Sweetness Behind the Tuba Section

Mr. Leaguer invited me to the Sweet Sixteen in San Jose last Thursday. It was my third trip to the big dance, all Sweet Sixteens, including last year in Oakland.

There is nothing like the Sweet Sixteen. I’m sure every round of the NCAA tourney is great, but I just love the Sweet Sixteen. Every team there can play. There is usually a Cinderella still hanging around. They bring their bands. They bring their cheerleaders. They bring their dancers.

Hell, UCLA brought their juggler (he was great). I mention this because I’ve always said that the only useful thing I learned in college was how to juggle. One night in the dorms Dave Horowitz taught all of us how to juggle three balls. I can still do it. This guy from UCLA, though, really learned well in college. Had I known they had such great juggling teachers, I would have gone to UCLA.

Mr. Leaguer and I had great seats, in the 5th row behind the basket. There is a whacky story about getting those seats which involved Paul McCartney and unbearable noise, but that’s for another time. We sat right behind the Pitt band, and in the back row of the Pitt band was the tuba section.

About those tubas. You would think sitting behind tubas is not the best place to be. The good news is they put the tubas on the floor except when they were playing, and they were only allowed to play during time outs, so they didn’t block our view of the game. And since they weren’t facing us, they weren’t blaring in our ears.

So actually it was fun to be hanging out with the band. There were 3 UCLA fans sitting with us, and every time the Pitt band got up to play, they jumped up and played air trombones, swinging back and forth they way trombone sections do. Hey, the three guys never played a wrong note.

Back to the tubas. There were 4 tubas in the Pitt band. None of them were fat. Whatever happened to the iconic fat tuba player? Two of them were girls. It’s not every day you see a girl tuba player, no less two of them. Let me tell you, girl tuba players are tough. When it became clear that UCLA was going to beat Pitt, I offered Mr. Leaguer the following bet: my two bucks said that when the game was over, neither girl tuba player would cry. Being the savvy better that he is, Mr. Leaguer refused to take the bet, and sure enough, neither shed a single tear.

They also had a short, skinny, charming, black kid playing tuba, again, not something you see every day. His parents were from Nigeria, though he was born in the US. I suspect that they came to the USA because of all of the tuba-playing opportunities that there would be for their children. He was a great kid, and really moved that tuba around with verve. It’s hard to know what kind of tuba-playing opportunities he would have had back in Africa, so it was clear he was taking advantage of being a Sweet Sixteen tubaist. He certainly deserved to go on to the Elite Eight even if the Pitt team did not.

Believe me, I owe Mr. Leaguer a big favor. Maybe I can pay that off by offering him the hottest starting pitcher in spring training, Braden Looper for Hanley Ramirez. After all, he refused to let me buy him a Sweet Sixteen t-shirt (long sleeved, at that), so I’m willing to help him out in this other way.

A Life Well Lived

This weekend I kicked off baseball season by reading "The Soul of Baseball, A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America" by Joe Posnanski.

It was, simply put, the best book I've ever read. It caused me to write my second ever review on Amazon. The first was for the first version of "The Best Recipe" cookbook, which was the #1 rated review of the book with 193 of 198 helpful comments. The review is so old that the version I reviewed has been replaced by a new-improved edition.

My review of the O'Neil book is also rated #1. That is because it is the only review so far of a book that was published last week. In fact, no one has though my review stunk, because no one has reviewed my review.

Anyway, here is what I wrote:

If and when you get the opportunity of a lifetime, are you going to do it justice, or are you going to blow it?

Joe Posnanski, a gifted observer and writer, got that opportunity when he spent a year traveling with Buck O'Neil, a true American icon. It turned out to be the last year of Buck's life, but despite the fact that he was 94, it was certainly eventful as the other 93 had been.

Posnanski began with the intention of writing a book about the Negro Leagues, for which Buck was the somewhat official spokesman. In the end, it was a portrait of an amazing man and a life well lived. And in that portrait, it is, as well, a painting (not a photo, but a watercolor painting) of the Negro Leagues and the men that were a part of it.

There are no words that can do this book and this man justice. Every chapter is a beautiful story that is guaranteed to make you laugh and simultaneously cry. Just read it. Posnanski took his opportunity of a lifetime and blasted it out of the park.

When I finished the book, I told my wife that I want her to put a copy of this book in my coffin when I'm gone. Maybe it will help me have an after-life well lived. It's sure to help me here.

Don't waste any time. Get it today. After all, it's baseball season.