Start Your Engines

I have never been a fan of NASCAR. The concept of cars driving for hours in a continuous circle brings unpleasant memories of searching for a parking space in New York City. Also, I find it difficult to root in a sport where the athletes are machines wearing not shoes, but tires.

Perhaps my ambivalence towards the sport stems from growing up in New York, where racing is done by horses, not cars. While I have attended hundreds of sporting events in my lifetime, I have never had even a passing desire to drive to Daytona or Homestead, both easily accessible from my home, for a big race. Many have attempted to convince me otherwise, insisting that there is nothing like the noise and speed of a NASCAR race. But I worked on Fifth Avenue for several years and am pretty sure that the speed and noise of a NASCAR race were simulated outside my office building every day at lunchtime.

I bring this up because this weekend NASCAR comes to the Homestead-Miami Speedway for the final race of the 2010 Sprint Cup championship. For the past several days the Miami Herald has been running stories about the event, which promises to be one of the most exciting races in the history of the sport.

At stake is the legacy of Jimmie Johnson, perhaps the most successful driver in NASCAR history. Johnson, the four-time defending Sprint Cup champion, trails leader Denny Hamlin by fifteen points in the Sprint Cup chase, the closest the second place driver has ever been going into the final racing weekend. Throw in the fact that the third place driver, Kevin Harvick, is only forty-six points behind the leader, well within reach, and we have what is certain to be a down-to-the-wire, nail biting finish.

Here, however, is where the sport loses me. The outcome of the Sprint Cup championship is not as simple as who wins this final race. Many factors go into determining how many points a driver attains during the course of a race – factors such as numbers of laps led, laps completed, and final placing. If I could turn on my television and root for one driver, knowing that the first to cross the finish line will win the championship, I could more easily embrace the sport. It is more likely, however, that I will not know who the champion is until the announcers tell me.

One final thing that baffles me is the concept of teams within teams. Jimmie Johnson drives for fellow driver Jeff Gordon’s racing team. Most weekends this means that Johnson and Gordon, although teammates, compete against each other on the track, each relying on his own sub-team – the pit crew that is instrumental to a driver’s success. About a week ago, Johnson decided that his pit crew was not performing as efficiently as he expected. So he replaced it with Gordon’s pit crew. This final weekend Johnson will rely on Gordon’s pit crew, while Gordon will presumably rely on Johnson’s. This is reminiscent of the Yankees’ Fritz Peterson/Mike Kekich family-swapping scandal of 1972.

Like millions of others, I will follow the results of this weekend’s race with some degree of interest. As a sports fan, I appreciate the accomplishment of competitors who put their reputations (and their lives) on the line every time they climb behind the wheels of their cars. Yet I cannot imagine a result that will stir me the way that the underdog Giants’ World Series victory did a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps if the race were conducted on the streets of New York, with drivers forced to avoid jay walkers, I would tune in enthusiastically. Barring that, I will likely wait until Sunday night’s ESPN SportsCenter to learn whether Jimmie Johnson’s legacy lives on.

Paper Trophy

If the Auburn Tigers win their final three football games of the season, they will be national champions – maybe.

The uncertainty does not stem from a flawed system that favors teams from “major” conferences, such as presently undefeated Oregon and Auburn, at the expense of “small” conference squads, such as Texas Christian University and Boise State (also undefeated, but behind Oregon and Auburn in the BCS rankings). This past January, two unbeaten “major” conference teams, Alabama and Texas, squared off for the championship while similarly unbeaten TCU and Boise State watched from the sidelines, relegated to playing each other in what was effectively a consolation game. Should Auburn continue its winning streak, it will receive the same degree of favoritism as Alabama and Texas, and “earn” a spot in the BCS championship game.

However, even if Auburn wins that game, it is not guaranteed a championship. The reason for this apparent contradiction is Auburn’s star quarterback, Cam Newton, who until a few weeks ago was the overwhelming favorite to win this year’s Heisman Trophy. Newton, who was once dismissed from the University of Florida team amidst allegations of cheating and theft, is embroiled in a controversy that threatens to swallow what has been, until now, one of the best seasons on the history of Auburn football.

