Baseball

My family has been utterly apathetic about sports for three generations, and I'm largely faithful to that tradition. However, I began to follow baseball in 2003 thanks largely to my then-roommate's interest in the Chicago Cubs and their exciting but ill-fated pennant race of that year. In listening to many games and attending my share of games at Wrigley Field, The Metrodome, Fenway Park, Miller Park, Busch Stadium, and The Great American Ballpark, I've concluded that the following have no place in baseball:

• Booing a pitcher for trying to pick off a runner. No matter which team is pitching, this is not cool. In fact, booing in general should be reserved for only the most heinous on-field crimes, or maybe off-field events such as a player's moving to a rival team due to free agency.


• Corollary: booing any player on your own team is not ok, unless he just ate a puppy on the field or something similarly awful. A batter repeatedly chasing bad pitches or two outfielders colliding and dropping a routine fly warrants a disappointed "ohhh" or an aggrieved "come on, man," but not booing.
  


• The Wave. It looks stupid in a diamond-shaped ballpark. Leave it for European soccer hooligans. This counts doubly for the ancient temples of baseball such as Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, where The Wave ought to be grounds for immediate expulsion.
  


• The words "offense" and "defense." I believe the words you're looking for are "batting" and "fielding." "Pitching," too. Admittedly, I'm no authority in the subject, and "offense" and "defense" aren't strictly wrong, but they just seem ill-suited to baseball.
  


• Jumbotron messages telling the crowd to "make some noise" at critical moments. If you were paying attention to the game, you'd know when extra cheering is appropriate. If you're not paying attention to the game, why are you there?
  


• Leaving early if your team is losing. Maybe it's okay to leave early if your team is being crushed and it's raining really, really hard. Worse yet, some people leave early even when their team is winning - presumably to "beat the rush." Why did you bother coming to the game at all?
  


• Crying. There's no crying in baseball.

Lest this be solely a series of complaints, I'll conclude with my favorite baseball moments.

• Once, at the Metrodome, Lisa kicked another fan in the head while getting into her seat. The kick was an accidental tap against the noggin of a gentlemen seated in the row ahead of us, and she apologized profusely. He laughed it off and joked, "now you owe me a beer." Later, Lisa actually did buy him a beer, and the surprised gentleman tipped his cap, his faith in humanity no doubt restored.
  


• The Miller Park Sausage Race is the best break-in-the-action entertainment ever. Grown men wear costumes representing various meat products and run around the field.


• Any time the Cubs play a night game on the west coast while Lisa and I are driving to Minnesota. Thanks to the joy of AM radio propagation at night, we can pick up WGN all the way to the Twin Cities. Regardless of the team's performance, Cubs radio broadcasting is top-notch. Also, Lisa loves Ron Santo.
  

Mini-possum

Lisa and I saw this yesterday while walking down a residential street in Evanston.

It's a baby opossum, Didelphis virginiana! This minuscule marsupial was just a few inches long - note the blades of grass for scale. We heard some rustling and a strange whistling or squeaking sound under a bush near the sidewalk, and there it was. Perhaps surprisingly, 'possums are pretty cute when they're little.

When I was about ten, a 'possum briefly took up residence in our garage. It relaxed on the workbench, apparently confident that its scrofulous visage and toothy jaws glistening with methatherian drool would keep most anyone at bay. The beast eventually left the premises on its own.

Amazingly, there are at least two non-profit organizations dedicated specifically to 'possums: The National Opossum Society and The Opossum Society of the United States. The web site of the latter features an animated GIF of a 'possum wagging its tail; they also sell 'possum earrings. Too bad I learned about this right after Lisa's birthday.

Whoa.

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis:
salva me, Fonz pietatis.

I crack myself up.

Strong men also cry

Two summers ago, I got misty-eyed when I saw a Johnsonville Brats commercial on television. I was really excited for a trip Up North, and, as best I can tell, the televised sausages brought with them the knowledge that summer's consummation was nearly at hand: soon, I would be savoring Sheboygan County's best-loved pork product as loons wailed in the distance.

I feel no shame in weeping tears of joy over broadcast bratwurst. Strong men also cry, Mr. Lebowski; strong men also cry.

Ne plus ultra

So that's what Shel Silverstein was talking about.

A slippery slope

That I am at least mildly obsessed with natural history is well established. I relish opportunities to watch the various types of macrofauna I might encounter, whether in the wild or at a zoo.

Lisa's fear: "Honey, I'm afraid you're becoming a birder."

I'm not a birder, I'm a guy who likes to watch birds. But I acknowledge that I'm on a slippery slope.

• I now own two books which cover the identification and basic natural history of the birds of the Hawaiian Islands (more on the book problem later)
• I may start to attend Chicago Audubon Society meetings - this is because they help manage the Forest Preserve site where I work
• The prospect of starting a "life list" of critters I've seen in the wild has crossed my mind more than once

I recently bought a new camera (a Canon Powershot SX110 IS) and I'm completely in love with it. The optical zoom is fantastic. The photo at left shows the result of my first opportunity to play with the new camera: a northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) high up in a tree. I estimate the base of the tree was about 50 feet from me.

The picture was taken in late March at the Dwight Perkins Woods, a Cook County Forest Preserve District parcel in northwest Evanston. It's less than two miles from my home, but I had no idea it existed until very recently. Anyway, the Perkins Woods is a remnant of the "Big Woods" that once stood throughout Evanston.

Just last weekend, I went a little crazy at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I got a few fantastic pictures of a common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) and an American robin (this familiar passerine is saddled with the unfortunate binomial Turdus migratorius).

Am I doomed to slide from "a guy who watches birds" to to "a birder?" Unless the City of Evanston establishes a slothpital or some kind of municipal tapir sanctuary, it seems likely that birds will become the primary source for my natural history fix. I'm going to write my alderman about that.

Math agnosticism

Here comes another rant inspired by a Calvin and Hobbes strip - this one ran on March 6, 1991.

I'm not a math atheist, but I am a math agnostic: math may or may not exist, but there's no way to know, and it doesn't affect my daily life.

Perhaps surprisingly, this attitude has only rarely impacted my engineering career thus far. When something comes up that I don't understand - which occurs often - I'm often willing to accept it as a deus ex machina solution that magically brings everything to a tidy conclusion. My father, a man both smart and wise, pointed out that this is indicated on process flowcharts by the symbol TAMO - "Then A Miracle Occurs." Sounds good to me!

Maybe that means that rather than adopting a systematic math theology, I, like so many others of my generation, identify as "spiritual, but not religious."