A Star Ranking of 2013 Top Prospects

Since 2008, I have participated in a 30-team fantasy baseball keeper league. One of the areas that most owners pay close attention to is prospect watching – pick up the right youngster at the right time and you can either hold onto him while he matures into a solid talent or trade him off for a proven big leaguer to someone who values his potential.

Last season, when I was still writing at Bus Leagues Baseball, I grabbed a bunch of Top 100 prospect lists from around the internet and wrote them into my Baseball America Prospect Handbook. Since that was always in my bag, all I had to do was flip to a particular player to see where he fit in the grand scheme of things. I did the same thing this year, but took it one step further and put seven different highly respected lists into a spreadsheet*: Baseball America, Fangraphs, Baseball Prospects, MLB.com, John Sickels, Keith Law, and Scout.com.

*I’m not opposed to adding more lists to the spreadsheet – in fact, former Bus Leagues star Scott Grauer is unveiling his Top 100 at DRaysBay this week – but those are the ones that are in there for now.

There ended up being 166 different names in the spreadsheet, which seemed like a low number**. So I decided to count up how many different lists each player appeared on, to give me an idea of how each prospect was regarded by the evaluators as a group, and separated them out accordingly.

**Of those 166, 164 are owned by teams in Lozoball. The only two who aren’t are Chris Reed, who is a free agent, and Nick Tropeano, who hasn’t been added to the CBS Sports system, which hosts our league.

7 Star (70 out of 166)

Jose Fernandez, Miami; Javier Baez, Chicago (NL); Jonathan Singleton, Houston; Albert Almora, Chicago (NL); George Springer, Houston; Byron Buxton, Minnesota; Francisco Lindor, Cleveland; Jake Marisnick, Miami; Nick Franklin, Seattle; Jedd Gyorko, San Diego; Trevor Rosenthal, St. Louis; Dylan Bundy, Baltimore; Oscar Taveras, St. Louis; Miguel Sano, Minnesota; Christian Yelich, Miami; Billy Hamilton, Cincinnati; Nick Castellanos, Detroit; Archie Bradley, Arizona; Mason Williams, New York (AL); Addison Russell, Oakland; Robert Stephenson, Cincinnati; Alen Hanson, Pittsburgh; Aaron Sanchez, Toronto; Brian Goodwin, Washington; Matt Davidson, Arizona; Travis d’Arnaud, New York (NL); Noah Syndergaard, New York (NL); Anthony Rendon, Washington; Max Fried, San Diego; Martin Perez, Texas; Carlos Correa, Houston; Jameson Taillon, Pittsburgh; Bubba Starling, Kansas City; Kaleb Cowart, Los Angeles (AL); Kyle Crick, San Francisco; Taylor Guerrieri, Tampa Bay; Jake Odorizzi, Tampa Bay; Zack Wheeler, New York (NL); Carlos Martinez, St. Louis; Oswaldo Arcia, Minnesota; Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh; Mike Zunino, Seattle; Jesse Biddle, Philadelphia; Trevor Bauer, Cleveland; Kevin Gausman, Baltimore; Chris Archer, Tampa Bay; Gary Sanchez, New York (AL); Tony Cingrani, Cincinnati; Justin Nicolino, Miami; Trevor Story, Colorado; Taijuan Walker, Seattle; Alex Meyer, Minnesota; Kyle Zimmer, Kansas City; Danny Hultzen, Seattle; Matt Barnes, Boston; Tyler Skaggs, Arizona; Casey Kelly, San Diego; David Dahl, Colorado; Wily Peralta, Milwaukee; Hak-Ju Lee, Tampa Bay; Julio Teheran, Atlanta; Shelby Miller, St. Louis; Jurickson Profar, Texas; Wil Myers, Tampa Bay; Xander Bogaerts, Boston; Mike Olt, Texas; Jackie Bradley, Boston; Jorge Soler, Chicago (NL); Aaron Hicks, Minnesota; Kolten Wong, St. Louis

