Category: Bob’s Blog

Welcome back, blog faithful, for yet another week of wit and whimsy, or something like that. To get right to the point, this one is going to be about some very vivid memories, all brought back to the frontal lobe this week after Bats, Balls, & Burnouts experienced a totally unexpected spike in sales on Amazon. As in, right back up into the top 100 in the category. We hadn’t seen that lofty status in probably a year. That’s not to say that the book is back to top-seller status, although it does continue to sell through various platforms, but it does mean that on a couple of consecutive days during the last week, a lot of people decided to buy a copy all within the same 24 or 36 hours and those simultaneous sales sent the ranking soaring. And that’s not a bad thing!

With that in mind, I took some time off from writing yesterday (I’m on Chapter 6 of the new book!) to do some nostalgic reading. For the first six months or so after Bats, Balls, & Burnouts was published I couldn’t help picking it up regularly, for a couple of reasons. The first was to see if I still liked what I’d done and the second was to go through it to peck away at the stuff I wish I could do over again, which is really masochistic. There are some clunky spots in it, for sure, but for the most part I’m willing to admit I like it. I’m proud of it.

Yesterday, after the spike in sales settled down, I was thinking along those same lines. In my head, I was pondering the thought “I wonder who these people are, and why they all bought it within a day of each other, and I also wonder if they’ll be happy with the $49.95 purchase…” So I picked it up and read a few chapters, trying to put myself in the new buyers’ shoes. And, I immediately gravitated toward a series of chapters. They are chapters I’ve gone to many times before, and that tells me they must rank as some of my favorite chapters in the book. They are the chapters about Paintsville, Tiger Town, Lakeland, Medford, and Royals Stadium (as it was known back then).

The reasons I hold those chapters in such a high place are many, but they are diverse and all of them are very much about life-altering places and events. They were the culmination of so many dreams. My summer in Paintsville, Kentucky was magical. The whole thing was a fantastic experience shared with a group of great guys and fantastic local fans, and my play on the field meant a lot to me. You can’t fake your way through pro ball, and I held my own. I don’t think I’ve ever posted this photo before, because I’m no longer 100% sure who the young lady is. I believe she either worked in the concession stand or in the box office and she may have been related to our owner. I remember her asking to have a photo taken with me on the field during batting practice one day, and I said “Only if I get a copy too.” I think the little boy peeking in at the ballplayers through the open gate is pretty priceless as well, in a Norman Rockwell sort of way.

Mary Bienek, the wife of Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek and a Paintsville native, once told me who this young lady was but I don’t recall the details now. If Mary contacts me after reading this blog, I’ll do an update. And holy crap I look young in this picture. Also need a haircut.

So, anyway, back to the tale at hand. Paintsville was a wonderful experience from the day we arrived until the day we all shared hugs and said goodbye. Spring Training in Tiger Town the next year was also something I’d dreamed of my whole life. It was five weeks of constant “pinch yourself” stuff just being there and competing, although the scary ritual of seeing the list of released players on the dorm bulletin board every morning was something I still recall with dread. And the toenail I allowed to get infected after it became ingrown, knocking me out of the lineup for about a week, was one of those “How can I be so stupid?” moments I’m sorta known for.

You know I like to put places and faces to the stories, right? This morning, I did some snooping around on Google Maps and was able to get this angle of Tiger Town. It hasn’t changed much.

The dorm is the building in the lower right. From this angle, it’s looks like a capital C. My room was on the top floor and I think I even remember the window.

If you walked out the front door and stayed on the sidewalk it would take you to the dining hall. Of the two buildings across from the dorm it’s the one with the slightly darker roof. From there, after breakfast we’d all walk on the sidewalk over to the large minor league clubhouse, which is the building with the white roof just below the practice infield. Beyond that sits the four-field complex where we spent every day working out or playing games. To the left, Joker Marchant Stadium where the Tigers play their Spring Training schedule.

I also mentioned, in the book, that the site of Tiger Town was originally an air base during World War II. Two of the old hangers are still visible next to the big parking lot, and the road that runs up and down in the photo was an old runway.

These are really incredibly vivid memories. If I close my eyes I can transport myself back to the summer of ’78 in Paintsville or the spring of ’79 in Tiger Town. I can smell the pine tar and hear the crack of the bat. Of course, the second part of that Tiger Town chapter is about then playing for the Lakeland Tigers in the Florida State League, over in the big ballpark. Interesting memories, and still very vivid, but mostly just frustrating. And let’s not even talk about the stress of having to hold a rope with Howard Johnson, when the tightrope walker made the round trip on a wire strung between the tops of two of the massive light towers. Then the long drive back to Kirkwood after getting released in early June, only to then find out I had to get my butt out to Medford, Oregon the very next day.

I’ve posted this photo before, but it’s worth a repeat because the characters were such a major part of the plot. That’s Mike Altobelli, me, Terry Harper, and Pete Slattery. Otherwise known as Alto, Hawk, Harp, and Slats. It’s pregame and we’re at Miles Field, our home ballpark. I’ve searched and searched for good photos of Miles Field, because it was such a classic minor league park, but there really aren’t many to choose from.

I had the chance to get back there a few times, when driving between Seattle and Sonoma on the NHRA Western Swing, but it’s gone now, replaced by a modern ballpark for whatever team plays there now, in whatever league. I checked the Northwest League’s website and Medford is no longer part of that circuit.

The Medford chapter is one I think I really nailed, because it features so many highs and lows, beginning with just the thrash to get out there one day after driving home from Florida. Truly a “plow forward” moment if there ever was one. I can recall exactly how I felt out in left field during the first inning of the first game. I was slightly disoriented, and very tired, and in my head I remember thinking “Geez, where am I?” Baseball players will go to almost any length to keep playing. I’d gone from Florida to Oregon. And I got off to a hot start out there.

And then Bobby Garrett  threw his bat right through the batting cage netting and it hit me in the face. Life changed once again.

It was a summer of enormously long bus rides (do a Mapquest of the route from Victoria, British Columbia to Medford, Oregon for a good example) great friendships, and sheer exhaustion. 71 games in 72 days, connected by overnight bus rides, $8 per day meal money, and cheap motels. The bumps and bruises every ballplayer inherits were always nagging us, made worse for me by 50+ stitches and some broken teeth. We were all in the best shape of our lives, and by the end of the summer we could barely function. Bus leagues can be tough, and at the time the Medford A’s had one of the toughest schedules in Class A ball in that regard. But we loved it.

While I was searching around for old photos of Miles Field I decided to fly Google Maps around Medford for a bit. The Taco Bell I ate at almost every day for the first week I was hurt, is still there. I found it easily. Without the plastic spork I might have starved to death. I also found the apartment that Alto, John Pignotti, and I shared for a few weeks, and then I went looking for the house a bunch of us shared. Shaun Lacey, Danny Randle, Slats, Harp, Oscar Burnett, Alto, and me all bunking in with our radio play-by-play guy who charged us no rent. Most of us slept on the floor.

I remembered that the house was directly across the street from a school and I had a vague memory of the direction it was from the ballpark. Took me all of 15 seconds to find it. This is it. It’s a duplex and we all lived in the left side of the house. When you’re a long way from home, playing every day and riding the worst bus in captivity, you either fracture as a team or get very close. We were bonded.

And then I pitched and miraculously got a lot of guys out. All while still recovering from the facial and dental injuries and the sheer exhaustion of playing in the Northwest League. It truly was the best of times and the worst of times (thank you, Mr. Dickens) but I recall it all with great clarity and a lot of smiles.

And that, of course, leads to another chapter in which I got to throw a bullpen session at Royals Stadium in Kansas City, when the Oakland A’s finished the 1979 season there. Had we owned iPhones back then, I most certainly would’ve taken a few photos, but alas it all has to be recalled via memory now. That’s not a problem. I’ll never forget a minute of it.

So, yes there are a lot of other stories and anecdotes in the book that I like a lot, some I sincerely cherish, and I think I got most of it right. I like the way it flows and I like how I pieced it all together. But those chapters I just wrote about here hold a special place. It was all about living a dream I’d been chasing since I caught my first fly ball. I hope the folks who just sent the sales ranking up enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Here in Woodbury, we’re having a fantastic week. The leaves are brilliant right now, and after about 10 straight days of rain or drizzle, we’ve had a great week with royal blue skies. It’s a great time to be in Minnesota!

And another great thing we did was get together on Saturday night, with friends Terry & Lynn and Mitch & Kristy. We all headed over to the wonderful State Theater in Minneapolis for a fantastic show. At dinner, we discussed whether it should be called a “show” or a “concert” because it was a unique blend of those two things. It was the Aussie Pink Floyd tribute band. None of us had seen them before, but I’d heard a lot about them over the years and they did not disappoint. They were spot-on with the music, the stage presentation was amazing, and the capacity crowd ate it up. When they wrapped up with “Comfortably Numb” the whole place was singing along. Loudly. It was terrific fun, and they are incredible musicians.

Meanwhile, we also had a visitor over the weekend. Barbara’s sister Kitty flew up from Orlando to escape the heat and humidity and get a taste of autumn up north. She timed it just right. The day she got here was the first day the rain stopped.

We went on a road trip to Franconia, north of Stillwater up the St. Croix River, to show Kitty the funkadelic sculpture park up there, and she loved it. We were there a year ago at the same time, and it’s even better now, with a whole bunch of new concepts and installations. On the way back, we copied what we did last year as well, visiting a huge pumpkin patch off the beaten track.

We filled a large wagon with pumpkins we picked out of multiple acres, and those pumpkins in turn filled the back of my car. Now we have pumpkins galore on the front porch. We’re ready for Halloween, I think. The pumpkin place really is huge. I’d say at least 10 acres, and it has a corn maze too. We stayed focused on the pumpkins. STAY FOCUSED, PEOPLE!!!

So that’s about it for today, I think. Some great memories, quite a few book sales, and a fun weekend. All in all, that’s a good week!

As always, if you read this installment of Bob’s Blog and thought “I coulda done something worse” or “That was better than chipping a tooth” please click on the “Like” button at the top. My accountant is keeping tabs on that.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and surrounded by pumpkins.

PS: Within a minute after I published this blog Erica Moon posted on Facebook “No front porch pumpkin photo?” so I feel obliged to fix that oversight. This is not all of them. There are three more in the landscaping as well. And somehow there was a debate as to whether or not we should bring home two more big ones.

Also, since I  bragged about the trees I just ran outside and took a tree pic. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

 

 

 

Today’s weekly blog installment has a headline that reads “Welcome to 40” but it has nothing to do with age. I’m way past 40. When I was 40, people who were being born at that time are now in college or beyond. How’s that for making my own bad self feel old and decrepit. No, it has to do solely with the weather. It’s still only October 11 and right now it’s 40 degrees in Woodbury with a stiff breeze making it feel much chillier. Yes, this is early. Heck, it was 90 here just a couple of weeks ago!

Everywhere you go people are talking about it, and this rapid drop off in the temperature has kickstarted autumn into full “all at once” mode. The geese are flying around in huge V formations, getting ready to head south. Ducks of various persuasions are flitting around as well, probably checking their calendars to see if it’s actually November now. And the trees? My gosh, every day it’s totally different.

Just a few days ago I saw the first hints of the leaves changing, and it was still so warm and sunny I thought there might be something wrong with those first few maples that started to change. Now, it’s on and there’s no going back. Leaves are not just changing overnight, they’re falling in this wind as if autumn is over, but it’s just started. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a rapid change, so early, in all the years we’ve lived here.

It snowed in Fargo last night, and up into the northern tier of Minnesota. That means it probably snowed up in Roseau, a place I now think about all the time since my visit after the Brainerd race. I figure it probably snowed there since you can’t really get much more northern than Roseau, without being in Manitoba. There’s even a chance we might get some flurries tonight down here, but we’ll be back up around 45 or 50 by Friday and the ground is still way too warm to hold any snow in the Twin Cities.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you probably know all about the ceremony of pounding in the snow marker sticks along the curb and the sides of the driveway. If I do that before Halloween, Barbara makes fun of me. Right now, I’m a little worried we might have a hard freeze before Halloween and once the ground freezes it can be difficult to get the sticks pounded in. Oh what to do?

We are getting all of the sprinklers in our neighborhood blown out and serviced for the winter on Monday, so I’ve already turned the irrigation valve off in our utility room. We’ve had rain, mist, or drizzle all week and the ground is pretty much saturated. I also scheduled our winter check-up for the furnace and heating system, with a company we have a service contract with. The woman on the phone said, “It’s been crazy here the last couple of days. We can hardly get to all the calls when they come in.” And, then she informed me that the next available slot would not be in October. And it won’t be in November. Our appointment is for December 14. Good thing it seems to be working fine.

Another sign of the impending arrival of real-live Minnesota winter is connected to the fact the furnace is on these days. Like the ceremonial pounding in of the snow sticks, the ceremonial switching of the ventilation system happened a couple of days ago when it was just too chilly in here without the heat on. For a day or two we could just run the gas fireplace for 30 minutes here or there and that kept the house warm, but there then came a day when the boyz were snuggled up with each other in the morning, right between my legs and it was “for real” cold in here. You can’t just switch the thermostat from “Cool” to “Heat” though, because that would only solve half the problem.

The two main ducts that come out of the furnace are labeled. One has “Main Level” written on it and the other says “Lower Level” (as you might have guessed.) Each big duct has a little handle on the side that opens or closes a panel inside the duct. Even those are marked “Summer” and “Winter” in Sharpie, thanks to the guys who installed the system for a dummy like me. So, in the summer you send about 90% of the AC to the top floor, because cool are sinks and hot air rises. If you cool off the living room, kitchen, and master bedroom sufficiently, the cool air will also sink through the floor to the lower level. I just did the opposite this week. I closed the diverter panel in the duct for the upper level and opened it for the lower. Now, 90% of the heat comes down here and it then rises to keep the upstairs nice and cozy too. The wonders of science, on perfect display. To make it all work even better, I open all 10 of the vents that are in the lower level ceiling, to let the heat get through. In the summer, they’re all closed down tight or it gets way too cold down here once you get the main level where you want it. It’s a delicate balance.

See how much we’re learning here today? And there’s more! Once I change the diverters and open the vents, I also turn on the humidifier system. It stays off in the summer because that ambient humidity is pretty high. Even though it’s activated now, it hasn’t kicked on yet because we’ve had so much rain it’s very humid, even inside. It’s reading 55% humidity in the house, which is pretty high. But…  Once we get into real Minnesota winter, when the temps drop below the 20s, the air gets really dry. Like bone dry. Like “walk across the carpet and get shocked by anything you touch” dry. It’s so dry it’s uncomfortable. So, there’s a dial on the humidifier controller that ranges from 1 to 7. It feels best to keep the humidity around 30% to 35% in the winter, so you adjust the dial to have it run that much. It’s a simple system, really. And it’s time for me to change out the metal grid inside it, where the drops of water cascade down while the heated air blows through it. It gets kind gunked up over the course of every winter.

People like my sister Mary, who live on a beach with trade winds blowing all the time, just adjust their windows or maybe turn on the AC for a bit. You’ve got to be almost a scientist up here in Minnesota when the seasons change. It’s a lot of work! And I still have those sticks to pound in. Sheesh.

Here’s another fun story. After I posted my blog last week, Barbara and I had plans for that Thursday night. We drove over to Minneapolis, where we had reservations and tickets for a super-cool place called the Dakota Jazz Club. Barb had been there before, but it was my first time. We were there to eat a fabulous dinner, drink some fantastic wine, and listen to the stories and music of Livingston Taylor. If you’ve never heard of Livingston Taylor, you almost certainly have heard of his brother, James. Livingston has had his own terrific musical career, and he’s still out there serenading fans with his version of Carolina music. But what’s even better is the fact he’s now a music professor as well. He teaches courses at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, and his classes are so popular it’s hard to even get him on your schedule.

All of that skill was obvious for the two hours he performed. He didn’t just play songs, he explained them and talked about the chord sequences and how he wrote the lyrics, and sometimes he just went off on tangents and told amusing stories. He’s kind of a whimsical guy. He even played some Broadway show tunes on his guitar or piano, to give us examples of those genres. It was absolutely fascinating, and really funny. For a guy now in his 70s, it was as one of the coolest shows I’ve ever seen. I did have a Livingston Taylor album back in high school. I’d heard the song “Carolina Day” on the radio and loved it, and I remember thinking “How come he’s every bit as good as his brother but James is the one that got famous?” I don’t know the answer, but after the show I can tell you that he’s enjoyed every bit of his own musical ride. He and James have very similar voices and demeanors, and every now and then Livingston would crack a wry smile and he looked just like his brother. Really a neat deal, and the idea of sitting there in such a small venue (we figured maybe 200 or 225 seats) eating fantastic cuisine and sipping a bottle of wine recommended by our server, is just brilliance.

We looked at the club’s upcoming schedule and have already reserved a private booth for another show. If you’ve ever heard of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer the first names of those three rock giants were Keith, Greg, and Carl. That same Carl Palmer will be playing with some backing musicians, highlighting various techniques and styles of ELP from their heyday. Can’t wait!

Well, that’s about it. I have stuff to do yet, here today. Barbara’s sister Kitty is flying up from Orlando tomorrow, to spend the weekend with us, and I’m superintendent of hospitality and housekeeping. I’m about half done doing all the laundry for her and then I have vacuum duty down here after that. I hope she brings a jacket!

And finally, all my positive thoughts and good vibes are being sent to everyone impacted by the horrendous power of Hurricane Michael. My niece, Rhiannon, is the general manager of the Hampton Inn in the Fort Walton Beach area of the panhandle, and I’m sure they got pounded pretty hard. She’s tagged herself as “Safe” on Facebook but man there’s going to be a long recovery from this massive storm, and I’m sadly assuming that we’re going to hear more bad news as the search and rescue operations continue. There are places so cut off no one has been able to get there yet. Scary stuff, even for someone this far from it, and for me it’s personal knowing Rhiannon, her kids, and her hotel staff were all in the crosshairs. Much love to all of you!

I’ll see you all next week. Thanks for playing along!

As always, I love those “Likes” we get when you click on the “Like” button at the top. Those are cool. I dig “Likes” for sure.

Bob Wilber, waiting for winter but singing “Carolina Day”…

Greetings, blog faithful, on yet another Thursday in our long history of Thursdays. No big breaking news or recent huge stories to tell, this time around, but I’ve dug through the closet to come up with some fun trivia and hopefully some entertaining photos. The only racing news this week is that the NHRA Mello Yello tour will be at the Texas Motorplex, south of Dallas, and this year I won’t be one of the many people in attendance. I did book my flight for Las Vegas, though, so by the end of the month I’ll be back out there.

I have some history at the Motorplex, and a lot of it is really fun to look back on. This photo comes to mind first. It was the first week of May in 1998 (as you can see by the time stamp on the print). We are all gathered for a photo with red Solo cups in hand. There was no beer in the cups. There was Dom Perignon champagne brought to us by another Funny Car team and then carefully divvied up into all the cups so we could make one toast. Why? We as a group and Del Worsham as a driver had just secured our place in the Castrol 4-Second Club during a qualifying run.

Going left to right in the photo, in order of how the heads line up and not bothering with front or back locations, we have the following folks: Steve “Fuel Boy” Brown, the late Larry Liu, Lynne Downing, Frank Gilchrist, Grant Downing, Barbara Gilchrist, Connie Medina (she wasn’t Connie Worsham yet), Del, Marc Denner (grubby as always), Chuck Worsham, me (with a cigar no less!), John Fink, and the one and only Grandma Worsham, may she rest in eternal peace.

We’d been sneaking up on better performance in the early part of ’98, which was our second year with the Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen sponsorship, and on the all-concrete Motorplex track we jumped all the way into “the Club” with a 4.983-second run. Of course, that was quarter-mile racing then but it’s still staggering to think that basically everyone is now putting up times more than a second quicker (to 1,000 feet). It’s a whole new world.

I was thinking about Dallas this morning and how that first run under five seconds really changed things for Team CSK. It gave Del and Chuck a lot of confidence and it kept the team fired up. A year later, we’d win Seattle for Del’s first Wally since 1991. By the time the CSK deal was up, after the 2008 season, we’d won dozens of races in the Nitro Funny Car class. Another thing that changed had to do with jewelry.

My wife Barbara has multiple jewelry storage spaces, and they’re all crammed with a wide array of beautiful things. When we had our closet done, one of the things she wanted for both of us was custom jewelry storage in the top drawer. Her top drawer is jammed. Mine has just a few rings in it and a bunch of watches ranging from really old to really nice.

I wore this ring for many years, as the wear and tear on it illustrates. Del got his Castrol 4-Second Club ring for free, but Castrol made them available for anyone else on the team who wanted to buy one. I definitely wanted one, and they were kind enough to put my last name on one side of it, with the ET and date on the other.

Throughout all of the Team CSK years, I wore this ring almost daily. I’d clean it a couple of times a year, and back then had to take it off to get through security at the airport (it’s heavy) but it was on my right hand just about every day. Finally, it miraculously got smaller, just like how many of my shirts in the closet shrink just hanging there. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Actually, I think the arthritis I dealt with throughout those years made my knuckles just a little bigger and it was getting really difficult to get it on and off. So now it lives in my custom closet top drawer and after more than a year I finally no longer have a farmer’s tan on that finger.

As for the ring on my left hand, I may have to have it cut off at some point. The ring, not my finger!! I’ve been trying to get my wedding ring off for a few months, and so far no luck. If I can ever get it off, we’ll have it resized a bit larger so I can proudly wear it for many more years.

And it’s not just my knuckles that get larger as I grow older. I’m not sure I can even understand why I wore size 9 1/2 shoes until I was 40, and now I wear 11 1/2. Two full sizes in a little over a decade? Crazy.

Then there’s this ring. This is my college class ring from Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville and it’s noteworthy in a few ways. 1) The word “Edwardsville” does not appear anywhere on the ring, and the school logo on one side is just a generic SIU logo with a cougar above it, as if SIUE and SIUC (Carbondale) were one and the same. 2) The graduation date on one side says 1978, and that should’ve been when I graduated. But, being a full-time student athlete it took me a few extra quarters to actually get my diploma. The 1978 date is basically two years off. 3) The degree shown on the other side is a BA (Bachelor of Arts). Being in the school of Mass Communications, I assumed that would be a BA. I found out after the ring was made that I was actually going to get a BS (Bachelor of Science) degree. Oops. 4) And… The 1976 SIUE Cougar baseball team was only a couple of innings away from winning the NCAA Div. II World Series over Cal Poly Pomona. We all would’ve gotten championship rings if we’d held on to win. We lost that game and then lost the next day as well. We were <that> close. The baseball emblem on this ring was my way of honoring my teammates on what was a fantastic squad. Like the 1977 team, the ’76 group was collectively inducted into the SIUE Hall of Fame.

I could wear the SIUE ring right up until around 1999 or 2000. I could wear it on my pinky now, and that would look really cool in a “Sopranos” sort of mobster way. It lives next to the Castrol ring in my drawer. It’s in good company.

The next ring is one that does not live in that drawer. It sat on a shelf in my office for a year or two, but then I decided it needed to go in a locked safe. Rings are really easy for people to pick up and walk away with, and I don’t want to ever lose this one.

This is my dad’s 1965 American League Champions ring. His name is on one side and Minny and Paul are shaking hands on the other side. Why there is no stone is something I’ve never known, but there are a couple of logical options. One could be that, since my father was the Minnesota Twins top scout and not in uniform with the team, this is then a “second tier” ring for non-uniformed members of the organization. Or, it could simply be that championship rings weren’t nearly as gaudy back then, and since the actual World Champions back then only had one or two diamonds on their World Series rings, the losing team perhaps didn’t get any.

I was nine years old that year, and it was my first summer of really following the Twins closely throughout the season. That wasn’t all that easy from suburban St. Louis. I was lucky to see the Twins on the “Game of the Week” once or twice a summer, although my dad and I would sometimes sit in the Chevy Impala in the driveway and dial in the Twins flagship radio station, WCCO in Minneapolis, all the way from Kirkwood, Mo.

The Twins were a very good team going in, and a great team in the end. Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, Earl Battey, Jim Kaat, Rich Rollins, Mudcat Grant, Jim Perry, Don Mincher, and many more, became familiar names for me. The Twins and the L.A. Dodgers battled it out for seven games, with Jim “Kitty” Kaat and Sandy Koufax dueling in three epic games. The Dodgers and Koufax won in seven. The nine-year old version of me was crushed.

I still remember when Big Del got this ring, all these years later. It went into storage with a lot of other memorabilia for a long time, and when he passed away my sister Mary acted as the distributor of all the old stuff. My dad also had championship rings from the 1946 Cardinals, the 1971 Denver Bears, and the 1973 Spokane Indians. I chose this one, because 1965 was really the year I paid full attention to the Twins, while I also rooted for my hometown Cardinals. Someone else in the family (possibly my nephew Ewan) has some or all of the other rings.

By the way, according to what I’ve seen online, the highest paid player on the ’65 Twins team was Harmon Killebrew, and he obviously should have been the highest paid guy. He made $50,000 that year. Tony Oliva made $20,000. That’s stunning.

One ring that is not on display here is my high school class ring from St. Louis. U. High, and that’s because I lost it before I even graduated. I remember washing my hands after playing golf somewhere, and I left it on the sink in the clubhouse. It was 24 hours later that I realized my oversight but when I called they informed me that no one had turned it in. As I said, rings are really easy to pick up and walk away with, although I don’t know why a golfer would want a high school kid’s class ring.

As I wrote earlier, I also have a lot of watches in my top drawer, ranging from a Wittnauer I bought as my first “nice watch” back in the early 80s, to a TAG Heuer I got in the late 90s. There are some other very nice watches in there, including a Raymond Weil I hardly ever wear because I’m afraid to scratch it or lose it. It’s gorgeous. But, there are also two Oakley watches and this is one of them.

We got these for being in the Budweiser Shootout one year, at Indy. Budweiser always gave each of the eight teams a gift just for being in it, so this doesn’t necessarily have to be from the year Frankie Pedregon won it for us in the blue CSK car, although it could be. It was a really cool watch, and it was one that changed my taste in watches all at once. I’m hard on watches, and I was especially rough on them for the 20 years I was doing the full NHRA tour front to back. This Oakley took a beating, and has the scars to prove it. It also had a band made of rubber, and that solved a problem I’d been dealing with since high school. I never liked metal bands on my watches, but if you wear a leather band and are outdoors working up a sweat a lot, the band is going to break in a year or two. All the regular watches I’ve worn since getting this Bud Shootout watch have had a band made out of rubber, including the Fossil watch I wear these days.

So that’s it for this week. Just a string of tales about getting from Point A to Point B in under five seconds, and then a bunch of rings, and finally a watch. How’s that for a blog about basically nothing!

I’ll be following the action down at the Motorplex from up here in Minnesota, so here’s hoping for close racing and a great show.

As always, if somehow you just read all this nonsense and kinda sorta maybe liked it, please click on the “Like” button at the top. That’s critically important, if by “critical” you mean not really at all.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and surrounded by rings and watches.

 

 

The name is Dr. Frank Jobe. Ever heard of him? He was born on July 16, 1925. He passed away on March 6, 2014. He was an orthopedic surgeon. He ended up saving arms and careers.

Baseball pitchers hurt their arms, often in the elbow but also in the shoulder. Why? In my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” I wrote about how the act of throwing a baseball overhand, or even from a 3/4 delivery, is one of the most destructive and unnatural things any athlete can do. The arm was simply not designed to do it. When a pitcher would “blow out his elbow” or feel a pain so debilitating he simply couldn’t throw anymore, his career was typically over. Just ask Sandy Koufax, who was the most dominating pitcher in baseball and at the top of his game at the young age of 30, until his elbow began to ache so badly he’d have to sit in the clubhouse with his left elbow dunked in a bucket of ice and water after each game, just to numb the pain and give him a chance to pitch again a few days later. At the age of 30 he was done, thanks to ligament damage and arthritis. No one knew how to make the pain go away.

In 1974, another pitcher for the Dodgers, by the name of Tommy John, “blew out his elbow” like so many others before. He consulted with Dr. Jobe who diagnosed the injury as a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), the ligament that basically holds the elbow together. Up until that point, tearing the UCL had never produced an outcome other than continued severe pain and, eventually, the end of a pitching career. Dr. Jobe, though, had a radical idea. Tommy John was the first pitcher to have the procedure done. Dr. Jobe took a tendon out of John’s right arm (he was a left-handed pitcher) and transplanted it into John’s left elbow. He was so unsure of how successful the outcome would be Dr. Jobe didn’t try it again for two years. The doctor wanted to see if it would work, and Tommy John would need those two years to find out.

Tommy John had pitched 12 years in the Big Leagues. The surgery seemed a far-fetched idea, and it likely wouldn’t work. Dr. Jobe himself gave it a 1 percent chance of success. It worked. After rehab, Tommy John pitched an astonishing 14 more seasons in the Big Leagues. Today, an ulnar collateral ligament replacement is simply known as Tommy John surgery, and in about 85% of the cases, the pitchers come back as good, or even better, than they were before the injury.

I’ve received two books in the mail this week, and the one to the right here just came today. Reading it will be a key piece of research for my upcoming book. I don’t want to divulge details, but once the book is out you’ll understand.

When I pitched in the Oakland A’s farm system, as a reliever, I threw side-arm and submarine. Not because I was so smart I knew throwing as hard as I could overhand was a bad idea, but because I didn’t have very good command doing it the conventional way. Throwing from the side or down below, I could hit almost any spot the catcher gave me.

I don’t have many regrets in life, but one I do have is the fact I didn’t know how good I could be on the mound until I was 23 and basically a washed-up outfielder. Had I tried it earlier, I definitely would’ve stayed with the delivery I used during that summer in Medford. And my elbow would’ve thanked me for that.

Even as a high school outfielder, I can remember my mom driving while I was sitting in the passenger seat of our Impala as a freshman or sophomore, during spring when baseball was in season. It was all I could do to keep from crying. I rode home in that car feeling my right elbow throb with a pain that was almost unbearable. It felt like the worst toothache you ever had, combined with the worst sprained ankle, all focused on one small spot in my elbow. I never told my parents or anyone else about it, because I was afraid they’d make me quit. And all I knew to do was “play through it.” It would usually go away after a few weeks, because it was just strained and not torn. I was lucky. In the end, my shoulder was worse than my elbow. Years later, when I was in my 30s and playing for the Sauget Wizards, I saw a specialist for the shoulder. His diagnosis was severe tendonitis and most likely a partial tear in my rotator cuff. He said, “You have two options. The first one is surgery. You’ll have a year of really painful rehab and the symptoms could come right back. The second option is to stop throwing things. If you do that, your arm won’t hurt too bad just doing everyday activities. But, any time you throw anything it’s going to hurt and any one of those throws can be the one that tears your rotator cuff. Once it’s torn, the first option is all you’ll have left.”

Because I’m a lousy patient, I played three more years and it always hurt. To this day, if I succumb to the temptation and throw something, an invisible knife seems to be jabbed into my shoulder. Baseball, like many sports, can leave its mark on you for a long long time.

The second book I received this week is this one, and if you read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you’ll be familiar with the author. Bob Rennison was my radio play-by-play announcer for the Kansas City Attack indoor soccer team. I picked his audition tape as the best in a stack I had on my desk. It was his first professional play-by-play job. He’s still doing it, 24 years later, and is now the voice of the Kansas City Mavericks minor league hockey team.

Bob and I have stayed in touch, and he often calls me for advice when he’s not sure about a decision he has to make. When I was writing my first book he called and told me that he wanted to write a book, too, but he wasn’t sure how to get started. My advice was “Why don’t you do a daily diary of the full Mavericks season, telling all the stories about the guys, road trips, the fans, and your family?”  That’s exactly what he did, and his book just came out.

The title of Bob’s book is “A View From The Gondola” and that’s a reference to where his broadcast position is, high up in the rafters at the Mavericks’ arena in Independence, Mo.

Early in the book, he wrote these kind words, after first mentioning the fact that in 1994 he had given up on his dream of being the radio guy for a professional sports team:

“My career was resurrected the day I received a phone call from Bob Wilber, as he left a message asking me to be ‘the voice’ of the Kansas City Attack. In 1994 I decided to give up on broadcasting for a professional team and find a small town radio station to stay with forever. I sent my resume and audition tape to Bob, shortly after he became general manager of the Attack, but decided not to give him a follow-up call. After arriving at Kauffman Stadium to take tickets at a Royals game, I called Abbie on a pay phone and she played the message from Bob on our answering machine.

“I believe from time to time God intervenes in our lives. The call I received from Bob Wilber was one of those occasions. Had he not contacted me I don’t know what I would be doing now, but I would have fewer friends and would not be as happy as I am today.”

I’m honored Bob wrote that about me, but he gets all the credit. When I heard his tape, my first thought was “This is the guy. This is my announcer” and it was one of those rare occasions when I got it absolutely 100% right. He was the guy. I had no idea he’d never been a play-by-play guy for any professional sports team. I just knew he was good. Congratulations Bob! You’re an author now, and I can’t wait to read the rest of your book.

And here’s a coincidence that’s semi uncanny. When we lived next door to Neighbor Dave and Nichol, their daughter Alexa was still big into hockey, first at Woodbury High and then at St. Norbert College near Green Bay. Concussions ended her playing career, but she ended up meeting a guy named C.J. Eick, who played for the Green Bay Gamblers junior hockey team. That was years ago, but their relationship sure looks like one that’s going to last forever, and they’ve just packed up for the winter to go live where C.J. plays professional minor league hockey. He plays for the Kansas City Mavericks, and Bob Rennison is the guy who calls out his name on the radio every time he touches the puck. Small world.

So, let’s move on to some Q & A… A couple of these came in as emails over the last few weeks, but the first one came this past Monday and it gave me the idea to post a few more.

Cynthia, from my home town of St. Louis, has been reading my blog “since Day 1” as she put it. She actually lives in Creve Coeur, a suburb only a few miles from where I grew up in Kirkwood. She, somewhat tongue in cheek, sent me this:

“OK, so you’re a St. Louis native and your dad played for the Cardinals. Why aren’t you writing about them in your blog? It’s all about the Twins when you write about ballgames. I’m only kidding, and I know you’re a big Twins fan, but give some love to the Redbirds! Go Cardinals!!! And hey, I love your blog even with the Twins stuff.”

I wrote her back and said, “I’ll always have a ton of love for the Cardinals, but I haven’t lived in St. Louis since 1994 and only get to see them on TV a few times a year. Most of what I absorb as news about the Cardinals comes from Facebook posts by all my St. Louis friends and former classmates. I’ve actually only been to the new ballpark twice! It’s just hard to follow them and feel a connection from this far away, when I know so little about the players, but there will always be a good deal of Cardinal red in my bloodstream. Go Cardinals!!!”

Sadly, since I replied to her the Cards have lost three big games in a row and have played themselves pretty much to the precipice of not making the playoffs as a Wild Card team. I’m a jinx.

Side note: It’s really hard to write a blog when Buster demands he take his place on my lap. I can hardly see the keyboard. He’s a good boy.

OK, back to a couple more questions…

Terry, from Enid, Oklahoma wrote:

“For a guy in his 60s, you have some really interesting taste in music. We seem to like a lot of the same stuff, and I’m just 36. I know you have Sirius XM in your car and you wrote about that in your book. Any new bands out there you really like? I’m always searching for new stuff.”

Cool question, and yes I do have some favorites I hear on the Octane channel. A band called Greta Van Fleet will absolutely spook you when you hear them. They are Led Zeppelin all over again, but the crazy thing is they are all really young, as in early 20s or younger. Three of the four guys are brothers (two of them being twins) and they channel music that just doesn’t get written and played like this anymore. Until they came along.

I’m big into Breaking Benjamin, Bring Me The Horizon, and a band called Thrice. I’m big into a lot of stuff, but rarely leave it on Octane if a song comes on by one of those bands that feature a “singer” who just screams. The channel gets changed immediately when that junk comes on. Give me some Evanescence, Shinedown, Avenged Sevenfold, Skillet, Chevelle, and stuff like that. But hey, music is like food. We all have different tastes.

Finally, Jimmy from Lakewood, Colorado asked this.

“I know you love Bandimere Speedway, but I have a question. When I first started going there in the early 90s, it seemed like the difference between how the nitro cars ran everywhere else versus Thunder Mountain was huge. These days it’s still a little slower but not nearly as much. How did that happen?”

Another great question. Answer No. 1 is the fact that crew chiefs are really (like REALLY) smart. They learn how to go fast and they’ve done a great job of adapting to the mountain. Answer No. 2 is at the starting line. Bandimere used to present teams with a total double-whammy. It’s usually hot there (sometimes it’s sizzling) so you had bad air made worse by high altitude and that made it really tough to get enough traction early in a run in order for the aerodynamics to help with downforce. When they put the totally unique cooling system in, stretching 345 feet beginning behind the starting line, it dropped the temperature in that early part of the track by up to 25 degrees. That really helps the cars get off the line and up to speed. Now, the challenge is getting through the transition where the cooling system ends, but that’s on the crew chiefs. And remember, they’re smart. Really smart.

So that’s about it for today. The UPS guy just plopped a box down on our porch upstairs and both boyz did the low grumble before they took off on a sprint to see what was going on up there. I’m lucky I don’t need stitches after Buster used my left thigh as his launch pad. Those claws left a mark…

As always, if you read this installment and thought “That wasn’t a TOTAL waste of my time” please hit the “Like” button at the top. A few more likes and I get to spend 30 days on the International Space Station. That last part may or may not be true, but still…

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready to read two new books.

 

 

 

Hello blog faithful! Another Thursday is upon us, and right up front I’ll get to the point about the NHRA St. Louis race, which begins tomorrow. It’s hard to believe, even for me, but I’m not going to attend. We have a ton of stuff going on here in Woodbury, and it was a late entry decision for Del to make, so I have decided to save the money and not be there in person. I can follow along on All-Access, and plan to do that, but the air fares were kind of nuts for STL and I just got back from a pricey trip to Southern California. It’s a bit of a long drive, too, so that was not an option. Had we not just gone down to St. Louis for my birthday in June, it would’ve been a harder decision to make. I’ll miss everyone, and I’ll miss the chance to be “home” once again, but it’s the prudent decision.

Backtracking, now, I will recount for you the very interesting and very successful trip to Orange County. First off, I sat in the Sky Club before my flight and was at one of the work cubicles answering emails. I’d been sitting there for 20 minutes before I turned to my right to see a sharply dressed gentleman sitting near me, and I thought, “Man, he looks familiar.” Couldn’t figure it out for a bit, but then I sneaked a phone pic (I know, that’s bad of me) and texted it to Barbara, with the message “I think Andrew Zimmern is sitting next to me in the Sky Club.”

If you don’t know who Andrew Zimmern is, the quick version of the story is that he was born and raised in New York but had some issues and came to Minnesota for some treatment. He decided to stay, and now he’s a world-renowned Master Chef who lives in Minneapolis. The more I peeked at him, the more I was sure it was him and later on, during my flight, I saw a photo online of Andrew Zimmern helping the Minnesota Wild open the new nutrition center at their fabulous new practice facility in downtown St. Paul. Same shirt, same watch, same orange framed glasses. It was indeed him.

I’ve run into a few recognizable people in various Sky Clubs over the years (including the old days with Northwest when it was the World Club). Let’s see… Mike Ditka, current Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, Walter Mondale, Terry Bradshaw, George Will, Keith Hernandez, Nomar Garciaparra, David Bromstad, and others. The only one I’ve approached was Walter Mondale, and he was extremely gracious.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. We arrived at John Wayne Airport 37 minutes early, and I’m sure you can tell where this is going. Delta only has three or four gates at John Wayne, at the end of one of the two concourses, and all of them were full. So we waited about 25 of those minutes for our gate to open up. I picked out a rental car and drove to the Embassy Suites, which was just a mile from the airport and easy to find. Nice place!

I checked in, put my stuff away, and went right back to the car to make Trip 1 of my excursions. I headed south on the 405 Freeway, then on to the 5 Freeway all the way past San Juan Capistrano. I did not check to see if the swallows had returned this year, but that reminds me of a story I used to love talking about. When I lived in Dana Point, which is just west of Capistrano, I drove over to the old mission once and saw a sign on a shop nearby that read “Swallow Souvenirs and Swallow Stories” and all I could think was “You go in there and hand a guy five bucks and he says, ‘Once I swallowed an entire cheeseburger all at the same time’ or ‘There was a time I tried to swallow a 12-ounce frozen smoothie but all I got was brain freeze’.” Thanks, I’m here all week.

Okay, enough of the nonsense. I was on a mission. I got on the Pacific Coast Highway and headed north, up through the aforementioned Dana Point, Monarch Beach, Aliso Beach, and then Laguna Beach. Whenever I saw something that felt important to see, I got off the PCH and drove through neighborhoods, past schools, and into the main business districts. My Southern California character, for the new book, will live and attend school in some of these places, so I needed to get a feel for it and make sure it was time correct. After all, I couldn’t have him attending a high school that wasn’t built until 12 years after I have him going there. Plus, just being in residential neighborhoods tells you a lot about a place. How do the old houses look? Are they kept up? Are people outside? Are there kids on bikes and skateboards? It’s all flavor, and all important.

After Laguna, it was further north up through Corona Del Mar and Newport Beach, then I called it an afternoon and exited the PCH at MacArthur Blvd., which took me right back to the hotel.

That evening, I was Facebook Messaging with Jeff Morton, from NHRA, who I was planning on meeting at 12 noon for lunch the next day. He’d done some more research and gave me some insight into a high school he thought was a perfect match, so in the morning I headed there first. I’m not going to give it away (because I’m just not and also because things can always change) but once I arrived I knew it was the right place. Plus, the school’s baseball team actually was playing a game during their “Fall Ball” season. It was all exactly what I’d mentally pictured.

The school wasn’t one big building, it was more like a small college campus. It was time-period correct, having opened about 10 years before my guy will go there, and the surrounding neighborhoods were quite correct. I drove around as much as  I could, soaking it all in, before thinking “I gotta get going to meet Jeff.” The funny part was, I was in an area I wasn’t familiar with but had done some looking at map sites to figure out the best way to get from Point A to Point B. But, I had no idea how bad traffic would be or how long it would take me to get there. I figured I’d rather get there early than late, so I gave myself 45 minutes.

We were meeting at a pub in the town of Brea, which is on the 57 Freeway, and I was going to have to take surface streets to get there. I could’ve gotten on a couple of freeways but you’re really rolling the dice, in terms of traffic, if you do that. I’d driven quite a ways and it was about five minutes to noon when I began to worry if I’d be really late. Then, the next stop light I came to was the 57 Freeway right where the pub was located. I walked into the place at exactly 12:00.

When I approached the hostess she said, “Are you meeting Jeff?” I was, and I was uncannily right on time.

Jeff and I spent 90 minutes together, enjoying a fine lunch and nonstop conversation. I brought him up to speed on the specifics of the concept and the format for the book, and we talked in generalities for most of the rest of the time. There are some simple “nuts and bolts” things I need to have a firm grasp on, in terms of how amateur baseball works in the area, how it used to work back when my character would be there, and other things as simple as “Do you have American Legion ball here?” or “Do elementary schools have teams?” It was a fantastic conversation and we covered miles of ground. Plus, he handed me a couple of dozen printed pages of stuff he’d found that he thought would be valuable. It was great, and Jeff promised to be an asset for me anytime I had more questions. I’m sure there will be more questions. Probably a lot of them.

After lunch, I had another excursion on my agenda. I went straight back to the PCH at Newport Beach, and went further north, up to Huntington Beach, and for very good reason. Huntington Beach is apt to be a key location in the book, for all sorts of reasons and surfing is not the least of those reasons. Huntington is a big surf spot. Big enough for major competitions to be held there regularly, and the key location for the best surfers is right next to the historic old pier. I had to see it up close. It was right in the sweet spot for what I wanted, and the next big challenge was seeing the old neighborhoods. Bingo! Just what I was hoping for. Another trip well taken.

I cruised around a few other towns, both on and off the beach, before heading back to the hotel for dinner. It was fantastic. And a word about being in an Embassy Suites hotel on a weekend in September: You are apt to be there with six or seven youth soccer teams, who would all be playing in a nearby tournament, along with many of their parents and coaches. That worried me greatly when I first arrived (I crave quiet in a hotel room) but the kids were fantastic, and very polite. The big atrium was full of life and laughter, but once I closed my door I never heard a thing. Two thumbs up.

On Sunday, it was back to the airport and back home. I always get a window seat, basically for any flight, but absolutely for a SoCal flight. You always take off out over the beach and then circle back to head home. And the view rarely disappoints. Just like this one.

And here’s another thing… I’ve written about this before but it probably bears repeating because it was a bit of trivia that made me think, “Oh! Now that makes perfect sense!”

The whole “the” thing with the freeways is very Californian. Basically, people from 49 other states just shake their heads and assume it something Californians made up. Why do they do it? Well, Southern California especially is basically the birthplace of freeways in America. This is where the car culture really got rolling. When they started building the freeways, they gave them all names, based on where they went. You had the Hollywood Freeway, the San Diego Freeway, the Ventura Freeway, the Long Beach Freeway, and many more. When the interstate system came along and the roads got numbers, people were still in the habit of saying “the” before the name, so it stuck. Now the San Diego Freeway is the 405.

As for the trip, all in all, it was not just money well spent, it was time well spent and a great investment in my project. When I went up to Roseau and Warroad, I definitely felt the same way and came out of there extremely energized and fired up. That’s a good thing! If you went on a trip like either one of these and came out of it feeling just like you did when you started, I’d have to think it’s the wrong project.

The writing is going well, too, I think. I’m up to Chapter 4 and have already gone back to the first few I wrote to add more color and specifics after the trip. Both characters are coming to life in my head and that’s something I’ve never done before. I’m finding it fascinating and I think it’s going to be very rewarding in the end. I’ll be a better and more well-rounded writer when I’m done.

Here at the Wilber/Doyle Ranch, it’s been a quiet and pretty dreary week. We’re now stuck in a pattern that brings us thunderstorms interspersed with periods of drizzle or mist. At least it’s no longer 90 and humid. And we know what’s coming ahead, so anytime I can go outside and not get drenched (either by rain or by sweat) I’m okay with it.

Also, look what I got! The new cover for the fire pit is not only round (remember last week’s blog?) it’s also the correct diameter and the perfect height. Slam dunk. And you can see that our new grass is just about all the way in. The rain has helped enormously in that regard.

So much for the furniture delivery guys who swore these things were supposed to only go down halfway to the ground. And be square.

As for the absence of chairs out there, it’s not for lack of trying. We bleached and cleaned the teak set we’ve had for years before I left, and while I was gone Barbara actually sanded everything. What a job she did! The next step is to put a full coat of teak sealant on them, rather than just stain them. If we stain them, we’ll be doing this every year or so. The sealant will leave them looking natural and like new. That’s another thing I’ll be doing instead of being at the track in St. Louis. Can’t wait to get them done.

So that’s about it for this week. All the best to my friends and colleagues at Gateway this weekend. If anyone could buy me a Farotto’s pizza and some toasted ravioli, then have them flash frozen and overnighted to me, that would be great. I’ll sit by the door in anticipation.

As always, if you just read this blog installment and didn’t think “That totally stunk” please hit the”Like” button at the top. A few more “likes” and I win a Ferrari. It may or may not be a 24th-scale die cast.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready for the rain to stop.

 

Yep, the NHRA Mello Yello tour is off to Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa. this weekend. I, however, will be heading in the opposite direction. As mentioned in last week’s blog, I’m instead flying to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif. for a bit of sightseeing and info gathering. It’s a “location scouting” visit for the new book that is officially underway. The trip will help me get a real feel for where my SoCal character grew up, went to school, and surfed. And to make it even better, I’m having lunch with Jeff Morton on Saturday. Jeff is Director of Advertising Sales for NHRA and he’s big into baseball in Southern California. He should be, because his son Kale was a left-handed pitcher at Glendora High, then went the University of Arizona before transferring back home to play his final three seasons at Azusa Pacific University, where he had a fine career.

Jeff has already been digging back into SoCal high school history for me, finding schools, teams, and locations that would fit the time line I’m developing, and that’s awesome. Plus, he’s a great guy and a lot of fun. We share a lot of the same passions and I’m sure it will be a lively conversation, as well as a great learning experience for me. I shall take notes!

In other breaking news, here at the Wilber/Doyle ranch our new propane-fueled fire pit is lonely. We have some chairs we are cleaning and staining (they need it, after being out in Minnesota weather for years) but we’ve only had time to do the cleaning part so far. Our garage smelled like bleach for days. So, the fire pit sits out on our new patio by itself. We have plans to buy a couple of custom made Adirondack chairs as well, but that is still just a plan. At some point, we’ll have the patio we always wanted.

I did order a vinyl cover for the fire pit, yesterday. We had one ordered from the furniture store where we bought the fire pit but sent it back with the delivery guys for two reasons. It was only half as tall as the pit is, and it came in the shape of a square. Our fire pit is round. They tried to explain away the shortness problem, by telling us “Oh no, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. They’re all like that.” No they’re not. There’s a thing called the internet. I found a cover that is exactly the same diameter and height as our pit. Wasn’t that difficult. As for the square issue, well they didn’t have much of a comeback for that.

As you can see, the grass is finally coming in now, too. After the landscapers graded the yard and prepped the dirt, they spread seed before putting the straw erosion blanket over everything. I know it’s nearly impossible to spread seed absolutely evenly and perfectly, and that over time the roots of the grass will spread and create new grass, but I don’t have that kind of patience and there were a lot of bald or thin spots. So I had the guys come back out and remove the blanket, then overseed it again. Plus, I overseeded it for a third application. Now it’s starting to look like a yard instead of my head. Get it? Still need to keep the blue flags in place, to keep the HOA contractors from mowing the new grass. It’s not ready for that yet.

