Organized Softball: It's More a Religion Than a Game

I grew up in a different time. Kids walked, rode their bikes, or took the bus to get around. Parents weren't entertainment directors, calling our friends' parents to set appointments for playing together. We went outside to play with nothing more in the way of parental participation than an admonishment to come home when the street lights went on.

That's right, young readers; we played outside for hours on end without any parental involvement.

Because of this independence, organized sports weren't such a big deal. I had a few friends who played baseball on a Little League team, but that was about the extent of it. And when they did, it didn't require their entire family to be sucked into the activity.

I didn't get much in the way of encouragement to participate in any sort of extracurricular activity. In fact, when I expressed an interest in playing football in high school, I had to secure my own rides home from practice since the car pool we were part of operated immediately after school. I don't think my dad ever came to a game during the season I warmed a bench.

There is a reason for this stroll down Memory Lane: My, how things have changed.

I flew to Florida this week to help celebrate my friend Amy's birthday. It's not a zero-year birthday or anything special beyond the birthday itself, but I knew the party would be epic. And, I am always on board for an epic party.

Both of Amy's daughters are on traveling softball teams. Amy's husband coaches the younger daughter's team. For the uninitiated, "travel ball" is a cult-like activity requiring huge swaths of a family's time and enough bags of cash to make Scrooge McDuck catch his breath.

A typical travel ball schedule consists of one or two nights of practice per week punctuated by marathon weekend tournaments that often begin on Friday and can last -- depending on a team's success -- into Sunday night. This doesn't include the occasional fund-raising activity or team meeting.  

"Travel" is a relative term. It just means that the team isn't anchored to a specific set of fields as "recreational" teams are. Travel may just mean driving across town to whatever fields are hosting the weekend's bracket of games. However, it can also mean the team overnighting somewhere 100 miles or more from home. This, of course, means entire families making the trip, paying for hotel rooms and meals. Cha-ching.     

Through all of this a parent's responsibility includes running their kid to the various practices and games, as well as populating the stands to show their support for the team. Many weekend meals consist of junk dispensed by the concession stands at the ball fields.

Usually, I try to avoid visiting South Florida during the travel-ball season, or seasons, really, because there seems to be more than one season per year.

Despite Amy's younger daughter being my official Goddaughter and the older one being my unofficial Goddaughter, I have no desire to spend two days and change on a ball field. I draw the line at a game or so per day per kid.

I planned this particular trip to Florida some time ago and didn't bother to double check that there would be no softball -- a serious oversight to be sure.

The tournament in question involved the younger daughter's team. She is an accomplished pitcher, who usually strikes out more than half the batters she faces. Pretty good for a ten-and-under pitcher. I marvel at the speed and accuracy of these lady pitchers who heave a ball underhanded and manage to get it into the strike zone.

I guess because of it being the Fourth of July week, the tournament began on Friday morning. I avoided Friday's games. They had an 8 a.m. game that could have morphed into a string of games throughout the day. Losing that first game, though, put them into a second game at 9:30. Losing that one as well, the team went into the "losers" bracket and a game schedule that didn't resume until Saturday at 9:30.

I avoided going to that game as well. After yet another loss, the family returned home to rest and rejuvenate before the next game at 3:30. Did I mention that the tournament was on a field about 45 minutes away?

Even knowing that a win at that game would entail sitting through another game at 6:30, I attended the 3:30 game. Because of tie-breakers and such, games can begin as much as an hour later than scheduled as the day wears on and on and on. This was the case here. The game began around 4:15.

Winning that game, they went to another field for the 6:30 game that didn't begin until about 7:30. It was the second loss of the day, the fourth of the tournament and the last one. Had they won that last game, they might have played as many as five games on Sunday to make it to the finals and sixth game of the day: All taking place in 95-degree temperatures and 98-percent humidity. Are you kidding me?

Saturday finally ended around 8:45.

So, you can see why I call this religion-like devotion Cultball. Can't begin to picture my father in its grip.

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Nightmare on the Fourth

I'm no stranger to traveling on holidays. I've flown on Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas and New Year's Eves. Usually my willingness to spend a portion of such days on an airplane is rewarded with unpopulated flights, loads of attention from flight attendants, and almost guaranteed upgrades.

