Watching the Game, Remembering the Dream

 

Ranger Suarez Delivers a Pitch at Roger Dean Stadium

Ah, the start of the Minor League Baseball season—and with it, the return of our regular “Silver Slugger” Wednesday night games at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. We come to see either the Palm Beach Cardinals or the Jupiter Hammerheads, both Single-A ballclubs: the former affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, the latter with the Miami Marlins. The entire season of Wednesday night games—including a hot dog and soda and one free tee shirt—costs just $40 for us old-timers.

 

As if that weren’t already a great deal, the level of play is impressively professional, and the stadium itself is a gem. It never fails to move me: climbing the steps, then suddenly that wide green vista opening up before me—the field, the sounds of warm-up, the pop of the gloves, the crack of the bat. It’s a ritual that stirs something deep.

 

Lately, I’ve become especially mindful of the rules of the game. Though mostly unchanged over the decades, recent developments have enhanced the experience: the pitch clock, slightly larger bases, the runner on second to start extra innings (a clever way to speed things up), and at the minor league level, a limited pitch challenge system—two per team. MLB is likely to adopt it next year; it was already tested in spring training.

 

I used to think of the United States Constitution’s “rules” as similarly immutable. But recent months have shown me how bendable—and even breakable—they can be. In contrast, the orderliness of baseball has taken on a special resonance. Not just the written rules, but the traditions. Take the bat boys, for instance: their duties aren’t outlined in rule books, but in the close-up intimacy of minor league games, you notice their little rituals: delivering fresh balls to the umpire after a foul, retrieving gear after a player reaches base, clearing bats—these details form part of the game’s cadence. By comparison, the current political arena feels like chaos, laws broken and traditions ignored. Baseball’s steadiness is a kind of comfort, especially in these times.

 

I came to my first game this season with particular interest, having just finished what I consider the most revealing account of life in the minor leagues during the 1950s: A False Spring by Pat Jordan. I, too, had my major league fantasies back in that same decade. Even then, I knew they were far-fetched—but it was nice to dream.

 

For someone as gifted as Pat Jordan, however, those dreams had more substance. A “bonus baby,” he signed with the Milwaukee Braves right out of high school in Bridgeport, Connecticut—for $36,000. To us kids, it was awe-inspiring to see someone our age being paid that kind of money to play the game we loved. He had a blazing fastball and would sometimes strike out nearly every batter on an opposing high school team—talent most of us couldn’t imagine. But his abilities peaked early. Over the next three years, he found himself playing in forgotten towns, living the lonely, uncertain life of a young man on the road, his once-sharp edge mysteriously dulled. I’m not sure he ever fully understood what happened. Yet, he went on to write one of the finest baseball books I’ve ever read—introspective, lyrical, and profoundly honest about those years.

 

Here’s a passage I chose at random, describing John Whitlow Wyatt, Milwaukee’s pitching coach. Wyatt often stood beside Jordan and quietly coached him in the bullpen during training:

 

Whitlow was a handsome, gracious Southerner in his early 50s. He was tall and erect and loose-limbed, and he had the alert blue eyes of a much younger man. His face was soft, pink, except for a light stubble of beard, while the rest of his body was the color and texture of worn leather. Whitlow spoke with a measured drawl so creamy that each word blended into the next and whole sentences became sweet parfaits. When he spoke, his lips curled back from his teeth the way a horse’s do. He seemed to be tasting each word carefully and with pleasure before swallowing it.

 

And so I walked into Roger Dean Stadium, thinking of Pat Jordan—long retired from baseball but having found himself as a writer.

 

There are more than 5,000 players in the minor leagues at any given time. That night, I was about to see 60 of them. Single-A teams like the Palm Beach Cardinals and Jupiter Hammerheads can carry 30 players each, with no more than two having five or more years of minor league experience. That ensures plenty of turnover from season to season. Of those 5,000 players, only about 10 percent ever make it to “The Show”—and some of them only for a few fleeting games. Over the years, I’ve watched players like Giancarlo Stanton (then known as Mike), Christian Yelich, and Andrew Heaney rise from this very level. Most do not.

 

But last Wednesday, we were lucky. On a rehab assignment with the opposing Clearwater Threshers was starting pitcher Ranger Suárez of the Philadelphia Phillies. I love sitting behind home plate to watch pitchers work—especially crafty lefties like Suárez. He can hit in the low 90’s with his fastball, but he uses it to set up his curve/slider and a devastating changeup, which breaks like a screwball—a pitch you don’t see much anymore. For several innings, he had a no-hitter going. The final score: Clearwater Threshers 7, Palm Beach Cardinals 1. But honestly, the score means little compared to the pleasure and familiarity of the game itself.

 

Most of these players will go on to other things in life. Few will become writers like Pat Jordan. But they will have played the game—and that is a reward in itself

History Echoes Loudly in an Outstanding Revival of ‘Camping with Henry and Tom’

 

Could the parallels to today be any clearer?  Mark St. Germain wrote Camping with Henry and Tom some thirty years ago as an historical speculation.  Yet its themes have proven enduring and the Palm Beach Dramaworks production leavens the play’s comedic elements, shining a light on contemporary political discourse.

