fscobe144 | Frank Scoblete

Thoughts on the Best Television Shows

I am thinking of doing a Top 20 list of my favorite situation comedies, hour-long dramas, talk shows and the like. I do have a simple problem; I have not seen all the television shows some of my friends rave about such as Seinfeld, Cheers or Oprah.

Also, I think some readers will kill me if I don’t put I Love Lucy in the top five. I liked the show but I thought it was a bit overdone halfway through its run.

Would I be laughed out of town if I put The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as one of the top comedies? How will people feel if I say Ozzie Nelson was one of the best actors I ever saw?

Some of my favorite shows lasted a single year, such as Firefly and the American version of Life on Mars. Is my taste so bad or is network television a true wasteland interrupted occasionally by a good show, many of which disappear into the ether? I remember when NBC discussed buying my sit-com Lower Education and then rejected it with these famous words, “Your show is too intelligent for NBC.”

I’ll mull all of this over as I watch my huge collection of videos of shows such as Blackadder, Vicar of Dibley, The Honeymooners, Fawlty Towers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Arrested Development, Star Trek, Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory along with others.

Hmm, the 20 best shows I ever saw. Coming soon. I asked my wife for her input and she said, “You watch too much TV.”

[Read Frank Scoblete’s books I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack, I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! All available from Amazon.com, on Kindle and electronic media, at Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Tattooing Little Timbo

Parents have almost total say over what their kids eat, drink, watch on television, read; when they go to bed or whether the kid goes to this or that doctor or no doctor at all. You don’t want to vaccinate Little Timbo? You don’t have to vaccinate him. You want Little Timbo to belong to some whacked out religion? Fine.

If you wish to feed Little Timbo three or more meals a day of junky, greasy fast food, that’s fine. If you let the little one consume gallons of soda a week, that’s fine too. If Little Timbo’s idea of a vegetable is that green stuff that grows outside, but that never lands on his plate, hey that’s the parent’s right. Right? If Timbo has only experienced fruit in a pie; if his daily snacks are Cheese Doodles; if his nightly dessert is a gigantic portion ice cream and brownies, that’s hunky dory.

No parent has ever been arrested for child abuse because he or she feeds too few veggies, too much grease, too many gallons of soda, barrels of candy, or mountains of fast foods to Little Timbo.

Parents can bring up Little Timbo in extreme religions and cults. Do you believe that the white man or the black man or the yellow man is the devil? Fine, Little Timbo, that’s today’s lesson. Do you believe that women should cover their faces? Okay, cover them girls. And on and on wild religious beliefs go – but Little Timbo is his parents’ child and on and on Little Timbo will go as his parents take him there.

I know of only one case where a parent was stopped from exercising his/her almost total control of a baby and that concerned a couple who named their son Adolf Hitler—but that case seems to be the exception that proves the rule. I have read about some cases where in medical emergencies courts have overruled parents; these cases are pretty rare as well.

So now I ask you, what if mommy and daddy want to have Little Timbo tattooed. Would this be child abuse?

Don’t answer right away. First think on these things:

Think about the non-vaccination of babies when every legitimate study has shown that vaccinations have saved millions of lives. Think about what highly-processed, chemical-laden foods many parents feed their kids. Think about piercing a baby’s ears or nose. Think about religious practices such as circumcision. This is considered perfectly okay and the right of the parent to have performed. Clitorectomies are a growing concern in Ireland and are performed quite often in Muslim countries. Think about teaching creationism, which flies directly in the face of science.

Knowing all that parents are within their rights to do to their children… would tattooing your baby be child abuse?

Nasty and Nastier

All of us have read posts on Facebook, other social media and message boards where the initial poster expresses a coherent thought, then other posters write coherent replies that disagree with the coherent first poster. Then some of the posters respond to the first poster and then…slowly (or fastly) all hell breaks loose. This poster says something nasty about that poster; posters’ intelligences and understandings of the topic are challenged; those who disagree must be morons and then the attacks and counter attacks become really nasty. I am right; you are wrong; you are an idiot; no, you are an idiot; your mother is an ape; well, your mother is a *****.

This will then carry over to other posts by these posters—they go at each other in post after post on various topics. The hell continues. Posters are hurt; anger and sarcasm predominate and then the arguments essentially boil down to “My father can beat your father” or “Your mother is ugly.”