And writing about the roots of the grass triggered a memory of The Grass Roots, a band from the 60s and 70s. They were good, in a catchy pop sort of way. Always good melodies and hooks, in songs like “Wait A Million Years” or “Midnight Confession” or even “Temptation Eyes.” Hope I gave at least one or two of you a good long-lasting ear worm with those titles.

Barbara and I had some big fun on Saturday, this past weekend. The San Francisco 49ers were in town to play the Vikings in both teams’ openers for the NFL regular season, and that means my buddy Mike Hohler was in town as well. The team flew in on Friday night, so Mike had all day on Saturday to see some sights and check another ballpark off his list. We met at Target Field about an hour before the first pitch of the Twins-Royals game, up in the Bat and Barrel club in right field. Then we sat in our assigned seats for a while before doing what’s one of the best things you can do at Target Field. We walked all around it and checked out the view from different perspectives.

Barb was just starting to get over a cold she’d collected when she was down in Orlando the weekend before, so we weren’t sure how long she’d feel like staying. That was fine, because Mike took the light rail to the stadium while we drove there. The Niners stayed at one of the luxury hotels at Mall of America, and that’s one end of one of the light rail lines. The other end is Target Field Station. We’d been cruising around the park and were standing by a railing out on the second level in the left field corner, when Barbara said, “I’m getting close to needing to go. Getting pretty tired” and I said, “Sure, whenever you’re ready.”

Mike then said, “But… The Royals pitcher has a no-hitter going. You can’t leave until the Twins get a hit!”

Then he added, “And looking at the box score, I think it’s a perfect game. He’s faced the minimum and I don’t remember any double-plays.”

He was right. The Kansas City pitcher had a perfect game going. It was about to be the bottom of the seventh, so we decided to wait to see if we’d witness history. The Royals pitcher was Jorge Lopez, and I’ll admit I was not exactly totally familiar with him. As in, I hadn’t heard of him. He got three straight outs in the seventh. We stayed.

He got three straight outs in the eighth. We continued to stay, and it was great to feel the buzz in the ballpark. Despite the fact it was a Kansas City pitcher doing it, the Twins fans were getting behind him. The Royals led 4-0 going into the bottom of the ninth, so it wasn’t really about a Twins rally. Twins fans wanted to see the guy succeed.

He walked the leadoff man. Perfect game gone, but he still had a no-hitter. At almost the same time, Mike and I said “He’s going to give up a hit to the next guy. It always goes like that. All the adrenalin leaves you when you lose the perfect game.”

Sure enough, Robbie Grossman was the next batter and he lined a base hit to left. The Twins fans gave the pitcher a standing ovation. Now all we had to wait for was a loss, so Barbara and I headed for the car. Mike headed for the light rail station.

The next day, Mike’s real job took over as producer of the 49ers radio broadcast for KNBR, and that gave Neighbor Dave and Terry Blake their chance to spend the game on the sidelines, holding the parabolic microphones to pick up the game action audio. Barbara and I headed over to the Jacobsen’s house to join the two wives (Nichol Jacobsen and Lynn Blake) along with Nichol’s longtime friend Allison, with our goal to be threefold: We would eat well, imbibe a little, and simultaneously play the “Spot Dave or Terry” game. We think we saw them a few times, but it was frustrating that the camera operators really kept it tight and never showed the microphone guys (other than the FOX network guys, because they get the best spots and wear bright vests) especially when we wanted to see them. So many shots of the game where you could see feet on the sidelines, but nothing above that. The guys did have a blast and no one was flattened by a runaway linebacker, so that’s all good.

I made the decision months ago, right after the schedule came out, that I wanted Terry to get to experience this with Dave, who was in his third game on the sidelines. Once was enough for me. It’s thrilling, nerve wracking, and tiring, but it’s one of those things most people never have a chance to do. And they survived!

Finally, in this short blog segment, I’ll post something I put on Facebook earlier in the week. I found a 1979 Lakeland Tigers game program on eBay and it arrived in the mail a few days ago. Sadly, no team photo and no individual headshots, so that was disappointing, but the original roster was still inserted inside the program. That’s remarkable, because it was just a photo-copied sheet folded in half and stuck in the center spread of the magazine. Yeah, I’m on there.

The rest of the program is mostly a combination of ads and “lucky numbers” for in-stadium giveaways. Ads that are that old are always worth looking at in a nostalgic way. Speaking of nostalgic, the program itself sold at the game for 50 cents!

Anyone who has read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” might recognize more than a few of these names. On the Tigers, you’ll see my roomie and teammate from the Paintsville Hilanders, Dan O’Connor, otherwise known as OC in the book. You’ll also see John Crawford, the catcher who wanted the Tigers to release him, but they wouldn’t. My best buddy on that team, Howard Bailey, is listed. There’s Mike Wright, the former Vanderbilt quarterback who got thrown out of an early-season game, which gave me my first chance to play in the Florida State League, over in St. Pete. And there’s Howard Johnson, who went on to Major League fame with the Tigers and Mets. Larry Pashnick and Bruce Fields also made it to the big leagues from Lakeland. And, of course, our manager Fred Hatfield.

At the bottom of the roster, there’s a note about a couple of upcoming games, and the second of the two notes is about another great story from the book; the night the tightrope walker went back and forth on a wire stretched between two of the massive Joker Marchant Stadium light towers. We were all forced into holding ropes that steadied the wire. It was terrifying.

As for the St. Pete Cardinals roster, it is absolutely littered with future big leaguers. George Bjorkman, Luis DeLeon, Al Olmsted, Andy Rincon, John Stuper, and Kelly Paris all played in “the show” for sure. There may be others, but I don’t have time to do all the research right now. But all of them added together didn’t equal the excitement of seeing Jim Gott’s name on that roster. He was a huge part of the book, after I spotted him in the Mexican Winter League and the Blue Jays then took him as the first pick in the Rule 5 draft, plucking him out of the Cardinals’ organization. Later, when I was working for Converse Shoes in Southern California, I had Jim under contract to wear our spikes for the Dodgers. Dodger Stadium was where I finally got to meet him, in 1990. It was his ninth year in the big leagues, out of what would eventually be a fantastic 14-year Major League career as a reliever. Until this roster and program came in the mail, I had no idea that Jim Gott and I played against each other. What a crazy small world.

So that’s it for today. Time for me to go to the bank, get a haircut, do some laundry, and think about what Barbara and I are going to have for dinner. Too bad we can’t sit around the fire pit.

I’ll see you next week, and until then remember this: If you just read this and you liked what you saw, please click on the “Like” button at the top. 12,000 more Likes and I get one of those multi-colored beanies with a propeller on top!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still amazed Jim Gott was in St. Pete in ’79

I am on our screened porch with my two fuzzy assistants around me. One is neck-deep in the catnip plant we grow and water just for him. That would be Buster. The little guy, who always craves sunshine, is near me but on the wooden floor. It is “that day” and you can mark it on the calendar. September 6, 2018. The day you can feel it. The day summer really begins to end and the first wisps of autumn are in the air. From this point forward, we’ll have brief warm-ups and days where we say, “hot one today” but the tide always turns and today feels like that day. At 8:30 this morning, when I went out to get the newspaper in the driveway, it was chilly.

It’s warmed up quite a bit, but it’s different. You can genuinely feel that it’s different. We’ve been stuck in a hot & humid rut for months, where the simple act of going for a walk would bring you back home drenched in sweat. Yesterday, there was a tease of a break. Today, the break is real. And it’s pretty heavenly to be out here on the glider, with my feet on the ottoman and my laptop where laptops are supposed to be. It’s on my lap. And Buster is now on the ottoman too, with his left side pressed up against my lower leg. He’s a good boy. So is Boofie. It doesn’t get much better than this.

And I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted a pic of my laptop with the TPGF website admin page open, and my first couple of sentences written. If you click on the photo, you can see what I see when I’m writing this blog. I was just getting started when I took the photo.

And in the distance, just to make it a full sensory experience, someone is taking down what sounds like a very big tree. I can hear the chainsaw making its cuts and the the large crack and thud of each major branch or trunk as they come down. And the crows are talking all around me, as are our pair of doves who make our backyard home. The crows are the obnoxious ones. The doves are sublime. Welcome to Minnesota in September.

And just for the record, here’s Buster mowing down some more fresh catnip. I posted a similar photo on Facebook yesterday, of him basically standing in the pot, not next to it. Here he is, again, on Thursday Blog Day.

I’ve been home from Indy since Monday night, and today is the first day I feel normal. Okay, “normal” in a physical way. I rarely feel normal in a personality sort of way. Despite the fact I managed to make this year’s U.S. Nationals as efficient as possible, in terms of the length of my trip, it will still wear you out like no other race.

Back in the CSK days, I’m not sure how we all got through it but we were younger then. We’d go in on Tuesday, because there was always media and promotional work to do on Wednesday and Thursday. And usually a banquet or two. Big displays at Monument Circle, as well. And we’d go back home the next Tuesday, the day after the race (as long as there were no weather delays).

That truly was a marathon. Oh to have that kind of energy again… This time, I flew down to Indy on Friday afternoon, since there was only one session that day and it was a night run. I even had time to check into the hotel before going to the track, and got there 90 minutes before the run. After finishing my work on Monday, I went out to the airport to see about getting on an earlier flight, but the desk agent said “I can put you on stand-by, but if you make it you’re going to be in the back of the plane and in a middle seat.”

That actually meant a lot to me, because I’d already been put in the front cabin and my original flight was just two hours later than the one I might get on. I declined the stand-by. To me, it was worth it to go sit in the Sky Club and do some web surfing and social media for the two hours and then get to sit in the front. Lots of racing fans strolled through the club, as well, so lots of conversations were had. And two or three perfect strangers were standing by the bar watching the “live” coverage on Fox, just as the final round was going off. They weren’t established fans, obviously, but they were enthralled by what they were seeing. When J.R. Todd won in Funny Car, and then Terry McMillen in Top Fuel, the raw exuberant emotions on the screen got to the guys watching.

One guy said, “My gosh that’s a lot of pent up emotion in one instant. I wonder what the other team feels like…”

They noticed my hat and shirt and asked me if I’d been there. I said I had, but we lost a crazy-close race in round one. And I told them what it feels like to be the “other team” in the final round. It’s a very hollow feeling.

And about that first-round race. It was insane, and it seemed like it was happening in slow motion. First of all, it was almost all of my drag racing PR career wrapped up in one 1,000-foot race. I stood behind Del Worsham and his Toyota. In the other lane was Tim Wilkerson in his Ford. Prior to the race, we’d all been next to each other in the lanes, and handshakes and nods were shared all around. We all shared the sentiment that the best thing we could do is make it a thriller, for the fans and the crew members. As you can see, we pulled that off.

Susan Savoie Cagle posted this shot she took of their TV screen. It really was that close, and this is what one-thousandth of a second looks like. After decompressing for a bit, I walked “all the way” over to the Wilkerson pit. It wasn’t a long walk. We were pitted next to each other. I shook as many hands as I could, gave Krista a hug, and then went over to talk with Wilk. I said, “Great job, Timmy. It’s almost like a tie, but you earned the chance to go on. Put on a helluva show for the fans, too.” He gave me that Wilk nod, and said, “Thank you for coming over, Bob. That really means a lot to me. Thank you.” It meant a lot to me, too.

It was really a great event in almost every way. Saturday and Sunday’s crowds were massive. The whole place was jam-packed and the atmosphere was terrific. Monday was, by a good bit, the hottest and muggiest day of the race, and that may have kept the crowd down. It was basically sweltering. And, for my gaggle of colleagues who make up the PR reps, we got to add to the fun with the location of our room in the tower. We were on the top floor. That’s a lot of stairs to climb, repeatedly, all day long. It never seemed to get much easier.

Throughout all my years we’ve had a number of different locations for the PR people. For many years, we tried to share the main Media Center, which is on the second floor, with all the reporters, staffers, and National Dragster folks. As the sport grew, and more national and regional reporters would come to cover the race, we ran out of room. Plus, NHRA really needed a dedicated interview room, with a stage and podium and chairs for reporters, so that was done and by then there was clearly no room for PR reps. The first solution was to put us in the Media Center next door, at the oval track.

The “press box” at the oval is nice, and plenty big, but the oval track is down past the finish line. And, of course, the Media Center over there faces, duh, the oval track. We had a nice big room where we could spread out (and an elevator!) but we had no view of the track without stepping outside to stand at the back railing. The fax machine came in handy when it was time to pass out the qualifying sheets.

Finally, just a few years ago, they put the PR reps on the fourth floor of the tower, but on the far left side as you stand behind it. This year, I think they put the broadcast team in that room and they moved the PR reps to the far right end. I sat at the far right end of the front row of the room too, so I had the “corner office” if you will. I could look straight ahead and have a phenomenal view of the track, or to my right to look out over the massive pit area and midway. Climbing the stairs all weekend wasn’t much fun, but the view was fantastic.

Oh, and speaking of PR reps (because I was) we all had to say goodbye and good luck to Cody Poor at the end of the day on Monday. Cody was always one of the reps who was a pure pleasure to be around, but he was also extraordinarily good at what he did, working for the Kalitta team. He’s going to work for a big law firm in Indianapolis, doing marketing and PR for them, so Monday was his last day. It was an emotional day for him, and it ended with one of his drivers, J.R. Todd, winning the race. That was a perfect and profound way for his last day to end. All the best to Cody! You’re a good man, buddy.

UPDATE: My two fuzzy assistants are taking a break. Both sound asleep, with Buster on the rocking chair and Boofus on the top level of the kitty condo. The breeze is magnificent.

And yesterday, I learned something no one else had told me about, regarding the Wilk vs Del first round match up. Right before we started the car, I could hear Alan Reinhart start a sentence about “the historic significance” of the pairing. When the motor fired, I couldn’t hear the rest of it but I allowed my brain to think, just for a second, “I wonder if he’s going to say something about me…”

Yesterday I got an email from my Vancouver friend, Kim Campbell (aka “Kim the Lawyer). He was watching the race on All Access, I assume, because that stream uses the P.A. for the sound, and that means he would’ve been listening to Alan. Kim informed me that Alan said something along the lines of “If you’re wondering about mixed emotions, go find Bob Wilber and ask him about it. He spent almost 20 years total doing PR for these two guys, first for Del Worsham and then Tim Wilkerson. And now he’s back in the sport doing some more PR for the Worsham team. He wrote a book about it, and it’s called Bats, Balls, & Burnouts. Buy it on Amazon.”

And I wondered why I saw a significant spike in sales on Tuesday and Wednesday, both in terms of the printed book and the Kindle version. I wrote Alan a note and thanked him, but I figured he might want a royalty after creating some sales so I never mentioned that. Alan doesn’t read this blog, does he? Asking for a friend.

Did I mention it’s a spectacular day in Minnesota? I thought so. The humidity is gone, the sky is blue, the breeze is magic, and I could sit out here all day. There’s no rule that says I can’t, but I have other writing to do. Guess what… On Sunday, between sessions when most of the other PR reps fanned out all across the pits to go see their drivers, I followed an urge I was having and I started to write. As in, I started to write a test version of Chapter 1 of my new book, just to see how it felt. It felt great. I’m not sure the three pages I wrote over the course of the next three days will end up being part of the actual opening chapter, but maybe. Did you know I had a totally different Chapter 1 in the original manuscript for Bats, Balls, & Burnouts? I did, but it was clear to me early on that the original version was me trying to be too tricky. Or, in effect, trying too hard. It was forced and it didn’t sound like me, plus it gave away a few plot twists that had to come later in the book. So, in the end, we just dumped it all. Chapter 2 became Chapter 1, and that was some serious addition by subtraction. The original chapter was lousy.

And here’s another thing. I’ve been stumped all along on a title for the new book. When I tell people that, they all have the same response. They say, “It’ll come to you. It always does.” And yesterday it just might have. I was on a walk, and as I strolled by one of our many Woodbury lakes, the first possible title just popped into my head. It was okay, but it gave away too much, kinda like that original first chapter of the first book. And then a second later, a new two-word title made itself vividly clear. I won’t give it up yet, because maybe this one just broke the logjam and more and better options will appear, but I like it enough to think it’s a front runner. It’s one of those titles that’s simple, but it can mean lots of different things in many different ways. That seemed like a big thing.

And my next big trip is coming up, too. I have booked a ticket from MSP to SNA a week from Friday. SNA is John Wayne Airport in Orange County. After the great trip up to Roseau, I felt like I should do a location scouting trip to that area, too, to get a real feel for where that character grew up and went to school. It won’t be like the Roseau trip, where Larry set me up with a string of interviews and meetings, but I want to make sure I can characterize exactly where this guy lived and what it was like. I’ve obviously been to the area many times, but I’ve never driven around with this intent in mind. I’ll take lots of photos, to keep it all fresh as I write.

I guess that’s about it for this week. Time to reopen that Google Docs file I started to see if I can add some more words to the trial run of Chapter 1.

As always, we like “likes” here so if you just read this and enjoyed it, please click on the “Like” button at the top! I’m still trying to win that secret decoder ring…

Bob Wilber, at your service with two sleepy assistants.

 

I’ve been writing this blog, in this web location, since the beginning of 2016. NHRA.com was kind enough to allow me to keep writing the original blog for a couple of months at their site, after I officially retired, to help transition my readers over here to our family charity site. That was very generous and helpful because I could finish each NHRA blog with reminders about the move, the date, and a link to this new site (although a lot of people didn’t get the memo, as we say.) I wanted it to be a seamless transition for as many folks as possible, knowing that NHRA.com was going to take down their blog page as soon as I was done. 10 years in one spot was a long time, but now we’re over here and still rocking.

For those of you who have been here since we relocated, I offer great thanks. I’m not sure of the total numbers as compared to the peak of the NHRA blog, which at its conclusion was drawing more eyeballs than all the other NHRA blogs added together, but there’s a healthy crowd here after each one is posted. One of the key pieces of data comes from the number of “Likes” we get each week, although I’m also not sure what the percentage is of people who read the blog versus those that read it and then take the time to actually click on the “Like” button at the top. Is it 1%? 5%? 7.36%? I don’t know, but it has to be a tiny percentage for all sorts of reasons. A lot of people like to read stuff on the internet, but don’t like interacting or leaving a mark, as we say.

Since this version of my blog launched back in January of ’16, we’ve averaged around 20 “Likes” per installment, with an all-time high being somewhere close to 50. The all-time high has now been changed, and my guess is we’ve hit a mark we may never hit again. As I’m typing this right now, on Thursday afternoon, there have been 180 “Likes” of last week’s installment, and it’s still creeping higher. 200 may not be out of reach.

When I posted it last Thursday, I waited for the initial reaction and it was all very positive. People liked reading about Roseau and Warroad, in addition to the stuff about Brainerd and the race. The “Likes” started to add up more quickly than usual, but topped out around 28 or so over the weekend. At least I thought they’d topped out. I was mistaken. I had sent a few “thank you” notes to people I’d met with up in Roseau, and I gave them a link to the blog in the hope they’d like it. They did.

A couple of nights ago, Barbara and I were having dinner at Angelina’s Kitchen, our hands-down favorite bistro in Woodbury, when she checked her phone and held up one hand, saying, “Wait, wait. Oh my!”  She had a message from a former colleague, Brenda Erickson. Brenda is married to Tom. Tom is a Roseau native. Word had gotten to them that the blog was the hottest thing in Roseau, and Brenda’s remark to Barbara was “Roseau is abuzz about Bob’s Blog.” In our own little way, the blog was going viral in Roseau, Minnesota.

It started slowly up there, with one or two people reading it and liking it, while they also obviously took the time to click on the “Like” button to register their appreciation. Then the word began to spread. And it’s still spreading.

I don’t know how many Roseau residents, if any at all, will continue to read this weekly form of social media, but I’ll continue to post updates on the new book and the people I talk to. Hopefully we’ll add a few permanent fans even after they get used to the regular nonsense I write about. I mean, geez, they haven’t even met Boofus and Buster yet! If you’re a Roseau resident, be prepared for all sorts of tomfoolery here, much of which is as far from serious as it gets. You’ll get to point where you feel like you know our cats. They’re friendly.

As for book updates, it still does not have a working title. I’m sure it will come to me in a flash, at some point, but there’s been no flash up until now. I did get serious about writing this week, though, and that’s enough of a momentous thing I marked the date on my computer’s calendar, so I’d never forget what day it was when I officially started the process of putting words on the screen. I didn’t start writing the actual book yet, but I did spend much of three days doing “Character Overviews” for the two guys I call Character 1 and Character 2, and ended up doing close to 10 pages of “what these guys are like” on each one.

The goal was to flesh out their personalities, their qualities, and the path they each took in life, up to and after they meet in college. As I was writing, they kind of “came to life” for me and the details about how each of these two guys are wired just appeared. It was a really neat process, and the more I wrote the more they developed as definitive people. They are very different, and I knew they should be, but I didn’t purposefully describe them and write about them that way. It’s not that black and white. They will come from very different backgrounds and places, but the quirks of their personalities had to flow organically and naturally and I’ve never really done anything like this, so it was fascinating.

I have names for them, but I won’t divulge that yet because nothing is etched in stone and it can all change. What I’m thrilled about is the process of getting to know them. I’m to the point where I can start to hear their voices when I write about them, and I definitely am to the point where I internally already know who they each handle challenges, tragedy, friendship, and loyalty. They are, indeed, each a combination of many people I’ve known, but neither one of them is a copy of any one particular person. There’s a bit of this from that old teammate, and some of that from an old work colleague, and so on. And one fun part is that this whole process is an ongoing one. I’m sure they’ll come way more to life once I’ve started writing their stories in their own words, in the first person. Then, I’ll really hear their voices.

Another update is that I have another lunch meeting set up, thanks to Tracy Ostby up in Roseau. He reached out to Paul Broten, one of three famous Broten brothers, because Paul lives here in the Twin Cities. Tracy (aka “Bobcat”) contacted Paul to let him know who I am and that I’d be in touch. After one quick email, Paul wrote back immediately to say he’d be happy to have lunch when I get back from Indy.

Paul was, of course, a Roseau Ram and he’s another one of those guys who played on the ’84 team, so he and my fictional character will be theoretical teammates on the squad. Paul went on to play college hockey as a Minnesota Golden Gopher, and then played pro hockey for 10 years, with 332 games being in the NHL. He played a lot of minor league hockey, from the Flint Spirits to the Fort Wayne Komets and many other stops along the way, but his NHL career featured just three teams over a span of seven seasons. The New York Rangers, the Dallas Stars, and the St. Louis Blues. Utilizing my now-famous terrible math, I think he scored 46 NHL goals. That’s exactly 46 more goals for him than pro baseball home runs for me. That part of the math is easy. It will be a real pleasure to sit down with him and chat about his Roseau memories. And boy oh boy, does Spell Check ever hate the nickname of the Fort Wayne team. Yes, it’s spelled with a K.

So, speaking of Indy (I just did, two paragraphs ago) I’ll be flying down there tomorrow, since we only have one qualifying session on Friday and it’s under the lights. Del was fine with that and even said “No sweat, even if you’re delayed it’s just one run so come anytime you want.” I’m due to land at 3:00, so that would give me five full hours to make my way to the track. Indy is one of those tracks where it always seems like I’ve just been there, and it can’t be a year since I actually was. Year after year of driving in through the same gate, walking through the same pits, and working in the same tower for such a historic and important race will do that for you. My Indy stories will have to wait until next week, though, because I’m not there yet.

On the PR side of things, I put out a pre-Indy release for Del and I tried something totally new, because I’m all about trying new stuff right now. A standard PR press release follows a common structure. It goes Paragraph-Paragraph-Quote-Quote-Paragraph-Quote-Paragraph. They don’t all have to be precisely like that but it is the most efficient way to write something that people will quickly and easily comprehend. You set the stage with your introductory paragraph (who, what, where, when) and then add to those themes in the second paragraph. Then two paragraphs of quotes from your famous driver, then another concept paragraph followed by a quote about that subject, then wrap it up with a bow in the final summary paragraph.

Yesterday, I changed it up. I wrote five consecutive informational paragraphs about Del and his career. Then I broke that string and just included five straight paragraphs of Del quotes, under the heading “Worsham’s Comments” and I actually got about a dozen emails in response from people telling me they really liked the style. Maybe I should patent it.

Here in Woodbury, we attended a fantastic wedding on Sunday evening. It was sorta kinda outdoors, because the sun was shining and the breeze was blowing, but it was in the most fascinating wedding venue I’ve ever seen, and we all absolutely loved it.

Our longtime dear friend Sue Wegleitner was getting hitched and the ceremony was held in the ruins of a building! It was in the remains of one part of the old Hamm’s Beer brewery in St. Paul. A new craft brewery, called Flat Earth, now is located in part of the old Hamm’s complex, and it’s a popular spot for craft beer afficianados, but Sue’s wedding was in a part of the building that burned down and collapsed after Hamm’s closed. The new brewing company left it pretty much “as is” right down to the crumbled brick walls and the graffiti. See what’s left of the old elevator in the background? Very neat place to get hitched.

We got totally lucky on the weather, too. We’d been stuck in a long rut of hot and humid days, with the only breaks being bouts of rain, but on Sunday evening it was nearly perfect. It was a wonderful ceremony, very heartfelt, genuine, and compact. And, our friend Sue looked radiant. Our new friend Craig looked nervous, but he got through it very well.

After the ceremony, we headed inside to what would normally be kind of a dance hall or brew hall, for the reception. Everyone who was there for the wedding could drink all the Flat Earth variations they wanted, although that did not include me. Ever since my Spokane arthritis specialist figured out what precisely was causing me so much trouble (and pain) in my knees and ankles, beer, shellfish, certain nuts, and overly processed food have been off my menu. Especially the thick and hoppy craft brews. I have not yet cheated on the beer part, nor the shellfish part, but a sub sandwich or a hot dog is too good to always pass up. So, with no free beer for me, I drank ginger ale all night, but that was awesome. They brew it right there, and it was the best ginger ale I’ve ever had.

They also supplied some incredible food, and with multiple serving stations around the room we could all try a little bit of everything. It was a fantastic and one of the most unique and most enjoyable weddings I’ve ever experienced. Plus, almost all of our “Woodbury Gang” was there with us. We had our typical great time. Smiles and laughs all around.

So that wraps it up for today. Tomorrow I’ll start accumulating Indy stories for next week’s installment. I’ll be back here next Thursday, same Bat time, same Bat channel. You have to be of a certain age to understand that last part, I think.

As always, if you read this week’s blog and liked it, please click on the “Like” button at the top. If I get enough “Likes” I might win a free car wash. Or maybe it was a t-shirt. Hard to remember…

Bob Wilber, at your service and still thanking the fine folks from Roseau…

What an adventure I’ve been on since my previous blog, last week. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it, and I’ve experienced a lot so that’s saying something. And the key part is that the experience wasn’t just good, or fun, or interesting. It was all of those but it was also incredibly valuable and enlightening.

First off though, let’s get to the day after I wrote the previous blog. Leaving St. Cloud I had a quick and easy trip up to Brainerd, and arriving around 10:30 meant I couldn’t head over to Madden’s Resort to check in (can’t do that until 3:00) so I went straight to the track. Here’s the thing about Brainerd, for PR hacks like me: When you walk in Gate B after parking in the reserved lot, you are right in the middle of the venue. But, the Media center is all the way around the track on the far side, and Del’s pit area was almost all the way down the massive row of transporters, in the opposite direction. It’s a huge place, not even counting the campgrounds and The Zoo. I made the decision to turn left after I got in and took my backpack to the Media Center before turning around to walk back to Del’s pit. It would be a weekend featuring lots of walking. More than 10,000 steps each day, and I managed to hit 12,000 on Saturday.

Thoughts about the race… Del went in there really upbeat about how the car was running, and because cars sense such things (you may think they are unfeeling mechanical objects but in reality they are devious living beings) we could barely get out of our own way all weekend. Through three sessions we were unable to make a full lap and in real danger of not qualifying for the race, as 18 teams were trying to fit into 16 spots. I’m not much of a math guy but that doesn’t work.

In the final qualifying session, we were sitting in the bump spot and were running as part of the second pair. The pair ahead of us featured Gary Densham and Dale Creasy. Our best time was something along the lines of 4.49 or so. Both Densham and Creasy ran well enough to knock us out and into the 18th spot. It was time to fix the problems and get back in, and Del did just that, running a 4.02 to do it. That put us 11th and safely in the show, but one other car outran us before the session was over so we entered the race in the 12th spot. Ironically, after all the dust settled it was Densham and Creasy who ended up getting bumped back out. It’s a cruel sport. I know this first-hand. And no, there’s nothing like the pressure of firing your car for the final qualifying run knowing you’re either going to be in, or out.

On Sunday we lost in round one, when the same mechanical issues came back to ruin our lap. Del was as frustrated as I’ve seen him in a LONG time and I felt for him. He’d come in there very positive, and feeling good about things. Then we started chronically dropping cylinders or spinning the tires, or both. It was a bummer.

What was not a bummer was the event itself. I’ve been going to Brainerd since 1992, and I’ve seen the ebbs and flows of how well the event goes. There were some years not too long ago when the campground was nowhere near capacity and we never came close to filling the main grandstand. I honestly felt like the Brainerd stop on the NHRA tour might be in danger. Some of the ownership groups in the late 1990s and into the 2000s seemed to not even care about the venue or the people paying for tickets. Things were not good.

And then in 2006 Jed and Kristi Copham bought BIR and everything began to turn around. They thrive on customer service and on great racing, and their commitment to BIR is unmistakable. That commitment shows in the campground and grandstands, and this year was the best I’ve ever seen. The place was absolutely packed, and even though I did not go to The Zoo I heard from many who did and the consensus was “We haven’t seen it like this in decades. It might be the best it’s ever been.”

The fans came out in huge numbers, and the pro pits were so consistently crowded it was hard to even walk through the throngs of them. Wall to wall would be a great way to describe it, and you have to keep in mind that a certain percentage of the paying public never bothers to go find their seats in the grandstand. They show up midweek and are there for the camping, the party, and The Zoo.

Barbara drove up in her car on Saturday, and it was really something she was looking forward to. She hasn’t been to any races recently (I don’t recall her going to any last year and maybe just one in 2016) and she was really eager to see a lot of smiling friendly faces. Brainerd was always one of her favorite events, and staying at Madden’s makes it even better. We had a phenomenal cabin right on the shore of Gull Lake and a glass of wine on the porch was about as good as it gets. Very serene, and to sit there and hear two Loons converse in their unmistakeable call is something so Minnesota it gives you goosebumps.

We drove both of our cars to the track on Sunday, because we’d be heading in opposite directions after we left. We stood down by the starting line for introductions and the national anthems (they sing both the Canadian and American anthems) before we headed up to the Media Center, but a few moments later Barb spotted the lovely young lady who had sung “Oh Canada” and harmonized on “The Star Spangled Banner” so she asked if she could have her photo taken with the talented girl. And now Barbara Doyle can add Miss Minnesota to her long list of famous friends!

After we lost, I had a decision to make. I had reserved a room in Bemidji, which is about 100 miles north of the track. I did that in the hope we’d have a long and successful day and that would be as far as I’d want to drive. It’s another two hours plus up to Roseau and I didn’t want to be doing that in the dark. With our early elimination, I not only knew I’d have time to get to Roseau while the sun was still up, I also knew that I couldn’t put my Post-Event Report out until at least 4:30 after the race was over. because if people are looking forward to seeing the finals on TV, even “live” on TV, the very sight of an email from me at 1:00 tells them all they need to know about Del’s day.

So I called the motel I was going to stay at in Roseau and changed my reservation to start Sunday night, then cancelled the Bemidji room. It was all systems go to drive up to Roseau. In doing so I learned something else new. I’d never been any further north, in the middle part of the state, than Nisswa, which is seven miles or so from the track. After passing Nisswa, I was in all new country. And there’s a lot of it. I learned that Minnesota is a very tall state. And, after Bemidji there’s not much in the way of humanity until you get to Roseau. A few tiny towns, but none apparently big enough to have a school or a Main Street. Just miles and miles of near wilderness, ranging for thick forests and lakes of all sizes to endless fields of a wide variety of crops. I could easily drive 10 miles without seeing another car, and did that repeatedly. It was really exciting to pull into Roseau and see people and vehicles again. And it’s a good thing I did the trip Sunday, because my first meeting was set for 9:00 a.m. on Monday.

Larry Guggisberg had my schedule expertly laid out, and he knew exactly what I was after. I not only wanted to meet the locals and some hockey guys, but I also wanted to get a good feel for the town, the residents, and the places they gather. He nailed it.

I did have some time on Sunday night to drive around and check out the town a little. I’d been doing my research to see photos of the arena and some other parts of town, including the massive Polaris plant which employs a large number of locals. Roseau was quaint, friendly, easy to navigate, and very compact. It was also very welcoming.

In the morning, I was up early and checking out my Monday itinerary. My first meeting was at the arena, with David Drown who is the guy who runs the building. He’s also a former Roseau Ram hockey player, and he graduated in 1984. That 1984 thing would soon be noteworthy for me, and in sort of a funny way. I had a busy schedule that ran right through to Wednesday morning, and on my itinerary from Larry I kept noticing that 1984 graduates were the norm, not the exception. Clearly that was a good team, and many of them live in Roseau to this day, even if they left for a while to play college hockey, or juniors, or pro.

They did not win the state championship, though, in 1984 so I was intrigued by meeting so many guys from that team. And here’s the funny part. Without knowing any of this, I picked 1984 to be the graduation year for my fictional Roseau character. Why? Because math is not my strong suit and I thought having the guy graduate exactly 10 years after I did would make it way easier for me to peg different years to different stages of his life. Just add 10 years to what I went through. What an incredible coincidence that just fell into my lap.

And what about that ’84 team? They did go to the state tournament but they got blitzed  7-0 by Twin Cities powerhouse Edina in the opening round. Roseau did win the Consolation trophy, but many locals consider the ’84 team to be one of the best ever, despite not winning it all.

Larry was there at the arena to introduce me to David, as he would be for every one of my meetings and conversations. He went completely out of his way to set it all up, and then make it all happen with introductions. Each time, he’d deliver me to my next person and then leave us to have our conversations. It was fairly amazing, considering the man is Superintendent of Schools.

David was awesome, and we hit it off well. The building, officially known as Roseau Memorial Arena, was built in the 1940s and it’s a an absolute civic treasure. The arched beams give it a classic “barn” look, and the banners representing the state championships and the runner-up finishes are all you need to know about Roseau hockey. This isn’t so much a “hotbed” of hockey, it’s a way of life and it’s the glue that holds the community together.

Minnesota is known as the State of Hockey, and the sport is incredibly popular at just about every level from the border with Iowa up to the border with Canada, and from Moorhead in the west all the way to Duluth and Stillwater in the east. But Roseau… Roseau is what you’d call the epicenter, and with the similar town of Warroad just 20 miles away, these two beacons of hockey greatness set an example I simply can’t think of in any other sport or in any other state. Between these two schools, located in one town of about 2,600 (Roseau) and another of about 1,600 (Warroad) you’re looking at 11 total state championships, where there is simply no way to get to the crown without beating mega schools from the Twin Cities and other parts of Minnesota. This is why my character just HAS to be from Roseau. It’s also why I had to make the drive and spend the days there. I needed to soak it in and try to understand how it’s even possible. I’m still not sure I totally understand it, but I absorbed a lot and I “get it” a lot better now.

David gave me the full tour, of the arena where all the home games are played, right down to the fabulous locker room they have for these high school kids who represent their city. I also got a full tour of The North Rink, another fine rink and facility right next door. With a third full ice sheet being located over by the school, the little town of Roseau has three full-sized indoor hockey rinks. I asked David if there were any outdoor rinks, since we have many in Woodbury, and he said, “Not really. In the middle of winter here it’s pretty much too cold to play outside. We can go a month straight below zero, and it can get down to 30-below pretty regularly.” Oh.

On the tour, I got my first introduction to the great flood of 2002. The little Roseau River runs right through the town, and it’s almost not noticeable when you drive over it. In ’02, it took over most of the town. It heavily damaged just about every business in town and it flooded the arena, ruining much of the ice-making equipment and many auxiliary rooms. It was a disaster, but as nearly everyone who explained it to me said, “It was a disaster with a silver lining.”

After the historic flood, Roseau had to rebuild. With help from FEMA and other sources, the town got to work and rebuilt. At the arena, they took it as an opportunity to improve the building at the same time. They extended the west wall, adding a few new beams across the top, and that allowed them to finally get the rink up to the standard 200 feet in length. It had been 185 since it was built.

The place is still historic, but now it’s also state of the art. And my conversation with David was a fabulous way to start my introduction to the Roseau way of life.

With each of my meetings being set about two hours apart, I could spend an hour with each of the people I met and then have time to dash back to the motel to take my recordings and notes and put them into a better order, to indelibly etch them onto my mental hard drive. The reason I could do this was because of Roseau itself. I knew I could get to any meeting in just 5 minutes or less, no matter where I was going. That was a great thing.

Larry took me to meet Gary Ross and his brother Don at the Guesthouse Inn, and that was my second fantastic conversation. And guess what? Gary was the coach for that same 1984 team.

After just two meetings, I could already sense how valuable this trip was going to be. One of my original thoughts had been to “sit in the diners and restaurants with the locals” because those gathering places are the soul of a small town. I can choose from dozens of restaurants just within Woodbury, where the fare could range from hot dogs to Filet Mignon, and that’s not even including the rest of the Twin Cities, but with so much to choose from and so many people, there’s not really a feeling of togetherness and community when we go out to eat. We have our favorite places, and in one or two of them a server might actually remember us when we come in.

In Roseau, everyone knows everyone. I loved the sense of that from the moment I arrived, and they all treated me in spectacular fashion.

Two hours later I met with Jon Helgeson, who brought along Scott Vatnesdal, at the Roseau Diner right by my motel. Guess what, again… Yep, Class of ’84. It was a recurring theme. Jon was the only person I met with who was dressed in a business suit. He is part of the third generation of the Helgeson family to own the Helgeson Funeral Home in town. Two more spectacular guys to chat with, and Jon in particular really warmed up to the story I’m planning and he had a lot of great input as to how to make the character be “Roseau accurate” in terms of persona. The bottom line is, Jon totally agreed to my plan to have the kid be an overachiever who simply wills himself to be the best hockey player he can be. I’ll leave the rest of his character a secret until the book comes out, but I’m excited about what we accomplished in that regard at the diner.

My third meeting ended up being cancelled, so I used that time to drive over to Warroad just to see it and get a lay of the land. The towns are so similar in so many ways it’s uncanny, especially considering they are so close to each other but so totally surrounded by rural wilderness. Like Roseau, Warroad has one major employer, and it’s a huge one. Marvin Windows is based in Warroad, and the plant is gigantic. The Marvin family is loyal to their home town and proud of it. And as just a little jab at Roseau, their biggest rival, the arena has the words “HockeyTown USA” on the side of it.

On Monday night, at 7:00, I headed over to Oak Crest Golf Club, to meet with Tracy Ostby and a few more guys who were playing a late round. Tracy runs a website for Roseau hockey and he was the equipment manager for, you guessed it, the 1984 team. During our chat, I met with Brian McMillin who is, remarkably, not an ’84 grad. He’s an ’06 grad who went on to play at Colorado College and then six years of pro hockey at what would be the Double-A equivalent of the minor leagues. Now, he’s back in Roseau as a financial advisor. I also got to meet and chat with Bryan Lundbohm, whom everyone just calls Whitey. More great stories, more great background. And fantastic guys who had all the time I wanted or needed. After just one day, my head was spinning.

I was back at it at 9:00 Tuesday morning, as Larry met me at the County Courthouse to meet Mayor Jeff Pelowski. After the meeting, Larry asked me if it had been a good conversation and I said, “Well, it was great but after I asked my first question I didn’t need to ask many more. The mayor just kept going, and his answers got better and better.” Mayor Pelowski loves his town, and he’s clearly a wonderful leader. He was another person who called the flood a “silver lining” as he detailed all the improvements they’ve made, and how now downtown is as vibrant as it’s ever been. And, as part of the FEMA backing, they’ve finished a diversion channel that will route flood waters away from and around the town should another flood try to happen. It was an honor to spend an hour with the man.

Next was Terry Gotziaman, at Nelson’s Cafe. Terry is the former athletic director at Roseau High, from 1983 to 2010, so he’s about as connected to the program as anyone in town. Fascinating guy, and again a person who could not have been any more gracious. I was close to information overload, but I had so much more to experience.

We were going to meet current head coach Andy Lundbohm at Jake’s Pizza, but he was running late so we met an hour later at the school. That made it possible for me to get the full tour from Larry before I met with Andy. Again, the head coach of this storied hockey program treated me like I was a visiting VIP, and we had a rollicking conversation about a wide range of topics, seated at two desks in his classroom. He also teaches math at Roseau High. And he’s not an ’84 guy either. He’s just a kid. He graduated in 1995. And guess where he went to college…  Nope, not the University of Minnesota, or Bemidji State, or Minnesota State Mankato, or University of Minnesota – Duluth, and not even University of North Dakota. All great hockey programs for sure, but Andy went a different way. We accepted an invitation to attend West Point Academy. He played his Division I hockey in the black and gold, for Army.

After his time there, he played six years of minor league hockey, and then came back home to Roseau. Now, he’s the head coach. Awesome guy.

The final treat was yet to come, though. At 6:00 p.m. Larry and I met in front of a small unassuming home on a residential street not far from the golf course. As we walked up to the garage, which is used as a shed and a work space, Larry began showing me all the little creations fabricated and made by the man who lives there. From birdhouses to pieces of art, they are all created from scraps of various materials he finds laying around. And then the man himself came outside, saying loudly, “What’s goin’ on?” followed by, “You must be Bob!” as he pointed at me. This 82-year old marvel of a man was Newell Broten. I soon met his wife Carol and a friend of hers who comes back to Roseau for a few months each summer. Newell and Carol are very special people, and they raised three very special young men.

The Broten boys are Aaron, Paul, and Neal. They all played hockey at Roseau. They all also played hockey in the NHL. Neal was the most successful, but all three boys had lengthy NHL careers, and to do that you have to be great, not pretty good. Neal was a Golden Gopher at The U, and then went on to play more than 1,000 games in the NHL after he was a key part of the 1980 “Miracle On Ice” Olympic team that beat the Soviets and then went on to claim the Gold Medal at Lake Placid. He’s in the US Hockey Hall of Fame. Paul and Aaron were great NHL players, as well, and all three of the boys were Roseau Rams. Their parents, Newell and Carol, have lived in the same home for more than 50 years. And no matter how cold it got each lengthy dark winter, the boys walked to school. As Newell put it, “With Neal you could hardly get him to eat dinner. All he wanted to do was go back to the rink.”

We sat on the Brotens’ porch for more than an hour, and Newell was everything everyone had told me he would be. He’s a gold mine of stories, and a truly hilarious man. He’s all energy, and so proud of his sons. Carol has clearly heard all the stories and jokes far too many times, because every time he’d tell one she’d look straight at me and roll her eyes, while shaking her head. I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing

This impromptu chat was everything Roseau clearly is. It was warm and welcoming, and Newell made it clear that any time I come back up to town that I should show up on the porch and have another chat. No need to call ahead. This is Roseau. These are all such genuine people. Every moment of my two full days were nothing less than an honor.

I finished up my trip up north on Wednesday morning, with another drive back over to Warroad. I was fortunate enough to land some time with their head coach, Jay Hardwick. What I saw with Coach Hardwick was yet another revelation. Warroad may be smaller than Roseau, but it’s full of people with just as much heart and dedication to their team. And they do it right.

I have never before stepped into a high school hockey rink to see absolutely no bleachers. Just 1,800 matching blue stadium seats. It’s about as marvelous a facility as you could ever imagine. I was stunned. And, of course, next to it is another Olympic rink, and between them indoor workout facilities better than most you might find at the minor league professional level.

No expense is spared for their boys. And with Marvin Windows being such a big and important backer of the team and the town, there’s a sense of community from the second you arrive. They’ve done “okay” in terms of famous former players, as well, if by “okay” you mean it’s another incredible list of alumni. Dave Christian’s name will be familiar to anyone who followed that 1980 “Miracle” team, and if you’re a hockey fan right now you’re going to know who T.J. Oshie is. He just won the Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals.

So, of course, where did Oshie take the Cup when it was his turn to have it (a wonderful NHL tradition, by the way)? He took it to Warroad. They did not have enough room for the number of people who came to see it and show their appreciation for the former Warrior who grew up amongst them.

Now here’s one final thing about Roseau and Warroad. They invest in their people. At Roseau High, there is a gym that is far <FAR> better than the YMCA here in Woodbury, where I spend $110 per month to belong. The high school gym is free. And it’s open to every Roseau resident. As is the pool. And kids can play golf for free, whenever they desire. Warroad is the same way. If you live there, they take care of you.

Times are booming in both towns, and the rivalry between the two teams remains. It’s a hard fought and historic rivalry, but it’s friendly. As most of the guys said, “You want to beat them so bad, and you know it’s going to be tough, but you have friends on that team too. The two towns are almost inseparable. But yeah, you want to beat them more than just about any team.”

Mayor Pelowski let me know, “What’s hard for both of our towns is getting people here. I could add 100 or 200 residents to Roseau right now, with solid good-paying jobs, but we’re a long way up here. In reality, the nearest big city for us is Winnipeg, across the border. So, we have to work with Warroad to make it all happen. We can’t just steal each other’s people. We work together to make these two towns a great place to live.”

They truly are two great places to live. I learned that during my time there. I could not be more impressed. And I plan to get back up there during the winter, because I absolutely must see each team play a home game. I don’t care if it’s 30-below.

Coming home, I mapped out a creative route no one else said they really ever took, and these folks “head down to The Cities” all the time. They just want to get there as quickly as possible, and that means around six hours. I wanted to see parts of the state I’d never visited. So, I drove mostly east out of Warroad, to International Falls. Then south and southeast through the Iron Range section of the state, and the town of Virginia. I made a stop in Eveleth, to see the US Hockey Hall of Fame, and then down to Cloquet where I picked up I-35 southbound. When I got near the Twin Cities, it was startling to see such traffic and such endless suburban sprawl.

Throughout the full 6 and a half hour drive, my head was spinning as the two characters I will create began to come to life for me. Now, I think I may need a trip to Southern California to see what’s going to make my baseball character tick. This is going to be a marvelous process, and I’m beyond excited about it.

I’m also beyond thankful for everything every person I met in Roseau and Warroad did for me. You all could not have been nicer, nor could you have made me feel any more at home. All of you were gracious and spectacular. I’ll never forget a minute of it, but I’ll save the notes and recordings just to be safe. As for Larry Guggisberg, my appreciation is off the charts. You, sir, were incredible.

As always, if you read this blog and enjoyed it, please click on the “Like” button at the top. Do it for the people of Roseau and Warroad. And visit them sometime. It’s worth the trip.

Bob Wilber, at your service and amazed by the experience.

Go ahead and decipher that headline for a minute. You’ll figure it out after I explain it all in the next few paragraphs, but I can firmly state in total truthfulness that I am NOT wearing a kilt (nobody needs to see that, or even imagine it) and shoulder pads are such an 80s fashion item, but I am indeed, oh yes I really am, in St. Cloud, Minnesota finishing up this blog. Hence, its late arrival today.

So last week was Barbara’s last one at Itron, and she couldn’t help but be a little nostalgic and sad saying goodbye to so many people she’s gotten to know so well over the last six years. And seriously, didn’t I just write the blog announcing that we were moving to Spokane about six MONTHS ago? Can’t believe it’s been six years.

But, she’s also really excited about her new job with H.B. Fuller and she’s already immersing herself into the industry and what sets the company apart. She’s a total sponge when it comes to things like this. She knew nothing about utility meters when she joined Itron but she was an expert about that industry and their products within weeks. She’s already explaining H.B. Fuller’s stuff to me and she’s only been there four days. They make chemical adhesives, and you probably interact with their products on a weekly basis without knowing it. Open a box of cereal for the first time and have to pop the top flap loose from the lower one? They make stuff like that. Open a cardboard shipping box that’s been glued shut? Yeah, stuff like that too. But they also make a lot of really high-tech adhesives for industrial use and other big applications. I get to learn about it by osmosis.

Barbara really only had a couple of days off between the jobs, so we made the most of it late last week. I made my new favorite baked citrus salmon dinner, and that always leaves us enough leftovers to make salmon cakes the next day. That’s a fun project we can do together, cutting and dicing the various ingredients that go into the mix along with the salmon. The citrus salmon (the first fresh wild-caught King Salmon to hit our grocery store) was awesome and the cakes the next day were perfect. We make a good team.

On Friday, we decided to go on a road trip down the Mississippi, through Red Wing (where Red Wing shoes and work boots do indeed come from, along with Red Wing pottery) on down to a little burgh called Lake City. Why Lake City when it’s on a river? Because there’s a naturally occurring “wide spot” in the Mississippi there that is so wide and calm it’s actually called Lake Pepin. Up by Brainerd (on my way there tomorrow) the Mississippi is so shallow and narrow you can’t believe it’s the same massive river that chugs past St. Louis and Memphis on its way to New Orleans. At Lake Pepin, you can’t believe the calm serene lake, dotted with sail boats, is also part of the same river.

Just as we were leaving, we got a text from our friends Terry and Lynn Blake, asking if we wanted to go to the Irish Festival with them that evening, on Harriet Island across that very same Mississippi from St. Paul. Of course we did! So we cut our Lake City trip a bit short and raced back to Woodbury to meet up with them. And here’s funny fact No. 1,235: Harriet Island is no longer an island. It’s now connected to the south shore across from downtown St. Paul. In 1950, they filled in the channel that made it an island so it is now an island only in name.

