Hello again.  Since my last post I and my teammates with the Akron Aeros have continued rolling along, sweeping three games from the Reading Phillies on our way to a spot against either the Connecticut Defenders or New Britain Rock Cats in the Eastern League championship series.  I threw twice in the series, registering a scoreless inning to finish game two and allowing a meaningless run in the eighth inning of last night’s series finale.  As I mentioned last time, it was refreshing to give up a lead-off triple in the eighth inning and be able to look up at the scoreboard and think to myself that as long as I didn’t give up five more of those and turned the ball over to the next guy with the lead in tact I had done my job.  In the playoffs the only thing that matters is the final score and it is nice to view the game in that light for once, rather than being primarily concerned with my individual numbers and knowing that if they are good it will probably help the team win games.  We are now in Connecticut awaiting the outcome of the first round series on the other half of the draw, in the northern division.

 

In the interim between my last post and now, there has been precious little to report in off-field news.  I have mostly finished packing up the apartment in Akron and tied up many of the loose ends there so all there is left to do is push off once the season comes to a conclusion.  I started and finished John W. Dean’s interesting and educating (if somewhat predictably toned) book Broken Government in the last couple days in addition to what is certainly one of the best books I have read in recent memory, Richard Wright’s Native Son.  It is an extremely compelling novel and if you haven’t read it I command you to go pick it up immediately.  Well, I guess you don’t have to, but it really is a must read.  Beyond that, there really is nothing new to report.  I had hoped to check out a Chuck Close exhibition at the Akron Art Museum, but I’m not sure at this point if the scheduling is going to work out to allow me to go.  If I make it though, you’ll be sure to hear about it.  Look for updates on the playoffs soon and until next time I’ll leave you with a poem by Mark Strand from his award-winning collection Blizzard of One.

 

A Piece of the Storm

By Mark Strand

 

From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,

A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room

And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up

From your book, saw it the moment it landed.  That’s all

There was to it. No more than a solemn waking

To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,

A time between times, a flowerless funeral.  No more than that

Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,

Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,

That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:

“It’s time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening.”