As you may know, it all goes back to 2002, when the All-Star game ended in a 7-7 tie because both teams ran out of players after 11 innings. That caused commissioner Bud Selig a great deal of embarrassment, especially because the game was played in his hometown of Milwaukee.

As a result, Major League Baseball has spent the past decade or so continuously tinkering with the All-Star format and selection process. The biggest change is that, in an effort to add meaning to the game, the winning league now receives home field advantage in the World Series. This has resulted in a number of bizarre contradictions:

1. Although the game determines something important, the players don’t seem to care any more than they used to. You have a bunch of halfway interested guys on vacation deciding which league has home field.
2. The All-Star game is played totally differently than a regular season game, with players switching out constantly, and pitchers only throwing an inning or, at most, two. They even have strange rules, like allowing catchers to exit and subsequently re-enter the game.
3. The best position players, theoretically, start the game, but by the ninth inning, they’re long gone. With the game (and home field in the World Series) on the line in the late innings, it’s the worst All-Stars who determine the outcome.
4. Many of the players in the All-Star game represent teams with no chance to go to the World Series, so the home field contrivance does not actually make the game more meaningful for them, at least not directly. Why would an Astros player care where the Phillies play game one of the World Series.

So, yes, the whole “this time it counts” thing can be pretty annoying. Another point of frustration is the method by which players are selected for the game, which has become increasing complicated and confusing.

First, the fans vote for the starters. Then the managers name some reserves. Then the players vote for some more reserves. Then the fans vote again, this time for the “final player” in each league. But those final players aren’t really final players at all because a bunch of guys, maybe a dozen or more, pull out because of injuries or because they’re a pitcher in need of more rest or because of mental anguish, stubbed toes, birthday parties, whatever. Confused yet? The ones who beg off are replaced by dudes whose names are chosen based on how funny they sound as judged by a committee of 13 women who pick their NCAA brackets based on the mascots … or something.

From the outset, last night’s home run derby seemed plagued by the same order of gimmickry. Rather than a home run hitting contest between eight individuals, there was supposed to be some vague team concept, with the leagues squaring off against each other, somehow, maybe (in the end, the final round featured only American League sluggers). In yet another pointless complication, two of the hitters—David Ortiz for the AL and Prince Fielder for the NL—were “captains” and had picked their respective squads at what I can only assume was a super-secret, elementary-school-playground-style event, where all the players in each league lined up and hoped not to be picked last. Feelings were certainly hurt.

Exacerbating these issues is the plain fact that year after year the announcing for the home run derby is nauseating. Last night’s team of Chris Berman, John Kruk, and Nomar Garciaparra was just as horrible as any habitual home run derby viewer would have anticipated. Undoubtedly, most of the blame falls on Berman, who knows absolutely nothing about baseball.

E.G. At one point during the broadcast, the commentators interviewed Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates live from the booth. Berman asked the speedy center fielder if he admired Ortiz, the slovenly, steroid-using, home-run-hitting designated hitter. The odd question clearly befuddled McCutchen, who paused for a second before finally saying something unrelated about trying to take in the entire All-Star experience. The whole uncomfortable mess was simply the latest example of Berman’s signature clueless telecasts.

To the outside observer, it is apparent that the only reason ESPN allows him to do the play-by-play for the derby at all is his redundant, infantile, and annoying home run call: “Back, back, back, back, etc., back, back, …, back, another back or two … gone.”

I knew just about everything I listed above going into this year’s derby, but I decided to watch it anyway, because the alternative was helping my wife pack for a business trip and I have a low tolerance for repeating “Don’t forget your toothbrush” ad nauseum.

The first round of the derby was fairly uninspiring, with six of the eight players hitting five or fewer home runs (Adrian Gonzalez managed nine; Robinson Cano hit eight). Compare those totals to Josh Hamilton’s 28 from the first round in 2008, and you have a lot of bored viewers. Matt Kemp of the Dodgers only managed to hit a meager two homers, though he didn’t let that stop him from sending exponentially more tweets from the field.

But unlike Hamilton, who expended all of his energy in the first round and managed only seven homers in the second and final rounds combined, Cano and Gonzalez hit more as the derby went along. In the second round, Gonzalez hit 11 and Cano hit 12, giving them matching two-round totals of 20. That was more than enough to put them through to the finals, with no one else even reaching double figures.

I’m not exactly sure when I stopped being annoyed by the announcers and started feeling caught up in the moment. It was probably around the time I realized who was pitching to Robinson Cano.

Participants in the home run derby choose their own pitchers and usually opt for a coach or bullpen catcher. To hit 20 home runs on 40 swings, you need someone skilled enough to throw the ball in the same place repeatedly, but not so skilled that the ball cuts or curves.

Rather than calling on one of his coaches, Robinson gave the job to his father, Jose Cano, who pitched briefly in the Major Leagues for the Houston Astros. It was a touching gesture, not only because it was a wonderful father-son moment, the kind that those of us with wonderful fathers can appreciate, but also because it was so genuine. This wasn’t hype. This wasn’t a play for publicity in the New York tabloids. Jose simply mentioned to his son that he could do the job. After all, who knows Robinson Cano’s breathtakingly perfect swing better than his own father?

Gonzalez went first and hit a final-round-record-tying 11 homers. Since they switched to the current format (more or less) in 2000, the competition had never seen both hitters reach double digits in the final.

As Cano stepped to the plate, the camera zoomed in on his father. Jose was not smiling; he was here to win. With dad’s help, Robinson blasted impossibly long homer after impossibly long homer. He hit balls off the back walls of the park. He hit balls so far ESPN could not even estimate the distance. And still his father did not smile. When Robinson reached 10 home runs, his father held up two fingers, just two more, but his stoic look remained. When Cano launched homer No. 12 a couple pitches later, winning the derby with a few outs to spare, finally father and son could embrace. They ran together and hugged in the middle of the diamond, Jose’s face finally breaking into a grin. Robinson’s Yankee teammates rushed out to congratulate him, too.

It was the sort of moment that inspires sports writers to pen fake poetry. In his one season in the big leagues, 1989, Jose Cano pitched 23 innings, allowing two home runs. In a few hours on Monday night, he gave up 32 long balls to his son. Each time he turned around to see one of his pitches flying over the fence, he felt proud.

Truly, no pitcher has ever been happier to give up so many home runs.

But here’s my problem: When a person invokes his right not to incriminate himself, it seems to me that he is admitting his guilt.

The amendment says you don’t have to testify against yourself. But it doesn’t, at least not explicitly, allow you to withhold testimony in any other situation. You can’t refuse to testify for yourself; you have no right against self-exoneration. Thus, it seemed to me, a person can only invoke the Fifth Amendment if they did something wrong, something, um,  incriminating.

I have asked several people about this but never received a satisfactory explanation. Until today, when one of my fellow editors, Jonah, cleared up the whole messy thing.

In my head, the Fifth Amendment scenario was always something like this: During a murder trial, the defendant is on the stand. On cross examination, the prosecutor asks the accused, point blank, “Did you murder the victim?” And instead of denying it, the defendant pleads the Fifth. Everyone in the courtroom is flabbergasted. This guy did it.

