We’ll get together then, Dad
Posted: October 28th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Pop Culture | 34 Comments »
I suppose lots of fathers have their own cat’s-in-the-cradle-and-the-silver-spoon moment.* Mine came on October 31, 2007 in Nagoya, Japan. That, of course, was Halloween. And, of course, because I was trying to show more intensity in Nagoya, Japan, I was not back home in Kansas City, Missouri, when my young daughters were going door to door and getting matchbox size Krackel bars and those little Alka-Seltzer two-packs of SweeTarts.
*This is funny as I think back: I remember being, oh, probably 13 or 14 years old — so this had to be 1981 or so — and my brother (who was 11) and I called a radio station and asked the DJ to play “Cats in the Cradle.” The disc jockey said he would try. We listened for about an hour thinking how cool it was that you could actually call a radio station and have them play the song you wanted to hear — imagine that sort of choice! What a world. Well, of course, this being 1981 or so, the DJ did not play Cats in the Cradle. He played the various and time-appropriate Styx and REO Speedwagon songs. So we called BACK to ask for Cats in the Cradle, and the guy yelled at us, “Quit calling me.” The funny part for me, though, is that I remember being absolutely stunned that he even knew it was us. Did he recognize our voice? Did he have some sort of newfangled caller-identification technology? It did not even occur to us that, you know, nobody else in 1981 was requesting “Cats in the Cradle.”
Anyway, missing Halloween hit me really hard. The job demands that I’m on the road and away from my family, and it’s a deal that we all handle best we can. But there are lines that should not be crossed. Halloween, in my mind, should not be crossed. Not now. I grew up on Halloween. I have spent too much time in my life thinking (and writing) about Halloween. I made myself a promise — one of those Dad to self promises — that I absolutely would never miss Halloween with my kids again, certainly not until they are past what the Peanuts gang called “tricks and treats” age.
Now, here it is, just one year later, and I’m stuck in Philadelphia, and it’s gloomy, and it’s cloudy, and it’s raining, and it looks like this World Series could be delayed for another day. As you may have heard, they will not complete suspended Game 5 until Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig personally determines that the weather conditions are appropriate. I believe that’s rule 27:30:28:
“No suspended World Series Game shall be resumed until the various weather conditions have met the standards of Bud Selig. In the event that Bud Selig is no longer able to function as commissioner of baseball, the rule reverts back to the normal standards set forth in various other places in the rulebook.
With Bud already sensitive, thanks to his well-intentioned but inevitably hapless decision to play ball despite the obvious approach of nasty weather*, I’m not sure when they will play baseball again. But I have a bad feeling it won’t be today. But they already said it won’t be today. That means they will push the game back to Wednesday, which will (if Tampa wins) push Game 6 back to Thursday which will (if Tampa wins again) push Game 7 back to Friday. And Friday is Halloween.
*I think there are mixed feelings about Bud’s decision to play ball on Monday, and I also think that’s right. Some think Bud’s an idiot. Some think he’s unlucky. Some think he handled it all as well as anyone could. I think there is truth in all those things.
My big problem with the decision is that in the press box, it seemed obvious that a major rain storm was probably coming. The guy on television said that the rain would get heavier at about 10 p.m. Eastern (which it did, by the way — this guy should be baseball’s official meteorologist). The amateur radar readers in the press box unanimously felt like there was an awful lot of nasty green glow heading Philadelphia’s way. It all seemed kind of obvious. I know Bud said that three different weather services told him that it was going to be light rain throughout the night and nothing more, but frankly I find that to be incredible — I mean, if baseball hacks can at least see the POSSIBILITY of heavy rain coming, I would hope that people who go to Meteorology College or whatever could at least have given Bud a percentage chance that it would start pouring in two hours.
In any case, in my mind, the mistake was in starting the game. But, to be fair, he didn’t have many good options. People have emailed and commented that he could have started the game ninety minutes earlier, and in another time he might have done that. But realistically, I suspect, you can’t change times on FOX at the last minute — I mean, FOX is giving baseball billions of dollars. You also can’t do that to people who are spending thousands of dollars for tickets. You can’t decide at the last minute to change the starting time on what might be the biggest sports moment in Philadelphia in a quarter century.** Plus, if his weather people didn’t know it would pour TWO HOURS before it poured, how the heck would they have known early enough to make that decision?
**I do realize that my friend Gene Wojo over at ESPN points out that golf tournaments change times, and it’s a good point. But I think it’s just a bit off too — golf tournaments are played during the day anyway, there is no prime time television to deal with, no spectator work schedules being screwed with, plus, let’s be honest, it’s golf.