In other words, they are very pleasant experiences -- nothing like typical flights.

It was with this experience set in mind that I made the decision to fly from Greenville to West Palm Beach on July 4^th. I was looking forward to an uncrowded Atlanta airport, a nearly empty airplane and a first-class upgrade. Boy was I ever disappointed.

About half the flights I take originate and return to the Atlanta airport. I have an arrangement with one of the vendors that delivers my cars to pick up my current car from the valet at Park and Fly Plus when I drop it off there; and then, bring a different car for me to pickup on the day of my return flight. Easy-peasey.

I can practically make the 2.5-hour drive from my backdoor to Park and Fly Plus blindfolded. What I interpreted as a positive harbinger for my flying experience later that morning, my drive to Atlanta was remarkably easy.

I-85 was nearly deserted, compared to a typical airport run. I was on the road 40 minutes before I had to pass my first 18 wheeler. Usually I could practically walk from Greenville to Atlanta across the tops of trucks without my feet ever touching the pavement. I-85 is lousy with big trucks. Not so on the 4^th.

I was driving a Fiat 500 Convertible. I contemplated dropping the top on it, for my early morning haul, but at the last minute decided I'd rather be able to hear the satellite radio instead.

As though to make up for the lack of truck traffic, the cops were out in full force. Apparently every person with a badge and a poor attitude was pressed into action. Radar traps were everywhere. I've found that if I close my eyes as I streak past them, they can't see me.

Just kidding. Typically I set the cruise control at seven or eight miles an hour above the limit and ignore the constabulary. They must be fine with that because I buzzed past several of them. Having said that, the 500 isn't exactly a speed merchant. Its 101-horsepower 1.4-liter engine cruises just fine, but you won't smoke anything, other than maybe a Toyota Yaris, when the light goes green.

Despite the 500's postage-stamp-like size, its front-seat area is roomy enough, and quite comfortable. I had to stow my suitcase in the backseat, however, because I couldn't cram it through the miniscule trunk opening. All in all, it was an enjoyable transport.

Park and Fly Plus was also uncharacteristically calm and quiet. I was the only person valet parking while I was there, and had a gaggle of employees milling around the 500 when I came to a stop.

Park and Fly Plus has baggage check-in for Delta passengers, and I utilized that. As the shuttle dumped me out at the terminal I got my first inkling that the day wasn't going to be the cake walk I had anticipated.

Traffic at the terminal was bumper to bumper and a swarm of humanity was funneling through the doors.

My flight was completely booked. I was number five on the upgrade list, competing for the last available first-class seat. Drat!

Glancing around the gate area I was aghast at the number of kids running and screaming around the wall-to-wall passengers. Eleven strollers pushed to the front of the line as the preboarding announcement was made. By the time I headed down the jetway, I could barely walk in the plane for the mountain of folded strollers strewn in front of the door.

The flight was a cacophony of screaming, crying, blathering kids. Thank, God, it's only an 80-minute flight.

I was in an exit row over the plane's wing. By the time I exited the plane, there was a traffic jam of strollers, uncontrolled kids and stressed-out parents clogging the area immediately outside the plane door. I pushed through the mayhem and sprinted up the jetway for the terminal.

Daylight never looked so good.

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Tom and Katie Sitting in a Tree.....

How about that: Katie is divorcing Tom.

Who saw that coming? Anyone, anyone?

Apparently Katie is more than happy to rub shoulders with the freak show that is Scientology, but draws the line at immersing her six-year-old daughter in a crazy cult.

What little I've read about Katie, she seems to come from a rather normal background. I never did understand how she would adapt to Tom's belief system, religion or whatever it is. What the hell is it, anyway?

Of course, one would assume Tom will have custody rights of some sort, so he will still be able to do a little freelance indoctrination of little Suri. That shouldn't cause Katie too many sleepless nights.

Perhaps now that she's out from under Tom -- I shudder at the image -- she can return to her career. Maybe they can resurrect her character for the next Batman installment.

I wonder if Tom's sofa-jumping days are behind him.

What a moron.

