WIN OR LOSE, ENJOY THE RIDE

A tear slipped from the corner of my right eye and trickled down my cheek.

The Twins are going to the playoffs. Right away, the eastern seaboard reverberated with the notion that they'll never beat the Yankees, but that isn't important right now.

What is important is that no fewer than 17 former New Britain Rock Cats were in that dugout when the Twins completed the improbable accomplishment of winning the division despite trailing by three games with four to play.

This gives you an idea of what kind of ballplayers we've seen go through New Britain Stadium over the years. They come out of Double-A, often unheralded like a Matt Tolbert or a Nick Blackburn, but they have that certain something that enables then to compete with the All-Star contingents that only gobs of cash can put together.

For the last 10 years, I've been with the Twins in spring training, watching what they do from low Class A to the major leagues to make baseball pundits sing the praises of how fundamentally sound they are. "They play baseball the Twins way," is what I hear from the scouts and opposing managers who visit us in New Britain.

And let me say this about the Detroit Tigers. I worked for the Tigers organization from 1986-88 and have nothing but good feelings for the organization. Their pitching coach, Rick Knapp, was the Twins' minor league pitching coordinator for years and we became good friends. They played their hearts out, battling adversity all year, and anybody who suggests they're chokers can only be classified as ignorant casual fans.

Now, let's get back to the Yankees. Everybody's talking about sweeps and easy passage into the ALCS, but let's look at it this way.

If two people go computer shopping, one with $500 and one with $10,000, who's going to get the better equipment?

If one army has senior officers who have been through many campaigns and the other is a ragtag collection of guys who the week before were plowing their fields, who's going to win the war?

Hence, if one team can sort through baseball's most developed talent and get whoever they want while the other is bringing up players who started the season in the Eastern League, who should win?

So the Yankees are going to win? Probably, but aren't they supposed to? On the other hand, they have to play the games, and you know what? The British did not win the Revolutionary War.

Whether the Twins win or lose, they're playing with house money. And for my boys who have passed through New Britain, enjoy the ride.

PLAINVILLE: ON ANOTHER PLANE

Events like the Plainville Hall of Fame Induction Dinner are like beautiful tropical islands amid tempestuous seas.

People in atendance begin to realize how therapeutical it is to get together, break bread and recall old times. Not just fun, not just a delicious dinner. Downright therapeutical.

Where else can one of Plainville's most esteemed educational leaders spin a yarn about how a former junior varsity basketball coach held his pregame meeting while sitting in a toilet stall and smoking a cigarette? Nowadays, such an act would be blasphemy, a reason for dismissal, the subject of parental diatribes. On Saturday night, it elicited howls of delight from a packed house at Nuchie's in Forestville.

Yes, I'm thrilled to say that those attending the dinner are best advised to check their political correctness at the door. Of course, if you ask me, it should be chucked in the nearby Pequabuck River or tied to the adjacent railroad tracks in the hope for a train to roll by real soon.

To witness the toll PC takes, one just needed to stroll the room where the Great Organizer Byron J. Treado III put together an Italian cocktail hour, and hear the stories told by coaches who have been, or are being, worn down by rules that some folks heed but would never abide by if roles were reversed.

It's so funny how putting the microphone in some hands brings about such different presentations and deep-seated personality quirks. One inductee kind of rambled a bit during his speech. You could hear the din rising among the seat-squirming celebrants, slowly but steadily, as the person went through his copious notes, including a biographical study of his presenter.

Those who came after him, ever aware of the crowd's reaction, kept it short and sweet. Hey, I'm all for late-night revelry but it was nigh to 11 p.m. when the party broke up.

But all in all, you come to ascertain that Plainville is fortunate. I've said it before, not every town has such an elaborate program to honor the past. Not every town has an individual like Byron Treado equipped to make the personal sacrifices necessary to stage such an event, even while his professional life goes through a valley or two.

I look at Plainville as a throwback. It reminds me of my hometown Hamden the way it was when I was growing up, the way it never could be again. I look at my adopted hometown of Farmington and realize that people like Byron Treado don't pop up in every neighborhood. Some people have visions that evaporate after a night's sleep like dew on a summer's morn.

Treado is a man of action and Plainville wouldn't have the same connotation without him. He stepped down Saturday after 10 years, but I agree with him that those following him will keep it going. There are enough good people in all our towns to take the leadership but scant view who will steadfastly hold onto their dreams and fight through adversity to make them reality.

