From Curt to Brusque

I was waiting to get a tire repaired, of sorts, when the ESPN folks let the cat out of the bag. After a report on the NCAA Women's tournament had Ball State (first appearance at the dance in school history) beating defending champion, Tennessee and not in a squeaker, but a real thumping.

My son who rarely has a day off and when he does I'm always stunned when he spends it with me, was my wingman as I had, yet again, a leak in a new tire (part of a set of four new tires) examined for the third time in five months, since purchase. I'm starting to think maybe no one is really interested in repairing the problem. Actually, the guys in the tire place did the best they could, they always do, and removed what they said was some corrosion on a piece of the rim that was keeping the bead from making a good seal. Read that sentence again, I'll wait. Sounds like I really know what they're talking about, doesn't it? No clue. I'm a parrot on this stuff able to memorize about seventy-five seconds of jargon that I can then playback to technicians of any manner on any subject at anytime. Johnson rods, Finnegan bolts, video go-faster connectors, I have a ready stock of pseudo-gibberish that helps me blend.

Surrounded by stacks of tires taller than either of us, we watched ESPN Sports Center while one of the battalion of tire folks dinked with the car. I don't understand tire stores--the guys I see going into them, again yesterday, disappear into the stacks of rubber piled on its side, in search of I know not what. It seems, however, that they do. And that they are very particular about what tire goes where on what. All I know about tires is they're round and seem to be black. Once you've satisfied those two conditions, I am a happy guy. My son speaks of 'directional tires' and wall weight and size ratios and I pray for a chance to work in my Finnegan bolt anecdote.

We hadn't gotten that far yesterday, when the ESPN story became the retirement of Curt Schilling from baseball after twenty major league seasons. Citing his blog, 38pitches, ESPN announced Schilling was calling it quits. He thanked, in order, the Lord Jesus Christ and his wife and four children, all of whose names begin with a "G". When you pull the string from his blog, you'll encounter hundreds, if not by now, thousands of comments, from all over the perspective and baseball nation that praise him and damn him in the same breath, and often in the same paragraph.

I am, as you must know by know, a NY Yankees fan--and so my feelings are rightfully suspect on Schilling's announcement. In light of what he did for a living-at the level at which he did it and with the rate of success he enjoyed for such a long period of time, of course he was an egomaniac. Anyone who is any good in major league baseball, and hate him if you like, but #38 was spectacular, has to be a consummate egotist. Almost everything they do or say off the field no one cares about--not true for Schilling and I didn't like a lot of what he said, but I had trouble disagreeing with a lot of it. His take on steroids and the posers and fakers who used them--made my teeth ache and yet, I had to nod my head in agreement.

When he announced whenever it was, some months back, after becoming a free agent, that he'd entertain offers from any team in baseball except the Yankees, I smiled. You've gotta love a guy who is that willing to be a horse's fanny, for the sheer principle of it. The TV talking heads yesterday speculated on his chances of getting to the Hall of Fame. He, and Randy Johnson, beat the Yankees in 2001 to give Arizona its only World Series and he altered forever the dynamic of the greatest rivalry in baseball, Yankees-Red Sox, just by signing on to pitch in Fenway. If he's not elected to Cooperstown five summers from now, it will only be because we've stopped playing baseball. "Turn out the lights, the party's over. They say that all good things must end. Call it tonight, the party's over and tomorrow starts the same old thing again."
-bill kenny