Baltimore Diary

Rockets' Red Glare

Rose: I had the strangest dream last night. I was at a baseball game. Charlie Brown was pitching, Shroeder was behind the plate, Lucy and Snoopy were in center field, and they wouldn't let me play. When I woke up, I was crying. What do you think it is?
Dorothy: Peanuts envy?

—The Golden Girls, "Cheaters" (3/23/90)

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My brother was in town this past weekend. He's only been here once before and we didn't get a lot of visiting time then, so he and I were both determined that he get a pretty good look at the Baltimore area.

We had tickets to the Orioles game on Friday, so we originally planned to hang around the harbor all afternoon. I realized, however, that even for a tourist that gets old quickly, so after emerging from the tunnel and jumping out onto Key Highway, our first stop was at Fort McHenry. We didn't go into the fort itself, but they got to hear the story of how Francis Scott Key was out in the harbor and saw that our flag was still there and was inspired to write "This Land is Your Land" as sung by drunken Brits. Or some such. He got a story, anyway, and was duly impressed.

From there we went down to Nick's Fish House in Port Covington for a bite to eat. GF and I basically had the same thing, except mine involved bread. S-I-L had a soft shell crab sandwich, and I say More Power To Her, since I'll pick a crab but I don't know about those soft shell jobbies. My brother, ever the brave one when it came to seafood, ordered a steak. I presume that this is the reason that we had to wait so long for our food, since in my experience they're not usually that slow. My guess is, they had to send someone out to the Safeway to get the steak. We ate on their outdoor deck and enjoyed the view and the breeze and such.

Our next stop was (finally) the Inner Harbor. We parked in that ground-level lot across the street and strolled the promenade from the Visitor Center to the Aquarium. On the way back we strolled through some of the shops so we could use the rest rooms and get something to drink. From there we walked up Conway Street to the stadium.

Our seats were in Section 47, which are pretty good seats although were were apparently in Pittsburgh Pirate Country that night. Had a few more Orioles fans shown up in our section, it might have been a little more endurable, especially since the first three innings of the game were nothing short of excruciating. By the end of three innings, the Pirates were ahead, 6-1. This game, by the way, was the first time the O's have played Pittsburgh since the 1979 World Series. Anyway, the O's woke up in the fourth inning and went on to win the game, 9-6. So it was pretty exciting all around. And, as we left the stadium, we were treated to a fireworks show that went for 15-20 minutes after the game. We stood on Conway Street and basked in the lights and the noise before heading back to the car.

So, quite coincidentally, my brother and his wife started their tour of Baltimore with the Rocket's Red Glare and Bombs Bursting in Air, and ended it the same way. Cool.

A Local Legend Falls

—Wide World of Sports intro (ca. 1972)

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By now I'm sure you're aware of the news that sportscaster and Monkton resident Jim McKay has died at the age of 87. Curiously, the Sun reported the story without mentioning that he was once a reporter there. (Oops.) He gave up that job in 1947 to become THE first voice Baltimoreans ever heard on television, on WMAR.

UPDATE 6/9/08: They've finally caught on to their omission. I'm not saying that's because they saw something here, but I have no reason to think it isn't, so I'm just going to go ahead and take credit for it.

Although he was well-known among the Horsey Set in Maryland (He's the founder of Maryland Million Day), Jim McKay was perhaps best known for two things: host of ABC's Wide World of Sports and his coverage of twelve Olympic games. Most people joke that they usually tuned in to see the "agony of defeat" guy fall off the ski ramp, but the fact remains that in the days before there were eight thousand versions of ESPN and its like available, Wide World of Sports was the one place that people had to see athletic competitions that weren't local, weren't championship games and were unlikely to get any television coverage at all. You could argue (much as you do for ESPN nowadays) that the "sports" aspect of some of these events might be a little thin (Lumberjacking? Chess?), but the show's inclusiveness was part of its greatness.

McKay also distinguished himself by being television's point man during the Munich Olympic Games in the summer 1972. I remember this well because the Winter Games, in Sapporo, Japan, took place around the time of my birthday. My friend came to the house for a sleepover and my father put a TV in the bedroom so that we could stay up late and watch the games. As a result I had a lot of interest in the Olympics when the Summer Games came around.

