Merry Christmas, 2017, everyone. Engaged, here. Very happy. It helps me to write about big stuff, process it, and then I always end up figuring I might as well post it.
Love is best when shared.

Christine is a jewel of a woman. Deeply kind, always striving to be the best version of herself, and working to remain as positive as possible each and every day. She believes in putting goodness into the world, and trusting that it comes back to you. She believes in God, she was raised a Catholic, and generally has faith in both a benevolent higher power, and the possibilities for humanity. We can be good. Love can triumph. It must.  Her spirituality dovetails so perfectly with my hippie side.  I didn’t see it coming.

Rubin is going to be blessed with an amazing stepmother.  And we will both be blessed with Christine’s two college-age daughters in our lives.  I will be an instant stepfather, with so much to learn.  The relationships I could have with them are a huge opportunity; how good and strong a man can I be, while also respecting their individuality and growth?

I have thought and lived with her for 7 months. I have learned the value of her spirit in my life, how we genuinely make each other better. We have grown to communicate better than I thought imaginable; this is easily the best relationship I’ve ever been in. Not even close.

I was given a 6 month deadline when she moved in.
“At this age, we should know.”
I get it. But a man can’t truly own his destiny on deadline.

I successfully retook the power of the wedding proposal time frame at the 6 month mark. I needed this to feel like my choice, needed to make sure that by the moment I committed and did this, I was free of any possible regret, concern, or trepidation. Given my lifelong struggle with conflicted emotions, this was perhaps an unrealistic aspiration. But I got there.

I got there because I am in the best therapeutic health of my life. I am in touch with my aggression, and mobilize it whenever possible. I am careful to be quiet and look for my center, my own moral compass, and try to base decisions on what I truly want and need. I am conscious of a lifelong desire to appease others that has been beneficial in terms of getting along with people, but detrimental in terms of holding on to unspoken resentment. I let things out these days, more than ever before.

A wedding proposal is a rare opportunity for a man. It’s a chance to define his sense of romanticism, to express himself aesthetically, creatively, symbolically. I wanted our moment to be memorable, emotional, and unique.

Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years’ Eve, and her birthday all loomed as possible dates to work with. Also present, though, was her need for the clarity of our engagement as she lived through those holidays. The endless questions about her future and our timeline from friends and family have been stressful. I did want to alleviate those soon, and had visions of her enjoying said holidays with relief, pride, and a shiny ring.

So the plan was hatched, for a Wednesday night at 7 pm. I told her there was a show in a tent downtown in Grant Park, a seasonal show I’d heard great things about. We would have to be outside for about 10 minutes, so we needed to dress warmly. No googling! Was she game? Of course she was.

As she fell asleep on the couch at 6 pm, she looked at me hopefully and asked if we HAD to go out. Yes, baby we do. I promise it will be worth it. I made up some more bullshit about the show. This was a lot of lying, and I am NOT good at lying to this woman. That’s one of the best things about us.

Our ride came, we got in it and headed downtown.
“The city looks beautiful!,” she said. “I love that we’re here, I love that this is my home.”
“I know, baby. Remember when we rode bikes, on our 2nd date I think? We went to Buckingham Fountain, and you got emotional.”
“Yes…my dad used to take me there.”
She moved out of the city with husband and daughters for sensible suburban reasons, but now I offered her a life downtown; a surprising 2nd opportunity to live the way she’d always wanted to.

The driver dropped us off right in front of the fountain. It was 7:05 pm, about 35 degrees, clear and cold with absolutely no one in sight. We walked towards the patch of park where I pretended a seasonal tent circus show of some kind might be. I feigned confusion, and we turned around to walk back towards the fountain.

In the distance, a man walked towards us. As he got closer, Christine noticed he had an accordion on. “Oh great,” she says she thought, “he’s gonna want to play a song for us and ask for money. There’s no one out here…this guy isn’t making any cash tonight.”

It would indeed be a weird night to be the wandering accordion guy saying “can I play something for you and your beautiful companion?”

As he approached, he began to play the intro to “Knocks Me Off My Feet” by Stevie Wonder. Christine had never heard this song when we started dating, and she adores it. As he hit the groove, I started to sing.
“I see us in the park…strolling the summer days of imaginings in my head….”
I take out and open a ring box.
“Baby!!!!” She screams. She cries. She covers her face with one gloved hand. I keep singing.
The accordionist is my friend Scott Stevenson, a man I’ve known an intermittent band mate for 23 years. He has perfectly disguised and nailed his role in my romantic gesture, as I knew he would.

We do the whole tune, modulation and all, with Scott singing the backup “I love you, I love you, I l-o-o-ove you.” She cries the whole way through, even as I film the entire 2nd verse. We slightly botch the modulation, and Scott slightly butchers the bass riff mid-choruses, but the totality of it is perfect.

Side note; I am fortunate to have been a musician for so many reasons. But one of them is that the list of people I could have called to accompany this moment is vast. They include perhaps 4 or 5 musicians who I feel as if I know deeply, trust soulfully, and would be perfectly comfortable existing in this memory for ever and ever. We have been fortunate to connect with each other on earnest, delicate levels that allow for bonds like this. I love that Scott is part of this image for the rest of our lives.

She says yes, we are engaged. We have the following day off of work, by sneaky design, to bask in the glow of the moment. It is best to pause the chaos of daily life right here, to share the news with who and how we see fit, at our pace. To live in the happiest of moments, unencumbered for a day. Thursday was wonderful.

As I expect the rest of our lives to be.

The game I love is irreparably harmed.