6 Star (15 out of 166)

Luis Heredia, Pittsburgh; Allen Webster, Boston; Courtney Hawkins, Chicago (AL); Austin Hedges, San Diego; Rymer Liriano, San Diego; Kyle Gibson, Minnesota; Lucas Giolito, Washington; Nolan Arenado, Colorado; Michael Wacha, St. Louis; Yordano Ventura, St. Louis; J.R. Graham, Atlanta; Yasiel Puig, Los Angeles (NL); Zach Lee, Los Angeles (NL); Gregory Polanco, Pittsburgh; Delino DeShields, Houston

5 Star (8 out of 166)

Tyler Austin, New York (AL); Adam Eaton, Arizona; Dorssys Paulino, Cleveland; A.J. Cole, Washington; Robert Osuna, Toronto; James Paxton, Seattle; Slade Heathcott, New York (AL); Daniel Corcino, Cincinnati

4 Star (8 out of 166)

Arodys Vizcaino, Chicago (NL); Jarred Cosart, Houston; Jonathan Schoop, Baltimore; Andrew Heaney, Miami; Clayton Blackburn, San Francisco; Didi Gregorius, Arizona; Bruce Rondon, Detroit; Tyler Thornburg, Milwaukee

3 Star (11 out of 166)

Dan Straily, Oakland; Gary Brown, San Francisco; Avisail Garcia, Detroit; Alex Colome, Tampa Bay; Corey Seager, Los Angeles (NL); Jorge Alfaro, Texas; Luis Sardinas, Texas; Leonys Martin, Texas; Henry Owens, Boston; Cody Buckel, Texas; Michael Choice, Oakland

2 Star (15 out of 166)

Carlos Sanchez, Chicago (AL); Tyrell Jenkins, St. Louis; Marcus Stroman, Toronto; Christian Bethancourt, Atlanta; Chris Stratton, San Francisco; Marcell Ozuna, Miami; Lewis Brinson, Texas; Joc Pederson, Los Angeles (NL); Eddie Rosario, Minnesota; Hyun-Jin Ryu, Los Angeles (NL); Sean Nolin, Toronto; Michael Fulmer, New York (NL); Adalberto Mondesi, Kansas City; Lance McCullers, Houston; Adam Morgan, Philadelphia

1 Star (39 out of 166)

Victor Sanchez, Seattle; Dan Vogelbach, Chicago (NL); Max Kepler, Minnesota; Garin Cecchini, Boston; Wilmer Flores, New York (NL); Brad Miller, Seattle; Nick Tropeano, Houston; Robbie Erlin, San Diego; Matt Adams, St. Louis; Roman Quinn, Philadelphia; Ethan Martin, Philadelphia; Joey Gallo, Texas; Rougned Odor, Texas; Jesse Winker, Cincinnati; Clint Coulter, Milwaukee; Stefen Romero, Seattle; Nick Maronde, Los Angeles (AL); Nathan Karns, Washington; Matt Wisler, San Diego; Kyle Parker, Colorado; Justin Grimm, Texas; Brandon Maurer, Seattle; Andrew Chafin, Arizona; Jose Berrios, Minnesota; Victor Roache, Milwaukee; Barrett Barnes, Pittsburgh; Eduardo Rodriguez, Baltimore; Adeiny Hechavarria, Miami; Richie Shaffer, Tampa Bay; Matt Skole, Washington; Jonathan Villar, Houston; Jose Iglesias, Boston; Chris Reed, Los Angeles (NL); Stryker Trahan, Arizona; Sonny Gray, Oakland; Chris Owings, Arizona; Manny Banuelos, New York (AL); Josh Bell, Pittsburgh; Joe Ross, San Diego

The Bizarro Hall of Fame: Introducing the Class of 2013

I hadn't devoted a ton of attention to this year's Bizarro Hall of Fame possibilities because, honestly, I lost track of time and didn't realize that the announcement was today. In years past I've held off on this post rather than rushing to get it up, but I was so excited by the sheer number of players involved this year that I just had to write it as soon as possible.

