childhood, Culture, Sports

Up Against The Wall, Tantalized

Scanning the shelves of our walk-in closet on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I stumbled on an old, forgotten box of hockey cards.

*Rocket Richard, the cornerstone card in any young boy’s collection.*

I bought these over three decades earlier, and it was a moment of extravagant impulse, paying out a wallet of bills for a small carton of one hundred un-opened wax paper packages. They exuded a sour, sweet smell of aged bubblegum. And teased the prospect of hidden gold.

I don’t make purchases for the sake of locking them away. Not for weeks, let alone years. But there it was, a testament to the impression that ‘trading cards’ made upon me as a child.

In my primary school years, nearing the age of ten, or eleven, every kid had a wad of cards in their pocket: frayed, colorful, bent cardboards held tight by rubber bands. They fit well into back pockets, but best in front to avoid permanent warping.

*Ernie Banks, dauntless short stop for the hapless Cubs.*

According to the season, we could be collecting hockey cards, football cards, TV show cards, and notably World War 2 collections like “Operation Overlord”. The importance of these collectibles was ownership. As kids, we didn’t own much: bike, hockey stick, puck, baseball glove, pellet gun, jacknife, comics, and a box of special junk which we had filched, found, foraged for, or occasionally bought. The cards, like marbles, were the special treasure in our possession.

Trading cards entered us into an economy. We had collateral, something worth trading, or in most cases, gambling for. Wealth was easily defined by the thickness and heft of your wad of cards. We bought them in nickel and dime packages, and after chewing the accompanying bubble gum, we sorted through the ten or fifteen numbered cards which were randomly included in the purchase.

The sortation was essentially to find ‘keepers’. For instance, Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard was a natural keeper hockey card. Angelo Mosca, the carnivorous Hamilton Tiger Cat football player, too. But if you had more than one, you had a ‘trader’: one to parlay into other missing cards you wanted, held by other kids at school.

The east side of Delhi Public School’s yard had a sizable square of pavement for playing hopscotch, skip-rope, wall-tennis and occasionally hockey. In the fair weather days of early fall and late spring however, the main sport was cards. Numerous pairs of boys were lined up around ten feet from the wall of the red brick school building, making outlandish bets with their cards. The game: closest to the wall wins.

Unlike the Vegas-style, raucous and loudly cheered alley pits to the north side, the cards pitch was quieter, more like a tense game of Texas Hold’em. But the crowds were still present.

Our playing field was the ancient school’s foundation, a three-foot-high wall of dimpled, weathered concrete block, punctuated by large wire-screened basement windows. Essentially, the trick was to spin the 2-1/2″ by 3-1/2″card like a frisbee towards the wall, avoiding the rusted wire screen. Gingerly gripping the piece between two fingers, and flicking the wrist for the right trajectory, the player took aim, and launched the small piece of illustrated sports history. It floated through the air, arcing slightly before descending to slide into place, close to the wall. The competing player, and perhaps more than one, would likewise fire off their respective card.

The closest to the wall won the cards. While the pot was the cards on the pavement, side bets among the players could include additional cards. In this way, fortunes of changed hands– simple objects blown about by errant winds, tripped up on rough asphalt, or flubbed by nervous fingers.

*Tim Horton, whose indelible legacy was unknown to him.*

A less challenging and extremely fickle game was ‘odds and evens’. Two opposing players would simultaneously drop a card to their feet, watching it tumble, heads and tails to the ground. During the descent one player would call for an odd, or an even match. This game required no skill and relied entirely upon the immutable laws of physics and binary logic, subject to wind direction.

Fortunes were won and lost in these simple contests, and that formed our values and memories for the coming decades. Ironically, the numbered cards held no value except as collections. Few of us really knew the subjects on the colored faces of the cards, let alone the significance of the player statistics quoted on their backs.

Narratives for military cards and TV show cards were context at best, but few told the whole story.

So here I am now, seated in the closet, poring over the sealed collection of card memorabilia. I bought these sets years ago, purely for future value. A 1990 Bowman set of NHL cards– who knows what’s inside? 150 mint-condition images of Hall of Famers? Each one stained with 30-year-old gum? A 2016 set of Topps baseball cards celebrating the beloved Chicago Cubs, returned from 100 years of World Series drought?

*The closet discovery: what could be hiding here?*

Agonized with the thought of thumbing through these pristine, untouched treasures, I return them to their places up on the shelf. Some day, someone else will cross the river, and open the packages. I wish them well.

childhood, Culture, Sports

Scrubbed

It’s an odd word. Historically, ‘scrub’ was a pejorative meant to dismiss people of poor moral content. More recently, it meant to be cleaned whole. And in sports, a match was scrubbed due to some other factor: weather, disqualification, illness, schedule. But for me, Scrub is the game we played as kids in my hometown of Delhi. I was reminded of it as the Yankees and White Sox emerged from the cornfield in Dyersville Iowa last Thursday night.

White Sox and Yankees emerge from the magic corn in Dyersville, Iowa

There are whole libraries devoted to baseball, so I won’t try to start another, but Scrub was a derivative of the game that frankly was a lot more fun than nine against nine players. What made it attractive was the balance of a strict empirical order of play versus wild random luck. You could be at bat, and a moment later, lost in right field.

Scrub used the same diamond as regular baseball. Our school had two diamonds, and any recess in the spring would find them full, playing this all-inclusive game.There were no teams. Everyone was welcome. Players were positioned by how quickly they responded to the invitation to play.

“Who wants to play Scrub?” This invitation was announced usually by the guy who brought the bat and ball.

