Trading Bartolo Colon to Montreal???? WHAT is Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro THINKING?

Some possibilities:

"Hey, we'll never be able to hang onto this guy anyway; let's sell him off for a bunch of AAA maybes and the uneven Stevens. What a great idea! That way, we won't waste Bartolo's defensive prowess on non-existent leads -- we'll be working short on offense AND defense for the next four years or so. Boy, I love a challenge! I'll bet the fans are really gonna be tickled at my progressive thinking. 'What a scamp!', they'll all say!"

"Who needs a future Hall-of-Famer when we could get Lee Stevens? I scoff at the foolishness of it!"

"I don't give a hoot in Hades about anything but making a killing and getting out of here."

"Frank Lane -- my idol."

"A solid team like Montreal is going to be around a lot of years. It's a seller's market for them, and they will need some real incentive to deal any of their guys -- better give it all we've got!"

I am disgusted, saddened, irked, and totally baffled. What is going on here? Is there a curse that specifies that we are not allowed to build a Series-winning team? I thought that was the Colavito trade. What is this, "The Colavito Trade -- Part II"? "Son of Frank Lane?" Are we throwing this extra coat on it to make sure it sticks? WHAT in the God-made HELL is going on here???????

*sigh* And Jim Thome was playing golf with Grady Little last week. SURE, it's platonic..................

I like Jim. But I wouldn't blame him if he did leave. It's going to be two years BARE MINIMUM before we have a team that could even be a Cinderella contender.

*sigh*

stay tuned ....I need to go take a load of crying towels out of the dryer.......

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 26, 2002:

Diamond in the rough: Boston outfielder Manny Ramirez lost a $15,000 earring on a headfirst slide into third base during his rehab for Class AAA Pawtucket, R.I. Upon his return to the Red Sox yesterday, he was asked if he found the earring.

"Don't worry about it," said Ramirez. "I've got money. I can buy another one."

Ramirez is making $20 million a year.
***************************************************

For once, even I'm speechless. (Okay, okay, I can hear it in the peanut gallery: "Her, speechless? Priceless." Wise guys.)

-- gracie

I manage a Fantasy League baseball team on Yahoo. Until last night, we were Number One out of eleven teams in the league. For the uninitiated, a Fantasy League gives its teams the pick of all the players in both the American and National Leagues. There is an autodraft initially, but after that the "owner/managers" can hire and fire team members according to performance and who's available. Statistics for each team depend on the day-to-day real life performance of the players in actual ballgames. I'm having a lot of fun with this and was thinking to myself, "What if this were a real team?" I just thought some of you might think this is funny.

-- gracie

Well, there was a tense silence in the locker room late last night.

"Anybody wanna explain to me why I am paying you guys at least as much as any other group of players in either major league and what I'm gettin' outta ya is squat????"

Diffident silence from the bench.

"Finally, Vladimir [Guerrera, one of the hottest players until he joined "my" team -- go figure], you do something this week. Jeez, 1 for 4 at bats. Jesus Christ, I'm thinkin' of raisin' your salary!!!!!"

Scattered snickers and an outright chuckle from Rafael Palmeiro.

"Who did that? Hey, Iron Man, Mr. Viagra [Palmeiro has recently done commercials for Viagra -- no, I'm not joking] , you wanna stand up and tell me what the Hell is so funny? Maybe you oughta rub some-a that shit on yer bat, wise guy. O fer 4 last night, for Chrissake, and he laughs at somebody who actually got a hit."

Palmeiro turns beet red and searches the clubhouse floor for gum wrappers, dust specks, etc.

"I hate to tell you bums this, but there are gonna be some changes made. Ellis [Burks], here, he had somebody stickin' hot needles in his ass this week [Burks was undergoing acupuncture for a hamstring injury], for Chrissakes, and he went out last night and brought in a run and two RBI's. Maybe I oughta have the trainers stick hot needles in all your sorry asses until I'm seeing some .300 hitting."

"Well, [Pitcher Juan] Cruz bombed BAD the other night," began [Kenny] Lofton. "That sure didn't help the stats any. That guy is settin' records for Chicago he's so bad."