In war we see this with the demonization of the enemy. On Memorial Day my wife the Beautiful A.P. and I went to our village’s honoring of our soldiers who died defending America. The World War II guys still called the Japanese “Japs.” They had none of the love of Japan that many Americans exhibit, including my wife and me.

That’s what happens to our enemies in real war. We nail them with insults as well as ammo.

While posting on a web site is not equivalent to war, at times it seems it is.

Probably in war it is better to demonize than play Hamlet and think so deeply about things, that it causes brain freeze. Casinos don’t like it when you think. It is also possible that our thinking brain is uncomfortable with deep thought as well.

Are discussions between disagreeing people always fated to end in dislike, hatred or disdain of one other?

In my experience in surfing message boards, such hostility seems rampant. Those who agree with us are given a pass but those whose opinions differ—come on, their fathers are jerks and their mothers are…well, I’d rather not say.

A Night from Hell

FROM ROLLO: Help me Frank! I was on a cruise ship for seven days and played craps each night. I was playing with a bunch of “shakers and fakers” as I like to call the ones throwing the dice everywhere and making Field and Hard Ways bets. Then at the end of the table stood the Darksider, making Don’t Come bets and pressing all the Odds. His tray grew large while everyone else’s grew small.

Not even the mighty 5-Count could help me on this dark trip; by the last night his side of the table was betting dark bets.

Please tell me there are other ways to win at a game I truly love when this situation is placed in front of me besides joining the dark one? It seemed like everyone sevened out at around eight or nine just in time for me to get a couple Come bets out there.

This was a trip from hell.

FRANK RESPONDS: You certainly did experience a trip from hell. I’ve been there too. If people are sevening out on the eighth or ninth roll, the 5-Count can’t protect you. I wish it were a perfect method but sadly in casino gambling there are no perfect strategies. Losing for seven straight nights can mess with your head. I’m glad you didn’t decide to jump overboard.

As for going on the Darkside, keep in mind that the streak you experienced does not predict what will happen next. You could have switched to the Darkside and suddenly seen the Rightside go on a winning rampage. If that were to happen you might feel that you were cursed.

You might consider betting less or merely going to one Come bet with Odds until you won a few times. I wish I had some magic formula to help you. I don’t.

FROM BIG BOY: I dispute your craps theory that Come bets are better than Place bets. The thing with Place bets is you get to pick the number AND you can take your bets down whenever you want to. That seems to make these the better bets in my honest opinion.

Okay, go ahead, defend yourself.

FRANK RESPONDS: What you’re saying is true. You can pick your numbers and you can take your bets down at any time.

Now for the bad news. So what if you can pick your numbers? Only the 6 and 8 come in with a decent house edge of 1.52 percent; the other Place bets are awful. You face a four percent edge on the 5 and 9; and a 6.67 percent edge on the 4 and 10. Why would you want to ever place bets with those house edges?

In a random game you can’t outguess the dice. There is no predictive factor that would allow you to know what streak is coming next.

Now, as for taking down Place bets; yes, you can do that at any point. But you’d have to take these bets down about 80 percent of the time. I have never seen a Place bettor do that in my quarter century of play. I have seen Place bettors take down or turn off bets but I’ve never seen one ever get to 80 percent.

I think your arguments, while they sound good, just don’t cut it.

I Have Stalkers!

I am a minor celebrity in the great scheme of things. I have a good fan base for my gambling books, some fans have seen me on TV, and as I expand into other areas of writing I hope that fan base grows. But I mean I am “minor” as in completely, utterly minor—almost atom-like, as in I still take the damn garbage out on Mondays and Thursdays.

But I can now understand how real celebrities such as movie stars, sports stars, television stars, big-time writers like John Grisham must have it. There are nuts out there. There are seriously whacked-out people who write you, call you, show up at your house, knock on the hotel room doors where you are staying to invite themselves in.

I have stalkers, for crying out loud. I know many celebrities have stalkers. But they should just be for major celebrities, not the flea-sized kind that I am.

Newspaper articles report stalkers that have been brought to court by some of the real celebrities and almost none of them look really, really weird or even really, really scary.

