The SoapBoxers

They called him “The Kid” and “The Natural”. I was coming of age as a sports fan in the late 1980s, at a time when Ken Griffey Jr. was breaking into the major leagues and establishing himself as an elite performer.

Griffey broke into the major leagues at the tender age of 19 and had a strong rookie season, hitting .264 with 16 homers in 127 games. During his eleven season with the Mariners, he became one of the most feared hitters in the game, recording six seasons of more than 40 home runs (including two seasons of 56). Griffey also compiled a .300+ batting average in seven of those seasons. He won ten Gold Gloves awards for his spectacular defensive play. He was also a durable player, having at least 500 at bats eight times between 1990 and 1999. He was the American League Most Valuable Player in 1997 (.304 with 56 homers and 147 RBI).

After the 1999 season, at the age of 30, Griffey signed as a free agent with the Cincinnati Reds. This was not simply a case of selling himself to the highest bidder. Griffey had grown up in Cincinnati, and he wanted to play in his home town. With 398 career homers at such a young age, Griffey seemed like the heir apparent to Hank Aaron.

Griffey’s homecoming started out with 40 homers and 118 RBI in his first season with the Reds. Unfortunately, this is where the injuries began to mount. After 520 at bats in 1990, he had a total of 1027 at bats in the next four years. The fact that he was able to hit 63 homers is so few at bats, while recovering from injuries, is actually fairly impressive.

Griffey bounced back with 35 homers in 2005, 27 in 2006, and 30 in 2007 as he continued to fight through injuries. in 2008, he struggled through a season in which he hit .249 with 18 homers for the Reds and White Sox.

The man who hit .300 seven times in eleven seasons in Seattle managed to do this just once in the next nine seasons (.301 in 2005). The man who won ten consecutive gold gloves in Seattle has never won another.

Injuries and the approach of father time have robbed Griffey of his once elite skills. With 611 homers, he will not catch Barry Bonds. With 2680 hits, he may not even reach 3000.

At the end of the 2008 season, Ken Griffey Jr. became a free agent. His decision came down to a choice between Atlanta and Seattle. Atlanta would seem to have a stronger core of players for 2009. However, Ken Griffey Jr. once again decided to go home – this time to Seattle, to once again play in front of the legions of fans who adore him.

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This photo is one of my all time favorites. I had just moved back to Iowa a couple of months earlier, and I had the day off from work. It was a beautiful day in March, and I jumped into my ’99 Taurus and hit the road. I drove north to Guttenberg and headed down the Great River Road – a road that hugs the mighty Mississippi River.

It was a leisurely drive, and I stopped in several towns along the way to admire the view, enjoying a burger and fries at a Dairy Queen along the way.

Eventually, I reached my turnaround point – Bellevue. I stopped at Bellevue State Park (Nelson Unit) to walk around before driving back home. The park has nice view of the river, as you can see from this photo. You can still see some bits of snow and ice on the river. I really liked this scene, and was ready to take some photos. At that point, I noticed the train. It was in the distance, and it was stopped. I waited a half hour for the train to finally start moving. The end result was this photo – the train snaking through town, against the river backdrop.

Good things come to those who wait.

As you probably know, Nadya Suleman is the woman in California who recently have birth to octuplets. Typically, when a family has experience a large multiple birth, there is an outpouring of support from the public. This has not been the case for Nadya. In fact, a recent survey by USA Today showed that only 25% of people were sympathetic.

Nadya says that she is being unfairly criticized because she is a single mother. Is this true?

In a word, no. There are a couple of aspects to her situation that would turn people off, regardless of the marital status of the parents.

Nadya’s original story does not seem to be holding up. She originally said that she was going to raise the octuplets (and their six siblings) on her own and would not be on welfare.

Later, media outlets found out that she is receiving SSI benefits and food stamps for some of the six older children.

Then we found out that the hospital was requesting reimbursement from the state of California.

Then we saw the website requesting donations from the public. (I have made a conscious decision not to provide a link to the web site.)

