Being on Time

I saw an ad in an issue of the Smithsonian for a wristwatch. I don't wear one any more, not since I started carrying a cell phone (when I remember to). But this two-page ad caught my attention: "We apologize that this watch loses 1 second every 20 million years." The truth is, I've never cared much about the time, and the need for this kind of insane precision is a total mystery to me.

Sometimes someone in a group I'm in will ask the time, and if I happen to be wearing a watch or can pull out my cell phone first, I'll answer the question, "ten to one." Someone else in the group is likely to follow that with, "It's 12:47, to be absolutely precise." "Absolutely precise"? What does it matter as long as it is more or less a quarter to one or ten to one--or twelve forty-seven?

Oh sure, if you set your alarm clock for six AM and it goes off at seven, you might be late for something, but what of it? Most of the appointments in my life do not depend on exact punctuality, and when I have to be at a certain place at a certain time, I am. Ninety-nine percent of the time, however, it just doesn't matter all that much. It's impolite to keep people waiting, so I try to be more or less on time, but being a little late (or a little early) doesn't seem to me to be the worst social blunder.

I read once that people from Northern European countries are much more time-conscious than those from Southern European countries, where arriving within an hour of an invitation is "on time." I'm okay with that. Relax. You'll get where you're going soon enough.

The Designated Hitter: The Bane of Baseball. I like it.

The Colorado Rockies swept their way into the World Series with impressive playoff wins against the Diamondbacks and the Phillies. They finished the season at 90-73, a half game behind the D-backs in their division, but they won 20 of their last 21 games, won a Wild Card playoff spot, and ran like a buzz saw into the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, who had struggled for the last month of the season, had given up a big lead against the Yankees before sealing the deal, and then had fallen behind the Indians three games to one before turning on the afterburners and winning the last three games to win the American League pennant and earn a shot against the red-hot Rockies.

The Sox clobbered the Rockies 13-1 in the first game.

Now anything can happen, and it will be fun to watch these two teams play each other until one has won four of seven, but increasingly the World Series is less a world championship showdown than it is a shadow of what it once was. The country at large still loves to preserve the nostalgic notion that the World Series determines the best team in baseball, but it doesn't, not any more. And the reason, of course, is the presence of a Designated Hitter in the American League, which skews all the won-lost records, all a team's roster decisions, all the balance between offense, defense, speed, and pitching. The AL simply plays a different game from the NL.

I used to live in the New York area and rooted for a long time for the Mets in the National League. Years earlier, before the DH got to the American League in 1973, I rooted for the Casey Stengel Yankees. Now, however, I live in the Tampa Bay area and have adopted as my team the Rays, the perennial doormats of the American League East. During this past year, I learned two things that surprised me. First is that it is more fun rooting for the small-market Rays than it ever was rooting for the Big Market Mets or Yankees.   And the second, most surprising, thing is that it was fun rooting for a team with a DH.

American League offenses just keep coming at you. There's no relief in sight when you look at their lineups. Soft-hitting pitchers, for example, don't get to the plate in the AL. Because the National League pitchers hit, there is also a greater need for pinch hitters, another dynamic that makes the leagues different. And with pitchers hitting, there is more sacrifice bunting in the NL. The presence of an offensive weapon who never takes the field, also makes AL teams more likely to have good defenses. That is, they don't have to put a poor-fielding player on the field just to get his bat in the lineup. The AL doesn't have to manufacture runs as much as the NL either. And American League managers don't have to pull their starters for a pinch hitter in the middle of a rally. Finally, the famous National League "double switch," designed to get a position player to hit in the lineup before the pitcher is due up, is also unnecessary in the AL.

So the AL plays a more simplified, less strategized game that barely resembles real baseball at all. But it is fun to watch.  Despite more frequent pitching changes, the games seem quicker, more action dominated, less boring, than NL games. For the first time in my lifelong love of baseball, I can see why the American League, with its DH diminishment, is attractive to fans. I like it too.

But pitting a team with the DH against a team without one, is a travesty.  I've known this for years, of course, because the purists have made the point often and loudly over the years.  But watching the first game of the 2007 World Series, watching the Red Sox and their offensive juggernaut rout the Rockies, brings the entire issue back to light once again. It does not even the playing field to use the DH in AL parks and no DH in NL parks. Entire rosters are built on the basis of having your pitcher come to bat four times a game--or having a DH come up four times a game.  The Rockies are not worse than the Red Sox, they are just not playing the same game. The only way to ever again make the World Series be a real world championship is to have both leagues play under the same rules.  