But I can’t believe that in the past 20 years I have had my share—although I am not quite sure what my share should actually be.

A rabbi from a town near mine dropped by my house several times and asked to come for dinner. I made pleasant excuses the first couple of times. (“Oh, sorry, I had dinner already.” “It’s only two in the afternoon.” “I eat early.”) Finally, not to be offensive, I said, “Look, I eat pork and shellfish every damn night and down them with milk.” Now he just constantly emails me.

I had two women who seemed to always know where I was staying when in Vegas. However they did it, they were always able to take the elevator to my floor (often a floor that was secured), knock on my door (actually ring the bell of these particular rooms) and ask, “Oh, Frank, want some fun?” I would tell them that I was calling security in twenty seconds and they would go away. My wife would ask, “What was that?” I’d say, “Oh, just some fans.” She’d reply, “Oh, yeah, right,” turn over and go to sleep.

I have had several horrendous looking women, more like Morlocks than Eloi, who send me photos of themselves scantily clad, posing seductively, or rather, what they think is seductive. I completely ignore them because showing interest in them—even negative interest—would just encourage them.

I had a woman who would call me to tell me she was staying in Atlantic City in a beautiful suite and she would pay for everything if I joined her. I put my wife on the phone with her. That settled that.

I had one woman who offered me a “world-class *&^%**!!!” (I had never heard of that term before) if I did a favor for her husband. That was awkward. I blanched at the thought and immediately told my wife.

Oh, and men? Oh, yes, men too. “How do you know you don’t want to have sex with a man if you have never tried it?” If I were interested, I’d know it by now.

I did have one dangerous individual who had a severe mental illness called erotomania. This is when a person imagines and believes he or she has an intimate relationship with you. (Remember that woman who kept breaking into David Letterman’s house saying she was married to him when she had never even met him?) It is just the opposite of “Fatal Attraction” often with the same conclusion—the person (in this case, female) wants to harm you because she thinks you belong to her even if you don’t even know her or just know her in passing. That was scary. Thankfully that woman disappeared into the ether.

These crazies aside, I know this; I do enjoy people who have enjoyed my work, in whatever field it might be—teaching, writing, or acting. It is certainly an ego boost.

But these nuts, these fans who are certainly fanatical, are sad people. There is far, far more to a good life than bedding or bothering a person with even a modicum of fame.

Is fame important? No. I am happy taking out the garbage two days a week.

He Has a Girlfriend!

This past weekend I went to a Yankees versus Texas Rangers game. Yanks lost 8 to 1 but Aaron Judge hit a home run so the day wasn’t a total loss. He’s the most exciting player to hit baseball since Mike Trout.

This was my first time at the new Yankee Stadium. As a kid (long ago at an age far, far away) I used to inhabit the old Yankee Stadium; you know the one, where the center field distance was 490 feet and to hit a homer to left center (or even right center) took the power of a DiMaggio, Gehrig, Mantle or Ruth. Centerfield was known as “death valley.” When Maris had his 61-homerun streak, I attended 23 games. To my way of thinking, Maris set a “real” record, as he was steroid-free, unlike Barry Bonds and some others.

I was with my wife the Beautiful AP and Jerry “Stickman” and his wife the Sainted Tres. It was the last – number 30 – of the baseball stadiums Stickman and I visited in our Baseball Odyssey. Our wives joined us at a number of the ballparks and were certain to be at this capstone game.

We had $300 seats – yes 600 bucks to watch a Yankee game in seats that would cost about $60 to $90 in other stadiums. And $$$$$ to pay for our limo – way, way, too, too much.

Our seats were in row 15 over first base dugout, in the shade of the overhang. These comfortable seats were padded, two together, separated from the next two seats by a table, and you could order food that was delivered to you – food that cost the equivalent of what right-handed hitters faced in the old stadium, a helluva lot! And that is New York: a beautiful baseball stadium plopped in a ghetto and prices that are ridiculous.

The high ticket prices, however, could not keep away the worst fans ever. You know them; they’re the ones whose antics pull your attention away from the field and onto themselves.

In this case it was the beer-guzzling, 20-something man/boy who was compelled to yell out the name of a player followed by “you suck.”

“Natoli, you suck!”

“Beltre, you suck!”