Under that circumstance, no, pleading the Fifth doesn’t make a lot of sense. But  that isn’t how it really happens, Jonah tells me. Unless the defendant is going to unequivocally deny the crime, the defense would never put him on the stand in the first place (a strategy that represents a more common use of the Fifth Amendment than actually invoking it under questioning).

Instead, the Fifth Amendment comes into play with regards to ancillary details. A falsely accused innocent man might say, “I did not rob that bank.” The prosecutor then might ask him, “But isn’t it true that you own the same model of gun and the same getaway car as were used in the crime?” It is a time like this when the Fifth Amendment gains some appeal.

Indeed, in Ohio v. Reiner, the Supreme Court says the following: “This Court has never held, however, that the privilege is unavailable to those who claim innocence. To the contrary, the Court has emphasized that one of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions is to protect innocent persons who might otherwise be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.”

***

When it comes to birthday wishes on Facebook, I’m fickle. My usual strategy is to limit happy birthdays to people I would stop to chat with if I saw them at a grocery store, gym, or county fair.

Such a principle would not be necessary if I didn’t have so many Facebook friends whom I hardly know in reality, but their admission into my online clique was an unavoidable consequence of an ongoing competition between Rachael and me to see who can make more virtual “friends.”

Despite every effort to enforce my would-stop-to-talk-to-him-or-her rule, I have found myself forgetting the birthdays of my closest real-life friends while extending well-wishes to, say, the friends of my real friends’ younger siblings. I write happy birthday on the walls of people I wish I knew rather than those I actually do.

If I had a point, this is probably where I would have come to it. Alas, these feelings posts are really more about idle observation than cohesive argument.

I will say, though, that while thinking about this it occurred to me that the word friend has lost much of its meaning. Friends are the people I have known for years, with whom I have shared tears and laughs and long, reflective nights. But friends are also the people who allow my inner voyeur access to their relationship statuses.

It strikes me that my life would probably be better if I didn’t take the time to ponder things like a strategy for choosing who to wish a happy birthday. It would probably improve further if I invested the mindless hours I spend on Facebook doing just about anything else instead.

***

A beard competition strikes me as the best possible way for apathetic slackers to actually succeed at something. Just sit around for a couple of years, and you’ll have a giant beard. Growing a beard requires so little effort, it’s primary requirement is to not do something (shave).

Beard enthusiasts would probably protest, arguing that much labor and care goes into grooming a world-class beard, but waxing your mustache, no matter how vigorously, is not exactly quantum physics.

***

Lt. Col. Michael Rowells flew from Afghanistan, where he is in the middle of his first combat tour, to Dubai to play a round of golf with Tiger Woods. Rowells beat 16,000 other amateurs for the chance to play a round with one of his heroes. It’s a nice story, but if I were Rowells’ wife, Molly, I might be a little nervous. She hasn’t seen her husband in months, and now he is spending a day with the world’s most famous adulterer.

***

We’re more than a month into 2011, and I’m feeling pretty good about my resolutions. I haven’t eaten a French fry. And I have only taken a single sip of soda, unwittingly, when I sampled a cocktail Rachael was drinking.

I have not dined at any large national chain restaurants, which I defined as those with 50 locations or more. I have eaten at a couple of smaller chains: Dewey’s Pizza (17 locations) and Bar Louie (46 locations).

Bar Louie was a close one, and not surprisingly, I didn’t love it. Maybe next year, I’ll cut out smaller chains, too. More likely, I’ll have moved on, dedicating myself to some other seemingly meaningless cause.

“No,” the doctor replies, “but it will sure feel that way.”

***

Other than my two most obvious skills — breaking promises about this website and annoying my wife — the thing in life I think I’m best at is setting goals.

Reaching them, well, that’s another story. I would like to think I have accomplished many of my goals in life — I graduated from high school and college, made good grades, did some internships, landed a great job. But if you measure by percentage, considering the scores of goals I am constantly setting, I’m not doing too great. For every objective I’ve completed, there are several more I’ve fallen far short of.

Yes, I hold a bachelor’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, but a business degree from Harvard, a journalism degree from Columbia, and a creative writing degree from Iowa are all still on my endless “to-do” list, where they will likely stay for a long time.

Lately (meaning over the past couple of years), I have found myself making as many goals about things I would like to stop doing as things I would like to start doing. I want to cut unnecessary things out of my life, not because I want to live forever — like the man from the joke — but because I know I will not. I only have so much time, and I do not want to waste it eating at McDonald’s, watching Vanilla Ice remodel homes on the DIY Network, or reading crummy blog posts when I could be writing ones of my own.

I wish to live as a postmodern quasi-ascetic, abstaining from instant consumerist pleasures in order to find deeper satisfaction, and maybe a little meaning.

My sophomore year of college, I decided I would no longer drink soda, but I have broken the ban at least a dozen times. A year later, I decided to give up French fries, but I have since eaten them a few times, twice in the past month (not counting the one or two fries I habitually steal from my wife’s plate at restaurants).

And about a month ago, after my wife and I spent nearly $500 eating out in November, mostly at places I don’t even like, I decided to stop visiting large chain restaurants. It only took three weeks before a Subway gift card arrived in the mail and proved just how pathetic I am at self-discipline. In some ways, it feels like an achievement that I have only screwed up once.

But I know I can do better. On the brink of a new year, I am redoubling my efforts and adding a new one. In 2011, I will not ingest a single drop of soda nor even one measly fry. I will make a total of zero visits to chain restaurants, which I will arbitrarily define as those with at least 50 locations nationwide.

And the new one: I will not watch any reality television shows, especially those involving former members of Poison, former members of Public Enemy, anyone named Kardashian, pregnant children, groups of spoiled kids from California, actors attempting to do anything but act (e.g. dance or skate), people who fill their homes with trash, or the previously mentioned one-hit wonder white rap artist. I may still watch Pawn Stars because that show is awesome.

In place of these things, I hope to sample local eateries and to read. I would like to increase the population of the “Magazine Stories” section of the site to at least 100 of my favorites by the end of the year.

As always, good luck to me. I’ll let you know how I do.

But I’ve been making empty promises about the blog for quite a while and I have a whole list of half-finished posts, so my goal is to end my unemployment with a bang. If all goes according to plan, which it rarely does, this post will be followed by several others in the next few days. Good luck to me.

***

As you may have learned in the previous two posts in this series, I am one of the most powerful good luck charms in sports history. In 2009, I went to five Yankees games, and they won them all. This past season, I went to 10 Knicks games, and they managed to go 5-5 in those contests, despite going 24-48 in games I didn’t attend, a .333 winning percentage.

This year, I wanted to use the baseball season as a sort of luck experiment. I wanted to determine just how lucky I really am.

You see, the Yankees, who won the World Series 22 times before I was even born, are always so good on their own that it’s difficult to tell just how important a role my luck plays in their success.

Thus, in an effort to ascertain the limits of my luck, I decided to expand my attendance beyond Yankee Stadium. I wanted to see what impact my luck could have on, say, a Cincinnati Reds team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in 15 years or on a Braves team looking to return to glory in the final season in the dugout for manager Bobby Cox.

As part of this experiment, I went to eight games in five cities at six parks. At first, the results seemed muddled. The home teams in the eight games I attended went 5-3. That’s not bad, but it’s not 8-0, either. I’ll admit, I was feeling a little defeated.

But then the playoffs came, and the true power of my luck became clear.

