MichaelLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

Starting November 1st I will be thoroughly engaged in the National Novel Writers’ Month Challenge. Known across the internet as “NaNoWriMo”, the challenge is to write the first draft of a novel in a month. The website defines a novel as 50,000 words, or approximately 175 pages. That comes out to about four pages a day.

That’s the hard part. The good part is that NaNoWriMo brings together amateur and professional writers across the world in an effort to promote writing and this writing endeavor. It is a chance to network with other writers in the same way Basic Training or Boot Camp helps recruits bond – by putting a majority of them in a stressful environment and having them grow together as professionals.

Of course, writers can do the challenge completely alone if they want. Or they can crawl away from their writing hovels every so often and meet other area writers and network, bond, get advice, and lean on. My goal is to meet with other writers at least twice, if not once a week. And there is also my friend Keri from the blog FilthyNerdy who is also doing the challenge. So perhaps we will be exchanging notes, ideas, and shots of alcohol.

To say I am more than a little worried about NaNoWriMo is an understatement. Although I’ve been writing for a while, the longest thing I have ever written – my Master’s Thesis – is only 27,000 words. The novel I intend to write will be double that. Yes, there is no research as there was in a Master’s Thesis, but research as never been a problem with me. Focusing on writing and the discipline to sit at one spot and write page after page is difficult.

Second, and probably most challenging, is the unusual fact that writing directly to a computer is not my strong point. Many of my detail-oriented posts or most creative tales are usually written in a notebook or on loose leaf paper. I am better at letting my ideas flow from brain to pen to paper than from brain to keyboard. But because I don’t think I can spare a moment in November, outside of an outline or character sketches, paper and notebooks have to be out of the question. I won’t have the time to write then type. That’s double work.

So what about this great bastion of writing prowess? What will happen here while I am knee-deep in fictional novel writing?

Well, my goal is to put up at least one post a week. Odds are, it will be some casual, like an old poem or a youtube clip. Please don’t expect anything extensive – although I will be working on my next article for the Tampa Bay Times and a possible essay on socio-military relations is in the works. And I would like to type a quick book review on a few books I recently finished. And if there are any moments to spare, I would like to finally finish a 50-page short story I’ve been working on since the summer. And I have a book proposal out there that I hope to hear back on. And I am still looking for full-time work, which might have an effect on the schedule. Perhaps I might try to recruit a guest blogger or two. I’ve cameoed on enough blogs in my day, maybe a few of those writers could lend me their words during this creatively trying time.

So off I go into the National Novel Writers’ Month Challenge. Please think of me in your prayers and send me all of your well-wishes, votes of confidence, atta-boys, and other signs of positive encouragement. I’m going into November a blogger, coming out a writer.

I found this paragraph in a notebook of poems, thoughts, and other random musings. It was written 2/19/2008. Not sure I want to expand on it, but I wanted to post it here to maybe foster some deep ponderment.

We worship sport like gods. Football our Mars, basketball our Venus, etc. The rise of sport and industrialization pulled us apart as a nation and drove us into small affiliations. Only fitting then that the battles of sports, the cut-throat of industrial capitalism, and the vile polarization of politics spawned from our civil war. It is not over – we only re-channeled our nation’s natural-born aggressiveness. Sports and political vitriol are releases of the hostility and societal pressures borne from our precious democratic industrial capitalism.

The internet is a strange place. Like any major metropolis or societal gathering of people, it can be colorful, funny, humorous, creative, joyous, and put a smile on your face. Or it can be a vile, dark, disgusting place where children and angels dare not tread.

This week I saw two videos involving children that made me lose and then regain hope in humanity.

First I saw a disturbing video of a small girl hit by two trucks on a road in China. Making the situation even worse, as the girl lay there, obviously in pain, no less than 18 people walk past her before someone comes to her aid. It was a wonder she was still alive.

Then today my hopes for a bit of social civility were restored when I found out the Batman of cyber vigilantism, the famed and mysterious “Anonymous”, was taking out child porn service providers. After focusing on big banks, governments, and other establishments they think are doing evil, Anonymous is coming to the aid of those who can not protect themselves and publishing as much information as possible on those who would do bad to them.