Immediately, all involved named their positions as they were sequenced: first batter, second batter, third batter, catcher, pitcher, and so on out to left field. You had to be quick to get high up in the order. And there could be numerous players. That is, the outfield could have ten fielders, who were numbered as such.

The play of the game was initiated by the pitcher who as always, trying to strike out the batter. But failing that, a fly ball was an option to be caught out, and the interchange between fielders and basemen was the other avenue to get the batter out. And here, the numbers worked against the outed batter. They went to the very end of the line, maybe as far back as tenth fielder, while everyone else moved up a notch. So it was that everyone had a chance to play every position. What better way to sharpen one’s skills?

The beauty of this game however was the introduction of pure, wild random luck. If the batter popped up a fly, and it was caught, that catcher traded places with the batter, thus skipping to the head of the line. Catching a fly in Scrub was like winning a lottery, albeit a very small one.

An additional merit of Scrub, absent any team requirements, is that no one suffered the ignominy of being the last chosen for a team. I think that’s why I enjoyed Scrub so much.

There may be some baseball allegories in life: ‘striking out’, ‘getting a walk’, ‘popping up’, ‘a home run’ for example but Scrub was a receptacle for all of these. You could be on top one moment, and out in left field the next, and before you knew it, right up to bat again.

Thanks for reading and sharing! I hope you had the opportunity to watch the “Field of Dreams” game the other night. Apart from the crowds who came onto the field, and then invited to walk through the corn, it was an eye opener too: what kind of corn grows nearly twelve feet high??

Sports

Nailing It: Mind Over Matter

A younger Phil Mickelson engages the gallery

Phil Mickelson is not new to golf, but Sunday’s performance at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course revealed a new player that few of us have seen before. He seemingly shed a skin, and reappeared as, no, not a younger person, but ironically, as an older person playing a young person’s game. How did he manage to abandon the old “Lefty”, and become the new sheriff in town?

I am not a golf zealot. I love the game, and occasionally have actually landed a drive on a fairway as opposed to the much more inviting rough edges. I don’t follow golfers, record statistics, recount games or ponder golf equipment. But I do get enjoyment in watching professionals pit their best against the elements: wind, gravity, foliage, water, crowds, blimps, cameras and second doubts.

He walks alone from pin to tee.

Watching Mickelson at the PGA Championship this past weekend was like staring up at Nik Wallenda hike across a tightrope 40 stories up in Chicago. Actually, the comparison is not a fair one, in that it was always a certainty that the high-rise circus performer would do it okay. Not so much for the 50-year-old golfer who has for 30 years soared, spun, fallen, struggled and recovered while collecting a den full of trophies. He is a gallery favorite in the PGA, but not necessarily a sure winner.

Still, there he was for four straight days the uncontested leader, the number one performer among a field of 157 competitors. At nearly 51 years, he was also the oldest of the pack, surrounded by 20- and 30-somethings, and having his way. How? What became of our young, adventuresome, risk-taking, wavy-haired, reckless, canny, plum lucky player who smiled and winced his way through golf’s grassy treacherous gauntlet, game after game?

A pitchman for Enbrel, relieving the painful grip of arthritis.

Remember, this is a golfer who is, or certainly was, a pitchman for a psoriatic arthritis medication. We used to watch him smiling, nimbly making sandwiches with previously pained hands. A golfer’s grip is everything you know.

Viewers would have to agree that they were watching a reborn player. Mickelson has shed weight. The boyish plumpness that rolled forever beneath his shirt is gone. The curls that used to blossom from beneath his cap have been replaced with a neatly trimmed bang at the back of his head.

Older, calmer, in his own thoughts.

His face is older, more lined, lacking the baby fat that used to dimple as he smiled. His demeanor has shifted into a stoic look that was unchanged over 72 grueling holes. The camera never captured a smile, a frown, or a coy glance over four days that we saw. Dressed head-to-toe in black for much of the event, he appeared formidable. And he wore impenetrable reflective sun glasses that hid any emotion that might reveal his thoughts. He looked more like an ocean-going sea captain in stormy waters than a hiker surrounded by thousands of adoring fans.

I remarked on this to a golfing friend, who said, “He uses meditation”.

The pause that clears the head.

That explained the trance-like poses he took before every shot. Some say you need to visualize what the ball is going to do, and then you make it happen. That is a load of bunker. In golf, once you have hit the ball, its path is entirely, literally, out of your hands, and will be whipped around by wind, vacuums, heat, cold, grass blades, spectator feet and discarded ice cubes.

The Ocean Course complete with water, wind and crowds.

Never mind that the Ocean Course is a sandy, windswept collection of swamps, twisting ponds and encroaching bunkers that seem to surround every green and fairway like marauding predators.

In Mickelson’s case, he took that pause to settle his nerves. What was his mantra during those moments? The Lord’s Prayer, The 23rd Psalm, Latin declensions, his locker combination? We won’t know, but physiologically, the long pauses released his mind from the last shot, and possibly washed away his thoughts about the one coming up. More likely, he dreamt for a moment about the best shot he had ever made in similar circumstances. The act of mentally drifting away from the current threat makes it easier to handle it. Without thinking about it, Phil was channeling his own natural “force”.

This conquest was a joy to watch, if even the victor seemed oblivious to it. He strode from pin to tee alone, head down, occasionally giving a thumbs up to the gallery.

A simple two-putt to win the game.

On the last hole, as he approached the 18th green, he was swarmed by an uncontrollable gallery, knocking him off balance at one point. If golf ever had a mosh pit, this was it. And after he calmly two-putted his win, he held up his club in a salute, hugged his brother Tim who caddied, and walked alone up to the judge’s station to finish the paperwork.

