I’ve learned a lot about baseball from my husband Mike Knezovich over the years, but one aspect of the game that still confounds me is pitching. Which direction do curve balls curve? What’s the difference between a slider and a cutter?

Thanks to our generous friends Don Horvath and Juli Crabtree, we were able to enjoy last night’s White Sox win against the Detroit Tigers. Fans were given “Stretch Sale toys at the door to commemorate White Sox pitcher Chris Sale’s single-season record-breaking 270 strikeouts. I fondled my Stretch Sale throughout the game, and now I finally understand why legendary Los Angeles Dodgers baseball announcer Vin Scully refers to him as “Mr. Bones” and others liken the 170-pound 6’7” left-hander’s wind-up to a strained inverted w “ akin to a scarecrow.”

The Chris Sale action figure I got at last night’s game.

Mike is always around to answer my baseball questions, and good radio announcers like the Brewers’ Bob Uecker, the Tampa Bay Rays’ Dave Wills, and Giants’ Jonathan Miller have been a big help in my understanding the game, but I am still left to wonder how it is that baseball fanatics and skilled announcers can accurately predict that the next pitch will be a change-up or a braking ball, or more simply, a strike or a ball.

And so, at this time each year, as we enter the playoffs, I turn to literature to help me better understand how pitching works. And year after year, literature has disappointed me.

Perfect I’m Not by David Wells taught me more about beer, brawls, and backaches than about pitching a baseball. I found Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, annoying, probably because Jim Bouton reads the audio book himself, and he’s pretty arrogant. Author Buzz Bissinger follows the St. Louis Cardinals through a 2003 three-game stint against the Chicago Cubs Three Nights in August. The book was entertaining because I’d listened to that three-game series myself on the radio (2003 was the year Mike and I moved to Chicago) but I would have learned a lot more about pitching if Bissinger’s book had focused on Cardinal pitching coach Dave Duncan’s decision-making rather than fawning over Tony La Russa.

I’d just about given up learning anything about pitching from reading books when I opened up my daily Writer’s Almanac online on Saturday, September 19 and learned it was Roger Angell’s birthday that day. The almanac said Angell was born in New York in 1920, and his mother and stepfather were well known in the literary world. His mother was Katharine Sergeant Angell, the longtime New Yorker fiction editor, and his step-father was E.B. White, the essayist and children’s author.

The almanac said Roger Angell started working for The New Yorker in 1956 and is best known for writing about baseball. “He was 79 when he published his first full-length book, A Pitcher’s Story.”

What? A Pitcher’s Story? I looked for Angell’s first “full-length book” on BARD, the Library of Congress National Library Service that provides audio books free of charge to people who are blind or visually handicapped, and bingo! A Pitcher’s Story was available. It did not disappoint.

Example? In Chapter 7 (called “Get a Grip”) Angell is sitting in the Yankee bullpen and asks pitcher David Cone to describe how he holds a baseball for each pitch, and what he expects to happen next. He asks readers to put down their book and “root around the house for an old baseball.” I did as I was told and found mine in my top dresser drawer, signed by White Sox pitcher Roberto Hernandez after I met him in a sports store in the late 1990s and asked to feel the circumference of his upper arm with my two hands. Oh, my.

But back to Roger Angell’s “A Pitcher’s Story:

The ball, it will be seen, keeps representing a horseshoe curve of stitches when rotated. There are four of them. If we grab a horseshoe so that the first and middle-finger fingertips just slip over the top broadmost curve of the stitches, a red row of stiching will appear to run down the aver side of both fingers, as if to frame them. With these two fingers slightly parted, the odd conviction comes that you’re on top of the ball.

”This is the two—seamer,” Cone tells Angell in the book. “You’ve got it!” Cone describes how to adjust the two-seamer into a four-seamer, and how four-seamers are meant to cut the wind, while two-seamers tend to sink. “The one-liner is just a variation on the two-seamer,” Cone says. “Let your finger slip a little toward the wider white area of the ball, and you press down more with your forefinger.” “They moved on from there to the curve, the slider, the splitter, and Angell acknowledges that he’d hoped to sit down with Cone before one of his starts so Cone might go over one of the other team’s batting orders, describe each batters’ strengths and weaknesses and let Angell know his plans. “It was a dumb idea,” Angell concedes, and while I get back to playing with my Chris Sale doll, I’ll leave you with Roger Angell explaining why that was so dumb:

Each hitter and turn at bat presents the pitcher not with a fixed offensive array, but with something fluid and conditional, a cloud chamber of variables. The count, the score, the inning, the number of outs, the position of base runners, the umpire’s strike zone, capability of the outfielders, the quickness of the catcher, how much you can trust this particular receiver to handle the splitter in the dirt, the runner at third, how this next hitter was swinging in his last at-bat and the one before that.

