Let me begin this tale by apologizing for the number of seemingly unrelated twists and turns it will take. Tangents are apparently a byproduct of spending months at a time as the only American in the immediate vicinity. There are a handful of people here who are perfectly capable of communicating in English, but as non-Westerners, they have no frame of reference for my usual conversational/written go-to's--Good Will Hunting quotes, sports trivia, literary discourse, and the like.
From 4th grade through 8th grade, I attempted to mold myself into a competent lacrosse player. Fayetteville-Manlius has a proud lacrosse tradition, plus all the cute girls played for the ladies team at my proud alma mater, Wellwood Middle School (suck it, Eagle Hill). I played in the district's summer league for three years until I was old enough to play for the school's modified team in 7th grade. I was what you could optimistically call a "project" on the lacrosse field. I was terrified of getting hit, plus my right arm and hand were even more useless and uncoordinated then than they are now. Puzzlingly, I also opted for a Carolina Blue/Gold helmet at the GB Lax Store before the season began--definitely wouldn't stand out on a team whose colors were green and white, right?
Anyway, I languished on the B-team for my two years on the team. My biggest career highlights were getting the ball stuck in the head of my stick after winning (!) a faceoff, and taking one shot that went about eight feet wide of the net. I proudly told my dad that I had almost scored, and, in what seemed like a dick move at the time (but seems much more sensible in hindsight), he told me that that probably wasn't something to be bragging about. What this is all getting around to is that I pretty much sucked at lacrosse, but I liked being on the team, so I consequently spent a lot of time off the field goofing off on the bench/sidelines. This left me with plenty of time to practice and perfect cool stick tricks. I got pretty good, actually--I figured that if I couldn't be a lacrosse player in the truest sense (as in, you know, actually playing), I could at least pass for one when the pads were off.
I've forgotten just about all of these tricks now, but little did I know that one little scoop-and-cradle move would come in handy nine years down the line, in a remote corner of the Pacific where no one has ever heard of lacrosse. As with all of my Marshallese adventures, this one started unexpectedly, thanks to my friend Manny (readers may remember him from the turtle hunting story). I had gone to his house to bring him a few pairs of socks, which I had no use for but he could really use--the men here wear them under their flippers when they go spearfishing. I handed off the socks and chatted with him for a minute, but he was clearly in a hurry to get going somewhere. It was dark out, and I saw him dig out a hard hat and fasten it to his head. It was a contraption worthy of Richard Tyler from The Pagemaster (obscure pop-culture reference alert!)--the middle of the hard hat had been removed, front to back, and in in the gap rested a massive flashlight held in place by fishing line. He switched it on and headed to the back of his house, where he retrieved his fishing net.
Marshallese fishing nets look like what the Native Americans might have used for lacrosse goalie sticks, had they been more interested in stopping shots and less interested in using their games to practice warfare. Entirely wooden, the nets are about seven feet long, with the net itself rigged from thick fishing line which has been meticulously woven and tied into a grid. Manny informed me that he and his neighbor, Action (3-time captain of the outer island All-Name Team) were going out after flying fish in Action's boat. Did I want to come?
I did. Now, this may come as a surprise to those of you familiar with my noble, badass Eagle Scouting roots, but I had never actually caught a fish before the incident I'm writing about. Of any kind. Ever. This fact had made me feel steadily less and less manly as my year among some of the greatest fishermen alive progressed. As a frame of reference, on the same day as this story, my host father brought home a dogtooth tuna (jilo in Marshallese) that was honest-to-God the same size as my seven-year-old host brother. He caught this beast with only a handline, no reel or gaffe necessary.
My job on this first expedition turned out to be incredibly superfluous. Action steered the boat, Manny perched on the bow edge with his net and helmet-flashlight combo scouring for prey. I...sat. And held another flashlight to help sweep the areas Manny might have missed. I watched him go seventeen-for-eighteen on fish that we saw, deftly maneuvering the huge net and lifting 15-inch flying fish (jojo) from the water. It was a cloudy, moonless night, which meant that there was a dearth of jojo out and about. Allegedly, they're drawn up to the surface by moonlight and starlight, and we had none. Long story short, I had zero part in actual fishing that time around.
Fortunately for me, a rainy day later that week broke into a cloudless, starlit night, and Manny summoned me to join the expedition again. This time, I brought my host father's net (of the same make as Manny's), so as not to be denied the chance to scoop a few myself. Getting into the boat, I thought back to that modified lacrosse sideline and hoped I still had a trick or two to fall back on, since the instruments were so similar. Manny, as I had already seen, was fluid and graceful with his net, clearly a natural who had nevertheless spent countless hours perfecting his craft.
(By the way, I think a pretty compelling social experiment would be to take a bunch of outer island kids from the RMI to the U.S. and enroll them in contact sports. The students out here are freakishly nimble, and strong for their small statures. They are also incredibly fearless-in any field not involving demons- and they have an incredible tolerance for pain. They tackle each other on gravel and broken glass, jump on each other out of coconut trees, and generally just beat each other senseless whenever they have a chance. Absolutely no fear of bleeding or bruising. The girls are as impressive as the boys in this regard. They are solidly built, and many of them can hit a baseball farther than their male peers. Some wealthy, opportunistic coach of football, soccer, lacrosse, or baseball/softball needs to come snatch up a bunch of these kids and watch them start to dominate American youth leagues.)
I mentioned in my turtle post the surreal feeling I get every time I cross the reef's edge into open water on this atoll. It was even stranger this time around, in the pitch black, not being able to see the depths falling away beneath me. Manny was again perched on the bow, one leg over the edge. I stood some five feet behind him, knees bent, riding out the small swells in the same manner that my brothers and I used to ride the CENTRO bus on the way home from working at the state fair--unsupported, surfing the turns with no hands. Manny got to work right away, scooping and cradling as Action brought the boat up on our unsuspecting targets. Flying fish really are incredible looking things--silvery-blue, biplane-shaped bodies, 'wings' of pale pink, hovering at the surface waiting to take flight. The goal when fishing for these is to snag them while they're at rest, because it becomes an infinitely trickier task once they launch. If they keep their tails dragging in the water, they can change direction even while they 'fly', and it becomes this interesting sort of dance across the surface. If they leave the water completely, they can propel themselves a pretty ridiculous distance in a very short time.
I ended up catching nine of them over the course of our expedition. I wasn't counting my misses, but there had to have been at least fifteen of those also. I also missed one that subsequently turned and flew smack into the side of the boat, killing himself on impact. It was an easy snag after that, but it's probably unsporting to count that one towards my total. Anyway, my lacrosse-cradle strategy seemed to get a passing grade, as Manny and Action both claimed to be impressed by my haul. I'm going to assume they were just being nice, because Manny caught over a hundred of them. He was like Nomar Garciaparra up there, just hoovering fish into the boat.
The other highlight of that trip was seeing a shark out in the open water for the first time in my life. I've seen them in aquariums, and many times this year on my dinner plate, but never one in its element, cutting silently through the water. As we passed it, Manny shone his flashlight quickly across it, and then got back to looking for jojo. He and Action didn't react in the slightest to the sight, leading to the following exchange once my brain registered the shape of what we had just seen.
"Hey, Manny...uh, what was that?"
"Shark."
"Oh."