They say that golf is a lonely game for competitors. Indeed, Mickelson was not tackled or hugged by his wife or children as he finished. They remained at home, and he spoke to them by phone only after filing his card.

Now, a day later, can he lower the shields, and rejoin the other world, that one off the course?

childhood, Culture, Sports

Down At The Rink 2

The Delhi Arena, In An Uncommon Quiet Moment

Down at the rink there was a constant stream of guys from youngsters to teens who slogged in and out, all winter, with bags of equipment, tapes, pucks, pads, skates and sticks. They came at all the hours of the day and night.

In this small hockey-crazy town, how did I end up in the figure-skating club?

Of all the gifts my parents bestowed, this was the one that took the longest to understand. But whether it was their intention to produce a figure skater, or just to keep me occupied, I eventually saw the light. And it was dazzling.

Barbara Ann Scott, 1948 Olympic Gold Medalist for Canada

My parents moved to Delhi in 1948 and in a short time took a lead role in starting the Delhi Figure Skating Club. It was the same year Canada’s Sweetheart, Barbara Ann Scott, won the Olympics. This may have been Dad’s idea, but Mom would have pushed him along, and with the help of those many post-war friends who landed in this small tobacco-growing community, the DFSC was born. It drew widespread endorsement, especially by parents whose daughters couldn’t play hockey. Within a couple of years there was a long list of members aged 7-70 who came to the rink on Wednesdays and Saturdays to cut figure 8s, do steps, spins and jumps and dance in wavy processions around the rink. You might say it was a little Arthur Murray mixed up with some chilly ballet.

CCM skates, built tough for hockey.

While all my friends went the hockey route, I went figure skating, primarily because it was my ride home. So, I owned a pair of black, shin-high laced skates with long, slim silver blades with chiseled picks on the toes. My buds all had CCM hockey skates: black with brown trim, yellow laces, reinforced tendon guards, and wide, hard, puck-stopping steel blades riveted into the soles. Their scarred and dented toes resembled miners’ helmets. Mine shone like OPP boots. There couldn’t be a greater contrast between the two sports.

Or could there?

The girls came in numbers: a serendipitous awakening.

In fact, I discovered in figure skating that for every boy there were at least five girls. This may have been the unintended consequence of my membership, but it was a serendipitous awakening that I have never regretted, much less forgotten.

In the earliest of my stumbling skating career as a Junior, I wandered around crowds of other newbies on the ice, learning to push out for forward and butt-wiggle for reverse. Once ice-friendly we graduated to Intermediates where we attempted three-turns and hops like little bunnies in the snow. We raised our legs and arms for spirals, imitating clumsy birds landing on the feeder. I perfected the nose-plant.

Paul Rapai, Marion Pitts, Suzanne Klein, Skip Lumley nailed it.

In the midst of my imperfect executions however, there were some real stars. Paul Rapai, Suzanne Klein, Skip Lumley, Marion Pitts, Jack Kellum, Mary Ann Coyle, Nora Marie VanHove–these older kids were excellent skaters. Gifted with balance, strength and grace, they captivated their audience, both those of us on the fringes, and the adoring crowds on the benches. They had nailed it.

But as a 12-year-old, I found the boy numbers had thinned, my skating buds had evaporated to the hockey track, and I was accompanied by a few guys who hung on, to witness like I did, that we were surrounded by girls. It was a stunning, magical, delirious moment for an addled kid who until then had been happiest with a pellet gun in the woods.

The girls always dressed up for figure skating. They wore colourful toques, scarves, furry ear muffs, white gloves or mitts, smart tunics and on occasion, impossibly short skirts and tanned tights. They had immaculate white skates with bows or jingle bells laced into the toes. To a one, they had fresh rosy cheeks and bright eyes, lovely curls and some even sported earrings. In the middle of a cold grey winter I had somehow stumbled into a warm, sunny bakeshop at Easter.

Chris Brown, Bunny Klein. Boys came at premium in the DFSC.

The task of serious figure skating still advanced however. We were now instructed in drawing crisp, neat figure 8s on our outside and inside edges. My 8s looked like shaky ampersands. We learned to launch into the air with 3-jumps. Mine looked like 4s and scratchy 5s. A simple cutback into a spin left me doodling aimlessly, slowing to a halt after one rotation. In short, I was a figure skating klutz.

And I was treated that way, pretty much. But still there were high points. In the annual competitions I could draw a bronze medal for third place because there were only two other guys in the field. But best of all, I was indispensable as a dance partner. We needed boys to partner with girls to perform dances. So I may have been a solo wash-out, but I truly learned to deliver a passable Dutch Waltz, a Swing Dance, or my favourite, the Canasta Tango.

These dances guaranteed a pairing, arm in arm, hand in hand, eye to eye, with some of the prettiest girls Delhi had. We strode around the ice to orchestra tapes of Perfidia, Blue Moon, Wonderful Copenhagen… it was surreal, exciting and riveting all at once. While I may not have ever shared a social word with these girls at school, on the ice it was a joint challenge to perform, and that seemed the winning ticket.

While my hockey friends were scrambling and whooping around the ice like scrappy junkyard dogs, slamming the boards and crossing sticks, I was gliding along smooth arcs, laughing and talking our way through a complicated foot-move in time to Andre Kostelanetz. While the guys were groaning in the sweaty change rooms breathing the high-sulphur coal-heated air, I was enchanted by the occasional wafts of Breck shampoo, Noxzema and Juiceyfruit gum. How bad was that?

