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Tag: writing

  • Week 23 highlights, lowlights, and observations

    -The Dodgers won their 90th game of the season on Friday and after today’s game against the Marlins, will have played 149 games, or 92% of the regular season. Only thirteen games remain after today.

    -Heading into play this afternoon, nothing short of a complete collapse will prevent the Dodgers from winning the division. The Padres have been hot of late but the Dodgers’ slide in August seems a distant memory.

    -The only real mystery left is how the playoff seedings will land. Milwaukee owns MLB’s best record at 93-56, the Dodgers are 90-58, followed by Atlanta is 88–61. Assuming the Dodgers hold on to the second best record or even catch the Brewers, they will not have to play the wild card round.

    – Catching the Brewers is a long shot, given how well Milwaukee is playing. They are 7-3 in their last 10 and like the Dodgers, have built a 10-game lead in their division.

    -The Brew Crew has the highest run differential in baseball (+196, the Dodgers are second at +172) and after today’s game against the Reds finish with Pittsburgh (bad but competitive), Baltimore (better than their record shows), Philly (very good), and St. Louis (good but not a playoff team).

    -The Dodgers finish with Miami today and then travel to Cincinnati (not good but competitive), then get the Giants (terrible) and Padres (very good) at home, and end the season in San Francisco. We just have to wait and see how things play out.

    -Baseball is a grind and every team is nursing injuries this time of year. Per usual, the Dodgers have some key players on the mend.

    -Freddie Freeman’s right knee is hurting. He had a few days’ rest this week which should help. Roberts has acknowledged the knee is impacting that beautiful swing. Entering today, Freddie’s hit one homer in his last 53 ABs.

    -Shohei is on the injured list and won’t play again until October. Thanks to outsized production from Tommy Edman in the leadoff spot and great starting pitching, it doesn’t feel like we’ve lost all that much. But the post season could be a different story. Getting the best player on the planet back to start the playoffs will a huge win.

    -Josue De Paula made his debut on Friday, and wow does he look great. He’s gone hitless in two games but it’s only a matter of time before that kid figures things out and starts hitting line drives.

    -A very cool thing happened yesterday. Mookie Betts hit his 20th homer of the season, which was also the 10,000th Dodger homer since the move from Brooklyn in 1958.

    -Said Betts: “So, I guess I’ll always be remembered for something.” Yes, Mook, that and 1,000 other incredible highlights.

    -Finally, noting that Dodgers fan critic Pete Crow-Armstrong has joined the 40 home run, 35 stolen bases club.

    -Yay.

  • Farewell to an Old Friend

    Farewell to an Old Friend

    Art by @snarshall

    I lost a dear friend last week. Thirty-six years of companionship, gone in an instant.

    I lost my bike. Or rather, I killed her.

    Perhaps that’s too harsh. Maybe I didn’t kill her outright, but I certainly contributed to her untimely death.

    In the summer of 1989, my wife Lisa and I bought matching Schwinn Cruisers. It was a watershed moment for me. I’d grown up a BMX kid, always yearning for a cruiser, and Schwinn was the gold standard. She was black and beautiful, sleek and strong. She imprinted on me.

    For 36 years, that bike went everywhere a bike could go. She came along on vacations, camping trips, and for most the last 15 years, our annual pilgrimage to San Onofre. She was a faithful, reliable constant, a timeless, elegant, single-speed monument to simplicity.

    Until last week.

    We were headed down the highway, car packed for our San Onofre trip, when it happened. I caught a flash in my left side mirror: my Schwinn, airborne, flying ten feet above the asphalt, her front wheel spinning like a turbine. The last whole image I have of her is that moment, suspended in the mirror, my own terrified eyes staring back as I watched her descend.

    She landed hard, bounced once, and then, boom. A four-wheel drive monster of a truck behind us finished the job. 

    My bike was gone.

    Monster truck about to eat a bike

    It sounds absurd, I know, tragic and laughable at the same time. But the image, burned into my mind, plays like a slow-motion Zapruder film: my glance down and left across the steering wheel, the mirror reflecting both my fear and her fate, and then the helplessness of watching her devoured by the road.

    My first fear wasn’t for the bike, it was for the people in the monster truck, and for the cars trailing behind it. I pictured chaos: a chain of collisions, glass and steel exploding across lanes, bodies flung into motion they didn’t choose and were powerless to stop.

    My hands tightened on the steering wheel as we exited the highway and circled back, heart beating fast, my rational mind pushing back on a tsunami of blinding panic.

    When we reached the crash site, the nightmare I’d conjured wasn’t there. Instead, the road was strangely calm, indifferent. And there she was, my bike, crumpled on the shoulder like a fallen animal, the frame and wheels bent at unnatural angles. I stood for a moment beside the roar of passing cars, pulled out my phone, took a few pictures (I’m not sure why), and then lifted what was left of her corpse over the guardrail.

    And then, with the traffic rushing past and the sky impossibly blue, I said goodbye.

    I didn’t realize how attached I was until that moment. It wasn’t just steel, rubber, and handle bars I’d lost – it felt like losing a loved one.

    Since then, I’ve tried to look ahead. I’ve researched new bikes, sleek machines with machine-printed carbon frames, digital displays, more gears than I’d ever know what to do with. But none of it feels right. Too fancy. Too modern. Who really needs more than one gear, anyway?

    I’ve browsed the relics from her era, 1970s and ’80s cruisers. But they’re rare, and the prices are steep.

    So I wait, unsure what my biking future holds.

    What I do know is this. If there is an afterlife, I’ll find her there. She’ll be waiting for me on a long, winding bike path, a cool breeze at my back and meadows stretching out on both sides. Lisa will join us there someday too, and we’ll ride together again, heading somewhere, anywhere, everywhere.

    Farewell, old friend.