After leaving Florida and enrolling in a junior college, Newton, whose talent has never been questioned, was aggressively recruited by several colleges before he landed at Auburn. A few weeks ago, rumors circulated that one of those schools, Mississippi State, had been approached by someone purportedly acting on behalf of Newton’s father, who demanded nearly $200,000 in exchange for Newton’s enrolling at the school. Newton’s father initially denied those rumors, but his more recent statements suggest there was an element of truth behind them.

Newton never signed with Mississippi State, choosing instead to play at Auburn. However, the question has been asked: if money was demanded of Mississippi State, why would Auburn be exempt from such demands; and perhaps more significantly, does the fact that Newton signed with Auburn suggest that his father’s demands were met?

The Auburn coaches and athletic department vehemently deny any wrongdoing and, truth be told, no evidence of such wrongdoing by the school has been uncovered, despite a slew of investigative reporters daily on the trail. However, misconduct by the school is not needed to jeopardize the season. Earlier this year, the University of Southern California was stripped of a national title because its star player, Reggie Bush, accepted money and other benefits from agents while he was enrolled and playing football at the school. Because his acceptance of such benefits stripped him of his amateur status under NCAA rules, USC forfeited all games in which he had participated, and consequently lost a national championship it had earned on the field.

Newton’s story is much like that of Bush. During Bush’s collegiate career, allegations abounded about cash, cars and houses provided to him and his family. Like Auburn, USC denied wrongdoing and urged reporters to focus on the team’s on-field accomplishments. USC, perhaps the most successful college team of the new millennium, won games and championships despite the off-field controversy. When the final die was cast, however, the school was stripped of one of those championships because of Bush’s improper actions.

Should Auburn win its game over state rival Alabama in two weeks and then defeat the University of South Carolina in the SEC championship game, it will undoubtedly be invited to play Oregon, or whichever “major” conference team sits atop the BCS rankings at the end of the season. Still, the dark cloud that hangs over the university and its star player raises questions about the outcome of that game.

Players from both schools will undoubtedly line up, ready to compete before a vast international television audience. No matter what happens on the field that night, however, it is likely that the final score will not be known until the NCAA completes its investigation into the allegations against Newton. Until that time, Auburn fans may celebrate the team’s on-field accomplishments knowing that, like USC, they may eventually be forced to return a championship trophy while college record books are rewritten and Newton watches from NFL sidelines.

Close Encounter

It had been a busy morning, the type measured not in minutes, but in superseding deadlines. I had been sitting in my office, working on a motion due to be filed that day, when my then partner Jeff poked his head through my door and asked if I could spend a few minutes interviewing a prospective associate candidate for the law firm. I was awaiting changes to the motion from my secretary and therefore had a few minutes to spare. I asked Jeff to bring her in.

I spent about ten minutes with the candidate, discussing her resume, the schools she had attended, the firms for whom she had worked, her likes and dislikes, the reasons for her job search. My secretary interrupted our conversation, indicating that I had a call from the chambers of the judge to whom the motion was to be delivered that day. I apologized to the candidate and asked my secretary to bring her back to Jeff. I then picked up the phone and re-diverted my attention to the motion.

At lunchtime, I had a short reprieve. While my secretary put the finishing touches on the motion, I stepped out for a few minutes for lunch with Jeff. We walked a couple of blocks to Chicken Kitchen, a local franchise that specialized in healthy meals. We stood on a short line, placed our orders, paid, and walked outside to dine at a table by the restaurant’s door.

After we sat, Jeff asked my impression of the associate candidate.

“Hard to say, “ I answered. “I didn’t spend much time with her. She didn’t strike me as an axe murderer.”

Jeff’s eyes opened wide. He seemed to be looking over my shoulder. I turned around slowly and saw the reason for his discomfort. At the table directly behind us, sitting within earshot of our conversation, sat former football superstar O.J. Simpson, he of Johnny-Cochran-“If the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit” fame.