The ice carnival, exciting, enchanting, memorable.

The climax of the skating season however was the Ice Carnival. This was the DFSC’s presentation to the town. It was a top-tier war effort, and in addition to its spectacular performance, the carnival was, to many of us, the most exciting and enchanting event of the season.

More, next week.

childhood, Culture, Sports

Down At The Rink-1

The Delhi Arena, our sports center year round.

If it wasn’t for the Delhi Arena, most of our youth would have been spent watching TV. But as it turned out, the “rink” was the birthplace of our skaters, hockey players, and curlers. It was also the winter playground where we grew up, showed up, showed off, fought, danced, laughed, spectated, spat, scraped, yelled, screamed and inexorably, became self aware.

The building was the largest and tallest in Delhi, a cinder block fortress with a vast yawning wooden frame roof. Below were two rows of wooden-backed spectator benches painted in bold reds and blues. Sitting in these, one could look up and wonder at the ceiling. Massive multi-ply planking formed the immense rafters in a parabolic curve that supported tons of shiplap and asphalt roofing tiles.

A modular wooden track is installed for bike races.

Under the rafters, there were hangers and struts arranged in geometric, weight-sharing designs. These were bolted into the 120-foot wooden joists that stretched the width of the rink. The walls were held together by penetrating steel rods that crossed the expanse twenty feet above our heads. One could only marvel at the steeple jacks that created this edifice. And suspended in the middle, at center ice was a four-sided game clock and score box, sponsored by Players cigarettes, that was large enough to house a two-story chicken coop. Fully automated, it could record Home and Visitor teams scores, count to twenty minutes, and blast a brash game-over siren that was unmistakable.

Here was every Delhi kid’s excuse to get out of the house. We had a raucous, robust minor hockey league that was a rite of passage for boys. Typically, we were up before 7am on a Saturday, grabbing a breakfast, and then hiking down to the rink.

For most of us, standard equipment included flimsy little shoulder pads, hardly more protective than a grilled cheese sandwich. Plastic kneepads, held up by rubber Mason Jar rings, were worn under our jeans, or if we were devoted to the sport, inside Canadiennes or Maple Leaf socks. Most of us had huge sweaters, hockey pants and suspenders. We stuffed the whole kit with our skates into a burlap potato sack, and slinging that over our hockey stick, shouldered our gear along streets, alleys and wooded paths, over Big Creek, and down to the rink.

One of Delhi’s many All Star rep teams, courtesy of Vandenbussche Irrigation and The Knights of Columbus.

The rep teams, the All-Stars, had company-sponsored jerseys and played their games in the evenings and weekends, at home and away. Our rink hosted future hockey royalty too, when a championship match included a young 12-year-old Wayne Gretzky. He glided across our ice like a jet, maybe aware of what was to come.

But the rep game was far beyond my mediocre skills, intuition or strength, so I spent my hockey hours on Saturday mornings chasing runaway pucks, bouncing off the boards, picking myself up, with occasional wobbling shots aimed at scrambling goalies.

The highlight was Sunday at the rink when our Junior B team, the Rocket 88s would take on a visiting team from neighbouring towns, like Simcoe and Waterford and Tilsonburg, all within 10 miles of Delhi. The 88s were named for their sponsor, Wills Motors which proudly sold Oldsmobiles. These games were the quintessential celebration of small town spirit. 500-600 fans would fill the wooden seats and cheer the 88s for every goal, upset and penalty called.

Wills Motors named their team the Rocket 88s for the classic Oldsmobile.

As kids, we ran up and down the concrete aisles, popping empty paper Dixie Cups under our heels, razzing the visiting team behind their bench, banging the boards with broken hockey sticks, scarfing down hot chocolate and cups of salted french fries. The fans roared for our hometown heroes like Rolly Thibault, Bob Sabatine, Tony Benko, Earl O’Neil, Dan Barrett and Joe Kelly, who was rumored to be Red Kelly’s cousin, but we never knew for sure. And beside home bench, sat Dr. Ron McCallum, the team’s very own, who eyed every shot, and high stick for a possible injury.

Worthy of note, the ice hockey back then was different from today: no head gear, including the goalie, and no fights.

Between periods there was a solemn procession that never varied. A cadre of older teen age guys had earned the right to shovel the ice. This was in the pre-Zamboni era. About ten of them split into two teams, and would push heavy steel shovels up and down the length of the rink in formation like Canada geese. The shaved ice would flow off the first shovel onto the one beside and back a few paces, until it had cascaded across 5 or 6 blades.

Hockey the way it used to be: no helmets, masks or fights.

The shovelers had a uniform, too. Not with stripes or corporate sponsoring, but just as important. They were on display. It would be a flight jacket or heavy windbreaker, zipped half way up the chest to reveal a plaid flannel shirt open at the collar displaying a white t-shirt. The jacket collar was always turned up. Their hair was slick and groomed to perfection. The uniform called for jeans that were draped into black rubber wellingtons with orange trim, folded down to reveal about 4 inches of the boot’s canvas lining. An acceptable alternative was the zipped rubber boot which by consensus must be unzipped down to the toes so that the boots’ collars flapped open like Batman’s cape.

The game clock, courtesy of Imperial Tobacco’s Players cigarettes.

After circling the rink, the two shovel teams corralled all the shaved ice into the middle lane. There, in the grande finale, they would cup the snow into one pile and all ten shovelers would push the shavings out the back door of the rink. They didn’t return, but it’s likely they paused for a smoke out back as the crowds waited inside for the next act.

