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Sports: Gardening: Food:
Sandlot
Sluggers As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I watched more baseball than any human being alive. These were the days before cable TV and ESPN, but in New York every Yankee game and every Mets game was on TV, so I tended to see a game or two every day. And being the astute little baseball neophyte, I learned a great deal about the nuances of the game. Of course I played high school baseball and then had three sons, whose teams each needed coaches. I often coached two teams at a time — talk about a glutton for baseball.
So now it's no wonder I have this baseball camp in Eugene, where I assemble young baseball players to the loveliest of baseball diamonds, for a full morning of skills and drills and thrills. Did I mention that I get to pitch? Yeah, and I get to tell everybody what to do. A few years ago, after five years of operating the baseball camp, I got another baseball bee in my bonnet. I was hearing about all these kids staying home all day playing computer games, surfing the Internet, and watching television. Having always heard from parents that "kids never play baseball in the neighborhoods anymore," I set out to change that. I put out the word that games will be played at Washington Park. Sandlot Baseball Camp was born. My dream was to bring back neighborhood baseball, where kids rode their bikes to the park and somehow managed to put a baseball game together. I must admit that I wasn't sure how well today's kids would be able to play "unstructured" baseball. I wasn't sure that kids would respond to the quiet park, the low-tech umpire, the unglamorous attire of no uniforms. Parents weren't sure their kids would appreciate the opportunity to run their own game. We adults fondly remember those neighborhood games where we all got along, we figured out all the problems that came up, and we all had fun. Never mind that much of that is pure fantasy. Those games were less than stellar sporting events and often social disasters. I distinctly recall being bullied by the bigger kids, having to acquiesce to the demands of bigger kids or risk a punch in the nose, with many a kid crying all the way home after a less-than-inspiring ball game. Maybe, I thought to myself, with my background and an active imagination, I could make it better than it was. Maybe I could iron out the wrinkles and provide a great "sandlot" baseball experience. So these days I gather 40 kids, make four fair teams, prepare the fields, provide some equipment, an umpire, and let the players figure out the rest. The result is neighborhood baseball at its ideological best: multi-age (10-14 years), multi-gender, and multi-ability (the better players often mentor the less experienced players). Bullies are not allowed and arguments die as quickly as they begin. Innings follow innings and the great game gets put into the photo-albums-of-the-mind, which is exactly where dreamy 12-year-old ballplayers like it. Baseball is a simple game; you're safe or you're out. It's a difficult game, a game of failure; players make outs and errors. Kids who play baseball mature more quickly because of having to accept failure. It's an important game for kids to experience. The verdict? Kids today are really good young people with perhaps even greater abilities toward community harmony than their revisionist parents ever had. Regardless of the many structured activities these kids have enjoyed that the older generations have not, or more likely because of so many social experiences, kids today have an intelligence and sensitivity to issues that we rarely saw in previous generations. Sandlot baseball works because kids still know how to play among themselves. They just need the chance. Robert Sposato operates Safe at Home Baseball Camp and Sandlot Baseball Camp in Eugene and teaches at LCC. He can be reached at robspo@hotmail.com
Untroubled
Waters The closest thing to a water feature in my garden is the big blue water jar I use to fill watering cans. I tend to blame the omission on a lack of time, rather than a lack of interest in a possible role for water; but I must admit I've seen enough problems with ponds and cascades to make me think twice about building one. A spate of recent garden tours have reminded me, however, how many quite simple ways there are to bring the delights of water into the garden. Three very different water features I visited — a sophisticated koi pond, a water jar and a sizable above-ground pool without filtration or moving water— have more in common than meets the eye. All share attributes that make them appealing while at the same time evading a common problem: how to keep critters from eating the fish and messing with your water plants. Their special appeal comes from the fact that you can walk right up to them and the water surface is near your hands and eyes, bringing you closer to the fish and water plants. And all three are critter-proof by virtue of their depth. A koi pond that fascinated visitors on this year's Eugene Symphony Guild tour was set behind a brick retaining wall, part of a garden makeover designed and constructed by Guy Gargiulo. Not only can you walk right up to the water's edge, but the height of the wall allowed for a pool that is unusually deep for its size without requiring heroic excavations. Ponds of similar surface area often use prefabricated liners that are not deep enough to deter predators: the sides should be vertical to a depth of about two feet to keep fish secure from raccoons and herons. Not everyone wants to keep animals out of the water, of course. Water is an essential element in making good backyard habitat. Wildlife-friendly pools have shallow beaches where birds and butterflies can drink and raccoons can wash their food. Shallow containers with sloping sides serve the same purpose, and containers that serve only as a water supply can be small enough that they are easy to turn out and clean periodically. Why not have one or two bowls for wildlife, and still indulge a yen for water gardening? A free-standing galvanized stock tank full of water might not be everyone's idea of a good time, but it's a perfect fit for the contemporary garden of Buell Steelman and Rebecca Sams, owners of Mosaic, a garden design and construction company. Their garden's infrastructure features metal fencing, fine stone work and lots of gravel. The exposed vertical sides of the tank look at home in this setting and discourage raccoons, while allowing you to get up close and