Simpson had moved to South Florida shortly after a jury in Los Angeles acquitted him of the brutal murder of his wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman, and shortly before another jury awarded millions of dollars against him in civil damages to the Goldman family for the murder of their son. Simpson’s move to South Florida was not surprising, since Florida has long had laws favorable to judgment debtors seeking to protect their assets. What was surprising was that Simpson, whom I had repeatedly watched on television as a teen tearing through opponents’ defenses on the way to a Hall-of-Fame career, and whose criminal trial I had followed a few years earlier, now sat directly behind me while I discussed axe murderers with my partner.

If Simpson overheard any part of our conversation, he did not show it. He sat at a table with two other men eating chicken and rice and seemingly engaged in his own private chat. He never looked in our direction, nor acknowledged anything that Jeff and I had discussed.

After we finished our lunch, Jeff and I picked up our trays and deposited the trash in a receptacle by the restaurant’s door. We then headed back to the office, where my pending motion awaited.

As I walked past his table, I took a final look at Simpson. He seemed totally at ease, unconcerned by his troubled past or by the stares he was surely drawing from us and other restaurant patrons.

Years later, Simpson would be convicted in Nevada of attempting to forcefully retrieve sports memorabilia, which he claimed was his, from a broker in a hotel room on the Las Vegas strip. Prosecutors alleged that Simpson and his cohorts used guns and the threat of physical violence to force the broker to relinquish the property. The jury in that case convicted Simpson, perhaps influenced by his past and the brutal nature of his wife’s murder. Today he remains incarcerated with little prospect of release.

But on that day, Simpson sat at Chicken Kitchen, eating his meal and chatting away, without an apparent care. My last glimpse caught him leaning over his plate, plastic fork in hand, listening to one of his dining companions, and chewing his food through a crooked half smile.

Say Hey

The play was captured on black and white film. Willie Mays, then a twenty-three year old fleet-footed outfielder for the New York Giants, coming off a season in which he was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, runs full speed towards the centerfield fence at the old Polo Grounds, the number twenty-four visible on his back. He never turns his head, instead looking straight up as he makes an improbable over the shoulder catch in the deepest part of the stadium, and then twirls and throws the baseball towards second base in one fluid, athletic motion.

It is often referred to as the greatest defensive play in the history of the game, made all-the-more memorable because it occurred during the 1954 World Series, a series dominated by the Giants, who swept the favored Cleveland Indians to take the championship.

At the time, with Mays, described by many as the greatest player of his generation, at the beginning of what would be a Hall of Fame career, it was assumed that the Giants would hold many championship parades through the streets of New York. Yet four years later the Giants packed their bags and moved to San Francisco, on the heels of their rival Brooklyn Dodgers, leaving behind only memories and a multitude of fans feeling betrayed and abandoned. The Giants would not win another championship for fifty-six years.

They came close several times. In 1962 a Giants team populated by such greats as Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal, loaded the bases in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game against the New York Yankees in game seven of the World Series. McCovey, then at the beginning of his own Hall of Fame career, hit what he has described as the hardest ball he has ever hit. The ball, however, never lifted far from the ground and settled into the glove of Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson for the final out of the series. The Yankees repeated as World Champions, and the Giants went home in defeat.

Despite often fielding teams with exceptional players, the Giants did not return to the World Series until 1989. That year they were led by young first baseman Will Clark and powerhouse outfielder Kevin Mitchell, coming off an MVP season. The Giants faced their American League rivals Oakland Athletics, in a highly anticipated matchup of Bay Area teams. Then Mother Nature struck. The World Series was interrupted by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that killed 63 people, injured 3,727, and left thousands others homeless throughout northern California. The World Series became of little consequence, and the Giants never seemed to recover from the shock of the catastrophe, losing to the Athletics in four games.

The Giants next returned to the World Series in 2002, this time led by controversial outfielder Barry Bonds, coming off one of several MVP campaigns. Heartbreak once again awaited the team. Leading the series three games to two, and holding a 5-0 lead in the seventh inning of game six against the Anaheim Angels, the team collapsed. The Angels scored six runs in the seventh and eighth innings to take game six, 6-5, and defeated the Giants 4-1 in game seven to take the series. One again, despite fielding a superlative team, the Giants’ efforts came up short.

