Assignment 1...BDJ 600/300

“Ain’t much to being a ballplayer...if you’re a ballplayer.”

                        …Honus Wagner (Baseball Hall of Fame, 1936)



I gave my BDJ 600/300 class this assignment...a third-person piece that examines what got them to where and who and what they are today.  It sounded interesting enough, so I gave it a try myself.

When he asked his grandmother what the boys in the far distance were doing, she replied “playing baseball.”  That, by itself, meant nothing to a four-year-old, but what does?  No further details on what baseball actually was were needed. No explanation of the rules, no mention of players or teams was necessary. The simple “playing baseball” was sufficient. 

Or so it seemed.

It would be very difficult  to trace back to the specific moment that turned his life in a certain direction, but there had to be a moment when a ball was thrown toward him and the inclination to catch it rather than duck out of the way took hold. There had to be a moment when the idea of throwing it back to whomever threw it his way also took hold. 

The act  itself, tossing an object back and forth…playing catch…unfolded over time into something far more complicated, yet still simple in its essence.  

In sports, repetitive, relatively simple individual actions, are designed to become exhilarating when they are successful and frustrating when they are not. He learned over time that he seemed to succeed more than he failed. That he was good at most things he attempted and he was very good at baseball.

When he was about 12, his mother’s words… “It’s possible,” (he sensed that she actually meant ‘probable’) that you might not become a professional ball player,” were softened by her thought that there might be a place for him, some other way of being “in baseball.”

But he persevered, determined that practice and repetition and dedication and all the other things that drove him would overcome his lack of size and speed and the number of others who pursued the same dream, all of them clamoring up a steep hill toward the very small plateau at the top.  

He was wrong.  He was good, but not that good.  He could play, but too many others could play better.  And he understood what his mother had meant. 

All along, he had reveled in the repetition.  He loved practice, he loved the game in its many incarnations. He invented ways to play constantly…in the park, his backyard, his front yard, his driveway, his garage. There was an inexplicable essence to the game.

He had become something of a star in Little League, and Teener League and high school and American Legion and summer semi-pro leagues. He had been a D-1 starter and letter winner in college.  He became an assistant coach at his alma mater. He played 10 years of semi-pro baseball and quit before he lost his skills.  He became an umpire so he could stay in the game. 

But his future, his reality, lay in something that had really never occurred to him.

He had taken a shot at law school and hadn’t liked it.  He had served in the military, but knew it wasn’t his life’s work.  He became a substitute teacher as a stop gap until he found a “real” job, and after being hired full time, gradually, a few years into it, it became clear that teaching WAS his real job.

He realized that he had been meant to be a baseball player, but not destined to be a great one. He came to understand that baseball had helped mold him, but only so far as to eventually set him free to find what he truly needed to be doing. Baseball had given him the gift of confidence, taught him the lessons of success and failure, and given him the sense that in the long run, the exhilaration of success overrides the dejection of failure, but both highs and lows of the past become … just the past.  

It became clear that the things he had not done were less important than the things he was doing. 

 

As a teacher, there were no statistics to define him, no scouts to tell him that he was too small or too slow, no scoreboard to register success or failure. There was only his intuitive sense that he was in the right place doing the right thing. And that was all he needed.

He understood that when his grandmother had pointed into the distance to tell him what those boys were doing, she was, somehow, pointing the way into his future.

                                                                         

                  

Sports Matters

I have been away from this blog, but thanks to John Nicholson, my friend of quite a few years, I've been able to get my education oriented creative juices flowing, and actually able to write some things down.

Introduction to a presentation to masters candidates, Sports Media Department, Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University on 7/12/17

Hermon Card, adjunct professor

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In 1964, the year the professor and I arrived at Syracuse University, there were two pizza joints on the hill, Cosmo's and The Varsity.  Cosmo's is gone, but The Varsity remains and it is likely  that most you have  been there.

Long before 1964, and for many years after, The Varsity was the go-to place for Syracuse athletes, and even those of us who were not football or basketball players were welcomed by the three Delles brothers.  The photos on the walls have always been of SU athletes, the football record was, and is, recorded  by pennants over the counter, and the vibe would be referred to today as "retro."