It was our first time to the Irish Festival, and with our two friends being Blakes and my wife being a Doyle there was much Irish blood in our quartet. They wanted to see a favorite band of theirs, the Screaming Orphans, but on the night we went they were only playing a side stage right along the river, and in the 20 minutes we sat on the stairs they spent roughly 18 of those minutes telling stories rather than playing.

The Blakes filled us in on how the festival started out very small, years ago, but has grown in size and popularity every year. It now covers the entire island that’s no longer an island, with tons of food and beverage stands, retail Irish stuff galore, rugby and soccer matches, and music everywhere. It was a lot of fun for us to attend and we’re thrilled we did with such great friends.

The festival is free to attend but you have to buy the meal and beverage tickets. 10 tickets for $10 sounds reasonable, but most beers and wines are $7 or $8, so each pack of 10 tickets doesn’t last long. The food was really good, as well, but we “restocked” on tickets a couple of times and then perused the vast Irish market for fun merchandise.

Barb spotted some really cool Adirondack style chairs for our newly rebuilt patio, and she introduced me to the guy who custom makes them. She took me over there to see them, and I’m guessing at least two of them will end up in our possession. He makes them with the standard Adirondack back but he also makes them with a back that is the outline of the state of Minnesota, and he can then inlay various logos or laser engrave anything you want. There may be a Twins and a Wild chair in our future.

We then went back to the main stage for the headline act, and although I don’t recall the name of the band they were authentic and really very good. And Irish music is often pretty funny as well as catchy, so that was all fun. And we used up every food/drink ticket we had. Well played by us.

And no, as stated above for the record, I neither wore a kilt nor did I purchase one. You’re welcome.

Barb was mostly focused on her first days at work on Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday she had a day-long meeting in downtown Minneapolis with her CFO. That was jumping in the deep end for her third day on the job, but she’s so good at that it’s startling.

We were both originally going to go the the Minnesota Vikings training camp on Wednesday with our dear friend Mary Beth, at the team’s brand-spanking-new and just completed headquarters and practice complex on the south side of the Twin Cities. It’s in Eagan, actually, and it’s right alongside the I-494 loop not far from the airport. We’ve been watching it being built over the last year, although from the freeway you really can only see the massive main indoor practice facility.

Those plans to watch practice and a scrimmage against the Jacksonville Jaguars were hatched before Barb even met with H.B. Fuller, so in the end she had to work and couldn’t go. Mary Beth’s husband Joe is a big football fan and a very fun guy, but he didn’t have much interest in going because they are one of many “mixed marriages” in our part of the country. Joe is from Green Bay. We have other friends who are married and who also have to keep it friendly when one is wearing green and gold and the other is wearing purple.

So, with Barbara and Joe not going, Mary Beth and I went and we wore our purple. Her friend Kim came along as well, so for me it was like tagging along on a “girls day out” but for our activity we went to the Vikings practice and scrimmage. I might be the only guy I know who can state for a fact that he’s done that very thing.

For decades, the Vikings have had training camp down at Mankato, and Minnesota State U. Mankato (the school formerly known as Mankato State.) It was couple of weeks of nostalgia and team bonding, to all be down in that college town riding their bikes around to practice and staying in dorms. Then once preseason began they’d move to their practice facility called Winter Park, in Eden Prairie in the southwest suburbs.

By today’s standards, Winter Park is basically archaic. Limited fields, an indoor facility that also had to double as meeting rooms. Cramped locker rooms. And, in the indoor facility the roof was too low for kickers and punters to even practice. They had to go outside to get their kicking in.

They don’t have that problem at the new place. It’s a sprawling facility with four full practice fields, a small VIP grandstand for the practice side of things, and an actual 6,000-seat small stadium where high school and college games can also be played. All the surfaces are exactly like what they play on at US Bank Stadium, too. Everything is state of the art.

We were there a few hours and at first it was just the Vikings and the Jags doing typical preseason drills on different fields, but after an hour of that both teams split into two groups and faced off for a very controlled scrimmage. The coaching staffs had it orchestrated how they’d work on various phases of the game, so we saw both teams kick off a few times, and then kick field goals and extra points. After that, they lined up to actually run some plays. The linemen were allowed to hit, but there was no tackling involved. It was kind of like a big crunch at the snap followed by touch football, but it gave both teams a chance to do that very thing against someone else instead of against their teammates.

We were in the end zone of the field that featured most of the starters. It wasn’t long before Mary Beth said “There’s a lot more hitting over on that other field. Those guys are rookies all trying to make the team so it’s a lot more high pressure over there.” I could see that, but I could also hear it. All in all, we had a great time and it was a “first” for all three of us to see practice and a scrimmage, and since the new facility is just weeks old, it was our first time being there.

So there’s your shoulder pad reference.

And now I’m in St. Cloud. There are multiple reasons for this.

A) Hotel rates in Brainerd are very “aggressive” as we say, during the race weekend.

B) St. Cloud is just far enough away from Brainerd to not really be impacted by the race rates.

C) It’s fairly large college town, so there are plenty of hotels. I’m in a Homewood Suites.

In the morning, I’ll check out and make the 67 mile drive up to the track. And my room rate will roughly quadruple when I check in, although it’s a conscious decision on my part to stay at the wonderful Madden’s Resort instead of a motel out on the main road. It’s a special place and to me it’s worth it to combine racing work with a feel of a quick resort vacation.

When the race is over on Sunday, I’ll depart directly from the track but I won’t go south. Here’s some fun details about my new project…

I’m researching and outlining my fiction book right now, and one of the key characters in the book is going to be from Roseau, Minnesota. It’s a small town of about 2,600 way up north, just short of Canada. It’s also a hockey mecca unlike almost any other. With barely enough kids to field a full hockey team at Roseau High, they’ve won seven Minnesota state championships, and are nearly always one of the best teams in the state. Roseau hockey is legendary. They’ve sent many players on to the NHL, and too many to count on to college and minor league levels.

With one of my planned characters being a hockey player from Roseau, I knew I needed a chance to immerse myself in the community, to get to meet the civic leaders, the teachers, the coaches, the families, and as many residents as I can. I figured a few days after the Brainerd race would be my first great chance to do that, since I’m already going to be about a third of the way there.

Without much of a clue as to how to set it all up, I just called the school and talked to the receptionist. I gave her the short version of who I am, what I’m planning, and what I was after and she connected me with Larry Guggisberg, the Superintendent of Schools for all of Roseau.

Larry has been amazing and beyond helpful. In my possession, I have a memo from Larry detailing the hour-by-hour meetings, lunches, tours, and conversations he has set up for me to have on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It’s comprehensive and incredible. I’m not going to spill the beans on just who I’m going to be meeting and chatting with, so you’ll have to wait until next week for that. For two and a half days, I’m going to be all about Roseau. Then I’ll make the long hike back down to Woodbury on Wednesday afternoon and evening. This is going to be one great experience.

So, three days of racing in Brainerd. A trip north to Roseau after the race (I’m only going as far as Bemidji on Sunday night). Then it’s Roseau until Wednesday afternoon.

This new book is still in the early planning stages, but it couldn’t happen without the largesse of Larry and the Roseau community. As the outlines and characters develop, I know these next few days are going to be really key to the process of fleshing it all out and making it real. I have to create a person from thin air, and get to know his hometown and his personality. Without that, I won’t be able to write in his voice. Fiction! This is going to be fun.

That’s all for this week. Wish us luck at the race and wish me well up in the high northern climes of the great state of Minnesota.

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready to soak it all in.

We’d been planning it for nearly a year, but please accept that term loosely. Between the four of us, none are really prone to overanalyzing or stressing over details. We are, after all, four former roommates and teammates who gravitated toward each other in college because of our shared characteristics and our ability to make each other laugh. For Lance McCord, Bob “Radar” Ricker, James “Oscar” Noffke, and myself, it’s always a big deal to get together for our annual reunions, but we tend to go with the flow a lot.

Last fall we made the decision that Pittsburgh and Cleveland should be the targets for 2018. Once the MLB schedules came out, I found the two perfect home games to see in each city, since the Cardinals would play in Pittsburgh on a Saturday and the Twins would then be in Cleveland just two nights later. This time, instead of booking hotel rooms, Oscar took it upon himself to research Airbnb so that we could stay in one house together, with our own bedrooms. Over time, we made our travel plans. Then, about a week before we were to meet up in Pittsburgh, we got back in touch and compared notes. Considering that’s what we did over the course of 10 months or so, I’d call that a low-stress deal.

We had a loose idea of what we wanted to do, but the only firmly scheduled things in each city were the ball games. I bought the tickets, and followed the advice Oscar had given me. He said it’s better to sit up a bit higher at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, because the view of the Roberto Clemente Bridge and the downtown skyline are better seen from that perspective. As you can see here, that was exactly the right call.

This view is from behind home plate, although our seats provided pretty much an equal view from just above third base. Target Field, here in the Twin Cities, is gorgeous and full of amenities. It has a great urban view of downtown Minneapolis, and is easy to navigate. PNC Park is right there with it, and is stunning. It’s a “Wow” ballpark, and if you are a baseball fan of any sort and have the chance to get there, do yourself that favor.

Getting back to how the trip unfolded, it was Lance and I who flew in, with him coming from Raleigh while I came in from MSP. We were both on Delta and we landed within 10 minutes of each other, at side-by-side gates. Oscar and Radar drove from Illinois. We all convened on Friday.

Lance and I hopped in a cab and gave the driver the address of the Airbnb townhouse we were going to, with the verbal instruction that it was on the south side, meaning it was across the Monongahela River from downtown Pittsburgh. We soon discovered that the always tricky system of bridges and highways in downtown was being made worse by construction on the very bridge that the driver had wanted to take. We ended up on a circuitous and scenic trip all over the place. Then we pulled up in front of the bright yellow “Bicycle House” Oscar had found. It was funky, it was cool, and it was legit historic.

To be fair, the neighborhood it was in was a bit sketchy in an old warehouse area sort of way. No shortage of graffiti on half-standing walls. But that sort of scenery only stretched for a couple of blocks and beyond that it was all good. We felt safe and never had any reason to feel any other way.

We all had our own bedrooms, situated on floors two and three, and the house featured a cozy living room with a nice TV and a beautifully renovated chef’s kitchen. Yes, we used it. On Saturday morning Oscar took it upon himself to be our cook and his bacon and eggs were a fabulous way to start the day.

We knew we’d have a full day on Saturday, so after we all got there on Friday we took it upon ourselves to knock a few “must do” items off the list. We rode the incline up to Mount Washington and we strolled a bit to the east to find a hip pub in that cool area for a late lunch. On Friday night, we felt no guilt when we just ordered two pizzas and took it easy. Saturday was going to be the big day.

As it turns out, all four of us are big on walking. Both for sightseeing and for our health. Lance used to be a big runner, even training for marathons, but time wears you down and pinched nerves and herniated discs go a long way in changing your habits. I know this first hand. He tries to walk five miles a day, and he’s not strolling when he’s doing it. Radar has had hips replaced so he gets after it as well. Oscar loves to explore, and I try to walk at least 5,000 steps a day myself, so the four of us were (imagine this) totally compatible and that would be a key element on Saturday.

We had a tour of PNC Park on the docket, thanks to the kindness and largesse of a longtime reader named Dave Kassekert, who has connections with the Pirates. We knew we needed to be at the Willie Stargell statue at 3:15, and we wanted to do some sightseeing prior to that, so around noon we started walking. We crossed the river on a bridge that featured wide pedestrian lanes, entered downtown Pittsburgh and turned left, to get down to the point. That’s the scenic area with the huge fountain, and it is the spot where the Monongahela and Allegheny meet to form a little creek by the name of the Ohio River. Not only that, it’s the former site of Fort Pitt, which was built by the British. Its outline is marked on the grounds of the park.

It was, coincidentally, also Regatta weekend in Pittsburgh, where all kinds of boating activities were taking place on the rivers. When we arrived at the point, speedboats were roaring up and down the Allegheny doing time trials for their event later in the afternoon. After pausing to watch that for a bit, we walked further north and crossed the Roberto Clemente Bridge, which took us directly across the Allegheny to PNC Park. We checked out where we were supposed to meet up with Dave, and then walked a few blocks to the Andy Warhol Museum.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that the four of us don’t necessarily fit the classic demographic description of Warhol fans, but we all wanted to see it. I’ll give us serious props for all being open-minded and intrigued by what made Warhol tick, what his unique skills and visions were, and how he developed as an avant-garde artist. We toured all seven floors and were sponges when it came to understanding and appreciating it all. We were all glad we did that.

We made our way back to the Stargell statue and met Dave, who let us know the tour actually didn’t start until 4:45 so we had some time to kill. Didn’t take us long to spot a bar across the street. The tour was fantastic (we were joined by a dozen or so other fans in our group) and very much appreciated. One of the first stops we made was the service tunnel inside the park, and we were just a few yards from the Pirates’ clubhouse, workout rooms, and other facilities.

If you follow the game, you may know that the Pirates had made a big move to improve their squad for the rest of the season by trading for Tampa Bay Rays pitching ace Chris Archer, just a few days earlier. He was one of the biggest targets at the trade deadline. As were were all standing in a nondescript area of the service tunnel, none other than Chris Archer himself walked toward us. He said “Hey everyone. How are y’all doing?” before he entered a door marked “Examination Room.” The “Oh my, that was Chris Archer!” comments shot around the group at light speed.

After the fantastic tour, we thanked Dave profusely. Radar and Oscar decided to stay at the ballpark (even though it was 90 minutes before game time) because an up-close view of batting practice was provided as the final piece of the tour, but Lance and I wanted to head back to the townhouse to clean up and rest for a bit. For the first time in my life, I opened my Uber app and ordered a car. It was there in three minutes, right outside the ballpark.

As for it being well before game time, I have this to say about Pittsburgh. Even at 3:00, there was a buzz on the streets and a fun vibe down by PNC Park. That’s four hours before the first pitch! It’s a perfect example of how a well designed and beautiful new ballpark can change an entire area. The streets around PNC are vibrant and full of life. And many (if not most) fans walk to the park from downtown, because the Clemente Bridge is closed for traffic and is for pedestrian use only before and after games. It’s a fun place, and the same thing has happened in Minneapolis surrounding Target Field. Both parks have completely revitalized declining neighborhoods. It was a neat thing to experience.

When Lance and I got back to PNC, taking another Uber because after I’d done it once I was a veteran of the experience, we originally had a bit of a hard time finding our way to our seats on the 200 level. We kept wondering why we couldn’t get to where we wanted to go. There was a reason for that. On our tour, we walked through a really nice “club level” area where the concourse was enclosed and air-conditioned behind the seats, with upscale concessions and lounge areas (even pool tables!) and it seemed like a heck of a nice way to experience a game. As it turned out, those were the seats I’d bought! I’m not sure I knew that when I ordered the tickets, but it was pretty amazing to have all those amenities available to us throughout the game, and terrific fun to be at PNC for the Buccos vs Redbirds game. See what I did there? I used both alternate nicknames for the Pirates and Cardinals.

The Uber after the game was a bit more challenging, because 30,000 people were leaving mostly at once, but we found our guy and got back home to Bicycle House. We slept well.

On Sunday, Barbara’s brother Tim picked us up to give us a more personal guided tour, and that was much appreciated. His first comment was, “We should go up the Incline and then go down to the Point” but we’d already done both of those things, so that allowed us to dive a little deeper into what makes Pittsburgh special. Our first stop was the piece of outfield wall left behind when old Forbes Field was torn down in 1972, after Three Rivers Stadium was built. It’s a neat thing, and the guys really enjoyed seeing it. Yes, the flagpole was actually in-play out in center, but with the wall being 457 feet from the plate it wasn’t often involved in the action. 457 is “quite a poke” as we say in the baseball biz.

The wall is right across the street from the campus of University of Pittsburgh, and it’s not quite all that’s left of historic Forbes. We headed over to a campus building on the other side and were thrilled to see that a line of matching bricks continues the outline of the wall over there along the sidewalk. We were happy to see the doors to the building were unlocked, and we headed in.

We walked down your typical campus hallway, and noted the many old black & white photos of Forbes on the wall. I couldn’t help but think all of this stuff is meaningless to the students.

Then, on the floor just ahead of us, was home plate. It’s the actual plate, in its exact location, from the last game at Forbes and it’s under plexiglass now. Very cool. And, again, how many students walk over it on a daily basis and just wonder “What the hell is that?”

Tim then drove us all around downtown, past Duquesne University (where he went to school) and around the arena where the Penguins play. He was proud to point out the large banners that hang on the side of the arena, illustrated with the five (count ’em, five) Stanley Cups the Pens have won. As four guys from in or near the St. Louis area, we were not ashamed to mention that the Blues have won zero in the same time period.

It was great to be with Tim, to hear his stories and gain his insight about various buildings and parts of town. Insider knowledge is always valuable, and to get it from your brother-in-law just makes it better. Tim and I have always gotten along great, and it was my pleasure to let Lance, Oscar, and Radar get to meet and know Barb’s brother a little bit. At one point, when we were driving around, Radar said something like, “I’m a little crazy” and Tim shot back, “I was already thinking that. And I just met you!” In other words, he fit right in, and the guys appreciated that.

We were hungry by then, and after lunch we were all heading up to Cleveland in Radar’s truck, so there was little discussion as to where we were going. Primanti Brothers sandwich shops are a “must do” deal in Pittsburgh, and even though they are quite spread out now into other areas, we needed to go to the original place. After a couple of wrong turns we found it, and felt lucky to get a table.

After sitting down and staring at the gigantic menu on the wall, we kind of made up our minds what we wanted. Keep in mind, Primanti sandwiches are huge, and the french fries are on the inside of the sandwich, which is delivered on nothing more than wax paper. When the old-school Italian waiter approached the table, he said, “Okay, you been here before? You know how this deal works?”

We nodded that we did. And then Radar began his order and got one detail wrong. He was quickly and hilariously cut off by the waiter who said, “No, I can see you don’t know how this deal works, so I’m going to tell you..” and then he rattled off the various options and how to order them. It was awesome, and we were stuffed.

We were truly having a wonderful time, but we needed to get up to Cleveland so we had to say goodbye to Tim and then pile into Radar’s truck, which we’d left behind at the Bicycle House. After a frustrating few minutes of driving in circles trying to figure out how to get through and back out of downtown on its spaghetti bowl of twisting highways, we were finally on our way, to our second Airbnb experience.

We’d all looked at the listings back when Oscar had booked the places, and the Bicycle House made us realize two things: The listings focus on the house itself, if the neighborhood isn’t spectacular. And, you never know what you’re going to find, but reading the reviews is your way of establishing some confidence. In the end, despite the immediate neighborhood, the Bicycle House had been fantastic, and we left some great comments in the guest book.

Upon our arrival in Cleveland, we saw we were going to experience something very different. The residential neighborhood (just a couple of miles from downtown) had obviously seen its better days at least once. But…  It was going through a very large and very rapid gentrification. As we drove down the road, it seemed like every other house had scaffolding around it. A big transition was in the works, and our place had already been a part of that transition (despite the fact it didn’t have a nickname, like our Pittsburgh place). It was another townhouse, and Oscar felt like it had to date back to 1900 by looking at some of the features and designs, but it was fantastic inside.

We claimed rooms, got unpacked, and decided to head out on the sidewalks to explore the neighborhood. We came upon one woman walking her dog and another sitting on her porch, and they were both kind and friendly enough to chat with us and tell us about the area. That would be a good sign!

(And boy, after a couple of short blogs recently this one is back to being huge. But hey, there’s a LOT to write about!)

Within about six blocks there was a large area of restaurants and bars, with other retail stores, along a major street. And as we walked there we knew our initial thought of it being a neighborhood in transition was confirmed. Clearly, people were buying up these old homes and fixing them up. We felt lucky to stay in one!

We had a nice living room, a dining room, another great kitchen (and Oscar outdid himself again in terms of our Monday breakfast) and our rooms were just fine. The beds were terrific. It was the kind of renovation that gave us first-class amenities while retaining much of the old-world charm. They’d stripped and resurfaced the original hardwood floors, but the stairs still creaked and the walls had so many stories to tell I only wished we could hear them. Both homes were like that. If they could only talk, we’d hear about World Wars, depression, industry, highs and lows, and now their current situations. How many families? How many tales? I can’t imagine.

We had a TV as well,  but this one didn’t have cable. It only had a few streaming services and fortunately Netflix was one of them. After we got back from our first walk, we binge-watched the entire first season of “Cheers” before dinner at a fantastic place we found back up on that major avenue. All four of us gave it a 5-star rating.

On Monday, Lance got up early and walked five miles, returning home to say he’d actually made it all the way to Progressive Field, where we’d be going that night for the Indians – Cardinals game. We opted to use Uber for that, though. It was hot and sticky enough in Cleveland, and we were going to have to deal with that at the game, so no need getting soaked with sweat on the way to the park.

Our next order of business was another one of those things we loosely decided we’d have to do in Cleveland, although we played it by ear as to exactly when that time would come.

If we were going to spend a couple of days in Cleveland, we had to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Period. No questions asked.

So, later that afternoon our Uber driver picked us up and off we went. As it turned out, we were a little dissimilar when it came to touring this museum. Oscar and I discovered we worked at the same pace, stopping to admire and stare at the stuff that really resonated with us, while only giving cursory looks at the stuff that didn’t. Lance and Radar seemed intent upon reading every description and watching every video.

That was okay, though. We all went through it at our pace. I had a number of spine-tingling moments as Oscar and I toured the displays. It’s a great Hall of Fame but it’s more a world-class museum and that’s what makes it incredible. Great displays about The Who, The Beach Boys, David Bowie, Prince, the Beatles, the Stones, and many others were worth a long look for me. I had to soak it all in.

And then I came upon this remarkable instrument. I knew (or at least thought I knew) what it was when I turned the corner and faced it. It’s pretty unique, and it was used to make music that meant an enormous amount to me.

It was, indeed, Mike Rutherford’s double-neck Rickenbacker from the early days of the band Genesis. Early enough that Peter Gabriel was still the singer and that cat named Phil Collins was just the long-haired guy banging on the drums in the rear.

This monster is pretty unusual even in the small world of double-neck guitars. Most of them feature a 12-string and a 6-string joined together to allow the musician to switch sounds quickly. In the song “The Cinema Show” from the album “Selling England By The Pound” Rutherford played the 12-string parts and the bass parts. When it was time to play in concert, he discovered he didn’t have time to switch guitars, so Rickenbacker created this masterpiece, which was also very heavy. That he could switch so seamlessly from bass to 12-string, playing such incredibly technical and difficult parts, is a testament to Rutherford’s talent.

And why was this guitar my single biggest “stop in your tracks and stare” moment? It’s a long story I’ll try to shorten here.

I’ve always been a huge music fan, since even before I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was seven years old. It’s a bit odd, because I ended up having no talent at all for playing music, but from early childhood it meant everything to me. I went through all the phases of the 60s and early 70s, ranging from country rock to classic straight-ahead rock, but by high school I was showing signs of understanding and very much appreciating really complex and progressive stuff. I was dabbling with Emerson, Lake, & Palmer and other bands like Yes, Focus, the Moody Blues, and Jethro Tull, while not completely giving up on The Who and Black Sabbath.

Then, my sister Mary went to college in England, where she met Alan (her first husband) and they sent me a cassette of “Genesis Live” on which a band I’d never been introduced to was playing songs I’d never heard in a way I’d never experienced. It was nothing short of mind-blowing. Genesis stunned me, and showed me that music could have many layers and more depth than simply four chords and a drum fill. I couldn’t get enough. If a band can change your life, Genesis changed mine. My tastes and cravings for complex time signatures, world-class musicianship, and deep-thinking arrangements were set for life.

You all know me as a huge Rush fan. I am and always will be. But, without the Genesis experience (especially the very early stuff) I can’t say my interest in Rush would have been as big as it was and continues to be.

“The Cinema Show” is one of my favorite songs of all time. I still listen to it often today, even when walking at the gym, and I’ve never grown tired of a single note. To stand there and look at the double-neck guitar that made it possible to play on stage took my breath away. End of story.

We took another Uber back to the house and got ready for the game, after first stopping at the Hall of Fame gift shop of course. Back to Progressive Field around 6:30, and into our seats with time to spare. I had hoped for a great showing by the Twins, but that didn’t happen. We had collectively hoped for a lot of fun, and that did happen although it was incredibly hot and humid that night, and the flags weren’t moving at all. I was, officially, sticky with sweat. But we had a great time with very good seats, and we checked off yet another fine ballpark from the list.

We’d had a great time, and after binge watching a bunch of episodes of the bizarre and outright hilarious Canadian show “Trailer Park Boys” we laughed until our sides hurt and went to bed. In the morning, Radar and Oscar would leave fairly early while Lance and I would stick around until the 11:00 check-out time.

We had a bit of a tricky travel day, but it all worked out. We took an Uber to the Cleveland airport, where I’d rented a car for us. Then we drove the 2.5 hours down to the Pittsburgh airport for flights that left about two hours later. My flight was an hour delayed, but I killed the time by strolling around the airport remembering what fun we’d had. It’s an amazing thing that we not only get to do this, but that we make it happen and we make the most of it.

We’re old guys now, but we’re obviously not afraid to try new things and get out of our comfort zones. We push each other and have some incredible and thoughtful conversations, but we can still sit around and crack each other up with the same sophomoric stuff we said in college. We don’t get together to party and go crazy like we did when we were younger, but we’ll share some beer and wine over a good meal. We’re totally comfortable touring the Warhol museum, but equally as comfortable laying around the living room laughing at a TV show. We can talk each others’ ears off, but never feel an absolute need to be having a conversation. We can mostly read each others’ minds. And within minutes of meeting up, we’re as “at home” as four guys can be.

I love these guys. We’ve shared so many great things and nearly as many hardships. We’ve won games together, gotten through college together, earned our degrees together, and have gone on to very different but very successful lives. And I think we’re all at the very best points in those lives.

As for next year, the consensus was to try something different. We plan to head to Florida in March for Spring Training, seeing four or five different ballparks in five or six days. But that’s way off. There’s no need to start planning that now. It will all work out. Just go with the flow. And, continue to make this happen. It’s important. It’s not a promise, it’s a commitment.

Thanks for reading all this. As always, if you liked it please click on the “Like” button at the top. That would mean a lot to me, as well as Lance, Oscar, and Radar.

See you next week before I head to Brainerd to dive back into the racing world. More stories are out there to be told.

Bob Wilber, at your service and loving life.

 

 

 

Okay, first off I can state this without reservation: Sonoma was wonderful. Everything about it, really. From dinner with friends to three fantastic days at a jam-packed race track, to the Airbnb I reserved, and to all the wonderful “reconnections” I made with my racing family, it was all superb. It’s funny, in an oddball funny way, how I feel before I get there. I’ll admit there’s a bit of a worrisome “Will anybody even remember me?” thought floating in my head. And then I get there and everything is right with the world.

What’s also funny is the wide range of expressions on people’s faces when we see each other. Most are like “Hey, you’re back!” or “What are you doing here?” but others look more like they think I’d never left. Frankly, it is actually possible to spend a few races just somehow not running into certain people. In high school I used to wonder, “Would it be possible to spend a whole year, or even all four of your years, just missing one particular guy by a foot, or going around a corner, and never see them at all?” I think the answer to that is “No” but maybe it’s not. Maybe you can always just be right around the corner from someone but never meet in the hall. The same goes for the race track. It’s not that hard to spend a weekend at a race and never cross paths with someone. And that thought in high school is a pretty good example of how focused on the education I was. I had time to think about stuff like that, but not biology or calculus.

On Thursday night, after I drove down to Sonoma from Sacramento, I followed the emailed directions to experience the Airbnb thing for the first time. It was pretty cool! The place was cozy and quaint, and it had everything I needed plus more. I’m guessing it was a mother-in-law suite added on to that one-level home on the northwestern edge of Sonoma, because it had its own separate entrance, a full kitchen, a dining area, a full bath, and a living room. All the rooms were small, but with it just being me I had plenty of room and none of the space was wasted.

It was nearly two miles from Sonoma Square, so that was a bit too far to walk when it was 95 degrees, but the better news was that it was just a block from the road that goes right to the track. Coming in from that direction, you miss almost all of the backed-up traffic and I could go from starting my car to pulling in the reserved Media parking lot in 20-25 minutes. It was a breeze.

After I got settled, I went over to the square to meet Vince and Mary Bienek at El Dorado Kitchen, one of our “go to” places in Sonoma. As has been the case with each annual get-together, our meal was fabulous, the bottle of red they brought, from Kunde Winery was awesome, and the company was priceless. Lots of laughs, great stories, and wonderful memories. Good people? No, GREAT people! It’s hard to believe that Vince and I went so long without seeing each other after saying goodbye when our last game as Paintsville Hilander teammates ended, and now we make it a point to see each other every summer (this was our fourth such reunion.) If we can just get those two to come up to Minnesota, like say for Winter Carnival, we will know we have added a rich experience to their lives. What’s 10-below zero among friends? We have extra coats and gloves.

At the track, all was good. Fun to be back with Del, Chuck, the Finkster, and the rest of the guys, although it was a tough assignment for everyone with them running two cars with one crew. To make that happen, they had to alternate during qualifying, but both cars got in and then both cars won in the opening round on Sunday. Let that sink in. One team, with both a Top Fuel Dragster and a Nitro Funny Car, and they not only got both of them in they also got both of them to round two. And they somehow got both cars back to the starting line for that second round.

In terms of the event, it was one of the best Sonoma races I’ve ever attended, and that’s saying a lot because Sonoma Raceway’s “baseline” is off-the-charts good. This year, when I saw the huge main grandstand nearly full on Friday, I had the feeling they were on to something. When it truly was packed and full on Saturday and Sunday, it was a grand slam for everyone. Nothing short of huge crowds all weekend, but the staff there is so fantastic it all came off without a hitch.

Of course, being a Bruton Smith facility that also combines multiple styles of racing and all the big racing circuits in one multipurpose place, Sonoma Raceway has a staff that is unparalleled. If there’s a better staff anywhere on the NHRA Mello Yello tour, I’m not aware of it. There are some that come close, but no one is better. The Sonoma people, from the very top down to the people sweeping up trash nonstop in the pits, are truly second to none.

Diana Rose Brennan is their person in charge of media relations, and she’s the ultimate pro. Before I left I stopped her and said, “I want you to know that this is truly as good as it gets, and it’s not close. You and your staff are the absolute best I’ve ever worked with.” Everything from the work environment to the catering was one step beyond. And then I asked one of my PR colleagues “How many tracks do we go to where we never even see a staff member the whole time we’re there?” We named a few tracks like that in hurry, and his response was “I guess people work there, but I’ve never seen them.” In Sonoma, you can’t walk 10-feet without seeing a smiling face wearing a name badge. It’s fantastic.

And is there really momentum with NHRA? Is it an illusion? Are they using “tricks” to inflate the crowds? Well, if you’re one of those “the sport is dying” types, I’m going to disappoint you. This is very real. I’ve been around the sport for more than two decades and it’s impossible to miss. Bigger crowds, sell-outs on a regular basis, great racing, TV ratings that are higher than anything we used to see in “the good old days” and then there’s that very real “buzz” that’s surrounding everything. Other governing bodies are cutting back the number of seats they have and trying to figure out why their ratings are in a real slump, but just the opposite is going on here. I’ve been around during the days when it wasn’t like this. I’ve always supported NHRA but I’ll admit there were some years there when I wasn’t sure where things were going. I’m sure now. It’s a great time to be a drag racer and an NHRA fan.

After the race I made my way back up to Sacramento and spent the night in a hotel right by the airport. On Monday, back on a plane and back home to Woodbury. I missed Barb by a day, because that tends to be how it is when she’s commuting during the week and I’m going to the races on the weekends. Ships passing in the night. We’ll do it again tomorrow, when I leave at 8:30 in the morning and she arrives back from Spokane at 6:30 p.m. Been there, done that, and this time we’ll be smart enough to swap a car at the airport. I’ll just text her where I parked, and she can drive it back home.

It’s a good thing I got home when I did, because on Tuesday we started a major project here. By “we” I mean we hired some fantastic guys to do a major project and I got to watch. First step was to tear out the discolored and cracked concrete patio out back.

We’ve had real trouble over the years, since we bought this place, with a little thing we know all too well in the northern climate. It’s called “frost heave” and it can do all kinds of damage. If you live where the ground is wet, and you make it worse by having that soil be mostly clay-based, and then you add in subzero temps in the winter, things tend to lift when the ground expands. Then they sink when it gets warmer, but never back to level. It’s been particularly bad in the back of our house.

We’ve seen first-hand what it can do to 4-inch thick concrete pad. It lifts, it cracks, and it pushes whatever is next to it somewhere else. It’s not just a bother, it’s really quite destructive.

So, on the first day they took out the entire concrete patio. Somehow I envisioned a jackhammer being utilized, but instead they used a concrete saw and cut it up into big blocks. The guy operating the Bobcat then did an impressive job of picking up multiple blocks and carrying them through the trees to their dump truck parked on the road back there. Yeah, they’ve cut a pretty wide path through the trees, but they’ll fix it before they leave. I told the guy, “First day using a skid loader, huh?” He just laughed.

Nobody was laughing, though, when they got all the concrete out. These guys do things right, and they could not believe what was under our patio. What was it? Well, it was more of a “What wasn’t it?”  There was no prep work done at all. The builder just slapped four inches of concrete right on the clay. No wonder it would rise and fall up to three inches in the winter. This crew just stood there, scratched their heads, and were nearly speechless. The team leader said, “When we’re done, you won’t believe the difference.

They excavated down about a foot or a foot and a half, and got to work yesterday. First a full coverage of barrier cloth, then aggregate and sand were added, tamped down, and added again until we were back up to grade. They smoothed it all out as if they were icing a cake, and then they got to work putting together the jigsaw puzzle that is a paver patio.

The photo at right is what it looked like when they called it a day last evening. Right now it’s all laid and in place. The final step will be to put in the grout and seal the whole thing. The guy in charge said, “The way they did the original job basically invited water to get in and then freeze and expand. Your days of having that happen are over, and if anything isn’t up to your liking, we’ll fix it.”

As for the boyz, they were both pretty riled up when this ruckus all started on Tuesday. Lots of noise and strange people around had them pretty jittery. They’ve gotten used to it, though, and now Buster just does what he does best, by sleeping, and Boofie stays right here with me watching the crew work. He’s a heck of a supervisor.

It’s not a cheap project, and there’s still a lot of landscaping yet to do, but you get what you pay for. These guys are pros and I’m thrilled we picked this company (Willow River out of Hudson, Wisconsin). Can’t wait to see the fully finished product!

That fully finished product will have to be something I see next week, though, because tomorrow morning I fly to Pittsburgh for our annual “roomies reunion” with Lance, Radar, and Oscar. Lance and I land within about 10 minutes of each other but the other two are driving in, because they like road trips. Once we get there, we’ll check in at our Airbnb townhome and settle in. We’ll each have our own bedroom and bath and we can share the kitchen and living room. On Saturday, we’re going to take a tour of PNC Park and then attend the Pirates game that night, when they play the Cardinals.  Lots of other sightseeing to do, and on Sunday morning we’re going to hook up with Barbara’s brother Tim, for some local insight. I promise photos. After we tour around a bit with Tim, we’ll head up the road to Cleveland, and another Airbnb. We’ll see the Indians play on Monday, and they’ll be taking on the Twins. Perhaps you can see, now, why four guys with St. Louis roots and one guy with Twins ties picked these two towns and these two ballgames. Plus, none of us have been to either ballpark, so we’re excited about that. I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet that we’re going to have some fun. Maybe. I mean, there is a longterm precedent to look back on. All the way back to college. We have a history, so to speak.

So that’s about it. We covered Sonoma, friends, demolition, construction, and an upcoming trip to The ‘Burgh and The ‘Land. Fun has been had, fun continues, and fun is in our future. Fun is a good thing, as are friendships.

As always, if you just perused these written words and enjoyed what you read, please click on the “Like” button at the top. I’ve almost got enough “Likes” to get a free decoder ring!

See you next week, with more nonsense and stories.

Bob Wilber, at your service and not at all qualified to do the sort of work these guys are doing.

Greetings from 30,000 feet over southwestern Minnesota, blog faithful. I’m headed to Sonoma via Sacramento and will have to take a quick break in a minute when our meal shows up here in the front cabin. No, I don’t take it for granted to be seated up here and I do appreciate all the perks that come with it, but 40 years of almost nonstop travel does make you feel like you earned it, one flight at a time. Just a little.

I’m totally looking forward to seeing my NHRA colleagues this weekend, and to be back out there with Del Worsham and his team, and my first stop is another thing to look forward to. It took Vince Bienek and me about 36 years to reconnect after our season together with the Paintsville Hilanders in the Appalachian League, but now we’re doing a pretty good job of seeing each other once a year. Once a teammate, always a brother. We’ll be meeting tonight, along with his wonderful wife Mary, at El Dorado Kitchen on the Sonoma Square. There will be a lot of laughter.

There is one major topic I’m going to address in this blog, but I’ll get the nonsense out of the way first, including the fact that today was “one of those Minnesota days” before I headed to the airport. I don’t know how it is in your state, but in the Land of 10,000 Lakes there are midsummer or late summer days that give you a tease about what’s to come. Today is July 26, and in much of the country people are broiling as the summer sun bakes the landscape and the humans. As I left for the airport this morning, I stepped outside and felt “it.” It was in the low 60s and the overall feeling was “summer is never permanent” up here. Frankly, it felt refreshing and invigorating. Other than April blizzards, I don’t have a real problem with Minnesota winters, and I love the autumn. It was great to sense it again, although we’ll have plenty more hot and humid days before it gets here for real.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that I will be attending the Brainerd race in mid-August, and that event is often the first place and time I feel “it” in my home state. It’s just a few hours north of the Twin Cities, but it’s not uncommon to leave hot and humid conditions in Woodbury and then experience that “here it comes” sensation in Brainerd. And this year I might be going much further north after the race, but that’s not decided yet so I’ll have to blog about that possibility later. Stay tuned.

Now let’s enjoy this.

A few weeks ago, Barbara told me she’d ordered something for our entryway from the garage. It’s what many people call a “mud room” but we just have a small bench in there to allow us to kick off dirty or snowy or slushy shoes when we come in that way. We’ve had a couple of different things hung up in there, but neither one of them clicked like “Oh yeah, that’s it for sure” until she found this framed print online.

This is perfect. When it showed up on the front porch she unpacked it and brought it down to my office in the lower level. She even turned it around and told me to close my eyes. When I saw it, I knew she’d found the perfect piece of art for that area. Is this awesome, or what?

And now on to the main topic in this brief blog from the air.

I actually wrote about this in last week’s blog but then overheard Barbara saying that “the official word” was not going to be released until the next day. While I was 99% sure that no one in an official capacity, who might be surprised by this announcement, would also be reading my blog, I knew I had to delete it just in case. No ballplayer ever wants to hear he’s been traded on the radio, and no executive wants word of a major career change to leak out on a dumb blog like mine. I can’t possibly be more proud of her.

Barbara has resigned from her position as Vice President – Investor Relations at Itron in Liberty Lake. No, she’s not retiring. Instead, she accepted the same position (VP of IR) with a company called H.B. Fuller. They are a worldwide leader in the area of industrial and consumer adhesives, and when they decided to ramp up their investor relations effort they heard about Barbara. After a couple of interviews, they knew they’d found the right person to spearhead this effort, and it was all about finding the right fit for everyone.

I acted, just a little bit, as her de facto agent when this was going on. I think every executive needs someone they trust to tell them what’s the right move, what’s the right plan, and just how good they are at what they do. I told her to trust herself and believe in her own talent. They made an offer she could not possibly refuse.

She was really impressed by the executive team, and excited about working with them to help take H.B. Fuller to the next level. Her nearly six-year career with Itron has been fabulous, and she loved the company and the leadership group. We loved our four years out in Liberty Lake, as well, and I miss many of the places and people we became so attached to out there. There was only one reason to even contemplate a change, and that was the fact we’d made the commitment to “come home” to the town of Woodbury and the state of Minnesota, and the lengthy commute out to Spokane was certainly a physical drag. I totally get that, trust me.

So, when a fantastic company makes a great offer, you need to consider it, right? Well, the best news of all is that H.B. Fuller has their headquarters in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota. Her new office will be about 12 miles from our Woodbury home. It’s a great company, with a solid investor base, led by great people, and it’s right here at home. She completely and utterly earned this.

She’s not the kind of person to just give her notice and walk away in two weeks, leaving her colleagues swinging in the breeze. So, between Itron and H.B. Fuller they all came up with a plan to allow Barbara to help with the next Itron quarterly earnings call and then start her new position in a couple of weeks.

Please join me in congratulating the single most talented and dedicated person I have ever known. And we’re now totally home. Instead of heading to MSP to commute to work on a 1,300 mile flight, she’ll drive up I-694 just a few exits and walk into her new office. We’re thrilled to be part of this fantastic company, and I’m beaming with pride at how Barbara’s nonstop dedication to excellence provided this opportunity.

My wife is a rock star. Simple as that.

That’s it for today. As always, the rule here is that if you just read this blog installment and thought “Well, that didn’t totally stink” then you should click on the “Like” button at the top. 8 million more likes and I’ll get a gift card, of some sort. Or maybe not.

Bob Wilber, at your service and beaming with pride.

 

 

 

Welcome back, blog nation. This is going to have to be a short one this week, because I seem to all of a sudden have more things to do than I have time to do them. And, to make it slightly more frantic, it looks like it’s about to rain and that will only make the challenge greater. But, I’m up for it. Or at least I’m going to give it a shot.

As today’s headline suggests, one of the things I’m doing is draining the hot tub, then I’ll be putting in a new filter, soaking the old filter in a solution that’s so toxic it actually cleans the baffles of the filter almost back to new, and then filling the tub again. It’s 3:30 right now, so that pretty much rules out the use of the tub tonight. It takes about an hour to 90 minutes to drain and refill, but once that’s done the water is around 50-degrees. It takes another five hours or so to get it back up over 90. This time of year, I keep it right around 93.

So why all this today? Well, I knew I needed a new filter but I didn’t plan to drain the tub. The water is relatively new and I’ve been on a roll with the balance lately. Hot tubs are really just miniature heated pools, and any spa or pool owner knows how hard it is to keep the chlorine level right in the middle of the “Good” zone, while also keeping the pH where it’s supposed to be. Once they get out of whack, it takes a while to get everything back to where you want it. So I had planned on keeping the water.

My local Woodbury pool & spa shop called this morning to let me know my replacement filter was in, so I drove over there about an hour ago and picked it up. When I got it home, I unscrewed the old filter to take it out and once I lifted it up I discovered something. Some nearby trees have been dropping a ton of spores/seeds lately, to the point where the cover of the tub was covered in them. I hadn’t seen many in the water though, so I wasn’t worried about it. Until I pulled the old filter out and hundreds of those little buggers washed out of it and into the tub. They’re everywhere. The last thing I wanted to do was put the new filter in and turn it on, because then my new filter would be full of that stuff.

And speaking of hot tub filters… If you own a spa you know there are so many different styles, sizes, shapes, even thread counts on where you screw them in to insert them. Within the Jacuzzi brand alone there are seemingly hundreds of different styles. It’s kind of maddening that even one company can’t find a way to make the filters interchangeable. Sure enough, when I got my new one home it didn’t fit.

After another fun drive all the way across to the other side of Woodbury, where it’s “tear up the roads season” and traffic is constantly snarled, the guy at the store took me back to the storage room and we literally picked through three or four dozen styles to try to find one that would work. My other option is our closest Jacuzzi store, but that’s in Burnsville and I’m in Woodbury and that’s half your day shot. We found one that was an inch shorter and an inch narrower than my old one, but the thread count was the same. I tried it when I got home and it fit. So now we drain, and clean, and refill. Hot tubs are definitely like pools, and sorta like things such as boats and motorhomes. There’s always something, and you need to stay on top of the daily service stuff. It’s a lot of work, but I take pride in making sure my wife and I have a clean sparkling tub to lounge in whenever we want.

I just checked on our progress, and the sump pump has it about halfway drained. It goes pretty fast once the level gets below the seats, so you gotta keep an eye on it. Let that pump run for even a few seconds without water, and you’ll be buying a new one of those. And what’s the first thing you do when cleaning and refilling? You turn the power off at the circuit breaker. Let your tub automatically run the circulation pump without a full load of water in it and you’ll be buying a new motor as your next chore. But… On cold winter nights, or even warm summer evenings, it’s all worthwhile.

When we lived at our old Woodbury house, I wasn’t smart enough to buy a pump. I drained it the old fashioned way, by hooking up a hose to the drain plug at the bottom. Gravity did the work. Gravity is a solid thing, but it’s slow. The pump cut the draining time by about 80%. I’m all for that. Sorry gravity.

I also need to rinse the old dirty filter and soak it in that solution overnight. That should make it a suitable backup for this new one. There’s a lot involved here.

I’m not going to Denver for the Mile-High Nationals this weekend, which is too bad because I love that race. I am, however, heading to Sonoma next Thursday, so that may entail writing a blog on the plane. I’m staying at a place I found on Airbnb. It’s an apartment attached to someone’s house. Ought to be interesting. Also WAY cheaper than any hotel or motel within 15 or 20 miles of the track. The Best Western (!) in Sonoma, where I’ve stayed before, is just under $500 per night during the race weekend. No, thank you! Maybe next time. I am planning on seeing my old Paintsville teammate, Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek and his lovely wife Mary. As you know, they actually met in Paintsville when we played there, back in 1978. Always a good time to meet up with Vince and Mary.

Well, I’m getting down to needing to be out there to finish the draining. Talk amongst yourselves while I handle the critical last moments of the process.

OK, all drained, and it’s 4:20. The fill up is happening and that can take 45 minutes at least. One reason for that is the fact there are pesky little things you need to do when you fill the tub, as well. First off, you insert the hose directly into the intake hole where the filter will screw in. That’s to force water through the system and hopefully blow out much of the air that got in there when it was empty. Then, you attach another sort of filter onto the end of the hose. I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to do, and I never used one in the 10 years we lived at the old house, but when a repair guy came out to replace my burned out motor on this one, all he said was, “You need to use that every single time you fill it up after you’ve drained it. It will add years to your tub’s life.” So, OK.

This past Sunday we went on a really fun river cruise on a neat boat. The entire boat was rented out by our friend and real estate agent Angela, who sold our previous Woodbury home for us (after getting six offers at the Open House!) and who guided our purchase of our new downsized home. She had 165 of her clients on the boat as a “thank you” gesture and it was really great.

We did it on the St. Croix River, which is the body of water that separates Minnesota from Wisconsin, until it pours into the Mississippi further south. And it’s a good thing the St. Croix is there. Minnesota and Wisconsin are two states that sometimes need to be separated. Especially during football season.

Now, I’ll admit that most of the times your invited on something like a river cruise it’s because you’re going to be pitched something. You know: “Come to this FREE cruise on the St. Croix and hear about out new timeshares…” Or “investments…” Or “financial services…”  That was not the case with Angela. We aren’t buying or selling anything and nothing like that happened on the boat. It was just a very gracious thing to do and we met some other fun people, as well. And it keeps our relationship with a great broker fully intact. Thanks Angela, and thank you to Eli and everyone else in the Angela Sadat Group! We had a great time, and it was enormously generous for you to rent the boat and feed us so well!

The tub is rapidly filling! It’s about 50% full, but the process slows down now. Why? Because the water is up over the seats so now it’s filling the entire circumference of the tub, not just the part where your feet go. It’s going faster than I thought though. Maybe tonight isn’t out of the question. Hope springs eternal!

I think I’m going to wrap this one up. This has been, officially, enough total nonsense for one day. Seinfeld would’ve been proud of this installment about nothing. But you do know more about hot tub ownership. Right?

Despite the flimsy subject matter, if you did just read this and found it even remotely likable, please hit the “Like” button at the top. I’m saving up “Likes” for a new bicycle.

See ya next week, most likely from a Delta flight headed for Sacramento, home of the one and only Gary Gerould!

Bob Wilber, at your service and now looking at a tub just about 75% full. Onward!

PS: Holy Moly. I almost screwed up royally. Here I was, blissfully typing away when I thought “I bet it’s getting close. I better take a look.” So I looked out the window and not only was it full, it was a little over full. You’re supposed to fill it to within a half-inch of the bottom of the headrests. It was, instead, about a half-inch ABOVE the bottom of the head rests. I went running for the spigot, to turn the water off, then I bailed four big orange Home Depot buckets worth of water out of it. I think it’s still too high. A couple additional buckets need to be scooped.

The good news is that this time of year the water comes out of the tap at exactly 60 degrees. I’ve refilled during the winter when it went into that tub at 45, so we have a 15-degree head start on getting it back up to 93. And, other than the bucket brigade moment, it took almost exactly 90 minutes from start to finish. I’m pretty much an ace at this.  See ya!

Have you ever heard about the theories of parallel universes, or alternate realities? It’s not all science fiction, because real scientist who are far smarter than me continue to postulate and hypothesize on many theories, and they not only can’t rule it out they also see evidence of it being real. Stephen Hawking was actually writing a paper about it when he passed away.

Why do I bring up the possibility of alternate realities? Because this week I clearly must have visited one. It was one in which Thursday was Wednesday, until I returned to my regular universe this morning and I realized it was Friday. So I missed posting a blog yesterday due to a visit to a parallel universe. Yeah, that’s the ticket! And, in addition to that, the dog ate my homework.

That short trip to an alternate reality was no doubt generated by a lack of any cohesive themes or stories to tell in this week’s installment. I’ve got a couple of odds and ends (evens and starts?) to write about, and then we’ll fall back on the time honored tradition of questions from blog readers. The good old “Q & A” style of writing a blog. Also known as a Toronto pool hall. Get it? A little “cue and eh.”

