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I have the good fortune to live in Atlanta and cheer for a baseball team that has been extraordinarily successful. But not every baseball fan in America enjoys the thrill of a pennant race year in and year out. Imagine living in Kansas City or Pittsburgh. Fine cities, to be sure, but when it comes to baseball, not so much.

That’s the way it was for Braves fans in the seventies and the mid to late eighties. Abject failure on the field, five-thousand die-hards in the stands. It was ugly. I was around for much of that too.

But in a way, rooting for a losing team has its advantages. At least that was the premise of a story I did for a show on TBS called The Coors Sports Page back in the eighties. In those days, the Cleveland Indians represented the dregs of baseball, and their stadium—the Mistake on the Lake—was a cavernous mausoleum where hopes and dreams of baseball success were laid to rest after they died, which was usually around mid-May.

But surely not every team’s fans suffered so. The pennant race actually meant something to fans of the Anaheim Angels, as I believe they were called back then before they went all Rand McNally on us (The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, California, USA, Earth. Or something like that.)

So I took a crew to Cleveland—and Anaheim—to investigate a tale of two cities.

Is your favorite team a winner or a loser? Any advantages to losing or disadvantages to winning that I failed to mention?

I went to the Braves game the other night and spotted Leo Mazzone, the former pitching coach turned sports radio host. He was in the booth set up on the Fan Plaza, holding forth as part of a three-man team on the pre-game show. I had interviewed Leo a few times in my career as a sports feature reporter, most recently seven years ago for TBS.

My first interview with him was when he was the pitching coach for the Braves’ triple-A team in Richmond, VA about 150 years ago. (1989 to be more accurate.) It was an extensive sit-down with Leo as he showed me the process by which he tracked the progress of his pitchers, and we hit it off rather well. Check out what 21 years will do to a couple guys:

Apparently, the piece was meaningful enough to him that he saved a copy, and when our paths would cross over the years, he’d mention it. Not as in, “Wow, you are such an awesome reporter! That piece changed my life and I have you to thank for it!” but more as a point of reference, the way you bring up the one thing you have in common with someone you may see only once every few years.

(An example is the time I played a game of Bocci Ball with the then-County Judge of Jefferson County, KY, Mitch McConnell, for a fluff feature of some sort for the local news. He beat me, of course, and to be honest, I have no recollection of the video that came of it, but I just remember that I played Bocci Ball with Mitch McConnell. He’s now the Senate Minority Leader and a household name among people who actually read those things—what do you call them? Oh, yeah, newspapers. But if I ran into him on the street today, I would remind him—as a point of reference—that we played Bocci Ball together some 30 years ago, and I’m confident he’d remember. Or I may be deluding myself. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Actually, he may really remember. Shortly after that, I was doing a light news piece which featured McConnell, and afterwards, to wrap things up, I did an on-camera stand-up with him in the background. He had finished doing whatever he was there to do and was now seated with a bunch of folks at a round table having lunch. As a joke—not for air—I said, “Coming up, we’ll see the county judge eating at taxpayer expense.” Everybody laughed, including McConnell, and then he played the Bocci Ball card. I happen to have that video, circa 1979, for your enjoyment.)

But I’ve gotten off the subject.

So there I was at the Braves game when I spotted Leo Mazzone in the pre-game radio booth. We were separated by a pane of glass, so in an effort to get him to recognize me, I smiled a “Hey, remember me?” kind of smile. Leo did a double take, then, eyes wide, to prove that he really did recognize me, he made the universal gesture for video: left hand in a fist just below the chin and extended about four inches in front of the face. The right hand makes a circular motion at eye level and slightly to the right. And regardless that film has not been shot that way since the Coolidge Administration, everyone has come to recognize that as the universal gesture of video.

But we do this a lot. We use hand signals to make ourselves understood whether or not it has any relation to reality.

We extend our thumb and pinky and put that combination up to our ear when we want to tell someone silently to call us. If we mimed what making a phone call really looks like, it would look as though we were preparing to punch ourselves on the side of the head. Go ahead; try it. See what I mean?

