Opening Day!

April is here at last! Whatever it is that March is going out as, it's finally gone.

You thought it was spring? April fools!

April 1 brings us many things. It brings a lot of April Fools' Day jokes of course. For some reason it brings several inches of new snow to my yard—will it never end? But most importantly, it brings Opening Day.

I am referring to the first day of the Major League Baseball season. I have always kind of liked baseball. As a kid, my friends and I all had balls, bats and gloves. There was a big empty lot behind the house of one of my friends, and from spring to fall we would be out there playing. Not the kind of organized game that seems to be the only way the kids I know play today, but rather the kind of neighborhood game played by a handful of kids, involving imaginary runners and other bits of improvisation. I sometimes thought about playing little league ball, but my mother wouldn't hear of it, saying that the little league parents were all a bunch of fanatical nuts.

From the time I was about five until the age of thirteen, I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The East Bay, to be precise. So it was only natural, I guess, that when watching baseball my friends and I all followed the Oakland A's. This was in the late 1960's and early 1970's, which was a pretty exciting time to be an A's fan. There was a certain aura that surrounded the team during that era, partly because of their success on the field during the first half of the 1970's (such as World Series wins 1972–1974), but also because of the colorful image that their equally colorful owner, Charlie O. Finley, built up around the team.

Back When Life Was Simpler

I went to a few games a year during that period. It was pretty exciting as a kid to go to the Oakland Coliseum to see a live game. I think one of the first games I ever went to was a bat day ca. 1970 or 1971, at which I got a free bat that bore the signature of Rick Monday, who hit a grand slam during that very game; a very big deal at the age of nine or ten. That bat somehow ended up in my mother's garage and my son now has it. I wonder if bat day still exists? These days I imagine there would be significant legal concerns about filling the stands with thousands of potential weapons.

But these happy times were not to last forever… For one thing, I just got older and had other things on my mind. But more significantly, I watched as the amazing team I had followed for so many years disintegrated, as some of the players went on to other teams who paid them more, and others were sold off by Charlie Finley to other teams. It became pretty clear to me that this was all just a business, and that any romantic notions about these guys being a team who were always there for each other were a kind of youthful fantasy. Greatly disillusioned, I lost interest in not only baseball, but in professional sports in general for a very long time.

Fast-forward about 25 years, and here I am moving from Germany, where baseball is largely unknown, to the Boston area. Everywhere I look I see someone wearing a cap with a script "B" on it, and all anyone seems to be talking about is the latest exploits of "Nomah" (AKA star hitter Nomar Garciaparra) and "Manny being Manny", whatever that means. From April to September, the world seems to revolve around the Red Sox and their seemingly eternal quest to escape "the curse of the Bambino". People speak of Bill Buckner's error in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series in the same tones of anger, sadness and resignation in which they might speak of the unexpected death of a close friend.


A Famous Local Landmark (Since Retired)


At first I looked on all this with a certain air of bemused detachment. And then at some point I watched a game or two on TV, I think during the 2004 season as it started to look like the Red Sox would make it at least as far as the playoffs and the local fans, i.e., about 98% of the local population, were starting to show that peculiar mixture of excitement tinged with an undercurrent of an expectation of ultimate defeat that was so characteristic of Red Sox fans at the time. But then the unthinkable happened as the Red Sox went on to defeat the much-hated New York Yankees in the seventh game of the American League Championship Series after having lost the first three games. And then something even more unthinkable happened as they went on to win the World Series for the first time since 1918. And I think I watched pretty much every one of those games.

So I guess I've kind of made my peace with professional baseball. I find that I enjoy watching the games more than I might have been willing to admit previously, although I rarely watch an entire game from start to finish; usually I'll turn it on in the fifth or sixth inning and watch as long as there's still some suspense as to who's going to win. I like the fact that the season is so long; with over 160 games to be played over six long months, a team can't get into the post-season by getting lucky a few times, it has to be consistently good throughout the whole season. It's a marathon and not a sprint.

My Favorite Wife, being of the German persuasion and having grown up without any connection to baseball, will occasionally watch a game with me on TV, but still finds it utterly baffling. To me, it seems really straightforward: each team gets a turn each at being on offense or defense over a cycle of nine innings; the team on offense can keep batting until they have three outs; when batting, the objective is to hit the ball and them run around the bases; the pitcher throws the ball, and each throw can be a ball or a strike; it's a ball if it's thrown outside the strike zone, unless the batter swings at it, in which case it's a strike if he misses, or if he hits it foul (but only the first two foul balls count as strikes), but it's also a strike if it's in the strike zone even if he doesn't swing and, oh, never mind… I guess it is sort of complicated. Unlike MFW's beloved game of soccer, in which a bunch of guys try to kick a ball into a net, the end. What's so exciting about that?