A couple of blogs back I wrote about our weekend trip to St. Louis to celebrate my birthday (and oh by the way, in the parallel universe I visited we didn’t go to St. Louis. We went to Kansas City. Go figure.) One of our last stops, in Kirkwood, was a fun little gift shop in the downtown area, and while we were perusing lots of St. Louis-themed stuff I stumbled upon a case of custom made St. Louis coasters. The kind you set a glass on, not the kind you ride and throw up on. They had all sorts of well-known destinations, restaurants, and even schools. I found a Rigazzi’s one quickly and knew I had to buy that, but flipping through the ones with schools was not a successful venture. All sorts of high schools and colleges, but no St. Louis U. High.

I took the Rigazzi’s coaster to the counter and jokingly told the woman who waited on us, “I’ll take this one, but you ruined my day by not having my high school.”

She said, “Where did you go?” and I replied “St. Louis U. High.” And that’s where two things happened, at least in this universe. She said, “Oh, we sell out of SLU High all the time. The girl who makes them will get me some more within a few days.”

I told her we now live in Minnesota and she said, “I’ll send it to you when it comes in, and if you want to just leave the Rigazzi’s one I’ll send them both at once.” So I paid for them and gave her my address.

What happened there? First, she called it SLU High. Some of my nieces and nephews, who lived in St. Louis during the 80s, remember hearing people calling it SLU High (Sloo High). But, never in my life, growing up with two brothers who went there, and attending for four years myself, did I ever hear a St. Louisan call my school SLU High. We just called it SLUH (Sloo) or “The U High.”  Times change, or is this an example of where two parallel universes briefly collided, and the one in which everyone always called it SLU High met up with the one that didn’t and now out of nowhere people call it this new name? I must know.

Secondly, it’s all about places like Kirkwood. “Just give me the money and I promise I’ll send them to you.” After we left, Barbara asked, “What are the odds you’ll ever see those coasters?” I said the odds were roughly 100 percent. And they where.

As for my next story, it’s another other-worldly spectacle that raises all sorts of mystical theories. We call it the “Minny & Paul Stonehenge Moment.” We went to the Twins game Tuesday night and witnessed it. You can almost hear the humming of the universe when it happens.

During certain parts of the summer, at just the right moment, on a sunny evening when the Twins are playing, the sun shines through the space between the top of the upper deck and the roof that is cantilevered over it, and a distinct band of sunlight then illuminates the gigantic Twins logo out in centerfield. Like a precise spotlight, it just lights up Minny and Paul, as they shake hands across the Mississippi.

I love that sign and I love the logo. I wrote in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” how, when the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season, and therefore took my dad with them in terms of employment, our house in Kirkwood quickly began to fill with all things Minnesota Twins. Stationery, ash trays, pens, and note pads were soon followed by radios, coasters (see, more coasters!), and photos of individual players and the team.

I hadn’t yet turned five and I lived in suburban St. Louis, but I was already enamored with the quirky cartoon characters, the state outline, the river, and the little bridge. It’s a brilliant logo, and it stands the test of time despite the fact the two characters of Minny and Paul are clearly done in a very “late 50s” style.

And did you know that when the Griffith family moved the Washington Senators to Minnesota, they initially planned to call the team the Twin City Twins, but MLB overruled them on that. The second choice was Minnesota Twins and that stuck. The Twins were allowed, however, to keep the TC hat design they’d submitted for approval. The reason for this had to do with not alienating people who lived in St. Paul (or anywhere else in the state) if they had named the team the Minneapolis Twins. Every current sports team in the area uses the Minnesota moniker, no matter what part of the Twin Cities they play in. I think the last team to go with Minneapolis in their name was the Minneapolis Lakers. They moved to Los Angeles right before the 1960-61 season, which coincidentally was just when the Twins were arriving. Weird, huh? That also explains why the L.A. Lakers have a nickname that makes no sense in Southern California.

See, I had nothing to write about and you’ve already learned stuff.

Now, on to that Toronto pool hall, eh.

Rochelle, from (of all places) Sydney, Australia asked me recently, “Any plans to ever come down-under, with a race team or just to come visit our side of the planet?”

No current plans, Rochelle, but Barbara and I would love to visit. We’d absolutely combine that trip with a stop in New Zealand, as well. It’s just a matter of deciding to do it, planning the trip, spending the money, and psyching ourselves up for a very long flight. One trick that some travelers use is a stopover in Hawaii on the way. Spend a couple of days there, and the rest of the trip isn’t so long. Or, the stopover could be in Tahiti. That would be awesome! I doubt I’d go without Barbara, so it would likely be just a vacation, and I know it would be a great one. And when we get there we’ll say G’day!

Garry in Winnipeg asked me, quite a few months ago, “Why doesn’t the NHRA hold national events in Canada anymore?” The answer to this is from a little bit before my time in the sport, but I think I know the reason. NHRA ran a national event near Montreal for many years, at a place called Sanair Raceway. At some point, right around the time I was coming into the sport, Canadian fuel regulations were changed and NHRA had to pull out of the market because leaded racing fuel was banned. That’s how I remember it, anyway. So, I never got to go to Sanair but I’ve heard lots of stories from racers who have and they all seemed to really enjoy it. Currently, even if the ban were lifted for NHRA purposes, there’s really no venue that is fully suited to immediately host a major race like an NHRA national event.

Ted from Bossier City (that’s in Louisiana) messaged me on Facebook and wrote, “I just finished your book and really loved it. Great work! What are your plans for your next book, because you have to write at least another one. A sequel? Maybe fiction?”

Well, Ted, those are some great questions, and the last one is now timely even though at the time you messaged me I didn’t know it yet. Despite the fact Greg Halling and I left reams of good material on the floor throughout the editing process, I don’t think a sequel is in order. I need something new to tackle, and the first goal was to write my father’s biography. That project is stalled right now, because I made the mistake of launching it right when spring training began. I definitely need the help of a few Major League teams to line up all the interviews I wanted to do, and the Minnesota Twins have been very helpful, but there are few jobs on Earth more time consuming than positions in the PR, Media, and Communications departments for a Major League team. You literally work from morning until late at night nearly every day. It’s a 162-game schedule, after all.

So… And this is a very recent thing, I am indeed planning to tackle a fiction book. I’m committed to it, and excited about it, but the outline, the characters, and the themes are just now being jotted down on a note pad. Unlike my autobiography, where I could sit down on the first day and just start writing, I have to make everything up for this new book, starting with the names and backgrounds of the characters. Every single detail in the book will have to be created from thin air. It’s going to be a huge stretch for me, as a writer, but that’s what has me so excited. I have a rough idea of how it’s all going to go, but I’ll need to fill this note pad with page after page of concepts, time lines, and outlines before I can even get started. The overall theme is one person who exists in two parallel universes, and in one of them he’s actually a really good baseball player. I’M JUST KIDDING! It’s about three universes. NO IT’S NOT! You’ll just have to wait and see. I think I can write it fairly quickly once the hard part of creating it all is done.

Finally, longtime reader Karen from Charlotte (who claims to have read every single blog I’ve written since the first day on NHRA.com, and has suffered no brain damage from the exposure) asked me this pertinent question. She wrote, “I really want to write a blog, and I think I have some good ideas, but I don’t even know how to get started. How in the world do you do it? How did you learn to write like you do?”

I wrote Karen back, via email, but I’ll answer her queries here, as well. That sounds like a simple question but I really don’t know the answer. I’m terrible with math, science, and a lot of other stuff. I could never have been an accountant or any kind of scientist. I don’t play any instruments and can’t read music, despite the fact the nuns at Mary, Queen of Peace tried their best to teach us that for eight years. I couldn’t do my wife’s job if the world depended on it. But, from a very young age I could string words together fairly easily. It just came naturally. It took me decades to refine the art and cut out a lot of the dead wood that comes from trying to “write too much” every time you put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. And what’s great about it is that you can always keep improving. There doesn’t seem to be a place where all of a sudden you’re done, like “That’s it. That’s as good as you get.” In sports, as I know firsthand, there really is a spot where you’re as good as you’re ever going to be and then it starts to go downhill. With writing, you just keep learning and adapting.

I give all the credit to my mom. Her writing and communications skills are part of me. There’s a whole bunch of Taffy Wilber inside her youngest boy. It was just my responsibility to keep growing and expanding what she gave me.

As for your blog, Karen, there’s one thing for certain. If you never try, you’ll never succeed. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t let it intimidate you. You’re not curing diseases or building bombs. It can’t hurt you! Just write. Write as much as you can, as often as you can. Then go back and read it with the purpose of finding what really doesn’t need to be there, or what really does need to be there. Go for it!

So that’s about it for this week. I think, in my parallel universe, it’s really still Thursday and I’m right on time. I’ve also noticed, over there, that I have a lot more hair. What poor luck to be stuck over here!

As always, if you read this and liked it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. At least, do that if you’re not too mad at me for missing Thursday.

See you next week, from one universe or another.

Bob Wilber, at your service from random parallel realities.

 

Welcome back, gang. As has been well documented here, Barbara and I have been pretty much in a whirlwind of travel as of late, whether it was Trans-Atlantic to Amsterdam, or down south to Orlando to visit family, or more recently to St. Louis and then to Colorado. I’ll recap the trip to the Rockies today, and catch up on local news (and weather and sports.) But first, we’ll head west to Berthoud, Colorado to recap those festivities.

Jim Doyle, Barbara’s oldest brother, has worked his butt off for years, doing a lot of the same kinds of work I’ve done for the last two decades plus. When we first met he was the Press Secretary for Senator Ben Whitehorse Campbell, from the great state of Colorado. As I recall, one of the first times Jim came out to Bandimere for the Denver race, he brought the senator with him. I asked him this weekend if he thought Senator Campbell still recalled that, and he said, “Are you kidding? We were just talking about it a couple of weeks ago. He’ll never forget it!”

For the last 14 or so years, Jim has been a communications specialist for the National Park Service. He’s been really good at what he does, and very valuable for the National Parks and the entire organization. He’s also had to deal with some health issues, and he has the EKG graph of his heart when he was having a heart attack, then the jolt from the paddles, and then the normal beats after the shock, tattooed on one of his arms. It’s a stark reminder of how fleeting life can be. He’s doing great now, but I’m sure the challenges of the last few years played a part in his decision to walk away from work, the associated commuting, and all the stress, in order to fully retire and enjoy each day.

Jim’s wife Debbie put the whole party thing together, and Barbara and I were thrilled to attend and meet a wide variety of their friends. Plus, it’s rarely a bad thing to look to the west and see mountains. I consider the mountains to be like the beach. Even a quick visit, as little as a few hours, re-energizes a person and makes life better.

We flew out on Saturday, to Denver, then made the drive west and then north to Berthoud. We are also fortunate to be able to stay with Jim and Deb when we’re there, and that makes it more fun, more comfortable, and a lot less expensive. All good things.

Since the party was on Sunday, we steered clear of making a big meal on Saturday and just went to one of their favorite Mexican restaurants that night. The margaritas were, well, I guess you could say… Fantastic!  And the food was great, too.

I learned on Sunday morning that my job during the outdoor party that afternoon was to be the head grill chef. We were having hamburgers and brats, along with a wide array of side dishes, and it would be my responsibility to keep the aforementioned burgers and brats coming, although we still weren’t sure how many guests would attend.

I was on the back patio, as we started arranging chairs and tables, and saw an old faded and dusty cover atop what had to be the grill. The cover was enough to make me wonder what kind of surface and flames I’d have at my disposal to make all this food, but under it was a brand new five-burner grill. Don’t judge a book by its cover, right?  OK, maybe you can judge my book by its cover. I mean, after all, when you’ve got a Mark Rebilas photograph and graphics by Todd Myers, that’s a nice cover. I hope my writing lived up to the look!

On Sunday, as we continued to set up for the backyard hullabaloo, Jim was able to join a large group of friends who are all dedicated Harley riders. They had plans to go for a ride in the foothills. When asked when that was going to happen, Jim said, “Oh, it’s 2:00. Probably right on the dot. This group is all about being punctual. And they’ll have the full route mapped out before we start up any bikes.”

Sure enough, around 1:45 we could hear the rumble of the engines as they arrived, one by one or in pairs. At 2:00, they all mounted up and took off for a scenic Colorado motorcycle ride. They were all smiles when they got back.

Jim loves his Harley, and Deb has one too but she felt the need to stay home to quarterback the final preparations for the party. It got pretty hectic as we closed in on the 4:00 mark, which was the noted time for the gig to start. I was busy prepping burgers and brats.

At around 3:45, I fired up the new grill. My grill here at home in Woodbury is a Char-Broil and I’ve had it for a long time. I’ve replaced the grates numerous times, put in new flame shields, and “tuned it up” as much as I can, but I can state with assurance that it’s no longer at the top of its game. When I fire it up, it can take 15-20 minutes for it to even approach 400 degrees. I’ve just been limping it along out of laziness, I think.

I fired up Jim’s new behemoth, put the lid down, and walked away. All I did was go into the kitchen and finalize how many burgers and brats I’d put on the grill as my first batch. I then went back out to check on it and the thermometer on the front showed it was already up to 390 degrees and rising fast. Obviously, I need a new grill. And I’m not ashamed to admit I covet Jim’s new set-up. I need one like it, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t fit on the grill deck here. These are real world problems…

The party got started and I went to work. Basically, for the next hour, all I did was grill, flip, and turn. And every time I opened the lid the wind would shift and blow all the smoke right at me. After a while, I could barely see out of my glasses! It was frantic grilling work, but I was absolutely determined to make it all delicious and perfect, without leaving anything undercooked while also not burning anything. I don’t cook fully raw brats very often, so that was another nervous challenge. In the end, the reviews were stellar and Jim thanked me profusely for feeding the large gathering so well. It was the least I could do to help him celebrate this new important chapter in his life.

As Jim said, “People have been asking me what I’m going to do on Monday. I really don’t know, but I do know for sure what I’m NOT going to do on Monday!” I think he’ll adapt to full retirement perfectly well.

Now here’s something hilarious. Jim’s daughter Erin, along with her sister Leah, took on the task of decorating and putting a nice display of Jim’s accomplishments, photographs, and big moments, on a table in the living room. Everything from his park ranger hat, to photos of him on election night with Senator Campbell and another in the Oval Office at the White House, along with a diploma from the University of Colorado. He got it for his graduate degree in Public Relations.

Except there was a typo. I’ll let you find it yourselves. When he got the diploma he was rightfully proud of it, but someone in the family said, “Uh, you better look closely at that…” They all commenced to rolling on the floor.

The university asked him to send it back while they also sent him a new one. As he said, “I took the new one, but there was no way I was sending this one back. It’s too priceless.”

All in all, the whole shindig was a huge hit, and Jim really was touched by the outpouring of friendship and support, from family, friends, and neighbors. It was a great day. He must’ve thanked Barbara and me a dozen times, for making the trip out there to be with him. It was our pleasure.

Our flight out of Denver wasn’t until 4:00 on Monday, so we had some time to kill. Berthoud is great little town, so heading into the small downtown area for bagels, muffins, and coffee at a sidewalk cafe was the perfect start. Later, Jim took Barbara and me up to Estes Park, right near the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. If you’ve ever been to Estes Park, you know how quaint and fun it is, and from there you’re right at the foot of the majestic Rocky Mountains.

We didn’t have time to go up to the top of the mountain, or even enter the park, but we had a wonderful lunch at a great restaurant, with views for miles.

Like I said, it’s just like the beach. Even a brief visit is good for the soul and erases just about anything that ails you or stresses you out. By the time we made the scenic drive back to Berthoud, it was about time for Barbara and me to head to the airport.

On just about any other Monday, I’d have been pretty stressed out to make that long drive because traffic can back up in multiple places along I-25 and the 470 Toll Road. Right away, though, it was pretty apparent that with July 4th being on a Wednesday, a lot of people were taking multiple days off, if not the whole week. We ran the speed limit all the way to the airport. Our fun little jaunt was over, but we had such a great time.

The next big thing on our agenda was July 4th, and those plans came together late but also quickly. Back in the old neighborhood, we’d annually get together in Neighbor Dave’s driveway for the fireworks, because the city of Woodbury shot them off at a park not too far from there, across the front pond. It was always a lot of fun, but then a few years back the city shifted the fireworks to a big sports center in the opposite direction. That eliminated the driveway shenanigans.

Instead, we found we could see the fireworks even better, looking the opposite direction, from a small park in the subdivision, near the Blake’s and Meehan’s homes. Lynn and Terry Blake have downsized to a new Woodbury home like we have, but just days before the 4th Lynn sent out a text to our full “gang” and a large group of us got together in the park, once again. As our contribution to the festivities, Barbara made some incredible white wine sangria. And the fireworks were awesome.

The mosquitos were also awesome. We had fogger spray, citronella candles, and regular bug spray, but for a good hour around dusk they were pretty incessant. People talk about Minnesota mosquitos all the time (the overused cliche of a joke is that the mosquito is Minnesota’s state bird) but frankly they rarely are so bad that you’re in full repellent mode.

This time, after some rain in the morning and with high humidity, they were out in force. Right when it was at its worst though, we got lucky. Just before the big fireworks show got started, a number of other families arrived in the park to take up viewing spots and they had their kids running around with sparklers and other smoky things. It was a still evening, and very humid, so all that smoke kind of hung around us and that really helps with the buzzing bugs. By the time the smoke cleared, most of the mosquitos had left with it. And the fireworks were great. Also great was the shared friendship and laughs. As Scott Meehan said, “We’re doing a much better job of all getting together this year. Let’s keep it up.” I agreed, 100%. The sangria was pretty good, too!

And here’s a byproduct of our trip to the park…  Terry Blake brought a football along, and I looked at it longingly. I told Terry, “I really haven’t thrown a football around much for the last 20 or 25 years. I haven’t even thrown a baseball that much over the decades. By the end of my playing days, my right shoulder was such a mess a sports doctor said I had two choices. I could undergo rotator cuff surgery and face a long and painful rehab, or I could stop throwing things. I chose Option B.”

Earlier in the day, we had some lemons and limes that needed to be thrown out so I did that literally. I went out on the deck and tossed them into the trees behind our house, knowing they’d degrade naturally. And although my shoulder felt tight and it did hurt a little, there was no incredible stabbing pain (like a knife) in the shoulder.

So I grabbed the football, and Terry and I started about 10 feet apart as we tossed the ball. Within a few throws I was backing up, to put a little more on it. I wasn’t throwing bullets, but I was getting a lot on each throw and most of my passes were good spirals. And it didn’t really hurt that much. That was cool. And, since I hadn’t thrown a football in a long time I also hadn’t caught one. Terry throws really nice spirals, and the muscle memory for catching those, to the right or left or above my head, came back pretty naturally.

That was so fun, we’re now talking about playing catch with a baseball soon. I’d love to mess around and see if I can still throw strikes and make my sidearm sinker work. One small step at a time. After all, I just turned 62. It’s not like I’m going to grab a ball and throw 90 mph with two feet of sink on the fastball. I’m pretty sure there’s no “comeback” in my future, but it’s really fun to do this sort of stuff and get even a slight taste of how it felt back in the day.

That’s about it for this one. No travel this weekend, but I’ll be following along as the NHRA Mello Yello tour invades New Hampshire and the rest of New England. My next scheduled trip on a plane is for the Sonoma race, at the end of the month. I’m looking forward to getting out there. More details on that as we get closer.

As always, I ask only one favor. If you read this and liked it, please click on the “Like” button at the top. I’m trying to earn a camping trip with my scout troop and I need the “Like Credits.” LOL.

Bob Wilber, at your service and happy to be home.

 

Welcome back to Blog Central everyone, and this time I made it happen on the correct day. The birthday trip to St. Louis seems like a long time ago now, but fortunately I documented most of it with digital images and that allows the memories to come back vividly. Bottom line: We had a GREAT time and everything about the trip was fun, positive, and in many cases delicious.

After our arrival on Thursday, when we checked in at the Hilton Ballpark Village and then dashed down to Gateway Arch National Park to stare skyward at the monument’s grandeur, followed by a wonderful dinner at Farotto’s with niece Kimberly, we headed back to The Arch on Friday to make our 11:30 tram ride to the top.

Keep in mind, I’ve been going up in The Arch since the trams started running, back in the mid-60s. If pressed to come up with an exact number, regarding how many times I’ve been to the top, I’d be hard pressed to get even close, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the 25-30 range, which is a lot. But, when you’re a native St. Louisan who was a boy when The Arch was completed, and who hosted many out-of-town guests later in life, there are almost always good reasons to go to the top. Even an ESPN reason after I pitched the network on a concept of following the full Worsham Racing / CSK Funny Car team around as we toured St. Louis. Our first stop on that trip, which was documented on camera, was The Arch (for the record, our second stop was Rigazzi’s and our final stop was Ted Drewe’s, so we lived large that evening.)

What all that means is that I have almost zero problem with the tram ride to the top. Yes, the eight pods that go up and down each leg are tiny. Yes, the leveling mechanism that keeps each pod upright is a little jarring at first. And yes, the pods have been going up and down each leg, hauled up or lowered down by cables, for about 50 years. But, I’m not generally claustrophobic and I find it fun. And you get to know the people you’re sharing the pod with really quickly. We went up with folks who were basically “classic” Arch visitors. They were traveling from coast-to-coast on a summer trip, and made St. Louis a key stop on the way. We had fun chatting with them, and they all agreed that the conversation helped them (and Barbara) from thinking about heights or claustrophobic surroundings.

It takes about four minutes to get to the top, although the pods don’t actually make it all the way. The very top of The Arch is the viewing platform, so the eight-pod trains stop just short of there, and you have to walk up some very steep steps to get to the windows. Once on the platform, your first few steps are again on a steep incline. Only at the very top of the room does it flatten out enough to feel less uncomfortable. It can be a little off-putting at first, because your eyes, brain, and inner ears have a hard time reconciling where you are and why it feels so odd. I think kids have it the easiest. They run around up there and lay on the slanted walls to peer out the windows as if it’s nothing.

The most difficult trip I ever made to the top was when I took a visitor up on a day when the wind was gusting to 25 or 30 mph. Yes, The Arch does sway in the wind. And yes, you can feel it when it does. That sway adds motion sickness to the mix of things you’re feeling. We didn’t stay up there very long, that time.

You’re allowed to stay at the top as long as you want, but on a busy day like Friday, with each tram of pods packed completely, it starts to get a little crowded in a hurry. That’s more claustrophobic than the miniature little pods and their five jump seats, for me. After about 20 minutes, and views both east and west, we headed back down. When we got to the bottom, it was raining. Somehow that happened while we were descending. It only takes three minutes to get down (thank you, gravity!)

We killed some time buying t-shirts in the gift shop, then finally decided it might never stop drizzling so we walked back to the hotel. We only got slightly drenched, and only on the front of our clothes since we were walking into the slanted shower. After a quick change to dry stuff, we got in the car to do our driving tour of my home town. We headed west, out to Kirkwood, and then back to the south side of town, all while I pointed out landmarks of both the city’s history and my own personal past. St. Louis U. High and Mary Queen of Peace grade school were on the itinerary, as was Woodleaf Court. My former home looked great, as did the whole area. I still have a hard time with the fact there is no basketball hoop on the side of the driveway, but that’s not my decision to make. That driveway, though, still resonates with me as a very special and hallowed place. Whether shooting hoops or playing endless Wiffle Ball games, that sheet of asphalt was a major part of my life. Now, it belongs to someone else.

Our plans for Friday night were based around a trip to Forest Park and the St. Louis Muny Opera. We decided to go a bit early, just to make sure we could find a place to park on the street near the front entrance to The Muny, and we were early enough for me to offer a quick drive through the park to show Barbara around. Once off the interstate, we were a bit stunned to see so many people flocking to the park and jamming the roads. There was, apparently, a big event going on in front of the Art Museum on the long slope known as Art Hill, and The Muny crowd was also showing up early for the Friday night performance of “The Wiz.” The whole place was jammed.

The Muny is a wonderful place, and one of the most unique stage venues in the country. With 11,000 stadium seats, and with huge trees towering over the stage, it’s a big theater but it feels so cozy you don’t seem to notice how big it is. We were also incredibly lucky with the weather on a Friday night in late June. They start the shows late, at 8:15, to give the typical summer heat and humidity a chance to dissipate. They also have huge fans on large towers throughout the venue as well. On our night, it was 70 degrees and cloudy. You don’t get that lucky in St. Louis that often.

We had time to leisurely stroll into the theater after finding a parking spot only about a half-mile from the entry. And we had time to help out some other patrons, who got out of their car behind us and said, “This is our first time here. Where do we go?” I was happy to point them in the right direction.

We grabbed a couple of glasses of wine and a fruit and cheese plate from a concession stand, surrounded by thousands of others who were also early arrivals, as a band played and the excitement built. Finally, about 30 minutes before the curtain, we found our way to our seats, close to the stage. Neither one of us had ever seen “The Wiz” before, and we were really looking forward to it. We scanned the Playbill to read about the esteemed cast members, and waited for the show to begin.

To sum it up, “The Wiz” was wonderful. The cast was amazing (especially the young woman who played Dorothy and the young man who was the scarecrow) and the presentation of the show was incredibly original and captivating. Everything about it was 5-Stars. We absolutely loved it, as did the rest of the crowd. The standing ovation at the end of the show was very well earned and very heartfelt.

With the capacity crowd all leaving at once, we figured there’d be a bit of a traffic jam getting out, although it was after 10:30 pm by then. As it turned out, with the other stuff going on in the park at the same time we were confronted by the most people I’ve ever seen in Forest Park, all at once. It took 45 minutes just to get to one of the park exits and back on the surface streets. All worth it, though.

Our goal for Saturday was pretty simple. We planned to go to the world-famous St. Louis Zoo, right back there in Forest Park once again. It was another fabulous day, with comfortable temps and low humidity. I checked to see if that really meant it was the end of the world or if I’d read the calendar wrong, because weather like that in late June is pretty unheard of in The Gateway City. It was also Saturday. It was also just after the end of the school year. We, therefore, weren’t the only people planning to visit the St. Louis Zoo.

I figured that out as we exited the highway at Hampton Avenue. Traffic was backed up to the end of the off-ramp. And it wasn’t moving. It was, basically, gridlock. It took us 20 minutes just to get to the top of the ramp, but the incoming crowd just got more difficult when we got there. And when I looked across the Hampton Ave. overpass, to the south side of the highway, I could see an endless line of cars looking to park over there. That’s a LONG walk, but it was clear the park and The Zoo were already nearing capacity. We decided, sadly, to put off our zoo visit for another trip.

We decided to visit Grant’s Farm, which is a wildlife refuge and an historic park built originally by Ulysses S. Grant. His log cabin is there, and the main ornamental gate to the park has been the scene of a number of television commercials starring the Anheuser Busch clydesdales. If you remember shots of the clydesdales pulling the Budweiser beer wagon, as they traipse through a large park gate, that’s Grant’s Farm. The Busch family still owns the place, and it’s a real St. Louis landmark. It’s also free, just like the St. Louis Zoo.

I had to do some internal GPS reckoning to find my way there, but a mile from the turn into the parking area we faced the same type of gridlock we’d just escaped from at the zoo. Again, everyone in St. Louis seemed to have the same ideas we had. After sitting completely still for 20 minutes, we bailed out of the line of cars and went straight, instead. By doing that, at least Barbara got to see the log cabin, the main gate, and much of the park, and after that I used my still functioning local knowledge to drive all the way around the park, so that we ended up on the other side of the traffic. The parking lots were full, so we didn’t plan to tour the park, but the large pastures on that side of Grant’s Farm are home to many generations of Clydesdales. They have a very good life. I think the ones who live at Grant’s Farm have just one “job” and it doesn’t entail pulling the Budweiser beer wagon. Their job is to make new Clydesdales, and a couple of examples of their hard work were galloping around the pastures.

By then, we were hungry and we needed to figure out Plan C, since Plan A and Plan B had not panned out. We headed to Steak ‘n Shake. The steakburgers and chili were magnificent. Over that fine lunch, we decided to head west to Defiance, Missouri. Defiance is a small little town about 20 miles out of town, and it’s a burgeoning wine area. Sounded good to us! We plotted out our route over the last few french fries, and then hit the road.

Our first stop, upon arrival, was Defiance Ridge Winery. It was so fun we stayed for an hour. There was a band playing, lots of happy people, and even a wedding party going on. And, the winery is really new but they have a creative business model going. It takes many years to get a new vineyard to a point where it can produce enough good grapes to sustain a winery. In some cases, it takes decades. So, Defiance Ridge decided to build the facilities and open to the public right away. For now, while they nurture the vines and establish the wine-making part of the business, they’re operating as more of a massive and scenic wine bar. They do tastings and serve food, while also selling wine from other regions, including Sonoma/Napa and Walla Walla. It was really fun.

We then drove further down the road to the little town of Augusta, which also features some wineries but above and beyond that it’s just a fun little town with a lot of antique stores.

We strolled around and browsed through one large store, looking at things that ranged from the 1800s to the 1970s, and it was great. I even bought a vintage 1940s baseball glove for $15.

The glove was mislabeled as a “catcher’s mitt” but it was clearly an old infielder’s model. At $15 it was too cool to pass up. The woman who owned the store only bargained a bit (we got it for $14) but her rationale for holding firm was “But it’s so cute and it’s in great shape.” I could sense that it was just an old “cute” glove to her. I didn’t think she really knew what she had. There aren’t that many of these old 1940s gloves around anymore.

After we got it, I showed Barbara why I wanted it. It was not a professional player’s glove, but it was a real and authentic glove from that era. Someone played some serious baseball with it, and it was very true to its age. The Rawlings logo on the strap was weathered and worn, which just added to the patina, in my opinion. Then, I looked closer at the pocket of the glove.

The branded inscription on the inside of the little finger caught my eye. It was hard to read, but in the right light I could see that it said, “Mister Shortstop” and under that was a script “autograph” which read “Martin Marion.” I knew I’d gotten a good deal.

Marty Marion was one of the best shortstops to ever play for the Cardinals, and he was one of my father’s teammates in the 1940s. Like the Wilbers, the Marions also put down roots in suburban St. Louis and as a kid it was quite a regular deal for us to head over to the Marions’ house in Ladue, just north of Kirkwood. Marty had been a real star for the Cardinals, and the trappings of stardom were obvious. They lived on a private street and had a kidney-shaped swimming pool behind their house! And they had a color TV. Sitting in their beautiful living room one evening, I watched color TV for the first time. The program was “Bonanza.”  I still remember that fact to this day. We very much liked going to the Marions’ house.

To be clear, this glove didn’t belong to Marty. It was a very real glove that saw a lot of action, but it was endorsed by Marty. Not many big league players had endorsement deals with Rawlings back then, but Marty was a big enough star to land one. I’d bet the kid who played with this Marty Marion glove also owned a Stan Musial bat, or maybe a Mickey Mantle Louisville Slugger. Everyone wanted a Mickey Mantle bat. I’m happy to now own this glove. I keep waiting for it to tell me its full historic story. I’d love to know it.

After leaving Augusta, we headed back to Kirkwood and parked the car. Then, a fun little walking tour of the main part of downtown Kirkwood, where I could point out every business and tell Barbara what used to be there. They are mostly boutiques and restaurants now, but in my childhood they were small local department stores, a Rexall drug store, the bakery, a hardware store, Velvet Freeze Ice Cream, and Casey’s Sporting Goods, where my dad worked in the winter to make a little money during the off-season, when he wasn’t scouting or managing. All vivid memories for me. And the town looks absolutely fabulous. Kirkwood has never looked better, and we even found a really good Mexican restaurant for an early dinner. It was all good. All very good.

For the record, St. Louis in general is really looking good these days. It’s vibrant, fun, and more attractive than I can ever remember. And with Farotto’s still in business, while Ted Drewe’s Frozen Custard stand also beckons (yeah, we made a stop there too) there’s always a reason to go. Maybe next time we’ll actually set foot inside the St. Louis Zoo. And the Delmar Loop area. And the Soulard area. Maybe the Central West End. And I can always handle another trip to The Muny. Can’t wait to get back.

When we got back home, we had a meeting on Monday with a landscaper who has been listening to some things we want to get done in our backyard. Some of it is just to improve the views, and some of the project will fix some issues we’ve had since we moved in. In Minnesota, we have a very real thing called “frost heave” and it strikes during the winters when the moist soil freezes and expands. It can do a lot of damage if the soil isn’t prepped correctly for things like concrete patios or deck posts. Apparently, our backyard wasn’t prepped all that well. So, in the next month or so these guys are going to come and do a complete backyard makeover for us. It should be really cool when it’s done, and we finalized everything at the meeting. It’ll be a mess for a week or so, but when they’re done I’ll have some great “before and after” photos to share.

That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next Thursday with more nonsense.

Until then, please click the “Like” button at the top if you read this and enjoyed it. The more “likes” the merrier for bloggers like me. See you in a week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and back home in Minnesota after being back home in St. Louis.

Hello blog village, on a Friday instead of a Thursday. We had a busy day of travel yesterday, and I knew I wouldn’t want to sequester myself in our hotel room once we got here, so I’m trying to dash off a quick one on Friday morning while Barbara is on a conference call. It’s 10:20 as I’m starting this and we have tickets for the 11:30 tram within the north leg of the Gateway Arch, to go to the top. So, time is of the essence!

It’s always great to be “home” again, and St. Louis will always be my true home, my roots, and my history. And I can say without reservation that everything we saw after arriving yesterday made it clear that St. Louis has never looked better. New construction everywhere, including here in downtown, new condos, new parks, and even the airport looked the best it has in decades. I’m proud of my hometown! There were times during high school and college where I really couldn’t say that honestly. Things were getting rundown, projects weren’t completed, beautiful theaters were shuttering, and the general feel of the whole metro area was a little depressed. That is not the case anymore.

Even the grounds of the Gateway Arch, which is now Gateway Arch National Park after being a National Monument since it was completed in 1965. I clearly remember the day they slid the final piece into place at the top, because the nuns at Mary Queen of Peace brought big black & white TVs into our classrooms so we could watch it happen.

Ever since that completion date, the grounds around the Arch always looked a little (a lot) incomplete. I-70 separated it from the rest of downtown, and despite the fact the busy roaring lanes of the highway were below grade, you still had to walk over busy and noisy overpasses just to get to the grass. Not anymore. They’ve just finished a massive job of building a grassy connector over the highway so the whole thing flows from downtown to the Arch itself, in one massive lawn. They also built new underground spaces, a new main entrance, and a lot of other projects. It finally looks the way I’m sure Eero Saarinen imagined it when he designed it in 1947, when he needed a LOT of vision to imagine it in an area that was nothing more than empty brick warehouses stretching to the banks of the Mississippi River. It’s an engineering marvel, and I never cease to be awed by it.

And that unique shape? Imagine holding a heavy chain with your arms outstretched, so that the chain made a graceful curve between your hands. That natural shape is a catenary curve. Turn it over, and make it out of 630 feet of steel, and you have the Arch. Technically, it’s an “inverted catenary curve” and it was a marvel to watch it go up from 1963 to 1965. They invented an awful lot of construction machines to make it happen, including some spectacular “creeper cranes” that would lift each new section into place, then put in new tracks above them, then creep up a little more to put the next piece in place.

And yes, once they got to a certain height where the legs were leaning in so much they were likely to fall, they inserted a huge brace across the gap to hold everything up. I watched all of this as a kid, and each time we’d go downtown or cross the river on a trip, we’d be excited to see how much higher it had gotten.

It can be a little intimidating to stand at its base, and a little vertigo-inducing, as well. It’s hard to stare straight up at it and not feel a little unsteady. But, once you get your Arch legs under you, it’s impossible to not be impressed by its design and its absolutely timeless beauty. It still looks like it’s from the future.

After walking all over downtown we headed west to the suburb of Rock Hill, which is documented multiple times in my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” because: A) Schall School was in Rock Hill and that’s the place I caught my first fly ball. And: B) That’s where Farotto’s is located.

We’ve been eating Farotto’s pizza since I was old enough to chew. It’s the sort of place that is clearly passed on from generation to generation, and last night after we got there I said, “I bet I could walk around here and stop at every table to talk to the people, and in the end I’d have one degree of separation, or maybe zero degrees, with at least 25 percent of the people in here. We’d all know some Kirkwood, Rock Hill, of Webster Groves family names in common.”

It’s also a requirement that my niece Kimberly comes to Farotto’s as well, whether I’m here for the St. Louis NHRA race or just for a quick weekend, like this one. It’s always great to see her, and hear where all of her hectic business travel has taken here. She’s actually leaving today for a quick trip to Ireland, but that’s for fun. For work, it’s not uncommon for her to go all the way to China. I’m way too old for that.

When I was a kid and all the way up through the years I was in college, Farotto’s was basically a “carry out only” place. It was 90% kitchen, with just enough space for customers to walk through the door, pick up their pizza and toasted ravioli, and head back home. There were two (count ’em, two) tiny little tables with 1950s kitchen chairs, and that was it. I recall possibly eating our pizza at one of those table one time. Over the years, they’ve acquired the other businesses and buildings around them, added space in the back, and increased the seating capacity from possibly four all the way up over 200. It’s now a destination for dinner, with a lively bar, and a lot of longtime customers, just like me.

We had a rollicking time, we loved the food, and the wine wasn’t bad either. It’s always great to spend time with any of my nieces or nephews, and it’s always a wonderful evening when it’s spent with Kim, and some toasted ravioli, and a pizza.

After our excursion to the top of the Arch (now 45 minutes away) we’re going to ad lib the afternoon depending on the weather. If the chance of rain is a bit high, we might just tour around in the rental car and see historic stuff. And I mean historic in the typical sense (the 1904 Worlds Fair and 1904 Olympic sites are still things you can see in St. Louis) but also in the historic Wilber sense. So many memories, and they’re all so fresh.

Tonight, we see “The Wiz” at the St. Louis Muny Opera, in Forest Park. Can’t wait for Barbara to experience The Muny. It’s amazing.

Tomorrow, the St. Louis Zoo will most likely be our main goal. Photos will be taken of everything, and posted next week.

The Cardinals are out of town, which is both a good thing and a bad. If they were here, and especially if they were playing the Cubs like they were earlier this week, we couldn’t have gotten this room at the Hilton, but downtown would’ve been much livelier. Busch Stadium is right below us, and what we get to see are the tireless grounds crew workers continually working on the beautiful field. Their work never ends. It just gets a little more 9-to-5 when the team is on the road.

So that’s it for today and this week. Kind of a short one, but The Arch beckons!

As always, Rule No. 134 around here is this: If you just read this blog and you enjoyed it, please hit the “Like” button at the top. The more “likes” the merrier.

I’ll see you next week, with more tales from The Gateway City. Home.

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready to ride to the top.

Greetings and salutations, blog faithful. I’m going to start this Thursday Blog Day with the first part of the headline, and then transition into other thoughts, memories, and questions. So, sure, it might ramble a little but we all have our First Class Rambling Licenses so we can handle it.

The first part of the headline is the phrase “Right On Target” and if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you likely know what the reference is. I try to keep the “cross pollination” at a minimum when it comes to this blog versus my other social media, but the minimum in that regard is really a fairly high threshold because all of this stuff is about what I’m up to, where I’m going, what’s important at the time, and other nonsense. Yes, I posted a ton of photographs on Facebook, about what Barbara and I did on Tuesday night, but I’m going to repeat that on the blog today.

Here in our Woodbury neighborhood, we’re extremely fortunate to have great neighbors, just like we were in the old neighborhood, and our older neighborhood in Austin (way back when.) Just as with your parents, you can’t pick your neighbors, so we know how fortunate we’ve been in that regard. Both of our next-door neighbors, in our new neighborhood, already lived here when we bought this house. Jerry and Janice live to our left while Frank and Janelle live to our right. They are two fantastic couples with great families.

Recently, Janelle let us know that she and Frank had won a fantastic item at a charity auction, and they invited us to tag along with them on the adventure. It was a private tour of Target Field, the magnificent ballpark that is home to our Minnesota Twins. We accepted immediately, and on Tuesday night we joined them and eight other fine family members and friends for the event.

The Twins were on the road, so the ballpark was empty and that was a good thing for us. We could not have done many of the things that were highlights of the tour had the team been in town.

John Avenson is a Vice President for the Twins, with the title of VP – Technology. That means he’s really smart, and really in touch with just about everything that goes on at Target Field. As a bonus, he’s also a fantastic tour guide, so the whole thing was incredibly enlightening and enjoyable.

You might recall that a couple of years ago my college baseball buddies, Lance, Oscar, and Radar all came to the Twin Cities for our annual reunion, and the Twins rolled out the red carpet with another guided tour. That one was led by their historian and curator Clyde Doepner, so it focused heavily on the history of the team, much incredible memorabilia, and a trip to the field for the visiting team’s batting practice. On this tour, John took us through some of the same parts of the ballpark, but he really focused on the amazing stuff that most fans probably don’t even think about. Target Field is more than just a place for ballgames and hot dogs. It’s a technological marvel that utilizes a vast amount of technology to not only make the games happen, but to also make the fan experience the best it can be. It’s also an architectural marvel, and evidence of forward-thinking design and expert craftsmanship are all around you anywhere you go at Target Field. The fact they shoe-horned one of the best ballparks in baseball onto a site that was not much bigger than a downtown square block, and made it feel both enormous and cozy at the same time, is almost beyond belief.

It’s also fantastically green, both in a color sense and in terms of ecology. So much is repurposed, recycled, and re-used it’s mind-blowing, and again that’s probably not something most fans even know about. They just see a world-class venue and enjoy some good eats while rooting on their favorite team.

We got an “up close and personal” trip all through the park, hitting every level and going places only people like our guide John can visit, with his electronic pass key getting us through too many doors to count. We visited club spaces, various private lounge areas built around displays honoring Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett, and many other Twins greats from the past.

We toured the press box and enjoyed a lengthy visit to the upper level box where “Scoreboard Control” is located. Considering I’ve been around ballparks and baseball my whole life, but I still had no idea how complex and high tech this room is, I’m sure it’s another of of those things that typical fans never think about. It looks like Mission Control at NASA combined with with Master Control at a major TV network. Dozens of talented people work there for every home game, making it all happen. Those images, replays, stats, and fun videos don’t just pop up on the HD giant screen by themselves.

We were amazed by the amount of “super computing” that’s constantly going on in terms of the park, the concessions, WiFi for fans, and all the tech that keeps the scoreboards, PA system, and even the ticketing system humming. And all the wiring and super-cooling that keeps it all going as well.

There’s a whole “behind the scenes” universe at work in a ballpark as advanced as Target Field, and the tour through those parts of the park was really eye-opening for me.

Our guide John also took great pride in pointing out as many details as he could, making us “look around” to appreciate things that normally go unseen. The enormous care taken with the many miles of color-coded cable and wiring is breathtaking. It’s basically perfect.

He made it clear (and I knew this already, to a great degree) how much the Pohlad family, who own the Twins, have spent whatever it takes to upgrade the park and make changes that enhance it, and how their vision of this world-class place is apparent all around. You might attend dozens of games at Target Field and never bother to look up when you’re on the main concourse. John pointed out the fully “finished” look of the place. There’s nothing industrial or cluttered about it, despite the fact most other ballparks, stadiums, and arenas really don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing.

Target Field is also incredibly clean, even in places the public can’t see. The Twins and the Pohlad family are very proud of that, and it’s just another example of sparing no expense to make it the best place, and the best experience, from top to bottom. It’s impressive, to say the least. I’ll never attend another game without appreciating all those little details, and the areas of the park where the original design didn’t work, so they took the time and spent the money to make it better.

We also got to do quite a bit more in terms of the baseball experience, and that was a great deal of fun that was also one of the things we couldn’t have done if the team was in town. When Clyde took Lance, Radar, Oscar and me to the lower levels where fans can’t go, we couldn’t go in the visiting clubhouse because the Cleveland team was in there. The dugout was off-limits as well, of course.

John took us in the visitor’s clubhouse and I was right back at home, although I never had a baseball “home” anywhere close to that nice. It was roomy, had its own snack and catering room, and everything about it was first class. Right outside the clubhouse was a full indoor batting cage, as well.

Some things never change, though, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination for me to feel like I was 23 again, reaching for my bat in the rack and pulling my helmet, with my number on it, out of its rack as well. I could practically smell the pine tar. After all, the magnificent stadium is something I can’t relate to, but the mound at Target Field is the same 60-feet and 6-inches from home plate. The bases are the same 90-feet apart. In my playing career, I hit many balls far enough to make it to the seats for a home run. I also struck out enough to never forget the trudge back to the dugout and the replacing of that bat and helmet back in their places. It’s just baseball. It’s the same. Just on a much bigger and grander stage.

It was a phenomenal tour led by the perfect tour guide. Huge thanks to Frank and Janelle for inviting us along to spend the evening with the whole group.  Gigantic thanks to the Twins and John Avenson for making this all happen. And kudos to everyone who works for the ball club and the stadium. Your attention to detail is impeccable.

Barbara and I spent eight years as Twins season ticket holders when they played at the old Metrodome. It had its own charms and quirks, and you always knew you were going to see a game no matter the weather outside, but the first time we set foot in Target Field we recognized the huge leap the team had made.

There are certainly many parks in MLB now that are cutting edge in terms of technology, architecture, fantastic sight lines, and fan comfort no matter the level or the seat. There are probably a few with the same wide variety of fantastic food and drinks you find at Target Field, with a number of clubs or lounges open to all ticket holders. Maybe there’s a “tie” in terms of best baseball experience, but I personally believe there’s no ballpark in the world that is better than Target Field. Yeah, I’m a little biased but I honestly believe that to be true.

OK, on now to other topics…

Here in Minnesota we are located in what those on each coast consider “fly over territory.” We’re just out here in the middle of the USA and we aren’t thought of much. We have facilities like Target Field, US Bank Stadium, Target Center, and soon we’ll have Allianze Field for our Minnesota United MLS team. They’re all world class. We have phenomenal museums, wonderful parks, fantastic restaurants, a vibrant arts and theater scene, and some of the friendliest people on Earth. Yet, the most publicity we tend to get is news video of blizzards or ice fishing.

That all changed over the last couple of days, thanks to an adorable daredevil raccoon. She was hunting for something to eat near a St. Paul skyway in downtown, when she got a little stranded on a ledge. So, as you probably know, our little friend started climbing. All 38 stories. She had to stop and rest a few times, but she kept going. The higher she went, the more attention she got.

Social media was buzzing. The major TV networks covered her climb. Even the New York Times printed her story. And she made it to the top, a little tired and quite hungry, but she made it. And after she entered the trap, she was relocated to the suburbs and set free. I wonder if she knows what a superstar she became.

Our other local pro baseball team, the St. Paul Saints, are going to rename themselves the St. Paul Raccoons for one upcoming home game. Knowing the Saints and their reputation for fun, I’m sure they will make that game one unforgettable evening.

Next subject: I’ve been selling a lot of books the last few weeks, which is a fun thing. And, with a bunch of new people diving into it I’ve been getting a lot of emails and social media messages about various topics. Many of them were also fun. Chris Lindhart wrote and asked me who the best baseball players I ever played with or against were. The answers: The single best player I ever played against was Cal Ripken Jr., but if you read the book you know he was actually pretty terrible when we were in the Class-A Appalachian League at the same time. Let’s just say that he got a lot better in a hurry. Pitcher Jesse Orosco, infielder Julio Franco, and outfielder Lloyd Moseby are all on the short list of best players I played against in pro ball. Some of the others, though, were guys I played against after my pro career, when I was on the Sauget Wizards semipro team. When you play (and beat) the USA National team, you’re playing against some great players. Bret Boone, Fernando Vina, and Jeromy Burnitz all went on to great Major League careers. And we can’t forget some of the guys I played with before my brief pro career, when I spent much of the summer of 1977 playing for the Danville Roosters in the Central Illinois Collegiate League. Sharing a dugout and clubhouse with the likes of Charlie Leibrandt and Andy McGaffigan was an honor.

Christine Meyers wrote to tell me she’d been a huge indoor soccer fan just like I was, before I became the GM of three different franchises. She wondered, “What happened to indoor soccer? It seemed so popular back then, and it was a great sport to watch.” The answer is a long story, and indoor soccer still exists, but I think it was a deal where it was the right sport, at the right time, but it never had enough financial backing to have staying power. Plus, back in the heyday of the MISL, outdoor soccer was not all that popular and a lot of fans found the fast pace and high scoring in the indoor game more appealing. Decades later, now, the outdoor game is enormously popular and successful, both in terms of Major League Soccer on this side of the world and the super leagues in Europe and South America. I have many friends who avidly follow teams in the Premier League, the Bundesliga, or other leagues. And now, even though the USA didn’t make the tournament, the World Cup is going to be captivating the whole world for the next few weeks. Back in the 80s and 90s, indoor soccer had its moment in the limelight.

And, Frank Hartley wrote to kindly say, “Your dad must’ve been a helluva ballplayer to play in the big leagues for a decade when there were only eight teams in each league.” Yes, he was. He was “major league” as a dad, too.  Miss him every day, and I’m struck by how often he comes to visit me in my dreams. He made an appearance in one just last night, and when he’s in my dreams it’s never about baseball. It’s about a father and a son.

Finally, in the NHRA world we lost one of the legends this week. Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen passed away at 81. I met him many times, but really didn’t know him on a personal basis. He was always kind and accessible. That’s the great thing about drag racing. Many of the legends still walk among us, and talk to us, and spin tales of their own careers, whether it’s Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, or Shirley Muldowney, or Kenny Bernstein, or even “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. The Snake and The Mongoose changed the sport forever, with their ability to not only be great racers but also great marketing partners. Sponsorship, as we know it now, is a direct descendent of the great Snake and Mongoose rivalry, especially in their Hot Wheels sponsored Funny Cars. The movie made about them a few years back is terrific, and I think I’ll watch it again tonight. Rest in peace, Mongoose. You are greatly missed.