It was very special. A small, quiet, older gentleman with silver hair, Ivan, would apply a new surface to the ice. Before Zamboni, ice makers rigged up a 45-gallon drum filled with steaming hot water. It was mounted on two black rubber tires, and had two 6-foot-pipe outriggers that oozed hot water through toweling onto the ice. Ivan wore steel cleats. He would carefully pull his contraption along the scarred and riddled surface, and opening the valves a tad, create a smooth satin sheen before us. Ivan could resurface the entire rink in about ten minutes, under the watchful eyes of impatient ’88 fans who couldn’t help but notice the “Vandenbussche Irrigation” sign displayed on a tent over the drum.

The rink was the town’s sports center, in use all year. It hosted bicycle races, wrestling matches, roller skating, a little curling – and hockey, for sure. But that was only part of the program. The rink had figure skating too, which was magical, and wildly exciting in another way I can’t begin to tell you now. A weird place for a guy to show up, but there I was.

More to follow, next week.

Culture, Sports

Real Grit

Justify proudly, majestically pounds the dirt.

We watched the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, and came away with a shiver as Justify fiercely and powerfully pounded across the finish line one and three quarter lengths ahead of his closest opponent.

Why the shiver?

Was it because the 3 year old just won the Triple Crown? Because he proudly stands 16.3 hands high and weighs in at an amazing 1,380 pounds? The $1,500,000 purse? Because he’s a fifth generation descendant of Triple Crown Winners Omaha, Seattle Slew, Secretariat, Count Fleet and War Admiral? His $3,798,000 winnings history? Because he was loudly and jubilantly bestowed the laudable praise of immortal?

No. We came away with a shiver because he almost lost to Gronkowski.

If you watched the race you may have lost track of Gronk as the race unfolded, and that is excusable, because absent the use of a wide angle lens, you would not see the trailing horse in the same frame as the 9 others. He barely made it out of the gate.

At the gate, Gronkowski, ridden by Ortiz in white is delayed.

Gronkowski is a lesson in accidental fortune. With a meager $79,496 in winnings to date, he did not inspire much confidence as a good bet. 12-1 on race day. Nevertheless, on a whim, New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski recently bought a share in the horse, solely because they shared the same name. Ah, the joys of personal disposable income! The football player weighs 265; the horse is over 1,200.

Barely 10 seconds into the race Gronk falls back.

As the race begins, Gronkowski the horse breaks out of the gate dead last. Only a length behind, he is now eyeing 9 horses’ butts in front of him as he appears to awaken from an afternoon’s equine slumber. This would be the moment to double back, and check if he is in the right race.

Instead, Gronkowski shuffles into a gallop, no doubt looking to see what the kerfuffle is up ahead. For the next minute he meanders in the dirt backfield waiting for a sign from his rider, Jose Ortiz.

The gap widens. Can we point the camera elsewhere?

At the first quarter mile, Gronk is in 10th place, 14-3/4 lengths behind you know who.

Meanwhile, at the front of the pack, with intrepid speed and power Justify stretches his lead, thundering ahead of some hopeful contenders. All the while Justify and Mike Smith, his 52-year-old rider, soar around the bend, never looking back, confident of their win. They are truly a remarkable, thrilling sight.

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

At one mile, Gronk is in 9th place, 8-1/2 lengths behind Justify.

Still, there is a change coming. The message somehow got through to the colt that this was a horse race, and there are terrific upsides to winning versus heading back to the stable. It is amazing to watch as one by one, Gronkowski slips into the middle of the pack, and nudges his way up the rail like an impatient Target shopper on the way to self-check out.

At mile one, Gronk creeps up on the inside.

As the mob of horses approach the final bend, there is a quarter mile to go. Gronk has smoothly worked up to 3rd place, 2-1/2 lengths behind.

Then in the final straightaway, the crowds are on their feet, the announcer is screaming into the mike, and Justify stretches forward like a wild dragon on fire, closing on the finish. While horse and rider don’t look back, they surely can hear amid the crowd’s roar the fierce pounding of another set of hooves.

The finish, hot on Justify’s tail.

Alas, Justify crosses the line, victorious, and doesn’t know who crept up behind him in the last few seconds. It was Gronkowski, who came in second, a third of a second behind Justify’s 2:28:18.

“What the..where did you come from??”

True, it’s a horse race that astounds: it is loud, hot, wet, dirty, fast, scary and dangerous. Justify completed his race with a time speed of 36 miles per hour. 53 feet per second. But Gronkowski only woke up half way through the race, so he actually sprinted faster than Justify through the last half mile.

These horses love to run, and some even love to win.

Gronkowski in socks, at a quieter moment.

Talk about grit.

Sports

Knuckling Down

The Canadian Open finished at Glen Abbey Golf Course in Oakville yesterday, and the scoring amazed me for the strokes under par. After 72 holes played, the leader board showed the winner, Jhonattan Vegas at 21 under par. Put another way, for 288 recommended strokes, he only needed 267 to win $1,000,000 dollars.

21 under par is a pretty astounding number in the PGA Tour. But it reminded me that I have played at Glen Abbey, many, many years ago, and I recall that I finished just the front 9 with a 57, or 21 strokes over par. I have not been back.

Since then, my golf game has not improved. Despite lessons, innumerable outings, new clubs, golf magazine subscriptions, disciplined score keeping, fastidious handicap calculations (28.6), spiffy shirts, and an unbridled optimism, I still come up with a couple extra strokes per hole, delivering a consistent 108, +/- 5 strokes. 36 over par any given day.

