Thoughts of a Common Man

I think one of my most favorite things to do is to listen to talented people speak about their craft, or even better to watch them work. What brings this about is that I once more heard Billy Joel speak to Howard Stern. As usual, Billy was brutally honest in the assessment of his work and his talents. He was listening to ‘Honesty’ being played for him as Howard said how much he loved the song, and Billy was making fun of how he sounded. “I hate it!” He said. I also love hearing about the inspiration behind the songs. For ‘Big Shot’ he said that he imagined a dialogue between Mick and Bianca Jagger being hungover and Mick yelling her down. Good stuff, and I’m also fascinated by how a guy like that handles sudden wealth and fame. Billy Joel like Townsend and Springsteen and so many other truly creative people suffers with major depression issues. At the start of his successful run, he tried to kill himself by drinking furniture polish. Crazy. A little later on, we watched a Springsteen i

Ollie is now mostly mine now. Which isn’t great because I now have bite marks all over my right thumb and left hand. Some of the other changes: 1). He’s ripped up some of the rug in his basement pen. 2). He can’t stop himself from pinning Miller to the hallway floor every time he sees him. 3). The thing he loves more than pinning Miller is biting Paris in the ass no matter what he is threatened with. 4). There are toys everywhere now. That’s a problem because I’m OCD and I absolutely hate clutter. The basement pen is filled with toys. There are six or seven balls here just waiting to be tossed. 5). He’s whip smart. Sit is not a problem. He shakes hands. He’s definitely mostly trained to take care of his business outside, but that’s not always great, because… 6). He digs holes. I don’t want holes.  7). He has one true redeeming value: I returned home on Friday evening. Sam was playing with him in his pen area. He ran away from Sam and jumped up. I saw it in his excitement. He would’ve y

It seems to take a month for Friday to arrive. I had a really early start on Thursday and after doing my Ace Ventura morning dance with two dogs who hate one another and a cat who insists on going outside, I started the car and couldn’t believe that there was a sheet of ice on the windshield. Then the guy who sets our tee time each week sent a text that said: “I can’t believe that I didn’t set a time for this weekend.” I wrote back: “That’s bullshit!” But… …back to Friday. The five-day work week can be eternal some weeks. I had a couple of long training sessions and a few big jobs that spent more time than usual. “Monday when the foreman calls time, I already got Friday on my mind.” And it’s a better than an ordinary Friday because it’s pay day. “The eagle shits today,” an old laborer partner used to say about pay days. Through my 20’s and 30’s I would run off the job and head to happy hour. “You stopping for one?” That often turned into way more than one. Now? “Hopefully it’s a quiet

Spoke in front of a company and had to mention Covid-19 because in just a short while OSHA is going to put out a regulation. The men seated before me were asking me to speculate what might be in the rule. “Hand-wash facilities, hand sanitizers, PPE.” “Will they mandate vaccinations?” One man asked. I shrugged. I can only guess. “If they do the whole company will quit. It’s a real illness, but they can’t tell us what to do.” I wasn’t going to get into a pissing match about it, but such a mindset amazes me. “I’ve known men who’ve lost their lives to it,” I said. “I got vaccinated because of that.” That was when they told me that a member of their company - in his early 60’s - got sick and died inside of two weeks. “And you guys don’t want to be vaccinated?” I simply could not understand.  A lot of information that they shouted at me over the next half-hour was steeped in horrific misinformation. “Where do YOU get your information on it?” One guy asked. “Go to the Mayo Clinic webpage or t

Jorge Soler became the first person ever to hit a first inning home run as the first batter in the first game of the World Series. As a kid I was all in on checking stats in World Series games. The Yankees lost to the Pirates in the 1960 World Series on a homer and I wasn’t alive for that but man, I felt the pain of that loss. As a kid, the Orioles were good, the A’s were great and so were the Reds. Gun to my head and I can name 90% of the players on all those teams and could give you the batting order. Then came the ‘77 and ‘78 Yankees. Reggie hit those 3 homers in game 6 to end the series on my 13th birthday - game 6 was played on October 18th that year. Game 1 was last night on the 26th.  November baseball. Too late! And same gun to my head and I can probably give you all the World Series winners from 1969 through 2020. I didn’t always watch each game. I certainly didn’t catch a single pitch of the Red Sux wins. Didn’t miss a pitch of any of the Yankees wins - and there were 7 wins