Of the eight games I attended, seven involved at least one playoff team, and one of those games was played between two playoff teams, the Yankees and Twins. Only one of the eight games didn’t manage to produce a single playoff team, and that was a game between the Cubs and Mets, so I didn’t exactly have high hopes going in.

Major League Baseball, you may know, has fewer teams involved in its postseason than any of the other major American sports. Just eight of baseball’s 30 teams, slightly more than one of every four clubs, make the postseason. And still, of the six teams I saw play home games, a whopping four qualified for the playoffs.

To put it another way, 67 percent (4 of 6) of the teams whose stadiums I visited qualified for the postseason while only 17 percent (4 of 24) of the teams whose parks I did not visit were involved in the playoffs.

Clearly, I’m magic.

What follows is a brief (this time I’m serious) summary of each of the games I attended this year. Because these game recaps had a tendency to drone on in the past, I’m keeping them to exactly three sentences apiece this time (not counting sentences in parentheses, of course).

Five of these eight games were decided by three runs or fewer, so you might want to pause for a moment to prepare yourself for some major excitement.

April 18 in Philadelphia – Marlins 2, Phillies 0

Cole Hamels finished the season 12-11 despite a 3.06 ERA, a 1.18 WHIP and 211 strikeouts, underlying just how useless win-loss record is as a pitching statistic. In this game, Hamels allowed two earned runs, both driven in by Dan Uggla, over eight solid innings but was no match for Nate Robertson, (he of the 5.01 career ERA) who combined with two relievers on a four-hitter. Robertson joined the Phillies later in the year, giving up six runs in the eighth inning against the Marlins on Sept. 8 and nearly blowing a 10-0 lead for, you guessed it, Cole Hamels.

April 19 in New York – Mets 6, Cubs 1

This game was the big league debut for Ike Davis, the Mets’ 2008 first round draft pick, prompting the four drunk guys sitting behind me to chant, “We like Ike,” for the entire game, despite their apparent lack of interest in the political fortunes of Dwight D. Eisenhower (the last president born in the 1800s). The game was tied, 1-1, when the curiously named Angel Pagan hit a two-run homer to spark a five-run bottom of the seventh for the Mets. Davis went 2-for-4 with an RBI; he finished the year with a .264 average, a .351 on-base percentage and 19 homers.

May 1 in St. Louis – Cardinals 6, Reds 3

This game was part of my bachelor party, which lacked the usual strippers, alcoholic beverages and illicit drugs (though we did go to a casino) but still managed to be a wonderful time. The Cardinals led this game 1-0 heading into the seventh, but the bullpens weren’t sharp, spoiling what started as a pitching duel between Kyle Lohse and Homer Bailey and filling the final three innings with intrigue. The Reds scored one in the top of the seventh to tie the score, 1-1; the Cardinals answered with two in the bottom of the seventh to take a 3-1 lead; the Reds scored two in the top of the eighth to tie it back up at three; and then the Cardinals finally pulled away for good with three runs in the bottom of the eighth (the last two scoring by way of the ever-thrilling RBI walk).

May 14 in New York – Yankees 8, Twins 4

The Yankees hit a whopping 10 grand slams in 2010, including three by Alex Rodriguez and two each by Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada (who hit his on consecutive days in June). On this night, the Yankees entered the bottom of the seventh trailing 4-3, but after the Twins decided to intentionally walk Mark Teixeira with one out and runners on second and third, A-Rod launched his 19th career grand slam to give the Yankees a come-from-behind win. Miraculously, a couple of weeks later, on May 31, the Indians would try the same trick, intentionally walking Teixeira with one out and two on in the seventh inning, and sure enough, Rodriguez blasted another grand slam. (The Yankees won that game 11-2.)

May 17 in New York – Yankees 11, Red Sox 9

This was my first Yankees-Red Sox game, and it was both the most exhilarating and most stressful sporting event I have ever attended. The Yankees took a 5-0 lead in the first inning against Daisuke Matsuzaka, only see the Red Sox pull within 6-5 in the fifth and then take the lead, 9-7, with three runs (on two homers) off Chan Ho Park in the eighth. Jonathan Papelbon, Boston’s closer and my least favorite person ever, came on in the bottom of the ninth, but Alex Rodriguez tied the game with a two-run homer, and Marcus Thames followed with a two-run shot of his own to give the Yankees a walk-off win.

May 18 in New York – Red Sox 7, Yankees 6

Including a 59-minute rain delay, this game lasted five hours and eight minutes, a marathon that included all of the stress from the night before without much of the exhilaration. The Yankees took a 5-0 lead for the second straight night, and CC Sabathia allowed just one run over seven strong innings, but the Red Sox tied the game with four runs off Joba Chamberlain in the eighth. Mariano Rivera came on in a tie game in the ninth but gave up two unearned runs as Marcus Thames, the previous night’s hero, made a crucial fielding error, and this time, the Yankees couldn’t manage to walk off against Papelbon in the ninth, scoring once in the final frame but stranding the tying and winning runs in scoring position.

June 27 in Atlanta – Tigers 10, Braves 4

Detroit jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the fourth inning, and by the time this one was over, the Tigers collected 17 hits, though only one of them, a home run by Brennan Boesch, went for extra bases. Justin Verlander allowed four runs in seven innings for the win in what was a fairly dull contest. I spent most of the late innings of this game speaking to the one-eyed, snuff-chewing guy next to me about NASCAR, so there’s that.

September 28 in Cincinnati – Reds 3, Astros 2

I have another whole post about this game in the works, but suffice it to say that this win clinched the National League Central for the Reds, punching their ticket to Cincinnati’s first postseason appearance since 1995. The game ended on a walk-off homer (the second walk-off jack in the eight games I went to) by Jay Bruce, who sent the first pitch of the ninth inning into the seats. Aroldis Chapman got the win, striking out two and hitting 1o1 on the radar gun in an inning of work.

So, I’m starting something new. When I have a thought that seems interesting, I’m going to write it down. And then, maybe once a week, maybe less often knowing me, I’m going to combine those ideas into a post for the site. This is the first of those posts.

***

It seems to me that “Big Three” is the weakest nickname in all of sports, quite possibly in all of the world.

For one thing, it is tragically overused. By signing LeBron James and Chris Bosh this summer to play with Dwyane Wade, the Miami Heat formed the Big Three currently mentioned on SportsCenter and in headlines more than any other. But the Boston Celtics still have a Big Three, too, with Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. And that isn’t even the first Celtics Big Three, as Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish attracted the same moniker in the 1980s.

Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels of the Phillies are the Big Three du jour in baseball, but they aren’t the first set of starters to be given the label. John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves were called the Big Three, as were Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito of the Oakland Athletics.

The Big Three of Golf — Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus — even trademarked the nickname. Though there are rumors that Tiger Woods plans to expand the group to a foursome.

Outside of sports there are the Big Three automakers, the Big Three World War II leaders and the Big Three monotheistic religions. There’s the Big Three science fiction writers, Big Three colleges and even the Big Three pandemic diseases.

So, yes, Big Three is about as hackneyed as a nickname can be, and it really isn’t that clever in the first place. It lacks the alliteration – Sultan of Swat – or zing – He Hate Me – required for a good nickname. Big and Three don’t rhyme. Other than three being a convenient number for a list, Big Three doesn’t seem to have any significance at all. Why not two or four? And Big is so boring. Why not Titanic Three or Tremendous Three or Colossal Three?