About midway through the events, on September 5, Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes hostage, demanding the release of prisoners in Israeli and Geman jails. 18 hours and an aborted rescue attempt later, it was over and the entire Israeli team was dead. That particular Olympics should have been marked by the athletic triumphs of Olga Korbut and Mark Spitz. It's unfortunate, but instead we usually remember it with the footage of McKay ending the drama:

"When I was a kid my father used to say our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said there were eleven hostages; two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone."

But even McKay, who thought that the subsequent 34-hour stoppage of the Games was a bit short, recognized that even though the Olympics, and sports in general, lost their innocence that day, he also saw that when you're out there Spanning the Globe, it's not just about Munich. And he helped us get back on track as the Games, and our lives, resumed.

So to you, Mr. McKay, I say thank you and goodbye.  

Outro to Wide World of Sports, 1982 

Leading Cheers, Again

Torrance Shipman: Ever been to a cheerleading competition?
Missy: Oh, you mean like a football game?
Torrance Shipman: No, not a game, those are like practices for us. I'm talking about a tournament. ESPN cameras all around. Hundreds of people cheering.
Cliff: Wait a minute, people cheering... cheerleaders?

--Bring It On (2000)

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Perhaps ESPN wasn't on hand, but when you go to a cheerleading tournament at the First Mariner Arena, you know it's a pretty big deal. And don't let anyone try to convince you that competitive cheering isn't a sport, as you'll see if you watch the video.

GF and I took Wee One to the arena at 7:00 am on Sunday morning. Teams were gathering and organizing on the Hopkins Place side. Some teams came in by bus. At least one team came in using stretch limos, which seems a little...yeah, I don't know. We left the girls and went to the entrance.

The entryway was a mess, with people everywhere and not having much place to go, as they weren't allowing anyone into the arena itself. A rudimentary line of sorts was forming, but it wasn't formed very well. However, some people tried to nudge their way into it, and other people started protesting. It was starting to get ugly. The reason for all this is that the tickets we had were General Admission. This is the sort of thing that gets people stomped at concerts by The Who.

We got inside and managed to get some pretty good seats, thanks to another team mom who knew exactly where to go. We were in Section 107, which is just to the left of the mat, and about six rows back.

The teams that attended this meet were pretty much the same ones that attended the last one a couple of weeks ago. At that meet, Wee One's squad went literally from Worst to First, having been badly beaten in the first meet, so they were definitely The Ones To Beat. However, beating this squad wasn't going to happen. When you watch this, remember that Wee One is the oldest girl in the crowd, at eight years old. (She's the redheaded one who starts to the far left; the camera trails on her as the last one to get to the mat.)

(Click here if you can't see the video above.)

The first thing they do as a group, where they lift, lower and re-lift a girl is called a "pendulum", and it's a pretty high-end routine for this group. The two women in the background who step onto the mat during the "builds" are official spotters. Off camera to each side are Safety Judges, who assess only the safety of the routine (as in, whether appropriate precautions are taken). There are a half-dozen other judges who are seated directly in front of the mat. Each of them has a specialty area, and they all offer an "overall" score. Points get taken away for things like performers bumping into each other, or moving to the wrong place. Stepping off the mat during the routine is a big no-no. It's a faux pas akin to dropping a cheerleader (which, duh, is another big hit on your points). At the end of the video, it's the coaches to whom the girls run for the big hugs.

Despite the level of organization with getting teams ready, on-deck and so forth, and that only five minutes is allotted to each team, there are still a LOT of groups to get through, and they started around 9:15, finishing after noon. Two groups got to go up a second time because of a problem with their music, but in the end it didn't do those groups much good. Then there was an intermission while the professional cheerleaders from the Baltimore Blast did an exhibition, during which the scores were tallied.

We don't get to hear the scores themselves, but we are told where each team places. They do it in reverse order: Sixth place, fifth place and so forth. As the team is called, they jump up from the floor (where they've all assembled during the intermission) and head over to the tables where the prizes are. Anything out of Third Place gets a "participant" trophy.

It's funny: when the girls are this young and it gets close to the end, they don't always understand that if Second Place has been called and they haven't heard their name yet, then they've won. They always wait for the guy to announce First Place. Of course, the coaches are already going berserk by then.

