But there’s another claim that maybe isn’t so widely known. Springfield, by virtue of a proclamation by the Illinois legislature, is the “Chilli capital of the civilized world.” There must have been quite a chilli cook-off held to determine that prize. I wish I could tell you we had chilli in the lunchroom every day in school, but that wasn’t the case. And the spelling of the word with two ells in the middle is to recognize Illinois, I think.

There are two kinds of people I think I would instinctively stay away from. One group is the bigots, of any form or fashion, and the other group is those who follow chilli recipes printed on the packets of seasoning that you can buy in the store. The ones that say “Brown one pound of ground beef, add seasonings and a can of beans, and serve.” Anyone who lacks the imagination to make a pot of chilli for themselves isn’t the kind of person I could be around for too long.

Tonight’s dinner contains dark kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, chili beans (spelled with one “l”), diced tomatoes, sauteed onions, red pepper, yellow peppers, celery, corn, ground turkey (with Ash Wednesday apologies to the observant Catholics), seasoned salt, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, green onions, garlic lovers’ salsa (since I didn’t have any actual garlic), adobo seasoning, green chiles, and probably ten other ingredients that I can’t think of right now.

Making a pot of chilli is all about experimentation, and every batch turns out different from the time before. And I haven’t yet made a pot of chilli so bad that I, and those around me, can’t eat it. Which is what we’re going to do right now. Pass the shredded cheese!

I was looking for some fresh sheets to put on my bed yesterday, when I saw the old box. I went over to it, and on the top was something that I must have completely missed back in the mid-1980s. It was a vocational assessment that came from a place called National Computer Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of course, the “computer” end of it would probably give us all a good laugh if we could see it today. Things have come a long way on the technology side.

The report I received–or that my parents apparently received–indicates that I was most interested in adventure, writing, politics, law, and public speaking, and that I was least interested in teaching and domestic arts (whatever those are). The irony is that I later went to graduate school and taught in the classroom for five years. That just shows how much attention I paid (or didn’t pay) to this report.

The most fascinating thing about this report from a generation ago is the “Occupational Scales” section. There are dozens of potential occupations listed, such as police officer, farmer, computer programmer, and pharmacist. For each occupation, there is a “Female normed scale” and a “Male normed scale,” which are generally different from each other. For example, my responses on whatever test they gave to me suggest that, were I a female, I would be likely to want to be an Army officer. As a male, though, my answers indicated a considerably lower interest in the same career.

There must have been some reason why NCS did this–we all did things in the 80s that seem strange now–but to suggest my interest in a job field was directly tied to my gender seems strange to me today. But an even bigger issue can be found with vocations such as “skilled crafts.”

The higher the number for the normed scores are, the further to the right the asterisk appears on their range. But the absence of any female-normed score for “skilled crafts”–replaced instead by a pre-printed “N/A”–suggests a determination by NCS that no female would ever consider a career in the skilled crafts. Whatever the “skilled crafts” are, my classmates who happened to be female weren’t given a score to predict their interest (or lack thereof) in this field.

In addition to “skilled crafts,” females were also steered away from being vocational agricultural teachers, investment fund managers, and agribusiness managers. Males, on the other hand,  were steered away from being dental hygienists, Home Economics teachers, secretaries, and dental assistants.

Even if I wasn’t interested in being any of those things (or very much else, at that age), the notion that I wouldn’t want to do them just because I’m a male probably would have bounced right off my 17-year old brain. But now, a generation later, that way of thinking seems as outdated as a typewriter, carbon paper, and white-out. And that has to be considered a good thing.

After I paid for the ball and returned to my car, I started thinking about the ball itself. Without it, there is no game. The pitcher has nothing to throw to the batter. The game loses all meaning. The players lose their livelihood, and fans like me don’t have anything to focus our attentions on. We would replace it with something else, certainly, but we wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much as we do baseball.