I think it’s time that, as fans and members of the media, we all respect the trademark held my those old golfers and retire Big Three for the rest of time.

***

I have no idea if it’s possible to bet on which NFL team will be the last remaining undefeated squad, but if it is, I bet not too many people took the Kansas City Chiefs, who won four games all of last year and only two games in all of 2008. But with the Steelers and Bears losing this week, the 3-0 Chiefs are the last unbeaten squad.

This week, Kansas City plays the Colts, so we might not make it through five weeks with an undefeated team. Raving about the parity in the NFL is certainly cliche, but it’s also hard to argue against.

***

NBATV has a show called Real NBA Training Camp, in which a couple of the network’s hosts sit in on part of a team’s training camp. When the show visited the Knicks practice facility, NBATV put a microphone on Amare Stoudemire, which may have been one of the best decisions in television history.

My favorite of the many amusing things Amare yelled to his teammates came during a 5-on-5 scrimmage. Amare set a high screen and ended up with a guard, I think Toney Douglas, guarding him in the post after a defensive switch. Stoudemire’s way of alerting his teammates to the mismatch?

“We got a mouse in the house!” Priceless.

***

The soul patch gets a lot of attention as women’s unanimous choice for least attractive facial hair, but I don’t think the chin strap look is particularly flattering to a man’s face either. As far as I’m concerned, for facial hair, it’s beard or bust.

***

I realized recently that when I shake hands, I don’t look the other person in the eye, the way my dad always instructed me to do growing up. I don’t look anywhere inappropriate (say, at a woman’s chest) or awkward (at the ceiling). No, I just look at our hands. I guess I’m worried that if I try the no-look shake, I might miss.

Eventually, this is going to be about my outlook on life and maybe some goals, but it’s going to start out with the Yankees, eventually.

Probably like most other people, I enjoy finding parallels in my life, making connections between things that are ostensibly (and often actually) unrelated. In church, for instance, I am always amazed at how the pastor’s sermons seem to be targeted directly at me. Now, I guess this could be a case of divine intervention, but I think it’s more likely that I am simply prone to noticing small coincidences. “A message about community service? Wow. An acquaintance and I just had  a conversation on Tuesday about wanting to get involved!”

Two days ago, in a move quite possibly related to this tendency to relate the unrelated, I decided to refocus my life on its core principles and to redouble my efforts to find a job, to make this blog a success and to meet my many goals in life. I decided all of this because Joe Girardi chose to start Phil Hughes on Sunday night.

Allow me to explain.

The Yankees, you may have noticed, for the first 25 days of September, secretly stopped trying to win. They weren’t exactly trying to lose. No, with their 27 championships and the pressure of New York and their demanding fans, the Yankees never really try to lose. But for most of the past month, they have not been hellbent on winning either.

On Sept. 4, the Yankees led the Rays by 2.5 games in the American League East. The Bombers had the best record in baseball, and only the Rays were close. New York led the Twins by 7 games in the race for home field advantage in the American League.

This past Saturday, the Yankees lost 7-3 to Boston to fall 1.5 games behind Tampa. That loss capped a 6-13 stretch for New York. In the battle for the best record in the majors, the Yankees had fallen behind not only the Rays, but also the Twins and, in the National League, the Phillies.

Because I have roughly a million cable channels, because the Yankees are a popular team and because MLB Network is the best invention in the history of television, I had the unfortunate opportunity to see much of this collapse.

From Sept. 11 to Sept. 15, I watched the Yankees every day. They went 1-4. Last week, I watched the Yankees on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They lost all three.

As you can imagine, my team going 1-7 in games I watched was frustrating. But I can deal with losing. Remember, I follow the Knicks religiously. Yes, losing is something I’ve experienced.

But this was different. It isn’t that the Yankees lack sufficient talent to win. They simply didn’t seem concerned. Through the first five months of the season, the Bombers had the best record in baseball, and in their eyes, it seemed, that was good enough. They would skate through September on cruise control and turn it back on for the playoffs.

Some signs of this attitude were blaring. The Yankees announced they would rest some of their older players — Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada — more down the stretch, an apparent concession that winning the division was not their priority. They would gladly settle for the Wild Card.

And some of the signs were more subtle.

On Sept. 13, CC Sabathia of the Yankees and David Price of the Rays staged an epic pitching duel, neither surrendering a run through eight innings. Price allowed only three hits and struck out four. Sabathia was even better, allowing just two hits while striking out nine. The game went into extra innings, still scoreless. But while the Rays turned to their best relievers late in the game — calling on their dominant closer, Rafael Soriano, in a tie game in the ninth and following him with their top two set-up men, Joaquin Benoit and Grant Balfour — the Yankees gave in. In the bottom of the 11th inning, the Yankees brought in long reliever Sergio Mitre, a converted starter with a career ERA of 5.31. The message was that the Yankees would rather conserve their bullpen in a long game than win it. Right on cue, Mitre surrendered a walk-off home run to light-hitting Reid Brignac, the first batter he faced.

On Sept. 22, the third game of a four-game series between the Yankees and Rays at Yankee Stadium, it was more of the same. The Rays were leading the Yankees 1-0 in the third inning when the starting pitchers were knocked out the game by a lengthy rain delay. They Rays returned from the delay determined to win, putting phenom Jeremy Hellickson on the mound and following him with lefty-specialist Randy Choate, Balfour and Benoit. Once again, the Yankees gave in. They brought in Royce Ring, a September call-up who hadn’t pitched in the majors since 2008, when he had an ERA of 8.46 in 42 games. Following Ring were Dustin Moseley (4.77 ERA, currently) and Chad Gaudin (5.65). Not surprisingly, the Yankees lost 7-2.

Maybe the greatest sign that the Yankees were happy coasting came the next night, last Thursday, against those same Rays. CC Sabathia started the game and pitched five solid innings before falling apart in the sixth. The Yankees entered the inning with a 3-1 lead and left trailing 8-3. At that point, New York flat out gave up. It was like nothing I — or Bob Costas, who was calling the game for MLB Network — had ever seen.

To start the seventh, the Yankees put Javier Vazquez, who had failed as a starter earlier in the year and was making his fifth relief appearance, on the mound. Right from his first pitch, Vazquez clearly had nothing and seemed wholly uninterested in pitching in mop-up duty. Vazquez didn’t throw his once-devastating fastball even one time to the first few batters he faced, opting instead for something between a slider and an Eephus pitch. He rarely reached even 70 miles per hour. (Costas aptly called this pitch “slop.”)

Vazquez walked the first batter he faced. Then, he hit each of the next three batters, tying a major league record for consecutive hit batsmen and forcing in a run. From there, Vazquez managed to fight his way out of the inning, but not before allowing a second run on a sacrifice fly and walking another hitter for good measure.

Final line for Vazquez in the seventh inning: 0 hits, 0 errors, 2 walks, 3 hit batters, 2 runs. (Costas on Vazquez’s performance: “truly grotesque.”) At no point in this debacle did the Yankees ever seem to consider replacing Vazquez; as I remember it, at no point did they have anyone throwing in the bullpen. In fact, Vazquez returned to the mound for the eighth and the ninth, finishing the game while still rarely throwing a single decent pitch.