The eleven players "inducted" this year equals the fifth-highest total in Bizarro Hall of Fame history, which dates back to 1978, and the most since 1992. The top five is now 1980 (29), 1979 (16), 1983 (15), 1988 (14), 1989 (11), 1991 (11), and 2013.

Jeff Cirillo – On June 29, 2004, Randy Johnson struck out Cirillo to become the fourth pitcher to record 4,000 career punchouts (in case you’re wondering, the pitch sequence went slider-slider-slider-fastball-slider-slider, according to the AP). Cirillo, a third baseman for the Padres at the time, was also the subject of Johnson’s 3,998th strikeout.

Royce Clayton – I never quite got past the image of Clayton as a young Giant – he came of age at the age of 23 as the shortstop for the San Fran squad that won 103 games but lost the division to Atlanta on the season’s final day – so much so that I completely forgot he ended his career with eight games in a Red Sox uniform in 2007 (to be fair, the logs suggest that his performance in these games was, in fact, forgettable). In seventeen seasons, he played for eleven different major league teams.

Jeff Conine – An original member of the Florida Marlins, Conine had a solid five year run in Miami, averaging just about 20 homeruns and 84 RBI a year from 1993-97. He was traded to Kansas City after winning the World Series with the Marlins in 1997, but eventually returned in August 2003 and became the only player to see action for the team in both of its Fall Classic appearances.

Roberto Hernandez – Every year, it seems like there are a couple closers who don’t get any love in the Hall of Fame voting. Hernandez and his 326 career saves (currently 13th on the all-time list) are at the top of that list this time around. Six times he nailed down more than 30 games in a season, with a career high of 43 for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999.

In 1997, Hernandez was one of three White Sox pitchers traded to San Francisco for a package of six prospects (including Keith Foulke and Bob Howry), a move that was derided at the time because the Pale Hose were viewed as giving up on the season despite being within easy striking distance of first place Cleveland at the time (they eventually finished six games behind the Indians).

Also, he gets a third paragraph because I have to mention that he went to high school in New Hampton, New Hampshire, for two years. We don’t have a ton of big-time athletes emerging from these here parts. Have to make note of it when it happens. (Thank you, Baseball-Reference, for the tip.)

Ryan Klesko – A fearsome slugger from 1995-2005, Klesko also stole 20+ bases in both 2000 and 2001, the only times he ever swiped more than six in a season. Unfortunately, he was a power hitter who played in the worst possible era to be a power hitter (it feels like anyone who hit 30 homeruns in the late 1990s and early 2000s is a suspicious figure, even though that mindset is patently unfair) and came onto the ballot at the worst possible time.

If nothing else, Klesko came away from his sixteen year career with a World Series ring, which he earned in 1995 by hitting .313 with three homeruns against the Indians. Oh, and he also made approximately $60 million as a player.

Jose Mesa – Immediately behind Roberto Hernandez on the all-time saves list is the one and only Joe Table, with 321. Four times he saved 40+ games in a season (for three different teams), including 1995, when he led the league with 46, had a 1.13 ERA, and finished second in the Cy Young voting (a distant second to Randy Johnson) and fourth in the MVP voting while helping the Indians to the franchise’s first World Series appearance since 1948.

He also trails Hernandez in the All-Important “Teams Played For” category, with a career total of eight (to Hernandez’s ten).

Reggie Sanders – I very rarely root for a player to become a Bizarro Hall of Famer (though I was devastated when Mike Morgan didn’t even make the ballot; a sham, that was), but I wanted Reggie Sanders to be here for no other reason than the fact that just looking at his career arc gives me such joy. He’s like a guy who gets out of an unhappy marriage and just decides to play the field: eight years in Cincinnati followed by one year engagements in San Diego, Atlanta, Arizona, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh. I still remember how happy I was when he stayed in St. Louis for a second season – “Aww, Reggie finally found someone who can make him happy. Good for him. I hope those crazy kids make it.”

Mike Stanton – There’s another guy named Brian Moynahan out there, a British journalist who has written a bunch of books about European history. I’m sure he’s a nice guy and I respect his productivity, but I still kinda hate him for having the same name as me.