I never thought I’d say this, but the solution is to bring the DH to the National League.  It’s really that simple.   

 

Addendum:  The Red Sox swept the Rockies, 4-0.

Democracy, Youth, and Old Age

          When I was a young man learning about the work-intensive and time-consuming steps required to enact the simplest piece of legislation, the least contentious of new measures, I grew stridently impatient.  It was clearly wrong that good people had to waste endless hours and days and months trying to do something worthwhile.  I couldn't wait so long.  I was desperate for fast action.  I complained bitterly about the mired-down failure of the democratic process.  It was depressing at best, spirit-crushing at worst.
         Now that I'm an old man, I'm much more patient.  Now it seems good to me that change should come slowly, after long and exhaustive debate.  After filibusters.  After compromises.  After presidential vetoes.  I don't want professional do-good Liberals putting their permanent imprint on national legislation; nor do I want selfish Conservatives to close the door on any sort of scale-balancing social programs.  I'm still mostly in favor of left-of-center political agendas, but I don't want the Left making hasty changes—except in the area of human rights.  Speedy action often requires further action to correct problems not seen the first time around.  You know what they say about haste.
          I don't object to change, of course--only quick change.  Slow things down, I say.  Talk it all over.  And then talk some more.  Sleep on it.  God, it should be pointed out, was remiss when He left out the Eleventh Commandment, Thous shalt not rush.  Someone was probably telling him to hurry up, maybe Moses was waiting.  

Tampa Bay Rays' Attendance

Tampa Bay Times, June 25, 2012.  Letter to the Editor

          The ongoing saga of attendance at Rays' baseball games has seemed to me over the past five years a little beside the point.  The team's value has increased from $145 million, when owner Stuart Sternberg "bought his initial stake" in 2004 (according to Paul Sullivan in the New York Times on June 2), to $323 million, as reported by Forbes in March.  The size of that "initial stake" was not made public, but it would appear that Sternberg saw well over a 100 percent increase in his investment in eight years, if the reporting is accurate.  In other words, the team has more than doubled in value during that time.  Would you be happy with that rate of return?
    
          Eventually fans will come to the Rays' stadium, wherever it is, but don't weep about the financial straits of Sternberg and the rest of the Rays' ownership.  They're doing just fine.

Edward Cifelli, Dade City

April 28, 2012

            Today I am 70 years old.

            My father in the 1960s used to talk wistfully about living to see the year 2000, but he came from a line that led short lives, so he knew it was unlikely that he would live to see the new millennium.  He was right:  he died in 1970 at age 55.  When he did the arithmetic back in the 1960s, he knew he’d have to live to age 86 to see 2000.  No, he conceded, that was hardly likely.  But it pleased him to think that I, his only child, might.  After all, I’d only be 58 in 2000.  Yes, he smiled, there was a good chance I’d make it.

           When I turned 55 in 1997, I wasn’t so sure.  That was the age when my father and his father had died, both of colon cancer.  But in 1969 medical science made a breakthrough in the fight against this particular cancer, which led me to think in 1997 that I might escape the family fate.  In the late 1970s, I began having sigmoidoscopies and then a few years later full colonoscopies, procedures that allow doctors to remove colon polyps which otherwise turn slowly into deadly cancers.  Modern medicine had extended my life:  becoming 58 and actually seeing the year 2000 had become a real possibility.  Still, I was surprised and relieved when I finally made it because I hadn't thought, down deep, I'd last that long. 

    
            When I turned 60 in 2002, I really did think I had reached old age.  No question about it.  I was so thrilled that I quit my job, began receiving my pension, and waited impatiently two more years to begin receiving early Social Security benefits.  I wanted to experience the retirement part of my life, which I hadn’t thought I’d ever see.  I was overjoyed that I had cheated death and that I would have a 60-something-year lifespan.  My God, that was truly old compared to my poor father and grandfather.  And I was grateful.  Deeply grateful.

