My 2014 lesson

Scene from the movie "The Fan" by Tony Scott (1996).

Gil and Bobby playing baseball on the beach.

Gil Renard: How did you get out of that slump, Bob?

Bobby Rayburn: Say what?

Gil Renard: Got any idea what got you out of that slump?

Bobby Rayburn: You know Curly, I just stopped caring, man.

Gil Renard: What?

Bobby Rayburn: I just stopped caring.

Gil Renard: You stopped caring? What do you mean?

Bobby Rayburn: All my life, I've been working to be the best. You know? Trying to be perfectionist. And I thought about it. That's probably where I made my mistake. And when Juan Primo died, man, that completely changed the perspective. I mean...I mean, come on man, let's be real here man. What are we doing? We're not curing cancer, you know? We're playing a game. That's all it is. It's just a game. So I stopped caring and relaxed...and I started hitting again.

Gil Renard: Stopped caring. So that's your f---ing insight into life?

Bobby Rayburn: Yeah.

Play ball!

Only Lord knows how much I miss playing baseball....deepest sigh!

Associations

Home to me is not a house

Filled with family faces; 

Home is where I slide in free

By rounding all the bases. 

A tie to me is not

Clothing like a hat;

It means the game is even up

And I wish I were at bat.

Words by Eve Merriam, painting by Leroy Neiman.

2 more practices and the season is over

Another season is about to end and I am yet to play a full game. This year I was ready to have a push for my summit and to some sense, I was feeling that I was in mental and physical shape to do so and I thought with the help of the new coach would was not to play this year and me not going to work due to parental leave, I would be able to fix 'the issues' but I ended up playing the least ever due to the fact that the idiot that is running our team (who is actually a guy that I like in certain aspects) and one important individual in the back office had little faith in me. The real reason behind this is unclear for me as I busted my ass off at practice sessions but I suppose my biggest shortcomig was just when it was the right time to convince them otherwise, I lacked consistency and I failed. I got very pissed when I was denied a shot at the game and I tried to talk things over at an early stage to avoid a disaster from unfolding but at the end, that totally backfired. Like I said, despite feeling that my throwing and my fielding had improved, at least compared to last year, the mental burden and frustration went beyond my capacity and obviously, it had an adverse effect on my game and what not. It was a tough season for me personally and I was driven to quiting the whole damn thing on several points (and a number of my apparel failed or started to fail as well!) and the ironic thing is that I did enjoyed several productive and tiring practice sessions and I literally played nothing this year. I have never missed 'my very own fantasy baseball team' so bad that I did this year...or at least my closest buddies who I could have a word or two over a drink or something, man I am so far and I miss my people!

On a seperate and sort of relevant note, I had the chance of playing at the national arena tomorrow in a stress-free and the-result-doesn't-matter game since our home game was cancelled last Saturday due to rain. I think I would have enjoyed taking on that field but unfortunately I can not since I have to stay home with the kid...deepest sigh! And then I will miss a doubleheader some 600 Km away since I will be away to on a reunion, not that it matters.

What the...?

Perfect weather, not too warm, not too cold, with a tiny dash of cool breeze, slightly cloudy to cover the strength of sun rays, perfectly cut grass and well done clay for the infield, an up-raised pitching machine, lots of new balls, cage, electricity, bats...the stage is set for a good sweating and everything you could possibly need for a wonderful practice or intersquad game is available. How many present? 4! Only 4 people showed up for the practice yesterday and that includes the coach. What the hell?!?! We ended up with 120 swings each and that's about it. I suppose people were on 'vacation'....my god!...so much for the attitude of team with winning ambitions.

Huckleberry

Our coach for this season is a retired sherif from Chicago area called Tom "Huckleberry" Nolan, the author of the book titled "Chasing dreams - I". He is one helluv a character and at times, he does remind me of our dear friend, Chewie. We've had such interesting discussions that I was (and still am!) very much tempted to record our exchanges, sometimes of pure philosophical nature, to get myself good material for this blog for some time to come. We've had a couple of high tempo practices which were exactly of my taste: non-stop hard work and sweat. How much our little team with so limited assets will accomplish under his leadership is yet to be seen since making some soup out of this mix of uneven (read oil and water) chemistry and being short-handed almost at all times is a very tough challenge.

I am reading his book on the way to and from work and I can say that the baseball content of the book is very rich to say the least. Anyhow, I am more than happy to experience a real (probably my first ever) baseball coach and I will try to squeeze as much as I can out of him which given his "Hilly Billy Huckleberry" character is not an easy job. According to his book, "baseball is designed to have fun" and that (among some other minor things) is my main goal for this season.

