In the News

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Temper Tantrum Common Sense Handbook, by Judy Colbert

Hillel Kuttler of Baltimore, Maryland, says when his son “Joseph (‘Yossi’) was about three, he threw a tantrum if he didn’t get what he wanted. He’d lay on the floor, face down, and hit the floor with his hands. This happened a few times.

“I was stunned the first time and did not know how to handle it. I de­cided to use a dad’s ingenuity and love of sports. I pretended to be a boxing referee who is counting out a fighter who has been knocked down. Like a referee, with each number, I pointed at the fighter who is down.

“ ‘ONE! TWO! THREE! ...’ on to 10. I put up a finger for each number, just as a referee would. At the count of 10, I gave the standard referee hori­zontal-hands signal (like a baseball umpire signaling “safe”). Instead of saying, ‘knockout’ or ‘the fight’s over,’ I pronounced, ‘tantrum! tantrum! tantrum!’

“He was taken aback, then decided he didn’t like it -- that I was making fun of him. The result, though, was that the tantrums stopped and he learned to say, or express in other ways, what bothered him.”

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www.TuffTurtle.com/tantrums.htm

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9/17/2015

9 Comments

The Biblical Image by Igor Paley. Just saying.

There is something ancient about the National Pastime that evokes the spiritual, the other-worldly. I submit “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams.”

Now two friends of mine have written topical essays about the overlap between baseball and the Jewish holy days.

In New York, we are used to glorious weather for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Last Sunday, the rain stopped right around sundown on the Jewish New Year to let the United States Open begin, albeit three hours late. Tennis fans did not have to be Jewish to benefit from the cessation.

The baseball season is always in its crucial days when the holy days arrive. My friend Mendel Horowitz, rabbi and family therapist in Israel, who often contributes insightful comments on this site, has written about the intersection of the sacred and the profane. Here is the link from the Washington Post the other day:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09/16/yom-kippur-is-about-to-collide-with-baseball-but-the-two-go-so-naturally-together/

And my friend Hillel Kuttler from Baltimore has written about an event half a century ago, when Sandy Koufax chose to not pitch the opening game of the World Series on Yom Kippur. Kuttler discusses the message Koufax sent to Jews (and others.) The link from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

http://www.jta.org/2015/09/08/life-religion/why-sandy-koufax-sitting-out-a-world-series-game-still-matters-50-years-later

I covered that World Series in Minnesota, when Don Drysdale, the second ace, was hammered. Kuttler repeats the anecdote that when manager Walter Alston came to the mound to take him out in the third inning, Drysdale said, "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too." Everybody low-keyed that observance, including Koufax. He just never worked on that day. The Dodgers won the Series anyway.

Woe to people who ignore the holy days. In 1986, Major League Baseball scheduled a night game and a subsequent day game -- not one game but two -- within the 24 hours of Yom Kippur. In New York.

I’m not Jewish, but I know from chutzpah. My column on Oct. 1, 1986, predicted a deluge:  

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/01/sports/sports-of-the-times-mets-forecast-a-deluge.html

The Sunday night game was rained out. Of course. Mendel Horowitz and Hillel Kuttler understand. 

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Another mention by the great George Vecsey:
(http://www.georgevecsey.com/home/mets-yanks-first-honks-of-spring-just-in-time)
Spring Training Pheenoms Are the Perfect Antidote 

3/4/2017

28 Comments

The boyz are back in townI’m having so much fun with spring training baseball, I’m sticking with it. On Friday I watched two of the Mets’ best prospects, Dominic Smith and Amed Rosario, enter an exhibition mid-way and lash hits (off a shell-shocked kid pitcher, to be sure.) They looked so confident -- the way Gary Sanchez did when he arrived with the Yankees during last season. (How nice for them.) This is the stuff of spring training. Some of them are strictly Marchpheenoms – who’s old enough to remember massive Clint Hartung of the New York Giants a zillion years ago? But sometimes young players are the real thing. Smith plays first base and Rosario plays shortstop. Gary Apple and Ron Darling on SNY-TV were chattering about how both were being groomed for 2018 – but maybe sooner, depending, etc. What baseball fan does not love this kind of talk? It sustains me in March. For the moment, I can even shut out the image of the blundering lout somebody elected president. Go Dominic Smith. Go Amed Rosario. Go Gary Sanchez. 

We live on a flyway, between two bays. The other morning I went outside and heard honking – hundreds of geese, flying high, moving fast, in a V formation, heading north.

These guys must know something, I thought. And sure enough, the geese were soon followed by ball games, on the radio and on the tube, from a warmer place.

Bread and circuses? It’s time for diversion – baseball, even better than the caloricHershey Kisses being ingested by the very funny Joyce Wadler in her Sunday column in the Times. (You know whom she blames for her chocolate binge: her mom…and Trump.)

I got something healthier for you. My email from my friend Big Al said:  
Yanks-Phils 1 PM on YES. Life begins anew.
Big Al is a Yankee fan. What can I say?

I found the first Mets game on the radio Friday while idling in the horrendous traffic at LaGuardia Airport. The Mets brought mostly a B squad to Fort Myers, but there was Howie Rose with his haimish accent, straight-from-the-upper-deck-at-Shea.

Howie was filling us in on the 11 Mets who will be playing in the Baseball Classic, the world-cup-for-hardball, in March, including Ty Kelly playing for Israel. (Read Hillel Kuttler’s piece:  Kelly’s mom is Jewish.)  

It was delightful to sit in traffic with something important to think about that did not involve mental health and ineptitude and malice – the depth of the Mets’ system that has decent players like Kelly and T.J. Rivera scrambling for spots. Rooting for underdogs is so very baseball, so very New York.

Time for a viewing of the 2017 Mets. On Saturday, my pal Gary and I sat in his living room and watched on SNY as the Mets played a home exhibition in 86-degree Port St. Lucie.

The first treat was hearing the broadcasters, Gary Cohen and Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, the familiar banter and expertise.

As is only normal we heard about other preoccupations – Seton Hall basketball for Cohen, a delightful 1-year-old son for Darling, and a bad knee that may require replacement for Hernandez. The docs better make sure Hernandez can still scoop up a bunt and fire to third base.

But enough about the main act. There was also the undercard -- the 2017 Mets, a work in progress. Lucas Duda was missing because of injections into his aching hips. Jacob DeGrom was sporting a totally hideous mustache that negates his flowing hair and beatific smile. Good old David Wright, in yet another comeback, hit a fly ball and later beamed as he talked about his 1-year-old son.

Washington brought along some A-List sluggers, Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy, and lifer manager Dusty Baker in the dugout, working his toothpick.

A moment of terror as the Mets’ Kevin Plawecki had his knee put into reverse in a home-plate collision, followed by at least a dozen horrifying replays and relieved applause as he hobbled off the field, (Update: x-rays negative, better than could have been imagined.)

The broadcasters did what they do best. They digressed, about the new rule that allows an automatic base on balls. Darling pronounced it “nothing.” Better they install a time clock for pitchers.

Hernandez and Darling bickered over the use of colored grease pens for cast-of-thousands exhibitions. Cohen presided with a paternal sigh.

​My pal and I watched the entire three-hour marathon. The players. The manager and coaches. The broadcasters. The fans – no politics in evidence – watching the long game. Life under the flyway, enjoying the first honks of spring.