Let the playoffs begin!

I grew up with my mom, my dad, and my sister. My dad’s family lived in the Pittsburgh area, so we saw them infrequently, only when we’d make the trek East (always grand visits). My mom was Italian—maiden name Latini—and her Italian family feuded in a way that made the Godfather look tame. As a result of the estrangement, big family gatherings became a thing of the past by the time I was a teenager.

Then Beth and I got married.

Holy moley. Six brothers and sisters. And there is not an infertility problem in the bunch. I have one blood nephew, my late sister’s son Aaron, and really, I’d probably be content with that one wonderful guy. But, by marriage I have…I don’t know. I lose count of the nieces and nephews. And their kids. Yikes.

Beth posted earlier that a lot of these brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews would converge on Chicago this past weekend. The occasion: Brian, the son of Beth’s sister Bev and her husband Lon Miller, returned to the United States for the first time in a few years. He teaches English in Japan, and also is an accomplished photographer.

Brian was at the center of the weekend’s festivities

Brian and his crew (sister Stacey, her husband Ryan, their son Bryce, and Bev) went to a Cubs game Thursday afternoon. We met them for a bite to eat after the game and then they headed to a Bears pre-season game. I’m already tired writing this.

On Friday, Bev and Brian joined our nephew Ben (son of Beth’s sister Cheryl) for the afternoon opener of the Cubs-White Sox series at U.S. Cellular. By all accounts it was a splendid day, except for the outcome if you’re a Sox fan. I’m a Sox fan.

Beth and I threw a party that evening at our place. Well, we ordered pizza and Harold’s Chicken (it’s the best, btw) and bought boxes of wine and a mini-keg of beer. Luckily, this is not a pretentious crew. Finke family members came from as far away as Orlando, Fla. (Beth’s sister Marilee, her daughter Jen, and Jen’s daughter Kennedy aka “Toots” Ulen), Louisville, Ky. (jazz trombonist and Beth’s brother Doug), and Indianapolis, Ind. (Doug’s daughter Marsha). Plus all those Millers from Michigan. Oh, did I mention Beth’s niece Janet and her brood came in from the suburbs?

Now. Back to Brian. He and his mother left a close game early in order to be at our place for the party. I had to report to him (a Cub fan) that indeed, the Cubs had hung on to win a close game. The words didn’t come easy.

We ate, drank, and then headed down to see the Fat Babies at Summer Dance. I’ve posted here before about Summer Dance. It’s always a wonderful scene, but it’s never been better than Friday night. Clear skies, a cooling breeze, a crowded dance floor, and…we snagged a picnic table! That never happens.

The music was superb—the Fat Babies play traditional jazz and have become kind of a thing. At one point, Beth’s brother Doug (the jazz musician) was compelled to stop our chatter and interject: “I just want you to know, that what they’re doing right now sounds effortless but it’s really, really hard.” And, once I stopped to listen closely, I realized what he was talking about.

The next day Ben (remember the nephew from the ball game earlier) and his wife Julie (they have four children) hosted a backyard pool party in the suburbs. Beth stayed here in Chicago to meet her niece Jen and Jen’s friends for breakfast. 

I stayed home and took a long nap.

That evening, Brian and company, Beth, I and Marilee (that’s a sister, remember) convened at Hackney’s. It was great to get to talk to everyone, especially to Brian, who has some fantastic stories, worthy of their own space, about Japan and its culture and his photography.

Sox win. Cubs lose. Love my flag.

The finale: The Sunday afternoon Cubs-Sox game. The Cubs got the better of it for the first two games of the series. But I was confident. Chris Sale was pitching that day. That usually means good things for the Sox. I knew I’d be going along with the group to the Sunday game, and when I saw the pitching matchup earlier in the week, I got a brilliant and evil idea.

The Cubs have a tradition: when the Cubs win, they fly a W flag at Wrigley Field. When they lose, they, to their credit, also fly an L flag. The Cub fans have taken to flying W flags in the stands when their baby bears manage to win a game.  They love doing it. Especially when they invade stadiums on the road.

Somehow, unlike the organization, they don’t unfurl the L flag after a loss.

Anyway. Sunday afternoon. White Sox leading 3-0 after a dominating, 15-strikeout game by Chris Sale. Top of the ninth inning. Two out. I reach into my pocket. And then…a home run by Jorge Soler off our closer David Robertson. I took my hand out of my pocket.

Then an infield single. Argh. Homer ties it.

Then…a bouncer to second. Sox win!

With that, I reached back into my pocket and unfurled the beautiful L flag I’d ordered earlier that week (yes, they sell them) and that had arrived just in time. Me and that flag are on a lot of Sox fans’ Facebook pages today.

