We never asked him to play

The Winter wiffle ball field on the upper left corner of Sandcreek and Imboden drives. Don Schultz’s house is to the right of Imboden Drive.

My mom often includes clippings from my hometown newspaper when she sends me mail. A couple days ago, I received my birthday card, and inside was an article about Don Schultz finally gaining admittance into the Illinois Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame.

I wouldn’t have known who this man was save for a note my mom attached to the article, indicating this was our neighbor to the north, across Imboden Drive, in Decatur, Ill. He was the man whose yard was beautifully landscaped. He was the man who sometimes yelled at us for retrieving wiffle balls out of his yard.

Wiffle ball in the Winter yard was an annual occurrence, first on weekends as the weather got warm, and then more days than not once school let out. We installed an old home plate from South Shores Park into our yard, wood base and all.

We were fortunate to live on the corner, which provided ample space for a wiffle ball field, and living next door to us were David and Jennifer Boltz, similar in age to me and my brother. This allowed for natural games of two-on-two wiffle ball, complete with bases, home runs and the occasional dodging of cars to retrieve the little white ball with holes around the top half. Yes, we were wiffle ball snobs. Only the official, skinny yellow bats and balls were allowed.

A hit was a home run if it landed on Imboden Drive. After a bounce or two, the wiffle balls would invariably end up in Schultz’s yard. We would have to retrieve them, sometimes from under evergreen bushes or his huge pine tree. And sometimes, we would hear it from old man Schultz, who was in his late 50s and early 60s during the heyday of wiffle ball in the Winter yard.

Wiffle ball continued to be a part of my life for many years. I played in tournaments at South Shores Park with my boyhood best friend, David Gordon, winning the tournament title every year we played, except one, when David was sick and I teamed with my brother to win the title. David and I went to Beloit College to play baseball, and had intramural indoor wiffle ball there for two years, following official wiffle ball rules. We won the championship both seasons.

By the time we interacted with Schultz, his playing days were done. For 20 years, according to the article my mom sent me, Schultz was an outfielder for Decatur fastpitch and Industrial League softball teams, and also dabbled in baseball. Schultz has a scrapbook filled with team pictures, articles about him, including one where he is called “the best center fielder in Decatur. He’s an outfield by himself.”

The article said Schultz has been eagerly awaiting induction into the Hall of Fame. His playing career has been over more than 40 years, but finally, he’s getting the recognition he deserves. Maybe that’s why he was grumpy with us, because he couldn’t play anymore, or maybe it’s because we never asked him to play. If I would have known about his background, I certainly would have. Something tells me he would have belted a lot of home runs into his own yard.

Which call was worse?

Sports are something I enjoy watching. I’ve played baseball since I was five, and always rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals.

I’ve never played football, and even though I live in Dubuque and previously lived in Wisconsin for 16 years, I’ve never been a fan of the Green Bay Packers.

So, it’s with a little bit of bias that I pose this question: Which call was worse, the Golden Tate touchdown to beat the Packers on Monday Night Football, or the infield fly rule that wasn’t the infield fly rule that squashed an Atlanta Braves rally against the Cardinals in the wild card playoff game tonight?

The call against the Packers was, by most accounts, wrong. Repalcement referees made it, yes, but it was so blatantly obvious to everyone else, the announcers, analysts and other officials, that it was wrong.

That call cost the Packers the game, but it did bring about a positive. Three days later, the real referees were back on the field for Thursday Night Football. The NFL can say that call had nothing to do with the sudden contract agreement, but we all know different.

The call in the Cardinals-Braves game was also a bad one. Thirty feet into the outfield, and with the ball 30 feet from the ground, the left field ump called the infield fly rule. He made a mistake.

One could argue it was an even more egregious call than the Tate touchdown, as it was in a playoff game. But the Braves made three errors. The Cardinals outplayed them. Where as the touchdown ended the game decisively for one team, the infield fly debacle just quashed a rally. It didn’t decide the game. Three errors. That doesn’t help.

So, world, which Midwest team got the bigger bad deal, the Packers or the Cardinals? Your call.

Good and bad baseball meetings

Since the age of 5, I have played baseball.

One of my fondest memories growing up was going to St. Louis many times during the course of a summer to watch Cardinals games. My parents took me to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown twice while I was growing up, and I’ve been a third time as an adult.