Meanwhile, Girardi removed seven of his offensive starters from the game, replacing them with September call-ups and bench players and coming as close to willingly forfeiting as perhaps any team in recent major league history.

The next night the Yankees lost to the Red Sox, and the day after that, Saturday, they lost to the Red Sox again, 7-3, the game I mentioned a few hundred words ago, the one that left them with only 6 wins in their past 19 games and dropped them 1.5 games out of first.

In sports, I believe in something you might call a winner’s mentality. The teams that win are usually those with the most talent, but there are still certain habits, certain approaches to sport, that contribute to success, and certain behaviors that detract from it. If your team is good enough, it’s probably possible to win a World Series after disregarding the entire month of September, after giving away a division title. But that’s still symptomatic a loser’s mentality. If a team practices losing for a month, it might just become so good at accepting defeat that it forgets how to win.

At some point, probably after the Saturday loss, that winner’s mentality concept clicked for Joe Girardi. Earlier in the week, the Yankees had announced they would push Phil Hughes’ next start back to rest him for the postseason. Dustin Moseley, whose lack of success I detailed above briefly, would start on Sunday in place of Hughes, the Yankees’ prized young right-hander. But after Saturday’s loss, Girardi decided he could no longer be indifferent to the outcome of his team’s games. The Yankees had been aloof for too long.

Girardi announced Hughes would make his regular start. He announced the Yankees would not be satisfied with the Wild Card, that they wanted to win the division.

Hughes allowed one run in six innings, and although the bullpen cost him the win, the Yankees won 4-3 in 10 innings to stop their slide, at least for a day. (They did lose again yesterday.) By starting Hughes, Girardi brought what being the Yankees means back into focus for his players. With one move, he brought the winner’s mentality back into play.

***

I think what happened to the Yankees in September has also happened to me. I think it can happen to all of us.

I had a pretty good run in college. I made good grades, landed three wonderful internships, met a great girl and generally had a transcendent experience. When my internship at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ended in mid-August, I felt like I deserved a break. I’d been working hard for four years, and I was about to get married. Why not cruise for a month or two? I had my whole life to work, my whole life to be serious about things.

But now I’ve been married for more than week, and I’ve been back at my apartment in Cincinnati, and I’ve been sitting around all day watching movies and playing video games and waiting to hear back on the couple of job applications I sent.

The past week has been my four-game losing streak, my reminder that there comes a time when we all must start Phil Hughes. I’m done coasting, done resting on my laurels (not that I have that many laurels on which to rest).

What does that mean? Well, I’m going to take the job search a little more seriously. I’m going to get serious about playing basketball again, which should lead to more basketball content on this blog. I’d like to start being more involved in the community, and it probably wouldn’t kill me to be a little more social.

And I hope to generally spend a lot more time with this site and with my writing. I’m adding a new page to the site to keep track of my progress toward my goals in basketball and as a sports fan and in whatever other arena seems appropriate. I plan to post a notes piece once a week with amusing tidbits from my journal, which I also just started. The expansion of the site should come as good news to those of you who are in to that sort of thing, which if you’ve read this far, well…

Or maybe it was 86 students. Memory is funny like that, but you get the idea.

Saegertown (Panthers) is one of three schools in the PENNCREST School District. The other two are Cambridge Springs (Blue Devils) and Maplewood (Tigers).

As is often the case with small schools in rural communities, the sports rivalries between these schools were intense. With not a single other option for entertainment on a Friday night, everyone from miles around would pack the bleachers for a football or basketball game.  The atmosphere at the many Saegertown-Cambridge sporting events in which I competed or that I attended was something akin to a scene from the movie Hoosiers.

The crowds were more sparse and less intense for minor sports, meaning any sport other than football or boys basketball, but the hostility between folks from Cambridge and folks from Saegertown remained.

It was on a Monday night in the Cambridge Springs gymnasium at a girls volleyball match that a small bit of this hostility escaped from my mouth, setting off a chain reaction of reverberation, consequences.

Or maybe it was a Thursday. Memory is funny like that, but you get the idea.

Now, before I describe this particular match on this particular Monday, it seems important to establish that I was the greatest of Saegertown’s girls volleyball fans.

It was not uncommon for me, or occasionally me and the couple of other people I dragged with me, to be the only student at an away match or at a Saturday morning tournament. During my senior year, the total number of girls volleyball matches that I did not attend could not have been much higher than, well, two.

I loved girls volleyball for several reasons. For one, it was volleyball and in high school, as I have mentioned here before, volleyball was all that mattered to me. Just the sounds of the game — the chatter, the pop of a well-cracked spike, the thud and screech of skin ripping across the floor after a dive and, most of all, the sound of the ball making sweet contact with the floor on the other side of the net — were music to my ears. Plus, I had a couple of friends on the team who I enjoyed watching play. Plus, if going to the matches made girls like me a little more, I certainly wasn’t opposed.

More than any of that, I went because I was a high school boy still trying to understand the effects of testosterone, because I liked girls even though I had no idea how to talk to them. Put more simply, I went for the Spandex.

So here I was on a Monday evening, and Saegertown was down two games to zero in a best-of-five match. And they were down something like 21-14 in the third game. It was looking like a sweep.

Or maybe the score was more like 18-14. Memory is funny like that, but you get the idea.

So the Panthers were down two games to zero and were about to lose the third game and be swept. This would not have been a surprise. Saegertown was bad. Despite my devoted support, the Panthers won less than a handful of matches all year.

So on the brink of sealing the match, a girl from Cambridge went back to serve. Her last name might have been Johnston. And right as she was about to strike the ball, with the gym silent, I screamed, “You Suck!” as loud as I could.

Now it’s important to explain that as loud as I could is much louder than as loud as you could. I’m loud. Loud is why I was constantly in trouble in fifth grade (when other kids said “ass” on the playground, their teachers didn’t hear them from inside a building 100 yards away). Loud is why my high school math teacher, Mrs. Woods, lamented that I didn’t possess an “indoor voice.” Loud is why I wouldn’t want to live above, below or next to me in an apartment building.

So I screamed, “You suck!” And the girl from Cambridge, I may as well keep calling her Johnston, served the ball into the bottom of the net, giving Saegertown the point and the ball. After this mistake, she stared over at me menacingly, leaving no doubt as to whether it had been my words reverberating in her ears that caused her to fail.

At this point, I probably received a few glares from around the gym; after all, I was acting like a jerk as a visiting fan. But this was during the period of my life before I learned the concept of self-awareness, so I didn’t notice any particular crowd reaction to my outburst.

The next Panthers server went on a long run, and they came back to win the game. Cambridge was still up two games to one. Then the Panthers won the next game to even the match at two games all. Then they won the fifth game … and the match.

Or maybe they didn’t. I remember Saegertown coming all the way back to win three straight games and the match. I feel totally positive that Saegertown won, that their winning makes the whole story. But sometimes I remember stories that are better than reality. Memory is funny like that, but you get the idea.

So Saegertown came back to win the match, and I felt proud that I played a small part in it. After all, without my heckling, Johnston wouldn’t have missed her serve, and in turn that missed serve wouldn’t have set off Saegertown’s comeback.

I stopped on my way home for an ice cream cone. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that I might have done something wrong.

