The Path of Thorns

I am all about employee rights and privileges, especially as a former employee who didn’t even get treated as well as I deserved.  But there’s one thing I never understood about many of today’s baseball contracts – the no-trade clause.

This clause basically states that the player cannot be traded unless he approves a possible trade, or he can limit the teams he’s traded to, which usually includes the worst teams in the league.  It’s all about winning championships, of course.

I can see how a player wants to be set, and wants to not have to change their life around – a topic I touched heavily on during my ‘trade deadline’ post back on July 31.  I totally get that.  But at the same time, why do you want to stay there when the team’s being held back financially a few years into your contract, for instance?  Wouldn’t you want to be dealt if you’re not wanted so they can have more payroll flexibility?  It’s all about winning championships much of the time, especially if you’re a highly-paid superstar, so why not be moved elsewhere where you can win?  That would not only be a win, it would be a win-win.  I could barely face myself if I knew I was hindering my own team.

Or, as another example put more vaguely, why be somewhere where you’re not wanted?  If a team wants to trade you, wouldn’t you want to leave out of principle?  No one in the world hates being where they’re not wanted more than me, so I find this fascinating.  Sure, you may love the city you play in, and you may love your teammates and the fans, but it would be too awkward and tense to show up to work everyday knowing the powers above don’t want to see you there anymore.

It’s a nice, and very very rare opportunity to have such control over your own fate.  But is it worth the possible media hype, and the awkwardness from the same people that signed you in the first place?

Life feels different when certain people in your life aren’t around.  Not everything has the same feel – the days don’t have the same routine, and it all makes you miss the person more.  Even if it’s just for a brief while.

I haven’t been able to wake up and hear her outside babysitting.  I don’t wake up to the almost-empty coffee pot keeping warm just outside the bedroom.  I don’t hear that pretty laugh, I don’t walk in a room to see her head-over-heels enthralled in her Stephanie Meyer books.  The house doesn’t feel as warm, and many things around the house remind me of her.

It sounds silly – she’s only been gone a short time, and many couples actually get excited about this – but while I’m happy with myself, I’m a whole lot happier in my daily life when I get to see that pretty face on a good day or bad day.  When someone brings that much life and spark into your own, it’s sorely missed when it’s not physically there.

People need personal time, days and nights to themselves, to decompress and gather their thoughts and work on themselves if need be.  Or to just sit and not have to talk or worry about our expressions, or to let a bad mood pass through.

But on a rainy day, or multiple rainy days in a row for that matter, when you’re not working – you wish more than ever that her pillow was back on the bed, her clothes back in the closet and her smile lighting up your day all over again.  It makes you realize how lucky you are and how much that person means to you, and it makes you realize how much loving someone can make you feel that much lonelier when they’re not there for a long time.

I’m a lucky man, and I can’t wait to have my girl home.  I’ll cherish her all the more when she returns.

Last night, a Cubs pitcher lost his job.  He wasn’t traded, or released, or even benched.  But he lost his role – a role proudly held by relievers for decades, since its invention by Jerome Holtzman.  He, be it temporarily or permanently, lost his job as the closer.  Many Cub fans want to wring his neck and yet out all their hard feelings on him, and I was one of the many who was incredibly frustrated.  Seeing him give up three runs to a last place team defined a lot of the anguish Cub fans have been going through since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.

But then I remembered – it isn’t like he wanted to do that.  He didn’t want to let his team down and be humiliated.  The cliche players use is that they have to just shrug it off and go out and try again the next day, a new day.  And that would be great if the human mind and heart could be so on and off like that.  Athletes are modern day warriors, out to seek and conquer, and perfect themselves.  I bet that pitcher barely slept last night.  I bet he analyzed what he did, what he threw and how he threw it.  After all, if a warrior went for a kill and his weapon didn’t do the trick, wouldn’t he question it?  He’d be shamed.

Of course, his teammates have to back him up and support him.  You win together, you lose together.  Even if some part of you wants to let every word of annoyance and frustration out at him.  It simply wouldn’t do any good.  It wouldn’t make his ball snap as well as your words would.