Once per player was not enough, nor twice, nor three times. It was over and over and over again, throughout the entire game.

His target was not only Texas Rangers. He even threw a few Yanks in there as well, especially pitcher Tyler Clippard who seemed to suck more than all the players combined as poor Clippard gave up hit after hit and run after run in the game, “Clippard! You suck! You suck! You suck!” He was proud of that last load of “you suck” because, “He heard me that time.”

I asked Stickman, Tres and AP, “Can you believe he belongs to the same species that achieved space flight?” Still later I asked incredulously, “Can you believe he came from the same species that discovered penicillin?”

After a particularly loud and pointed, “You suck,” hurled at a Texas Ranger, this guy’s girlfriend squealed at his amazing wit. Yes, he has a girlfriend. They will reproduce one day and his mini-me will be weaned on baseball, beer and boorishness.

It sucks, doesn’t it?

The Twenty

People like to make lists. Well, I like to make lists and assume that there are others who share this predilection. Here are the 20 titles of books or plays (in no particular order) that I have found immensely enjoyable, insightful, impactful and timeless. While my wife agreed with a number of them, she strongly (and vociferously) disagreed with a few. I gently pointed out to her that she can make her own list. Women!

Although plays are meant to be seen and not read, I invite you to read any of the following that you have not yet encountered:

1. Hamlet (best piece of literature I ever read)
2. Huckleberry Finn (best American novel I ever read)
3. King Lear
4. The Canterbury Tales
5. Cyrano De Bergerac
6. The Great Gatsby
7. A Farewell to Arms
8. To Kill a Mockingbird
9. Dune
10. Macbeth
11. The Old Man and the Sea
12. All Quiet on the Western Front
13. Pride and Prejudice
14. 1984
15. The Boys in the Boat
16. River of Doubt
17. The Taming of the Shrew
18. Native Son
19. A Tale of Two Cities
20. Bonfire of the Vanities

Camera Shy

“They are smart,” said my wife the Beautiful AP. “This can’t be just coincidence.”

I agreed with her. We were talking about Hooded Mergansers but such applies to almost all birds. They are smart.

Too many ornithologists come down on the side of birds just being creatures of instinct with no real intelligence. My wife and I have two parrots and let me tell you, they are both intelligent. In fact, more often than not, they outsmart me. Their goal in a day is to manipulate me; my goal is to be left alone so I can do my work. They often – quite often – win.

I guess you can say that for the Beautiful AP and for me, birds have passed our version of the Turing Test. This test was created by Alan Turing to determine if a being were actually intelligent or just a machine of some kind.

According to Turing, if a machine responds as if it were intelligent, then indeed it is intelligent. Anyway that’s what Turing’s test tries to show. I’ve just extended it to animals and birds. I agree that there are instincts (or unconscious programs) but intelligence is there, in some cases (as in parrots) that intelligence is pretty high. I assume other animals pass the Turing Test too. I am not saying animal/bird intelligence is equivalent to human intelligence; just that those minds are working.

“So why can’t I ever get Hooded Mergansers?” AP whined.

She was right. Every time we saw Hooded Mergansers they were always on the other side of the lake. We’d then walk around the lake – even a far walk – and as soon as we got to where the Hooded Mergansers had been, those rotten birds were now on the side of the lake from where we just came.

This didn’t happen just once or twice but multiple times in multiple places both on Long Island and in Cape May. Come on, they had to know they were busting the Beautiful AP’s chops. Maybe these birds had some kind of psychic connection to each other as in, “That dumb photographer is heading to Cape May from Long Island. Let’s screw around with her as our LI brethren have done. Awk! Awk!” (“Awk! Awk!” is the derisive laugh of birds.)

Next, we have a couple of Cardinals who come to our three feeders quite often. Cardinals are magnificently colored creatures; red as red can be – the males that is. The females are far plainer, but still quite pretty.

But the Beautiful AP cannot get a picture of this magnificent male bird. He will be on the feeder, beaking his food, when AP positions the camera to capture him in all his glory and then – the stinking bird will scoot over to the other side of the feeder where he can’t be seen.

“Damn! Damn it!” says AP.