I experienced a moment of internal turmoil at that moment that froze me in place and hinged my jaw shut. It was the confusion created by the combatting desires of my curiosity, which wanted to yell, "Get your light back on that goddamn thing STAT", and my newly-triggered caveman fear-brain, which wanted to scream, "Back to land! The ocean gods are demanding a snackrifice!". Strange what a 2-second glimpse of that unmistakable torpedo shape can do to the mind of someone who has spent his whole life comfortably landlocked.
All in all, it was a fascinating experience, and one I'm eager to repeat as often as possible in my last few weeks here. It was a good feeling to catch those nine fish and bring my lifetime total to...nine. And seeing the fish we were pursuing (plus that big one that we weren't) move through and above the inky nighttime ocean was breathtaking. As (who else) Hemingway once said, "If you ever get so that you don't feel anything when you see flying fish go out of water...you better turn in your suit." Ernest can rest easily knowing that if I actually owned a suit, I would be in no danger of having to give it up.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Marshall Islands Chronicles, Vol. II: Ghost Ship
During our program orientation in July, a group of us swam just about every day in the Ajeltake lagoon, a short walk from the elementary school we were staying in, across the street and down a path at the house of a very nice local family. It was a great place to bust out our snorkel equipment and the explore the reef communities underfoot--the lagoon was teeming with graceful angelfish, shy eels, those neon-colored fish that sell for 5 cents at pet stores, zebra-striped wrasse, and myriad other kinds that I know no names for. We would wade out to shoulder depth and alternate between snorkelling and floating, getting to know our fellow volunteers as we whiled away our free time in the electric blue water.
Maybe a mile down from our swimming spot, we could see the bulk of a sizeable fishing boat. We assumed it was anchored and waiting to depart, but the first two weeks of orientation came and went without the ship ever changing position. Eventually we realized what an odd angle it rested at in the water, and concluded that it was more than likely beached on a sandbar, abandoned. A number of us made a pact that we would swim out to it before the end of orientation, when we would part ways for four-and-a-half months as we headed to our placements.
Eleven of us set out on a Sunday morning after breakfast and walked down the road towards our launching point. (It is worth noting that on Majuro, the capital island and site of our orientation, it is not necessary to specify a road. There is literally only one, and it runs the entire length of the island.) We caused a minor uproar along the way, because large groups of white people are always an object of curiosity in the RMI, and our little band fared no differently. True to my Boy Scouting roots, I bore a length of forest-colored nylon rope tied around my waist, just in case. I had glorious visions of lassoing a cleat at the edge of the ship's deck and hauling myself hand over hand up the hull, to the wonder of my companions. Naturally, they would be full of gratitude for my timely (and badass) solution to what I assumed would be our chief logistical problem.
After receiving permission from the family whose land we needed to cross to enter this new stretch of water, we entered the lagoon. The eleven of us fanned out at various speeds as we struck out for the ship, which we now saw was a good deal farther out than we had anticipated. I was the second person in line for the duration of the journey. This is not a reflection on my swimming prowess--I am competent at best, and not exactly resilient--rather, I just wanted to get the boring part of the adventure over with, and arrive at that towering red and white sentinel of the lagoon. Plus, I didn't want anyone to be able to claim they had to wait up for me.
As we worked our way out into the water, I periodically looked behind me to check the progress of my companions. The number appeared to be dwindling--eleven, nine, seven, five...I was spared from any sentimental revels about comrades lost at sea in the brazen pursuit of the unknown when I saw them in the distance hauling themselves back ashore, tired and soaking.
I arrived at the ship just behind another volunteer, a girl by the name of Julia. Julia gets points in my book for having frequented Manlius during her four year tenure at Colgate, and she is the oldest of five girls. Her father gets points in my book for living through that. Anyway, the ship was severely tilted on the sand bar, with the high side facing us. I have no idea how to estimate the length of a ship like that. I just know that it appeared massive--the hull and deck painted red and rusting; a white cabin and upper deck/control room rising above these. From the bow end, a formidable anchoring chain dropped some thirty feet into the water. The bow was pointed towards shore, but we had had to come up on the side to have a place to stand. It was calm inbetween waves, with waist-high water and level ground, but the slow swells came in at around seven feet, and it was quite an exercise to jump up and crest the waves each time a new one hit.
The upside to these saline battering rams was that they provided me a way onto the ship that didn't involve utilizing expert knot-tying skills, deadly accuracy, or mermaid-seduction techniques. I simply sat in the ship's shadow and rode the natural elevator high enough to grab onto the outside of a now-windowless porthole. The next wave lifted my legs high enough to plant them inside a good-sized gap that had been rusted into the hull just below the deck rail. From there, I could maneuver myself through the hole, and did. Gentleman that I am, I went first for safety purposes, silently praying that my tetanus shot was up-to-date. Thankfully, I alit without incident.
I helped Julia up through the gap and we took stock of our surroundings. I know pretty much zero about nautical terms, so please forgive any forthcoming errors of nomenclature. Directly in front of us was a door, and the cabin rose behind it, looming ominously, its paint peeling. The deck was upturned to such a degree that attempting any kind of movement without a railing would have been foolish, so we stayed off the main section of the deck. By this time, three other volunteers had made it to the ship--Michael, Jules, and Jessica. Five of us had made it from shore to ship, ready to explore the unknown.
For most of my life, I assumed and applied an incorrect definition of the word "sublime". I had always believed it to mean wonderful, excellent, pleasant. But that's not it, not really. I was fortunate enough in my last quarter at OSU to take a fantastic lit. class with "The Mad Dr. T", Les Tannenbaum. In this class we explored the depths of Gothic narrative, and focused especially on the impact of the sublime in these works. More correctly, the term refers to things of such magnitude, aesthetic, or power as to render them beyond the scope of human reason or comprehension. Standing on board what we had dubbed "The Ghost Ship" was, by its correct definition, one of the first utterly sublime moments of my life. The ship's builder might well have been Ozymandias himself--"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."
I've never been a fan of wanton destruction, but decay has always fascinated me. Creaking, abandoned barns; crumbling, centuries-old bridges; rusting shells of once-proud ships--these things have a certain haunting aesthetic to them that I cannot explain but never tire of. I guess there's something comforting in the slow march of the ages, the continued success of entropy. Remember, all those horse-and-buggies were new once, too.
So there we were, five relative strangers, standing on the edge of something resonant with that wonderful quality of being beyond mere words. It was then, as we were clapping each other on the back and congratulating ourselves on doing what we had set out to do, that we realized the only member of our expedition with a camera had been amng the first to turn back. Oops. My initial thought was that this was a huge blow to the experience. How could I capture a triumph like this without a camera? I am a child and disciple of the Facebook age, and I enjoy (too much) being in front of the lens. This was among the traits that earned me the nickname "Hollywood" from some of my more bullshit-proof college friends.
But I came to realize that no matter how many pictures we might have taken that day--as we worked our way around the deck, into the haunting engine room, through the disastrous cabin--I could not make you see it the way we had. Even if we had managed to fit ourselves and the whole length of her into the frame, frozen and unchanging, it would not tell the ship's whole story. Trivial or not, that moment felt so much bigger than a paragraph. To paraphrase Kerouac, we were on the roof of the world and all we could do was yell, I guess. And yell we did, whooping it up as we clambered down ringing metal stairways, clanging chains and tugging mooring lines as we scrambled like drunken sailors across the unmoving vessel.
