205 Drop: Top 12 ways to get a small child through an MLB game

Today's drop goes to dark places while having tons of useful suggestions for the baseball-loving parent. Honestly, your best move for such things is to never buy very good seats -- the kid will never be able to take anything less -- pack food if the stadium allows it, and keep in mind that you're not really going to see a game, so much as you are trying to indoctrinate a new person that will take you to games when you are old and feeble. Anyway, go click, there's some nice nastiness today.

205 Drop: Top 12 sports figures that I can't explain to my kid

The link today was a lot of work and something I'm fairly proud of, so go click. Besides, it's got a severely outdated picture of my eldest kid on it, so if you don't like it and click on it a lot, you must hate my kid. How could you?

205 Drop: Top 10 moves to increase MLB attendance

Today's snarky list is here. Today's overly long rumination on today's list is below. Who said that we're a wildly unpopular sports blog due to our basic contempt for humanity? At least, who said that out loud?

Today, I'd like to say a word in defense of light crowds at the old ball yard. When I was a partial year season ticket holder for the A's during the stint in NoCal, I took the Shooter Child (now the Shooter Eldest) to about 20 games a year, and in that mix along with the de rigeur fireworks shows were a fairly strong number of mid-week night games where the crowds were fairly, shall we say, intimate. We preferred them, on many levels, to the games where Yankee Fan and Red Sox Fan invaded the park by the thousands to tell us how much of a craphole it was. (Thanks! We hadn't noticed!)

Part of that was simply wanting to avoid Yankee Fan and Red Sox Fan -- honestly, you people are worse on the road than you are at home -- but mostly, it was because baseball without a crushing crowd has its own charms. You can get to a bathroom or concession stand without a major commitment, for one. You don't have to step over people to tend to the needs of your small child, for another. If the person near you has to provide an R-rated soundtrack to the game, you can also just plain move. It's all to the good.

There's also just a more relaxed air to the whole thing. Baseball, on some very basic level, should just not be taken all that seriously. It's the same game that you see played by children without adult supervision, after all, and even if it doesn't have that whole Air of The Drama when the crowds are small, it's still a pretty good game, especially in person. You can relax watching it. Maybe help a kid with the coloring. Savor the taste of that only good at the yard hot dog, because it's only at the yard that you're actually not multi-tasking and grinding on so many fronts that you can, you know, actually taste it.

So to all of the teams that are taking it on the chin at the turnstile, I wish you nothing but continued challenges. And to the rest of us who just love the game, rather than all of the things that you have to put up with around the game... well, good seats available. And maybe, just maybe, not enough security people around to give a damn when we take that mid-game free seat upgrade.

Status Oh No

Tonight, my eldest daughter, who is nine, was in her first talent show ever, at her school. She sang "America the Beautiful" alone in front of a couple of hundred people. As I work a long way away from where I live, it takes about 100 minutes to commute, assuming things go well. The show began at 7, and my day job doesn't usually end until 5:30. It was also something of a hair pull of a day, really... but by working through lunch and just hustling, I was able to get out early enough to catch the earlier train.

Things were looking good until about 6:30, when the train began to crawl... and a trip that's supposed to take 40 minutes wound up taking 70, which meant that not only did I miss her big moment, but so did my wife, who was waiting to pick me up at the station. I'm told that the Shooter Kid did well, and we'll see the videotape later, but she was in tears afterward, because her parents weren't there for her.

So I'd like to really thank New Jersey Transit for their performance today. With a pair of pliers, and some imagination.

Since my daughter led off the show, there was still an hour-plus of elementary school acts to sit through (yes, I did check my Blackberry for the mobile Web game updates, because I'm just that kind of jerk during your kid's act) until I could track her down and tell her she was great and help her get her over the disappointment. Ice cream and flowers helped. I think. I did the usual bedtime reading in front of the television with half an eye watching the end of the Sixers season. All in all, not a good night, really.

