will have to cheat their numbers and accomplish something logic says is out of reach.

In the real estate business, you’d say that’s a lot of blue sky.

Here’s one way to look at it. For those five key players to each hit .300, they’d have to raise their collective batting average 250 points, an average of 50 points each. That’s a lot of blue sky.

Now, two players, the shortstop and the catcher, will have to maintain a high level of play from last season for the Royals to be competitive. Their respective bodies of work are also brief; it is difficult to know if last season was indicative of their skills or not.  For the team to be successful, you have to hope last season was not an anomaly for either. Can the catcher hit .301 again and the shortstop hit .293?

The shortstop has close to 2,000 plate appearances across five years and his cumulative batting average is .263. He would need to play roughly 40 points above that to produce the same season. The catcher has less than 500 major league at-bats but his average is .311. Chalk him in.

Of the seven unproven key players, only one appears a solid bet to produce competitive numbers based on history.

The left fielder and the designated hitter have a pretty large body of work and they played about even with it last year. They are the only two of the nine everyday players you can pencil in for 2013. The left fielder will probably hit in the neighborhood of .280 or .290 with a decent slugging percentage and generally good production. The designated hitter, the only other proven major league player of the nine, will hit once in every three at-bats, show significant power to the alleys, show a high slugging percentage and ground into more double-plays than most fans like.

In fact, if fans had their way, he’d have been traded years ago. Think about it. The only legitimate all-star, the only everyday player on the team likely to be a starter on any actual first division club in the major leagues, would have been traded by fans long before now.

So, if you look at the coming season from a sober perspective, you realize this spring, hope indeed springs eternal in the Royals’ breast. This is, perhaps, the most hopeful team in baseball. And, I guess I’m about as hopeful about a playoff spot in 2013 as I am the weather scientists are wrong about today’s big snowstorm.

--Lofflin

Then again, if Major League Baseball has its way, we’ll eventually see three-fourths of its teams in every division in the playoffs every September. I say September because that’s when the playoffs will have to start. It works for the NBA, you know.

Peace and quiet, even in the city, a good reason to enjoy 12 inches of snow... the great ice storm of 2002 reminds us peace and quiet are not the same thing and at least trigger fingers were also stilled

Cutting through this white fog of silence, a cardinal. In the frozen tree by the window, he sings crisp notes of love or territory, but with less joy than a week ago when the temperature was sixty degrees. Today, it is twenty degrees and yesterday’s snow is piled up a foot deep beneath a gray sky lit by weak morning sun, hidden but luminous, so the world below feels like the inside of a fish bowl. The big burr oak and the bleached white sycamore stand nearly motionless, swaying only slightly in the sky. The blue spruce is heavy with snow, globs of it, caught in the branches top to bottom. A single junco ventures out on the blue spruce mountain peak scratching for berries.

Here, in the middle of the city, dead silence. The hum of traffic is gone. For now, no fire engines or ambulances. No small jets or propeller planes roaring overhead in landing patterns aimed at the old airport by the river. No police helicopters or rescue helicopters bound for the hospital chopping up the air. No dogs and no children. No trash trucks grumbling. Not even shovels scraping driveways and sidewalks.

The city will wake soon. A city can stand silence only so long. I’ll do the same eventually, lace up boots, pull on long underwear and heavy coat, push open the back door and take the handle of the snow shovel leaning next to it against the house. I’ll be out there soon enough, pushing snow, clearing a path down the brick sidewalk to the car, then clearing the driveway and uncovering the car – though I have no plans to go anywhere.

This morning is a bit like the morning in 2002 after the great ice storm. That morning broke just as quiet, but not so peaceful. Peaceful and quiet are not the same. That morning a large sycamore lay sprawled across the icy grass of the front yard. Power was off and no telling when it would come back on. The house was cold and getting colder. Menace has been in the air the night before. Electrical transformers were exploding – a blast of lightning in the sky then the sound of a gunshot.  Fire engines and ambulances were background noise deep into the night. More frightening was the sound of trees cracking ominously in the wind then the distant rushing noise as they crumbled in long gusts to the ground. Then, suddenly, not in the distance but in the front yard and loud as a freight train.Nothing you could call sleep arrived even into the early hours.