At no time was the other-wordly quality that possessed the Ghost Ship more apparent than when I came around a corner to mount the cargo hold and found, beyond all reckoning, a three-foot tall tree growing out of the deck, surrounded by a small square plate of new grass. A mile from shore, in the midst of abandonment and the harshest conditions imaginable--salt, wind, heat--life had found a way. And I found that fact to be just as incomprehensible, just as sublime, as the massive decaying ship creaking beneath my feet.
Maybe a mile down from our swimming spot, we could see the bulk of a sizeable fishing boat. We assumed it was anchored and waiting to depart, but the first two weeks of orientation came and went without the ship ever changing position. Eventually we realized what an odd angle it rested at in the water, and concluded that it was more than likely beached on a sandbar, abandoned. A number of us made a pact that we would swim out to it before the end of orientation, when we would part ways for four-and-a-half months as we headed to our placements.
Eleven of us set out on a Sunday morning after breakfast and walked down the road towards our launching point. (It is worth noting that on Majuro, the capital island and site of our orientation, it is not necessary to specify a road. There is literally only one, and it runs the entire length of the island.) We caused a minor uproar along the way, because large groups of white people are always an object of curiosity in the RMI, and our little band fared no differently. True to my Boy Scouting roots, I bore a length of forest-colored nylon rope tied around my waist, just in case. I had glorious visions of lassoing a cleat at the edge of the ship's deck and hauling myself hand over hand up the hull, to the wonder of my companions. Naturally, they would be full of gratitude for my timely (and badass) solution to what I assumed would be our chief logistical problem.
After receiving permission from the family whose land we needed to cross to enter this new stretch of water, we entered the lagoon. The eleven of us fanned out at various speeds as we struck out for the ship, which we now saw was a good deal farther out than we had anticipated. I was the second person in line for the duration of the journey. This is not a reflection on my swimming prowess--I am competent at best, and not exactly resilient--rather, I just wanted to get the boring part of the adventure over with, and arrive at that towering red and white sentinel of the lagoon. Plus, I didn't want anyone to be able to claim they had to wait up for me.
As we worked our way out into the water, I periodically looked behind me to check the progress of my companions. The number appeared to be dwindling--eleven, nine, seven, five...I was spared from any sentimental revels about comrades lost at sea in the brazen pursuit of the unknown when I saw them in the distance hauling themselves back ashore, tired and soaking.
I arrived at the ship just behind another volunteer, a girl by the name of Julia. Julia gets points in my book for having frequented Manlius during her four year tenure at Colgate, and she is the oldest of five girls. Her father gets points in my book for living through that. Anyway, the ship was severely tilted on the sand bar, with the high side facing us. I have no idea how to estimate the length of a ship like that. I just know that it appeared massive--the hull and deck painted red and rusting; a white cabin and upper deck/control room rising above these. From the bow end, a formidable anchoring chain dropped some thirty feet into the water. The bow was pointed towards shore, but we had had to come up on the side to have a place to stand. It was calm inbetween waves, with waist-high water and level ground, but the slow swells came in at around seven feet, and it was quite an exercise to jump up and crest the waves each time a new one hit.
The upside to these saline battering rams was that they provided me a way onto the ship that didn't involve utilizing expert knot-tying skills, deadly accuracy, or mermaid-seduction techniques. I simply sat in the ship's shadow and rode the natural elevator high enough to grab onto the outside of a now-windowless porthole. The next wave lifted my legs high enough to plant them inside a good-sized gap that had been rusted into the hull just below the deck rail. From there, I could maneuver myself through the hole, and did. Gentleman that I am, I went first for safety purposes, silently praying that my tetanus shot was up-to-date. Thankfully, I alit without incident.
I helped Julia up through the gap and we took stock of our surroundings. I know pretty much zero about nautical terms, so please forgive any forthcoming errors of nomenclature. Directly in front of us was a door, and the cabin rose behind it, looming ominously, its paint peeling. The deck was upturned to such a degree that attempting any kind of movement without a railing would have been foolish, so we stayed off the main section of the deck. By this time, three other volunteers had made it to the ship--Michael, Jules, and Jessica. Five of us had made it from shore to ship, ready to explore the unknown.
For most of my life, I assumed and applied an incorrect definition of the word "sublime". I had always believed it to mean wonderful, excellent, pleasant. But that's not it, not really. I was fortunate enough in my last quarter at OSU to take a fantastic lit. class with "The Mad Dr. T", Les Tannenbaum. In this class we explored the depths of Gothic narrative, and focused especially on the impact of the sublime in these works. More correctly, the term refers to things of such magnitude, aesthetic, or power as to render them beyond the scope of human reason or comprehension. Standing on board what we had dubbed "The Ghost Ship" was, by its correct definition, one of the first utterly sublime moments of my life. The ship's builder might well have been Ozymandias himself--"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."
I've never been a fan of wanton destruction, but decay has always fascinated me. Creaking, abandoned barns; crumbling, centuries-old bridges; rusting shells of once-proud ships--these things have a certain haunting aesthetic to them that I cannot explain but never tire of. I guess there's something comforting in the slow march of the ages, the continued success of entropy. Remember, all those horse-and-buggies were new once, too.
So there we were, five relative strangers, standing on the edge of something resonant with that wonderful quality of being beyond mere words. It was then, as we were clapping each other on the back and congratulating ourselves on doing what we had set out to do, that we realized the only member of our expedition with a camera had been amng the first to turn back. Oops. My initial thought was that this was a huge blow to the experience. How could I capture a triumph like this without a camera? I am a child and disciple of the Facebook age, and I enjoy (too much) being in front of the lens. This was among the traits that earned me the nickname "Hollywood" from some of my more bullshit-proof college friends.
But I came to realize that no matter how many pictures we might have taken that day--as we worked our way around the deck, into the haunting engine room, through the disastrous cabin--I could not make you see it the way we had. Even if we had managed to fit ourselves and the whole length of her into the frame, frozen and unchanging, it would not tell the ship's whole story. Trivial or not, that moment felt so much bigger than a paragraph. To paraphrase Kerouac, we were on the roof of the world and all we could do was yell, I guess. And yell we did, whooping it up as we clambered down ringing metal stairways, clanging chains and tugging mooring lines as we scrambled like drunken sailors across the unmoving vessel.
At no time was the other-wordly quality that possessed the Ghost Ship more apparent than when I came around a corner to mount the cargo hold and found, beyond all reckoning, a three-foot tall tree growing out of the deck, surrounded by a small square plate of new grass. A mile from shore, in the midst of abandonment and the harshest conditions imaginable--salt, wind, heat--life had found a way. And I found that fact to be just as incomprehensible, just as sublime, as the massive decaying ship creaking beneath my feet.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Marshall Islands Chronicles, Volume I: Nighttime Speedboat Turtle Hunting
I was walking home from school on Thursday afternoon when I ran into my friend Manny on the island's main path. He mentioned that he was about to go on a kawonwon, which means "sea turtle hunt", with a few other men from the village. Having only my lessons plans and a nightly routine of shower-read-sleep to look forward to, I did the prudent thing and invited myself along. I had resolved to break my monotonous daily after-school rituals, and this seemed like a good opportunity to make myself a more integrated member of the community.