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A Little Bit of Audi and a Little Bit of Delta

So I participated in one of the car companies' "Bantaan death march" events last week. It was an Audi event to Colorado. We flew in on morning No. 1 and flew out the next afternoon. For us Eastcoasters, it meant a dark O'thirty run to the airport on the first day and a late-nite run from the airport home on the second night.

I must admit, it wasn't as bad as one of the California "Bantam death marches" that some of the car companies host, but it was still a very long two days.

On the plus side, however, was that Audi puts on quite the event. Everything from the Ritz Carlton Hotel to the obscenely stocked hospitality suite was top shelf.

This was the first Audi event I've been invited to in years. I wasn't in the minority on this trip. Nearly everyone I spoke with at the program hadn't been on an Audi event in years. I'm not sure what put us back into good favor with Audi, but I'm not taking issue with Audi's decision.

It was a great trip.

The star of the show was the rebirth of its Allroad. It's the replacement for Audi's A4 Avant wagon. It's all-wheel drive with a 211-horsepower 2-liter four-cylinder engine. As you might expect, it looks great inside and out.

We landed at the Denver airport and drove to the Ritz Carlton just west of Vail. The next morning we drove back.

As I was driving on the return leg, my cell kept ringing. I really don't like to talk on my cell when driving, so I pretty much ignored it. Finally about the third time in 15 minutes that it rang, I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the caller ID. It said "Delta."

I typically fly Delta, and was doing so on this trip. I figured the news couldn't be good, but waited until we got to the out-lying hanger at the airport where Audi was staging the event to check the actual message.

Delta had been attempting to reach me to alert me that my connecting flight from Atlanta to Greenville -- some 10 hours in the future -- was delayed by 2 hours. Instead of putting me into Greenville at 9:30 p.m., it would land nearer to midnight. Nuts!

The second message repeated the alert, but the third message was Delta calling to say that my flight from Denver to Atlanta was oversold and would I be willing to change flights to the Denver-to-Cincy flight that was scheduled to leave Denver 15 minutes earlier.

I called the Delta number back and chatted with one of its agents. She told me that if I rebooked I could get into Greenville at 9 p.m. I himmed and hawed for a few seconds to which she said that Delta would issue me a voucher good for $200 on any Delta flight. Hmmm, I said, I'm not sure if I want to do it.

Well, we can upgrade you to first class from Denver to Cincy. I replied, "Let me think about it for a couple of minutes...sign me up!"

We got it all rebooked. As I was being shuttled from Audi's hangar to the regular Denver terminals, I got yet another robotic message from Delta telling me my flight from Denver to Cincy would be delayed 45 min.

What!

I called Delta back to make sure that if I missed my connection in Cincy (I only had 30 minutes factoring for the delay.) that Delta would put me up in Cincy since my scheduled flight from Cincy to Greenville was the last one of the night. Yes, I was told.

Some how it all worked out and I walked in my backdoor about 9:30 that night. Sometimes it's really good to have some clout with an airline.

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My Slacker Nature Translates into a Fun Read for You: Top Ten Bachelor Cars

My cup runneth over with work this week. I'm not complaining, mind you, but things like blogging and sleep are taking a backseat.

I do some work for the Journal Register Newspapers and its fyidriving.com Web site. Some of my stories for them are straight-up car reviews; some are industry pieces, and others are top-ten collections of vehicles for a variety of categories.

I get a real kick out of writing the top-ten pieces that usually provide the opportunity for me to be less than serious.

At the bottom of this blog is the link to one I especially enjoyed writing on the top-ten cars for bachelors.

The car above is the Audi R8: my all-time favorite bachelor car. Oh, if only I could share that story with you.

Here's the link. Enjoy...

http://www.fyidriving.com/article/best-new-vehicles-for-bachelors-a-top-10-list/

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Redbox Movie Night: Two Turkeys and Some Spaghetti

Bad night for Redbox movies.

As I usually do on Saturday nights, last night I rented a couple of Redbox movies and whipped up some spaghetti. There really wasn't much I wanted to see; but for a buck a pop, I'll take a chance or two.

I rolled the dice and they came up snake eyes.

The first movie was a little turkey called "Red Tails." I had high hopes for it because George Lucas produced it and Cuba Gooding, Jr is listed in the credits. Obviously Lucas no longer cares what his name is associated with, and I didn't watch long enough to see Gooding.