Then, once the game was started, there wasn’t much Bud could do either except hope the rain stayed away. I think he did handle it as well as possible at that point. They couldn’t keep playing in those conditions — after five and a half innings they HAD to stop. And yet, they really could not stop the game earlier because the score was 2-1 Philadelphia after five innings. And no matter what Bud Selig says, he does not really have the power to have a impose an everlasting rain delay. He would have been forced at some point to declare the Phillies the winner and the 2008 World Series champions and that would have made the All-Star Game snafu of a few years ago seem like a happy memory.
Bud was unlucky, sure but I also would argue that the luckiest break of Bud Selig’s career as commissioner happened when the Rays scored a run in the sixth to tie the game. Anyway, the blunder was in starting the game and Bud knew it too — I say this based on his wonderful post-mess press conference in which he tried to blame everyone on planet earth for this happening and then offered up several Al Haig ”I’m in charge“ moments. I cannot get enough Bud Selig.
So back to the point at hand. There is a chance — somewhat remote at this point, but getting moter all the time — that there will be a World Series Game 7 on Halloween night. And my Dad promise will be tested. The hope is that it won’t come to that, we’ll finish this game tonight or Philadelphia will win or something. But there’s a chance that I will have to choose between Game 7 of the World Series and Halloween night at home.
If that conflict happens, well, I think you know what I’m going to do.
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We got our yellow girl dog — the bossy one — on Halloween. When our boy went to a neighbors’ garage to join the group heading out for treats, there was this little dog, just past puppyhood, hiding under a workbench.
Down the street he trotted, bent over, fingers under her collar. No ID tag, no response to our “found dog” ads. We got together then.
I think the biggest shock in my music-listening life was when I found out that Cat Stevens did not do this song. In fact, everyone I’ve talked to thinks this song is by Cat Stevens.
On the positive side, Tampa has got to be the slutty costume capital of the world.
Can you imagine Halloween night in Ybor City? The mind reels.
I wonder what channel was on in the press box.
I ask because the local Fox weatherman was saying after the suspension that there was no way they’d be able to finish the game tonight. He was awfully authoritative. I believed him.
One last thing: I think Bud did everything right last night, but I have to say it was hi-larious that he was holding a copy of the rule book at the press conference. It was like a detail straight out of The Simpsons.
Fly the family to Tampa and trick or treat in the hotel.
I wonder what conflict was going on in the Posnanski household that would cause two pre-teen boys to request “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Whatever it was, I can see your minds working. You must have thought, “Dad will be in his car, will hear this song, will be overcome with regret, and will instantly turn around and allow us to buy that trampoline from the Sears catalog.”
Poz was obviously heavily influenced by K-Tel to want to hear the rest of that song.
The weather seemed to be affecting the umpires more than anyone else. Upton still stole a base in that muck, and despite the Ray-ban strike zone, Kazmir muddled through and Hamels was efficient.
I’ve been lucky so far and haven’t missed any major holidays with my kids, but I’ve missed so many cumulative little league, basketball and T-ball games, not to mention concerts, recitals and the like, that it seems like one long, ongoing “Cat’s in the Cradle” moment.
Regarding the rain in Philly, Nate Bukaty made a good point on the radio here in KC this morning. Given Selig’s luck, if he had called the game before it started then it wouldn’t have rained.
Next year, Oct. 31 will be Game 3 of the World Series. It also falls on a college football Saturday.
Mark me down as “Bud Selig is an idiot.”
Sincerely,
The 1994 World Series
Conclusion of the game will not be played tonight.
Announcement coming shortly.
why couldn’t selig have suspended the game after the 4th or 5th when the field was already pretty crappy?
That’s why we love you, Joe. It’s a no brainer. But fear not. This thing ends whenever game 5 is resumed. The Rays got over the mountain that is the AL East and the peak which was getting past the Red Sox. How can they not let up a bit? How can they not but ask themselves… Wait… We got another series to win?
I remember wanting to hear “Take a letter, Maria”, and annoying the DJ at the same age– about 7 or 8 years before your brother!
Do go home on Halloween.
[...] Bud was unlucky, sure, but I also would argue that the luckiest break of Bud Selig’s career as commissioner happened when the Rays scored a run in the sixth to tie the game. Anyway, the blunder was in starting the game and Bud knew it too — I say this based on his wonderful post-mess press conference in which he tried to blame everyone on planet earth for this happening and then offered up several Al Haig ‘I’m in charge’ moments. I cannot get enough Bud Selig.” – Joe Posnanski [...]
POZ if you hold up your end of the bargain, I’ll make it easy for you. Come out to our place in Lee’s Summit, your kids can make off with the entire bowl of candy and I’l crack open a beer for you and have the game on so you can check the score.
Decisions like this need to be celebrated.
