Monday, September 24, 2012

Baseball and Friendship


Yesterday I took my Sunday off! That’s two weeks in a row! Now did I rest? Kind of, in life you meet many people, different people all kinds of people. I made a friend when I was seven years old that without ever saying much to each other we became instant lifelong friends. As you grow up and grow away from your childhood and life moves you around the country and even around the world, true friendships withstand any distance put between two people who share a common bond.

We started out as kids playing the game baseball and developing the love of a game we shared. Playing night and day on a field, street or backyard with whatever was available, rubber ball, wiffleball or dice and strat-o-matic cards it was learning the game, the fundamentals and the history.  We pretended to be our favorite players playing on our favorite teams, he the Yankees and me the Reds from that 1976 World Series. We were separated after high school as he went into the Army and headed off to Germany and I to play ball in college. We both returned home and resumed our friendship as if we went on a weekend vacation before he moved on to Texas and I left for Florida. Phone calls spread out over the years kept us up to date on each other and flights to each other’s new homes to appear as the best man at each other’s weddings kept us in the family albums. The memories of these times come up over and over again in our conversations some forty years later and we are young again. We laugh and then we look at our grown kids and come back to reality.

This weekend my best friend met for the first time my 9 year old son and I met his 16 year old daughter for only the second time. We spent a day at Disney trying to cram three parks into a twelve hour visit and even though the time flew by and we hardly had much time to speak with each other we had the peace of mind of being with each other for a few hours and “all was good”. Rushing from park to park (something I hate to do) was fun on this day and I was energized and tireless. I kind of got a workout in as we walked too many miles to count and then for all intense and purposes I did a quarter mile sprint with my son sitting on my shoulders (he was too tired to walk)  as we raced out of the last park trying to avoid some of the traffic.

It was a great day and I hope we can do it again sooner rather than later.

As I mentioned my friend Joe is a Yankee fan, as are most of my friends since I grew up in the New York/New Jersey area and he would have enjoyed seeing Lou Gehrig on here with his name but I already posted that part of my list and the Iron Horse will be the only Yankee that makes my list of favorites by position so, I will post the oldest member of my list here. The greatest Right Handed Starting Pitcher in my opinion is Walter Johnson.  Two things; 417 wins on a historically poor team and when a batter says to the umpire “that sounded high” you have got to think that Walter Johnson stands way above the rest of the Right Handed Starting Pitchers in the history of the game. 


Oh by the way how about this for a great battery, Joe was born on Tom Seaver's Birthday and I was born on Johnny Bench's Birthday! No wonder we worked together so well! 

Friday, September 21, 2012

Dessert with Dad?


Feeling fresh and ready to go today I set out on my run first thing this morning and returned home to complete my work out, PAP Upper right away. These kind of days really seem to change the entire dynamic of the day as well as create so much additional time. I am not a morning person but do enjoy these days when I am inspired to complete more than my average day.

I will need to make appearances at both of my kid’s schools one for lunch with dad and the other for desert with dad? Who ever heard of such a thing, desert with dad? Yes we not only feed your kids crap if you allow us to but we also encourage you to come to school and participate in the corruption of this task. Well I may just circumvent the system and bring some fresh fruit and see how that plays out!

The good thing is I should have enough time in the day to fit in a bike ride today as well!

Today’s position and player is the greatest player ever to play the position of catcher, Johnny Bench, Those that know me knew this was coming so why wait? I grew up copying everything this guy did and played the position the best I could because of his greatness. Enjoy the video!


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Body Weight and a Dog

This morning I shut the lights off and worked to the light of the television with some the Fountain of Youth Yoga from the Tony Horton One on One series. Call it my moment of Zen if you will. The lights off provide that additional touch of relaxation as I reflect and clear my head while shifting my frame and balancing myself into a sweat. 

To be a big guy and to now be able to flow through the movements of this program feels like such an accomplishment. Supporting my body weight at the start was a challenge even Tony states at the 7 minute mark that it is a workout without weights or resistance bands that will push you. When I started P90X this was the day I dreaded most, even more than Plyometrics! The fact that I now consider it a light day speaks so much to the difference in me both physically and mentally. After almost a year of doing this workout weekly I almost know it by heart and enjoy the progressions as I move with it.

