Author: Nathaniel

Nathaniel is the main trumpet player for Longbow and handles much of the blog work. He is currently being homeschooled through high school.

School Lunch

Stephen took a creative writing course in college.  One day, his professor came in  with a pile of photos from magazines, and told them to choose one.  She said to write a one page paper describing the scene from the photo.  Stephen choose the following picture, and wrote this story.A Tiger 006

                                    School Lunch

James slumped forward on his smooth, laminated desk. His head dropped to the seemingly wooden board as he stared listlessly ahead of him. The drab hum of the teacher’s voice blended seamlessly with the shuffling of the other children and the crinkling of their little readers. This perfect harmony formed an even drabber hum, the type of hum that puts some men to sleep and others in an asylum. James belonged to the latter class. He tried desperately to find something to amuse, entertain, or, at least, distract him, but to no avail. The white walls were completely devoid of character. The black board was only a little better, at least you could try to figure out what was on it last by the white smudges left behind from the eraser. Light streamed through the window directly behind James as if to taunt him. Even the succulent taste his ham breakfast had left in his mouth didn’t help him, it just made him long for lunch all the more.

James eyes grew bigger as he fixed them on the desk ahead of him. Of course, the overall problem was great, the straps would get stuck in his teeth the snaps hurt his mouth. Then out of the corner of his eye, James caught a glimpse of the desk next to him and his tabby fur stood on end, but on a second look he noticed the writing on the wall, or rather on the shirt. Printed tee shirts always upset his stomach. Looking further back James noticed another example of his first complaint. Overalls were apparently highly popular this year. James gave up hope of eating a nutritious lunch, when his eyes caught the final boy in class. He would be perfect. His clothes were organic and snap free, and the wearer was as tender as a school boy.

Hey Batboy!

As promised I will tell more tales of the Five Golden (Baseball) Rings, but not all of them…yet. What can I say, I like suspense.

This is the story of Joe McDonald’s first negotiation in baseball. When Mr. McDonald was fourteen he worked as a batboy at Ebbets Field. This was back before the Dodgers stopped playing there and made Terrence Mann sad (Field of Dreams reference!!). The opposing team on this particular day was the Cardinals. And they had no batboy.

Now the Cardinals manager at this time had a bit of a reputation for being, shall we say, a bit uncouth. In other words he was a hothead that preferred strong language. He swore a lot. Yeah that’s what I’m tryin’ to say.

Mr. McDonald called the manager up and asked how much a batboy for the Cardinals made per game. “Three dollars” was the reply. “Well I’m making six dollars right now” was Mr. McDonald’s reply. “CLICK!” was the manager’s enraged reply. So Mr. McDonald waited…

About a half-hour later the Card’s manager called back (after striking out trying to get another batboy). “I’ll pay ya five in cash. It’s the same since you won’t be paying taxes.” Mr. McDonald considered it and agreed provided he threw in two baseballs. With a harrumph the manager grudgingly agreed.

Mr. McDonald ended the story saying that even though as a general manager he’s negotiated multi-million dollar deals with ball players, he still recalls his first negotiation.

And this is a 1982 Cardinals World Series ring. Mr. McDonald earned one of these as the general manager for the 1982 Cardinals.

1982-World-Series-Ring

The Five Golden (Baseball) Rings

Today Mom and Dad came home and said they had a story. Not just any story, but a good story, a REALLY good story. They saw something they had never seen before. Naturally that was pretty intriguing! Can you guess what this is? 62fefbe0-bc20-11e3-9923-7571c2440e06_ortizringseries2013If you are still unsure, it’s a 2013 Boston Red Sox World Series Ring.

Let’s start at the beginning (a very good place to start so they say). Mom and Dad headed to church for confession on Good Friday. They wanted to go before Easter, but the doors to the church were locked. They started back towards the car, but were stopped by an older gentleman who asked “Do you mind if I tell you how much I love your family?” Dad (being a very unassuming person) didn’t mind at all. Go figure.

They talked for a bit and the man introduced himself as Joe McDonald. Mr. McDonald told several different stories. One was about being a bat boy for the Dodgers.  He told another about his part in the Sparky Anderson and the Pope story. See Mr. McDonald was the general manager for the Detroit Tigers, so he and Sparky were “like this”. That’s an exact quote if you were wondering. He also told how he was in the opposition dugout when Enos Slaughter spiked Jackie Robinson’s leg at first base (and his take on the incident). Rest assured future blog posts will convey these stories. Mr. McDonald was in hurry since he had to go to a game in few minutes. He’s the Florida scout for the Boston Red Sox, hence the hurry.

Finally, I come to the point. Before he left Mr. McDonald showed Mom and Dad the ring on his hand and it looked like the one pictured above. Yep, it was a 2013 World Series ring. Besides that ring he’s earned four other World Series rings, but he wears them at different times. Probably doesn’t wear them all together in order to help facilitate arm movement. Those are big rings!

Mr. McDonald said he fist bumps with Nicholas after Mass often. Funny part is Nicholas didn’t realize he was fist bumping a World Series ring. Or possibly many World Series rings.

More to come…

 

The Importance of Shoes

A long time ago while we were in Ohio Robert was playing outside in the backyard when one of the bees that was flying around stung him on the bottom of his foot. The next time we went to church he had to wear one of Christopher’s shoes because his foot had swollen up so much. Then a while after that when we had moved down to Florida he was helping Nicholas do the grilling and as he was bringing out some of the food to be grilled Nicholas heard Robert say Oooww! When Nicholas turned around he saw that Robert had stepped on one of the pieces of charcoal which had fallen on the ground when the coal had been put in the grill. The burn healed and Robert was fine, and Mom and Dad warned him to wear shoes when he was out doing work, but did he listen? Nooo. Just this week while Robert and Christopher were out weeding the front flower bed Robert stepped on something that either stung or bit his foot. Once more his foot swelled up like it had before but this time it hurt even more. Maybe now he will wear shoes when he has to do work, but who knows? He didn’t learn last time.