So here we are again with my team, a first round loser in 6 games despite the absence in Game Six of 2/5ths of the starting lineup for the visiting Orlando Magic. The end came tonight in a game where they trailed for most of the way by double digits, were gashed by one of the very worst players in the NBA (JJ Redick), got next to nothing from starting center Samuel Dalembert (when the team is much better off with Theo Ratliff on the floor, you shouldn't have a job, really), and more or less insulted anyone who paid money to see them not force Game Seven...

(A few brief and bitter words about the Magic. They should win the next round against the staggering survivor of the Bulls-Celtics Jihad, considering that they are going to have a huge advantage in rest, and if the Bulls pull off the upset, home court advantage. They got healthier and better as this series went on, with Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu both getting up to full speed. But I'm not seeing it, because the bench is pretty bad (the reason why they kept blowing big leads), they miss too many free throws, Rafer Alston is going to get eaten alive by either Rajon Rondo or Derrick Rose, and Stan van Gundy is a loathsome piece of crap who has, over the course of this series, managed to bump off Geoge Karl and Phil Jackson from my list of coaches I'd like to throw a brick at. Moving on.)

Well, next year they presumably get Elton Brand back, and have the promise of more development from Marresse Speights, Thaddeus Young and Louis Williams. Maybe that's enough to make them go further. I don't think it's going to help to blow the squad up, and since head coach Tony DiLeo didn't even get a full year, I can't seem them committing radical surgery. But when you lose like this, at home, in the same pattern as last year... well, I'd like to see Dalembert gone by now, of nothing else. You can call him a fall guy; I call him a cancer. Let's see what life is like without him, please. Or see how he does fixing wire problems in Metuchen. That'd help, too.

The Poker Parent

More or less a transcript of a talk that I had with the eldest about boys (she's young enough to still talk to me about such things, thank heavens)...

"Well, it's like this. Should you stay in a hand if you've been dealt 2-7 off-suit?"

She looks at me. "Well, I do sometimes..."

I look at her. "But if you did that all the time, you'd lose, right?"

"Sure."

"It's the same thing in dating. If you fall in love with someone who you have nothing in common with, it's like playing 2-7 off-suit. It might work out for you; you could flop trip 2's or trip 7's, and you've got a great hand. But most of the time, that's not going to happen, and you're going to lose if the hand goes to the river."

She nods. My feeling of being a complete gambling degenerate is nicely balanced by the fact that she seems to be getting the concept.

"But if you fall in love with someone who you have a lot in common with, and for more than just because you think they are cute, it's like playing a pair of aces. It still might not work out, but you are just giving yourself more chances."

She nods, then gets distracted by something her younger sister does. I almost feel sorry for her future boyfriends, really. "I'm sorry, but now that I've gotten to know you better, I think you're King-8 suited, and I'm only dating really premium hands..."

Buy Jay Cutler's House

Just in case you thought that the fracas between Jay Cutler and the Broncos brain trust was entirely a media creation, there's this little moment of reporting...

Well, it seems that the QB from a Town Called Sulk has put his house up for sale, and his parents are also trying to move theirs. Jay's crib is listed for $2 million, but you can get the rent's house for just $835K.

Cutler still has a condo in downtown Denver, so it's not as if he'll be sleeping in the parking lot with the motor running while Masstermind Josh McDaniels tries to deal him for the rights to Drew Bledsoe. Though personally, I'm hoping that McD buys Cutler's place, preferably after a public negotiation that goes very badly...

My Christmas is Strange But Affordable

Because you've all been very good little boys and girls, I've decided to share a Shooter Family Holiday Tradition with you. It's soon to be a major television event!

* * * * *

Once upon a recent time, the Weasels that live at the North Pole got very jealous.

"Reindeer get to pull sleigh," they squealed. "Elves get to make toys. Why can't us Weasels get to do anything?"

Then one Weasel got a big idea. "We'll make dolls for the kids!" she squeaked.

Santa pointed out that the elves already make dolls.

And that Weasels don't have opposable thumbs.

But the Weasels would not take "Um, that's probably not a good idea" for an answer.

And so, they fashioned crude dolls out of the finest material they had.

Which was dryer lint.

Since Santa didn't approve of the dryer lint dolls, the Weasels had to get the dolls to the kids on their own.

So the Weasels sneak into children's houses on Christmas Eve. (Weasels are very good at sneaking. You'll never even notice they were there.)