I know an old mason. Bob is a good man. His hands are beat up from building masonry walls. Strong guy, Bob is someone I met about twenty years ago. We became friends and there were a couple of times when I had to bail him out with OSHA because Bob wasn’t a stickler for the rules. He hated his hard hat because he had a full head of dark hair. He got busted smoking on school jobs about twenty times. Bob was about 50 when I met him. By the time he turned 63 he started talking to me about his retirement. He would tell me how many days he had left. “241 more days…208 more days…175 more days…90 more days.” Every time he told me I would tell him: “You’re a lifer. You’ll never quit.” But Bob did. About two years ago, he shook my hand. “I’m all done. I’m going to Arizona to be near my daughter and my grandkids.” I gave Bob a hug that day. A good, hardworking man. Cut to yesterday afternoon. I came around the corner on a job and Bob was there. We both started laughing. Not even a word passed bet

The last swing of the golf club yesterday was true, but for some reason (because it’s golf) the ball stopped an inch short of dropping in the cup. I ended with a bogey instead of a par. It was cold when we hit our first tee shots. My hands were ice cold and I need my hands to be comfortable to play well. I also had cuts all over the thumb on my right hand because I played fetch with Ollie, and he kept nipping me as I tried to get the ball from him. So plenty of excuses. But there aren’t any excuses that truly fly when you’re playing with the same guys week in and week out, and I enjoy the course we play on each week, and I truly enjoy the company each Sunday morning. We lined up on hole 7 - a short par 3 and I led off with a ball to the center of the green. Pops and JC also put it on the green and Scotty was just short. The sun was rising and the nip in the air was letting go of the morning. I watched Scott line it up and he hit a perfect chip shot. As I watched the ball hit the green

The Alec Baldwin story is horrific. He was handed a gun that was supposedly clean. He fired it and killed a woman and wounded another man. Just a tragedy that shouldn’t have ever happened. They have departments of people who are responsible for safety. I’m not a person who puts much stock in the word, ‘accident’. Most of the scenarios that people refer to as accidents are actually tragic mishaps of responsibility. I see it a lot when I have to review an ‘accident’. Most of the time I’m left thinking: “This shouldn’t have happened.” Alec Baldwin killing someone on a movie set is something that shouldn’t have happened. And it has happened before! Will OSHA investigate? The one thing I do know is that Baldwin’s life has changed forever. I have had to interview people who have watched it happen. Many felt as if they were responsible. The heartbreak is horrible. As I read the story, I went to the comment. Baldwin is not well-liked in some circles because he did the Trump impression on SNL.

The job market is a little nutty. “We can’t find workers.” I’ve heard that line a lot. “I’m never sitting in a cubicle again,” another guy said. There was a lot of talk about the extra unemployment keeping people right at home. Then that ended and people stayed away in droves. So, what’s going on? People need to eat, right? A whole bunch of people decided that they could indeed work from home, or that going back to a low-paying gig in a still-raging pandemic. Construction jobs are open everywhere. No one wants to work at a restaurant or in a grocery store. Nurses are burned out. Some have started their own businesses. Others are getting by with less. Still others have figured out that day care and getting to work wasn’t worth it. Wages have been fairly stagnant for decades. People have finally figured it out. Meanwhile, billionaires earned 70% more since the start of it all.Companies were made whole, but laid off people anyway and then couldn’t get them back. “Where is everyone?” One g

The old Children’s Hospital of Buffalo site is undergoing a construction facelift. I walked up the ramp to get to the job. One of the buildings is being turned into apartments. The walk up the ramp was wild because it was the same ramp that I walked up 20 years ago. Every day for a month to visit my son in his hospital bed as he went through a crazy surgery to remove a massive tumor from his tiny chest. As I walked that ramp yesterday I felt the same anxiety. It was the same ramp I walked up to visit the surgeons who saved Jake’s life so I could gather the information to write ‘Counting On A Miracle’  Two years after that I walked up the same ramp to interview hospital staff for ‘House of Miracles’ Jill Kelly walked up the ramp with me after the book was out as we visited a few patients for a Buffalo News article. The same ramp. On Thursday there was a man’s sleeping bag there. There were also a few bottles and cans and beside the bag there was loose change. I just glanced down, taking