What I’m trying to say is, I know how Mike Stanton must’ve felt the past couple years and think it was a quality move on the part of Giancarlo Stanton to change his name. Good on you, Giancarlo.

Also, to add to the “Underappreciated Relievers” theme we’ve got going here – while Stanton only had 84 career saves in 19 seasons, he did appear in 1,178 games. That’s the second-highest total for a pitcher in major league history, behind only Jesse Orosco. (Jose Mesa is tied for eleventh. Roberto Hernandez is 13th.) Of the top 15, five are Hall of Famers or likely to be (Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and Goose Gossage) and five are Bizarro Hall of Famers (Stanton, Mesa, Hernandez, Dan Plesac, and Mike Jackson).

Todd Walker – I liked Walker when he played for the Red Sox in 2003. It always seemed like he spent more than a year in Boston. I think it’s because somewhere along the way, my mind sort of turned him and Mark Bellhorn into basically the same person. It’s not really something I can explain. I’m not even sure they were all that similar as players.

Rondell White – Even though he didn’t play all that much in 1994, White is one of those guys who, to me, represents the “what might have been” disappointment of the mid-1990s Montreal Expos. He was never a superstar, but always a nice player who would have been a key component in what should have been a decent stretch of competitiveness for Montreal.

Woody Williams – Williams was the Game One starter for the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. He got rocked for seven runs in 2 1/3 innings, a fact that practically makes him an honorary member of Red Sox Nation in my book. I watched that game with my wife’s family – Yankees fans – in New York and let me tell you, it was nice to have seven runs on the board in the first three innings to help ease the tension.

Writing

I was poking around in the My Documents folder on my computer tonight and stumbled upon this story that I wrote almost a year ago. It was originally intended to be the introduction to a lengthy post on writing and how its role in my life has evolved over the years (I even had a few notes at the bottom to remind me of some points I wanted to make. Problem is, the notes are so cryptic that even I can't understand them). When I reread it, though, I really liked it (even though it made me realize that I've taken to using the, "But I digress," line far too often) and decided to go ahead and post it here.

The title is the name the file was saved under. I couldn't come up with anything better and it seemed reasonable enough.

I don’t remember the first thing I ever wrote, but I’m sure it was something terribly interesting about how much I loved school and my mommy and daddy and my big brother and sister and even my brand new baby sister even though she smelled kinda funny and yelled a lot. Okay, maybe not quite – I was still a year away from kindergarten when the youngest, Anna, was born, and since I couldn’t read until kindergarten, I’m sure I wasn’t writing anything so soon after her arrival. If we’re being honest (and I hope you’ve found that I like to be as honest as possible in everything I write), I just wanted to write that line about her smelling funny and yelling a lot, because that would allow me to make a little joke about how that’s still true, which would be funny mostly because she doesn’t read this blog and will only hear about it from my mother, who will hear about it from my father, who actually does check in here from time to time, and then she’ll yell at me the next time she sees me.

But I digress.

The first thing I can remember writing was – well, actually it was two things, a pair of stories I wrote about my pets, Cody the Cat and R2 the Dog, in fourth grade. We were always given writing time during the day. The teacher would pass out those sheets of yellow paper with the blue lines on it, we’d pull out our pencils (unless we had passed the penmanship tests and were allowed to use pen; to this day, whenever someone says I have nice handwriting, I tell them it’s because I desperately wanted to use pen in the fourth grade), and away we’d go, filling every other line with words on whatever topic we had chosen to discuss. I don’t know why I picked Cody and R2; probably because they were a big part of my world, two of my best friends. I really loved Cody, who I actually sort of inherited from my older sister Jennifer when she went away to college, because he slept on my pillow and climbed trees and did all the interesting things you would expect a cat to do. R2, who my brother named as a puppy (ostensibly because our first dog was Rusty so this was “Rusty the 2nd”; the fact that he named his next dog “Mace”, however, seems to indicate that the name was Star Wars-inspired, regardless of what I’ve been telling people for the past twenty years), loved me, mostly because I was his master and ran around with him outside and scratched his belly and gave him water on hot summer days. All relationships should be so simple.