My fantasy baseball team

Shagging in the outfield during BP is slow and boring job but at the same time, it gives you some time to contemplate. I normally get drowned in my own thoughts and here's one of them: What if I could replace everyone in this team with 'my guys'? That would have been mainly my friends who were related one way or another to basketball. What if we all played baseball instead and formed a so-called "doostan" baseball team? So without further ado here's the line-up of such fantasy team:

1. Pitcher: AHF: Simply because he is the only one with solid pitching experience. McVich would be the relief pitcher or closer but his arsenal is limited. We need more pitchers and the fact that our pitching staff is not so deep would be an eminent weakness of our team.

2. Catcher: AJK aka Chewbacca: He would be one of the few or the only catcher who throws with left, yet another one of his mysteries! He is capable of stopping the runners on home plate and with a good left arm, he can throw straight to 2nd to burn the stealing runners. His knowledge of the game and being able to call the game correctly is a given and more importantly, he can/does establish a good chemistry with the man on the mound.

3. 1st base: Ghajar: He is also an obvious choice, one of the power sluggers in the team who fits perfectly well for 1st base.

4. 2nd base: Mani: Here I had a hard time to find the right person but I think he will do very well in this roll. He is short and fast and we definitely could use some fast runners on the offensive end. He covers his area well and doesn't need to have a very strong arm as he throws mainly to 1st or 2nd.

5. 3rd base: Myself: I put myself in my favorite position and I have a good on and off the game contact with all the infielders and pitcher and catcher.

6. Short stop: Shirzadi: Again, difficult to find a suitable person here but Shirzadi's agility and many other capabilities as well as his unselfishness and game vision leaves me with no other better choice.

7. Left field: Kamran Nejad: Because he is a lefty and the slowness of outfield activity fits his character.

8. Center field: Farah: Another power hitter in center with good arm to throw to 2, 3 and home.

9. Right field: Mazda: 2nd fast runner in the roster and a righty.

1st base coach: Ffaili: Functions mostly as a moral support and is in synch with 3rd base coach.

3rd base coach/batting coach: Fkhaleghi: He is the perfect person to take advantage of every tiny mistake by the opponents, read their game and give the orders accordingly.

Pitching coach: BTourani: I don't think I need to say anything here.

Manager: Kavoos: Tobacco chewing, short tempered and extremely foul-mouthed manager with little knowledge of the game and is in constant fight with umpires, gets tossed out frequently and kills each and every one of us on practices with conditioning drills and hard labor, he is JUST PERFECT for us.

Batting order:

1. Mani

2. Mazda

3. Ghajar

4. Myself

5. Shirzadi

6. AHF

7. Nejad

8. Farah

9. Chewi

In the dugout:

ATN (OF)

Hesam Z (OF/DH)

Nima (OF)

McVich (P, IN/OF)

Season started

Yesterday, I kicked off my baseball season with a good practice. 8 months of sloth and gluttony has not done me good: I have got a pleasant pain in various parts of the body today and I hope that I get back into some form of acceptable condition with good consistency...fingers crossed!

The most important thing is however to find the right mindset and goal through the season, a real mental challenge that has to be resolved somehow.

Uncanny resemblance 5

...or maybe not?!

Apathetic

Yes, that's how I feel about this year's World Series. Why? Because:

1. I don't like the Giants closer Brian Wilson, I think he looks ridiculous in that stupid beard. I don't care if SF has made it there for the first time in history. The hell with them...very nice park though!

2. Former owners of Liverpool which pulled the club down to unprecedented levels as well as Mr. W himself were former owners of Texas Rangers, so sorry cowboys, no love from this guy to you!

Final notes on the season and a sort of conclusion

Yeah, our season finished exactly 19 days ago and I am left with a slight emptiness even though, when looking back at the whole thing, lows can be found with much ease than highs. Anyway, I thought this would be good time to reflect and write down a few notes which may come handy later, a self evaluation if you will. So,

1. Throwing: Despite my higher ambitions early in the season, the same ol' problems are still there, mainly due to the fact that I never placed a consistent focus at the problem and try to solve it once and for all. In the practice sessions, given the limited time we had, we practiced on many things and we still ran short of time. Other than a warm-up catch ball and occasion infield-outfield drills, we didn't focus much on throwing and neither did I. The only thing that I noticed, which could easily be just random, is that in some days the throwing was better than my average. However these days were not numerous so still, there is a lot, and I mean A LOT of work has to be done. I hope that I will be able to put that on top of my agenda if there would be any sensible practices during winter. This inconsistency in throwing reminds me of my jump shots when I had very random and mostly low percentage jump shot and above all had no control of it for maybe 6 years or so until 'that day' that everything changed for the better. I must admit that I really focused and worked hard on that which yielded good results to a point that, I think, I was probably the only guy around whose jump shot was much better than his dribbling skills! Anyhow, I certainly hope that I'll be able to resolve this issue soon but you never know how long it's gonna take.

