Greatest Hits: The Best of Des

Tonight, after Todd Walker hit the 10th inning game-winning RBI single with the bases loaded and one out, Dusty Baker put his arm around Walk after the hand-slapping and walked him back to the dugout. I loved that image of a skipper showing his player heartfelt thanks and congratulations after a game well played, the best way he knew how to... shaking his hand, then putting his arm around him. I got verklempt, but then, I remembered the deal.

Here's the deal: We're five-and-a-half games out of winning the wildcard race. But if Dusty had been this type of a ball manager all year round, we may not be fantasising about what would actually happen if the Marlins swept the Astros, the Cubs took seven out of seven from the Astros in the next three weeks and some Cub-like virus hit the Mets, Nationals and Phillies.

Where was Dusty when we really needed to not play a .500 par in June? Where was Dusty when we really needed to have a winning percentage in July? Where was Dusty when we went 0-8 to start August against the National League's weakest teams? Not in the clubhouse. Not calling closed-door team meetings. The handicapped Cubbies desperately needed a mulligan, but their manager decided to play bad caddie and they ended up in the quicksand trap.

OK, Dusty wasn't the one who hid the bats, because we've had a bad habit of leaving legions of men on base every game. But very often, for as long as I've played this humble game, I know that you need more than just solid wood to win it. You need a manager who would take the toothpick out of his mouth sometimes to rally his guys when they needed it most, a manager who went out to the mound to calm his pitchers down (someone get Larry Rothschild new cleats... they must be worn out from all that scampering up and down the dugout steps) and a manager who by the All-Star Game, realised that he should stop saying that it was "still early in the season."

Last year, it was too little, too late. This year, it's too much too late. Next time, Dusty, give Walk a bear hug.

I've been tagged by May, so I have to post the following on my blog. My tags (this means you have to do the same on your blog):

1. Erin
2. Jill

(Everyone else I know who has a blog has already been tagged.)

Seven things that scare me:
1. Snakes
2. Ghosts
3. Heights
4. Terminal illness
5. Boredom
6. Losing my family and friends
7. Not getting to do everything I want to do in this lifetime

Seven things I like the most:
1. Playing my favourite sports: softball, tennis, boxing, volleyball, soccer, biking
2. Being with my family and friends
3. Travelling to places people don't normally go to or if they do, exploring things off the beaten path
4. The beach and everything associated with it
5. Being a literary nerd and snob
6. Making new friends
7. Food

Seven most important things in my room:
1. Bed
2. Alarm clock
3. Pictures of my family
4. Clothes
5. A Buddha pendant my late grandfather gave me before he passed away
6. Passport
7. Body pillow/Bolster

Seven random facts about me:
1. I am anal retentive and obsessive compulsive.
2. I have played three different positions in fast-pitch softball (third base, rightfield and catcher) and currently play three different positions in slow-pitch softball (first base, second base and third base).
3. My left knee is the most injured part of my body. I have a fluid-filled spot surrounded by dead nerves caused by sliding into a backstop pole catching a pop foul nine years ago, received 11 stitches on a deep gash from falling off my bicycle three years ago and last year, had a gradient 1 tear in my MCL from a soccer slide.
4. I was named for the song "Desiree" by Neil Diamond. My mum was a big fan.
5. I have travelled to 16 countries and 37 U.S. states.
6. In primary school, I was banned from participating in science lab classes for almost blowing up my home-made oil lamp and also told I couldn't join the Brownies because of a trick I played on a friend (as a result, I started to play softball).
7. I wrote a biography of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys when I was 15. (I would have to revisit that edition now that there is much to update with the resurgence of Brian Wilson and "Smile.")

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
1. Participate and win a National Scrabble Association or crossword tournament or be a participant on Jeopardy!.
2. Road trip every major cross-country blue-highway route in the US (US-50: "The Loneliest Road," US-50: "The Southern Pacific," etc.).
3. Retrace the travels, events and settings of Thomas Hardy's characters in "Wessex," an area he created to represent his native Yorkshire.
4. Be a fan in the bleacher seats of the red carpet at the Oscars.
5. Become an expert photographer.
6. Open a pancake diner with my cousin Cheryl.
7. Have all my friends in the US visit Singapore.