I wrote those stories during the “salad days”, as HI McDonough might call them, when times were simple. No bills, no trouble in school, no real concerns at all. I wrote them, one far longer than the other, thought I can’t remember which one, long before I lost both of my friends to somewhat tragic circumstances. Cody was hit by a car on October 9, 1990, three weeks before my birthday; I remember seeing a big to-do outside, hearing my mother talking quietly about what had happened, and standing in our living room, holding one of the big wood chairs with the brown cushions, saying quietly to myself, “It’s not him. He’s not dead. He CAN’T be dead,” over and over and over again. That night, I learned that life doesn’t always come down to how bad you want something. Sometimes, you just have to play the cards as they’re dealt.

R2 hurt more. I could say it felt that way because he lived longer, and that may be true, but it may also be because, as I said, he loved me, and I wonder if maybe it’s harder to lose those who love you. It hurts to lose someone you love because even though it hurts, you know that you will one day have the capacity to love again. Finding someone who loves you, especially unconditionally, is a much more frightening proposition.

Anyway, R2 died on January 4, 2001, shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. My parents didn’t want to put him through extensive, uncertain, expensive treatments – they had watched his predecessor, Rusty, grow older and sicker, a golden and white shell that used to be their beloved pet – and so the difficult decision was made to have him put to sleep. I understood where they were coming from, and only asked one thing: to be allowed to take him to the veterinarian myself. My father was planning on doing it – that’s what my father does, take care of the tough things – until I talked with my mother. I don’t remember all of what I said – probably something about how much I cared for him and how I would make his last day as comfortable as possible – but I do remember telling her that if my father wouldn’t let me handle this on my own, I would never forgive him.

That may or may not have been true, but she believed me, and that’s all that mattered. The next day, my father handed me R2’s leash, made sure I knew where to go, and sent me on my way.

I don’t remember every detail, but I’m sure of two things there: I took the long way there, prolonging the inevitable as long as possible, and I cried a lot. When we arrived at the hospital, I took a few minutes outside to compose myself before going inside. R2 peed on the walkway leading into the animal hospital, the canine equivalent of carving “Brooks was here” into a ceiling beam. Inside, I told them why I was there; while we waited for someone to come out and tell me what to do, another animal owner spotted R2 and exclaimed, “Oh, he’s BEAUTIFUL! What’s his NAME? How OLD is he?” I was numb, but I answered anyway, as politely as possible. My mother didn’t raise me to be rude.

Finally, someone came from the back, I signed some papers, and she took R2’s leash. Then, my deepest regret: I stood there and watched while she led my best friend away to die. I wish I had stayed with him. I should have stayed with him. He didn’t deserve to die alone. Great, now I’m crying. Who said honesty was the best policy?

So anyway, the first two things I can remember writing were about my pets.

The Conversation

I was walking into a store this morning when I passed a presumably attractive young woman as she was getting out of her car. I say presumably because although a quick glance was cast in her direction, I most certainly did not check her out*, because I am a married man who does not subscribe to that sort of lecherous behavior**.

*Also, because I had switched out my sunglasses for my regular glasses before exiting the car, and it was so bright out that I couldn’t see much of anything anyway. The truth sounds considerably less noble, doesn’t it?

**When I typed “behavior” the first time, I accidentally spelled it with a “u”: behaviour. I felt quite British, and to be honest, a little dangerous, for a moment there.

After that cursory glance, I continued on my way to the crosswalk, which I hate because it’s like nine miles long. You can start running across when the coast is clear and still get hit by a car before reaching the other side. I wish I could just get in my car and drive from one side to the other, but I can’t because then I would have to park the car on the sidewalk, and with my luck, there’d be a ticket when I got back even though I was just running inside for five freakin’ minutes.

But I digress.

I was about halfway across the crosswalk, about to stop off for a drink of water and maybe a snack before continuing my hike, when all of a sudden, the presumably attractive young woman began speaking to me*.

