I'm A P-U-S-S-Y

A very sore me was up and running this morning, my feet on the pavement by 5:29. Still dark. Very dark. I need to remember to wear something white or reflective, maybe a miners helmet. My local paperboy, driving around his '98 Voyager, nearly hit me four times with newspapers. But, one excruciatingly long day of working out with my new very, very large African-American personal trainer, Andy, has loosened me up. The first paper, a heavy (since it's Wednesday) NY Times, shot right past my chest. I was able to pull away before impact. I'm lithe, you know. The second paper, still a NY Times (I can tell by the blue plastic covering), almost got me in the head. I ducked quickly, like a duck sticking his head into a pond for raw fish (would ducks like sushi?). I'm a nimble S.O.B. The third and fourth papers, yellow plastic so I think Star Ledgers, were jumpers. They met my destination on their downward trajectory, so my feet needed to lift off the ground with the quickness of a cat, but not a house cat. More like a wildcat (not the High School Musical kind, either). Like a bobcat. Yes. A bobcat. With the quickness of a mountain bobcat, my feet leaped off of the ground, narrowly avoiding a midair collision with two separate yellow plastic-clad Star Ledgers. I'm speedy. I'm wry. (I don't know what "wry" means.) I am a M-A-N.

I haven't worked out in public for a long time. The gym Andy took me to yesterday was a simple YMCA, although our YMCA was recently remodeled and appeared to have every piece of equipment (including fresh juice bar) known to ever have any positive affect on human biology. People stared, of course. I'm a famous person. I'm not being narcissistic when I say they want to be like me. The reason they want to be like me is because I play baseball, earn a ton of money, own a huge house, and am married to a beautiful woman who, in eighth grade, won the coveted Miss Yell position on her cheerleading squad. However, the number of people who want to be me took a hit yesterday when they saw me at the gym. I no longer have a Superman physique. My hair is thinning to the point that I'm constantly trying to make comb overs with my fingers. And, apparently, I am a pussy. Point number three alone was enough to make some heads shake and some onlookers pray for me. If a stranger looks at you in a public gym and, as a result, pulls out their rosary beads and quietly begins to move their lips while still looking at you, chances are they're thanking their lucky stars they don't have to submit themselves to public ridicule by being called a pussy by a very, very large African-American man who sports a booming voice and 30-inch triceps.

In high school, we'd lift in a former music room across from the gym that had been turned into a weight room. We'd do curls and presses and squats. And we'd take turns spotting each other, especially for the bench press. I remember laying (or is it lying?) on my back, lifting the barbells off the holder and pushing up, pulling down, pushing up and pulling down. Maybe I had to do 10 reps. Could have been 25. I don't recall. I usually had 2 or 3 to go before my spotter, usually another kid like me who used Clearasil the way Michael Jackson used makeup, would start yelling at me. Pussy! Wussy! Pussenheimer! Well, nobody ever called me a pussenheimer. But still, I'd get yelled at. It didn't work. Just because I can't lift 150 pounds a 24th time doesn't make me a pussy. Most adults can't lift it once. Instead, I used my superior mind skills to create conflicts. The zit-faced spotter was blocked out (like his zits - Thanks Clearasil!), replaced by my desire to get signed to a big league contract or to win the heart of a senior girl who was dating a football player. (In my high school, football players who were future UPS drivers were higher on the social scale than baseball players who would eventually earn millions of dollars playing baseball. The football players thought we were pussies.) I usually bench pressed that 25th rep. Sometimes I even got to 26. Such was the power of a strong mind.

Andy thinks I'm weak in both mind and body. He always asks me questions. "Do you really want to do this? Why don't you just quit? You suck." The last wasn't a question. It was more a declarative statement. Doesn't sting like pussy, but it's still a present-day truth.

Andy wants to build me back up in mind, body and spirit. I asked him what the difference is between mind and spirit. He quoted a former Navajo warrior. Unfortunately, he did his quote in Navajo, so I still don't know the answer. I'll check later on Wikipedia to see if he even spoke in Navajo or if it was just pig Navajo.

While I may be a pussy who sucks, I have seen a slight change in my habits. I woke up this morning at 5:17 without a kick to the intestines by Miss Yell. After a half-mile or so of running, the soreness crept away. And my mountain bobcat body was able to avoid the shrapnel of paperboy cannon fire. I'm far from the guy who won 24 games three years ago. But I'm closer to him than the guy who spent hours crying in a hospital room last April because my elbow had fallen off of the rest of my arm. I'm all sewn up and getting back to the shape I need to be in to compete.

I'm just hoping the pimple on my chin goes away before opening day. 10% benzoil peroxide doesn't do the trick anymore when you're knocking on the gates of 40.