The opening aerial dog fight was so cheesy, if it had been in black and white, I might have mistaken it for footage from the 1959 crapathon "Plan 9 From Outer Space." I fully expected to see a cardboard cutout of a fighter plane glued to a stick go floating through the frame.

I'd tell you what the movie is about, but I didn't watch enough of it to find out.

I watched as much as five minutes of this sorry waste of celluloid because I was riveted to my recliner, mesmerized by just how bad the computer-generated effects were. I am not kidding when I say that they were doing better stuff in the 1960s.

It's not often I feel totally cheated out of my Redbox buck, but this one earned that status.

The second feature in last night's crudfest was "The Grey."

Having seen the trailer for this lame-o drama, I can only blame myself. It didn't hold much promise from the get-go.

I'm not necessarily a big Liam Neeson fan, but I have liked a few things he has been in, such as "Taken," which I own on DVD.

But I didn't much care for him or his character in "The Grey." In fact, I didn't much care for any of the characters in "The Grey." There wasn't really anyone to like or root for, well, other than the wolves. I didn't care if they made it home or not. What's a few less jerks in the world?

Here's the plot in a nutshell: Neeson's character makes his living shooting wolves somewhere in the frozen wilderness -- Alaska, maybe? -- to protect oil-company workers. I have my doubts that such a job even exists, but hey, it's Hollywood. He gets on a plane with 20 or so other workers flying to where, we don't know. Plane crashes, Neeson's character and six others miraculously survive the crash that has pieces of the plane strewn across the tundra. There is knee-deep snow on the ground, but none of these guys appear particularly chilly. Neeson spends a lot of the movie in a sweater and without gloves.

They decide to try to walk out, but a pack of savage, oversized wolves has a different idea. They begin picking off the survivors one by one as they straggle behind the rest of the group. It never occurs to Neeson's character, or anyone else in the group, to help the current straggler to keep up. Nope, they just let him continue falling farther and farther behind until he's attacked. Finally it's down to just Neeson's character, who, stumbling into its den, squares off with a wolf; fade to black.

Yep, they couldn't even figure out how to end the damn thing, so they just faded out before it was over.

Most unbelievable moment: At one point what's left of the survivors come to a very wide, very deep chasm. They make a rope by tying several pieces of clothing together. Where all this spare clothing came from, we don't know. I guess it was like the Howells on "Gilligan's Island:" For reasons unknown they took a steamer trunk of clothing on a 3-hour harbor tour.

In any event, they make this rope, tie it around the waist of one of the guys, and he takes a running leap into the pine trees on the chasm's other side. Everyone else then shinnies across the rope. Here's the thing: Somehow the wolf pack follows them over the chasm. Not sure how they managed that, but they did. I almost laughed out loud.

I didn't feel completely robbed by this movie; I guess it was worth a buck to see. Just barely...

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Grading My Trip to New Jersey: Lexus ES Good; Newark Airport Bad

I managed to keep my head from exploding while traveling this week.

Lexus flew me to New Jersey to drive the redesigned sixth-generation Lexus ES.

No, the Lexus folks aren't mad at me; they flew a bunch of journalists to New Jersey for the East-coast press launch.

I have absolutely no clue where I was while there. They flew us into Newark -- one of my least favorite airports of all time -- and whisked us off by limo to a Hilton Hotel somewhere. It remains a mystery.

Here's the short commercial:

A big leap from the original in 1989 to the current crop, the ES looks ever more like its LS big brother. Outside the styling is more substantial and interesting than that of the previous ES. Inside, the lines are angular and handsome.

The front seats are terrific with plenty of support and lateral bolstering. The backseat area is huge. Designers turned the additional 1.8 inches in wheelbase length into 4.1 inches of rear-seat legroom.

Basically the 3.5-liter V6 returns unchanged. Some adjustments to the gearing in the automatic tranny squeezes an extra 2 mpg in combined city and highway driving to 24 mpg.

The big news is the hybrid version with its combined fuel economy of 39 mpg.

Driving by the horse farms of New Jersey -- yes, New Jersey has horse farms; who knew? -- the ES is quiet, smooth and handles with predictability.

