Songs We Know By Heart

Finding baseball in a blender

Welcome to Warning Track Power, an independent newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.

My grandfather spent a good deal of his career behind the wheel. A traveling salesman in the furniture business with territory extending from Baltimore south into North Carolina, he took great pride in maintaining his cars, maximizing trade-in value, and getting cash back at the pump with a credit card that rewarded loyalty to one brand of gasoline.

He also made sure he was comfortable in the driver’s seat. As a young child, I was enthralled by his beaded seat cover, which I found painfully uncomfortable. I can still feel the sensation of individual wooden pearls on my spine.

It wasn’t all about gas mileage and torture chairs, though. The jackpot was his stash of candy. Plastic bags redolent of the bulk food aisle were neatly fastened and stored innocently in the back pocket of the passenger seat. In later years, I’ve come to appreciate the access — easy enough, but not tub-of-popcorn-in-your-lap easy — such a spot granted him.

There were hard candies (both sour and savory), Jujyfruits, and Mary Janes. If none of those confections had dislodged a dental crown, there was always the Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy he’d travel with when his route had taken him through Atlantic City.

But Grandpa was a man of discipline and a believer in physical fitness. His sweet tooth was bridled by his doctor’s advice and a desire to be well. If Shell gasoline fueled the car, moderation aligned it.

I don’t know when he first owned a car with a tape deck, but I remember when I first heard Jimmy Buffett coming through his speakers. My grandfather had picked me up from soccer practice one evening, probably when I was in 10th grade. “Pencil Thin Mustache” was playing. It was around the same time that a few of my friends had Buffett concert t-shirts in heavy rotation. Grandpa? Likes Buffett?

My sister embraced the Parrothead culture more than I did, meaning that she went to Buffett concerts and I didn’t. I was more than happy that she and our dad had — and still have — a little slice of Margaritaville to share.

But Grandpa? (And not even my Dad’s dad but my maternal grandfather. The one who put college on hold during the Depression to help feed his family; the one who shipped off overseas during World War II to preserve our nation’s freedom.) I couldn’t believe that he owned Songs You Know By Heart on cassette, but, then again, Jimmy Buffett’s music celebrated life while still recognizing hardships and heartache. Those songs belonged in the Oldsmobile.

I can’t think of any other twentieth-century recording artist whose songs were played in three generations of cars and homes in my family.

Was Jimmy Buffett baseball personified?

Mets prospect Ronny Mauricio made his big league debut last Friday. Come Monday, he was hitting .455.

In the years since I drove away from the Mets complex in Port St. Lucie, I’ve kept track of a handful of players I scouted back in October 2017. It turned out to be my final formal assignment for a team.

There were athletic, toolsy middle infielders in Instructional League that year for New York. The Mets had landed Mauricio, then 16 years old, with a $2.1 million signing bonus earlier that year. (That figure seemed like a lot of money in the pre-Cohen days.)

Instructional League for the Mets featured batting practice, pre-game drills, and very short intrasquad games only. Hurricane season was devastating in 2017; many organizations canceled Instructs altogether.

Even without the benefit of proper games, Mauricio was easy to like. He seemed unfazed to be sharing a diamond with players six years older than him, including Pete Alonso and the Mets’ most recent first-rounder then, David Peterson. The infielder’s actions were easy. He had range and body control, arm strength and flair.

His swing had better tempo and looked more natural from the left-hand side, but he showed the ability to switch hit. I turned Mauricio in as a future above-average everyday Major League infielder.

I’m excited to see how he performs during an otherwise meaningless month for the Mets. He has a chance to bring generations of fans together.

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