This year the Giants were not expected to contend. They fielded a makeshift lineup of castoffs from other teams, yet melded together to win their division on the last day of the season. The team’s lineup this post-season did not come close to rivaling those of past Giants squads. When they reached the World Series, their clean-up hitter was journeyman outfielder Cody Ross, a discard from the Florida Marlins picked up on waivers late in the season. Ross, who batted eighth at the beginning of the playoffs, became an unexpected hero in the Giants’ improbable march to the championship.

The true heroes of the Giants’ season, however, were the pitchers. It is an old adage that good pitching will beat good hitting when championships are on the line, and that proved the case again this year. Led by unconventional two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum (nicknamed “The Freak” by his teammates), the Giants defeated the Texas Rangers in five games, ending nearly six decades of futility.

Willie Mays, the “Say Hey” kid with the winning smile, who provided countless memories of athletic achievement to New York and San Francisco fans alike, is now seventy-nine years old. His catch during the 1954 World Series seems a distant memory kept alive only by the magic of film. Yet, as the Giants swarmed the field in celebration of their achievement, I could not help but wonder at the thoughts and emotion that must be going through him. Fifty-six years after Mays’ improbable catch, the Giants are champions once again – in a different city, in a very different sport played by vastly different players.

Life Changes

For the first five years of his life Cheddar was an only dog. He was a rambunctious sixty-five pound yellow Labrador retriever with boundless energy and love for everything and everyone around him.

We brought Cheddar into our home as a two-month-old puppy, and he quickly assumed control, refusing to accept that he was not a lapdog even after his quickly growing body became larger than most laps. Because his size and always wagging tail posed a danger to objects and furniture throughout our home, he became an outside dog, spending most of his day in our pool area, or strolling through our backyard barking at passing dogs and inviting joggers to come inside and play.

The patio was his kingdom, but one he was always willing to share with his subjects. When our twins brought home friends to play, Cheddar would always join in the mayhem, running alongside the kids and never missing an opportunity to jump up on his hind legs in an effort to lick unsuspecting, yet delighted faces. One memory of Cheddar’s early years involved a friend of our son’s, a man-sized boy who had come to visit our home. In his delight at meeting this new friend, Cheddar leaped at him and knocked him into our pool. Because our son’s clothes were much too small, the boy wore my shorts and tee-shirt all afternoon while his own clothes dried.

When Cheddar was five, we adopted Tasha, a thirteen-year-old brown Pekingese. Tasha had lived with my sister-in-law in New York until the latter moved to an apartment that did not allow pets. For the next several months Tasha stayed with my mother-in-law, who is a wonderful person, but not a dog lover. While Tasha was provided with life’s basic necessities, she did not receive the attention she needed and the effects showed in her deteriorating condition. Age had brought near blindness which, coupled with lethargy brought on by inattention, led my sister-in-law to conclude that she did not have long to live.

Tasha had previously spent some time in our home, when my sister-in-law considered moving to South Florida and figuratively (and sometimes literally) tested the waters. While Tasha loved people, she was not enamored of other dogs. Cheddar seemed an exception, perhaps because he was so generous in his treatment of her. The first time that Cheddar met Tasha, he proceeded to bring her each of his favorite toys, dropping them in front of her and inviting her to play. Tasha generally ignored Cheddar’s advances, perhaps because, in her blindness, she could not see the toys. Yet she seemed genuinely content to share the patio with Cheddar, and happy during the short time that she had spent with us.

When we learned about Tasha’s deteriorating condition, we offered to take her in. My sister-in-law accepted our offer, glad that Tasha’s final days would be spent in a comfortable and familiar environment.

The change rejuvenated Tasha. Where in New York she had been lethargic, she was energized by the sunshine of South Florida and the companionship of her larger, younger playmate. Tasha and Cheddar spent their days together, strolling our yard and engaging in choruses of barks usually initiated by Cheddar, but always joined by his miniature friend, who followed his lead even if she could not see and did not know the source of his enthusiasm.