But as good as the new ES is, it isn't the central topic of this writing.

To paraphrase the great twentieth-century philosopher Forrest Gump, flying is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get.

I arrived at the Newark Airport for the initial leg of my flight home about an hour and forty-five minutes before the scheduled departure. I already had my boarding pass, which was a good thing because construction caused Delta to move its ticket counters somewhere other than where the limo dropped me off. I never did see them.

My flight was out of gate 42 in the B Terminal. Gates 42 to 49 -- or something like that -- have their own dedicated TSA security checkpoint. Never have so many done so little to help so few. At least four or five TSA agents were milling around mostly watching one or two others actually work.

I try not to get too lathered up about going through airport security. When I fly out of Greenville-Spartanburg, there are also agents who don't appear to have enough to do, but they are all friendly and seem to be genuinely competent. In Atlanta, they aren't as jovial, but also seem competent. Those in San Francisco may be competent, but are as nasty and surely a bunch as you will find. Think: Soup Nazi in a TSA uniform. Each city seems to have its own brand of TSA agents.

After my boarding pass and passport were compared to me, I approached the x-ray belt. I had stripped my person of any offending items, such as wallet, cell phone, belt and so forth. My netbook and baggie of toilet articles were in a plastic tub. Likewise my footwear was on the conveyor. I fly a lot. I know the drill. I know what I can and can't take. I know what can be in my carry-ons and what can't. It's not my first rodeo.

When I walked up to the conveyor belt, I was third in line. I do not exaggerate when I say that it took nearly 10 minutes for me and my stuff to work our way to the mouth of the x-ray machine. Every item on the belt was being scrutinized for 30 to 40 seconds. Virtually nothing was just smoothly going through.

I was annoyed, but only by the incompetence of the imbecile watching the x-ray monitor. The line of travelers behind me was growing by leaps and bounds. Had I walked up two minutes later, I would have been really steamed.

Finally my bags made their way into x-ray hell. I got the full-monty x-ray treatment holding my hands over my head and coughing or whatever one is supposed to do.

I moved over to the conveyor to grab my stuff as it was belched out of the x-ray machine. What do you know? The belt was stopped again. This time for my rollerboard. The idiot monitoring the x-ray machine called over another agent and insisted my bag be physically searched.

The agent grabbed my bag and told me to follow him to a table as soon as I had the rest of my stuff. Of course, that required another four or five minutes because the conveyor was stopped again for the rollerboard of the woman behind me. She had left her laptop in her bag. While we waited for yet another TSA agent to screw up the energy to walk over, pull her bag off the line, remove the laptop and run it back through, the belt was paused with my stuff still partially inside.

I have now been in the direct vicinity of the x-ray machine for at least 15 minutes and my stuff is just coming off. I walk over to the table where Agent Knucklehead begins to paw through my bag. This was just an overnight trip, so there isn't much in there but my sport coat, yesterday's shirt, a pair of dress shoes and some dirty underwear.

There are a few other odds and ends that are always in there like some extra coffee creamer and sugar for the coffee maker in the hotel room, a tiny lock and key that came with the suitcase and a small lint roller. All of the same stuff that was in the bag on the flight out and the last 50 flights I've taken without my bag being searched.

This agent didn't look particularly happy. I guess even when you have nothing better to do, having to go through someone's bag for no reason can tick you off. He put everything that wasn't clothing into a plastic tub, stacked it on my rollerboard and carried it all back over to the x-ray for another run through as I stood off to the side by the table.

It came back through the x-ray, the Clown Prince of the x-ray shrugged her shoulders at him as she watched all of this stuff come through again. Agent Knucklehead made some comment to her, picked all my stuff back up, carried back to the table where he tossed it down in front of me without a word. He then stormed away.

I had no idea if I was cleared to repack my bag, or was supposed to wait for another Nazi to take it from there. After about 30 seconds, I determined no one else wanted a piece of me. I repacked my bag and headed for the gate. Total elapsed time from the moment I passed through the agent checking boarding passes and I.D.s until I headed for my gate: 25 minutes.

I didn't much care for the Newark airport before 9/11, it certainly hasn't improved since.

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