Hey, Dodgers.
Did you think it was just gonna come back to you? That you didn't have to (ohmigod) try a little? Exert some effort?
Hit the ball once in awhile?
Stop reading the crap in the Times about how wonderful you are and start doing the job, guys.
Maybe you need your butts kicked from inside the clubhouse, the way Jeff Kent did last year. Stop loafing and play your hearts out!
That's all any of us fans really want. You've played the last week or ten days like you don't even have hearts.
And Joe Torre and the coaches can't do it for you. You're the ones who have to go out there and see the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball.
You still don't have enough pitching, but that doesn't matter right now. You could overcome that. But right now, you don't look like you have enough anything!
Come on, boys, play the game like you want to be there, like you want to win!

I thought it was the pitching

Dang! I thought the pitching was gonna be the Dodgers' comeuppance. The pitching has come through, although whether it will come through in the playoffs and the Series if they get there after, we'll see. But the pitching has held up, and with the addition of Padilla and Granger and Sherrill (did I leave anybody out?) okay.

But what has happened to the hitting? 10 runners left on base, 8 in scoring position. 8 runners left on base, 6 in scoring position. Manny can't find Mannywood with a compass. Kemp skies a few but not when it's most needed.

Batting is the ultimate Zen. In this moment, of this moment. See the ball, hit the ball.

Stop thinking so hard, boys; see your pitch and swing the bat. Hit that horsehide into Pasadena.

Having a Heart Attack

Having a heart attack changed my life. It could do the same for you.

A heart attack isn’t something you want to go through and I wouldn’t wish one on anybody. But if you have to have one (and some of us just can’t avoid it) you might as well embrace the changes it makes to your life. The changes can’t be avoided anymore than the heart attack, so you might as well hug them close and accept them as your own. They’re going to be with you for a long time.

I had my heart attack on Friday, June 5. Never saw it coming. No symptoms. No weakness, no shortage of breath no chest pains, no palpitations. Just a sudden wrenching, squeezing, nauseating pain that doubled me over and made me sweat blood.

I was at work when it happened; I managed to drive home. I should have called 9-1-1, but I didn’t want to admit that I had what I had. I called my wife instead.

“Call 9-1-1,” she said.

“No, I’ll wait for you,” I told her. “I’ll be okay.”

After two and a half hours of pain, I thought about praying. I don’t know why I waited so long. As soon as I started the Rosary, the pain vanished.

“I believe in God,” I said, and the pain went away. Of course I prayed the entire Rosary.

When I finished, my wife arrived home and took me to the hospital. She stayed with me through a long weekend of minimally-invasive surgical procedures, EKGs and recovery. The doctors sent me home on Monday along with a bag of drugs I have to take everyday and several pamphlets full of suggestions.

“I always thought it would be the other way around,” my wife told me. “I thought it would be you praying for me.”

The changes in my life? I get up early every morning and walk, for at least an hour. I tend to walk around the perimeter of the local golf course and collect lost golfballs. Found a TopFlight last week. I pray more. I take work less seriously, even though in these times of economic challenge the owner of the business where I work would prefer me to take it more seriously.

And my marriage has changed. After 32 years of sleeping together, my wife now sleeps alone in what used to be our son’s room. We barely talk. I get up early and go walking; she gets up and goes to work. She comes home late. We haven’t shared a meal together in a month. I have reached out to friends I hadn’t talked to in years, because I need someone to talk to. I trust she has too; I heard her on the phone with someone the other day, laughing in a way I haven’t heard her laugh in months. Hearing her laugh made me feel good for her.

I couldn’t avoid the heart attack or the changes that followed. I saw my doctor last week; he said as long as I keep walking and taking my drugs I should be just fine.

“Call me anytime,” he said. “But I don’t want to see you for six months.”

My wife feels the same way, I think.

But it’s all okay. This moment, this moment right here, is a good one. And that’s really all any of us has the right to hope for.