A time to share?

Frequently in past years, I've gotten emails and phone calls from sales people offering all manner of come-ons if I would sit down for a couple of hours and listen to a pitch about buying a time share.

I had always previously ignored them.

But last January, someone from Hilton called and made a really good offer. Two nights in a midtown NYC hotel, including parking for a ridiculous rate, as well as $200 toward a future Hilton property stay. Born and raised there, I still love NYC, and so I said yes, Mary and I would give them two hours of our time in exchange for that.

I set the date to coincide with our 29th wedding anniversary. I made plans with good friends who live in town and our son Dave who lives just outside it in Hoboken. And I picked up two tickets to see "Promises, Promises" on Broadway.

Then I did some homework and read about all the horror stories people had to share about these pitches. They were pressured. They were made to feel like garbage if they didn't go for it. Or worse, they went for it and were then quickly struck by buyer's remorse.

But they didn't have what I had as my secret weapon. They didn't have Mary, who never met a financial offer she couldn't refuse.

Our time came at 11 a.m. Saturday. A young Asian man named Leonard introduced himself as Lenny and started off with all sorts of friendly chatter about nothing that mattered -- aside from revealing that he is a Mets fan, which always matters.

We went nowhere on the pitch -- scheduled to last two hours -- for the first 20 minutes or so. I was thinking the longer I let him ramble on about nothing, the less of the pitch I'd have to hear. Mary, she later told me, was bored.

Eventually he got to the pitch, but of course no hard numbers. We heard all about the "benefits" of time share ownership, and he tried mightily to pin down our regular travel habits. Turns out we have none.

We'd let him know from the start that he had very little chance of making this sale -- and then proceeded to show him why. Finally, sales person No. 2 entered the conversation -- about an hour and 20 minutes into it. He was the first to give us numbers, which of course were ridiculously high for something we'd never really "own." But I could tell his heart wasn't in it. Lenny had apparently already given him the lowdown on us.

Finally, they brought in the closer, a guy who I think really believed he was making an offer we could not refuse -- another stay at another location, this time in Florida for seven days, and another sales pitch all for another ridiculously low price.

We somehow managed to resist, and in the end walked out with our free night certificates, a $100 gift card to pay for the parking, and our pride and pocketbooks in continued good stead.

They never had a prayer. We had a great weekend and Mary and I, marking 29 years together, had once again proven we are an unbeatable team.

Later.

Time flies

The Mets are in Baltimore this weekend, and it looks like, weather permitting, some of the family may go to one or more of the games.
Oldest son Dave and I started text messaging about this Thursday night. He said he was pumped to go and that Camden Yards, located near Baltimore's harbor, was a beautiful park.
My text message response: "It was 8 years or so ago the last time we were there."
I originally was going to say 10 years, but I thought that may have been too many.
Turns out I was wrong.
The last time my family went to a game at Camden Yards -- also with the Mets in town -- was 1999.
Geez.
Clinton was president.
There were no blogs or tweets.
John Franco was still the Mets' closer -- I know this because younger son Dan remembers Franco giving him not one but two baseballs over the course of the two games we attended. Dan would have been 10 at the time. Dave would have been 16.
Dan also remembers Dave losing one of those Franco balls when he was trying to ctach a Mike Piazza batting practice home run ball.
Some wounds take longer to heal than others.
It stunned both Dave and me that it could have been that long. Even years. Amazin.!
Camden Yards is, as he said, a beautiful ballpark and we all really liked it and the harbor the times we were there.
The past three years, with the family homestead being in Northern Virginia, we've lived all of an hour and 10 minutes from that ballpark. That's about what it used to take to get from Mount Olive, N.J. to Shea Stadium back in the day.
But no, we haven't been back since 1999.
I'd say we're due.
Later.

Careful what you ask for

Now that the furor has quited a bit over umpire Jim Joyce's awful call that cost Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game Wednesday night, the calls for quick action on establishing expanded instant replay are growing.
Any reasonable fan who has seen the replay of the blown call can't help but think this whole issue could have been avoided if there was a system in place to allow for review of close plays.
Of course, had there been we would have all missed the greatest exhibition of class we've seen in sports for a long time. I don't know about you, but I will remember the way Galarraga and Joyce conducted themselves immediately after the call and in the hours that followed, much longer than I would have ever remembered a perfect game.
But back to the replay thing.
There really is no need to discuss whether baseball should use replay. It already does on matters of questionable home runs and on fair/foul calls. The latter is especially needed at the Mets new home, Citi Field, which for some reason has ridiculously short foul(fair?) poles.
But how far should it expand?
Many people already complain about the slow pace of baseball games. Adding replay without strict limitations will only add to that problem.
I think I'd go with a variation of the National Football League's rules. First, give managers a very limited amount of challenges to umpires' calls -- one or at maximum two per game.
In football, a coach has incentive to tread carefully, because if a call is not overturned, he loses a time out. There are no time out limitations in baseball, so perhaps if a manager loses on a first appeal, he could automatically forfeit his second one.
Of course, if a manager uses his challenges early, than he might not be able to challenge the bad call on the 27th out of a perfect game.
So perhaps there could be a provision for booth review in the ninth inning, regardless of previous challenges.
You can't let replay overcome the game. I'd limit expanded review to plays at bases and catches or traps. Managers are automatically ejected now if they argue balls and strikes, so there can be no place for review on those calls. And check swings should also be unreviewable.
Just a few thoughts from a baseball fan, who, by the way, is very happy Commissioner Bud Selig did not overturn Joyce's incorrect decision.
That, unlike Joyce's, was the right call.