Watson, Hill and Keri: Asking New Questions About Sports and Domestic Violence

Jonah Keri was one of my favorite sports writers.

Keri knew his material inside and out. He peppered his baseball writing with statistics, but kept it accessible to casual fans. He knew how to analyze facts about player performance and how to communicate the data to his audience.

Keri didn’t sacrifice the quality of his writing to do it, either. He wrote with sophistication and simplicity at the same time. His writing included references to pop culture, politics and the music world. He knew years ago what many influencers are still figuring out: you need more than one vertical to stay relevant.

Keri was funny too. He could trade barbs with anyone and used his self-effacing humor to put his podcast guests at ease. (“My voice is sort of a mix of Seth Rogen and Kermit the Frog,” he’d say.) It was that humor that landed him guest spots on The Late Show with Seth Meyers and repeated appearances on the Bill Simmons and the ESPN Fantasy Focus podcasts.

Jonah Keri was smart, endearing and accomplished.

He was also a domestic abuser. Continue reading “Watson, Hill and Keri: Asking New Questions About Sports and Domestic Violence”

The Happiest Animal in the World

The team made its way out to left field for our post-game meeting. There was an obvious mix of enthusiasm among its members. Some jogged, still showing the hustle after the game that their coaches had been preaching all season. Others ambled more slowly than rush hour traffic in midtown.

I couldn’t blame them for feeling listless; we’d just lost 12-0.

The boys knelt or sat cross-legged in the outfield and promptly began pulling out blades of grass while they waited for my coaching partner and me. We exchanged some brief thoughts about who had earned the game ball and walked out to join the team.

“Look,” I began, “I know it’s hard to think about positives after we just lost a game like that.”

A few of the players smiled ruefully as I continued. I mentioned their progress in working together as a team, including some players who played out of position in that game. I pointed out that two of our better players had not been available. And I added that we had played hard against our opponents, who were the best team in the league.

I went on to say that Memorial Day Weekend was essentially our All Star Break. We had passed the mid-point of the season and wouldn’t have another game for a full week. I encouraged the players to come to practice in a few days ready to work, but also to put tonight’s game behind them. I had just finished reminding them that, in our league, everyone makes the playoffs when our starting catcher raised his hand.

“E, you have something to add?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, turning to face his teammates.

“We have to be like goldfish.” Continue reading “The Happiest Animal in the World”

The Sweetest Addition

I always said I didn’t want to get a dog until we lived in a house. I said that having a dog in our two-bedroom apartment already overrun by our two human children was unreasonable. It would be too cramped, too difficult, too inconvenient. My wife agreed – at least verbally – but I’m skeptical if she actually meant it. Even if a verbal contract is binding in the State of New York, I wonder if she always knew we would end up getting a dog sooner than I had suggested.

Then, in March of 2020, our lives turned upside down when COVID hit.

The pandemic forced our children to stay home from school, away from their friends and any other in-person interactions. My wife and I could see our children’s moods changing. Their irritability grew and their anxiety skyrocketed. Our daughter threw tantrums and screamed whenever we tried to encourage her to participate in her class sessions on Zoom. Our son argued when we reviewed his schoolwork and voiced his displeasure at only having weekly contact with his class.

We agreed that a dog would be a wonderful distraction for our family from the tensions of the outside world. If our kids could focus on caring for a new furry family member, perhaps they could forget about being terrified to leave the apartment and interact with the outside world. My wife applied to every pet adoption agency in the city in the hopes that one might land a match. Continue reading “The Sweetest Addition”

7:00 PM

It had been a long two weeks, to say the least.

My day at work on that first Monday was bizarre, from the eerie tension on the subway ride, to the general staff meeting we held on the sidewalk outside the nearby church, to the renewed tension on the ride back home. I spent the rest of the week “working from home,” while also trying to entertain two children who suddenly weren’t able to attend school in person. T was still at work, preparing with the other New York City teachers to spend the next months teaching remotely. We were all home together for that second week. We navigated work and school schedules, limited living space and the circumstances that the pandemic thrusted upon us.

When Friday evening finally arrived, we ate Shabbat dinner together. We sang Shalom Aleichem and chanted the blessings that welcomed in the sorely needed weekly Day of Rest. The kids talked about their online class sessions and asked if school would look the same way next week. T and I did our best to reassure them – and ourselves, honestly – of the most important things: that everything was going to be fine and that we were safe. Whatever happened next, we would figure it out together.

