At peace

My strife over the big decision on my car is over. I picked up my trusty merlot-colored Accord Friday, and it looks absolutely beautiful.

I know it sounds cliché, but the car really looks like it just came out of a showroom, which isn’t easy to pull off with an 11-year-old vehicle.

The car’s running great (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the body work, but just saying), and replacing the tacky, horrendous gold trim with normal chrome trim did wonders for its appearance.

Another good result: I’m being extra careful with the car now. Seeing the car looking this good is incentive to keep it that way. I’ll never be one of those obsessive-compulsive people who springs out of his car with a cloth every time a drop of water hits it, but I’m really going to make an effort to keep my ride in tip-top shape.

Thanks to all who chimed in with advice. Viva la Honda!

It’s almost baseball season

Yes, I know, the Major League Baseball season started one month ago with the Boston Red Sox-Oakland Athletics series in Japan. And every other team has been playing for about three weeks. But to me, it’s not quite baseball season yet.

Depending on whether the Yankees open their season at home or on the road, there are either three or four stages that mark the beginning of baseball season.

If the Yankees open on the road, stage one is Opening Day and stage two is the home opener. If the Yankees open in the Bronx, stages one and two are one in the same.

The next stage is the first home game against Boston. It’s not really baseball season until the venom begins to flow. The Tampa Bay Rays just don’t elicit the same kind of emotions.

But the final stage, which I have yet to experience this season, is the first time I can go to a game in shorts. April baseball can be brutal weather-wise, and this April was no exception.

So I’m hoping that Thursday, May 1 at 7:05 p.m., when the Detroit Tigers visit Yankee Stadium, I will be in the House that Ruth Built, holding the cold beer that Miller brewed and wearing the shorts that Old Navy made. Then, and only then, will it be baseball season.

Commuting law of diminishing returns

I’ve been heading into work at different times of the morning, largely due to a plethora of meetings. Because, after all, why accomplish anything productive when you can just sit in a conference room and talk about it?

I tend to go into work on the later side, after doing a little bit of work at home in the morning, but I’ve had to leave a little earlier for some of these meetings. And a theory I’ve had in my head for a while proved itself true again.

I’ll call my theory the Commuting Law of Diminishing Returns. Here’s how it works: If I leave for work in the range of 30-90 minutes earlier than usual, the amount of time I actually save — as in, the time I actually arrive in my office — is cut in half.

Translation: If I leave for work one hour earlier, I actually arrive in the office a half-hour earlier than I would have if I had left at my normal time.

Why is this? Simple: There are far more people on the train platform, on the train itself, leaving the train station, at the newsstand, at the deli, or just plain in the way.

The moral of the story: It’s more efficient to leave later. And whether this is absolutely true or not, I’m running with it.

Am I making a huge mistake?

I currently drive a 1997 Honda Accord with a little over 102,000 miles on it. After recently spending nearly $900 on the car last month due to an encounter with Pothole-Zilla, I’m on the verge of doing something even crazier.

I’ve had the car about six years and, as time has passed, I’m more and more convinced that it was in an accident of some sort and was repainted. What started out as a small sun spot on my roof spread like a virus. And the paint is starting to peel on other parts of the car.

The person who previously owned it clearly had no taste, as they had a chance to change the car’s color and elected not to do so. The previous owner clearly was not of the Caucasian persuasion, either, as the car is dark purple with gold trim. I, however, prefer to call it merlot.

Anyway, a body shop that I’ve brought cars to for years is closing at the end of the month, so I decided to bring my car in and let them have at it before they shuttered their doors.

Bottom line: I am about to spend $3,500 on an 11-year-old car with 102,000-plus miles on it. The plus side is that they do great work and it will look like it came out of a showroom. The minus side? Duh! $3,500!

Am I crazy for doing this? Part of my motivation is that with the way the car looked, I would have been lucky to get $500 for it on a trade-in. Now, at least, if I can get through one more year with it, I should be able to get something half-decent back. Plus, it would be nice for the ego to look like I have a newer car, even though it is what it is.

The car runs well and always has. However, as I said, it’s 11 years old, so performance will inevitably deteriorate, as will parts.

But I really can’t afford a new (and by “new,” I really mean “decent used”) car right now.

So I guess I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and hope I didn’t chase bad money, to steal an expression from the gambling world.

The best seat in Shea Stadium

Although I’m a Yankees fan, I’ve taken advantage of the fact that there’s a second Major League (and I use that term loosely) team in the area and gone to quite a few Mets games in my lifetime. And now, finally, in the last year of the existence of Shea Stadium, I found the best seat in the house.

My friend Jesse is pictured enjoying the seat, with all of its perks. It’s 330 feet from home plate, six sections from the nearest men’s room, eight sections from the nearest beer stand and, best of all, you don’t have to watch the Mets!

I mean, what more could you ask for in a seat at Shea? Location, location, location!

Seriously, what in God’s name were they thinking when they put a seat there? Even when the Jets used to play at Shea, it’s not like they take the foul poles down when baseball season ends.

I forgot just how ugly Shea Stadium really is, and I’m not just saying that because I hate the Mets. Shea has two distinct advantages over Yankee Stadium. The field level at Shea is laid out so much better and is much more comfortable and friendly, with far better angles. And the food at Shea is edible — good, even — which has never been the case at Yankee Stadium. For a place many consider to be the temple of baseball, it’s sad that prisoners probably eat better than Yankee fans, and for a lot less money.

But field level aside, Shea is just an ugly, ugly building, inside and out. I know some Mets fans will miss it simply for the fact that it’s where they grew up, but the new ballpark, Citi Field, looks like it will be absolutely gorgeous.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a foul pole to sit behind.