STOP THE WORLD & LET ME OFF

Whoa, whoa. The world's going too fast, spinning toward a vortex of extinction, making all those biblical tales like the Tower of Babel and Noah's Ark assume 21st cenury significance.

Namecalling. Suggestive sex talk. Pornography. Drugs. Swindles. Exploitation of children. Terrible TV shows and malodorous movies that alter weak minds. Rampant arrogance. Twitter. Facebook. I, me, mine. Bloggers. Fakes. Frauds. Charlatans. Taking advantage of the elderly.

Make my penis bigger and my belly smaller where the only thing that changes size is some poultroon's pocketbook and my wallet. I think it was Maria Muldaur who sang, "It ain't the meat it;'s the motion, that makes your momma want to rock." Danged if you weren't right, Maria.

Blindly send me your social security number and bank account information and get your share of a Nigerian fortune. Hey, why don't they give the largess to those emaciated Nigerian kids you always see on TV, except 35 percent of any donation would probably goes to the CEO's overstuffed salary. Hey, the Nigerians can cancel each other out and both of them can stop pestering me.

"Now I don't know but I've been told, it's hard to run with the weight of gold."

The internet is such a tremendous advancement and is used for so many great reasons. The greatest reasons, like WebMD and other sites that offer to improve the human condition. But the human being is so terribly flawed it gets used for all these wrong reasons.

"We're goin' to hell in a bucket, baby, but at least we're enjoyin' the ride."

Liberals hate conservatives so much they say George Bush blew up the towers. Conservatives hate liberals so much that they want our very own president to fail. Hey, whether you voted for him or not, he represents liberty and freedom, and where the frig would you be without that. If George Washington and Abe Lincoln could return to the living, they'd wish they were dead again in 5 minutes.

Road rage. The interminable hustle of big cities. I-phones, so all the insanity that corners you in your office can follow you around.

So what's the elixir for all this madness? Slow down. No, I mean slowwwww dowwwwwn.

Leave the NFL for one Sunday and take a nice ride out in the country. Find a good spot to marvel in Mother Nature's annual autumn splendor.

"Let it be known, there is a fountain, that was not made by the hands of men."

Take a bite out of a macoun apple right off the tree, revel in its snap and let the juice roll down your chin.

"Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul."

Tell someboy you love them ... and really mean it. Feel your heart warming if they tell you that they love you, too. Watch Ken Burns' magnificent National Parks documentary and allow his blend of sights and sounds get you to thinking about what's really important.

Get a therapeutic massage. Go to the gym and work out. Take a hike near a mountain stream. Drink some ice cold spring water. Do something nice for somebody. Help a child understand the difference between right and wrong.

I don't care what the rest of the world does. I'm going to mellow out by doing a lot of these things and more. Maybe I'll live longer, but why I'd want to the way things are going, I'm not sure that's such a great idea either.

"Comes a time when the blind man takes your hand says: Don't you see? Got to make it somehow on the dreams you still believe. Don't give it up, you've got an empty cup only love can fill."

TUNE IN TO CTSN

I had the extreme pleasure Wednesday night of appearing on the weekly high school football show, GameTime, hosted by John Holt and Joe Zone of WFSB Channel 3. The segment, which included two of the state’s great coaches in John Capodice (Berlin) and Lou Marinelli (New Canaan), will run multiple times on CTSN (Connecticut Sports Network). On Comcast, it is Channel 744. I think you have to have Comcast’s digital package.

I was honored to be asked to appear on the show, which along with their weekly coverage will be a huge boost for high school sports. The set is amazing. John and Joe are superb TV journalists with a great handle on what’s going on around the state. All HS fans should keep an eye on their show.

From a sports writer’s standpoint, they have already had Mark Jaffee of the Waterbury Republican and Sean Patrick Bowley of the Connecticut Post on. Two more dedicated scholastic writers you will not find. They have their fingers on the pulse of what’s shaking in their respective areas.

I hope the increased coverage of high school football will get more folks coming out to games. I know it will result in more hard-working athletes getting the publicity they deserve as they compete for college scholarships.

I can assure you the scholastic writers at The New Britain Herald will be providing more comprehensive coverage of our teams this fall than ever before. Three weekly polls are circulating around the state. You can check out the new Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance poll at http://www.ctsportswriters.org/, which offers the opinions of up to 40 writers and broadcasters from every corner of the state.

Have some fun with high school football, but please remember. These athletes for the most part are 16- and 17-years-old. We all have to keep that in perspective at a time when blogs and talk shows are leaving no stones unturned in professional and major college circles. We cannot put these youngsters under the same microscope

H.S. SPORTS NECESSITATE COMMON SENSE

The changing of the seasons from summer to fall is always a major transition for me as a chronicler of local sports news.

My point of focus goes from the New Britain Rock Cats, a group of outstanding young baseball players extremely close to the top of their profession, to local scholastic sports, played by our sons, daughters, neighbors and friends.

The Rock Cats, while young, are indeed professional. Some fans may not realize that they received paychecks for their performance from the Minnesota Twins, not an astounding amount of money like their big-league elders get, but a paycheck nonetheless capable of sustaining them through the six months of the season.

I don’t, as a rule, offer scornful criticism of Rock Cats players during the season. I save that if I see a lack of hustle or something that doesn’t provide the ticket-buying public an honest game’s effort. Truthfully, I haven’t seen that much if at all from the young Twins, who generally have two or three years of playing the organization’s style of fundamentals-oriented baseball.

But when it comes to high school football, there is never a reason to deride a student-athlete either in print or in person. We tend to take the mentality instilled by our rooting interests in the professional and college games and apply it to our local inclinations, which is cruel to do to a youngster who may be playing the game for the first time.

My preference would be to see people keep their partiality in their hearts, in their immediate circle or the walls of their own home while giving players from the other team the credit they deserve for working hard.

If you go to a high school game, by all means, root for the home team, but if you find yourself thinking of antagonistic chants aimed toward the other team, please think twice. This isn’t the Yankees-Red Sox, Jets-Patriots or UConn-Syracuse.

We’ve got to have a little compassion for youngsters who play the game and try their best, remembering why it is that high schools engage in interscholastic sports. They provide group dynamics with adult supervision in an entertaining, work- and goal-oriented atmosphere so our youth learn about working together toward a common goal.

Let’s not place other major sports values on these kids either. The gambling element, for example, that has permeated professional and college sports sickens me enough on that level. To engage in picking favorites and underdogs among high school teams is distasteful at best to me.

In over 20 years of sports writing, I have found that today’s high school athlete is tomorrow’s leader. If we don’t set a good example for them in their formative years, it will come back to haunt us when they begin to make decisions that will affect the latter stages our lives.

I will try to set that example in my articles. Mistakes may be made in big games that need to be attributable, but that is a valuable lesson in life. I will never go out of my way to put undue pressure or inflict the values of America’s major sports on our children. If I ever do, please kick my butt.

FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND

A heaviness of heart lay in the background at Dodd Stadium in Norwich Wednesday night.

The Connecticut Defenders, conquerors of the New Britain Rock Cats in the recent Northern Division Championship Series, were playing their final Double-A game. They will soon be the Richmond (Va.) Something-Or-Others.

As people are prone to do, the fans who attended 4,008 strong wore smiles. They chose to celebrate the life of the Norwich Navigators/Connecticut Defenders franchise rather than weep over its demise.

There was Little Miss Norwich -- I believe Jennifer is her name -- with her UConn cheerleading outfit, pompoms, perpetual smile and gyrating dance steps. There were numerous faces I deemed familiar from the 30 or so times I've gone there who were a little less conspicuous.

There was Ed Wyatt, the perennial ballpark voice of the franchise, whose version of "Happy Birthday" has been known to melt public address equipment. And Mike DiMauro of the New London Day, surely among the finest sports columnists in Connecticut if not THE finest. Joe Perez of the Norwich Bulletin, covering his beloved beat for the final time, and didn't he go at it with his heart and soul.

But alas, the nice crowds that attended games toward the end offered too little, too late. The southeastern Connecticut baseball fans were like a man on his deathbed, lamenting the sins of his life and trying to make up for them with what time remains.

Perhaps Norwich will be blessed with Connecticut's first short-season Class A club from the New York-Penn League. The league's name may be an antiquated misnomer as there are teams in Lowell, Mass., Pittsfield, Mass., and Burlington, Vt., but nostalgia supersedes geographical correctness.

