Diary of a Diehard

I’m beginning to think that Murphy was some kind of misunderstood genius. How else can you explain how he is always right? It has been only 24 hours since Trina, Ashley, and Mallorie have left and we already have casualties. This morning, Dakota was messing around with Tiffany on the bunk bed and was coming down the ladder at a rate faster than is recommended. Somewhere halfway down, Dakota came to the illconceived conclusion that he could fly. He jumped off the ladder and planted his foot squarely on top of Mr. Potatohead. Normally, a spud would give way under the weight of a falling boy but this was some sort of super potato. Instead of crushing like every other toy that Dakota owns, this plastic tuber decided to flex its Taiwanese muscle and stand up to the abuse of a three year old. Dakota twisted his foot and fell to the ground crying. I went up and did my best impression of the mother comforting him and looking over the damage. The room looked as if a bomb exploded. Carnage was everywhere. In the corner sat the remains of some sort of Barbie mass murder. Arms and legs were detached, one poor doll was even tied to a Hot Wheels track where numerous cars had attempted to jump her like the Grand Canyon. How could one little boy cause this much destruction? All of this meant nothing at this point though. Dakota was obviously hurt since this was the longest period of time in his short life that he stayed in one place. I looked over his foot and it appeared he could move it. I am guessing he sprained it. All that really means is that we can limit the damage path of a Category 5 Dakota to a local area. I’m sure Trina is going to kill me when she gets home. Maybe I should jump on Mr. Potatohead myself. I’m sure she wouldn’t hit a guy with a sprained ankle.

It is amazing what you will watch at three o’clock in the morning when you can’t get to sleep. As I sat here, the events of the past away series against the New York Mets continued to plague me. How could we lose three one-run games to these guys? I absently turned on the television and began to scan the channels. On some obscure satellite channel sandwiched between a Middle Eastern cooking show and some guy telling me the finer points of tying flies in Spanish I came across a show about Nostradamus. As I sat there listening to how this guy was some kind of prophet I became more and more skeptical. Oh sure, it is impressive that some 16th century dude can look into a bowl of stagnant water and somehow predict future events. But if he was so cool, why didn’t he warn the Chicago Cubs about the goat curse or raise a red flag that spelled out what would happen to the Boston Red Sox if they traded away the Babe? See, this guy spent all of his time staring at his water glass that he missed the big picture. I mean how much use are we getting out of his so-called predictions. Every one of the examples that were stated in this show were of events that have already taken place. Duh, I can predict what would happen after the fact too. Yeah, I recognize that he was talking about events that happened several hundred years after his death but the least he could have done was put in a bookmark so we could find it before the events happened. And while we’re at it, why couldn’t he have predicted something actually useful like World Series champions? I’ll bet his descendants could have found a lot more use for that type of information. I’m thinking that Nostradamus was probably the last person picked when the kids went out to play ball. On the other hand, he could probably pick which team would win the game. It was probably always the team who didn’t have a sissy playing right field that stared at his water and talked in four line poems that no one could understand.

This is a day I have been dreading far more than that silly Year 2000 scare. It has nothing to do with impending computer disasters although I will probably not be able to use the computer for several days. Today Trina, Ashley, and Mallorie left for girls camp. They will be gone until almost game time on next Wednesday. This left me to take care of Tiffany, Whitney, Dakota, and Dog Dot Com. Now I have taken care of these kids before. It is just that I have never had this much concentration of small children by myself for such an extended period of time. It probably wouldn’t be bad if all I had to do was take care of the kids. But Trina left a couple of pages worth of information on extra activities and jobs that need to be done while she is gone. I had hoped to take the kids down to Bank One Ballpark to the Walk Across Home festivities, but after perusing “the list”, I found that wouldn’t work. Instead, Tiffany had gymnastics, grocery shopping needed to be done, Trina needed her jewelry picked up at the mall, and the kids wanted to do some shopping. I could see this was going to be a full day then I realized all of this needed to be completed before noon. By evening, I was ready to relax. Instead, the kids decided they needed to go swimming. While they were in to pool, Dakota and Dog Dot Com got tangled and both went into the pool. I was pretty proud of Dakota, he made his way to the edge of the pool and got out. Dog Dot Com wasn’t so lucky. She completely freaked out at being in the water and I ended up jumping to help her swim to the side. When she finally got out of the water, she made a mad dash to the only place where there is dirt in our whole yard and rolled around to dry off making her a giant mud ball. I spent the rest of the night cleaning her and the kids up. I can’t believe it. I didn’t leave the house and yet I have probably experienced more wildlife than Trina who is at camp.

I have come to the conclusion that I am the owner of the world’s dumbest dog. You would think I would learn my lesson. This is the third Basset Hound I have owned and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Basset’s are the dumbest breed in the canine family. Granted, they are loveable and cute in a goofy sort of way. Who couldn’t help but laugh at those huge feet and long ears. My theory is that in heaven, God was giving away gifts to each of the animals, the Basset somehow got in the ears line twice and missed the brains line completely. This point was proven tonight. Mallorie came home from the store with one of those laser pointers that shine the red light. I am not sure why she bought one of those other than she plans to take it to girls camp to use to initiate the new campers in the snipe hunt. She took the pointer out of the package to test it out. She shined the light on the floor on the living room and Dog Dot Com went nuts. She began chasing the light around the house barking at it and trying to bite it. Mallorie kept flashing the light around making the dog crazy. She would shine it on the wall and Dottie would run head first into the wall to attack the light. If we shined the light on the ceiling, Dottie would sit there and howl at it because she couldn’t get to it. I finally had to put the light away because she was going nuts. Even after we stopped, she would get her nose down to the floor and try to get the light’s scent to try and track it. This dog is such a flake.