So what was this ball’s story? With Commissioner Selig’s signature on it, it can’t be all that old. Maybe it was fouled out of play in Comerica Park a few years ago. Or maybe it was tossed into the stands between innings of a game in Coors Field. Or maybe (and I think this is far more likely than the other possibilities), it was little Jimmy’s’ birthday present, and he played catch with it once or twice before losing it in the back of his family’s garage. It doesn’t matter what the truth really is, because it feels the same in my hands, anyway.

So what story will I tell anyone in my office who wants to know about where it came from? I suppose it depends on what mood I’m in that day. But you–the reader of this blog who will probably never lay eyes on the ball in the real world–will know the truth. And sometimes the truth is just no match for a really good story.

Every day brings us closer to when the games actually mean something, and posts like can fill in the spaces until then. And if you’re reading this before April 5, 2012, I’m glad I can help, in some small way.

The end of that weekend means that the games will continue on, but the second weekend isn’t the same as the first. There’s still four straight days of college hoops, but there isn’t the wall-to-wall basketball feeling that there is on the first weekend.

And then comes the week-long buildup to the Final Four and then the college championship game. The NCAA gets it right with the tournament: it raises public interest, makes  a lot of money, and actually does what the BCS does not do by allowing all teams the chance to settle things on the court.

And the best part of this process has nothing to do with basketball. When it’s all over on April 2, and one team has cut down the nets in New Orleans and has been crowned as the new national champion, the baseball season will be just about to get underway. And then sports can really start to mean something again.

None of what I’m saying here relates to people in any way. People can reciprocate love back to you, while inanimate things cannot do this. If I say that I love to write–and I do–it is with the understanding that writing doesn’t care for me and never will. Who I love and what I love are as different as night and day.

The things that I love don’t have to be automatically loved by the people that I love. I would never try to suggest that if I love something, someone that I love should love that thing, too. That’s not love; it’s closer to control than anything else.

But by the same token, if someone that I love happens to hate something that I love, it wouldn’t cause me to stop loving whatever that thing is. I might feel worse about loving whatever that thing is–or perhaps I would even wonder what it is that that person sees that I don’t see–but I wouldn’t let anyone’s hatred dissuade me from something that I love.

I say all of this, as a departure from the type of thing that I usually write here, because today I allowed my hatred for some inanimate thing to get the better of me. I started to rail against this, in the company of people that I love, and who love the thing that I hate. I immediately felt bad about doing this, so I asked myself what was the point of professing hatred toward something that they love.

Was I trying to rid the ones I love of something that they love, just because I hate that same thing? Would it be a good thing, if that were to happen? The answers to these questions weren’t comfortable things to consider, but the questions still had to be asked.

I spent the rest of the day looking inside myself, and examining my own value system. Let’s say that I love apples (I don’t, but it’s a good place to start with this). If somebody that I love hates apples,  and tries to tell me how terrible apples are, do I then stop eating apples? And if so, does this mean that my love for apples should be wiped away, simply because that person doesn’t like apples? And why did I love apples in the first place, if they’re so terrible? What was I missing during all the years that I did love apples?

I decided, after turning these things over in my mind, that there needs to be more love in the world, rather than less. Trying to dissuade those that I love from anything that they love is the wrong thing to do. I don’t need to love what they love, but I can see myself moving the focus of my hatred away from hate and at least toward tolerance. And I hope that the ones I love will understand that.

With that philosophical stuff resolved, or at least examined in more detail than usual, I can get back to writing about more meaningless stuff the next time around. Thanks for indulging me on this.

Burt Hooton was a Cubs pitcher who seemed destined for greatness. He made his big league debut in 1971, without spending a single day in the minor leagues. No Cubs player has done this in the four decades since then. And, on the second day of the 1972 season, he threw a no-hitter against the Phillies in Wrigley Field.  Somehow, though, Hooton had a losing record for the 1972, 1973, and 1974 seasons. He was dealt away to Los Angeles early in the 1975 season, where he would later pitch in three World Series–all against the Yankees–and win a championship with the team in 1981.