"Lissen, hot shot, if I wanted your management expertise, I woulda stuck a shirt on you that said 'Manager' and cut your salary. Anyway, to address that, Juan knows what he needs to do and we are working on it."

Sotto voce whisper from Vina: "She sheetcanned him, man."

"YOU have no room to talk, Fernando. If I were you, I wouldn't be cracking wise within my earshot.. All right, you guys, I'm tellin' yaz. You bastards go out there tonight and play ball like you was the Nine Apostles, you understand? And I don't want any goddam cryin' and whinin' about pulled this and strained that, either. Any of you pu... [transmission inaudible] ever hear of goddam Ty Cobb or Bob Feller layin' around whinin' with a groin injury, for Chrissakes? Now get out there and make me proud! I hate to talk to you guys this way, but I mean business, man. I love ya like sons and brothers, but if yaz don't start rackin' up some stats, I wouldn't be buying any local property if I was you. A'right, then. G'wan."

Diaz pipes up: "Jus' one more thing, okay?"

"Yeah, Einar?"

"You gone to be makin' more cookies this weekend? Those were good, man!"

"You guys will get what you deserve when you deserve it. Now don't forget to take extra Kleenex and warm undershirts tonight -- it's supposed to be chilly. Also, rinse out your cereal bowls -- whaddya, think I'm the maid?"

"Yes Ma'am. Happy Mother's Day, Ma'am."

::ruffling Magglio Ordonez' hair:: "I only yell because I love you guys. Now go out there and play ball."

I am having a shot at managing a fantasy baseball team this summer. While I haven't exactly produced the next Arizona Diamondbacks, I have had fun. I have also gained a woman's perspective on all this:

Why Fantasy Baseball Is Like Dating -- A Woman's Point Of View

You have hundreds of men to choose from.

Of all these hundreds, there are only a few worth pursuing.

Just because a guy looks good doesn't mean he's good for anything.

If they don't do what you want, you dump them.

If they stink, you dump them.

If they are good for nothing, can't perform and seem to spend most of their time laying around, you dump them.

Once you dump them, you may regret it, especially if your best friend picks them up.

However, once your best friend dumps them, all of a sudden they don't look so good anymore.

Just because you get one spectacular, hell-on-wheels, ring-tailed dazzler of a night out of a guy doesn't mean he'll be any good in the long run.

The ones you want are unavailable.

The ones you don't are yours for the asking.

You may get a spectacular performance out of the most unlikely of candidates.

If they perform well consistently, hang on to them.

Never mind what they say; watch what they do.

Never mind what anybody else says about them -- you're the best judge of what you need.

People who try to fix you up with someone have ulterior motives -- beware.

It's a long season, so have all the fun you can.

-- gracie

Our house is surrounded by roses. Outside my house right now, there are literally thousands of roses in bloom. There are red climbing roses, pale dawn pink climbing roses, a lovely peach/apricot English shrub rose, a pale pink English rose, an old fashioned French garden damask rose in a greenish ivory (it doesn't sound so hot, but you shuld see and smell it), a few brightly colored tea roses in unusual hues, and a climbing sweetheart rose named Cecile Brunner (I think it was the name that attracted me) which ensconces our entire front porch in tiny, fragrant pink blooms. There is a fuschia rose that blooms even in shade that trails along our back entry. Possibly my favorite is the one I am looking at right now, a German hybrid shrub rose I planted on a western wall for maximum effect, since its blossoms are a gorgeous technicolor sunset mixture of bright orange, coral and pale gold. In the tree lawn, where the City of Cleveland decrees that nothing but city-issued maple trees may be planted, a huge Meiland shrub rose has hundreds of tiny, defiantly bright scarlet blossoms threading in and out of a gawky pussy willow tree to a height of twelve feet. The English, German and climbing roses all have attained heights of eight to twelve feet as well. There is even a Chinese multicolored rose, flaunting its Dragon Moon lanterns of fuchsia, orange, primrose, pink and pale lavender.