When we had finished eating, the four of us went up to the roof of our apartment building. It was a warm evening, though not unseasonably so, considering it was late March. We admired the blend of watercolors that had begun spreading across the sky and the pleasant start to the weekend.

That was when I heard it. Continue reading “7:00 PM”

Find Your Miracle of 2020

This post was written by my wife, T Turk. 

While this Hanukkah was definitely different than Hanukkahs in the past, it was wonderful for our family to have had this time together. We fried latkes and donuts and decorated our apartment. We shared past memories and created new ones, gave presents to others and opened presents of our own and Zoomed each night with friends and family.

I know it’s an uncommon feeling but the year 2020 was a true miracle. Continue reading “Find Your Miracle of 2020”

The Best Part of a Little League Grand Slam

It wasn’t the hit.

The metal bat made a solid ping as it sent the baseball soaring toward the vine-covered fence in right-center field. I’d heard the sound before, mostly when watching the Little League World Series or college baseball games on television. I heard it occasionally during my son’s games in person too, though less often. This moment notwithstanding, pitchers his age often struggle to find the strike zone, which means the batters are less likely to have the chance to connect so directly.

It wasn’t the swing.

Long gone are the days when he would amble over to home plate, take his stance and bring his bat around with the faint hope of making contact. Now he walks up with a purpose, plants his cleats firmly in the dirt and sways back and forth slightly while the pitcher sets. He raises the bat high over his back shoulder, drawing little “O’s” in the air as he waits for the delivery. He takes a step toward the mound and swings over the plate, extending his arms and following through. I admire his form and hope that I looked that smooth swinging the bat when I was his age. Continue reading “The Best Part of a Little League Grand Slam”

Navigating the Space Between

I was a high school junior by the time I started to really appreciate quality literature and wordplay. It was around that time that I discovered ESPN’s quirky Sportscenter anchors. Rich Eisen, Kenny Mayne, Dan Patrick and John Anderson, just to name a few, were gifts to a teenage boy looking for a way to combine loves of sports, humor and good writing. Chris Berman, in addition to being one of the original ESPN anchors, was larger than life in both his energy on set and his physical size. When many of his colleagues were using catchphrases to liven up their highlights, Berman found his niche by making popular culture references using athletes’ names during his narration.

I loved every minute of it.

The Chicago Bears didn’t produce too many highlights during my high school years; at least, not the kinds of highlights for which they would have been proud. They finished last in their division every season that I was in high school (1997-2000); their best record in that stretch was in 1999, when they went 6-10. Their defense was mediocre and their offense was even worse, largely due to the quality of their quarterbacks. Erik Kramer was in his mid-30s in ’97 and ’98 and at the end of his career. The next two seasons featured the combinations of colossal-draft-bust Cade McNown, the talented-in-college-but-inconsistent-pro Shane Matthews and the serviceable-but-hardly-a-world-beater Jim Miller.

Matthews might not have set the NFL world on fire but he had a few moments in the sun. More importantly, he had a name that rhymed almost exactly with one of the most popular bands of the ’90s and Chris Berman knew it. I can still hear Berman cheering his way through the highlight, describing the Bears scoring play that never came frequently enough.

“The Shane Matthews Band finds The Space Between for the touchdown!” Continue reading “Navigating the Space Between”

The Final Judgment

The mattress was firm, as many were in those days. It was not the most comfortable bed he had ever felt, but it was certainly better than the wooden planks of his study table; he had woken up with splinters in his forehead after late nights of struggling through difficult texts more times than he would have liked to remember.

The rabbi awoke but did not open his eyes immediately. He could feel the sheets hugging his skin and the soft feather pillow cradling his head. He could hear the not-quite-soft-enough whispers of his students who had come to be with him during his final hours and, though he appreciated their devotion and their efforts to care for him, he was not ready yet to force himself to face their despondent and pitying facial expressions. Continue reading “The Final Judgment”

Through the Looking Glass: a Visit to the Corning Museum of Glass

My family and I were hosted by the Corning Museum of Glass for a visit in August. We received complimentary admission and passes to create our own glass sculptures. As always, the views expressed here are my own.

I’ve worn glasses since I was five years old.

My first few pairs were thick, dark brown frames that somehow managed to disguise the Coke-bottle thickness of the lenses they held inside. They were the polar opposite of fashionable, though I cared very little about such things back then. The important thing was that I could see the chalkboard, my friends and, one time, the brick wall on the playground just a fraction of a second before I slammed into it at top speed. Continue reading “Through the Looking Glass: a Visit to the Corning Museum of Glass”

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