Recent brushes with fame

This has been an interesting spring. I have had two chance meetings with two football luminaries in the past two months. (Two! Two! Two...!)

First, I was in Cleveland to visit my parents, and went to an upscale shopping village near their house. I was sitting with our new dog, Laila, outside a nice bookshop, waiting for Joshua to get out of the bathroom, when a nice looking, older, slightly husky man and his wife walk out of the bookstore. Instantly, I knew who he was.

"Excuse me, Mr. Holmgren?"

"Yes?" he replied.

Now, at this point, a fast thinker would probably say something like "Good luck with the Browns," or "May I have your autograph?" All I could manage was "Do us a favor...," to which his wife responded, as they kept walking, "No one wants to do it more than him!"

There I sat, with my dog, looking pretty flummoxed, probably. Oh, well.

Then, a few weeks ago, my family was in Miami Beach visiting my sister for a family event. On the way home, from Ft. Lauderdale airport, we were waiting for our JetBlue flight to Buffalo, when he walks up to the waiting area and watches the golf match on TV at the bar nearby. I recognize him immediately, and casually saunter over to my son to see if he has a pen and paper.

"Joshua, that is [name omitted], go get his autograph!"

Pretty cool. I spoke briefly with him regarding golf, and found out he was going to Buffalo for Jim Kelly's charity golf tournament for Hunter's Hope. (Please check out the charity. It is certainly admirable and has raised millions to search for a cure for the disease that took his son's life.)

Any guesses to the autograph? The departure point and the number under the signature should give it away.

Found gems

Every family goes on at least one vacation in their lifetime when they all pile into a car, drive for days at a time to get to a campsite or motor lodge, and on the way stop at the World's Second Largest Ball of Yarn, or some such nonsense. For me, that was the summer of 1977, when my family rented a motor home and took a three-week vacation to the Western U.S.

Starting from Cleveland, there isn't much until you hit the Mississippi River, and even then it is few and far between. Wall Drug. The Corn Palace. Places like that. Iowa is much the same with a lot of corn and open sky rolling by you on the highway.

One place my dad wanted to stop was there, in Iowa, at the hometown of his boyhood hero, Bob Feller. Van Meter, Iowa, near Des Moines. That was my dad's Field of Dreams.

I don't remember if we stopped there or not, and I doubt my father would remember anymore. However, we did stop in Amana. I distinctly remember stopping there, the Amish people, the factories. And Bill Zuber.

Bill Zuber will forever be linked with Bob Feller, not only because they were Iowa farmboys, but they both were pitchers and both broke into the big leagues with the Cleveland Indians in 1936. However, that is where the similarities end.

Feller, as everyone knows, turned out to be a Hall-of-Famer, pitched three no-hitters, twelve one-hitters, won 20 games six times and finished his career with 266 wins, 2581 strikeouts and a 3.25 ERA, all while giving up almost four full seasons in the service of his country. (For his service, he received five campaign ribbons with eight battle stars.) He pitched for the Indians until the end of his career in 1956.

Zuber did not serve in the military during WWII, and had an average career, going 43-42 with a 4.28 ERA for the Indians, Senators, Yankees and Red Sox.

However, on this particular day in this particular part of Iowa, we stopped at Bill Zuber's real legacy: Bill Zuber's Dugout, a restaurant in Homestead, Iowa. I don't remember much about it, and I can't say for sure whether I met the man himself, but I did find, amidst my parent's slides and pictures, this postcard with a facsimile autograph and Joe McCarthy's Ten Commandments of Baseball on the back.

That was a good enough reason for a young baseball fan to stop somewhere in Iowa.

More map reading:

I find the countries at the bottom the most interesting. For instance, there has been one visitor from the Islamic Republic of Iran. How does someone from Iran find my blog? Accidentally? Maybe. I'd like to think it is some kid somewhere who doesn't find the U.S. so bad and is searching out information on baseball cards and baseball in general.

Seychelles? I'd love to make a trade and hand-deliver it!

Israel? New Zealand? Both places I've visited and would love to go back. If you are any of these people, please send me an email or post a comment here. I'd love to strike up a conversation.

United States (US)	5,212
Canada (CA)	165
France (FR)	40
United Kingdom (GB)	24
India (IN)	11
China (CN)	10
Australia (AU)	10
Singapore (SG)	9
Venezuela (VE)	8
Thailand (TH)	7
Sweden (SE)	5
Brazil (BR)	5
Germany (DE)	4
Poland (PL)	4
New Zealand (NZ)	3
Japan (JP)	3
Portugal (PT)	2
Czech Republic (CZ)	2
Korea, Republic of (KR)	2
Taiwan (TW)	2
Spain (ES)	2
Philippines (PH)	2
Russian Federation (RU)	2
Mexico (MX)	2
Serbia (RS)	2
Malaysia (MY)	2
Costa Rica (CR)	2
Switzerland (CH)	1
Lithuania (LT)	1
Iceland (IS)	1
Estonia (EE)	1
Romania (RO)	1
Hungary (HU)	1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR)	1
Cayman Islands (KY)	1
Hong Kong (HK)	1
Dominican Republic (DO)	1
Puerto Rico (PR)	1
Seychelles (SC)	1
Saudi Arabia (SA)	1
Kuwait (KW)	1
Bulgaria (BG)	1
Greece (GR)	1
Lebanon (LB)	1
Israel (IL)	1
Italy (IT)                1

Family Trip

The reason for my recent absence is April Break for school kids. Mine, that is. We decided that a return visit to Washington, D.C. was in order, so we packed up the van and drove to our capital to visit the museums and walk many, many miles.