People literally stop, walk up our walkway (if they can get past all the wild columbines and through the strawberry patch) and ask me what kind of roses these are, how I grow them, where I got them, and, sometimes, why in the world we have so many. I have seen elderly people stop and sniff a stray blossom and say to me: "My mother used to have roses when I was a child....". I have seen babies point from strollers and shriek with glee, I have heard little kids shout at the sight with outright amazement, and I have seen more than one young man snitch a bloom or two on the way to see his sweetheart. All of these things make me so happy I cannot tell.

Our yard was not always so. At one point, it was bare of any roses at all, and my first attempt at rose planting, a tea rose, hung on for one sickly summer and died before the first frost. As with any skill I have ever mastered, I had to read a book to find out what to do. One book led to another. At one point, I was exchanging one stack of fifteen books or so for another at the library. The woman asked if I was teaching. "No," I laughed, "I'm learning."

The first years were not marked by great success. There were tea roses attacked by every variety of fungus, there were shrubs that died, and there were great gaping holes in the yard. Trellises broke. Winter killed some. Animals dug out others. For a few years, it looked as if I had taken a perfectly nice yard and ruined it.

But then, one year, a few of the English shrub roses, which started as nothing more than forlorn rooted twigs from a mail-order catalog, began to flourish. A tea rose died, but a pretty floribunda rose filled in where it had been. The climber which had for three years been a tangle of gangly, barren canes sprung forth in glorious bloom. The yard was on its way to becoming the beautiful bower of roses it is today.

When I was a young woman, I drank a lot. As the years passed, I became a physically mature woman who still drank a lot. There was always talk of unfulfilled potential, of "isn't that a shame?", of what a waste it was and how impoverished the husband, the children, the home were. Occasionally, it was postulated that I must be terribly unhappy to drink so much. Whether I drank because I was unhappy or was unhappy because I drank (and it was mostly the latter) was a moot point. The fact was, I appeared to all outside concerns to be, as I once bitterly joked about myself, "a senseless waste of human life." Such self-pitying comments were frequent and increased in acidulousness with the passing years.

So there I was, a drunk with a yard full of apparently dead roses. I cannot say how sorry the neighbors felt for my husband and children, but I am sure they pitied them. Repeatedly, I tried to "do something" about my drinking. I carried home armloads of books. I attended literally hundreds of meetings. I watered those roses with tears of bitter, angry frustration. I did everything but become willing to stop drinking.

Two years ago, I took my last drink. I became willing through the grace of God. With the help of my friends, I became a useful human being once again. It was at about that time (and I do not think it was entirely coincidence, but that's for another story) that the Cecile Brunner rose and the New Dawn rose turned my front porch into a bower of roses. I would sit on the porch with my coffee and my books and smell the lovely roses. Something about that environment made me feel blessed, protected and nurtured, something I needed very badly in the raw days of new sobriety. From the outer environment I found inner strength. Safe in my little enclave, I was free to meditate and pray and re-form my heart. It was recovery in the finest sense of the word, a regaining of what was once possessed.

Today, looking out at this amazing profusion of color and fragrance, I can't help but draw a few parallels. That miserable wretch of a drunken woman and those pathetic bundles of forlorn twigs. That yard full of mudholes and that soul full of gouges. That beaten, scarred body and those withered, lifeless shrubs. There didn't appear to be much hope, and there certainly wasn't much promise. To the outside world it was a very grim tableau indeed.

And yet, I never quit trying. Whether it was the roses or my own stubborn fight to remain alive "long enough to find a cure," as I once put it, I just wasn't willing to pack it all in. I think stubbornness aided by self-delusion were sometimes the only reasons I hung on as long as I did. Certainly there seemed to be no rational, empirical reason for me to continue to struggle.

I guess, if there is a moral, it is this: Never, ever, EVER give up. Where there's life, there's hope. God can do things that we can only dream of doing on our own. Without God's sunlight and rain, the roses would never have lived. Without God's grace and mercy, I would not be here today. And I can't resist a little joke here. It took an awful, awful lot of manure to get those roses to grow. Things are not always as they seem. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Love,

Celia

To see photos of the roses, visit: Gracie's Roses.

Well, today I made deviled eggs, all right. Probably, correctly titled, consigned-to-the-nethermost-corner-of-Hell-for-all-eternity eggs.

