"The Curse of the Zezbino"

By Jerry Zezima

I will never get into the National Baseball Hall of Fame unless I buy a ticket. That’s because my batting average in Little League was lower than my weight and my winning percentage as the manager of my daughters’ softball team was just as bad.

But even though mighty Jerry struck out countless times, memories of my misadventures on a field of screams came racing back like a fastball I could never hit when I took a recent tour of Fenway Park in Boston.

Fenway is the home of my favorite team, the Red Sox. Opened in 1912, it’s the oldest ballpark in the major leagues and features the game’s most iconic structure, the 37-foot-tall left field wall called the Green Monster.

“It’s pronounced Monstah,” said Dave, our tour guide. “In Boston, there are only 25 letters in the alphabet. There’s no R.”

Naturally, he pronounced it “Ah.”

Dave regaled the group with stories, including “The Curse of the Bambino,” wherein the Sox, who won five World Series titles between 1903 and 1918, sold their star player, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees, beginning a championship drought of 86 years that was finally broken in 2004.

As Dave spoke, I thought back to my pathetic athletic career, which should be dubbed “The Curse of the Zezbino.”

It began in Little League, where I was the worst player on a bad team. One year I didn’t get a hit, although I was almost hit by a pitch when I squared around to bunt. Instead of putting my left foot on the outer edge of the batter’s box, as a right-handed hitter is supposed to do when bunting, I put my right foot on the other side of home plate. The ball whizzed past my ear.

“You could have been hit in the head!” the umpire shrieked.

“Then we would have needed a new ball,” the opposing catcher said.

I never liked that kid.

The manager mercifully took me out of the game.

The following season, I got one hit, a ground-rule double.

“You’re hitting this year,” said the second-base ump.

“That’s because I closed my eyes,” I replied.

The curse continued in the family Wiffle ball league. My mother, Rosina, who will turn 100 in November, was the star pitcher and used to strike me out routinely. Then in her 70s, she was the rookie of the year.

A few years ago, my two oldest granddaughters, who were 7 and 4, struck me out and hit home runs off me in a Wiffle ball game. I deserved to be sent down to the minors by a couple of minors.

One time I came down with a sinus infection and was put on steroids. I thought they would make me a better hitter, so I went to a batting cage. The pitching machine threw at 45 miles per hour, the equivalent of a warmup toss in softball. I fouled off one pitch and whiffed on the other 19. I should have been banned from baseball, not for steroids, but for sheer incompetence.

Speaking of softball, I managed the team my two daughters played on when they were kids. One year, we set the club record for victories: three in 12 games. The two previous seasons, we won one game combined. The sponsor, an insurance company, thought I was a poor risk, so I was dropped.

As Dave took the group through the press box at Fenway Park, I recalled my days as a sportswriter for my hometown paper, the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut. I occasionally covered New York’s two major league teams: the Mets and Boston’s biggest rival, the Yankees. It was a dream job that didn’t pay much but did allow me to gorge on free ballpark franks.

Eventually, I left sports so I could write a column with no redeeming social value.

Still, my Fenway tour was a home run. And now I can say that “The Curse of the Zezbino” has finally been broken.

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima

"Not Exactly Fast Food"

By Jerry Zezima

I am out to lunch. This is especially true when I make lunch.

That’s because, in my incapable hands, organizing the second meal of the day takes so long that I am surprised I haven’t starved to death by now.

My wife, Sue, who usually eats lunch with me and simplifies matters by having an apple and a cup of tea, marvels at how I can turn something as easy as making a sandwich or a bowl of soup into something so utterly complicated.

Sue will often try to expedite matters by telling me what’s for lunch.

“There are leftovers in the fridge,” she will say. Or, “I bought you some turkey to have on a hard roll.”

It doesn’t help. If I stick the leftovers — chicken, pasta, Chinese food or, my favorite, hot dogs and beans — in the microwave, I will have to reheat them because I didn’t leave them in long enough. If I leave them in until they snap, crackle and pop, they’re too hot and I have to wait for them to cool off.

Or I will have soup, which takes forever to make because first I have to decide whether I want chickarina, creamy tomato or clam chowder. I will dump the soup into a pot, put it on the stove and set it at a temperature that is either too low (the soup stays lukewarm) or too high (it splatters all over the place). Then I have to raise or lower the heat and put a cover on the pot.

You know the old saying: “A watched pot never boils!”

Meanwhile, I have to decide what I want for dessert. Most of the time, I’ll have yogurt. It’s the only way I can get any culture.

Or Sue will tell me to eat a banana before it turns brown. If it does, I always add, much to my beloved’s consternation, it won’t have appeal.

Or I’ll have an apple, which is delicious even if it’s not Delicious.

At this point, Sue has finished her apple and sits at the kitchen table, watching as I set my place with the dessert I have picked but not the main course because, naturally, I haven’t finished making it.

On some days, I will have pizza, either a leftover slice from a pizzeria, some that Sue has made or one of those little frozen jobs in a plastic bag that I can never open without using scissors. Blood loss is a definite concern.

I will place the pizza on a baking sheet or a piece of aluminum foil, which I spritz with cooking spray. I’ll set the oven at 350 degrees, put the pizza in and wait. By the time it’s done, the rumbling of my stomach practically rattles the windows.

On most days, I will have a sandwich. This is by far the most time-consuming part of the ordeal. That is due to my indecision over whether to have a hard roll or bread. Sometimes I forget to take the roll out of the freezer in the morning so it can thaw and I have to nuke it in the microwave (see above). As for bread, I prefer Italian, but lately I’ve been having whole wheat. I am afraid to ask Sue why there isn’t partial wheat.

Then I have to decide what to put in it: peanut butter, tuna fish or cold cuts, which can be salami, turkey or, appropriately, bologna.

If I have cold cuts, I may add a slice or two of cheese. Or maybe not. After all, I want to keep my boyish figure.

Pickles or tomatoes? Another big decision.

After that, I have to pick a condiment: mayonnaise or mustard. If I can’t cut the mustard, I’ll give a mayo clinic. Or I’ll just slather on both of them.

Then I slap the second slice of bread on top, cut the sandwich in two and bring it to the table.

By the time I finally sit down to lunch, Sue is already asking me what I want for dinner. It’s a good thing I don’t have to make it or we’d never eat.

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima

"The Oak's on Me"

By Jerry Zezima

I know I am going out on a limb by saying this, but in our yard, everything happens in trees.

The stately sentinels — mostly oaks, although a modest maple stands out front — serve as headquarters for birds that poop on our cars and squirrels that ravage the garden. The trees also have a nasty habit of being hit by lightning, dropping on power lines and falling on neighbors’ houses.

So my wife, Sue, and I called an arbor care specialist who got to the root of the problem by taking down a couple of sickly specimens and pruning others so much that our property looked like a branch office.

I love trees, especially maples, which I get all sappy about because they produce sweet, delicious syrup.

But I am not so enamored of oaks, which supposedly are the strongest trees but which litter the yard with twigs if even the mildest breeze blows through.

They also drop disgusting brown gunk that stains our vehicles, clogs the gutters and leaves the yard looking like a herd of cattle fertilized it.

And don’t get me started with acorns, which the squirrels love but which drive me — you guessed it — nuts.

Still, the deciduous darlings wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t topple over like drunken revelers.

The first time it happened, on a dry, windless morning, I was upstairs in my office, working hard to avoid working, when I heard a tremendous crash. I looked out the window to see that a not-so-mighty oak on our side of the fence had fallen on the attached garage of the house next door.

Fortunately, our neighbors are very nice people who said they wanted to get a new roof but couldn’t afford one.

“Now our insurance company can pay for it,” the guy said.

“Thanks,” his wife added.

“You’re very welcome,” I replied. “It was nothing.”

The next mishap occurred when one of two towering oaks in the backyard was hit by lightning. I was shocked — shocked! — to see zapping going on there.

Sure enough, the top of the tree had been sheared off.

We called the aforementioned arbor care specialist, who came over with a crew that used a chainsaw on the fallen wood and gave a crewcut to the rest of the treetop, leaving it looking like Curly of the Three Stooges.

Logs littered the yard, so I loaded them into the car and drove, with Sue, to the dump. It was our 42nd wedding anniversary.

“Isn’t it romantic?” I cooed.

My bride’s gaze told me in no uncertain terms that I was a lumber-jerk.

A couple of years ago, the top of a neighbor’s tree — an oak, naturally — collapsed onto power lines above our property. The electrical box on the back of our house was ripped off, the power went out and the torn and tumbled treetop, which fell for no discernible reason aside from maybe ants or termites but certainly not wind, lay in a heap next to the fence in our backyard.

The neighbors (not the same ones whose roof was smashed by one of our trees) paid for half the cost charged by the arbor care guy to cut up and cart away the rotten wood. Insurance covered damage to the house.

Most recently, a storm toppled the top of yet another oak in our backyard. Back came the tree crew to cut it up, take down the rest of the tree, fell the one that was hit by lightning, and prune dead branches from other trees, including the big oak in front of the house that provides plenty of shade in the summer but makes our lawn look like it was manicured with a flamethrower.

The work was good not only for our house and property, but for the trees themselves.

“Now the birds can’t poop on our cars,” said Sue. “And it looks like the squirrels have been dispossessed.”

“If they think they’re coming back to drive me nuts with their acorns,” I said, “they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima

"Leave It to Geezer"

By Jerry Zezima

The day after I turned 70, I got an email urging me to buy burial insurance.

“Now more than ever, it’s time to make sure your family is protected,” it said. “You may qualify for amazing rates on burial policies!”

I was sure I didn’t qualify because I am not — at least so far — dead.

But I began to wonder if reaching a milestone, which is better than having a kidney stone, makes advertisers think you are not long for this world.

Even if you are still alive, you may be considered so decrepit that you will need to spend all the money you plan to leave to your family, which in my case would keep them in the lap of luxury for about a week and a half, on such geezer necessities as hearing aids, walk-in bathtubs, liposuction, hernia mesh implants, and knee or hip replacements.

I’ve gotten email pitches for them, too.

When I told this to my mother, Rosina, who will turn 100 in November and is sharper than I am (so are houseplants, but that’s another story), she said, “Even I don’t get these emails. They must think I’m dead.”

Granted, Mom already has hearing aids, all the better (or worse) to pick up my stupid jokes.

“Maybe I should take them out when you’re here,” she said.

Her knees give her a lot of trouble, which means she will be sidelined for the baseball season. But at 99, she’s too old to get replacements.

“I’d bounce back from the surgery,” she said, noting that she has recovered from several broken bones in the past decade, “but I don’t like hospital food. So I’ll use my walker and do laps around the house.”

“I may be 70, but I’m not too old for a knee replacement,” I said.

“Do you need one?” Mom asked.

“No,” I replied.

“How about a brain replacement?” she inquired.

“I haven’t gotten any offers,” I said.

“Keep checking your email,” Mom said. “It would be worth the money.”

My wife, Sue, who is my age, agreed.

“You could probably use one,” she said.

Since we are about to begin a bathroom renovation, I asked Sue if she wanted a walk-in bathtub.

“No!” she said. “What am I, 90?”

Sue also said she gets emails about burial insurance and knee replacements.

“They must think I’m old,” said Sue, who is very youthful.

I admit that we should consider getting hearing aids because we frequently can’t make out what the other one is saying.

“You don’t listen to a word I say,” Sue will say.

I know she says this because every once in a while, I am actually listening.

Other times, Sue will start to say something while she is walking away. When I don’t respond, she will say that I am not paying attention.

If I do respond, she will say that she was talking to herself.

When I say something, it’s usually not worth listening to.

And when we are watching TV, one of us will ask the other to turn up the volume.

“Alarming fact: More than 48 million Americans hear so poorly that their quality of life significantly suffers as a result,” one hearing aid ad claims.

I hear what they’re saying, but I am going to pass up this tempting offer. In fact, I am going to ignore all the other email pitches I have been getting since I turned 70.

“Let’s print them out, dig a hole in the backyard and dump them in,” I told Sue. “Then those annoying companies could pay us for burial insurance.”

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima