Bert Blyleven Makes the Tighe Hall of Shame

Aw, c’mon, Bert, give the little guy a BREAK. I don’t mean a big, looping break like that curve ball you used to toss that reduced batters to jelly-kneed buffoons swinging at nothing but air.
I mean a little break, for a little fan such as Avery, at his first Minnesota Twins game. Let me, as they say in baseball (and to recalcitrant teens before Thanksgiving dinner), set the table (or you won’t get anything to eat) before I try for a grand slam.
I recall the day that fresh-faced Bert Blyleven, whom the Twins drafted right out of high school, took to the Major League mound after only 21 starts in the minors. He was that good. Young he was, a lanky lad who threw a curve like nobody’s business.
Well, perhaps not quite as tricky as THIS pitch, mind you:



But Bert chalked up plenty of Ks in his Hall of Fame career. Slender he was (as was I) when his curves started freezing batters like so many statues of ice. Fans loved the 19-year-old (I wasn’t much older), and they voiced their disapproval whenever the coach pulled him. (Back then, there were no middle relievers to coddle the multimillion-dollar starters like nowadays; fortunately, there also weren’t any vuvuzelas to harass the coach with deafening buzzing noises, or he might have left Blyleven in and worn out his arm.)
Of course the grand old outdoor Met Stadium went dark long ago, memorialized now only with a home-plate plaque in the floor of the Mall of America, the mecca to excess that now stands where the likes of Blyleven and other Twins Hall of Famers such as Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew, not to mention opposing greats such as Yankees Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, whom I saw hit and play there when I was a lad myself.
Replacing the outdoor park was the indoor monstrosity known as the Metrodome, a leaky-roofed, sorry excuse for a ballfield, in which players frequently lost sight of fly balls in the light background of the Teflon bubble that served as its roof. And, as opposing players could tell you, it was as noisy in there during World Series games as those dadgum vuvuzelas at the World Cup.
Now, happily, the Twins are outdoors again, although the wisdom, weatherwise, of that choice remains to be seen if Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and clan can become the boys of October any time soon.
And now we come back to the boy of June: Grandson Avery’s first Twins game, where proud papa Brendan had his heart set on having Blyleven circled the infant as part of his schtick as the Twins’ color commentator these days. It traces back to the 2002 season, when he circled a fan carrying a sign.
Nowadays, fans of all ages trek to the stadium with signs of varying shapes and sizes, pleading, “Circle Me, Bert.” Thus it was that Brendan and magnificent mamma Erica produced a large and, I think, superior sign hoping that Bert’s eagle eye would spot Avery and circle him with his telestrator.
Brendan totes the sign touting Avery's first game, as well as Brendan and Erica's third anniversary.

Alas, it was not to be, although, perhaps attesting to the artistic merits of the sign and/or the cuteness of the kid, one of the wandering cameramen spotted Avery and gave him and Erica a moment of glory on the Jumbotron.

Take THAT, Bert Blyleven. You may have a reputation as a great prankster, but the Jumbotron took you downtown on good judgment, putting Erica and Avery up in the big lights.


Pox on you, Bert, and, although I believe you SHOULD be in the Hall of Fame, you’ll have to settle for now for the Tighe Hall of Shame for not circling Avery. This umpire, possibly by virtue of being a proud grandpa, penalizes you with a passed ball.

As I recall, Bert, you challenged Cy Young award winner Johan Santana to pitch a shutout in 2007, and you lost the bet. And THAT time, your punishment was a head-shaving.



Believe you me, Bert, I’m gonna buy Avery some clippers, and you could end up as bald as you were when Santana clipped you.

Jack the Ripper Takes a Whack at a Haircut

JUST when I thought Jack might be leaning toward being a food critic, perhaps even a chef (see June 1 posting,), because of his culinary tastes, he takes a whack at being a hairstylist (and shows his lack of taste in that arena).
Well, more precisely, he took a whack at his own hair. I haven’t seen the damage yet, but to hear Mom tell it, he wielded the scissors on his locks like Lizzie Borden did her ax on her folks — taking 40 whacks at her mom and then, when she saw what she had done, she gave the old man 41.
I was going to post a YouTube video of the scene — Lizzie’s smacking, not Jack’s whacking — but my devilish side lost to my angelic one, which pleaded that it was: Just. Too. Gruesome. So I opted for something from Alfred Hitchcock:



Back to Jack, the ripper, of hair: In the blink of Melissa’s eye, the lad morphed from being a finely coiffed gentleman who had served as a ring bearer, along with older bro Vincent, only three days previously to looking more like a rugby ruffian who had lost great gobs of hair in a scrum.

Ringbearers Jack (left) and Vincent flank the flower girl, Olivia, as they parade in for our wedding.

“I may have to resort to getting him a buzz cut for the summer,” his mother wailed into the phone as she told me about spots where the hair was within a half-inch of his scalp.
Oddly enough — and perhaps I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t — his ring-bearer duties when Kate and I married were intimately connected to his dome’s demise. After all, it’s partly the recent kindergarten grad’s fault.
He and his brothers had enjoyed playing with Flarp so much at my mom’s recent birthday party (so what if she died in’50; I recently discovered he actual birth date so we decided to celebrate her 93rd birthday) that Kate and I decided to spread some joy at the family dinner the night before our wedding.
So we passed out Flarp to each and every person there (even those who might not have needed a canister to produce the effect.
But wait! Perhaps I should digress, on the off chance that one or two of the few people reading this doesn’t know what Flarp is.
Basically, it’s the modern version of a whoopee cushion, and it looks like Play-Doh. Except, when you play with this dough, it makes a flatulating sound. I suppose that its name comes from the first three letters of flatulating, although I have no idea where the “rp” comes from
Whatever the etymology of the word, kids love Flarp, and adults love it, because it lets them act like kids. (Plus, you can eat beans and then use Flarp as a cover.)
Let me digress a bit more, and regale you with my story of how hard it can be to obtain sometimes.
I didn’t want to buy it in Florida, where I knew a Target store that carries it, because I was afraid some airport security official might think it was C-4 and toss me into Gitmo, as long as it’s still open.
A worker at the Target I wandered into in Iowa said his store is too small for that product (not enough space for the brraaaaaaaap?), but he obviously has kids because he knew what it was. So I called the Wal-mart and asked one of the rollback people whether he had Flarp.
“Nope, but we’ve got Whoopee,” he said. “It’s the same thing.”
He allowed as how it’s the same price as Flarp, a buck for a canister that has too much of the gel substance to be able to carry onto a plane, so I asked whether he had 35.
Not even close, he said, but I was bound and determined to get some party Flarpy favors, so I headed to the store.
Once there, I figured I was talking to the same price roll-backer in the toy department as I’d talked to on the phone.
“Where’s the Whoopee?” I inquired, drawing a blank stare.
“What’s Whoopee?” he countered.
“It‘’s like Flarp,” I replied. “You know, kids use it to … ”
“I know what Flarp is,” he said, rolling his eyes and motioning a couple of aisles over.
To my surprise, and delight, there was enough Flarp there to level half of Dubuque, Iowa, so I snapped it up.
It went over like gangbusters at the dinner; at least IMHO, as the kids text and tweet and twitter. Makes a guy wonder why EVERYBODY doesn’t hand out Flarp at rehearsal dinners to have a Whoopee of a good time.
Lest you think I’ve sidetracked myself to the end of oblivion, never to return, let’s get back to the beginning of the story: Jack the Barber.
It seems the lad got great gobs of Flarp in his hair and, instead of letting his mom handle it, he decided to put his locks on the chopping block by himself. Whackadoodle, he looked like a poodle, with a bad haircut.
Sorry I don’t have a photo to share the destruction, but after all, the kid’s got feelings. Suffice it to say he won’t be making a Brylcreem commercial anytime soon.
But for a fitting end — split ends, in Jack’s case — I bring you “Hair,” which should grow back by the time the lad is ready to enter first grade:

Jack the Connoisseur Relegates Kids Menu to Garbage Disposal

Jack’s got a bone to pick with the kids menu at restaurants — and it’s more than just the chicken fingers, which obviously are boneless, anyhoo.
The 6-year-old — we often call him an “old soul” because so many of his views on life seem to be those of a wise old man instead of the dinosaur-loving, prank-playing little rake he is (as when he joked around with Uncle Brendan at the pool) — believes kids menus ought to be banned outright.

Possibly echoing what many a dog has thought while begging for human food at his owner’s knee, Jack says the food on the kids menu simply doesn’t pass muster. So he prefers to order from the adult menu.
Kate and I got a hint of this when we took the lad out for his birthday dinner a couple of months back. As I’ve recounted previously, he not only ordered the adult steak with all the trimmings but also asked the waitress to bring him a gigantic gooey chocolate dessert and polished off most of that, too.
The thought recurred, though, the other night, when we were out celebrating his mom’s and my birthdays.
The budding connoisseur, it seems, has such a developed palate that he is selective when he’s in a mood for fish. Melissa asked the waitress what fish was featured in the fish and chips menu item. When the answer was cod, she allowed as how that probably wouldn’t be up to snuff for somebody who used to find tilapia tasty but recently pronounced it blasé.
So she instructed the waitress to deliver an order of the mahi to her son, although she stipulated that it need not be a full adult portion.
All eyes turned to Jack as he tasted the grilled fish (it looked like a full adult portion, BTW), awaiting his verdict with baited breath. (I know that should be bated, but hey, this is a fish story.)
“How is it?” someone asked breathlessly, baitedly.
He pondered the answer before pronouncing: “It’s good, but it needs a pinch of salt.”
OMG, who does he think he is? Julia’s child? James Beard? A Top Chef candidate?
There I was, eating one of my faves, a BLT on rye toast, happy as a clam, and he’s quibbling over a few grains of salt. Obviously, I don’t know jack when it comes to food.
However, I must acknowledge Jack’s practical, thrifty side. His 8-year-old brother, Vincent, had eaten only half of his cheeseburger, so Jack polished that off as well. That’s my kind of kid: cleaning the plate, his or not.
Speaking of Top Chef and Jack’s culinary acumen reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moments as a parent. Back when my oldest, Annie, was 7 or 8, we went to a mid-range family restaurant named Mr. Steak or something like that.
I never had eaten a steak there, despite the eatery’s name, because I was raised a poor drycleaner’s son who was steered toward burgers instead of the more expensive cuts of the steer. So, as per usual, I ordered a burger, perhaps splurging for a slice of cheese.
Came Annie’s turn, and she ordered, without flinching — a steak!
I was stunned, and my childhood deprivation took over as I literally foamed at the mouth that she would DARE order such an extravagant item (I think it was all of $5.95). I caused such a scene that Annie was bawling and had trouble enjoying the steak.
Only later did I realize how innocent her choice had been: She was used to going out to dinner with her grandparents, and Ambrose and Jeanette routinely had let her order whatever she wanted, which usually was steak.
And believe you mean, Ambrose was a packinghouse worker who knew his steaks, and ordered the best. I bet she’d never had one as lame as the piece of beef I raised the stink over.
The experience scarred both of us for life, as I’m still embarrassed about the day I acted like a bull in a china closet in a family restaurant, and my kids occasionally remind me about what a horse’s ass I was in throwing that tantrum.
So why does the Top Chef aspect remind me of that day? Well, Annie’s a film editor these days, and Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters” are two of the shows she’s worked on.
Twixt her and Jack, I’m surrounded by Top Chefs.
As for Jack, I think should inform him, as he searches for the perfect dish that doesn’t need even a pinch of salt, that even the late, great Julia Child muffed a few recipes, as Meryl Streep channeled last year in “Julie & Julia.”



Julia Child had quite a sense of humor, too:



And with that, I’ll sign off with a Bon Appetit!

Generation Gap Is a Slickery Slope With Brylcreem

I ran across an interesting generation test t’other day at work.

Somebody, for some reason, mentioned Brylcreem. One of the young turks in the office said, “What’s Brylcreem?”
“What’s BRYLCREEM?” I said, astounded. “SURELY, you must be kidding!!!”
The lad, who I spose is in his mid-30s, assured me that he wasn’t kidding. Two others in the immediate vicinity stared at me with similarly blank eyes.
So I expanded the survey, going out into the area of our offices called the fishbowl and asked three thirtysomething fellas what Brylcreem is.
When they didn’t know, I went to an area where there are some fortysomethings and fiftysomethings and asked for a show of hands. Three of the five department raised their hands that they know what it is, while the two younger ones looked like I’d asked them to do quantum physics.
One guy even knew that Vitalis’ commercial intoning “no more greasy kids stuff” was to counteract Brylcreem, of which a little dab would do ya.
OK, any wiseacre thirtysomethings reading this: That’s VITALIS, not VIAGRA!!!
In absolute disgust, I went back to the fishbowl young turks and announced: “Well, you smart asses, some day, you’re gonna be about 60 and you’ll ask a bunch of 30-year-olds what tweeting used to be, and they’ll look at you like you’re daft.”
One had the GALL to say: “Well, I’d venture to say that tweeting is going to be around for a lonnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg time, obviously lots longer than Brylcreem, whatever that is.”
My daughter Allison thought pagers would be around forever, too, back when she had one as an appendage. When’s the last time you heard a tweet out of that technology. And when granddad was a lad, the only time you heard tweet was about Tweety Bird or, perhaps, if you went trick or treaking with Elmer Fudd.
Little did Mr. Smartypants know at the time (nor did I actually) that Brylcreem not only is around, but it’s expanded. You can get not only the original formula but also even gel.

For the record, and nostalgia, check out these old Brylcreem commercials:






Brylcreem was so confident, it promised romance right outta the tube. And you all know what they say: You can’t put the romance back into the tube after you’ve let the Brylcreem out. (Actually, they don’t say that. I made it up, but the implication is there, no?)



If you’re wondering whether I wore Brylcreem, the answer is YES! Why? Because, I was a sucker for commercials. That splains why I'm still an inveterate coupon clipper, I spose.

What the hell am I yammerin’ about this for, in a grandfather column, you ask? Well, it’s an old granddad reflecting on LIFE.

Now, I'll go rustle 'em up and tell 'em 'bout the good old days, of Bryclreem and party-line phones, waaaaaaaaaaaay before tweet.

WARNING: Time From Carseat to First Car Flashes by Like the Wink of an Eye

I can tell already that the next apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
When I first saw the above photo, I imagined that Avery was getting ready to duke it out with somebody. But the closer I looked, the more telling the infant’s smirk and body language became.
“OMG!” I said to myself. “FOMCOMALAROTDADTS.” (Yes, I DO speak to myself in text, even though I refuse to text on a cell phone.) “I DO believe he’s thinking: ‘I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!’ ”
Supporting that pure conjecture is the fact that the twinkle in his eye has that “new-car glint” (even if his britches usually don’t have that new-diaper smell), and his appendages look like he’s just itching to get behind the wheel!
This wild speculation underscores the fact I’ve got a fertile imagination, so wild, in fact, that I was able to time-travel back to the echo of this defiant exclamation from Avery’s dad, Brendan: “I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!”
The back story: As Brendan’s driving age neared, he became driven in another sort of way — two ways, actually.
1. Driven to get a job to buy a car.
2. Driven to find a car he could afford, with a little parental aid.
To his credit, the lad never whined that he wanted a new car, like some kids get (or whine that they don’t) when they’re 16 (some even at 15), or that we should pay for his car.
I knew he was serious when, after months of saying he didn’t want to get a carryout job at the grocery store down the street, he marched down on his own and put on the apron for his first job other than a few stints of substitute newspaper delivering (and guess who drove).
He never griped about getting the job, and he pinched pennies like mad, because he was on a mission to get his own car. (No WAY was he going to drive a minivan or a station wagon.)
Like most parents, I applauded the effort, without realizing the full, startling implications. At first. Then, I realized he might hit his goal before I was ready for such a transition.
And I really began fretting when he started poring over the classified ads in the newspaper, circling cars that caught his fancy, and fantasy. To make a long short, he searched for months, sighing resignedly whenever I came up with a good reason that this car or that wouldn’t work for him.
And then, he spotted the ’92 Chrysler LeBaron convertible, for a relatively minuscule $1,700.
“You can’t get a good car that cheap,” I said, reluctantly agreeing to drive him across two cities and a suburb to check it out.
His eyes lit up when he saw the convertible, and I admit I got a little verklempt, too. The private owner who was selling us the car told us to pay no attention to the slight chugging at stoplights, as it was just a matter of tweaking the carburetor, advice we heeded — and would regret later.
Brendan paid him some money down, and we departed so I could arrange the $1,100 loan we would share for his first car.
Driving away, he taunted, in exhilaration, “I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!”
To which I replied, “Well, it obviously needs a tune-up, and we’ll see what else.”
And that’s when, if somebody hadn’t already invented the old saying, “nickled and dimed me to death,” we’d have had to invent it. As it was, we tweaked it to “hundred-dollared us to death.”
I don’t want to recite the full litany, although the writing started to appear on the wall, and the checks, and the credit card receipts, and in blood, when a mechanic botched the tune-up so badly that I took it to another mechanic to straighten it out.
The first guy’s solution had been to set the carburetor so that it revved the engine enough to keep from stalling. Which is why it almost bolted through the wall of the second mechanic’s shop when they fired it up to work on it.
There, of course, the service manager noted that those LeBaron carburetors were nearly impossible to tune, and we ended up buying a new one.
Although Brendan had fun with his convertible, as I did with my old ’67 Cougar, it took its toll in angst and money, as did the Cougar. As I said, I’ll not recite them here, as that would just rub salt into our wounds.
I also won’t mention his second car, a Chevy Celebrity that I’ve gotta take most of the rap for as a headache from the get-go until it got gone. (One of the lessons I learned in that venture was that Minnesota’s lemon law didn’t require dealerships to tell a guy he was buying a car that didn’t have the original engine [no WONDER it looked so clean].)
Suffice it to say that we helped the owner of Lloyd’s Automotive on Grand Avenue in St. Paul not only send his kids through school but also undertake a spiffy renovation that prepared his shop to vault into the 21st century, which was just around the corner at that time.
I’ll give credit where credit is due, though, and acknowledge that Brendan more than shouldered his share of the cost. And he’s bought a couple of cars on his own since then.
He even has a little change in his jeans. Why, a couple of months back, right after Avery was born, Brendan took some film to a store up in Minnesota and had pictures sent to me to a store two blocks from my house here in Florida (what’ll they think of NEXT?) — with the notation that I shouldn’t let the store charge me anything because he already had paid.
I appreciated his picking up the tab, but I think he’d better start pinching his pennies now. In the blink of an eye, little old Avery is going to be pestering him to look at cars.
His argument, I suspect, will be that they can get something “for cheap.”
If you think the steering wheel of that old Le Baron vibrated at stop signs, Brendan, you better grab ahold TIGHT, now, because you’re in for a wild ride.

What's Tickling Avery's Funny Bone?

What the HELL is Avery laughing at?
That’s the question gnawing at me because so many of the photos of the lad look as if he’s laughing his butt off, even while sleeping. What’s so FUNNY, to a 7-week-old who doesn’t have much to remember to laugh about, unless it’s the days not so long ago when he lived in a one-womb apartment and he could kick his mom mischievously at random to wake her up or if he didn’t like whatever she had for lunch?
Can’t be sugar plums dancing in his head, because he’s never even SEEN sugar plums.
Could it be he’s dreaming of becoming like hometown Minnesota hero Joe Mauer some day, making a bazillion dollars and becoming the American League’s MVP? Not likely, plus, by the time he’s Mauer’s age, the Twins probably will have abandoned their new outdoor stadium, which opened just a few weeks ago. Already, Avery’s older than the aging stadium, and you know how sports franchises abandon and/or implode stadiums with abandon.
Maybe it’s the fact that he finally got to meet ME? Also highly unlikely, as that would be more likely to scare the crap out of him. (Not that he needs any trouble evacuating, so to speak, from what I hear. Thank goodness, I haven’t witnessed any of his diplosions.)
Oh, well, I’ll have to be satisfied with the fact that it’s just another of life’s mysteries, like why anybody would want to bungee jump, f’rinstance.
Maybe he’s just happy about meeting new people, especially cousins, which he did in glorious faction during the boys’ recent trip to see snow (the Florida four, unfortunately, were frustrated in not being able to fulfill that goal) and a foray to California, where he met his only female cousin.


