The Summer of Dead Toys....by Antonio Hill

The Summer of Dead Toys is a novel by a new Author..Antonio Hill. It is being released with an unusual amount of acclaim and fanfare on June 18th. Early reviews say it is marvelous, etc. I am not so sure. In fact, I'm wondering if I should give the book two stars or three.

I'm just going to talk to myself about the book for a while, trying to make up my mind, and you are invited to join me. I'll probably release a whole lot of details about the book. Readers of my review will surely scold me if I include too many of these details. So be forewarned. I'll try to not give away the name or names of the bad guys, but I think this is the point at which I'm required to say Buyer Beware!! or something to that effect...I can't remember the correct phrase.

I didn't entirely dislike the book. But there were little things that annoyed me. For instance: a young man gets beaten up by some drug dealers and they tell him if he would like to continue living he had better pay them the four thousand euros he owes them. Later on in the book the author apparently forgets the original amount of the debt and he changes it to three thousand euros. Or maybe the kid had earned a thousand euros off the books about which the author has declined to advise us. Or perhaps there was a move in the exchange rates which were favorable to the euro, and the drug lords decided to pass it on to this kid. Whatever. Not a big deal; just a nuisance. And anyway, the day before the bad guys come to beat the kid up again or kill him, he's chatting with the police, telling them he's smarter than they are, as if he doesn't have a worry in the world. Maybe he got a sudden inheritance and will be able to pay off the two thousand euros to the drug lords.

And for fully half of the book, Hector Salgado, the policeman-hero of the book, is hooked on tobacco. He is constantly asking drivers to stop their car so he can get out for a smoke etc. Or he's leaving the police station at inopportune times to light up a cigarette before he goes nuts. And it turns out he is not alone. His partner, Leire, limits herself to five cigarettes a day but she is frequently overshooting her limit, getting out of cars or going to the back of the police station building to light up with Hector. And their boss gets into the act too. He frequently needs to light up.

Then in the second half of the book, if I remember rightly, there is none of this running off to smoke a cigarette. What happened? (I wondered.) Well, I had grown really tired of this smoking thing anyway so it was just as well. Maybe they had all begun to use "the patch." The author had probably written a long explanation of their conversion to the patch, which the editors decided to remove. In any case, I predict a relapse for these folks. They liked their smokes just a little too much. And I thank the author for giving his readers some fresh air.

Okay. Now we're at the READER WARNING!!! part. The meat of the book. If you don't want to know anything about what happens in the book, stop reading now and go out for a smoke. Whatever you do, don't scold me. I am very sensitive to being scolded. So be forewarned.

The Summer of Dead Toys centers around the drowning of a twelve-year-old girl at a summer camp fourteen years prior to the events in the book. The drowning was pretty much accidental but it happened in the midst of some unsavory goings-on. And the full story of what happened had never truly come to light and it hung like a cloud over the lives of the people who were connected to the summer camp.

The beloved father of this particular girl had died. Her father had been a physically strong individual who swung her around like a doll, and who cut down trees with ease. His illness caused him to waste away and die.

This daughter decided that she wanted to join her father. So she refused to eat. She decided to wither away like her father had. If she was forced to eat, she would later go off and force herself to throw up. People at the camp did not know why she was doing this, and her mother thought she was ill, but the girl was determined.

A few years earlier, this same girl had fallen prey to a child molester who worked at the camp each year. As child molesters go, (of course they're all monsters,) this particular pervert probably knows he is sick and he holds himself back from being a complete perv. (The whole subject is sick and I wish I could avoid it. Please forgive me if this upsets you. It upsets me too.) Anyway, the girl sometimes likes being the center of his attention even though she doesn't like what he does. When she returns to the summer camp at age twelve this sicko no longer finds her attractive. She is too grown up. He turns his attentions to her eight-year-old sister. The girl wants to prevent her sister from falling into the predator's trap so she goes to a priest who works at the camp and tells the priest what has been going on.

The girl later dies accidentally in the pool, and is found floating in the pool with a bunch of dolls. How it all happened is explained in the book and I need not repeat it here.

A series of tragic events happen fourteen years later, mostly related to this young girl's death. These tragedies result from people convincing themselves of what happened back then based on partial evidence and suspicions, and they misinterpret events to the detriment of all.

The problem I had with the book is that the actions the characters in the book take to achieve justice or whatever, simply do not seem like the actions that real people would ever take. The term is verisimilitude. For instance, three of the characters find out about the pedophile and they wrongly decide the pedophile must have killed the girl. In order to obtain revenge or justice they then work out an elaborate plan which could involve the priest in a child sex scandal unless the priest reveals the identity of the pedophile. They plan to accuse the priest of molesting young girls by photoshopping pictures of the priest into pictures with young girls, and threatening the priest, telling him that they would release the photoshopped pictures unless he reveals the identity of the child molester to them. ... This, without even simply going to the priest right off and asking for the information.

