Some Updates and Announcements from Me

Free Friday Newsletter.

Hi friends-

Thank you for your patience with me as I’ve been navigating the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires.

It’s been a horrific few weeks as several friends of mine are among the tens of thousands of people in our community who have lost everything. Many of you know I’ve been involved with the Hollywood Food Coalition for about 10 years now, first as a volunteer and now as a volunteer/board member. I’m proud that we’ve been able to expand our efforts to support 70 smaller organizations with meals and supplies during this disaster, but devastated that due to these fires, the unhoused population in LA County is now so large it’s impossible to count.

(If you want to volunteer with us at the Hollywood Food Coalition or learn how you can donate food, toiletries, clothing, or money to help our sustained wildfire relief efforts, go here).

My therapist always says that because of the way my brain operates, I need to write everything down in order to work through it. He’s right, of course, but this experience has been so shocking and the scope of it so enormous that words fail.

I thought I’d return to this newsletter when I had something profound to say, but I don’t. Except that asking yourself what you would put in a backpack to save from a fire is a great exercise if you want to find out what truly matters to you, or if you’re even in touch with what those things are to begin with.

I wasn’t.

I became paralyzed staring at all my things when a fire started up my street, trying to figure out which shoeboxes in which closets were stuffed with photographs and letters from friends and relatives who have died. (Should I grab my beloved aunt’s faded yellow zip-up hoodie that I put on when I miss her desperately? My dead dogs’ ashes from the trunk at the foot of my bed? The baseball card Tony Gwynn signed for me at Dodger Stadium when I was a kid after he watched his teammates blow me off and stepped in like the mensch he was?)

I was ultimately too overwhelmed to do anything but run out the door with my dog Canelo and my passport and fight my way up La Brea through gridlock and traffic signal blackouts to evacuate my best friend who does not drive, and his cat. My heart is pounding as I type this, and I’m also flooded with guilt and shame because my neighborhood was saved by heroes in helicopters. So many friends, acquaintances, and strangers did not share my sheer luck.

This newsletter was originally going to be about Roki Sasaki, but I can’t write about the Dodgers without writing about what’s happening to Los Angeles right now first, and combining the two felt wrong. I’m not sure I’ll write about the wild fires again because it’s traumatizing and also every word I’ve written here feels awkward, insufficient, embarrassing, vulnerable, and dumb.

But I’ve always been honest with you guys when my mental health has not been great, and it felt fake to plow ahead writing about baseball without acknowledging the pain and the grief that the city where my family has been for five generations is enduring right now. It is, quite simply, a nightmare.

Earlier this week I started following baseball news again and I’m reminded how much it helped to focus on sports during the early days of the pandemic as a needed distraction and vital source of community. So we are going to resume our normal schedule here at the Long Game next week with a few caveats.

• There will be no zoom talking baseball tomorrow. My oldest friend is in remission from breast cancer after a grueling year of chemo and radiation and we are celebrating with a much-needed girls’ trip. But we will resume our zooms every Saturday at noon PT on February 1st.

• We now have a date for our next book club. Mark your calendars for Tuesday, February 11th from 5:30-6:30 PM PT. The great Howard Bryant will be joining us to discuss his book “Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original” live from my still-standing apartment. This zoom will be open to all paid subscribers.

I love you guys and I’m so grateful for your patience. Please do not wait to do something you’ve been putting off. Life is way too short.