Over at Rays Index, I wrote a letter to Stu Sternberg, owner of the Rays. I told him my honest impressions of him and a few things I think he can improve on in regards to his public relations and the team’s impression in the Tampa Bay area.

Rays Index: A Letter to Stu Sternberg

Keeping with the poem theme of the week, here is something I wrote in early 2003.

Twisting words like cotton candy

on a stick

They digest them both

sometimes at the same time

One day my day will come

the bling-bling

Power, sex, respect

Don’t you know who I am?

“The Wordman

better than a birdman?”

Listen here

There is something in my stomach

It’s going to eat me

Consume me

Control me

I vomit regurgitated thoughts

Puke pink all over your shirt

“If she bails, then it was never meant to be.”

If she stays, another victory

For the Wordman

Here is another poem I wrote for poetry class back in 2001.

Little Bradley’s Birthday

6 years old

He sits alone.

Deserted.

Not a friend around.

 

Today’s his birthday

yet no one told him.

6 years old today.

No one seems to care.

 

The look on his face

speaks of loneliness.

Abuse.

Neglect.

 

Little Bradley is 6 today.

Can’t you tell?

No party, no cake, no toys,

Not even a hello.

 

He thinks to leave,

run away.

Where would he go?

Would life be different

with people he did not know?

 

Unpainted walls,

a mattress lies in a corner.

That is all Little Bradley has,

that is all he knows.

 

His father left.

His mother doesn’t care.

His wounds from her beatings

all he wears.

 

Little Bradley is 6 years old today.

How long will he cry?

How long will he stay?

How long will he be denied

the opportunity to laugh or play?

Little Bradley is 6 years old today.

Here is a poem I wrote ten years ago for a poetry class. Hard to believe it’s been ten years since I took courses on poetry. I’ve always enjoyed it as an art form. Maybe I’ll start writing more of it.

I approached her slowly, methodically.

I needed to wake her, news to tell her.

This much I remember, the rest a blur.

Just now collecting the emotional debris.

He was driving down highway 23.

Drunken laughter from the car around the curve.

The party stopped when they hit, his pain burned.

From the car behind I called emergency.

They were late, he was gone, another victim

of the demon of irresponsibility.

 

Of course she took it hard, I knew she would.

Her tears started down her face. She loved him

very much and they were to be wed one day.

I held her, comforting the best I could.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

Last week I finally saw Moneyball. While the baseball community knows Moneyball for its unique perspective on team building, Moneyball is also unique as a baseball movie.

As in the book, Moneyball the movie focuses on the struggle of the Oakland A’s to rebuild after the departure of Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen. While the story of plucky underdogs who make the playoffs after their superstars leave the team is not unusual in Hollywood, Moneyball writer Aaron Sorokin’s choice to follow the writing of author Michael Lewis and focus on General Manager Billy Beane is unique for a baseball movie.

Possibly the greatest baseball movie to use the underdog theme with a focus on the players was Major League, starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, etc. While both movies are about a team of misfits, Major League focuses on the players and their quests on the ballfield, in the dugout, and in other places where teams collate. Moneyball on the other hand is the behind-the-scenes story of creating a team, making trades, and obtaining players. The focus is on Bean, his hiring of his young mathematical assistant, and his struggle to push a new numbers-based organizational philosophy.

There is no mathematical wizardry in assembly of the Cleveland Indians in Major League. Whereas the Oakland A’s drafted predominantly college pitchers with proven track records and minimized draft risks, the Indians took a flyer on a young right-hander in the California Penal League named Rick Vaughn. While the A’s signed David Justice to DH and milk whatever skills they could from his veteran body, the Indians relied on gimpy-kneed Jake Taylor to fill the toughest position on the field. The A’s looked for patient hitters who can take the occasional walk; the Indians signed Pedro Cerrano, a free-swinging slugger with problems laying off the breaking pitch. And there is no way the A’s would have taken a chance on a walk-on speedster who attempts to be a power hitter.

Similar to Moneyball, the Indians are led by a general manager, Charlie Donovan. But unlike Moneyball’s Beane, once the team is assembled Donovan slips into the background and becomes a minor character. The two characters do share an interesting trait, however, in that neither typically travels with the team.