I hate working with hardboiled eggs. But since today is Father's Day, and since my husband's favorite food is deviled eggs, I decided to do the right thing and make a batch.

So there I was, at the kitchen sink, with slippery boiled eggs popping out of my hands. The shells, which slip off in one deft motion for my mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law, were sticking as if epoxied, despite all the steps I followed about the temperature, the timing, etc. Other women make perfect deviled eggs with ease and I cannot. Resentment Number One. The eggs were beginning to look as if they would need to be filled with Bondo to even resemble anything ovoid, and of course tiny pieces of shell remained on each one. It occurred to me that other husbands would be grateful to get an apple pie, but no! my husband has to dislike apple pie and be fond of deviled eggs. Resentment Number Two. Grown men, I reasoned, have cried and begged for my apple pie and this guy won't touch it, and I love making apple pie. Deviled eggs are the bane of my culinary career and of course nothing else will do for this one but deviled eggs, deviled eggs, deviled eggs. He never requested them, mind you, but when you are building up a really good resentment, it is best not to sully the issue with the facts.

I tried in vain to shell the eggs. The eggs shredded. I pried gently. They popped out of my hands. I coaxed. The shells refused to part. I wailed softly. The eggs held their ground. Repeatedly, the door slammed, the phone rang, and if we had a dog, I have no doubt but it would have been barking. I got more and more and more irritated. Finally I was somewhere between Seethe and Explode when one of the nasty little eggs popped from my clumsy hand as if I were bobbling a baseball. That was IT.

Infuriated, I grabbed it, rared back, wound up, and let fly with a satisfying: "You son of a BITCH!" I don't recall if I had my right leg behind my ear Bob Feller style, but I may have. The egg took a bad hop on the dining room rug, landed and exploded into many, many more pieces than the sum of its parts. The cats came galloping into the room to participate. There was egg on the rug, the furniture, the wall and the fan. I stood open-mouthed, unable to believe what I had done. "Jeez," I whispered. "Maybe I really am crazy." Well, no use crying over splattered eggs, so I got the sweeper and the sponge and got busy.

At this point, my daughter came in from the front porch swing to see what the noise had been. She took one look at me on my hands and knees cleaning up egg fragments and correctly deduced what had happened. She started to laugh. First a suppressed snicker, then a giggle, then great hysterical bent-from-the-waist whoops. I had a moment of clarity and saw this all as if from above. I joined her. In very short order, the two of us were helplessly doubled over laughing, tears pouring down our cheeks, guffawing, smacking each other on the back.

Of course, at this moment my husband walked in the door. Egg fragments, greedy cats, hysterical women and a bucket of hot suds were arrayed before him. He went straight back outside without a word. If there is one thing my husband has learned in his long association with me, it is that if you have to ask, you don't want to know.

We finally got the deviled eggs made somehow. They were fairly decent if a little lopsided, and I have no doubt my husband will eat them quite happily. But as for the thought process that went into the making, I have learned one thing. If make deviled eggs you must, and if making deviled eggs is the one task you dislike above all others, it wouldn't hurt to say a little prayer for patience first. On the other hand, maybe that's why they call them "deviled".

This is for all the dads. You always see all kinds of cute columns on Mother's Day about all the moms. This is only right and just, since moms deserve practically cosmic recognition. But it seems to me the only articles I see about men lately, either on the internet or in the paper, are about their capacities to consume beer and ogle women. Granted, these are capabilities of the gender, but they don't necessarily summarize everything about men. Certainly, they are not the whole story. I have a lurking suspicion that if some of these "cute" articles were written about women, there would be a backlash almost as vituperative as if they were written about any other race, creed, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It seems that the only group we are allowed to insult with impunity and call it "humor" these days is men. Usually upper middle class married working men.

Am I missing something? Is there something inherently wrong with this group? What is it that meakes them immune to the sort of "humor" that other groups decry as bigoted and insulting? I'm just playing Devil's advocate, mind you, but sometimes somebody has to.