With 13 names added to the lists of cheaters and liars, the specter of PEDs looms larger than ever. The carnage is not just the worth of the guilty, or their isolated reputations.

Remember that sense of wonderment when, say, Cecil Fielder hit 51 in 1991? Go further back to George Foster hitting 52 in 1977.

We’ll never have it cleanly again. That’s unquestionably the greatest casualty in all of this.

Growing up, one of my favorite baseball trivia questions was this: Who are the only five men to hit 50 or more homers in a season twice. Until the late 1990s, the answer was Ruth, Mays, Mantle, Jimmy Foxx and the oft-overlooked Ralph Kiner.

Now, that list is nine. Sammy Sosa hit more than 60 three different times. There were 16 seasons of 50 or more homers between 1900 and 1995. There have been 26 in the 18 years since.

Now, in conversation or watching a game, praise a power hitter. See how fast the “juicing” rejoinder comes.

It comes from a friend, from a fan, or in your own mind. In my case it comes from a Twitter follower, a texter to the radio show, a co-host, a producer.

I can’t fight them on it. Truly.

Cynicism has been rewarded, time and time again. And I hate it.

I once argued passionately to credit Jose Bautista for the work he did with hitting coach Dwayne Murphy in Toronto. This lifelong power prospect and (to that point) bust started to swing earlier and pull absolutely everything.

He worked, trusted and rebuilt his approach. You can read all about it if you want.

But no one wants to hear it. Most would much rather scream “roids” and end the discussion.

Chris Davis, a lifelong power prospect and bust, has become more patient (though his plate discipline stats of late have come back to earth), and he says he has matured in Baltimore. You can read all about if you want.

Most aren’t interested.

One friend posted on social media that he “can’t wait until Chris Davis gets exposed.”

This is the emotional damage baseball has wrought upon itself.

The innocent are no doubt being victimized by this, daily. And we don’t know who they are.

I was mad about steroids for years, with a righteous anger to find the wicked, demonize them and safely return to praising the clean.

The rage is gone. Resignation has set in. This is not a good prism by which to view something you love.

So by what method could you rediscover that sense of wonder?

•Shut down every interaction with the “roids!” screamers and bury your head in the sand? We can’t do that; so many shamefully did it in 1998 and beyond.

•Abandon the appreciation of the home run? I greatly appreciate pitching, diving catches, triples, opposite-field singles and perfect cutoff throws. The problem is, the longball is pleasing.

•Accept that everyone is conceivably cheating and therefore still credit those who are clearly better than the rest? I’m not quite ready for that last option, though it seems in some ways the safest.

Joy might be rekindled with pure unabashed skepticism.

What we have to do is this: Know the stories of the athletes we watch. Understand the genuine talent, efforts and improvement that are sometimes evident.

A light bulb that went on is not always some fabricated myth. A healthier mindset is not always some fraudulent cover.

Are there drugs involved? How can anyone really argue against the possibilities?

All I can argue for is the full picture.

I hope the testing catches up with the users in a way that allows trust to bloom again.

I hope improvement gets acknowledged, even amid the doubts.

And I hope our relationship with the game gets easier.

Baseball is a family thing with the Spiegels.

I love it and relate to it based on early interactions with the archetypal baseball fan, my Pops.

My brother’s high school team was good, and they were gods to a fourth-grader like me. After constant pestering, I was made official bat boy. I beamed when their team bus would pick me up at elementary school for away games.

In daily driveway games of what he called “Tenni-Ball,” a round tabletop with a strike zone painted on it was an effective catcher. I was allowed to play outfield across the street.

I was the youngest fan our brood had, for decades.

My nephew is a very good 17-year-old pitcher on an even better high school team. I’ve written about him here before, when Pops and I watched him strike out 7 of 9 hitters as a 14-year-old.

A few weeks ago I sat behind his mother and watched a ballgame over both of their shoulders.

My nephew was in the dugout of a Frontier League ballfield in Joliet. He stood on the top step the entire game, rooting on his teammates as they battled for an IHSA championship. For him, it was as big an atmosphere as he has ever played in.

They believe they are men, and by many rights they are. But they are still kids in our eyes as we watch. They remind us of our distant youth, and of time’s incessant march. My sister birthed that lefty pitcher with the mutton chops. Now he’s as old as she was when she was an all-state soccer player. I went to her games and watched then, too.

It was truly great to be there; a heart-pumping atmosphere on a June night with a comforting chill that reminiscent of October.

Baseball is a very good game, demanding unique focus and skills from the people who play it.

The ace fought his way through 5 shutout innings. His opposition did the same.

Our heroes hit fastballs hard, and it felt like a breakthrough was imminent. But a runner was caught stealing in their only rally, and some good contact went unrewarded.

In the sixth, the other guys got a hit, a well-executed bunt, and then a double to the gap to plate the game’s only run. And that would be that, 1-0.

I watch the pros every night, looking for windows into who they are as people. It’s how I’m wired.

Players this young can’t hide their humanity. Our ace was rattled; there was a balk and some wildness, which he impressively survived without further damage. The batters trying to tie it up for the final six outs understandably felt the pressure at the end. Eagerly trying to deliver, they didn’t go as deep into counts as they had so often before.

Patience is demanded. Calmness is rewarded. Anxiety is often punished. The game helps us grow.

What a tremendous season for the young men of my nephew’s high school. What a great time in his life, with the promise of another chance with more involvement a year from now.

What a fun experience for this writer to have a team to root for with fervor. My sister was so nervous she couldn’t talk, and I respected that as we just watched.

We watched a game I’m glad my family has chosen to love.