In one case, I could see a girl on another squad hear her team called as being in Fourth Place (last for that group). You could see that she understood that they'd clearly taken last place. It's hard to stand up and slump at the same time, but this poor kid managed it.

So that's it for this year. Next year she'll move up into the next age level, and the coaches will rise with her. The competition at that age level is pretty tough, as I saw here, but I think these girls are equal to the task.

After all, they've got two First Place trophies to defend.

Where Ogling Gets You Put on a Special List

Joan: Well I can't do any stunts. No, No, and how about the jumps? So, so. So why am I here, well it's really odd, but I'm here to cheer on a mission from God. So put me in the game or leave me on the bench, so you can go to heaven and I'll get out of French.

—Joan of Arcadia, "Bringeth it On" (10/31/03)

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Wee One has spent a chunk of the summer and fall in Cheerleading. Since the City doesn't appear to have a program, she joined through Baltimore County Recreation. (Living in a border neighborhood does have a few advantages.)

Despite being 8 years old, she was placed in the 5-7 group because she'd never been in Cheerleading before. This irritated GF a little but she got over it. So off we went, to practice twice a week and ultimately going to actually cheer at Harford/Baltimore County Youth Football games. There are different cheerleading squads for different age groups, and likewise the teams. So the girls got to cheer for the Parkville Patriots (color scheme the same as the New England team) in the same age group.

The Patriots are, to be blunt, not a very good team, but it's only fair to point out that all of the boys are new to football. There's a younger age group, but apparently none of them aged out to this group, or whoever did age out, didn't continue playing. So what we have is an entire team of rookies. They have one game left, and I think their record is 0-137, although I did hear that one game we didn't attend, they actually won. And the girls were out there every week, cheering on the boys.

In addition to the games, however, there is some cheering competition. There are three meets in this realm. The first one we missed because of being in Florida, but I hear that we placed sixth out of seven teams. Yikes.

Yesterday was the second meet, which was held at CCBC Dundalk. We got there shortly after 8:00 to get Wee One registered, and then we got on line to get ourselves in. At 9:00 the gates opened. 

Not having done this sort of thing before, we had to wander around a little bit before we got the gist of what was going on. And by "wander around", I mean that we pretty much circumnavigated the field before we realized that we were supposed to be about twenty feet from where we started. But they had the field roped off, and the assorted teams within the ropes, in a pair of lines that surrounded an open area with a huge gym mat. At either end were tents with various support services, including a DJ/announcer tent, a place where the EMTs were stationed, and a staging area for teams getting ready to go on. The parents would, therefore, sit behind the roped-off area designated for their own kids. And they'd only sit if they brought their own chairs. Fortunately, we were prepared. We staked out our space and put up our chairs.   

The schedule was pretty tight, what with each team being scheduled in five-minute increments. Still, they actually managed to get ahead of schedule until one of the girls fell from a "build" (where they lift a girl above the others), and hurt her leg. Everything stopped for awhile until they determined that she was okay and a bit shook up. They gave the team a few minutes to regroup and allowed them to present again. Naturally, points were taken off for nearly killing one of the team, but overall they weren't bad. But now we're running late. 

But still, when there are eight or nine different squads participating and different age groups, this sort of thing is going to take a lot of time. Wee One's squad went on at about 10:20 AM but you stay around to see who gets the award. All of the awards were given at the end of the morning session.

Let me tell you something: all of the girls really got out there and gave it their all. But the Parkville 5-7 group really took their prior showing to heart and worked their butts off over the past two weeks. Practice went from two days a week to three (which is OK under the rules; teams can't do more than 10 hours per week and we went from four to six), and (here's the important part) parents were discouraged from hanging around practice. This, I think, went a long way toward getting the girls to do what needed to be done. They didn't have the helicopter moms interfering with everything, and they didn't have to deal with the kids constantly craning their necks to see if mom saw the cool move.

Also, Wee One has been determined, for the last month or so, to perfect her cartwheeling skills. She has a congenital problem with her leg, which doesn't affect her mobility, but it can make her clutzy from time to time. So this kid would practice her cartwheels for literally hours at a time. I know for a fact that a couple of days last week she finished her homework and asked to go out, not to play, but to practice cartwheels in the front yard. And practice she did, until supper was ready two hours later.