Admittedly, I have a conflict of interest going here. I am married to an upper middle class working man, so perhaps my view is biased. My friends warned me. They told me I would take a lot of flak marrying an upper middle class working man. In some circles these days, it's just not "done". I could expect stares on the street and whispers in restaurants. I would be left out of a lot of social gatherings, notably the meetings of the She-Woman Man-Haters Club. It is one thing to marry a man, but to have the poor judgment to admit to enjoying it is anathema in some milieus these days.

This started out to be about Father's Day, didn't it? Well, if you're still with me at this point, congratulations. Read on.

This is for all the fathers. Not the "good" fathers or the "great" fathers, but all fathers. If you are a father and have admitted it and are willing to work with the facts, you have earned a place in the proceeding pantheon.

This is for the fathers who weren't quite sure what they were getting themselves into, for the fathers to whom fatherhood came as a total surprise and for the fathers who went through endless months of ovulation predictors, temperature taking and awkward situations involving gravity in order to have a child or children. You are all honored here.

This is for the fathers who had no idea what to do with a colicky baby, a dirty diaper or a teething tantrum and soldiered on anyway so that the mother could pursue a career, a shopping day or an hour's peace and quiet. You have our deepest gratitude, though we may not have shown it at the time. You have told us you love us in quite an important way.

This is for the fathers who work twelve-hour days so that their wives can stay home with the kids, then get criticized for not spending time with the wife and kids. You may feel that you can't win, but you already have. You know what is valuable, and your self-sacrifice is an example that no textbook could impart. We are grateful to you also. You are trading your fun for their well-being, and there are few sacrifices more important, mature or selfless. We're sorry for when we're critical -- we're not thinking this through.

This is for the fathers who have missed the crucial inning, the big play, the hat trick, the game-winning basket in overtime so that you could answer a child's cry for help, separate fighting siblings, tend to a skinned knee, pick up someone whose driver might have been drinking or simply answer, for the forty-third time, why you can only see stars at night. You may have missed the Big Play, but you get the Big Picture just fine. We are grateful.

This is for the fathers who tried to answer the Question About Sex, even when it would have been easier to hand this off to the mom. We assure you, what you may have lacked in delicacy you made up for in technical correctness, and we are impressed that you even tried. Give yourself ten extra points if the questioning child was a girl. "Ask your mother" is an okay answer on this one, but you have gone above and beyond.

This is for the fathers who lost their tempers, shouted at the kids, made them cry and now feel like hell about it. Don't. Moms do it too. Maybe the kids cried harder because you were louder, but you are human and should forget about this right now, as long as you apologized. You did apologize, right?

This is for the fathers whose contact with their kids is limited to some words spoken down a long-distance telephone line every couple of months. You may not have our sympathy, but you have our empathy, and you are encouraged to try again -- it is never too late to do the right thing, although we will warn you that the window of a child's forgiveness, wide though it is, does close almost entirely at some time around the age of thirteen and may be difficult to pry open after that. We who have seen that window close from the inside know this. Still, maybe you didn't have a very good example to learn from. You can always try to break the pattern. And it is never too late to say "I love you".

This is for the fathers who read "Goodnight Moon" fifty-three nights running (and were severely admonished if they skipped a word), desperately tried to clean up the broken figurine and concoct an alibi before The Mom came home, found SIlly Putty stuck to some important drawings in their briefcase, fed everybody cereal for dinner three nights running (it's okay; read the box -- all the good stuff is in there, and it's better than burgers and fries), tried in vain to teach a four-year-old to fly a kite (try again when they're about seven -- it's OK), shut a kid's fingers in a cupboard or stepped on a tiny foot and now feel like a monster (you didn't do it on purpose, did you?), let everybody watch a scary movie and then had to sit up with the squalling ones, heard their own careless words echoed in a tiny voice from the back seat saying "Athhole!" when cut off in traffic, or fell asleep in front of the TV to awaken to the crash of furniture, the sound of breaking glass or the wail of a hungry, dirty infant: We love you! You tried! We couldn't ask for more. And in case we forgot to tell you, we really, really appreciate you. You are half of the most important team in the formative years of a human being. And when they go off to college, your efforts will be repaid. Not just in knowing you have raised a decent human being, but because we are going to get out the china and candles and gourmet treats and treat you like we promised we would when we got married all those years ago. You deserve it.

With love,

Celia