'Small ball' in Hillsdale's endless game

Last night at our quarterly Hillsdale Alliance meeting, I found myself playing two games in succession.

I didn't win either, but it didn't matter.

The Alliance is sort of a summit of leaders from neighborhood organizations, and last night the topic was how to move forward on a 15-year-old master plan for our community,

We’ve taken several runs at this city-backed “town center” plan. It is packed with pages of action items. The idea is to make our Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale a better place.

It’s a wonderful place as is, but it has huge potential to be a truly remarkable "model" urban village. It is much more than its "neighborhood" designation.

Don't get me wrong. We have accomplished more than a few of the items on the planning list: a farmers market, street trees, traffic calming, a strategic cross-walk signal, a trails network, civic signage.

When last night’s discussion started echoing the more ambitious plans (many we'd considered before), I decided to aim for the bleachers.

In this World Series season, baseball analogies have impinged on my thinking.

Forgive me.

My mighty swing was familiar to those who have followed my recent at-bats about Hillsdale. I want some autonomy from the city government, which is truly archaic and atrophied.

I want self-governance, for at least a 5- or 10-year trial period. I’m tired of the County putting its library wherever it wants it, of the Housing Authority cramming a new public housing project into an isolated, demeaning site, of the city transportation department’s neglect of our sidewalk needs.

Give us the money and let us decide what to do with it. And, for equity’s sake, pair us up with a neighborhood with even greater needs. Give them power and money to shape their destiny too!

My home-run swing connected with thin air.

As I heard my words, I wondered whether even I wanted to take on such responsibility. No one cheered during my at bat.

The discussion moved on, sending me back to the dugout.

Others talked about inviting developers to come in and make things happen. But during these hard times, developers have other things to think about. They are cleaning up the messes from the recent past. They are hardly falling over themselves to develop Hillsdale or anywhere else, except perhaps China.

Worse, empty storefronts are starting to appear here. They don't call it a "recession" for nothing.

And even if developers could find the capital, would we really want folks in Southern California, Texas or Arizona deciding the fate of our community?

Well, some at the meeting asked, how about an “implementer” from the city bureaucracy? Or from Metro, our regional government. We’ve tried that and been smitten by bureaucratic malaise. Local overnment seems high on planning in progressive Portland and low on implementation.

That’s why I advocated “big ball” home rule in the first place. Spare us more planning and zero action!

The more we talked, the more I realized that the best we can hope for is “small ball.”

A start-off single, a bunt, a steal, a walk.

Ultimately small ball wins games. And right now our roster has a lot of players who can hit flares and shots through the infield and bunt to advance runners.

• We have a new bicycle coalition with plans to transform Hillsdale into a bicycle hub by installing bike corrals and maps of the area.

• We want to close down a major thoroughfare, Capitol Highway, for a one-day community celebration next summer.

• We want to hold concerts and build bocce courts and install whimsical neon signs in storefront windows.

If we do all those things, others will follow.

No, maybe it’s my age, but I'd rather put down the bunt and dig out the steal than aim for the bleachers. "Small ball" makes for better game highlights, anyway. What is more boring than watching a ball clear the outfield?

Besides, for me playing the game is where the fun is. And the nice thing about this Hillsdale game is that no one has fully defined what victory is. It is mostly viewed as building some architect's or planner's vision. Rarely is it defined in terms of people and community.

That's the point. We just keep on playing and more folks join the game. One day we will look back to see all the runs we’ve scored and the fun we have had and how much better we’ve become for our eternal succession of innings — for the endless game.

Another Field of Dreams

I'm sharing a recent column by my friend Andre Stepankowsky, who is the city editor of the Longview (Washington) Daily News.

Baseball has been front-and-center in the community as Longview and Kelso hosted the Babe Ruth World Series, which ended Friday.

David Story Field became a field of dreams, especially to over-the-hill ballplayers like myself. How inspiring — and nostalgic — to watch these young athletes whacking and throwing balls with speed and power, running bases and fielding positions with savvy and grace, and pulling it off with decorum and youthful good nature.

They represented their communities well.But there is another field of dreams in our community. It came to life on the other side of town twice a week for much of the summer.

Unlike games played on the lush, manicured greenness of Story Field, this baseball took place on the weed-infested and parched diamonds of Seventh Avenue Park.

There were no big, cheering crowds. No concession stands. No scoreboards or PA systems.

Longview’s two Special Olympics softball teams — slow pitch and T-ball — hit the field for practice leading up to the district tournament in Olympia Aug. 1. The teams are made up of players of all ages and a wide range of abilities and disabilities, including those with Down syndrome and, like my son Nicky, autism. They’re coached by Becky Bernhardt, whose been at it for 12 years and loves it so much she says she’d continue doing it even if she had two jobs.

The action takes place in slow motion and can be comical and heart-wrenching at the same time. Batters sometimes run to third base instead of first. Ground balls often roll past fielders lost in thought — or absorbed in a hunt for toads in the turf. Nicky, adept fielder that he is, typically catches any ball hit his way. But then he often holds it aloft, like the torch on the Statue of Liberty, and fails to throw it to the appropriate base.

No, these Olympians bring more to the diamond than skill.

Where the lack speed, they substitute determination.

Where their batting eyes are dull, their will to win is sharp.

Where their throws be weak, their sense of camaraderie is strong.

Skeptical? Go watch them round the bases, limbs and sometimes
tummies flaying in all directions like July 4 sparklers.

Watch how difficult it is for some to learn, and then hear the whoops of triumph when someone finally snags a pop fly or nails a line drive.