Yesterday I attempted the three workouts I planned to do but life got in the way and I never made it to my run. I will complete Day 3 of my running program tonight. I prefer to run at night because living in Florida and running in the heat of day is not my idea of fun, besides my dog has been known to crap out on me during day runs and what good is it to run by yourself? 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Never Forget


As a kid growing up in New Jersey and having family that lived in Brooklyn, New York my parents, sister and I frequently made the journey in to visit the family especially on holidays. The trip by car was a fight against traffic through Manhattan after emerging from the Lincoln Tunnel down the West Side Highway and into the Battery Tunnel. Before we entered the Battery Tunnel we would be alerted by my parents to look up from the back window of our Volkswagen Beatle at the “Twin Towers” as we called them before we exited the outside world for the dark underwater world we would be entering before we world see daylight and our Grandparents on the other side.

To me these towers were always there, the thing was that they were considered the new big buildings in the city. The Empire State Building was the old building that King Kong climbed in some old movie but these were the promise of the new future and the big business that was available to me, some kid growing up in the area. They were symbols of accomplishment and that I could do or be anything in this world if I put in the time and the hard work.

As I grew older and became more independent I would frequently drive-by, walk-by or even cut through these building without even a thought of the symbol that they stood for. I would make an occasional delivery into these buildings during one of my high school summer jobs and this was the only time I would get slightly excited that I would be in the area because it was always just an overly congested area I did not want to be around.

I grew up and moved away years later and although I love my old home and often missed it, when I would return I would be anxious to leave again because my personality was never one that enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the busy city. I love the action and the excitement but not the “rat race” that can be New York.

On March 25, 2000 my wife and I welcomed our first child and it is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. I want everything for this little girl as much today as I did on the day she was born. Her birth changed everything about the way I live my life and as I have watched her grow I have continued to grow with her most recently changing the way I eat and increasing how active I have become so I will be around for her and to protect her from this world.

You see shortly after she was born those “Twin Towers” were brought down and I was left feeling helpless and like I could not protect her. I felt for a moment like I should not have brought such a beautiful little helpless person into this world and that feeling was awful. I have always tried to live without regrets and I did not want the one thing that mattered most to me be regret.  

I remember that day each year and the people I was with while living in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember my friend coming into my office telling me about the first plane hitting the tower and I remember the shock as I was watching the second plane hit the second tower. I remember locking down the club I was managing because we did not know what was going to happen next. I remember my wife arriving at the club with my baby daughter and her being worried about me. I can’t forget! I wish I could but I can’t.

One year later I returned on the anniversary of that event because I felt like I had to be there. As I emerged from the Battery Tunnel with my wife in the car on our way to Giants Stadium she asked me "where was the World Trade Center" I said very casually "I will pull over and show you where it was". As I pulled up to the curb and stopped the car I could see the construction wall that was placed in the area opposite the sidewalk. I opened the door of the car and jumped out of the car to see nothing! Nothing! I saw Nothing, I could not believe my eyes. Over the construction wall was open space...Nothing. I felt sick immediately. My wife said I turned as white as a sheet. Was I in denial for over a year? No, I just always had these two buildings over me, the shadows like a big brother looking over my shoulder and now they were gone.

I have family that are members of the FDNY and the NYPD and I also wanted to attend the opening of the NFL Football season as the Giants hosted the 49er’s. I was able to spend time with people that witnessed tragedy and loss over the past year and I saw a different place than the one I had left. I always thought that New Yorker’s got a bad rap as being rude and unfriendly but what I did see were people that were brought together and helped each other more than ever. There was always a love thy neighbor feeling about where I grew up but now the neighborhood was bigger. It was great to see and experience, the view from the top of the stadium was a sight and another experience I will always cherish as I looked upon all of the blue FDNY & NYPD shirts it was heartwarming to know we were all on the same team. I felt safe again and everything would be okay for me and my family.

This is the time of year when I hurt the most, I hurt for all that lost their lives on that day and I hurt for all the people that lost someone important to them on that day. This is also the time of year I wish I still lived there so I could do something to help anyone in pain anyone that needs a hand and anyone that needs a shoulder.