Seven things I can do:
1. Play sports well and at long stretches (boxing in the morning, biking in the afternoon, tennis in the evening).
2. Entice the media to write stories about Bausch & Lomb and spherical aberration, Arthur Andersen and glass ceilings, Lions Clubs International and pancake breakfasts.
3. Watch three movies in a row at a movie theatre while paying for just one.
4. Complete Super Mario Bros. from World 1-1 to 8-4, without jumping levels, in one turn. It takes 4 hours and 38 minutes.
5. Eat six full meals in a day (typically in Singapore).
6. Play April Fool's jokes and pranks well.
7. Complete New York Times crosswords and Chicago Tribune Sunday crosswords.

Seven things I can't do:
1. Read fast.
2. Put up with self-important people at work.
3. Be away from family and friends for long.
4. Certain athletic things: Set or spike a volleyball. Gymnastics. Putt on a sloping green.
5. Bake.
6. Stay home in the summertime.
7. Remember how to write as well in Chinese as I'd like to.

Seven things I say the most:
1. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
2. "Oh my goodness!"/"My goodz!"
3. "Lord in heavens!"
4. "Jesus fucking Christ."
5. "Let's play tennis later."/"Let's go get something to eat."/"What time is softball tomorrow?"
6. "AAAAAARGH!"/"Eeeeks."
7. "I hate myself."/"I hate my life."

Seven celeb crushes:
1. Bruce Springsteen
2. George Clooney
3. Joaquin Phoenix
4. Jack Johnson
5. Roger Federer
6. Todd Walker
7. James Dean (R.I.P.)

Yesterday, in the Chatham neighbourhood on the South Side of Chicago, for one hour the most important thing in the whole world was that the fish hadn't arrived.

When Mrs. Georgetta Wraggs, fifth grade teacher at the Burnside Scholastic Academy, was nominated by one of her students' parents for Jones New York's In The Classroom program, she said that she wanted an aquarium for her kids if she won the "Back to School... Back to Style" contest (prize: complete makeover of the winning teacher's classroom by Trading Spaces interior designer Laurie Smith and the Home Depot). Mrs. Wraggs won, and the unveiling of room 303 was scheduled for 3pm. At 2.04pm, an empty fish tank sat in its spot on the newly-built bookshelf.

Burnside is a school like any other on the South Side. When you pull up in the morning in a nice-looking bigger car, next to the playground across the street, the kids playing Double Dodge with a jump rope start and make as if to run, yelling that you're the police. There's a metal detector as you walk in and inspirational posters and murals of Dr. Martin Luther King and Michael Jordan. There's very little budget in the summertime, so the assistant principal's niece is answering the phones.

You walk down hallways of classrooms painted standard issue pale blue, metal racks of yellowing books and a globe which has a country called the USSR on it. Then you get to room 303 and Team Home Depot has painted it squash yellow, installed new blinds, put up cheery stripy drapery, built new bookshelves, hung up a new map (Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, etc.), varnished the wooden floor and amongst other things, filled a bowl full of apples for Mrs. Wraggs. Laurie Smith, home makeover reality TV star, flutters about, straightening cushions 5.6 degrees counter-clockwise and being interviewed by the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Citizen-News, ABC and CBS as she waltzes around the room.

At 2.37pm, the fish arrived! Oh, how everyone broke into smiles again as bags of goldfish and neon tetras passed through several hands waiting to unravel the rubber band on top and pour them into the tank. The fishes blinked as they darted about in their new home. Because, you know, they were gonna be on TV.

At 3pm, Mrs. Wraggs was led into her new classroom and she stood speechless at the door, her hand grasping Laurie's, her mouth open and her eyes full of tears. The press snapped away, the reporters had their pens above notebooks waiting for Mrs. Wraggs to say something good. She said, "I'm speechless," and tried to swallow back her tears. Then she said, "Thank you... the kids are going to have a great year. I want to say more, but I can't... so thank you, thank you everyone." And she walked around the room, and fingered all the new, happy school furniture and supplies and her family and friends and school officials hugged her. One school official in a white straw hat and purple suit poked the photographer form the Sun-Times and made him promise to take a good picture for the paper.

