Hope Springs Eternal at the End of the Season

Images from Citi Field, 2019

Tonight the Major League Baseball playoffs begin. Once again, without the New York Mets.

Oddly, I'm not saddened by this. Just hopeful.

I'm with Dominic Smith.

On Sunday, taking his first swing after returning from a two-month injury, he hit a walk-off three-run home run in the bottom of the 11th. It was the Mets' last game at Citi Field in 2019 and the last game of the season, an otherwise meaningless victory since the team had already been eliminated from post-season play.

With my wife beside me, we waited for his post-game interview. In imitation of Ringo Starr, Nancy had blisters on her fingers from clapping so hard all afternoon. It was a joyous scene.

Smith summed up the season this way: "We didn't get to where we wanted to go, but this is the start of something great."

I believe him too, just as I believe in Pete Alonso's guileless tears of gratitude and joy, and just as I believe in Jacob deGrom's consistent excellence.

Attending 15 Mets' home games this season, I was once again enchanted by Citi Field's relaxed, fun and friendly vibe. I want the Mets to succeed. Somehow the team makes me want to be better. Citi Field is Venus to Yankee Stadium's Mars.

I've cited Roger Angell's words here before: cheering for the Yankees' perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman. The Mets' "stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming... there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us."

I saw further evidence of this on Sunday:

• Students from the Louis Armstrong Middle School on nearby Junction Boulevard performed the National Anthem
• Clear-voiced Marysol Castro, one of only two female PA announcers in baseball, handled the player introductions
• Todd Frazier (whose retro walk-up music is Sinatra's version of "Fly Me to the Moon"), in what might have been his last game as a Met, held an earnest, animated chat with two young fans at third base before the start of the game, as part of the Mets' routine of letting kids meet with players on the playing field

My wife, who is notoriously and inexplicably harassed by security personnel at other venues (and who we won't even allow enter a DMV office), was greeted warmly and cheerfully wherever we went -- from the parking lot attendant, to the jovial ticket-taker, to the bartender who carded her when we purchased wine. Her one and only suggestion for improvement? Given all the Mets' nods to quirky traditions, you should be able to buy Schaefer beer, her dad's improbable favorite and a throwback Mets sponsor, at Citi Field.

Still, when it came to baseball and as good as they were for most of the season, the Mets shot themselves in the foot several times... notably blowing a six-run lead in the bottom of the 9th after scoring five in the top half against the Washington Nationals on the day after Labor Day.

My personal Mets won-loss record was 9-6, a .600 percentage, so I'm hoping the team will offer me tickets to every home game next season. I witnessed three shutouts (two started by Steven Matz, including a rare complete game, one by deGrom); the only Mets wins ever for Hector Santiago and Chris Mazza; improbable late-inning home run heroics by Tomas Nido and Luis Guillorme; five home runs by J.D. Davis, four by Alonso and two, including the great finale, by Smith.

Below are some additional photo memories from the 2019 season.

Just wait, though, until I post about the 2020 season. I feel it in my bones. This is just the start of something great.

Meeting Mr. Met

We went to Seinfeld Night...

...and commiserated afterward at the Jackson Hole Diner

Yeah, we went on our anniversary too

With friends Paul Macchia and Matt Davis

Finally, a big thank you to my friend Joe Zwilling and his wife Cathy; they made all this possible!

Read this related post, "A Death in the Family," about the transcendent power of baseball.

100 Words (Exactly) About 3 Things I Love

About New York

In New York, everything is temporary. The young are only temporarily young; the powerful, only temporarily powerful.

On the street, kinetic energy changes form. Motion takes shape in art; art becomes fashion; fashion returns to energy. The homeless appear, then vanish, the way the rich eventually will. Monuments have all lost their meaning, and even the streets have changing names.

From above, we can see the world in context, so much bigger than our lives. We see the new Dover Beach. At sunset, the light gleams and is gone, retreating to the manmade lights, casting shadows on all our ghosts.

About Authenticity

This is a photo of the talented Tom Morello performing last night during a great show in Manhattan.

He asked the audience to jump up and down during one song, so I started hopping like an idiot. Then I noticed my wife standing perfectly still beside me.

She said, “I’m not going to jump just because someone told me, and I think Tom of all people would respect that.”

The song repeats the lyric, “And now you do what they told ya,” so perhaps people were jumping ironically. Perhaps.

But, definitely, this is 100 words about why I love Nancy.

About Writing

On a blank page,

I am bold.

The way you always wanted me to be.

I can dance.

I can level mountains.

I can fly.

On a blank page,

time has no power over me.

I am not fading away; I am forever young.

On a blank page,

I can create worlds.

I conjure you at will.

Change past and future.

Erase our memories.

On a blank page,

you don’t matter to me.

You have no power over me.

You can’t define me.

You can’t forgive me.

You can’t let me go.

On a blank page,

I can do anything.

Roses in September: A Visit to Summit

Last week a single pink/white rose bloomed at the entrance of my driveway, reminding me how desperately everything clings to summer.

In New Jersey, there’s always a second flush of roses in September.

It’s a heart-warming sign of hope, one that inspired a visit to the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit.

The arboretum is highlighted with vibrant colors at summer’s end. As its website promises, every season there’s something new to explore.

Below are a few photos I took of the grounds in early September, and I’ve posted more here:

September is my favorite month. Full of curious sites and wonders. I was born in September, and I was married in September. During the ceremony 33 years ago this weekend at St. Mary’s Church in Nutley, Nancy and I presented roses to our mothers at the time of the greeting of peace.

This September, there’s a single pink/white rose in bloom at the entrance of my driveway. It reminds of a poem I wrote for my bride, with apologies to Sonnet 130:


Eleven Roses for Nancy

Alas, alack, I have to disagree
with Shakespeare: my love is rare -- her hair red,
like an Irish setter's, and her eyes green,
the envy of the cat beneath my bed.

I see, in her reflective gaze, nine lives --
defying death (despite devout clichés),
perchance to live forever in this rhyme.
Her form belies my unpoetic ways.

If God's Own eye is something like the sun,
then true love is a flower, I propose.
And my love is a dozen, minus one.
Imperfectly inscrutable: one rose,

one rose, one rose, one rose, one rose, one rose,
one rose, one rose, one rose, one rose, one rose.

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I’ve added this post to the page “32 Stories About Places in NJ.” Visit there for more stories and images from around the Garden State.

9/11: A Lesson in Accountability

There is no such thing as accountability if you do your job and the next person can't do their's. Accountability means we all win together.

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I again updated a Pinterest site I've been curating to preserve stories about Verizon's efforts to restore communications services following the terrorist attacks.

The site includes links to treasures in a variety of media, including a 38-minute video about the heroic colleagues I was proud to work beside in 2001.

One new link is Maria Bartiromo's interview on last year's 9/11 anniversary with Denny Strigl, the former CEO of Verizon Wireless. He talked about the tech sustainability "lessons learned" in the aftermath of the attacks.

Another lesson learned was articulated this past May by Verizon's former Chairman and CEO, Ivan Seidenberg. Having written "Verizon Untethered," a history of the company, Ivan sat down with entrepreneur and Internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk to promote the book on the #AskGaryVee YouTube show.

Here's a link to the show, if you aren't already one of Gary's 2.2 million subscribers. It's a fascinating 51-minute interview on a variety of business topics. At the 29:15 mark, Ivan begins talking about a favorite chapter in his book: "the story of how our company was able to deliver after 9/11."

In the end, this story is an important life lesson about the meaning of accountability. Here's a partial transcript of what Ivan had to say. It speaks for itself:

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Ivan and Gary

All of Wall Street was out; all of Manhattan was out... The next morning: still flames, still trying to look for survivors. Calls began coming in from all over the country about, "When is the Stock Exchange going to be up and running?"...

The trading partners on Wall Street... couldn't get their people into the buildings. They didn't have alternative locations. So, I remember Dick Grasso, who was the Chairman of the Stock Exchange at the time, called a meeting of everybody in the city...

Our people basically said, "We could do the following, but here's all the things you will have to do"...

The story here was great. We were running cables out of [the windows of] buildings. We were doing all sorts of things that we needed to do. But we were also helping other people do their jobs.

So this is the lesson on 9/11 for us: accountability. There is no such thing as accountability if you do your job and the next guy can't do his. Accountability means we all win together.

We ended up committing to getting the Stock Exchange up and running the following Monday. In the process of doing that, we developed relationships with the top 60 or 70 trading partners -- the Goldman Sachs, the Merrill Lynches, all those companies -- to help them make sure they could open their facilities, they had enough circuits to get things done, they had the generators and the power, and everything else that needed to occur to get the country up and running.

It was one of the greatest experiences of our careers, because it was a big deal... and it taught our company, back in 2001, what real accountability is.

Real accountability is not just doing your job, but doing your job and helping the people you work with do their jobs.

In Paterson, A Wall That Brings People Together

On August 28, 2019, a small ceremony in a small corner of Paterson, NJ, rekindled the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Exactly 56 years after King challenged all to create a better world, a community came together to open a beautiful park on the corner of Auburn and Governor streets in what had been a blighted vacant lot.

I’ve visited and written about this community project before (in March 2018 and January 2019). Here are side-by-side photos of the park across the street from Bethel A.M.E. Church, where King visited in 1968, days before he was assassinated. I took the one on the left last year; the one on the right, yesterday.

The new park has two centerpieces: Stan Watts’ eight-foot bronze sculpture of King (pictured at the top of this post), and a colorful mural, inscribed “A Wall That Brings People Together,” painted by Paterson students Jonte Silver, Isaiah Stevens, Alberto Bustos and Claudia Clark. The park also features newly planted trees and flowers, chess tables and a Little Free Library.

You can read the whole story here by The Record’s Richard Cowen and in this account by TAPintoPaterson’s Ed Rumley. Several groups and individuals funded the project. Separately this past week, director Steven Spielberg -- in town to remake “West Side Story” -- made a substantial donation to improve Paterson parks.

Amid all this good news, Cowen adds this context:

“Fifty-one years after King’s visit, the corner of Auburn and Governor streets remains a dangerous place. The poverty that King saw as the root of racism pervades Paterson’s mostly black 4th Ward, along with the drugs and violence that accompany it. But the new park… is a respite from all that. It’s not just a symbol of hope; it’s a real place, an example of what can and does happen when people work together.”

The Record’s site also features a short video of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, including a reading from Paterson’s poet laureate (and Little Free Library steward), Talena Lachelle Queen.

Echoing King’s final plea on August 28, 1963, to “let freedom ring,” Queen challenged all to “let the bell ring for justice… for love… for equality.”

As the poet cued her listeners, they responded “ring!”... then louder “Ring!”... then louder “RING!”

August and Everything After

Earlier this month, Adam Duritz flew to London and shaved his head.

With his trademark dreadlocks shorn, the frontman for the rock band Counting Crows has become my spirit animal.

First, I admire that earlier this year, after so many years, Duritz formally recorded the song “August and Everything After” – which, like his best music, is both haunting and disturbing.

But even more inspiring to me is his radical new look, after so many years.

Just like Adam, it’s time for a change for me too.

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Looking back at my recent posts here, I realize I do a lot of “looking back.”

All well and good, considering the tributes and memorials I’ve posted to loved ones.

But there’s another way to honor those who have loved and supported us: using our time and efforts to give back or at least try to create something of lasting value.

This past week, during a short trip to Amish country in Pennsylvania, I took photos to share on social. Posted here are a few images from Paradise, and I hope they have some value.

I love photography. It gets me out in the world, away from my screens. A camera seems to give me the license… and the courage… to simply wander and explore.

It’s such a beautiful world. And sometimes ugly, and often absurd.

In a store window a few miles from Paradise, in Lancaster, I saw religious wall art that I thought was an image of the Virgin Mary. When I changed my perspective by walking to the side, the image changed to one of Jesus. Another image for sale depicted the Harrowing of Hell, Christ’s journey after his crucifixion to save all the righteous who had died since the beginning of time.

To me, photography is akin to the Harrowing of Heaven. Each photo is an ascent into the timeless and infinite, brought to earth by light and magic, captured and preserved, forever current.

Sometimes these images can be profound.

I save a photo of a girl who broke my heart when I was young.

The Polaroid was taken at a Halloween party I wasn’t invited to. I save it because, in a trick of accidental art, it forever suspends both the moment and the girl in perfect balance:

Dressed like a pumpkin, she almost looks vulnerable.

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I used that line in a story I once wrote, but now I think it’s time to write a few more stories… and take a few more photos… and keep creating something different.

I recently left my job at Verizon, where I had happily worked for more than 34 years, writing press releases, talking to reporters and getting to know some extraordinary colleagues.

It gave me great experience that I hope to put to use as a PR consultant. My goal is to help out a non-profit, foundation, educational institution or any company seeking to provide a greater good to society.

For me, it’s time for a change. I even formed a company, and Nancy took a new professional photo of me, standing in Weehawken NJ, with New York like Emerald City in the background, beckoning to the future.

So that’s me, today. No dreads. No fear.

In August and everything after, I’m after everything.

New Jersey's So Picturesque...

@foundinnj

How picturesque is it?

It's so picturesque that photos of the iconic Red Mill in Clinton don't do it justice.

Photos by me, anyway.

@bvarphotos

But, lucky for me, there's enough beauty in Clinton's small town center to post a few Instagram photos of other sights. There's also a few nice restaurants and places to see, like the Hunterdon Art Museum (seen above) and the Red Mill Museum Village.

On Thursday after sunset, Nancy and I were happily listening to Anders Hyatt perform on an open-air stage along the south branch of the Raritan River before we were all chased away by a rainstorm.

You should visit Anders' website; his music was great!... and the museum village's site has details about another free open-air concert next Thursday night (👋 Gregg Cagno).

Seriously, the Red Mill is one of the most photographed locations in the state. Here's one example from Thursday night of a real photo by a real photographer. Dave Norton used a 30-second exposure while the winds were whipping around us to take this shot during a meetup for New Jersey Spots:

@drnorton

Also that night, more than 70 miles to the south and east, another talented group of photographers, members of the Black Glass Gallery, took images of the sunset along the Jersey Shore.

Here's founder/owner Suzanne Spitaletta's shot of Thursday's sunset at the Belmar Marina:

@suzanne_ap

Although sometimes flawed and broken, New Jersey is beautiful and sometimes poetic too.

It's filled with amazingly talented artists, photographers and musicians, and many sights to see. Even its haunted woods are lovely, dark and deep.

I want to see it all. I have miles to go before I sleep.

Clinton, NJ

Saluting Annapolis on World Photography Day

Sailing the Chesapeake Bay

Planning a recent three-day getaway, I considered it my patriotic duty to head in the direction of Baltimore.

When the U.S. President calls a city a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess," well... gauntlet thrown. I'm all in to show support.

Yes, parts of Baltimore -- just like parts of my beloved New Jersey and New York -- are grappling with poverty and crime.

But I saw no mess. With tickets to see the Orioles host the Astros, I saw beauty all around me... from the sculpture garden, to the children playing in Kids' Corner, to the shops and vendors along Eutaw Street. Here, for example, is a photo of the Camden Yards field, no filter, taken with my iPhone:

After opening more than 27 years ago, this baseball park still rivals anything in the major leagues. The fans are friendly, and quirky... enthusiastically emphasizing the "O" in "O, say can you see" during the national anthem (penned by Francis Scott Key in Baltimore during the War of 1812) and happily signing along to "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the 7th inning stretch.

Chickens in the street

Leaving Baltimore, my wife and I headed for Annapolis, which was also a little quirky. I counted nine, large decorative chickens on the streets near where we stayed -- remnants of a public art project hatched in 2012, when legislation was passed allowing local residents to have up to six chickens in their backyard for fresh eggs.

Despite unnerving flashbacks to the epic chicken fights in old episodes of "Family Guy," I greatly enjoyed Annapolis. There's plenty of food and drink and music in town, and sailing on Chesapeake Bay, beautiful historical architecture... and, best of all, the U.S. Naval Academy, where future officers are educated and trained.

I took the 90-minute walking tour, which is highly recommended. It's inspirational -- and it again brought back memories of my Dad, a former Naval reserve captain. More than that, visiting "The Yard," as the grounds of the academy are called, is a true patriotic duty.

As described on the tour's informational website, "professional, certified guides provide commentary on major attractions, including Bancroft Hall (midshipmen dormitory), Memorial Hall, Statue of Tecumseh, Herndon Monument (famous for Herndon Climb), Main Chapel and Crypt of John Paul Jones, Revolutionary War naval hero." You also learn about the admissions process and the education and training of midshipmen.

The commitment to honor and tradition, to self-sacrifice and to excellence, is palpable while touring campus. And, at several points along the way, the tour guide or someone else in passing invoked the name of John McCain with fondness and reverence.

Sometimes, there are no words. So let me show you a few more photos instead. It is, after all, #WorldPhotographyDay.

Here, for starters, is the inside of the campus chapel. The flowers mark a pew where no one ever sits. It's reserved in memory of all reported as MIA or being held as prisoners of war:

Here's the rotunda leading to Memorial Hall, where the walls are engraved with the names of 2,660 Naval Academy alumni who have died in military operations. The banner at the top of the stairway,  "Don't Give Up the Ship," recalls the dying command of James Lawrence aboard U.S.S Chesapeake, also during the War of 1812.

The rotunda is also the centerpiece of Bancroft Hall, a contiguous set of dormitories named after a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy. The dorms are home to the brigade of more than 4,000 midshipmen on campus. The entire brigade marches into Bancroft Hall (but never through the center doors!) during Noon Meal Formation, an elaborate daily ceremony.

Finally, here's Dahlgren Hall, a wonderful Beaux Arts building designed by architect Ernest Flagg and completed in 1903. It has served as an armory, indoor drill area, a Weapons Department laboratory and the site of graduation ceremonies at the academy through 1957.

John McCain, who is buried in Annapolis, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. The former senator died of brain cancer at age 81 nearly a year ago today, Aug. 25, 2018.

As the Washington Post described his burial, "Hundreds of midshipmen packed the academy chapel and lined an avenue for a long procession. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis walked ahead of McCain's flag-draped casket on a caisson pulled by a team of horses from the Army's Old Guard. Four fighter jets from the Blue Angels squadron roared overhead after the ceremony in a tight wedge. One F-18 broke away and climbed skyward in the 'missing man' formation to honor the memory of McCain, a former Naval aviator."

The U.S. President did not attend that burial. Which is just as well.

I'll close this "photography post" -- and once more invoke patriotism -- with a few lines from McCain's address to the Brigade of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in late October 2017. He thanked recruits for accepting the sacrifices of military service, and said this:

How did we end up here? Why do many Americans ignore our moral and historical knowledge and seek escape from the world we've led so successfully? 

There are many wise answers to those questions. My own is: we are asleep to the necessity of our leadership, and to the opportunities and real dangers of this world. We are asleep in our echo chambers, where our views are always affirmed and information that contradicts them is always fake... 

It's time to wake up. 

I believe in Americans. We're capable of better. I've seen it. We're hopeful, compassionate people. And we still have leaders who will uphold the values that made America great, and a beacon to the oppressed. 

But I don't take that for granted. We have to fight. We have to fight against propaganda and crackpot conspiracy theories. We have to fight isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. We have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions. We have to remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on earth by tearing down walls, not building them."

About the Varettoni in the Hall of Fame

Today is National Baseball Card Day.

So, of course, I’ve posted a baseball card photo of myself from one of the exhibits at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, on Facebook and Twitter.

This only reminds me that, in real life, there’s a real Varettoni in a baseball Hall of Fame.

Bob “Chick” Varettoni was inducted into the Passaic Semi-Pro Baseball Hall of Fame on Friday, May 3, 1996, at the Knights of Columbus Regina Mundi Hall in Clifton, NJ.

That’s my Dad.

He was pitching semi-pro ball at the age of 13, featuring a nasty sinker he once tried to teach his son, with disastrous results. When Dad was 20, he twice pitched against New York Yankee great Whitey Ford when Passaic’s DeMuro Comets faced the Fort Monmouth Army team, during Ford’s military service.

Dad’s the second from the left in this photo from that night in Clifton. The kneeling man is Ted Lublanecki, a legend in NJ semi-pro baseball and a scout for the Philadelphia Phillies back in the day:

Here’s the text of the resolution entered into the Congressional record by Rep. William J. Martini of New Jersey on May 1, 1996. It details Dad’s accomplishments (click on the photo for a clearer image):

And here are the box scores of the games Dad pitched against Whitey Ford in 1952:

Here’s my ticket stub from that great night in 1996, along with Ted’s business card, in case you know of any good prospects:

Finally, here’s a team photo of the 1952 Passaic City Recreation Baseball League champions, the immortal DeMuro Comets: