tom stanton - prize-winning baseball author - The Final Season

tom stanton - prize-winning baseball author - The Final Season

So, I just finished this book, which I'd bought years ago. I had never got around to reading it; it was a staple of the "futures shelf," where I put the couple dozen or so books I've bought but not yet read. I'm stupid like that; my eyes are bigger than the time I have to satisfy my appetite.

But I pulled this down and read it, I thought, because I'd just seen the Tigers play in Philly. And I wanted to remember what it was like when they weren't a good team - the book's set in 1999, pre-Juan Gonzalez, when they finished about 30 games out of first.

It's about a journalist who attends every gave of the 1999 season, the Tigers' last in Tiger Stadium. He thinks he's writing a book about the closing of a great old stadium, and his feelings of anger about that. Later, he realizes that his anger and frustration are about the fading of his memories and of his father's mortality. The closing of Tiger stadium places the author just a bit farther from his memories.

It's a fairly brilliant book, even if it doesn't have much of a continuous narrative. Actually, it reads, interestingly enough, like a bunch of blog posts.

But I realized today, as I read it on the train, that I picked it up off the futures shelf around father's day. This is the second father's day I've spent out here, away from my father, but the first where I was away indefinitely.

My brother was with me on father's day; Pat was in town to see the Tigers play the Phillies. I don't see him enough, that's for sure, and he traveled 8 hours by car to see the same baseball team that plays a half hour from his house. (And to be an opposing team's fan at a Philadelphia sporting event, which I think qualifies his vacation as "adventure travel"). But it was the game that got him out here.

Pat called me yesterday from my parents' house in Michigan, where they were finally getting around to opening dad's father's day gifts. Mom called me later to tell me that Dad really liked his present; today when we talked on the phone Dad asked me where I'd found it.

I like the kind of presents that show some sort of bond, or recognition; presents that show not only how much we care about the recipient but what we know about them. Presents that we think they'll enjoy because we know them well enough to know what sorts of memories, interests or inside jokes make them happy. Presents that make them feel like they're special to us.

I gave my dad a scale replica of Olympia Stadium, where the Red Wings used to play and where he used to see hockey when he was younger than I am now.

I stayed up late tonight, finishing Standon's book, knowing now why I was really reading it.

Tour Guide and Apartment Hunter

With family in town, and still no place to move to, it's been a busy week. It's nice to play tour guide because I get to do the touristy stuff that I never think to do living here.

And as for the apartment search... there's no end, it seems, to the shabby and shadiness. There's a lot of crappy apartments in Philadelphia, and I've seen plenty. Good thing we only need one.

nwa.com: Flight Selections

At about 9:15pm on June 5, I pulled up this flight combination for $218. When I clicked "Select," the price jumped to $291. When I tried the search again, the price became $363 for the flight combination. As you can imagine, this shocked and confused me. I called 1-800-225-2525 to speak with a booking agent, and after some difficulty with the voice recognition answering service, became connected after a very short wait. The booking agent was, as you can imagine, not very helpful. His hands were tied, and I wish it were not so.

I understand the reality of airline flight prices and the real problems with making them a real-time internet commodity. Sometimes, occurences like what happened to me happen; by the time I hit the right database, the flight had increased in price. That said, there's little way to make it not look like a bait-and-switch. I strongly recommend you allow for human override of price increases within 15-30 minutes of the increase, or build in a system to offer tickets locked in at certain prices for certain amounts of time (ticketmaster.com does this fairly well). Otherwise, what happened to me - which sent me running, not walking, over to US Airways - will keep happening.

I had hoped to leave a scathing review of the customer service system on the survey that the automated voice asked me to answer while I was on hold; however, when the agent hung up, no survey followed.

If you're going to have your automated calling program offer a survey, make sure the survey is actually offered. Nothing confirms a perceived lack of customer care like an improperly implemented customer survey. It was more than a little insulting to be asked to take a minute to answer a survey, and then find out that my time would not be necessary after all.