So, Jones New York got its media coverage, Mrs. Wraggs got a brand new wardrobe and a new classroom, and I got free pizza, bagels and chocolate chip cookies for working this event. I was happy, but I guess pizza, bagels and chocolate chip cookies have got nothing on a bunch of fifth-graders who can't wait to come back to school.

My family loves road trips and ever since my brother and I were old enough to peer out the windows of a moving automobile, the four of us have done everything from the Pacific Coast Highway, the Andaman coast in Thailand and Singapore to Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. We've done trips where the air-conditioning broke down in the middle of hot humidity two hours into a week-long drive (Cherating, Malaysia), where we were attempted to rev up a steep slope and the gear gave up on us (Koh Samui, Thailand) and where we got a flat in the middle of winter with no other car or house in sight (near Marysville, Maryland). So when you think about it, no amount of family strife under the car roof can really match all the literal road blocks we found ourselves stumbling into.

Sometimes, it's just my mom and me, and on the few cross-country drives we've taken together (Route 66, the Great Mississippi River Road), it feels exactly like Thelma and Louise, except with a happy ending. In 1999, after spending a summer in Los Angeles, my mom flew out so we could drive the legendary Route 66 in the wrong direction back to Chicago. Our wheels were a 1990 red Volkswagen Jetta -- everything was manual with that car, my first car, from the transmission to the sun-roof to the doors and the CD player that sometimes had to be nudged to play. On the first two days, we fought about everything and anything a mother and daughter could -- how I was planning to prioritize my plans for the future entering the last year of college, me feeling too grown-up to listen to anything my mom said, my mom finding it harder and harder to let go of her children that she loved so much. It was Elvis's death anniversary and the oldies channel played his music all day, but he didn't have a chance between our raised voices and tears.

Towards the end of the second day, driving towards the Arizona/New Mexico border, all of a sudden the skies darkened. Because out west, there's nothing but you, the two-lane blacktop, the plains and the mountains in the fair horizon, every change in scenery seems a little more dramatic than usual -- similar to what we've been experiencing in the car. It began pouring and the wind pommelled through like a Hoover vacuum tunnel. We had to pull to the side -- there was no way we could have made it through without ending up as a tumbleweed drifting across the road. We sat in silence as the storm blew through -- awed by nature, realizing that there was a far bigger force than our hard-headedness.

As soon as the storm ended, the biggest rainbow we had ever seen stretched across the entire sky -- it was the Grand Canyon of rainbows. It was majestic, magical and I think that if it wanted to, it would have gone all the way to New York City. My mom broke the silence first when she told me to take a picture of it for my dad and brother.

We had other fights on the rest of the trip, of course, but none that I remember in any detail. The 10 minutes or so that I sat in the car, next to one of my oldest and best friends in the world, staring at the biggest rainbow I had ever seen in my life, I remember every minute of. We both still do.

Dearly beloved,

We are all gathered today to mourn the short but vibrant life of iRosalita, iPod Mini (pink). While her time with us was but two months and five days, she lived it to the fullest with 903 songs and 3.3 GB, including iTunes spanning entire catalogs from Bruce Springsteen, the Beach Boys, Beulah and the Beastie Boys. She also boasted critical selections from Hall & Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, Curtis Mayfield and the Reverend Al Green.

At approximately 2pm on Saturday, June 25, at the corner of Irving Park, Lincoln and Damen, iRosalita started to shuffle forward through her tracks without stopping, like she was experiencing cardiac arrhythmia. She went from Alicia Keys to Alice Cooper like a day in the life of Rivers Cuomo. I tried iCPR through resetting, but she never awoke from her coma... all she could manage was an iPod icon on her screen with tears streaming down its face. I rushed her to the Apple Store at Old Orchard, where a Mac Genius pronounced her dead at 3.05pm. He said she was "unresurrectable."

iRosie, as she was know to her iPals, was named for "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" by Springsteen. But unlike her namesake, she was never "stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey." She travelled each day with me up and down the brown L from Southport to Merchandise Mart during the week. We went to Waikiki together and basked in the Hawaiian sun for hours. She even took a tumble with me when I tripped on the sidewalk running down Irving Park.

She was feisty, surviving through a shipping snafu that took her from Shanghai, China to Anchorage, Alaska to Chicago, Illinois, and back, before retracing the same route back to Chicago. She was cute and sleek and wore the finest encasements an Apple Store giftcard could buy. She was a fantastic running buddy and mighty fine desk-top companion at the office. Although I received a brand new iPod Mini (pink) on the spot to replace her (warranty), iRosie will always be my iFirst. She rose to the occasion -- I never thought I could rip more than 100 iTunes, but she proved me wrong nine times over.

Goodbye, iRosie. You added some music to my day. Say hi to Johnny C when you see him, OK?

Of our four boxing teachers, Robert is the nicest, the most soft-spoken, the only one who told you to give him 30-push-ups "please." Without yelling and scolding like the others, he always runs the tightest, craziest, most disciplined circuit trainings -- chin-ups, burpees, unattainable crunches and weighted shadow boxing. His cheeks are always a slightly flushed rosy red, he's got a cute day-old scruff and he moves like a cat -- I've seen him scale up a wall while hoisting a 50-pound punching bag onto its straddle.

Tonight after class, a group of us headed over to St. Andrew's Gym in the neighbourhood to see Robert fight in his first Golden Gloves competition. The Golden Gloves is a series of sanctioned amateur boxing matches that has a home base in cities known for guts and glory home-grown boxing -- Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit, Louisville. The Chicago installment is the most famous, because of its long and storied history. It didn't matter if you were from the North Side, the South Side, the Northwest Side or the Far West Side -- the Golden Gloves took you off the streets and into the ring. These are some of the people who've passed through Chicago Stadium and St. Andrew's Gym: Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It's every kid's dream to win the Golden Gloves.

There was a neon sign for hot dogs, the Army was recruiting and people stacked around the ring on bleachers and metal chairs. Each bout was three tw0-minute rounds; because it was amateur-level, the referee can call the fight if he felt that there was the potential for severe injury. I sat next to Tina, our toughest teacher (and she yells) and Johnny, a classmate who's a fighter. Johnny told us how Robert was supposed to have fought in his first Golden Gloves last year, but got his nose broken during a practice spar the week before by a professional fighter. It was a blow at the head that really was a shot below the belt -- beating someone up is not the point of a spar, especially if you were pro and he wasn't.

When Robert came on, there was no Don King glitz. He didn't even have a trainer. He didn't have someone to hold down the ropes for him as he stepped into the ring. He didn't have real boxing clothes, just a sleeveless T-shirt and Nike shorts I've seen him wear in class. He didn't have anyone but his boxing class rooting for him. He was fighting a black guy the same size as him, and both of them were like cats in the ring. They sprighted from one corner to the other, but the opponent came on Robert like a vulture on a baby bird. He pounded Robert and -- thank god he is agile -- Robert leapt away from the punches, but didn't quite have the stealth to hit back. At a couple of instances, Robert recovered to throw a few shots, but ended up getting sprayed by jabs and crosses. The referee stepped in and gave Robert the eight-count. At the end of it, Robert raised his arms in defeat and shook his head. He conceded the match halfway through the first round.

When Robert came down from the ring, he hung his head down as we gathered around to tell him that he was still our hero anyway, that neither of us could have even made it into the ring. He thanked us for coming in his soft voice and told Kate, another teacher, softly, that he was embarrassed we came to see him lose. Then he said he had to go.

Outside, Kate told us that Robert had been working at a coffee shop for the last few months, ever since he started going to school to get a degree in philosophy. He had been showing up for work with chaps and cuts on his hands from boxing and had been getting shit for it. He told her that when he was getting beat in the ring, all he could think about was his face and what the boss would say the next day. He knew he had it to take the heat and try to come back, and he desperately wanted to, but he couldn't lose the job because he needed it.