The bird now peaks its head around the feeder at her. You can see it looking at her. But as soon as she lifts the camera, Mr. Cardinal scoots around back again. This does not happen with the host of Sparrows, the many Blackbirds, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Grackles, Mourning Doves, Tufted Tit Mice, and Black Capped Chickadees. These birds just eat and swiftly fly away when a cat crouches to kill them. No, just those miserable male Cardinals play this nerve-wracking game.

When the Cardinal was in a bush or tree, every time she lifted the camera, the damn bird would scoot behind a leaf, a branch, a feeder – anything to hide himself.

No one should ever think a bird’s brain is just a birdbrain.

AP is undeterred. She plans to have an exhibit of her bird photos in less than a year and vows to have great shots of Cardinals, Hooded Mergansers and other smarty-pants birds in the display. If I know my wife, she will prevail.

“’You must do the things you think you cannot do,’” AP said thunderously, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt.

I could be a smarty-pants myself. “’I can resist anything but temptation,’” quoting Oscar Wilde. Then I poured myself a drink.

Miami Is Another Country

In New York City you have different neighborhoods some dominated by Italians, some by Jews, some by Germans, some by Afro-Americans, some by Puerto Ricans, some by Irish, some by Indians and some by a whole combination of these and more ethnic groups. While you might hear foreign languages in many places, there are so many of them in New York that the City has true diversity – although diversity has no inherently good moral quality.

Not so with Miami.

When people call the city “little Cuba” they mean it. The U.S. Census has Miami’s Latin / Hispanic population at 70 percent (some define themselves as Hispanic white or Hispanic black), while almost 20 percent of the population is Afro-American.

About 22 percent of the population is Catholic, although a full 60 percent of the population considers itself non-religious. While the state of Florida is sometimes called “little Israel,” only a shade over one percent in Miami are Jewish. (In New York City we have a rapidly shrinking “little Italy,” a little “Chinatown,” a “little Korea,” a “little India,” a little Beirut – for the lower streets of Bay Ridge – and on it goes. Hey, in New York, you get a “little” of something or other all the time!)

Spanish seems to be the dominant language, which pleased my wife the Beautiful A.P. as she speaks Spanish. As for me, I just stand there smiling as she enjoys conversation after conversation. She could be talking to someone about his family being murdered and I stand there with a goofy grin on my face. I am sure some Miamians thought I was a total idiot.

In Miami I was in a different country, a vacation-touristy-type country, meaning a pretty Latin American or island country given the weather, the Palm trees, the ocean, the sands, the Spanish speakers and the architecture; plus all the beautiful people, those tanned men and tanned women posing in skimpy bathing suits at the beaches (particularly South Beach), or at the pools, often holding drinks in their hands as if they were in commercials.

Being there in late September was – to put it frankly – awful, absolutely awful. The temperatures hovered in the high 80’s and low 90’s, while the humidity was at steam bath levels. I sweated like crazy. Maybe that’s why so many of the beautiful people walked around almost naked. Even some of the non-beautiful people were almost naked too – not a pleasant sight.

We stayed at the Sonesta Bayfront Hotel in Coconut Grove.

https://www.sonesta.com/coconutgrove/

I had already stayed at a Sonesta in Baltimore and loved its old world, classy style. The Coconut Grove Sonesta at first seemed less appealing but by the third day I loved the place. It was clean, had a great restaurant, pool and terrific views from one’s room. Our traveling companions Jerry “Stickman” and his wife the Lovely Tres, along with the Beautiful A.P. and I would sit on our adjoining balconies, watch the sunsets, the ocean, while drinking fine wines.

Our meals went from good to great; from gourmet to not-so gourmet. The first night we ate at Bombay Darbar (http://www.bombaydarbarrestaurant.com/), an exceptional Indian restaurant. The following day we ate lunch at a good Cuban restaurant in South Beach, Puerto Sagua. https://plus.google.com/104335181789256454187/about?gl=us&hl=en

Thankfully I did not go into the men’s room at Sagua until after lunch. It was covered in graffiti – with graffiti on top of graffiti (all of it un-artistic). The stall toilet was covered in shit and someone had taken a small dump in the urinal. The place stunk. Had I gone to the bathroom before lunch I would have left the restaurant.

Prior to eating at Puerto Sagua, we toured South Beach with Art Deco Tours with Christine and Company. (http://www.artdecotours.com/) Christine is a vivacious young woman with a true love for Miami and her tour was excellent. I recommend it highly.