The best closers have that one devastating pitch that confuses and baffles hitters.  Sure, every pitcher could use that, but closers need to bring the idea to the batters’ head in the ninth that the game’s already lost.  Closers should drive fear, should have that quirkiness in them that intimidates a batter and leaves them already thinking about the next game.  Where you know you’re cooked before you’re even thrown in the pan.

The Cubs closer that lost his job may get it back; or he may not.  If he finds that pitch that blows the other team away, he’ll get it back.  If he takes the mound like a warrior and looks like he’s in for the kill, he may be able to have intimidation on his side.  He’s had success before, and he will again – he has no choice.  Until then, he’ll have to shake it off and try again, like they always say.

For twenty-three seasons, X has been a major league baseball player.  A star for many seasons, always reliable, always professional.  Always came to batting practice early, always doing the extra infield drills, always talking to each coach thoroughly, with the eagerness of a rookie, year after passing year.

That’s what made X such a wonderful player, and such a perfect role model.  It doesn’t take a baseball fan to understand the love he had for his craft, for his brethren, for those that loved him as much as he loved them back.  It’s may be talent that allowed him to work his magic with his glove and his bat, but it took character to turn that into the respect and devotion he’s put into his entire carer.

X was finishing up work on his glove one Spring morning, in the clubhouse.  He always used the same mitt; that same old trusty mitt, that’s caught over 10,000 balls in its lifeline.  X was beckoned into the manager’s office, where the door was shut gently behind him.  X stood up and smiled, and put the mitt inside of his duffle bag.  He knew.

“What’s going on, Mr. Coach?” X asked, knowing the conversation that was about to begin.  Yet still respectful, as always.

“X, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m going to try anyway.  The staff and I just put together the 25-man roster, and I just spoke to (General Manager).  This is killing me…but you didn’t have a good Spring, X.  We both know that.  you hit under .100 and could barely chase any fly balls.  If we kept you on this year, everyone would see it would hurt the team, and neither of us want that.  I know you’ve been on this team since half our lineup was born…you know what I’m saying, X.”

X blinked a few times, and looked down, noddling slowly.  “I know, Mr. Coach.  I lost count of how many hours I ice my shoulders and knees these days.  The desire’s still there, so is the passion…but my body isn’t.  You don’t need to say anything else.  I’ll clean out my locker for the kid and fly back to Chicago.  Thanks for letting me play the Spring out, Mr. Coach.”

The coach smiled, with faint tears forming on the sides of both eyes.  He stood up and shook X’s hand gratefully.  “We could have put you on the 40-man roster and sent you down to the minors, but you looked like you were saying goodbye every day already.  You and I go back a lot of years, X, no one will miss you more than I do.  Thank you…thank you.”  The coach took his hat off, holding it in front of his stomach, and let the tears flow.

X was speechless.  He nodded and smiled, and went to open the office door.  As he did, he looked back one more time.  “It’s been a great run, Mr. Coach.  I’m going to go on the field one more time, if it’s alright, and I’ll be on my way.  Give the new kid my regards.”  The coach humbly nodded and smiled back, and X shut the door.

Getting back to his locker, he went through each memory he had as he packed up.  The first cap he got when he signed his first contract two and a half decades ago, pictures of him friends long since retired or deceased, and a sticker he got on the first day of spring training twenty-three years ago that said “Baseball is your music; sing your finest tune.”  A token from one of the best players of his lifetime.

X’s eyes watered to match his lightly quivering cheeks as he carefully peeled the sticker off the locker and put it outside of the locker door.  “Best of luck, kid” X said as he gathered his things.  He took one last look at the old and small clubhouse, still as can be.  All of the other players went on that old familiar plane right back to the major league city, preparing for the 162 game season ahead.

X walked slowly out of the clubhouse, down the long and low hallway leading to the field.  He walked up to the plate and took out his bat.  Seeing the groundskeeper, also a dear friend, he called out to him “Hey Z, can you do me a favor?”

Z didn’t need to ask what he was doing there, but wasn’t sure what the request was.  An old high school friend of X’s, he felt the goodbyes of the Spring with everyone else.  He shook his head and laughed, and walked over from where he was in the visitors bullpen, where he was fertilizing the grass.

“Yeah X, you old lug, what do you want?”

“Do me a favor and walk over in front of the mound and pitch one like you used to.  Just one.”

“I’m not even going to ask.  Whatever floats your boat, X.”

Z walked up in front of the mound, about fifty feet from home plate.  He picked up a nearby ball and got his grip.  Smiling through his focus, he threw one straight and true in front of X.

X pushed his right foot back, flexed his arms, quickly raised them and swung through his aching bones and muscles.  He flinched in pain as he connected with the ball, and swung through before dropping the bat immediately.  The ball sailed, almost looking as if it was enjoying its moment in the air, before finding its home past the center field fence in the accompanying lawn.

X stood there, with the numb pain lingering throughout his upper body, with his throbbing fingers.  He looked at where the ball landed for what felt like eternity, and looked back at Z, who looked back at him quixotically.

“No worries, Z, just had to do that one more time.  I’ll see you around.”

Without another word, X walked through the field, taking it all in after his self-produced last hurrah, and let himself out through the right field gate.  He didn’t look back that time; he let the hit speak for itself, as he always had before.

I write my best when I write either autobiographically, or when it’s about something I love, but always when it’s without fear.  I have topics in my head I want to go further about – and more of it will include baseball – but I wanted to erase the rest of the fear I have inside me to write without looking back.

I wrote the following piece when I was 16.  I wrote it before I’d forget it, and I’ve never been more grateful of my own writing than I am of this piece.  It’s allowed me to remember what I knew I wouldn’t otherwise.  It’s a personal story, and it’s about the day I died.  It’s not for the faint of heart, but I’m proud of the way I wrote it as a high schooler, and posting it publicly will allow me to prove to myself that writing without fear is a task I really am going to defeat.  Some things have changed – I don’t go to Children’s Memorial Hospital anymore due to lack of insurance, and their desire for me to go to Northwestern when I get a PPO again, and the health of my body has greatly improved, though now I have diabetes.

Nevertheless, the experience changed me more than I ever thought anything could.  And I’m thankful for that.  On this day, I’m not sure I saw Heaven, but I saw something that keeps me agnostic and not atheist.

Enjoy.

I looked at the clock with fearful eyes.  8:30 a.m.  Sitting on the uncomfortable hospital bed, with my mother, father, aunt and maternal grandfather, a moment seemed equivalent to a lifetime, and a time that would determine my future.  The coldness that crept up my back from the open hospital gown upon my shoulders matched with the sheer terror running through my veins.  As I continue to sit and wish that I’d live through the day, my name is called.

I gaze up at the nurse, as the Anesthesiologist and two other nurses take the bed and, as I am slowly wheeled away towards the room of Fate, I wave goodbye with one hand and wipe my tears with the other.  Minutes later, I would be unconscious, unaware of the instruments that would hopefully save my life.  My organs were getting eaten up by clogged toxins and my digestive tract was destroyed.  As a result, my liver is that of a sixty-five year-old alcoholic, and my pancreas, of which only two-thirds exists now, was the worst my surgeon, Dr. Superina, had ever seen, and took out my gall bladder because it was so destroyed.  A piece of my small intestine is now my digestive tract.  My Fate was uncertain and anything would have been amazed, for this has never happened before.

The next day, I gained full consciousness and was laying in a small room with about five other kids and teenagers (I was being taken care of at a children’s hospital downtown) with my family by my side.  I was told how frail and pale I was, and the IV’s and machines in me kept me from comfort along with my weaknesses.  My mother and sister fainted at my poor sight, for it was quite depressing.  I was quickly regaining my strength and got moved out of critical care, and was starting to walk and get my strength back, I probably would have gotten out in a week.