     
           Then I began creeping toward my 70^th birthday, one slow year at a time until I was but a year from it—and suddenly I wanted it very badly.  I had never even imagined living that long.  70 was really old.  In my heart I had known all along that 60 didn't amount to much on the longevity scale, but it was old enough to satisfy my imagination.  70 was different.  At 70, no one would ever say “the poor guy died so young.”  No way.  And so I wanted desperately to become 70, to defy the odds that had seemed to argue all my life for an early demise.  My tombstone would read 1942-2012, which has a nice, easy-to-compute balance to it.  Oh, there may be a little more time left, but it’s okay with me.  I’m not greedy about longevity.  Not anymore.

          70 is a wonderful age to be. 

Bumper Sticker: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

           Not many people step outside their comfort zone.  The same thing over and over again is what they want—and need.  Ordering a pizza with peppers and mushrooms and onions, for example,  instead of one with pepperoni (or vice versa) is ordinarily well outside most people’s comfort zone.  When they head to an Italian restaurant, it’s always the same one they go to, and most often they order the same thing from the menu.  It's the comfort zone.  Again and again.

         
           And you can’t argue these people into a broader experience.  They aren’t happy when you ask if they want to try that Italian joint on the other side of town for a change.  Okay, they might reply cautiously, but in their hearts they worry about venturing out past their comfort zone.  What will it cost?  What if I don’t like the spaghetti sauce?  Do they have a salad bar?  My God!  What about my food allergies?!   No, maybe we ought to stick to Mama’s Restaurant, they weasel, tonight's the spaghetti and meatball special.
 

An extension to these observations about the Italian Food Comfort Zone is that trying different Italian restaurants is at least theoretically possible for most people, no matter how unlikely, while more exotic foods are totally out of the question, like Thai or Indian or Japanese.  Maybe even Mexican.  All too spicy in one way or another.  No siree, thank you very much.  I think I'll just stick with Mama's spaghetti and meatballs.

         
           Physically heading off to Italy for a vacation is just as out of the question for most people, just as outside their comfort zone, as going to the moon—and going “on your own” instead of on a Parillo Tour of Venice, Florence, and Rome, is more or less like intergalactic space travel, utterly absurd, if not absolutely impossible.  But traveling on our own to Italy for three or four weeks at a time is precisely what my courageous and beautiful wife has had us do half a dozen times over the past twenty years or so.  And on top of that, we've been on dozens of other tours and "on your own" vacations, both domestically and internationally.

             At first, I admit, all that travel was well beyond my own comfort zone, but gradually I came to like the adventures—and so I actually broadened my comfort zone. Frankly, I didn't think that was possible for me to do. These days, a quarter century and a million air miles later, I feel sort of like a one-time adventurer gone to pension (though not to pasture), the Han Solo of my retirement community.  I'm comfortable with that.

Lean to Independence

      Political dialogue in 2012 is dreary and predictable, deadly dull.  One has the Right and the Left.  One has the Conservatives and the Liberals.  One has the Red States and the Blue States.  One has the Republicans and the Democrats.  That's it.  There are no other viable choices.  Just as we do in sports, we pick a side and then stick with it.  Loyalty matters.  Even insane loyalty.  One is expected to support his own side across the board, without bothering to determine if any particular issue makes sense from the Blue side or the Red side.  Or vice versa. 

     
      It's tiresome.  It makes no sense for me to be herded into one camp or another.  There are times when Republicans make more sense to me than Democrats.  I want to be able to support them on those occasions.  And just as logically, even inescapably, there are times when Democrats make more sense than Republicans.  As a representative man, I like to think that at least most of the time, I do the right thing.  That I think things through and decide on the right and proper course of action.  But acting in my own best interest factors in too, must factor in.

      In the current debate about reforming health insurance, for example, I don't know what to think quite yet.  What is known as "Obamacare," is packaged in a 7,000-page document (I hear), which means no one knows what it actually entails.  And as everyone knows by hard experience, the devil is always in the details, so I am skeptical, but open-minded.  And the Supreme Court may yet determine that the whole thing is unconstitutional and thus a moot point.  But I do support the idea that equal health care needs to become a reality in America even if "Obamacare" turns out not to be the answer.  Right now I don't know what the right thing to do is, which side is more correct--and I don't know what is in my own best interest either.  I'm hoping the whole thing will clarify itself, but one thing is certain, I will not vote because I am a Republican or Democrat.  I'll eventually figure out what "Obamacare" means to the country and to me--and vote accordingly.