He pitched his final season with the Texas Rangers in 1985, and he is currently the pitching coach for the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. Looking at his career, it can be said that being traded to Los Angeles clearly helped his career. It was actually the inverse of Rick Sutcliffe‘s experience with the Cubs and a trade.

And so the 2012 season–which is still more than a month away from officially starting–has passed its first milestone. More will be coming in the days ahead.

I got this card in a trade today, and I’ll write more about the trade itself in another post, but for now I wanted to write something about the experiment I tried upon receiving this card. I was out walking the dog, and I made a number of attempts at “announcing” Pete LaCock out loud, so that only my dog could hear it. And each time it sounded like this: “Now batting (chuckle, pause to try to gather my thoughts) Pete (chuckle) LaCock! (snort)”

Yes, I know that’s juvenile. I wasn’t happy to be walking along the sidewalk, saying the name again and again. My inner Beavis and Butthead won out each time I tried this. I hope that none of the professional announcers were ever as immature about it as I was. But it seems like an interesting name to go through life with. There were probably lots of giggles whenever his name was spoken out loud. And the double-entendre possibilities could go on for quite some time. I have resisted these until now, but I have to do one before I end this post.

The guy pictured above walks into a bar and orders a drink. The regular patrons don’t know who he is, so they ask him  to identify himself. The guy takes a swig of his beer and then calls out “I’m Pete LaCock, suckers!”

I could do a bunch of these, probably, but I’ll just call it a night instead. Thanks for reading.

That last part has always baffled me a little bit. If you’re already at the game, and you paid for the ticket and paid to park the car and bought peanuts and beer and whatever else it is you get at a ballgame, why not stay and see who wins? I understand that watching Aaron break the record was the real draw, but would it have been too painful to stay and watch the game until the eighth inning, at least? That’s what I would do.

As fans were leaving the game, there was still more baseball to be played. Yes, that evening’s gathering was not an exhibition, for the sole purpose of breaking the most hallowed record in all of sports. That’s what ended up happening, and that’s why so many people were there to witness it, but it was still a baseball game that had to be finished. Statistics were kept, outs were recorded,  and the game’s result went into the wins and losses columns, just like every other game does.

Aaron’s home run tied the game, and the Braves forged ahead to a 7-4 lead. When the seventh inning rolled around, the home team turned to the new pitcher on their staff, Lee William Capra. He went by the moniker “Buzz,” and the card shown above makes it seem as if that’s his given name, so I’ll call him Buzz here, as well.

Buzz Capra had come to the Braves after three nondescript years with the New York Mets. He struck out six of the ten batters he faced that evening, and didn’t allow a single hit. He recorded the save, and after that he was on his way in Atlanta. He made the All-star team for the first (and only) time in his career. He won 16 games, which was more games than he won in his other six seasons combined. He led the National League with a 2.28 ERA, finished in the top ten in the league in the Cy Young voting, and even got some votes for the National League’s MVP award.

The future looked bright for Buzz Capra in the wake of the 1974 season. In fact, it would never look so good for him again. His record over the next three seasons was 10-19, and by the time this card appeared before the start of the 1978 season, Buzz Capra would never again play in the majors. You could think of his career as a pyramid, with three seasons in New York, one stellar season in Atlanta, followed by three more seasons in Atlanta. And that’s seven more seasons in the majors than anyone reading this post will get, myself included. The best seven years of his life, I would imagine.

I couldn’t name the directors of too many movies, and certainly not from the years before I was born. But It’s a Wonderful Life is the obvious exception. Frank Capra directed the movie, and his name almost seems to be a part of the movie’s title: Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

With the mug shot glare in his eyes, his porn star ‘stache, and a defiant sneer curling his lip to bare his front teeth, Buzz Capra looks a bit like Frank Capra’s wild, rebellious offspring. He looks like he would go to work for Mr. Potter, throwing all of the working folks out of Bailey Park; Like he’d kick Uncle Billy in the shins and remind him, for the thousandth time, that he lost all that money by handing it over to Potter; Like he’d give cigarettes to Tommy Bailey and teach Zuzu how to curse properly; Like he’d hang out with Sam Wainwright, just to remind George that he never left Bedford Falls. I suppose I’ve seen the movie a few too many times. But an angel must have been sitting on Buzz Capra’s shoulder, from the day Hank Aaron broke the home run record right up to the end of the 1974 season. And then the angel got his wings, and Buzz Capra was once again on his own.