The baseball isn't as good as the Eastern League. Of that there can be no question, but it is far better than the independent leagues that proliferate in the northeast (although generally not for long). And Dodd Stadium is far too picturesque, well-kept and professional baseball appropriate to be left for the weeds, moles, birds and the ravages of neglect.

I will attend short-season A games in Norwich when I can. I like the ballpark. I like stopping at Harry's Hamburger Stand in Colchester and the various native fruit and veggie locations in East Hampton. I like skirting the Hartford traffic by ambling down Rtes. 16 and 66, even if I do get stuck behind a tractor now and then.

I never thought moving the Albany-Colonie Yankees to Norwich was a particularly intelligent maneuver. For the life of me, I can't understand constructing a stadium in an industrial park, on top of a mountain, far from the cars passing on Rtes. 2 and 395. I can't comprehend why they trashed the Norwich Navigators to hatch the Connecticut Defenders.

Yet with all those eccentricities, I love the place and I'll miss the rivalry with the Rock Cats. To Mike, Joe, Ed, GM Charlie Dowd, radio voice Brian Irizarry, the rest of the people who made a go of it, and maybe even Jennifer the Cheerleader, I'll miss you. Come visit us in New Britain, will ya?

GET A LIFE !

I know I’m getting old and I know I’m old-fashioned to start with but the continued rise of sports blogging and blabbing is making me ill.

The blabbing part – radio and television commentators spouting their worthless opinions and in radio’s case soliciting even more worthless opinions from listeners with no lives – has been around for a while.

That doesn’t make it any more palatable to sports fans who just want the facts, but you won’t see my car radio tuned to ESPN Radio (1410 locally), The Fan (WFAN-660 New York) or on any of the blabbermouth stations on the Sirius/XM dial. If you’re riding in my Avalanche, you’ll either listen to the Grateful Dead channel, listen to a ballgame, engage in decent conversation or get out and walk.

If you are riding with me, I’ll listen to your views because I only transport people I like. I’ll listen, debate and quite possibly even agree with you, but I don’t think it should become a syndicated show.

Blogging is even worse.

I’ll grant an exception and a sincere apology to anyone who blogs about sports or subjects which he or she has access to the inner sanctum.

For example, there is a writer named Mike Ashmore who blogs extensively in Trenton, N.J., covering the Eastern League’s Thunder. He attends the games, he talks to manager Tony Franklin, he talks to the players and he monitors the Yankees’ minor league system. He has credibility.

But to read the proliferation of trash written by people who seem to think their words have some meaning is laughable and tragic at the same time.

Frustrated fans, some with a modicum of journalistic ability and some who don’t know the different between “their”, “there” and “they’re,” on even more pitifully, “bear”, “bare” and “beer”, are spouting blather about issues they know nothing about. All they know is what’s being spewed by other blabbers or bloggers who know less than they do and accept it as fact.

For instance, pseudo-experts who have no inside access to NFL camps are blabbing about who’s going to be starting quarterback here and who sucks over there. This team has no chance, and this one is going to win the Super Bowl. They don’t know any more than the little old lady in the nursing home who makes her weekly picks based on what colors she likes or where the point of her pencil falls when she peruses America’s Latest Line.

Then there’s the blabber with blinders and a short memory who wants David Ortiz banished to Mars when he’s hitting .190 in April, only to anoint him as a surefire Hall of Famer when he hits a game-winning home run in August.

The Yankees lose on Monday, they suck. They win on Tuesday, fit them for World Series rings. They lose on Wednesday and Brian Cashman is an idiot.

What is it about the new generation of sports fan who just shoots from the hip and inevitably winds up sticking their foot in their mouth to keep it from foaming over with more propaganda? Inevitably, such rabble-rousers make good on a prediction or two, remind the world how smart they are and deflect attention to the hundreds of times they’ve been dead wrong.

It’s kind of like the gambler who goes to the casino, wins and boasts about it. What they neglect to tell you is the previous 10 times they went and lost their paychecks.

Hey, maybe I’m old-fashioned, and I’m not going to argue with anybody who wants to call me stupid or, pushing his intellect to its limit, chooses to make fun of my name like some have done answering this blog.

It isn’t worth my time to trade insults with somebody who couldn’t qualify as the missing link, but I will impart the following advice: if you want to learn about what’s occurring in the sport of your choice, find somebody with credibility and not some fool with a PC, internet access and opinions born in the catacombs of an empty mind.