Is this your definition of raising kids on your own?

If she didn’t walk to speak to the media, that would have been fine. But once she starts talking to the media, there is the expectation of honesty.

Nadya’s other six children are all between the ages of 2 and 7. At an age where kids need a lot of attention from their caregivers (apparently Nadya and her parents, in this case), there was already a lot of competition for the attention of the caregivers. At this point, Nadya chose to have eight eggs implanted, guaranteeing a situation where the kids would have to fight even more for attention.

Nadya’s parents are ten months behind on her mortgage payments and face foreclosure. For those of you who are good at math, you would realize that they were behind on payments at the time the eggs were implanted. I guess it is possible – but probably not likely – that Nadya is not receiving financial support from her parents (meaning that she wouldn’t be the direct cause of the financial trouble). However, she and her fourteen kids are living with her parents. This means that Nadya’s parents really don’t have the option of downsizing to a smaller house. I feel bad for her parents, as they are in a very awkward position. If the foreclosure goes through, a family of sixteen could be homeless.

It simply seems that Nadya may not have been considering the best interests of her children or her parents.

I really hope that Nadya does find success in her career field when she finished college. I also hope that the fourteen kids all have strong, positive relationships with their mother. Unfortunately, I am a bit pessimistic about that possibility.

One day in the waning years of the last century, my friend Linda S loaned me the book Burglars Can’t Be Choosers. This small act has had a big impact. This book introduced me to Bernie Rhodenbarr and his creator, the author Lawrence Block. Over the course of a decade, he has become firmly entrenched as my favorite writer.

Block has several majors characters, and I ended up reading dozens of his books. First, let’s take a look at his characters.

Bernie Rhodenbarr

Bernie is a bookstore owner. He is also a part time burglar (thus all of his books contain that word). Bernie is semi-retired from the profession (mostly due to a distaste from the “free government housing” fringe benefit of the job). Nowadays, Bernie only takes the occasional job from a friend (or friend of a friend).

Unfortunately for Bernie, he has a tendency to stumble across murders, and usually ends up as the prime suspect. He has to figure out who the real killer in order to get off the hook.

Bernie’s books also feature his friend Carolyn (a lesbian who owns a pet grooming service) and his cat, Raffles. The books are very funny, and are my favorite of Block’s books.

There are ten books in the Burglar series, published between 1977 and 2004. I have read all of them. We should be seeing another one soon, right?

One of the books was turned into the movie “Burglar”, starring Whoopi Goldberg. Don’t blame Block for the movie, though. He didn’t like it, either.

Matthew Scudder

The Scudder books are a complete 180 degree turn from the Burglar books. The Burglar books are quite funny, whereas the Scudder books are devoid of humor.

Matthew Scudder is a former cop who now works as an unlicensed private investigator. He is also a sober alcoholic, so he generally finds the time to attend a couple of AA meetings during the course of a book.

The Scudder books have a tendency to be violent, especially when he is hanging out with his friend Mick Ballou, a bar owner/criminal (probably not the best situation for a guy fighting alcoholism, but Mick is an old friend). Scudder’s moral compass tends to point fairly close to north, though. He does some bad things, but he does them for the right reasons.

Scudder’s significant other is Elaine. Elaine and Scudder have a long history. They met when Elaine was a high priced hooker and Scudder was a young cop. Midway through the series, we are introduced to TJ, a kid with street smarts who proves very valuable to Scudder.

There are sixteen books in the Scudder series, published between 1976 and 2005. I have read all sixteen.

Evan Tanner
Tanner served in the Korean war and suffered a serious injury. The result was that the “sleep center” in his brain was damaged. This means that Tanner never sleeps – literally.

Tanner ends up as a spy, where his ability to be awake all the time is very useful. Tanner’s job take him all around the world.

I’ve read a couple of the Tanner novels, but they didn’t grab me. They weren’t bad, they simply didn’t have that ge na sais quoi of the Burglar and Scudder novels (those guys set the bar pretty high). I actively read a billion authors (well, maybe twelve) and Tanner’s books just miss the cut, unfortunately.