I did it! Took 3 consecutive days off of work - 5 if you count the weekend. Golfed on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday with a trip to visit Mom - Paris went along and made Mom’s day by giving her a kiss.  Paris is the best! I even stayed awake for the Bills game! And I really drove the ball well - 54 drives off the tee and at least 52 of those drives hit the short grass or landed on the green. No magical rounds though because of the crappy chipping and putting stuff. I woke up sore on Tuesday. My hip, low back and aching ass! Pushed through and played again. The thing about life is that it is so hard to just set everything aside and relax. I have been so conditioned to work that I feel guilty whenever I’m not on the job. It shouldn’t be that way, and I’m happy that my kids don’t have that warped work ethic. Many millions of Americans are in the same boat… …work, work, work. At least I don’t have to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. I’m also fairly optimistic that I will be able to retire

 Isn’t that a beautiful photo??? This is a story about a truly horrific illness, but I heard it said, long ago, that there is beauty at the scene of all tragedies. You just have to look for it. I didn’t have to look too hard in the telling of this story. To be honest about it, I had received a lot of written information via Dave, but then I asked his wife Carolyn and his two daughters to just tell me how they felt. I was a few sentences into reading Carolyn’s handwritten words when it hit me: “There’s the beauty.” And it wasn’t because Carolyn had written anything especially profound, she was simply going to be  rock. She explained it in the first line: “I thought, ‘Okay, it is what it is. We will face it. Let’s fix it.’” And that was the strength… …and the beauty… …and life isn’t always beautiful. But the wonder of their strength is right there in that photo. When I saw the photo I knew it was going to be the cover because it tells the story. Not the horrific story of an unforgiving c

It’s all so weird. When you’re a child you think that everyone is an old man. Fifty-seven seemed ancient! I’m officially that age now, and the funny thing about getting there is that things don’t change much in your own mind. I still FEEL young, mentally, but of course there is a physical toll. We played golf yesterday and it was ‘cart path only’ so there was a lot of walking. I didn’t have any problems swinging the club, but my back was stiff. A couple of hours later, I stood up suddenly after watching a show, and the first few steps were troublesome. “How do you even play?” Kathy asked. “I don’t feel it out there.” And it’s all good if it stays that way. In some ways I feel stronger than when I was younger. The biggest differences in being 57 as opposed to being 27: 1). I sleep less.  “Don’t you ever just turn over and go back to sleep after you open your eyes?” Kathy asked. Nope! If I have a thought or so about what’s coming up that day, I get up. No sense in trying to fight it. 2).

There’s been a real battle in the cattle business since the start of the pandemic. I know a farmer and they were telling me that taking the cattle to market was a true hassle. As a matter of fact, the butcher that I often visit was not in the business of handling it anymore so to get my half a side of beef this year I had to go to Rochester. I’d go to the moon to get the good beef, but, not wanting to burn half a Saturday I found out that I could make it to the meat market following work on Friday. It was a nice leisurely drive there. I only spent 10 minutes at the place and they loaded me up with 8 boxes of hamburger, roasts, steaks and stew meat. The freezer is packed! And I immediately began plotting my porterhouse for Saturday night’s dinner. The map on my GPS was showing 50 miles. It was flashing a 90 minute ride. 90 minutes for 50 miles? I was traveling at 74 mph. “What’s up with that?” I saw a sign: “Traffic delays beyond exit 49.” A minute later and I was now traveling at 8 mph

What truly aggravates me about the ‘it’s the flu’ and ‘my body, my choice’ about not getting the vaccine is that I have now known 4 men who lost their lives to Covid. One man was in his 80’s, one was 72, one was 54 and the other was 52. I enjoyed all of their company through the years. The two men in their 50’s still had children to tend to. Those men died before the vaccine was available. I think about them a lot. Then I made the bad decision to read the story about the 15-year-old boy who fell into the mighty Niagara while fishing with his Dad. They found his body in Canada. I had another long drive yesterday on a grey day with the clouds pushing down on my head. Death. So random. So sad. It’s not easy to get older and think about those we’ve lost. It’s even more disconcerting to understand that hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost to Covid and yet there are still people out there willing to shrug at it. Then my phone rang and I was happy to see it was a buddy who would talk