      Sometimes the right thing and my best interest are not the same thing, as, for example, is the case with local school budgets.  I have long supported educators who argue for bigger budgets to support higher salaries (to draw the most qualified teachers) and better facilities--all because this will more likely result in better school systems and better-educated kids.  But this was easier to do when my own children were in the system and when my wife and I were drawing good salaries.  Now that we live on a fixed income and we no longer have children in the system, I vote against school budgets.  I can't afford to support them.  One needn't apologize for that either.  Things change--nationally, locally, and within one's family.    

        In another case, I supported George W. Bush in the infamous 2000 election because he seemed honest and appealing in his limitations, while Al Gore came across as a bully in their debates.  Bill Clinton had been smart, a great campaigner and debater, a man who, despite his widely covered sexual misadventures, inspired more confidence than censure, though it was a close call.  He was popular despite his moral shakiness.  Poor Al Gore was so bad at the confidence thing and so personally unappealing (despite his moral rectitude) that he couldn't even carry his own state, which, had he done so, would have put him over the top and made him president.  I worried about Bush's intelligence, but I voted for him anyway--and hoped for the best.  

      But I also voted for Barak Obama because he was smart and spoke well and promised to bring a moral superiority to the country after Bush's middle-Eastern wars had begun to smell so bad.  I liked the old man John McCain too, the Republican candidate, but Obama promised a new post-Civil War recovery from entrenched national racism.  It was clear to me that a vote for Obama was the right thing to do.  

     The point, as I continue to see it, is that it is impossible to vote the straight Republican line--or the straight Democratic line.  I can understand locals rooting for their baseball team "through thick or thin," but being loyal to a political party has never made sense to me.  Judging what is right about the Republican or Democratic position on any given issue is most important--and that's why I lean to independence.

A Wasted Life

            An old friend recently mentioned proudly after dinner that he weighs the same today as he did in high school.  It seemed a little less than gracious considering that I am a top-heavy seventy-five pounds more these fifty some-odd years later, but I put aside the insensitive if not insulting comment in favor of a few oohs and aahs to show how impressed I was by his weight.  I would not be as rude to him as he’d been to me.

            What I wanted to say to him, however, was that he had very little to brag about.  I know his metabolism is wired against weight gain and that the only thing he’s done with fifty years of free time is aerobic exercising—road work of one sort or another.  His work life was magnificent, and I am first in line to praise his accomplishments in that area, but for some reason that perhaps only phys ed teachers can follow, he thinks his lifetime of compulsive exercising and fitness is worthy of universal admiration.  It seems to me, however, it is the biggest waste of a life imaginable.

            He has squandered his precious time on earth by stunting  his personal growth in favor of fitness and weight control.  What is he fit for?  As far as I can see, it is merely to insure longevity (a dubious bet at best), but what is the great benefit of a long life unless it is accompanied by intellectual growth?  Fifty years of getting to the gym is an empty life by my reckoning.  He could have done any number of worthwhile things--written books,  studied the great minds of the past, learned what art and history and science can teach us, mastered new fields of research.  But no, his goal was to work out every day.  And brag about his weight.  What a waste.

Teleology vs. Peleology

        

          One chapter of the Believer’s Handbook seeks to prove God’s existence by examining design in the universe, the study known as “teleology.”  According to this argument, order implies the existence of God, but this old argument buckles, perhaps collapses, under the weight of modern science’s Uncertainty Principle (Werner Heisenberg, 1927), which has shown that order, symmetry, and design are more apparent than real.  Much as we all want an orderly universe, one which confirms God’s existence and reaffirms our desperate need to believe we are put on earth for a reason, the universe itself seems to be of another mind.  So to speak.

           Further arguing against a God-implied teleology is the God-denying study of peleology, which posits that no Creator in His right mind would design and build an organism (in his own image) that has to pee out between one and two liters every single day.  It’s a hopeless mess.  Bathrooms have to be everywhere.  Surely the Designer could have come up with a urinary tract system better than the one He settled on.  So why didn’t He?

Of course, the Almighty may have further changes in mind and may decide to implement them at any time.  But that brings up another problem.  Why would God go back every few eons to alter complicated operating systems (like turning fish fins into arms and legs or swim bladders into lungs)?  Why wouldn’t He have just gotten it right the first time? 

No, an under-attack teleology is not as persuasive as the common-sense study of peleology.  God's got some explaining to do.