So there you have it for another week. The NHRA Mello Yello tour is in Bristol this weekend, and that’s a place and a track I always loved to visit. It’s not an easy or cheap place to get to, but once you’re there it’s marvelous. I’ll be following along on NHRA All-Access and on TV, as the Top Fuel Dragsters and Nitro Funny Cars create perfect examples of why Bristol Dragway is known as Thunder Valley. You haven’t enjoyed the full NHRA experience until you’ve heard the echoes reverberate after every run. It’s a great stadium, a wonderful area, and a lot of fun. It doesn’t hurt that Bristol was also the first place I put on a uniform as a pro baseball player. There was  a grand slam involved, too.

As always, if you just read this blog and liked what you read, please hit the “Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and Right On Target.

 

I’m relatively sure I have a new favorite city in the world. And, I can’t believe I waited until just before my 62nd birthday to visit it. Amsterdam was everything I’d hoped for, while still being so much more. I’m looking forward to the day we can return and spend more than 48 manic hours soaking in the history, meeting the wonderful people, and marveling at the beauty and culture of the place. Should you visit Amsterdam? Yes, you should. And don’t wait as long as I did.

Before I dive into the retelling of a trip that started on Thursday night and ended upon our return to the Twin Cities on Sunday evening, I shall first delve into this philosophical question: “What criteria do you utilize to consider a place to be one of your favorite cities in the world?”  That’s a question that probably would generate a wide variety of answers from different people. For me, it’s based on things like character, unique charm, the people, history, beautiful scenery, and a sense of “Wow” at every corner. My short list, prior to our visit to Holland, included San Francisco, Seattle, London, Edinburgh, Willemstad (on the island of Curacao), and Florence (as in Firenze, in Italy.) Add Amsterdam to the list, and don’t be afraid to jump it all the way to the top. Or as friend and colleague Alan Reinhart would say, on the P.A. system during qualifying at any NHRA Mello Yello event, Amsterdam goes “TO… THE… TOP!”

And, a quick note. Our WordPress blog formatting system has been updated to include a new “Photo Gallery” option for pics. I’m going to try that, later in the blog. If it doesn’t work or I can’t figure it out (the second option there would be the more likely) I’ll just select a few of my favorites and post them the normal way. Wish me oodles of luck. (LATER: Okay then, never mind. I’ll need to get with our web expert later to figure out how the gallery process works. Grrr.)

OK, back to last Thursday. It was great to spend an hour with Erica Moon after she arrived from work to take up residence with Boofus and Buster while I traipsed around The Netherlands for a few days. Typically, we don’t cross paths on these cat-sitting escapades, but I think it helped the boyz to see the two of us together, in a sort of “hand off” fashion.

I got to MSP early, by design. There are quite a few things you have to be ready for when traveling internationally, and there’s the fact you’re probably going to be flying on a big airplane with lots of other passengers. I’d rather get there early and spend 45 minutes in the Sky Club than feel the stress of dashing through security and standing in line at the gate.

Having used Delta miles to upgrade to the front cabin, I selected seat 5A for my Amsterdam flight. The First Class seating configuration on the A-330 is 1-2-1 so having a window seat puts you all by yourself on the left side of the cabin and, with “lay flat” seats, that gives you a little cocoon area all to yourself. Acknowledging my tendency to not sleep when sleeping is highly recommended, I hoped for the best. On long-haul flights like this, Delta puts a little “overnight kit” on every seat in the front, and that fun little package includes a toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, socks, ear plugs, a pen, eyeshades, and a few other goodies. It even looks like a miniature version of a Tumi rolling bag. Barbara had advised me to use the eyeshades, so the plan was this: Get comfortable and relaxed, eat dinner, avoid movies, and take my Melatonin tablet as soon as my tray was taken away. All I put on the entertainment screen was our visual Flight Tracker, so I could see where we were in the world.

I think it worked to some degree. I put the seat all the way down, put my eyeshades on, and tried out my new “white noise” app on my phone. I chose the “electric fan” noise, and that was pretty awesome considering I like to have a fan on in my room normally, just for the steady drone of the blades. I listened to the ocean waves and gentle rain noises, but could tell instantly that my brain would overly engage with those, trying to find the point at which the sound loop starts over again, so the fan sound was best. I remember noticing that we were finally over Newfoundland in eastern Canada, and then recall picking up the corner of my eyeshades to look at the screen again, not sure how much later it was, and at that point we were past the southern tip of Greenland and closing in on Iceland. I think I slept for two hours, at least. That’s a huge win for me.

As we crossed over Ireland and England, I started to get a little nervous about my arrival. Schiphol Airport is huge and things like Passport Control and Immigration/Customs can be different and hard to figure out at any big airport. Barbara was flying in from London, and we had a basic plan to somehow just meet up. Upon landing, when both of our phones were working again, I got a text from her letting me know her flight was at least an hour late leaving Heathrow. So, I made my way through all the arrival checkpoints and just went to baggage claim. An hour later, Barb arrived. Badda boom, badda bing. Worked like a charm.

Barb had arranged a private car for us, so we headed for the meeting spot they’d chosen (Barbara is VERY familiar with Schiphol, because most of her business trips to Europe go through there – and for the record, it’s basically pronounced “Skipple”). Our driver was waiting and so was his car. It was a Tesla. That was the first “Wow” of the trip. What a zoomy ride!

The trip from the huge airport to the city was mostly a generic series of hotels, office buildings, and other standard European stuff, but once we got close to the city center it all began to look very much like the Amsterdam I’ve always admired in photos. Endless streets of row houses, outdoor cafes, and bicycles. Gazillions of bicycles. As our driver told us, “There are more bikes in Amsterdam than cars, and they get the right of way. You really have to be on the lookout for them at all times, even when you’re walking. The riders are pretty fearless.” He told the truth. They were everywhere.

After arrival at the Marriott, at around 2:00 in the afternoon local time, where Barbara had used points to get us a beautiful room on the Executive Level, we hatched our plan to get unpacked and then go for a walk. We knew we needed to stay up until at least 9:00 to get acclimated, although her three days in the UK had her quite a bit ahead of me. So, off we went with little more than a glance at a map and a general idea of how the city is laid out.

Basically, the historic city center of Amsterdam is defined by a series of concentric canals. The whole place is reclaimed land from the sea, thanks to dams and dikes, and the canals circle and intersect just like the surface streets that run parallel to them. What all that creates is a beautiful and unique city, where bicycles and electric trams rule the streets while boats ply the water, both as tour vehicles and transport. It was all mesmerizing, and it was clear and obvious that Amsterdam ticked off all the boxes for being a unique and beautiful place.

I’d learned just before leaving Minnesota that Roger Spee and his family were also going to be in Amsterdam on Friday. Roger was a key contact for us at Mac Tools, throughout the CSK – Worsham years, and he and I have always enjoyed each other’s company. We were emailing on Thursday and we were both hoping we could meet up. After our long walk, Barbara and I returned to the hotel and headed for the Executive Lounge area, where our room keys gained us entrance for free food and drinks. We were sipping on glasses of wine when I checked my email and saw a note from Roger. In it, he asked “So where are you?” and I quickly replied “At the Marriott in the city center, in the Executive Lounge.” He immediately wrote back, “I know. I’m looking at you!” He and his family were about 10 feet away. That was enormous fun, and an even bigger coincidence. What are the odds I could travel all the way to Amsterdam, and end up not only in the same city, and the same hotel, but in the same room at the same time, with a longtime friend and colleague? A million to one? We had a great time chatting and comparing tourist notes.

As far as I can recall from that night, we both slept okay and were ready to go in the morning. I’m not sure of that, because it was all kind of hazy at the time and it still is now. But, on Saturday morning we knew we had to be at the Rijksmuseum at a specified time to meet our tour guide. We’d walked to the museum on our long Friday evening walk, so we knew how to get there but I’d also figured out a bit of a shortcut to get to our meeting point, and that worked flawlessly. It was a short 15 minute walk, and moments later we were meeting Selena, who would be our guide. I could tell she wasn’t Dutch, so I asked where she was from. She was from New Zealand! Her husband is Dutch, however, and they live in the city. She was also an art historian, who was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about everything she was going to show us over the course of the next couple of hours.

Her carefully planned route through the museum had us taking a real history lesson, about Holland, Dutch trade around the world, and art. She was incredible, and we were soaking up the insight and history as fast as we could. In real time, I knew the value of this guided tour. By ourselves, Barbara and I would’ve walked through the various rooms and exhibits while thinking it all looked interesting. With Selena, we got to hear the backstories and connect all the dots from the late 1500s to the present day. When we finally came to a room where we saw our first Rembrandt, and then our first Vermeer, it all made a lot more sense. And seeing that first Rembrandt and first Vermeer were absolutely the “Wow” moments we expected. We crammed an awful lot of learning and looking into two hours. Could you have a great time at the Rijksmuseum without spending the money to hire a tour guide? Of course. Was it worth it to do it with a guide? Absolutely. It was priceless.

Our next scheduled event was an evening “Wine & Cheese” canal cruise, so we had the afternoon free to snoop around the city some more. Four hours later, we were back at the hotel after having walked another four or five miles, following the canals and admiring the beauty of the city. And the people. Oh my gosh the people. Wonderful, friendly, and totally fluent in English. As one guy told us, “They don’t let us graduate from high school without being totally fluent. Unlike the French, we enjoy welcoming people to our country and we love to talk in your language.” I totally got the “unlike the French” comment, and most of the locals we interacted with were not just fluent, but also completely conversant and with very little accent. The same guy said, “Growing up, we mostly had American shows on TV, with Dutch subtitles, so even before we went to school we were immersed in English.”

We managed to find the Anne Frank house, but tickets to tour the house and museum are very hard to get. They sell out each time slot weeks in advance, but it still meant a lot to us just to see that historic building in person. If you went to a grade school like mine, you probably had “The Diary of Anne Frank” on your mandatory reading list.

And we discovered one other interesting thing about the very vertical homes on every street. Considering this is all reclaimed land, taken from the sea, it maybe shouldn’t be surprising that most of them lean, in various directions. Whether it’s right or left, or forward and backward, once you notice how many of them lean you can’t stop noticing it. Then you look to the top of the buildings and notice two things. They almost all have pulleys up at the top, right at the crown, because that’s how you get your furniture inside (through a window.) The staircases are too narrow to use for moving purposes. And, many of them have strong steel cables holding the various buildings together, as upright and straight as possible. It’s amazing.

When it was time for the cruise, we knew we had to get to Central Station, the big train depot on the other side of the city center, so for that trek we took a taxi. Heck, by then we’d walked about 20 miles in the day and a half we’d been there. We’d dined at outdoor cafes, shopped in small stores for local merchandise, and admired the incredible vibe and friendliness of such an old and historic city. And then we sipped more wine, consumed some local Dutch cheeses, and enjoyed the two hour cruise around the canals. “Amazing” doesn’t come close to describing it. And the young couple seated next to us, who were from Switzerland, were great too. We had a rollicking conversation about all things Dutch, Swiss, and American. Great fun.

Now, I shall digress to answer the first two questions everyone has been asking. 1) Did we visit the Red Light District?  No, although most visitors do. It really wasn’t on the way to anywhere we were walking, but oddly enough the taxi driver who took us back to the hotel after the canal cruise did drive through it. I was awfully tired at the time but I remember Barb poking me in the side and pointing to a building as we drove by. The ladies of the evening were on display in their street side windows. 2) Did we visit any marijuana or hashish places?  Also a no, but the unmistakeable scent was pretty common just walking down the sidewalks. It smelled like I was back at a Led Zeppelin concert in high school. And for the record, in my life I’ve taken one puff on one joint. That’s it. With asthma, I had a hard enough time breathing air, much less smoke. I have never smoked a cigarette, either.

We had one last glass of wine in the hotel lounge before heading off to bed for one more night in Amsterdam. In the morning, another brisk walk, this time through the beautiful Vondelpark just around the corner from the Marriott. Then, another Tesla ride to the airport, another series of “Passport Control” security stops, and a brief visit to the KLM lounge before heading to the gate. Traveling together this time, we had chosen a pair of seats in the middle section of First Class, although with the lay flat seats and the way they’re configured for privacy, it’s not that easy to even see each other much less talk. This time, I did watch a couple of movies and got another hour’s sleep or so. Heading west, it’s the same eight and a half hours but when you leave at 1:00 you get home at around 5:30 on the same day. That night, I slept for 12 hours.

It was a whirlwind. It was mind boggling. It was Amsterdam, and it was incredible. So much fun, so much history, and so much to admire. In a city where a typical residence might very well have been built in 1750 rather than 1950, you’re also surrounded by so much technology and ecology it’s startling. With bikes and electric trams providing most of the transportation, it’s a city that’s cleaner than just about any I’ve ever visited, and Amsterdam is not done yet. They have a plan to be completely emission-free by 2025. They’re not far from it now. They take great pride in how they treat their environment, how they welcome visitors, and how they organize and prioritize what’s really important in life. I could live there. It’s an incredible place.

So that’s it for this week. No more jet lag for me for a while, but it sure was fun to put up with that slight inconvenience just for the chance to sample the wonders of Amsterdam.

Since I was not intelligent enough to post a gallery, I’m going to add a few more random photos below. Hope you enjoy!

As always, if you just read this blog and liked what you experienced, please hit the “Like” button at the top. The more likes the merrier!

Bob Wilber, at your service with travel reviews.

Here is the challenge before me, and it’s one I look forward to taking on. At around 7:30 tonight, I’ll be all snug in seat 5A on a big Delta A-330 getting ready for an 8-hour and 20-minute overnight flight. If we’re on time, we will land in Amsterdam just before 11:00 on Friday morning, local time. The challenge is my history of being unable to sleep on a plane when I really need to. It goes back a long way, and was also a problem in college and the minor leagues when it came to bus rides. Put me on a 2-hour morning flight and I can be snoozing before we push back. Put me on a red-eye, where sleep is kinda sorta really (like REALLY) important, and I’m generally hopeless.

I don’t take any prescription sleep aids, because I’ve tried them and they didn’t really work for me. Plus, I hear stories from other people that range from horrifying to hilarious, and I don’t want to really be either of those things. Especially on a plane. I’ve seen a few dazed passengers get up and walk around in the middle of the night and it always looks like they’re trying to figure out where the hell they are.

I do have a “lay flat” seat in the front cabin, thanks to my enormously large bank of Delta miles, so that helps. I also downloaded a “White Noise” app onto my phone. It has sounds ranging from ocean waves to gentle rain showers and a lot of other things in between. Maybe that will be of some benefit. Plus, I will take a melatonin tablet right after dinner, because it’s a natural thing and sometimes it does let me ease into sleep. However it works out, my plan is to power through the jet lag because we’re only going to be in Amsterdam for a couple of days. Our flight back to MSP leaves around noon on Sunday. That’s not much time to adjust to the big time difference.

I heard from Barbara this morning, and due to that very same time difference I may not hear from here until we meet up at Schiphol airport tomorrow. She’s been in London and Edinburgh for a few days and we both land at Schiphol at basically the same time. That little challenge will be finding each other after coming in on different flights and different airlines, most likely into different parts of a very big airport I’ve never been to. How did we do stuff like this before cell phones? If I get some good sleep, fantastic. If I don’t, I’m going to pretend I did.

We have a guided tour of the Rijksmuseum scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and then a wine and cheese cruise on the canals that evening. Should be amazing! I’ll try to take some photos if I’m awake.

And now for some pre-trip Thursday Blog Day rambling…

The other day I connected with yet another former teammate. This time it was Eddie Gates, from the Paintsville Hilanders. Eddie was a great teammate and a fantastic guy. He was also a pretty darn good ballplayer, who could play just about any position while also hitting just above .300 that summer. When I saw that one of my other facebook friends was also friends with a guy named Eddie Gates, I thought “No way that’s him” because the third person had nothing to do with Paintsville or the Appalachian League. When I looked at Eddie’s profile page it was like “Oh yeah, that’s him for sure.” What a small world.

If you’ve read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you may remember a funny story about Eddie in the chapter about Paintsville. It was the story of him being stranded on base after the third out was made, so teammate Stan Loy took him his glove and hat, except for the part where Stan didn’t actually take him his hat. Instead, he picked up an empty popcorn box out of the grandstand and took that out to Eddie. We didn’t call him Eddie “Boxhead” Gates for nothing. Stan Loy was a funny guy. Maybe I’ll find him one day, on Facebook.

In this photo, that’s Eddie on the right talking to Jose Rodriguez. I described Jose in the book as being a reed-thin shortstop who always had a smile on his face. He was such a good guy and the fans adored him so much they voted him “Most Popular Hilander” on Fan Appreciation Night at the end of the season. From top to bottom, that Paintsville team was full of great guys. The camaraderie within that group was something very special.

On a different baseball subject, my oldest brother Del Jr. introduced me to a fantastic website a while back, and he warned me that you can quickly fall down the rabbit hole and keep digging for hours there. It’s newspapers.com, and they have archives that go back a long way with a large number of papers. I’ve found tons of clippings about my dad, playing for the Cardinals, Phillies, and Red Sox in the 40s and 50s, and those help me connect a little more with his playing days, since I wasn’t born until after he was done playing in the big leagues.

You can search for just about anything you’re after, and yesterday I was wondering if there were any clippings from back when I was an SIUE Cougar in college. I figured they wouldn’t have our school paper (and I was right) but I was surprised to see that they had archives from the Edwardsville Intelligencer, and that paper covered a lot of our games.

What a surprise to find this clipping, not from any regular season games, the NCAA Regionals, or the NCAA Div. II World Series. Nope, this one is coverage of our summer league team, which I played on after my freshman and sophomore years.

If you recall this chapter in the book, you know this summer league team was an important part of my development during college. Being asked to be on it after my freshman year was an honor, and a real chance to take my game and my confidence to a new level, playing with guys who were veteran players. It was “the next level” in every way, considering I’d only played on the JV as a freshman. Just a few weeks after our real season was over we transitioned into our summer schedule, in the Missouri-Illinois Collegiate Baseball Instructional League. There’s a name that trips right off the tongue!

Greenville college had a pitcher I hadn’t thought of since the late 70s, but as soon as I saw Marty Dailey’s name in this clipping I remembered him vividly. He threw the ball VERY hard, and under their sketchy lights at Greenville he was enormously difficult to hit. I hadn’t thought of that humid and dark night game for 40 years, but as soon as I saw this I was back there again. I even remember the hit. I don’t remember what I had for dinner last night, but I remember driving this run in off Marty.

Here at home, I’m pretty sure Buster knows I’m leaving despite the fact I haven’t gotten a suitcase out yet. He can just sense it, and I can see it in his eyes. He also follows me around from room to room. As soon as I post this I’m going to go ahead and get packed, utilizing all the tips Barbara Doyle has shown me when traveling internationally with just a carry-on bag. It’s a puzzle, and there’s much more “rolling” than “folding” involved in solving it.

And speaking of that, I think I need to wrap this up and get to all the stuff that needs to be done. Erica Moon will be staying with the boyz for the weekend, and this time I’ll even get the chance to see her for an hour before I head to MSP. She gets off work in the early afternoon, so she’ll arrive here before I leave. Maybe that will help my fuzzy guys get acclimated more quickly.

I’ll also be keeping track of the NHRA goings-on in Chicago this weekend, although the time difference won’t make it easy. Del is there, but he “gave me the weekend off” so I can go on this trip. I appreciate that!

See you next week, with tales from Amsterdam. Hopefully, those tales will feature some sleep. Not being too overly jet-lagged will be important when we come back, because my friend Terry Blake and I are going to Target Field on Tuesday for a really rare baseball treat, in the form of an old-school traditional doubleheader, starting at 3:00 pm. Gotta stay awake for that!

As always, if you perused this blog and thought it to be enjoyable, please click on the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and headed for Holland!

Hello again blog faithful, and let me begin with a sincere apology. I did not get my weekly installment posted yesterday, on what is supposed to be Thursday Blog Day. To compound that mistake, I actually had some of it written on Wednesday (I trashed that and am starting over here) because I knew what was in store for Thursday and was afraid I’d never have a chance to write. I was correct, and I missed the mark. I hope it was worth the wait, but that’s not for me to declare or decide.

I guess if you were a newspaper editor and you missed your deadline so badly that the Thursday paper never came out, you’d be fired on the spot and escorted from the building. Since this blog is more a vocation than a job (and if it was a job it would be an unpaid volunteer position) I think I’ll refrain from terminating my own employment, but I will try very hard not to let this happen again (at least anytime soon.)

Before I get into the important stuff, which is all “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” related thanks to last Tuesday being the one-year anniversary of its publication, I’ll bring you up to speed on the Orlando trip and the fun here in Woodbury for the last 48 hours. Let’s start with Orlando…

The bad news about the Orlando trip was that they were stuck in a weather pattern that pretty much had rain and thunder passing over the central part of the state the entire time we were there. The good news about the trip was the fact the rain didn’t matter. We had a fabulous time with Todd and Angie in their new house and got spent three and a half days with Kitty and the babies, Stassi and Bella. All of it was marvelous and we were smiling the entire time.

The girls are at an age where they’re walking all over the place, starting to spout short phrases and words. They call each other “Sissy” and even were calling me Bob-Bob before we left. They’re even attempting to string sentences together, although many of them sound like “Yo-di-yo-di-oy-oy-oy cute!” or “ya-ya-odie-odie-thank-you!” It’s hilarious, and they are too cute for words. We got to attend one of their swimming lessons, and that was a fabulous thing to see. Living in Florida, and having plans to add a pool to their new home, it’s a great idea to get the girls in the water as soon as possible. If you’ve seen any of those TV documentaries where instructors literally toss newborns into the water, you’ve seen how their natural instincts take over and they keep their mouths closed and swim to the surface. The older they get, the more they lose that prenatal instinct, so getting them into the pool this young is a real safety thing. If you can get them acclimated at this age, they’ll be swimming for real by the age of three and never in danger.

They’ve only been going to the lessons for a few sessions, so it was amazing to see them push off from the edge and swim toward Jamie, their trainer, with their heads down, kicking with their little feet. He’s fantastic at what he does, and he takes everything very slowly, making sure they’re calm and understanding of what they’re doing. I was so impressed, and was wishing my parents had done that for us. We played in pools when we were very young, in the shallow end mostly, but I didn’t take dedicated swimming lessons until I was 12, and because of that I’ve never been much of a swimmer. These little adorable munchkins will be swimming for real very soon.

We ate well, we laughed constantly, and we played with Todd and Angie’s full zoo of pets. Multiple big dogs and too many cats to count (OK, I can count to four) plus a little turtle Angie rescued. The dogs all think they’re puppies (they’re not) and the cats all love to sit on laps and have their heads and chins rubbed. Then you add in the two girls and there’s always action going on somewhere in the house.

They also had Hulu on their TV, so one night after the babies were in bed, we asked if they wanted to watch some episodes of “The Looming Tower.” That, of course, is the Hulu series about the buildup to 9/11 and it features a certain guy I know playing the Afghan ambassador. We’ve been too busy to get it set up on our theater screen, so we hadn’t seen any of it yet. I can’t tell you how surreal it was to watch my talented friend Buck Hujabre appear on screen with Alec Baldwin, in multiple scenes. We ended up binge-watching until 2:30 in the morning the first night, and then watched a few more episodes the next day. It’s an intense series, and one that certainly still brings back to vivid life the memories and feelings from that time, plus it exposes a lot of the miscommunication and infighting that really had a lot to do with how it all ended up happening. Plus, Buck is in it. Amazing.

Bottom line: We had a wonderful time. I’m really glad we went, and the girls are growing so fast and changing so much I think it was important to be there and witness it. No matter when I see them again, I can guarantee they’ll be speaking in sentences that feature real words and genuine concepts. It’s a great age to watch them develop.

Once we got home it was time to get ready for our next adventure, which involved hosting some fun family members (Barb’s side) for a couple of nights. On Wednesday morning, Barbara’s brother Jim, his wife Deb, their son JT, and his girlfriend Rachel all landed at MSP and made their way to our house. That was easy for us, but not for them. They live north of Denver and had a “first thing in the morning” flight, so a 3:30 a.m. alarm was necessary in order to get to the Denver airport on time. We just had to get up and be ready for them by 10:00 or so.

JT and Rachel spent much of the day with us before heading up to a lake cabin her family owns, up north of Brainerd, while Jim and Deb hung out with us and took over one of the lower level bedrooms. On Thursday, Deb’s two brothers arrived, as well, and it was fantastic to have so much energy and laughter in our house. When it’s just the two of us plus the boyz, it can get pretty quiet around here. It struck me, over the last couple of days, that it’s probably too quiet, when we fall into our routines of work, eat, watch TV, go to bed. Day after day.

Just an hour ago, they loaded up the crew cab truck Deb’s brothers drove here, and headed north. First stop: Pick up JT near the cabin and drop off Deb so she can spend a couple of days there. Next stop for the guys: International Falls, then a crossing into Canada. The final leg of their trip is a float plane flight to a remote lake in Ontario for six days of fishing. The Walleye and Pike don’t know what they’re in for.

Their trip is absolutely NOT “glamping” (the new term for glamorous camping). They’ll get flown in and dropped off at the lake, will eat and sleep in a cabin with no running water and just rudimentary electrical and propane stuff (and yes, the no running water deal means there’s an outhouse) and for a week they’ll fish, cook said fish, and eat said fish. I’m not sure such a deal would be for me, but the guys’ excitement this morning, as they prepared to go, was infectious.

And at dinner the other night, Jim almost ordered the Walleye on the menu before he said, “Maybe I’ll just get a burger. I think I’ll have enough Walleye over the course of the next week.”

Great fun in Orlando and great fun here in Woodbury. Family time is a fun time, and a priceless time.

And now to the important stuff.

Yes, Tuesday was May 22, and that brought back a whole flood of memories and emotions for me. Even at my advanced age, a year is still a big piece of your life and so much happens in that 12 months. Looking back over the full year “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” has been out, I couldn’t help but see it as actually an interconnected trail that spanned more than two and a half years, going back to the day in 2015 when I committed myself to tackling this. What a ride it’s been. What a journey. What a life-altering dive into what I could do and what I could accomplish, rarely sticking my head up out of the water to see where I was or how far I still had to go.

I’m still mesmerized by the fact I could actually do it, and that the “plow forward” mentality that became such a central theme in the book wasn’t something I was planning on writing about at all, but instead was something that came to me (clear as could be) as I was writing it. To that end, there was no bigger “plow forward” thing than the actual writing of the book itself.

I had no idea how to do it when I started. I had no clue how long it would take. I wasn’t sure how to structure my days so that I could maximize the daily hours where the writing was at its best (you have to “warm up” your brain before you dive in). As for the editing, I knew I’d chosen the absolute best person for that, and Greg Halling not only showed me the way he taught me more than any teacher or professor ever could have, and this old dog learned a whole curriculum of new tricks by just watching Greg’s input and thinking, each time, “I see what he did there and that’s better than what I originally had. From here forward I’m not going to make those mistakes.”

I learned every single day. It was part writing and part school. It was exhilarating, and even now I miss it. The process was so big and important and central to every thing I did, for 365 days. One year, to the day, diving in and putting more sentences, more paragraphs, and more chapters on the screen. That’s amazing. I really do miss it, because it was that special and it felt so important for me to do it. I tried to never let the doubts creep in, about “Will all this work create something good or will it be terrible?”  I tried, but the best way to conquer those fears was to realize I wasn’t writing it for the masses. I was writing it for me. If it turned out to be a somewhat entertaining tale, and a few people liked it, that would be awesome. If not, I still had to keep going every day to get it done.

I’ll never forget the day in late October of 2016 when I put the final period on the final chapter of the full first rough draft. It was just another day. I’d just spent yet another four straight hours writing, folding my brain into the words that were appearing on the screen as if I wasn’t even typing at all. And I finished that final sentence and thought “That’s enough for today” before I stood up. And then it hit me. I’m done! I think I almost hyperventilated.

Of course, Greg and I were a long way from done. My writing work was also a long way from over. It took another two months of diligent work to get it into shape, trim it wisely, and smooth out the rough spots. We didn’t smooth out all the rough spots, and I know this because on any given day I’ll play the masochist and pick it up and read a chapter. There are a number of things I’d like to go back and fix, but we gave it everything we had and in many more ways than I can count, I’m proud of it. I’m damn proud of it.

If I had no idea how I was going to write the book, I was 10 times more clueless about getting it published. That part really intimidated me, but just like it was with the year of writing I had no choice but to dive in and learn it on the fly. The year of writing would’ve been horribly wasted if I panicked and chickened out on the publishing part. Thanks to Outskirts Press, and Todd Myers’ incredible cover art over the world-class Mark Rebilas photos, we not only got it formatted and into shape, we even got it done ahead of schedule. On May 22, it was born and made its appearance in the real world. It was no longer a bunch of Google documents and words on the screen. It was a book. One year ago, it was a book.

Once it was out, it was time to put the PR and publicity effort into high gear and in the person of Elon Werner I had the best in the business representing me. Such a whirlwind of interviews, shows, podcasts, newspaper and magazine stories, and “appearances” on the P.A. system with Alan Reinhart at NHRA events. Book signings, autographs, comments from strangers who read it and loved it, and so much more. It was never overwhelming and never a hassle. It was incredible.

And it’s still going. Not at the “best seller” pace I was stunned by right after its release, but at a steady rate that still makes me shake my head on a regular basis. For instance, from Day 1 we’ve typically sold the Amazon Kindle versions at about a 5% rate compared to hard copies. People still like books in their hands, apparently. We had solid Kindle sales for a couple of months, with my royalties popping up as direct deposits in my bank account, month after month. For most of 2018, it had slowed to more of a trickle, but just in the last seven days we’ve sold as many Kindle versions as we’d sold in the prior three months put together. No, I don’t have any idea why or how that happens. It’s just one more thing about this whole process that baffles me while it also warms my heart.

When I went on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, to announce that I’d be willing to part with about 2/3 of the remaining inventory I have here in my office, at a discounted rate compared to Amazon, I didn’t know if even one person would respond. Yesterday, I took yet another package to the Post Office, to mail out another signed copy. I’m down to one case left, not counting the books I’m holding onto for further promotional purposes. I think Barbara is happy to see the stack of boxes get smaller and smaller. I know I am.

Also, yesterday I noticed that I’d gone from 26 Amazon reviews to 27. It was another humbling rave, and we’re now 27-for-27 in terms of reviews that are 5-Stars.

On Tuesday, when I was looking back over the year that followed that fateful morning when it went on sale, I dug back through these blogs to find the one I wrote that week. It was fun to read, and easy to sense exactly what I was feeling that morning. It’s here:

https://www.perfectgamefound.org/the-blog-weve-been-waiting-for/

I’m still not convinced it’s actually as good as it could possibly be, but I know for a fact I gave it my best effort and all my focus. The guy who couldn’t pay attention in class all the way through high school somehow managed to stay totally engaged and dedicated to the project for a full year. I think I surprised myself. I know I’m proud of that.

And gosh, I can’t really fathom who among you, in the group of folks who actually read this blog regularly, might not have bought the book or downloaded it yet, but if that describes you I’ll be bold enough to say this: “Hey, I took the plunge to write it. Maybe you can take the plunge to read it!”

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

So that’s it for this week, albeit a day late. We’re going to try to relax for the weekend, after so much hustle and hubbub over the last week, and then Barb’s off to London on Monday and I’m off to meet her in Amsterdam on Thursday. I promise I’ll get next week’s blog posted before I board my overnight flight.

As always, if you read this blog and liked it, please share those feelings by hitting the “Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service a day late but it was worth the wait.

Happy Thursday Blog Day everyone, except this one is actually being written on Wednesday Blog Day. We have a 9:00 am flight to Orlando on the docket tomorrow, so I’m writing this brief installment a day early (to get the worm?) We’ll be heading down to spend the weekend with Barbara’s sister Kitty, who you may remember from her starring role in “Bob And Kitty Go To Scotland” last fall. We’ll be hanging out with her, her son Todd, his wife Angie, and their adorable incredible totally scrunchable twin daughters, Bella and Stassi (or Stassy, or Stassie, or however you spell the shorted version of Anastasia, but not Stazzie because that would just be wrong.) Those two are growing so fast it wouldn’t surprise me if they picked us up at the airport, in their own car. It might be a little battery operated Barbie Corvette, but still…

Here in the Woodbury bubble, meanwhile, we went from winter to spring so fast there was almost no way we weren’t going to jump right to summer, and that’s what it feels like. It’s 80 degrees with a clear blue sky today, as it was yesterday, and I’ve gone on 3-mile walks on our fabulous system of paved trails both days. Our trails are nearly endless, our lakes and ponds are voluminous, and life is good.

I’ve been trying to post a few random photos along the side here, just to give you a feel for how fast everything is blooming and how fortunate we are to live in a place like this. Yeah, that was typed by the guy who was thinking and saying “You’ve got to be kidding me” just a few weeks ago when we had our late April blizzard.  Anyway, I’ve been trying to post pics but our WordPress admin system is not letting me upload photos right now. Hopefully we can get that sorted out before it’s time to post this, but if not I apologize in advance. It’s not like they’re Pulitzer Prize winning photos, but they definitely add a little charm and a nice visual to the writing. (UPDATE: At 4:30 pm my expert Laura sent me instructions on how to update my laptop to some new website software, and the problem is fixed!)

Here’s a thing I’ve learned about birds. Robins seem to be the dumbest of the dumb, and I’m sorry if I’m casting aspersions on anyone who is named Robin or who raises robins, or who just likes robins. Here’s the truth: They hang out on the ground a lot, because the worms don’t climb trees. When you’re out on a walk and you approach a robin, they get scared a bit and flee. But they run when they flee. They can fly, and sometimes they do, but running away from a human seems like their worst option and a very poor use of their natural talents. And, it gets worse. When they run, they tend to run straight ahead, right along the same path upon which you are walking. After 10 feet, they stop and turn around and realize you’re still there, and still walking toward them. So they run another 10 feet. This can go on for a good 40 or 50 feet until said robin finally realizes that the use of their wings might be the only satisfactory way to end this standoff. They’re not very bright.

As for the bigger birds, the Canada geese are about as unafraid of humans as they are of cars. Basically, they just don’t care. They’re here to make little goslings with their mate for life and to poop every minute they’re awake. The ducks run the gamut. Mallards come up on land to mate, so if you approach a mallard on land they’re probably going to be pretty protective, but mostly they’re out on the ponds and lakes swimming around. If they’re two feet from the shore and you’re walking by, they’re smart enough to realize the stupid human probably isn’t going to dive into the water to grab them. Buffleheads (my second favorite ducks after wood ducks) stay out in the middle of the water and even out there they’re very skittish in terms of people. You can be 50-feet away from the pond and they can be 50 feet out in the water, and as you approach they’ll all start calmly swimming away from you. They don’t panic, but it’s more like “Everyone swim this way. Don’t look at the human. It will all be all right. Move along…”

So that’s my bird assessment. Maybe next week we’ll get into the herons. They’ve mostly all arrived for the summer.

And hey, Rob Flynn, Nelson Jones, and Jeff Arend can feel free to come get their geese. We really don’t need them.

And here’s more fun at the Wilber-Doyle Ranch. Yesterday, at a bit before 8:00 in the morning, the doorbell rang. I was just getting out of bed but in no real hurry to do so, and Buster was snuggling so well it was a tough decision on many counts. I figured it might just be the UPS guy letting me know he’d left a package on the porch, so I didn’t rush. Then the doorbell rang again, so I figured I ought to give it a shot and go answer it, despite the fact I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth or put on socks or shoes. As I approached the door I saw two guys from the landscape company our HOA contracts with, and my fuzzy brain processed enough information for me to remember that they were due to fire up and check out our irrigation sprinkler systems that day. I saw them walking away through the window, so grabbed the door knob to open the door and as I pulled it open the interior knob came off in my hand and flew down the hall.

Point No. 1: I was able to stop the guys from leaving and the system is now up and working.

Point No. 2: The two screws that hold the entire exterior handle, interior knob, and the mechanical stuff inside didn’t break, but the receptacles they were screwed into did. I now have a nonfunctioning front door, for the most part. You can put the interior knob back in its place, and it will work when you turn it, but you can’t pull on it because it’s not attached to anything. The whole interior and exterior assembly has to be replaced. I thought that would be easy.

I went to Home Depot and was surprised by how few options they had. In addition, I figured there must be some standardized sizing for these things, so I picked out one that was about the same size and look. As soon as I put it next to the exterior handle, I could see they were different and about an inch off. At that point, I was officially lost as to what to do. Fortunately, our deadbolt is separate from the knobs, so the door is secure but it’s just really hard to use.

I sent an email to the head of construction for the company that built our house and explained it to him. I was happily surprised to see that he had a great interest in figuring out what we need and getting me one. Those guys have access to way more stuff than we retail buyers do. After sharing photos and measurements, over the course of a few hours, we zeroed in on what we need. He ordered it yesterday. I call that some fine customer service from a company that built this house in 2012.

Well, son of a gun, the photo upload system is fine and now I’m out of time. I need to make my usual run to MSP to pick up one Barbara Doyle after her short week out in Spokane. See you tomorrow!

THURSDAY

Greetings from 37,000 feet (11,277 meters) as we pass directly over Louisville. That’s “Lou-a-vull” to a native or “Louie-ville” to just about everyone else. I just waved at the Hillerich & Bradley Louisville Slugger museum and bat plant.

What a travel escapade for my wife. She’s spent each of the last few weeks in Liberty Lake, and this trip had her flying out on Sunday night and back on Wednesday night. After I picked her up (I always park and go in to wait for her, because it’s no fun getting picked up on the curb surrounded by a hundred other cars and screaming police officers) we went straight to dinner and then home so she could unpack before the two of us packed for Orlando. We went to bed at 11:00 and set our alarms for 5:45 this morning. Out of the house at 7:00 to head back to MSP (my car knows the route all by itself) for the 9:00 flight. We’ll be in Orlando until Sunday evening when we fly back to MSP and guess what Barbara does early Monday morning… Yep, she’s flies right back out. To San Jose this time, I think. It’s hard to keep track.

Two weeks from today I’ll be getting on a big bird myself, but my flight will be a little longer than this one. Barbara has to be in London early in the week, so on Thursday the 31st I’ll fly nonstop from MSP to AMS to meet her there. AMS, you ask? Yep, we’re meeting in Amsterdam! I’ve been to the Netherlands before, but oddly enough I was only in Rotterdam and Leiden, so I’ve never been to Amsterdam. When Barb learned of her London business trip she asked me “Do you want to come over for a few days?” I said I sure would, so she let me pick where I wanted to go. The finalists were Stockholm, Zurich, Vienna, and Amsterdam. I thought about it for a day and selected Amsterdam. We’re only going to be there three short days, but there’s so much to see and do there I figured it was finally time to get there. But first, I still have to go spend three days in Orlando, and that’s going to be great.

We’re over Nashville now, and I need to wrap this up so that I can do something ultra-important. I need to take a nap. 5:45 came really fast this morning.

I’ll be following along like many of you, when it comes to this weekend’s race in Topeka. It would’ve been great to get back to the town where my drag racing career surprisingly started, but Del’s not racing and this trip beckoned. Sounds like they might be dodging some raindrops this weekend but it would hardly be Kansas without some thrilling weather. Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

I’ll see you next week, and as always if you liked this little blog installment please click on the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and heading south.

 

So here we are again, on yet another Thursday Blog Day, and I’m going to get right to the fun part first. All of you who have read my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” should recognize the name Pete Delkus. He’s all through the book, starting with the fact that he wrote one of the two “Foreward” sections for it (along with Del Worsham). After that, he appears regularly as a former teammate and roommate of mine, who became a very close friend. He is currently the Chief Meteorologist for WFAA TV in Dallas.

Pete is very big into social media as a way to communicate with WFAA viewers to keep them up to speed on the weather situation around the Dallas – Fort Worth area. He tweets a lot, posts numerous times a day on Facebook, and every now and then he’ll do a Facebook Live video stream. Viewers can make posts while he’s on, and he’ll answer their questions. It’s a pretty cool deal, even if you’re not in the DFW area.

I saw a teaser post he made, about doing the FB Live deal last Friday, so I knew what I had to do. When I logged in, I couldn’t resist the chance to actually post something that only Pete and I would know in common. And then I waited. Fortunately, the whole post is archived and still there.

So here’s what you need to do…  Go to this link:

https://www.facebook.com/petedelkus/

Once you’re on his FB page, you’re going to have to scroll down for a while. It’s all in chronological order, of course, and he makes many posts per day, especially if any noteworthy weather is about to arrive. You can see the date for each post at the top of it, and you need to scroll down until you get to May 4, then keep scrolling until you get to about midday on the 4th (which would be Cuatro de Mayo but that’s irrelevant.)

Once you see the archive of the streaming video (it will look exactly like the screen grab shot above) hit “Play” and enjoy. He notices my post about one minute and 20 seconds in, but it’s easier to just let it play because it’s a long show and it’s hard to nail a specific spot. The look on his face and the tone of his voice when he sees my post are both priceless.

Once he gets back to the regular stream of people’s questions, if you wait another minute or so you’ll see that he looks down and to his right. Turns out, he was looking at his phone because his wife Jacque was watching and she texted him a message about me, and a good one it was.

This whole deal totally cracked me up. And I think it did the same to Pete. And look at the bottom of the screen grab up above. Another baseball character from the book, John Parke (aka JP) is one of the people who “liked” Pete’s live stream. Small planet!

Question: What was the wording of my post, that only he and I would understand?

Answer: When we were living together in suburban St. Louis, during the winter of 1989-1990, I was really big into Melissa Etheridge and played her CD “Brave And Crazy” incessantly. The first track on the CD is “No Souvenirs” and it starts with Melissa singing “a capella” with the opening lines being “Hello, hello. This is Romeo. Calling from a jackpot telephone…” I played the digits out of that CD and Pete was so sick of it I drove him absolutely crazy. Even if he was upstairs in his bedroom, if I’d hit “Play” and those opening lines came on the stereo, I could hear him yell “NO!” and then scream. So, of course, I played it every single day as soon as he got home. Because that’s what roomies do.

So, my post on his FB Live show was “Just for old time’s sake, Hello Hello, this is Romeo…”

That was your assignment for today. Have you done it yet? Have you seen it? I’ll wait…

And if you have seen it you know he talks about my dad, and his 1-0 record as manager of the Texas Rangers. Coincidentally, the Rangers are another big topic today. Elon Werner has been in touch with John Blake, the club’s Executive VP – Communications, and just today, about an hour ago, he sent me a note about my next book project, the planned book “1-0” which will be my dad’s biography. After I got that note from John Blake I replied and submitted a long list of guys who played for my father between 1971 and 1975, when he was the manager of the Rangers Triple-A team (two years in Denver and three years in Spokane.) Hopefully, they’ll be able to provide some contact info for a number of those guys and that will really jumpstart the project. It’s been kind of dormant for the last month, because I really want to do all the research and interviews first. Getting that note this morning got me excited again, and that’s a good thing.

And speaking of books, I bought one on Amazon at least a month ago but had yet to open it until yesterday. I guess I’ve just been busy.

It’s entitled “Endurance” and it’s written by Scott Kelly (as you can see.) As an astronaut, Scott Kelly spent a full year in space, aboard the International Space Station. He performed a lot of experiments and chores up there but the biggest experiment was on his body and brain. If we’re ever going to Mars, scientists really need to know more about what that will put the human body through.

So far, I’m about 125 pages in and it’s fascinating. He’s a good writer, and I like the way he intertwines his early life, his high school and college years, and his career in space in a weaving sort of method. In a lot of ways, our younger years were very similar. As a bit of a space geek, I’m really digging the in-depth descriptions of what it’s like up there and how, now that the Shuttle fleet is grounded, the only way to get there is aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. Hopefully Space X will develop a manned craft soon. And, as you may have seen on the internet or read in the news, Kelly has an identical twin brother and he represented the “baseline” for seeing how much Scott’s body and brain changed during the mission. Basically, it all changed and it changed a lot, right down to his DNA. Fascinating stuff.

Here at the ranch, it was just three blogs ago when I wrote about the huge blizzard we rode out up on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Last week I wrote about how Spring was finally springing and the pollen was popping. In just this last week, everything has changed even more dramatically. It’s crazy how fast this all happened. As you can see, in just a week our crabapple tree has gone from having buds on it to having leaves and tiny little apples.

As I’m sitting in my office typing this, I can hear another “first” happening in our neighborhood. The company our HOA contracts with to do lawn care and snow removal is working just a few houses down from here, and they’re not scraping snow. They’re mowing lawns. Just a little more than three weeks ago they were removing snow drifts as high as three feet. Spring happened in a real hurry this year.

And now, to the second part of today’s headline…

I posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago and got a lot of positive reaction to it, but I also wanted to mention it here to make sure as many people as possible know about it.

I have a few unopened cases of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” left in my possession, and now that we are just 12 days away from the one-year anniversary of its publication I’d like to put those books in readers’ hands. I bought them for a bit over $20 apiece, but I’m willing to ship them out to anyone who is interested, and I’ll do that at a big discount, compared to Amazon. If you’ve never ordered it on Amazon because of the price they charge, you might be interested in what I can now do it for. For more details, message me on Facebook or send me an email (bobwilber@me.com) and I’ll fill you in. So far, 12 people have responded to the original Facebook post, so that’s great. That also leaves me with about 14 more books, so it will have to be first-come, first-served.

That’s about it for today. It’s after 1:00 and I haven’t eaten anything yet. Time for some lunch!

As always, if you just read this blog and liked what it contained, please click on the “Like” button at the top. The more “likes” the merrier, and I like being merry.

Now, if you haven’t gone to Pete’s Facebook Live post from last Friday…  GO THERE NOW!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still driving Pete nuts.

Just when most of us up here in Minnesota were convinced winter would never end, spring arrived like an express train. We went from a blizzard to 70-degrees and sunny in a matter of just a few days and haven’t looked back since. Even the giant mountains of snow in the shopping center parking lots, which were 20 feet tall and hundreds of feet long at one point, are gone. You can still see the outlines of them by looking for unusual amounts of gravel they leave behind like receding glaciers, but the snow is gone. And now, everything is blooming. What a stunning change in such a short amount of time. One week ago, on this blog, I was raving about finally being in the upper 50s and low 60s. We’ve hit 80 a couple of times in the course of this week. Buds are turning to leaves, everything is popping, and pollen is a constant.

Pollen comes with the territory. It’s a necessary evil, I guess, because it’s a byproduct of blooming plants and boy-oh-boy are they ever blooming. I left my car in the driveway yesterday afternoon and today had to take it to the car wash yet again. My silver car was yellow. Aaaaaah-CHOO!!!

Tomorrow, qualifying for the race at Atlanta Dragway (official motto: “We’re Almost In South Carolina!”) begins and I’m not going to be there. Del Worsham will be there, but his Funny Car will not. Instead, he and a skeleton crew (they are not actually skeletons but that brings all sorts of April Fools Day ideas to mind) are running the Worsham family Top Fuel car, with Bill Litton driving it. I know Del hates that he’s not driving the Funny Car, but I remain resolute that it’s the right decision and we’re working hard at finding some new marketing partners. Would I rather be at the races, getting to do PR work with my friends, teammates, and colleagues? Of course I would, as long as it made financial sense for Del and his family.

To that end, I had a great two-hour lunch meeting with Brent LaBrie and two other really knowledgeable gentlemen on Wednesday, just across the St. Croix river in Hudson, Wisconsin.  My walleye sandwich at the Smilin’ Moose was great, but the conversation was really valuable. I didn’t ask the other two guys if I could use their names, so I won’t, but they both have a lot of experience and a lot of great ideas, and they were gracious enough to let us pick their brains for a good long time. I’m always open to great new ideas, especially when it comes to the search for sponsorship. I think Brent and I both left there feeling a little more focused on what we need to do and energized from the concepts. The search continues…

Rewinding the tape to Saturday, it was a big day for one Barbara Jean Doyle. It was her birthday, and the entire day was devoted to whatever she wanted to do. As I mentioned last week, her request was to go to the ballgame. The Twins, who have been missing two of their best players for the last week or so, had hit a losing skid going into the Saturday afternoon game we attended. Apparently, they need to provide Field Box seats for us all season long. It was obvious we were the good luck charm they needed. A 3-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds was fun to watch. You’re welcome, Twins Territory!

It was great to be in downtown Minneapolis again, and it’s always fun when a ballgame is the reason. So many people on the streets, in the restaurants, and on the plaza outside the gates. There’s a tangible buzz going on. Plus, it’s baseball. I have what you would call “an affinity” for the game.

A couple of years ago, when my buddies Lance, Oscar, and Radar joined me here in the Twin Cities for our annual reunion, we watched the greatest hot dog vendor ever do his thing in our section. The guy was magnificent, with the dramatic “thespian” way he put a dog together with such flourish. We’d all just eaten and weren’t even hungry, but we had no choice but to buy hot dogs from the guy, just for the fun show. A round of applause followed.

That night, I told Barbara about him but he’d never come to our section whenever we’d go to a game. We spotted him again this past Saturday, and it took a while for him to come to our aisle but he finally did. I had no choice. Mustard and relish, please.

Plus, much to our surprise and delight, when we entered the ballpark we discovered it was “Cap Day” at Target Field! Free Twins hats from Dairy Queen, and they’re really high quality hats. It was like an added birthday bonus for my lovely wife, who looked nothing less than adorable in her new lid.