I don’t start thinking about my coming birthday until my buddy Jeff’s birthday. His is today! Happy Birthday to Jeff Renaldo! He’s 58 today. I’m 57 on Monday. And of course, I revisited our childhood as I wrote The Barking Lions and it simply amazes all of us that we have made it to such an advanced age. I was 9 when we met. That day is etched into my memory, and I told it exactly as it happened. “Mom, they have a man on their team!” As we pulled up to the little league field. And there are so many days like that: Worried about girls, golfing almost every day, going for beers when I turned 18. We downed shot after shot that night and Jeff had to help me to the car. “How did you not get hammered?” I asked the next day. “I wasn’t drinking the shots,” he confessed. “I was throwing them over my shoulder after the toast.” We were world-class eaters as well. I think about the night when we ate 8 huge haddock filets cooked in butter and onion. We were in high school. 4 apiece was just about r

I saw the kid in the terminal at O’Hare. He was all decked out in Dodgers gear including a Clayton Kershaw jersey. His Mom was there too, wearing a Dodgers championship hoodie from last year. I had a passing thought that the kid was going to be up late on Thursday in a do-or-die game against the Giants. As luck might have it, he was seated next to me on the plane. I pegged him at about 17-years old. “Nervous about tomorrow?” I asked. “Oh God yes! I just came from Dodger Stadium for games 3 & 4. I wanted to go to San Francisco for tomorrow’s game, but I have to work.” “You’re a Dodgers fan who lives in Buffalo? How’s that happen?” The kids laughed. “I don’t know. I loved them when I was a toddler. My Dad loves baseball. I really got into it. It’s all I think about.” “I’ve always been that way with the Yankees,” I said. “You’ve had your share of fun in your life,” he said. For the next twenty minutes, as the airline was so nice as to have us sit on the runway as they worked on the ai

I’m back watching baseball after saying that I was done for the year. I was in the Central Time Zone so the games started early. I told a couple of buddies that listening to baseball games on the radio while driving through Kansas is as exciting as it gets. But man, I thought about the earliest playoffs I recall. The Orioles and Pirates in the World Series and the Mets against the A’s. “Who’s pitching?” Is always the biggest question before a game begins. Now it doesn’t matter! The Giants starter got yanked in the 2nd inning! But, this isn’t just a baseball blog! It’s about the central time zone. The big sky! The huge storms that come out of nowhere. I didn’t wear a jacket even though I left Buffalo at 5 a.m.  I got to the rental car place and the guy, noting my driver’s license, said, ‘Man, those Bills opened a can of whoop ass on my Chiefs.” The guy was smiling, but then he sent me outside to wait for the attendant and I stood there for twenty minutes in 48 degree weather as the wind

I always thought Jon Gruden was a little off, but he won a super bowl with Tampa a long time ago and he became like a football coach god of sorts. He went into the booth as an announcer and he was all macho talk about how tough a guy had to be, all testosterone and cliches about rage and gruffness. I always wondered how he managed a team of professional athletes. Did they buy into all that crap? Well, he got a king’s ransom to get back into coaching with the Raiders and the results weren’t all that great. The team was doing all right this year and there was talk about the Raiders (who have had 5 different homes since I was a kid) being back! Gruden won’t be the guy who leads them there, cause he resigned last night. For sending emails that bashed everyone by using terms that are slanderous to a whole bunch of people including women, gays, and everyone who recognizes that the macho crap was tired a long time ago. Know what bugs me the most about it? The people who are going to argue tha

Let me preface this by saying that the cat leaves the house if the doors are left open even a little. Three times on Saturday I was forced to climb down the ravine behind our house and retrieve Miller. “What’s wrong with the door?” Kathy asked (she had left it open the last time). “It’s smarter than most of the people who live here,” I answered. So, with that in mind we watched Dateline and it was about a man who received a call to let him know that his wife had been kidnapped and that he needed to produce $50,000 or she would be killed. Throughout the next day, a Saturday, the wife sends texts and makes calls leading the poor husband all around town for a money drop. “There’s no way,” I said. “What?” Kathy asked. “You wouldn’t pay the ransom?” “I don’t know about that,” I said, “But I sure as shit wouldn’t be driving all around town waiting for instructions.” Kathy laughed. “Oh yeah, you’d be done. You’d be yelling, ‘I got work to do! Keep her.’” And to be honest, the money certainly