Field box 5

One weekday in the early 1990s (way too senile to remember which season), one of my close friends and I decided to take in that night’s Yankees game. As any baseball fan reading this knows, the Yankees were pretty brutal in the early 1990s, so getting tickets wasn’t an issue. However, both of us were going to be pushing first-pitch time. So, rather than getting the tickets up at the Stadium, I went to the Yankees Clubhouse Store at lunchtime to fetch them.

Everyone has their preferences on where they like to sit for baseball games. My preference is behind home plate, no matter what level. I love being as close to home plate as I can, even if I’m in the nosebleeds. It’s especially helpful at Yankee Stadium, as the way the ballpark is built, if you sit down one of the lines, you lose your view of most of the corner of whatever side you’re sitting on (if you’re sitting by first base, you can’t see the right-field line).

So upon arriving at the Yankees Clubhouse Store, I asked for my usual: two as close to home plate as possible, any level. I usually ended up in the tier boxes or reserves, occasionally getting lucky enough to secure a main box.

Not on this night: “I have two in field box 5.” Field box 5 is on field level (duh), right behind home plate, and generally the dominion of corporate season-ticket holders, so I figured the guy at the ticket counter was pulling my chain. “Yeah, right, do I get to manage the team, too?” was my smart-assed reply.

However, he was actually serious. And even though $46 was a ton of money to shell out for a ballgame at that point in time, I took the plunge and bought them, and it was a great night. It was a lot of fun to be in seats that close. I’ve been to more than 1,000 games and rarely gotten that opportunity.

So why am I suddenly babbling about getting great seats to a game more than 10 years ago? Shut up and read, and I’ll tell you.

When I realized that the gloomy weather forecast for this past weekend was completely inaccurate, I briefly thought about going to Saturday’s game. I don’t have any weekend tickets, so I went online out of curiosity to see what was available. I didn’t think I’d find anyone to go with on such short notice, so I searched for one ticket, best available, again not expecting anything wonderful to pop up.

After going through the annoying Ticketmaster process of having to type in the two words that appear as an optical illusion, as well as the obligatory two-minute wait, anyone care to take a wild guess what seat popped up? If you said field box 5, you win the prize.

However, there was no repeat of the glorious excursion of several years ago. Why? The ticket would have cost me $325. Wow. Just wow. I mean, everyone knows costs have skyrocketed for sports tickets, but wow.

And Lord only knows what the equivalent of field box 5 will cost next year, when the Yankees move into their new ballpark across the street.

$325? Wow.

A way for the Nets to hose the Knicks

I’m a longtime New Jersey Nets fan, and I absolutely detest the New York Knicks. When the Knicks were a contender and the Nets were brutal, beating the Knicks felt like 10 wins. And even when the two teams’ fortunes were reversed, I still relished beating the Knicks, and they couldn’t possibly lose enough games for me.

Needless to say, as bad as the Nets’ season has been, I still look across the Hudson River and chuckle.

Unfortunately, the Knicks won three of the four games against the Nets this season, winning the season series for the first time since short-shorts and big Afros.

But I have a way for the Nets to get back at them.

The Knicks just hired Donnie Walsh from the Pacers to run their team. I have a better chance of coaching the Knicks next year than Isiah Thomas does, and the front-runner for the job appears to be Mark Jackson, former Knicks point guard and current Nets TV announcer.

Unless the Nets get him first.

I know people in the Nets’ organization love the current head coach, Lawrence Frank, and I can’t say I dislike him, but I’ve never been a fan of his substitution patterns. Plus, every time the Nets call a time out, I want to cry. If the Nets have the ball, the end result is usually a turnover or a horrible shot. If the opponent has possession, the end result is usually a dunk, a layup or a wide-open three-pointer.

Does Frank deserve to lose his job? Maybe, maybe not. But I’d gladly sacrifice his position to name Mark Jackson to the post and deprive the Knicks of his services.

Why do I want Mark Jackson to coach the Nets? I think he’s got a great basketball mind. He knows the game inside and out. He was a damn good point guard without having better physical skills or speed than most of his opponents. And, frankly (pun intended), I flat out like the guy and don’t want to see him end up in Madison Square Garden hell, where I have no choice but to root against him.

So, Rod Thorn, get moving on this: Letting Mark Jackson go to the Knicks would be a poor decision. In the words of Jackson himself, “You BETTER than that!”

Number 21 … LaTroy Hawkins?

OK, before I rant, let me explain: I am a huge Paul O’Neill fan. He was my favorite Yankee during the run of four World Series titles in five years from 1996-2000. I’m not saying he was the best player on the team, or the most important, but he was the heart of the team.

That being said, I had no illusions about his No. 21 being retired. As much as he did for the club, on a team with the rich tradition of the Yankees, you have to be an all-time great to get your number retired. As much as I love O’Neill, he wasn’t an all-time great.

Besides, with the laundry list of numbers already retired, I’m amazed we haven’t seen a young prospect with No. 103 take the mound for a spring-training game.

So, now that you know where I stand on O’Neill, on to the facts. O’Neill retired after the 2001 World Series, and no one had worn No. 21 since until: LaTroy Hawkins?

The Yankees kept the number out of circulation for six full seasons, just to give it to a journeyman middle reliever?

Why?

As I said, I’m fine with No. 21 not being retired. But how about at least saving it for a special player? Or, at least, how about saving it for a player who’s been embraced by the fans, like Shelley Duncan?

I don’t dislike LaTroy Hawkins, and his contributions to the bullpen this season might turn out to be vital. I just don’t get why he’s getting to wear No. 21.

One last admission before I go: When the Yankees traded Roberto Kelly for Paul O’Neill, I was irate. I thought Kelly was going to be a 30/30 player, and O’Neill was coming off a down season in Cincinnati. I could not have possibly been more wrong.

So maybe I’m wrong about this, too.