We also took the time to check out some new upgrades at the park. I always salute the Twins for consistently looking to make things even better at what is truly one of the best ballparks in baseball. From the first year on, they analyzed things and made improvements. For instance, we’ve always sat out in the box seats down the right field line, and originally there was a very difficult “choke point” on the concourse right after you came in the gates. The original design just had the concourse too narrow there, right where it’s turning a corner. That choke point is long gone. They had to do some major engineering and construction, to change the whole footprint of the concourse there, but they did it and made it much better.

They added new food choices, they’ve created new tavern spaces, and they’ve done a lot of other things to make the experience as good as it can be, although I can’t imagine they’ll ever stop and say “That’s enough.”

The biggest thing they did this past offseason is a huge hit with the fans. In the right field corner, where the second deck comes to a point, they originally had a dining space called The Metropolitan Club. It was really nice, the food was terrific, and the experience was great, but it was for season ticket holders only and with it being in one corner of the park it was never really crowded. We’d go there before games for a drink at the bar, and we ate up there a few times, but let’s just say there was never any problem getting a table.

This past winter, they gutted it and remade it into “Bat And Barrel” a club that’s open to everyone. There’s great food, two bars, lots of indoor and outdoor seating, and a fantastic vibe. Also, the Twins always kept their two World Series trophies in the lobby of their front office. Now they’re on display in a case at Bat And Barrel. We went up there before the game and loved it. Great vibe, lots of people, and friendly staff. Bravo!

After the game, we drove back home and got cleaned up a bit for the big birthday bash I had planned for Barbara and our Woodbury friends, at Crave. Barbara had specifically requested that no one needed to bring anything other than themselves, but these friends simply don’t honor those requests.

Our large group only had to wait a few minutes before we were escorted to the large semi-private table Barb was so eager to reserve. We laughed, we sipped, we cracked each other up, and we ate incredible food. Crave has now become my favorite Woodbury restaurant, and their Filet Mignon is, by far, the best steak on this side of the Twin Cities. 5-stars from this culinary critic…

I hope I’m not divulging any secrets here, but much of the conversation lately has been about the Jacobsens plans to put their house on the market. With both of their kids out of the nest, it’s their turn to downsize and they’re actively looking around at places similar to our home and the one Terry and Lynn Blake just moved into. We’re all going to be lifers in the “Woodbury Bubble” but at some point you just don’t need homes as big as the ones we had in Marsh Creek. And I think Neighbor Dave is finally ready to have someone else cut his grass and scrape the snow off his driveway. I can totally relate to that! It’s the joy of having an HOA that contracts that stuff out.

Once they get their place sold and find their new Woodbury home, that will make three couples in the group who have successfully downsized. I love our new home, and find it to be just the right size for us. I’ll always miss the ponds and our views, and that incredible house we owned in Marsh Creek next to so many fantastic neighbors, but this is home now.

Back to the dinner party… I went to our local bakery (great place) and had a special cake made. I was talking to the woman who owns the place and we were discussing what kind of cake it should be. She told me their No. 1 selling cupcake is a chocolate one with dark chocolate icing and a cream filling. Sort of a custom made version of a Hostess Cupcake (and who doesn’t love those?) So, they decided to make a cake-sized version of it and it’s one of their best sellers.

I’m not much of a cake or pie guy, but it sounded officially decadent so I had to pull the trigger on it.

Once dinner was over and the table was cleared, we had our server retrieve the cake from the kitchen and fire up three candles while we all successfully embarrassed Barb by serenading her. She went 3-for-3 on the candles and got a very nice round of applause from everyone sitting near us, including a couple of groups of kids on their way to Prom.

And now, speaking of Ms. Doyle, I need to wrap this up and get ready to head for MSP to pick her up. Second week in a row she’s spent at her office in Liberty Lake, but at least this time she’s able to come home on Thursday instead of Friday.

There might be a hot tub session in our future tonight. Can’t guarantee it, but it seems likely.

I guess that’ll do it. I’ll see you back here next Thursday.

And (you know the drill) if you just perused your way through this blog installment and found it enjoyable, or even fun, please do me a huge favor and hit the “Like” button at the top. It’s a totally painless procedure. I promise.

Bob Wilber, at your service and enjoying spring in Minnesota!

Greetings blog faithful, and welcome to another installment of “As The World Turns” or as I like to call it, “Bob’s Blog.” Let’s get right to the big stuff first. Tomorrow, the 4-Wide race in Charlotte kicks off its pro qualifying. I am not there. That’s not huge news, because I didn’t go to Houston either. What’s important is that Del Worsham and the Worsham & Fink team aren’t there either. It was a tough decision, but I support it 100 percent and I know Del made the right call.

When Del contacted me a couple of weeks prior to Pomona, asking if I’d consider helping him out with some PR work, he told me up front that he had funding in place for the first four races. He hoped to make enough inroads and progress with some potential new sponsors to go further than that, but he wasn’t about to make the same mistake a lot of other racers have made before him. He wasn’t going to keep running out of his own pocket just based on hope. This is what he does for a living and it’s how he supports his family and will put his daughters through as much school as they wish to attend. I’m very impressed with his level-headed and realistic take on this, and very supportive of it.

After the fourth race, in Las Vegas, he wanted to take a few days and analyze everything. With the help of our longtime friend Frank Gilchrist, who lives in Houston and has his Frank’s Car Barn there (his phenomenal collection of all things auto-related) he put enough funding together to get to the Houston race.

On Friday, between sessions, I put out a press release. A few people had noticed that he wasn’t on the Charlotte entry list and were asking questions, so he wanted to get it out there and explain the situation. If you haven’t seen the release, here’s a link to it:

http://competitionplus.com/drag-racing/news/worsham-announces-planned-hiatus-from-racing

I got it out to the world that afternoon and guys like Alan Reinhart and Dave Rieff were fantastic about spreading the word and letting the NHRA world know that Del is working hard at securing some more backing for the rest of this season, but he would not be attending the Charlotte race. After that, we’ll just have to see. It’s entirely possible his next race will be Sonoma, but if something comes together sooner the race car will be ready to go, and for now he’s keeping everything at Dexter Tuttle’s shop in Texas, so the equipment will be centrally located. That serves the purpose of having it within driving range of just about any track on a moment’s notice, if we do put something together, while it also serves another purpose: Without the race car in Southern California, Del removes one huge distraction and he can focus strictly on the sponsorship search. That race car has a way of whispering to you, saying “Hey, come to the shop. Come work on me…”

Yesterday, I did something I’ve never done before, in support of this effort. I’ve been a member of the business networking website LinkedIn for a long time, and it has been a terrific avenue for promoting my book over the last year. I’m directly connected to about 3,300 people on the site, and every time I’d put up a post or an update about the book, I’d sell a few more. That’s all I’ve ever posted about there. Yesterday, I posted about Del. Here’s a link to a copy of my post: Del LinkedIn

So far, in about 48 hours, 530 people have viewed the post, and when I look at the analytics I’m happy to see that 23 of them have the title CEO or Executive Director, while 19 are Marketing Specialists, 16 are Business/Corporate Strategists, and 11 are Business Owners. That’s a great demographic to reach. Will a new marketing partner miraculously appear from that post? Who knows, but just like in Public Relations the key is to get the word out, tell the story, and reach as many people as you can. I can guarantee that no marketing partner will want to team up with us if we don’t tell anyone we’re looking for one.

Brent LaBrie, who has been backing Del since last year with his companies Kramer Service Group and Hi-Tec Finishing, is really going after corporate America for us, digging in and tirelessly contacting as many companies as he can, so working together I hope we can make this happen and do it as soon as possible. Plus, Brent and I have a lunch meeting scheduled for next week, with some gentlemen who are well connected in terms of this sort of stuff. The work continues. A guy as successful, as popular, and as marketable as 2-Time NHRA World Champion Del Worsham will be a great fit for someone. We just have to find that company.

Here in Woodbury, it’s finally spring. It’s hard to even conceive of the fact that just 11 days ago we had a major “historic” blizzard. In our backyard, snow was piled up three feet deep in drifts, and a foot deep where the brisk winds couldn’t move it around. It looked more like January than April, and boy was everyone getting sick of it. There are still some piles left in yards that get no sun and in parking lots where they push it all into giant mountains, but all of our snow is gone now and I’ve started the process of making it look like spring. I turned the water back on yesterday, hosed off the patio, and set up the chairs.

We also got all the windows professionally cleaned a couple of days ago, after a long dark winter of snow and sleet, and they needed it. You can actually see out of them now!

It’s been up in the high 50s and even in the 60s for a few days, and that combined with a lot of sun to do some major melting. We’ve even stayed above freezing at night, so that keeps the process moving. Last weekend, we got the bikes out, pumped up the tires after a long cold hibernation in the garage, and went on our first ride of the year. It was just a 3.5-miler, on the paved trails around Markgrafs Lake, not too far from home, but it felt good to get out there even if the quad muscles in our thighs kept telling us it was a terrible idea. Feel the burn. It’s always like that on the first ride of the year, but it gets better in a hurry. I might go for a solo ride this afternoon, as a matter of true fact.

Before the blizzard, when it seemed like we’d melted it all and spring was upon us, I even put new grates on the grill and cooked some steaks one night. Apparently that was what jinxed us. I apologize to everyone in Minnesota for that move. I think we’re in the clear now.

To that end, I also put the umbrella up on the grilling deck, which means it absolutely has to finally be spring. Yay for me! Yay for all of us!

My next chores are to mop and clean the floors and railings on the screened porch, and then do the same for the front porch. We got everything stained again last year and they did such a good job we can skip doing it this year.

In just a couple of weeks, the HOA’s contracted landscape company will come by, house to house, to fire up everyone’s sprinkler and irrigations systems. Note to self: Turn the sprinkler valve on before those guys arrive. #ThingsYouHaveToWorryAboutInMinnesota.

Coming up this weekend, there will be yet another celebration in the Wilber/Doyle home, and part of it will be held with many of our “Woodbury Gang” friends, although Scott and Barb Meehan have tickets for the Bon Jovi concert so they won’t be able to join us.

It’s Barbara’s birthday on Saturday, and like any good husband I got her exactly what she asked for, in terms of a birthday present. She, quite honestly, said to me, “I know what I want for my birthday. If the Twins are in town, I want to go to the ballgame!” That’s reason No. 12,566 on the list of reasons why I married her. As it turned out, the Twins are in town and on her birthday they are playing a 1:00 afternoon game at Target Field. We will be in the 13th row, just past the end of the Twins dugout.

And the 1:00 start means we can meet all of our friends (sans the Meehans) at one of our favorite Woodbury restaurants. We have a 6:00 reservation for 12 at Crave. There will be cake. And maybe some wine. I suspect there may be a Cosmo in Barbara’s future. On my plate there will be a steak.

I’ve also been having fun on Facebook this week, after Greg Halling, my editor for “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” roped me into a challenge. I almost never do these sorts of things where you contribute and then ask others to do it as well, but when Greg puts out the invite I have to say yes, and I do so happily. The challenge was to list the 10 albums that made the biggest impact on me when I was young (or younger) and you do that by making one post per day. The impact made by the 10 albums had to have been so great they still shape your tastes and your musical experience to this day. You’re supposed to include a photo of the album cover with each daily post (Thank you, Google Images!) You don’t have to explain why the album meant so much, but I thought that added to the overall experience so I’ve been doing that. Plus, those explanations and background stories go a long way toward explaining my crazy musical tastes. Today will be Day 8 of my 10, so I’m almost done.

I started by jotting down a list of at least 25 albums, and then whittled it down to 12. I wasn’t sure which two weren’t going to make it, but yesterday when I was on a long walk I made that final call. And I’m saving the most influential and important album for last, although the other nine are in no particular order. Each one of them, though, really did change my musical taste and, as hyperbolic as this sounds, they changed my life! Music is that important and critical to me.

My first seven were:

Day 1 – “Fragile” by Yes

Day 2 – “Crime Of The Century” by Supertramp

Day 3 – “Genesis Live” by Genesis

Day 4 – “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull

Day 5 – “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” by The Moody Blues

Day 6 – “Signals” by Rush

Day 7 – “Aladdin Sane” by David Bowie

Day 8 will come later this afternoon. I think I’m even going to do an Honorable Mention list for Day 11. As a maniacal music fan, I’ve got a long list of albums that could’ve been on my list of 10, but just didn’t make it. Feel free to play along, on Facebook. I’ll be watching.

So that’s about it for today. Even though we’re not racing, I’ll still keep an eye on the Charlotte race. Here’s hoping we’re back out there on the Mello Yello tour again soon.

As always, if you just finished reading this and enjoyed what you read, please hit the “Like” button at the top. The more likes the merrier. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and betting that at least one of you thought “I bet all 10 of his albums are by Rush.”

 

The first annual MOWER event is in the books, even if the books are slightly tattered and worn after all the fun. Yes, the Men Of Woodbury Epic Retreat, at Larsmont on the North Shore of Lake Superior, was a roaring success, even if Mother Nature threw all she had at us. For hosts Joe Gillis and Scott Meehan, and for Terry Blake, David Jacobsen, Mitch Martin, and my own self, it was every bit the “Epic” indicated by the “E” in the acronym title.

We knew before we left that a major storm was approaching Minnesota, and we’d all been keeping our eyes glued to various devices to track its path. It was a big spiral of a late winter storm (despite the fact it’s the middle of April) and it was just a matter of where the bands were going to hit. For much of the week, it looked like the Twin Cities were going to get clobbered while Duluth and the North Shore might stay clear, if the storm stayed to the south just a little. Well, the first part of our guess was accurate. The Twin Cities got absolutely clobbered, with way more than foot of fallen snow in many areas and drifts as high as 4-5 feet. But, and this was critical, the whole system inched up a little further north and we got it, too. All in all, the weekend featured a little bit of everything.

We left on Friday morning, with Neighbor Dave and Terry arriving in Dave’s car at precisely the 11:00 a.m. departure time we had planned. My bags and supplies were already out, in the garage. Barbara Doyle’s only comment was, “You guys are just ridiculous, being that exactly on-time.” We were quite proud.

The drive up to the Larsmont Resort was smooth sailing, with Dave handling the driving duties while Terry got us off on the right comedic level with story after story. I sat in the back seat and laughed a lot. Joe and Scott, who each own condos at Larsmont, went up the day before to get everything ready and situated. Mitch was going to have to meet us all up there, driving up after he finished his work for the day. That was good, because Joe and Scott had ordered a huge carry-out order of barbecue and ribs, from a place in Duluth, and that meant Mitch could stop there on the way and pick it up.

We all got settled, had a bite to eat at the restaurant inside the lodge, and relaxed for a bit. When Mitch showed up, we devoured some fantastic food. And that’s saying something, for me. We get so much pulled pork and brisket at the race track, as part of the catering for the Media Center, I get a little numb to it. Usually it’s just seen as sustenance because it’s typically more bulk than rich flavor. I was kind of stunned by how good the ribs, brisket, and pork were when the carry-out arrived. Fantastic grub.

The other notable thing about Friday was the lake itself. Lake Superior is huge. I think it’s the largest fresh water lake in the world, but I type that only because I’ve seen that factoid online and I believe everything I read on the internet. It truly is enormous, though, but in the end it’s still a lake. It’s not a sea or an ocean. It did not look like a lake when we arrived on Friday. The storm was still to the south, but it was pushing the water north with big surges that turned into enormous waves, which could easily be surfed if you had a wetsuit capable of keeping you alive in that icy cold water. Joe’s condo is just about 30 yards from the rocky shore, and the waves were mostly breaking about another 100 yards out, so it was hard to get a handle on just how huge they were. By comparing them to a tree out on the point, and then trying to extrapolate what that 30-foot tree would look if it was out there where they were breaking, we figured the biggest ones were 15-20 feet. The next day, they were much bigger.

We were snapping photos and trying to get images that would show just how big and strong the waves were, but like this one you still have to imagine that this rolling breaker is 15 to 20 feet tall and well more than 100 yards in the distance. Otherwise, phone pics can just as easily be seen as little 4-foot waves just a few feet in front of you. It was mesmerizing, and a little intimidating to see the power of these waves in water that is so cold you’d have barely a minute to survive if you happened to be out there.

The plan for Saturday was that it was going to be a big day, and it lived up to the hype. Our first major order of business was a drive up to Gooseberry Falls, which is a must-see thing on the North Shore. It was cold out, in the 20s, and it was getting windy. Plus there were snow flurries beginning to swirl. The storm was moving closer. We dressed in layers, put on our best hiking shoes or boots, and hit one of the many trails in the park, which features steep cliffs, tall hills, and muddy root-entangled surfaces. All of that would’ve been a challenge for a non-hiking guy like me (I only had the shoes because I bought them for one of our trips to Kauai but rain cancelled our hiking plans) but what made it more “out of my league” was the fact leftover snow and ice covered much of the trails. Oh boy!

We headed off and the first words of advice I heard (I think it was from Mitch) were, “Dirt and mud are your friends” which meant whenever you could see bare ground you should use it.

At first, it all seemed like a fun walk in a beautiful park on a cold day. Before long, when we climbed the first hill and the tree cover allowed all sorts of snow to remain packed and icy on the trail, it all felt a lot more like “Expert Level” stuff for a guy who hiked every day this past February on Kauai. The only difference was it was 75-degrees on the island, most of the trails were paved, and it was all mostly flat. But other than that…

All in, we walked, slid, climbed, and skidded three miles. And nobody went down, which was an accomplishment. A few of us made big saves to keep from hitting the icy trail, but we all stayed upright. And despite the cold, we were all very sweaty when we got back to the trailhead. Those parts on the trails where they clung to the side of a steep hill or icy cliff and one slip or wrong step could create a very bad ending? Yeah, I don’t remember looking around much. I spent it all just looking straight down at where I was walking. So much so I had to take my glasses off, because the lower parts of my progressive lenses are for reading and the trail looked blurry. That would not be a good thing. I got the hang of it as we went, and managed to do a better job of keeping up with Joe and Dave, who seemed to have suction-cups for feet and limitless energy. Still, they had to “stop for water” every 15 minutes or so that I could catch up. When I’m walking on ice, snow, and roots I take my time.

After we got back to the cars, we made a beeline for Rustic Inn Cafe, a great restaurant and pastry place in Castle Danger, which is in my personal “Top 10 List” of Minnesota town names. On the way, three cars in a row passed us, going the other way, with surfboards strapped to their roofs. I kid you not.

When we got to Rustic Inn, our faces were still red from the cold hike, but we were all literally steaming as we walked in. I had to take off my jacket, then go to the restroom to take off my middle layer (a heavy Team Wilkerson sweatshirt) so that I could then take off my first layer, a t-shirt that was stuck to me and soaking wet. I put the sweatshirt back on and enjoyed an incredible club sandwich.

After we got back to the condo we rushed inside to see if the lake had calmed down from the day before. When we left for the hike it looked like it might be settling down a little. Upon our return, we noticed no such calming had happened, and if anything the waves were bigger and stronger than on Friday. They were now crashing up onto the point and surging into the yard a little. It was mesmerizing. We couldn’t take our eyes off the scene. We did, however, find ways to relax and get ready for our next great adventure.

A few hours later, we headed over to Scott’s condo on the other side of the resort and opened a couple of nice bottles of wine while we waited for our star attraction. Chef Uriah Hefter arrived right on time with everything he needed to provide an incredible Chef’s Dinner for us.

But here’s the thing. Uriah is a phenomenal Chef but he’s also absolutely hilarious and a fantastic story teller. Putting those two attributes together meant we’d eat like kings and laugh like kids for the next couple of hours.

We had steelhead trout and caviar (a first, for me), lamb chops and lobster tail for our main course, and a triple layer dessert that brought the house down. Every bite was sublime. Every story outstanding. And the wine was good too.

Huge credit to Joe and Scott for thinking of this, and for arranging it all. I think it was a dinner none of us will ever forget.

And yes, I asked Uriah if his name had anything to do with Uriah Heep. I was thinking of the British band, but had forgotten they named themselves after a character in the classic Charles Dickens book “David Copperfield.” Basically, Uriah said yes and I’m pretty sure he meant the connection was to the band. His dad must’ve been a fan!

We took our time, savoring every dish and enjoying the great wine. We listened to our Chef explain the dishes and the preparation, marveling at his skills. It was terrific.

We also each enjoyed one small glass (about two fingers deep, on the rocks) of a very special bottle of Johnny Walker Blue that Scott had brought. He’d owned it for 10 years and I think he said it was at least that old when he got it. It had never been opened.  I’m not a huge Scotch guy, but those short drinks were phenomenal. And it was very generous of Scott to bring that bottle out and crack it open for us.

On top of that, Scott put a Minnesota Lottery scratch-off ticket in every glass. I don’t think anyone won, but we were all winners on Saturday night. Big time winners.

Once Uriah headed out the snow really began to pick up. The storm had drifted north enough to have us in its sights, and the waves were roaring as they crashed onto the rocks. So that meant it was time to play a game!

Poker was one of the options, and I think the guys would’ve enjoyed that, but I was hoping to learn and play the game Dave had brought up. It’s hard to believe I spent so many years on the bus for baseball road trips and never became much of a card player. A little gin rummy every now or then (although I don’t even remember how that game works now) but I never played poker at all. I would’ve been an easy mark, for sure. The back of the bus was always where the card players passed the hours. I’d typically sit around the middle of the bus and my methods for passing the hours usually included reading a book, but sometimes I’d really push the envelope by opening the backgammon board. You could always find a teammate to play.

Dave’s game is called “Five Straight” and it was a riot. It’s a deep thinker’s game, requiring many different levels of mental gymnastics for you to really understand the strategy and excel at the game. Dave did his best to explain it but we all knew what we really needed to do was dive in and learn it by playing it. Here’s the gist of it: The board features 100 small holes. Each player has a set of colored pegs that go in those holes. And, there’s a deck of 100 cards that each have a number on them, ranging 1 to 100. Plus, you play in teams of two but are not allowed to communicate your strategy. “No table talk” is the rule but we bent said rule by smack talking the others while we avoided direct communications with our teammates. For the most part.

The object is to land five pegs in a row, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. With three teams playing, that’s not that easy and you really need to think about five moves ahead, while anticipating what your partner is also thinking, in order to win. Because…  The pegs you play don’t have to go in the precise hole your card denotes. If you have card 25, that means you can put your peg in the 25 hole or any hole on the board with a number higher than 25. You have options! Which allows you to play defense by blocking other players. And the strategy means the lower the number on your card makes that card more valuable because it gives you more options.

We played for hours. It got so intense we all lost track of time, too. I didn’t know how late it actually was until we all headed to our assigned beds and hit the sack. It was about 2:00 am! And I won’t name the player who actually had card No. 1 and he played it at the beginning of the game when almost the whole board was open. That’s the single most valuable card in the deck because it can go in any hole. Rhymes with Jerry and starts with a T.  From that point forward the other five guys were constantly screaming, “You played the ONE!!!”

While all this was going on, the storm was worsening and the forecast for Sunday was turning dire. Blizzard dire. Up to a foot of snow, 40 mph winds, and dangerous travel, dire. And we were supposed to leave around noon on Sunday to get back to Woodbury. Before going to bed, we discussed Plan B. That would be the plan wherein we stayed hunkered down on Sunday and went back to Woodbury on Monday morning instead, when the sun was supposed to be out and the temps would climb above 30. We decided to wait until morning to decide.

In the end, five of us stayed. Mitch was bound and determined to get back to St. Paul for the Minnesota Wild game. He called late in the afternoon to tell us he’d made it, but also to tell us how bad the roads were. For the rest of us, Joe prepared a great breakfast and we all just hung out in the living room watching TV (looking for Mitch in the crowd when we watched the hockey game) and telling more stories, while the waves grew even more enormous. On Monday, the roads were clear and we made the trek back, still stunned by the gigantic piles of snow on the ground at our homes.

To summarize, MOWER 2018 was an outstanding success. I consider myself enormously fortunate to have friends like these guys. The conversations never stopped, the laughter was constant, and the brotherhood was impossible to miss. One more time, a huge THANK YOU to Joe and Scott for welcoming us into their wonderful lakeshore condos, where we each had our own master bedroom with full bath. You can buy a lot of really nice things in life (like better hiking boots) but one thing you can’t buy is camaraderie.

Finally, as for this weekend’s NHRA SpringNationals down in Houston, Del and the team are there but I will be working the race from home. With it being in the same time zone, doing it remotely will be easy and it will save Del (and me) some money. I’ll be a cyber PR guy. And I have a feeling Del is going to do pretty well down there. I sense it.

As always, if you just read this blog installment and you enjoyed it, please do me a favor by clicking on the “Like” button at the top. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and wanting to play more Five Straight.

We started to see it in Gainesville. After rough outings at both Pomona and Phoenix, and after a very useful test session on the Monday after the Phoenix race, Del Worsham’s Funny Car began its progression toward the sort of ultra-consistency one would expect out of a sportsman car with a dial-in written on the window with shoe polish. In Gainesville, it was uncanny. This past weekend in Las Vegas, it was even more so. Run after run.

Gainesville saw the Kramer Service Group Toyota make five full laps down the Gatornationals track, all between 3.97 and 4.05. In Las Vegas, Del’s first run was thrown out because Cruz Pedregon slammed into the wall and inadvertently tripped Worsham’s timers. After that, it was 4.04, 4.09, and 4.07 during qualifying. That led to Sunday and 4-wide fun.

In round one, Del’s Camry did smoke the tires well down track in round one, but it was enough to make him the second-quickest of the quad, so he moved on. Tim Wilkerson and Matt Hagan (who double stepped it and red-lit) were eliminated. The round-two quad featured Del, Tommy Johnson, JR Todd, and that John Force character. Del ran a strong 4.04 while TJ took the stripe first with a stronger 4.00. Both Force and Todd clocked in at 4.05, but they both got to the finish line before Del. JR’s 4.05 was the slower of the two, but his starting line advantage earned him a double hole-shot and he moved on with TJ.

Del wasn’t as upset with the double hole-shot loss as he was sorry. His light wasn’t bad, it was pretty much his normal standard reaction time, but JR’s was really good. Del’s guys had worked so hard all weekend to give him nearly a flawless car while many of them were also pulling double-duty helping out on the Worsham Top Fuel car driven by Steve Chrisman. Del’s buddy JR just picked a whale of a time to pick his pocket at the starting line, and he then went on to win the race.

As for that Top Fuel car, it also advanced out of round one, creating a scenario that could have put the entire team in real jeopardy. Del and Chuck run that car on a very strict budget, so it doesn’t have its own full crew. Who would work on it between rounds? The answer came from the Russo Racing Funny Car team. They came over, en masse, and pitched in to get it serviced with time to spare. Outstanding sportsmanship, right there, and much needed help.

Del was actually pretty upbeat after the loss in round two, because the car was clearly running well enough to go on and do what JR did. It’s still ultra-consistent and now it’s getting faster and faster. It’s all good.

And speaking of all good, that would be a very understated way of describing the crowds at The Strip all weekend long. It’s a huge place, probably one of the top five largest venues on the tour, in terms of capacity, and after a fine crowd on Friday we had back-to-back Sell-Outs on Saturday and Sunday. It was packed.

The size of the crowds created quite a bit of buzz, even among the drivers and crew members who often have mental blinders on at the starting line. The packed grandstands were just impossible to ignore or miss. I’ll admit that the old sports franchise GM in me came out a bit during the week before the race. I took a look at the seat map for ticket sales and it was pretty obvious by Tuesday that the pre-sale for the race had been outstanding.

And huge kudos to Jeff Foster and the entire staff at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. They had roughly five months to start with a two-lane strip, then tear that up and build four all new lanes. The only piece of the track that stayed was the left side retaining wall. Everything else was new, and every crew chief I talked to said they were the flattest and smoothest four lanes they’d ever seen. A remarkable effort by everyone involved.

The weather was also pretty spectacular, as this first photo shows. We did get a few hours of strong winds on Saturday, but that’s pretty standard out there in the desert and we know how to strap everything down to keep things like EZ-Up tents and solvent tanks from flying away.

On Sunday, we had all sorts of fun before the first round. The Hujabre family made their standard appearance, and we were fortunate to have them in the pit when Dave Rieff came by to see all of us. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was great to see Buck, Mary, and the boys and Rieff’s timing was spectacular. Many laughs and hugs were crammed into the 10 minutes he was there.

Buck not only has the whole “Jersey Boys” stint on his resume, he also can currently be seen in the smash hit mini-series “The Looming Tower” but that’s not all he’s got going on. He’s a very successful commercial real estate agent in Vegas, and to top it all off he has recently purchased and rebranded a pizza restaurant in the southwest side of Vegas. It’s called The Pizza Kitchen and so far it’s going really well, despite his comic line of, “I just figured now was as good a time as any to risk the boys college funds, so let’s buy a pizza place.”

He brought along two big stacks of various types of pizza and split the total in half to make deliveries to the Wilkersons and the Worshams. And a Wilber. His three favorite Ws.

As for the pizza, yeah I may be a bit biased since he’s my friend, but I’m also a pizza junkie with firm opinions on what makes good pizza. The Pizza Kitchen pizzas were far better than good. They were great. The fact six large pizzas basically disappeared after they were put on tables in the pit area is all the proof you need. Really fantastic stuff.

Buck also had some decals made up and both Tim and Del put them on their cars. I thought it was pretty cool that we put The Pizza Kitchen decal adjacent to the “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” decal on Del’s back window area. Two buddies who met because of the original version of this blog, and now we have two very important projects promoted together on Del Worsham’s Nitro Funny Car. How cool is that?

Another noteworthy Vegas point was made by my newest watch and my iPhone. My new Fossil watch also tracks steps like a FitBit, and it then syncs with the Fossil app on my iPhone to show me how many steps I’ve taken each day. In Vegas I averaged around 9,500 steps per day. On Saturday I topped 10,000.

Steps and distance are “related” but they’re also “relative” to each person’s stride. So, at the gym one day I walked exactly one mile (the track at the gym is 1/13th of a mile so I knew how far to walk) and when the mile was done the total number of steps was almost exactly 2,000. So, on Saturday in Vegas I walked a bit over five miles. That’s a good thing!

All in all, I’d have to classify the inaugural Vegas 4-Wide race a roaring success. Great racing, tons of side-by-side-by-side-by-side dashes to the finish line, and attendance that absolutely dwarfs anything the spring Vegas race has ever seen. Bravo to everyone who made it happen and to the fans who packed the stands.

As for me, away from the track, well you know I have a hard time resisting a good slot machine. I stayed at The Cannery the first three nights and on Thursday I hit a few big ones in just 20 minutes. I had the payout slips to prove it the next day at the track. Within 20 minutes I turned $400 into more than $1,300. It was hard to stop playing because it all happened so fast, but I walked away and put the payout slips in my wallet.

I played a little on Friday night, but when I burned through most of the cash I had left, in a blink, I walked away again. My method for payout slips is to keep them locked up in my wallet until I check out of the hotel, so that I don’t cash them in and burn that money. On Saturday, I felt a good buzz in the casino and got some more money out of the ATM. I turned that $400 into about $800 in just a matter of minutes, hitting a couple of good ones on the Wheel of Fortune machine I played.

I checked out of The Cannery on Sunday morning and cashed in my “earnings.” After the race I drove down to Mandalay Bay to be closer to the airport. I promised myself the only appearance I’d make in that casino was the walk I’d have to make going in and then leaving on Monday morning. I kept that promise. The rough math had me playing about $900 and then going home with a little over $2,000. All on silly machines with spinning wheels.

John Fink didn’t stay where I did, so we’d catch each other up on our wins and losses each morning, much to the amazement of Dave Walery, who was also there. Coincidentally, John and I did just about exactly the same, on the same nights, just 20 miles apart.

We talked a lot about the early Worsham years when we stayed at the old Imperial Palace year after year. Back then, you could go to the cashier and buy racks of coins to actually put in the slot before you pulled the arm. Now, you go to the ATM and get big bills, which makes it far easier to blow your money.

At the Imperial Palace, I’d go get a $100 rack of tokens and I’d then sit at one machine I liked (I knew where all the good machines were at the I.P.) and I’d play the entire rack of coins while only rarely checking how many credits I had. When the rack was empty, I’d print the payout slip. Almost without fail, I’d get more out of the machine than I had put in. By quitting when the rack was empty you got a real idea how slot machine payouts work. Where they get you is when you’re up pretty well but then keep playing until it’s all gone. They get you because you’re not disciplined enough to get up and walk away when you’re ahead. Trust me, I know this from personal experience. It was a lesson to be learned, but there’s always a chance (sometimes a good chance) that whatever money you’re betting will soon be gone. Walking away when the rack was empty, or when I was up more than just a few dollars, were the keys. I probably cost myself $100 or more on this trip, just by thinking “Oh I’m gonna hit this again so I’ll keep playing…”

And finally, I shall leave you with this nostalgic photo.

If you know Del Worsham’s history… If you’ve heard the stories from when he was just a 21-year old Funny Car driver already winning races and the Rookie of the Year award… If you’ve ever seen him, then or now, riding a wheelie through the pits…  This is the famous baby-blue “Free Agent” BMX bike. The same one. All these years later.

The day I met Del he was riding a wheelie through the pits. At some point, during the Vegas weekend, I guarantee he was doing the same thing.

Del was really big into BMX racing, and he originally thought he might do that instead of drag racing, but all through his teens his dad was out there with the Funny Car and Del finally figured that his future was brighter on four wheels instead of two. But he never lost, sold, or gave away the bike. Yes, it’s one very historic bike.

I’ll never forget the April Fool’s Day press release I put out back in the early 2000s when we were still living in Austin. I wrote it as seriously as any release I ever put out, with the dateline April 1 clearly printed at the top. Even with it being distributed on April Fool’s Day, I still suckered a couple of dozen people into believing that Del was quitting as a Funny Car driver so that he could go back to his real roots in BMX. I think the line, “I feel bad for my crew because, obviously, I don’t need eight guys helping me work on this bike…” helped convince a few. I can’t top that prank, so I don’t even try these days.

Well that’s about it for this week. Tomorrow, “Neighbor Dave” Jacobsen, Terry Blake, Mitch Martin, Joe Gillis, Scott Meehan, and your trusty blog writer will all be descending on the North Shore of Lake Superior, to have a “husbands weekend” at Joe and Scott’s condos up there. Joe had meticulously planned all sorts of outdoor activities, and also a private “Chef’s Dinner” at Scott’s place, but now the weather forecast is abysmal. One Twin Cities forecaster said “One of the models has this thing really going crazy. Rain, ice, snow, lots more snow, and wind.”  Oh great.

Well, we’re all such good friends I’m sure we could stay inside the whole time and still have a blast. Stories from those escapades next week. It has been officially dubbed our MOWER weekend, for “Men of Woodbury Epic Retreat.”

And, as always, if you just read this blog and liked what you saw, please click on the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and heading for the North Shore!

Greetings from seat 2-D on my Delta flight to Las Vegas, typing on an uneven tray table while jetting westward. If I’m ever in another band (I won’t be) that could be a good name for it. “Ladies and gentlemen, here they are! Jetting Westward!” There actually is a band called Stabbing Westward, and there was a fun band back in the New Wave era called Go West, so maybe not. But maybe. And hey, if I put my right knee on the edge of this tray table, by making my right foot be on tiptoes, I can even it out.

I’ve “only” been a frequent air traveler for about 40 years, but I just learned something new recently. Maybe I didn’t learn it as much as I finally figured it out. I always pick window seats, because I like having the option of looking out said window. But, I also hate to be hot on a plane. The temperature on airplanes tends to be decided by those passengers who whine the most, and a sizable contingent of those folks think planes are too cold. I am not one of those people. It just occurred to me recently that I should select my seats based on which side of the plane does not get direct sunlight. That would be the right side on westbound flights, as this one is. I’m in 2-D. When I return to MSP, I’ll be in 2-A. The sun will again be on the other side. It gets a little more complicated when you’re heading north or south. Kind of depends on the time of day, if you follow this.

The WiFi on this flight is pretty sketchy. So sketchy I can’t seem to download the photos I emailed to myself for this blog. If there are no photos as you’re reading this, that’s the reason why. Maybe I can add them later, if I can’t grab them and put them in this blog when I post it. Travel problems…

BREAKING NEWS: They finally downloaded. Hence the photo just above.

So, anyway… Yes I’m headed for Las Vegas. It’s always a unique and interesting experience, and we’ve been racing in Vegas for a long time. Early in the CSK days we stayed at MGM Grand for some reason. Maybe because CSK got us a good rate due to the fact they had their annual corporate meetings there for many years (hence our good fortune in meeting Huey Lewis one year). We then spent a good five or six years at the old Imperial Palace. It wasn’t as nice as a lot of hotels on The Strip but they gave us a great rate and it felt like the kind of unpretentious place we were used to. Chuck Worsham loved the Imperial Palace. And I did pretty well on the slots there.

For the next few years we stayed at Monte Carlo, which was a nice place. At least it was a nice place right up until the time new resort development went nuts down by that end of The Strip and the construction went on throughout the night. A lot of people don’t care about stuff like that, but we actually needed to get some sleep. When I joined Team Wilkerson, we stayed at Mandalay Bay because Bob Tasca worked a deal with them in exchange for large decals on both of our cars. That was a VERY nice place with some great food. We then shifted to The Cannery to be closer to the track, and that’s where I’m staying this time. Being just a couple of exits away from the track can easily mean an extra 30-45 minutes of sleep in the morning. So, what I’m saying here is that a lot of experiences in Vegas don’t change that much. Not so, this year.

Somehow, the staff at the “other” Strip, the one called The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, pulled off a massive construction project in just the five months since we raced there last fall. They not only added two new lanes, they also poured new concrete for the two existing lanes, so all four are basically “brand new.” This all means we’re headed to the first 4-Wide race in Las Vegas. I have an inkling it’s going to be pretty spectacular, and if advance ticket sales are any indication it’s also going to be extremely popular.

And why wouldn’t it be? It’s Las Vegas. Everything is glitz and glamour. Everything is “over the top” and spectacular. 4-Wide drag racing belongs in Vegas. And now, we have it in the east (Charlotte) and the west. It should be a fun weekend, on all fronts.

And, in reference to the headline for today’s installment, the noise will be epic. The first time we raced 4-wide in Charlotte, we all learned a lesson about the impact four Nitro cars could have on people standing near them, or even just watching them from the stands. I’m sure it was actually just twice as loud as two cars, but it seemed more like the sound was squared. That was the first time I decided to find the best, most dense, set of earplugs I could locate and put them in before I put my headset (aka “ear muffs”) on over them. And it was still incredibly loud. As for the concussion… You almost can’t help but flinch. You feel in it your core. I’ve seen Rush, The Who, and Led Zeppelin in concert. I’ve had my guts rattled by that music, but it’s nothing compared to 4-wide. It’s something every drag racing fan should see and experience. It’s just plain something EVERYONE should experience.

Now, on to different subjects. The photos are, one by one, slowly beginning to download now. So I present you with the first one that managed to do that. Buster did NOT want me to go on this trip. This was him last night, when the suitcase appeared in our bedroom.

Our friend Erica is staying with the Big Fella and Boofus for the next few days, because Barbara will be in Pittsburgh until Sunday and I’m, obviously, in a band called Jetting Westward. She’ll take good care of them. It’s great to come home to two fuzzy guys who are so well adjusted thanks to Erica’s presence.

Yesterday, we had our quarterly Board of Directors meeting for our Home Owners Association, and the meeting room we normally reserve wasn’t available. So, I offered up my office in the lower level of our house and we all met there. I knew Buster was snoozing in the kitty condo down there, but I assumed he wouldn’t invite himself to the meeting. I should’ve known better. About halfway through the meeting he came sauntering out of the bedroom where the condo is, and he introduced himself to everyone, even going so far as to rub his face on the leg of the new rep from our management company. He’s something else. Boofie just stayed upstairs away from the strange humans.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we had a major “winter” storm early this week. One of the bigger ones we’ve had this year, despite the fact it’s officially spring and it’s now April. We probably ended up with 6 to 8 inches of very wet and very heavy snow. And today the Twins are having their home opener at Target Field. They’ve had an army of staff members and volunteers clearing all the white stuff from the grandstands, aisles, and concourses while the grounds crew has cleared the field. There is baseball being played in Minnesota as I type this. Well, at least batting practice. The Twins even came up with a new hashtag for their social media: #ColdAirDon’tCare

And speaking of baseball, I’m back in the groove with my next book project. As I blogged about earlier, my timing for kicking off the research for my father’s biography, tentatively entitled “1-0” wasn’t so good. Spring training was just starting and everyone I wanted to talk to was really busy. Now that the real season has started, people’s schedules are opening up. Plus, my decision to dive back into the NHRA world with my friend Del Worsham played a part in this as well. I had to focus on his stuff for a good solid month just to get back in the PR groove. Now, I feel like I can do the research and write the book at the same time as I’m doing Del’s PR. I’m confident I can multitask, and the opportunity to talk to so many successful ballplayers is just too great to delay any longer.

Yesterday, I spent about 25 minutes on the phone with Jim Kaat, a phenomenal Major League pitcher whose career spanned parts of four decades. “Kitty” as he was often called, made his Major League debut in 1959 with the original Washington Senators. When the Senators moved to Minnesota, to become the Twins, in 1961 he went with them. He spent 12 seasons wearing a Twins uniform, and was part of an epic duel with Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers in the 1965 World Series. He wasn’t done, though. He then played for the White Sox, Phillies, Yankees, and Cardinals, where he finished up a remarkable career in 1983.

The Twins put me in touch with Kitty and yesterday we finally got a chance to talk. Jim Kaat is in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 1 of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” because he was a member of the Charleston Senators, who were managed by my dad. He made a big impression on me, even at that age, and I’ve always admired him.

Jim is a deep thinker, and he’d taken the time to really ponder what Del Wilber had meant to him, as an instructor, manager, mentor, and friend. His thoughts and his stories gave me goosebumps. Before we hung up, I knew the candle had been lit again and the fire to write “1-0” was again roaring in my writer’s brain. Can’t wait to talk to so many more of my dad’s former players. Their memories just add to mine, and make them richer.

We’re getting somewhat close to beginning our descent now, and I’m impressed this old “beater” of a MacBook Pro still has 39% battery this long into the flight. I shall, as we say, bid you all a fond adieu. Next week, on Thursday Blog Day, I promise to have much detail about the Vegas 4-Wide extravaganza with photos to illustrate the stories.

As always, my loyal blog reading friends, if you just perused this installment and enjoyed it, please click the “Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service as the lead singer for Jetting Westward.

 

Today is Thursday March 29, 2018. Yes, it’s Thursday Blog Day. Yes, for sports fans, the NHL and NBA regular seasons are wrapping up and the playoffs are just around the corner. It’s almost April, so the weather is about as “all over the board” as it gets during any part of the year. Those warm fronts that make it feel so much like Spring?  You know it’s here but it can quickly be erased by the last great blasts of Canadian air. This Sunday is Easter and April Fool’s Day all wrapped up into one. I’m assuming there will be a few tweets that combine the two in gag fashion.

But today is the day. Today is special. Today is Opening Day. Today, baseball is back. Sure, those of us who are big fans have been paying attention to what’s gone on in Florida or Arizona during spring training, even to the point of watching a few televised games knowing full well that by the fourth or fifth inning the lineups were going to feature guys wearing numbers like 76 or 68. Guys even avid fans wouldn’t recognize. It was still baseball, and some of those guys had such impressive springs they became known. Some even beat all the odds and made the club. It’s baseball.

Opening Day (absolutely worthy of those capital letters) is special. It’s different. No other sport opens its season with such anticipation, such focus, and such “meaning” to so many of us, while spread out over so many venues and cities, basically all at once. Not the NFL, not the NHL, not the NBA. Not NASCAR, NHRA, or IndyCar. Not soccer, pro golf, or tennis. In the cases of racing, putting, or serving, those sports open with just one event in one place. Baseball is different. Baseball season is more than a long series of games. It’s a time of year. It connects the dots that get us through April, May, June, July, August, and September. We can only hope for October.

It signals the end of another long dark winter. It really is spring, even up here in Minnesota where we’ve melted more snow in the last three days than we have since November. Opening Day means spring and summer, and even fall, absolutely must arrive soon. Of course, there will be a few games played in ridiculously cold temperatures where the outfielders wear stocking caps over their hats, and one or two may be snowed out, but this Sunday is April and today is Opening Day. The petulant early spring weather won’t last for long. Baseball forces the issue, and before long we’ll be sitting in short sleeves on incredibly beautiful evenings, again marveling at how cool Target Field is. Or Busch Stadium. Or Fenway Park. Or Wrigley Field. Pick your favorite.

It also signals the start of the longest season in sports. Today, everyone is 0-0. 162 games from now, we’ll see who advances to the post-season. Between now and then, baseball is a daily companion. Your favorite team will play 162 times between now and September 30.

And don’t worry if your club loses a few to start the season. This isn’t the NFL. You’re not already out of it if you start 0-6. It’s not even the NBA or NHL, where 40 losses mean you’re most likely on the golf course when the playoffs start.

In 2001, the Oakland A’s started 8-17. They finished the regular season 102-60, and in the playoffs.

Our Minnesota Twins got off to a 9-15 start in 2006. They ended up winning the AL Central, with 96 wins.

I’m trying to figure out exactly when little Bobby Wilber began to realize that Opening Day was a significantly bigger deal than just about any other day of the year, with the possible exception of Christmas. Even in that regard, there was a huge difference. Opening Day started something that spanned the final couple months of school, all of summer vacation, and if your team was really good it could get you all the way into October, just as you were about to decide what costume you’d wear for Halloween. On Christmas, the presents were all opened by 9:00 in the morning, at the latest, and then you faced the agony of realizing it would be another 365 days (a huge hunk of your life in childhood) before it would return.

In 1963 I turned seven. I clearly remember following the St. Louis Cardinals and attending games at the older of the two “old Busch Stadiums.” I would guess that Opening Day of 1964 would then be the first one I really understood to be special. Baseball was back. Listening to games on KMOX, with Jack Buck and Harry Caray, was back. In the end, the Cardinals won the pennant and then beat the Yankees in the World Series. I got to go to Game 6, with my mom.

By 1967, I was fully indoctrinated into the magic of Opening Day. I knew every player on the Cardinals. I even knew the names of the batboys (Don Deason and Jerry Gibson.) My mom was working in the Cardinals front office, and I counted the days until Opening Day. It was April 11. They played the San Francisco Giants. Anyone close to my age can probably guess who the starting pitchers were. Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal. How’s that for a way to start the season? The Cardinals won 6-0 and Gibby struck out 13. Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Roger Maris, Tim McCarver, and Julian Javier all collected two hits. Dal Maxvill, a career .217 hitter, went 3 for 4. Go figure. By the middle of the summer, in ’67, Orlando Cepeda had clearly entrenched himself as the team leader, and the fans began to refer to the club as the El Birdos. It was a heck of a time to grow up in St. Louis.

By the early 70s, when I was in high school, my friends and I made a big transition. We started going to the games with our buddies, or possibly with dates, instead of being driven to Busch Stadium (the second one, with the classic arch-shaped openings in the overhanging roof) by Mom or Dad. And that made Opening Day even more special.

A school year, at that age, seemed to take forever. Each one was a massive part of the life you’d led to that point. Opening Day was a beacon. It was a lighthouse on the shore of yet another spring and summer. It was the signal that freedom was nearly at hand. Even going to school became easier when it wasn’t 25-degrees and sleeting. By my junior and senior years, I was going to games with my pals or a girlfriend at least 30 times per season. Opening Day made it all real.

It’s the only regular season game with such pageantry. Individual player introductions on the foul lines. Colorful bunting hung from the railings. Special guests on the field making presentations. And for a Cardinal fan, it provided the extra pleasure of seeing the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales make a lap around the field, pulling the historic beer wagon. It could give a 16-year-old boy goosebumps. It did every year.

Once Barbara Doyle and I moved to Minnesota in 2002, our Opening Day allegiances shifted to the Minnesota Twins. As documented in my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” it wasn’t a stark or massive shift for me. I’d grown up as the son of the Twins top scout and Instructional League manager, with a TC hat on my head, despite the fact I also rooted for the Cardinals. I’ve always been a Twins fan. In 2002, I was just lucky enough to come “home” to Minnesota and the Twin Cities.

After our first year here, I felt like I knew TV announcers Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven personally. Just about every night, from early April until October, those two friendly guys were welcomed into our living room. I still haven’t met Dick Bremer, the play-by-play voice of the Twins, but I’m fortunate enough to know Bert. And Dave St. Peter, the President of the Twins who personally welcomed us to Minnesota just months after we moved here. I’d taken the initiative to send him an email, letting him know I was Del Wilber’s son and therefore a lifelong member of the Twins extended family. I didn’t really expect a reply. I got one the same day. We’ve stayed in touch and Dave was the first person to agree to be part of our Advisory Board when we launched The Perfect Game Foundation. This blog would not be here without TPGF and all the Advisors who helped make it happen. After all, you’re reading it on the TPGF website.

From 2002 through 2009 we followed our Twins both on TV and at the Metrodome, as season ticket holders. It was a quirky place with more than a few reasons why it might be deemed unsuitable for baseball, but it also had a charm and character about it. It was a perfect example of the old saying, “This place might be a dump, but it’s OUR dump.” And there was the year Barbara and I met at the Dome for Opening Day (which was technically Opening Night) because I had been traveling and had to get there straight from the airport. We watched the game, rooting for our Twins, and when it was over we walked back out those unique Dome doors, being pushed by the escaping air, to find that nearly a foot of snow had fallen while we were comfortably and obliviously inside. All the cars in our parking lot looked like igloos. We had to press the “lock” buttons on our key fobs to figure out which cars were ours. It was dump, but it was our dump and it looked nicely festive with all the bunting on the railings.