The reason this occurs is obvious to me now. After years of recording and analyzing scores, yardage, accuracy, putts and penalties, my game is consistent. First, short drives. Second, wide drives. Once in the rough, always in the rough. If most holes require 2 strokes to hit the green, I will usually take three and maybe four.

Next, sorrowful putts. Regulation calls for two. My putts will usually be two, but I can make a three, even a four happen so easily that the gallery of geese standing nearby shake their heads in dismay.

I have reconciled and accepted my numbing under-performance. And like a professional, I have studied it and dissected every misstep, and have now come up with a new way to measure and find success.

The Knucklehead Count

It’s not the lackluster shots that dampen my game. Sometimes I get away with some brilliant shots which compensate. What ruins my game is the knucklehead shot.

A knucklehead shot is a bizarre, inept moment of inattention enhanced by extraordinary clumsiness. Knucklehead putts that are marred by a scuffed green or a bouncing putter. Knucklehead approach shots are skulled wedge shots that rocket with malice waist-high over the green and, nearly hitting a startled partner, end up in a bunker. A knucklehead bunker shot is hit so fat that the ball barely rolls up three feet to rest under the lip. A knucklehead fairway shot usually involves a 5-wood grinding the ball deep into the turf before skittering 12 feet to a stop.

Knuckleheads generally can be validated by quickly taking a second ball, and repeating the stroke with consummate perfection. In other words, lacking my inattention and clumsiness, the prior shot could have been brilliant. Unfortunately, but to its credit, the game of golf requires physical and intellectual honesty, so the knucklehead counts, and the beautiful do-over doesn’t.

I break out scores on my card to show putts, fairway, yardage, accuracy and penalty strokes. But the most important score is the knucklehead count.

Why?

Because I have accepted my game. The only thing that changes is the knucklehead count. When I finish up, I can look at my score, and have this quiet moment of calculation: “I shot a 108. But take away 9 knuckleheads and I could have had a 99. Wow!

When people asked me how my game was, I used to respond, “Pretty good! I found three balls and only lost two!” Now I measure success, and surprisingly, happiness, by low knucklehead counts.

It’s a great game, even for the knuckleheads.

Thanks for reading! Please share with your earnest golfing friends who are still looking for that perfect game.

Marketing, Sports

The Deal: With Six You Get Egg Roll

In spring, a young man’s fancy turns to…testing.

It’s a sure sign that Spring is on the way. The March issue of Golf magazine arrived, and after the most dismal stretch of dull weather in recent memory, the green pastoral images of fairways and beach-like bunkers beckon irresistibly.

But among those pages floats another stimulant. Golf blew in 4 different subscription order cards. These 4 x 5-1/2 reply cards exemplify the art of mail-order merchandising.

One would ask, why do we need any cards? I am already a subscriber!

It’s all in the numbers.

True, for the longest time I used to let my subscriptions expire so that I could re-up and get the free gift. In the past our home was filled with calculators, phones, binoculars, hats, world maps and globes… all manner of stuff with somebody else’s logo on them. Not only did we like the goo-gaws, but it was fun to get them in the mail.

But Golf’s four order cards demonstrate the great science of offer testing. And there is practical beauty in that: when you understand what excites the buyer’s brain, you make more money.

Analysis

Each of the cards has exactly the same deal. One, two or three years for hefty discounted pricing off of newsstand. With each, the same gift premium is offered: a “Golf Distance Finder”.

I couldn’t use the distance finder. It would be perennially set at “Too Far” with only occasional gauging at “Fat Chance”.

Anyway, the cards are all different. The result of long, worried debates in Golf’s conference room about how to best wring a dollar out of a new sub, there are four gradations. Each effort targets a different dark corner of the golfer’s bunkered mind.

Card One: It’s blue, with giant GOLF titling. In simple fashion it provides the basic deal with a mention of the discounts off newsstand price.

For the unassuming habit-driven: "yep, sure, whatever."

For the unassuming and habit-driven: “yep, sure, whatever.”

A small un-captioned picture of the gift is featured with, “yours free”. This card is the control sample, and wins or loses on brand loyalty. Ideally suited for the unassuming, doubtless, committed player.

Card Two: It’s grey, with a smaller GOLF title, same deals but highlights “Your Price $16.00”. Understanding that some may not know what the gift is, “FREE Distance Finder” is inserted below the picture.

"The distance between me and the cup, and between me and Jupiter is negligible."

“I may never hit the green, but I can see Jupiter.”

This card is for the cash-strapped grinder who is figuring one year is just long enough to suspend the inevitable realization: golf is just a good walk in the wilds ruined. Or they figure $16 bucks is the right price for a telescope.

Card Three: It’s powder blue and screams to the wealthy and permanently, irrevocably, hopelessly optimistic, driven player: “Tomorrow will be a better day and the BEST DEAL! is a 3-year commitment.”

“This will be my year. Well, maybe, then again, sometime in my lifetime.”

The distance finder is featured, but it’s the 83% discount that grabs.

Card Four: This is the gutsy guarantee card. “Lower Scores. Lower Price.” is for the duffer who has journeyed through four painful levels of acceptance and will now admit they couldn’t hit a basketball with a broom in a closet.

“This year I will not tear up my score cards.”

They figure literature, technology and a little learnin’ might be the answer. If that still turns out to be a whiff, then they are ready to go for the money refund.

Results

At the end of the test, which could go on longer than the season, the Golf sales department will look at the results for each card, which got the most orders, which deal worked best for each card, which got the most email addresses, and which got the most money up front.

This is not a double eagle fantasy for statisticians. Rather, the results of this inexpensive test will predict which offer is worth rolling out in other media with the promise of the highest return on investment.