That night we ate at a French restaurant La Plame d’Or at the Biltmore Hotel. http://www.biltmorehotel.com/dining/palme_dor.php. Terrific gourmet with excellent ambience.

One of the reasons we went to Miami was for Stickman and me to attend a Tampa Bay Rays’ baseball game and a Miami Marlins’ baseball game. So on Sunday morning Stickman and I headed to Tampa Bay (St. Petersburg) – a four-hour trip from Miami – to watch Tampa Bay take on the Baltimore Orioles.

We had breakfast at Sonesta’s excellent Panorama restaurant and at 8am off we went. The wives would have their day in Miami; while we’d be continuing our baseball odyssey.

Going to Tampa Bay became an ordeal. Suddenly, out of nowhere (so to speak) I had to go to the bathroom; go urgently, as in the saying, “If I don’t go now I will explode in the car.”

“Jerry,” I said, holding myself in. “Pull over. I can’t hold this.” Jerry Stickman pulled over and I squatted beside the car. EXPLOSION! The road we were on went through the Everglades so there were no houses anywhere; just swamps and grasses and small trees as far as the eye could see, with a stream running beside the road. There was a big, electrified fence between the side of the road (where I squatted) and the stream. It didn’t dawn on me just then why such an electrified fence was there. EXPLOSION!

The cars coming towards us on our side of the highway could catch a glimpse of me squatting the way the Japanese squat over their floor-level toilets. EXPLOSION!

“Aaaaarrrrrggghhhhh,” I said inside myself. What could I do? Cars flashed by. (“Mommy, that man is showing his rear end.” “Timmy don’t look.” “Oh God, Sarah, he just blew a big one onto the ground!”)

As I was finishing up, I noticed it – an alligator, a BIG nasty-looking alligator, staring at me from the stream parallel to the road. Oh, my God, I was already embarrassed by the fact that I had dumped my brains out; now I would be eaten by an alligator. I could see the headlines: “Famous Writer Eaten by Alligator after Having Loose Bowel Movement on the Side of the Road!”

As I pulled my pants up, I realized now why the electrified fence had been erected – to protect humans from alligators!

Getting in the car, Stickman said, “Well, that’s a first for me!”

“I’m mortified.”

“On we go!” he said.

Ten minutes later, I said: “I gotta go again.”

“There’s a rest area coming up,” said Stickman.

We made it and I made it too. EXPLOSION!

We had to stop a third time at a gas station and I literally battled several elderly men to get into a stall. “You son of a bitch,” said one old guy I pushed aside. EXPLOSION! “Oh, man; oh, Christ,” said another man. “You smell that?” EXPLOSION!

Thankfully, the gas station had a sundry store with a mountain of Imodium piled high on the counter. Evidently I was not the only one to experience what I had been experiencing. I took two.

“I think I will be all right,” I said.

“This has been a first for me,” said Jerry again.

“I’ll never live this down.”

“Can’t wait to read what you write about this,” said Jerry Stickman.

“You crazy? I’m not writing about this.”

The Tampa Bay game was fun. Stickman bought us Diamond Club seats. You had your own private club with all sorts of food and drinks, all covered by your ticket fee. Jerry had a great time; eating and drinking and eating and drinking and eating a little fruit and a huge stack of cookies for dessert – he got his money’s worth. I ate a couple of cookies fearing anything more might start me going again. Those were the most expensive cookies I ever ate.

We got back to Miami around 8:30pm; sat on our balcony with our wives and as he poured the wine Jerry said, “Frank has a great story ladies. It was an amazing trip to Tampa Bay.”

“Oh, yeah, I really wish you could have come along,” I said. They were anxious to hear about our wonderful trip – and I told them. Their faces went from anxious to horrified. Evidently I can tell a great story.

The Beautiful A.P. and the Lovely Tres left Miami early Monday morning. Jerry Stickman and I stayed in order to go to the Miami Marlin’s game that night.

Now I must admit this. I have a small quirk in my personality. I love to go to aquariums when I visit a city. Lately, I’ve dragged Jerry to aquariums in Chicago, Memphis, Baltimore and Hawaii, among others. So today we would go to Miami’s Seaquarium. (http://miamiseaquarium.com/)

We took our wives to the airport at 5am, went back to Sonesta, finished our evening’s interrupted sleep, had breakfast and headed out to Seaquarium.