There are eight novels in the Tanner series. Seven were written between 1966 and 1970, and the last was written in 1998. That book – Tanner on Ice – features Tanner being awaken from a cryogenic state.

I have not read all of Block’s book. Here are some of his other characters:

Keller – A professional hit man. I have read one of the Keller books. They just aren’t my type of book. There are four Keller novels, published between 1998 and 2008.

Chip Harrison – There are four books in the Chip Harrison series, all published between 1970 and 1975.

Paul Kavanaugh – There are three books in the Paul Kavanaugh series, published between 1969 and 1974.

Other novels – Block has also written a variety of novels (and novellas) that are not a part of a particular series. Some of these have been published in collections. This is a great way to acquire multiple books for a good price.

Books for writers – Block has written four books for writers – Writing the Novel from Plot to Print (1979), Telling Lies for Fun and Profit (1981), Write for Your life (1986), and Spider, Spin Me a Web (1987). I have read Telling Lies and Spider, and they are great books for the aspiring writer.

Enough Rope
Enough Rope is a collection of short stories. It is a massive book, nearly 900 pages in hardcover. I originally received a paperback version of this book as a gift. I quickly realized that this book would be a companion for life, and purchased the hardcover copy (lending the paperback copy to the communal library at my office). You will see many of the characters from Block’s novels also appear in the short stories, as well as several stories about lawyer Martin Ehrengraf. If you’re not sure which of the Block characters you will like, this book would be a good place to start.

There are also a lot of free-standing stories in the collection. All of the stories can be read in one sitting. Two of my favorites are Cleveland in My Dreams and Funny You Should Ask.

If you only purchase one Lawrence Block book, buy Enough Rope (I would recommend buying several books, of course).

The man
Lawrence Block is now 70 years old. In addition to writing, he competes in distance walking (24 hour races, marathons, ultramarathons). You can buy signed copies of his books – and keep up with his exploits – at LawrenceBlock.com

Lawrence Block Enough Rope

Studies have shown that keeping mentally active can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. The best way to accomplish this is to adapt a lifestyle of learning. How do we do this? I’ll show you what I have done. Hopefully you can springboard from these ideas to other ideas that may work for you.

There are a lot of activities that can be fun and also give your brain a workout. I have developed an addiction to the Facebook game of Wordscraper, which is a derivation of Scrabble (the developers of the game were sued by Hasbro, and a settlement was reached). I play 10-15 games at any one time (it is turn-based, and games usually take several days to complete). In addition to giving my brain a workout as I attempt to figure out the best word to play in a situation, I learn new words from the other players.

Around the lunch table at work one day, four of us were talking about how much we enjoy playing Trivial Pursuit, but that we were unable to find people to play against. Shortly afterward, I brought a game into the office, and we started playing games during lunch (keeping track of the game’s status with sticky notes). The players have varying strengths and weakness, and there are occasional sidebar discussions that can be quite entertaining and educational.

For about a decade, I have played in fantasy baseball leagues. Baseball, in particular, lends itself to lessons learned from economics – particularly maximization of utility. Do you take guy with a lot of stolen bases and sacrifice home runs? Do you ignore saves and focus on the other categories? The successful players have to make difficult decisions during the course of a season.

For about a decade, I have subscribed to two types of magazines – sports magazines and computer magazines. I have a variety of interests outside these two areas, so I decided to subscribe to some other magazines in order to expand my horizons.

After a bit of browsing at Barnes and Noble, I decided to subscribe to Popular Science and Archaeology.

Popular Science made a lot of sense, because it’s full of cutting edge science (such as a man soaring across the English channel on a jet pack). Although I don’t have an academic background in science, it has always interested me. For years, I tormented people with my idea of wireless electricity (imagine all the clutter that could be eliminated by getting rid of cords). On the day that MIT researches announced that such a beast existed (which they call WiTricity), I got about a half dozen emails from friends, with the basic message of “hey, you’re not crazy after all”.