*I’m pretty sure she didn’t have one of those Bluetooths in her ear. I hate those things. They’re evil. Although the presence of one here would certainly make this story better.

“It’s SO WINDY OUT,” she said. “I HATE when it’s windy out.”

As anyone who knows me can imagine, this took several seconds to process. My conversation skills are bad enough when I’m expecting someone to speak to me; a presumably attractive young woman attacking me verbally from behind with small talk was just unfair.

Once those several seconds had passed, I decided to add to the impromptu conversation by saying the first thing that came to mind.

“Yeah.”

In retrospect, the look on her windblown-hair-surrounded face was priceless, a combination of “Is that it?” and “How exactly do you expect me to respond to that?” She regrouped fairly quickly though, smiled, and proceeded to her destination without another word. And after a few minutes of kicking myself for my brain freeze, I realized something: I still had a wife to go home to, someone who knows and appreciates my inability to carry on a conversation consisting of more than three turns with any degree of consistency. So I’ve got that going for me.*

But clearly, if she ever kicks me to the curb (or, as I like to say, when), I’m in trouble.

*Of course, this is the same woman who just told me that instead of buying a Christmas tree this year, we should just bring up the small artificial tree and “spray some Pine-Sol.” The lesson, as always, kids, is this: be careful who you meet on the internet.

The Beer

I was standing in Papa Gino’s tonight, waiting for one of the gentlemen I was with to finish up his conversation so we could leave, when an attractive blonde twenty-something caught my attention.

“Are you in line, sir?” she asked innocently. I told her I was not and she moved along, ordering her pizza or sub or whatever while it slowly dawned on me what had just happened: she called me SIR. There are people that I encounter in my life that I call SIR. These people are generally much older than I am. Ergo, she thinks I am old.

There’s no way of knowing with any certainty, but I’d like to think that at that very moment, my mood went from, “Well, this has been a shitty couple of days,” to, “Well, this has been a shitty couple of days. I need beer.”

The funny thing about this is that I don’t even really like beer all that much, and drinking it at home, where I inevitably make it through one or two before tiring of the taste and moving on to more exotic beverages like milk and flavored water, is highly unlikely to result in me becoming drunk enough to forget the reasons I bought it in the first place. (That might be the longest sentence I’ve ever composed.) Maybe it’s just that sometimes, just BUYING beer is enough to make it feel as though I’m addressing the problem in an unhealthy manner, which is really all that matters.

So after a couple stops on the way home (including one AT home, to use the facilities; the store is only a mile away so it’s worth the additional comfort), I rolled into Stop & Shop and headed for the beer aisle. (How much beer do I not drink? I’ve been going to this store for at least three years. I think I had been in the beer aisle once.)

After some consideration of the more exotic offerings – oooooh, Natural Ice? It must be organic! – I decided not to buy anything that sounded interesting for fear it wouldn’t quite hit the spot and leave me out somewhere between eight and ten dollars. This was an alcohol purchase for the sake of feeling better about my problems, not for making me remember the consistent tenuousness of my financial situation. With that in mind, I ventured down to the far end of the aisle, to the domestic beers, where I could take the first steps toward proud ownership of a six-pack of Bud Light bottles.

The whole time I was doing this I was wondering if I would get carded at the register. Blondie thought I was old enough to be her grandpa, apparently, so it seemed like a good possibility. I considered it while picking up a bag of Fritos Scoops (can you believe the price of a bag of chips these days? $3.99 – and they were on sale?! Outrageous!), and considered it some more while picking up a container of Helluva Good Ranch dip.

As I approached the register, I decided to leave it to the cashier’s discretion. Pulling my debit card from my wallet and my Stop & Shop card from my pocket, I laid myself at her mercy. The following is a rough transcript of the conversation that ensued:

CASHIER: [scanning the beer] Can I just see your ID please?

ME: You flatter me. Somebody called me “sir” earlier and it made me feel old.

CASHIER: You were born the year I graduated college. You’ve got a lot of years left.

ME: God willing.

CASHIER: Don’t worry, it only gets worse.