I was with Brian, Bev, Stacey, Ben, Ben’s son Colin—all Cub fans. But they took crazy Uncle Mike’s antic in stride. (Stacey’s husband Ryan was also there, but being a Detroit Tigers fan, he was agnostic.)

I paraded the flag down the ramp, drawing a lot of “awesome dudes” along the way. I was spritzed by water by a Cub fan, but thankfully, nobody slugged me.

We rode the Red Line home, where Brian, Bev and crew collected their luggage before heading to Union Station for the train home to Michigan.

Before they left, Brian, gave me a Hanshin Fighting Tigers jersey. Brian has become a big Japanese baseball fan, and the Fighting Tigers have an especially funky history. They have a curse, like the Cubs, only instead of a goat, theirs involves KFC (yes, the chicken place). All I can say is the jersey is really cool.

Thanks for that, Brian, and thanks especially for visiting. And thanks Finkes, all XXXXX of you, for a great weekend. I need another nap, though.

Who could resist an invite to a panel discussion called “Disability and Sexuality: Everything you wanted to know about disability and sex but were afraid to ask…?”

That’s Bethany Stevens.

I sure couldn’t. At the very least, the panel would give me material for my part-time job moderating the Easter Seals blog. At best, I might pick up some pointers for personal use!

The panel took place last Friday evening at Access Living (a non-profit organization in Chicago for people with disabilities) and was promoted like this:

A panel of “sexperts” will join our guest speaker, Bethany Stevens, J.D., M.A. (blogger of Crip Confessions) for a juicy, frank and sexy conversation about CripSex!

The promotional material also teased, ahem, that before the panel started, “disability-sex-friendly businesses will join us for a CripSex fair, providing free goodies and important information.”

I made sure to get there before the panel.

When Whitney led me into the “Crip Sex Fair,” she pulled me forward about ten or twelve feet and then suddenly stopped. I figured we were at a table, but I was reluctant to reach out and discover what “goodies” were laying there. I finally mustered up the courage, stretched my arm out to grope the goodies, and felt…the push handles of a wheelchair! We weren’t at a table at all. We were in line to talk to a saleswoman from one of the “sex-disability-friendly” businesses there.

I eavesdropped on the woman in that wheelchair, of course. When she reached the front of the line, I heard her using halting speech to compliment the saleswoman. “I love your store,” she said. I paid close attention to understand every word, and I’m quite sure I heard her say she’d celebrated her 18th birthday by going to that shop with a friend.

I won’t disclose what she was looking for there, but I can tell you that staff members helped her find what she wanted. “They actually wanted me to take my time and look around — they said I could stay as long as I wanted,” she marveled. “You all were nicer to me than the people at Wal-Mart.”

The saleswoman sounded pleased. “I’m really happy to hear that,” she said. “We train our staff to be open to people with all sorts of needs.” I didn’t hear any of the people from the sex-disability-friendly businesses mention devices or toys made especially for people with disabilities, just a lot of talk on things they sold that might be easier to use than others or could be adjusted to fit a person’s particular needs.

The CripSex Fair was only open one hour. I picked up a free goodie before they closed, and just like the old classic movies used to do, I’m going to leave the intimate details about that to your imagination.

Time for the panel discussion. Only two panelists: Sergio Tundo from Chicago House (a social service agency serving individuals and families disenfranchised by HIV/AIDS) and Bethany Stevens, a faculty member at Georgia State University who studies, teaches and writes about disability and sexuality. Bethany has brittle bone disease and uses a wheelchair. Sergio never said anything about having a disability himself, and without being able to see him, I couldn’t tell.

The panel discussion was promoted to people with disabilities of any sort, but the focus was really on people with physical disabilities. They gathered cards with questions from the audience, and Bethany announced that the questions fell into three categories. “Raise your hands or make noise for the category you’re most interested in learning about,” she said, listing the three as:

• Relationships
• Nuts & bolts, or
• Miscellaneous

The panelists sounded as surprised as I was when the audience chose “Miscellaneous,” but they just shrugged and took it from there.

“Since we have people here with expertise in things like sex workers and other ways of doing things, this first question is an important one,” Bethany said, and my heart sank as she read it. “What is the best way to start a conversation with your personal care assistant or personal assistant agency about sex facilitation?”

Jeeeez. It’s hard enough to get around day to day when you have a physical disability, isn’t it? They have to think about this, too?

In the end, most of the questions in the “miscellaneous” pile had to do with personal care assistants:

• If you’ve been using the same personal care assistant for a long time, and you like them, and you know they will probably not be open or comfortable with helping you with this, should you even bring it up?
• How does it affect interaction if there is a need for another person to assist in the sexual experience., but that third party is not sexually involved with the other two?
• If two people with physical disabilities would need an able-bodied person to help them move, how does that third person behave in the relationship?
• What are some of the best practices for facilitating the experience if you are the personal care assistant?

I didn’t hear one lewd comment after these questions were asked, and not one titter, either. I did hear some answers, and learned about some new ideas, too. Example: San Francisco is working on a program similar to e-harmony to match people with disabilities and personal care assistants. The person who needs the P.C.A. spells out what they need, the personal care assistant fills out a form describing the services they are willing to offer, and you match up that way. Others shared things that have worked for them –- and things that haven’t. By the time I left, I’d changed from thinking it all was sad to thinking it was all pretty cool. People together, talking frankly, sharing stories and offering suggestions.

And I came home with a free goodie, too.

College basketball fans are about to embark on a month-long orgy of tournament basketball, betting, brackets, trash talking, buzzer beaters, triumph and heartbreak.

I’ll be watching, pulling for my standbys (since Illinois is limping along these days) Wisconsin (our son Gus’ team) and Michigan State (we love Tom Izzo and Beth’s sister in Michigan is a big fan).

But March Madness has lost a lot of luster for me. Some of it is just endemic to modern life—overblown overexposure, familiarity breeds contempt.

Rosenstein might be onto something.

Also, though, there is this: This notion of “college sports” is just harder and harder to swallow. It’s really a giant industry that enriches pretty much everyone associated with it except the athletes and – this is the kicker – the educational institutions.

Athletic departments are intentionally set up as essentially independent affiliates of universities. Athletic departments  have their own budgets, staff gets company cars and other perks that are donated by local business, and corporate sponsorship money. Universities provide scholarships and in many cases, help fund sports facilities in one way or another. But revenue does not flow back to the institutions for educational purposes.

Colleges and universities do get publicity from their sports teams. Theoretically, that could translate into donations directly to the university, but the evidence just isn’t there. To be sure, universities receive licensing fees from the sale of goods that have their logos. But that’s about it. That TV money? It goes to the athletic departments.

College costs are increasing radically (largely because of administrative bloat, but that’s another subject for another time), while the NCAA and college sports is minting money.

Jay Rosenstein is a journalism professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He just penned what is in my view a completely reasonable proposition to reduce tuition costs at the U of I. The Big Ten is about to get a windfall from a new TV contract. Jay’s proposition in a nutshell: Keep athletic budgets exactly where they are, and divert the new TV money to reduce tuition. He says the TV money  would be enough to reduce tuition by 25 percent.

Several outlets picked up Jay’s piece, and I hope you’ll give it a read. Another piece at the Washington Post titled 5 Myths about college sports is also worth the time.

In short, right now we have an industry that derives all of its branding and legitimacy from colleges and universities without  contributing a whole to the true business of the institutions. That is indeed madness.

Today, January 4, is the birthday of Louis Braille. He was born in France in 1809, and his father had a leather shop. Note to children: be careful out there! Three-year-old Louis lost his sight after playing with his father’s sharp tools and accidentally poking his eyes.

Louis Braille’s parents did what they could to give their son a normal life. He was the best student in his school, and he became an accomplished organist and cellist. When he was 15, he simplified an idea that had been used in the French army to send messages that soldiers could read in the dark, encoding individual letters rather than sounds. He represented each letter by a different arrangement of six dots packed close enough that each letter could be read by a single fingertip.

Today, reading and writing of Braille is something of a dying art. There are now far more audio versions of books than there are books printed in Braille, and there are software programs to convert written text into audio. Today fewer than 20 percent of blind children in this country learn to read Braille. Technology is cool, but how will these children ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and so on? I didn’t lose my sight until I was 26 years old, so I was fortunate to learn all of that when I could still read print. I’m not proficient in Braille now, but the little I know sure comes in handy when I want to confirm what floor I’m on when I get off an elevator or to label CDs, file folders and buttons on electronic devices at home.

You blog readers out there who have a print copy of Hanni And Beth: Safe & Sound on your bookshelf should pat yourself on the back. You know a good children’s book when you see it, and your purchase has helped create more Braille books for children: My publisher, Blue Marlin Publications donates a portion of the proceeds from sales of every print version of Safe & Sound to Seedlings Braille Books for Children, a small non-profit organization in Michigan that provides high quality, low cost Braille books for children.

Over the past seven years, Blue Marlin Publications has donated thousands of dollars to Seedlings.

By producing Braille books for children, Seedlings helps promote “literacy for the blind,” providing visually impaired children equal opportunity to develop a love of reading. Safe & Sound is one of the books available in Braille from Seedlings, which means I’ve been able to read parts of the book aloud at the presentations I’ve been doing since Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound was published in 2007.

To find out how to order a copy of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in Braille, or to donate to Seedlings to help them create more books in Braille for kids, link to www.seedlings.org. Every ten dollar donation makes another Braille book possible.