After months of unsuccessful searching for information about the Arizona Diamondbacks draft picks for 1997, I uncovered a plethora of data about the team. Given the magnitude of this discovery, I felt like Indiana Jones. All that was missing was some cool background music, a fedora hat, a bullwhip, and a few hundred Nazi soldiers. The source of my new found knowledge was the Arizona Diamondbacks 2000 Media Guide. This book has changed my life. A couple of days ago, I was given the book by Bob Crawford, the Media Relations Manager. Mr. Crawford has been a lifesaver. I have not put this book down since the day I received it. How the media guide has not made the New York Times best seller list escapes me. Within the confines of its cover I have found fountains of information about the players and the team. I used to believe that the sports media personalities were the most intelligent and knowledgeable people in the world. How else would they know that Matt Williams was using a Louisville Slugger model T141c that is 34.5 inches long and weights 32 ounces? Well, it seems all they did was turn to page 149 and read it word for word. Needless to say that my admiration of television color commentators has been reduced while I have become increasingly impressed with the media department of the Diamondbacks. I now have enough information to keep me in heaven until the end of the season. I am not sure there is a subscription for this book but I am going to find out. Now where was I? Oh yeah, “Andrew Junipero (Andy) Fox … he and his wife, Stefanie, are the owners of a pair of dachshunds, Super Joe (named after former NFL quarterback Joe Montana) and Six…”

After barely surviving Ashley’s birthday celebration, I find myself once again bracing for another birthday party. Mallorie has always been my technologically saavy child. She always has to have the latest gadget or information appliance. I’m afraid she inherited the technology gene from me. As her birthday approached, I asked her what she wanted as a gift. She immediately inundated me with brochures of new pagers and other techno-gizmos. Trina of course just rolled her eyes and walked off leaving me to do the research on these products to determine what Mallorie would get. Mallorie was very persuasive in her argument of why she needed these new silicon based devices in her life. My favorite justification was that she would be able to receive the latest baseball scores for the Diamondbacks so that she could keep me informed as to how they were doing. I have to give her extra credit for that one. Coupled with her birthday, Mallorie is also graduating from Middle School and will be in high school beginning next fall. I find it hard to believe that she is that old already. It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in front of her high chair teaching her to sing “take me out to the ballgame”. Oh wait, that was yesterday. Just kidding Mallorie.

Much like Gilligan, I had anticipated a three hour tour only to find myself stranded with six other castaways. Family life in our house is much like a shipwreck but without the lagoon. This week is a prime example of how things go.

Continue reading ‘Calm Before the Storm’ »

Seventeen years ago today, I stood in a delivery room at a hospital ready to faint. At the time, I thought I was queasy because I had never witnessed the birth of a child. I have since realized that I was sick to my stomach because I was going to be the father of a teenage girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ashley with all of my heart. I am just not ready for her to be a grown woman yet. Ashley is now the same age that Trina and I were when we met and I remember what I was like at that time in my life. Teenage boys should be corralled and not allowed access to the opposite sex until they have finished college or had a year playing double-a minor league baseball. Ashley has now been dating for a year. Just before her last birthday, she sat down with Trina and I to talk about dating. We tried to explain to her that she should not get to serious about a single boy and date several boys before deciding on just one. She assured us she would never have a steady boyfriend and suggested we implement a rule where she would date one boy for only three dates. Trina explained she could not enforce this rule. Wanting to help the best I could, I volunteered to enforce this rule to its fullest extent. I went further to establish guidelines for her dates. Before each outing, her date and I would go into the backyard. There he would be given 10 pitches to hit with a wiffleball. Ashley would then be given 10 pitches. If the boy out hit Ashley, the date was on. If Ashley out hit the boy, I would thank him for his time and send him on his way. So far over the past year, this rule has worked quite well. In fact, the majority of Ashley’s first dates have been to the batting cage for her date. She has broken the three date rule but I can’t complain. For each time she breaks the three date rule, I get a box of Dairy Queen Dilly Bars.

Being a mother is an interesting calling in life. It is something that I cannot envision doing. Fatherhood is a breeze compared to what a mother must face. As a father, you can get away with a lot. If a baby has a dirty diaper you can plead ignorance and mom will take care of it. During potty training you can explain that you don’t understand the concept and mom will take care of it. If a child throws up, dad will usually freak out while mom will clean it up. Usually, it is the father that will instill a love of baseball into a child. The mother however also plays an important part in the development of a ball player. Looking back, my mother helped me in a number of ways to become the best player I could be. There were countless times that I would drag her from the house to try out my latest pitch or stand her in the batter’s box to test my control. She always made sure my uniform was clean regardless of how many stolen bases or diving catches I made. She drove me to practice every day and always cheered when I came home without a hit. She remembered treats on game day for the team and she kept score at each game. She rattled umpires when she felt they were treating me unfairly and she chastised me when I brushed back a hitter from the mound. She bandaged my knees and elbows and even rushed me to the hospital a few times after breaking an arm or finger. Above all, she taught me that there is more to the game than offense and defense. There is an emotional side to baseball that must be experienced. To commit to the game you have to share its soul. I am grateful to my mother for helping me understand the game and for being there for me.