When we want to tell the waiter that we’re ready to pay the bill, we spot him across the room and then raise our left hand, palm up, and pretend to write on it with our right hand. Doesn’t matter whether we’re paying with credit card or cash, they get the point. We’re ready to pay up.

We rub our thumb and index finger together quickly when we want to discreetly tell someone that “this is going to cost a lot more than I have at the moment.”

While in Moscow for the inaugural Goodwill Games on TBS twenty-four years ago, I had the privilege of working with the late, great sportscaster, Curt Gowdy. A small group of us were at dinner one night, and Curt was so taken with the food and the service that every time another breadbasket or drink showed up, he gave what we understand to be the universal signal that says, “A-OK:” A circle made with the thumb and index finger. After Curt flashed a few of those, our translator felt it best to advise him, “You probably shouldn’t do that anymore. It doesn’t mean what you think it does.” As anyone who’s traveled extensively overseas can tell you, that’s the first cousin to our one-finger salute that says, in effect, “I highly disapprove of what you’ve done and I find both you and your mother extremely disagreeable in my sight.” Or something like that.

I’m pretty sure that’s what the guy meant when he flipped that to me on the way to the Braves game where I saw Leo Mazzone where he gestured to me and where I got the idea for this entirely-too-long discourse on sign language.

Got any (clean) gestures I forgot to mention?

We all have guilty pleasures when it comes to television viewing, and I’m not ashamed to say that “Project Runway” is mine. I have no idea why. I’ll just blame my wife and daughter. They got me hooked. But again, why? I’m not a devotee of haute couture; if I were still dating I would do so with women; and I generally hate the contrived drama of so-called reality shows.

That said, I’ve been counting the days till PR’s Season 8 premier tomorrow on Lifetime. (As a cross-promotional aside, I’ll be appearing on a Lifetime show on August 29—“Drop Dead Diva”—in a bit role. That’s Sunday, August 29, 9 pm ET. Don’t miss it.)

Now, I’m no total stranger to the world of fashion. Before embarking on my checkered media career, I once modeled back-to-school “fashions” in a newspaper ad for a store in San Jose that was sort of like Goodwill without the elegance (check out these cool pictures).

"Hello, I'm Raul and I'll be your server."

Displaying stuff too cheap to shoplift.

"Son, this ruler tells you how long this crap is going to be in style."

As a local “TV news celebrity” in Louisville, I allowed someone to dress me in a tutu and then walked the runway for the perverse enjoyment of those attending the New Albany, Indiana Apple Festival (see not-so-cool picture below). And as a kid, I watched my very stylish mom organize and moderate fashion shows.

Audience members look a little too interested.

Which leads me to today’s video. It was 1979 or so, and I thought it would be funny to do a story on Big & Tall stores. You know, those purveyors of fashion for the larger portion of the population. Not fat, just enormous. But, I thought, how amusing would it be to watch the bigger-boned of our species walk around in size 54 Long jackets without some sort of context? So, not being of the plus-sized persuasion, I offered that context. Like this:

No, the wardrobe malfunction was not pre-planned. But I left it in because my philosophy has always been, “When in doubt, make fun of yourself.”

Are you a fan of “Project Runway” too? Come on, admit it. If not, then what guilty pleasure has you glued to the TV set when no one else is looking?

Pee Wee Reese still seeking advice 25 years after his last game.

Forget your World Cup, forget the LeBron James Hour of Decision. Baseball’s All-Star Game has finally arrived. It is, by far, the best all-star game among any major league sport. And, for better or worse, the winning side gets home field advantage in the World Series. Doesn’t make any sense on many levels, but it does add to the importance of the outcome.

I’ve always loved the All-Star Game and in 1983 TBS sent me to cover it for the Coors Sports Page. It was the 50th anniversary of the Midsummer Classic and among the festivities was an old-timers game. As a rule, men the age of your father dressed in form-fitting polyester baseball uniforms isn’t a real draw, but the men inside those uniforms commanded our attention.

How to cover such an event without putting viewers through actually having to watch these once-graceful specimens move at glacial speed around the bases? Here’s what I came up with:

Cultural Relevance Alert: Joe Dimaggio, who played with the Yankees from 1936-51 (and was an All-Star literally every season he played), became a spokesman for Mr. Coffee about 20 years after he retired. Oh no, do I have to explain what a Mr. Coffee is? Go ask your folks.

