Hello again out there.  Sorry for being a bit over a week between posts, but I no longer have internet access in my apartment so I had to find a convenient time to stop off at the library and write.  The major development since my last post is the ending of the regular season.  It is hard to believe but after 142 games the regular season is over and it is finally time for the playoffs.  As a team we had an outstanding year.  We spent a grand total of zero games at or below .500 and were in first place in our division for every day of the season.  Our team also produced the Eastern League’s Player of the Year (Carlos Santana), Pitcher Player of the Year (Jeanmar Gomez) and Manager Player of the Year (Mike Sarbaugh) in addition to excellent performances by several other players.  Heck, our closer Vinnie Pestano was only a save or two behind the league lead and he didn’t play at all after being shut down in early July with an “upper extremity” injury.  Personally, I ended the season on a roll that pulled my overall numbers from mediocre at the all-star break to pretty good by season’s end, and I managed to just sneak in under the 3.00 ERA mark so I’d have to consider it a successful season.  My long string of good performance was almost marred by a poor outing to end the season, but I managed to minimize the damage, keep my overall numbers in a satisfactory range, and end the season on a positive note.  None of those numbers matter anymore, however, as it is now playoff time and the only numbers that matter are the numbers on the scoreboard at the end of the game.  We open up the playoffs at home against the Reading Phillies with high hopes.  We played well all season and ended the season with eight straight wins so hopefully we can carry that momentum into the playoffs against a tough Reading team.  Stay tuned for those results.

Away from the field most of my focus of late (other than this past weekend when my girlfriend was in town) has been on cleaning and packing up my apartment so that whenever our playoff run ends I can throw all my stuff in my car and leave at a moment’s notice.  This is genuinely one of the worst parts of being a minor league baseball player.  The awful bus travel, getting paid like an unpaid summer intern, crappy hotels, distance from family…the hassle of moving out at the end of the season is right up there with all of that.  The reason being that as players we are entirely responsible for setting up our own housing so despite the fact that we are setting up what amounts to temporary housing in our minds we still have to set everything up as though it were our permanent residence.  Throw in the facts that guys move around during the course of the year and  that we don’t know our move-out date because we are in the playoffs and it is a major headache.  Our cable and gas bills are set up through players who are no longer in Akron and getting a final walk through on our apartment will be impossible so we will be at the mercy of the complex management on the final condition of our apartment.  Fun times for all, capped off by long drives for most of us.  Aside from dealing with the annoyance that is our apartment situation I have been doing my typical reading, painting and exploring the area on foot when I get the chance.  On the heels of the sale of my first painting I decided to go back to the well again so I am working on selling another recently completed piece, again of what I would consider to be dubious workmanship but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  On the reading front I recently polished off Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick and I’m currently working on Richard Wright’s masterpiece Native Son.  I meant to read Native Son a few years ago when I went on an African-American literature kick over the winter, but I am just now getting around to reading it and I have been totally absorbed since the moment I picked it up.  Well, I should really get back to packing and cleaning before I head to the field.  Look for updates on the playoffs as they unfold and until next time, enjoy this poem.

Tell Me

By Anne Pierson Wiese

There are many people who spend their nights

on the subway trains. Often one encounters

them on the morning commute, settled int corners,

coats over their heads, ragged possessions heaped

around themselves, trying to remain in their own night.

This man was already up, bracing himself against

the motion of the train as he folded his blanket

the way my mother taught me, and donned his antique blazer,

his elderly sleep-soft eyes checking for the total effect.

Whoever you are–tell me what unforgiving series

of moments has added up to this one: a man

making himself presentable to the world in front

of the world, as if life has revealed to him the secret

that all our secrets from one another are imaginary.