While solo direct mail may be proud of a $20 cost to get a new subscriber, the numbers may dictate that direct mail is still stronger than web display ads, email or simple on-page advertising. Knowing which deal is strongest can shave a few pennies off acquisition cost.

Long ago, we used to puzzle over the best offer: “buy one get one free” vs. “two for the price of one” vs. “50% off”.

It isn’t easy, but you can test.

Thanks for reading! Direct marketing tests are a way of life, and you never know when a new angle won’t build your margins unexpectedly. I swing at the ball with the same giddy optimism.

Culture, Sports, Wildlife

Paddles Keen And Bright

We have a fleet of canoes. It was never planned that way, but nevertheless, fate, good fortune and the wish of one man made us canoe mavens.

A typical sight along the summer roads of Ontario.

Just last week our son rescued one from the shaky rafters of a rustic, ancient boathouse on a lake in eastern Ontario.

The craft in question is a Chestnut brand Prospector with v-stern. It is a super-wide 16 feet feet long, and has a transom that could host a 3hp outboard if required.

The Chestnut Prospector known as “Pickle” by our grandchildren.

Our grandchildren call it the Pickle, because it’s green. The Pickle is the last of three canoes which my late father-in-law bestowed upon his three daughters, fulfilling a wish that spanned over half a century.

Chestnut Canoes were an iconic boat company headquartered in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It went under in 1979, victim of changing tastes.

1983– Mabel’s Tremblay loaded down with our young family.

The class of canoe is cedar-canvas. That is, a cedar rib and plank hull, over which canvas is stretched and bound into place. You will find modern canoes made out of fiber glass, and the truly exotic craft are made from pure cedar strip. Last summer we lifted a carbon-fiber canoe with two fingers. It weighed 14 pounds.

In the heyday of cedar-canvas canoes, it was common that most cottages in eastern Canada had a canoe, or were in sight of one off their front dock.

Camp was our training ground, and today it commissions at least one war canoe, seen above in their brochure.

Truly a Canadian legacy, the canoe today is still seen on the tops of vacationers’ cars speeding along the highways all summer long. But more often, you will see kayaks. Hard fiberglass, ultra light, in hues of red and yellow.

When not on the road, or in the water, canoes are habitually found in the rafters of boathouses and garages, nation-wide. Which is where we have two, right now.

The Big Idea

1996–Our boys ponder a launch of our Pal Chestnut off the front point of the cottage.

Tom Hamilton is my wife’s Dad, and from the time of his youth he had been an outdoorsman. Very much into camping and fishing, Tom enjoyed no greater release than to glide among the ripples of a quiet northern lake, trolling a lure in search of a hit from a bass or muskie. If he couldn’t experience that first hand, he was intent on passing the thrill along to his daughters.

So they went to camp.

1950– Tom took his team to camp to build cabins. Here they are arriving in “Tough”, a war canoe.

The YMCA summer camp of our youth was built by service groups, in one of which Tom was a member. After WWII, he spent springs and summers cobbling together cabins, docks and dining hall for generations to enjoy.

The waterfront was well stocked with Chestnut canoes, donated by wealthy benefactors.

The skills regimen at our camp focused on canoeing and out-tripping. The requisites were quite firm for campers to canoe and out-trip.

1989– Tom with his grandson and friend paddling the Grand River in his Pal, “Hochelaga”.

2016– Tom’s Hochelaga now carries three great grandchildren on the Bruce Peninsula.

We graduated from Tenderfoot to Tribesman, Brave, Chieftain, and Chieftain Expert. A fully-fledged canoeist was eligible for out-tripping when they had mastered bow, stern, portage and solo.

The strength test was to hoist a canoe onto one’s shoulders, unassisted, and portage it about a quarter mile. The canoe weighed around 80 pounds, which doesn’t sound like much until you are swinging it over your head in one move. The ultimate test was to paddle a “Figure 8” without changing sides.

The beauty of river canoeing is to enjoy sights unseen from the highway. Grand River, Ontario.

This was the environment Tom treasured, we were raised in, and not surprisingly, it generated tremendous self confidence and pride. The dividend was paddling these sleek, quiet craft on waters through valleys of forest and granite, easily gliding up to wildlife unaware at any bend in the shoreline.

Among Tom’s three daughters, we have 5 cedar-canvas canoes.

2001–Mabel’s Tremblay under total rebuild. The red paint bled through an earlier canvas.

When he retired in 1985, Tom searched classified ads, read marina bulletin boards, and probably pestered a few motorists who were transporting a canoe, and eventually acquired three beauties.

They are all in Ontario. Mary’s Chestnut (a Pal model) canoe resides in a bay by her cottage on the Bruce Peninsula. Bonney’s Langford is beside the Mississippi River in Pakenham, and Jane’s Prospector “Pickle” is just returning from a week on Silent Lake.

Many years before Tom hatched his acquisition plans, I had a well-travelled canoe given to me by a veteran cottager on our lake. Her name was Mabel Stearns. Her canoe was made in eastern Canada, around 1951. I think it is a Tremblay.

2003– Mabel, all spiffed up, trim and pretty.

It looked pretty rough. Coated in layers of chunky blue and green paint, it had dirty brown, peeling varnish coating its ribs and gunwales, and a hole in its bow, attributed to a fast speeding bullet.

Like most older canoes that live outdoors, its decks were crumbling and rotted from years of storage on the ground.

Bonney’s Langford among the rushes in Pakenham, Ontario.

We were nevertheless thrilled to have the canoe, and that fall we put on a new canvas, reinforced the bow and stern stems, and painted it red. Not a professional job, but sufficient for the time being.