I’ve always had a slight interest in archaeology, but the fiction books co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have ignited it into a larger interest. Some of Preston and Child’s books are based in the southwest, which is a hotbed of archaeological activity. Archaeology (the magazine) covers a lot of different topics within the science of archaeology. The stories of tomb raiders and other thieves hold the most interest for me, but I find myself reading most of the other articles as well.

Not only can writing be a cathartic release, but it also forces you to organize your ideas into coherent thoughts (although this might not be apparent from my own writing). You can write for public consumption (this blog, for example) or simply write in a journal.

Reading, of course, is the old standby when it comes to mixing entertainment and education. Find a subject you like, and start reading again. I love mysteries, which add another dimension of learning, as I’m always trying to figure out the mystery before I get to the end of the book. If you can’t make the time to read, consider audio books. Audio books have the added benefit of making the commute a bit less monotonous. Librivox.org has a great selection of classic books available in electronic format at no cost (although they do accept donations).

Another baseball season is finally upon us! I follow baseball with a passion that borders on addiction. Well, perhaps it’s beyond the border. The internet is a great place to get information. I have compiled a list of some of my favorite baseball sites. I have focused on sites where most of the content is free (with the exception of mlb.com, just because of my addiction to MLB audio)

MLB.com, of course, is the official site of Major League Baseball. In addition to news, standings, etc, MLB.com is home to MLB.tv and MLB Audio. For $80 (or $110 for premium content) you can watch any game on your computer (subject to blackout restrictions) all season long. For $14.95, you can listen to the audio feed of any game (not subject to blackout). This works great for out of market teams. I live in Iowa and follow the Rockies, so this works great for me.

MLBTradeRumors is a nonstop source of rumors about trades and free agent signings. Updates occur multiple times during the day, hitting a frantic pace at the trade deadline. The guy who runs the site scours multitudes of other sources in an effort to compile every rumor.

SportsBlog Nation is a compilation of blogs from every major sport. The folks who run each blog keep up to date on every aspect of the team and pass the knowledge on to you. In addition to covering the major league team, they also keep you up to date on all of the minor league teams in your organization. The fan interaction is also a great feature. Game threads – in which fans are commenting on game action as it occurs – is pretty cool.

Renowned minor league analyst John Sickels runs Minorleagueball.com. John is one of the most knowledgeable minor league experts in the country. He publishes a book on prospects every year, but he also gives out an incredible amount of free information on his site.

There’s also the official Minor League site. MILB.com posts draftee profiles each spring.

You can find player salary information in several places, but COT’s Baseball Contracts keeps tracks of all the nitty gritty details – such as incentives and service time (helpful for determining when players will be eligible for arbitration or free agency).

baseball-reference.com is the best place I have found for baseball statistics. It tends to allow you to delve a bit more deeply into the numbers. In addition to tons of great content, BR’s premium “PI” service allows you to do some really deep searching. You can subscribe to PI for very short time periods (as low as $1.35 for 24 hours) so you don’t necessarily need to pay the $29 annual fee for a short research project.

Fangraphs goes into a lot of depth in their statistics. Considering the name, it should come as no surprise that they also have graphs on the site. The graphs show how player performance has differed from year to year, while also comparing the performance to the MLB average for those statistics.

The Lahman Database is a free (donations accepted) compilation of statistics for every player from 1871-present. MS Access, SQL, and CSV formats available.

From small ball to the long ball analyzes the types of pitches every pitcher has seen, as well as the types of pitches that every batter has seen.  Update: this blogger has decided to retire and has removed some of the content.

Summer Ball covers collegiate players, with a specific focus on the collegiate summer leagues. The summer leagues use wood bats instead of the aluminum bats used in NCAA games. If a player performs well in a summer league, it can often boost their stock in the draft, since the adjustment to wood can be a problem for some players.

Nippon Baseball Tracker covers Japanese leagues.

