Week 6 asshDLes

Amazingly, this week there has not yet been a player who was in one of our starting lineups who is on the DL now that wasnt there at the beginning of the week.  There are a couple of legacy a-hDLes who went on the DL last week but were not removed from the lineup for one reason or another (either no replacement -- Wilin Rosario/Hyun-jin Ryu -- or their owner/manager didnt get them out of the lineup -- Chris Davis (DUSTY!...and you had replacement options too!) --, but the rest of us have managed to get through most of the week unscathed.  Don't go blaming me if there is a run of injuries between now and Monday, sometime people break theyselves but you gotta hold on, gotta stay strong, when the day comes better believe Bone got a shoulder you can lean on...

So, as you all know, I am handing the baton to Kyler for the next week while I will be busy tending to the business of trying to mitigate my wife's suffering while she is doing all the hard work that is bringing a baby into the world.  So for those of you who are looking for some kind of baseball analysis or discussion of our fantasy league, you can probably stop reading right about now, these arent the droids your looking for.  For those dedicated, or silly, enough to read anything I'm willing to put out on the internet, keep reading...we'll see where this goes together.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that when Calli (our soon-to-be daughter) is born, I will be almost exactly as old as my dad was when I was born.  It is a strange thought, to realize that you are as old as your father was when he had his last kid, while at the same time coming to terms with that your father was once as young as you are now.  I think about how I view the world, as a generally decent place with a few crackpots that make it seem really scary, and I think about what the world is going to be like when my daughters (gosh that is going to take some getting used to saying) get to be as old as Kyler and Zach or as old as Jimmy and I, or even as old as Bob and I wonder what my dad thought about those things when he was getting ready to help bring me into the world. 

I often wonder how I have measured up to the hopes and expectations that he had for me, even way back then.  I know that I have hopes for my daughters; having hopes for them is one of the greatest things about having kids, along with watching them grow, change and learn and coming to understand the true full range of human emotions, from belly aching laughter to infuriating frustration to paralyzing fear, and how you can go from one to the other and back again in a moments time.  I dont think that you can know either true, unconditional love or complete terror until you are a parent.  Nothing can prepare you for what it is like the first time you see your kid or the first time you hold him or her close to you.

But thinking about my dad as the same age as me, only with a 10 year old and a 5 year old in addition to a newborn, sheds a different light on him as a person.  When I try to think of the earliest memories I have of my father, he is in his early to mid 40s.  While I've always known that he was younger than that at some point, I've never before felt that he was younger than that.  With this realization, I can picture him as a younger, more vibrant person than the one that I came to know through my adolescent and early adult years.  And that intrigues me.  I wonder if I could somehow travel back through time and meet my 33 year old father, would we be friends?  Am I someone that my 33 year old kids would want to be friends with?  I dont know.  Regardless, it makes me think harder about the things that I do and the way that I am and the way that I want my kids to think about and remember me.  I may not get to decide what either of my daughter's first memory of me is, but I can make sure that memory is of a daddy who is patient and doesnt get upset for silly reasons, takes time to play or read, and is always there with hugs and kisses for cut knees and scraped elbows.

Studies show (and dont ask me how these studies are done because it seems like some combination of witchcraft and voodoo to me) that your age 33 year is the best year of your life.  Something about how you are old enough to be established in your job or career, have a steady, comfortable housing situation, to be settled down with a significant other and possibly have kids, but not yet old enough to have be jaded about any of those things.  I see and feel that.  I am excited about the life that my wife and I have and where it is going.

So on Monday, when you are reading Kyler's recaps (I know they are in good hands, Candyman), think about me and how I am going through the most torturous thing that a person can go through -- watching the most important woman in the world suffer through excruciating pain with absolutely nothing I can do to take any of it away, but try to help her to remember that it is all worth it in the end-- but also reflect on your lives and the people in them.  Think about how you want the people you love to think about you and to remember you.  Or dont and just read the recaps.