personal with water plants and fish. Beyond the pea gravel terrace that supports this tank, you descend to another graveled area adjoining a minimalist orchard and a veggie garden. A wonderful visual break from the pale, precise stonework and gravel surfacing is a tall, brown stoneware jar full of water. Too high and smooth for the most ambitious small mammal to scale, it puts a fragrant water lily right where you want it, under your nose. Still-water pools and jars like these make acceptable homes for small fish that should prevent your water project from becoming a mosquito breeding ground. They can also accommodate many kinds of plants. Water lilies, most desirable of aquatics, actually prefer still water, and steep sides are better than sloping sides because they help keep the water cool. In a deep container, water-lily pots or baskets should be supported on a stack of bricks or blocks to bring them within a foot or two of the surface. The exact distance depends on the size and vigor of the water lily. Dwarf ones are best for tubs, jars and smaller ponds. Check under Ponds in the yellow pages for places that sell fish and aquatic plants (and this year there's an aquatic plant vendor at the Lane County Farmers' Market). The sellers can advise you what is best for your set up. For a nice vertical accent, don't overlook dry land plants that are happy standing in a few inches of water, such as canna lilies, papyrus and certain irises. On a practical note, Steelman and Sams pointed out that if you use tap water to fill your pond or water jar you should wait at least a week for the chlorine to dissipate before you add any fish. They also reminded me that still pools require oxygenating plants to keep fish happy, and that ceramic jars must be emptied each winter to avoid breakage from freezing, so you will need an indoor tank if you want to over-winter your plants or fish. Rachel Foster of Eugene is a garden writer and consultant. She can be reached at rfoster@efn.org
The
Square Meal
The 100-year anniversary of the action in James Joyce's Ulysses has been much celebrated in print lately, and justly so. But we're also at the anniversary of another epic journey that's worthy of note. Forty years ago, Ken Kesey and his tribe of Merry Pranksters were on the road from San Francisco to New York, surfing the bow wave of a cultural revolution looming just below the horizon, in waters deceptively placid on the surface. The Great Depression was long gone, put to rest by the victory of World War II. Technology and wealth had made America great, and this was only the beginning. TV dinners foretold microwaves, while a nation of cars gathered like cattle at drive-in troughs, filling up on burgers and milkshakes and blazing a trail for the fast-food herd to follow. Meanwhile, America's dark underbelly continued to fester; segregation, DDT, witch hunts, the taboos of sex. It was an uptight time, with plenty of uptight people determined to keep it that way. The Merry Pranksters, meanwhile, were overflowing with spontaneous, absurd energy. Kesey had just published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which used insane asylum interiors as allegory for the cult of control suffocating America. Cuckoo's Nest seemed to promise that such oppressive squareness would not — could not — contain humanity's essential chaos in a world that is, after all, round. The struggle between the square and the circle is about more than shape. It's about humanity's never ending quest to gain a reliable foothold in an environment that is in constant flux. Think of the circle, with its forgiving, flowing curve, as a river. Think of the square as the cup we dip into the river to get a drink. We need them both, the flow and control. To truly embrace the flow would mean being perfectly OK with flowing over a waterfall. On the other hand, to give yourself completely to the square would mean becoming a total nerd, or an uptight nurse like in Cuckoo's Nest. Even Pranksters, it turns out, can be square. As Tom Wolfe reports in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, there were two Pranksters on the bus, Generally Famished and Dis-mount, who "took to going off whenever they could for a square meal. Square on every level … in one of those square American Steak houses … square steak, square French fries, boiled bland peas and carrots and A-1 steak sauce." The other Pranksters scoffed at this, maintaining their diet of hamburgers from roadside joints along the highways that Eisenhower built. In hindsight, hamburgers seem pretty square, too. Should we be disappointed? If there were an organic hippy-food option at every stop, would the Pranksters have gone there instead? Probably not, my gut tells me. "Never trust a Prankster," went the mantra. And while the Pranksters were full of surprises, one thing that never wavered was their love for America, despite so much about it that was ungroovy. In many ways, the open road and the hamburger epitomized American freedom, and in their loyalty to the road burger, the Pranksters confirmed their deep patriotism. Hoping to confirm my faith in abstract symbolism, I journeyed to the kitchen to prepare a burger that isn't square. I minced garlic and parsley and mixed them into a paste, which I massaged, with breadcrumbs, into ground meat. I patted the meat into a big flat circle and fried it in bacon grease. In another pan, I made a sauce of mushrooms, garlic, sherry, red wine and butter. As the outside of the burger got crispy, it started smelling really good. But I realized that the inside of this round patty would never taste as good as the surface. The surface, yes! Surface area is the key! More surface area means more tasty crispiness to soak up the tangy, earthy, mushroom sauce. I may be a sucker for symbols, but I couldn't bear the thought of eating the tepid, soft, parsley-infested interior of that patty. This is how Dante must have felt in the center of heaven, how Kesey must have felt when they reached New York and nobody seemed to care. Pissed, I dug into the big round patty with the blade of my spatula, cutting it into small pieces: oblong spheroids, trapezoids and, yes, squares. When they were crispy all around, I stirred them into the mushroom sauce and then served the crispy chunks on French bread slices with mayo. Was it still a burger? Was it square? I don't know. And at this point, I don't care. Chef Boy Ari, also known as Ari LaVaux, is currently living and cooking in Missoula, Mont.
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