Now before I describe what happened the next day at school, it’s important to explain some things about the Dean family. Gerry Dean was the guidance counselor at Saegertown High School. Her husband, Terry Dean, was the gym teacher at Cambridge Springs High School.

Or maybe he was a math teacher or maybe he was the principal. But I seem to remember that he always dressed like a gym teacher, wearing so many layers of wind-breaking clothing as to be impervious to tornadoes. Memory is funny like that, but you get the idea.

Terry Dean had been at the volleyball match, and as I would learn later, he wasn’t too happy with my actions. He told his wife how he felt, who relayed the message to Mr. Deemer, the SHS principal.

On Tuesday morning, at about 10 a.m., I was called to the office over the school’s loudspeaker. When I walked through the doors, the school secretaries tried to fake a stern look, suppressing giggles. Deemer wanted to see me in his office. I walked in, and Deemer told me to have a seat.

I still had no idea what was going on.

“I heard about your behavior at last night’s volleyball match,” Deemer said.

Somehow, I still had no idea what was going on. My eyes squinted, and my left eyebrow raised slightly in one of those half-puzzled-half-constipated-looking expressions. What was this guy talking about?

“I heard you screamed something inappropriate to distract one of the Cambridge girls. Is this true?”

“Oh that. Um. Yeah.”

At this point, Deemer raised his voice. His tone became more stern, condescending. He told me that when I traveled to away sporting events, I was a representative of Saegertown to other schools. He told me I was an embarrassment. A disgrace.

“I’m especially disappointed in your poor judgment because you should have known better. You’re the student council vice present. A varsity athlete. One of our best students. What were you thinking?”

I apologized. Like a second grader, I said ”sorry” a few times too many and then asked sheepishly if I was in trouble.

“Well, you need to take a break from going to sporting events for a while. They’re a privilege, a privilege you’ve lost.”

“So how many games do I have to skip?”

“Let’s say two. A two game suspension.”

“Starting with tonight’s soccer match?”

“No. This only counts real sports.”

I am completely certain about that line. Memory is funny like that.

***

Books I am partway through reading:

1. The Yankee Years by Tom Verducci and Joe Torre
2. Summer of ’49 by David Halberstam
3. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
4. A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein
5. The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Questions I wish I were asked more often:

1. Why are you so handsome?
2. Were you always this good at basketball?
3. Would you mind if I waxed your Lamborghini?

Questions I wish I were asked less often:

1. So, how is the job search going?

Things I would like for you to buy me:

1. The Best American Sports Writing of the Century
2. NBA League Pass for the 2010-11 season
3. Esquire’s Big Book of Great Writing
4. A $730 membership to the University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center
5. NBA Elite 11 for Playstation2.
6. Two tickets to the Bengals-Steelers game on Nov. 8.

Things on my to-do list for yesterday:

1. Laundry
2. Call Greg Cox
3. Call parents
4. Go to see Inception
5. Play basketball
6. Write a blog post
7. Find last few addresses for wedding invitations

Things on my to-do list for yesterday that I did yesterday:

1. Go to see Inception
2. Call parents
3. Play basketball

B: A newspaper.

A: No, a zebra with a sunburn.

B:

A: Hey, what’s black and white and re(a)d all over?

B: You’re really doing this right now? Word on the street is a zebra with a sunburn.

A: No. A bleeding nun.

B: Ha.

A: What’s black and white and re(a)d all over?

B: A newspaper.

A: Damn. You caught me.

It is a strange thing, knowing exactly which of my roughly 8,180 days on earth was the absolute worst.

On July 12, 2010, if you had asked me when the worst day of my life was, there would not have been a clear answer.

I probably would have said the day during my senior year of high school when my volleyball team lost to Cambridge Springs in the district tournament, ending our season. But that was only a bad day within the narrow context of the pscyhe of a high school senior, particularly a high school senior who had yet to learn that there is more to life than volleyball.

That day in the spring of 2006 did present a problem: What would I do with my life now that I could no longer play high school volleyball? But that problem had simple, obvious solutions: college, girls, career.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010, on the other hand posed more difficult questions, real-life questions. Questions about mortality and adulthood and independence and honor.

A brief (yeah, right) timeline:

7 a.m.: I departed from Rachael’s (my fiancee’s) apartment in Cincinnati in my 2005 Chrysler Sebring headed south for Atlanta. With a couple of stops for gas, it should have been about a 7-hour trip, putting me back at my house in Atlanta around 2 p.m. That would give me just enough time to shower, put my things together and make it to work by 4.

7:45: As I head south on I-75 through Kentucky it started to rain. I turned on my windshield wipers to one of the lowest settings. About 20 minutes later the rain stopped. It was about this time that I lost reception of Cincinnati’s ESPN Radio, which I think is 1530-AM, meaning I could no longer listen to Mike & Mike discuss the worldwide impact of LeBron’s decision. I popped in a Rolling Stones CD.

8:30: I stopped for gas in Lexington, Kentucky.

9:15: As I moved through southern Kentucky, it began to rain again, and this time it was raining much, much harder. It was also foggy, making visibility very difficult. I slowed down to about 55 and followed the tail lights of the car in front of me in the left lane. In the right lane, some motorists decided to slow down even more, a wise decision, turning on their 4-way flashers.

The windshield wipers in my car have never worked properly. The knob will not stay turned to the highest setting unless you hold it with your hand. So with my left hand on the steering wheel and my right hand on the windshield wipers, I pressed on, worried that my slower speed might make me late for work.

On a somewhat related note, it was around this time that I discovered a fascinating AM radio show called “Tri-County Update” or something like that. It seemed to be broadcast from Campbell County, Tennessee. Here’s how the show worked: The host would say, “Hi, Tri-County Update, you’re on the air.” Then the caller would say in a Southern drawl so thick it bordered on incomprehensible, “Hi, I’ve got two pigs, a lawnmower and a bull calf for sale. My phone number is 555-555-5555.” Then the host would repeat the phone number, say thank you to the caller and move on to the next person. I listened to this show for about 45 minutes, and they never ran out of people who had something to either buy, sell, trade or give away. The best moment of the show came when an older woman called in to say that she had bought cucumbers from one of the other callers and that they had all been rotten. The woman said the man was “scamming folks,” and she just wanted to let everybody know. After this call, the host sneaked in a quick announcement that the “Tri-County Update” could not air opinions.

10:00: I came to a place in the road where the blacktop road changed to concrete for a short stretch. It might have been a small bridge over a creek, or it might have simply been a small patch of the road that had been replaced. Either way, when my car hit the concrete, it started to slide.

Growing up in rural northwestern Pennsylvania, I had experienced the terrible feeling of fishtailing on a few occasions while driving on snowy, pot-hole-ridden dirt roads. But I had always been able to correct and regain control of the car. This was something totally different. I think they call it hydroplaning.

Within about a second of when I realized I was sliding, the car was completely out of control. For a split second I tried to steer out of the slide, but it was useless. I gripped the steering wheel as tight as I could and braced for impact.

As I slid, the front end of the car shot into the right lane then crossed back into the left. Then the car started to spin. It rotated 180 degrees so that I was facing back into oncoming traffic as I slid sideways, to my right, toward the center of the road. For a fraction of second, I don’t remember what I saw, but I remember thinking, “I’m not going to die.”

