Coach's Corner

I swore to god I wouldn't do it, but I did. A few years passed, dumb shit that I am, I did it again. I'll never do that again! Four years passed -- ahh, it wasn't so bad -- so, now, well, you guess. The first time was a room addition. The contractor promised it would be done by August. It barely, I mean just barely, got finished by Christmas. The second was a bathroom. A June finish was promised. After spending spring and summer in a bedroom covered in construction plastic, construction debris, and enough exotic tools to rebuild the Titanic, it was finished by September. My contractor on that one spiraled into a debilitating depression in mid-job. He's out of the contracting business.

Don't do the kitchen. Everybody knows that. Don't think about it. And I didn't... at least, not for a while. It's said, after a time, the human being will forget even the worst experiences, filtering out the really bad stuff, until the past disaster doesn't seem so bad. And it's true. It explains, most concisely, the puzzle of man and woman.

It all seemed so simple, way back in May, sitting over the kitchen table, fantasizing over the pretty picture the contractor drew. "It's a three-week job," he said with humble sincerity, "and that's with downtime built in!"

Fantastically, I believed him. It's now August. The kid's summer vacations have come and gone. They're back, though their rooms are still stacked with bags of kitchen stuff I was assured would be back in the new kitchen by the time they came home. Want to get real tired of eating out? Try remodeling your kitchen, when you have to eat out every night for six weeks. The only option is to retreat to the auxiliary kitchen, where a microwave and a stack of Styrofoam plates and plastic forks await the epicure.

The worst is the construction powder; a fine, white dust which permeates every nook and cranny of the home. This keyboard on which I am typing is covered in construction powder. As is the telephone upstairs, every inch of bookshelf, carpet, couch and dog. Its smell -- a noxious flux of baby powder and cigarette ash -- produces headaches, a painfully dry nose, and a dry, hacking cough.

The contractor installed the new cabinets yesterday, so I guess some end is in sight. He says two weeks. On the other hand, it's just as likely I won't see him for another week, because the electrician's father got sick and the sheet-rocker went out to the lake and, anyway, the tiles ordered in June are out of stock. The contractor would say I need to chill. These things happen.

Baseball's in a constant state of remodeling these days. Obsessive tinkering with every room in the old house is in vogue. Without a powerful commissioner, it's like 26 sub-contractors trying to decide on bathroom tiles, but that's another story. In the silly world of baseball these days, if you stand against any of the frothing mosaic of changes being proposed, you're, straight away, labeled a bad old "traditionalist." As if you're against the electric light or something.

When looking at a full century of great public popularity, tradition's not something to be treated so cavalierly. Take, for example, some of the game's great records. I'm not a record kind of guy. A century of obsessive record keeping has created reams of who-gives-a-shit records. However, a few are fantastically impressive feats, which have withstood repeated tests because of the game's age. One such is the single season home run record.

Babe Ruth's 60 homers, in a 154-game season, has never been touched. American League Commissioner, Ford Frick, was widely criticized, back in '61, for being a scum bag, wanting to put an asterisk next to Roger Maris' name, after he broke Ruth's record in the current 162-game season. Looking back, this judgment seems unfair. An asterisk is to alert the reader to look to the bottom of the page, there's more information to see. In truth, there is a big difference. Those eight extra games Maris played should be considered. Still, with juiced balls, multiple expansions, bigger, faster, and better-conditioned athletes, no player has threatened Maris' asterisked title, let alone Ruth's 154-game feat, in the 36 seasons since '61.

Hitting .400 is another fantastic feat. It hasn't been done in the National League since 1930. Before Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, you travel back, almost to the game's origins, 1923, to find another .400 batting average. Tossing out Tony Gwynn's .394 in the aborted '94 season, you have to look hard to find anyone within 40 points of .400. If anybody ever hits .400 again, where the 162-game schedule works against exhausted hitters, I'll wear a Cowboy jersey for an entire season.

The dullest record, on a day-to-day basis -- but the most majestic when the game's entire scope is considered -- is on-going today, where Cal Ripken has played more than 2,400 consecutive games. This 15-year string, like the national debt, defies comprehension.

The game's long history should be handled with care. The game cries and bleeds for want of a strong commissioner. Until it gets one, the old house will continue to be plundered by unlicensed plumbers and electricians.