What mischief lurks behind those shades?

There have been many books and articles written about that sentimental round of golf with Old Dad. There’s something so right about it. Like going to your first ballgame with your dad. (August 10, 1962 for me; Giants beat the Dodgers 11-2 at Candlestick Park, not that I remember any details about the game or anything.)

I have always enjoyed golfing with my dad, and until recently, he always beat me. As he got older and his considerable skills eroded, the gap narrowed until finally, just a few years ago when I was in my late forties, I finally got the best of him.

On my trips to California to see the folks, Dad and I would generally play the course at the retirement village where they live. (Pleasure Palace for Partying Pensioners is more like it, but that’s a post for another day.) They have a beautiful 18-hole track set in the foothills of East San Jose with views of the Santa Clara Valley at certain holes, and it is so fun to play. (One of their water hazards includes a small waterfall referred to by the Villagers as Viagra Falls but, again, a post for another day.)

The last time I played a full 18 with Dad was on his 80th birthday. I came in third out of the foursome and Dad brought up the rear. But good grief, he was 80! At 54 I should’ve driven circles around him. But a win is a win, in my book.

Now, understand that for seven years from 1996-2002 I hosted a golf show on Fox Sports Net and that made people think I knew what I was doing with a 4-iron in my hand. Nothing could be further from the truth. I took lessons as a 16 year-old, quickly developed bad habits, and almost as quickly gave up the game till I was 46 and took on the role of “golf expert.” Traveling to exotic courses and watching and talking with the best players in the world was fun and it reignited my passion for the game. Didn’t do anything for my ability right away, but I took up the game in earnest once again.

Fast forward to last week and my latest trip to see the folks. I didn’t know Dad was up for it, but he suggested we play the tiny par-3 course at The Villages. Though my short game was nothing to brag about, a round of golf with Dad was always something to look forward to.

Turns out I was hitting with my short irons as well if not better than I ever had. Thanks, but no shanks, no hooks, no pushing the ball off course. Every hit was solid and if anything, they were struck too well. I was flying just about every green. Meanwhile, Dad dribbled the ball off the tee with all the power of the soon-to-be 83 year-old he is. Frankly, I was starting to feel sorry for him.

“There you go, Dad. Good shot,” I encouraged him on every hole. Then I’d pick up the bag of clubs we were sharing, sling it over my shoulder, trudge to the next tee, and mark down the score. Then I’d get his clubs out of the bag along with mine, and swing away.

By the seventh hole, a sense of this-isn’t-happening crept into my mind as I added up the scores, only to see that the tortoise had overtaken the hare. Of course, Aesop didn’t have the hare carrying a set of golf clubs, keeping score, and basically being the caddie for himself and the tortoise.

No wonder he said, as we approached the ninth tee box, “I don’t think I can take another nine holes.” Hah! I was being hustled by the wily tortoise in old man’s Sansabelts, who pretty much chipped and putted his way to victory. Making me do all the heavy lifting, making me hit the ball too far, making me add up the scores. Stroke play, match play, I’d been played.

How else do you explain a healthy 57 year-old losing a round of golf to an 82 year-old cancer survivor who, thanks to multiple surgeries, has the use of just three-quarters of his lungs and virtually no left shoulder muscle?

I want a rematch.

The tale of the tape.

My most embarrassing moment on live TV wasn’t really all that embarrassing. In fact, it’s provided me with a great way to open up after-dinner speeches since 1976. It’s best spoken, rather than written, so let me say it for you.

At the commercial break, the anchor said to me, “You said ‘mizled.’”

I said, “I know, that’s what I wrote: m-i-s-l-e-d. Mizled.”

He said, “Don’t you mean, misled?”

To be honest, I had just ripped it from the wires and I thought it sounded like a great word. I could picture a smoke-filled room and crooked businessmen saying, “We really mizled ‘em!”

Think about it. Some words, even though they don’t actually exist in the real world, oftentimes seem to get a point across better than any actual, pre-existing words. Misled (read mizled) is such a word.

Have you run across any words like that?

Just in the past few days I’ve heard some real winners and—take what you want from this—they all came by way of sports talk radio.