It was a great trip, and I can recommend any number of Smithsonian's, restaurants or federal buildings to visit, if you are so inclined. (Quickly: the Air & Space Museum at Dulles, Five Guys, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.)

I did get an evening, though, away from the girls so that the boys could go to the ballpark. The Atlanta Braves were in town to play the Nationals, and it was a beautiful but cool evening for a baseball game. Joshua and I went at gate opening time at 4:30 so that we could watch batting practice, maybe grab a practice home run or two, and see if we could get any autographs. 

Only a few dozen people sat in the left field seats while the Nationals were pounding the ball and warming up. The most impressive hitting display was put on by Adam Dunn, who hit one ball to straight away center field and into the second deck, halfway up. I would guess 470+ feet. A few homers came out our way, but Joshua was able to get two balls from the outfielders who were warming up. That made him VERY happy!

Once the main concourse opened, we made our way over to the Braves dugout and tried to get some autos. I took some pictures of the Braves during fielding practice, including a series of Chipper Jones photos that I will post later. However, I would have to say that the Braves are not very good about giving autographs, including Bobby Cox. Chipper would barely give anyone the time of day, and most of the Braves would walk by without even acknowledging an 11-year-old who wants you just to smile and wave at you. 

However, Brian McCann and Jordan Schafer were the two exceptions to that. McCann actually said to us that he would get back to us after his BP, and he did. He walked right over to the dugout, asked for the ball and pen, and signed for Joshua. Schafer did the same, though as he was coming off the field from shagging fly balls. 

Big fat raspberries to Jones, Cox, Kotchman, Escobar, Anderson, Francouer, and many of the other Braves. Great Big Kudos to McCann and Schafer. 

A few business, governmental types were on the field talking to the players and Bobby Cox on the top step of the dugout when we got there. I didn't know who they were, but as one tall gentleman in a nice grey suit was walking toward the dugout, someone yelled out "Hey, Senator Bunning, how 'bout an autograph?" He smiled, waved and surprisedly said "No, thanks!" before disappearing. There was an opportunity lost! Jim Bunning, in person. Oh well!

We enjoyed some chicken fingers, fries and a Cheesesteak before the game, and watched one of the most boring baseball games I have ever seen. The first five innings took 1-1/4 hours, there were very few hits, no runs, nothing exciting at all. Not suprising if Bunning and Clemens had been pitching, but Jurjjens and Lannan? We left in the eighth, and missed the excitement in the ninth when the go-ahead run was walked in by the Nationals reliever. Woohoo. What a game. 

And just to make it a perfect evening, I lost my phone. Suffice to say, I wasn't happy, but dealt with it, although my wife was very, very unhappy about it. 

Maps of Visitors

I enjoy looking at the ClustrMap of the visitors to my blog to get an idea of who is reading it. It intrigues me more to look at it to discover where people are from in locations that I've been to. It makes you realize that I've been to quite a few places, but there are even more places that I've never been to that I would like to go. 

I notice that someone from near Anchorage has visited. I wonder if I passed that person on the street last summer when we were there for a few days. We went to the 4th of July parade downtown and took in the fair at the park where the parade was scheduled to run through. Was this person sitting in his or her lawn chair at the edge of the street, or walking their dog through the park? (We stop everyone who has a dog to pet it and get kisses, especially since our beloved Golden Retriever, Cody, passed away last spring.) Maybe we sat next to him/her at the Glacier Brewhouse. It also looks like someone from Ketchikan or Juneau or Skagway also visited. Great towns with great character.

Someone from Hawaii has stopped in to take a look, too. Not from The Big Island, according to the map, but maybe Oahu or Kauai, my favorite island. Who knows, this visitor might be a Navy brat or Air Force kid, or a military person themself. Like my friend from college, John, whom I visited several times. He took me to the North Shore, to Hickam AFB to drink on the beach, to Diamondhead. Maybe I've walked the same path as this visitor.

Australia. Spent three months there in 1989. Loved it! I've had visitors from Sydney and Melbourne (pronounced "Mell-bun" to the uninitiated in Oz-speak). I hear that Glebe, where I stayed in a hostel and did some wild partying, is no longer a "safe" area of town. Too bad. I loved staying in Sydney, and had a great time visiting Circular Quay ("Key"), the Opera House, The Rocks (the old jailhouse area of Sydney), and the Coat Hanger (the Sydney Harbor Bridge). I didn't spend as much time in Melbourne, but did get to see the 12 Apostles (kinda ironic, now, isn't it?!!?!) on the Great Ocean Road west of Melbourne. I wanted to see an Aussie Rules Football game, which is played in the Melbourne area, but never got out to it. 

I've been to Israel, to Great Britain, to Vancouver. But I'm surprised, too, that I have not had visitors from other countries like Spain, where I honeymooned, Chile, where my wife's family is from, and more of the Caribbean Islands. There is one visitor from the Dominican Republic, but I've never been there. 

There are visitors from many places that I would love to go: Sweden; France; Italy; Germany; Thailand; Brazil; Costa Rica; Taiwan; India. Someday, when I do go, I know that I can ask these visitors for recommendations on places to visit and things to see, because we share an interest and maybe even a passion for similar things. I'm looking forward to hearing about all these places.