Athletes wore letter sweaters on campus, the football team was nationally ranked thanks to Floyd Little and Larry Csonka, helped out by a guy named Tom Coughlin, and the basketball team was about to become a power, thanks to Dave Bing, helped out by a guy named Jim Boeheim.
For four years, the professor and I showed up, ate Varsity pizza, earned our varsity letters and our SU degrees and moved on, as did those other guys.

We worked in our chosen professions, crossed paths occasionally over the years, and as those years passed, the paths meandered extensively and then began to run a closer, more parallel course.
A couple of weeks ago the current path led us into into the Varsity for lunch, and as part of the conversation, the professor called my attention to a photo...this photo...at the far left of the left hand wall.

  (photos of the photos by Newhouse graduate Aubrie Tolliver)

The actual subject of the photo is Roosevelt Bouie, SU basketball star and All-American. Most people see this as a  gamer photo, an action shot of a great athlete, although now, it's of no significance in terms of outcome of the shot, or the game, or the season. 

But, because sports matters in different ways depending on your perspective, two of us in the room have an entirely different reaction to the photo, because our eyes are drawn to the lower left corner, to two men (not in great focus but what from nearly 40 years ago is?) we both knew as colleagues friends sitting at the WSYR radio broadcast table. 

                             

 



Charlie Bivins, on the left, was to become the first African-American television station general manager in Syracuse, and then die, way too young, soon after. Joel Marieness, on the right, was a legendary broadcaster, a true and original "Voice of the Orange" on radio and television.


Most people to whom we could tell this, would probably say, as you may be,  "That's interesting," or words to that effect, and move on.  To the professor and me, it is interesting, for sure, but  neither of us retains any attachment to the "gamer" moment on the court.  We are attached to something far deeper, based on the fact that while our connection with these two men was based IN sports, it did not depend ON sports. It depended on the fact that because of sports, kindred spirits were drawn together, and the simple truth is that the  professor and I are able to take pride in the fact that both  of these men of stature were our friends.

The context of these relationships, both professional and friendship-based would require way too much explanation to be clear in a journalistic sense, but what is important to us is that no such explanation is necessary.

What the photo, and the memories it evokes does, is create a context for the professor and me to  understand that what really matters is that sports can be the catalyst for creating things which are far more important than what happens on the court or the field.

The stories we swap  about these two friends, and others like them, are really about our own lives...who we were and who we have become.

And the stories remind us that those of us in this business need to be aware that while our work is significant to us and our audience in the moment,  it is likely that it will be, in some unknown way, for some unknown reason, significant to someone unknown to us, in the future.

It  is essential for us to understand that  sports  provides a common denominator for people of like mind or similar inclination to explore the things that are really important in life, things more important than  batting averages or final scores or championships won.  Sports is an exploration of our humanity -- of our ability to persevere, to strive for success, to accept the outcome, and, while doing so, to behave in a manner befitting our status as a civilized society.

And how do those of us in this room fit in? By understanding that it is our responsibility to not only accurately report what happens on the field, but also to accurately reflect the importance of what happens on the field on a level that goes beyond the cheers and boos.  It is our job to understand why  people run and jump and wrestle and tackle and slide and skate  and  put a ball into play in seemingly infinite ways.

It is our job to understand sport in order to report it and it is our job to always be at our best and it is our job to remember that what we do now, in the moment, is important, but above all, it is our job to remember what we do, as part of the media profession, must be done with integrity and honesty and with a sense of commitment to the the future, because SPORTS MATTERS.

Memorials

It is true enough that this is a baseball focused blog, but at times it is good to step away from the game for a look at the bigger reality. As a “child of the 60s” I was of a generation coming into adulthood during  a time when we hoped to have the power to make the painful events of that era merely painful memories…mistakes not to be repeated.

Alas, I suspect there is no such power.

I wrote the poem that follows in 1994 as a reflection on those times, those mistakes, and the regret of the lack of power to change it. The photos are my ID cards from what seemed to be conflicting roles of that era – student and soldier.

The poem is archived in the May 4^th Memorial Collection at Kent State University.

Memorials

                               

I walked across the peaceful lawn                                                   
In Washington, D.C.,
To the monument for the fallen
And touched the names of those who died—

Victims of war,

And the names touched me back.