On this stretch of I-75, there is no median between the northbound and southbound lanes. There is only a concrete dividing wall. My car slid back across the left lane and the passenger side of the car slammed into the concrete wall, rear-end first. I had come to a stop with my front end sticking out into the left lane, facing the wrong direction.

All of the events described in the five paragraphs leading to this lasted for approximately five seconds.

My hands shaking uncontrollably, I scrambled to find my cell phone, which had been sitting on the passenger seat before my wild ride. It was no longer there. It was also not on my seat or on the floor by the passenger seat. It was, however, on the floor on of backseat. I grabbed it, and it was working, to my relief.

10:01: I called Rachael and told her I wrecked the car. She asked if I was OK. I told her that my back was hurting pretty bad but that I would be alright. I asked what I should do. She told me to call 911. She seemed anxious.

10:02: I called my mom and told her I wrecked the car. She asked if I was OK. I told her that my back was hurting pretty bad but that I would be alright. I asked what I should do. She told me to call 911. She seemed anxious.

10:03: I called 911. I had never dialed 911 before. For whatever reason, I was expecting a woman to answer the phone. And I was expecting her to speak with a great deal of empathy for my emergency situation. I expected her to speak with the same half startled, half caring tone my mom had used.

Instead, a man answered the phone and said, “Campbell County 911,” using the same half bored, half annoyed tone you might expect from a 40-year-old who is still stuck working at Burger King and doesn’t give a damn about you having it your way.

I explained that I had been in an accident on I-75 southbound about one mile north of Exit 156. He said, “Silver car?” “Yes.” “We’ve already been notified.” I tried to ask if he was sending someone, but he had already hung up on me.

I guess this makes sense. It’s not like the guy didn’t have anything better to do than chat with me. He was an emergency dispatcher after all. Still, a little kindness doesn’t seem like too much to ask from a person who is constantly speaking with people during the worst days of their lives.

10:07: I called my mom back and told her I assumed the 911 guy was sending help, though he seemed vague and uninterested in the whole situation. She asked me if I was planning to exit the vehicle. I told her it was raining. She reminding me that half my car was protruding into a lane of oncoming traffic. I told her I felt safe enough. She had me write down our AAA number, which is impossibly long. There is no way that enough people have AAA to justify the number being approximately 174 digits long.

My mom said the most important thing was that I was OK. She said I was lucky it wasn’t much worse. I would hear this refrain over and over for the rest of the day.

10:15: Officer Ned Smiddy (names that perfect simply can’t be made up) from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene. He left his vehicle and approached mine. Since my power windows weren’t working, I opened my door into traffic and stepped out of the car.

The first thing Smiddy said to me was, “This isn’t the best spot for you to be sitting in your car buddy.” Why is my mom always right?

I handed Smiddy my insurance card and my driver’s license, and he escorted me across the highway to a safe spot behind the guard rail. Smiddy said that there had been a good number of accidents along 75 and that AAA probably wouldn’t be able to come any time soon. I told him the next available wrecker, AAA or otherwise, would be just fine.

He left me standing in the rain while he went to his car to write up the accident report.

10:18: The shock of the accident and that just-happy-to-be-alive feeling started to give way to thoughts. I would spend much of the rest of the day wrestling idly with troubling thoughts and depressing questions.

I have no idea what to do next. I’m such an idiot. My days of making fun of other people for being bad drivers are probably over.

How will I get to work tomorrow? How will I get back to Atlanta? Where am I?

10:20: My dad called. He said that the only important thing was that I was OK and that I was lucky it wasn’t much worse.

He reminded me that we did not have collision insurance on the car, meaning we could have to pay to fix it ourselves.

He told me to have the wrecker take my car to a body shop, where I should ask how much it will cost to make the car driveable.

My dad asked me to assess the damage. I told him that the car would not start, but that it didn’t look too bad. The front end was fine, as was the driver’s side. I couldn’t see the rear end on the passenger’s side, but it didn’t seem awful. Hope.

10:22 Officer Smiddy returned, paperwork in hand.

Smiddy was large and mustachioed, speaking in a deep voice with a drawl so thick I usually understood about 3 words of every 10. He was kind, much more empathetic than the 911 dispatcher, an earnest fellow.

He asked for the circumstances of the crash, so that he could note them in his report. He asked if I was wearing a seat belt (yes), if the airbags had deployed (no), if I had airbags (yes). Then he asked who the owner of the car was. I told him it was my father. For some reason, at this point, Smiddy became very confused.

He asked me for my birth date while holding my driver’s license in his hand. Then he wrote Craig Powell under driver and William Powell under owner. I told him he had it switched, and in response, he inexplicably scribbled out my phone number, which I had given him earlier, and asked me to repeat it. Eventually, we straightened things out, and he handed me a sheet of paper with instructions for requesting the accident report if my insurance company needed it. He told me he would wait with me until the wrecker came.

He added that I was lucky the accident wasn’t much worse.

10:45: After a few more phone calls – a couple with my dad, a couple with Rachael, a failed attempt to call work – and many, many more of those depressing questions – If I can’t drive the car, what will I do for transportation for the next month? The next year? - the wrecker, from Day’s towing, mercifully arrived.

11:00: Officer Smiddy came back across the road to where I was standing, behind the guard rail. He said the wrecker guy thought I might be able to drive the car away. He said sometimes a hard lick to the trunk will trip an emergency switch that turns off the fuel pump. Flip the switch back, and the car might be in working order. Hope.

11:10: More of those pesky questions: How long will it take them to fix the car if the damage is moderate, but not serious? If I have to go back to Atlanta without the car, how will I ever make it back to Tennessee to reclaim it?

11:15: The wrecker guy hooked a chain to the car’s belly and began to pull it away from the concrete wall. Terrible crunching sounds ensued.

11:20: Smiddy came back over. “Ain’t no way you’re driving that thing.”

Hope on life support.

“When he pulled it off the wall, the back wheel just collapsed. Your axel’s busted buddy. That’s going to take some fixing.”

11:30: The car was loaded up onto the wrecker. I shook hands with Smiddy and thanked him for his help, hopped up into the wrecker and away we went.  The driver said the closest body shop was 20 miles south. I said that would be fine.

During the drive, he mentioned several times how lucky I was that the accident wasn’t much worse.

11:55: We stopped at a bank so I could grab some cash from an ATM. The towing service only accepted cash.

12:01 p.m.: We arrived at the Lyk-Nu body shop. I went inside and said I needed someone to look at my car. Michael Freeman, the charismatic, fast-talking manager of the garage, emerged from a back room to assist me. He came outside and started walking around the car.

He said there was major rear suspension damage. I would need at least one new wheel. The rear axel was broken. He said that the gaps between my doors were narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, indicating I had major suspension and alignment damage.

I said, “I only want to make it driveable. I’m not looking for anything cosmetic.” “Driveable?” he asked. “Yeah. Just Driveable.”

“Impossible.”

Hope dead.

12:05: I realized I was completely out of my element. I might be living on my own. I might be two months away from my wedding. But I’m no adult. I had no idea how to handle this situation.

Helpless, I called my dad, who asked to speak to Freeman. They spoke for about 10 minutes, then Freeman handed the phone to me.