Bud Selig is not necessarily an idiot. He just looks like one.
Nobody is facing up to the fact that baseball shouldn’t be played this late in the year, they’ve just got lucky the past few years.
Many will call for solutions and I’m not going to deny myself a few thoughts, one thing is untouchable though, the length of the regular season, thus negating the history of the game and rendering decades of stats and risking asterisks (Posterisks?)
The season cannot start any earlier either, they cannot play regular season games in the respective stadia either.
The regular season has to end earlier, therefore the teams have to face up to double headers, 3 per month, day/afternoon-lets-play-two classics!
Then, they play at least one of the playoff games on a get away afternoon game, and cut out all these days off inbetween, the intensity of the series is ruined by a nonsensical day off in the middle of a series.
FOX can go to hell, well they are already in HELL anyway, TBS would pick it up and do a mutch better job anyway. Less noise and visual effects and more Mr. Caray!
Niaive? Yes, but a lot more fun and let the second game i nthe double header be a free admittance game! What do I know anyway, Englishmen are not supposed to like game just as Australians are not supposed to mutter on the mound! Ha!
A few thoughts:
I called a radio station once that I can remember. It was some time after my “Believe it or not, I’m walking on air” phase that I entered into my short “St Elmo’s Fire” phase. After hearing it on the radio, I immediately called the station and got through to the DJ (I assumed) and requested it again. The DJ assured me that it would be coming right up. It didn’t.
I never had a Cat’s in the Cradle phase. I was aware that neither Cat Stevens nor Yusef Islam sang it. I do, however, remember the shock I felt when I realized that Pat Benetar has absolutely nothing to to with “Shooting at the walls of heartache, BANG BANG. I am the Warrior.”
One last thing…I think Mickey should have his own blog. Who’s with me?
Sorry…Mikey. I meant Mikey
Mickey is so fine
Mikey gets his own blog
The first time I called a radio station to request a song, I was 12 years old. I called the station and when the guy said hello, I realized I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so I just said the name of the song, which was, no lie, “I Touch Myself.” Then I hung up. I swear this is a true story.
The World Series was designed to be a money-raising exhibition between two league champions. It was never intended that anybody should think it important. Now we have a midseason all-star exhibition that they think is vitally important because it determines the Home Field Advantage in the World Series. I’ve loved baseball all my life, but I’ve NEVER thought it was important. The decision to broadcast the postseason (part of it, anyway) on a network I can’t get on the satellite deal I subscribe to has gone one step further toward making Major League Baseball irrelevant to me. I’ll just substitute the College World Series and won’t feel I’ve missed a thing. Obviously MLB won’t miss me either–they priced me out of actually ATTENDING games several years back.
My Dad and I have a great relationship. It hasn’t always been this great, but I would say it’s never been less than good. And I LOVE Cats in the Cradle (despite not being born until 1982). Maybe it’s because I like songs that stir my emotions and to me, there’s very little that’s sadder than a broken relationship between a boy and his father. The part about the dad being too busy to play catch almost always brings me to the edge of tears.
I think Bud has done a good job. Inter-league play and the extra playoff teams are big plusses. Yes, he overlooked steroids, but this problem was not created by him.
At least the Royals will play the Cards six times every year. I remember how everyone was so against inter-league play.
I hate interleague play. It was a novelty gimmick and noone cares anymore.I hate the unbalanced schedule that means the Yankees and Red Sox come into KC once a year. I could care less about playing the Cardinals every year. Interleague takes the special nature out the American League Champion and National League Champion meeting in the World Series.
Well Joe, at least you can enjoy some Yuengling Black & Tan and real pizzza or a cheesesteak with.
Looks like tomorrow’s try at baseball could be snowed out!!!!!
Ask Harry Kalas to show you the Richie Ashburn clip they used to show on tv during rain delays.
Go Phillies!!!!
I think baseball has succeeded in spite of Bud Selig. He so reminds me of a guy in college who did nothing in class except schmooze everyone and next thing I knew he was some kind of vp at the university. (He’s no longer there) There’s gotta be at least, say, 2.5 million people in this country who’d make a better commish than Buddy.
On the bright side, my 8-year-old son is a big Buccaneers fan and we’ve scored some tickets to the Chiefs game this Sunday. So he gets Halloween and his first big time sporting event in the same w/e. As a lifelong Chiefs fan, I didn’t have the heart to try to convert him when he first gave his heart to the Bucs. (He loves that skull on the logo) Ah well, at least he should enjoy the game.