And hardcore fans like to make baseball even more complicated by following the stats. I don't think there are any sports fans anywhere that are as numbers- and trivia-obsessed as hardcore baseball fans. Every game I hear the announcers saying things like, "You know, Bill, that hit by Ortiz is the first time since 1993 that a designated hitter got a double off a fastball thrown by a left-handed pitcher whose mother's name is Martha on a Tuesday during a new moon." Where do they come up with this stuff? Who cares? I just want to see if the guy can hit the ball.

I've only been to one live game since returning to the US. It was my first and only game at Fenway Park. Fenway is a fun place to watch a ball game because it's just so small. Seeing a game there is sort of like watching your favorite band perform in a small club instead of a huge stadium. But the downside of that is that it's also really expensive, at least by my standards; even the "cheap" seats typically go for well above $100, and I'm just not willing to drop five or six hundred dollars for an afternoon's entertainment with the family. Somehow that just seems frivolous and irresponsible (in other words I'm a cheapskate, as my children will explain it). The one game I went to was at the invitation of a sales guy at work who happened to be a college buddy of a major figure in the Red Sox organization and was able to periodically borrow that guy's season tickets. That one time we went he asked me when the last time was that I had been to a major league ball game, and it occurred to me that it was probably when my host was still filling his diapers.

Where Boston Goes to Worship

As for the Red Sox on opening day: they lost their first game 9-5 to the Texas Rangers. Not an auspicious start. Oh well, at least we have, what, another 161 to go?

Out Like… a Lion?

I have been pining for spring after all the cold weather and snow we had this winter. With the coming of March, things have started to take a turn for the better. We had some heavy rainstorms around the beginning of the month, but also some dry stretches with temperatures in the 40's and 50's (F). I've watched with pleasure as the giant piles of snow in my backyard and throughout the neighborhood have gradually disappeared until there is very little left.


Even a Very Faint Hint of Green Lawn


The seedlings I planted a couple of weeks ago are all pretty much up and growing too. Another sign that spring is coming! This weekend I'll plant a bunch more.

Progress

This past Sunday, March 20 was the equinox, the official beginning of spring (equinox… I've always really liked the sound of that word for some reason… equinox… equinox… equinox…). It wasn't exactly a warm day, mid-40's maybe, but it was sunny and dry. And then what did I wake up to the next morning? A snowstorm! Massachusetts, so cruel art thou. They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Here it comes in like a lion and goes out like a very slightly smaller lion.


Supposedly There's A Lamb In There Somewhere



Seeds of Hope

Rising temperatures and thawing snow are clear signs that against all odds, spring may actually come to Massachusetts this year. But long before that happens, even as winter is only just getting seriously underway, there is another sign of a coming spring. Every January, just after the first of the year, my mailbox becomes clogged with seed catalogs.

I buy more or less the same stuff from the same three suppliers every year. I get tomatoes and peppers from a supplier that specializes in those things, I get lettuce and other greens from a second supplier, and everything else from a third. Obviously they share their mailing lists with other suppliers, because I always end up with catalogs from over a dozen others.

Looking out at my garden from my bedroom window at that time of year, spring still seems a long way off. All I see is a sea of white. This year, with record snowfall, that sea was deeper than ever, reaching almost to the top of the garden fence, which stands a little over four feet high.


2/2/11: I hope the groundhog was right…


Now that we are into March, and we've had some warmer days and a bunch of rain, the snow is starting to disappear, but it still looks pretty dreary outside. All the rain we've gotten in the last few days has melted away a lot of snow, but it doesn't all drain away quickly, so the ground in my back yard has a soggy, squishy character.


3/6/11: I can actually see the ground now



3/6/11: A little sun, and the glacier is receding further

With the snow gone I can also see all of the dead plant material, stakes and whatnot that I promise myself I will clear away every fall before the snow comes, but somehow never get around to doing. I will end up doing it before I plant in the late spring. I don't know that it really matters, objectively speaking, but it might be nice to start the gardening season with everything already looking nice and tidy.

But for now the gardening work is happening indoors. The seeds I ordered recently arrived, so on the weekend I started planting things that I have learned from experience to start planting about now: eggplant, peppers and cabbages. I get out the starter trays and fill the little compartments in the trays with moistend sterile seed starter mix. Then, using my trusty zircon-encrusted tweezers, I carefully poke one seed into each little compartment.