A couple years after that, in 1981, Tom found a red Chestnut Pal looking for a new owner, and convinced me to buy it from a childhood friend of his for $100. For me, that was considerable, but at the time, a Pal retailed for $800 or more. This canoe was also broken, and I forthwith re-canvassed it, and painted it yellow.

The reconditioned canoes went to our cottage and traded places a couple of times when a more serious attempt was made to give them a worthy overhaul.

2015– My $100 Pal after a major overhaul, complete with mahogany gunwales.

Ultimately, we sold our cottage, which is a not uncommon phenomenon in Ontario where tax law makes inheritance of family cottages a costly consideration.

While we enjoyed the convenience of the cottage’s stable location, we now appreciate the canoe for its portability to other lakes and rivers.

2016– Tom takes his place on the Chestnut.

As a result, the Pickle has visited Silent Lake and awaits its next trip, now likely next year. Mean time it rests dry in storage outside Toronto.

And our $100 Chestnut has been on numerous lakes and rivers before taking up residence behind our house. Mabel hangs from the garage ceiling, waiting for her next outing.

For me, the pleasure in all of this has been the fulfillment of Tom’s wish, that the canoe stays front and center in our family.

It has done that, and more so.

Thanks for sharing our canoe story! “Paddles Keen And Bright” is lifted from a Canadian canoeing song, written by Margaret Embers McGee. The song is sung as a round, a supposed assist for paddlers.

My paddle’s keen and bright,
Flashing like silver,
Follow the wild goose flight,
Dip, dip and swing.

direct mail, Marketing, Sports

Mail Order Magic: The USGA Doubles Down

Marketing: a good grip that doesn’t let go.

The challenge of any direct marketer is to hold the enchantment of the buyer from the moment of first interest until the next order. Let me tell you how the United States Golfing Association had me firmly in their grip.

Mind you, I have always been attracted to mail order.

First mail order purchase.

As a kid, my first experience with mail order was a Robin Hood hat off the back of a Quaker Oats box. I wrote them a letter with a dull purple crayon. Two box tops, a quarter, and four weeks later, I was decked out in a lincoln green cap complete with turkey feather.

Moments later I dissolved onto a path through the tree line behind our house, earnestly in search of rich people to steal from.

My brother and I followed up with another offer, this time, a potato gun from Nabisco Shredded Wheat. More box tops, more coins, more waiting, and our ordnance arrived: two shiny, plastic, blue and red hand guns.

The properly outfitted small arms mail order buyer.

Operating instructions were basic. Stick the front of the barrel into a potato, and pull away a small plug about the size of a pencil eraser. Choose a target. Pull the trigger. The little wad of potato would fly across the living room and roll to a stop under the couch.

After a couple of potato bits wound up in the electric space heater, the jig was up.

But the magic remains. It’s important for cataloguers, mailers and weekend supplement advertisers that their buyer squeezes every bit of enjoyment possible from the order cycle.

The Hat: Mailorder Delivers!

There is an inexpressible excitement in opening a long awaited package sent by complete strangers, far off and away. I had sent in my USGA membership renewal, and according to the letter I would receive a hat: an orange 2015 USGA Chambers Bay Open cap. I already had one, but if it blew away, I’d have back up.

I am certain that the USGA Board of Directors convened a special meeting, extensively reviewing my application before granting my membership extension for another year. A no brainer for them, this was an important symbolic order of business, for which they would levy a $15.00 fee against my credit card.

From there, I visualized urgent instructions hammered out on the teletype, dispatched to the membership fulfillment department, ordering them to rush a member package to our home, sparing no cost.

The long awaited, hoped for package arrives.

Like a glistening white, dimpled Titleist, teetering on the edge of the cup, I waited by the mailbox. This week, the USGA kit arrived.

Inside the lumpy plastic package I found my new member card, and a bag tag, branded with my name, and a framable picture of Chambers Bay, site of the 2015 Open. And more…there inside the package was a new hat–but it was gray.

Surprise! A new hat!

Was there a mistake?

No! This hat is for the 2016 Open in Oakmont. I have no idea where that is, but according to the hat, there are squirrels, and acorns. Perhaps there are groundhogs too.

But the USGA prize committee could not contain themselves by merely presenting me with a new lid. They also sent along a USGA 40th Anniversary metal ball marker.

Double surprise! A ball marker!

This little disk is used to mark the fictional place of my golf ball as it rests closest to the pin. I have never had the pleasure of seeing that, but I hope to one day.

But wait, there’s more. It’s magnetized.

Even better, however, the prize committee designated that the ball marker have a special place of its own: it attaches to a magnet on the visor of my new cap. Wow! Like many bad hooks off the neighboring tee box, I truly did not see this coming.

Of course, the cap is firmly held in place even on the windiest fairways as the magnet rests over the metal plate in my skull.

Just kidding.

Years ago we were introduced to the concept of lagniappe. This is the art of giving a little extra. It wins a customer for life. Good marketers always work lagniappe, and the USGA has cultivated the technique.

The course beckons; the marker is poised.

With luck, they may someday improve my game.

Thanks for reading! Please share. Oakmont is outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

Phil Brown

"Like triple cream– rich, pungent, a little barnyardy, and spreads easily. A good cheese."

Category Archives: Sports

Up Against The Wall, Tantalized

Scrubbed

Nailing It: Mind Over Matter

Down At The Rink 2

Down At The Rink-1

Real Grit

Knuckling Down

The Deal: With Six You Get Egg Roll

Paddles Keen And Bright

Mail Order Magic: The USGA Doubles Down

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