Back in the 1990’s when the Bills were the toast of the AFC they would venture into Kansas City for a Monday night game and get their asses kicked. I distinctly recall Jim Kelly getting body slammed a half dozen times. The last AFC Championship game the Bills won was over the Chiefs - Joe Montana got body slammed to the stadium turf. I was there. Now, it’s Buffalo versus Kansas City again as the class of the AFC Weirdly, I began visiting KC and I truly enjoy the city. Good food, traffic is easy, the stadiums are in a cool spot and while I haven’t seen a Chiefs game (football game atmosphere isn’t my thing), I have seen plenty of Royals games and their fans are cordial. More weirdly, I was on my way to Kansas City when the Bills played them last year in the AFC title game. Then I listened to their players act like big shots as they talked down my buddy Tom Brady. I was happy they got slammed in the super bowl. Tonight they play again. Not sure what to think. Bills fans have made the tri

I never worried about getting stung by a bee. As kids we got stung a dozen times a summer.  The initial sting sucked, but we’d rub a little mud on it. A few years back, I was on a job site with a guy and as we walked along, he got stung. Ten minutes later he looked like the dude from The Mask. It turned into a medical emergency for him, but he was fortunate that I was with him to laugh my ass off, and make him laugh as well. He got a shot to clear it all up pretty quickly. I recall telling him that getting stung never bothered me. Then I got stung in the hand a couple of summers ago, and it hurt like hell. Went to bed and woke up with a catcher’s mitt for a left hand. The doc gave me a steroid packet and in a day it was all good. This week, I got stung again and the swelling in my hand was quick. Itched like hell. Called the doc. “We don’t like to give out the steroid packet for bee stings. Try Benadryl.” It hasn’t worked. Maybe I need to go back to mud. And why? Why wouldn’t they pres

The Yankees 2021 season was my least favorite of all the seasons since, maybe, 1991. They were hard to watch for the following reasons: 1). Swing and miss - My God! You don’t need to swing from the heels every time. A runner on third and less than 2 outs? Shorten up the swing! Get the runner in!! 2). Grounded into double plays - this is the one thing that may have singularly killed the team. They led the league in the category and it drove me absolutely insane. 3). Boone - I kind of like the guy as a human. He hit the huge homer in ‘03. He stands up for his players…but man! His pitching decisions made me sick. He would yank a pitcher after 9 pitches because his pre-game plan was one inning for each guy. Then the second guy would get rocked. “Why didn’t you leave Green in?????” I would scream. 4). The sport itself When are the wizards in charge of MLB going to implement the following changes? A). Limit the number of pitchers a team can carry! 13 pitchers on every staff means a starter i

So, I spent a few minutes relaxing after dinner, and Oliver was being quiet so I decided to reward him with a few minutes of playing catch outside: Just me and him. Nice and easy game of fetch. I threw the ball the first time and he brought it right back to me and dropped it at my feet. “Good boy!” I bent to get the ball and he jumped at me, nipping the back of my left calf. “No!” I yelled and threw the ball in the direction of the garage. I was a tad irritated with the calf bite so I never looked at where I was throwing it. I shattered the globe of the exterior light. Oliver ran in the direction of the exploding glass and rather than picking up the ball, he grabbed a shard of the plastic globe. Took off with it in his mouth! Now, I’m not sure that anyone has seen me run in the last ten years, but I took off in his direction. (Not a pretty picture). He was whirling around like the Tasmanian Devil. Turned right into me. I got him by the snout and he dropped the shard into my hand. Went

Cole Beasley plays for the Bills. He’s an outspoken critic of the vaccine, and if you can follow his reasoning as to why, well, you’re smarter than me. He’s all over the place. Regardless. He’s not vaccinated.  The fans who go to watch him catch a ball (my puppy can catch a ball) seem to have him high on a pedestal due to the fact that he wears the home laundry. Regardless. This week after the game, Beasley scolded the fans on Twitter because he heard boos when he touched the ball. He doesn’t think they should boo. So, he can say what he wants (and he can) but fans can’t? Which is it? Free to speak your mind, or not? He is also very loud about how his vaccination status is his choice.. “My body, my choice,” is his rallying cry. How does that work when it’s about a woman’s right to choose? That doesn’t work for that crowd.  “Your body, my choice,” is screamed out loud in those instances. Beasely’s home state just drastically passed laws to that effect last month. Which is it? And as for