Mühsam ernährt sich das Eichhörnchen

The whole thing is a pretty tedious business and I tend to sort of space out as I'm doing it, especially if someone happens to come up and start talking to me while I'm in the middle of it. Hmm, did I just put a seed into that compartment, or did I put it in the other one? Yes? No? Guess I'll put another one in to be safe. Wait, did I already put two in there? And on and on… It's hard work, but somebody has to do it. I just try to think of it as a zen meditation sort of thing, something that will help me be at one with myself (whatever that means), but I'm still glad when it's done.

After the trays are filled I put them on my seed starting bench on electric mats that are supposed to keep them warm enough for the seeds to germinate. My seed starting bench is one of the many things I've whipped together quickly out of a bunch of scrap lumber for temporary use, but has then lasted for years and years afterward. My woodworking hobby and general deep-seated compulsion to be constantly building something or other ensures that there are always plenty of materials lying around from which something at least marginally useful can be constructed.

This year My Favorite Wife has decreed that this elegant piece of fine furniture is no longer welcome in the dining room, so I've found a spot for it in the garage. This will be an interesting experiment because this time of year the unheated garage still has an average temperature of about 45° F, so I am hoping that the heating mat will work well enough for the peppers and eggplant, which like warm soil, to germinate and not just rot in the damp soil.



Banished to the Garage



For the cabbages at least I know it's working, since the first seedlings (red and white varieties!) are sprouting, three days after I planted them. I find this tremendously exciting. But then I am not like you.



Newborn baby cabbages! Look closely. Aren't they darling?



Enough Already!

This winter has just gone on way too long. But at last things are looking up here in this howling wilderness to which Providence hath brought us. The temperature actually stayed above freezing over the entire period of the last 24 hours, which I think is the first time we've had that so far this year.

We had way more snow this year than usual, somewhere between 70 and 80 inches (or between about 175-200 cm for you overseas readers). The average in this area is around 22 inches. Most of that fell during a four-week period in January. Usually we have a weather phenomenon called the "January thaw", a period of around a week or so when the temperature gets up above freezing during the day and a fair amount of the snow that's accumulated up to that point melts away before it turns cold and snowy again. This year we didn't have that, though, so between the substantial snowfall and the consistently cold temperatures, we ended up with huge piles of snow everywhere that nobody quite knew what to do with.

Although the major roads were mostly free, driving in residential neighborhoods became something of a challenge because the plows can only pile it up to a certain height. The usable surface in my own neighborhood got narrower and narrower until in most places it was only barely possible for two cars to pass each other.

Pass Me If You Can

The sidewalks weren't much better. I live in a neighborhood in which most (though unfortunately not all) of the residents are pretty good about clearing the sidewalks in front of their houses. It's hard to get every last bit of it off with a shovel or snowblower, especially if you are clearing it after people have walked on it and compacted it onto the surface of the sidewalk. Most of the sidewalks on our street are asphalt, so if you get most of it off, when the sun comes out subsequently, even on a cold day it will warm the asphalt to the point where most of what remains will melt and evaporate. But there are still many stretches where the snow is repeatedly warmed only enough to become liquid and then freezes again, turning some stretches of sidewalk into a sheet of ice. So there you get to choose whether you want to risk falling on the ice, or whether you would prefer to walk in the street and instead risk getting hit by some unobservant motorist.



Take Your Chances

The more heavily traveled roads in the city were generally cleared to their full width, which in some cases meant bringing in construction equipment to load snow onto dumptrucks and cart it away. Where they took it I don't know. There were discussions about dumping at least some of it into the ocean; usually that's prohibited because the snow cleared from roads and parking lots tends to be full of road salt, motor oil and all manner of other flotsam and jetsam, but I think this year there may have been some exceptions made. I wrote previously about how the snow looks nice at first, but especially in the more heavily-traveled areas soon turns into grey-black piles that you get pretty tired of looking at. Well, this year we've been getting to enjoy that phenomenon even longer than usual. Even on those days when the sun comes out it's kind of depressing to walk or drive through that landscape.

Ugly Grey Gunk

Son of Ugly Grey Gunk

Return of the Son of Ugly Grey Gunk

As the snow recedes, it's exposing some of the most enormous potholes I've ever seen. I'm talking over a foot wide and 6–8 inches deep in some cases, and that's no exaggeration. I also wrote previously about how the winter freeze-thaw cycle, paired with the action of the snowplows, tends to wreck the road surfaces around here, but this year it's extreme. I'm guessing it's because there were a lot more plows out plowing a lot more snow than usual this year. But whatever the reason, driving on any of the main roads in this town in the last couple of weeks has been a pretty exciting game of pothole slalom every time.

At least the end is in sight. To measure the approach of spring I need look no further than the end of my driveway. The pile of snow that had accumulated from the series of storms we had in January is slowly receding. Another month and maybe it'll be gone…

February 2: Six Feet High

February 15: I'm Melting!

  

March 6: Land in Sight!