This kind of thing happens more than once. I think you get the idea, and I won't go into further details.

Some of the writing was quite good, while some was not so good at all. The writing was good enough that it carried me through to the finish. But I got the impression that the entire book needed a good deal more work and revision.

There is a sub-plot involving a guy called Doctor Omar, a practitioner of voodoo. I actually found this sub-plot more interesting than the main plot. It gets quite involved; and then a detective who is a kind of fifth-wheel in the book, solves the sub-plot in one page! Not only does she solve it...she arrests the bad guys and gets their confessions and locks them in jail ... all in a matter of hours. Then she tells Hector Salgado about it on the telephone. This, of course, violates one of the first rules of writing: show; don't tell.

Okay, I'm feeling generous today. I'll give it 3 stars.

Kershaw's Got His Curve Ball Back

I think of all the years...how I've wasted them on Shakespeare, Spinoza, Aristotle, Chaucer, (but thankfully not Jane Austen).... only to discover at this late date that the true secret to life is Fantasy Baseball.

I  cannot remove myself from its mysterious spell.  All I seem to do anymore is watch baseball games and root for my fantasy baseball team.  One of my biggest stars is Clayton Kershaw, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  (I almost wrote "Brooklyn Dodgers.")

About 5 weeks ago I wrote in despair that Kershaw had lost his curveball.  Well, tonight Kershaw's  curveball has returned.  In six innings against the Washington Whatevers tonight (I almost wrote "Washington Senators,") Kershaw has thrown eleven strikeouts.  And there could have been thirteen; but the umpire has not been kind.

Ever since I wrote the blog about how Kershaw had lost his curve, he has not been himself.  There have been hints that his curve was coming back, but I think it was just wishful thinking on my part.  In Kershaw's most recent game he only struck out four batters...highly unlike him.

Well, tonight the pitch is back.  I feel much better even though I have fallen from first place in my Fantasy Baseball League.  I led the league for five weeks, and I am now in third place.  But with Kershaw's assistance I shall be back on top in about two weeks.

I just love this game.

Breaking Point by C. J. Box

C.J. Box, in the very beginning of Breaking Point, cites Hannah Arendt's observation that the great evils in history generally were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their State and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal. The Enviornmental Protection Agency (EPA) is on the receiving end of the author's attack in this book, and (in my view) rightfully so.

However, the author apparently forgets this original observation that these bureaucrats, are motivated by the belief that they are doing the right thing, and that therein lies the terrible problem with the EPA.

Box instead, gives the bureaucrat-in-charge an evil motive (revenge) to explain the guy's actions, therebIy losing sight of the fact that most of the time the EPA folks destroy people's lives while believing that they are acting for the overall good of society.

It took me a while to get into the book. Seemed like a lot of blather going nowhere for the most part, and I put the book down twice, thinking I would probably never pick it up a third time. But I eventually did pick the book up again and I am glad that I did. I had never read a book by Box before, so I figured I'd give the book a rare "third chance." I was hooked when three fat women do-gooders, waving their arms came running toward a fellow named Butch on Butch's retirement property out in the woods.

Butch thinks they must be tourists in need of help. But in fact, they are from the EPA, and they inform  Butch that he must stop working on his property immediately and restore it to it's original condition within 3 days or pay a fine of $70,000 a day to the EPA.

I am sure these fine ladies meant well. After all, someone must protect the crickets and worms and who knows what else...maybe snail darters... that call Butch's property their home.

Humans aren't the ONLY ones on this planet don't ya know?

Well, from that point on the book gets better and better. Calamity ensues. Great adventures in the woods follow.  The EPA comes after Butch in the wilderness with drones plus an entire military style cohort of EPA armed agents on horseback etc.  Joe Pickett, Box's protagonist, tries his best to play middle man, leading the EPA team into the wilds, but doing his darndest to save Butch's life.  It is a grand adventure.

Full disclosure: I was once hassled by the EPA. They ordered me to build public restrooms on my property to accomodate possible tourists who might want to visit the wetlands. Very nice, well-intentioned people, but totally nuts.

Clayton Kershaw Lost His Curve

Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, passed away in 1979.  I didn't know this.  So when I learned in 2009 that O'Malley was being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY, I almost went to the induction ceremony to remind O'Malley of our conversation back in 1954 when O'Malley asked me if I would like to pitch for the Dodgers.