You just can’t get baseball out of my system. No matter if it was in St. Louis as a kid or in Cooperstown as an adult, one of the biggest thrills for me was meeting baseball players.

This happened frequently in St. Louis, for two reasons. One, we sometimes stayed at the Marriott that was directly across the street from old Busch Stadium. It was frequently the hotel of choice for the visiting team. Two, we often went to Mike Shannon’s after the game to eat. Mike Shannon is a radio broadcaster for the Cardinals, and he has a high-end restaurant blocks from the stadium that many players, from the Cardinals and visiting teams, dined at after the game.

One interaction at the Marriott stands out for me like it was yesterday. My family was at a large, round table, probably seated 12 people, eating breakfast one morning. I strategically placed myself at the table so I could see if any ballplayers were coming in. It was the mid 1980s, and I had traded in my St. Louis Cardinals red and white for New York Mets blue and orange because the St. Louis Cardinals had traded my favorite player, Keith Hernandez, to the Mets.

So I knew who most of the Mets were. When two of their most famous players, Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter, sauntered into the room looking for a place to sit, I got excited. They came to our table and asked if they could sit with us. Man, I must have been out of my mind with excitement. I got their autographs and just looked at them in amazement. It was a great meal.

I got autographs of players at Mike Shannon’s, too. Tom Brunansky and Bob Hoerner stick out as two who were very nice in sharing their signatures with me. But it wasn’t always pleasant. One time, I asked Mets pitcher Sid Fernandez for his autograph at Mike Shannon’s, and he turned me down, told me to go away. He dined alone, and lost the game that day. I didn’t understand at the time, but he was bummed about losing. Now that I’ve been in baseball 32 years, I understand.

My first two trips to Cooperstown, I didn’t see any live players. The third time, however, was the charm. We went on Hall of Fame game weekend, with the Twins and Braves in town. After the game, we went to a fancy restaurant north of Cooperstown. The menu was not food I’d typically eat, and not prices I’d typically pay.

My bad mood changed when I looked through to the other side of the building and saw Brooks Robinson and Harmon Killebrew, two Hall of Famers, just coming in. Even though I was 29, I felt like I was 12. I got my pen and sprinted to them to get their autographs. Brooks was very forthcoming, Harmon, not so much, but I got both of them to sign my Hall of Fame game ticket stub.

I was content, back at my table waiting for my food. Brooks and Harmon, along with Dale Petroskey, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, came into the room we were in and sat down at the table right next to us. They asked us if we had been to the game and what we were eating, what was good. After the short talk, I got back to my food, trying hard not to stare. When we were finished with dinner, we got up to leave, and I was going to go quietly. Brooks wouldn’t let me. He asked me if I was in town for long and told me to have a great rest of my stay.

I felt like I was a little kid in the Marriott again, talking to idols of the game. It never gets old.

Conversations with my favorite author

My copy of "Shoeless Joe" autographed by author W.P. Kinsella

Few people have had the pleasure of meeting their favorite author of all time. Whether it’s because the person is already dead, so famous they’re inaccessible or they live thousands of miles away, it rarely happens.

W.P. Kinsella

Late last month, W.P. Kinsella was awarded 2011 Jack Graney Award by the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Kinsella is the only fiction writer ever to receive the award, given annually to a person who, according to the hall’s website, makes a “significant contribution to the game of baseball in Canada through a life’s work or for a singular outstanding achievement.”

Kinsella became my favorite author when I watched the movie, “The Field of Dreams,” based on his most popular book, “Shoeless Joe.” Kinsella has wrote a number of fictional works on baseball, including “The Dixon Cornbelt League,” “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy,” “Go the Distance,” “The Thrill of the Grass” and “Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa.”

“Field of Dreams” is my favorite movie of all time, and Kinsella’s works, all of them, are great reads for baseball fans. While I was at Beloit College, majoring in creative writing, Kinsella came to campus for a talk about his writing, his books on baseball and other topics. Before his appearance, I hurried to the college bookstore and bought every book they had about baseball written by Kinsella.

After his discussion, I made my way down front to tell Kinsella what a fan I was of his work. I asked him to sign “Shoeless Joe” for me, and he did, even personalized it. I was thrilled.

My life went on, as did Kinsella’s. Little did I know then that our paths would cross a second time. Shortly after becoming assistant city editor at the Telegraph Herald, famous author J.D. Salinger died. I remembered the connection that Kinsella had with Salinger, so I wanted to write a blog about it for the Telegraph Herald.