Of course, the day was brutally hot and drippingly humid. We figured the aquarium would be indoors and therefore air conditioned. That had saved us in a hot, humid Honolulu, Hawaii. We’d relax, watch the fish swim; in short, have a comfortable indoor day.

The Miami Seaquarium was outdoors.

It was not the typical aquarium with indoor rooms filled with tanks of various sizes; instead it was a world of shows. Jerry and I saw the Sea Lion Show (great fun), the Killer Whale and Dolphin Show (spectacular – and by the way, Killer Whales – also known as Orcas – are not whales but dolphins) and the Dolphin Show (disappointing). We also visited the weird looking Manatees (often thought to be mermaids – ugly as hell mermaids) and watched them eat bushels of lettuce. We saw giant sea turtles and a whole area of alligators – an animal now associated with the worst crap of my life.

It was a fun time.

Now let me tell you about Jerry “Stickman’s” quirk. He is an eater of food that I would normally avoid. He loves fast food chains (the man even eats White Castle!) and he watches shows like “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and “Burger Land with George Motz.” Jerry is also a world traveler. He and the Lovely Tres probably spend as much time on the road as they do at home. I think he has been to about two-thirds of the countries in the world. He’s been to every state too. One of Jerry’s favorite activities when he travels in America and Canada is to visit the recommended restaurants on those shows. Sooooo…

We went into Little Havana to eat lunch at El Rey De Las Fritas, a highly recommended restaurant where we would eat a supposedly unique Frita.

http://southflorida.menupages.com/restaurants/el-rey-de-las-fritas-2/menu

Little Havana is a sad area of Miami. Just about every house and store had safety bars on the doors and windows. Still, Jerry and I had the greatest Frita! I have never tasted a hamburger like that. So if you are in Miami check this place out. The restaurant was clean and it is in a little shopping center.

Got back to the hotel, took a nap and then headed for the Marlins’ ballgame. We were two of about 3,000 fans. Miami is not a baseball town.

That was our trip. It was a fun four-day visit (except for when I was you-know-whating).

What Happened to the Negro League?

This is really a sensitive – as in very sensitive – issue, and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what and why I am writing this. It is about how a really good thing – a thing that had to be done – can also have unintended bad consequences. (The good thing outweighs the bad consequences here but the bad exists nevertheless.)

I just finished watching the movie 42 which I enjoyed. I saw Jackie Robinson play — I was really, really young — and my father had nothing but praise for the man. I remember my father saying, “It takes courage to do what he is doing.” My father was a Jackie Robinson fan. I only had a vague idea of what he was talking about.

I even had some conversations once with Roy Campanella, who was injured in a terrible automobile accident. I worked as a maintenance man in the Smith Houses in Manhattan for four summers as a high school and college student and that is where I met him. He was paralyzed and in a wheelchair. By then I knew what he and the other black pioneers had meant to major league baseball. It meant the joy of watching Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the outfield.

“Campy” joined the Brooklyn Dodgers just after Robinson broke the color barrier.

And now for the sensitive part of this article: Whatever happened to the ball players from the Negro leagues that were not good enough to make the major leagues? What happened to the white players who were replaced by the better black players?

I know the Negro Leagues ended soon after the integration of major league baseball. I know most of their players did not make the major leagues. I know the white players who were replaced by better black players did not play in the majors once the color barrier was broken.

The good was accompanied by the end of employment for those who would have played professional baseball but were now just not talented and skilled enough to make it all the way to the new, and better, major leagues.

American baseball today has players from all over the world; South America, Mexico, Canada, Latin America, Cuba, Japan. The painting of today’s major leagues is a medley of colors and ethnic groups. The best of the best will face off against each other for 162 games.

Yes, integration was good for the quality of the game (and for our society) but it had a cost – as many good things have costs – and we must recognize that getting better does not make everyone become part of that betterment. That is why I am a firm supporter of those Negro league museums. We mustn’t forget those guys, especially the great ones who never got to the major leagues because of racism or the ones just not good enough to get there once the game opened its doors.