I was a high school kid in 1954, and I had pitched consecutive no-hitters.  And I was in the infirmary with a serious case of poison ivy.  My face was bloated beyond recognition.  I had eaten some poison ivy leaves on a dare.  (I advise you not to try this on your own.)  So in retrospect, it was a very nice thing for Mr. O'Malley to have paid a visit to my hospital bed.

O'Malley was accompanied by Lindy Remmagino, who had won the gold medal at the 1954 Olympics in the 100 meter dash.  Lindy was being heralded as "The Fastest Man in the World."  I thank them both in retrospect for their most kind visit to the hospital bed of this very stupid kid.

My school was having its annual sports dinner, and that's why these guys were there.  O'Malley used to donate all the baseball equipment to our school, and I think Lindy was attending Manhattan College which was run by the Christian Brothers, and at the time I was studying to become a Christian Brother.  So that's the connection.  My conversation with O'Malley went like this:

O'Malley said: "I heard that you pitched consecutive no-hitters."
I said: "Yeah."
O'Malley said: "Only one guy in the Major Leagues ever pitched consecutive no-hitters.  Do you know his name?"
I said: "No."
O'Malley told me the pitcher's name.  (The record still stands.  Find out for yourselves who the pitcher was.)
I said: "Uh-huh."
O'Malley said: "How would you like to pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers?"
I said: "No, thanks."
O'Malley said: "Why not?"
I said: "I'm a Giant's fan."
O'Malley cracked up like that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

The reason I'm telling you this is to let you know that I know a little bit about pitching.  Not much.  Just a little bit.

Well, I watched Clayton Kershaw pitch his last two games and he has not pitched well.  He pitched really well in his first game.  His curve ball was working beautifully.  Baseball was back.  Life was fine.  Birds were singing, and flower buds were budding on tree branches, and all was well.  But then came games two and three.  Something was amiss.  Kershaw was feeling lost.  I shared his agony.  Clayton Kershaw had lost his curveball!

Have no fear...his curve ball will return sooner or later and it will once again be a devastating pitch, but without his curve ball, Kershaw is lost in the wilderness.  He knows not what to do.  I am sure of this.  I have been in that wilderness.

At one point in last night's game I told myself Kershaw was going to throw his next pitch into the dirt somewhere about half-way between the pitcher's mound and home plate.  And that's what he did.  It's like he was talking to the baseball and telling it "you're supposed to dive down, and if you don't dive down on your own I'll give you some assistance."  And he gave it some assistance, which combined with the proper spin, made the ball only travel half the needed distance before crashing to the ground.

Back in the day, we called this pitch "the sinker."  The pitch we called "the curve" was what today is called "the slider."  Hardly anyone in high school could throw the sinker, so although I could throw the pitch, I never actually experienced its effect from the batter's point of view.

Then one day I played against a new pitcher.  He had come to the Novitiate, which had some older guys who had decided to try out the religious life, so he was a few years older than the rest of us in the pre-Novitiate.  The word on this guy was that he had been on the All American college baseball team. He had pitched for Michigan State (to the best of my recollection.)

So I finally got to see the curve ball from a batter's perspective.  The pitch cannot be believed.  When you watch someone throw a curve ball on TV you probably wonder why the batter doesn't just stand there and do nothing?  Why does he swing at a ball that is bouncing in the dirt in front of the plate?

Well, from the batter's perspective, the ball is coming at him about waist high.  So the batter swings.  Half way through the batter's swing the ball vanishes from the batter's sight. "Where did it go?  It was right here just a second ago.." the batter thinks, and the ball drops into the dirt as if it just fell off a table.  The catcher doesn't handle it well either.  The curve ball bounces off the dirt, hits him in his chest guard or maybe in his mask, or maybe it ends up hitting his glove, but usually he has to scramble to get the damn thing before it gets entirely away from him and allows base runners to advance.

Back in the day we usually called it a "drop ball."  It is as if the ball suddenly falls off a table of air.  It is unbelievable.

So my message to Kershaw is "Don't worry, Clayton, your curve shall return one day.  I've been there.  I know.  One day...maybe as soon as your next start...your curve ball will be back.  You won't understand this because you won't be throwing the pitch any differently than you were throwing it when your curve ball disappeared.  You will throw it at the same velocity and the same angle, and now it will take that magic plunge into the dirt just before it reaches home plate.  I don't know why this happens, why the curve ball comes and goes like this, but it does.  Just be thankful it has come back to you and hope it never happens again.  (it will).

And I will be just as glad as you will be when your curve returns, because I think you are a great pitcher and I enjoy watching you pitch.  Besides which, you're the main pitcher on my fantasy team's pitching staff.  I need you to get that pitch back soon.  Have mercy on me!  I won't be in 1st place much longer without your help.


And okay.  Okay.  The guy who pitched consecutive no-hit games?  It was Johnny Vandermeer.

***follow up***

In Kershaw's next start he pitched against the Mets.  It took him 111 pitches to get through 5 innings with a measley 4 strikeouts.  He only threw 1 decent curveball that I saw.

Today, Sunday April 28th, Kershaw took 76 pitches to go 5 innings against The Brewers.  He has 8 strikeouts.  He has retired 12 consecutive batters to this point. (the game is still going on.)  Kershaw is back.  He just struck out his 9th man.  He used his curveball.

42,42,42,42...Who's the 42 on 1st? / C. J. Box

I can't watch baseball anymore.  Every player is wearing #42.  Yeah, yeah, Jackie Robinson was a great player.  Also a great guy.  I agree.  But enough already!

Maybe everybody wears Jackie's #42 on the back of their uniform for ONE DAY.  I can live with that.  But this is the day after Jackie Robinson Day and all the ballplayers are still wearing #42.  

The numbers on the uniforms are put there to help us identify the players from a distance.  When everyone wears the same number nobody can tell who's who, unless they get really close...(like the umpires who, by the way, are also wearing little patches on their sleeves with the # 42), so the whole point of wearing numbers is lost.

I try to watch baseball on TV but I get a headache.  I love fantasy baseball, and I'd love to watch the games, so someone kindly inform me when this 42 madness ends.  Thank you.

As you probably know, I am an Amazon Vine reviewer.  Publishers mail me books for free and I read them and write reviews.  I take my responsibility seriously.  If I get a free book I always write a review even though I am only required to write a review of 80% of the books I receive.

Well, I have received a lot of books and I have reviewed 100% of them.  So I was annoyed the other day when I received an email from Amazon Vine telling me they have changed their policy and I am now required to review 100% of the books I receive.  As the kids say,..."Duh?"

The new policy goes into effect in May.  Meanwhile, I had received a book to review.  The book is Breaking Point by C. J. Box.  Although I have been quite busy with taxes and fantasy baseball etc., I had fully intended to read Breaking Point and to write my review as usual.

But this is my final opportunity to not write a review and still qualify to receive further books.  So far I enjoy the book very much.  I am not sure at this point whether or not I'll write a review for Amazon Vine.  I feel a bit miffed by them.

But fear not.  Although I may not write a review for Amazon Vine, I shall certainly write a review for readers of my blog.

I am wearing #42 on the back of my undershirt.  I bought Velcro numbers.  When we celebrate Willie Mays Month I can just reverse the numbers.  Willie was the greatest!  Say Hey, kid!

Be well, y'all.

Roolz of the Game

The Mountain Lion Operating System Sucks.

I just wrote two paragraphs and they disappeared.  This sort of bother happens quite often.  Sometimes my writing on this blog disappears but I find it has been saved in draft format, and I can retrieve it.  Sometimes, like today, my writing just totally disappears into the maw of dark energy spacetime.  It has gone forever.

Today's baseball games are all night games but for one.  Yes, baseball is back being played at night which is as it should be.  So today I have some breathing room.  I can come out of the realm of fantasy baseball for a few hours and see what is going on elsewhere in the world.

But first a word on The Rules.  Every game must have rules.  Fantasy Baseball is no exception.  So when one of my top top pitchers, Yu Darvish, got a blister on his pitching finger and had to be removed from Sunday's game, I panicked.

One rule requires that each week prior to the start of the first baseball game on Monday, all players must submit their team lineups for the week.  A second rule says that the lineup you submit may not include an injured player.

Now, Yu Darvish's blister was a minor injury which would not prevent Yu from pitching on schedule in the upcoming week.  However, it was  an injury, and sure enough, a tiny icon appeared next to Yu Darvish's name.  The icon was a red square with a white cross inside the square.  Darvish had been determined by the league to be an injured player.

The penalty for submitting a non-conforming lineup is you lose all your points for the week in question.  I am in first place in my league after the first week of play, ( music please.  I prefer "Leader of the Pack" Vroom!  Vroom! ) but getting hit with such a huge penalty would certainly knock me into last place.

I doubted that this is what the rule intended to accomplish, so I sought help; but time was short.  It was Sunday night and I needed an answer by early Monday afternoon, which out here on the West Coast is early Monday morning.  So I wrote to the commissioner for clarification.

Monday morning brought no answer from the commish, so I wrote once again.