At my first boxing tournament, I was thinking about how romantic the sport really is and how you could look around St. Andrew's Gym and see the spirit on which this city is founded on. It's a lot of blue-collar people who look up, see four industrial-strenght spotlights shining down on one centrestage, two people portraying an act of strength, individualism, endurance, determination and blood. It's how this city was built. I'm not sure if Robert is coming to class on Saturday but earlier on, Tina said that when you're in the ring, emotions and thoughts you never knew you had flood your mind. You thought about survival and you thought about pulling through and you find something in yourself you never knew you had.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/desireekoh13/album?.dir=61c6&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/desireekoh13/my_photos

The Cubs' 2005 home opener at Wrigley Field came and went like a lazy Sunday afternoon in-between softball games at Hamlin Park.

Apart from the day's festivities, which featured an announcement of the entire team and newly minted Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg throwing out the first pitch (all of which I watched quietly on my own as Sonny and Sara went to get the hot dogs), it felt much more like a mid-summer afternoon playing hooky from work than the very exciting first home game of the season. Even the wind blowing in from leftfield was sort of lackadaisical, the boo birds came out early with LaTroy Hawkins' first blown save of the season and Corey Patterson's third strikeout of the game. The peanut guy tossed a bag to someone a few rows in front of us and the peanut procurer miss the catch. That was the kind of afternoon April 8 was.

The Cubs played lethargically, dragging out a game that seemed to average an infield pop-up and walk issued per inning by the heart of our order and our pitchers respectively to 13 innings which then, of course, ended in a home loss. Thank you, Dusty Baker, for leaving Jon Leicester in for 49 pitches without any bullpen activity even after two walks in a row.

It may be more interesting to note that although we had hot dogs, peanuts, cheese fries and chili nachos, neither of us had a beer. Not a single sud. We gulped Pepsi from souvenir cups but didn't make the trip to any of the newly designed food stands (by the way, they look great! Thanks Levy Brothers, food service to Wrigley Field) -- the newly bumped-up prices were too rich for Sonny's blood and Sara and I had a bar to go to after the game.

Although I wish the ball game had been a little more exciting, a day off from work spent at the ball park with good friends is one of the finer moments in life. It's not often that you come across people who are good friends and people who are good ball players. For that one afternoon and more, we were both.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/desireekoh13/album?.dir=a3fc&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/desireekoh13/my_photos

This winter, we played indoor soccer and volleyball so whenever I saw a ball, I either dug it up with my arms or pummelled it with my feet. Nothing about swatting at it.

So when I saw my first pitch of 2005 today, I took it for a ball. "Easy enough," I thought to myself. I'll wait for a pitch. So I waited for a pitch, and it came... not a perfect strike, but in the zone, hittable. I took a big swing and lined it foul. I'm known in the leagues as a pull hitter, although I was spraying the entire field nicely by the end of the 2004 season. But why make Opening Day complicated... I just wanted to make contact. With a full count on my back, I saw another not-bad pitch and swung hard. And I missed.

This year, spring sort of crept up on us. With the cold clinging on like a car window decal, we never got a chance to play catch or take some B.P. All of a sudden, it was time to play ball. Faux swings in my living room didn't help much.

Because on my next plate appearance, I fouled out. And on the one after that, I fouled out again. And finally, another swinging strikeout.

I was trying too hard and my timing was off, as well as my eyeing of the pitch. Finally, on my fifth plate appearance, I drove a line drive down the third base line. Open for business as usual.

The next game wasn't pretty either -- 0-4, but I actually felt better about that than my 1-5 performance earlier, because I hit the ball hard every time I stepped up. So the contact is back, I just have to figure out how to play the ball better into the field.

On defense, I muffed a few during the first game but caught a mile-high pop-up during the second that I knew that if I missed, would've knocked me out. Just like the mile-high pop-up in secondary three that put out my right eye for a week. I learned very well from that game, I'm all grown up now. (Although I took a laser beam off of my right thigh during fielding practice and on a hard slide into third base, scratched up my left calf. I think I can safely say that the season has begun.)

So, on opening day, I'm 1-9 with one single. Cowboy up!!!