Coaching Baseball

As you may have observed I have been writing less recently. Or perhaps you all don't check my blog as frequently as I think you do, and you didn't even notice I'd been scarce. I've seen at least one of you pacing outside my house with a sign that says "WHY?" so I'm positive there's one person out there who still reads my blog. I'm 100% sure it has nothing to do with the fact that OJ Simpson lives to my left, and Amanda Knox lives to my right. But anyway, I have been sluggish in my blogging due to a loss of keyboarding skills. I lost nine fingers and seven toes in a horrific, freak Easter Egg Hunt accident. I reached down to grab a buried egg at just the wrong moment, and sparing you the details, let's just say I have to hunt and peck with one finger as I type nowadays. Nah, I'm just messing. I had a great Easter.
I started coaching baseball. It takes up a lot of time. Really. A lot of time. And I decided to train for a half-marathon. Running takes up a lot of time. Really.
My JV baseball coaching job is a peculiar one. It's strange because I really only got the opportunity because I know the varsity coach. I don't actually know anything about baseball. I thought I did because I enjoy watching it more than reruns of Cheers, but it turns out there's actually a lot more to it than just enjoying watching professionals play. I thought playing one season of coed slow-pitch softball was enough experience, but it turns out the other JV coaches whom I call my peers played and coached at the college level. I guess that's what they were expecting from me, too. Everyday I'm shocked at how little slow pitch adult softball and high school boys baseball have in common.
Easily being the least knowledgeable member on the field at any given time certainly puts me in some interesting positions since my title is 'Coach.' After my Mr. Johnson prank, an acquaintance asked me if I felt this was my next big prank- getting a job in something I am completely unqualified for, then making them think I know what I'm doing for an entire season. This was never my intention, but the cracks are starting to show. By the way, the other coaches know I have minimal baseball knowledge and are very good at mentoring me while maintaining my integrity with the players. In addition I am doing this as a volunteer (no paychecks) so it's not like they're losing anything by having me around. As for the players... well they're definitely on to me. I can honestly say I think I've given more pieces of bad advice than good advice. I can say that truthfully because I've probably only given four pieces of advice, and three of them got corrected by the head coach or a player at a later time. So I'm 1 for 4 in the advice column.
There was one practice where the head coach asked me to go help the catchers with their blocking. Basically I got to chuck balls at the catchers as if they were wild pitches in order to see if the catchers could block the balls or if they would roll to the backstop. It sounded easy enough. After about 10 minutes of this the more veteran catcher made a very diplomatic comment, which was "Coach Bennett, I think this might work better if we did such and such." He was basically telling me I was doing it totally wrong, but in such a way that he didn't question my authority. I was very impressed with his diplomacy. I pulled him aside and said "Greg, I just want you to know it's every coach's dream to have his players coach themselves and each other. If you have any more suggestions for Tim please don't be shy. I'd rather it come from you than me." It was my diplomatic way of saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing. Can you offer more suggestions please?"
However, lest you think I'm a total tub of dirty bathwater, let me inform you of my positive contributions. I feel quite confident that I've given more High Fives than any other coach or player on JV or Varsity. I'm like a machine when it comes to High Fives. I give so many I usually have to ice my hand at the end of the night. I even give them to the umpires. One time the ump wasn't quite prepared for my gesture so I ended up hitting him in the face which he did not take lightly, and consequently ejected me.
Another positive attribute I offer is counting the pitches. I am so good at counting it's not even funny. It's about time I put my math degree to use. Every game I get to count how many pitches were thrown. I'm still not sure if it's busy work that the head coach assigned me so I'd stay out of his hair, or if it's actually something he wants to keep track of. The fact that I've seen him Thank Me for counting, then throw the piece of paper away before we've even left the dugout suggests maybe it's just busy work.
Coaching is a lot of fun. I'm certainly learning a lot and growing to really like the head coach and the other players. I look forward to all the games, and especially the bagels the mothers-of-players provide.

DOMA

You can't get on Facebook or the Blogosphere and not read something about DOMA this week. It's as prevalent as a trucker hat at a roadside diner along I-80 during Trucker's Week at lunchtime. I do live in DC, but that doesn't mean I know everything about this crazy city or the country it represents or it's governing systems or roadside diners. DOMA is something I know little about. I first figured DOMA was an internet abbreviation like unto ROFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing) or BRB (Be Right Back). But a quick AOL search quickly revealed the obvious truth. (I always go with AOL as my search engine. They just have such a way of finding exactly what I'm looking for in the first 234 pages.) According to America Online, DOMA stands for the Deliberately Owning Maracas Act. Apparently there was some legislation passed back in the nineties that sought to define how maracas could be owned. It was determined that maracas should never be deliberately owned, but that since there were many of them in existence already it was acceptable to 'accidentely' own a pair. You might 'accidently' own a pair if they were given to you as a gift or if your five year old came back from school with a homemade pair made of paper plates and dried beans. When the legislation first passed many people were pleased, and many people (musicians especially) were dismayed. For me, as far as homemade Latin instruments go, I would have to say I'm more partial to lining up old glass bottles and creating a xylophone than I am to the Maraca. If the government tried to limit my xylophone use I would never win any alphabet games again. Xylophone is the only 'x' word I know, and I only learned it didn't begin with a 'z' about 4 minutes ago when I tried to look it up. Turns out I never should have won all those road trip games when we passed all the xylophone factories next to the yam farms and zoos. But back to DOMA. I saw in the newspaper that a lot of people were camping outside the Supreme Court trying to get in to hear the arguments. To them, I say I prefer to camp in a place where I can build a real fire (as opposed to metaphorical one) and where I can wear a flannel shirt and sweats without being looked at like I'm homeless. If I wanted to camp in DC I'd join Occupy DC. If I wanted to sleep in a tent in DC I'd go to the REI store.
So much passion for some instruments! The last time I felt such feelings for a musical instrument was in 4th grade when Matt Greenfeld grabbed my recorder straight outta my mouth, snapped it in two across his knee, and shouted at me "Record THAT, &$*#($!" Something tells me Matt Greenfeld is not in favor of maracas either. Well anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Deliberately owning maracas may be good and it may be bad. The whole issue is just over my head, and probably too much to discuss on a mere blog post such as this. Check my twitter feed for 160 character updates, I guess.