Since they are very proud of their work, they want the kids to see their presents first.

So they always leave their presents in the children's sock drawers.

The weasels, of course, don't have Santa's knowledge of who has been naughty or nice.

Instead, they just give presents to the children they know and like.

By the time the dryer lint dolls make it all the way from the North Pole to a child's sock drawer, they don't look much like dolls any more.

It's usually just a bag of lint.

Because the weasel's gifts are not very good, or very widely distributed, they've never gotten their own TV show.

So most of your friends won't have heard of them.

Most people who get the lint leave it outside for the birds, who love to use it for their nests.

If you're lucky, someone might tell the Weasels that you should be on their list, too.

Until then, I'll be happy to share my lint with you.

Eagles 48, Cardinals 20

So the mean fat man that makes Mommy and all of us kids cry came back over tonight, and I have to say, it was surprisingly nice. He brought great presents for all of the kids, told funny jokes, didn't touch us when no one was looking, didn't eat all of the food of our plates and didn't make us sit in the corner and cry.

I think he even washed himself so he didn't smell so much like failure and stale Krispy Kreme.

I have no idea what made him clean up his act, but Mommy was very happy. It was almost like the old days, when he used to take us to nice places and everything seemed so much better. You know, back when those neighbor kids wearing the stars, Indian heads and letters on their clothes seemed real jealous of us.

Some of the kids want to think it's all going to be all right, and that the fat man won't touch us anymore, now that Mommy told him to stop. But I don't trust the fat man. I think he's still going to do bad things to us later, and that he's just trying to fool us into thinking it's all OK.

I mean, I *hope* he's not going to do that anymore...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons Why Kerry Wood Flashed The Old Double Hi Sign

Your link is here, and really, it was fantastic timing on the part of Fox.. but I thought that all telecasts had a seven second delay now, to prevent this kind of thing? I smell a highly lucrative class-action lawsuit from everyone who had their children's development eternally scarred by this. Gimme gimme!

References

The other day, I was listening to Bad Tooth podcasts (what can I tell you -- in the wake of the Celtics Onslaught, I wanted to wallow), and he was moved to discuss the lack of his kid in his work. It was, of course, complete bullshit, but it sparked something for me, so here I go.

The Bad Tooth was asked why, considering he's plumbed his wife, father, mother and friends for material, why he (mostly) refrains from writing about parenting stuff. He replied that there's two reasons why. First, that he's suffered from other people becoming kid pod people (i.e., overbearing about the experience), and second, that it just wasn't an experience that enough of his audience can relate to. (As if this has stopped him from pushing MTV reality show coverage which is when reading him goes from Bad Tooth to a Prostate Exam.)

Anyway, this leads me to the following point, which also is true of lists, diaries and picks... if you like the writer, and if that writer is on your wavelength or a good enough listener to keep things to a dull roar, you can talk about your kids. No one will complain any more than they might about your other output. If it sucks, they'll let you know. If it's good, it might even move you.

So what's the real reason? Probably because he's a bad father. Seriously. (No, I keed.) Or that he hates women. Yeah, that's it. (Oh, fine. I'll stop.)

No, here's the real reason... because it's harder (in my opinion, in most cases) to draw your daughter into spectator sports than it is to draw a son. Plus, the major league lords have done all they can to make sure that your little kid doesn't want to watch sports with you, because they take forever, you won't feel good about them seeing the ads, and if it's hard to explain a fan affiliation to your kid, it's crazy difficult to explain fantasy teams.

But over the years, it gets easier, and if and when the Shooter Kids say or do something that works in conjunction with my blog output, I'll use it. And, I'll bet, so will he.

In defense of boredom and intentional failure

I used to take the Shooter Eldest to fifteen to twenty baseball games a year, when she was aged 2 to 4. People always used to congratulate me on how lucky it was that my kid was a baseball fan, or ask how I managed to cultivate a taste for such a slow game in a little girl... and then I'd have to tell them that, no, it wasn't luck or cultivation, because the Shooter Eldest isn't really that much of a fan. She just likes to go places with me.