Listen to them cheer one another one and try to encourage the less sociable among them, like Nicky. In two seasons, I’ve never heard a player badmouth another.

I’m not one of those commentators who wax eloquent about the symbolic nature of baseball. It is a game, pure and simple. Yet there seems to be something about this game, difficult to play though it be, that reaches out to people with disabilities. A father-and-son “catch” is, after all, also a tossing back and forth of ideas.

Nicky “connects” best with me when I’m hitting grounders and fly balls to him on the banks of Lake Sacajawea.

Baseball surely seems to bring out the best in Longview’s Special Olympians. They try their best, respect one another and their opponents, and play for the simple joy and honor the game brings.

That’s the core of the Olympic spirit, and why that dusty and weedy diamond along Seventh Avenue is a field of dreams, too.

Foul play and play-offs; Guilt and paranoia

Tonight is our regular Tuesday evening Scrabble game. I play with my mother-in-law and wife, who are, I'm convinced, in league against me.

It's the old-blood-is-thicker-than-water bit.

I'm certain they've devised secret Scrabble signals.

I've noticed that their eyebrows twitch uncharacteristically at times.

Earlobes are suspiciously squeezed and toyed with, like some signal from a Scrabble dugout. One wants the other to lay down a bunt, Scrabble-wise.

The other is calling for a triple-letter pitch out or a seven-letter steal.

Maybe a brush of the sleeve means "I have the 'q'. Play an open 'i'."

You laugh, but this isn't funny. I've seen it happen!

Anyway, between turns tonight I will put aside my paranoia about being duped. I intend to check out the status of Game 2 of the NBA play-offs between the Rockets and the hapless Blazers.

If Game 2 is anything like the Game 1 shellacking by Houston, I won't be gone long from the Scrabble board.

Then there is the little matter of guilt.

Play-off peeking constitutes a flagrant foul during the Days of Darkened Screens, more commonly known as TV-Turnoff Week. See yesterday's poetic post.

Oh well. I'm sure the Screen-time Awareness Network people (That's what the organizers now call themselves) will understand, as at least I will be AWARE of what I'm doing.

Now if I could only be aware of what my mother-in-law and wife were doing. What we really need is a Mother-in-Law/Daughter Secret Communication Awareness Network.

Boys of October flumaxed by Flomax, Play Station

More troubling and strange (but less embarrassing) than all the flubbed pop-up flies in game seven of the American League Playoff Series, were the ads.

I don’t watch much TV, but the last game between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox reeled me in — at least until Boston ran off with it.

Another enticement was the new HD TV we got on Saturday. We finally retired the 17-year-old pre-digital, low-definition boulder hulking in our sitting room.

If the new 32-incher isn’t exactly a revelation, at least I now know the score — literally. I can actually make out the little numbers along the top of the screen. Talk about high definition.

So what was it about the ads that perplexed me?

Think: Flomax and Play Station. (How far we’ve come from Budweiser and Gillette!)

Consider what the two products have in common.

Like audience.

Hmmmm. Gamers who have trouble peeing? Unlikely, unless they are even more addicted than I imagined.

There’s no question that the generation that cut its teeth on Gameboys is getting on. But are they so far along that they have — and here I quote from the Flomax web page — “difficulty urinating (hesitation, dribbling, weak stream, and incomplete bladder emptying), painful urination, and urinary frequency and urgency”?

Just out of curiosity I Googled “Prostate” (the main culprit here, particularly an enlarged one) and “video games” and found only a remote, but curious, connection.

(Did someone say, “Get a life.” Bear with me. Trenchant point ahead!)

Turns out that surgeons who do laparoscopic surgery do better after playing video games. (See, I told you so.)

Or to quote:
“Hand–eye coordination: video games and laparoscopic surgery
A new study has demonstrated that some of the skills needed to perform laparoscopic surgery are similar to those used when playing video games.”

Score one for video games. (Personal historic note: My dad was a urologist and did his share of laparoscopic surgery. He was damned good at it. That said, the closest he came to playing video games was shooting pool, which he did badly. As a kid of 10, I routinely cleaned his clock.)

Moving right along….

Turns out that cancers, including prostate cancer, are less common among males older than 65 when they exercise regularly (that is to say they are NOT playing sedentary video games...and yes I realize that some games now involve physical exercise, but most don’t.)

Again, to quote: “The results showed that men older than 65 years of age who engaged in three hours or more of vigorous physical activity a week had a marked reduction—of nearly 70 percent—in their risk of developing high-grade, advanced or fatal prostate cancer.”

Score one against video games. Okay, okay, score one for exercise.

But the study found no correlation between exercise and prostate cancer among the young. The young rarely get prostate cancer in any case. Count that as a draw.

Fascinating, huh?

No?

Well, let’s see what the World Series brings.

I don’t know about the Flomax and Play Station ads, but I’d like to see better communication between infielders and outfielders on pop-ups. Less hesitation and dribbling.

I’m not sure what can be done for weak streams, but a little Flomax might help.

Giant Sucking Sound at Safeco Field

Six hours ago I was gasping for air in Safeco field along with 42,000 Mariners' fans.

The Minnesota Twins' Torii Hunter had just sucked the oxygen out of the Mariners' stadium on a ninth-inning, full-count pitch with two outs and the bases loaded.

Yup, Hunter's grand slam homer over the left field fence was a stunner — and cemented the score at 6-1.

But it was a good game. Close for eight and a half innings, and then for a team — never mind which one — to win it with a grand slam in the 9th with two outs. Well, that's just plain fun.

Well worth a day's round-trip to Seattle.