“A lot of people stayed for the concert after the game. Oh sure, a few of them matriculated out, but for the most part, it was a huge crowd.” Trickled out, maybe, but enrolled in college?

“I’m just going to hypothetically throw that question out there for our callers to answer.” You mean you’re going to pretend to throw the question out there?

“In lieu of the historically long match, special-priced tickets will be on sale for 11 hours.” This was in connection with the recent marathon match at Wimbledon. One of the players was coming to Atlanta for a tournament and special tickets would be on sale for 11 hours, in honor of—not in place of—the length of his match at Wimbledon.

A reminder to play-by-play announcers preparing for the final, climactic game of the season: You are not preparing for the penultimate game. Sounds dramatic, but the penultimate game would be the next-to-last game. But, as one newsroom colleague told me about dramatic news, some stories are too good to check out.

Despite my own vocabulary blunder from 34 years ago (or perhaps because of it), I have developed into quite the word nerd. I want to punch something when I hear someone misuse words. The most common sounds-like-it-should-be-the-right-word error has to be “ironically” or “literally.”

A vegetarian eaten by a bear is ironic. The fact that Barack Obama and George W. Bush like their steak cooked the same way is not.

You cannot be, as I heard on a local news soundbite recently, literally scared to death, and live to tell about it.

But some word goofs leave me laughing instead of steaming. I heard of a radio announcer who, in reporting on a defector from a communist country, talked about the East German who defecated to the West.

Heard any good/bad ones yourself? I’d love to hear them.

It’s Draft Day in the NBA. And you thought the season was over last week. But I’m okay with it because I like the NBA. I used to cover it as a reporter for TBS and TNT back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

But it always struck me a bit odd back then that one of the NBA’s major public service initiatives was “Stay in School.” (A worthy idea.) Then shortly after the school year was up, the worst teams in the league would draft an 18 year-old kid who elected to not stay in school beyond 12th grade.

The rules have changed somewhat and now a player has to be at least one year out of high school and 19 before becoming draft eligible. Whether you think that anyone, regardless of age, has the right to gainful employment or whether you side with universities who invest much time and money in student-athletes, there are solid arguments to be made on both sides of the early-entry debate.

Fortunately, I, in my role as quirky features reporter, was never called upon to tackle such issues. My assignments were more like, “Do a story on the NBA’s Stay in School program.”

So I thought, in my upside-down way of thinking, that while staying in school is without question a good thing, it can be taken to extremes. So naturally, I did.

As a freelancer, guaranteed summer vacations are something I left behind when I struck out on my own. Not that my family and I don’t enjoy some time away. But it takes careful planning and a willingness to turn down potential income for a week or ten days.

Any of you freelancers out there have a system for vacation time? Do you combine your vacation with an out-of-town assignment or just chuck it all and hope the phone doesn’t ring that week?

I’ve done a little of both. When I hosted This is the PGA Tour on Fox Sports Net (1996-2002), I brought my wife along to Montreal and met my family in Vancouver. When I hosted the World Putting Championship on ESPN in Orlando in 1996, I hauled the family down to Walt Disney World. It can be done.

But suppose you want to just get away with the guys for a few days of activities that don’t include firearms or dead animals. A golf vacation is nice, but better yet is the vacation I was paid to take when TBS assigned me to a baseball vacation in 1988.

The ballparks we visited are all gone now, but thanks to video, the memories linger on. What about yours?

Now that the NBA finals are headed back to the West Coast, are you missing Boston’s parquet floor already? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. At least it wasn’t when the Celtics played in the original Boston Garden, a sort of museum for the sweat set.

I’m a fan of old stadiums and arenas, so when TBS Sports sent me to do a story on the old Boston Garden in 1988, that was a treat. But make no mistake, for all their glamour and romantic past, the old stadiums are not without their flaws.

I grew up going to games at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the worst possible venue for watching a baseball game. Braced against bone-chilling winds, every game was an adventure, not only for hapless outfielders trying to chase wayward fly balls, but fans who had to endure those same elements with no chance of relief. And I loved it.

What stadium or arena was the site of your earliest sports-watching memories? Has time painted over the bad parts?