"Will we be gone long?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "not long."
Perfect. I ran home, grabbed a camera and my life jacket, and headed for the lagoon. Preparations were already underway--rinsing out snorkels, spooling endless amounts of fishing line, and loading the snacks--in this case, an entire pandanus fruit, which was large enough to serve all six of us taking the trip.
We motored out into the lagoon. As many times as I experience the crossing of the reef's edge into the open ocean, I can never get over the sublime end-of-the-earth feeling it gives me to see such an awesome drop down into the rich blue water. Things got a lot less picturesque about five minutes later, as we entered into some heavy swells, which persisted for the rest of the hour it took us to reach our destination- a small, uninhabited island about 2.5 miles from Aur.
We tied up the boat and went ashore amid a storm of terns and frigatebirds, and hauled our supplies onto the beach. We followed the tracks of a turtle up the sand, a 3-foot wide pattern of dragging bulk and shuffling flippers. Manny immediately set to work with a long, sharp stick, driving it into the dune where the tracks ended. He was not disappointed--his fifth thrust saw the stick's tip covered in yellow goo, and he began shoveling with his hands until he uncovered his prize--a cache of perfectly rounded, soft-shelled turtle eggs. We collected these in a bucket and set them aside for dinner.
Afterwards, I went on a jambo (hike) with Herby and Timothy, two of the other men on the expedition. Five minutes into the walk, they had each wrangled a shiny black seabird with their bare hands. Timothy is lean and quick, but Herby is bigness incarnate, and I was pretty impressed by his nimble grab. They were beautiful birds, too--jet black with white crests, and beaks like knitting needles. Neither the men nor the birds made much fuss during any of this, as though each of them knew their roles perfectly.
We circumnavigated the whole island in a matter of 25 minutes or so, including a brief jaunt through one of the most ethereal collections of trees I've ever seen. They were towering, without branches for the first forty feet or so, and their bark was almost silver. The whole thing looked like Middle Earth transplanted in the jungle.
The sun was setting as we arrived back at camp, and the dinner preparations began. Those majestic birds whose praises I have sung quickly had their necks snapped and feathers plucked, and they were soon spitted on green saplings over a tidy cooking fire. On a separate blaze five feet away, the gigantic pot of turtle eggs was put on to boil in saltwater. At some point I began to wonder a few things: When would the 'turtle' part of our turtle hunt actually begin? Was this an overnight activity? Would I be playing hooky from teaching the next day, in pursuit of something whose taste I didn't even particularly enjoy? Luckily, Manny was able to illuminate some of the finer points for me while the eggs boiled and the birds roasted.
"When it gets dark, we go to the water. After we catch the turtle, we go home. Maybe soon, maybe middle of the night. Okay?"
Fortunately this was okay with me, since I didn't really have another option. While the food cooked, we began drinking coffee. Far and away the most successful western import in the RMI is coffee, and Marshallese men in particular fiend for the stuff in a fashion that would put to shame all of the Starbucks-addicted girls I knew in college. Each man also has his own strategy for making the perfect brew, though to my uninitiated palate, the instant coffee-powedered creamer-sugar triumvirate tastes exactly the same no matter which order you put them in or how slowly the creamer is added. We talked (okay, they talked, I barely understood a word) over a few cups of it and eventually dinner was ready.
There's a reason that stores put juicy chicken legs and breasts on display, cleaned and separated from the body, before sale. Mainly it's because it looks a whole lot more appetizing than being served the whole bird at once, from the tip of its beak to its kinked neck to its blackened feathers to its roasted lungs. This thing truly looked like someone had taken a flamethrower to Beaky Buzzard at close range. But hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in the Marshall Islands, ask as few questions about your food as possible.
Down it went, tasting slightly more agreeable than the stuff you scrape off your grill after a 5-hour 4th of July barbecue. I managed to take the edge off with a few turtle eggs, which unfortunately do not nicely harden after boiling like a chicken egg does. While they actually taste pretty good, they retain their (to put it mildly) semen-like consistency even when cooked, and it can get all in your hair and nose and drip off your face if you're not careful with your mouth. But I digress.
Darkness fell. Manny and Herby donned their goggles and snorkels and fired up their flashlights as they hit the water, wielding a big coil of rope and a brutal-looking gaffe. After a time, we saw them signalling with their lights from somewhere a few hundred yards off shore. We jumped into the boat and sped off in pursuit. We pulled up alongside them, and Herby tossed the weighted end of the rope into the boat as Manny struggled with something under the water that clearly outweighed him. We hauled at the rope, and Herby came up underneath the turtle to shove it on board as we tugged on it.
This thing was an absolute beast. Massive, glossy shell; pebbled, scaly flippers; a tail like a tapered club. It didn't seem to struggle or protest much, but it waved its tail like crazy for the first few minutes. We roared off in the boat, the men whooping up their triumph, and headed for home under a blanket of stars. On the way back, we met those same ugly swells head-on, and within five minutes we were absolutely drenched. By the way, whoever decided to use the name "Ocean Spray" to market a line of sweet, refreshing juices clearly had no idea what they were talking about. There is nothing tasty or refreshing about the spray of the ocean after the third or so shot to the face. I found it comical at first that grown men who weren't swimming would put on Snork-worthy goggles to take a boat trip, but they had the last laugh as I tried to keep my eyes open in the cold, salt-stinging spray. I also got hit by a flying fish at some point. Our boat passed through a number of swarms of bioluminescent jellyfish, their electric blue glow helping light the way home like miniature neon signs. Or tazers.
It would feel disingenuous not to mention that on the ride home, I also pissed myself a total of three times. The first two times were out of urgency--the coffee absolutely doing me in--and the third time was out of convenience, once I realized how warm I had gotten the first two times. So this trip marked a number of firsts for me: first seabird dinner, first time helping hunt an endangered species with intent to eat, first time struck by a hydroplaning fish at high speeds, and first time pissing my pants in front of five grown men. Thankfully, it was pitch black and we were being constantly soaked anyway.
I would like to add, in conclusion, that despite all of the weirdness, there was not a single unpleasant moment in the six hours that we were gone.The company and the experience made all of the minor inconveniences seem like something thrilling and fun. I've discovered during this island year that I truly love being on boats of any kind, especially when piloted by a race of people who are some of the most impressive ocean navigators in the history of the world. This trip was no exception. As we sped towards the warm lights of home, with the cold sea in my face and warm piss on my legs, I couldn't imagine feeling more alive.
"Will we be gone long?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "not long."
Perfect. I ran home, grabbed a camera and my life jacket, and headed for the lagoon. Preparations were already underway--rinsing out snorkels, spooling endless amounts of fishing line, and loading the snacks--in this case, an entire pandanus fruit, which was large enough to serve all six of us taking the trip.
We motored out into the lagoon. As many times as I experience the crossing of the reef's edge into the open ocean, I can never get over the sublime end-of-the-earth feeling it gives me to see such an awesome drop down into the rich blue water. Things got a lot less picturesque about five minutes later, as we entered into some heavy swells, which persisted for the rest of the hour it took us to reach our destination- a small, uninhabited island about 2.5 miles from Aur.