It was quiet that morning, not even the sound of the furnace coming on, but it was not peaceful. And, yet, even in the aftermath, the morning was strangely beautiful, brilliant sun, deep blue sky, everything, every branch, every rail, every sidewalk, every blade of grass, shimmering in ice lit from behind. And, then, the tree saws started their incessant growling up and down the block.

This morning broke with both peace and quiet. Ah… there… the first shovel scrape. Humans have arrived, their natural urge to go, to move, to dominate nature – even if there is nowhere to go to – has won. More scrapes. Now the sound of a spinning motor and, of course, the sound of spinning tires. The digging out has begun and the quiet is gone. The quiet is gone, but not the snow.

And, for at least one day, the people of Kansas City seemed at peace with each other. The last report on the Kansas City Star's homicide page was three days and two hours ago. When the headlines describe the snowstorm of 2013 as fierce, brutal, dangerous, and paralyzing, and the reports scream that everything from airports to highways are closed, take comfort. Apparently, Kansas City's itchy trigger fingers were also paralyzed -- at least for a few hours.

--Lofflin

Listening to AM sports talk radio in Kansas City this morning... wondering if I had stumbled into the restroom at Kelly's Westport Inn at closing time

Courtesy: knowotr.blogspot.com 

Listening to 810 AM radio this morning while waiting out a Fleetwood Mac tune on XM. Too lazy to change channels on the XM radio, I just stuck with the default station arcing across the air in Kansas City.

What the heck. A lot of big stuff is happening in sports right now in Kansas City. KU faces a crossroads moment tonight. MU pulled off a brilliant upset last night. K-State played like champs Monday night.

Baseball is in the air. Spring training is in full swing. The World Baseball Classic starts Saturday. News seeps out every day about the Miami connection to performance enhancing drugs. News also seeps out every day of the NCAA investigation into Miami athletics and one particular coach now located down in Columbia.

Just a lot of stuff going on. To say nothing of the terrible news about the four-alarm fire last night on the Plaza, which you suspect would transcend the boundaries of news to sports for most people.

And, for fifteen minutes I’m listening to three guys – I think three but maybe more – discuss – well… that’s not exactly the right word for it – blenders.

That’s not a new sports term for a ‘glue guy’ or a ‘team player.’ That’s blenders, as in those glass and plastic cones that sit on ultra-sharp blades with terrifying motors you use to make salsa and – apparently, vegetable and fruit smoothies.

I don’t know who these three guys are, not even their names. I have no radio attachment to them at all. Consequently, I’m not really interested in their opinions of blenders. That’s true even though no opinions of blenders were actually expressed. I’m not sure what was expressed. The ‘conversation’ barely rose above the level of static.

To be honest, I don’t think they actually finished a single sentence during the time I listened.

The 'segment' started with a loud rapper not in the background and a guy who was apparently talking with a mouth full of undigested peanuts, competing at exactly the same volume for attention. Either one could have been understood alone, but together they sounded exactly like two people yelling into your ear at the same time. I mean, it was just brutal. And, what came out of the car speakers didn't get better once the rapper was finally podded down. In fact, instead of two people talking over each other, now there were three. Or, as I said, maybe more.

After a few miles, I had that long forgotten AM radio moment. You know the one, the moment you say to yourself, ‘Why the hell am I listening to this nonsense ’ When I say 'nonsense', I literally mean non-sense. Without sense. Incoherent. Or, something more colorful. Fleetwood Mac was, at that precise moment, over on XM, and Eric Clapton was on. And, I was no longer too lazy to push the button.