Spring Break 2013!

SPRING BREAK 2013 BABAY!
I'm on Spring Break this week, Holla Atchya! style. If there's one word that's synonymous with spring break in my life, it would have to be... dentist. Give me two words and I'll give you 'The dentist.'
One tradition I have each year during my week off is to attend the dentist. It's a wonderful tradition. One year I cancelled a nonrefundable trip to Turks and Caicos the day before because in my hectic life I had forgotten that I had previously scheduled a teeth cleaning and there was no way in heck I was going to let my dentist down. Sure I may have been out $3,500 that year due to the cancellation, but you just can't put a price tag on a good smile and clean teeth.
This year I had my appointment on Monday so I would have plenty of time the rest of the week to do what I do best- practice the Electric Slide. I have now been to this dentist three times (roughly) and the only thing that's been consistent are the receptionistas. Receptionista. I like that word. Pretty sure I made it up, but also pretty sure you know exactly the type of person it describes. Between the first and second time I went to Mira Dental they switched locations. Between the second and third visits they switched dentists. I have yet to recognize a hygienist from my three visits there. I'm really not even sure if I'm still going to the same dentist that I started with two years ago, but I keep getting reminder postcards every six months and since it's the only mail I get I feel a real obligation to respond.
This time my visit was peculiar. My new hygienist-who thought she spoke English but was actually speaking Arabic I'm pretty sure- told me I was due for some x-rays. She then asked me to undress and put on the hospital gown she left behind. I wasn't quite sure why this was necessary, but given my affinity for robes I decided to just follow along. When she returned she apologized to me and and in broken English told me she forgot which job she was at, and mistook her hygienist job for her nursing job. It wasn't required for me to put on the hospital gown after all, but given it's comfort she obliged when I requested I just stay in it.
After five attempts (honestly) she still couldn't get a 'good' x-ray, and scapegoated my pointy nose as the problem. She seriously told me I had a pointy nose that was getting in the way of the equipment. She offered to give me a nose job (her third job, she claimed) but I declined. I'm just glad she scapegoated instead of scalped it. Eventually we had to move to another room and another machine to get the x-rays past my witch nose. My hygienist then said something to me in Arabic and left. I think she got fired. She never came back. I waited there in my gown and chair, and waited some more. Keep in mind there had been zero cleaning done up to this point. Just a lot of biting metal objects and nose discussions. After fifteen minutes I took my slobber gobbler off (Slobber Gobbler: That bib they put around you neck. Another phrase I made up in this post) and went to the rest room. X-rays just make me have to use the rest room, and I didn't know how long it was going to be before the dentist came to see me. I felt like I was in one of those movies where the criminal is on the surgery table, and the doctor turns her back and BAM- the patient is gone. When I returned everything was just as it was before. After roughly 25 minutes the dentist came in. At least she said she was the dentist and she had a white coat on. She was definitely not there on my previous visits to Mira Dental because I would have remembered. Anyway, after the usual pleasantries about my Spring Break, why I was wearing a hospital gown, and the firing of my hygienist 25 minutes previous, she went to work... on my neck. I had never received a neck massage from a dentist, until now. She had me stretch out my neck and felt along the tendons. I guess they connect to my jaw or something; it seemed like a very holistic approach to dental care. She then looked at my teeth and told me they looked wonderful. She informed me there were no problems, but then left with an eerie warning: 'Your fillings are all great. But don't be surprised if one day soon they fall out.' It was reminiscent of a previous appointment I had at the same office where the dentist told me 'You're in great shape. Nothing wrong. But don't be surprised if you get a cavity soon.' I felt like saying to her 'Thanks for the great cleaning. I have zero complaints. But don't be surprised if I come back and burn your practice to the ground with a single match.'
When the dentist left a different hygienist came in, one I had also never seen before, and of an ethnicity I had never encountered before. I swear it's like the UN over there at Mira. She gave me a very quick cleaning, like under ten minutes. I've never had a cleaning that fast (I think she skipped half of the cleaning procedure- whatever that entails).
When I finally left I was very confused. Why did I put the gown on? Why did I have to be in two different rooms? Why did I have two different hygienist? Why couldn't I get the same dentist I had the last time? How did I get there? Where do seeds come from? How long does it take to digest a piece of gun? Luckily I have all Spring Break to ponder these important issues.