I used a telephone number-finding website just on the off chance Kinsella’s Canadian phone number was listed. No chance, I thought, as I typed in his name. But lo and behold, Kinsella’s number was a published one. I then called the number, thinking there was no way Kinsella would answer his own phone, but again, shock as Kinsella answered.

We had a short, but pleasant interview, and I wrote a blog from it, which is below. I was lucky enough to meet my favorite author in person, and to have a conversation with him again years later. Both were pleasant exchanges, and perhaps our paths will cross again.

ORIGINAL BLOG, PUBLISHED JAN. 28, 2010

J.D. Salinger passed away Jan. 27, 2010 at the age of 91. He was one of America’s most influential authors, most famous for his 1951 novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” a story about Holden Caulfield’s three days in New York City after being kicked out of Pencey Prep.
One of the many young men influenced by the novel was W.P. Kinsella, author of “Shoeless Joe,” the novel that served as the inspiration for the movie “Field of Dreams,” filmed for the most part in rural Dyersville.
“Catcher in the Rye is the quintessential book about growing up male in North America,” said Kinsella, who read the book in 1952 as a 17-year-old. “There was nothing published in that genre, and it really did affect me.”
When Kinsella was in Iowa writing “Shoeless Joe,” he needed an adventure or two for the book’s lead character, Ray Kinsella.
“What if Ray went to New Hampshire to kidnap J.D. Salinger and take him to a baseball game?” Kinsella said.
That’s what happened in the book, but when it came time to adapt the book for the movie, the lone indirect interaction W.P. had with Salinger led movie producers in a different direction.
“Salinger’s lawyers contacted my lawyers and said they were very unhappy I portrayed Mr. Salinger in my book, and they would be even more unhappy if he was portrayed in any other kind of media,” W.P. said. “The movie folks took that to heart and didn’t put a Salinger character in the movie.”
Instead, James Earl Jones played Terence Mann, a character modeled after Salinger.
When W.P. decided to write “Shoeless Joe,” he read every Salinger work for research. Salinger used two characters with the last name Kinsella, Ray Kinsella in a 1947 story “A Young Girl in 1941 With No Waist at All,” and Richard Kinsella, a minor character in “The Catcher in the Rye.”
“I was thrilled to find that,” W.P. said. “I named my Ray Kinsella after Salinger’s character, not myself.”

Me at the Field of Dreams outside of Dyersville, Iowa

How should the NFL’s No. 1 draft pick be determined?

One of the sportswriters at the Telegraph Herald is a huge Indianapolis Colts fan.

It’s been a hard season for him, with his superstar quarterback Peyton Manning out all season and the rest of the Colts meandering their way through a horrendous season where they have won only one game. I was joking with the sportswriter that the Colts, despite how bad they have been, are in danger of losing their No. 1 draft pick, which the NFL automatically awards to the team with the worst record.

Two other teams, the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings, have two wins. It’s conceivable that the three teams could tie for the worst record in football. What then? It’s determined next by strength of schedule, and then divisional and conference records.

Another sportswriter asked if the NFL should adopt the NBA’s method for determining the No. 1 pick, where teams have a certain number of balls entered into a lottery based on their record. The team with the worst record has the most balls in the lottery, and, in theory, the best chance to win the No. 1 pick. It hasn’t worked. Out of 18 years of the modern NBA lottery format, the worst team has obtained the No. 1 pick only twice, or 11 percent of the time.

The NFL shouldn’t adopt that system. I have another proposal. During the weeks of the playoffs to determine who is going to play in the Super Bowl, the four worst teams should have a playoff of their own to determine who will get the No. 1 pick. Seed the four worst teams by record and criteria mentioned above, and have them play for the pick.

One of the sportswriters said, hey, Jim, then shouldn’t the team that lost the worst get the No. 1 pick? Good thought, but if the four worst teams have something to play for, they will be motivated. They will play with conviction. They will want to win two games to secure the top pick in the draft.

I’m aware these games may not draw the television audience the playoff games would, but nothing says they would have to be shown on television. Maybe they aren’t, or they are shown before a regular playoff game as a warm-up for the fans. This year, the Colts would play the Browns, Jaguars or Buccaneers, which all have four losses, and the Vikings would play the Rams.

Maybe I’ll write a letter to the NFL sharing my idea. I’m ready for some more football.