I walked across the peaceful lawn

In Kent, Ohio,                                                                                   
To the monument for the fallen
And touched the names of those who died—                                  

Victims of war,

And the names touched me back.

Fifty-eight thousand entries carved in the black granite ledger.

Page after cold dark page, the roll of warriors sacrificed,

Cold to my touch — dark, dead.

Which one took my place?

Four entries carved in the black granite ledger.

Four cold  dark pages, the roll of children sacrificed,

Cold to my touch — dark, dead.

Which one took my place?

Herm Card, May 4, 1994

The Man Who Taught Me Baseball

I’ll be at my post on Sunday, Fathers Day, shooting photos for the Syracuse Chiefs. I’ll get shots of  Bernie Williams signing autographs before the game, and then playing The Star Spangled Banner. During the game I’ll get about 700 or so action shots, and, after the game I’ll stick around to photograph the Chiefs’ new wrinkle…the chance for fathers and their kids to get on the field to play catch.

There is a reason why the most poignant line of Field of Dreams is  "Hey Dad, you wanna have a catch?" Playing catch is the single most defining activity of most father/son relationships…at least for my generation. It begins as a way to pass along that most basic skill of baseball and a metaphorical passing the torch from one generation to the next and beyond, and continues as a reminder of the common bond of father and son.

And on Sunday I will photograph that bond in action as fathers will celebrate their day playing catch with their children on the magical green grass of a professional ballpark, and that’s when things will get a bit tricky. After the nearly 68 years of  my life, the man I first played catch with, the man who taught me baseball, is gone. I can remember neither the first nor last time we played catch but I can remember the in between part…the gradual increase in the distance I was able to throw, the increase in the velocity I was able to handle, the confidence that I was, indeed, a ballplayer. Ultimately, the time for playing catch was gone, but the sense of it, the muscle memory of ball striking glove, the sound of leather meeting leather, lingers.

The man who taught me baseball taught me how to catch with two hands, to block ground balls, to throw overhand, to do a pop up slide. He taught me to choke up on the bat and to hustle on AND off the field.

He taught me to practice hard and to enjoy it for what it was. He taught me how to put on a uniform correctly and how to care for my equipment. He taught me to revel in the smell of a brand new baseball, and appreciate the roughened texture of a ball well used. He taught me to tape a broken bat to extend its life.

He taught me that reading The Sporting News was essential to understanding baseball well, and that rolling up the pages to use as batting practice balls was essential to hitting a baseball well.

He taught me that when I did something good, to keep from showing off...to just act like it was routine, and when I made an error, to keep my mouth shut, my temper hidden, and get back to work.

He taught me not to show anyone up and never argue with an umpire.

He taught me to respect the game and show some class when I played it.

He taught me that it is a team game, and that requires working together.

He taught me that envy of someone else’s skill would do nothing to improve my own and that I should play the game the way that I was capable of playing it.

He taught me not to blame anyone or anything for my mistakes and to learn from them so as to not repeat them.

He taught me that nobody becomes good on their own, and to not be afraid to ask for help.

He taught me the rules, and that there was a reason for playing by them.

He taught me that the only way to be a starter was by earning the right, and that if I wasn’t a starter, I was still part of the team and to act like it.

He taught me to figure batting averages, but warned me not to pay too much attention to my own.

He taught me that anger was counterproductive and would only make me play worse.

He taught me that if the game stopped being fun, I should find something else that was.

He taught me that practice would not make me perfect, but it would smooth out some of the imperfections.

He taught me that winning was good, but not everything, and that losing might seem bad, but it really wasn’t as bad as some people make it out to be.

He taught me that blaming failure on bad luck would mean that I had to credit success to good luck. He allowed that there was an element of luck in both, but hard to prove.

He taught me that all I should ever care about was being as good as I could be and not to measure myself by someone else.

…and as it turned out, as he taught me baseball, he taught me life.

So, on Sunday…Fathers Day…I will photograph fathers and their kids playing catch, and remember the man who not only made it possible for me to be there, but also made it possible for me to understand why I will be there.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=mahlon-h-card&pid=171234156&fhid=13278