Avery's mom, Erica, introduces him to cousin Amelia.














Amelia's parents,
Kevin and Annie, get some
face time with the cousins.

On Easter morn, the moms and kids connect.


At the airport, Avery gives a Minnesota Nice welcome to the Florida cousins, who came in search of snow. Although Patrick appears to have jet lag, the others are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed: Jack, Luke and Vincent.

Boys night out in Minnesota.


Soooooooo, plenty of stuff to smile about, meeting all these cousins. Wears a guy out so much he needs a nap. After all, despite the Easter Bunny hat, he's not the Energizer Bunny:

Of course, this just gets us back to the beginning: What the HELL is Avery smiling about, even in his sleep? Maybe he IS dreaming of sugar plums, although that's a Christmas deal, not Easter.

Oh, WAIT! I know! He’s got gas. Laughing gas — sure. Why didn’t I think of that before? It's natural. Gas. (Not that it runs in the family.)

Kerfuffle Is in the Eye of the Beholder

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, or so they say.
Of course, like most sayings from the ubiquitously anonymous “they,” that doesn’t always get to the core of the truth. Take pictures (pun intended, unapologetically), f’rinstance. Especially when a photo causes a family kerfuffle.
Not a huge kerfuffle, mind you — more like a kerfuf.
The dispute is over time: I contend that my son, Brendan, was 6 months old for this particular photo shoot, because I distinctly remember that he couldn’t hold up his head. So the photographer put the softball under his chin, propped up his head for a split second, shot the photo, and caught his head before it flopped over, his neck broke and his noggin rolled across the floor.
Brendan doesn’t remember, for obvious reasons. His older sister, Annie, doesn’t remember, either, but she probably would disagree with me just to be contrary. His younger sister, Allison, wasn’t even on the scene, obviously, so she doesn’t get a vote.
His mom, Susan, contends it was more like a couple of weeks, perhaps 6. I suppose that fits the floppiness of the neck angle, but as I recall, it was 6 months: That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I have no idea how to track down the photographer, who very well might be dead, for all I know.
What I DO know for sure is that it’s my favorite photo of the lad, to this day. That’s why I carry it in my billfold.
I’ll let you be the judge:


So, does that look like 6 months or 6 weeks? Oh, WHATEVER.
Comes now Brendan, with his own offspring. He and/or Erica — I don’t want to start a family kerfuffle, so I won’t try to nail down which of the copious shutterbugs wielded the camera — shot a photo of their Avery that is reminiscent of the softball bob.
Sans softball, of course:


The time isn’t in dispute because even now, Avery is only 6 weeks old, and this was shot when he was just a few weeks, if that.
The thing I do know is that they bear a striking resemblance to each other. I always have trouble seeing family resemblances twixt kids and their parents, so if I can see the likeness here, it must be obvious.
OR, if I can see the likeness, perhaps it proves that I’m right about the 6 months, too.
At any rate, even if anybody still questions my math, the photos prove that the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, in looks.
Or DO they? What if we toss in another photo in our quest for a trifecta. I don’t think this little lad, in a photo shot when he was older than a year, but younger than 2 as near as I can figure, looks like either Brendan OR Avery.

So who might he be? Perhaps a poor, redheaded stepchild from the era of black and white photos. I bet he’s grayed a bit over the decades, so he’d be as hard to track down as the softball photographer.
And so another angle appears in the family kerfuf.

Also in the hopper, for coming weeks, are photos of Avery's auspicious meeting with a handful of his cousins, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, when they ventured from the flatlands of Florida to the hills of Minnesota, in a quest for snow.