In 2010, when Target Field opened, we shifted our season tickets to a 20-game plan and by the luck of the draw we had Game 2, but not Opening Day. We loyally watched on TV and couldn’t wait for our first game. We drove to Minneapolis very early, knowing we had to scout out new favorite parking lots and find our way around a different part of downtown. We marveled at what a magnificent “ballpark” it was. It’s even better now. And in mid-game we heard a strange murmur coming from the other side of the park. It grew into a cheer, and swept across us like a wave. It was raining. We were outside! At a beautiful spectacular marvel of a ballpark. It was worth cheering about. This time, it’s a gorgeous ballpark, and it’s OUR gorgeous ballpark. We’re proud of it. It’s all ours. I can’t wait to use the Flex Plan app on my phone soon. We already have box seats for the game on April 28, because my incredible wife came into my office yesterday and said, “I thought about what I really want for my birthday. If the Twins are home on the 28th, I want to go the ballgame.”  Happy to oblige!

As for me and Opening Days, as I approach my 62nd birthday, I had the pleasure of being directly involved with five such special occasions, as a pro. In 1978 my Paintsville Hilanders, of the Appalachian League, opened on the road against the Bluefield Orioles, and their gangly young shortstop named Ripken. We got to line up on the first-base line. One night later we opened at Johnson Central Park in Paintsville. The 700+ fans in the tiny grandstands seemed like 7,000. The next year, after Spring Training in 1979, we traveled by bus up I-4 in Florida and lined up on the first-base line before we played the Daytona Beach Astros on Opening Day. We got to do it again, two days later, at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland before our home opener in the Florida State League. We were the Lakeland Tigers. In June, I relocated from the lower right-hand corner of the country to the upper-left hand region, to join the Medford A’s in the Northwest League. It was an honor to shake the hand of our owner, Doug Emmans, as I joined teammates I’d only met that day. I had made it to Oregon just in time for Opening Day. I’ll never forget it.

It’s Opening Day. There are tiny buds on many of the trees as Minnesota breaks free of winter. It’s spring. The sun is out. Our Twins are in Baltimore to play the Orioles and as I’m typing this the game is but minutes away. I’m sure the Orioles have a lot of great stuff planned, but after all of that, and the handshakes on the baselines, there will be a baseball game. The first of at least 162 between now and the end of September. Here’s hoping we get bonus baseball in October. But that’s a long way off. Today is Game 1.

Today there is hope. Today there is anticipation. Today hot dogs will be consumed by people how haven’t ingested one since last summer. Today, there is baseball. Happy Baseball, everybody! It’s Opening Day.

Time to get this blog posted. Now, my attention will be firmly focused on the TV. Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven will be visiting again. Welcome back into our home, Dick and Bert. Win Twins!

Thanks everyone. May you all enjoy another great season of baseball.

And, if you just read this blog and enjoyed it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready for baseball.

Gosh and golly, Gainesville was great. You’re welcome for that alliterative start to this blog installment, and all the words in that opening sentence were true, for the fans, for NHRA, for the racers themselves, and for Del Worsham. Kudos are handed out to everyone!

Let’s break it up into segments, shall we? We shall start with…

The weather. You really couldn’t ask for anything better, and that goes for everyone. It was cool in the mornings and late in the afternoons. It was mostly sunny, but Sunday challenged everyone with some persistent fog and some low clouds that took their time burning off. When the sun finally did come shining through, crew chiefs were twirling dials to try to adapt. In all, it was a brilliant race in terms of what Mother Nature gave us. Comfortable, fast, and dry. I give the weather 5 Stars.

The crowd. Friday was my first day at the track and I remember thinking this: “This is a pretty good Friday crowd, but I have to keep in mind that the capacity at Gainesville Raceway is pretty huge.” Basically, the Friday crowd was outstanding and would’ve filled some of the other tracks on the tour. That’s why it’s sometimes hard to evaluate what “pretty good” is versus “huge.” Saturday and Sunday? Well, “packed” is a good word, and that goes for the seats, the standing-room areas in front of the grandstands, and the pits. Saturday: SOLD OUT. Sunday: SOLD OUT. I don’t recall ever experiencing that before, at such a huge venue. Well done Gainesville Raceway. Great work NHRA. Thanks a million FANS!

The racing. It was all of the following: Thrilling, record breaking, competitive, and explosive. And one long smoky burnout by that Cory Lee cat, but more on that later.

Hector Arana Jr. became the first Pro Stock Motorcycle competitor to top the 200 mph mark, putting a 200.23 mph speed on the board Friday evening, during Q2. That was roundly considered the last big landmark accomplishment in the pro classes. I turned to Courtney Enders, who was again sitting next to me in the Media Center, and said, “Now watch. This has taken the entire history of NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle to happen, and now five more riders will do this in the next 10 races, if the weather cooperates.” There was indeed one more 200+ run in Gainesville, and it was “Little Hector” again, putting a 201.01 on the clocks in Q4.

In the nitro classes, the track was there, but it was tricky. It was as if the window for a good run was so narrow it was like threading a needle with your arms out the window of a car doing 75 mph. If you got it, you nailed it. If not, we did indeed see some tire smoke. It made for both frustration and for some great racing. It also led to some more big boomers. For the third time in three races, John Force detonated a motor big-time, and shredded another body off his car. His first three events add up to the kind of cost that would put some teams right out of business. They know they have to figure it out, and Force actually shut off in round one against Courtney because it was planned. After the big explosion, they started over with his car and all his runs were planned early shut-offs, as they tried to get to the bottom of it.

Force’s was big, but the huge one was a doubleheader. Robert Hight was racing against Matt Hagan in the second round on Sunday, and you’ve all probably seen what happened on TV. Both cars exploded near the finish line. Both engines were a mass of flames. Both Funny Car bodies were shredded and launched into the air. High into the air, at that. And then there was the great TV moment when Hagan climbed from his destroyed race car and walked to the wall, where he asked an official “Did we win?” and then pumped his first when the answer was yes.

If any or all of this sounds interesting, but you haven’t seen any of it yet (especially is you’ve never really followed NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing) here’s a great video recap from NHRA and Fox. Take a look!

https://www.nhra.com/videos/2018/fast-five-2018-amalie-motor-oil-nhra-gatornationals

Del Worsham. After really battling his Funny Car at Pomona and Phoenix, Del spent the time and money to stick around after the Phoenix race and do some serious testing on Monday. That can be a valuable thing, but it’s also just Monday. The Monday Nationals, we call it. Those testing days can be rewarding, or frustrating, or deceiving. Del felt it was very rewarding. He was right. Throughout the Gatornationals, he was the absolute picture of consistency, and he was consistently very good. I don’t want to get too number-centric here, but it bears noting that he ran 4.056 right out of the box in Q1. Then a stronger 3.979 in Q2. On Saturday, in the heat with the sun shining bright, a 4.001 in Q3. Knowing he was safely in the show, he parked his car and the team concentrated on getting Cory Lee to the line for one shot at glory, in the Worsham & Fink backup car. Cory went up there with a plan he’d only shared with a few. If the car qualified, great. If it didn’t, that would be okay too because his goal was to “bring the house down” with a burnout unlike anything we’ve seen for many – MANY – years.

I was not aware of the plan. I knew he was going to lift early, because Del and Chuck were not interested in blowing anything up just to get in 16th. When Cory started his burnout, the white smoke billowed and I lost sight of him. I did not, however, lose audio contact with the noise his Lucas Oil Funny Car was making. The burnout seemed to go on forever, and before he lifted we were already looking at each other with smiles and laughs, back at the starting line. When the smoke cleared, he had come to a stop near the finish line, after carrying the burnout all the way to the 660-foot timer.

The crowd, as they say, went crazy. We don’t hear the crowd very much, so it’s startling when they go that nuts. Del was down there near the 660 mark, and when he jumped the wall and pumped both arms in the air, the crowd cranked it up another notch. Cory Lee is a showman. He’s a racer. He’ll drive anything and dominate it. And he is a certified crowd pleaser, as well. He’s also a cool dude.

On Sunday, Del faced JR Todd in round one, as the No. 9 qualifier. I had a good feeling about Del’s car making a strong lap, but JR’s Toyota is a good hot rod and I knew we’d have a battle on our hands. When Del did his burnout, I sensed something “not quite right” going on out there in the smoke. When it cleared, I saw JR’s car stopped on the track with the parachutes on the ground. JR then climbed out and jumped over the wall.

At that point, I was really hoping we’d make a good lap so that it didn’t look like a lucky walkover. Del did just that, and his 4.013 was another strong run, right down the middle. We then faced Jack Beckman in round two, and gave him all he could handle. Our 4.032 was good, but Fast Jack’s 3.973 was better. Still, a good race, a great race car, and Del left Gainesville in 10th place.

I’m still not 100% sure of what happened to JR’s car, but with the ‘chutes being out and his car being silent, I’m assuming the safety switch was the culprit. It does happen…

Our backers. Brent LaBrie is a bright young guy from Wisconsin, who has become a very successful businessman in a very short amount of time. He’s heavily involved with a number of companies he owns or runs, and he just happens to be a big drag racing fan. For years, he was also a Del Worsham fan. You know what? I “get that” in both regards. I, too, am a big drag racing fan and I’ve been a Del Worsham fan since I first got into the sport and he was wining races as a 21-year old kid. Brent, though, had the wherewithal and the desire to get involved with the driver and the team he admired so much.

As you can see in the photo up above, on the side of Del’s car in Gainesville was the logo of Kramer Service Group, which is one of Brent’s companies, based out of Weyerhaeuser, Wisconsin. The company is an industry leader in drilling for water and geothermal and it was an honor to have their logo on both sides of the car. Brent was there, with his young son, and he’s a fantastic guy. It’s clear he’s really passionate about this, and we’re fortunate to have the support of both Kramer Service Group and HI-TEC Finishing, another one of Brent’s companies, located in Hudson, Wisconsin. Here’s the “small world” part of that: Hudson is just a few miles from Woodbury, It’s just across the St. Croix river, about five miles away. And Brent and his boy had a great time all weekend, pitching in cleaning the body and helping out any way they could. In the coming weeks, Brent and I are plotting a get-together over lunch when he’s in Hudson. We aim to find ways to get Del Worsham back in the Winner’s Circle. Or possibly dominate the world. The latter option might entail giant laser beams, but those would be really expensive.

And finally, my trip. As I outlined in the previous blog, I was flying in and out of Tampa, and I was staying in Ocala. The trip down was seamless and easy, and I was at the hotel by 8:00 pm. I knew I’d have a lot more driving to do each day, and on Friday I took the shortest route to the track, which entailed about 35 miles of high-speed driving on I-75 before getting off south of Gainesville, to take the direct approach up past the airport and then into the track. The problem with that route is how congested it is, how many stoplights there are, how un-synchronized the lights are, and that most of the race traffic uses that route. It actually took me longer to get from the exit ramp to the track, all within the Gainesville city limits, than it took me to drive the 35 miles or so on the freeway. On Saturday and Sunday, I took the slightly longer but much easier route, staying on 75 for three more exits so that I would approach the track from the west instead of the south. As each day passed, the drive seemed a little easier. It’s a long way, round trip, each day, but it kept the hotel costs in line. I’d do it again.

At the track, it was a gigantic pleasure to share the state-of-the-art Media Center in the Gainesville tower, with my PR and media colleagues. After the trailer with the bars on the windows in Phoenix, it felt like the Major Leagues.

I took this photo, so I’m not in it but that’s my empty chair between Courtney Enders and Scott Sebastian. It’s great to work among so many talented and dedicated people.

When the racing was nearly over on Sunday, I had about a 110-mile trip back down to Tampa, but they’ve just opened a new super-duper centralized rental car facility, connected to the main terminal by a sky-train, and that made everything go so smoothly. I could tell the place was brand new because the concrete floors were still clean. When I asked the National Rental Car rep who checked me out she said, “It’s just been open for about a week.” It still had that “new rental center” smell.

I turned the car in, rode the train, entered the terminal, and checked in at the Marriott that’s right there inside the airport. Monday morning, I walked out of my room and went straight to the gate. Badda boom, badda bing! I’d do that again, too.

So now we have two weekends off before Vegas, and to me that’s okay. I’m just getting back into shape for all the travel, so having some time at home is good, for now. It will get more hectic as we move through the season.

Still working on some extracurricular plans for Vegas, and it will be great to see the new 4-lane layout there. I’ve been following the progress on Facebook and it looks like it’s always been 4-wide at The Strip. I expected no less out of that talented staff, but they really had a time crunch on their hands to be ready for the event. Ready they are, with time to spare. Can’t wait to get there.

Finally, one more mention and the answer to a common question I hear nearly every day. That question is “How’s the book doing?” Well, it’s still “doing” and that’s phenomenal. Not flying out the Amazon door like it did for the first six months, but after 10 full months on the market I find it absolutely remarkable that it does still sell. And now, if you’ve been on the fence, Amazon has it at around $40.50, so that’s a bit more than $10 off its original cover price. There’s no guarantee it will stay at the price if sales pick up rapidly, so now may be the time to order if you haven’t done so. And, the Kindle version is still $9.99, so there’s that option. Just go here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

Have a great week, everyone. I’ll be back with more nonsense next Thursday.

And don’t forget…  If you just read this and enjoyed it, please officially “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. Thank you!

Bob Wilber, at your service and home from a great Gainesville getaway.

Greetings from 35,000 feet. I’m jetting southbound to Tampa, leaving the snow behind for a few days. Looking at the Twin Cities forecast I’m going to assume (hope) that a lot more of the snow will be melted when I get back on Monday. For now, the focus is the NHRA Gatornationals at historic Gainesville Raceway. Can’t wait to get there.

Trivia Question: What was the first NHRA national event I attended? If you’ve read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you might remember.

Trivia Answer: After Bill Kentling hired me to be the general manager at Heartland Park Topeka, right after January 1, 1991, he sent me and much of my staff down to Gainesville to see the spectacle that is the Gatornationals. That was, indeed, my first NHRA event and my first drag race of any kind. I had no clue what I was in for but the white polo shirt I wore on the first day was beyond being washed. It got thrown away after my introduction to “Goodyear freckles.”

We left from MSP about 40 minutes ago and within about 15 minutes after takeoff we passed the “snow line” where everything turned from white to brown as if there was a real boundary line. In a few hours, we’ll be approaching Tampa over the Gulf of Mexico and shortly after that I’ll be hopping (stepping) into a rental car to head up to Ocala. Tomorrow morning, somewhat bright and early, I’ll be making my first of three consecutive drives up to Gainesville. Each day, I’ll leave a little earlier.

Right now, I have to put the laptop away to make room for the chicken sandwich that is on its way to my seat. Back in just a few (you know what to do… Play theme music).

25 minutes later…

I’m back. The hot chicken sandwich was actually more like a chicken-parm panini, if that makes any sense. I enjoyed it. We are now somewhere near Louisville and the Ohio River.

I’m listening to tunes, of course, as we fly southbound. One of my “go to” themes back in the early blogging days was “what I’m listening to on my iPod” but I don’t own any iPods anymore. Change one letter, though, and you’ll get “iPad” and that’s what I use on flights for my music. The playlist today is called “Trip Mix” and I put it together for our long drive back to Minnesota, with the boyz, when we finally moved back in 2016. Lots of eclectic stuff, and a lot of my favorite current bands. Currently playing: “Eraser” by Fight or Flight. Fight or Flight is a side-project band for Dan Chandler, the frontman for Evans Blue. You didn’t recognize either of those bands, did you?

One of my plans for this blog was to announce the opportunity for any of you who haven’t bought my book to do so, at a discount, directly from me. The caveat, though, was that Amazon needed to drop the price some more so that I wouldn’t be undercutting those purchases too much. Yesterday, Amazon had “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” at $39.99 ($10 off) and I figured I’d offer the limited-time offer of $35 (shipping included) in today’s blog. But…  Just as I was about to do that on this flight, Amazon jumped the price back up to over $49 and a 26th review appeared on the page.

It’s from a guy named Kevin McMullen, whom I do not believe I know (so that’s cool) and it’s short and to the point, but the key is it’s the 26th review and it’s yet another 5-Star critique. That’s 26 for 26! Wish I could’ve had a streak like that as a ballplayer!

Now playing: “You’re Going Down” by a band called Sick Puppies. There’s a story for this. In 2015, before the NHRA banquet, the producers of that show sent emails to all of us PR folks, asking if we had any suggestions for music. “You’re Going Down” is about a head-to-head battle and it has a lot of drag racing references (“one of us is going down”) in it, so I sent it in. It was chosen as the “walk up” music for Antron Brown when he was awarded his Top Fuel World Championship trophy. So there…

As for the special close-out offer on the book, I’ll just keep watching Amazon and will announce it in the coming weeks. Keep your eyes peeled!

Just passed over Nashville, so we got that going for us. Now playing: “Look In My Eyes” by the band Rains. I told you it was an eclectic mix.

I know this has been a short one, but this tray table is unsteady and it’s making me crazy. When I type I have to hold the left side of the tray up with my left knee. Yeah, I’m whining.

I shall leave you with this screen grab, which I also posted on Facebook the other day. As detailed in my book, I “met” Buck Hujabre via email after the blog I posted about our cat Shasta passing away, more than 10 years ago. We quickly connected on a special level and not long after that he landed a role in the touring company for the hit Broadway show “Jersey Boys.” We’ve been fast friends ever since, and I’ll see him and his family in just a couple of weeks out in Vegas.

When he “retired” from acting to pursue a career in real estate, he told his agent to turn down any new offers. And then his agent said, “No, actually you really need to take this one.” I guess so.

If you have Hulu you need to watch “The Looming Tower.” Buck is only in a couple of episodes, but it’s a legit role standing next to a superstar. As he said “All I had to do, to get my big break, was retire.” Well done, my friend. You’ve officially made it big.

Now playing, as we wrap this up: “Aenima” by Tool. If you know the song you know the line “Learn to swim.”

Finally, as always, if you just skimmed through this nonsense and thought, “Well that wasn’t terrible” please indicate your approval by hitting the “Like” button at the top.

Sorry so short, but… Let’s go racing! I shall not wear a white shirt in 2018.

Bob Wilber, at your service and heading for the Gatornationals.

 

 

I thought I did all I could to minimize the impact of another Minnesota winter this time around. I joined Barbara and her sister Kitty for a brief trip to Scotland and England in early December (okay, it was brisk there but it wasn’t like Minnesota) before Barbara and I took our vacation to Hawaii over Christmas, first hitting the Big Island before joining my sister Mary and her husband Lonnie on Kauai. During that trip, I hatched my plan to be a good brother and return to Kauai for nearly two weeks in February, to hang out at their condo and watch Biscuit and Maxie. I remember telling Barbara, “This all lines up perfectly and by the time I get back it will almost be spring!”

So here we are on March 8 and spring is definitely on the way. The nights are not quite as cold, the sun heats things up a little easier during the day because it’s higher in the sky, and this weekend we go on Daylight Saving Time. But there’s this thing about March in Minnesota. Yes, the high school state hockey tournament is going on at the Xcel Energy Center, and I doubt there’s a high school hockey tournament anywhere else in the country that’s a bigger deal.

But that’s not the only “thing” about March up here. March is also the snowiest month of the year, on average. Why? Because during the dead of winter it’s so cold the snow is usually very powdery and it usually doesn’t come in big batches. We tend to get a lot of fluffy little 1-2 inch storms, and that stuff can be pushed off the drive with the big scraper, rather than needing to be shoveled.

In March, while we’re up here in the lofty 20s and 30s in terms of temperature, the snow is big, heavy, and wet. And when it comes down, it likes to do so for hours (or days) on end. That’s when I thank my lucky stars (or my Lucky Charms) that the HOA contracts with a company to do snow removal when we get more than a couple of inches. They use heavy equipment. I would be in traction for a week if I tried to shovel that mush.

What all of that means is that I did all I could to miss out on some of the winter and all its inherent fun, but I’m still dealing with the last couple of snow events. That’s what they call them on Accuweather.com. When I check the Woodbury forecast, I hope to not see the bright banner at the top of the page, that states, “Alert: Major Snow Event Forecast. Click Here For Totals.” We’ve had multiple snow events in the last couple of weeks, and they came after much of the overall winter accumulation was finally melting. We actually got up into the high 40s and cleared 50 once, in the last few weeks, and a lot of what had piled up over the winter was gone. Then we got a couple of major March “events” and it’s all back, plus some. I guess we can call it March Madness. Oh, what? That’s trademarked? Who knew?

The truly good news is that we’ve turned the corner and there’s no way winter hangs out much longer. Every day, the sun gets a little higher in the sky and that changes the dynamics. No matter how cold the next front is, coming down from Canada, the sun’s rays are more able to make it go away. During December and January, the sun barely peeks over the rooftops to our south, so the rays cast a weak and glancing blow on the white stuff. It’s all science.

Other than that, there’s not much to report on this Thursday Blog Day. Book sales continue, but I’ve faced the fact we were in the “wind down” mode now. We sometimes go three or four days without seeing sales for either a print version or a Kindle download, but as referenced above it’s March now. One year ago I was just about done editing and getting more nervous by the day about actually sending in the manuscript via email. I thought (or at least I hoped) it would sell pretty well for a month or two, and that would be it. I never imagined sitting here a year later and acknowledging that now, maybe now, the sales trail is about over. I think it will continue to sell “forever” (however long that is) in little dribs and drabs (holy cow, spell check was okay with “dribs and drabs”) but the days of royalty checks of more than a couple of thousand dollars are definitely over.

And now, I see Amazon’s magic algorithms are back to lowering the price. Today it went down twice, and now it’s at $43.48, which is an odd number. Well, the number itself is actually an even number. Let’s call it a weird number. Why the 48-cents?

What was interesting to me, over the course of the last year, was that the Amazon software started lowering the price after only a month. Whatever its intuitive program saw, it must’ve figured we had about a 40-day shelf life because by July it was down to $39.99, which was a $10 discount. That bugged some people who had just bought it at full price, and I felt bad about that. There was obviously nothing I could do about it, but I understood why they’d be unhappy. Then, miraculously, sales picked back up and stayed steady throughout July, August, September, and on and on. That’s an indicator that the PR push Elon Werner and I put on was directly effective. Once I hit the road to promote, the Amazon price went back up to $49.99 and stayed there until just this week. The Amazon “brain” must figure we’re really done now. Of course, if you haven’t bought it but thought you would one day, this is like playing the stock market. Buy low!

If you’re up for that, here’s the link one more time:

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

I still have some inventory of my own, which I purchased at the super-secret “author’s price” from Outskirts Press. If the Amazon price falls a little more, I may be willing to part with some of those copies, which are now stacked in boxes here in my office. I’m into them a little over $27 each, and figure I could sell them for $30 plus shipping, so somewhere around $35 per copy. I didn’t want to do that while the price was still up at $49.99 though. Seemed to me that it wouldn’t be fair to people who had supported me so much by buying early. I’ll keep an eye on it. Really? Geez, I’ve “kept an eye on it” every day since it was published. I bet that’s not hard to believe.

But, if it does make sense to get these cases out of my office, I’ll make it public here. I think I have about 50 copies left, and I’ll want to keep at least one case for future use.

And, in the last few days as we’ve been analyzing our taxes, I finally did the mental gymnastics to figure out how much it cost me to publish my book. I think it’s going to be very close to a break-even proposition, when spread out over two years. The Kickstarter campaign was my original “income” to get the project done, thanks to the incredible largesse of 99 amazing and generous backers. From there on out, through the rest of 2016 and all of 2017, it was mostly all expenses chipping away at the Kickstarter funds. Lots of travel, to promote it, lots of publicity work, the purchase of 200 copies at my author’s discount, and more. I’ve brought in a lot more in royalties than I ever imagined, and if you add it all up and get to the bottom line, I’m about even.

And you know what? That’s unbelievable. I clearly never did it to make money, and never thought I’d come close to breaking even. Of course, the Kickstarter dollars were all in one lump-sum payment in early 2016, so 2017 was basically all expenses minus the royalties. But that’s why we did the Kickstarter thing. Over the course of two years, it all balanced out, and I never expected that.

As for my next project, my father’s biography tentatively entitled “1-0” the progress, as we say, is slow. And that’s really all about timing. I didn’t exactly think that out too well. When the idea of writing “1-0” popped into my head, I just “plowed forward” (get it?) and got started on the research. It didn’t occur to me that I’d be trying to do this, and needing a lot of help from various ball clubs, during spring training. I should’ve probably waited until right after the World Series this fall, when I’d have a better shot at contacting people and getting a few minutes of their time.

The Twins have helped enormously, and I think over the next week I will send out some questions to the likes of Jim Kaat, Roy Smalley, and a few others. Then, in April or May, they’ll arrange sit-down interviews with Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, and Tom Kelly. That should be memorable. I’ve also been able to contact a few more of my dad’s former players through various other contacts, so that ball is rolling. Like a ground ball trying to sneak through the infield.

Before I go today, I shall provide some additional photographic fun in the Boofus and Buster category. I haven’t had them on here much, but all remains good in their crazy corner of the world.

They really get wound up and wired this time of year. They’ve been cooped up inside all winter and their little brains can tell it’s almost over. When the sun is out, like it is today, they want to be on the porch more than anything, and they scream at us to let them out there. I mean, it LOOKS nice and warm out there. “Let us out!” is easy to hear in their meows. The fact they’re screaming it with their front paws on the sliding door helps with the translation.

So we let them out. And after one step they do the old “stop and sniff the air” routine. Boofie will only stay out there for a minute, but the Big Fella has all that additional “husky boy” insulation and he’ll brave the 28-degree cold for much longer. He’ll sit on the top shelf of his kitty condo and stare at the birds until he finally gets cold and comes back in. By that time, our furnace will have attempted to heat the great outdoors for 20 minutes. There, I sounded just like my dad again.

Speaking of Buster, here’s his photo for today. He’s clearly thinking, “What? Why are you pointing that thing at me? I just want to be left alone. Unless I want treats or something. Maybe a rub on the head. But other than that keep the paparazzi away from me.”

Yeah, they’re very good boyz. And very vocal.

A week from today, I may have to file this blog from an airplane if I can’t get it out before heading to MSP for a 1:00 flight. It’s off to Gainesville for some nice Sunshine State weather (knock on wood) and this time I’ll be flying into and back out of Tampa. Jacksonville is the best option, but I’d have to connect in Atlanta and the fares were ridiculous. Orlando is another option, but I’m allergic to the security lines there. Plus, to save a ton of money on the hotel rates, I’ll be staying in Ocala, so I’ll save about $120 per night (compared to much worse rooms in Gainesville) in exchange for a 45-minute drive each way.

It will be great to get down there, and this time I’ll be back at it as a PR guy instead of as a visitor with a book to hawk. Unfortunately, one of my regular “go to” added extras won’t be possible this time. I love heading down to Fort Myers after the race to see a Twins spring training game, but this year the Grapefruit League schedule makers conspired to make that not happen. I can’t justify spending three additional hotel nights on the Gulf Coast just to see a game.

Speaking of the Twins, though, I did re-up for my Flex Plan tickets. My inventory is back to 20 vouchers, whenever I want to use them. Can’t wait to get back out to Target Field for 10 games with Barbara, or five games with another couple. Or one game with 19 friends. Do I have 19 friends?

Just remember… Win Twins!

That’s it for today. This blog installment makes me a bit nostalgic because it’s one of those blogs I wrote out of thin air. Another blog about nothing. When I was on NHRA.com, I wrote a lot of those because I wrote so many, sometimes three or four a week. Now that I’m on a Thursday Blog Day schedule, I usually have some solid material to work with. Yep, a blog about nothing. Just like old times, right?

And again, if you did just peruse this bundle of nonsense, and it struck a positive chord with you, please hit the”Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service with snow still hanging around.

It’s common knowledge that once you master the tricky science of remaining upright while also propelling yourself forward when being connected to the ground by nothing more that two thin rubber tires, you’ll always be able to ride a bike. Or is it a horse? No, it’s definitely a bike. Horses may make horsepower but they don’t have tires. Today I’m pleased to announce that the same “once you learn it” theory applies to doing PR for a Funny Car driver while at a race track. I can still ride the bike!

Doing the Pomona PR from Kauai was a good way to ease back into it, but Phoenix was a full-on reintroduction to the whole process. And it was fantastic. It was exactly as I’d assumed it would be, as in “Like I never left.” And that’s a very good thing. Of course, I’ve often referenced my stress over travel so, needless to say, on this first venture back to the trenches I made my outbound travel nearly as stressful as possible. When I booked the trip I was deep into a mental mode of “save as much money as possible” and that meant trying the risky approach of flying to Phoenix on Friday morning. What was I thinking?

There was genuinely almost no room for error, and how often is there any error in play when flying 1,900 miles, getting out of the airport and picking up a car, driving through Phoenix traffic, and then getting my credential, getting parked, and getting in? Piece of cake, right? Actually, it almost was. We were a few minutes early into Phoenix but then had to wait 10 minutes for our gate to open up. Baggage claim was a little slow (I decided to go “fully prepared” with all the clothes and shoes I’d need, so I had to check my bag) and the rental car bus was packed, but the traffic wasn’t too bad getting down to Chandler. That part was all pretty easy.

Once I got off I-10 (which is technically I-10 eastbound but from Phoenix to Tucson the freeway actually runs due south) I got to play the fun games the police officers create, wherein orange cones are everywhere and drivers are sent on a circuitous path around the track, even having us go the wrong way on a one-way segment of road, to come into the track right behind the tower. The Credentials trailer, however, is back up near the off ramp from the freeway. I could see it clearly as I exited I-10 but couldn’t get to it from there, thanks to all the orange cones and the police cruisers with flashing lights blocking the way. Once at Credentials, I walked up to the window where my friend Laura Contreras-Rust was working, and I told her the Media Relations staff should have left my hard card and parking pass there. They should have, but they didn’t. Shocking right? Who knew I wasn’t the most important thing for all of them to think about?

This is where it’s a great thing to have longterm friendships with people who can help in situations like this.

Laura called the Media Center and was told that my hard card and parking pass were safe and sound, in the bag of one of the managers. That’s a very safe place to have your credential, if you can magically get parked and get through the gates in order to put your hands on it. Fortunately, for me, Laura never hesitated. She gave me a Friday pass and a parking decal. Day officially saved. She’s always been a good friend and a very adept problem solver. Thank you, Laura!

I then drove back down to the entrance and got parked. As I got out of my car, the first pair of Pro Stock cars were doing their burnouts. Made it by THAT much. It was almost like I knew what I was doing.

I walked up to the second floor of the smaller tower, the one just to the left of the starting line, and as I entered the Media Center they handed me my stuff. I then dropped my backpack in the PR rep’s Media Center (more about that in a minute) and rushed out to the Worsham & Fink pit area. I wasn’t sure where they were parked, but the good thing about Phoenix (sometimes it’s a good thing) is that the Nitro pits are just one long aisle with transporters parked on either side. At some point, you’ll come to your destination. Much to my glee, Del and Chuck’s pit area was right at the start of the long line of big rigs.

Was I a little nervous walking in? Maybe a little, but just in the “first day of school” kind of way. The team hadn’t pushed back yet, so greetings were spoken, hands were shaken, hugs were shared, and the first day of school was officially underway. My first order of business was hat related. None of my hats from the Wilkerson era really applied to Del or his sponsors, so I wore a Twins cap on the plane. Before the guys pushed out of the pit, I found a new TRD (Toyota Racing Development) hat and I looked the part. Maybe I looked a part, but I’m not sure what the part was, exactly. Kind of like a cameo walk-on part. It might take an hour for me to feel totally at home and dialed-in.

I’ve been going to the Phoenix track since the first year I was in the sport, and the main Media Center has always been in the same room, on the second floor of the tower. But, there’s also always been a continuing problem with it. It’s too small. You can cram a lot of people into the small space but if the PR staff has done a good job and there are multiple reporters there, you can’t really fit more than one or two team PR reps in there with them. For a few years, they utilized a smallish dungeon of a room on the ground floor, but there’s a patio in front of the tower and spectators blocked the view. It wasn’t a good solution.

So, a few years back they started positioning a trailer right behind the tower. To be fair to everyone, all the team PR reps work in there, but there’s plenty of space for everyone to do that. Is it perfect? Well, it has no view of the track at all, so there’s that, but we’ve dealt with that at other venues, too. They put a nice flatscreen TV in there with us, with a live feed, so even though the trailer absolutely shakes and moves whenever two Nitro cars launch, everyone has to watch on TV. It also doesn’t have air conditioning, although on Friday and Saturday when everyone was wearing heavy coats as the temperature struggled into the high 50s (felt warm to me!) we didn’t need AC. It got pretty stuffy in there, on Sunday, though.

The funny thing about our little PR home were the bars on the windows. They gave it a nice little comfy “jail cell” sort of feel. It was really quite lovely. Honestly, it’s better than that ground floor room they used before, and the TV is just fine.

What’s great for me is that so many of my former colleagues are still around doing the same jobs. To see people like Kelly Topolinski, Sadie Glenn, Allison McCormick, Leah Vaughn, Dave Densmore, Cody Poor, and everyone else was a real “welcome home” moment as well. Plus, Courtney Enders was back in the room, doing some work for her sister. You know, her sister Erica. I’ve known Courtney for many years but we’ve never really spent much time together, so it was nice to sit next to her in the trailer. She had a great view of the staging lanes if she looked between the bars.

Courtney was actually sitting at the window you can see in this photo, right above the metal stairs. I kept thinking it would be so easy to scare her to death by popping up unexpectedly while returning to the trailer, especially if I could find a gorilla mask, but I decided I didn’t yet know her that well and on top of that it was just too easy. I aim to provide more sophisticated humor.

And speaking of the crew of talented PR people I’m once again working alongside, it’s easy to notice that a very high percentage of them are women. I think that’s great, but what I think is even more great is how damn good they are at what they do. As talented and hard-working a group as any I’ve ever known. Though work is the priority, there’s time for laughs as well and this bunch has a great time working together. But I’ll say it again… They’re really good at what they do and their teams and drivers are lucky to have them.

Once we were in the lanes for our first qualifying run, I had a chance to see everyone on Team Wilkerson, so that was great as well. They were pitted all the way down at the other end of the Nitro pits, so I never got down there, but I figured I’d run into them in the lanes. The hug from Krista Wilkerson was much appreciated.

At the starting line, I was a little bit like a fish out of water. Del doesn’t use a video camera now, so I didn’t have that to do. In addition, since I’m not going to travel to all the races the team attends, I didn’t want to take on some starting line role that someone else would have to pick up when I’m not there, so I just stood behind the car with the rest of the crew. John Fink and I did bring back our patented fist bump, right after the burnout. Just like riding that bike!

There was a good crowd there on Friday, as compared to a typical Friday at any race. What happened Saturday and Sunday, though, was incredible.

On Saturday, as we were about to make our run in Q3, the traffic coming into the track was still backed up to the exit ramp off I-10. Then they filled all the parking areas on the southwest side of the track, so they started sending people back up to the huge lots on the northeast side, across the lake from where we were pitted. There’s a road course over there, but boy oh boy is that a long walk to the gate. By the time the traffic all got in and got parked, a lot of people had missed all of Q3. And I’ve never seen that many cars parked over there. At the time, I was pretty convinced it was the most people I’ve ever seen there, whether it was still called Firebird Raceway back in the day or Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park like it is now. The place was jammed.

When I arrived on Sunday, around 8:30, traffic was already backed up getting off the interstate. Once I parked behind the tower and walked in to the pit area, I looked across the lake and saw they’d already started moving the incoming cars to that side. Again, a lot of people misjudged the traffic and missed first round, so I hope that’s something that can be helped in the future, but the sight of so many fans jammed into the venue was really encouraging. As it turned out, Sunday was a total SELL OUT and apparently, from what I was told, Saturday just missed that designation by a few hundred. It was truly wall-to-wall and the pits were totally packed.

As for our team, things didn’t go that well. The car was really giving Del fits and driving him crazy, but that was the case for a lot of teams. The air was fantastic, the track temp was right where you’d want it, but a lot of teams had a hard time hitting the tune-up right on the sweet spot. We spun, shook, and Del pedaled his way into the field in the No. 16 spot. On Sunday, we lost in the first round to the eventual race winner, Courtney Force.

Speaking of the Force family, I assume all of you reading this have seen the video of John’s big wreck with Jonnie Lindberg. It happened not long after I took the photo of the starting line and the crowd. I was just hanging out back there (and hey, the guy that operates that huge boom camera is REALLY good at it) and when I saw the body shred off John’s car I knew it was bad. But then, with the cars being so far away and with so much stuff flying around, it was weird to see both cars hitting both walls. It looked like a kid had taken two of his die-cast cars and tied their wheelie bars together with a shoestring, and then he’d pull them around and shake them. That’s what it looked like, but I knew it was far more serious than a kid with two toys.

Alan Reinhart is a pro’s pro who knows how this works. It may be worrisome or frustrating for the fans, but he will not speculate at all until he gets official word from the scene. When that takes a while, we all worry. I walked back into our PR trailer and waited it out with my colleagues. When word that John was “awake and alert, and talking to the Safety Safari” came over the P.A., everyone finally took a breath. Once they had John out of the car, they could also show the wreck replay on the big screen, so we could also see it on the TV we had. It was hard to watch, but all of us were glued to it.

When I got back to the pit, Del was just getting back from the scene. He took a scooter up there to check on John and Jonnie. He agreed with my assessment of, “There were a lot more ways this could’ve ended horribly than there are ways it didn’t.” The fact Jonnie Lindberg had a tire mark on his helmet, from Force’s left rear slick, is evidence enough of that.

Right before the final round, when it was clear Force was okay (Lindberg walked away fine) I thought I might be able to get out of town that night. There were a few seats left on a 7:20 flight to Minneapolis, so I said goodbye to everyone and headed to my hotel in Mesa. I’d still need to pack and get back to the airport if I thought I could make it, but once I got there I called Delta and all those seats had been sold. The flight was actually in an oversold situation by then, and the agent said, “I wouldn’t go to the trouble of checking out of your hotel and driving to the airport. You’d have a very small chance of getting on.”

So I watched the final round on my laptop, and once it was over I emailed my Post-Event Report to my mailing list. Still had one more night in the hotel, but my first in-person race as a PR rep since November, 2015 was in the books. It was notable how much it felt liked I’d never been gone.

I know most of the guys on Del’s team, and the ones I hadn’t met seemed like great guys, too. They all get along very well. By the end of the weekend, it not only felt like I’d never left, it felt like I’d never left Del, Chuck, and the team. The fact Chuck laughed as he squirted me with the gas bottle, on the shoe and pant leg, a couple of times right before they fired up the car at the water box, was a kind of classic “Welcome back” if there ever was one.

Del decided to stay and test on Monday, and when he called me on Tuesday I could tell he was glad they did that. They made some wholesale changes and they all worked. It went right on down there and even ran a 3.97 despite the fact he lifted so early he had no problem reading the numbers as he passed the scoreboard. Yes, it was just testing but sometimes you can actually put together enough data to win the next race after running at the so-called Monday Nationals. I think he has a handle on it now, and it felt good for me have those conversations with him. It was not lost on me that back when we first started together I didn’t have a prayer of having these conversations. I’ve learned a lot about the sport and the car over the years. To talk about it at something close to his level, while understanding what he was saying and even having some suggestions, was fantastic. We’ve both come a long way.

One of the real highlights of the entire weekend was seeing this guy. If you’ve been a longtime blog reader or if you’ve read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you’ll know his name. This is Joe Spica. He was the marketing guy on our program for CSK Auto from Day 1 in 1997 until the final day of our sponsorship in 2008. We worked together on just about everything, and to this day I can say for a fact there is no one I ever worked with, at any job, with whom I talked more on the phone than Joe. I’d say over the course of 12 years we had to average two or three phone calls a day. I don’t call Barbara two or three times every day!

We were able to work so well together because we both took our jobs very seriously, and we worked as a team to make the sponsorship a true partnership. Joe felt like the sponsorship was his baby at CSK, and I felt the same way at Worsham Racing.

On top of all that, we simply got along great. We could shift from serious PR or marketing conversations straight into stuff that would have us both cracking up. I’m so glad he came out to the track for a day.

And if you did read the book, you’ll likely remember my favorite Joe Spica quote. It happened when a whole bunch of us were trying to keep up with a new celebrity friend we’d just met, at the MGM Grand in Vegas, but our new friend was dodging and weaving through the crowd with his head down, while a dozen of us were like kittens running in every direction. Joe then shouted the famous words, “C’mon, everybody! We’re losing Huey!!!”  As in Huey Lewis. We’re still laughing about that one.

It was a great weekend. It was great to be “home” again. It was great to share the PR room with so many of my talented colleagues, even if it was a trailer with bars on the windows. And I’m really looking forward to the next one. But I won’t fly to many more on Friday. Just sayin’…

I’ll see you next week. Until then, you know the drill… If you just read this and kinda sorta liked it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. Thank you!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still riding that bike.

Welcome back to winter! The one jarring thing about going to any tropical place in the dead of winter is the return home. You sit in a flying metal tube for some amount of hours, and when you exit it’s a drastically different atmosphere than the one you experienced when you entered that tube. I got home at around 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning and had nothing more than a windbreaker for warmth. Seeing my breath on the jet bridge was my welcome back to Minnesota.

To tie up a few loose ends from the trip, there’s this. My laptop did manage to heal itself. It’s back to 100% and I still don’t know what happened, why it happened, or how it fixed itself. I’m just happy I didn’t have to drive straight to the Apple store to buy a new one, and I’m even happier to be writing this blog installment on a real keyboard. Feels like I’m writing at 330 mph.

Secondly, it probably shouldn’t surprise me that Maxie ended up being very much a love bug before I left. On Sunday morning, my last day there (of course) I woke up early and he was sleeping on the chair next to the bed, where he slept the entire time I was at the condo. I said, “C’mon over here Maxie” and he just got up and jumped in bed with me. Like it was nothin’. He then proceeded to stand on my chest and rub his nose and face all over my head. When I got up, he followed me and was never more than a step away. When I sat on the sofa with my cup of coffee, he was all over me. I’m not sure what flipped that switch, but it was almost kind of sad because I had to leave the condo in just mere hours. He tried laying on top of my suitcase to keep me from going, but I didn’t have any choice.

As for Biscuit, I’d categorize our relationship as eventually developing into a sort of uneasy detente. He never came over for attention or rubs on his head, but he also stopped hiding or running away, so we found a way to coexist. And, if I caught him early in the morning I could give him some rubs and he liked that. Not in the afternoon, for crying out loud, just pre-dawn when was very sleepy.

I had to drive to the airport around 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, and it was sad to say goodbye to both guys. They’re sweet cats and no trouble whatsoever. When I got to the airport, in Mary and Lonnie’s Honda Fit, I had to find a parking spot that would be easy to describe to Mary, who was returning on Monday. So, rather than park as close as possible to the little Lihue terminal, I picked a spot I could easily direct her to via text. It was “Exit baggage claim B, cross the street, walk three aisles into the lot, turn right, and it’s near the end of that row.” And, I had to hide the keys and leave the car unlocked. There was no way to lock the doors with the keys in it. So, and feel free to use this trick, I devised the best possible hiding place for the keys, right in plain sight.

I went to McDonald’s before the airport and got a breakfast sandwich and an iced tea. After drinking the tea, I emptied and cleaned the paper cup. After  I got to the airport, I put the keys in the cup, put the lid back on and the straw back in the lid, and put it in the cup holder on the center console. No one would ever think to look in there. Also, to be fair, no one on Kauai would likely be even thinking of looking in every car in the airport parking lot to see which ones were unlocked. This is an island where driving is a contest to see who can be the most courteous. When traffic is backed up, and you want to merge, the first car will let you in. And then you do the same for the next car. You do a LOT of waving on Kauai roads. Wave to let a guy in, or to let a car turn left in front of you, and then a wave to indicate “Thank you!” or “You’re welcome!”

It doesn’t take long to get into that habit, and it doesn’t take long to realize how much it makes the traffic bearable. And even though we’re known for “Minnesota Nice” here, when I got home I had to remember, “These folks probably aren’t going to come to a complete stop just to wave me into their lane.”

There was something a little odd about my ticket and boarding pass, which I kind of dismissed when it was time to check in. When I logged in at Delta’s site the little box that shows your next upcoming trip showed MSP-PHX, which is the flight I’ll be on tomorrow to get to Phoenix. That was odd, and a little worrisome. I had to do a bit of a work-around to even get checked in, by logging out and coming back to the site without logging back in. The whole thing was kind of eating at me, though.

At Lihue, I had to check in and check my bag at the Hawaiian Airlines desk, because I was flying one of their planes to Honolulu. It all went fine, and she even printed two new boarding passes for me. It was a little dreary and misty on Kauai when we took off but the pilot immediately informed us that the flight attendants would not be able to distribute the little sealed cups of water or  juice, like they normally do, because there was a major storm over Oahu and the short flight from Kauai would be very bumpy. It wasn’t that bad, but I do love that Hawaiian juice…

I had a two-hour layover after we got to HNL, and my flight was listed as on-time, but the rain really did seem sort of appropriate for my departure. I remember thinking “I feel bad for anyone who had big tourist plans for today” while watching the ground crew guys walking around getting soaked.

After some snacks and a glass of wine in the Sky Club, it was time to board the big 767 and head home. We left right on time, just after 6:00 p.m.

This was the same return flight we were on when we there for Christmas, and I remembered the challenge of getting any sleep. This time, after nearly two weeks on the island I was totally on Hawaiian time, and with the flight departing at 6:00 I knew it would be at least three or four hours before I’d even be thinking of sleep. So, I ate my dinner (a fine tenderloin steak), watched a movie (“Battle of the Sexes” which I really liked), and then put my seat into the full “lay flat” mode. By then, it was probably around 10:00 Hawaii time, which would be 2:00 in the morning Minnesota time. Amazingly, I actually dozed off and slept for about two hours. I surprised even myself by doing that.

Around 4:00 in the morning Minnesota time, the crew gently brought the cabin lights up a little and came around to see who wanted breakfast. To someone on Hawaii time, that’s having breakfast at midnight, but it’s part of the process you have to go through. At 5:30 we touched down and once again I was kind of stunned to see how busy MSP was at that hour. By 6:20 I was home. Barb and the boyz got up to welcome me home, and after moving my bag into the bedroom I said, “I think I’ll just lay down for a bit.” I woke up at 11:00.

I also woke up to a major “wintry mix” storm that was not fun. It started as freezing rain, then turned to snow, then turned back to ice, and then to snow again, before putting the “icing” on the layer cake with more freezing rain. It was about an inch and a half of layers. I know, because I had to get out there after it was over to scrape it off the driveway. It wasn’t deep enough to trigger our HOA-contracted snow removal. I’d gone from the warmth of Kauai to scraping snow and ice in less than 24 hours, with a bit of sleep thrown in on the plane and in my own bed. “Welcome home!” said reality to the weary traveler.

That night, I stayed up as late as I could and went to bed around 11:00. I woke up at 11:00 in the morning and Barbara said I never moved. I was in the same position all night. I believe that, because it was the deepest sleep I’ve experienced in a very long time. I’m a light sleeper, if not a bit of an insomniac, so that night was a real treat for me. And Buster and Boofus finally relented and cuddled up. They could only stay mad at me for so long.

I did manage to shake the cobwebs out of my head that afternoon, and put my pre-race press release together, ahead of this weekend’s NHRA Arizona Nationals in Phoenix. I wasn’t sure what the theme was going to be when I set up the template and began to write, but it came to me in a flash. It would be a nostalgic nod to Phoenix, and what a huge role it played for Del, me, and many others in terms of our careers. CSK was based in Phoenix, and each year the Phoenix race would be the biggest of all possible hullaballoos for us, with appearances, TV interviews, and other promotions. Lots of early mornings and late nights, and twice we capped off all of that with a win on Sunday.

After talking to Del about it, I wrote it in mere minutes and within another hour it popped up on a number of websites, including this one:

https://motorracingpress.com/?p=36983

Happy to say it got a very nice reaction from a lot of people.

My flight leaves tomorrow at 9:20 a.m. and should land in Phoenix around 11:45. The first qualifying session is at 1:30 with Pro Stock leading it off, followed by Funny Car. I should make it with a little time to spare, but if there are any delays at all I might be cutting it close. Fingers and toes crossed.

As fun as it was to get back into PR mode with Pomona, doing it remote from Kauai, I’m really looking forward to getting to the track and jumping into it with Del and the team. Hey, I had to get to Macy’s yesterday just to buy some new “track clothes” for this year! I was down to my last pair of black slacks left over from 2015. A PR guy needs to look the part.

And, remember the bit up at the top of this blog about my Delta return itinerary not showing up on the site when I went to check in? Well, on Tuesday I checked my Sky Miles account to see if the Honolulu – MSP segment was showing up in terms of miles earned, and it was still blank. On Wednesday, I looked again and it was still blank, but I noticed a little “small print” that said “Reason Code – F” and when I clicked on the “F” a pop-up box showed me this: “Miles already posted to partner airline.” What?

I had flown Hawaiian from LIH to HNL, but my entire ticket was purchased from Delta. And that’s a LOT of valuable medallion miles I was missing. I also noticed some more small print under the airport codes for the route, which in this case was HNL – MSP. It was for the date the miles were posted. All my other segments showed a February date about 24 hours after the individual flights. Under HNL – MSP it read “Date Posted: December 30, 2017” For the second time, I thought “What?” I didn’t even purchase the ticket until mid-January.

I called the Platinum line and the woman who took my call was great. She listened as I carefully explained things, and said, “I’ll need to get one of our support guys involved, but I understand what you’re saying and I think we can fix this. Hold tight for a minute or two.” After listening to some lousy canned music for a while she came back on the line and said, “OK, we can fix this. It may take between 24 and 48 hours, but we’re on it and it will get fixed. Sorry for the confusion.”