MLB’s Collective Bargaining Agreement can be downloaded in PDF format. I actually have a printed copy of the CBA which I keep in a binder. I wouldn’t say that it is a page turner, but it is great for settling arguments.

I don’t watch much mainstream (i.e. non-sports) TV, so you’re not going to see a lot of TV shows reviewed in this blog. Two of the few shows that rank as appointment viewing are Monk and Psych, detective shows on the USA Network. They are on cable, and they get stuck in a lousy time slot (Friday nights), so you might be overlooking them. I personally enjoy Monk a bit more, but my wife is more of a fan of Psych – but both are really good.

Tony Shalhoub – whom you may remember as cab driver Antonio Scarpacci on the 90s TV show Wings – stars as former detective Adrian Monk. Monk was formerly was the San Francisco police department, but had to leave the department because of medical reasons – obsessive compulsive disorder and a wide variety of phobias. His late wife Trudy was able to keep things in check, but after her death, he became a bit of a basket case.

Monk’s OCD creates many humorous moments on the show. One of my all time favorites was when he felt the need to pour some coffee from one pot into another – so that each pot would have an equal amount. Of course, one pot was regular and one was decaf …

Monk is aided by his trusty assistant. Without her, he would be unable to accomplish anything in life. In the course of the show, he has actually gone through two assistants – Sharona (Bitty Schramm) and his current assistant, Natalie (Traylor Howard – you may know her from “Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place”).

In between aiding Monk with every aspect of his life – including providing a disinfectant wipe every time Monk is forced to touch something “icky” – Natalie (who never gets any credit, of course) helps Monk ride to the rescue of the SFPD, helping them crack the trickiest cases (mostly murders)

Suspects tend to treat Monk with the same lack of respect that Columbo received – until the very end, when Monk explains, “here’s what happened.”

The show has a strong cast. My favorite supporting character is Lt. Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Standford), a well meaning but essentially incompetent cop who is somehow the captain’s right hand man (sort of). Sadly, Stanley Kamel, who played Monk’s psychiatrist, died in 2008. Since Monk needs a psychiatrist, Hector Elizondo was brought on board to play Monk’s new shrink. He does a good job in the role, but Kamel was irreplaceable.

Monk also lines up a strong group of guest stars – including Sarah Silverman, Andy Richter, John Turturro, and Wings co-stars Tim Daly and Steven Weber, to name a few.

Shawn Spencer (played by James Roday) and his childhood pal Gus (Dule Hill) run a psychic business. Most of their revenue comes from working on cases for the Santa Barbara police department. Shawn uses his psychic abilities to solve the crimes.

The only problem is that Shawn is not actually psychic. He is simply blessed with exceptional observation and logic skills (thanks in large part to childhood lessons taught to him by his cop father, played by Corbin Bernsen). However, since the Santa Barbara PD would apparently prefer to consult with a psychic rather than someone who is just smart, Shawn and Gus con everyone into think that Shawn is indeed psychic.

A cool feature of the show occurs when Shawn has a psychic revelation – you get some quick close-ups (and a cool sound effect) of the clues Shawn is using for his “revelation”.

Shawn also has a tendency to make life difficult for himself by annoying the chief (and others). He ends up in a lot of crazy situations – almost always of his own doing.

This review comes to you just in time for the season finales on February 20, but you should be able to catch reruns on USA. These shows are definitely DVR worthy, if you’re not home on Friday nights.

Monk Season 1	Monk Season 2	Monk Season 3
Monk Season 4	Monk Season 5	Monk Season 6
Monk Season 7

Psych Seasons 1 & 2

Psych Season 3

In the expensive sport of NASCAR racing, team owners depend on sponsors. Sponsors pay millions of dollars to have their logos emblazoned on the side of cars. Many NASCAR fans are intensely loyal not only to their driver, but also to the brands he endorses.

I have been a fan of Tony Stewart for as long as I have been a fan of NASCAR. Unfortunately for Tony’s sponsors, I am anything but loyal to them.