"But how do you keep her from being bored?"

Well, we'd go to the children's play area, bring coloring books, buy junk food... hey, um, actually? Sometimes, she gets bored. Life is like that. It's not even child abuse.

The other night, I was keeping a spare eye on the Tigers-Indians game while dealing with laundry, where Cleveland jumped all over the minor-league board Dontrelle Willis (he's Barry Zito without, um, control or stuff). With the score 8-0 in the third and the mother of all rain storms bearing down on Motown, Indians' pitcher Cliff Lee just started throwing belt-high strikes to try to get the game to official status quickly. He gave up a couple of runs, but moved the game along fast.

The Tribe hitters then came up, and while they were also hurrying things along, they were still swinging the bat to hit the ball, and when reaching base, not getting picked off first intentionally. From outside the game, it seemed like the wrong play, but from the point of view of a player whose outs could be used against you in a court of arbitration? Maybe not. (Footnote: the game was stopped in the fifth, but eventually resumed, with a Tribe win.)

Having the ability to be OK with an unpleasant situation (say, heat, boredom, rain, or making outs intentionally), or more importantly, the ability to see beyond your immediate physical or emotional needs is, I think, damned useful. It allows you to develop the concentration to complete a goal. I was bored plenty when I was a kid; it allowed me to develop, moment by agonizing moment, the tiny amount of patience that I have today. More importantly, it let me develop an imagination and intellectual curiosity to see connections where others don't, to find things to think about when there is nothing else to do, and to blog every day and ride trains for 17 hours a week without going into a killing spree. (So far. I'm not making any promises for if and when train delays start pushing this to 20 hours a week and beyond. New Jersey Transit and PATH, you are officially On Notice.)

Entertainment, especially when it's passive and suits you, is brain candy; fun, a rush, easy to sell and, at the end of the day, essentially composed of air and nothingness, with no lasting import or impact. (You can toss in, of course, the video clips you find here, or even this little piece of timewaste if it's not sparking any thoughts on your part.) But you shouldn't just live on candy, just as you should be able to watch something that takes some time without being overwhelmed by feelings of boredom.

Because, well, the people in my life who feel compelled to tell me how bored they are? They are, by and large, extraordinarily boring people. It takes two.

The Root of All Evil

At what point, really, did we all become franchise owners?

Perhaps it's just that we can't fathom the size of an athlete's salary, or that we have been so boned over the years on ticket prices and cable rates and merch and concessions... but every other conversation you read or hear about the players on the teams you root for is about the contract details of each player.

Lito Sheppard's contract is too big for him to stay with the Eagles as a nickel back. The A's had to move Dan Haren and Nick Swisher while they still had good contracts. The Yankees are nearly auto-obliged to turn first base back over to Jason Giambi, because of his contract. Bill Simmons is masturbating again with his trade widget. (Seriously, Bill, put it away. You'll go blind.)

Does this happen where you work? Of course not. Unless you're in a union shop, and my sympathies for such things are growing, as I continue to be exposed to companies with HR departments that couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map... well, you probably don't know what the next cube slave makes, or want to know, given how incredibly distracting that is.

And yet, sports (and if you are unlucky, your office) feels compelled to dwell in the yearly rate for all of these short-timers. The more naive among us decry athletes for caring more about dollars than wins when they make free agent decisions... and yet, if and when you get a job offer to go somewhere else for more, it's hard to imagine the people in your life telling you what a callous bastard you were for accepting it.

Finally, there's this... I saw a headline the other day of how parents were having a hard time explaining the Spitzer Situation to their kids. Beyond wondering why they were letting their kids watch the news, or why "The Governor lied and committed crimes, so no one wants to work with him any more, and he has to quit and maybe even go to jail..."

Well, isn't childhood supposed to be the time when everything *doesn't* have a price tag? And isn't some part of the appeal of sports is that you get to be just a little bit like a little kid again, and just watch and enjoy it for the moment, rather than running a cost-benefit analysis of the experience?

Epic Drop: Auction Of My Daughter's Baseball Soul

Am I so out of ideas that I'm going to pimp out my kid? You'll have to click on today's Epic Drop to find out.