And now it’s all fixed. Plus, they credited me for the miles I flew on Hawaiian to get to Honolulu. That was one very confusing ordeal, but it was handled as well as possible. Still wonder what that December 30, 2017 posting date was all about. I figure it might have something to do with the fact I flew the exact same flight home from Kauai in late December, but who knows… Goblins in the system, I’d guess.

That’s about it for today. I’ll get packed tonight and will head to the airport around 7:15 in the a.m. to give myself plenty of time. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be smelling the nitro, surrounded by longtime friends and colleagues. Can’t wait!

See you next week, and always remember: If you just read this and liked it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and back in the saddle.

Aloha from paradise, once again. Today is Day 10 on Kauai, if you count the original Tuesday when I spent the whole day flying and didn’t get to the condo until 9:00 that night. Today, with a nod to John Cleese, I can write these words: “And now for something completely different.” I guess you’d have to be a Monty Python fan to get that. What’s different? I’m attempting to write this blog on my iPad. So, if this effort is successful, this is apt to be pretty short. If it’s not, it will be because my patience ran out and I quit trying.

I’m a pretty fast typist on a real keyboard. You’d almost have to be after so many years of so much writing. On the iPad or my iPhone, I can serviceably tap out short messages or even an email, if I have to. Trying to write a full blog, though, is already proving difficult. It’s as if you must regress to about 8th grade, before you took typing classes in high school. There’s no way to use the on-screen iPad keyboard like a real keyboard because you can’t feel anything. So you’re back in the days of “hunt and peck” with one or two fingers. Not fun.

Why am I doing this? Well, I kept track of the Winternationals faithfully, following along with NHRA All-Access, and when two guys named Worsham and Wilkerson squared off in round one, and my previous employer defeated my newly reunited team and driver, I wrote my post-event report. I never send them out until the race is over, though, out of habit. Way back in the day, when we were first starting to do a lot of PR work via email, we all learned the hard way that sending out a post-event wrap up before the race was over was not popular among many followers. Even if they didn’t read it, its mere appearance in their In-Box indicated we’d lost. They didn’t want to know.

We’re on “live” TV a lot now, including last Sunday, so spoilers really don’t exist anymore, but old habits die hard both on the sending end and the receiving end. As round after round went off, I’d follow along with my report safely tucked away in a draft folder. Right after the semifinals, I was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter with my hands on the laptop, when I felt an electrical “zing” go through me. It was strong enough for me to utter “Whoa” out loud. And then my screen went haywire. Some things grew in size, others disappeared, icons were floating around, and no I wasn’t on drugs. It was nuts. When I tried to move the cursor with the trackpad, it wouldn’t cooperate. It was like my computer didn’t recognize my finger on the pad. I could swipe 20 times before the cursor would move, but then it would jump all the way to the other side of the screen before it would float back up to the top. And I had less than an hour to figure out how to get my report sent out.

I shut it down. I restarted it. I tried every trick I could dream up. I finally got the cursor over the Mail icon at the bottom of the screen and got it open. 20 minutes later, after trying nonstop to move the cursor to the Drafts folder, I got that open. 20 more minutes later, I managed to get the little arrow to land on my report, and got it open. The race was over by this point, and I was getting desperate in a panic-mode sort of way. Time and again, I couldn’t get the cursor on the little icon that sends the mail. When it finally landed there, by pure chance and of its own volition, I hit it immediately, and it went off into cyberspace.

After trying all that, I shut the laptop down and left it alone for 24 hours. When I fired it up again on Monday, it seemed to have fixed itself. But, after about 15 minutes, it started acting up again. This morning, I started it up again and it seemed fine, but I don’t want to risk writing 99% of this blog and then have it zonk out on me, so iPad here we go. It has taken me 26 minutes to write this much.

So, you ask, how’s it been living on the island with Maxie and Biscuit, by yourself? Mary left last Thursday night, so it’s been a full week of flying solo. Other than a few days when the winds were whipping or gusting and “stuff” in the air was really sending my allergies through the roof, it’s been idyllic. Maxie was, by far, the more outgoing and friendly of the two since the day I met them. Biscuit can be completely invisible, if that’s what he wants. It was not until early yesterday morning, before sunrise, that I actually got to pet him and rub him on the head. I got up for some water and saw him on one of the living room chairs. I think the fact he was asleep until I came in the room helped keep him calm. He let me pet him and was purring, so that’s a big step.

Each day, I’ve gone for long walks. There’s a popular beach called Kealia, with a parking area just a few miles to the north, and if you start there you can walk quite a distance along a cliffside trail, with the waves crashing onto the rocks just below. You just need to be on alert for bikes coming up on you from behind. I like to walk while listening to music, so I don’t hear them coming. Therefore, I stay as far to the right as I can, but they still startle me every now and then. If you walk as far as Donkey Beach, you’ll hit about 8,000 steps by the time you get back to the car. This photo is a view of Donkey Beach, taken from atop the cliff inside a picnic area. It’s a “pretty nice” beach, if by “pretty nice” you mean incredible.

There’s very limited parking at Donkey, so to get there the vast majority of visitors either walk or bike ride from Kealia, or all the way from Kapaa, the town where Mary’s condo is located. There’s a paved trail almost, but not quite, all the way from the condo. There’s one segment where it’s just a bike lane on the busy road. After that, it’s a dedicated trail all the way up. And it’s quite popular, especially with tourists on their big “cruiser” bikes.

Other days, I’ve walked from the condo over through the Marriott where Barbara and I have always stayed, and then turned left at the beach. You have to cut through some undeveloped land to get over to where the trail starts, but after that it’s a good fun walk and that round trip is good for about 7,500 steps, if you’re counting steps. Well, actually, it’s good for about 7,500 steps even if you’re not counting. Steps are steps.

We’re now at the 1-hour mark doing this on the iPad. Its spell checker and correction program seems to get a bit smarter as I go, but I need a break. I’ll be back in a few…

(Theme music…)

Okay, here we go again. There’s lots of “red mud” on Kauai, whether you’re up on one of the peaks or down by the shore. As dirt or dust, it tends to cling to everything. After it rains (and it rains on Kauai just about every day) it’s pretty slippery. You don’t want to slide off the trail and onto the rocks. I don’t know that from experience, but it’s a pretty easy call to make. So far, I’ve survived.

A few days ago, I was on the trail at just about the spot you see in this photo, and I was keeping an eye out to sea, looking for whales. When I saw one blow, I stopped to get a better look. The big whale was quite a distance out, but when they blow it’s unmistakeable. A couple who were also walking stopped and asked if I’d seen one, and the three of us stood there talking for 20 minutes at least. For the record, they were from Kalamazoo, Michigan and really nice folks. During that time, we saw lots of tail fins slapping, and one whale did the full breach and flip move. It looked like the splash was 30 feet high. There’s nothing more magical than that. Just seeing them blow, and knowing they’re out there, is fascinating. Whales are fascinating, period. They should be heading back to Alaska very soon, so having seen so many was a real treat.

It would be really easy to go out for every meal, and that’s what we typically do when we’re here visiting Mary and Lonnie, but I’ve made it a point to try to limit that to one meal a day, usually breakfast or lunch, even if that means buying a wrap or a sandwich at a deli and then taking that to the beach with me. On Monday I even made the long drive around the southern part of the island, and then up the two-lane road to Kekaha Beach. It’s a beautiful wide and deep beach with rolling surf, but because it’s a long way “up the road” I’ve never been there when there were more than a few dozen people in attendance, including the life guards. It’s kind of amazing to sit at a covered picnic table and feel like you’re at this phenomenal beach all by yourself. And it’s fun to drive up there, if you ask me. You didn’t ask, but you would have if I could hear you, right?

Every time we’ve been here, we go for many long drives in both directions, but I’m always in the backseat with Mary so that Barb can sit in front. I never really thought about that, but I realized I really enjoyed the drive to Kekaha because I could see everything! Total bonus!

Okay, I’m losing my mind with the iPad. One more break…

(Same theme music. Kind of like Final Jeopardy theme music…)

Whew. Okay, let’s get to know Maxie and Biscuit a little better. This is Maxie Boy.

He looks a lot like Buster, but he acts a lot more like Boofus. And, his Boofie antics are actually quite a bit more manic than Boof’s, although let’s be fair and realize Boofus and Buster are closing in on 11 years old now. They still go nuts regularly, but they tend to sleep the days away.

Maxie is the type who is generally near me when he’s not sleeping. He doesn’t sit on my lap yet, and neither one of them have slept with me, but if I’m in the living room he’s generally within sight. If I go to the bedroom, he’s right behind me. He loves to be rubbed, especially on the head and chin, but he (so far) doesn’t like to be picked up and held. He’ll let me do it, but he squirms until I put him down. He’s kind of vocal, but his voice is a lot more squeaky than Boofie or Buster, who both have very distinct voices, making lots of different sounds. Like Boofie, he’s a climber too.

Maxie wants to be at the highest point of anything he can climb. He also is totally fascinated with water and doesn’t seem to be afraid of it at all. Mary told me that he always stays in the bathroom while she’s taking a shower, and has been known to stand in the shower with her. I found that hard to believe. The shower here is all tile with no door, just a four inch edge to step over and a cloth curtain. I have yet to take a shower without Maxie being in the room, and he will indeed poke his head around the curtain and put his front paws in the water. Then, he just relaxes on the bath mat until I’m done, catching a little mist as if floats out of the shower. Kitchen sink? Oh yes. He’ll stick his whole head under the faucet. He’s a funny cat. And a sweet boy, too.

Biscuit was so invisible the first three days I was here alone I was actually worried about him. He’s the stealthiest cat I’ve ever known, although both these guys are aided by the fact they don’t wear collars. We can hear Boofus and Buster coming, because their collars have bells.

I can watch Biscuit go to the sliding door and look out, and then one second later he’s gone and I never saw him leave the room. An hour later, I’ll walk by the bedroom and only see Maxie, but then a minute later I’ll walk by going the other direction and Biscuit will be on the chair like he’s been there all day. He kind of mocks me with his look. “Now you see me, now you don’t, huh pal?”

Yesterday, after our pre-dawn petting session, he really relaxed. He was sleeping on my Twins windbreaker later in the day. So, it’s a big deal that he even lets me touch him now, but it’s obvious that he’s still a very skittish kitty. He’s always aware of his escape routes because he doesn’t like to be cornered. I can’t even imagine him letting me pick him up. When I can keep him calm, and rub his nose and ears, he seems to love it, and will knead his front paws instantly.

They’re both good sweet cats. They’ve let me be more and more of a roommate as the week has passed, and they’re really good at teaching me what they want and how they want interact. In other words, they’re training me well. I’m a quick learner. For the last four nights we’ve all sat in the living room watching the Olympics, and everyone seems a lot more relaxed. Including me.

All right, I’m proud of being able to do this on the iPad, but I don’t expect to ever do the blog this way again. What a marathon. I’m here until Sunday afternoon, when I take the Hawaiian Airlines island-hopper flight over to Honolulu. Then I’ll catch the big Delta jet for the nonstop to MSP. Same flight Barbara and I were on heading home after Christmas. It departs at 6:00 p.m. and arrives in Minneapolis at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. It’s a long dark flight, but I’ll be up front with a lay-flat seat so there’s that. Then, I’ll have four days to get fully adjusted back to Central Time before I fly to Phoenix for the race, and my first day “back on the job” with the Worshams. Almost a little nervous!

I’ll be back next Thursday, with either a new laptop or the old one if it’s working again. I’m going to fire it up again and let it run as soon as I post this. We’ll see how it’s doing. Maybe it’s all magically fixed again.

As always, if you just finished reading this and you enjoyed it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. And may you never attempt to write a 2,500 word blog without a real keyboard.

Bob Wilber, at your service and reporting to you “live” from paradise.

Aloha everyone, from the shores of Kapa’a on the island of Kauai. It’s a tough and challenging life here. Sometimes the sand gets stuck between your foot and your flip-flop, and that is so annoying. Or there’s the incessant sound of the Pacific Ocean lapping against the shore. And don’t even get me started on those obnoxious trade winds rocking the towering coconut palm trees. Those trees should be a lot shorter. C’mon, who needs trees that tall? Or the food here. How much fresh fish that was just caught today can one guy eat? I can’t believe I signed up for this!

But here we are, and I’m almost totally acclimated to the time zone. I’m obviously fully acclimated to the lifestyle. My sister Mary is getting packed for her flight over to the mainland and when I looked at my phone to see a text message, I realized it’s Thursday. I’ve only been here since late Tuesday night, but I’d already forgotten what day it was.

So I grabbed my laptop, which is indeed on my lap, and here we go. That time zone thing was a challenge at first, but I’m thinking by tonight I’ll be totally dialed in. I left our house Tuesday morning at 9:00, figuring MSP airport might still be dealing with the aftermath of the Super Bowl. It was, but an army of volunteers and airport employees were on duty, pointing people in the right directions. Plus, I’ve never seen the airport at that sort of staffing levels. Eight Delta agents were on duty just for the Sky Priority lane, when I checked my bag. There’s usually three. Maybe four. And with all the TSA lines buzzing, they kept people moving. I’m in the CLEAR program, and didn’t have to wait for a single person ahead of me.

With all that, I was in the Sky Club by 10:00, prior to my 11:15 flight to LAX. Badda boom, badda bing.

The flight to LAX was about 4 and a half hours. Just long enough to be boring. Then I had a 4 and a half hour layover at LAX. Delta, right now, is in the process of renovating and updating Terminals 2 and 3, after many years of being in Terminal 5. The only tricky part is, Terminals 2 and 3 were never designed to be used by one airline, so there is no direct connection from one to the other. You’d have to go either outside or through baggage claim to get there, and then back through TSA if you walked. My departing flight was, indeed, in the other terminal. With so much time to kill, I went to the Sky Club right outside my arrival gate and when I checked in there the agent told me how it works.

You walk toward baggage claim but just before exiting through security you veer to the right and head down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, a Delta bus picks you up and takes you over to Terminal 3. Kinda weird to exit the bus almost under the engines of a big jumbo jet before heading back up some stairs to get to the gates. The woman also said, “There’s a club over there, as well, but it’s temporary, crowded, and not very good. Stay here for your layover, but then give yourself 20 minutes to get to your gate.” All good advice.

My nonstop flight from LAX to Lihue, here on Kauai, left at 4:45, so I had plenty of time to kill. By the time we boarded, it was already after 6:00 back in Woodbury. Another uneventful flight, this one in the dark over the Pacific with a movie on the seatback in front of me, and a lot of just sitting there. No way to go to sleep, really, and more than five hours to kill. To their credit, the flight attendants were remarkable. Super attentive, very nice, and funny. When one of them handed me a mimosa before take-off, she looked at it in my hand and said, “Oh no, Christine made a mistake. There’s just WAY too much orange juice in that.” She then took it to the galley and fixed the perceived problem, with additional champagne.

And tell me if you’ve ever said this to anyone… We were an HOUR early into Lihue. Still a very long day, but my sister Mary was at the curb waiting for me at just after 8:00 local time, which is just after midnight Central Time. We headed to the condo and even though she had gotten up at 5:00 am to get to work that day, and would have to do that again on Wednesday morning, we couldn’t help but sit in the living room talking for more than an hour.

I was finally tired enough to go to bed, and ready to let Mary do the same, and I was asleep within moments after laying down. Then I woke up at 3:20 in the morning, because my brain still thought I’d just stayed up way too late and that it was 7:20 in the morning. I only dozed until I got up around 6:00. That’s the price you pay to fly all the way to paradise.

Mary had quietly sneaked out of the condo without me even hearing her, and she wouldn’t return until around 2:30, so I had Day 1 to myself mostly. First order of business was breakfast, from a place just up the road. After that, as long as I was out and about I figured I should just keep going, so about 6,000 steps later, according to my new Fossil watch that syncs with my iPhone, I was back and actually (I hate to say this if Barbara or our other Woodbury friends are reading) I was a little sweaty. It was 75 degrees, which is roughly 79 degrees warmer than it was when Barb dropped me at MSP.

I’m here, of course, to watch the condo and watch the cats. Interestingly, Maxie (who looks just like a skinny version of Buster) came out and snooped around to look at me, but we didn’t really interact. You can’t push that on cats. They decide such things.

Biscuit, who isn’t even very sociable with Mary (he’s still very much my niece Leigh’s cat, since she adopted him when she lived here) made a dash through the living room to get under the bed. All I saw was a brown blur as he ran through the room to escape the evil humans.

A little later in the day, which had started very early, I went and got some snacks from a local market and went on another walk. Until Mary got home, I saw not one cat. They were both in stealth mode, under the sofa or the bed. I knew they were there, because there was telltale kitty litter on the floor. I put some treats out for them, to see if that would lure them out, but no go. Again, after my second walk, I saw the evidence they were there (the treats were gone and the kitty litter I’d cleaned was once again on the floor) but no sightings at all. Once Mary got back, around 2:30, Maxie finally came out and Biscuit peeked his head out from the behind the sofa. Maxie, at that point, even let me pick him up, although he was on full alert. Hopefully, by next week’s blog, I’ll have stories of both of them being in bed with me or on my lap. I think that will happen with Maxie. He just came out here while I’m typing and rubbed his head on my ankle. He’s coming around fast. No sign of Biscuit at all, though.

Mary and I had a goal of staying up until 7:00 p.m. yesterday, and after a fine dinner of blackened Ono and a glass of wine, during which I got to meet and get to know all of her favorite bartenders and servers at the Olympic Cafe (the OC, and a great place), it was all of 4:45, we both thought 7:00 sounded impossible. But, we had a mission to accomplish. We had to get over to The Oasis to see their standard Wednesday night act. His name is Aldrine Guerrero and he sings brilliantly as he plays the ukulele. So, admit it, you’re thinking of ukulele music that hula girls would dance to, or you’re possibly even remembering Tiny Tim singing “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” right?

Aldrine plays the ukulele like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Alex Lifeson, and Joe Satriani all rolled into one. I’m not kidding. I have, quite honestly, never seen nor heard anything like it.

Seriously, take a minute and check this out:

http://www.kauaimusicscene.com/a/aldrine-guerrero

What an amazing night. And, just like at the OC, I got to meet all the staff and other locals Mary knows. I’m pretty sure she knows everyone. If not the whole island, at least the east side of it. I think I can go to either place now and just sit at the bar and have fun. I’m Mary’s brother, after all.

Oh, and all my life I pronounced it “Yook-A-Lay-Lee.”  They all pronounce it correctly here. It’s “Ook-u-Lay-Lay” You’ll thank me if you ever come over here and see Aldrine. The version of “Purple Rain” he played is still bouncing around in my head, on repeat mode. It has been all day.

And, this is key… I “slept in” all the way to 4:20 this morning. By tomorrow, I think I’ll be all settled on Hawaiian time.

Today, it was breakfast at the Tip Top, a Kauai landmark restaurant and store, where they take your order and then bring it to you on a rolling cart. The scrambled eggs and thick-cut bacon were to die for. After that, a quick swing by Pier 1, where Mary is a manager, to meet her colleagues there, and then a Costco run for some key supplies. Amazing store, but really how many rolls of paper towels can you keep in your house at once? I was kinda hoping we’d buy a new set of tires, five dozen eggs, a new sofa, and a 72-inch LED TV, but we concentrated on cereal and milk. And some wine. Gotta have the essentials.

Tonight, I’ll drop Mary at Lihue for her (gulp) 11:00 pm flight to Phoenix, which will get her to a connection to Orlando, and then she gets on a little tiny puddle-jumper to fly up to Fort Walton Beach where her daughter Rhiannon lives, with her kids Joe and Harper. Now THAT’s going to be a long travel day. And last night we didn’t think we could stay up until 7:00…

Back over yonder, across the blue Pacific on the mainland, tomorrow is a big day. The Winternationals actually began today, in Pomona, but pro qualifying begins tomorrow. I’ll have to get up, have some Cheerios, and dial it all in on All Access, because I have to go to work!

The first pro session starts at 12 noon in California, so I’ll be in position and at my post (here on the sofa, with laptop on lap, and maybe Maxie with me) at 10:00 am Hawaiian time.

I send all my best to Del, Tim, all my former colleagues, teammates, and friends. And in a couple of weeks I’ll actually be in Phoenix my own bad self, back on the road and in the Media Center.

To make that happen, I’ll need a new “hard card” credential and a parking pass. Those forms, and the waiver you have to sign in front of a Notary for Restricted Area access, went in the mail from here this afternoon after some Fed-Exing to get all the proper signatures. I also needed a new headshot photo for the hard card, and amazingly managed to do that myself. A standard “selfie” using the back-facing camera wouldn’t be high enough resolution, so I did it blind by holding the phone at arm’s length (using the good camera) and clicking the button (after a few tries when I missed it.) It came out surprisingly fine. That got emailed to NHRA Media Relations just before I started this blog.

Finally, I’ll wrap this up with mention of the wonderful Super Bowl party we hosted at our home in Woodbury, way back on Sunday. Seems like ages ago. Almost all of the Woodbury gang was in attendance. One couple had to go to California for the weekend, and one of the husbands (Mitch) actually went downtown and “waited out” the scalpers by saying “no” to every price he heard, right up until the start of the game. He finally got a deal he wanted and sent us all a selfie from the stadium.

Barbara and I thrashed all day to get the food and party essentials ready. I’m proud to say that my taco bar was a hit. First time I’ve ever made shredded chicken for tacos, and everyone loved it.

Also happy to report that the “Texas Martinis” Barbara made and served were also a hit. Like a huge hit. We used an online recipe to duplicate the drinks served at Chuy’s in Austin. Those “martinis” (really just top-shelf margaritas poured out of a shaker) were extremely popular. So much so that no one drank any beer. I don’t drink beer, but I bought two cases just to be safe and I figured we might run out. After the party, the beer bottle count was 45. Three bottles had been consumed.

And I’m thinking that if you’re a regular reader here, many of the faces in this party pic are starting to become familiar to you. At the far left is Lynn Blake, with her husband Terry standing behind her. Next to her, in the theater seats, is Scott Meehan, and his wife Barb is in the red jersey on the little ottoman. Behind her, in the purple Vikings jersey, is Mary Beth Gillis. Her husband Joe is standing behind her, in his Packers jersey. Like many people back home, they are a mixed football couple. Lots of couples in the Twin Cities have both purple and green jerseys for game day. Scott and Barb are a mixed football couple, as well. Next to Joe are Dave and Nichol Jacobsen, of course. Barbara is at far right, with her arm around what would’ve been me. Behind my chair is Kristy Martin. Her hubby Mitch was the one who went to the game. We do have some fun. Best friends in the world…

Hey, I gotta go. I’m in Kauai. There are things to do!

But remember… If you liked this blog, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. Mahalo if you do.

Aloha, everyone.

Bob Wilber, at your service and trying my best to deal with all these Hawaiian challenges.

So there’s big news to divulge in this Thursday Blog Day installment. Did you know the Super Bowl is here in the Twin Cities this weekend? Oh, you knew that? OK, but that wasn’t the big news anyway. Did you know I accepted a position as house-sitter and cat-sitter for my sister Mary, and that difficult assignment begins on Tuesday, and it’s for nearly two weeks? Some of you knew that. For those of you who didn’t, perhaps you know where my sister Mary lives. Yes, you do. She lives on Kauai, of course. Aloha! Mary and Lonnie are doing a Mainland tour to see their kids and grandkids, and that means leaving their condo empty, and without human interaction for Maxie and Biscuit. So, being the caring and giving brother I am, I volunteered to come hang out with the felines and keep an eye on the place. This has been leaked on social media and other places, and it’s been in the works since right after we got back from our Christmas visit, but now it’s almost here. Can’t wait, but that’s not really the big <BIG> news either.

This is the news. The headline story. The breaking bulletin. Just take a look at this photo and stop reading. Yes indeed loyal readers and longtime followers, I’m going to be doing some more PR work this year, while I also write my next book. And I’m going to be doing it for this guy. The “Worsham & Wilber” band is officially back together for a reunion tour! Time to learn all the songs again, I suspect. And with so many of the CSK crew guys, including my buddy John Fink, being involved with this team, it’ll be the whole band, back-up singers and all.

It’s not quite like the early days, but it’s got me excited and I really appreciate the fact Del contacted me and asked if I’d do some work for him. It’s an honor.

I’ll travel to some races, and I’ll do quite a few from my home office as well. The budget is tight (the budget is always tight) so we’ll find ways to make it work and I’ll give the PR effort my 100% best. I’ll have to be really diligent about giving the team the best I have while I also carve out time for the book, but I didn’t hesitate one minute after I got a text from Del asking if there was any way I’d be interested. My reply was “We can absolutely make this happen. Let’s talk.”

By going back to racing with his dad last year, Del was closing a long loop by getting to race a Funny Car for the love of it, again. When we talked, he said he planned it that way. He just wanted to race, like they did back when Worsham & Fink Racing was just starting out. He loves it, and wants to continue to do it, but he’s smart enough to know that publicity is a key part of return on investment for sponsors, and he wants to keep building his sponsor base with partners who understand his values, the family approach, and his love of the sport, while they also see the upward trends NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing is experiencing in terms of attendance, TV ratings, and buzz.

I won’t be as fully immersed in it as I was before, during the peak of the Team CSK days when it was my full-time job and I worked seven days a week keeping multiple spinning plates from hitting the floor, but that means I’ll be able to devote 100% of my PR time to creating good stories, press releases, updates, reports, social media, and maintaining my relationships with the media, NHRA, and Fox.

So there you have it. How’s that for big news? We’re in a bit of a thrash mode, because we just decided to do this in the last few days and I have to head to Kauai on Tuesday. That means I won’t be at Pomona, but I will do the pre-race stuff on Monday and then cover the race, in terms of social media and updates, from the condo. Or maybe on the beach. I’m just sayin’… I mean, it’s walking distance.

I’ve already booked travel plans for Phoenix, and will be booking Gainesville and Las Vegas before I head to the tropics. And all of this reinforces just one more reason I’m so happy we moved back “home” to Minnesota. This kind of travel can wear you down, but it will absolutely wear you down further and faster when you live in the upper lefthand corner of the country in a town with a little airport. Just about every racing trip from Spokane was a connection and a very long day, both ways. Just looking at flights for those first three I’ll attend was like a breath of fresh air. Lots of options and almost all of them are nonstop. Ah, the good old days…

Back here in the land of book writing, I had my lunch meeting with Doug Skipper yesterday, and it was nonstop conversation between two baseball guys who seem to know everyone in common. Doug is a phenomenal researcher, which means he knows you have to be tireless if your mission is to discover great details and stories from the past. Often the distant past. We had so much in common, by the end of lunch he was gracious enough to say, “Whatever I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask me. I’m here to do whatever I can.” I’m really glad we got together over a couple of Applebee’s chicken quesadillas and met in person.

Meanwhile, we’re still in Phase 1, wherein I’m searching for former colleagues and guys who played for my dad. The help the Twins are giving me is priceless, and I’m expecting no less (or at least hoping for no less) from the Texas Rangers. The list of guys I’ve actually been in touch with, to talk about their involvement, is growing steadily.

While I’m on Kauai, I may just “mess around” with some writing, even though I’m still pretty adamant about sticking to my multi-phase plan because I don’t want to get lost in the project by going back and forth, trying to do both the research and the storytelling at the same time. I’ll have so much free time over there, with very little in the way of distractions, so it will be good to stretch those writing muscles out again and see what’s buried in my brain, trying to get out and onto the screen. It’s the islands, man. Go with the flow…

And before any of that happens, we’re going to be hosting our Woodbury gang on Sunday for that football game we had hoped the Vikings would be in. Hey, the Super Bowl is always a good excuse for a party, and a betting pool, and some good grub. I’m in charge of making both beef and shredded-chicken for tacos, and we’ll set up a buffet line so everyone can make tacos or burritos just how they like them. And queso, too. With chips, of course.

Last weekend, much of the same Woodbury gang got together in downtown St. Paul on Saturday, for a terrific “wine event” unlike much of anything I’ve ever seen. The Jordan Winery brought an 18-liter bottle of their renowned Cabernet to the St. Paul Grill, inside the historic St. Paul Hotel, and our group of 12 was part of a larger gathering of 75 total people. We each got one glass from the mammoth bottle, and then could buy more from regular-size bottles to go with the appetizers and entrees that were provided by the restaurant. I’d never seen an 18-liter bottle of wine. It needed a pressurized “tap” to dispense it. Way too big to tip and pour

A terrific time was had by all, as you might imagine. This group, along with Terry and Lynn Blake who couldn’t make it because they were packing up to move, is easily the most tightly knit and wonderfully fun bunch of friends I’ve ever known. Can’t wait to host them at our house this Sunday!

And speaking of the Blakes, you’ll note I just wrote that they were packing up to move. They were the first of the Woodbury group to “leave the bubble” when they sold their house in Marsh Creek and moved to a fantastic high-rise apartment in downtown St. Paul. Now, the gravitational pull is just too great. They had a new home built in, guess where? Woodbury, of course. Welcome home, Terry and Lynn!

And on a more personal note, although it’s tied to the new book, I’ve been reveling in trading emails with my cousin Donna. When I first reached out to her, she said “Oh gosh, I don’t know if I can help much. It’s been a long time since we were all kids up at Wamplers Lake.” I understood that, but we kept in touch and the memories started to flow, slowly at first. By yesterday, they were tumbling out like a waterfall of names, places, and stories. We were emailing so fast we couldn’t keep up with each other. And she really does have a great grip on cousins, aunts, uncles, and so many people I remember from the lake and Allen Park (where my grandparents lived) but I never really knew how we all fit together.

Plus, Donna is a hoot and that makes it twice the fun. As we agreed upon last night, we really need to get everyone together. All the Del Wilber kids and all the Don Wilber kids. We spent so much time at Wamplers together, each summer, but other than that it was typically just weddings and funerals. It’s been way too long since Del Jr., Rick, Cindy, Mary, and Bobby Joe (me), were in the same room with Michelle, Karen, Donna Kay, and Donn Kevin. This needs to happen.

So that’s it for today. How did my <BIG> news rate in your book? I think it’s pretty huge, and when Del called today, just to tick off some items and discuss some others, it really did feel like we’d never been away from it. That’s a great friend and colleague. When you work together for 12 years, then spend the next nine years still in the same “business” but working for different organizations, and then you reunite and it feels like you never skipped a beat, well…  That’s pretty special. I’m energized and excited. Can’t wait. What the heck, let’s win some rounds and some races, while we’re at it!

As always, if you just finished this blog and liked what you read, please click the “Like” button at the top. The more likes the merrier.

See you next week, from Kauai!!!  Aloha.

Bob Wilber, at your service and juggling PR, book writing, party hosting, and island travel. I got this…

Holy cow. I totally missed Thursday Blog Day, and I have no idea why. I knew it was Thursday, I had some notes written from earlier in the week to give me some starting points for subject matter, and yet as I sat down this morning to do some work on my new book project it finally sunk in that today is Friday! I had to go look at my blog page just to make sure I didn’t do it, and sure enough it was still last week’s installment. So, even at my advanced age, it’s not unlike falling asleep in high school math class and then waking up to find a whole new room of people around you, studying science. I swear I never did that, but I saw it happen to a few guys at St. Louis U. High.

I can tell you this about today’s blog: It won’t have any new scans of old photos. Why? I do have some more fun shots I found, but earlier this week I updated my laptop to a new Mac OS and now the scanner on my printer doesn’t want to communicate with my laptop. When I scan, I have the option of sending the photos directly to my Mac and then I edit and mess with them here. Since that’s not happening, I tried my second option on the printer control board, which is to send the scan to a memory device. I have a bunch of those drives in my top drawer, so I stuck one of those in the USB port and the printer gave me the message “Unable to proceed. The device is read-only.” So I tried another one, which was thumb drive I just bought a few months ago in order to save some work on it, and again my little friend HP 6830 told me it’s read-only. Except it’s not. Maybe it’s time for a new printer/scanner/copier.

And that’s the thing, these days. Printers are so cheap you can just go get a new one anytime the one you’re using acts up. I can’t see how the business model works in terms of the actual equipment, but I do know how the profit margin works in total. They get you with the ink! I can buy a totally new HP multi-purpose printer for $100. Run out of ink in two weeks and it will cost you $60 to put new cartridges in. See, they always get you at the drive-thru!

Here at the Wilber-Doyle ranch, it is a Friday (yeah, that again) at the end of January and it’s 47-degrees right now. Considering we had a legit blizzard just a few days ago, and still have mountains of snow along the sides of the roads and sidewalks, it’s a melt-a-palooza outside. And the city has the full army of plows out, on a 47-degree day without a cloud in the sky. Why? To get at some of the areas along the sides of the road where the snow had compacted into solid ice. Gotta get that ice broken up while you can.

And yes, the sound of a huge snow plow scraping across mostly bare asphalt is, to put it nicely, really horrible. It’s the worlds biggest set of fingernails on the world biggest chalkboard. How old do you currently have to be to even know what a chalkboard is? Asking for a friend.

I just went outside to the front of the garage to see if I could replicate the first photo with an updated one, and the sound of water steadily dripping out of the downspout struck me as something one does not expect to hear at the end of January in Minnesota

It’s really melting like crazy out there, and that’s a good thing for a couple of small trees we have at the back corner of our house. This big snow storm featured really heavy wet snow, which is nice and pretty but really tough on things with unsupported limbs. Like evergreen trees. I just happened to look out a bedroom window yesterday and noticed that the two little trees were not just weighed down by the snow, they were completely bent over to the ground! So I trudged out there with a shovel and knocked off as much snow as I could, but at dinner last night I had to break the news to Barbara that we probably will be replacing those trees in the spring. Right now, unbelievably, they have both completely straightened up. They’ve definitely lost some branches and aren’t out of the woods yet, but it’s amazing they could be that resilient.

And so here’s pretty much the same view as above, but on this Friday Blog Day (see what I did there!) We have some small rivers running down the streets right now. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get too cold tonight!

On the topic of the new book, I have some more exciting news to share. Dave St. Peter, who is not just the President of the Minnesota Twins but also one of the most gracious and accommodating people I’ve ever met, got back in touch yesterday with some great news. I had shared a lengthy list of former Twins players, coaches, and executives I was hoping to get contact information for, and Dave came through quickly and successfully. He also copied his reply to Bryan Donaldson, the team’s Senior Director of Community Relations. On Dave’s email were three groupings. The first was a list of five of the people on my list, with email addresses for each. The second was a shorter list of Twins legends, including Tony Oliva and Rod Carew, with instructions to work with Bryan to set up interviews in April or May. The final list was a group of guys who Bryan will contact on my behalf, to get us all connected. There were only three former players on my list who the team did not have info for.

I’ve sent out my batch of direct emails and am already hearing back from some of them just an hour later. For the record, Jim Kaat was the first to reply, and he’s eager to be a part of the book. He said, “I speak often about how much your dad helped me” and he said he had stories to tell from not just Triple-A Charleston, with my dad as his manager on the 1960 Charleston Senators, but also Florida Instructional League.

If you’ve read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you know that 1960 Charleston team from the first part of the first chapter. The book begins with me as a three year old, on my mother’s lap at Watt Powell Park in Charleston, watching the Senators play. Jim Kaat was one of those Senators.

I’ve got my formats for the interviews almost tweaked to finality, but I want to stick to my project plan and do this thing in large segments, just to keep it all straight. Phase 1 is what we’re currently in, and it includes finding the contact info for so many guys who knew my dad or played for him, and making contact with each of them to see if they want to be involved. Once we have as much of that as we’re going to get, Phase 2 will kick in. That will be the interviews themselves, whether they’re via email, phone, or in person. Phase three will be putting it all into words.

Meanwhile, there’s another completely separate project plan that has to happen concurrently with the one above. That’s the personal family side of things and completing the research for the many years of his life when I wasn’t around to keep track of what he was doing (how did the family even survive until 1956 when I was born?) That’s a lot of digging and research, dating back to my dad’s birth in February of 1919. There’s a lot of work still to do before I start writing a book about it all.

To that end, I have a lunch meeting set for next Wednesday with a guy named Doug Skipper. When my dad passed away, there were many wonderful obituaries written about Big Del, but the column written by Doug was, by far, the best-researched story about him I’d ever read. There was stuff (a lot of stuff) in his story that I’d never heard before or was only vaguely familiar with.

Since Doug lives here in the Twin Cities, we’re going to meet about halfway between our homes and he’s going to be gracious enough to give me some tips on research like that. In a lot of ways, I don’t know where to start. But it has struck me recently that I do know where to start. I’m starting with people like Dave St. Peter and Doug Skipper.

As you might be able to tell, I’m getting more and more excited about this project. The initial replies from former players and colleagues have been just as heartwarming as I had hoped they’d be.

On a totally different subject, there were a couple of additional NFL football games played last Sunday. A Minnesota team was in one of them. It did not end well, and many of the fans rooting for the opposing side (rhymes with Beagles) were not exactly model citizens when it came to interacting with the Vikings fans who were there. More than a little of it was disgraceful.

Many of our friends had been talking about having a party if the Vikings made it to the Super Bowl next weekend, which will be played at their home stadium in Minneapolis, but right after the game we all needed a couple of days to decompress. Finally, last night Barb and I composed a text message to the core group, whilst dining at Punch Pizza, letting our friends know that what we have in terms of our friendships is more important than any football game. So let’s gather at our house a week from Sunday and enjoy each other. We’ll have the game on, for sure, but we won’t be rooting for either team. We’re just using the game as another in a long list of excuses we have for getting together. And it will be the first such gathering at our new house here in Woodbury. Plus, there will be a betting pool for the score, quarter by quarter, so there’s that chance of going home with more money than you came with. It’s a blind pool, so it’s pure luck. Are ya feelin’ lucky?

Barb will be in Spokane all next week, so this guy will have a long list of chores to do. Usually, I’m not a big fan of household chores. I do them, because they have to get done, but you’ll never hear me say, “Awesome, I still have two more loads of laundry to do!” or “Boy, can’t wait to clean those hardwood floors.” This time, I’m looking forward to getting our home ready for our friends. It will be great to host so many of them here.

So, I better get this posted. After all, it’s just a day late.

Remember, boys and berries, if you read this blog installment and thought, “Hey, that wasn’t terrible” please click on the “Like” button at the top. The more likes the merrier.

I’ll be back next week.

Bob Wilber, at your service while we plow through Phase 1.

After last week’s installment, all about matching faces to names, I’m going to do something I rarely ever do. I’m going to repeat the same theme for a second week in a row. Last week’s blog went over so enormously well, it seemed a shame not to do some more digging and find some more photos that directly reference portions of my book, “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.” So let’s get right to it!

Early in the book, when writing about my childhood, I explained the annual summer wonder of Wampler’s Lake, in Michigan. It was beyond idyllic and it was enormously fun. It was also the first time my sister Mary and I ever went anywhere without our parents being around full-time. Our grandparents took care of us, our cousins were at our side, and we had the freedom to do just about anything we wanted, without ever having an actual agenda on any given day.

I wrote about the dock, and the pontoon boat that was always tied up at the end of it. In this old photo, there’s a chance that’s my mom on the dock (Big Del and Taffy would drop us off and pick us up and manage to spend a day or two at either end of the trip), because the hair and the glasses are right, but it really doesn’t look like her. Who knows? I’m pretty sure that’s me climbing up on the pontoon. I’d say it’s almost certain that my cousin Donna (left) is on the boat, and the other girl is either my sister Cindy or my cousin Karen. The photo is timestamped 1969, so I’d be 13 in this photo. Seems like yesterday.

And I have no idea who would’ve been brave enough (or foolish enough) to walk out into neck-deep water to take this photo. Cameras were pretty precious, back then.

During the summers when we were all gathering at Wampler’s Lake, they were building Michigan International Speedway only about 10-12 miles away, just outside of Brooklyn. If we needed real groceries, or a drug store, or if we wanted to watch a movie, we had to drive into Brooklyn. We watched that track being built and were in awe of the size of it. This photo would’ve been taken just about 10 months after it opened.

Moving ahead to 1977, the scan to the right would be your 1977 SIUE Cougar Baseball Team. When these photos were taken, all one after another on a cold winter day, we felt like we were going to be pretty good. We ended up going back to our second consecutive NCAA Div. II World Series and just a couple of years ago we were inducted into the SIUE Athletic Department Hall of Fame, as a group. We did okay, I guess.

I wrote extensively about James Noffke, Lance McCord, Steve Novak, Kent Wells, Mike Brown, Dave Schaake, Stan Osterbur, and others in the book. Here they all are! Fun facts: Those of us wearing a batting helmet in our photos are wearing the same helmet. They only brought one to the photo shoot. The logo on that helmet or the hats some guys are wearing was the 1976 version. With the “S” and “I” intertwined inside the “U” we called them our “Dollar University” hats. One look should explain that. James Noffke’s name is attributed correctly on the roster, but he’s listed as Jim under his photo. At no time is James “Oscar” Noffke known as Jim. Definitely not Jimmy. Only James or Oscar. Also, on the roster you will see that I’m listed at 6-foot and 173 pounds. The 6-foot was about right (I was actually probably a little taller than that by the time the season started) but the 173 was pure fiction. I begged the Sports Information Director to list me at 173. I was probably more like 159 or 160 at the time.

This scan is from the center spread of the ’77 Media Guide and it was my first inclination that Coach Lee would be expecting me to solidify my spot in the starting lineup as a junior. They only included photos of guys they felt would be starters that year. Hence, Lance is listed on the roster, but as a pitcher who was an incoming junior college transfer he was mostly going to be used in relief. As juniors, Novak, Wells, Greg McBride, Don Lange, and I were the lone remaining scholarship players from our class. We all arrived on campus as wide-eyed freshmen in the fall of 1974.

Next up, on our faces and places parade, is another Paintsville Hilanders shot from the summer of 1978, in the Appalachian League. We were in Johnson City to play the Cardinals when the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper sent a reporter and photographer to do a big feature story on us. We were, at the time, the only professional baseball team based in the state of Kentucky.

The player in this photo plays a big role in my chapters about Paintsville in ’78 and Lakeland in ’79. This is Roy Dixon. When he played at NC State his teammates called him “Pie” but he was a guy with an advanced comedy level, so he put the mathematical symbol for Pi on the knob of his bats. I’ve never seen nor spoken to Roy since the 1979 season, and I continue to scan social media to see if I can ever track him down. So far, no luck, but I’ll keep looking. Anybody know where Pie is these days? And, sorry, this old pic doesn’t really enlarge much when you click on it.

Behind Roy, in this photo, you might be able to make out a very strange feature in the Johnson City ballpark. That’s a very steep hill out in right field! It was covered in thick grass (I’m not sure how they mowed it) it almost went straight up and was at least 15-feet high. The outfield wall was at the top of the hill, so the entire slope was in play. I don’t recall ever seeing Roy or anyone else climb that hill to make a catch but I saw plenty of guys crash into it. It looked like a pretty soft landing. And if you’re ever in the Tri-Cities, maybe for a race in Bristol, the Johnson City ballpark is still there, and it’s been nicely updated and renovated. Sadly, the hill was removed at some point. The Bristol and Elizabethton ballparks are also still there and still in use. Johnson Central Park, up in Paintsville, has been torn down and replaced. That needed to be done, but Paintsville no longer has a pro baseball team.

Moving ahead one season, this is the only surviving photo I have of me in a Lakeland Tigers uniform. You’ll have to trust me that I’m the guy in uniform and next to me is my buddy, pitcher Howie Bailey. It’s a terrible old Polaroid shot that looked lousy the day we took it, but it’s all I’ve got to show for that weird season in the Florida State League.

I did my best to mess with the photo and lighten it up, because in its actual physical form it’s almost impossible to see anything but two silhouettes and a big grandstand.

Howie was a great guy and a lot of fun, and he ended up in the Major Leagues with Detroit. He played in Tiger Stadium. Marchant Stadium, seen behind us, ended up being the largest ballpark I ever played in as my home field. Those big light towers were special to me. They were my first sight of the park as I drove into town for Spring Training. They were like a beacon, welcoming me to Tiger Town.

With this shot being taken before a game in Lakeland, I am wearing my home uniform. White uniform with orange stirrup socks and a hat that was white on the front and orange on the rest. For road games, we wore gray uniforms with dark blue stirrups and blue and white hats. That was cool, to have two completely different looks right down to the socks and hats.

I pretty much used up my inventory of useful Medford photos last week, and there are so few photos of me when I was a scout for the Blue Jays I’d have to guess the one I used last week also exhausted my supply, so we’ll move ahead to when I worked for Converse Shoes. My boss, Roger Morningstar (whom I rave about, rightfully, in the book) put an item on my bonus plan to have one semipro baseball team fully sponsored by Converse. Roger was a great boss.

We were completely decked out that year, with duffel bags (complete with laminated name badges), batting practice t-shirts (“Sauget Baseball” on the front, Converse logo on the back) and, of course, shoes. Blue spikes with a white Star & Chevron logo. We were a very good team. And we looked big league!

And the photo at right is connected to the book in another big way. It was taken as we were getting ready and getting loose before a game in the Valmeyer Tournament. You can see that another game is still going on out on the field. The Valmeyer Tournament is well documented in the book, and it was always one of my favorite baseball experiences.

All of the Wizards teams I was a part of, throughout the mid-to-late ’80s and into the ’90s, were really special groups. It may seem odd, but some of those Sauget teams were the best baseball teams I ever played on. The reason for that is because many of us had played pro ball, and the rest had either played high level college ball or were still in college, utilizing the Wizards as their summer team. What made us so good was our experience and our dedication.

I was alway surrounded by great players on those teams, and we were all doing it for the love of the game. That meant we all made a huge commitment to Coach Hughes and the group, for nothing more than the joy of playing. We played more than 70 games in about 100 days each summer. We played hard. We had a lot of fun but we took the actual playing very seriously. And with all that experience to draw on, we won a lot of games, including that one special night when we beat Team USA in Tennessee. One thing we weren’t was a group of guys who “wanted” to be ballplayers. We were ballplayers. We were just playing the game for free.

I wrote about these two guys in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and did so glowingly. Robert Giegling played his college ball at Nicholls State, and how he went undrafted I will never understand. He was as good as any outfielder I ever played next to, and a truly great guy. Jim Donohue was  great catcher and fine hitter. He signed with the Philadelphia Phillies not too long after this. He also crushed the home run that put us back in the lead to help us beat Team USA. After his playing career, he was the Cardinals bullpen catcher for many years. A couple of truly great guys on a fantastic team full of great guys.

Now, let’s move ahead to what is most likely 1987. I was working for my brother Del at his sports marketing agency, DelWilber+Associates, in McLean, Virginia. In the book, I wrote about us landing a new client, the International Baseball Federation, and my assignment to travel to Italy for a week, with the DW+A Vice President I reported to, Maidie Oliveau. We went there to meet with the IBF staff, but also to tour the Italian cities where an upcoming world tournament would be held. It was my job to get out of the car at each ballpark and verify that, yes indeed, it was a ballpark suitable for the tournament.

I wrote about what was going on in this very photo in the book. The man on the left was our driver for the week, Sergio Bernini. Maidie is in the middle, and I’m on the right. We were in Parma, Italy and the hotel had forgotten to reserve the dining room for us. The hotel manager was embarrassed, so they emptied the lobby, brought in a table, and had an army of waiters taking care of everything we needed. Great memories.

Finally, I shall wrap up this nostalgic “faces and places” blog with one final photo, and it’s tied into so many different aspects of my life it’s amazing.

In 1997, Lance and I set up a reunion of our SIUE Cougar teammates. It ended up being a big old hullaballoo and Lance and I were both very proud of what we had done. Just about everyone was there, and a lot of us traveled quite a distance to get there for a full weekend, including one of our former roommates who did not play baseball.

This photo is from that reunion, and it was taken at Rusty’s restaurant in Edwardsville. Rusty’s was our regular Friday night hangout when we were in school. That roommate who did not play baseball was Theresa Natta, and she was there to see all of us. That meant we had a chance to take this photo as three of the four roomies from the 1978-79 school year. Since the photo features the three of us, but not T Natta’s boyfriend from the period of time we all lived together, it’s likely that the fourth person, Oscar Noffke, took the shot.

And yes, T Natta paid us in free haircuts, in lieu of rent. What a fun year that was.

And, the other major connection tied to this photo and that reunion is this: After the reunion, Lance introduced me to a young lady by the name of Barbara Doyle, because he knew her from working at IBM, he was sure we’d make a great couple, and I was one of only a few single guys at the reunion.

That introduction turned into a marriage that just clicked off its 20th anniversary on New Year’s Eve. I’d say Lance did a heck of a job.

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed these faces and places and memories.

Oh yeah, one other thing. There was a football game of some importance, held this past Sunday in downtown Minneapolis. It ended up being a little exciting. Just a bit. No, I actually did not go as crazy as many fans did because I was really too shocked to scream. I think I yelled “Oh my God” but that was about it. Barbara was upstairs watching something else, because it looked like the Vikings had blown their big lead and the game. And then Case Keenum and Stefon Diggs shocked the football world with what now is being called “The Minneapolis Miracle.”

I may not have gone nuts at the moment, but we sure went nuts for the rest of the night and most of Monday. I bet I’ve watched that pass and the touchdown 50 times since it happened.

Do the Vikings have a chance against the Eagles this weekend?  Sure, but it won’t be easy and they very well might not win. To many Minnesotans, that would hurt but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The Minneapolis Miracle erased about five decades of frustrations that had built up to the point of making most Vikings fans very fatalistic and pessimistic. It sure felt like Keenum and Diggs performed some kind of exorcism for Vikings fans. So we’ll see, and we’ll root for them. May the better team win. In a couple of more weeks, the Super Bowl will be right here, at US Bank Stadium. Gotta admit, it would be pretty cool if the home team was in that game.

That’s all for this week. As always, help me out in this way: If you just read this blog and liked it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. See ya next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and connecting dots.