Tasha was an old lady with many of the traits one would expect from someone of her advanced years. She was not inclined to play as often as Cheddar, but that did not stop him from trying to goad her on. I recall a game into which he would unwittingly lure her. Cheddar would approach Tasha while she lay in the sun and nudge her with his nose. Tasha, not exactly happy at being disturbed, would jump to her feet and bark in the direction of the unwanted intrusion. Cheddar, delighted with her reaction, would run in a circle, approaching her from the opposite side, and repeating the nudge. Tasha would immediately turn her attention to the new intrusion and bark blindly at its source. The game would continue until one or both tired.

Tasha, who was suspected to be near death when she returned to South Florida, lived another two years. When she eventually passed at the age of fifteen, Cheddar became very depressed. He would lie around listlessly and often looked into the plastic doghouse where Tasha enjoyed resting, disappointed that she was no longer there.

It became clear to us that Cheddar needed a new companion. We decided to adopt a Beagle and began the process of searching for the new puppy. We eventually found Bree in a small pet store near our home. She was a two-month-old reddish-brown bundle of energy, and we fell in love with her the moment we saw her.

When we brought Bree home, she immediately lunged at Cheddar, ecstatic to have a playmate. She strolled through the patio, examining her new surroundings, with the certainty and confidence that everything around her was hers. A new queen had ascended the throne and everyone, including Cheddar, would succumb to her will.

Cheddar, who had never spent much time around puppies, looked at us in bewilderment. He did not know what to make of this new addition to our family who taunted him, ran circles around him, and playfully bit his ears with tiny, razor-sharp teeth until they bled. One thing was certain, however: life, as he knew it, was about to change.

A Slice of Conch

“People go to Key West for lots of different reasons. Joey Goldman went there to be a gangster.”

Thus begins Laurence Shames’ debut novel, Florida Straits (1992), the tale of Joey Goldman, half Sicilian, half Jewish twenty-seven-year-old illegitimate son of a New York mafia boss, who travels to the famed Florida city situated ninety miles from the coast of Cuba seeking a new life. Early in the novel Joey explains to his best friend Sal the reason for his move.

“I’m gonna like, take over.”

Sal questions this decision: “Take over what, Joey? This is what I’m asking you.”

“I guess I won’t know that till I get there, will I, Sal?”

So Joey packs his bags and, together with his girlfriend Sandra, the voice of reason in Joey’s life, departs for life down south. What he finds is quite different from what he expected.

This must be known about Key West: it is possibly the most unique, charismatic American town this side of New Orleans. In the 1970’s when the drug trade was at it worst, and shipments of narcotics were regularly unloaded in the Florida Keys, to be shipped by land to all parts of the country, the United States government established a road block just outside of Key West, stopping and searching cars heading north. The residents of Key West did not accept this situation lightly. They felt that they were being treated as if their town was a foreign country, with the roadblock an unofficial customs office. So they staged a symbolic secession from the United States and established the “Conch Republic.” To this day, residents refer fondly to their revolution and often insist that the rules of mainland U.S. do not apply to them.

That is what Joey Goldman finds when he reaches his destination, a quirky town filled with memorable characters who populate Shames’ novel: transvestites, Cuban mafia bosses, call girls with attitudes, a retired mobster whose escape from “the life” was only made possible by death (literally, on an operating table for several minutes before he was brought back), and an ancient, quivering Chihuahua who wears sunglasses to protect his cataract-afflicted eyes. These all help define the spirit of Joey’s newly-adopted town.

Joey’s early attempts to meld into the town’s character is described by Shames as follows:

On a breezy morning at the end of January, Joey Goldman stood in front of his bathroom mirror and tried to figure out how best to display his sunglasses on those rare occasions when he wasn’t actually wearing them. Some guys, he’d noticed, hooked them around their second shirt button, and let them hang straight down. This was stylish, Joey thought, but maybe, well, a little feminine. Of course, he could simply drop them in his breast pocket, but then they were invisible, he got no benefit at all. Maybe the suave compromise was to put them in the pocket, but with an earpiece looped outside.

Joey’s attempts to “take over” the town fall flat. Instead of creating a new criminal enterprise, he winds up selling timeshares to tourists. Yet he and Sandra both learn to love their new life and the unusual personages that surround them.