“Yep. Looks like the car’s shot,” my dad said. “The body shop is going to try to sell it for parts. Get your stuff out of it. Let’s see about getting you back to Atlanta, then you might have to rent a car for your last month there.”

12:15: Freeman apologized that my car was scrap. I asked him if there was anywhere around that would do a one-way car rental to Atlanta. He said there was not.

Then, Freeman had an idea. He needed to go to Knoxville that evening for a class. He could take me to the Knoxville Greyhound station on his way. I said that sounded like a good idea. He said we would leave at 4:30.

12:30: I sat down in the lobby of the body shop and realized I would have nothing to do for the next four hours. I called work again, since I hadn’t gotten through earlier, and left a message saying I wouldn’t make it in but would try to be there the next day.

12:45: I decided to clean out my car, so I grabbed a couple of garbage bags and headed to the muddy lot behind the garage where my poor Sebring was sitting next to other totaled vehicles, those that would cost almost as much or more to repair as they are worth.

It was sort of a sad moment, loading all of the little pieces of sentimentality I had accumulated over the years into garbage bags. My CDs. My collection of quarters for paying the toll on Ga-400. My four or five pairs of sunglasses. My Tom Tom. A stack of probably 30 sheets of directions printed from Google maps leading to various basketball courts and gyms around Atlanta.

Once I had everything out of the car, I apologized to it, which I realize is silly and more than a little hypocritical, given my feelings about people talking to animals.

1:10: I sat back down in the lobby for 3 hours of nothing.

Every now and then one of the mechanics would stop by and ask me how I was doing. A few  times they asked if I was hungry, but when I told them that I hadn’t eaten anything all day and could really go for some lunch, they just said OK and went back to work.

1:30: It was around this time, while flipping through a stack of copies of ESPN The Magazine, that I started to really feel angry and depressed.

I was angry at myself because I had turned a car probably worth roughly $8,000 (according to Freeman) into a heap of metal worth only a tiny fraction of that, because I should have been more cautious, because I made my friends and family worry.

I was depressed because there was nothing I could do about any of this now.

I was depressed because not having a car made me think about buying a new one; and thinking about buying a new one made me realize I couldn’t afford to; and thinking about how I couldn’t afford a car made me think about not having a job lined up for after my internship. And that whole train of heavy thinking brought feelings of inadequacy that I imagine are common for unemployed men struggling with the possibility that they will not be able to provide for their families (or soon-to-be family, in my case).

1:50: It was around this time that a man came in to pick up his truck with his daughter, who I would guess was around 6 or 7 years old. The receptionist told him the truck would not be ready for about a half-hour.

The man and his daughter sat down across the waiting room from me, their chairs facing mine and the television on the wall behind me, which to this point had been switched off. The man asked the receptionist for the remote and turned on Nick Jr. at maximum volume. The current program consisted of animated germs – colored blobs that I could have drawn – singing about how they were scheming to make everyone sick. Despite this program’s noble intentions – scaring slimy little brats into scrubbing their hands now and then – it was annoying beyond belief.

Soon, the germ song, which had only one line that had been repeated over and over for about three minutes, could no longer hold the little girl’s attention. She decided to introduce me to her toy, a stuffed horse head on a stick, Sparkles.

I’m usually pretty good with kids, but I wasn’t in the best state of mind, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from answering, “Well that’s a stupid name for a horse.”

The girl said the horse had a horn. I asked her if that made it a unicorn. She said, “No. It’s a unicorn horse.” The man, clearly feeling bad for me, told me that this girl was nothing like his other daughter, who was much quieter. I’m not sure how that was supposed to be any consolation.

Eventually, the man’s truck was ready, and he and his daughter left. But the Nick Jr. stayed on for about 20 minutes (but it seemed like hours) afterward.

2:30: Deciding my only options were to find the remote or a cliff to jump off, I asked Freeman for the clicker. Once he brought it to me, I turned the channel, but the germs kept singing in my head.

4:30: After a couple more hours of feeling sorry for myself and not eating lunch, it was time to head to Knoxville. During the drive, Freeman made small talk by asking me about what I did. I explained to him the current state of the newspaper industry (Some pick me up, huh?).

Freeman told me that it wasn’t exactly high times in the auto repair business either. Cars these days, it seemed, were a lot safer than they used to be, meaning fewer accidents and, therefore, less work for body shops. “We just don’t kill nearly as many people on the highways as we used to in this country,” Freeman said, his voice thick with disappointment and longing for times past.

Since he thought fewer auto accidents was a bad thing, I wasn’t at all surprised when Freeman went on to tell me that he used to work in politics.

5:10: We arrived at the Greyhound station, where I shook Freeman’s hand and thanked him for the lift. He had gone out of his way to help me out, and I was sincerely grateful.

Inside the Greyhound station, I bought a one-way ticket to Atlanta and a ham-and-cheese Lunchable, my first food of the day. While waiting for my bus, I made a couple more phone calls to Rachael and my parents.

5:40: The bus left the station. We were scheduled to arrive in Atlanta at 10:10. By car, the trip from Knoxville to Atlanta would have taken three hours.

7:00: My phone woke me up. My dad was calling. He told me he had asked around, and it seemed the going rate for monthly car rental was about $750 plus about $25 a day for insurance, or roughly $1,500 total. He said he would help me pay for it.

I said that was expensive. I asked if there were any other options. He said he couldn’t think of any.

9:30: I woke up from a long nap and the full magnitude of the day and its impact on my life finally hit me.

I cried.

I cried pretty hard. I like to pretend I’m tough, but sometimes tears happen. Luckily, the sun had set, so no one on the bus noticed them streaming down my face.

For whatever reason, the emotional release of sobbing helped clear my mind. I started thinking about responsibility, honor and adulthood. I realized I couldn’t accept money from my parents for a car rental. I had wrecked their car. I would need to pay for its replacement.

I also decided to pay for whatever permanent transportation solution would follow. Maybe that seems obvious, but I guarantee my parents will offer to help me if I let them. They’re nice like that, but every person comes to a point when they need to make their own way.

10:10: We arrived in downtown Atlanta. My roommate Lindsay picked me up. We arrived home just in time to see Brian McCann hit a three-run double to give the National League a win in the All-Star game (a bad thing for my Yankees). The perfect depressing end to my horrible day.

***

But less than a week later, things are much better, in large part because of many of you. Allow me to say thanks.

Mom, Becky and Rachael, thanks so much for your concern and well wishes.

Dad, thanks for helping me think through the best temporary and permanent solutions for my transportation dilemma. No matter how badly I screw up, you always stick with me. (We decided the monthly rental was far too expensive. I’m flying home to get my parents’ old Dodge Stratus that they haven’t been driving anymore.)

Ashley, Rachel and even more so Lindsay, thanks so much for the rides to and from the MARTA. Lindsay, double thanks for the rides home from the Greyhound and to and from the airport. I couldn’t have pulled this car-less week off without you guys.

Anna, Raisa, Chris, Chelsea and Emily, thank you for the thoughtful card and all your well wishes. You guys are the best fellow interns ever.

Officer Smiddy and Mr. Freeman, you guys have good souls. You didn’t know me, but you treated me like blood. Many thanks.

And to my many friends who I didn’t mention by name but who have wished me well in the wake of the accident, thank you all so much. I do not deserve to have so many wonderfully kind people surrounding me.