However, Fate had other plans in store for me.  The morning of October 2nd, during the usual 4:00 am X-ray, the X-ray showed that there was a black liquid in my lungs and it was causing me to breathe unevenly.  I was rushed down to intensive care, as the liquid began to come up.  Three emergency nurses shoved a large oxygen mask upon my pale face, and as it went up against the liquid, it got caught halfway in my throat and I could not breathe for about two minutes, when I finally got a rush of strength and shoved the nurses away, as I allowed myself to breathe once again.  Anger and fear overcame me and I caught myself screaming vulgar things at the resident in charge of putting the mask on me, and my father, who was there that night/morning, had no idea and tried to rationalize everything.  After about five minutes, a middle-aged woman who appeared to be a nurse calmed me down and told me to breathe into a smaller, softer mask, and within seconds I was unconscious once again, which, as I found out later, was a drug-induced coma.

Later I was told of everything that happened to me when I was in the coma, though some of the things are now mental blocks because if I was ever to repeat them, both me and the listeners would just be thrown back way too much.  Just to give a few examples, my fever hit a deathly-high 106 degrees, I had a ventilator to do my breathing for me and my body was entirely infiltrated with IV’s, pick lines and other contraptions to keep me going.  From what I have been told, it was like something you’d see in a horrific movie.  Doctors, nurses and residents alike would stand there twenty-four hours a day, in shifts of course, watching me like a stopwatch.  Days would pass, and I would not budge, or get any better at all.  In fact, for weeks I got worse every day without the success of the medical staff.  At one point my only hope was the prayers and thoughts of many throughout the country, awaiting the day where I’d wake up and be a normal teenage kid again.  Fate was cruel throughout that whole month of October.  You hear about such frightening things happening to children and adults everywhere, and you’re just lucky it isn’t you, and you figure it never will be.  The next thing you know, Fate has you on His waiting list.

Those long nights when I was on my deathbed got even longer and colder, and the days, though sunny, did not shine on us.  My entire family flew in from all over, and though it was the first time in many years they were all in the same place, the reason for this was all that was on their minds.  My uncle would hound the doctors and strongly attempt to get answers, the answers no one would ever know.  No one knew what would happen to me, or even if I would live through the hour.  It was a living nightmare for everyone, and the shock of it all evenly matched with the throbbing, hasty beats of their hearts, bleeding for my agony.  God, along with the cruelty of Fate, was all that we could all look to for a miracle.

One day, in the last week of October, that miracle came.  My parents, along with my paternal grandfather and his second wife, were all in my little ICU room, which only had two curtains as walls.  My father and grandfather were reading the paper, my grandma’s second wife was watching TV and my mother was washing my feet.  It was early in the morning, and the sun was out, doing its usual attempts to cheer my family up.  This morning the sun could take the day off and relax, for that morning, I had done more than it ever could have.  I opened my eyes, and slowly, yet fearfully, gazed around the depressing scene around me, unaware of what happened and what was presently going on.  My mom felt the strength begin to surge through me and screamed with delight, and relief at the same time.  Fate lost the fight, and Death was cheated greatly, and looking back on it, it’s amazing my family, especially me, all went through such agony and suffering to be as healthy as I am now.  It’s as if it were one horribly bad dream.

One thing will never leave me, however, and that is the one sight I saw during my coma.  Only for an instant, I remember a light.  It was a bright white light, and I am convinced it was Heaven.  Robert Plant would be let down, there was no stairway . . . there was no direction whatsoever, just a warm white light, it was very comforting and entrancing.  It was as if it were a drug; it was almost irresistible but in a good way, like something you cannot get enough of but a welcoming emotion . . . it’s out of this world, in multiple definitions.  It’s something that I’ll have with me for the rest of my life, and it’s something that changes your whole perspective of life and how you live . . . ever since then I’ve been happier, stronger and friendlier than ever, for now I know how precious life really is.  It’s a story for the ages.

That last week of October, for me because I was then conscious, were the darkest days by far.  Though the morphine numbed the agonizing pain I would otherwise feel, it kept you up all night.  The machines going off, telling you that one other thing is wrong with my already novel-long list of disabilities.  I’d lay there and watch the young residents relax and try to have a good time mingling, despite the deathly ill kids around them.  The residents couldn’t have been above thirty, and they seemed to be very good friends, maybe more.  I remember just blankly gazing at them, with weary eyes, wishing I could be just as alive and happy as them.  They were smiling and looked so colored and healthy, yet at the same time efficiently doing their jobs.  There were those few residents who just wanted to get the job done and go home, but for the most part they were great.  They didn’t talk to me, for they did not want to disturb me, though little did they know I couldn’t get more disturbed.  The ventilator covering my pale, tired face made me unable to talk anyway.