2. Fielding and stuff: I suppose I could sing the same song here but thanks to my own persistence and a little bit of practice I improved a bit on the fly balls despite the fact that I am still catching them in a wrong way i.e. one handed but it works OK unfortunately! so why complain much. Same applies with fielding ground balls but since I didn't practice on that equally as much, there are still A LOT of room for work.

3. Batting: I can not possibly emphasize more on how much work I have to put into that. I need more power, more coordination, more effectiveness, I need to hit line drives and what not, I need to face many live pitches, I need to do a lot! My performance in the farm team despite not getting the playing time that I think I deserved, was actually not so bad especially when I did a slight mental adjustment during a game and made a lot of hits. This was by far the highest point of the season and made me proud of myself for once at least. I guess you could argue that the performance of the pitchers in that division are not that good but still I give myself a lot of credit for hanging in there and making that shift for the better, it's not something that I do everyday!

4. Base running: I was picked a couple of times on the 1st, totally stupid. I need to run the bases with more aggression, more concentration and be able to read the plays better and faster. I need to get into shape for that and lose a couple of kilos first.

5. Mental: It would have been an understatement if I just go ahead and say that my head was just preoccupied during the season. There were many things going on, both related and unrelated to baseball. As far as baseball is concerned, I guess I can name 3 essential factors that gave me the most discomfort and hence resulted in unbalanced state of mind at times: a) the 'burden' of being benched: this was felt to an extent that I 'deserted' some games just to skip dealing with this, I really have to come into terms with it one way or another, b) the general lack of self-confidence leading me not to take the opportunities instead of welcoming them and c) the lack of close relationship with other teammates: this is something which has been there almost from beginning and I really don't have a remedy for that. I even tried to take a long trip to South in hopes of that spending more time with them during a journey would make us a bit closer and I took part in the team's party where most get drunk and supposedly more 'open' but I can confirm that not much has changed on that front. I did all these as I had a new born baby at home and leaving her with her mom was on my conscience all the time. There were also times that I felt that I had to specifically ask the coach for playing time and do certain things according to what I believed was right e.g. not wasting time during practice chatting and etc. Since I am not used to these uncomfortable circumstances and, I was left with a stark inner paradox which was not very pleasant to say the least.


All in all, I think I did gain some good experience for better or worse and if I am smart enough, I will be able to use these in the next season. But first, I have to work my butt off...

1300 Km for playing ball

It has been a while since I have been taunted by the question of why do I like baseball. I have been banging my head ever since trying to find a concrete answer with little success so far. I just know for sure that , at least for the time being, I enjoy very much doing it despite all the 'strange' sides of the game. Ideally, I would like to interview a bunch of people e.g. the guys at our team, and based on all the collected answers be able to answer this question.

This is not a direct answer to the question but it does shed some light into this: This Friday-Saturday, I traveled about 1300 kilometers just to play a double header which turned out to be 2 games of just 5 innings, leaving all my old and new attachments behind at home. I guess if I had traveled the same distance vertically I would have exited the atmosphere! We spent almost 16 hours in the car to play roughly 4-5 hours. If I step outside from myself and look at this, I can easily see that this does not fit with any logic whatsoever.

Yet, the question remains unanswered...

Differences of baseball and basketball

The baseball season has started, that is the majors and so on. I kicked off my practice last Tuesday which was surprisingly good in the first part despite the fact that we threw in a sandy parking lot. I ended up inevitably with cramps in almost everywhere but it was OK. All in all, it sure feels good to pick up your glove (which I should 'maintain' with lotion) and play some catch. The bad thing is, due to laziness and bad winter, my throwing skills have not evolved much since last and 'the same issues' remain. Anyway, I thought it would be good occasion to write this post down, which was standing in line for long.

When I first started playing baseball, I was inevitably comparing this new sport with basketball which I had played in many years. The differences, as opposed to what I had written a while ago, while being quite obvious e.g. the game tempo to say the least, are significant. For instance, in baseball, you have different gear for different positions. You have catcher's gear i.e. face mask/helmet, mitt (catcher's gloves), knee and leg guards, chest protector to start with. Then you have different gloves: 1st baseman glove, infielder's glove, pitcher's glove, outfielder's glove and batting gloves. Although one might claim that there are very little or no differences between pitcher and infielder (2nd, SS and 3rd)'s glove, I am sure that there are plenty out there who would argue that. In basketball, there are not much of gears for players. I mean except for shoes - that might differ from position to position, something which I personally don't buy - there are only wrist or headbands which any player can use if they wish to, but it's not necessary. In baseball, you may also need additional gear to be able to perform better or maintain your equipments, things like gloves lotions, tar for batting, glove mate (to protect you palms), sunglasses, cups and batting helmets (very important protection gear), sliding shorts and etc. In basketball, gears of such nature, if existing, don't have much of a significance.