The novel’s storyline involves a Miami don’s attempts to recover three million dollars’ worth of uncut emeralds and the problems Joey and Sandra encounter when they become caught up in the hunt. Characters from their past, including Joey’s half-brother Gino, a borderline psychopath, also feature prominently in Shames’ tale, highlighted by crisp, rapid dialogue.

Yet the true star of Shames’ novel is the town of Key West. The author depicts an amusing, appealing, charismatic place that is very faithful to the city’s Conch roots.

Shames has since written several other novels, many also situated in Key West, featuring some of the same characters of Florida Straits. Yet, while those novels contain enjoyable elements, he has not come close to fully recapturing the charm of his debut work.

Florida Straits is an amusing, fast-paced read, recommended for anyone wishing to bring a slice of the Conch Republic into otherwise “normal” everyday lives.

Matty and Mugsy

He was Ruth before Ruth, Namath before Namath, Jordan before Jordan. At the opening of the twentieth century, Christy Mathewson was king of the sporting world. “Matty” was the ace pitcher for the New York Giants, the most popular team in sports before Babe Ruth and the Yankees of the 1920’s claimed that title.

In a sport dominated by street-wise toughs and country boys, Mathewson was an anomaly. He was tall, handsome and college educated, having attended Bucknell before giving in to the seduction of baseball and turning pro. He joined the Giants in 1900 and almost immediately ascended to the top of the sport. In 1905, after winning 31 regular season games (the third consecutive year he exceeded 30 wins), he pitched three shutouts during the World Series to lead the Giants to the championship. In the more than 100 years that have followed, no one has come close to duplicating that feat.

The 1905 World Series gained universal fame for Mathewson and the Giants. They were the first celebrity sports team, toasted wherever they went, their exploits followed in newspapers by fans throughout the country.

While Mathewson’s on-field excellence attracted many of the headlines, some were reserved for the team’s fiery leader, manager John McGraw. Nicknamed “Little Napoleon” and “Mugsy,” McGraw was known for his shotgun temper and willingness to do anything to win. He gained his reputation during his playing days in the l890’s, when tripping and impeding opposing baserunners became his norm. It is said that McGraw’s tactics were instrumental in baseball’s decision to employ multiple umpires during games to police on-field activity.

The relationship between college-educated Mathewson and man-of-the-streets McGraw is at the center of Frank Deford’s excellent book, The Old Ball Game. Deford, long-time writer for Sports Illustrated, weekly commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition and regular correspondent for the HBO series Real Sports, chronicles the relationship between these vastly different men, who together reached the top of the sporting world. Despite their differences, the two men crafted a bond that would endure for the rest of their lives (in Mathewson’s case, a life cut short by tuberculosis, likely resulting from his accidental exposure to toxic gas after he enlisted in the Army during World War I). McGraw was, in many ways, a father figure to Mathewson, helping him hone his game during a 17-year career that saw him win 373 games and attain a winning percentage of .665, and hiring him as a coach when Mathewson returned from Europe a seriously ill man.

Yet the relationship between these two giants of the sport is just one aspect of Deford’s book. Deford also chronicles the rise in the sport’s popularity during the early 1900’s, which largely resulted from the Giants’ success, and explores the similarities between baseball then and now, drawing analogies between the gambling issues that plagued the sport at the time and the steroids controversy that has dominated headlines during the early years of the twenty-first century.

More significantly, Deford uses the rise in the sport’s popularity during the early 1900’s to craft a portrait of American society at the time, not dissimilar to that painted by E.L. Doctorow in his classic novel Ragtime.

Perhaps Wes Lukowsky put it best in his Starred Review for Booklist: “Deford effectively weaves the threads of these two touchstone lives into the broader tapestry of an ascendant sport and a rapidly modernizing America. A fine baseball book but just as fine a study of American popular culture.”

The Old Ball Game is one of the finest baseball books of the past twenty years. It rivals Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer in its ability to evoke ghosts of an earlier time and reminds us that the playing fields occupied by men in cotton uniforms chasing balls hit by sticks also link us to our past.

It is a wonderful read and highly recommended.