I hinted at this in an earlier post, but the most remarkable thing about Gary Carter’s career is that he started off maybe the best rally some people have ever seen. The Mets were behind by two runs in the bottom of the 10th inning (most people have forgotten the game was in extra innings) of Game six of the 1986 World Series. It looked so hopeless for the Mets that they briefly flashed a note of congratulations to the Red Sox on their scoreboard as Gary Carter came to bat.

With two outs, nobody on base, and the Red Sox needing to record one out to win the championship, Carter could have just thrown in the towel. He could have gone through the motions, and been remembered to history as the final batter retired for the season (and there’s one every year, isn’t there?). But he didn’t do that. Instead, he hit a single, which ignited the rally that carried the Mets to an improbable victory in the game, and then to the World Series title the next day.

That moment didn’t make Gary Carter into a permanent Met, the way Buckner’s error appears to have turned him into a Red Sox player forevermore. But it did earn him a place in the annals of Mets history, and the grief that is certain to come from Mets fans will be on a par with that of the Expos fans.

Thanks to Gary Carter for reminding us that a game, or a series, is not over until the final out has been recorded. Until then, anything can literally happen in a baseball game, and that’s one of the reasons I love the game as I do.

The first thing that ever moved me to type something up and put it out for the world to consider was  a plastic batting helmet that I bought at a garage sale. I wrote something about it, started this blog, and now every time someone finds their way to this space, there it is on the right hand side of the page.

You can buy a similar kind of batting helmet today, and I came across one while in a big box store in the suburbs a few nights ago. I immediately started to compare my old-time batting helmet with its modern equivalent and, I have to say, today’s helmets ain’t got the same soul.

The first thing I noticed was the oversized C on the newer helmet. It looks like something other than the Cubs logo I’ve seen on thousands of hats and shirts over the years. If the Cubs logo on my helmet started using steroids, it might grow into what the C on the newer helmet looks like.

Additionally, the newer helmet’s shade of blue is a few shades darker than mine, which of course makes it incorrect. And the MLB logo that appears on the back of the new helmet looks out of place to me. On the back of a baseball cap it’s fine, but on the back of one of these helmets it just looks like an MLB money grab.

The newer helmet was made in China, probably by the kind of place that put the makers of my helmet–Laich Industries of Cleveland, Ohio–out of business in the 1990s. So my helmet, on top of being much better looking than the newer one, also had the benefit of being made in America. Those days now seem like a very long time ago.

But the final difference is something that we hardly ever think about anymore. If you were to look on the underside of my helmet’s bill in the front, you would see a small, half-torn off pricetag from K-Mart. And this is the way that everything was sold, in a supermarket or a grocery store or any other place you bought consumer items. Somebody at the store had to attach pricetags to every can of soup, every box of tissues, and every frozen item in the store. Otherwise, how would anyone know how much something cost?

UPC codes came out, I want to say in the 1980s, and did away with all of that. The self-serve checkouts that are in every grocery store today would not have been possible in the world that my helmet was made in.

Do I miss the old days when a price tag was stuck to every item? Not really. But I had kind of forgotten that they ever existed in the first place, and so I wanted to put this out there, to remind myself of this  particular circumstance. In a similar vein, it’s still possible to find flyers and ads that don’t have the QR codes on them, but those are being replaced by the newer model of ads. In a decade or so, maybe those will become as ubiquitous as UPC codes are today. It sure seems to be heading in that direction, anyway.

I’m going to paraphrase a sentiment from Bob Seger on my way out of this post. And BBH is short for, well, you can probably figure it out:

I like that old time BBH

That kinda helmet just soothes my soul

I reminisce about the days of old

with that old time BBH