I have to imagine that most of the girls worked this hard, because they were fantastic. I won't say they were flawless, because they weren't, but I saw stuff out there that I didn't think they'd be capable of a couple of weeks ago. And, it paid off: Her squad took First Place for their division.

You don't know ear pain until you've been in the center of a hundred females screaming at the top of their lungs.   

The One Happy Person In Baltimore

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Toby Ziegler: You're a good deputy, Sam.
Sam Seaborn: What do you mean?
Toby: That.
Sam Seaborn: You won money on football today, didn't you?
Toby: Yeah, but I mean it anyway.

—The West Wing, "War Crimes", 11/7/01

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...would be GF, who dislikes the Ravens with the white-hot intensity of a thousand nuns.

She doesn't care about the whole "Colts sneaking out in the dead of night" thing 'way back when. The part that bugs her is the CFL team that, in her opinion, was ignominiously booted out of the city to make way for the Ravens. I've heard someone argue to her that the CFL team (whose name I don't know and can't be arsed to look up) was given fair warning that this is exactly what would happen should an NFL franchise come to town. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it holds no water for her.

[update: I've since learned that they were called the "Stallions". Nowadays they're the Montreal Alouettes, and I guess we all need to apologize to them for that.]

I've seen T-shirts that read "My favorite teams are the Orioles and anybody playing against the Yankees". Hers would read "My favorite teams are anybody playing against the Ravens." It's actually gotten to the point where I've had to call her out for being kind of cheap and mean-spirited in her overall attitude. She resented that, but managed to settle down a little bit.

So yeah, the game was a pretty big disappointment and the finger-pointing has yet to stop even now, two days later. But the Colts played better than we expected and kudos to them. I guess we have to let someone else kick their asses.

Philadelphia v. Tampa Bay Redux

Little Boy: [watching the Warlock play a handheld football game] Hey, you can't punt on first down; no-one punts on first down, not even Tampa Bay!

--Warlock, 1989

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Incidentally, the actor child in that scene probably doesn't know it, but he's distantly related to me.

Once again Tampa Bay has proven victorious over Philadelphia. On Thursday it was hockey vs. the Flyers; today it was in football against the Eagles. It was a squeaker, too, with a 62-yard field goal in the last four seconds of the game that put the Bucs ahead. Prior to this game, Matt Bryant, the kicker, has been having trouble hitting field goals of more than 40 yards. Today he's got the record for third-longest field goal (two others have tied at 63 yards) EVER.

Which means that my brother, superstitious guy that he is, may have to fly me down here every weekend, where I'll wear his Mike Alstott jersey during the games. I'm willing to make that sacrifice if that's what it takes.

Lightning Under Clear Skies

Lewis Black [after the 2003 Stanley Cup finals]: This is how lame hockey has gotten: the country that invented it lost to a country that doesn't care about it, in a state that has NO natural ice!

--The Daily Show, 2003

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Yesterday's flight was uneventful, which figures because otherwise I'd have something to write about here. But here's one of those things that you don't notice in a timely fashion. Summers in Baltimore are usually pretty humid. I can take the heat, but that humidity is something else again. Having said that, I didn't notice how humid Baltimore has NOT been lately. Not until I got out of the airport terminal and got smacked in the face with the Hot, Wet Towel of Tampa heat. It's in the 80s this week and just plain muggy.

(note to self: "shift" and "enter" aren't the same key. Pay attention when you type.)

I didn't sleep very well the night before; I think it's just another sign of how badly I needed to be away for a few days. This has been happening a lot, and it's making me pretty crabby. So I just kind of stumbled through the day with my mother, stepfather and grandmother, maintaining conversation and not much else.

I've already told them that my one set of plans involved going to the hockey game. Naturally, they already made plans for everyone to go out to dinner tonight. But I can live with that.  At one point I went into the living room and sat in that room on the sofa, alone, so I could just...I don't know, catnap, meditate, some damn thing. Which was the cue for my grandmother to come in and converse with me. So by the time I got to my brother's I was half-drunk from sleep deprivation.