The play is based on the fact that inventor Thomas Edison and industrialist Henry Ford did go camping every year with their friends John Burroughs, the nature writer, and Harvey Firestone, the tire manufacturer.  They called themselves the Vagabonds.  In 1921 they invited President Warren G. Harding who accepted. 

Enough of the facts; playwright St. Germain imagines such a trip with Harding only accompanied by Edison and Ford followed by a tailing secret service agent, in this engaging 3-hander-plus-1 dramedy.  It is a fascinating character study of an “accidental” President, who would rather just bask in the glow of approbation shaking hands on the White House lawn, along with the ultra right-wing Ford (a wannabe President), and the cynical inventor, Edison, who interjects much humor and truth into the mix.  Indeed, if history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes with this production.

John Leonard Thompson, Tom Wahl and Rob Donohoe

 

The plot is straightforward: the three are on their way to escape their normal (but famous) lives to a camping ground in a Model T Ford, with Henry Ford at the wheel after furtively arranging the trip to elude the press and secret service as well.  They encounter a deer on the road, damaging the car, although its three occupants are OK (but not so much the deer who amusingly hangs on for most of the play), and suddenly we have a substantive play of dramatic confrontations and comic interactions, Ford having an agenda, clearly analogizing the play’s themes to the temper of our times. 

Director William Hayes has a definite vision for setting the mood, beginning with his version of a silent movie of the trip up until the unfortunate rendezvous with the deer.  He establishes a slapstick foreshadowing of the many laughs yet to come, which gives the audience a reason to like all the characters until the tone gradually changes and the afternoon wanes into evening.

He blends this into a breathtaking set by Bert Scott, consisting of a small clearing in the woods outside Licking Creek, Maryland.  The set has three dimensional elements of the woods as well as a seemingly functioning fire pit right on stage, giving the play a fitting verisimilitude.  The audience feels it can reach out and feel the flora.  A Model T Ford completes Scott’s perfect scenic design.

Hayes has assembled three company veterans for the major rolls.  They’ve acted together on the PBD stage so many times that this production soars as a tightly knit ensemble production.  Hayes keeps their performances cohesive and well-integrated in spite of their diverse personalities discussing their families, fame, and failures.  He allows his actors’ arcs to shine, from Ford’s baleful plans to becoming crestfallen, from Harding’s acquiescence to redemption and then acceptance, and Edison from comic foil to change agent.

John Leonard Thompson plays the obsessive Henry Ford, envisioning unlimited energy from a hydro-power project he hopes to steal from the government (hence, cornering and blackmailing President Harding on this trip ), as well as becoming the next President of the US, enlisting his “sociology boys” to gather dirt on Harding.  It is blackmail pure and simple under the guise of patriotism.  Thompson knows how to win over the audience as he relates some home-spun tales of his life and his admiration of Edison, as well as revealing his damaged relationship with his son, Edsel, but he also shows the very dark side of his character in musing what he would do “with the Jews.”

Ford delivers some eerie comparisons to today’s politics: “I want to knock some rust off this government!  I want to give it back to the people and boot the moneychangers out of the temple so fast.  It will make their heads spin.  The shylocks and the socialists who don’t believe in a honest day’s work, and suck our teats instead….I want to fix this country and put it back on the road again, and that’s why I’m going to be the thirtieth President of the United States!”  Or, in thinking about running, and his deficiencies as a public speaker, he proclaims that “I’ll just pay the best people as to how to say it and what to say.”  Thompson, a frequent actor on the PBD stage, gives yet another stand-out, memorable performance such as his portrayal as Teach in American Buffalo fifteen years ago.

Another PBD veteran, Tom Wahl, who plays Warren Harding, assiduously peals away the layers of his character.  It is a deceptively difficult role.  The buoyantly optimistic, hail-fellow-well-met characterization by Wahl becomes an exuberant epiphanic portrayal of being released from the bondage of an inauthentic self.  It took the rising conflict with Ford in the play for this realization to emerge and Wahl embraces the moment, reveling in it with great comic chops, a fantasy of being free from the burdens of the presidency and his wife (who considers her husband a trophy President)!  His is a truly remarkable performance, among many throughout the years at PBD.

I haven’t counted them, but I would guess that in spite of the long theatrical resumes of his two costars, Rob Donohoe has had the most frequent appearances on the PBD stage.  The variety of his performances has been staggering, and his role as Thomas Edison in this play is another triumph.  It is delivered with a Mark Twain sense of humor and cynicism, self-deprecating and continuously ornery, with philosophical observations about “the damned human race.”  He admonishes Ford for his extravagant view of their accomplishments, pointing out their inventions just made things easier, not necessarily improving the world: “we’re toymakers; don’t get noble on me, Henry.”  Or his observation about “the great American fairy tale of Justice.”