But the deadline for submitting my lineup got closer and closer, and at the last moment, having received no response, I played it safe.  I removed Yu Darvish from my lineup.  This left me without the services of the second or third best pitcher in baseball for week 2 of the contest, but what else could I do?

After the deadline had come and gone I received an email from a commissioner.  It said that my team lineup was legal.

Of course it was legal!  I had just removed Yu Darvish from my lineup, removing any question of the lineup's legality!  But my original question remained unanswered.

Later, I received another email (apparently from another commissioner,) (remember: I had written two emails....) The second email said that my lineup would have been illegal and I would have lost all my points for week 2 of the contest.

Sigh of relief.  I had done the right thing by removing Yu.

But my interest had been piqued.  Out of curiosity, I checked the lineups of my competitors.  Of the 9 other teams in my league, 6 included injured players in their lineups.  One lineup contained 3 injured players.  Were these six other teams all going to receive that terrible penalty?

Well, I wrote the second commissioner another email.  I said I didn't want to cause a fuss, but there were six other teams in my league with injured players in their starting lineups.  If it was okay for these teams to have injured players in their starting lineups, could I please re-insert Yu Darvish back into my lineup just to keep the playing field even.

The commish responded.  He said it is okay to have injured players on your active lineup.

Of course, by then the deadline for submitting the weekly lineup had long passed, and I could not re-insert Yu Darvish into my lineup.

If this confuses you, imagine how it confused me.  Well, I've been around this planet for seventy-three years and I knew how this was going to end.  The situation was going to end up with me losing Yu Darvish from my lineup for week 2 of the contest, and nobody getting penalized for anything.

So I wrote back to the commissioner, thanking him for clarifying the issue for me; and I told him that in week 3 I was going to load my active lineup with injured players, thereby freeing up a spot for another player on my Reserves team, and maintaining my team's high batting average.  I also directed his attention to the section of the rules which indicates that the maximum number of injured players a team may have in its lineup is zero. Go To: League > Details.  I asked the commissioner what he thinks it means.

I don't expect a response.

Hey....  I like to end on a positive note, so here it is...  Nobody claimed Will Middlebrooks off waivers!

I had commited a huge paux-fas last week, accidentally giving away Will Middlebrooks to anyone who wanted him.  A day later, Middlebrooks hit three home runs and a double, and he hit another long fly ball which was caught on the warning track.  No Red Sox player has ever hit four home runs in a single game, and Will Middlebrooks came as close to doing it as you possibly can.  And none of the other owners noticed that Will was up for grabs!  I was in agony for three days, praying no one would claim him.  And no one did!

Ah, yes.  Life is good.  Music please...Vroom!  Vroom!.....Leader of the Pack.....Vroom!  Vroom!  Y'all be well now.

Fantasy Baseball Week One

I used to play in a NYC softball league.  The players were all City employees and we played after work.  We were split into two Divisions:  Northern and Southern.  The Northern Division comprised all the teams from Manhattan and The Bronx, and the Southern Division  comprised the teams from Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The team I played on always won the Southern Division ; and a team from Harlem always won the Northern Division.  Then the team from Harlem always kicked our ass in the championship game.

Most of us played for fun.  Some guys would play outfield with a can of beer in one hand and a baseball glove on the other hand.  Other guys took the game completely seriously.

Our third baseman, a guy named Phil, was an actual Boston Red Sox reject.  Phil took the game seriously.  He would bring his brats to the games and these kids would yell at you if you made an error: "You idiot.  You're making my father lose!"  Many's the time I thought of giving these kids a good hose-down, but Phil was an imposing guy.

Phil and I were not friends; we merely played on the same team.  One day, in complete seriousness, Phil said to me, "Softball is my life."

This was about forty years ago but I will never forget that line.  "Softball is my life."  Jeez.  Is that sick or what?  I certainly doubted Phil's sanity.

However, at this present moment I'm not so sure.  You see, Fantasy Baseball has taken over my life!  I think I'm turning into Phil the Red Sox Reject.

Week One of the Fantasy Baseball Season has ended.  I am in first place in my league.  I have made a terrible mistake, however, and I have put one of my best players on waivers.  I tried to correct my error and get him back, but because of League Rules I won't know until the waiver period ends on Tuesday morning if I have succeeded in getting him back.  I can't mention the player's name here because one of the other "owners" might see the player's name and claim him off waivers and break my heart.

So I am on pins and needles for another two days.  If anyone claims the guy who hit three home runs for the Boston Red Sox today (No. it wasn't Phil,) and who used to play for my fantasy team I may despair and end it all.

Nah!  It's just a game.