When we were kids, living in the sticks in upstate NY, we used to love to torment the radio DJs (It is hard to believe in this day and age, that there were guys just sitting in a booth somewhere, spinning discs and answering phones). But we used to request obnoxious songs. I remember there was this one really sappy trucker song, I think it was called Teddy Bear, or something god awful like it, and we kids in the neighborhood must have called in 70 times asking for it. Finally, the guy, practically, in tears, screams that not only is he not going to play the song that day, that he will never in his lifetime ever play it again. Sorry, whoever made Teddy Bear, we hurt your climb up the charts.
One more: I remember being away on business and missing my daughter’s first steps. I was crushed at the time. But you know, I’ve seen about 9 billion since then and hope to see 9 billion more.
As a father I can understand and feel for your dilemma, I know what my decision is and will always be. I know you will make the right one as well. Good luck, and great site thanks.
One suggestion for baseball: Add one or two players to rosters per team, and then have fewer off days in the season. The players would hate the idea of fewer offdays and travel would be tough, but adding 30 or 60 more jobs should be enough to get the union to go along with it. Then start the season around April 5 and end the regular season in late september. Cut down on travel days in postseason series, especially in the first round. That way the owners don’t lose any precious home games, the players get compensated for an even more grueling season and you can still get the season and postseason played in better weather.
Ordinarily I would assume that the owners wouldn’t care about bad weather, but it’s got to hurt ratings to have games postponed and suspended, and it’s got to hurt attendance in some markets to play early season games in arctic weather.
The best solution would be to go back to 154 games per season, so you could start later and finish earlier, but the owners would never agree to giving up 8 games per season, too much lost revenue and money is the deciding factor in everything to do with billion dollar businesses.
I wish baseball wasn’t a multibillion-dollar business but it is, and once that kind of money gets in a business, it takes over and never goes away until the business has every last penny squeezed out of it and collapses. I preferred baseball when it was a smaller business, with smaller sums of money at stake, but those days are long gone.
So the choice now is either to have baseball continue as a multibillion dollar empire where so much money is at stake that nothing else matters, or else it stops being profitable and all the money goes away and the whole thing collapses. So of those poor choices I will take the big business setup we have now.
The owners could benefit themselves in the long run by taking better care of their product and not being so craven when it comes to TV issues, but they are all big businessmen and have more interest in profits right now and the next five years than they do in thinking long term. Buy, maximize profits for a few years, and then sell for more profit, no need to think long term. That’s how big business seems to be these days.
Once upon a time, IIRC in 1963, the Dodgers had one double hearder a year. This worked out great for our baseball ticket group of 8, since everybody got ten sets of tickets a year. And in 1963, the doubleheader was against the Mets. First game in the day. In August. Nobody really wanted those tickets. August day games in Dodger Stadium in the seats we had been then were borderline heat stroke, and two of them? But since we hadn’t seen the Mets (our ticket handout was split up by teams, and then by days of the week) we got four tickets. It was the only double header where the two starters were Koufax and Drysdale. I was seven (if I have the year right) and I loved it.
There is no way that major league teams that now average as much as twice the per game attendance they did back in the double header days would ever agree to schedule double headers. Once upon a time, double headers could be counted on to bring in enough more attendance (without having to pay for employee salaries for a second date) to make them fiscally worthwhile. That time is gone.
What baseball *needs* to do is start the season a week earlier and loosen up the rules on rainouts. If it’s a money thing, rainouts can be made up in EITHER ballpark, with the scheduled home team getting the home team’s share of the ticket sales for makeups forced to move. Teams that need to give up an off day should do so. Allowing teams to expand the roster to 26 during any stretch of games where they are playing at least 14 days in a row because of makeup games would mollify the players union while allowing some relief to the pitching staffs, without forcing the poorer teams to carry an extra player year round. And then, given that all season will be enough time to make up the rained out games, the playoffs will begin sooner, and we might not be facing Halloween baseball.
Because, and lets be real about this, when the weather gets really cold, it changes the game. Fastball pitchers stay effective. But fly balls don’t carry as well. Breaking pitches don’t break as well because it’s harder to grip the ball adequately. The two effects tend to cancel each other out at the team level, but some great sluggers become warning track sluggers instead, some pitchers get hit harder, and in general it changes the nature of the teams. I don’t think games late in October are fair to the players or the fans, especially with all the game starting at night instead of in the afternoon. So I think we would get fairer, more representative World Series games if we played them earlier. I know Fox is paying billions of dollars, but even an 8:00 p.m. start instead of 8:30 would be prime time for the east coast and a big help for kids staying up late and games ending before the cold weather really changes the game after nightfall. I’ve been wrong before.
Why don’t they just play the World Series in Milwaukee?
There you go, Joe. No worries now.
My “Cats in the Cradle” call in type of moment was for “Escape” by Rupert Holmes.
My .02.