Tony has driven three different makes of cars in Winston/Nextel/Sprint cup races – Pontiac, Chevy, and Toyota (winning championships in a Pontiac and Chevy). Every car I have ever owned has been a Ford.

Tony’s primary sponsor until this year was Home Depot. Home Depot is OK, but I live very close to a Menards and do most home improvement shopping there.

Tony is sponsored by Coke. Coke is my third favorite cola, behind Pepsi and RC.

This year, Tony’s primary sponsor will be Office Depot. Of course, I tend to shop at Staples …

I’m a fairly new subscriber to Archaeology, which is a pretty cool magazine. It cost $22 for a one year subscription (6 bi-monthly issues). Archaeology has stories various aspect of archaeological discoveries – the culture of the society that left the artifacts, the mechanics of the digs, and even stories about artifact trafficking. My interest in crime causes me to get sucked into the trafficking articles.

The March/April edition has a story about artifact thieves in the southwestern US. There is a lot of federal land in this part of the country. It is illegal to take artifacts from federal land, but much of this land is pretty remote, resulting in the agents from the Bureau of Land Management being stretched pretty thin in their efforts to catch thieves.

There is a new breed of artifact thieves who seem to enjoy the task of searching for artifacts – a process that involves digging holes, scanning the ground closely for artifacts, and repeating the process over and over. It is hard, tedious work.

These thieves are receiving some help, though. The are meth users, and the drug gives them a lot of energy (great when you need to dig a bunch of holes) and also the intense concentration to comb for the artifacts.

The users take the artifacts they find, and trade them to their dealer in exchange for more meth. The dealers then turn around and sell the artifacts for a nice profit. Essentially, the meth dealers in the southwest are financing (with meth) a massive theft of government property. Artifacts that could be in museums, educating everyone about the cultures of the past, end up in a private collection.

Subjects for upcoming blog articles will include:

Reviews of TV shows Monk and Psych

NASCAR brand disloyalty

The best baseball sites

Profile of author Lawrence Block

Note that this post contains statements that are allegations. Allegation should not be construed as proof of wrongdoing. The Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier and AM 1630 KCJJ radio (Iowa City) were sources of information for this post.

One of the big local stories this week is about the state of Iowa shutting down a group home where twenty one mentally challenged individuals lived. These men appear to have been productive workers and valued members of the community, but many concerns have been raised about their living and financial arrangements.

The facility was deemed a fire hazard by state fire inspectors. The facility has relied solely on space heaters for heat after a boiler broken down in 2002. Some bedrooms were more than 100 feet from an exit, there were blocked exits, boarded up windows, and overloaded circuits, to name a few of the problems. If a fire had broken out, the consequences could have been dire.

The state is also looking into the financial arrangement between the men and their employer (a turkey processing company). It appears that the company had control over not only the paychecks, but also social security checks. The company deducted room, board, and health care. The state has subpoenaed records in order to determine if the men had given authorization for these payroll deductions – and if they had the mental capacity required to give authorization. The company paid the men less than minimum wage, but this is allowable under state law. State law allows employees with diminished mental capacity to be paid less than minimum wage. This is an effort to have companies employ people who might not otherwise be employable. Additionally, the state is requesting that the county file criminal charges of operating an unlicensed health care facility.

If that was the end of the story, it would be bad enough.

However, this morning, AM 1630 KCJJ reported that former Governor Robert Ray was informed of this situation in the 1970s and told the Department of Human Services not to investigate. KCJJ also reported that Ray was receiving campaign contribution from the Louis Rich turkey company at the time. Louis Rich contracted some of their work to the employer of these men.

KCJJ also said that the subsequent governor, Terry Branstad, was also notified of the situation – and that he also told DHS not to investigate. Branstad was also receiving contributions from Louis Rich.

I sincerely hope that KCJJ has its facts wrong regarding the former governors. If these allegations are true, these people may have endured unsafe living conditions and illegal financial arrangements for decades because of the inaction of the governors. Certainly, there will be much more written about this case in Iowa papers during the coming months.