We tied up the boat and went ashore amid a storm of terns and frigatebirds, and hauled our supplies onto the beach. We followed the tracks of a turtle up the sand, a 3-foot wide pattern of dragging bulk and shuffling flippers. Manny immediately set to work with a long, sharp stick, driving it into the dune where the tracks ended. He was not disappointed--his fifth thrust saw the stick's tip covered in yellow goo, and he began shoveling with his hands until he uncovered his prize--a cache of perfectly rounded, soft-shelled turtle eggs. We collected these in a bucket and set them aside for dinner.
Afterwards, I went on a jambo (hike) with Herby and Timothy, two of the other men on the expedition. Five minutes into the walk, they had each wrangled a shiny black seabird with their bare hands. Timothy is lean and quick, but Herby is bigness incarnate, and I was pretty impressed by his nimble grab. They were beautiful birds, too--jet black with white crests, and beaks like knitting needles. Neither the men nor the birds made much fuss during any of this, as though each of them knew their roles perfectly.
We circumnavigated the whole island in a matter of 25 minutes or so, including a brief jaunt through one of the most ethereal collections of trees I've ever seen. They were towering, without branches for the first forty feet or so, and their bark was almost silver. The whole thing looked like Middle Earth transplanted in the jungle.
The sun was setting as we arrived back at camp, and the dinner preparations began. Those majestic birds whose praises I have sung quickly had their necks snapped and feathers plucked, and they were soon spitted on green saplings over a tidy cooking fire. On a separate blaze five feet away, the gigantic pot of turtle eggs was put on to boil in saltwater. At some point I began to wonder a few things: When would the 'turtle' part of our turtle hunt actually begin? Was this an overnight activity? Would I be playing hooky from teaching the next day, in pursuit of something whose taste I didn't even particularly enjoy? Luckily, Manny was able to illuminate some of the finer points for me while the eggs boiled and the birds roasted.
"When it gets dark, we go to the water. After we catch the turtle, we go home. Maybe soon, maybe middle of the night. Okay?"
Fortunately this was okay with me, since I didn't really have another option. While the food cooked, we began drinking coffee. Far and away the most successful western import in the RMI is coffee, and Marshallese men in particular fiend for the stuff in a fashion that would put to shame all of the Starbucks-addicted girls I knew in college. Each man also has his own strategy for making the perfect brew, though to my uninitiated palate, the instant coffee-powedered creamer-sugar triumvirate tastes exactly the same no matter which order you put them in or how slowly the creamer is added. We talked (okay, they talked, I barely understood a word) over a few cups of it and eventually dinner was ready.
There's a reason that stores put juicy chicken legs and breasts on display, cleaned and separated from the body, before sale. Mainly it's because it looks a whole lot more appetizing than being served the whole bird at once, from the tip of its beak to its kinked neck to its blackened feathers to its roasted lungs. This thing truly looked like someone had taken a flamethrower to Beaky Buzzard at close range. But hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in the Marshall Islands, ask as few questions about your food as possible.
Down it went, tasting slightly more agreeable than the stuff you scrape off your grill after a 5-hour 4th of July barbecue. I managed to take the edge off with a few turtle eggs, which unfortunately do not nicely harden after boiling like a chicken egg does. While they actually taste pretty good, they retain their (to put it mildly) semen-like consistency even when cooked, and it can get all in your hair and nose and drip off your face if you're not careful with your mouth. But I digress.
Darkness fell. Manny and Herby donned their goggles and snorkels and fired up their flashlights as they hit the water, wielding a big coil of rope and a brutal-looking gaffe. After a time, we saw them signalling with their lights from somewhere a few hundred yards off shore. We jumped into the boat and sped off in pursuit. We pulled up alongside them, and Herby tossed the weighted end of the rope into the boat as Manny struggled with something under the water that clearly outweighed him. We hauled at the rope, and Herby came up underneath the turtle to shove it on board as we tugged on it.
This thing was an absolute beast. Massive, glossy shell; pebbled, scaly flippers; a tail like a tapered club. It didn't seem to struggle or protest much, but it waved its tail like crazy for the first few minutes. We roared off in the boat, the men whooping up their triumph, and headed for home under a blanket of stars. On the way back, we met those same ugly swells head-on, and within five minutes we were absolutely drenched. By the way, whoever decided to use the name "Ocean Spray" to market a line of sweet, refreshing juices clearly had no idea what they were talking about. There is nothing tasty or refreshing about the spray of the ocean after the third or so shot to the face. I found it comical at first that grown men who weren't swimming would put on Snork-worthy goggles to take a boat trip, but they had the last laugh as I tried to keep my eyes open in the cold, salt-stinging spray. I also got hit by a flying fish at some point. Our boat passed through a number of swarms of bioluminescent jellyfish, their electric blue glow helping light the way home like miniature neon signs. Or tazers.
It would feel disingenuous not to mention that on the ride home, I also pissed myself a total of three times. The first two times were out of urgency--the coffee absolutely doing me in--and the third time was out of convenience, once I realized how warm I had gotten the first two times. So this trip marked a number of firsts for me: first seabird dinner, first time helping hunt an endangered species with intent to eat, first time struck by a hydroplaning fish at high speeds, and first time pissing my pants in front of five grown men. Thankfully, it was pitch black and we were being constantly soaked anyway.
I would like to add, in conclusion, that despite all of the weirdness, there was not a single unpleasant moment in the six hours that we were gone.The company and the experience made all of the minor inconveniences seem like something thrilling and fun. I've discovered during this island year that I truly love being on boats of any kind, especially when piloted by a race of people who are some of the most impressive ocean navigators in the history of the world. This trip was no exception. As we sped towards the warm lights of home, with the cold sea in my face and warm piss on my legs, I couldn't imagine feeling more alive.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Why Football Matters
When I signed on to spend a year teaching in a country that still registers as a blank space on some maps I've seen, I knew I would be doing a lot of "doing without". Pizza, beer, television, (for a time) internet access, my family, my friends, etc...it was a lot to give up at once, but I was pretty sure that the newness of the experience would make those absences seem more like trifles. But as a 22-year-old, red-blooded American male, what I've found to be one of the most frustrating things gone from my life is the thrill of professional and collegiate sports.
Maybe I was spoiled at The Ohio State University, a hotbed for all things athletic with consistently successful sports teams and IMHO the most intimidating home stadium/crowd in college sports. Chief among these sports, as is so often the case, is football. For 3 years I saw an excellent, albeit frustratingly static, football team take the field Saturday after Saturday. I would rather not think too much about my Senior year's football season, a post-Tresselgate fiasco that resulted in OSU's first losing season since before I was born. On top of all of this Saturday glory, my NFL fanhood reached obsessive new heights in my college years, driven principally by a) a hugely competitive/ego-ridden/hilarious fantasy football league, and b) no one telling me that I couldn't spend an entire Sunday on the couch trying to derive some higher meaning in an otherwise meaningless Browns-Raiders 1:05 matchup.
As it turns out, I did derive some meaning from all of those hours of alternately cheering and pounding refresh on Yahoo to see if any of my team's skill position players had eked out another 10 yards of offense to bump me into the lead. I just didn't realize what it was until I left the country, relying on 2-month-old Sports Illustrated issues for my football news. (Minor digression--it was a really strange feeling to get excited about U.S. Olympic victories in the first week of October, only to realize that the Games had ended literally 3 months before I read about them.)
