In the Hands of the Players

I’m on a quick break between the hospital and the office, so I want to catch up here as best I can.

The long weekend began Friday morning with a phone message that my aunt had died in Chico. She was 85, and it was expected, though she thankfully went downhill very quickly. I was to be stuck with a number of obligations relating to the Colma funeral scheduled for Tuesday.

Saturday we were advised that my two cousins living in New Orleans had evacuated their family to Baton Rouge. It took 11 hours to drive 75 miles, but they made it and settled into the house of some generous friends.

Sunday afternoon I attended the Giants-Mets game as Noel’s guest, along with Kenny9 and Mr. Leaguer. It’s always a lot of fun to go to a game with other BABIrarians, and with the race so close among the Pecklers, Leaguers and 9’s, it was particularly intense. We watched ex-Pickled One Noah Lowry throw another impeccable game, and we suffered through an Armando Benitez/Busch Leaguer save. Benson, being waived around as trade bait by the Falkuhns, looked pretty good until suddenly he was beat up in the 6th. It ended Benson’s tradability, since the only teams looking to deal watched him blow up.

Season record now 8-8.

On the way home from the game, I got a call that my wife had taken my mother to the ER. The Doc, who was at the game as well in different seats, was already there. I was assigned to feed and walk the dog and then come over. What started as an intense headache turned out to be leaking blood vessel in her brain. She was transferred down to Redwood City where Kaiser has its neurological surgery center.

Monday was filled with funeral arrangements and the arrival of relatives, with our home as the base. The Doc and I made it down to visit our mother in the afternoon, and we were advised that she was scheduled for a fancy vascular procedure to correct the problem on Wednesday afternoon.

On the way back, we logged onto Larry Dot Net in the car, because we were talking about a deal that would send Farnsworth to him for a starting pitcher (we hoped it would be Willis). I mention this because I hope you are all impressed that through all the tsouris (Yiddish for troubles, heartache), we were able to keep our priorities straight. We hoped to get a deal done right then, but LDN was moving at the usual glacier speed, and of course, in the background, Robert was up to no good.

The funeral went off without a hitch on Tuesday. We got in another hospital visit that afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon, they began the procedure at 5 PM.

With nothing better to do, we sat outside the hospital and once more dialed into Larry Dot Net. Even though the trade deadline was now only hours away, Larry wasn’t ready yet. He had my cell number, though in the Critical Care Unit I wasn’t allowed to have it on. He said he’d call and leave a message.

So the Doc and I settled in, watching TV (Seinfeld – the car with B.O. episode, or as George said, “beyond B.O.”, followed by a Victor Borge special and then a Jack Paar special). After a 4 hour procedure, the doctor joined us to say that the procedure was 95% successful, but that later in the week our mother will need “small brain surgery” to remove the remaining 5% he could not treat. It was an extreme good news-bad news scenario.

After he left, I check my voice mail messages. Sure enough, there was a call from Larry Dot Net offering a deal. We decided we didn’t want to give up as much hitting as he was asking for. We didn’t really have time to return the call, as we wanted to hang with our mother to be there when she woke up.

We decided to leave the hospital at about 11:15. We came in separate cars, so I hopped in mine and headed home. As I was driving up route 101, the phone rang. It was Larry Dot Net. He offered to reduce the deal to what we ended up with: So and Seo for Farnsworth and our choice of hitters, which was Dustin Mohr-on. We had decided to waive Mohr when we learned that Barry had traded Ensberg, so we’re happy to give him to Larry, who isn’t going to keep him despite his homers. I confirmed the deal with Seth, who was in his car.

I got home at 11:40 and hopped on the computer to see that we had a monster day. I logged into Larry Dot Net to confirm the deal, and sent out a quick email to the BABI world at 11:45. The last trade of the season was complete.

There is still some diddling to do, but for the most part, it’s out of our control. That pretty much describes my attitude toward life. All that’s left is to cheer: “Go Pickled Ones.”