--Lofflin

Ethical carnivorism

My wife is a vegetarian. Has been for several years now. And I'm extremely proud of her because of it.

Being a vegetarian, even in the 21st Century, is very difficult, for a couple reasons. Try this: next time you go to Applebee's, see how many menu items you can spot that don't have meat in them. Some restaurants are getting better about offering vegetarian options (Burger King even has a veggie burger on the menu, believe it or not), but at most of these places vegetarians are left out in the cold. Much of the time, when we go out to eat, Jamie ends up with a side salad and a baked potato. And she has to ask the waiter to hold the bacon on both.

The hardest thing about being a vegetarian, though, is perception. When someone finds out Jamie is a vegetarian, they're stunned. No kidding - they're shocked. And I'm not talking about strangers, I'm talking about acquaintances, co-workers, even close friends and family. People have tried to talk her out of it. People have told her she's stupid for not eating meat. People have tried to convince her it's against the Bible's teachings to not eat meat.

People ask her why she's a vegetarian, and it's a complicated answer. But essentially, it was an ethical decision. Jamie loves animals, and she made a conscious choice that she'd rather not eat them.

And after decades of eating meat, Jamie stopped cold turkey (she even stopped eating cold turkey) and hasn't eaten meat since.

Jamie's my hero. She's the strongest person I've never known. I'm not that strong. I don't think I could ever stop eating meat.

But I think I've come up with a more ethical way to eat meat. Check it out:

The life of an animal has a certain value. Is the life of a rhinoceros more valuable than the life of an ostrich? Is the life of a beetle more valuable than the life of a walrus? A dog's life more valuable than a cat's?

I don't think so. I contend each life has the same value.

In order to eat meat, though, you must end a life, or consent to the ending a life.

Therefore, it would be better if that life could feed lots of people instead of one or just a few.

So I give you the Large Animals Only Diet.

Take a cow, for example. An average-sized cow can feed a whopping 1,400 people! By comparison, people who enjoy shrimp often eat 10-20 in one meal. It's obviously better to end one life to feed 1,400 than to end 20 lives to feed one.

Here is a simple list of "Good" and "Bad" options on the animal spectrum.

GOOD: Beef. It's truly what's for dinner, and it's the wisest option for Large Animals Only eaters. A butcher shop can get 1,400 eight-ounce servings of beef out of one cow.

GOOD: Pork. A pig can feed up to 200 people. And the varieties found in pork is impressive: ham, pork roast, ribs, and mother freakin' BACON.

BAD: Chicken. That sucks. Chicken is delicious. Fried chicken is possibly the greatest-tasting food on the face of the earth. But a chicken only feeds 2-5 people, so it's off-limits in the Large Animals Only Diet. However, there's another poultry option...

GOOD: Turkey. A turkey can feed anywhere from 10-25 people - not bad for a bird. And turkey is widely available; you can get a turkey sandwich pretty much anywhere.

BAD: Tiny Seafood. In addition to shrimp, clams, mussels and oysters are terrible choices in this diet system. If you value animal life, killing a dozen of them for your dinner is not a good thing to do. But if you need seafood...

GOOD: Large Fish. Tuna, salmon, swordfish and even large catfish are good choices and can feed large amounts of people each.

BAD: Lobster. A news story I read several years ago is really what sparked this idea for me. The story was about a gigantic lobster caught by a fishing boat. Experts estimated the lobster was alive when Abraham Lincoln was in office. What did they do with the ancient crustacean? They ate it. It troubles me to think that the lobster I get in my surf-and-turf could be a hundred years old. And besides that, one lobster usually only feeds one or two people.

*****

As I wrote at the beginning, I'm not very strong. There's a good chance that next week I might run across an all-you-can-eat buffet and eat a holocaust's worth of crab legs. But I'm definitely going to be conscious of the above rules from now on when I eat.

The next time I'm at a restaurant, if I've narrowed down my menu choices to chicken wings or a hamburger. I'll take the burger. Medium rare, please.