Although the general managers are completely different, the managers of each team are quite similar. Both Indians skipper Lou Brown and A’s manager Art Howe are career baseball men who fight against the overarching philosophy of the ballclub with interesting and varying results. Whereas Brown struggles within the constraints of ownership until sparking the team against ownership, Howe, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Howe fights ownership in the beginning of the movie until ownership forces him in line where then, under the vision of the ownership philosophy, he is given credit for the team’s success by the media.

Finally, how they win and their respective on-the-field strategy is one of the biggest differences between the two movies. On the advice of his young assistant (the not-Paul DePodesta played by Jonah Hill), Billy Bean takes a stand on his players’ actions and disallows stealing bases and bunting. Compare that to the final batting scene by the Cleveland Indians in their climactic game against the New York Yankees. After Roger Dorn is hit by a pitch (a move Bean would probably advocate), pinch-runner Willie Mays Hayes is put in the game strictly to steal second base. While we are to assume Hayes was successful enough through the season to advocate a steal of second, what happens next is so anti-Moneyball it would have fried the circuits of DePodesta’s trusty PC.

Instead of swinging away and trying to drive home the run, injury-prone and slow-footed catcher Jake Taylor bunts. And not only bunts to advance the runner, but for a hit. And then Hayes takes the ultimate risk, rounds third, and heads for home. If we were to assume Hayes is the leadoff batter and Taylor is the number two hitter, then the Indians were to have their best hitter at the plate with two men on base. Hayes’s risk is incredibly un-A’s, I don’t even think the early season version of Art Howe would have approved it.

Although where Moneyball will rank in the pantheon of baseball movies has yet to be determined, there is no doubt it is one of the most different baseball movies ever. It’s reliance on realism and focus on the behind the scenes machinations makes it unique and an interesting comparison to Major League and other baseball cinematic favorites

According to legend, I was conceived in New York’s Playboy Hotel. So although I wasn’t pre-conceived to cross paths with Playboy, I guess I was down with the bunny since before Day 1.

With my creation story as inspiration, I thought it only made sense for me to want to marry a Playmate. For almost all of my teenage years, I wanted nothing more than to follow the footsteps of J. Howard Marshall, old dude extraordinaire and brief husband of Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith. I remember my exact thought process was along the lines of, “she can marry me for my money and I’ll marry her for her body. It’s a far trade.”

(In hindsight, to say I was a bit misaligned in my thoughts on a healthy adult relationship would be an understatement. Yet for some reason no one pushed me back in the right direction. Maybe they thought I was joking. Anyway …)

My odd fascination with Playboy continued while I was in the Army. While deployed to Bosnia in 1998, I started a very brief (read: three e-mail) correspondence with Miss October 1994 Jennifer Lavoie. I was so super excited to get an email from a Playmate while a few thousand miles from home. I think I even printed out the emails and hung them over my bunk. Next to making a 35-minute movie about alien invaders, my letter from Jenn Lavoie was the highlight of my Bosnia mission.

Shortly after leaving Bosnia and exiting the Army, I enrolled at FSU. Not knowing a thing about Tallahassee, I signed up to live in the dorms for my first year in college. Being a 22-year old freshman in a dorm full of 18-year olds would have completely sucked if not for meeting two people: my future apartment roommate Zheke Snow and future Playboy Coed of the Week and Road Rules contestant Mary Beth Decker.

While Zheke Snow has little Playboy affiliation that I know off outside of the fact that he dug my poster of December 1993 Playmate Elisa Bridges, Mary Beth and I were friends for her one semester at FSU. She roomed on my floor, we shared Olive Garden, and I also snuck her her first drinks at Potbelly’s bar on our first night in Tallahassee. On that balmy Tallahassee night in August 1999, Mary Beth drove me to Potbelly’s in her Mustang and we talked about Tom Green, Pearl Jam, and how she planned to eventually get a boob job because dresses didn’t fit her small-chested frame.

After only a few months at Florida State, Mary Beth transferred to Texas A&M, where she told me all of her friends from high school went. Lo and behold, in 2003, shortly before I graduated, I saw a familiar face on Playboy.com. Mary Beth had not only gotten her boob job, but changed her hair color from blond to brunette and although she was cute before, her new look made her Playboy model style pretty. A few quick internet searches later, I also found out she was on MTV’s Road Rules and made a name for herself in reality television. I guess because she wasn’t at Florida State for very long, no one in Tallahassee made a big deal of it. But I thought it was cool. We shared cheese sticks.

Playboy girls and I drifted apart after my brief friendship with Mary Beth. In 2004, Playboy made a brief visit to Tallahassee to capture a few pictures for their regular “Girls of ACC” feature. Despite having classes with hundreds, if not thousands of girls at Florida State, I didn’t have any classes with Playboy’s FSU representatives. I did however shop at the local record store where Playboy took several of the girls’ pictures. Sadly, that record store (Vinyl Fever Tallahassee) is no longer open, leaving the Playboy pictorial as one of the few reminders of the place where I could find obscure albums without having to wait five to ten days for delivery.

I went through a bit of a Playboy drought from 2004 to 2010. Although I interviewed one-time-Playboy model-now-porn star Angela McLin on my old site, blogged about one-time Playmate of the Year Carmella DeCesare’s local charity bowling event, and even saw CJ Gibson, sister of December 2005 Playmate Raquel Gibson, at a Tampa beach bar, I didn’t meet, talk to, or make acquaintance with any Playboy models in the flesh.

My Playboy drought finally ended in February 2011 when I met cover girl and then-Tampa Breeze Lingerie Football Player Mikayla Wingle. While working as Social Media Adviser and Special Projects Coordinator for All-Stars Wrestling, I learned the Girls of the LFL were going to be featured in Playboy. After discovering who the Tampa Breeze girl was and finding her contact info, I coordinated for Mikayla to visit All-Stars Wrestling, sign autographs, and even cameo on the local shock jock drive-time radio show.

After exchanging emails and tweets with Mikayla for a few weeks, we finally met at the radio station prior to her going on the air. While we sat in the green room – which by the way wasn’t green – we hit it off and even kinda became quick friends. Mikayla made her appearance on the radio show and then re-met with me and we headed off to the wrestling event. While there, we took some awesome pictures and watched the show, making jokes, cheering, and booing the wrestlers along the way.

Before she left, Mikayla told me she worked at a bar in a Tampa suburb and invited me out to visit whenever she was on shift. After her visit to ASW, I visited her bar once a month to say hello, grab a beer, and catch up on her blossoming modelling and appearance career.

About a month ago, I learned Mikayla was following in the footsteps of my previous Playboy pal Mary Beth Decker and making an appearance on reality TV. But Mikayla wasn’t going to be on a seldom-watched obscure MTV show, she was going for the gusto and appearing on the one of the granddaddies of reality shows, Survivor. So far, she is doing well. Several weeks into the season she is still on the island, making more friends than enemies, and gaining fans and followers by the bushel.

Sometimes it’s weird meeting people who have been in Playboy. I know it’s a great career milestone for models, but as I get older it becomes less exciting of an accomplishment. Although I am proud of them, especially if I know them personally, I am no longer that teenager who wanted nothing more than to marry a Playmate.

These days, I’m not the type of person who will pose with a woman in a one-off meeting (unless it’s Reese Witherspoon, then all bets are off). However, if she is a fun person with a kick-ass sense of humor and she is wholly enamored by the power of the afro then you can bet your sweet bunny ears we will be taking plenty of pics.

And, if by chance, she ends up on a reality TV show, you can also guarantee I’ll be tuning in to support my friend on there as well.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

(This interview was printed in our second book The Bus Leagues Experience Volume 2, currently available on Amazon for only $8.)

This Part 3 of our extensive interview with Miami-based baseball historian Kurt Schweizer. Part 1 and Part 2 are available here.

You can find more of Kurt’s efforts on his Original Miami Marlins Facebook page, his feature story on growing up on Miami baseball, and his photo essay of Miami Stadium.

Bus Leagues Baseball: Have you heard whether or not the Marlins will recognize any of the extensive history of Miami baseball or the history of the Orange Bowl in their new stadium? Do you think they should?