What I think I discovered about football is that it's a great extant way to validate yourself. Watching all those games can bring you emotions that few other things can, for a number of reasons. One, there's something in the human spirit deeply invested in seeing difficult tasks executed to a beautiful perfection. Two, there's something else in the human spirit that derives endless amounts of pleasure from watching people who we expect to perform perfectly screw up on the biggest stages of their lives- call it the car accident mentality. Three, which is perhaps the most important part of this rant, it is a form of complete escapism. The successes of players and teams that you value become your own successes. The failures of those same teams and players, conversely, are not regarded as your failures. There are few other arenas in life where you can point specifically to the exact cause of your unhappiness and delight in the feeling that you've somehow been wronged, let down, by something or someone you care about more deeply than you have any sane reason to. Has anyone else noticed this? That people, beyond all scope of reasoning, actually love to be wronged? Maybe it comes from our inability to accept our own failures, that we revel in being able to define a source of our own unhappiness.
This is why, ultimately, I miss football more than I miss vegetables or waking up when I want to rather than at the hour the family rooster decides is appropriate to start his morning routine outside my window. Out here, successes in the classroom are extremely rewarding, but also come in inches instead of leaps and bounds. Failures in the classroom have several vague cultural causes, but inherent in all of those failures is the feeling that I have personally failed to succeed. I don't mean to make it out as though my life here is infinitely depressing or that teaching has been a disaster; in fact, living here is wonderful and in teaching I have found a real passion. But what my life is missing is that filter, that barrier of competitive football of which I am not a participant but a spectator. There are no HD cameras to capture my fleeting successes, and no distant superhuman athletes to pin my feelings of failure on when they do arise. So, my life here is difficult, almost expressly because I have given up the one thing Americans have found they can't live without-beyond sex, beyond beer, beyond McDonald's--something to hide behind.
Maybe I was spoiled at The Ohio State University, a hotbed for all things athletic with consistently successful sports teams and IMHO the most intimidating home stadium/crowd in college sports. Chief among these sports, as is so often the case, is football. For 3 years I saw an excellent, albeit frustratingly static, football team take the field Saturday after Saturday. I would rather not think too much about my Senior year's football season, a post-Tresselgate fiasco that resulted in OSU's first losing season since before I was born. On top of all of this Saturday glory, my NFL fanhood reached obsessive new heights in my college years, driven principally by a) a hugely competitive/ego-ridden/hilarious fantasy football league, and b) no one telling me that I couldn't spend an entire Sunday on the couch trying to derive some higher meaning in an otherwise meaningless Browns-Raiders 1:05 matchup.
As it turns out, I did derive some meaning from all of those hours of alternately cheering and pounding refresh on Yahoo to see if any of my team's skill position players had eked out another 10 yards of offense to bump me into the lead. I just didn't realize what it was until I left the country, relying on 2-month-old Sports Illustrated issues for my football news. (Minor digression--it was a really strange feeling to get excited about U.S. Olympic victories in the first week of October, only to realize that the Games had ended literally 3 months before I read about them.)
What I think I discovered about football is that it's a great extant way to validate yourself. Watching all those games can bring you emotions that few other things can, for a number of reasons. One, there's something in the human spirit deeply invested in seeing difficult tasks executed to a beautiful perfection. Two, there's something else in the human spirit that derives endless amounts of pleasure from watching people who we expect to perform perfectly screw up on the biggest stages of their lives- call it the car accident mentality. Three, which is perhaps the most important part of this rant, it is a form of complete escapism. The successes of players and teams that you value become your own successes. The failures of those same teams and players, conversely, are not regarded as your failures. There are few other arenas in life where you can point specifically to the exact cause of your unhappiness and delight in the feeling that you've somehow been wronged, let down, by something or someone you care about more deeply than you have any sane reason to. Has anyone else noticed this? That people, beyond all scope of reasoning, actually love to be wronged? Maybe it comes from our inability to accept our own failures, that we revel in being able to define a source of our own unhappiness.
This is why, ultimately, I miss football more than I miss vegetables or waking up when I want to rather than at the hour the family rooster decides is appropriate to start his morning routine outside my window. Out here, successes in the classroom are extremely rewarding, but also come in inches instead of leaps and bounds. Failures in the classroom have several vague cultural causes, but inherent in all of those failures is the feeling that I have personally failed to succeed. I don't mean to make it out as though my life here is infinitely depressing or that teaching has been a disaster; in fact, living here is wonderful and in teaching I have found a real passion. But what my life is missing is that filter, that barrier of competitive football of which I am not a participant but a spectator. There are no HD cameras to capture my fleeting successes, and no distant superhuman athletes to pin my feelings of failure on when they do arise. So, my life here is difficult, almost expressly because I have given up the one thing Americans have found they can't live without-beyond sex, beyond beer, beyond McDonald's--something to hide behind.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Social Media, Invisible Children, and 11th Hour Activism
First off, I'd like to apologize for flooding everyone with what will surely be their umpteenth viewing of Kony-related media today. If you've spent any time online in the last 24 hours, I can pretty much guarantee you've at least seen the name "Josephy Kony" or the "KONY 2012" movement starting to spread. There is a positive side to this, and that's the fact that an entire generation of people is now at least acutely aware of some pretty awful atrocities that are occurring halfway across the world. It is admirable and somewhat amazing that so many of my Facebook friends, classmates, etc. have taken the time to watch Invisible Children's video about Kony and his crimes against humanity. Before today, I don't know how many people could even point out Uganda on a map, much less speak intelligently about any kind of issues present there.
This being said, I think it's of vital importance to call a spade a spade when it comes to this type of social movement. We have become, as my girlfriend so aptly put it, a society of 11th hour activists. We ready, fire, aim when it comes to trendy causes that actually stretch back decades. So many people lately seem to take special pride in being part of the "underrepresented masses"--whether it is the various Occupy movements or the Invisible Children, everyone seems determined to join up to feel like their voice, or the voices of the less fortunate, are being heard. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson puts it, "That's really what you want in life...you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on." There is nothing inherently bad or ignorant about this fact, it's part of the human experience.
But needing a level of connectivity doesn't excuse willful ignorance or uninformed thought. Let me preface this next section by making it absolutely clear that I believe what the members of Invisible Children Inc. are doing is incredibly noble, and what Joseph Kony and the LRA are doing is absolutely abhorrent. However, it disturbs me greatly that people my age can't help themselves when it comes to watered-down activism. Watching KONY 2012 is fantastic, it's a great first step. But where do we go from here? Shouting in protest about your tax bracket and unemployment is certainly within your rights. But does it put bread on your table?
The fact of the matter is, changing your Facebook profile picture is not going to directly remove a cruel warlord from power. Campaigns to create awareness generally do just that--make people aware. They do not change political structures, they do not force leaders to abdicate, and they don't pay your student loans for you. The other downside to all of this is that people watch a video like KONY 2012 and assume it tells the whole story. It neglects to mention the other organizations that are actually working to rebuild the infrastructure of Central Africa, so that the real Invisible Children have something to come home to. It neglects to mention that IC funnels money to the Ugandan government, and that is a major failing, because the government systems in other countries are not held accountable for every cent they take in. Intended or not, any social movement seeking to spread a message inherently creates its own propaganda.