I now urge you to take a minute of your time to consider my complaint and suggestions. I appreciate any input you can offer on this matter, and I can assure you that your time is valuable to me.

My Review of the Manny Brown's in Neshaminy Mall, Bensalem, PA

From citysearch and any other restaurant ratings site I can find... I'd love to send this to Manny Brown's corporate, but I lack an address.


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I signed up as a member to this site just to give this place my worst possible recommendation. I went there on a holiday, and they were very short-staffed. Even then, the service on their outdoor patio was truly an abomination. They managed to turn a simple American Tex Mex experience into a Greek tragedy. My table, and the other four on the patio all had complaints; we all had to go get our own silverware and had to take bottles of ketchup off of abandoned, non-bussed dirty tables. Drinks took half an hour, even though the bar was empty. A third of our order was never entered into the system. Upon confrontation, after a long search, our server blamed the bartender for a missing round of drinks. Things moved so slow that I began to contemplate the pointlessness of existence and man’s inhumanity to man; great for my writing career, but a far cry from the zany good-time such places attempt to inspire. I bailed on the missing round of drinks and food; I asked for them to be canceled, but they were never recorded in the first place, so all ended fairly tidily on that front.

A table for two at the far end of the patio sat for 30 minutes without a drink order, and watched closer tables order and receive their food. They yelled at a server that wasn’t their assigned server; the two servers then yelled at each other in front of the customers.

I promise you, citysearch readers, that if I ever see service this poor again I will return to this page and update this review. It's worth going and ordering soft drinks just to watch... just don't expect refills.

Because I'm in a frustrated mood

Dana Wakiji: the most painful sports blogger I've ever read, plastered all over the front page of detnews.com. If following a sports blogger while you watch a game is like having friends sit next to you on the couch, her blog is the one friend who doesn't really follow sports and talks too much while trying too hard to fit in.

It takes newspapers four more years than it should have to have some staff members writing live news and analysis... it'll take another four years for them to figure out that they should find people who can write insightful commentary extemporaneously.


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For some reason, I've been struck with a series of horrible customer service experiences, culminating today wtih being laughed at on the phone by a local real estate agent, who I've subsequently slammed on a real estate agent rating web site. Customer service in Philly is rarely adequate; it's either exceptional or horrendous... more the latter, unfortunately. I've had the usual horrible moviegoing experience (come for the popcorn, stay for the two-and-a-half hour commentary track by the people next to you), some really bad restaurant service, and the most hilarious experience at a large concert venue not to be named ever.*

I like it when the bigger problems in my life involve having the wrong food brought to me, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

I mean, I have two months to find an apartment in center city that's fairly large, not too expensive and accomodates a large dog, which means a yard would be nice, and of course not a high-rise. That's a problem, you could say. I view it as a challenge, because I am foolhardy. Problems, I think, have their genesis in reaction to circumstances; they happen to you. Challenges are created by initiative; you undertake them. Lots of times, the two merge in an indistinguishable goo of difficulty. There's no doubt the apartment search will be just that.

Accomplishing a tricky objective, like putting together a piece of furniture, isn't all that frustrating. For one thing, you approach it as a tricky objective. You're ready for it. You know it will suck. It's the simply objectives that become unnecessarily tricky - through bad luck or the bad nature of other people - that you absolutely cannot stand. They are the root of real frustration. It's not putting together the furniture that's the hard part; it's getting the damned screws to turn right so that the legs are all straight.




*Short version: I'm going to see an arena concert at an arena venue. My girlfriend has a backpack with her, and we're not sure whether we're allowed in with it, or if we should leave it at my office. The venue has no "customer relations" number, so I call the box office. Employee doesn't know if backpacks are allowed. Nor does she know who to ask that would know. Nor is there anyone, in the box office, who would know. Nor is there another number I can call. Prudently, we leave backpack at office. Walking in to the concert, there is a sign on every entrance door stating prominently, in all capital letters, that backpacks (specifically) are prohibited. The obvious conclusion is that the box office employee in question is unable to read.