"You've got negative momentum!"

Lawrence Toppman

That's what my Little League coach used to say when my performance went downhill. I put back a pound and a half this week. What did I do to make that happen? Nothing.

I mean that literally. I didn't exercise, because I was out of town much of the time and lazy the other three days. I took JetBlue's "unlimited snacks" offer a shade too literally. (They were cashews, but still....) I ate a Thai dinner that would have satisfied a whole kickboxing team. I found out you don't have to fill up on sugar to gain weight, and I realized this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.

Coach Rogers might encourage me now to keep my eye on the ball. Actually, he talked more like this: "Toppman, if you'd get your butt all the way down at third base, grounders wouldn't go through your legs!" (Even at 11, my butt was an issue.) But the point is the same: Eternal vigilance is the price of a decreasing waistline. No more goofing off.