ME: Oh, I know. And the days I remember that are the days I buy beer.

CASHIER: I go with the wine.

So I left the store, content in the knowledge that I’m not the only one being sucked down by the soulless vortex called life.

Sorry, I don’t know what that means. I’m on number two and starting to feel a little lightheaded. Almost time to switch to water.

The Curse

For a long time, my son didn’t really talk. At his three-year checkup last summer, he was diagnosed with developmental and speech delays and referred to our local school district for evaluation and placement.

He began attending a twice-weekly preschool class in December, and after an initial adjustment period, his use and understanding of language has flourished. Just last week, we engaged in a spirited discussion about which television show he wanted to watch (the highlight was when he insisted on Scooby Doo, which forced me to put it on C-Span until he changed his tune), and at the grocery store over the weekend he told me we needed to buy cheese, peas, and musical jumping beans in order to make rocket soup. So there’s been some improvement in that area.

This is great on a number of levels, of course, but there is one major adjustment that has had to be made: the language my wife and I use. I’m not the most foul-mouthed person I know, but I do employ more than the occasional f-bomb…and a-hole…and s-bomb (that sounds stupid; why is there no good shorthand way to say that I say “shit”?). For the most part, we haven’t had to worry about little ears picking up the naughty words we say and a little mouth repeating them. Now, we do.

My wife and I were playing Words With Friends tonight, coming down the homestretch, while our son finished up his second viewing of Cars 2 and played with Lightning McQueen, Finn McMissile, and Mater on the living room floor (I think he’s actually working on the script for Cars 3). I had a pretty good lead until she played “pounced” across two Double Word spaces for a score of 69 and a 36 point advantage. I closed the gap to one, she surged ahead again with another solid total, and it appeared she had the game in hand.

Only, she didn’t. After I played an “it/at” combo by dropping a single “t” into a corner, just to pick up a couple points without substantially changing the board, she fired back with “eyes” for seven points. It was clear that she was just trying to clear her letters and seal the win, but in doing so, she put an “e” in perfect position between Triple Letter and Triple Word spaces. And, as luck would have it, I had a “j” (worth ten points) and the letters to make an actual word.

The result: “Jeer”, for 99 points and the game.

I hid a smile as she asked if I had played yet (we’re quite impatient with one another while playing a game when in the same room; it tends to turn into the Speed Version of Words With Friends) and awaited her reaction. It didn’t disappoint.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said.

That was to be expected. She’s been swearing at me for almost twelve years now. Twelve glorious years. What I wasn’t really expecting was the four-year-old voice that chimed in from the peanut gallery.

“You pucking kidding me?” he said (the letter “f” still gives him some trouble). Then, as my wife and I looked at each other and struggled mightily to avoid bursting into laughter, he said it again. “You pucking kidding me?”

My wife tried to be the bad guy - “No, Mama shouldn’t have said that. That’s not something you say.” – but he was undaunted. “You pucking kidding me…you pucking kidding me…you pucking kidding me…?” Finally, I managed to swallow a laugh and repeat what my wife had said. He eyed me for a second, considering it, the words on the tip of his tongue, before deciding that this wasn’t a limit he wanted to test. His voice dropped into a low growl that he uses when he’s being funny.

“Okay.”

Crisis averted, this time. But clearly, we’re going to have to start working on our euphemisms.

The Abandoned House

Down the street from my apartment, right next door to the Fred Fuller Gas & Propane Co. and within spitting distance of the new Chinese restaurant that used to be Elisha’s, is a house that I’ve often thought would make a great first home for my wife and son and I. It has obviously been vacant for quite some time, with knee-high grass in the front that was only recently cut down to nothing, and you can tell from the street that the building itself is a wreck inside and out, but it’s a nice enough place with a big side yard and a good location on the main drag. If nothing else, the place has potential.

It first caught my attention one day when I was walking by on the way to the store. I made a mental note of the address – the faded numbers above the front door appeared to say “140” – and looked it up when I got home.

While my original search turned up information on the street’s other abandoned house, a beautiful little place across the street that would be perfect if only it had a kitchen (like many houses in the area, it had apparently been converted to a business at some point, and businesses typically don’t require full kitchens; this really only becomes a problem when you then have to try passing the house off as a residence again), there was nothing on that mysterious little rundown building that intrigued me so. I didn’t pursue it; we were not, after all, in the market for a house. It was merely a bit of whimsy with which to distract myself from time to time.

About a week ago, I made a late evening trip down to Shaw’s to buy some fudge. I love fudge. After proceeding directly to the bakery and procuring a pound of the stuff, I decided to wander around the store for a few minutes to see if there was anything else I needed. As I passed the newspaper rack, a headline on the front page of The Cabinet caught my eye:

Brother of Milford homicide victim say it’s time family had answers*

*That’s the headline on the web version of the story. I don’t know that the print version was exactly the same, but I know it was similar.

I started to continue on my aimless travels before curiosity got the better of me and I stopped to read the beginning of the story about an unsolved murder in my cozy little town:

MILFORD – It’s been eight years since police found Paul Herlihy’s body in his Nashua Street home and eight years since an autopsy determined his death was a homicide.

No one has ever been charged in the crime, and no suspect, weapon or motive was ever identified. Authorities said the cause of death has been withheld for investigative reasons.

Now Bill Herlihy of Milton, Mass., says the family is tired of waiting for answers as to how and why his 51-year-old brother died in the summer of 2003.

Paul Herlihy, an antiques dealer and Massachusetts native, had been dead for several days when he was found inside 425 Nashua St. on Aug. 27, 2003, after a family member asked police to check his welfare. He had moved to Milford that winter, intending to open an antiques shop in the house.

Well then. My first thought was that my wife and I were engaged at the time Mr. Herlihy was killed, living just a couple miles away with her parents in Amherst, and I had absolutely no recollection of this incident. I’m quite observant.

My second thought was that this HAD to be the house down the street, the one I wanted to buy on the cheap and raise my family in.

In all the times I’ve walked and driven past this house, it never occurred to me to double check the address. The 140 was right there above the door, a bit faded by the elements but plain for anyone to see, and I never questioned the fact that it was way too far from the Oval, where I’m assuming the low numbers are, to actually be such a low number.

Confirmation was easy enough. Tuesday, I walked down to that Chinese place, Cherry Blossom, and checked the number on the house next door on the way. It was 433. A Google search for Fred Fuller Oil & Propane revealed that it is located at 419 Nashua St. So the location of this terrible murder was one of four places: a nice little home with a well-manicured yard; an oil and propane business; the hospital across the street; or the dilapidated white house that looks like it hasn’t been lived in for, oh, eight years. Hold on, I’m gonna puzzle over this for a while. I’ll get back to you when I figure something out.

After I realized that this was, indeed, the scene of the crime, I found myself wondering about its status, what will happen to it when the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit finally cracks the case.

“It’s still a decent little place,” I thought to myself. “I wouldn’t mind living there.”

Immediately after thinking this, of course, I slapped myself across the face. Hard. I’ve seen plenty of horror movies - it’s probably my favorite genre – and how many horror movies focus on THIS EXACT PREMISE? Violent crime occurs in a home, family moves into said home, weird shit starts happening, family flees in terror. The Amityville Horror, anyone? My wife loves Ryan Reynolds*. She would love nothing more than for me to BE Ryan Reynolds. But I’m pretty sure she does not want to me to be the Ryan Reynolds who makes the questionable decision to move his family into a haunted house.

*I don’t know how she feels about James Brolin.

Even after that, I found myself thinking, “This is just nonsense. Stuff like that only happens in the movies. Haunted houses aren’t real.” And I had to punch myself in the face again, because that is EXACTLY WHAT THE PROTAGONIST OF THESE MOVIES ALWAYS SAYS! “Haunted? Pfffffft. Please. I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost.” Then a week later, the entire family has moved halfway across the country because they refuse to go back into that house.

No thank you. I think I’ll stick with my apartment for now.