Another amazing this about all of this, was how I was completely in the hands of the doctors, nurses and residents.  Just a couple months before, I was able to walk, talk, breathe and be a normal kid.  I had everything going well for me; a good, well-paying job at the Village Market, a longtime girlfriend I loved dearly, and a group of friends who always knew how to have a good time.  Now, as I slowly looked at myself, I realize all that could be gone forever, and I could give away at any given moment.  Life can take away all your worldly possessions and your God-given abilities in an instant, without being able to do anything about it.  It makes you wonder if you’re next.

As yet another prayer had been answered, I very quickly regained my strength, and floored the doctors once more.  Just days after I woke up from my coma, Dr. Superina ordered my ventilator to be taken off, for I was able to breathe quite well on my own.  That black liquid I had the moment was disappearing just as quickly as it entered my lungs.  I was once again able to slowly feel the life in my arms and legs, and move them from the spots they would be at days at a time.  My voice, my singing voice I cherish so much, was becoming less and less hoarse and got stronger and more powerful with the rest of me.  Straining physical therapy got my blood fueling through my body like the healthy kid I was once destined never to be.  My physical trainer just happened to be a young, beautiful woman with a sweet personality and determination to get me back on my feet, which helped me all the more.

I recall walking in a circle along my entire floor, and getting the cheers from the residents and nurses, which just made my day and made me even tougher.  A day or two later, I’d be walking down to the basement to eat at McDonalds or sit in the cafeteria and talk to everyone I knew, smiling constantly, knowing how blessed I was.  I’d laugh if I saw someone I knew from ICU that would pick their jaw up from off the floor, seeing me walking and talking again.  It made me feel on top of the world, getting that warm feeling of life back in my veins and bones.  Machines and IV’s disappeared, including morphine, and I felt more of a human than a guinea pig.  Like they say, the best things in life aren’t things.

Once November came, the doctors basically said they had no use to keep me anymore, and on the 3rd of the month, I was discharged.  The anticipation and pure glee from knowing I could go home after five long, dark weeks was too much.  My mom and I would chase down doctors and residents so we could get cleared and go home, and the delighted looks on their faces to see me better again gave me the strength to continue fighting to normality again.  It is a life-changing experience to know, and see, dozens of people strive to do all they can for you, and make sure you’re alright.  I got attached to them and vice-versa, and it was hard to say goodbye and the “thank you”‘s I gave could never add up to the caring everyone had for me.

I continue to go to Children’s every couple of months for checkups from everyone, and the responses I get are better and better, for my health continues to progress.  To know that at one time they were working overtime because of me, and now just sitting back and talking to me most of the time, amazes me at how sick I really was, and how well I’m going now.  The relief is more than words, and those days last fall will never leave me.  The affection I received, blended with the white light I felt in my coma and the trauma I saw and felt in ICU, changed me forever.  I am a totally different person nowadays; I’m much happier and more social, my esteem is boosted because the gut I once had from my organs is gone, and people know how strong-willed I really am.  These days are the best I’ve ever had, and may ever have, and I’ll never forget the days where it was all almost over.

I don’t know what will end the human race first; our own greed for power, or our ability to let music be as pathetic as it is today.

Fifty years ago, music didn’t even have the ability to screw up.  Music that was considered garbage back then is held close to the hearts of most of the world; Buddy Holly and Elvis being the best examples of that.  After that, the Beatles, the Byrds, the Stones and the rest of the British invasion, that continued through Black Sabbath and the ultimate band the critics LOVED to hate, Led Zeppelin.  I can’t begin to tell you how many sources I’ve red, those of credible journalists and writers and critics, that called that music garbage, crap and a waste of studio space.  Can you believe that?  Can you believe those same artists that were considered the dregs of American music are heralded as the brilliant young musicians of a generation?