What a long, strange season it’s been. Someone asked me yesterday if I thought the Yankees would win. Much like in 1978, I have no idea. Back then the Yankees were throwing the eventual Cy Young, Ron Guidry against a former Yankee, Mike Torrez. Today the Yankees may be throwing this year’s Cy Young, Gerrit Cole against a former Yankee, Nate Eovaldi. The ‘78 team had Reggie and Munson. This team has Judge and Stanton. Reggie came up big, but Bucky Dent got a new middle name by hitting a 3-run homer. I think the Yankees will win, but I always think that. I’m an optimistic fan, but this team can score 10 or get just 2 hits. I have no idea why! Cole was brought in to pitch these big games. Pitching hasn’t been the problem all year. Will there be a Bucky F****ng Dent in this game? Maybe. If there is, I have a prediction: Rougned Odor. I think he hits a big home run and the Yankees survive and advance: Yankees 6 Red Sox 4 Book it! 1978 all over again.

The limited series on Netflix, ‘The Maid’ is well done and although I don’t know who the actors or the actresses are for the most part, the story moves pretty well and is interesting. But I was saddened by it. The maid is barely keeping her head above water. She needs to dig through her car to find change to put $4 of gas in her car. It dawned on me that there are millions of Americans, willing to work, who are in a battle for survival. Every day. And it leads to even more bad decisions and days and nights of pain. That’s why it bothers me so much when the breaks of the game go to the rich. “Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you a king.” There are people who are in the exact position of that maid who vote against the agenda that might possibly help them in the long run. This is a land of promise and opportunity and of course we shame ourselves to watch people live in such a manner. There’s a scene where she passes out at work because she hasn’t eaten

I feel a little guilty when I get that notice while binge-watching a series. Saturday afternoons are reserved for trying my best to stay off my feet. Just Netflix & chill. Well, here at Camp Clifford we made a huge move… …by canceling Spectrum and their price gouging ways because our internet was never quite good enough (or so I’m told). The problem being that I don’t have any idea how to turn on a show! I’m a tad deficient when it comes to figuring out how to navigate channels and when I turn the television on it seems like we only have about five now! I found Monk early on so that’s a good thing and I had the Yankees game starting at one… …but they decided not to show up… …so, by 1:45 I was looking for a show. Somehow I turned on Netflix. No idea how! There was a series called ‘Maid’. It was interesting enough and before long I got the notice: “Are you still watching?” I yelled at the television as if they were judging me. Like they were judging me… …calling me a lazy bastard. I

I attended a whole lot of weddings when I was in my 20’s. Most of my friends got married in that decade and I actually served as a best man an ungodly 8 times! A few of those guys are still happily married. A few aren’t. I think of that a lot at every wedding I attend. “Will they ever look so happy again - the handsome groom and his bride, as they step into that long black limousine for their mystery ride?” - Bruce No one enters into a marriage believing that it won’t work, do they??? Back to the wedding! I attended a great wedding at a beautiful venue in Buffalo - Forbes Theater - a great setup, open bar, wonderful filet and some terrific desserts. An open bar in my 20’s and an open bar in my late 50’s are two different things. I had a single drink (I have about 10 a year these days). It made me dizzy. I looked around at the beautiful people gathered. The Mom and Dad of the groom looked great. The mother of the bride made a wonderful toast… …and the 20-somethings carried the room. As

I wouldn’t say that I’m superstitious. I’m just a little stitious. But honestly I do have a lucky number - 23 - and I certainly have had favorite shorts or lucky shorts throughout my life. Back a long time ago while playing high school basketball we had a little blue man that sat on the bench next to the coach as we went on a five-game win streak. Late in the 6th game Coach was heated because of a bad call and though we were only down by one, he looked at me for some sort of reassurance. I pointed to the little blue man, and he slapped it from the bench and across the court. We lost the game and even though I looked, we never found the blue man. I must admit, I still lean on some things for help. As the Yankees have battled to make the playoffs I’ve been fond of calling Miller over when I need some luck. It’s worked like a charm. On Thursday the Yankees were down 2-1 and they’d only had a single hit into the 6th inning. “MILLER!” I called out. “Why are you calling him?” Kathy asked. “Y