C O M P E T E

I love New York. And I love Coney Island. What is not to like; Nathan's, the boardwalk and much more. My first stop (after visiting my 105 yr old grandmother and my wonderful Aunt Frannie and equally wonderful Uncle Frank) was Coney Island. And what a day. Sunny, sixty-five degrees. I stopped at Nathan's and had two dogs (Peggy is in Seattle!) and walked the boardwalk and saw the sites. I love Coney Island, it is one of my happy places, perhaps my favorite. Yeah, it is run down, scary and has seen better days; but I love being there, people watching (no better place in the world) and just hanging out.

And EVERYTIME I go there I always walk down far enough to see the outside handball courts that are on the non seas-side of the boardwalk and I watch the men play handball. And do they ever play hard. There is a crowd playing every time I go there, no matter the weather. They are not great athletes, they will never be on TV but they play a silly game so hard, like their life was on the line. It is real to them. They play for pride and for something we all need to reach down and get in touch with....they play to compete. They want to feel like winners.

Lets face it, if you can hang out at 2:30 and lay it all out on the handball courts of Coney Island on a Wednesday, you probably do not have that much going on in your life. Most likely not much else in their lives make them feel so good. This is the level we need to approach our baseball game on. When we play, when we strap it on we want to C O M P E T E. Their is nothing else going on at that time. We C O M P E T E, even though we will never know why.







I love New York. And I love Coney Island.