I do not wish to denigrate those who have taken a vested interest in this or any other cause, particularly because some of our most inalienable human rights are at stake for people all over the world. Nor do I claim to be the most educated among my peers about Joseph Kony, Invisible Children, or anything related to this topic. All I really want is for my peers, this broad circle of 11th Hour Activists, to do more than repost, retweet, or re-anything. Take a moment, educate yourself a little more thoroughly, and then decide whether your cause is worth sharing with the world. To quote my Dad's favorite line from his favorite movie, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life". Quite frankly, neither is panicked, uninformed, and lazy.
This being said, I think it's of vital importance to call a spade a spade when it comes to this type of social movement. We have become, as my girlfriend so aptly put it, a society of 11th hour activists. We ready, fire, aim when it comes to trendy causes that actually stretch back decades. So many people lately seem to take special pride in being part of the "underrepresented masses"--whether it is the various Occupy movements or the Invisible Children, everyone seems determined to join up to feel like their voice, or the voices of the less fortunate, are being heard. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson puts it, "That's really what you want in life...you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on." There is nothing inherently bad or ignorant about this fact, it's part of the human experience.
But needing a level of connectivity doesn't excuse willful ignorance or uninformed thought. Let me preface this next section by making it absolutely clear that I believe what the members of Invisible Children Inc. are doing is incredibly noble, and what Joseph Kony and the LRA are doing is absolutely abhorrent. However, it disturbs me greatly that people my age can't help themselves when it comes to watered-down activism. Watching KONY 2012 is fantastic, it's a great first step. But where do we go from here? Shouting in protest about your tax bracket and unemployment is certainly within your rights. But does it put bread on your table?
The fact of the matter is, changing your Facebook profile picture is not going to directly remove a cruel warlord from power. Campaigns to create awareness generally do just that--make people aware. They do not change political structures, they do not force leaders to abdicate, and they don't pay your student loans for you. The other downside to all of this is that people watch a video like KONY 2012 and assume it tells the whole story. It neglects to mention the other organizations that are actually working to rebuild the infrastructure of Central Africa, so that the real Invisible Children have something to come home to. It neglects to mention that IC funnels money to the Ugandan government, and that is a major failing, because the government systems in other countries are not held accountable for every cent they take in. Intended or not, any social movement seeking to spread a message inherently creates its own propaganda.
I do not wish to denigrate those who have taken a vested interest in this or any other cause, particularly because some of our most inalienable human rights are at stake for people all over the world. Nor do I claim to be the most educated among my peers about Joseph Kony, Invisible Children, or anything related to this topic. All I really want is for my peers, this broad circle of 11th Hour Activists, to do more than repost, retweet, or re-anything. Take a moment, educate yourself a little more thoroughly, and then decide whether your cause is worth sharing with the world. To quote my Dad's favorite line from his favorite movie, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life". Quite frankly, neither is panicked, uninformed, and lazy.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Backyard Moneyball feat. Pablo Sanchez
Recently, in the same week, I finished Michael Lewis' book Moneyball and rediscovered my love for Backyard Baseball 2003. Having very little to do this summer outside of babysitting, I was able to spend a considerable amount of time trying out a theory- that I could apply the theory Lewis explores, i.e. stocking up on undervalued traits like OBP and OPS and passing on "big-money" traits like HR hitting and base-stealing. That being said, here's how I drafted:
1. Pablo Sanchez, C. This is probably the most glaring departure from Billy Beane's standard, that being that everyone is high on Pablo and in a real-world situation, he would only sign for obscene amounts of money. Still, he has the smallest strike zone in the game, and has great speed for someone with so much pop. In fact, in a recent game, "Secret Weapon" (probably one of the least-fitting nicknames ever) hit for the cycle for my Pirates team. This great day at the plate included a 2-out double to drive in a run late in the game.
2. Achmed Khan, LF. The only Backyard kid wearing headphones, Achmed was my second pick because he, like Pablo, has a rare combination of power and speed. He also has one of the smoothest swings in the game, one that is seemingly without a hole if his stance is open. In the first 3 games of the year, he batted .692 and homered 4 times.
3. Pete Wheeler, 2B. Pete strikes out a little too much for a true Moneyball player, but his biggest weakness (strange strike zone leading to strange swing) is also one of his greatest assets- it's so narrow that he walks more than anyone on the team. BYBB 2003 doesn't actually track OPS, but his walks plus a .611 average can't be denigrated. One thing I've tried hard to do, a la Beane, is reign in his base-stealing attempts, because his pure speed used to make me cocky enough to try to steal 2 bases at once, which usually resulted in a juice-draining pickle or an out.
4. Ichiro, RF. Ichiro is the prototype player for creating runs without costing a team many. His only weaknesses seem to be that he outruns whoever is ahead of him on the basepath (unless it's Wheeler), and that he throws rockets that sometimes go over Dante's head. Which brings us to...
5. Dante Robinson, 1B. My brother Dan described him as a 40/40 guy, which I disagree with solely because he is much more valuable as a line-drive, RBI-type hitter than as someone who should be hitting for power. Still, he's another small strike-zone guy who doesn't make many mistakes on defense.
6. Nomar Garciaparra, P. He's one of the most highly valued players in the game, but at SS instead of P. Billy Beane's love of undervalued talent is embodied in Nomar's pitching ability. He doesn't drain his juice box very often, because his best pitch is the "left hook", a deadly accurate pitch that leaves the right side of Nomar's body, hooks to the left, and then runs back across the plate to the right. For right-handed, closed-stance batters, this pitch is nearly impossible to take anywhere but 3rd base via slow roll.
7. Amir Khan, SS. In the inverse of Nomar's situation, Amir plays SS for the Pirates despite being the 2nd most highly-rated pitcher in the game (behind Randy Johnson). The reason I switched Amir away from his preferred position? Lack of faith in the durability of foreign-born pitchers. Not really; I switched them a) because I wanted to do this in Moneyball fashion and not take the most common route to success, and b) because Amir's best pitch is his heater, which drains the juicebox much faster than the left hook. He is the only player I'm aware of that bats with a pre-ordained open stance, but this enables his weirdly long bat to operate effectively and rip the ball to left field whenever he makes good contact.
8. Ken Griffey, Jr., CF. Can spray the ball to both sides of the field, hit homers, and leg it out to beat throws consistently. Also makes a solid outfield anchor, who doesn't always get under the ball in time but makes up for it by having a cannon arm.
9. Troy Glaus, 3B. With an open stance, Troy can hit line drives to left almost as well as Amir, and better than just about anyone else. His lack of speed for an infielder makes him the kind of player that anyone but Billy Beane might pass on or undervalue, but his consistency at the plate and his ability to hit first base with his throws every time make him a core player on defense despite his shortcomings.
I realize that this could have been a monumental waste of time (and will continue to be, since I haven't finished my season yet), but the timing was right for me to try this little experiment and see if the same principles that can make an undervalued team successful in real life might also be applied to a computer game to create a winning team. Of course, it might just be that I win so handily because the game is designed for 10-12 year-olds, but it's still fun to crank BP homers off of Mr. Clanky with Pablo regardless. As Sanchez might say, "Gracias por leer este blog!"
1. Pablo Sanchez, C. This is probably the most glaring departure from Billy Beane's standard, that being that everyone is high on Pablo and in a real-world situation, he would only sign for obscene amounts of money. Still, he has the smallest strike zone in the game, and has great speed for someone with so much pop. In fact, in a recent game, "Secret Weapon" (probably one of the least-fitting nicknames ever) hit for the cycle for my Pirates team. This great day at the plate included a 2-out double to drive in a run late in the game.