Some other differences in terminology:

Baseball: uniforms, Basketball: jersey and shorts
Baseball: cleat, Basketball: sneakers
Baseball: umpire, Basketball: referees
Baseball: dugout, Basketball: bench
Baseball: manager, Basketball: head coach
Baseball: field, Basketball: court

This is what I have off the top of my head for the time being. I probably had more differences in mind when I first thought of this but it's gone now, maybe I come back to it later, we'll see...

Stickball

Walter Iooss Jr.:"There's a famous picture taken in the 50's of Willie Mays playing stickball in Harlem. I played a lot of stickball growing up and always loved it. I wanted to replicate the Mays photo in Cuba because baseball is the national sport there. It's everywhere. Cuban children play ball in the streets like kids in U.S. cities used to do. It was my last Saturday on this trip and I was slowly weaving through the streets of old Havana, looking for kids playing ball, when I came upon this corner, La Esquina. If you study the picture, you see that every eye, not just the kids' but even the dog's, is on that taped ball. It's the decisive moment, and there's no way to anticipate when you're going to get it. I had a vision of a picture that I'd tried and tried and tried to find but hadn't yet, and I came within a day of not finding it. To me it was all about getting the photograph I'd been searching for and I did it in 20 frames.

I like to photograph kids because I still dream the way kids do. All those years playing those games were some of the best times of my life. I was a stickball fanatic. When school closed for the summer, we played 12 hours a day. All morning, all afternoon, went home for dinner, then played after dinner."

Photo from cnnsi.com

Pass time in winter

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

- Rogers Hornsby

NY Bombers: Love'em, Hate'em

Yankees won the world series again the other week...for the 27th times! No team in the professional sports has ever accomplished that.

Yes, it's true that the franchise has spent ca. 1 billion dollars since 2000 and they are notorious for their spending spree and overpaid/overrated/pass-their-prime players, conveying huge amount of distress to the people of NYC thanks to gigantic ego of 'The Boss' and his endless threats of moving the franchise to somewhere else than Bronx, destroying 'The house that Ruth built'- one of the trademarks of the the big apple- for a lavish, costly top-notch club house right across street and so on...

But the fact of the matter still remains, and I have to repeat myself, that they have won the world series for the 27th times and no team, I repeat NO TEAM, in the professional sports has ever accomplished such a milestone. For that, they do deserve awful lot of credit (and that includes everyone involved) despite the methods of club's executives have been (and will be?) highly questionable in the recent past years.

Analogies of Baseball and Basketball

Although these two favorite sports of mine are quite different from one another, I have found some similarities between them. These are still arguable but I'd like to make this comparison anyway.

In baseball, we have the following positions:
1. Pitcher (P)
2. Catcher (C)
3. 1st base man (1B)
4. 2nd base man (2B)
5. 3rd base man (3B)
6. Shortstop (SS)
7. Left fielder (LF)
8. Center fielder (CF)
9. Right fielder (RF)

In basketball, we have:
1. Point guard (PG)
2. Shooting guard (SG)
3. Small forward (SF)
4. Power forward (PF)
5. Center (C)

Now, the problem is that these baseball positions are "defensive" positions while my reference to basketball positions reflects on the offensive end which again reveals another analogy of these two sports: Playing defense in basketball is somehow similar to playing offense in baseball. In basketball, you basically have to stop your opponent from scoring and everyone's work is more or less similar i.e. guard your man and stop him from scoring, rebounding etc. In baseball, every man has to hit the ball (obviously according to the plan) and help the team to score runs. Every player's job is similar: swing/bunt and make a play. Having said that, I would say pitcher is the point guard as he determines the game's direction, he (literally) holds the ball in his hands most of the time and controls the pulse of the game. The catcher is like the center; he dictates the plays and is the backbone of the team as everyone leans on him. He does most of dirty works and mops up the mess. The 1B is more like PF as he does more or less the same job as catcher and is very crucial. 3B, SS and 2B on the first level and the outfielders on the second level serve as SG/SF given their role and significance and involvements in the plays.

Here's a few other analogies off the top of my head:

Error = Turn over e.g. double dribbling, traveling, poor passing etc.
Balk = Unforced turnover by PG
Walk, HP = Forced turnover
Strikeout = 3 pointer by PG, assist by PG
Fielding error = Unnecessary foul, missed lay-up, turn over
Catching a fly ball = score by lay-up or jump shot
Catch line drive = Made jump shot/lay up under pressure by defense
Ground ball to 1B by infielders = Easy lay-up, free throw
Catching a home run = Score at the buzzer
Double play = Assist/steal and easy jump shot, rebound and fast break for easy 2
Triple play = Block and fast break for 3 pointer
Pick off on 1st = Successful pick and roll between PG and C/PF