Injuries

Injuries

So I must admit, I’ve been mildly annoyed at all the Barry Bonds stories. No, not those stories about how he’s the most amazing baseball player and how happy all of America is to see him break this legendary record. And not those other stories. A-L-L-E-G-E-D-L-Y, you can spell that, no? And not those stories about all these people who flock to his away games to go booh him when he comes up at bat, while secretly hoping that he hits a home run against their own team. That’s not annoying, that’s kinda funny, actually.

No, the stories that really get to me are the ones that make it sound like he’s older than dirt. You know, the ones that act as though it’s perfectly understandable for him to not play in a day game after a night game, or that it’s OK for him not to participate in the home run derby when the All-Star Game is in his own home stadium, or that even hint at not renewing his contract, all because he’s ALLEGEDLY too old. Just because you’re over 40 does not mean that you shouldn’t be able to… oh wait… maybe it does.

So what brought all this on is that I’m in pain. On the Advil scale, it’s about a 3, which is the level at which you say “who needs kidneys anyway, I’m taking double the recommended dose.”

In a strange coincidence, I did play baseball again for the first time in a while last weekend. Funny how you forget all those things you teach your players about always stretching, when it’s just you and your friend playing for fun. And not really fair, how your arm doesn’t start to hurt until it’s so way too late…

And then this weekend we bottled the 2005 zinfandel… 1452 bottles of the most beautiful wine you have ever seen. Every one of which each of us either stacked, or filled, or put in the corking thingie, or slammed a cork in, or grabbed and put a label on, or put a cap on, or put back in a case and taped up. And each of those 121 cases we bucket-brigaded up the stairs out of the cellar.

And then to cap it off, yesterday I went to the beach. The good news, it was a beautiful day on my favorite beach and I saw whales and pelicans and sea lions and no sharks and best of all, the waves were unexpectedly big. The bad news, it’s quite impressive how quickly you learn that you’re not made out of rubber bands when you get slammed by a good-sized wave and your head hits your board just right.

Made me realize I’m almost as old as Barry Bonds.

And Barry Bonds is older than dirt.