2. Achmed Khan, LF. The only Backyard kid wearing headphones, Achmed was my second pick because he, like Pablo, has a rare combination of power and speed. He also has one of the smoothest swings in the game, one that is seemingly without a hole if his stance is open. In the first 3 games of the year, he batted .692 and homered 4 times.
3. Pete Wheeler, 2B. Pete strikes out a little too much for a true Moneyball player, but his biggest weakness (strange strike zone leading to strange swing) is also one of his greatest assets- it's so narrow that he walks more than anyone on the team. BYBB 2003 doesn't actually track OPS, but his walks plus a .611 average can't be denigrated. One thing I've tried hard to do, a la Beane, is reign in his base-stealing attempts, because his pure speed used to make me cocky enough to try to steal 2 bases at once, which usually resulted in a juice-draining pickle or an out.
4. Ichiro, RF. Ichiro is the prototype player for creating runs without costing a team many. His only weaknesses seem to be that he outruns whoever is ahead of him on the basepath (unless it's Wheeler), and that he throws rockets that sometimes go over Dante's head. Which brings us to...
5. Dante Robinson, 1B. My brother Dan described him as a 40/40 guy, which I disagree with solely because he is much more valuable as a line-drive, RBI-type hitter than as someone who should be hitting for power. Still, he's another small strike-zone guy who doesn't make many mistakes on defense.
6. Nomar Garciaparra, P. He's one of the most highly valued players in the game, but at SS instead of P. Billy Beane's love of undervalued talent is embodied in Nomar's pitching ability. He doesn't drain his juice box very often, because his best pitch is the "left hook", a deadly accurate pitch that leaves the right side of Nomar's body, hooks to the left, and then runs back across the plate to the right. For right-handed, closed-stance batters, this pitch is nearly impossible to take anywhere but 3rd base via slow roll.
7. Amir Khan, SS. In the inverse of Nomar's situation, Amir plays SS for the Pirates despite being the 2nd most highly-rated pitcher in the game (behind Randy Johnson). The reason I switched Amir away from his preferred position? Lack of faith in the durability of foreign-born pitchers. Not really; I switched them a) because I wanted to do this in Moneyball fashion and not take the most common route to success, and b) because Amir's best pitch is his heater, which drains the juicebox much faster than the left hook. He is the only player I'm aware of that bats with a pre-ordained open stance, but this enables his weirdly long bat to operate effectively and rip the ball to left field whenever he makes good contact.
8. Ken Griffey, Jr., CF. Can spray the ball to both sides of the field, hit homers, and leg it out to beat throws consistently. Also makes a solid outfield anchor, who doesn't always get under the ball in time but makes up for it by having a cannon arm.
9. Troy Glaus, 3B. With an open stance, Troy can hit line drives to left almost as well as Amir, and better than just about anyone else. His lack of speed for an infielder makes him the kind of player that anyone but Billy Beane might pass on or undervalue, but his consistency at the plate and his ability to hit first base with his throws every time make him a core player on defense despite his shortcomings.
I realize that this could have been a monumental waste of time (and will continue to be, since I haven't finished my season yet), but the timing was right for me to try this little experiment and see if the same principles that can make an undervalued team successful in real life might also be applied to a computer game to create a winning team. Of course, it might just be that I win so handily because the game is designed for 10-12 year-olds, but it's still fun to crank BP homers off of Mr. Clanky with Pablo regardless. As Sanchez might say, "Gracias por leer este blog!"
Monday, May 2, 2011
Celebration
Last night, America received some incredible news- that one of our oldest adversaries, the international face of religious terror, had been killed. The reaction on our campus at tOSU was delayed as we waited, breathless, for President Obama's official announcement. When it came, we took to the streets, honking horns, setting off fireworks, and waving flags. My group of friends flocked to McDonald's, suddenly craving Big Macs as though they were the tangible representation of our American spirit.
From there we took to Mirror Lake, where frenzied celebration resounded as hundreds upon hundreds of people jumped in and made the most patriotic acclamations they could think of. It really was a sight- the atmosphere, the muted lights and vibrant sounds, the chanting and screaming- I haven't been a part of anything more surreal in a long, long time. What struck me was how spontaneous the celebration really was: it was as though all of Ohio State flocked to Mirror Lake because we know no other way to represent our deepest and most elated moments, from cursing Michigan to graduating college. We came to Mirror Lake last night looking for some sort of instruction, and, finding none, took it upon ourselves to embrace our own raw emotion and get swept away in the historical poignance of the moment.
It is for this reason that I hope history is kind to us for taking part in such a raucous celebration, even when such a reaction seems to most of us now to be a natural one. We don't know what the ramifications of Osama bin Laden's death will be, but in the moment, that never seemed to matter. Because it was never really about death, anyway, at least for many of us. Our celebration last night, as morbid as it may later seem, was a celebration of the culmination of an effort that has spanned literally half of our lives. It was a celebration of what finally seems to be a moment of progress, no matter how nominal bin Laden's role may have been in al Qaeda these last few years. It was a celebration of finding something to feel truly good about being American again, and it was a celebration of our President's strong words renewing our American sense of Hope when it has recently seemed so hard to come by.
For that, I will never apologize, despite being a hopeless bleeding-heart pacifist. I don't celebrate killing, but I do celebrate triumph, and regardless of what the next five or twenty years bring, this will always be a defining moment of triumph for my generation. An American triumph with international importance, celebrated in a way that no one present could ever hope to forget.
From there we took to Mirror Lake, where frenzied celebration resounded as hundreds upon hundreds of people jumped in and made the most patriotic acclamations they could think of. It really was a sight- the atmosphere, the muted lights and vibrant sounds, the chanting and screaming- I haven't been a part of anything more surreal in a long, long time. What struck me was how spontaneous the celebration really was: it was as though all of Ohio State flocked to Mirror Lake because we know no other way to represent our deepest and most elated moments, from cursing Michigan to graduating college. We came to Mirror Lake last night looking for some sort of instruction, and, finding none, took it upon ourselves to embrace our own raw emotion and get swept away in the historical poignance of the moment.
It is for this reason that I hope history is kind to us for taking part in such a raucous celebration, even when such a reaction seems to most of us now to be a natural one. We don't know what the ramifications of Osama bin Laden's death will be, but in the moment, that never seemed to matter. Because it was never really about death, anyway, at least for many of us. Our celebration last night, as morbid as it may later seem, was a celebration of the culmination of an effort that has spanned literally half of our lives. It was a celebration of what finally seems to be a moment of progress, no matter how nominal bin Laden's role may have been in al Qaeda these last few years. It was a celebration of finding something to feel truly good about being American again, and it was a celebration of our President's strong words renewing our American sense of Hope when it has recently seemed so hard to come by.
For that, I will never apologize, despite being a hopeless bleeding-heart pacifist. I don't celebrate killing, but I do celebrate triumph, and regardless of what the next five or twenty years bring, this will always be a defining moment of triumph for my generation. An American triumph with international importance, celebrated in a way that no one present could ever hope to forget.
"There was madness in any direction, at any hour... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail...We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..." -Hunter S. Thompson
Mirror Lake, 5/1/2011
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