That, of course, means that the first thing we're going to do is have a shot of vodka. And perhaps another. We had some dinner and then my brother and I got our acts together to head down to the arena.

(another note to self: attend more hockey games. Girl hockey fans are hot, at least around here.)

One of the things that I enjoy doing when I go to sporting events is checking out the souvenir concessions. Every place has an assortment of T-shirts, sweats and hats, but the other stuff is usually pretty interesting. The Buccaneers, for instance, spent some time selling Goofy (the Disney character) bobbleheads dressed in a Bucs uniform. Someday I'll show you mine; I got one for free because I spent $40 on other crap about two years ago.

The Tampa Bay Lightning is selling ice.

Here's the story: when they won the Stanley Cup in 2003, someone got the idea to melt the ice and then collect the water. They put it in a lucite cube and embedded it in a hockey puck. You can still get one of these. Unfortunately, I can't find a picture. Shoulda snapped one with my phone, dammit.

Here's another Tampa Bay Stanley Cup story: the guy who drove the Zamboni that year embedded a lucky charm into the center ice. Apparently that's not against the rules, not that the building managers were thrilled with the idea. Here's a link to that story. 

So last night the Bolts won, 4-1. There was a scoreless first period, then two unanswered goals in the second. The second period also had a fight on the ice that was more like a hissy fit. The third period was more exciting overall: first the Flyers put one in that they had no business getting, then there was a much bigger fight on the ice. Doug Janik took a wicked uppercut from Philadelphia's Ben Eager and wound up getting six stitches. Shortly thereafter another fight broke out, but it was in Section 308 and involved a couple of women. When the arena security came in, one of them went after the security guard. I presume that this woman is now aware that sports arenas have their own jails. Two more goals on the part of Tampa Bay and that was that.

After the game we went across the street to Dave Andreychuk's Grille (scroll to the second story) for a couple of beers and to alternate between watching the waitstaff and their improbable breasts go by, and watching the Mets lose to the Cardinals. So that was a good news/bad news situation.

And I got nine solid hours of sleep last night.

Gone, Daddy, Gone

Elaine Dickinson: There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?

Airplane!, 1980

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Tomorrow morning I'm off to Florida. This is my first break from work since Christmas.

No kidding; I worked through parts of Spring Break, covering for my boss, then there was no letup during the summer because of the calendar changes for us. I've been fraying around the edges for awhile, now. It's a bad sign when you sweat the work details and then sweat the vacation because you thing everything will go to hell while you're away.

By this time tomorrow night I'll be on my way out of the St. Petersburg Times Arena, having just seen the Tampa Bay Lightning play against the Philadelphia Flyers. That's the one thing I have planned between now and Monday night, when I return. Of course, whenever my brother gets involved with anything there's going to be a story attached to it, so stay tuned.

Hockey, Si; Football, No

I've been making plans for my now-annual long weekend pilgrimage to God's Waiting Room Florida.

My brother has been trying to score tickets for the Bucs/Eagles game that's on Sunday the 22nd, but last I heard he hasn't had much luck. I, on the other hand, managed to get a pair for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are playing at the St. Petersburg Times Forum on the 19th, the day I arrive. And they'll be playing against the Flyers. So either way it'll be against Philadelphia.

Maybe it's just as well that we're not going to the Bucs game; the only thing that keeps their record from being 0-5 at this point is that last week was their bye week. Meanwhile the local boys (Ravens, dopey) are 4-0 going into Monday Night Football, which will be interrupted by Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The other good thing about this is that, if we don't go, my brother tells me that we're already invited over to his neighbor's place to watch the game. So I don't have to cook for Game Day. For a change.

Play Ball! Epilogue

The results came out today.

Andre's essay didn't win the ballfield contest. But as a finalist, his field will get $5000 toward refurbishment, so that should be a big help.

The winner was a girl in Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts.

I'm familiar with one other field on the list (not gonna name it), and frankly I'm disappointed by their mere presence on the list. The field involved is in a relatively affluent community and I can't imagine why they couldn't get sponsorships to get it fixed up. I'm sure it's not the only one which is looking for a "quick fix," though.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote for Andre, and to the folks who took the story over to their own sites!