Yet for most of the play, Donohoe’s intensity is in hibernation, released finally by demoniacal plans of Ford.  His portrayal is transformed from observer to becoming a bold antagonist, from comic foil to a bulwark to protect the nation from what he clearly sees as a danger, Ford and others like him whose political currency is conspiracy theories and the quest for power and money.  He recognizes Harding’s humanity and posits that it is civil servants like the secret service agent who run the government.  He also has a deeply moving epiphany, when suddenly and tearfully he remembers the name of a boy who drowned when they were both children, something he had emotionally buried, a poignant “Rosebud moment” in the play.  Superlatives are lacking for Donohoe’s performance.  

John Leonard Thompson, Rob Donohoe and Tom Wahl-photo by Curtis Brown Photography

 

Rounding out the cast is another familiar face, John Campagnuolo as Colonel Edmund Starling, a secret service man.  He is all business in his trench coat, goggles up on his forehead after finding the three of them, borrowing Edsel’s Model T.  He “takes care of” the hurt deer shocking Harding.  And off the four go, to return to civilization; things have changed to remain the same.

Costume design is by Brian O’Keefe, 1921 authentic in detail and in that moment in time.  All wear suits, and those ubiquitous straw boater hats but Edison and Harding also are outfitted in vests.  Harding has a suit for the first Act, and an identical one for the second as he has slept on the ground soiling the original one.  

Lighting design is by Kirk Bookman capturing light for the late afternoon as it wanes into night.  White light illuminates the actors in the moonlight, and while, trying to determine their compass direction, they face the warm lighting of the sunset in the west. The seemingly functioning fire pit is brought to life by very clever lighting.  

Sound design is by Roger Arnold, authentically creating the chatter of the forest, frogs, birds, and crickets permeating the production, plus the shuffling sounds of the injured deer as well as the echoes of the actors’ occasional shouts for help.  And of course the sound of the Model T’s untimely meeting with the deer, launching all that follows. 

Mark St. Germain has written such a relevant play, propitiously brought back to life at this moment in time by Palm Beach Dramaworks in a well-conceived, entertaining, but thought provoking production.  At the denouement, Edison observes that Harding has something that he and Ford lack to which Ford immediately replies: “weakness” (our current president posted “only the weak will fail” on social media last week).  Ford failed to understand that Edison meant a sense of shared human connection and understanding.

 

 

Open Letter to Senator Chris Murphy

 

(Image credit: Mike Luckovich / Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate)

As usual, political cartoons speak volumes.  Thank you, Mike Luckovich.

I meant to be at a “Hands Off” (I prefer “F**k Off”) rally today but writing might be slightly more effective than my body being there.  This letter to Senator Chris Murphy also went to my Florida representatives, with no expectations of a non-AI response.  And as Senator Murphy is not my representative, I already received an automated reply that I should direct my letter to one of my representatives, so I am in an endless loop of non-representation; it’s frustrating, infuriating, but mea culpa for moving from the northeast, too late in life now for me to reverse.

The motivation for writing to Murphy is his view that tariffs are a Trump tool to subjugate businesses, bending them to his transactional will as he has done with other institutions. 

The fact that none of the math makes sense, and seems to be concocted by a Dunning-Kruger schoolboy the night before the homework was due (after his cheerleader-worthy Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, implied they are the result of decades of careful deliberations, admonishing the press to “Trust in Trump”). 

There’s so much more to say, but for the time being here’s my letter to Senator Murphy:

 Dear Senator Murphy:  I lived in Connecticut for thirty years before retiring to Florida.  Yet I write to you as you’ve had the courage to speak out about President Trump’s true motivation regarding these senseless tariffs: they are but a tool to “gain fealty from private industry.”

He has torn apart the government to surround himself with acolytes, as well as bringing legal firms and even universities to their knees.  His power is now unchecked, by SCOTUS, and by Congress.  Thus we are well on our way to autocracy with kleptocrats in control and the Rule of Law stifled.

The markets have finally awakened to the reality of tariffs, a tax on the people, and a means of further undermining a world order which emerged after WWII.  Our adversaries’ prophecy that democracy will be destroyed from within seems to be coming true, while our traditional allies are left bewildered and have found they must fend for themselves.

We all know that these tariffs are not going to solve our deficit.  More sensible graduated income and inheritance taxes are needed, but that will not become reality with plutocrats in control of government and congress cowered by this president.

The final death knell could be selectively defaulting on debt, particularly when a large foreign debt holder such as China is due repayment of principal and interest, yet another potential “tool” like tariffs.  Instead, the present regime might offer cryptocurrency, perhaps closely tied to the Trump family’s Bitcoin mining enterprise.  This would be the ultimate undermining of the “full faith and credit” of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  It’s not surprising that the dollar has seriously weakened with tariff announcements. 

“Only the weak will fail,” he texted in regard to the market selloff.  Senator Murphy, this nation turns our lonely eyes to you and others in Congress to put a stop to this attempted coup and desecration of the American way of life.  I’d be out protesting today if it were not for health reasons, so I have taken to the pen.

Sincerely and with thanks,

 

Cc: Representative Brian Mast

      Senator Rick Scott

      Senator Ashley Moody