Music today, for the most part, makes you want to scream “IS THIS ALL YOU’VE GOT?!?!?!”  It’s unbelievable.  We have enough people who are celebrities that shouldn’t be – Kim Kardashian, John & Kate, Paris Hilton, to name a few – but there are as many, or more, people in music that don’t deserve what’s usually only given to the very best, the ones who fight tooth and nail to sign the dotted line.  Who?  Lady Gaga.  Jamie Foxx.  Pitbull.  Diddy.  Kanye West.  Lil Wayne.  People who are making millions because their fans don’t know any better.  People who make $80 million a year for talking into  a microphone with music a friend of mine can make in an hour on his Mac.  You’re being fooled, people.

Before there was Amy Winehouse, there was Janis Joplin.  Before there was The Jonas Brothers, there was the Osmonds or the Monkees.  Before there were Fergie and Diddy there was, oh, I don’t know, no one because no one flaunted themselves like buffoons to their level of self-important magnitude.  Kanye West calls himself the ‘King of Pop’ like an idiot – and yes, to give him credit, so did Michael Jackson – but at least Jackson backed it up with a decade’s worth of some of the best pop music in history.  Kanye walks around with sunglasses the size of his forearm, a faux-hawk and I ask myself if he even DOES music.  I can’t name a single song of his, ten years into his career.

My blog’s dealt with human emotion, understanding and trials thus far.  To reflect that, I will not entirely blame the people I’ve named, and those similar to them, for their careers.  They make piss-poor music and troll around like fools because we let them.  If we didn’t want to see these people, they wouldn’t be so well seen.  If we didn’t want them making music, the record companies would have no reason to invest in them.

The purpose of music, the sole purpose, is to better the soul, heal the soul, make us think, make us feel, make use use the words and sounds of music to help us illustrate and explain our hearts and minds.  It’s the universal language, and the only language that doesn’t need its own slang to explain itself.  And that’s where we get fooled.

Life is very serious, and very dark these days.  When you come home, you don’t see sitcoms or comedians working their tails off to make you laugh and breathe  a little bit.  You see overly dramatic mumbo jumbo like ‘Lost’, ‘Heroes’ and the trillion cop shows where you can basically see what the deepest, darkest parts of human action is.  If I want to hear about a woman’s rape, or someone overdosing on heroin, I can turn to most of the major networks.  If I want to laugh, or watch something that’s easier to swallow at the end of a long day, I have to channel surf.

Perhaps its that darkness we let ourselves take in that, combined with how hard so many of us work and how many of us are struggling, we allow garbage music to be played like it is.  So many of us are counting the hours until we get our direct deposits that we don’t listen around us anymore, and we accept how poor music is today – we have enough to worry about, why would we care if Lil Wayne’s sneering with his big platinum teeth like he’s a human trophy?  We’re all living paycheck to paycheck, counting our pennies and not our CD’s.

I’m not saying that all of today’s music is crap, either – Imogen Heap, ADELE, Bon Iver, John Mayer, Ray LaMontagne are all brilliant and well beloved to those that know them.  They’re few of many, however, who don’t rely on charts and big numbers anymore – because they can’t.  Because art is all too hard to find.

However, it’s mind-blowing that those who were successful 20, 3o, 40 years ago are still topping the charts and the venues today – Elton John, Aerosmith, Metallica, The ROLLING STONES are still light years more successful and talented than most anything that’s come since.  It’s like they’re waiting to hand the torch down, with no one there to reach it.  No one’s blowing our minds anymore.  Jim Morrison isn’t here to test our minds, Jerry Garcia isn’t here to teach us all how to relax, and Jimi Hendrix isn’t here to show us just how a show’s supposed to be done.  And if they were, they’d be here to pass the torch too.

Music is doing one thing well that it always has, though; it’s defining our generation where we like it or not.  In a world where we’re all fighting, struggling, letting ourselves be overly sensitive while tapping such small amounts of our own dignity and humanity, music is defining that.  It’s defining it by being as crappy as too many of us feel.

Once we let ourselves heal, and if we ever stand up and let ourselves take in a little more life, music should hopefully be back to the brilliance it can be.  Because right now, music isn’t the work of art it used to be considered to the masses; it’s merely flash-in-the-pan entertainment.  And that’s the darkest aspect of all.