Kurt Schweizer: I think they absolutely should. There is obviously a tremendous amount of college and pro football history with the OB but there is also a bit of baseball history there. In 1956, the Miami Marlins played a game there in front of a sold out house and Satchel Paige was the Marlins starting pitcher. And the Caribbean League Championship Series was played there in 1990 and I attended one of those games. Also, Miami Stadium’s predecessor, Miami Field, was located in the Southwest corner of the OB parking lot. That stadium was before my time but I had some relatives whom attended games there. I’m not sure to what extent they will honor all of that history, but, so far, I understand they are building some kind of artistic monument piece that is made from the Orange Bowl’s main sign. So, while I think that is nice, it doesn’t make up for the fact that an important and large piece of Miami sports history was destroyed unnecessarily, in my view.

BLB: What are your feelings on the Marlins becoming the Miami Marlins?

KS: I have very mixed feelings about that and about them even being called the Marlins in the first place. On the one hand, it is nice as an honor to history, but on the other hand, it was a completely new team and completely separate from the two Minor League franchises that used the name at Miami Stadium, so I always thought they should have a completely new name. And, of course, I fully understood that they used “Florida” in the name to appeal to fans all over the state and not just in Miami. So, I understand why many of the Marlins’ fans in Broward, Palm Beach and other counties, are unhappy about the upcoming change to Miami Marlins. I don’t blame them. And to me, the Miami Marlins name will always refer to the team I grew up watching in the 80s and the eras prior to that. So, if it were up to me, I would give them a totally new name or would at least keep it as it stands currently, as the Florida Marlins. But, it is what it is. I will have to just get used to it.

BLB: What’s next for your history projects?

KS: I’m always interested in doing or contributing to any projects related to the history of pro baseball and Spring Training in Miami, as well as other parts of Florida. The Miracle have asked me to be involved in their celebration of that franchise’s 20 year anniversary of moving to Fort Myers, so I am looking forward to that. Also, just today, in fact, a local historic preservation group contacted me about using some of my pictures and an article on their website. So, I am happy that there is still an interest out there.

BLB: You worked briefly in the front office of the Fort Myers Miracle. Why move with the franchise after it left Miami?

KS: Initially, I wasn’t at all happy that the franchise moved out of Miami, first to Hialeah, then to the West Miami area, on the campus of FIU and then to Pompano Beach for two years before finally settling in Ft Myers. I went to see them in each location and actually worked for them part time in Miami, Hialeah and FIU prior to Ft Myers, meeting some great people along the way, most notably Marlins GM Sonny Hirsch, who was a local Miami sports legend and worked in radio and TV and also in the Marlins/Orioles front office for about 30 years. I miss him and wish I could’ve worked for him much longer. But, after a while, I became more accepting and more comfortable with each of those moves because I understand all too well that, ultimately, the baseball business is just that—a business. They had to make those moves for business purposes and I can’t blame them for that. They have found great business success in Fort Myers, under the leadership of Mike Veeck and Marv Goldklang. And after a while, it just came to the point that the Miami area was not the right environment to sustain Minor League Baseball. So, I am happy that they have found a suitable home over there on the west coast of Florida. There were very few regular fans left in the franchise’s Miami fan base by the time the 80s came around. There were some great fans but just not enough of them. But, in Ft. Myers, there are a lot of very passionate baseball fans over there who love Minor League ball and give them the support that they just weren’t able to get enough of during their last several years in the Miami area. Plus I enjoyed working and living in Ft. Myers while I was with their front office. It would have been really nice for me to work full time in Miami Stadium, though, because it was my first love but I wouldn’t trade my experience in Ft. Myers for anything. I met a lot of great fans and worked with a lot of great people over there, as well, and I learned a lot from them, about the sports industry and about life.

BLB: Do you feel the Miracle have a responsibility to acknowledge the history of the franchise now that they are in Fort Myers?

KS: Yes, I think every pro sports franchise owes that to their fans and to themselves. Tradition and history is such a huge part of sports, but particularly to pro baseball, in my opinion. Generally, the Miracle have been very open to honoring their franchise’s rich and varied history. And I am always honored and happy to help them do that in whatever way I can.

We want to thank Kurt again for his time.